Hunting for music of a similar sound over on last.fm i end up finding Stan Getz and his awesome Jazzy/Bossa Nova music.

I placed a request out to friends on facebook to recommend some music, and Michelle suggests Astrude Gilberto. I am now in love with her music, and I’ve now amassed the whole collections of Bebel Gilberto, Joao Gilberto, Steve Getz and Astrude Gilberto.

So it got me thinking, what’s with this Gilberto thing? why so many of them, and it turns out that Astrude Gilberto is Joao Gilberto’s wife and Bebel is their daughter! Where does Steve Getz get involved? well he’s another artists who had released an album with Joao, and convinced Astrude to get involved and become a singer!

Awesome i have the whole musical collection of a family and friends

After seeing Man Utd schooled by AC Milan, we took a drive to Alexandra palace, where we parked up, turn to the side and in the car next to us a couple were busy at it! moved the car to the other side of the car park, and again another couple enjoying the pleasures of car considering two guys in a car in what seemed to be a rather interesting car park, it just looked wrong, so we head into town towards the Tate.

Parking up on Sumner street we headed along the river, giving Shane a tour of the south bank in a way he hadn’t seen before! we went down to the beach on the thames, and watched the city scape from an angle most people don’t get to see!

We get over the millennium bridge to the other side and go down the most random stairs of death straight to another beach, the tide was coming in quick, so we had to walk along to another exit before we get caught in the filth that is the Thames!

We find some random ladder leading back up to the river walk, once on top we find ourselves next to a scaffolded building, being the true descendants of chimps, we put our primitive skills to good(?) use and climbed up the scaffolding onto the building in progress, we manage to hang over the Thames getting some awesome views of night time London. The thrill was awesome, Shane decided he had to scale the front of the building and ends up climbing to the second floor balcony. Eventually after failing to find an entrance to the building up around the front, we decide to go to the lower levels and manage to sneak between the floors to a pitch black construction site of the building, we find ourselves a pair of goggles and a hard hat….at least we are protected stuntmen

After getting all we could out of this building and investigating as far as possible we eventually scale over and down the scaffolding again back to the river side.

Crossing the millennium bridge, suddenly the bars running along the bridge either side (hanging over the Thames) look like way way more fun than the simple act of walking across the bridge in every day fashion, as we get back over to the south side, we start climbing up the side of the bridge and onto the bars running along the west side of the bridge, considering both me and Shane are scared of heights, this fucked us up, although myself more, but again the excitement of it all was too much to pass over. We continued to shuffle along in quite a weird technique (note Shane is still wearing a bright yellow hard hat and goggles, providing people walking along the bridge quite a random view at 1am).

As we kept shuffling along we finally cleared the river side and were now hanging over the Thames with nothing but 4 metal bars a couple of feet apart between us and the water below. lying down and looking at the water was exhilarating and scary as fuck!!! Shane being the crazy fuck, decided to walk across the beams back to the bridge, while hanging over the Thames. After jumping back on to the bridge, he goes a couple of beams along and then goes off the side of the bridge again. IF anyone can visualise the millennium bridge you’d understand the beams to the right and left that go all along then rise up steeply then back down again, Shane went up along them all the way to the peak, standing on top, scared the fuck out of me, then taking a slide down the pillar all the way UNDER the bridge, to find himself stuck on top of the pillar in the middle of the Thames.

Considering he was now stuck, i got over the side hung by the thin metal cables to offer him my legs to grab on to come back up, now finding that he can get up using me, Shane decides to go that extra step run up the ramp under the bridge and we pull ourselves back up, over and on to the bridge again. This all is much more impressive if you can actually see the bridge!

Anyway, at about 2am we decide it’s now safe to say we’ve had a good night, we’ll come back next time with the camera for some cool photos of this, covered in all kinds of bridge dirt, and in a yellow hard hat, we get back to my little peugeot and speed back home.

….wow

I guess this is for me more than anyone else, i doubt anyone would read this far, or even appreciate what happened but I’d like to keep this as a log for the future as it was a cool memory!

Requirements for next time
1. Rubber Dinghy
2. Paddles (or motor)
3. Tent
4. Fold Up Bikes
5. Beer (more)
6. Camera
7. Harness

Hopefully over the coming days I will get my rather oversized digital photo gallery online, I apologise for such a rude intrusion to the cyber world, but my vanity has gained the best of me and the exhibitionist inside is being placed on show.