Here is a short video of all the best bits of the trip to the UK, excluding meeting up with old friends as I didn’t have the camera with me when we did that! Also a slightly larger video format as a test

Or download a higher quality WMV (61meg) of the video for a crisper experience.

Last night was a trip out with my mates from the village, it was really nice as there was a good group and some faces I didn’t expect to see namely Chris and Ian and Mark.

First off we met at the Golden Bee Weatherspoon pub which doesn’t have any music playing so you can actually here what people are saying -

Me, Chris, Rachel and Alex

See if you can spot any of the characters above in the ‘Benidorm Boys‘ holiday webpage I created 8 years ago now!

Dino was back from his 12 month trip to China and Eastern Asia, 10 months of working in a Chinese School in the factory district of Guandong and eating things that you shouldn’t eat has given him some great stories to tell, especially the one about a stand off on a 22 hour bus journey - you’ll have to ask him yourself!

Me, Kim, Dino and Gino

As the night wore on and many more drinks were being drunk (Kim’s favourite of the Polish Lech beer really had a kick) we headed to Chicago Rock which Kim described as “after 8 seconds of being in there you’ll want to leave”. It was worth it though as Mark and Ian (Fathand) were in there and it was great to see them, Mark even has a little baby (although he wasn’t there).

Me and Fathand after “a few”

A great night out but now suffering the consequences of a hang over!

Also, here’s a great picture from my parents camera of my Dad’s Birthday party that we had on the canal boat which went down the river Avon -

Dad’s Birthday Party on the Canal Boat

We took a visit to West Midlands Safari Park with my parents which was fun, it was the old style drive through zoo, where you are in there with the tigers and other creatures which just the protection of the car. Here is Amy’s best picture of a cow that was approaching the open window -

Hello

We then celebrated my Dad’s 31st birthday on a restaurant boat that went up and down the Avon in Stratford, through a few locks. It was good fun and the food was great, another Christmas dinner! The next day we went to Bicester Village which was actually cheaper than Australia for shopping which was great.

Then it was off to London! There’s a few changes around the city, namely new buildings going up and old ones being changed, here’s the LSE with its new exterior, apparently its a listed building so they couldn’t knock it down and start again -

LSE Redesign

We met up with my old mate Matt who I went to University with, here we are in a ye-old English pub in the city Enjoying some London Pride. All the pubs in UK are now non-smoking which is great as a visit to the pub doesn’t mean you have to wash all your clothes the next morning, but the problem is the old smoke smell doesn’t seem to have completely gone so a strange odour has replaced it.

Me, Matt and Amy with London Pride

We then met up with some of Amy and my old work mates for a drink in the evening and somehow managed to end ourselves up at their Christmas party which was great because it meant we got a free dinner. Here’s Amy taking a picture of the corporate corporation department we used to work with. Lots of new faces in there!

Corporate Corporation Christmas Party @ The Fox

The next day we did a big trip around London to all Amy’s favourite shops, the shop I most wanted to visit, Reckless Records on Berwick Street went into Liquidation after 24 years of business some months ago and now has become a Mexican fast food outlet - which sucks, although Mexican food is great. We actually went to a place called ‘Ping Pong‘ for lunch, which was the best Dim Sum I’ve ever had.

That night we went to visit Karine et Mark in Clapham and to see Monsieur Felix. He is now a walking talking little boy last time I saw him he was just a little baby. It was great to catch up with them and we had a great dinner and we exchanged gifts, here is non-camera shy Monsieur Felix handing gifts out -

Monsieur Felix Present Handler

Amy has got a cold so we are going to take it easy on our last day in London before getting ready for a (very cold) trip to Prague - zero degree max temperatures.

