a spot of severe weather

An interesting journey home in the wee small hours, in a swirling darkness and with trees strewn trickily across the country lanes.

We'd been on the M25, in a seldom seen empty condition as we joined a few other motorists cautiously driving through the spray.

On the side roads I had to navigate around fallen timber with much of the road surface covered with small shreds of trees battered by the high winds.

Even larger roads were tricky, because at this early morning time the services to clear the way hadn't really got mobilised for the area affected. The radio's weather forecast even featured a force 10 gale somewhere out at sea.

Earlier we'd been for a curry and somehow oblivious to the weather.

As we'd turned back into the street it was obvious that the whole evening had been battered by gale force winds and car wash intensity rain.

They say it will calm down for Christmas Eve. I hope so, in order for Santa's sleigh to make a good journey.

early television overload

I seemed to watch a surprisingly large amount of television on Sunday. Scrooged (obviously), but also The Snowman, Homeland, an episode of Harry Potter and Never Let Me Go.

It kind of snuck up. The fire was blazing, we'd got the tree ready for lights and decorations and there was warm soup and mince pies on offer.

So let's recap:

Scrooged: An essential view at Christmas. A 1980 take on 'A Christmas Carol', it's a Dicken's of a movie. Including the sing-along finale.

The Snowman: Probably 2-3 years since I last saw this, and I'd forgotten that it features David Bowie in the introduction. Fast flights from Brighton to visit Santa at the North Pole.

Homeland: The last of the current series, in a series that lapsed into soap drama in places. I suppose they didn't want to leave Brody's future role hanging, but there were some remarkable escape scenes preceding it. Walking out of the most secure complex in Iran during a coffee break? Driving Hummers to the cottage to stealthily surround Carrie and Brody? Re-employing the unstable Carrie a a prestigious station chief in a hot zone. I can already predict the plot line in the next series, when Saul and Carrie have to join forces to save Merca after a botch-up by the new Senator in charge of Homeland. Maybe they'll invite Jack Bauer along?

Harry Potter: One I'd not seen before. Shot in Pantone 455, dark forces threatened the future of Hogwarts, with striking scenery, wizardry, a bit of snogging and a great game of Hogbat.

Never Let Me Go: A thoughtful morality tale of raising clones to repair humans. Set in idyllic English countryside, sensitively directed and acted. I've read the book and even written about it here before. A bitter sweet thought provoker that tests the soul.

That's the television box ticked for the festive season. Tomorrow it's a gang of us at the pub.

Scottish fir tree acquired. Now for the dex.

Well, I've hunted down the Christmas tree. It was more difficult than I expected. I arrived at the usual place and instead of the typical trees stretching as far as the eye could see there were just five trees left.

I use the word 'trees' reservedly. They were being advertised as trees, but my ex-greengrocer instincts cut in and I decided that they should really be classed as stray collections of branches and twigs.

It was fascinating that they were all from different ranges too, as if the entire collections had been selected down to the last few whittles.

I had to leave empty handed. This would be problem if I returned home without a tree, so I moved along to the next place. A farm shop. They had a huge advertisement for trees.

But no trees at all. A nice line in mistletoe, but no trees. My inner greengrocer noticed that the mistletoe was on sale as well. Back in the day the mistletoe was given away free.

Next stop, a huge superstore. So huge that the entire car park was filled and people were double parking on yellow lines. I decided to give this one a miss. Surely any remaining trees in this establishment would have been snapped up but it would talk me a good half an hour to discover this. I moved on.

Instead to palatial garden centre, which had people marshalling the cars into the car park. They directed me to a parking spot, which I noticed was really for electric cars complete with the recharging points. This place would surely have trees?

It did.

Even the Nordman ones that don't drop their needles.

Mine was 'red 593414', which I looked up on the needlefresh.co.uk web site.

It was from near North Kessoch on The Black Isle at the Moray Firth. In shipping forecast terms it's Cromarty. There's a high rainfall and minimal frosts due to the Gulf Stream circulating round this peninsula-style island, and this produces vigorous growth in the trees.

Now to locate the decorations, from the depths of the garage.

spot the shopper

They are saying that this weekend is going to be the biggest shopping weekend for Christmas in the UK. Even by my standards, it seems a bit late.

I've noticed London already emptying out, although whilst in Newcastle for the last couple of days, there seemed to be quite a bustle in the shopping areas.

The advertisers are all copying one another in the final countdown. It kind of spoils the effect by removing any uniqueness. They might as well just say,"buy food".

And the sales appear to have started too. 20% then 30% and beyond. I thought the sales traditionally started around Boxing Day?

Perhaps my photograph above is a clue. A few days ago I was at one of the largest shopping malls in London (don't ask) but not only was it easy to get in, but the car park had vast empty areas. Yes, the shops were open, but the people seemed to be elsewhere.

I'll be tree hunting tomorrow, but that's about the limit of my planned retail experience for the day.

trashed noir festivities

Yes, we were out at the Christmas Noir yesterday evening. The initial images may be somewhat blurry, but it was a fine time.

