A Big Blue Cock


Well, it was lovely to see my father in law ( to be) in London today. He was cheerful and avuncular as   always, but external factors made the rest of the visit to a rather hot and over crowded capital rather less than totally enjoyable.
First was the tube strike.
This necessitated several forced marches on packed over heated streets and one 10£ aborted taxi ride of 100 yards down a gridlocked Strand.
Second was a piss poor meal grabbed at a pub not far from Charring Cross ( our original lunch booking was at a rather nifty gastro pub in Bloomsbury- owing to the aforementioned tube strike we had to change our plans)
And Third was a disappointingly shite comic version of The Thirty Nine Steps in Piccadilly.
Now some of the production was mildly amusing and inventive, but I had already lost the will to live as soon as a hundred schoolgirls marched into the stalls in front of us, each one clutching a bag of crisps.
I am typing this on the train home. I am sweaty, tired, worried that Eirlys' front room has  been decimated by three terriers and a hormonal bulldog and am irritated  that I have spent far too much in Marks and Spencer's food hall.
Having said all this, it was lovely to see my father in law....and I am grateful ( honest I am......I'm a good girl I am!) for the chance to have a day out.
The highlight of the trip?
Apart from a few hours with my fiancée and FIL doing something different.
It was the fucking big blue cockerel in Trafalgar Square
Cracking

62 comments:

  1. Yes, there are days like that.
    Bummer !

    cheers, parsnip

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  2. I hope that when you come home, Eirlys' front room is neat and tidy and that your furry ones cleaned up after themselves. How long has the strike been going on?

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    1. First of a few " one offs" I am afraid
      I am still worried about eirlys's front room, William had the shits this morning

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  3. Nice cock John. Shame about the crisps.

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    Replies
    1. Funnily enough... No one's ever said that to mebefore

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    2. You surprise me!
      Jane xx

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    3. Anonymous11:00 pm

      What size shoe do you wear?

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  4. Anonymous6:25 pm

    If you're a good girl, wouldn't you have a fiancé with one e?

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  5. Love the cockerel but cannot imagine what it is doing in Trafalgar Square. They have never made a version of the Thirty Nine Steps better than the original version in my opinion. Are you revealing the date of the Big Day or have we all got to wait until it is all over before we know about it?

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    1. Not officially letting the cat out of the bag pat.... But I will xx

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  6. You need a big blue cock weather vane for the Ukranian village.

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    1. Excellent idea!!!

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    2. He needs a big blue cock like he needs a hole in the head, Joanne.

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    3. Yes, few people would want that. But, a weather vane would be tres cool.

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  7. I hate matinées. Not only do you get schoolchildren in parties, but it's not at all unusual for the main cast members to think of them as a chance to have an afternoon off and send in the understudy. My mother was terribly disappointed when, having spent a month's pension to take my sister and me to see Chicago, the two leading ladies couldn't be bothered to turn up.
    I really enjoy some of the fourth plinth art, worth a trip to London for. And I loved it when they gave it to members of the public to perform, an hour at a time.

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    1. It's wonderful
      I love the colour it's amazing
      I just wish It was staying

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  8. Anonymous6:44 pm

    The big blue bird is impressive....wouldn't you like a nice rooster weathervane for your cottage? See how I avoided the use of the word....oops....almost lost it there.

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  9. maybe the big blue cock was placed there to great tom?

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  10. Thanks for the photo of the blue cock on the plinth. Makes me think of not just football for a change. xx

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  11. Last time we were gridlocked in London was because of the snow. Everything stopped even peoples manners x

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  12. London is crazy sometimes. You should have used Boris bikes. They are actually really handy

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  13. Always have to pop to Trafalgar Square on visit to the City... it's ten mins from Waterloo Station where I land.

    HATE it when audience too noisy !!

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  14. well glad to see you had a nice day in the city it is allways great fun meeting up with the inlaws this is what makes it great to have a home and dogs etc to greet you when you get back and the day you had melts away in the past

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    1. Eirlys dropped off the dogs before we got home..... I left her a bottle of wine and chocs in her honesty box ( she sells eggs on the other side of the village)

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  15. Wonder how Tube workers would feel if doctors and nurses went on strike...

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    1. With their wages they would have private health insurance

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  16. Ermergerd!! The 39 Steps is the funniest play I have ever seen! :( But then when we were in Londond we were quite taken aback by how mediocre West End shows were - we expected them to teach us a thing or two about how to make better theatre and we came away thinking we could teach THEM. I totally empathise, there are just too many frigging people in London entirely and with the tubes down, I imagine that's about 300,000 people above ground trying to get somewhere that would normally be down under, according to my rough calculations!