We have arrived in England and it has been very nice, the first day it was my job to sort out the loft much to my parents delight -

Mum in the Loft

The next day Amy and me went into Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon for some shopping, it was a delight to walk around Marks and Spencer and see all the delicious food, it makes you wonder why there’s not one anywhere in Australia, I’d probably shop there exclusively (not for the clothes but the food) - well here’s the scoop, in 1996 they had big plans to open up a store in Sydney, then in 1998 they cancelled plans to start an M&S franchise with Just Jeans due to the weakening AUD at that time, then in 2001 the company was restructured and contintental European stores were closed, however, last month they announced they were investing £1.1bn expansion program particulary interested in Ireland, China, India and Europe. Hopefully Australia will get into some of the action - we need Marks and Spencer Australia. Here’s Amy in the sandwich isle of the great store -

Amy in M&S - Nice sandwiches in boxes what a great idea

I have to admit it is a sorry state of affairs when I convert all the pound values in Australian dollar, I preferred it much more when I was doing it the other way around! So I didn’t end up buying very much as you might imagine.

New Twenty Pound Note

The next day we went into the Cotswolds which is a nice part of central England that has various old towns and villages to walk around. First stop was Chipping Camden, where we checked out the markets, then Stow on the Wold and then Bourton on the Water, where I had a luxury coffee and we had some scones and a mince pie.

Bourton on the Water

We did a bit more of a drive around to Broadway where we had lunch at a nice pub/hotel called The Lygon Arms, which was built in 1530 and in my opinion was definetly haunted, with its little passage ways and hidden rooms.

That night we headed back into Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Christmas lights, aren’t they beautiful -

Stratford-upon-Avon Christmas Lights

Well goodbye China hello England! There is something very strange about waking up in a hotel room in Shanghai on the East Coast of China and then going to bed in a little village in the middle of England the same night. I’ve mostly been in the loft packing boxes to ship to Australia since I’ve been here, but we did go out for a very strange lunch at a German owned Guesthouse in Stratford-upon-Avon.

I made this video in China just before we left -

Or download a higher quality WMV (60meg) of the video for a crisper experience.

1996 Audi A3 1.8 Sport - Racing Red. £3,400 ono

New break discs and rear tyres. Very fast car, not for the faint hearted. Good runner.

Please contact me via email at gbrewer@gmail.com. Thanks!

So the trip to the other side of the world starts in five days! I really can’t wait, it is so exciting to be going back to Australia. I will also get to see a little bit of Singapore on the way! Great!

So this weekend Kim, Gin and Dino came down from the country for a last farewell and a bit of a party!!! Dino was pleased to see that ASDA were doing 4 bottles x3 for £9!! I would have been happy going halfs on a pack, meaning I’d get six bottles, but Dino wanted to go the whole hog and get 12 bottles each!

To make it fun we attempted to get 12 different beer brands from 12 different countries of the world. We messed up a little bit because we thought that ‘Cools’ was from Canada, when actually it is from Colorado! We also got a Peroni (Italy) from the fridge in ASDA for a cold one on the way (which took the beer count to 13)!

I made it half way around the world before going to sleep, whilst Dino made it to 12 and reluctantly didn’t bother going for No. 13 because Gino and Kim had also fallen asleep as well. We tried to get him to drink it the next morning but he wasn’t interested. The reason for Dino being able to drink so much is possibly because he is still a student and is number one for the search term ‘paris hilton naked‘ at Google Images with safe search turned on (default), which gets on average 12,500 views a month (150,000 a year).

So it was good to see them and funny to hear that ‘Sat Nav’ took Gino in his new Toyota Avensis 3 hours to get out of London, taking them past every London tourist attraction there is. Dino was also obviously fairly happy with himself, as we felt sorry for his poor student life that we donated the rest of the bottles to take back to his campus.

Here are some of the ’snaps’ from the weekend cleverly created using Picasa. Featuring a little walk that Gino, Kim and myself did before meeting Dino at the train station (such highlights included London Bridge, City Ice Rink, Lloyds of London and the Swiss Re building). You can also see our shopping trolley filled with all of the beers for the night!

I was looking at some of the surf reports today and I think I know where I’d rather be (which will not be long now) -

Boscombe, UK - 8th Feb

vs.