Gangsters, molls, drunk tanks, a murder bear (the one that was upstair in the attic when Goldilocks visited). They all played a part.

Across W.N Herbert's ursine tales, the Macguffin of a noir tale, the stanza'd hexameter(?) from Sean O'Brien, a Mixtape special re-enactment of a slightly troubling Christmas moment or the full on swing country blues of Rob Heron & the Tea Pad Orchestra. Compered by Mr Drayton, the Trashed Organites has curated a fine festive and somewhat twisted Christmas Noir. Topped off with the audience participation of a Trashed Laureate Port prize.

We're waiting for the official pictures, but in the interim, here's a small and rather excellent tune from Rob Heron & the Tea Pad Orchestra, live from a shed.

Wordless Wednesday

The Tyne, before we were trashed.

jumping frogs and glow stick glasses

I said I'd get around to an annual picture of Sloane Square with its blue and white lights. I've even managed to include a black cab.

Part of the plot involved buying a few small items for a lucky dip type of festive occasion. Glow stick glasses. Tinsel pipe cleaners. Miniature bowling alley.

A gold tiara. A judge's wig. A propeller hat. A clockwork frog (or two). A sparking yo-yo. You know the kind of things.

All we need now is a picture of the inside of a well-known neighbourhood department store.

almond croissant

Sheltering from 45 degree rain before heading into a meeting. I've been over in Greenwich by the Dome, waiting in a coffee bar for the others to arrive.

Almond croissant and latte.

At least we'd picked a coffee bar to meet; somewhat better than a few days ago when the 'full of festive joy' somehow didn't live up to expectations.

fitbit and cycling

I'm about to go cycling, and thought I'd try an experiment with fitbit to see how it compares with cycle usage.

I've been using fitbit for a while but never bothered to check accurately what it does if I use it when on a bike. I've always surmised that it counts each pedal revolution as a step (which seems fair to me), so today I'll actually measure it properly.

Mine is the fitbit One, which is the small version that can go in a pocket rather than something on a wristband, which I consider to be rather too obvious. The Nike systems all use wristbands, but I'm not sure that I want to walk around lit like the festive season all year.

My fitbit is at 5,137 steps and 2.37 miles walked today so far. I'll check it again when I actually start cycling and again when I finish. Then I can link it to the number of pedal cycles I've done, based upon my Garmin read-out.

Update to follow...

Update
So my revised fitbit count after the bike ride is 12547. And the number of pedal rotations was 6,870 according to Garmin Connect. There's about 212 steps unaccounted for, which is me faffing around to get the bike ready and also a short false start when I reset the Garmin after about a minute. Close enough.

So, I'll conclude that the fitbit is counting pedal rotations quite accurately.

The mileage is way off compared with the amount I travelled, but I don't really care about that, which I can pick up on Garmin. It's just useful to have a fitbit count that includes a representation of cycling time. I'm also much happier to have a low count for mileage compared with my actual cycling (more than 20 miles) which could otherwise be construed as cheating.

I'll still use the Garmin for calories etc, but it's good to know that the fitbit and Garmin are consistent.

in which i am troubled by seasonal inaccuracies

One of the challenges with using London scenes in blog posts is trying to ensure that they represent the time of year properly.

Of course, when it's a recent picture, like the one above, then it's easy. Grosvenor Bridge, looking towards the London Eye.

Even if the scene looks unseasonally bright, it's still authentic.

That is not always the case with television series, which sometimes purport to be of the moment but have just the wrong foliage or shadows. That tree might still have bright green leaves, for example.

I doubt if I'd notice, if it wasn't for blogging, but nowadays I can't help spotting seasonal inaccuracies in TV shows.

Should I be worried by this trait?

Colbert Oriel

We stopped off at Colbert for a bite to eat. It reopened about a year ago, after a kerfuffle about the previous place that was on the site, called Oriel.

We used to go to Oriel which was a buzzy French style cafe. They served a good breakfast and it was somewhere you could turn up and somehow get squeezed in.

The owner of the area, Earl Cadogan, reputedly didn't like the service at Oriel and thought the food expensive and so he wouldn't renew their lease.

For probably a couple of years it was then a building site on the corner of Sloane Square. Some of us wondered what would emerge, after such a long time.

When it finally did, it was - er- another French brasserie. Similar look, reconfigured walls, similar menu, but new owners, now part of the conglomerate that runs the Wolseley, which is the place just across the road from the Ritz.

The one year old establishment has been made to look as if its been there for ages, even down to a set of slightly worn looking postcards hanging from the drinks shelves in the bar area. Vintage theatre posters adorn the walls, including shows from the nearly adjacent Royal Court.

I'm sure they've modernised something (the kitchens, maybe?) but for all practical purposes they have simply recreated Oriel with a new name.

Battersea, with cranes

First day with a regular camera again, instead of just the cellphone.

Considering how far we are through December, London has still got sunshine and generally clear skies.

Note the background of cranes as another new area of London begins to take shape between where new US Embassy will be sited and Battersea Power Station.

And it looks as if I'm not the only one taking photos.