Silly, Bonfires, Bento Boxes + Dragon’s Breath

The intermittent booming of fireworks sounded outside my bedroom window all night even as I crawled into bed at 1am last night.

There was a foggy mist of smoke and a faint scent of burn as I walked down the streets homewards after watching Guy Fawkes Day fireworks opposite Battersea Park. I decided to be a bit silly and wear my lazy oaf button. The skinny bear lazy oaf character was coloured in horizontal stripes and I was wearing a horizontal striped jumper for our night out of fireworks viewing.

Before the fireworks display, we had planned on going to gastro pub The Phoenix for dinner and drinks. The Phoenix is part of the group of gastro pubs owned by Rupert Clevely (ex-managing director of uber chic Veuve Cliquot). I have only been to one of his pubs before this, The Builder’s Arms which I liked because the English Pub deco is given a mod-twist. I think the new generation of British must like this too as the constant crowds attest to their popularity.

First stop, The Phoenix smelt like the top end of a fire place and was too crowded and noisy. Next stop, The Cooper’s Arms. I’ve been here before for a hurried meal of their award winning bangers and mash and I knew what to expect. I had bangers and mash again because they were out of steak and kidney pie. The bangers were a let down this time as they were not as crispy on the outside as they should be and the mash too luke warm for my palate, even though on the whole it still rates as an above average bangers and mash.



After dinner we walked towards Battersea Park and nested ourselves among photographers along the road facing the park and waited for the fireworks. The fireworks were nice, but not particularly spectacular. Still, it was very pleasant to just stare out at the dark sky and watch blooms of colours bursts before your eyes for a whole 25 minutes. At one point I realize I had let out a sigh. Its nice to be silly sometimes and its nice to do simple things. We ended the evening by finally going to a Clevely pub after all, The Builder’s Arms.

This week, work was very busy with datelines up till 9pm on Friday night. Hopefully the waters will be calmer for a few days till the next wave comes in. The Circle and District lines were also constantly down which entailed a frantic walk through the park to get to work one morning. Mid week, wild fairy child Flat mate LP packed my lunch for me. When I opened my pseudo bento lunch box of rice cakes, everyone had a good laugh.


The temperatures have finally dropped to single digits, the clocks have been turned back an hour and I do not seem to mind the cold as much as I mind the sun setting at 4.30pm.

This week, I also started wearing gloves. In my hurried futile effort to combat the cold, I bought a pair of wool autumn gloves that were not particularly fitting because I have small hands even for ‘S’ size. They fit everywhere up to the thumb but there is a bit left over on my other four fingers. I have not worn gloves since I was a kid and I forgot how it was till I tried tying my sneaker laces and locking the front door of the flat. My ability to gauge space and mobilize my hand movements have been effectively retarded by the use of gloves. On the tube on the first morning of my glove adventure, I spent 30 seconds trying to flip the page of my book. I could have taken off my gloves and turned the page then put on my gloves again, but I think the time taken would have equaled the process of flipping the page with my gloved hands.

The sudden cold has also allowed me mutant super natural ability to breathe long breaths of smoke from my mouth. While out with ex-house guest I did my Bruce Lee gung-fu stance and demonstrated my new found ability to let out a healthy gush of dragon breath. He was not particularly impressed and only rolled his eye balls at me. His super natural powers are obviously way inferior to mine if he can only manage the common eye ball roll. Spastic. Silly you.

On Player_’Set The Fire to the Third Bar’_ by Snow Patrol