Pregley shots

Hi folks, here some recent pregley shots of Ash.

Recovery

So anyways, as you will have all noticed with yr regular checking and what-not, this durn blog got took down. (Thanks for telling me). I'm guessing it hit six months with no post or summat.
So I sent an email to the bowels of google and -lo and behold - they put it back up! Think I outflanked 'em with my legal jargon and my 'what about doing no evil??!!' and such.
Also: Consider this blog reborn as a journey along the internal calendar that is childbirth. Methinks there will be no actual geographical adventures for a time so we'll all have to make do with the miracle of life instead. OK?

The unbearable lightness of being charged so little for beer

Hi kids,
Just a quick one cos right now breakfast is waiting. Myself (that's english for me) Ash and Ash's mum Julie have been in Prague for 2 nights. We're staying at the 'Orchid room', a privately rented apartment located on the west side of the river amongst all the consulates and pretty buildings. While a tad more
pricey than hostel(-ile?) style accom (20 quid each per night) these places rebalance the bang/buck ratio just nicely, and it means we aren't subjecting -the extreme sport in her stride taking, don' get me wrong- Julie to our usual camping/hobo-ing methods like we did in Scotland a few weeks back. Tis nice.
Anyways, we off to Chesky Crumlov today to see castle action, then on to Buddha-pest to do whatever people do there (eat, judging by the country name, although the folks of Bangkok always seemed to prefer casual dress, so mebbe my cultural understanding still needs kneading.)
Here's us...

Builings with faux 3-D fx; they invented space invaders here too...


This is the place we ate; awesome paintings on the walls.Hope they never get outed by Lonely Bastard.


Ashley finds her dream man several times...













Here's a communist intelligence test from back in the day...


Michael my friend, have a gander at that. That is half a duck (and a pair of gooses). No longer will I bow in submission to yr turkey leg (sorry to make personal references...) This is out in the back eating section of the aforementioned cafe/bar. The wall is covered with pics of the owners/staff in spots all over the globe. Nice one.
Please note Julie's London tan is coming along nicely.











Relaxing time on the river. Beer prices float upward 100%+ to nearly 2/3 of London prices. You have been warned!?!

point three reoccuring

Happy birthday Ashie. 1/3 of the way there. Still no signs of maturation. Love, Leon

toe tinglin' hilarity

Ha, I recently signed up for Adsense to be added to our blogsite. I have no illusions about making my first million, but I figured it couldn't hurt, and it took a fuk of a lot less time to do than signing up with Ausmusic.
Anyways, thought I'd have a gander at the blog today to see if I'd caught any comment fishies (none - bastards!) when I noticed the ad listed was for natural therapy gout treatments. Now I do have no good things to say about snake oil in any form, but the idea that the little google spider chewed up & contemplated my anguished comments to do with my recent affliction, before regurgitating that lil gem just about brings a tear to me goddamn eye. *Sniff*
Anyways, I don't give a rats if you click on the ads (there, contractual obligation met) but if you're interested in my new range of holistic pod treatments gimme a call...

will oeuvre jew

hi folks,
just thought I'd plug one in whilst I'm here alone but still awake.
Unawares those that be: My delightful other half is currently wending her way across Australia (ADEL/BRIS/ADEL - boomerang style; that's some Australian humour there.) She has already slayed the rare & delicious defacto visa bird (like a half parasite half host, with compulsive migratory habits) & we're all very pleased about that. She returns next thursday just in time to greet summer in london.
My partner in sibling ribaldry has also decided to do a flyby down that end for 3 weeks, hitting Darwin, with glances at Syd & Melb. No doubt she's having a grand (if sweaty) time of it also. Bastards both.
Me, I've just spent the last week suffering my 2-3 yearly bout of gout, the affliction of the glamourous or thereabout. Fun fun. Though this wonderful disease (afflicting a 90% male population - next time I hear about the ordeal of secret womens' business I'm gonna offer amateur protological advice off my cuff goddammit!!) has historical links with high living eating drinking etc. None of which I seem to have benefited from as a prelude. Just cos yr really keen: Gout occurs when yr kidneys can't process uric acid (y'know, wee-ic acid) sufficiently so instead releases it into yon bloodstream instead. Then a crystal of the delightful stuff hits an extremity (big toe's very popular) and plugs up a capillary. Onward swelling, pain, suffering.
Anyways, as you know, I hate to whinge & I'm all better now so...good.
Recently hosted the lovely Jen & Andy for a coupla days which was just delightful. Having just finished their 5 months in York they've made the decision to stay in London and work for the next 3 months instead of headn to Ireland to try their luck there. I'm amongst a large Oz contingent who's glad to have them around til then.
Just earlier I had the delightful Penny & Sam from Adelaide staying for a bit during the London leg of their Euro trip. They're current traipsing around Euro proper but should be back just in time to catch the rearrival of earlier mentioned jet-settn galfriend. Yay. Definitely nice to have the company while Ash is away. Our lovely housemates are very nice, but it still gets a tad lonely without the kingsized personality we all know and love in a near proximinty.
Hope to have more to report and the discipline to do so over summer. Check back and say hi unless yr scared...no, gaaarn.
The hibernation is will & trudy over penguins.



