Rosalia Rambles

Tag: London

  • Redundancy Review: Day 359, “Walking”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning striders and strollers, welcome to Day 359 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Today is a day where I feel very stiff and sore, primarily due to all the walking I have been doing for the last couple weeks. As someone who lives in a very walkable town, most of my errands are conducted with me walking all over the place to get what I need. 

    Though, my affinity for walking comes down to both enjoying the ability to take in the sights, sounds, and smells… alongside the fact I am a cheap bastard where if my options are to take a bus for fifteen minutes or to walk for forty minutes, I will inevitably pick the option that does not involve spending a small amount of money and instead put my legs to work.

    This came into full effect whenever I needed to take a trip to London for something related to work, where I would usually enter in from Victoria Coach Station and need to navigate to a more central part of the city such as Euston or Kensington.

    Most normal people would walk the short distance to Victoria Tube Station and take a Victoria Line train that would take approximately seven minutes to whisk them away to their destination.

    Me, on the other hand, who is both cheap and despises going on the London Underground with all my soul, will invariably decide that the almost hour long walk (or in real terms, anywhere between one-and-half to two miles) is the better idea, however bad it might fuck up my feet, my joints, or in the case of doing this exact thing in the summertime, my overall disposition and appearance when the sweat inevitably kicks in.

    However much I complain about the pain my legs and feet are in though, I do not think I want to change how I operate in the slightest.

    First off, I recognise the fact I am able to walk these long distances with only avoidable pain to show for it is an absolute blessing. Being able-bodied (if severely lazy) is something I do not take for granted and am thankful for every time I am able to breathe deep and pound the pavement to my destination.

    Secondly, and this definitely applies more to when I take this approach to navigating around a city, but there is so much to organically discover when walking around a new location. This especially applies to whenever I would walk around London as part of a work trip, as my usual plan was to commute in via coach/train very early in the morning – both to avoid normal rush hour traffic and because there was no value in me working for an hour in the morning to then spend most of my time travelling anyway – and do my best to navigate to where I needed to be using only tourist maps, seeing what places I could see as I made my way to the meeting venue.

    I also incorporate “getting lost” time into my schedule whenever I have to walk somewhere new, with the planning stage me being looking up how long the walk will take on Google Maps, subtracting about five-to-ten minutes to account for my naturally faster walking speed… and then adding on half an hour to take into consideration the fact I will get distracted and will find a place that catches my eye so I have to spend a short while browsing in there.

    This especially came to fruition when my partner and I visited Manchester on Good Friday for him to have an initial consultation with a dress maker, they had a lot of clients before us so asked us to leave a phone number and they would call us back when they were ready.

    Main benefit for me was that this dressmaker was based in a part of Manchester I had never been to before, so we were able to kill an hour or two by letting my instincts guide me around the city whilst I went “ooo look at that thing” and “hey I wanna go in here”, finding new places to discover and seeing how chain shops in a big city compared to the same I had back home.

    Of course by the time we returned to the dress maker my feet were absolutely shredded and all I wanted to do was sit on the floor for a little bit to let myself recover… and even then my legs felt like they were out of action for the entire weekend afterwards, but again, I recognise all my pain is self-inflicted.

    It is a worthy payoff though, cause I feel my legs are my best aspect – both in how strong they are when I actually put my mind to using them, and how fucking shapely they are because of how much I walk, naturally toning them as I go and making them look fantastic in leggings.

    Now if only I were not a glutton, then I might be able to trim my waistline down just on virtue of how much I roam.

    Think I will be grabbing something from the backlogs for today’s review, partially because I had an Umamusume idea to tie into glutton and legs cause they run, but I ended up getting too distracted and not taking the required screenshots or having the brain power to explain one of my favourite characters.

    So instead, I will be talking about a simple burger and chips I ordered from a small local cafe, about a thirty minute walk from my place: The Tasty Table

    This cost me £9.50, extremely cheap in terms of food, but there are no frills here. No Aberdeen Angus or Wagyu beef, no brioche or sourdough buns, and no triple-cooked duck fat chips. This is a catering style burger patty, with a slice of plastic cheese, served in a floury bap. Add in a bit of mayo for moisture, and you have the perfect brunch as part of a walk to go mattress shopping.

