The Mr X factor 22: Late summer and autumn – August–November 2009
U2 concert at Wembley Stadium – a week in the south of France – visit to Monte Carlo – Mike’s stag night + Mike and Cerys’ wedding – Wendy’s 30th birthday – Dave moves flat finally – Dave’s 34th birthday – plus… NEW ZEALAND ALL WHITES QUALIFY FOR 2010 FOOTBALL WORLD CUP!!!!!
For photos of the U2 concert, Mike’s stag night + wedding, Wendy’s 30th and Dave’s 34th parties visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157619853988443/
For southern France & Monte Carlo trip photos visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157622495615992/
Getting to a U2 concert doesn’t happen very often, so I had prepared thoroughly by listening non-stop to their new album ‘No Line on the Horizon’, in the lead-up (another cracker I reckon – particularly Magnificent and Moment of Surrender), so that I could sing my lungs out at the concert.
We were way up in the third tier of the stadium for the concert, so the band looked pretty small down on the stage, but the set and audio-visual stuff was brilliant - as you would expect. The infamous claw-like designed stage was massive and worked well – it almost felt too big for the stadium!
I’ll let the photos above tell the story, but suffice to say, getting to a U2 concert is a must-do if you can, so to have finally seen them is pretty cool (I remember getting off the train from at Linden Station in 1989 on my way home from Wellington College, and seeing the platform full of my Tawa-Linden contemporaries, heading into town for their concert at Athletic Park – a long time ago!!). For the concert review head to http://www.u2.com/tour/date/id/4435
Our villa was lovely and spacious as you would hope/expect, with really nice living areas, a patio with a lovely view out over the plain below us and a large swimming pool for sunbathing/sleeping/reading beside or even jumping into and swimming in!
After settling in to the villa, we spent the week doing a mixture of things – alternating between car trips to explore various attractions, and relaxing at the villa. We visited the lovely beachside resort of St Raphael, spending a few hours on the beach and exploring the town.
We drove the scenic coastal road between Nice and Monaco, and spent an unforgettable day exploring the wealthy principality, famous for its F1 race among other things.
On the total relaxation side of things we had a couple of afternoons sunbathing/reading/sleeping poolside, interspersed with swims to cool down – lovely and relaxing, at least until Wendy unleashed her pool-Olympics plan on us one afternoon, after which havoc ensued for a while – lots of fun though!
All this was supplemented with some relaxing sleep-ins, lovely French breakfast food (Croissants & Pain au Chocolats – mmm!!), simply hanging out at the villa, and some lovely meals in the evening - either at the villa, or at a couple of the restaurants, just a walk away in Callas.
Being a long-time Formula 1 racing fan, getting to Monte Carlo was a particular highlight for me. Just driving the coastal road from Nice to Monaco was amazing in itself, and soon after we arrived in Monte Carlo itself I set off to walk the whole 3.2km track – starting from pit-straight!!
Monaco is amazing and quite surreal really - wealthy - lots of ‘bling’ on display everywhere, densely built up, crowded with tourists trying to see how the wealthiest of the wealthy live in the ‘playground of the rich and famous’.
It was a sunny & warm day when we visited – pretty normal for the Cote d’Azur! Seeing the hilliness & tightness of the roads on which the race is staged was interesting - every corner had a building, a view, a flash car or something else equally amazing to stop and look it.
The Casino Square area was particularly interesting and plush! I also walked through the famous tunnel, except upon exit I turned hard left and took a water-taxi across the Port de Monaco – passing some phenomenal boats.
When I got to the other side I walked up the hill on the southern side of the harbour to view the Prince of Monaco's Palace. I got some photos of Port du Monaco and surrounds, from an excellent spot.
Then I headed back down to the race track – and grabbing a photo of the sculpture of Fangio & one of his 1950s F1 winning car, on La Rascasse corner, and meeting up with the rest of our group on pit-straight. So my first lap of Monaco took about 3 hours – including detours!