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    1. It WAS clever
      But I think I wasn't quite in the mood for it

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    2. I firmly believe that if you'd seen the production here in Wellington in ANY mood you'd have loved it. Don't let them thesps off the hook!

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  17. Some people go to London to see
    Big Ben and his clock
    But if your name is John Gray
    You are confronted by a cock!

    (A big blue one that is)

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  18. if the cock is blue, then relieve it man! release its pent-up energy!
    ;-b

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  19. When I saw the post title I thought either you or Chris had been sat in the freezer again!!

    The things you'll use as your titles just to get more readers......

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    Replies
    1. Draw em in sue
      Draw em in

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    2. My next blog title is
      Fannies and titties
      It's all about 1960s cookery presenters and characters from Arthur ransome novels

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    3. I wouldn't put it past you ;-)

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  20. Better a big blue cock than a small blue cock!! LOL

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  21. I was going to shorthand the reference to that work of art...and now BBC has another meaning. I'm sure Monty Python could have made something of that...

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  22. Better than big blue balls!!!! :) cock-a-doodle-doo

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  23. Anonymous11:18 pm

    Hot in London? Nooooooo. I can stay home for that.

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  24. The post title certainly got my attention!

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  25. Blue cock is not a condition I have ever suffered from. It sounds painful.

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  26. When London is like that, go to Swansea

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  27. Sounds like one crazy day....probably good to be home with the shitting dog and hormonal Winnie! But did get to visit with FIL!

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  28. And you told ME once I had the best blog entry header every for a post. I think this takes the cake.

    You'll love this. There is a restaurant here in Houston, TX that goes by the name "The BRC". Everyone calls it that and asks why. There is a giant, bright red cock out front on the corner. So it's the Big Red Cock. I love hearing people go "do you want to the BRC for dinner?" and they are clueless. (and not very observant apparently, ha).

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    1. Oh, maybe one of these days I'll swing by and snap a photo so i can show you our BRC.

      WAIT! Does that mean yours is the BBC?

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  29. I must be the only one who wants to know what you treated yourself to in M+S...........

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    1. Wine and chocs for dog sitters and chicken lockeruppers

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  30. Schoolkids at a theatre showing can be murder! (At least one wants to!)
    At the Olivier once I attended a performance of 'The Crucible' when on the other side of the large auditorium during the performance, just one member of a large, teacher-chaperoned group of school children opened a packet of crisps. Even though I was more than 50 yards away, for the next twenty minutes it was 'crunch, rustle, crunch, rustle, crunch'. And did any of the teachers or anyone else say anything? Have a guess. I was only surprised that the cast on stage didn't stop the performance.
    But you experienced MANY of the girls at your attendance having crisps? Well, I would have wanted to walked out before they'd even started - but West End seat prices need careful judgment before throwing away for nothing.

    Btw: I though that production of '39 Steps' had had good reviews. Maybe it was a case of the theatre pulling out chosen words from indifferent critical write-ups and arranging the letters into something positive.

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  31. Love this comment by Boris Johnson. Asked to expand on a particular piece of art criticism by representatives of the French press, Johnson replied: "C'est un jeu d'esprit, c'est une blague" ("It's a witticism, a joke"), but added that he was proud to be the mayor of the sixth-largest French city (home, as it is, to 250,000 French nationals, he said).
    I think the fourth plinth is a brilliant idea. Love the blue cock.
    So sorry your day was rather fraught. It sounds as though the irritation quotient was just too high. I hate leaving our dogs even for short periods in the care of other people and realise I am now being controlled by a 'tyranny' of dogs! Hope today restores your peace.

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  32. The cockerel is terrific and demonstrates that the French have finally managed a successful invasion. Shame you didn't enjoy 39 Steps, we saw it and found it great fun, although we didn't have hoards of crisp-munching kids in front of us. The tube strike was a pain...it took as two and a half hours to get home last night for a journey that should take 40 mins...and there's worse next week...

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  33. Ah... You see..., after reading and commenting on your "restng bare arse on the soil" temperature detection system in a higher post I was rather alarmed that the title of this post was going to lead to a photo of another point on that scale. Not sure if I am now relieved or disappointed.

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  34. Someday you will look back on this day, and laugh. It might take a decade or so.

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