After work yesterday I set off for distant Islington, there to meet Ms S Jenkins at the Almeida Theatre cafe for a CUPPA. One of the things that never fails to DELIGHT me about That London is the way that VERY different neighbourhoods can sit RIGHT next to each other, in this case the, frankly, stinky bit around Highbury & Islington tube station which suddenly turns into Super Swanky Proper Islington. Super Swanky Proper Islington is JUST like you would expect it to be, with fancy people swanning around, gluten free bakeries on every corner and ANTIQUE shops hither and thither. It is, to be honest, Quite Nice.
Steph was at the theatre to see a PLAY - Hamlet Starring Him Out Of Sherlock (The Baddie). It was, apparently, FOUR HOURS long. Four hours! My ideal length of play is 50 minutes pretending to be 60, and even though it had TWO (2) intervals I still think it would be a bit much. Four hours! Surely one's arse would go numb and never come back!
While we were chatting my phone rang. "Private Number", it said. I've had a couple of these this week and have been ignoring them, but my PHONE SENSE was tingling this time. What if it was something important? I picked it up and was SO GLAD that I did, for LO! it was The Passport Office. A couple of weeks ago I realised I'd LOST my passport and, after two days of PANICKED SEARCHING, accepted the inevitable and applied for a new one. This involved getting a picture taken (at a machine that kept saying "THIS IS NOT A VALID PASSPORT PHOTO" no matter WOT I did - maybe it was a BREXITEER?) and hassling old pal Mr S Wilkinson to sign my form for me - I told him that this was the moment his entire CAREER had been building to, that he was now considered A Responsible Member Of Society - and ever since sending everything off I had been AFEARED that something somewhere would go wrong, meaning I wouldn't get my new passport in time to go on HOLIDAYS. THUS a chill ran through my veins - was something AMISS?
Something WAS - the idiot who filled in the form had somehow managed to get his own Date Of Birth WRONG! In my defence, I spend large parts of the day looking at NUMBERS so may well have got confused, OR perhaps my "6" for June just looks very similar to an INCORRECT "5" for May, but either way they were very nice about it. I suppose they deal with this sort of thing all the time, but still, Her Majesty's Passport Office now sits alongside The Trademark Office as my FAVOURITE government agency for phone calls!
When the announcement came for SHOWTIME I headed off for the tube. On the way there I had seen an EXCELLENT Train Loonie - he had not only a PLACARD but also a SHINY HAT and was SINGING loudly, really raising the game for Train Loonies everywhere - so felt slightly CHEATED that all I saw this time, after disembarking at Kings Cross, was a man dressed up as a Christmas Fairy. He was VERY pleased with himself, but nobody paid him much heed, as we were heading to Central St Martins, where the Art Students live. He wasn't even in the top ten most daftly dressed people.
Alas, when I arrived, I faced further self-inflicted foolishness, as the Library was CLOSED. I do WORK for a University still, but am so far divorced from TEACHING that I had no idea we were now into student holiday time, which meant that much shortened HOURS were in effect. I slinked away, past an Private View for POTTERY, hoping nobody would see my THWARTED SWATTINESS. Denied access to a library book! I didn't know if this was TOTALLY PUNK or the OPPOSITE!