On our last full day in France we headed to Nice, staying in a hostel overnight. After dropping some of the group at the airport (which had the coolest ever five minute zone drop-off sign - ‘‘Kiss and fly’’!!) we chilled for the afternoon, before meeting up again at a rooftop terrace bar to have some drinks at – amazing view towards the coast and over the older part of the city.
Then we had a lovely final meal together and walked around Nice late into the night. Next day we had flights out of Nice booked at various times, and mine was one of the first, so back to London it was, having completed another fabulous week away on the Continent!
At the end of September a good mate of mine got married. Mike Bartley, a fellow Kiwi whom I’ve got to know quite well through work, married Cerys, his special Welsh girl. I got invited to the wedding in Essex, as well as a pretty cool stag night - suitably themed, ‘Your last night to be a rock-star!’
Mike has always fancied himself as a rock-star, so his best man arranged a recording studio session and they cut a rock song on the Friday afternoon, before meeting up in a hotel room (all rock-star nights need to involve a hotel room!), where Mike’s ‘70s style rock-star costume was unleashed for him to try and get into – colourful and tight would be a suitable description!
Then we headed to a Karaoke venue in Farringdon and sang heaps of classic rock songs for a couple of hours – great fun, Mike especially had a great time, and it was an excellent distraction from the stress of wedding planning!!
U2 concert at Wembley Stadium – a week in the south of France – visit to Monte Carlo – Mike’s stag night + Mike and Cerys’ wedding – Wendy’s 30th birthday – Dave moves flat finally – Dave’s 34th birthday – plus… NEW ZEALAND ALL WHITES QUALIFY FOR 2010 FOOTBALL WORLD CUP!!!!!
For photos of the U2 concert, Mike’s stag night + wedding, Wendy’s 30th and Dave’s 34th parties visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157619853988443/
For southern France & Monte Carlo trip photos visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157622495615992/
So what’s been going on? Well, U2 went off in mid-August when I saw them play at Wembley Stadium! Back in May two mates had done some great work getting 12 tickets between us, so I was pretty excited on the afternoon of 14 August, as it dawned on me that I was about to watch one of the greatest bands ever.
Getting to a U2 concert doesn’t happen very often, so I had prepared thoroughly by listening non-stop to their new album ‘No Line on the Horizon’, in the lead-up (another cracker I reckon – particularly Magnificent and Moment of Surrender), so that I could sing my lungs out at the concert. 
We were way up in the third tier of the stadium for the concert, so the band looked pretty small down on the stage, but the set and audio-visual stuff was brilliant - as you would expect. The infamous claw-like designed stage was massive and worked well – it almost felt too big for the stadium!
I’ll let the photos above tell the story, but suffice to say, getting to a U2 concert is a must-do if you can, so to have finally seen them is pretty cool (I remember getting off the train from at Linden Station in 1989 on my way home from Wellington College, and seeing the platform full of my Tawa-Linden contemporaries, heading into town for their concert at Athletic Park – a long time ago!!). For the concert review head to http://www.u2.com/tour/date/id/4435At the end of August I had a lovely week away in the south of France - one of my favourite spots in Europe. The occasion was a week-long 30th birthday celebration for Wendy Vowles, a Kiwi girl I first met over here last July. She is quite the social event organiser and naturally came up with a suitable event to invite her friends to for her big 3-0!
We all pitched and hired a lovely villa for a week, near the fabulous Cote d’Azur (Azure Coast). It was a lovely place to relax in – the final holiday of a pretty fab summer. About 13 of us went in total – most of us knew each other from flatting situations, church or Wendy Vowles-arranged social functions – and the remainder we quickly got to know! We flew into Nice on the Saturday and hired a couple of cars for the week, driving west along the coast and then northwards into the hills - all on the right (wrong!) hand side of the road - my first time driving on the Continent: survived - past fields of vineyards before finally arriving at the hillside town of Callas.
