I started blogging in 2002 but not until September, so May went unblogged. Here are some of the things I might have posted about had I started earlier (and had I not been quite so busy going out and enjoying myself).
Wed 1: Started the day with orange juice and doughnuts, then took the subway to the Empire State Building and sped up to the top by lift. The weather was perfect, the skyline was iconic, the overview was stunning. Alas mobile reception proved insufficient to send a text message home bragging about where I was. Next I ticked off Brooklyn Bridge and Wall Street, followed that with a boat tour round the harbour to get closer to the Statue of Liberty, then stepped up reverently onto the Ground Zero viewing platform, it being only a few months since the city's greatest disaster. Sadly I no longer have any photos of this, just imprinted memories. Thu 2: I could get used to syrupy bacon pancakes for breakfast but probably best that I don't. The Guggenheim is closed on Thursdays, it turns out. Stocked up on cinnamon TicTacs because they're not yet extinct over here. Fri 3: Went to a cinema on 42nd Street to watch Spiderman on its day of release, then headed back to digs on Roosevelt Island via the cablecar which had been violently destroyed in the final reel. Sat 4: Last chance for a walk across Central Park, souvenir shopping in Schwarz and burger and fries in the Tramway diner before taking the subway to JFK. The plane takes off at 7pm... Sun 5: ...which is midnight back home. Bridget Jones Diary over Long Island, turbulence over the Atlantic, fruit juice over Ireland, sunrise over Wales and stacking over Guildford.
Mon 6: It's bank holiday Monday and I'm wiped out, but I did go to Stratford and buy those chairs that are currently decaying on my balcony. Tue 7: Back to work after 10 days off, dammit. My postcard hasn't arrived yet. Wed 8: Heavens, by beating Manchester United at Old Trafford Arsenal have clinched the double... again... again. There are celebrations. Thu 9: Spotted the Queen's helicopter flying off on a Golden Jubilee visit to the East End, because there are advantages to a window seat in an 7th floor office. Fri 10: Had to go on a work trip to a meeting in Milton Keynes and I don't miss those, especially the resolutely vegetarian lunches. Thankfully it wasn't a meeting in Peterborough otherwise I'd never have got home past the fatal train crash in Potters Bar. Sat 11: I can't believe how cheap drinks are in Brighton, I got a round in for £3.60. Sun 12: Spent the afternoon at an awkward barbecue in Woodingdean - the briquettes ran out, the food was undercooked, the sun took its time to appear and the host was in the process of splitting up with one of the guests. I have not been back.
Mon 13: Attempted a blind date after work, and you could tell it wasn't going to work when we moved on from drinks to food and one of us sugggested Japanese and the other suggested Garfunkels. Tue 14: Didn't do very well in tonight's pub quiz - too many music questions about 1970s guitar bands. Wed 15: Rang ITV Digital to see if they could help get my BBC channels back. They could. Thu 16: Off to the Stratford Picturehouse to watch Star Wars episode 2 - Attack of the Clones. The rest of the audience behaved themselves... the scriptwriters less so. Fri 17: Less than a year into my new job I got to go and supervise the biggest meeting of the year like I actually knew what I was doing. Winged it successfully. Sat 18: Objects of significance today: a) an in-car CD changer I forgot to take the CDs out of before selling my car, b) a single can of dogfood c) not the latest Arsenal football kit. Sun 19: Left the pub just after midnight so I could take the tube home, rather than hanging around in the pub another fifteen minutes and having to slog home on two nightbuses.
Mon 20: Off to Cineworld at West India Quay to watch About A Boy, unaware that it'll be repeated endlessly on TV over the next two decades and I could have waited and watched it umpteen times for nothing. Tue 21: Another big iconic annual meeting at work with me in the chair. The long-timers said I "learned fast". Twenty years later I wonder who's running it now, but I suspect it's been replaced by an online process and nobody is. Wed 22: BestMate'sNewOtherHalf is flying in on a plane from New York, a whirlwind that'll result in BestMate emigrating within a year (and leaving me plenty of spare social time to start writing a blog). Thu 23: I've got tired of dial-up so today's the day I finally sign up for broadband. The unbleepy future starts here... or whenever next month they get round to switching it on. Fri 24: Had to go on another work trip to a meeting in Milton Keynes, this time to a less alluring location and for an overnight stay. Sneaked out of the night's social commitments after the profiteroles to go and sit in my room watching the launch of Big Brother 3. Sat 25: Started watching Eurovision at home, finished watching Eurovision in a pub. Latvia edged ahead of Malta to win, and it's also the last time the UK finished in the top three. Sun 26: Went to Columbia Road Flower Market and was amazed how busy it was. A year later it'd've got a full blogpost of its own, but all it merited in my 2002 diary was eight words.
Mon 27: This should have been a Bank Holiday Monday but the Queen's 50th shifted that into next month which is a) bad because I had to go into work b) good because the weather's not great. Tue 28: I've just seen the size of my mobile bill after that week in New York and sheesh it's come in at over £100. Pre-3G and roaming, those short international calls and text messages mounted up. Wed 29: Someone at work thought it'd be a good idea if I went and gave a talk in Barking, and they were expecting an audience of hopefully ten but in the end only four turned up, and they enjoyed it but it went on until 7pm and I am never doing that again. Thu 30: Survived my first annual appraisal, indeed it went quite well, and as a reward the boss asked me to undertake a fact-finding mission to Hull next month. Fri 31: Took the day off work to wait in for my new PC to be delivered, only it never arrived... and it was a lot harder to keep tabs on things and complain in those days. Next week there'll be six boxes to unpack, because the laptop/smartphone revolution remains some way off.
