the gym experience.

london 7.46pm 22.1C (high 26C) sunny monday 2018

i took up the daily mail offer of a free 7day pass to a gym. i chosed one near me, in victoria, where i used to be a member about 10yrs ago. and i can say there is no going back to the old days. when i was a member there, it has a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, and a lot of space . now it is much smaller and only have showers. there was no soap provided. no towels too. i paid £20 a month in those days, now you have to pay £37 a month. for not a lot. what is surprising is that they have other branches that cost £20 a month. this one cost so much and yet dont have any of the facillities that would explain the extra cost… and i can only assume it is the location, supposedly more central that explains why it costs so much more. they have a branch in south kensington that charged £47 a month. what extra do that branch provide? if they provide the same facillities , or lack of it, than it is hard to justify the extra cost.

but even after the fact that they dont provide anything extra in facillities, the gym was very busy when i went there at about 6.30pm. so it looks like the extra cost is not a deterrant to membership. i sometimes dont really understand human beings. why did they join this branch, instead of the others which are so much cheaper. its so crowded all the machines were being used. and its a monday too. i find it just too crowded to exercise , so i did not do so. just had a shower.  i was chatting to a chinese guy in the changing room who is a member there, and i should have asked him what is the attraction for him to join this branch.

the council gym is so much better, so spacious and nice showers with soap provided. and yet it doesnot appear to be so popular as these private gyms.

i went into the Marks and spencer store nearby, and see a lot of empty shelves. those hungry hordes of office workers have swept the food. they dont seem to be put off by the cost. that is why i think businesses have managed to keep going , the lunchtime profit from the office workers is enough to sustain them. these office workers are like a bunch of locusts.the cost is not a deterrant. 

i was earlier in the tesco , a local branch near piccadilly circus, during the lunch hour, and it was absolutely jammed pack with these office workers buying their lunch. long queues snaking away from the tills, all trying to pay, as if it is free. (rereading it i know it is illogical, that last bit. but you get my point, i hope. haha) that store and many like it must make a lot of profit from just the lunchtime business. 

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salad tomatoes

london 11.43pm 17.8C cloudy , rain earlier, sunday 2018

supposed to be father’s day today. but not a lot of free offers for fathers. when i entered today’s unique number in the daily mail nectar points promotion , it tells me i can get a free 7day pass to pure gym. that is a nice offer, even if it is not a father’s day offer. i shall make use of it, to go to the pure gym near me in victoria. they normally charge £37 a month. i used to be a member long ago when it was a LA fitness  gym. they have a swimming pool , jacuzzi, and sauna in there, though if u go into their website now, there is no mention of it. i wonder if they have taken it out. surely not, because their other gyms cost less to join, £20 a month. 

there is a live show by westend musicals today (and yesterday too) in trafalgar square , to show case their acts. it is free but the crowd is so large, that i did not bother to go. they do this every year. in the past they used leicester square, but it is too small, and so now they do it in trafalgar square. but it means the planned eid festival to celebrate the end of ramadan, which should take place in trafalgar square at around this time did not take place. but the whole area was still very busy. even with the vast crowd in trafalgar square, china town and the area round it was just as busy with people. but there was no sense of it being too much people. in that sense london seem to be able to cope very well with the visitors crowds. unlike venice and so many other tourists towns.

i passed a local store near the paddington library, and saw they have tomatoes, displayed outside the shop, quite large ones, on sale for 79p/kg. both loose tomatoes and tomatoes on the vine. i thought that is a good price so i bought 5, 70p worth. i have never bought anything there before as usually these corner stores have  their prices way higher than anywhere. 

usually when i am in brixton or in the supermarkets, the tomatoes are so small and cost more. these will go very well in a salad. eaten with mozzarella and basil and olive oil, it is heaven.

added 1.51pm, i stopped by the sainsburys to buy the mozarella, and ate it for lunch. i used only one tomato, it was that big. 

