Spending my Inheritance

"It won't be easy, you'll think it strange......."

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 Chinese New Year From London

It’s Always Christmas in the West End.

Last Thursday I met Stuie for a quick drink in London’s bohemian Soho after work – and the walk for me from my new office at Great Portland St to Soho was less than 20 minutes! What’s not to like about that! Paul and I were going to Avenue Q, (tix a Christmas gift from Stuie) – so when Paul joined us we went to Browns (haunt of Alistair Appleton and that girl from the Sound of Music) to take advantage of their pre-theatre menu.

Avenue Q was good fun – not as rude or subversive as it’s been made out to be, but we both enjoyed it anyway. I was surprised Paul said he’d go again, but he’s entitled to his own opinion (generally) - I’d give it a 7.8/10. There were some good songs (that’s funny good, not catchy tunes), like “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, “The Internet is for Porn” and 'The More You Ruv Someone (the More You Want to Kill Them)', but at times it was a bit like watching an adult ‘Sesame Street’.

Friday night I was out drinking again as Paul had his work Christmas party. I could have stayed in I suppose, but where's the fun in that? I met up with Stuie, but the drinks went to his head and he left early. He left not long after Paul had joined us brandishing his go-karting trophy. Paul was most distressed to only have come third (he is the best driver in his family, you know). We spent some of the night chatting to a nice lesbian from Melbourne and her Kiwi friend - they were good fun.

Barcode Soho was on the way home, so we called in for a swift pint – I had forgotten that Mark and Matthew were going to be there, so that delayed us further. Our friend Eduardo works at Barcode, so when he finished work, we all went to the Escape Bar for a small dance. I chatted to an American intern who is working for a conservative MP here. She was trying to reconcile that with her being a Democrat. She was out with a friend and they's only been here a week, which meant I spent an hour boring giving them tips on London, now that the pound is worth $A2 …..

Saturday I foolishly spent an hour on the phone to my sister, who has just booked her tickets to come to the UK in April. Foolishly because I should have been getting ready to go meet Paul’s Mum and his Aunt Daphne for our ‘Golden Girls’ lunch. Paul headed in early and I followed, met them in Fortnum and Mason for a coffee, then Patsy and Edina Julie, Daphne, Paul and I went to Quaglino’s for lunch. It was very good – last time I was there I wasn’t impressed, but this time the food was spot on. It’s still very much a big Terence Conran 90’s restaurant, but it’s almost retro in style now.

I didn’t take my camera, and forgot about my phone, so you will have to go without pictures. Those of you on dial-up will no doubt be delirious.

Monday night we stayed in and watched ‘Cinema Paradiso’ which was very seductive. I found it to be a bit too sentimental and simplistic, but it was beautifully shot. And quite humorous in parts. I loved it just for the cinematography. I’d give it 7.6/10.

Christmas in the West End

Out doing Christmas shopping today...

Her Hands Were Very Cold

After a quick, affordable (£10.95 for two courses, what’s not to like about that?), pre-theatre meal at Browns ( and you all know, when at London Pride, Alistair Appleton chooses to eat at Browns), Paul, Mark, Damien, Claire and I trotted off up Long Acre to the Royal Opera House to see Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’.

After the initial disappointment of hearing that Katie Van Kooten (oops that should be Nuccia Focile ) was unwell and was to be replaced by the Kiwi Anna Leese as Musetta, we settled in for the emotional roller-coaster ride that is ‘La Boheme’. And it was a cracker. Poverty, love, deception, self-medication and billiards, it had the lot.

Incidentally, there’s nothing like being typecast, the kiwi’s role (Musetta) was a tart in act one, then a drunken tart in act two. You can take the girl out of New Zealand……

We didn’t know when we booked (Or even up until last week, we’re not opera buffs), that one of the world's top tenors, Marcelo Alvarez, was to sing the role of Rodolfo. He was superb, even from the more affordable seats at top of the upper amphitheatre. In the heat of the moment after the performance, I gave it a 9.5, but now in the sober, cold light of day, I’d give it a 9.2.

Going to the Royal Opera House is a pretty amazing experience – the floral hall is breathtakingly beautiful, and as there were two intervals, we braved the plumes of passive smoke and took in the amazing view from the garrett terrace over the roofs of Covent Garden and to London beyond.




The crowd was very middle class and a bit snooty, with the odd theatre gay standing around – every now and then some 50-yo man in a tight (designer) t-shirt would walk past with a 30-something and I’d say to Damien ‘Do you think he’s gay?’. ‘Who can say?’ would be his reply.

I’ve been meaning to post some other ‘reviews’ of a couple of things we’ve been to see recently:

‘Bent’ starring Alan Cumming at the Trafalgar Studios theatre in Whitehall. Paul, Mark from London, Mark from Amsterdam, Marcus (any more Marks/Marcs?) and I decided on the spur of the moment to see this, as Mark was over from Amsterdam, and wanted some cultcha. It was pretty grim stuff, about a gay man in a concentration camp during the WWII. I enjoyed it and there were some very powerful scenes, but I felt the second half suffered from a certain mawkishness (more a result of the writing than the acting). Alan Cumming and Chris New(!) were excellent in the lead roles. I’d give it 7.4/10

Movies: ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ - It was hard not to be seduced by the glamour and glossiness of TDWP. Meryl Streep was excellent (no surprise there then) and Anne Hathaway is very beautiful in it. Our excitement level rose because our friend Cressida is an editor at the New Yorker and so we visited the Conde Nast building and ate in the $30 million Gehry-designed canteen last year. And funnily enough, Paris looked beautiful - they even showed Maxims (rolls eyes). Fine as a piece of light entertainment, 7.5/10.

‘Little Miss Sunshine’ – this was ok, but I never managed to shrug off the feeling that the move was trying too hard to be quirky. I don’t like movies that spend the whole night saying ‘Look at me, aren’t I a quirky little movie?’. Toni Collete was good, the other performances were good, but as Damien said ‘it lacked teeth’. 7.7/10