Craig Online

A rather busy week this week. Too many late nights (involving nightclubs and alcohol)- I've vowed to be good for another year..

Oxford
Tuesday I ended up in Oxford for a meeting for work. I'm not a great one for socialising at work (as I usually am too busy, rather then just being plain ignorant). However, I had already finished my slides on the train down and I arrived a little late so ended up meeting up with the group for dinner.

Of course, a couple of glasses of wine later and I ended up being dragged (well not really !) out to a couple of pubs. A couple of drinks (beer and scotch/soda) later I ended up in some bar/nightclub (funny that a bunch of 30/40 professionals were all having around hands stamped after we had paid to get in). The night after that is rather vague, apart from one incident involving Red Bull/Vodka with one of the sales guys, then some further Scotch/Soda. I have this issue where I can be very very sensible, but after a few drinks I end up being one of the people trying to coerce everyone to end up staying out.

About 1AM I decided I had enough (read common sense got the better of me) and left. Of course I had forgotten where I actually was going to (hadn't really paid attention to the hotel name), so had to wait for 10 or so minutes for someone else to come out and show me the way home !

The next day ended up going quite well (even though I was feeling a little tired). Although the journey back (via Slough) was a bit prolonged. Got to Kings Cross to see the headline in the Evening Standard '50% Tax' - great even more money to pay to the government now :(. So I cheered myself up by heading over to St Pancras Station to grab some food. The good thing about St Pancras is that the Eurostar to France goes from there - so of course there are a number of good French sandwich/cake shops.

Bizarrely, Jennie Bond (former) Royal Correspondent was in my carriage on the train back. The highlight of my journey- a minor celebrity on the train back home !

Newcastle
Friends from School and I usually meet up somewhere every year. Favourites are Newcastle (equidistant from London and Glasgow/Edinburgh) and Aberdeen (where a number of people we know live).

I like both places. Aberdeen is a bit of a pain to get to (about 8hrs train journey, flight possible but involves going to a slum in the South East which I refuse to do)- although the train journey is very scenic. I know it well as I used to go there a lot as a child. Newcastle is a real party town and the Newcastle people are fantastic friendly.

I'm not a big person on accents, but there is something I really like about the Newcastle accent (very distinctive).

Highlight of the trip was a queue at 11:30PM outside an ATM machine, talking with a bunch of students and timing how long each persons ATM transaction took and commenting on it- it was actually quite funny (though you probably had to be there).

London
9AM train Saturday morning from Newcastle to London to go looking at Kitchens (after leaving nightclub at 2AM, kebab on way back to hotel).

Of course I could have gone to look at kitchens in Cambridge - but that would be a pointless exercise. Metaphorically, a kitchen shop in Cambridge would be the equivalent of a Belling Cooker 2 ring cooker stuck on a table, whereas London would be a large Aga in a country estate. I prefer the latter myself.