Our villa was lovely and spacious as you would hope/expect, with really nice living areas, a patio with a lovely view out over the plain below us and a large swimming pool for sunbathing/sleeping/reading beside or even jumping into and swimming in!
After settling in to the villa, we spent the week doing a mixture of things – alternating between car trips to explore various attractions, and relaxing at the villa. We visited the lovely beachside resort of St Raphael, spending a few hours on the beach and exploring the town.
We drove the scenic coastal road between Nice and Monaco, and spent an unforgettable day exploring the wealthy principality, famous for its F1 race among other things.
On the total relaxation side of things we had a couple of afternoons sunbathing/reading/sleeping poolside, interspersed with swims to cool down – lovely and relaxing, at least until Wendy unleashed her pool-Olympics plan on us one afternoon, after which havoc ensued for a while – lots of fun though!
All this was supplemented with some relaxing sleep-ins, lovely French breakfast food (Croissants & Pain au Chocolats – mmm!!), simply hanging out at the villa, and some lovely meals in the evening - either at the villa, or at a couple of the restaurants, just a walk away in Callas.
Being a long-time Formula 1 racing fan, getting to Monte Carlo was a particular highlight for me. Just driving the coastal road from Nice to Monaco was amazing in itself, and soon after we arrived in Monte Carlo itself I set off to walk the whole 3.2km track – starting from pit-straight!!
Monaco is amazing and quite surreal really - wealthy - lots of ‘bling’ on display everywhere, densely built up, crowded with tourists trying to see how the wealthiest of the wealthy live in the ‘playground of the rich and famous’.
It was a sunny & warm day when we visited – pretty normal for the Cote d’Azur! Seeing the hilliness & tightness of the roads on which the race is staged was interesting - every corner had a building, a view, a flash car or something else equally amazing to stop and look it.
The Casino Square area was particularly interesting and plush! I also walked through the famous tunnel, except upon exit I turned hard left and took a water-taxi across the Port de Monaco – passing some phenomenal boats.
When I got to the other side I walked up the hill on the southern side of the harbour to view the Prince of Monaco's Palace. I got some photos of Port du Monaco and surrounds, from an excellent spot.
Then I headed back down to the race track – and grabbing a photo of the sculpture of Fangio & one of his 1950s F1 winning car, on La Rascasse corner, and meeting up with the rest of our group on pit-straight. So my first lap of Monaco took about 3 hours – including detours!
On our last full day in France we headed to Nice, staying in a hostel overnight. After dropping some of the group at the airport (which had the coolest ever five minute zone drop-off sign - ‘‘Kiss and fly’’!!) we chilled for the afternoon, before meeting up again at a rooftop terrace bar to have some drinks at – amazing view towards the coast and over the older part of the city.
Then we had a lovely final meal together and walked around Nice late into the night. Next day we had flights out of Nice booked at various times, and mine was one of the first, so back to London it was, having completed another fabulous week away on the Continent! At the end of September a good mate of mine got married. Mike Bartley, a fellow Kiwi whom I’ve got to know quite well through work, married Cerys, his special Welsh girl. I got invited to the wedding in Essex, as well as a pretty cool stag night - suitably themed, ‘Your last night to be a rock-star!’
Mike has always fancied himself as a rock-star, so his best man arranged a recording studio session and they cut a rock song on the Friday afternoon, before meeting up in a hotel room (all rock-star nights need to involve a hotel room!), where Mike’s ‘70s style rock-star costume was unleashed for him to try and get into – colourful and tight would be a suitable description!
Then we headed to a Karaoke venue in Farringdon and sang heaps of classic rock songs for a couple of hours – great fun, Mike especially had a great time, and it was an excellent distraction from the stress of wedding planning!! 
The following weekend Mike and Cerys were blessed with a stunning autumn day for their wedding - a lovely occasion for family, friends and the happy couple themselves to enjoy – it was a great time grooving on the dance floor later on. Congratulations guys!!