PS: Just recently downloaded the 2 seasons of SPACED (Shaun of the Dead etc precursor). I shoulda been payn attention to when Matty B raved about them 3 years ago. Better late than I spose. Y'all now do yoself a fava, yr uncle Matt was right (on this one...)
Also: Fav band right...now. DEERHOOF. How can such well educated musicians come up with such childlike joy? I'm gunna find out May 2, dammit.
Kisses

leons' dumb blog post

Your Inner European is Spanish!

Energetic and lively. You bring the party with you!

Who's Your Inner European?

things i like that u might 2

OK, short & to the point; again, not a lot a blabbing available that would add to &/or wouldn't disfigure yr viewing of this film. general, gentlefolk.
THE PRESTIGE
Christopher Nolan is shit-hot. Christian Bale/ Hugh Jackman/ Michael Caine/ Scarlet Johanssen likewise. There's not a lot arty, obscure or difficult to grasp in this film. Except that after u see it u (meaning i) start wondering (loudly) why evryone else in the film game can't raise their tired arse to this level of polish. Go see this film.
(nice touch with the bowie & the thom yorke too).

things i like that u might 1

my usual movie review methodology involves tapping someone wildly on the shoulder with one hand, gesticulating excitedly with the other hand or a beer in aforementioned hand, & trying - whilst exuberantly prop-giving the film - to remember to not reveal that bjorks' character dies at the end (true story). however, with the burden of distance at my disposal, i seem to require a more traditional approach. so...
CHILDREN OF MEN
me n ash n rach headed out to see this saturday nite in leceister square, at the prince charles cinema (i guess he's a sponsor of some sort; haven't seen him there tho). i had already downloaded the film, but decided after hearing a few things that this was worth holding out for on the 'big screen' (me n ash watched in again at home sunday nite).
i can't say much at all about the things i liked about this film without giving u ideas that'd be better received as an unpreconceived punch in the face, but lemme say that this film was so pleasing to me on so many levels; i'm sure that if anyone shares even one of those appreciations with me u'll get yr moneys worth. this film is so beautiful that after watching it i'm actually going to go back & watch the harry potter film alfonso cuaron did, & i've been avoiding that franchise like the plague til now. catfish?
i'm starting 2 think clive owen is a pretty solid actor too. after initially seeing him in closer (thank u jenny) i've since seen him in sin city (what's not to like?) & king arthur (shocking, terrible - but great male ensemble actors- joel edgerton, mads mikkelsen, stellan skarsgard, ray winstone - oright!) i reckon clive's got the goods anyways. wonder if he got asked 2 do bond?
anyways, go see this one. ok, here's three (not reely spoily) things in the movie i liked: in the court of the crimson king, cover of animals, 10 minutes 1 camera. holy moley!

london snow - like, in the literal sense

it's true! after walking in my usual early morning daze up & down the stairs 3 or 4 times, i managed 2 glance out the window into the dark early morning & saw...THIS!
bit late 4 xmas & not quite enough 2 work on my ski moves, but at least it's not miserable rain & it gives me more opportunity 2 mature past my childish fear of slipping over in the street on leftover icy slush.
more on the way, too. what's cooler than being cool?

back up in yr blog like a resurrection. further instructions 4 minions to follow...

so anyways, after 2 & 1/2 months of bitching , whinging, moaning & otherwise trying 2 speak the local dialect (innit?!?) we again have a shiny broadband connexion. if u got an email saying our blog's back online & followed here then i s'pose yr good 4 another intergalactic instruction, no?
go buy a webcam; video skype with us!
after our recent saturdays' fun & games: me n ash nursing mid-morn coffees whilst across the globe (& in front of our eyes in heavily compressed glory - word up joely!) a crew of saturday nite lively t'bans entertained us with drunken & debaucherous antics. this is the best fun u can have with people who aren't actually physically present & able 2 run & get leon another beer - cobra, please!
so come on tech-oriented types, plug our screen with yr mugs sometime soon. we have the technology!

