Winter in Essex
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Category Archives: Messaged from the Outhouse
It. Has. Arrived.
Today I was having a beer with a friend at Indo’s, contemplating about the state of pre-Christmas time, when, through the glass cabinet of the fridge, I saw a dark green bottle with a familiar font. I gently asked the lovely bar attendant:
‘I am sorry, but is this normal Steinlager or Steinlager Pure?’
Oh, I think it’s the normal Steinlager. No, wait: It is the pure stuff.’
I carefully took ownership of the container, checking for the details: Indeed, it was labelled as brewed in Auckland. Imported by a place in London. After trying to get hold of a bloody bottle for two years, there it was, in my own local.
This must a sign. Maybe it is a christmas miracle and god is giving me a sign to change my atheist ways?
…or maybe the Kiwi population in London has finally hit 1 million and it’s worth importing the stuff.
At 3 pound 20 it’s certainly not cheap, but as it’s christmas only once a year…
Redesigning Stepney
The Ocean estate in Stepney. Going, Going, gone. It’s going to be interesting to see whether deprivation can be improved with new houses alone.
Overheard in the Bowels of St Pancras Station
Men’s toilet, St Pancras station. A rather disshevelled looking gentleman enters the men’s room, adressing the silent row of closed cubicles
‘Oi, John?’
Muffled grumble from the cubicles
‘They f****** arrested Trevor! He was a bit pissed on the train and the f******* coppers came and f******* took him away’
More grumbles from the cubicles.
‘They f******* arrested Trev on some f******** terrorist thing. He was just f******** pissed, he’s not a f******* terrorist? I mean, he doesn’t look like a f*******Taliban, does he?
Does he?
John?’
Grumble from the cubicles: ‘There’s no John here, dude. Just us Taliban’.
Disshevelled man runs off, in an obvious panic.
Mid-Fi
Since moving back to the UK, I have been pining to improve the listening experience in our living room. Due to the special limitations that the best girlfriend ever decided upon when it came to interior design, the choice of speakers and an amp to go with the Revo iblik radiostation was quite difficult. After some searching, I finally found the right mix between sound and looks:
Yep, you’re right, that’s a very attractive piece of kit. And no, unfortunately it didn’t receive the acceptance level I hoped from the best girlfriend ever, but as I bought them while she was on a week long business trip and they were already there when she returned there was nothing much for her to do but yell.
They are Klipsch RF-52s, and they are just magnificent. At about a meter’s height, they are not the smallest, but what they admittedly don’t have in sublety in size, they certainly have in sound.
“Behind the horn lies a 1-inch titanium tweeter with a powerful neodymium motor structure to provide a unique combination of precision, clarity and effortless dynamics. The RF-52 employs dual 5.25-inch woofers for a solid bass foundation. These Cerametallic™ woofers with inverted copper dust caps exhibit a very high stiffness-to-mass ratio and superb damping characteristics.
I don’t really know what that means, but I know that I always wanted a Klipsch Horn since I was a pubescent git, dreaming of speakers beyond my pocket money’s reach. So when the moment came to make the dreams come true there was no question what to buy. The Infinities, Cabasses, Linns and Quadrals might be posher, but I always wanted the direct, powerful sound of a Klipsch tweeter and I haven’t been let down. Hooked up to my vintage NAD 3020i and the new NAD c525BEE they have turned the living room into a (admittedly small) concert hall.
Audiophile classics like Oscar Peterson’s ‘We get requests’, or Joao Gilberto/Stan Getz’s first Bossa Nova album suddenly sound fresher than ever and especially three dimensional. Those tweeters are amazing: each song I thought I knew by heart suddenly reveals little percussion effects here and there. Listening to ABC’s remastered ‘Lexicon of Love’, the best girlfriend ever suddenly said, in a very non-chalant way:’ I never knew that “Show me” had a bass solo’.
I’d say that’s worth the little interior design sins.
Messaged from the Outhouse 