 

Considering how expensive things are, I thank you for letting me live rent-free in your head — psychologistmimi

Back when I was living in my beloved New York, there was a political candidate that made us chuckle, momentarily nod in agreement, and think of ways to further free up some cash in our lives. Jimmy McMillan is the leader of said political party called Rent is too Damn High. In 2005, he ran […]

via Considering how expensive things are, I thank you for letting me live rent-free in your head — psychologistmimi

london 1.26pm sunny ed diner victoria place 24c friday 2018

i hope the writer of this blog will not mind me sharing it. this is because i find it gives me a fresh outlook on the blogs that people keep. i now can think of it as living rent free in their heads… i cant make out my mind what the writer is concluding… dont write for free, or be thankful for something free in this world, when costs are rising all the time… 

but aside from that i am thinking all those people on social media , they write about their daily life and thoughts, and share it with the world. and it is all free to access.  it makes me realise why celebrities are so popular and have so many people following them. it affords people a glimpse into their lives. for free. granted you get a very edited version of their lives, showing only what they want to show you.

that is true of every blog, or twitter, or facebook ,or any social media account really;it is a biased account of their lives but still, it is a glimpse into someone else’s life. it might appeal to the voyeur in all of us, like someone letting us look through their open curtains at their lives, and closing their curtains to hide other aspects of their lives, and not allow us to look at them. you could say it is making us all voyeurs. (maybe the word voyeur might be too strong, as obviously there is nothing sexual in these blogs) or you could say it is allowing many people to show to others how they live and what their thoughts are on things. and let others make of it what they will, or take what lessons they can from it. you can see how you might make a better life and see them making decisions that you would not make, and apply that to your own life.

you could argue that what you are seeing is rubbish and not worth paying for. that is true too. as with anything that is free, some things are worth it, others are not worth the having.

 for eg, i am having a free milk shake now, courtesy of ed diner, they gave it to me for my birthday. normally i would not buy it , as it is very sweet. they have a yoghurt version, and that might be nicer, even though it too will be very sweet. but i think i might enjoy a yoghurt better than a milkshake. still, it is free and so nice to have. whether it is good for me to eat on a regular basis, some might say not. 

on the way here, i passed through victoria station, and lucozade was giving away free samples of their drink . so that was nice, i got some, and again normally i would not buy them, as they are sweet, too sweet for my liking. it is a 150ml can , with 4.5g of suger in it. and it even says on the can not suitable for children. what is more, the sugers is from the glucose syrup 11% but , get this, it has aspartame, a sweetener, in it as well. so not only have it got 2teaspoonfuls of suger, it got extra more sweetness added on top of that in that aspartame… which they did not say how much. i think i have allready got my month’s if not more, worth of suger allowance in the milkshake i just drank, so i shall not be drinking any more suger in that lucozade. well all this just goes to show what a two edged sword it is when we are given something free. 

 

too much football for a month

london 6.32pm 22.3C sunny 2018

its hari raya puasa today, but you wont notice it here in uk as they dont celebrate it. however, the malaysian group here have organised a dinner tomorrow, in a restaurant in harrow. harrow is way out west of london, but i guess it is better value than if they hold it in one of the central london malaysian restaurants. i think it is also a good thing to give some business to the outlying restaurants outside central london. there are 24 people booked to go, and there is a waiting list. i am not one of them, haha. too lazy to go there.

today is also the start of the world football matches for the world cup. the opening ceremony and first game has just been broadcast live on bbc. i did not bother to see it, but simon saw it. i dont know who won. haha. and not bothered to find out. i think this world cup happens every 5yrs, 4yrs, ( i found an entry i made in 2014 about it)but i dont recall it was so much featured on tv the last time. that must be in 2013. 2014. perhaps the bbc had not paid so much to televise it live that time and so lost the rights in the bidding to broadcast it live. this year they have got lucky and got it. perhaps with all the controversy of it being held in russia and russia being so hostile to gays, so much so that they are advising gay fans to not go there to see it, so maybe it is not so attractive to the tv stations to bid high price for the rights to broadcast it. whatever, we are now getting a lot of these matches being broadcast live by the bbc and clogging up the program guides. this year i know usa lost the qualifying matches so are not going to be in the running for it even. it just goes to show the usa is not really that big a fan of soccer. i wonder if there are live matches of the football being broadcast elsewhere in the world. maybe it is over the internet so people from other parts of the world can watch it. the time difference with russia makes these matches happen in  daytime in uk, rather than in the early hours of the morning.

the newspapers are so short of news, they are all printing out the timetable of matches and giving it as a free supplement. newspapers are always on the lookout for news to print. but summer time, everyone is not making news. 

