easy… tiger

Am I missing something here? So Stelios Haji-Ioannou (the man behind the expensive yet marketed as cheap) easyjet has bought a heap of easy related domains. Including easyhotel and easypizza. This makes him an entrepreneur allegedly. A number of easyXXX websites state”We are currently investigating business opportunities in the XXX market.”
I could do that too but it doesn’t make me an entrepreneur! In fact ‘easyvalue’ is simply a rebranded kelkoo (luckily it’s the same brand colour).
I’m still wondering how people think easyjet is cheap though.
A quick search for a weekend in Amsterdam (leave friday around 7 and return sunday around the same time) reveals the price for easyjet ?401.96 and for bmi ?398.80 and for BA ?449.40 – hardly a cheap airline then – in fact more average priced I would say.
And as for ‘easyhotel’ who would really want to sleep in a bright orange room. Sorry Stelios but that’s taking branding too far.

Purple in the Park

Purple was fun. Met Andrew before hand and then met Paulie in the park followed by Colin who I haven’t seen in ages. Then Scally and the usual blogger suspects. Jonathan and Markie and Ian. I also met up with Steve who was over from Amsterdam for the weekend.
I eventually made it home earlyish as I am travelling down to Farborough to see my niece and assorted family on the Sunday.

weekend in review

Friday night in Ikea shocker! okay so you know you are past it when the most exciting thing that happens on a friday night is you and spence go to Ikea for food and shopping. Then onto Asda – I mean how low can I sink? Oh believe me it got worse as then I needed to put my newly bought furniture together and so I got to bed around 3. Sad eh?

Okay so I made up for a sad Friday night by having a brilliant Saturday night spent in the presence of the Ice Queen.

Remember the stag party in amsterdam? Well Ben and Vic got married last weekend in Sweden [at the icehotel™] and Vic wore a wedding dress for the occasion. This weekend they had the reception in York House and it was beautiful they had fake snow, ice sculptures and enough absolut to keep me happy. So they kept with the swedish and ice theme from the wedding. They truly made a stunning couple – and I don’t normally get all gooey at weddings but this one even had me mushy.

I was amazed how long it is since I saw so many of the people there as well. And they are all doing so much – Gavin even played in the band 🙂

amsterdam from another viewpoint

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been to amsterdam now and yet my trip this weekend was very different from any of my previous ones. When I lived in Tilburg in the south of the netherlands I visited Amsterdam frequently. I visited friends and more recently had a partner living there.

This weekend I saw the city in an entirely different light.

The weekend started off as usual with me getting merry at the bmi [british midland] lunge at heathrow before food and champagne on the flight and arriving in a much more relaxed mood than I left!

Steve met me at the airport and we went back to his for some more drinks and got ready to go and hit the town.

Aprils, Havana and a few more drinks later and it was time to catch some zeds.

Saturday was an entirely different ballgame. I arrived at Schipol to meet Ben a friend from my old work and a few of his mates for a stag party. Now this is definitely new to me – normally the people I know have no urge to get married even if they could so it was strange to have 13 heterosexuals in one place.

Once Ben and I had sorted the hotel and bus fares out we all headed off to the hotel. Now call me paranoid but I was always the one at school who was last to be picked for the footy team. I mean always last – even the fat kids got picked before me. We had 3 doubles and 4 twins for 14 of us so that was 2 per room and funnily enopugh I was last to be picked – even though I had paid for all the rooms 🙂

Anyways we all headed to our rooms and got changed and met downstairs around midday for our first drink – I needed mine badly to cure the hangover and shakes from the night before.

Then we headed into town – now here is the paradox – we walked past the part of town I normally head for and ended up on Damrak. the server in McDonalds had the nerve to ask me in dutch if I wanted sauce with my McNuggets Kip merely because I had asked in my most faltering dutch. I had to look at her blankly and ask for an english translation which was kind of embarrasing!

After sustinance we headed immediately for the red light district. Now as I was saying I have been to the city a number of times before, the red light district on the other hand is entirely new to me. We ogled half naked girls and wandered into sex shops selling donkey porn, granny porn and much more in between. We saw virtualskin™ and prosthetic fists and forearms before finally settling in a bar. The rest of the night is a blur except I remember there being no food and an awful lot of alcohol. We also managed to take in the Banana Bar. for those of you familiar I need explain no more. For those in the audience with whom the thought of men and women having intercourse is off putting, you may wish to skip the rest of this paragraph. We watched a live sex show with some very bored dutch people attempting to look erotic whilst actually proving that keeping some clothes on is often more erotic than taking all of them off. It also dispelled the myth that all black men are hung – the one I saw certainly wasn’t – mind you he was having difficulty getting a stiff anyways and with his co-star laughing uncontrolably whilst giving him head I’m sure it wasn’t easy. In fact the only one who looked like she was enjoying herself was the girl who pulled a 6 feet length of chain out of her beaver. I was happily wondering how much drugs she could smuiggle up there but I’m sure the rest of the audience were wondering what else they could put up there. I have never been referred to as a pervert quite so often in a 1 hour period either.

