Angry Beaton

Weekend of the Parents

My Mum and Dad came down to London for the weekend a wee bit ago, and we indulged in a vast range of varied and interesting activities - the first of which, was an evening in B&Q getting the items required to build me two beautiful shelves in my room.

This may sound simple enough, but the bewildering variety of choices in wood, screws, rawl plugs and brackets made this excursion a bit like the Krypton Factor. Luckily I had a 'shelf expert' on hand (my Dad), and a mere couple of hours later we had accomplished the mission.

The next day we went to Wisley Gardens. They were REALLY lovely, and I highly recommend them even if you're not bothered about gardening. If you like gardening there is a giant shop there too, where you can buy tons of plants.

View the Wisley Gardens Picture Gallery

The following morning was set aside for putting up the shelves, which according to my Dad would take 'about an hour', and according to my Mum would take 'all morning'. It turned out that my Mum's prediction was more accurate, especially when my Dad discovered that he didn't have a drill bit the right size. We asked at the local shops and were told twice to 'try the chemists', as they 'have everything'. My Dad was not impressed by this suggestion and off we went back to B&Q for a new drill bit.

Action shot of shelf building.

After this slight setback the shelves were up fairly speedily, and they were nearly finished before my Dad discovered that he actually had had the correct size drill bit the whole time. The blame was placed on the metric system and inconsistent labelling of the bits.

We then set off for the South Bank where we ventured into the Tate Modern, and my Mum and Dad actually quite liked the place - although some of the things in it were 'not art'. Apparently 'anyone could have done that rubbish'.

Action on the South Bank

We rounded the evening off with a pilgrimage to South Croydon and the Kelong Restaurant, where my Dad had eaten a nice crab a decade earlier, and was keen to relive the experience. Luckily for us, the restauarant had a really nice buffet, and not only that, the crab with chilli sauce was still on the menu.

The crab was served with various picking and crushing utensils, and a good supply of napkins to wipe up all the debris. The scene afterwards would best be described as 'total carnage'. According to my Dad they 'expect it to be a bit messy when you eat a crab'.

This may have been the crab my Dad ate - but it's not likely.

My Stuff is Coming!

As I write this, all my wordly posessions are hurtling down the motorway towards South London. Actually, that's not probably not true as it's before 1pm and I doubt that my Dad has finished eating his bacon sandwiches yet.

Nethertheless, my stuff will be soon arriving, and my traditional 12 KFC chip boxes of stuff seem to have grown to 14 boxes over the last 4 years.

My stuff is ready for transit

What's Going on Here?!

Caption Competition
Write a funny caption for this picture and win absolutely nothing - except the satisfaction of being quite funny... answers below in the comments...

Lemons

There are lemons in my Mum and Dad's conservatory. They are beautiful. Not quite as beautiful as cactuses are, but then we all know that don't we?

Lemons on the Tree

See the beauty of the Lemon

Peckham is Strange, When You're a Stranger

There appears to be forces well beyond the comprehension of human beings at work in Peckham. We are truly not alone. Strange things have been appearing.

Luckily, I have painstakingly gathered photographic evidence of two of these well-documented strange phenomena - 'Flaming Tree Syndrome', and 'Car Colour Mutation.'

Flaming Tree Syndrome usually occurs when there is a high level of alien activity in the vicinity.

Car Colour Mutation can be dangerous - Do not approach any vehicles - this man later died.

Malta, We Love Malta...

So I got back from Malta nearly two months ago. It's an interesting place. I took lots of photos beacause I had a new digital camera, and I was very excited. My lovely new Mac mini has iPhoto, which will make web pages out of my photos at the touch of a button.

They may not be very stylish web pages, and I was going to make my own - but hey, I make enough web pages at work, so I decided to let iPhoto do all the work.

This is not a cactus, but it's still nice.

Therefore I present to you a picture gallery of Malta circa Dec 2004/Jan 2005...

Click here to see the lovely Malta Picture Gallery!

Eating the Prickly Pear

My Mum and Dad have got a Prickly Pear Cactus in their conservatory, and seeing as I like cactuses, I was most excited to find that it was bearing fruit, and NOT ONLY THAT, but we were going to get to EAT IT.

After several reassurances from my Mum that it would not in fact poison me, and send me to an early grave, I ventured forth and ate the fruit.

It was not bad - quite strong, in fact a bit much too eat on it's own, but I reckon it would be good with some nice cheese. I was very excited that I had eaten cactus, but my Mum said that she 'often had it', and Catheryn said it was 'not bad'. I think it's because they don't share my pure true love of cactus related things.

The Prickly Pear Cactus in the Conservatory

The Prickly Pear is served with coffee

Oh Lovely, Beautiful fruit of Cactus

The Trains are Still Crap

Following my joyous experience on Friday at Liverpool Street
station, came Monday morning, when I attempted the return journey.

Catheryn and I arrived at Chelmsford station with plenty of time to spare, as it was Catheryn's first day at her new job. This was all to no avail as something had gone wrong at Stratford, and the train drove at about 4mph all the way into London, and we arrived over an hour late.

Life at Chelmsford Station

Not only this, but we had to stand the whole journey, and listen to various announcements about 'overhead lines', 'half an hour delay', 'two lines instead of four', and 'congestion on the way into London'.

Another great day for the railways of Britain.

Everyone Knows the Trains are Crap

Everyone in Britain surely already knows that the trains here are now crap and overpriced, and that the system in general is totally and completely useless - but that's not going to stop me writing another little story about it is it?

On Friday, I ambled in to Liverpool Street station at about 6.30pm, with the aim of getting a train to Chelmsford. I could have gone earlier, but that would mean having to buy two single tickets instead of a return, as returns ARE NOT ALLOWED between 3pm and 7pm leaving London, unless you pay about a million pounds.

I was confronted with several very long lines of people waiting to buy tickets, and not really wishing to join a massive line of people, I looked around for an automatic ticket machine.

I spotted six of the new machines, which I rather like, and which take credit cards, but was dismayed to find that five of them were out of order. For those of you who like statistics, that means that about 83% of the machines were not working.

I joined a queue behind the only working machine, which was still considerably shorter than the ever growing queues at the ticket desk, and was somewhat put out when after 15 minutes, this machine became out of order before I got to the front of the queue.

I was pretty annoyed, but not as annoyed as the man in front of me who said 'This is a fucking joke.' With all the new machines out of action, I went to check out some of the old machines which only took cash, but at least didn't seem to have any queues.

There was a good reason for this - they only sold singles and a good range of special overpriced tickets - not saver returns. How convenient. At this point, I knew I was a beaten man, and I hung my head in shame and joined one of the queues at the ticket windows.

In total, it took me 45 minutes to buy a ticket. That's crap isn't it?