It was more karaoke a couple of days later as France-trip-organiser Wendy celebrated her actual 30th birthday with her usual suspects – indulging in a karaoke night at Lucky Voice in Soho – a tonne of fun as usual – you have probably worked it out: I love my karaoke!!
Much of October was quite quiet as I sorted through a whole lot of my gear, in preparation for moving flats – for the first time in 3.5 years. My flat in Dollis Hill (NW London) has been pretty good for most of that time, but its long-term flatmates began to move on from last December. Since I returned from NZ in late February, it has been doing my head in a fair bit. Some new flatmates have moved in, all about ten years younger than me and with very different outlooks on tidiness and cleanliness. With word quickly spreading to UK-bound mates, something akin to a South American takeover of 1a Deacon Road has occurred - various dossers have also arrived, making it feel like a transit terminal in a Colombian airport at times - you get the picture I’m sure!! Clearly this paragraph is a sign I’m getting older and more defined in what I will and won’t put up with!
It was more karaoke a couple of days later as France-trip-organiser Wendy celebrated her actual 30th birthday with her usual suspects – indulging in a karaoke night at Lucky Voice in Soho – a tonne of fun as usual – you have probably worked it out: I love my karaoke!! 
Much of October was quite quiet as I sorted through a whole lot of my gear, in preparation for moving flats – for the first time in 3.5 years. My flat in Dollis Hill (NW London) has been pretty good for most of that time, but its long-term flatmates began to move on from last December. Since I returned from NZ in late February, it has been doing my head in a fair bit. Some new flatmates have moved in, all about ten years younger than me and with very different outlooks on tidiness and cleanliness. With word quickly spreading to UK-bound mates, something akin to a South American takeover of 1a Deacon Road has occurred - various dossers have also arrived, making it feel like a transit terminal in a Colombian airport at times - you get the picture I’m sure!! Clearly this paragraph is a sign I’m getting older and more defined in what I will and won’t put up with! So, I have been looking for a more suitable flat since about May. There was one in nearby Cricklewood, which had some cool people and a great vibe - a spacious and really nice 3-storey terraced house – housing eight people in total! So in June I mentioned I would be interested in a spot, should a room become available, and just when it seemed there wasn’t going to be any space for a while, a room became free and I got the call to move in. So I moved into the flat towards the end of October. It consists of 5 Kiwis, an Aussie, a Botswanan and a token Brit! Straight away there was a leaving party for Rose, the girl I was replacing – in fact there have been a few leaving parties of late, with 3 friends who were on the France trip all heading home in pretty quick succession – all the best Jill, Rose and Carolyn!!
In early November I had my 5th birthday (well, actually my 34th - but my 5th one over here!). I christened my move into the new flat by holding it at home - in fact it was my first birthday celebration over here that has not been held in a pub! It was pretty low key, but good fun nonetheless - Wendy helped me out wonderfully, and we put on a good spread of food. It was nice to see everyone, despite Transport for London trying to sabotage the event, by closing the Jubilee line on a weekend – again!
There have been quite a few lovely autumn days over here in the last two months. By far the best one was on Saturday 14 November, when the ‘All Whites’ – New Zealand’s national football team beat Bahrain 1-0 to qualify for next year’s World Cup – for the first time since 1982! Trust me on this on – the result is massive for NZ (so much so that it deserves 5 paragraphs here!!) and I am so stoked that they have finally made it!
Having drawn 0-0 in Bahrain in the October away leg, we had a decent chance in the home leg in NZ. So I wasn’t going to miss watching this massive match – getting up at 6.30am on a Saturday, to a dark, cold and breezy London dawn. I headed across Gladstone Park with my mate Rob to another Kiwi mate’s nearby flat – Simon has Sky Sport and a big screen, so at least three Wellington boys in London were united together as a full-house at the Cake Tin (Wellington’s Stadium) rocked to an amazing and unprecedented sporting atmosphere – and the biggest crowd ever at a football match in NZ.
