Thursday, October 12, 2006

Domestic Thursday

After a bout of food poisoning last night (the same as American food poisoning, except the output is measured in metric), I awoke to moving day here at the Lincoln House Hotel. My original reservation over, I faced prospect of having to switch rooms as many as five times throughout the duration of my stay.

It took me almost two hours to get everything ready: shoved into bags and suitcases; sorted, folded and prioritized. On my way out, I stopped at the desk to drop off my key, and to see about minimizing the amount of my remaining time I'd have to spend packing and unpacking. The staff informed me that there was good news: I wouldn't have to move at all. Which is great, but I could have used that information a bit earlier.

I wandered off to do my laundry. A single load in the Primus Economy 7 machine at my local laundrette costs £4.40 to wash, plus 60p for each nine minutes of drying. So my load of laundry, which was still wet when I pulled it out of the dryer (having run out of 20p coins) cost about $11 American. One load, not counting the box of detergent I had to buy. There was a sign posted which read: "Please Attendant for Change," which is something I'm not sure I'd be willing to do. At any rate there was no attendant to please. Another man at the laundrette seemed to have inherited some of my traveler's luck. His machine kept bursting open, sending sudsy water streaming all over. The first time the door opened, as the water was gushing out, he shrugged helplessly a couple of times, then looked at me and said "Shit," with no inflection whatsoever. He had to hold the door shut with his knee to get through the spin cycle.

There were a bunch of trucks and such on the corner for a film shoot. I approached a red-headed gaffer in his mid-40's with a nose ring and a skull t-shirt and asked him a couple of questions. They're shooting a film called And When Did You Last See Your Father, with Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth. The gaffer was astonishingly friendly, especially compared to most members of American film crews, who don't like to answer questions and just want you to get the hell away from their location. I caught sight of Mr. Broadbent peering out a third story window, which makes him my official celebrity sighting for the trip.

And no: I didn't take that picture.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

seriously, no! You shouldn't "illistrate" it with a different pic as cc2383 requested. It's fab. Not fab four. Fab. You're in my top million! Refreshing to see there's a "silver lining" in every blogger's realm.

The Moon Topples said...

Well, Anon, I'm very glad to be in your top milion. I made cc2383 aware that I had no choice but to post her comment with the spelling glitch (I cannot edit comments, just approve or deny them). My guess is that she'll be a little more careful in the future. A "silver lining," eh? Interesting choice of phrase. It has many meanings. Care to elucidate?

The Moon Topples said...

Well, in my experiance, if you're going to illistrate that someone is abad speller, you should aways provide many examples of the bad spelling or their going to attach you're examples and proove you rong.

My guess is that she's just typing fast.

The Moon Topples said...

Really, really fast.

Anonymous said...

"Elucidate?" Hmmm, if you could hear my pencil scratching... Still some incertitude there? If I told you to kiss my grits, you might surmise it decoursly. The brash bitch that I am... I'm a fan in perpetuum so go easy on me. Thanks for the great reads, by the way.

The Moon Topples said...

Ahhhh. I have sussed out your identity. Glad you've started commenting. I know you've been reading for a while.

Now, please: keep the noise down. I'm trying to write.