Pynchon

Right, let's try this again.

Saturday was a blast. A real craic. One of the best days that we have had for ages and over way too soon. If I had thought about it I would have either booked us into a hotel overnight or I would have arranged to get a much later coach home. It was a great day. I didn't want it to end.

You will find pictures here if you are interested. Myself and Lorraine are in some of them. You might spot us...

Nah. I think that my reputation as an International Man Of Mystery is probably still intact.

It will probably be best to do this in some kind of chronological order. There may be digressions.

5am. I awake. I'm in the corridor. I can hear Lorraine snoring in the back room. (Yes. I am still in the front room. It is what it is. I don't dwell on it.) She told me to wake her when I get up, but I don't. I know for a fact that she went to bed sometime after midnight, because she was doing something on the laptop and she is a silly cow. I let her sleep on.

I go downstairs. I have a cup of tea, but no food. The intention is that we buy something to eat at Tesco Metro or New Street Station, to eat on the coach. I watch TV for half an hour. BBC News 24 is obsessed with the whole Jade Goody/Racist thing. It is boring in the extreme. I have not watched even so much as a second of the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother and so I have no comment to make.

I go upstairs. I shit, shave and shower. I wake Lorraine.

She asks, "What time is it?"

I say, "It's a quarter to six, my little pirahna"

"We've got to catch the bus in a fucking hour!" she squeals, leaps out of bed and runs into the bathroom.

I chuckle (because I'm a bastard), go back into the front bedroom and read "The Time Travelers Wife" for half an hour. (It's very good, by the way.)

I dress. I think that I look stylish and sexy. I am totally misguided. There is cursing from the back bedroom. Lorraine has lost her trousers. She says that I have moved them. I deny it. I never touch her clothes. She finds the trousers. Lorraine decides that she doesn't have time to dry her hair, so she combs it back and on some kind of hair band. She asks me how she looks.

"Gorgeous" I say, and I mean it, but she calls me a "Bastard!" anyway.

Out of the house and down the hill. We miss the bus by seconds. It's cool. That service runs every 15 minutes. I chat to a pissed old man at the bus stop. Lorraine eyes him like he has rabies. The bus turns up late.

Tesco Metro. Drinks and sandwiches. A quick jog through town and we are at Digbeth Coach Station. It is nearly 8am. Luckily there are two seats together right at the front of the coach and I manage to drop kick two old ladies to get them. (I made that last bit up.) While Lorraine sorts herself out I scan the bus and spot the mighty Graham making his way back to his seat. He has been in the toilet. (Graham had a bit of a dicky stomach for some of the day.)

"We'll see you later", shouts I.

Thumbs up.

I take my coat off and sit down. The coach moves off. I take out my food. Orange Juice and a BLT. They are gone in seconds. I am fucking starving. Then I sleep for about an hour and a half.

Eventually we get to Victoria Coach Station. We make good time. We are 20 minutes early. I disembark. Graham is nowhere to be seen.

"Did you see Graham get off?" I ask Lorraine.

"I don't know what he looks like" she says. (True.)

I am mighty puzzled. Did I imagine him? No, I didn't. There is movement on the bus. Graham gets off.

"We're you asleep?"

"No. In the toilet." (I told you. Bad stomach. Poor bugger.)

Introductions and then we go the Victoria Station to await Mark and Ellen and the handsome Mr. X. We sit in Starbucks and discuss movies. (Not a surprise.) "Passenger 57", Ken Russell, Hugh Grant, Wesley Snipes. There is a bit of piss taking over the fact that Graham is carrying a Star Wars bag. I thought that there were laws in London about that kind of thing?

Graham's mobile rings. It's Mark. We troop down to Victoria Station and meet up. I've met Mark before, but not Ellen (Mark's missus, who is lovely) or Mr. X (who is even more handsome in real life than he is in the many pictures on Mark's blog). Mr. X eyes us suspiciously. He doesn't know who we are. We eye him back suspiciously. We nod and achieve detente.

Time to meet up with the others.