    Whilst it does not look impressive, and I have certainly eaten more flavourful burgers, it is important to partake in the simpler things in life, both to remember how good things can be, and to never forget where you came from. Simple burgers from small cafes are a particular pleasure of mine – I even have a pipe dream of opening my own cafe one day – and I will always savour the most basic ass burgers I can find.

    More of a story focused review today than an actual review, but I am still proud of it. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. Friday is upon us soon, and for me it is going to be a busy day, but I hopefully have a good idea to try make a good review out of it all.

    We shall see how things go.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 145-146, “The Albert Hall Diaries”

    Redundancy Review: Day 145-146, “The Albert Hall Diaries”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning thespians and troupers, welcome to Day 145 and 146 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I have returned from my trip to London and a brief excursion to hang out with my board game friends only to find myself afflicted with a pestilence alongside my period starting…

    …my luck is really something else sometimes.

    But, as is the overarching message of the Redundancy Review, we keep moving, even when the circumstances are against us, and considering how much I enjoyed writing the VeXPo Diaries piece I want to do a similar thing for the Saturday I spent in London going to Metal Gear In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

    Waking up

    As mentioned in Day 144, I did not have the best night’s sleep in the hotel bed. A shower was enough to shake off the grogginess before I sat in the bed and passed the time by writing that day’s review whilst watching old TV clips on Youtube. I was under the assumption that my check-out time was at twelve so I had plenty of time to relax and just exist in the pleasingly liminal space of my hotel room.

    Yeah, no, I double checked my booking, revealing that my check-out time was at eleven instead – a fact I discovered at quarter to eleven. This forced me to suddenly drop everything I was doing, focus on rapidly packing and getting myself dressed ready to leave. A ten-minute task all told, my previous experience of needing to run out the door when I was late to classes at uni coming in handy once again.

    Wandering around

    Given I was out of the hotel at eleven and my concert was not until half-two, I had a fair bit of time to kill, and given this was the first time in forever I have been to London without a work engagement, I was presented with the perfect opportunity to just wander around aimlessly using the tourist maps for guidance.

    My first port of call was getting to the Albert Hall itself, a task which only took me around twenty minutes to navigate, letting me grab a picture of the external TV screen showing Metal Gear In Concert being on that night

    I wish I had taken some more photos of the outside of the Albert Hall, as it is a stunningly beautiful building, but alas, my desire to keep wandering took over, leading me down towards the centre of South Kensington where my destination for a big lunch to fill me up for the day revealed itself.

    Honest Burger

    After trying Bleecker, you might have thought I would not be in the mood for another burger, but I am never one to turn down delicious meats, vegetables, and cheese sandwiched between two pillowy buns.

    Honest Burger is a place I have been curious about since seeing it on a Food Tours video, with a focus on simple ingredients to make something delicious. Given my intention that this was going to be my only meal until I got home that evening, I went a little indulgent with a homemade mint lemonade, a small portion of frankly massive onion rings, and the Honest Smash burger with bacon, served with a side of rosemary fries.

    This meal cost a total of £23.49, which broke down into £14.55 for the burger and fries, £3.30 for the small onion rings, and £3.50 for the drink, plus a £2.14 service charge which is listed as optional/discretionary but personally I believe they are a mandatory part of eating out, especially as tipping culture in the UK is not exactly strong. 

    Overall the price lined up with what I have paid for burger meals in London in the £20-25 range, and this was absolutely gorgeous. Again, I have to highlight the fucking enormous onion rings which were crunchy and perfectly seasoned, I could envision myself eating a full plate of those with a variety of dips. 

    The meal as a whole fulfilled its purpose, I did not need to eat the rest of the day minus a few drinks on the way home to keep my energy up.

    Albert Hall time

    Meal finished, I did a brief bit of wandering around and managed to get myself thoroughly lost meaning I had to rely on Google Maps rather than any of the tourist maps to find my bearing again, but I got my way back to the Albert Hall where the cafe bar was open meaning I could get my first (and only) coffee of the day in the form of a £4.60 mocha. Pretty standard for takeaway coffee in the UK, with a pretty standard taste that came along with it.

