Fulham Folk

The boy and I successfully moved into a proper flat in the weekend. Having gained a job in West London, it opened a new part of London to us to flathunt in and it has worked out perfectly. Yes, we forgo the North and have gone South West.

We had our first taste of the South West by staying in Putney for 10 days with Tania, a lovely kiwi we found thanks to the wonders of the internet and then on Sunday, the hottest day of the year we moved to Fulham.

I cheated and the front view is from google streetview as I couldn't be bothered going outside. We're the orange brick place, the 1st floor window is our lounge.

Welcome to our lounge and the view out the bay window. It's your typical sort of Victorian (I assume) terrace lined street. The lounge isn't that typical of London really, most flats these days seem to prefer changing the lounge into a bedroom to make a flat cheaper/earn the landlord more money (Tufnell Park was like this). Our lounge gets plenty of sun and as you can see, is quite large. We've got Sky TV for all those pointless shows you find yourself watching for no reason although Oren has mostly been watching the neverending football. The large blue couch out of view and the six seater table are my favourite features - I guess after 2 years without a table, it's still a novelty to me. I have visions of dinner parties.

Speaking of dinner, our kitchen is just as large as our lounge too. It is at the opposite end of the same floor. In between is the bathroom then our bedroom beside the lounge. Fritha and Erinae have "loft" rooms upstairs.

Our room at the moment is really hot, it's been two weeks of high 20s which has been quite the difference to my 2007 Summer of the worst flooding in history. In a way, it's probably good I've been at work being paid to sit in the airconditioning. Note the purple valance and headboard came with the flat, and yes we know it doesn't match.

One of the best parts of course is that the my work in Hammersmith is about 20-25 minute walk and if I want a change of scenery, I can walk to work through the cemetery just behind the terraces on the other side of the road. I'm hoping to have a proper wander in there at the weekend and take photos as it's quite unusual! We're also about 10 minutes from Fulham Broadway station and shopping centre, so we're well connected whilst feeling like we're in the 'burbs. (it just happens also that Hell Pizza is about 5 minutes further down the road from there too!)

Everything is working out quite nicely, it's great to finally have somewhere to call home and settle in. I've even booked a trip to Valencia for the end of September so we have something to look forward to as the cooler days start arriving - although it's very hard to believe at the moment!

We Went Down to Oxford Town

Recently (well it was two weeks ago, I've been slow to update), we took a day-trip by train to Oxford, which is where Jo lived when she was here in 2007. It was nice to see Jo's old haunts and it gave us chance to use our shiny new railcards.

Greeted by the Ox of Oxford

Posing with the Ox

Oxford is basically known for two things: being really old, and having one of the best universities in the world, and we pretty much spent the day walking around looking at those old buildings, like this one:

And this one:

And these ones:

Aaaaaand this one:


In the afternoon we stretched out and relaxed in the sun on the banks of the River Isis, which is actually just the River Thames on either side of Oxford, for some reason they call it Isis where it flows through the city. There were loads of rowers practising on the river, which is a pretty stereotypically Oxford-ish thing to do.


I was having a nice time, until a tough-guy goose came to show his authority.

"Hey, that goose is getting awfully close."

"GERROFF MY LAWN!"

I don't like geese, they're aggressive and they hiss at you.

To finish the day we took a bus out to nearby Abingdon, which is where Jo actually was living. It is a very nice little town.

Homecoming.

Euro-Visions

I'd like to talk about the Eurovision song contest which was on last weekend. In New Zealand we sometimes see and hear brief snippets of Eurovision, but never really more than a few seconds' footage of the winner, so this was my first chance to see the whole thing (the finals at least), not really knowing what I was getting myself into. Now, I knew that the contest is celebrated for its fairly cringeworthy songs and general cheese factor, but I really was not prepared for just how extreme that was. However, it didn't take long for me to realise that it was much more fun to embrace it and get behind those crazy Euros.

Your typical Eurovision song entry falls into one of two main groups: the hyper-dramatic power ballad and the high-energy dance-pop number. Personally, I prefer the latter, as they are usually more fun and most of the ballads take the whole thing a bit too seriously.

One of the main things I did not realise about the contest was just how political it gets. No one is allowed to vote for their own country, so everyone tends to give lots of points their neighbours and political friends, even if they are completely terrible songs. Fascinating really.

The pre-final favourites were Azerbaijan, Greece and Belgium, but this year's winner was Germany with a song called 'Satellite' sung by a girl called Lena who had a bizarre accent that sounded almost Australian. It doesn't really fit into either of the categories I described above, but maybe that is what set it apart on the night. Check it out:



It wasn't the worst song of the night, but I don't really like it. My personal favourites were the really weird and tacky ones like Moldova's neo-fusion rave-up, featuring a sax solo that will gnaw at your brain. Also it has some classic badly-translated lyrics:

There's no other time to make
In happiness you have mistaken
We have no progressive future
I know your lying nature.

Serbia also had an impressively crazy entry called Ovo je Balkan (English: This is the Balkans). I think they may possibly have been angling for the vote from the other Balkan countries. Sample lyrics: "Balkans, Balkans, Balkans! This is the Balkans! Come on!" Their song at least actually had a bit of an Eastern European flavour to it, and the music was apparently written by the same guy who did the score for the film Borat.

For the record, the UK came dead last, behind even Iceland who everyone hates at the moment. It was fair enough though, the British entry was just awful.