It still remains with me

Bad blogger. I think - not much of note happened last week - or did it? It all seems to be work at the moment. I'm trying hard to figure out who's on the side of the forces of good in the new office and trying to keep everyone one side. I'm not entirely sure how if it's working at all, but I seem to be keeping my new boss happy, and he's the one who hands out pay rises, so here's hoping.

Last week seemed to be full of emails exhanging photos from Iz's birthday weekend. Mine are here. It was a lovely weekend, full of good food, lots of beer and wine, and nice people. Sperlonga was an excellent choice. The old town is closed to traffic, and the hotel was right in the centre of it all. Paul and I hadn't seen Harold and Sophie and Jean for ages, so we had a good catch up and we finally got to see Steve's house in Gaeta. I seemed to spend a large proportion of the weekend playing beach tennis with H and Sophie's boys, which was good fun. They are really nice kids, no tantrums or whining at all.

Iz and I went shopping in the Rome's Centro Storico Monday morning , ostensibly to find me a birthday present from the Romans. I had decided on a man-bag, so we spent the morning checking out stores around the Spanish Steps and Via Condotti. We didn't have much luck though, as I wasn't able to find the bag I wanted. I was a bit worried that Iz might have thought I was the world's fussiest shopper, but she probably knew that already. And it was nice to have her all to myself for the morning.

A few observations about Rome (or things I'd forgotten since living there):

• Unfeasibly attractive shop assistants!! But I still didn't buy anything.


• They've cleaned the turtle fountain - it used to be so grotty and grey!!


• If we ever go back to live, I'd stack on the weight again - the food is just too good.


• I'd forgotten that heat and how nice it is to be able to go to the beach.


• It's just so beautiful

The rest of the week was spent freezing in the cold snap - my winter coat even made a reappearance. Mitch and Susie arrived back from Scotland and Amsterdam on Saturday. Paul and I went shopping and managed to find a manbag that met all criteria in Selfridges. We then caught up with Damien and Mark to see Jindabyne. I love Laura Linney. And she and Gabriel Byrne were outstanding. And the movie was very good (as you asked, 8.8/10). But it made me (and Damien) homesick. The birdsong. The bush. The laconic humour. It was very haunting and beautiful.

While we were watching that Mitch and Susie were watching 'The Lady from Dubuque', with Dame Maggie Smith (insert comment about national treasure/living legend here). Paul and I had seen it couple of months ago. I found it difficult to engage with, but Maggie Smith was excellent. Mitch and Susie really enjoyed it and then met us afterwards for a drink at The Edge. Which now has gogo boys on a Saturday night. How embarassment. We also saw our first fight (well - a bit of agressiveness and pushing, that's a fight for gay men) in a gay bar ever. Imagine.

Sunday I pumped up the bike tyres (Paul had to go to the shop to do his) and we cycled over to the ponds at Highgate for swim. It was lovely lying in the sun, but I believe it gave me a mild dose of hayfever. And I still hate swimming in that brackish water. I always think I'm going to get some weird stomach bug and die from internal bleeding.

Monday night Michael and Susie took us around the corner for dinner. It was so much fun seeing them again. Michael is such a nice guy.

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!

Paul and I gritted our teeth Saturday and headed into London’s sparkling West End to start our Christmas Shopping. It actually wasn’t too crowded, but then again we were there at the relatively early shopping time of 10:45, so who knows what it was like later. I was getting annoyed with people dawdling and stopping dead in front of me. I knew what I wanted and where I needed to go, so anyone in my way was an annoyance. When we were at dinner Saturday night, someone suggested implementing a fast and slow lanes, but I think it would be better just keeping tourists and stupid people out of town for the month of December, and deploying marksmen on the tops of buildings to shoot trangressors.. I wonder if the Mayor of London has a suggestion box?





I bought some shoes (on sale!) as my mum’s Christmas present to me. Thanks Mum!