Bondi, Aus - 8th Feb

Pictures © A1 Surfcheck and Aquabumps respectively. That is it for now, take it easy and enjoy the UK weather.

This weekend was Matt’s birthday, someone I have worked with for quite a few years now and have enjoyed many a time with. One of our achievements was inventing The Sandwich Game way back in ‘03 , which although seems a bit silly, saved us a pretty penny on lunch sandwiches!

For Matt’s birthday he organised a trip to Wimbledon dog racing to bet on dogs running around a track. It was a fun event although I must admit I lost all my money as none of my dogs seemed to have the ability to win! I applied a ‘past performance’ measure where I studied the form for a race and then based on its previous winnings bet on that one to win. The odds did not seem to reflect this (IMHO) obvious trend!!

Park Life

Also this weekend we made a little trip down town to get some things from Harrods. Unfortunetly the tube was closed to Knightsbridge so we had to get the bus. I took this shot through the window of the bus on the way which I thought was pretty cool and hence placed it on DeviantArt.

Picadilly looking down to Hyde Park Corner - January 2006

Nothing else has really much been happening due to the fact that January is the longest month without getting paid and as such no ££ for doing anything really interesting, I also have to save for the world trip in three weeks time!!

Happy New Year! Thanks for all the emails, Matt D. your one was especially good, very detailed!!

It feels like this is the first time I’ve sat down at home for about three weeks but I think that is actually the case! Just before Christmas kicked off we went down to Tower of London ice rink for a little ice skate around! I’m not very good at ice skating but it was still good fun and I did not fall over once! I even managed to get off the edge of the rink and go around in the middle, sometimes at speeds. My skates were the standard ones you get from the hire place so I blame them for not being as agile as I could be (like you would).

Tower Skate

I worked over the Christmas period to make up for holiday days needed for the trip to ’stralia so I made a trip up to my parents house for Christmas where we had a night out with the boys down town, it was good to see them all as usual and a good night out, especially with Gin having to juggle time between all of his disparate group of friends that he hangs out with!

Kim, Ian, Anders in One Elm, S-U-A

Christmas was great and I got all the presents I could ever have wanted, including, money to spend on events, subscription to Carve magazine, Sniper game for the XBOX, Surf Mug, Surf DVD, Surfing Towel you name it! It even snowed a couple of days after Christmas day -

A light covering of Snow at Christmas

New Year’s Eve was spent in London and was fairly quiet, mostly because the next day was ‘big sunday’ or so it seemed. We went out to Tower Bridge at midnight but were not able to see the fantastic firework display that was going off just around the meander of the river! The tube strikes on NYE meant we had to walk from Waterloo to my flat which is no short distance! I managed to snap some nice Thames shots on the way though -

St. Pauls NYE

The next day we took the drive down to the SE Coast, Boscombe to be precise at the surf forecast was “3ft glassy conditions” - the three magic words for winter surfing for me. It’s a good 1.5 hours drive to Boscombe on a good day (New Years Day has no traffic in London) so unfortunately it appeared I had missed the best of the morning incoming tide. However I did get out there and attempt some of the waves, but it is amazing how quick the cold gets to you and the weight of the 5.3mm wetsuit really takes the energy out of you, so not much surfed, however, a good reason to get a new board!! Wooo!!

A good day!

Every now and then a great wave would come through that would break left right by the shed in the distance, however, these were very few and far between and the English channel doesn’t seem to have any understanding of the phrase ’set’ as a good wave would come and that would be it for 10 minutes!!!

Moustache Magnus was in town from Sweden (here, here, here, here, here, here, here and finally here) pretty much a year to the day that I last saw him on a nice sunny day in Sydney airport as he flew back to Sweden via Thailand.

Magnus arrived late on Friday night and I was pretty much still in tired phase from the work Christmas party the night before, so no partying that night just a little chat in the flat and off to sleep for an early start the next night to go and visit Vic and Mica, our friends from Australia who were currently living in Brighton!