2 flavours of takeover

so anyways,
we've hosted the brookmeister

and the pangosaurus (hey, i just made that up - oh, u noticed...)

& now it's back 2 lonesome, no friends from home leon & ash. luckily we've got 2 recent housemates in the form of luca (from milan) & chris (from uganda) to remind us (if u could possibly forget with me repeating it ad naus) that it's only the english who ruin england for the rest of us.
i think the english should do with their motherland what they've done with their mother tongue
- forget about it! and by the way, i think the scots - far from trying 2 organise a wussy autonomy-
should get their shit together and organise a takeover of this place. occupations a very popular these days, and if they could win the hearts (guiness & magners borrowed from the irish'd probly do it) of the great white unwashed, i don't think their minds would be any danger 2 lose sleep over. jus a thought. where's mel gibson when u need him?
speaking of crazy anti-semites, i was sitting in this very place (leceister square) yesterday and the 'middle eastern' looking guy sitting in the next seat starts sparkin' up with all this gibberish about money & the koran & accomplices & the koran & thank you 4 the support & the koran & "...but not the jews" etc. i was sitting to the right of him so i couldn't see if there was anything in his left ear, but for all the extra sense it would've provided he coulda been on a direct line to god (but he kept addressing 2 people; might there have been a sinister figure seated off-camera?)
anyways, this nut got up and left after 10-15 mins of this. he took his 2 suitcases too, i was happy to see. thought about letting someone know about this but i reckon there's one wannabe muslim extremist 4 evry loud-mouth cockney on the bus makin' a deal at the top of his lungs. i feel safe enough.

0h seven

happy new year y'all.
talk atcha soon good lookin' folks.
love, leon

cold fingers of xmas

call this an interim (are any of my net writing other than..?) post til we get the dark aged ones who run the 'technology' in this dickens-era town to give us our broadband line back (these folks invented bureauocrasy 'member...)
sittin in leceister square; looking at a cool old-skool looking (but immaculately newly painted & lit) horsey-propelling carousel. one of those rotating, people-in-teacups type rides thunders around at 90dB a metre to my left while it's current riders scream & whoop in a vain attempt to overpower the steroid tempo techno blasting from yonder. this is xmas chee(z)r london style.
my fingers are getting cold. i'm @ a wifi hotspot paid 4 by some corporate entity with pretensions to adulation - they don't provide hot coffee tho, so i can only last so long...
love to all the loves & lovers out there til i get my greasy telecommunication wires on u during jesus' big day.
kisses,
leon

republic of leon

not to whinge or anything, but i'm currently unable to get back into work due to the gals refilling the atms, thus i'm at the net cafe. my team leader is a twenty year old eastenders dropout who has to speak to form thoughts and has two personality modes: panic & sleep (that's an assumption). now, sitting in full corpowear at the cafe, i've just been locked out of my barclays bank account because i can't remember one of the 4 password/pin/memorable word/electrowidget identikitty parts!?!? fukn brilliant. off to corpo-play free drinks/eats with the folks from the branch tonite. wonder if i can out-faux pas cockney steve's effort from last week? to quote charles brown, "*sigh*".
this shit wouldn't happen under a republic.

3for1 deal on Australian wine, and it's results

So here are some more fun photos of the weekend in Edinburgh when I went flat hunting and once again the girls extended their fabulous hospitality. And Ashley drank much too much wine. Again. And we discovered the joys of Magners Irish cider. Yum. Lizzie and Sarah, you are bad influences! Oh, and there's also a coupla pics of Leon attacking our backyard with a scythe because it's bbq weather and the freakn mower doesn't work. And how vein am I? I just love posting up photos of MYSELF!!! ha.

