Indu, possibly, is shrinking. She gets smaller every time I see her. For the summer we both turn 30, and to celebrate the twin marvels of our continued existence and friendship, we are Doing Something, by Zeus! Namely, a sojourn in Portugal and the Optimus rawk festival.
By day, we desecrate monasteries, invade Narnian castles, gorge on egg custard tarts and drink gallons of red, red wine.
At night, the festival beckons. Tickets purchased on a grim January Sevillian morn are exchanged for wristbands and good taste is traded for bottles of desperado.
Interpol are interstellar. Black Keys: A+ for attainment, C- minus for effort. MGMT have very nicely applied nail polish, and that is all that should be said about them.
I confess I'm left unmoved by Alex Turner's snake-hipped writhing. His 3rd rate Shane Richie hairdo that does so much for Indu leaves me cold, but a polarizing taste in men is what has kept our friendship so fresh and enduring over the years.
The Libertines are dinosaurs, the zombies of rock. Pete Docherty on day release, still clad in railway captain's cap from an earlier appointment with playgroup, tearing through the set to get back to his choo choo trains, if only Carl would let him.
There is something so pleasing in two friends travelling separately from different countries to meeting in the middle. I remember a Christmas morning in Hong Kong, after a particularly distressing red eye from Tokyo, weaving through the unsanitised streets of Kowloon, and finding Alistair, boxfresh from London, all new haircut and Sainsbury's bag.
Another time, popping up in Rio, and there's Cass from Sydney and Abi from L.A. and it's midnight when we finally meet and the hostel people let us stay up til 2am talking.
"And you, of course are Jenny-from-Casablanca" pronounces the Istanbul hotel clerk, before leading me upstairs to the giddy, fantastical mirage of Annette and Rachel, after a month's spell in Morocco (a holiday which remains unblogged in hope of erasing the memory). In the clean white room, one of them is showing me the mini fridge, stuffed with beer, the other, for reasons best known to herself, is naked 'neath the bedsheets. They are giggling and tomorrow I get to spend all day with them. Now one lives on a little island off South Korea, and the other near Bath and me, soon, in Naples, but we will make these half-way points for each other.
By day, we desecrate monasteries, invade Narnian castles, gorge on egg custard tarts and drink gallons of red, red wine.
At night, the festival beckons. Tickets purchased on a grim January Sevillian morn are exchanged for wristbands and good taste is traded for bottles of desperado.
Interpol are interstellar. Black Keys: A+ for attainment, C- minus for effort. MGMT have very nicely applied nail polish, and that is all that should be said about them.
I confess I'm left unmoved by Alex Turner's snake-hipped writhing. His 3rd rate Shane Richie hairdo that does so much for Indu leaves me cold, but a polarizing taste in men is what has kept our friendship so fresh and enduring over the years.
The Libertines are dinosaurs, the zombies of rock. Pete Docherty on day release, still clad in railway captain's cap from an earlier appointment with playgroup, tearing through the set to get back to his choo choo trains, if only Carl would let him.
There is something so pleasing in two friends travelling separately from different countries to meeting in the middle. I remember a Christmas morning in Hong Kong, after a particularly distressing red eye from Tokyo, weaving through the unsanitised streets of Kowloon, and finding Alistair, boxfresh from London, all new haircut and Sainsbury's bag.
Another time, popping up in Rio, and there's Cass from Sydney and Abi from L.A. and it's midnight when we finally meet and the hostel people let us stay up til 2am talking.
"And you, of course are Jenny-from-Casablanca" pronounces the Istanbul hotel clerk, before leading me upstairs to the giddy, fantastical mirage of Annette and Rachel, after a month's spell in Morocco (a holiday which remains unblogged in hope of erasing the memory). In the clean white room, one of them is showing me the mini fridge, stuffed with beer, the other, for reasons best known to herself, is naked 'neath the bedsheets. They are giggling and tomorrow I get to spend all day with them. Now one lives on a little island off South Korea, and the other near Bath and me, soon, in Naples, but we will make these half-way points for each other.