When we were on Bond St, we saw Gordon Ramsay illegally park his silver Lamborghini and go into some ritzy jewellers, come out and drive off. F*ck!! (I don't normally swear, but I felt I should for Gordon's sake). His skin is really bad. But he has a classy car.

Paul suggested lunch at the new wine bar in Fortnum & Mason, 1707. It was very good, and the winelist was done by either Jancis Robinson or Tim Aitken. (I can’t remember which, but they are both MWs and two of my favourite wine writers). Jancis should be the next Queen of England. Anyway, the food was very good and so was the wine champagne. The room itself is all oak and so it felt a bit like sitting in a sauna with septuagenarians. If it had been Germany, they all would have been naked. It didn't bear thinking about.

The toilets at F & M have the same flush button as our new bathroom. How exciting! And F&M was founded before the white discovery of Australia.

The British press is very excited about Kate Middleton going to HRH William’s graduation at Sandhurst. She will probably now be hounded to death. I pity the poor girl, but I suppose if you start snogging the future King of England, it’s the price you have to pay.

Saturday night we went for dinner with Louise, Jo, and Stuie. At Spiga, in London's down-at-heel Soho. It was very good, and as a bonus, they forgot to charge us for the wine. Oh well. First we meet here for a drink, where I almost choked when I was charged £8 for a glass of wine. "It's very good", the barman assured me.


Louise and Jo are going to Paris for few days before Christmas. I hope they go here for dinner/lunch – it’s lovely. I believe they are what people call ‘lipstick’ lesbians. Some people think lesbians are all overalls and reassembling cars for the hell of it, but most of the lesbians I know are very glamourous.

Speaking of DIY (well sortof), I had to replace the bathroom light switch the other day and didn’t electrocute myself. Sometimes my butchness astounds me.

It’s finally got cold – just in time for Christmas! The weekend was very clear and crisp, but freezing as soon as the sun went down. Luckily I was wearing a beer coat for most of it.

I am not going to mention the Ashes, because I don’t really care about them.

Christmas in the West End

Out doing Christmas shopping today...

Getting down with the kids (and up with the sparrows)

Sunday saw us getting up early and meeting Julie, Nicola and Jonathan at the ungodly hour of 10:30am in Covent Garden. Not even the nuns were up then. N + J were keen to come to London to spend their hard-earned birthday money on crack, and buy some clothes with the change.

After the shops had opened (most stores don't open until 12:00 on a Sunday in the UK, not sure why, it's not as if Anglicans are forced to go to church like Catholics are), we had a fun day. The kids are good value and even though for a while there it looked like they weren't finding what they wanted, soon the cash was flying out of their wallets.


Next stop were some surf shops which produced a couple of hits for Nic, but nothing for Jon, and we changed tack and hit shoe shops where N + J were lucky to find a buy one pair, get the other half price offer.


All this shopping was making us hungry, so pizza (and doughballs) were consumed at Pizza Express in Soho. Whilst there, Jonathan became embroiled in a sock crisis, as his (short) socks weren't short enough for his new shoes. Cue 10 minutes of sock folding to get them just right and then we were able to go on our way to everyone's favourite London Shopping Street, Oxford Street. It wasn't too crowded, there were probably only tens of thousands of people out shopping. Topshop and H + M were our destinations there, and they didn't disappoint.


Fashion news from repated viewings on Sunday:

1. Hoodies are still popular on the high street.
2. Skinny jeans are very popular - very punk rock (but no way would I wear them, once was enough!)
3. Vans are popular too.
4. Multiple body piercings and dreadlocks are no bar to a pleasant personality.


By complete coincidence, we called into Rupert Street for a beer on after Julie, Nic and Jonathan had jumped in a taxi to Liverpool St, and Augusto, Derrecks and Lee were there drinking. Augusto tried on my sunglasses. We ended staying for more than one beer because beer is my friend. It was nice.