Paradise City

Albert Square 2010

Albert Square

We’ve all got our idea of a Paradise City, places we’ve been, lived, worked, read about, well this is mine, unashamedly, London. Where it all started was Lambeff, Albert Square to be precise, not that crappy beeb London one, but the real, sahf of the riva, see above. I never really thought about why I felt such an affinity with the Kings Cross area when I worked there, but re-visiting pictures it seems that the similar architecture of Georgian three storey architecture with basements and Portland stone probably made an impact on the two year old NM prior to heading out of town, a relief then to realise it wasn’t just the drink, prostitutes and drugs that captivated me on my return. Sometimes I wasted my money on toy trains.

MRM Kings Cross London

That led me to working at the Model Railway Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of York Way. The building has survived the recent development of the area and is now a restaurant. That will be somewhat ironic for the previous staff members who worked there, in that you can now order food to be eaten in the building, rather than using our shop intercom from three buildings away. That could be used, (allegedly), to order food in a cafe, Renzo’s, (three doors away), much to the dissapointment of the proprietor whom on opening an unsummoned dumb waiter, was to see ‘Dooamaneg’ glaring balefully at him on a grease laden sloppy plate…

The friendships built up there still last to this day, some of the antics still bring a wry smile to the face. As youngsters into ‘London’ it was important to find out the area, so we had a street map on the wall, theoretically, for customers who pre googlespace/mytube/facetwatter, wanted to know how to get from place to place. Well there was only one way to find out. Research.

St Pauls

There wasn’t a reseach budget as such, just an unerring faith in our ability to leave the shop at 13:01pm (without a map), ‘RLF’ for twenty to twenty five minutes, and then deliberately find a different route back to be through the door at 13:59pm. The result then being plotted on the map using the shop as the centre and a radius/range being drawn in with a compass. Therefore if a customer asked how long it took to walk to X, you could theoretically give an answer …

Thames from the 'right' side of the river ...

Now, Nm’s regular readers will already be seeing ‘potential’ for interesting and frank, free flowing discussion with ‘management’ on return to the shop, and to be fair there were a few occasisions when such discussion took place. I can recall one particular return trip that went ‘a bit wrong’. We’d headed south to Holborn, via Bloomsbury on a beautiful spring day, but had headed back to route up Grays Inn road. We’d been a bit too long and it wasn’t the first time we’d been bollocked for being late, so the pressure was on. The lack of map bit us here and we were actually lost but continued ducking and diving up side streets to head north. We came across a small playing field and thought we could see a way out at the far end, so we were ‘safe’ and stated to walk. At the end of the field we came to a brick wall, literally, about 8ft high, too high to see over. Doing the old schoolboy run at it and jump, scrabble up and sit on the top worked. The only problem there was, was a concrete yard the other side but with a bigger drop, and expensive cars, probably a law firms parking area. A shout and we simultaneously took our chance and dropped into the yard, splitting in opposite directions, just like the filums. We exited through two different gates running, followed by shouts of very rude words, from an old boy presumably in charge of ‘security’ having served on the Russian Convoys, and used to chasing cabin boys all over the decks. We got back to the shop in time for a summary bollocking, and every siren that sounded that afternoon had us on tenterhooks.

What it did do was to provide a better than ‘the knowledge’ knowledge of the part of North London around the Kings Cross area, including all the street life that entailed.

Trafalgar Square

Street life occaisionally came into the shop, where it was the job of whoever wasn’t ‘busy’ to remove them. Nm had a absolute pearler of a case where he very quickly learnt one of lifes lessons, this was re-inforced by ones colleagues ‘QFO’ing as soon as they realised the Quatermass pit sized whole Nm had dug himself. A lady came into the shop, looking a little distressed, but nothing un-usual to raise alarm bells. (Even at that time Nm was pretty streetwise, being able to identify a pimp/pro/ned/alchy/smackhead at twenty paces). It was a lunchtime, ‘may I use your toilet she asked?’, seemed reasonable, didn’t smell odd, she looked alright, ‘clean’, if you know what I mean, if you don’t … Well, yep Nm says and showed her the way (to the bog).

