Into the TENTH year?

Woah...just noticed that this month marks the start of the TENTH year of this blog...whoever would have thought?

Way back then (when I were young) we had just moved into our Earlswood house from the penthouse flat in Dorking -

- and I had been starting to play around with what gardening was all about (having only grown tomato plants on the balcony before) - the start of domestication - no kids on the scene (of course) -

- I was working in a (fairly nasty) pre-regeneration Kings Cross commuting with Thameslink (no comment), carrying an SPV-C500 in my pocket running (wow) Windows Mobile 2003 (yes, life waaaay before Android - but it could still -just about- play a converted DVD to entertain me on the train) and playing games on an original Xbox console -
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- on a huge cathode ray TV - HD TV broadcasts didn't even exist for another YEAR)...the very first episode of the Doctor Who reboot (with Eccleston and Piper was still around the corner)...7/7 wasn't far in the future...Flyingpops and I weren't even *married* yet for goodness sake!

What has it been?  Five(?) different jobs over that time, dragging me all over London (and New York), our perfect wedding day, amazing honeymoon in Mexico and three beautiful children later the amount of ground covered is just staggering!  Even the very act of deciding to blog strongly influenced my life - posting something every day quickly highlighted that I needed a better camera - by December that year I had the Sony Mavica, kick-starting a now almost decade-long love affair with photography (largely thanks to that love affair with my wife who spotted it and got the technology moving)...and without that how many things would have just faded into the "noise" of the past... ;)

It's proof - The human brain is just *terrible* at remembering details...Now, I just need to scrape together a couple of hours to fly my precious time machine back through the last decade to refresh things - I can already see that after the March snow in 2005 it was a rather beautiful summer (although it also looks like I have some picture links to fix that have managed to become obsolete over the years, worse luck)!  Oh well...! :)

A few things I miss...

*Proper* crunchy Buffalo chicken wings (New York Style) - with insane American Hot Sauce and salty creamy blue cheese dip...no-one in England can get it quite right (apart from Chillis - which was killed by the credit crunch)...


Waking up in Colin the Camper...


Cheeky lunchtime burgers at Smithy's...


Chilli Pepper Pete turning up to Laughton...


The view down the Thames on a summer day when stranded at Blackfriars station by First Capital Connect...


The route of the number 17 bus...


New Harry Potter books...


Being able to stand in the shed at the end of the strip at Santa Pod (and be almost choked to death by toxic fume - much better than it sounds)...


My Mavica MVC-CD500 (effortless quality)...


Our front garden, that one year (with the throw-and-grow) although it did take a lot of watering...


Widemouth Bay...


Living in the penthouse...


Breakfast in Mexico...


Wondering what would be in the window of the Porcupine Book Shop...


Holidaying in the Canary Islands...


Cheesesteak...


"All new" episodes of Star Trek...


My C500 running Windows Mobile (Smartphones didn't start with the iphone, here's to full internet, movies and apps way back in 2004, I wasn't even blogging back then)... ;)


My Nyko Airflow...


New Years Day at Hedley Wood...


All the evening papers except the Evening Standard (it's far too grown up)...


Fillet steak at the Arkle Manor (or anywhere else for that matter) I think my most recent one was before the wedding...!


James May's Lego House...

So I'm obviously in desperate need of a holiday and something nice to eat (just to start with)... ;)

South House, South Street, Dorking - View from the Penthouse

Aw...brings back lots of happy memories - this panoramic splice (more great finds from the archive) - living in "The Penthouse" (flats on top of South House in Dorking)...every Friday night was hilarious theatre, we used to crack open a few beers, sit out on the balcony and watch the fun when the pubs kicked out (complete with police breaking up all the fights), during the day it was a succession of people failing to parallel park (often crashing into other vehicles) oblivious to our tears of hilarity and muffled guffaws from above...at parties having paper plane distance competitions (the ultimate goal being to land on the roof of the building opposite) -

- growing the most successful tomato plants in the history of culinary horticulture (imho anyway) as the balcony was the ultimate sun-trap, and relishing the ability to wake up, throw back the curtains in the living room (the whole back wall was glass) and lord it over the Surrey Hills...what a fantastic place to live...not to mention that within 2 minutes walk was Waitrose, a Video/Game hire shop, 2 Curry houses (including the best in Dorking), 2 Chinese restaurants and an off-licence...it was practically perfect...

Of course, when it came time to move to the house, getting all the crap out was a bloody nightmare (4 flights of un-even stairs), those, I *won't* miss (especially dragging the bikes up, or 15 bags of shopping)...but the time living there was priceless...

The Thameslink Tramp?

Caveat - You may start to think badly of me for attacking the homeless as you begin to read this post, but please bear with me to the end...

Okay, let me paint you the picture of the poor little homeless guy I see occasionally on the way home...Aw... :(

At least once every couple of months this guy comes wandering up the train (in his pristine shell suit with his well cropped, if a little messy hair) and spits out exactly the same load of old rubbish, occasionally with slight embellishments, but 98% of the spiel always stays the same (like a call centre script) -

(Imagine, if you will, a slightly gravelly but cheeky cockney voice, with a pleading note)..

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gents, I'm very sorry for disturbing you. I don't know if you heard me embarassing myself further up the carriage, but I'm afraid I've been put in a rather awkward postion today. When I turned up at the Big Issue"...(a magazine that good homeless people can sell to earn a few bob)..."offices to pick up my copies I discovered that it had closed two hours early"...(It's always two hours! Why not go there two hours earlier?!!!)..."because of the football"...(that was this today's minor embellishment, usually someone is sick or there has been an accident)..."This means that I am now facing the very real possibility of having to sleep rough tonight, which I really don't want to have to do if I can help it, so I'm forced into humiliating myself in front of you good people to ask for just any small change you might have so I can get myself into a hostel tonight instead of looking forward to a night on the streets. Once again, I'm very sorry for disturbing you and I wish I didn't have to do this..."

Then follows the awkward silence, during which he tries to avoid my accusatory glare...oh yes...he knows I know he's bullshitting the good "Ladies and Gents"...inevitably several people hand him coins and notes to "Thank you, I really wish I didn't have to do this to you" or "Thank, you having a good day?"...then he gets off the train (always at London Bridge) with a cheery "Enjoy the rest of your journey", and waits for the next train leaving from platform 6 (no doubt to repeat his little performance all over again)...

Are you still thinking this is all rather unkind of me?

Lets do some maths...say he gets 6 quid per performance (about average from what I have observed), 2 performances per carriage , it takes him no more than 90 seconds to start the performance and collect his payment...there are trains running roughly every 6 minutes and at that time of day they are mostly 8 carriages in length. Assuming it takes about a minute to move from carriage to carriage that works out at about 32 minutes per train, factoring in a possible short wait to swap this still works out at almost 2 complete trains every 60 minutes)...Still with me?

This being the case I calculate that this guy earns somewhere in the region of £192 (tax free) per hour...!!!!! Keep that up for 7 hours (remember, this isn't exactly hard work!) and that's more than enough money to pay the rent on a nice little flat in the suburbs, with plenty of money left over for take away and beer!!

No wonder we only see him once every two months...on that kind of money he could spend a fair amount of time staying in the penthouse at the bloody Ritz!!