I had a plumber/gas/electric check feller who's contracted to check my flat once a year. Me being the busy chappy that I am, rarely see much of my flat and so the only time I could fit this in was Wednesday morning before work. Now considering that I Ieave for work at around 7am when on Fortess of Solitude Shifts, this meant Mr. Handyman had to be done by then, so he was due to arrive at 06:30. He calls me on Monday to reschedule for Tuesday, I think: "oh dear this can't be good for my health", but have pity and agree. This brings me to today (Tuesday 25th).

Wake up: 05:00. Shower and get ready for this man to check the boiler and cooker. Thankfully I'd remembered from last year that he tends to come earlier than the said time. He turned up at 05:50 and left within a half hour. I figure there's be no point napping for a half hour else it's become 2 or 3 hours. I get out of the door and into the Fortress between my scheduled time frame of 08:00 and 16:30.

At 16:30 I had to shoot off to pickup my suit for it needed amending (I've put on a couple of inches waist size since last year), off to Picadilly Circus, grab suit, shoot home, get showered get changed, head back into Central London. If I get the 18:10 bus I can still make the 18:45 showing. Bus to Victoria. Awesome, 10 minutes remainng for a 3 minute Tube journey, I can do this, easy!

"The underground services from London Victoria have been suspended due to overcrowded platforms" ... F@*k!!! Now what?? Well it can't be 'that' far, I'll find a bus that goes there, right get out in the open, lighting strikes, the sky comes dribbling down with rain. My suit's getting wet. Aha bus, run!!! Anyone that knows me, being late for a film is the only time they'll ever catch me running.

"Excuse me, do you go to Picadilly Circus?" ..
"Yea",
"Great, thanks" ... as I hop onto the bus and take a seat, the next thing I know, the driver put on his jacket and walks off the bus. I'm thinking "what the hell??, I need this bus moving, NOW!!!"

As my blood pressire probably rocketed through the roof of the bus, I thought I'd calm myself by putting on some music. So the iPod came out and the soundtrack for the forthcoming SRK flick filled my ears from Track 1.. "Ajab Si" ... A slow and soothing number. Then some old man came and sat next to me. I say old but I mean 50'ish with a Financial Times in hand, white hair, chunky glasses, just your stereo typical old guy. He openes up his FT and then asks me to make some space. I manage to move an inch, probably less, I've already been more than generous with space, besides its his poncey newspaper that needs the space, not him.

What a fricking idiot I think & tell him sarcastically, "I'm sorry I only managed to move an inch" and he replies "Very nice, thanks." with total non-understanding ... Well there you go what can you say to that?! Thankfully another driver turns up at this point and gets the bus moving, it is 7pm -- on a generic show even all the adverts would be done by now. I should probably just give up and go the afterparty maybe? Not a bad idea, it would give me a chance to get some food, but I wanna see the movie. As these thoughts roll around in my head I come to realise the bus is doing the same. Not moving at more than 10 miles per hour it rolls down a long road that doesn't look all that familiar.

Suddenly it does, it's Quarter past 7, I get off realising I'd walk quicker than the bus anyway and head to the cinema just to see if anyone can tell me how long the film is so I know when to pop back to mingle with the crowds. To my glee, there's a huge queue outside. Waiting to get their tickets. I already have mine in my inside left pocket -- courtesy of being a superstud with a press pass it was posted to me earlier in the week. Mission: Accomplised.

The afterparty was all you'd expect, from the excited film makers out to tell you about their screening at some point in the next few days, to bumping into acquaintances from other festivals whose name you can't remember. There was ample free drinks to keep everybody entertained too. It was good seeing a bunch of familiar faces from last year's festival. One of the chaps who delivers all the prints throughout the festival shared the same concern as myself with regards to the atmosphere of the party which hugely depended on the opening night film and as I mentioned in my review we were both pleasantly surprised by the upbeat movie filum. He was a friendly chap, I recall speaking to him most days at the festival last year, b*tching about the horrible films, complementing the awesome ones. I do remember his name, seriously, I do.

As I made the sensible choice of leaving the party before trains came to a halt, it dawned upon me, the end of the day, I knew I had a day off the next day, relaxation started kicking in like the caffeine does each morning with the first latte of the day. And so I thought to myself "well, so it begins"... I'll be seeing a lot of this over the next 2 weeks ... & like some lost tourist I took this snap, before hopping onto the tube back home:

In a nutshell, all's well that ends well, but wow what an extremely busy day. *phew* I'm knackered.