soledad penadés

repeat 4[fd 100 rt 90]

This is a series of pictures shot at the toilettes of a pub in Old Street. I was so deeply moved by the message, and I also had my camera with me, so here you have the result!

Warning: depending on your specific case, this might not be work-safe.

I love old selotape!

Someone proclaims her love for the most unsuspected item to think of in a night out (I love old selotape), someone else believes her (I believe you!), and someone else gets worried about the spelling of selotape (Is that spelt correctly?).

This one made me think a lot, not only because selotape is wrongly spelt (I think the right one is cellotape although wikipedia's cellotape also says sellotape is how it is known in UK), but because I tried to guess if that had a hidden message. Maybe wrapping people with old cellotape is the new sexual trend and we still don't know!!

Fuck like you're being filmed

Although being painted in a shy, pale purple, now that's a message! This one motivated a couple of replies in the following picture:

No. I don't fuck I make love / And I make love like I'm being filmed

First reply -No. I don't fuck I make love- is written with that kind of plastic paint that you used when you were a child. Then someone comes with an alternative and solomonic solution: And I make love like I'm being filmed. You can't argue against that one! So maybe that's why there are no follow-up's to the topic.

I wouldn't want to take me home

Another one which made think. Why not? Is she so drunk she doesn't want to take herself home, or she doesn't believe she is the right person to go home with - and has just discovered it in the bath, right now!?

Stop bitching, start a revolution

Here we go with more strong messages. Probably she felt annoyed with so many trivial topics. Also I believe there's always a couple of this style of messages at every bath you go… something like Fuck the system, Viva la revolución, Hasta la victoria siempre, etc. So she wasn't that innovative at the end.

War 4 peace is like fuckin 4 virginity

And yes there are always mentions to war, peace, etc. But this one goes further and merges war, peace, fuck and virginity. What a bunch of controversial questions.

Alabama 3, I love you!!

I presume this has some meaning. Which only the one which wrote the text can understand, because I particularly can't! Is there any movie called Alabama 3? and if there is, how come I haven't heard of Alabama and Alabama 2? Maybe it is a music group… yes… I just googled it: Alabama 3 is an english music group. As we say in Spain, you never end a day without learning something.

I like cocks but I think I would also like cunts. What should I do?

She's undecided. But she should have left a telephone number or e-mail address; these issues shouldn't be discussed publicly. Maybe that's why nobody replied.

I love Jerry

She's got a clear mind. This is pure love, definitely. Innocence at its best.

Suck my tits / and lick my clit / eat my shit / and suck his duck

Modern poetry (or kind of…)

Baths are literature places, isn't it?

I can't agree more with her!

Almost two years ago, I arrived in London at night, 14th september if I'm not wrong. Flight 5138 from Barcelona, with a 25 kg suitcase and a HEAVY phosphorescent orange label on it. Following day I caught the 6 with mrdoob. He left at Edgware Road and I continued until Marble Arch, and just started walking by Oxford Street.

Last time I had been there, it had been at the very rush hour in the afternoon, an animated scene with musicians and lots of tourists shopping and flowing in any direction. And how weird it looked in the morning, with the shops still closed (or almost opening), people rushing for getting to work, all of them with a plastic coffee cup in their hands, some of them even with a croissant or any other pastry. I looked at them curiously, while I was beginning to explore London by myself. I hadn't much more to do, in any case.

I also had a funny mix of places and geography in my mind. All the churches looked to me as if they were St. Martins in the Fields, and even with a map in my hands and being able to watch the Centre Point I still got lost in my erratic way, ending up in circles just around where I work now! I love these coincidences.

Some months ago I had to rush each time I had to buy anything at this area, since most of the shops close at 18.30-19 (I must confess I hate it) and there was no @£$@$£@ way I could get out of the office before 17.30 (I even hated more that fact). And now that we finally moved to the London place it's just getting out the office and being surrounded by everything! No more need for rushing or letting the shopping for the week-end. I feel like in civilisation again, somehow.

And I can also go there by bus, which is something that I hadn't been able to experience yet (I had to go by tube since it was so far that if I had used a bus I would have had to wake up one hour earlier). And I can come back walking which is a delice with all the things which are waiting to be seen in the way back…

I can't be happier! :D 8-> (well, actually I can but I'll leave it for a future post :P ) =d> \:D/

I submitted some applications for several jobs at the beginning of past month, and my life has not been the same since then. At the beginning I just had a little time for having lunch from 12.30 to 13. All the other hours, from 9 to 17.30, were a constant riiiiing riiiiing riiiiing from stressed recruiters which most of the times didn't have a clue on what they were talking about and even more insisted in me describing the topics in which I was interested for a future job.

I even had to deter one of those brilliant recruiters asking stupid questions: are you really asking me to describe you what is AJAX? are you really interested in it? do you know what is XML? not at all? then why are you asking me this?

At the beginning I even thought that recruitment agencies did a good service, resulting in a good selection of apt candidates and removing the useless applications. But come in, how are they going to distinguish between a bad and a good candidate if they don't know what they are talking about?