the giant dance

Hey you mob. Check it out. On my birthday, we hired a zippy little vehicle and headed out of London on the M5. Traffic was a bit of a nightmare at first and it was pissing down, but our trusty driver Rachel steered us safely into the carpark at Windsor palace, whilst I received a very merry birthday call from our Briswegian posse. After a very professional rendition of 'happy birthday' (you mob are good singers hey! wonderlungs!) it was kind of like speed dating, with the phone ricocheting from one freak to another and me trying to tell everyone what was going on in new and exciting ways each time...meanwhile Leon and Rach battled it out for control of navigation in the front, while Zoe remained patient...
Hey Sal, can you see what the sticker on this car says??? It says ASHMOLE and then 'Have you dropped one'! I was squinting into the diabolical English sun for this photo. I just hope you appreciate that.
After Windsor, it was onwards to Glastonbury, where we drank beers, finally found a camp, pitched the tent in darkness next to a big pile of cow shit, and then slept. Next morning, we drove to the BEACH to fulfil one of my birthday wishes, stopping at Dunster along the way. Nearly left Leon there, the name of the place just seemed to fit some how. (Oooh!) The beach itself was somewhat of an anti-climax, altho our full English breakfast was bonza.

Whipped back to Glastonbury again and climbed the TOR and shared a bottle of yummy plum wine! Oh, knights in shining armour and all that jazz. I think I saw Arthur and Guinevere kissing behind one of those hedgerows...oh no, it was just a blackfaced sheep and her wee lamb. Oh.

Then we went to STONEHENGE to fulfill yet another of my dreams. And it was CHOICE. Zoe rubbed her bum all over those stones. Oh yeah. Go Zo! We kissed them. We stroked them. We rolled around and drank silver birch wine (yuck!). It was rad. We also visited Silbury, and the stone circle at Avebury, which was ripper too.

Ended up our holiday in Edinburgh with our Scottish lassies. Sarah & Liz, Claire & Kirsteen, we LOVE YOU!

Have found a flat to share in Edinburgh over the summer. Roll on Edinburgh fest!

So are you all happy? I know its a lot to cram into one posting, but hey, we've got to give our public something! It was fabulous doing a giant dance round the countryside...

roving round the royal regions

Look, its Zoe the eskimo girl! Altho Inuit is the preferred nomenclature, dude!
it's only been 1 month since leon last wrote anything here, but it seems like much much longer. since our arrival in London, we have had many debauched nights in hammertown with the hammer crew (jen & kate we love yr work!) and also had a few shennanigans with cath west over in little venice. we have visited zoe & james in dublin and drank guinness, and we ate haggis and black pud with lizzie & claire in scotland. Note the piccie of the FULL SCOTTISH BREAKFAST. That little black disk is BLACK PUDDING. It's a remedy for Bunyip breath. Or is it a cause..?
This is the sort of thing i came to the uk to enjoy. Good times. My birthday adventures will be reported in the next post, and it was all made even better, if that is actually possible, by a happy birthday phone call from the crew in briswegia, as organised by me old mates sal and angie. nice work girls!!!

By the way, I think the Beltane Festival in Edinburgh really deserved a blog entry all of it's own, but well who has time for blogging in these hectic modern times? Only reason I'm managing to do this now is because I've chucked a sickie!!! Ooh look, naked people! The RED DEVILS making merry before the coming of the MAY QUEEN!

And then of course there was the morning after (he he he, that was a good one. I crashed at 7:45am and woke up to get the train at 8:10) and the long sleep on the trainride home. Bless Lizzie and Claire and Sarah for supplying us with out Scottish EMERGENCY TRAIN SURVIVAL KIT! Scottish hospitality is unsurpassed! Cheers girls and we'll be seeing you soon...

karaoke in hackney

hey you mob!
we had a karaoke night at the new house on friday to celebrate our arrival and make it crystal clear to the rest of the household that we are ROCK & RAWL! our housemates were like "ooh yeah, great, i'm not singing...no not me...oh yeah cool, you go girl..." and you know what? all those shy flowers turned into KARAOKE CARNIVORES and were fighting for the mike, as ya do.
karaoke was a sleepover extravaganza, with mates rearranging the furniture so they could gently drift back down to earth in each other's fleshy embrace. aaaw. it was beautiful. bodies everywhere. english breakfast. kickn the ball in the park next day, ash finally breached the barrier and learnt to HEAD BUTT. yeah. feeling more english everyday...but not. know what i mean?
photos soon...
miss yez, love yez,
we love hackney. we are diggn the borough!

by the way, here is a shot of the cool stage curtain when we went to see the mighty boosh the other month...with jen and stu, it was rad