Went to see the Average White Band at the Jazz Cafe last night. Very entertaining gig.

Labels: diary, music

Went to see Tim Minchin at the Bloomsbury Theatre last night. Comedy with singing. He was good. I liked it.

Labels: comedy, diary

Le Gavroche

Went to Le Gavroche for dinner with the wife last night. Liked it. Fancied most things on the menu and particularly liked what I ended up ordering (lobster salad followed by Scotch beef — wife had octopus and soft–shell crab followed by turbot — “Aux Perdrix” 2004 Nuit Saint Georges followed by a Delamain Cognac to drink).

Labels: diary, eating, london

Paternoster Chophouse

Went to the Paternoster Chophouse for a dinner with work. Didn’t like it. Nothing I really fancied on the menu and didn’t particularly like what I ended up ordering.

Labels: diary, eating, london

WSPA benefit

I went to a benefit comedy gig for the WSPA last night at the Hammersmith Apollo, hosted by Robin Ince. It was a big gig with lots of good people on the bill. Some, I’d seen before (Lucy Porter, Phil Nichol, Will Smith, Bill Bailey: most of whom did similar, if not the same, material as the last time I’d seen them). Of those whom I did not recall having seen previously (a slightly equivocal statement, I appreciate: comedy club visits and booze tend to go hand in hand), I probably enjoyed Chris Addison and Tim Minchin the most. Tim Minchin in particular seems to be a very talented performer and I would be keen to see him again on a smaller bill.

Labels: comedy, diary, london

I’ve been away for a month getting married and going on honeymoon. Both were fantastic. Many thanks to all those who attended and helped make the wedding day so special. Thanks also to our friends at Fly By Night djs in Huntington Beach: our DJ Duane did a great job at the reception.

Labels: diary, personal

Tallinn

Just got back from my stag weekend in Tallinn, Estonia. Nice place, full of Hanseatic history and beautiful baroque architecture. The dawn silhouette of the old town and Toompea Hill, seen from Pirita beach across Tallinn Bay, must be one of the most striking in the world.

Labels: diary

Nice dinner

With two fingers up to AA Gill, I am going to write about a restaurant I went to last night. Dinner at Gordon Ramsey at Claridge’s hotel. Definitely among the swankiest restaurants I have ever been to. We had a six course tasting menu. I was impressed. The food was good and the service was spot on. My favourite course was probably the main: a meaty slab of halibut with an autumnal red wine sauce that tasted like it had been swiped from a venison recipe. The addition of bacon and mushrooms completed the hearty, keep–out–the–cold October flavour. The other half liked the scallop dish best; delicate and fresh, wrapped in pasta, with a foamy saucy and subtly spicy sauteed peppers. Good stuff. We asked the sommelier for a wine recommendation (first giving an indication of menu choices and price–bracket — the most expensive bottle on the list being ten Gs!) and he suggested that we try a 2005 Beaujolais (Jean Foillard Morgon ‘Cote du Puy’) because it would go well with the scallop and halibut dishes which comprised the two central courses. Tasty wine. Quite different from the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz that we more usually drink (the grape apparently being Gamay; the wine produced using organic methods). A pleasant buzz, indeed. I wouldn’t mind buying a few bottles, in fact.

All in all, an extremely enjoyable evening. It’s nice when you go to an expensive place and are in no way disappointed.

Labels: diary, eating, london

Stan Tracey

After watching the first half of the rugby last night, I took the difficult decision to go to a gig at the Pizza Express Jazz Club on Dean Street instead of watching the second half. It was the Stan Tracey Trio (ST + Andrew Cleyndert (bass) and Clark Tracey (drums)) with Benjamin Herman (alto sax) and Guy Barker (trumpet). It was extremely good and enjoyable and I think that in the end I made the right decision. Spoke to Clark Tracey afterwards and apparently they were recording for a CD that night, so I will be looking out for that in due course for my collection.

Labels: diary, london, music

Just returned from a week in the Virgin Islands with work. Pretty busy, but the view from the hotel window wasn’t bad:

Labels: diary

Sardinia

In other news, I just got back from a very enjoyable week in Alghero, Sardinia, where I enjoyed fantastic weather and did very little apart from sit around, read and relax. The only remotely active pursuits were a couple of runs and a 50 minute SCUBA dive at a place called Capo Caccia. Plenty of good food and cold beer was consumed also.

Labels: diary

Faust

Went to see Faust by the Punchdrunk Theatre Company at a derelict building in Wapping last night. Interesting idea and atmospheric venue and set, but quite hard to pick up the story from what was going on. Worth seeing though.

Labels: arts, diary, london, theatre

Skiing

Just got back from a long weekend skiing in Chamonix with the boys from the office. First time I’ve tried skiing, rather than snowboarding. Took about a day to pick it up to the point where it started to be fun and by the end of day three I was having a great time with it, I suspect partly because snow conditions were better suited to skis. Of course there will be an element of “one day to learn, a lifetime to perfect”, but it’s nice to feel I’ve got the option in future. Hopefully, the laissez faire attitude to technique that I picked up from snowboarding will mean that I don’t have to get too tedious about proximity to texbook perfection at any given level and instead the plan is simply to continue to enjoy myself on either skis or board, depending upon conditions and/or inclination on any given day/trip.

Labels: diary, snowboarding, sport

Snowboarding

Having got that out of my system, I do have some better news. I made further progress with my vertigo (or whatever it is) while on my recent ski–trip to Austria. On the first day, I rode a short, exposed open chairlift three times and a long, high covered chairlift twice. On the second day I rode a long open chairlift at a different resort six times. I had to steel myself a bit to get on the first lift on day one (and employed one round of EFT* to assist), but after a bit of initial apprehension quickly got into my stride. Had no problems at all riding the enclosed gondola lifts. This represents improvement on last year and major progress from three years ago, when I could not physically bring myself to get onto a chairlift (I wonder now whether that was a bad reaction to the hypnosis which I undertook following a bout of nerves when riding a lift in 2002?). I am very pleased with myself.

* as taught to me by Alistair Horscroft

Labels: diary, personal, snowboarding

I was a guest at a boozy lunch today at which Alistair Campbell was the guest speaker.

Labels: celebrity spots, diary