Vic didn’t finish work until 16h00 so we had the morning to kill looking around the shops. Brighton has small pretty cool little back street shops which have pretty good shopping. Up there with some of the London shopping, Magnus particularly liked it for its cheap retro clothes that must be all the fashion in Sweden.

We finally met up with Vic and Mica in a random Brighton bar for a couple of drinks, we then continued onto a Chinese “all you can eat” place which included ice cream, it was superb! (Apart from the long drive back to London on a full stomach straight after!!)

Vic, Mica, Magnus, Me

You might not of heard but London was nearly under a big black cloud for most of the weekend ‘toxic cloud to reach London by Saturday’ read some of the papers. It was pretty scarey as you can see from this picture -

Foggy London for real

We didn’t let it stop us. The next day we did a shopping tour of London, starting off in Camden and then making our way down to Neal Street in Covent Garden and then finally ending up on Regent Street to see the Christmas lights this year. They are the best I think I’ve seen and the corporate sponsorship was to a minimum -

Guess the sponsor

In Woolloomooloo, the locals there are always banging on about this ale called ‘Coopers’. Day in day out, Coopers, Coopers, Coopers, that is all you would hear. They drank so much of it you couldn’t go into a room without seeing an empty long neck or some bottle caps with the logo on. One of Woolloomooloo’s oldest tales was Coopers was not available in UK, as it was a ’stralian ale and so was meant to stay in ’stralia. Here is Magnus happily purchasing as much Coopers as he could buy to take back on the plane to Sweden from my local Quickie Mart, here in London, England -

Coopers! In London!! In a corner shop!! Not possible!!

That night we headed up to Shoreditch and had a few beers (pretty dead but it was Sunday) and also had some food at Macondo after a huge luncheon meal at All Bar One, so the night drew to a close and we were ready for the final full day in London for some tourist stuff.

We actually went inside the City Hall here in London, which I did not think you were allowed to do. You can only go to the second floor but it was still pretty cool to have a look around at the insane spiral walkway that run through the centre of the building, we then headed to Tate Modern to see some messed up art, including this giant sugarcube maze -

Sugar Cube Maze @ Tate Modern

We then headed to the National Gallery and saw some cool photographs in an exhibition called ‘Living in Hell and Other Stories‘ which was basically modern photographs inspired by old masters.

What would be a weekend in London without finishing up in a Knightsbridge Jazz Club? After pulling some strings with some Jazz contacts we managed to get tickets for Curtis Stigers at Pizza on the Park. I liked the music, I almost went into a Jazz trance a few times whilst listening to the times Curtis was banging out. They were all instrumental legends -

Curtis Jazz Trance

Sadly Magnus had to go back to Sweden, but a trip to Sweden myself has been pencilled in for next summer, providing Magnus passes his driving test! A great weekend and sad to have to wave goodbye to my surfing buddy again! The End.

An ancedote. I am forever reminded by ‘old’ people when you are young to ‘enjoy it whilst it last because life goes fast when you get older’ or something along those lines.

The reality is that time goes pretty much constant for everyone (apart from Matt the Pilot - see Twin Paradox).

However, it does not explain why when I was young I seem to remember having to wait what seemed like an eternity for the next morning to come along so I could eat another one of the advent calendar chocolates. Now, I find myself having to catch up with my chocolate advent calendar by a few days everytime I go to open another one of the doors! So it must be true, time does go faster when you get a bit older.

And finally, on a technical note, fans of Google Personal Homepage who also like to go surfing will be pleased to know they can now have Global Surfari World Forecasts DIRECT to their personalised page via Google’s new Google Homepage API!! Click ‘add content’, ‘custom section’ and then paste in http://globalsurfari.com/gs.xml to get the Global Surfari Module on the personalised page. It will look something like this -

I am in the process of making a video of the weekend, but I currently have the worse cold ever (that or some form of swimming pool disease from swimming in 30 degree water then walking home in 6 degree British winter).