tape?
I have recently passed through the shabby portals of East Midlands Airport, on my way to do a show in Spain. My uncomplicated (according to the itinery) journey; train from Sheffield to the brand new East Midlands Parkway station, shuttle bus to Airport, Plane, Taxi, Hotel, was complicated by arriving at tumbleweed central. The station was deserted, and there was no indication of where to get the bus from, I had been escorting an elderly lady, who was panicking about missing her flight to Faro, having been directed to the wrong platform at Sheffield, and so I asked the very bored ticket sales guy. 'Oh, they cancelled the shuttle buses two months ago, you have to call a taxi.' Presumably, as EMA mostly serves Mr Michael O'Leary's shabby airline, the local autorities lost interest in subsidising his enterprise.
My second unwelcome discovery at EMA, was that their airport security considers rolls of PVC electrical tape to be a security risk, as I was carrying four rolls of different colours (in this case used for marking and identifying microphones in my current show), I was not best pleased. Apparently you can use PVC tape to tie people up, although Sellotape is perfectly acceptable in any quantity. Given the need or desire to tie someone up on a plane, electrical tape probably isn't the first thing I'd think of, but what do I know. The thing that rankles, is that this year I have carried those same rolls of tape through Aberdeen (twice), Heathrow (twice), Dussledorf (twice) and there has been no comment. I'm pretty certain that I have carried tape through security into and out of the States, Canada, Singapore, Brazil and Colombia in the last couple of years and it has never been an issue, what's so special about the East Midlands?
Labels: tape
hmm...
Ok, square this circle, I'm sitting in a Sheffield pub, taking advantage of free internet (I'd sooner pay for a pint than give a hotel money for internet access), on the table next to me are a couple of muscly sheffield lads, their gentle mumbling about football, women and beer drifted past me without my taking any notice. It was the point when they started discussing the latest Harry Potter film as if it was a football match: 'did you see those fireballs, they shouldn't have been allowed, and that Bellatrix...' much teeth sucking. They did seem to think it was real, and had the cod latin off pat too, Sheffield is a mysterious place.
Labels: Harry Potter, teeth
Ah sweet mystery of life...
I am presently staying in a modern and rather characterless hotel in Sheffield, en route to Spain. Previously, we would stay at the Grosvenor House, a decaying '60's concrete carbuncle owned by Corus (the Steel company), and owing nothing to its namesake on Park Lane. This hotel is now scheduled for improvement (read demolition), although it has been as long as I have been coming to Sheffield. It wasn't without idiosyncracy, regular visitors learned to ask for specific corners, as some rooms were rendered intolerable by the booze palaces and clubs that used to litter the area. I can't think how many times I've been wakened by the sound of fighting/vomitting/heads being smashed through bus shelters, and it is slightly sad that the old building is now empty, used only as a training facility by South Yorkshire Police dog training school.
The new building is beginning to develop some character, however, whilst sitting on the loo this afternoon I was startled to hear the tinny sound of an argument issuing from the drain of my bath, maybe it was a ghost from hotels past, or perhaps they were standing in the bath arguing, it was a bit strange, but curiously comforting.
Labels: bath plugs, ghosts
belgian style?
I don't know if it's just because I'm in a foreign country, but things look different here, I may have commented on the belgian obsession with using the appropriate beer glass for each beer, but I was taken aback to see an extremely pungent and crusty vagrant sitting at his ease on a bench in the middle of a traffic island, although he was consuming a bottle of cooking lager, he was using the appropriate glass to drink from.
On my way to the theatre I pass through a little park, more of a traffic island really, at one end there is a sort of open shelter, about 10 metres long. In this structure another enterprising vagrant has created his/her bed from a proper mattress and a pile of boxes and mats. He/she lies on this platform looking for all the world like the corpse of Lenin, only the occasional movement of an arm giving the lie to this impression.
Labels: rough sleepers
that was the year that Brussels brusselled...
Back in the capital of Belgium for a few days, mostly sitting in a darkened theatre waiting for something to happen. It has been pretty cold and damp here, although I gather that things haven't been so different back home. On my way to the theatre each morning I pass through a rather haphazard sort of ethnic market, mainly moroccan, but with a few lebanese and greek specialists to leaven the mix. What often strikes me is the volume of stuff that is delivered, yesterday it was bales and bales of fresh mint, and the smell as the cardboard wrapped bundles were watered was ever so powerful. Sometimes they deliver coriander instead, the wonder is what anyone can do with several tons of fresh mint.
I was a touch horrified to spot, in our local supermarket: a glass jar of brussel sprouts, I wasn't tempted.
Labels: herbs