    Took a while for me to notice but the front desk was actually selling programmes, and as someone who loves little mementos and souvenirs from their nerdy trips I had to get one – especially with this gorgeous front art:

    Additionally I bought myself a t-shirt and a poster with the same art. I want the organisers to see this event as a success because this was an amazing experience I would love to see repeated elsewhere.

    The doors to the auditorium opened, and upon getting my ticket checked I encountered something I have not really seen before: I was offered a ticket to go down to the stalls instead. I had picked the matinee performance rather than the evening performance because I was initially intending to rawdog the entire event in a day before deciding to make it an overnight once I was re-employed, but it was surprising to have that as an option.

    I did not take them up on the offer though, as I was curious to see what my ticket got me.

    I think I made the right decision, I had an end-of-row seat and no one ended up sitting next to me, giving me a lovely bit of private space to immerse myself fully in the music.

    The concert itself

    I did not take any pictures during the show itself, initially I did want to quickly take some stealth photos to get good accompanying pictures for the article, but I found myself enjoying the show so much I did not want to look away for a moment.

    The structure of the show confused me initially, but once it clicked in my mind I was thoroughly impressed. Act I contained music from MGS3: Snake Eater, MGS: Peace Walker, and MGSV: The Phantom Pain – the story of Big Boss, the legendary soldier and clonefather of the protagonist most people know of: Solid Snake, which was the focus of Act II with MGS, MGS2: Sons of Liberty, and MGS4: Guns of the Patriots.

    For someone who has more attachment from the franchise for the Solid Snake games rather than the Big Boss games, I found myself enjoying Act I more than I anticipated, especially as someone who has never properly played Peace Walker. When the orchestra started playing the Main Theme of the game I found myself having this almost proud feeling upon hearing it, the whole “music that makes you patriotic for a country that does not exist” kind of vibe.

    Act II definitely resonated more with me, but because of my attachment to those games than the others I did find myself finding a few criticisms in the setlist… well, nitpicks more than anything else.

    First off, there was no Encounter. The first ever “ALERT” song in the franchise and it was not put into the setlist as part of MGS. It really could have replaced Mantis Hymn which would make for an absolutely exhilarating flow of music to go from Encounter to Hind D, but I recognise that Mantis Hymn is iconic.

    Another nitpick from the MGS setlist is the end theme “The Best Is Yet To Come” did not have a vocalist performing the lyrics, which is especially disappointing considering Donna Burke was one of the guest performers and she sang an English version of the song on the MGSV OST. I know it might have disrupted the flow of the show a little bit because Donna and Stefanie Joosten performed solos at the end of each act but this is such an iconic song due to the lyrics, and missing them out is a shame.

    For all of my other nitpicks though, they were blown out of the water with the conclusion of Act II: Metal Gear Saga, the main theme of MGS4 followed by Stefanie Joosten performing Snake Eater which was then followed up by Donna Burke performing Heavens Divide, a conga line of iconic Metal Gear songs all of which yielded massive cheers from the crowd.

    Speaking of the crowd, one funny audience moment during the MGS2 segment of Act II was someone wolf whistling when the cutscene revealed Raiden for the first time, prompting a wave of laughter to rush over the audience.

    The game footage being in the background was an extremely nice touch to the show, it helped contextualise the music in a greater way and helped the immersion, especially when my nostalgia neurons got triggered from hearing certain songs alongside certain moments.

    Overall, the trip as a whole was well worth it, and a nice time to actually get to explore London on foot without needing to worry about a work meeting or anything else… that said it killed my feet, even with me wearing proper walking shoes. For someone who will extoll the virtues of good public transport links I will seldom use them myself, preferring to walk almost everywhere within towns and cities.

    That covers everything for the Albert Hall diaries, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope the Monday blues are not hitting you too hard and that you are able to take some time to relax.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 143, “Away from the desk”

    Redundancy Review: Day 143, “Away from the desk”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning receptionists and secretaries, welcome to Day 143 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Today’s review is being written from a cozy London hotel room after a pretty intense day of travel, and in finding myself away from my desk I can once more take a moment of reflection on my current situation – or more realistically, do a bit of public rubber ducking for a bit whilst I recline.

    There is definitely a lot I am scared of in the near future. This is a feeling that exists almost perpetually within me, but what makes this current instance different is that my coping strategies have been thrown all out of whack by my initial redundancy.