Teasers was also on the list of must do Stag party venues so we ended up there and that is where I lost the plot and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday was more of the same really lots of bars, coffee shops and wandering past scantily clad whores with very little food and even less energy. The only one of us who looked even vaguely alive was Si who had dropped a pill [or paracetemol bought off some dodgy street corner dealer] and was a bit hyper. I’m sure he would have been buzzing from the orange buds he had had earlier in the day anyways.

Photo’s and quotes to follow…

wonderful weekend

what a lovely and relaxing weekend it was – steve came over from amsterdam on friday and we managed to see each other a lot considering he is trying to move flats over the next few weekends he is over in London – when I say move flats what I actually mean is giveup his flat in London in favour of a permenant base in amsterdam.

Saturday evening saw spence and his other half glen plus random chicken, with scally and his other half rick, joining steve and I for dinner before heading off to sports and shorts for a night of fun and very little debauchery – well compared to last time anyway. I was on my best behaviour with hubby in tow. jonathan had the channel 4 film crew in tow and all in all it seemed a little more subdued than usual. The cabaret was fantastic though – scally was right about ‘gaydar the musical’ it was hilarious – all I remember though is if you say your versatile you are a whore allegedly!

Steve reminisced about the lack of cabaret let alone decent cabaret in amsterdam. Hey who needs cabaret when you can have a night out at IT club with 1001 drag queens dressed as cruella de ville?

fantastic weekend

Jacs and I enjoyed a really nice weekend with fantastic hospitality. We arrived and were met at Schipol by Steve and then went back for some drinks with LIsa, Phil and Conchita. Went into town for a few more beers and then made some plans for the weekend.

Saturday was spent at Binnen Hof shopping and eating and drinking – a very relaxed day with nothing more strenuous than trying on new clothes and choosing which flowers would go best with Steve’s decor.

Saturday evening we met the usual suspects in Reguliersdwarsstraat starting at Havana and then were joined by Sabine and Alexander, Sabine looked after Jacs and I nearly 10 years ago when we lived in Tilburg and it was nice to carch up with her and hubbie. We hadn’t seen her since February last year so we had a lot of catching up to do, we followed with a meal which was excellent and then more drinks in Montmarte, followed by the Mix bar.

Sunday was a day of rest before the obligatory [and I do mean obligatory] April’s Happy Hour – it is the place to be and be seen in Amsterdam on a Sunday evening between 6-8pm. Drinks are 2 for 1 and it finishes early enough to allow you to make it into work on a Monday without a sore head.

All in all a fantastic time – oh and I am now the proud owner of my first ever football top – of course I went for style – and ended up with an Ajax away top – a lovely grey and cream number 😉 All ready for Satuday’s Sports and shorts!

Amsterdam

I’m jetting off to see the boyf again this weekend – but with a twist I’m going with my best friend so that should be interesting. Jacs was feeling down a few weeks ago so I treated us to some flights out to Amsterdam were we can meet up with some of our old Uni mates, Sabine and Frances [Dippy] and of course Steve and his mates.

Looking forward to a lovely relaxed and fun weekend – here’s to business class free booze in the lounge before we get there and champagne on the flight – we shoud be in the mood by the time we arrive 🙂

I also have to look for a hotel for my mates stag party at the end of november – he’s having the wedding at the icehotel™ in sweden so why not have the stag out of the country as well!

they may change the name

but it isn’t to protect the innocent…

Connex were bad but South Central are just as bad. Steve is going back to Amsterdam today so he was leaving mine ot go home and collect his stuff first. We arrived at Streatham Common around midday to get a ticket – there was a long queue so we tried the ticket machines – both out of service and only one ticket window open, by 12:37 having missed 3 trains and no nearer being served we gave up and I drove him to Tooting Bec tube station. So when the goverment tell you to use public transport don’t bother drive instead.

cough splutter

okay so I dragged myself back to the doctors this morning as my chest really hadn’t improved since my infsction a few weeks ago and I now have a new set of antibiotics. I had a choice in fact [kid in a candy store comes to mind] I could have scary sounding ones 4 a day which might make me ill over the weekend whilst in Amsterdam or I could have the other similar ones twice a day without feeling ill. So I am on the 4 a day NOT!

I also have to admit that on saturday night I was gobsmacked that Jonathan had invited his GP to the party. Today after seeing Dr Foster again I think I might invite him to my 40th, he was really sweet asked about Steve and stuff. So yeah might see if I bump into him around town