After about five mins she hadn’t re-appeared. Helpfull comments and queries such as ‘is she still in there?’ from my colleagues rapidly followed, countered with ‘Yeh, she’s probably reading a paper or summat’ from an increasingly intrigued worried Nm. Well a good half an hour passed, questioned through the door, ‘are you alright luv?’ from Nm, his colleagues helpfully asking ‘how are you going to get her out then?’ When on Top Gear one of the guys gets left by the others whilst taking the piss as they leave is just so true, it’s almost a right of passage, and when it happens to you with the right bunch of mates it almost makes it alright. Now the crapper was on the stairs and Nm had to hovver near it to appear like he was just going for one whenever the bosses appreared, to prevent them asking any awkward questions, like ‘WTF is the smackhead doing in the crapper?’

After a good hour or so Nm was thinking I’m going to
a/ have to go in, but the door is locked from the inside …
b/ tell the boss the smell isn’t in fact one of Bri’s unholy ones
c/ just run away

There was a dreadful groaning from the crapper, which was peculiar for Nm. It at least meant that the tart wasn’t dead, but filled him with the dread of getting the aforementioned ‘trollied’ bint out of the shop, negotiating her past a counter full of customers, ‘interested’ colleagues and a security camera attached to a CCTV. The thought of dragging or firemans lifting an unconscious bird through the shop and being caught on camera (again) just filled him with ‘bowell water’ making fear. It is at these times that you realise why adrenaline is brown and leads to real moments of fear inspired brilliance. There were two front doors to the shop, No14 and No12, No12 rarely used. If the bint could be steered through the rear stock room, past the phone and map to No12, there was a real chance she could be released into the wild relatively discretely. So Nm managed to lift the latch of the door at No12, easing it shut so the boss couldn’t see it was open, and as soon as the bint opened the door to the karzi, at about the hour + fifteen mark, he very quickly shoved, escorted her to the other door where on leaving she belched a projectile stream of the foulest smelling puke Nm’s ever had the displeasure to encounter. Well you’ve read the blog, you can easily imagine…
Nm slammed the door behind her and turned to see the boss who had come down the other stairs looking at him very oddly. ‘Whats up’ he said?, ‘Oh just some drunken tart who’s puked in 12’s doorway’ Nm straightface replied. Seemed to work. There were a few comments re the whiff from No14’s crapper though, it stank as though someone had emptied the entire waste contents of Smithfield, Covent Garden and Billingsgate and a bit of soggy cardboard into the smallest room. Nm gave it a quick clean, and declared it clear of sharps and fit for use, (the tart that is, not the bog).

In true team spirit the smell was blamed on Bri.
It’s what mates are for.

Millenium Bridge

Albert Sq piccies from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sczscz/

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Let’s Get It Up

These past weeks I have mostly been decorating. This means one is ‘supervised’ as one cannot clearly be trusted to

A/ Not paint nob shaped murals on the wall
B/ Do any work

You don't have to paint one on the wall ....

Whilst under supervision in the big room a set of aloominum ladders was in use. The big room has some big windows in it and said ladders were in the vicinity of the big windows. The ladders were in use for painting the ceiling, and NM had descended from height to replenish the bucket of ‘Pure, Brilliant, Shite’. Having stepped off the ladder and now turning his attention to not spilling the paint on the floor, Mrs NM, (Supervisor, Nob Mural Prevention Section), shouts out NM’s name. Now needless to say NM looks at ‘Supervisor’ and asks ‘What?’ Supervisor is shouting, and she’s nearly as loud as Mr Rukin when he’s frightening the bog into the corner, by kneeling on the floor, and shouting at it.

Now even with a few pints ‘in the bank’, I know, who I am, and, my name. So, whilst sober, the thought occurs that the supervisor has now engaged in some sort of bizzare charades game, where she doesn’t even bother with a mime, merely points at the object in question (me), and shouts it’s name. ‘Do I need to be bigger than a dog?’ I’m thinking, and ‘this is a bit easy’, when the silence is broken by a metallic crash as the ladders just miss the big window, and end up on the big floor. At the subsequent somewhat ‘public’ enquiry, the idea of shouting was allegedly to gain my attention to the falling ladder. This is obviously a ‘wimin’ thing.