    Before, I was someone who very much had their moments of catastrophising and overthinking. Once I had got that all out of my system I would return to what I consider my “natural” state: go with the flow, relatively level-headed, and willing to fuck up any challenge that came in my way.

    My old mentor said this mindset was the reason she became interested in, and once described it as one of my greatest strengths before following it up with how she saw my catastrophising nature:

    “I see you throw boulders towards yourself and you never flinch, but then you go ‘oh no a pebble’ and completely collapse.”

    She was always someone I could turn to if I was in a moment of overthinking, a process I lovingly called “unfucking my brain”, and in recalling this bit of analysis she did on me, it has given me some perspective on how I feel about my current situation.

    I have always prided myself on adaptability throughout my career, that even in my moments of panic I could turn those emotions into a positive development experience. Making myself stronger through adversity.

    And I know I can become that person again, but right now I feel unable to balance my desire for professional progression with my borderline need for personal recovery from burnout.

    The problem looming over me, as looms over many others, is of course capitalism, why would it be anything else.

    My financial situation is stronger than a lot of my Gen Z peers. In the event of sudden job loss or my physical health catching up with me, I am not in imminent financial ruin, in fact both my partner and some of my closest friends have said I should pull the plug on my contract at the end of the year in order to take a prolonged break.

    But I feel incapable of that, both for the anxiety that would come with losing my income stream and for the worry around the “implication” of what taking time away for burnout would look like. It is already hard enough to find a job in my desired field, and it feels just as impossible to find opportunities for branching out due to the elimination of junior roles at different organisations.

    The benefits of taking a break though would be unparalleled, as I could work more on writing in a given day, actually working on the books I want to write, I can develop out my VTuber concept further, and I could finally stop feeling the crushing weight on my soul that seems to persist into every work day right now.

    At some point I should try write a positive piece on my current roles, as for all the spiritual issues I am currently experiencing, there are still a good number of positive aspects within my current career – it is mainly the painful lack of a clear future right now that is bringing down my morale.

    For now, I am going to revel in the feeling that being away from my desk brings, along with the fact that I am in London for pleasure rather than business for the first time in forever. Not having to rush to a meeting or a function gave me enough time after getting off the coach to visit a place I had always been meaning to try but never found the opportunity to: Bleecker Burger.

    This one comes as a recommendation from my friend Aaron, who always said I should try hit up Bleecker whenever I was in London. Usually my burger of choice when visiting the capital for work was a Five Guys, which, yes, I recognise is a very low bar in terms of burgers but considering I do not have one nearby I always considered it a “treat”.

    Bleecker is a lot more simple than Five Guys – you get burgers, burgers with bacon, and stacked burgers with bacon. It is similar with the fries, you can get them plain, topped with “house” sauce, “angry” sauce, or both sauces.

    My meal of choice was a standard bacon cheeseburger, house angry fries, and an Oreo milkshake, costing me a total of £21.85, which is actually pretty damn similar to what I paid for a similar meal at Five Guys just over a year ago, £21.65.

    So, given the almost identical meal and cost, how does it compare?

    First off, the burger. Bleecker definitely do things a lot more simply, and in terms of pure burger & bun quality they definitely exceed the Guys, but I did find myself missing some of the additional crunch and moisture that vegetable toppings or even mayonnaise would bring. 

    Next, the milkshake. Incredibly thick, creamy, and delicious, there is not much more to say beyond that. A perfect accompaniment to a somewhat indulgent lunch.

    Last, but most definitely not least, the house angry fries. These are far and away above the quality of Five Guys, you get a very generous portion for the price without the excess that can come from there, but the sauces drizzled over top are what make the difference. The house sauce is incredibly creamy with a little bit of tang whilst the angry sauce has a decent kick without being painfully spicy, adding a delicate tingle to the tongue forming a perfect side dish.

    Do I intend to return to Bleecker? That is a definite maybe. The quality and care is definitely there in the food, but there is still something oddly nostalgic in Five Guys for me. 

    Though there is definitely plenty in London for me to try in terms of burger joints, so maybe next time I have the privilege of coming by this part of the country.

    That covers everything for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to enjoy your weekend, you deserve all the relaxation time in the world.

    For more information on Bleecker, visit their website here: https://www.bleecker.co.uk/