We were filled with hope – ‘One shot for Glory’ was the name of the campaign. Win this game and we get a spot in a real World Cup, next year in South Africa - choking here was not an option. And we didn’t – we won!! - taking the lead before half time, then saving a penalty early in the second half, before holding on to win the tie, and qualify for South Africa 2010!! The unforgettable video highlights are at the following links:
So, well done to the All Whites – Rory Fallon and Mark Paston in particular, + Ricky Herbert (legend!) and Terry Serepisos (recent saviour of NZ football with the Wellington Phoenix) too – as well as the 1982 All Whites, who pioneered the way – it is great to not have to refer back to 1982 as the only time now!! And hopefully we can kick on from here and acquit ourselves well in South Africa next year, on the biggest stage.
In early November I had my 5th birthday (well, actually my 34th - but my 5th one over here!). I christened my move into the new flat by holding it at home - in fact it was my first birthday celebration over here that has not been held in a pub! It was pretty low key, but good fun nonetheless - Wendy helped me out wonderfully, and we put on a good spread of food. It was nice to see everyone, despite Transport for London trying to sabotage the event, by closing the Jubilee line on a weekend – again!
There have been quite a few lovely autumn days over here in the last two months. By far the best one was on Saturday 14 November, when the ‘All Whites’ – New Zealand’s national football team beat Bahrain 1-0 to qualify for next year’s World Cup – for the first time since 1982! Trust me on this on – the result is massive for NZ (so much so that it deserves 5 paragraphs here!!) and I am so stoked that they have finally made it! 
Having drawn 0-0 in Bahrain in the October away leg, we had a decent chance in the home leg in NZ. So I wasn’t going to miss watching this massive match – getting up at 6.30am on a Saturday, to a dark, cold and breezy London dawn. I headed across Gladstone Park with my mate Rob to another Kiwi mate’s nearby flat – Simon has Sky Sport and a big screen, so at least three Wellington boys in London were united together as a full-house at the Cake Tin (Wellington’s Stadium) rocked to an amazing and unprecedented sporting atmosphere – and the biggest crowd ever at a football match in NZ.
We were filled with hope – ‘One shot for Glory’ was the name of the campaign. Win this game and we get a spot in a real World Cup, next year in South Africa - choking here was not an option. And we didn’t – we won!! - taking the lead before half time, then saving a penalty early in the second half, before holding on to win the tie, and qualify for South Africa 2010!! The unforgettable video highlights are at the following links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOActCLjkKc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd6vWVuL7Kg&NR=1
We were totally ecstatic and so was the NZ public – we streamed NZ’s radio sport over the internet afterwards, and it was great to listen to the reactions of Kiwis back home. It must have been an amazing atmosphere – and maybe this is the start of a new era for NZ football, and hopefully my 8-year old nephew Adam can catch the bug next June/July – I have a scrapbook of the 1982 World Cup in Spain (when I was 6) stored in a trunk somewhere back home – with cards of all the players from that tournament – including the New Zealand All Whites - that was the start of World Cup memories for me.
So, well done to the All Whites – Rory Fallon and Mark Paston in particular, + Ricky Herbert (legend!) and Terry Serepisos (recent saviour of NZ football with the Wellington Phoenix) too – as well as the 1982 All Whites, who pioneered the way – it is great to not have to refer back to 1982 as the only time now!! And hopefully we can kick on from here and acquit ourselves well in South Africa next year, on the biggest stage. I’ll leave things there for this edition – although there’s one final bit of lovely news for those of you who have read this far: I’ve talked about a certain Wendy a few times in this blog - and she is now my girlfriend! We started going out about a month ago and we are both pretty thrilled and happy. Early days so far, but (hopefully) more about that in Mr X factor 23!
Have a blessed Christmas and all the best for 2010!
Dave
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