The Edmondson Blog

My friend Becks has just had a baby, Maya, with her husband, Andy. I've had this photo for a few weeks, so I thought I'd post it, but please excuse the text - it's obviously from an invitation.

Last Friday, I went to a meeting at work and learnt that black male teenagers are 2.6 times more likely to get run over as pedestrians than white male teenagers. When asked why this was, nobody knew the root cause. Please leave a comment if you have any ideas.

Had a fantastic time in Reims over the weekend, tasting champagne. Tori, Hills, Ginia and I drove down to Folkstone to catch the Channel Tunnel over. Usually efficient, a series of blunders left us arriving in Calais at 1am. After giving up on the horrendous map printed off the Etap website, we found our hotel in St. Omer at 3:30. Saturday was spent refueling in St. Omer then driving to Reims, checking into Hotel Porte Mars (with their world class soundproofing and self-proclaimed copious breakfasts) before spending the afternoon tasting the wares of both Pommery and Martel champagne houses (the photo is of us outside Martel). An evening meal of fois gras and steak tartar finished me off. On Sunday we enjoyed a roud trip around the small villages south of Reims before driving back to Angleterre. Next time: Bordeaux or bust!

Click here to see the photos

No wonder things are getting shitty...

Many of the world's banknotes contain the EURion Constellation, five tiny circles printed discretely on the banknote, which help stop the counterfitting of the notes.

I can't stop laughing at this guy. He's seriously rock and roll.

Had a great weekend working on the kit car. The engine is now in and is waiting for the inlet and exhaust manifolds. I put the rocker cover on, freshly sprayed silver, and it looks pretty neat. I've also trial fitted the bodywork to see how it looks. Except for some rerouting of the loom at the back (I've realised it snags the bodywork), everything is looking grand.

Found this old skool photo of myself, my brother Russell and my cousin Ross earlier today. Please note the cutting edge of fashion all three are demonstrating. In particular, my initial attempts at street culture: copious amounts of hair gel, shirt collar up, the oversized leather jacket, all complimented by the corduroy. Russell's fashion tour de force: an early example of the puffer jacket, the extreme haircut, the rock and roll stance - gut pushed out, legs solidly straight.

Big arguments in the office today as we try to figure out who / what Grimace is, the big purple loveable fellow from the McDonald's adverts. As always Wikipedia comes to the rescue. Click above to see the entry, which contains some ridiculous lines. My favourite:

"Today, Grimace is generally portrayed in McDonalds' commercials and merchandise as a sort of well-meaning doofus, whose clumsy antics provide a comic foil to the more serious and mature Ronald McDonald."

Any where the hell has Uncle O'Grimacey come from???

For those of you who give a damn, my team at TfL is featured in a two page spread in this week's Supply Management magazine, the publication of choice for purchasing and supply professionals. Most of what's talked about is what I was involved with when I first started at TfL...when I actually did some work. Click on the title above to read the article.

This is what happens when you send your offspring to a second rate school. This didn't happen in my time.

Spent Saturday at the Knockholt Carnival, the self-proclaimed second largest carnival in the country, after Notting Hill. Managed to consume my five portions of fruit during the afternoon, including two pints of XXXX, a cheeseburger, a bag of candy-floss, a deep-fried doughnut and a bottle of Pimms. Followed by a BBQ in the evening. Sounds like a light snack for Cazenove. It was good to see so many locals there, though I felt naked without my football shirt. Click here to see all my photos from the day, including quite a disturbing one of my father in "the emperor's new clothes".

Went pretty showbiz on Friday night to celebrate Hills and Ginia's engagement. Found ourselves in Brown's sipping the fizzy stuff. Great fun, until the bill arrived. We followed these shenanigans by heading over the road to Chor Bizarre for un upmarket curry. The great service made up for the slightly underwhelming food. But then again, I was there for the chat, not the chow.

A quick congratulations to my good friend Hills and his girlfiend Virginia who got engaged earlier in the week. Unfortunately, I don't have a decent photo of them together so I've had to go for one of Hills looking like a special needs kid.

I have just received a photo of my Godchild dressed in a football strip. His parents have naturally been reported to the relevant authorities.

Later Saturday evening, George and I caught the bus back into town (picture is of George with driver - note substantial lip beard) and made our way to the local casino where George tried to look like a major player and blow his inheritance. Casino scene of Dr. No this was NOT. I came out €10 down. With the roulette wheel spinning as slow as a reaction to my best joke, it was amazingly hard to lose money!

Saturday was spent in Wels, at Dickie (with me in picture - note my new streamlined haircut) and Nicola's wedding. A superb mixture of British and Austrian culture (including a rousing rendition of Jerusalem during the service and every man worth their salt dressed in their best lederhosen), followed by a celebration only Austrians with their ample girths could handle. Great to see some old faces from Durham. Click here to see my photos.

After a ball-ache of a journey from Stansted with Ryanair at 6:45 on Friday morning, George and I found ourselves in Salzburg, the home of that well known maestro Wolfgang, for a day of sightseeing before heading to Wels. We took in Schloss Hohensalzburg along with the Mozart museum and a pretty average lunch of boiled beef and a sickly soufflé, washed down with some local lager beer, which was actually pretty decent. In the afternoon, George and I did what a man has to do and went to get fitted for some lederhosen, though at €385 for the cheaper goat skin option, they were unfortunately out of our league. Look on Flickr for more photos.

My friend Heppy is driving up to Gordonstoun tomorrow for a stint as housemaster at his old school. Impressive, but not as impressive as the drive up. I didn't know you could drive for such a distance in the UK. Click here to see his route!

Yesterday was a bad day for two reasons. Firstly, having decided not to drive up to Cape Canaveral to watch the shuttle launch, I was looking forward to catching a glimpse from Everwood Run 150 miles away from the launch site. Obviously, the launch was abandoned. Secondly, a luck would have it, Tori and I are in Florida at the same time as Desoto Speedway have school buses racing on the figure-of-eight track. We made the trip up to the raceway early and caught the first few races (including the 12 to 17 year old category, as shown in the photo, featuring Chloe, no more than 14 years old, who came 3rd in her race). Just before the buses came on, the event was called off due to rain. Unbelievable!