And so began the summer of food....

Been a bit busy with work lately, which is good, but I am also having to do a bit of commuting to Winnersh, which takes up 3 hours of my day - ouch. So not a lot of time to blog. Spring has arrived again – which is great for people like me – not so good if you are a hay fever sufferer. But I’m not, and this blog is all about me, so we're not talking about hay fever.

What have we done lately? Paul, Damien and I went here, the second last night before it closed. It was good fun, and the food was excellent, if a little overpriced. When Damien first arrived in London, he used to deliver mushrooms there, so the night peppered with comments like ‘People say you can’t make it in this town, but I beg to differ’ etc.etc. We tried to engage the waitress in some banter, but she was having none of it. She was eastern-european, didn’t know who Gennaro was, and was rather severe. She reminded me of the Nanny(?) in Lead Balloon in fact. Jack Dee is a comic genius.

There was a surprisingly good Chilean wine tasting Damien dragged us along to last week as well. I say surprisingly good, because I associate Chile with sub-£5 quaffers and not so much with the quality end of the wine market. We tasted our way through some pretty good stuff – especially Pinot, (my wine of choice at the moment). I found there were still some pretty crappy ‘dirty’ wines, but the overall standard was very good.

Afterwards we went here, for a nice big dose of attitude from the Maitre’d. I suppose it was our privilege to wait for 40 mins for a table though. In the end, we declined our table, as we’d done it in true Spanish style and eaten (standing) at the bar. I then had a bit of a rant (to no-one in particular) about how there were two ways they could have dealt with us waiting – and we got treated the in the crappy, what-do-you-mean-you-want-to-eat-here way. But that service for you in London, I suppose. And by God they have good food.

Saturday we did some jobs and shopping in London’s overcrowded West End. But we found a haven of gastronomic excellence to eat at, and it’s cheapish! How did I not know about this! And we got to eavesdrop on someone’s wedding/hen’s weekend plans – double bonus.
Afterwards we were stopped by two chic French women, asking us where the new Abercrombie and Fitch store. I didn’t realise I looked so obviously American buff gay. I told them the wrong address. C’est la vie.

Happy to provide a service

This blog get a few hits for Aussiebum underwear and swimming trunks. No, there isn't an Aussiebum shop in London, but you can buy them at Selfridges on Oxford St, or at the Prowler Stores in Soho. Or at their website - they ship worldwide you know!

Oh no it isn't!

Sorry for the dismal effort in blogging lately, but I had to travel again with work, and am doing a big commute as well. Not good.

I found myself savouring the delights of the Franco-German anachronism that is Strasbourg again last week. It is very pretty and I had some great food again, but by God the people who I have to work with there are boring. And I mean terminally. But there were other highlights.

Like being greeted with a ‘Bonjour!’ upon leaving the toilet cubicle. Very friendly, but I don’t want people talking to me in the loo – he might as well have asked me if I enjoyed my crap.

I ate a cake at the airport! And had weizen beer!! The beer was very good, but the cake was disappointing (What was I expecting – I was in Germany) and what I thought was going to be a flaky pastry with lovely fresh glazed fruit topping it wasn’t. Instead it was a four inch high doughy cake thing with stewed fruit and jelly on it. Which would have been fine, but I don’t like stewed fruit or jelly. Oh well.

We went for flambe one evening and beer (!), and my colleagues entertained me with amusing stories. One particularly amusing one involved a colleague of theirs wearing jeans to the office one day. Oh, how we laughed. I think I reached for more beer at that point.

But I am still astonished by the canteen in Strasbourg – 3 courses for 7 Euro. And they serve up grub like Carpaccio of Scallop – and over here in the UK you’re lucky to get gammon and chips. While a very smiley French Agnetha from Abba lookalike (without the marital problems I hope!), serves on the checkout there, here they look like they have to go back to Holloway in the evenings.

Friday night we went into town for drinks and Kelly Osbourne was out - she said sorry to me when her drunk friend knocked me. I didn't mind, because I was drunk too.

There were lots of Daniel Radcliffe stalkers out too, trying to see him naked.

Last weekend we went out to the Essex/Suffolk borders again. It was sunny! We went to the beach!

This week has been an unseasonably warm 14C., but this is due to be replaced by snow on Sunday. I’m thinking of upping my carbon footprint in an effort to hasten the onset of spring.

Oh, and the sun is still rising. Sometimes it’s pretty.

Look, It's Spring!!

Possibly London's most beautiful flower stall?

Sorry for lack of posts lately - have been away for work, so hopefully will get to blog again soon......

We survived our trip.

Our plane didn't collide with another.

And the volcano didn't erupt causing the island to slide into the sea and a tsumani to wipe out the east coast of the US.





But, we did almost get airlifted from a beach by a helicopter. Seriously.
More disastrous photos here.