Now, there’s two distinct, and different, approaches here. Blokes would shout ‘ladder’ at the very least, thus drawing attention to the problem area, the ladder. Wimin think the same way, but rather than the ladder being the ID’ed problem, it’s the bloke that’s ID’ed as the ‘problem area’, hence being shouted at. The ladder clearly having been relegated to ‘bit player’ in the ensuing chaos.

Still I’m going to get my own back. New year resolutions mean that one is being herded at gunpoint towards an evening ‘Polaris’ class, or something that sounds like that, I wasn’t paying that much attention to be honest. I imagine that means loads of wimin stretching, grunting and rolling around on the floor pretending to be submarines. It’ll only be a matter of time before I’m sent home in disgrace having demonstrated the ‘up periscope’ position …

White Christmas

Happy Christmas

Snow Bird

With the snow falling on the blog, thought I’d give this a try …

We Can Work it Out

It’s that day again! The early morning broken only by the sound of silence, the Nintendo DS being a particularly effective ‘OFF’ switch for the volume control of small children.

So at 08:00 hours we were wondering, laying in bed, and contemplating the day ahead. We’d got a frozen Turkey, and I don’t mean a forum member realising they’ve just made a spectacularly daft  posting regarding Hornby’s 2009 releases,  but a chicken type thing.

Fortunately this year I remembered to de-frost it in sufficient time and also took the giblets out. A few years ago I was guilty on both counts of:

A/  Failure to provide a cooked turkey

B/ Filling the kitchin with the smell of burnt plastic, offal and, when I     realised what I’d done, brown adrenaline.

Anyway back to the bedroom,  and the ‘mission planning’ not forgetting ‘basting the Turkey’, for the day ahead. Times, ETA’s all under review, and Mrs NM lets slip that the packaging, including the weight of said bird, (Turkey not Mrs NM) is in the bin.  So a short sharp ‘discussion’ takes place, where Mrs NM mentions that not all of her skills are appreciated or used. Fine I says, perhaps you’d like to dust off the old ‘skip surfing’ skills then? The packaging now having lived at the bottom of a wheely bin for 24 hours, with assorted offal and all manner of household shite half a week old.  Unsurprisingly she declined.

So we had a bird of unknown weight, well one, the other was keeping quiet, that we had to determine the weight of to cook. Not having kitchen scales up to the task a science lesson that ‘The Berg’ would have been proud of ensued.

Turkey was placed on a piece of wood balanced see-saw style over a rolling pin. Small children were despatched to all corners of the kitchen to find items of ‘known’ weight.  Unfortunately the rabbit (as in rabbit), was rejected due to the actual weight of the rabbit being unknown. I personally think the rabbits weight is known, its just it’s a female so even if it told us, odds are, it’d be lying. Once said items were balanced on the other end and equilibrium had been achieved the Turkey was cuffed, stuffed and sorted.

Just before christmas I went to London for a few ‘sharpeners’. As usual it was a good night, and resulted in a wallet litening by Calumet. I was thinking about the New Canon G10 compact, and after passing by Tottingham Court Road, Hammy dragged me up a small back passage way in Soho. There a bloke made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and sweaty palmed I emerged from his premises with it wrapped in a black plastic bag.

I wish I’d been able to get it out later on, as whilst downing a pint at the Lamb and Flag, we watched a young lady try to get out of a building, a Stage and Theatrical agents no less.

Lamb and Flag

Needless to say the full length glass door wouldn’t open, and she was trying to get our attention to help. We ‘helped‘ by shouting ‘Is it a film?’ as she mimed pressing a door bell next to us. ‘The great escape?’, ‘Escape from Alcatraz?’, ‘Midnight Express?’ fortunately before she started swearing too loudly a ‘Luvvie’ came to her rescue and released her into the wild’s of Londons west end.

And then we went home.