Victoria to South Kensington on the tube. A walk down the longest tunnel in the world. Lifting pushchairs up and down stairs. (I didn't mind. I needed the exercise.) Out into the street. A walk to the Kensington Palace Thistle Hotel. (Swiss Toni writes on his blog that he didn't rate the hotel much, either for the staff or the facilities. I don't know about that, but I will say this. After we had retired to the bar to await the arrival of the Others (sounds very "Lost", doesn't it?) I tried 3 times to order some teas and coffees, with the guy behind the bar promising to come over to our table every time, but he never made it. Not very good.)

The Others turned up. Suburban Hen, LB, Swiss Toni and Swiss Toni's Lady.

After hotel reception stuff was sorted, Hen came over and gave me and Lorraine a big hug. Hen stayed with us for a couple of days in the summer and has obviously been fighting her true feelings for me all of this time. :-)

"You doing OK?" sez Me.

"I'm fine" sez She.

And that's that. And she does seem fine. Happy and content. Nice hair as well. She's done something to it.

I do the man thing with LB and Swiss Toni (handshakes) and introduce them to Lorraine, who is impressed with their male beauty and the fact that they are both giants. Well, compared to me they are giants. Swiss' Lady I have never met, so we just say hello.

We leave the hotel in search of food and find a very nice Italian restaurant called Strada on Kensington High Street. There is eating and there is drinking (I had a diet coke - just as well) and there is conversation. Comic book adaptations. "V For Vendetta" (good and why did Alan Moore take his name off it?). "Spider Man" and "Hulk" (bad, although Swiss Toni liked "Spider Man"). Would "Watchmen" be any good? (It may go into production later this year. I have high hopes.) Would "Knight Rider" starring George Clooney as Michael Knight be any good? (of course it would be brilliant, but only if they did it seriously and cast James Earl Jones as the voice of KITT).

Much drivel was spoken. Much of it was spoken by me.

Swiss seemed particularly perturbed by the reference to his physical resemblance to Colin from "Spooks". I don't know why. Colin was a genius IT geek and was a hero!

LB wore a Windy Miller T-Shirt. Very cool, except that all of the photos of him show just the word Windy. A cruel person might say that this is a reference to certain gaseous movements, but obviously I would not say such a thing.

Swiss' Lady seemed very tired. I asked her if she had a blog. No. Ah... A normal person. Somebody said that Swiss' Lady is very busy and has way too busy a schedule to do such a thing. A bit like Lorraine, then. Lorraine has never blogged and certainly has never read mine. (Would we still be together if she did read my blog?)

Graham had a camera that, he said, apparently only takes only 1 photo in 3. It did look a bit... old.

Hen and I talked about drinking. She was very interested in the Christmas Party I attended. She asked me exactly how much I did have to drink. I didn't know the answer to that. Not very much. I've written about it. You can find it if you want.

Stef turned up an hour late! It had to be said, though. Stef has the coolest sunglasses.

Mark and Ellen played with Mr. X. Half the restaurant joined in. It was a really happy, nice atmosphere.

Somebody remembered that we were actually in London for the "Game On" exhibition and we decided that we had better get a move on. The bill was paid and we were out in the street. I turned to Stef and said...

... Hmm... I've been here ages. I had better carry on tomorrow. Things to do. People to see. I can't hang around here.

I will add links tomorrow.

Before I go... A joke.

Wanda's dishwasher quit working, so she called a repairman.

Since she had to go to work the next day, she told the repairman, "I'll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dishwasher, leave the bill on the counter, and I'll mail you a cheque.

"Oh, by the way don't worry about my Doberman , Spike. He won't bother you. But, whatever you do, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, talk to my parrot!

"I REPEAT, DO NOT TALK TO MY PARROT!!!"

When the repairman arrived at Wanda's apartment the following day he discovered the biggest, meanest looking Doberman he had ever seen. But, just as she had said, the dog just lay there on the carpet watching the repairman go about his work.

The parrot, however, drove him nuts the whole time with his incessant yelling, cursing and name calling. Finally the repairman couldn't contain himself any longer and yelled, "Shut up, you stupid, ugly bird!"

To which the parrot replied, "Get him, Spike!"

And... Another joke.

Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.