The Great Chair Expedition

On thursday after a gruelling session of Wing Chun (not well known martial arts - i know what you're thinking - what is wing chun????). The reason you may wonder to the gruelling session was down to the presence of what I initially assumed was merely a cleaner (this is why you should never assume anything). He strolled in and after making a quick study of our humble group of 7 cried out, "Hit like you're trying to punch through someone". At this pointhe demanded we did 10 sets of 10 side punches (fun fun). This went on for an hour and a half; I believe a simple equation can be dervied to best show this:

ME + Scary, loud instructor from UCL branch => time => Tired

However, he was in fact an excellent teacher and I learnt much from him so it didn't come without its perks.

Anyway I'm slightly off subject from what I was actually going to blog about. While the title gives you a clue it does not fully coherently and competently explain the events of Wednesday the 17th February 2010. It began after I had left my wing chun lesson and was heading back to halls when I bumped into my friend Tim who had somehow managed to get himself 2 office chairs off freecycle (coupled with the one from the previous night). He was having problems calling the owner who was a Jennifer from 13 George Street in Central London. After a further 15minutes he finally managed to contact her and we set off in search of the office chairs - my reward would be an office chair which I must admit is very comfortable and is now firmly ensconed in my room.

Off we went, across the harrowing length of Hyde Park and what has been the warmest day of the winter - warm, sunny, lovely. On reaching Hyde Park corner I finally saw Marble Arch and was promptly disappointed on its dimunitive size (it's a poor imitation of l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris). Needless to say I did not stop for a photo. Onwards we trekked, Tim and I, across the masses of Oxford Street and a very heat inefficient Primemark which was leaking so much heat that 5 metres from the door you would get gusts of it. Not that I'm complaining, it was great to be blasted by desert heat in the dark cliffs of the towering buildings. A few twists and turns later we arrived at 13 George Street.

What we found thoroughly confused, for on the door was a plaque with "International Bank of Kuwait" inscribed on it. As we had come this far we decided we would just go in and ask. The receptionist informed us that we were indeed at the right place and we should pass through a side door.

On entering we met Jennifer, she showed us to the swively chairs which were quite awesome in their bright blue resplendence. Now came what I can only describe as one of the longest walks of my life. Yes that's right, we walked all the way from Marble Arch to Fulham; a journey of 2 hours with rather heavy chairs. I have since been called mad for not taking the tube or a bus and sitting on it comically with my chair. However, what we actually did, in my opinion was far more enjoyable and...amusing.

Walking along Oxford Street with a pair of fully assembled office chairs in our arms (and on Tim's head) drew many a stare and glance from curious passers by and workers. At Marble Arch we entered the park and stopped at one of the crossroads. From here we made a 360 degree video as well as a few random pictures of Office Chairs out-of-place. (I don't have the pictures or I would upload them.)

As we had decided to give the bus a miss our next port of call was the Serpentine (more staring). To get down to the Serpentine (a lake) there was a slight inclination and thus we decided to wheel down on the chairs (which failed epically was these chairs are incapable of going in a straight line - as demonstrated on Brainiac with the many attempts to make one move with CO2 tanks). On arrival at the Serpentine we discovered an ice cream stool (it was that warm) and both purchased twisters (which I believe had shrunk since I last ate one). The weird thing was, the chairs appeared to become invisible once you sat down on one next to another - people must've assumed they were modified benchers for they went from staring to ignoring. Most strange. We did loiter long after that for night was coming inevitably and proceeded up towards the bridge where I heard a car pull up behind me...

...Only to see it was a police man who was looking at us as if we had stolen these chairs. Thus ensued the following rather bizarre conversation:
"Where did you get those?"
"Freecycle, you heard of it?"
"Oh yeah, I have an account"
"We're not thieves by the way"
"Yeah if you were you would have run already"
"Oh, we're only half way home"
"Good luck getting back, off you go lads"

An hour later we had finally gotten back to halls and my arms felt like they were going to fall off. After thanking Tim for the free chair (and aching arms) I took my prize to my room where I showed it off to my stunned room mate pridefully.

It was prooved very useful for playing McGreal's Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars which is a brilliant game - especially when you take control of the Scrin (Alien) Fleet - enter motherships with independence day style weapons; shielded space craft and giant shielded tripod walkers as well as the Rift Superweapon - it opens a wormhole to deep space which sucks in everything that is close to it. A truly nasty weapon. And on that cheery note I shall end this blog.