 

 

electricity bill march-may 2018 spring quarter

london 1.26pm 21.2C sunny/cloud wednesday 2018

334 kwh for 90days @ .1223p/kwh plus £13.09 3 months’ standing charge = £53.92

3.72kwh/day  60p/day

its the same amount as i use in the winter quarter. my friend from usa came to stay this spring, for about 1month, that might account for the increase.

this is my actual usage. i have been using more than what my direct debit pay each month, but i am hoping the coming summer months i shall use less and make up for it. 

 

swan lake ballet

london 7.17pm 17.7C sunny tuesday 2018

it is very bright outside which makes me wonder if it is too bright for the open air screening of the live performance of swan lake ballet, that will be about to start now in trafalgar square. they are doing a simultaneous live broadcast of the performance that is now happening in the opera house, in various locations in london.

a live broadcast over the internet so that we can all see it on our laptops would be even better of course, but so far no one has come up with it. maybe it does not pay. there is no profit to it of course letting everyone in the world into that performance in the comfort of their home. so i suppose we should be grateful to be able to get these free public screenings. over the next weeks we shall be getting live broadcast of la boheme, and another opera. i forgot the name of it. added. it’s don giovanni.the last time i saw one of these, quite a few years ago, it was in autumn, where the sun set earlier and so it was dark when it started. 

added. 11.02pm 14.5C dry 

 

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

i thought i shall just go and see. i went to trafalgar square at about 8pm and it turned out to be quite sharp the screen and clear, even when it was so bright. i remembered last time i saw it , the picture was not so sharp, and i think this time it is digital. i thought it would be too crowded so that they would restrict entry into the square, but not so. lots of space to see it, and even the toilets are free tonight. 

its very enjoyable, because swan lake is very visual, with lots of dancing from both individually,( and this one especially from the female lead , marianela nunez) and corps de ballet, and the music of course is lovely. it is sponsored by BP, and they give away air cushions and anoraks, in case it rains. it did not rain at all tonight, and yet, the anoraks are opened. usually they put them in a plastic pack, perhaps this year with all that concern for plastic pollution they did away with that and gave the anoraks without the packing. but it means there were plenty of opened anoraks.  not many take these away and many put them in the litter bins. i hope the rubbish team recycle them. i took away two anoraks, and 3 cushions. they were just left there . they are useful. the anoraks are white, rather than transparent, so if u are using them in future, and dont want to show off the BP logo, you can turn them inside out and hide it. 

a lovely day

 

 

 

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

view across the river from the tate britain. the river is in high tide. and the front facade of the tate britain

london 1.41pm 24C sunny highest temp so far today monday 2018

i havent gone out yet, having missed the free veggie burger given out by dirty burger just across the river in vauxhall, so near me. i forgot the time, it is supposed to start at 12pm and i was so caught up reading a forum on the internet that when i realised it , it was 12.40 pm, a bit late to queue up.

they are only giving out 50 burgers, so i figured i would be too late to get any . and i have to confess  veggie burgers are not a big loss for missing it. i confess to liking meat and is more keen if it were beef burgers instead. maybe that is why i did not make sure i remember to go. something subconscious is working here.

it is a nice day, so i shall most probably make a move on later today and go out… if nothing else to go to the supermarket. tesco most probably to see what they got. or maybe to asda, because it is only one bus ride away, whilst the tesco, though nearer and is walkable, requires two buses. i allready have my lunch, soya sauce chicken drumstick left over from a huge batch that i made recently. so at least i wont be hungry when i go shopping for food. 

added 3.09pm on the 87bus going home. such a lovely day, blue sky , bright sunshine, but not humid, so it is very pleasant to be out in it. i have just been to the asda in clapham junction, where i bought 1kg yogurt, and a 12 roll pack of toilet paper for £1.98. that is the cheapest. i dont see any reason to buy expensive paper for toilet paper. seems silly to me. haha. i am glad asda is still selling such cheap toilet paper. no one else is doing so. they are all going high market as the profit is better. you can pay £8 for such a 12 pack,if u want to.  the sky is the limit it seems. how much better quality paper do u want to use to wipe your bum… ? seems to me such a silly waste of money, silly billys. 

this reminds me at times of floods or storms , people rush off to clear the supermarket shelves and they always stock up with toilet paper. i always find it so puzzling why they do it. you can use water you know, and there is no need for toilet paper at all if it runs out. people are funny as in funny-peculiar.