There were too some agencies which were specialised in IT skills, and knew what they had to ask. Even though, they add too much overhead to the process. They ask you to fill questionaries, answer stupid tests which anybody can (and should) reply just by googling a bit - which makes the whole thing clumsy. Frankly, those questions are of no-use for day to day work. That kind of
superspecific questions about the TCP/IP protocol or a weird SQL query for Oracle server version blah will appear on a real-life job one time in 25 years, approximately. Even less if your work involves the development of web applications.
And that's not all. Since I got my current job -not by an agency but contacting directly the company- I still have had recruiters calls. Lots of them, actually. They are beginning to be really annoying. I finally have started to not to reply to any number which is hidden. But when you pick the phone, even if it's just for being educated, and after politely listening to their introduction you tell them that thank you but I got a job already, it's their turn for impertinence:

- So where do you work now?
- I'm afraid but that's not your business
- No, I can't do anything with the name, which company is it?
- I am not going to tell you, thank you
- And where is it located?
- Why do you want to know it?
- Could I know approximately how much is the salary?
(then I hang down the phone)

Come on, recruiters. Who do you think you are? You look like amateur gossipers, not skilled professionals on which an employee can rely! Would you trust a "somebody" calling you with a withheld phone number and asking you such kind of personal details?

Ridiculous…

We went yesterday evening to fruitstock'06. That is a music, fruits and innocence festival, but they also sold beer. Quite a lot of beer indeed! It is held in Regent's Park in London, quite near Baker Street, literary home of Sherlock Holmes!
I had misestimated the weather and arrived with my old sneakers, just in case the grass was wet or something like that but found that
a) there was not such green wet grass, after the extremely long heatwave we've had/suffered
b) it was extremely hot (even hotter because of the sneakers)

Luckily all my sufferings were payed when we went to the extremely long queue for buying drinks. There was a small counter for the thirsty people, and I'm going to do a little non-scientific estimation: the counter was about 6 metres long and there were like 4 people in a one-metre long row. 6×4 = 24 people in one row. There were approximately 6 row before reaching the counter, so that makes 144 people waiting to be served by just around 8 people (I can't tell that exactly since I never managed to see them all… but maybe they were less). That means that each barista had to serve 144/8 = 18 people.

And that explains the long time we spend there. It allowed us for missing almost all Nouvelle Vague live and the beginning of Norman Jay's one.

Once you got the drinks (at least they gave you like a carry-drinks thing) you had to find a way back to where your friends are, passing over hundreds of people sitting in the grass, picnic style. And I was feeling very sorry about having to spill beer over them, as we had to do all kinds of contortions, bends and twists for not stepping over the belongings (and feet) of the people, and obviously sometimes some beer went out of the glasses, and thus fell over the people. But I realised there was not any way of arriving without spilling beer over the people and sometimes stepping over their mats, so I had to do it. Next time maybe the organization could try to stablish some kind of paths so that everybody can walk over them without annoying anyone else, and without having to feel how people spills beer over your toes.
That last reason was the one which relieved me of having arrived with sneakers and not with flipflops - I hate the feeling of cold drink slipping between my little toes X(
Then the sound system was not as loud as it should have been, I think. It was complicated to listen to what they said from the stage - unless you're in the very first row but it was impossible to get there, and the artists weren't that interesting (although it was nice to listen to Gipsy Woman!).

I didn't enjoy the other activities which were proposed, mainly because I couldn't see/find them (so many people was there) but they looked interesting. Oh and another fact I liked was that when we left the place we noticed there were security men preventing people to enter until more people had left, for avoiding the crowd to grow too big. That is extremely good thinking!

On the other hand the ambient was quite relaxed, there was nice people as the organisation had described the festival, so it wasn't a bad evening. I like the idea of having festivals in parks in London (although I feel sorry for the grass as well), and to be able to just take a bus or a tube home when you feel tired - and be at home in 20 minutes.

Fruitstock is still on today so if you read this on Sunday the 6th you can still visit it! But bring your drinks from home and avoid long queues!

… it was meant to be posted from a more original location than my home - in fact I planned to write it from the train coming back home. I read about it yesterday, the ad promised free wi-fi in the London-Brighton route, and as I do a small part of the travel now with this line (Clapham Junction-Victoria) I thought I would try… but nothing, no networks available, "nada" ;)

So yes I'm now going to my new job by train, instead of commuting by Tube. Which I must admit has relieved me a lot, since I don't have to go through Victoria's supermegacrowded platforms in the morning or change at King's Cross with other hundreds of mind-absent conmmuters which don't know what's the meaning of KEEP LEFT and continue going randomly wherever they feel is better. Ahhh the tube!

And I discovered yesterday that one can change between different train lines, even if they are operated by different companies, and that's supergreat, since it enables me to not to have to travel to Waterloo and then take the train. I can take it directly at Victoria and change in Clapham. Which is much better than doing a marathon in Waterloooo (can't stop remembering ABBA's song and that scene in Muriel's Wedding each time I think of Waterloo… damn once again… Waterloo! and Muriel's dressed in white… ouch! Waterloo, nana-nara-na, na-naranaaaa… ABBA in eurovision is amazing).

My confusion originates mainly because in Spain trains are basicly ran by one company (Renfe) excepting some cases like Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, on certain areas near the big towns. So I am kind of used to believe that if you want to change between train lines you have to pay twice, as we do for example in Valencia - one ticket for Renfe routes, another ticket for Ferrocarrils… But here in London there is a different company for each different area where you head: Southern Rail, SouthWest trains, etc… And also seems like there's some kind of agreement between companies so you can change between their lines as I discovered luckily. So I start on a Southern's train and change to a SouthWest's one.
The most ironic point is that Clapham Junction's motto is Britain's busiest station. Even though, it feels better to change there than at King's Cross. May it be because it's open air. I don't know…

And if that wasn't enough, finally seems like the cool guys at untergrund.net have managed to solve some weird issues we had with the account they nicely provided us to continue escena.org there. So there's still hope in the spanish scene!! Stay tuned, since there's something in the oven…