HNY

I'm lucky, I live in a neighbourhood where we know, like and look after each other.

In fact, our new neighbours are so wonderful that it's as though we got them out of a catalogue.

Anyway, we set off tonight to do all the homes, including an attempt to do first footing with an American visitor which requires a series of step-ladders to ensure that he can make it real by going in (introducing the new year) the front and leaving out the back (taking out the old). (We live in a terrace and need the ladders to vault fences).

And if you don't know, this also involves carrying coal, and we've purchased real coal for the purpose, in contradiction to the capital's smokeless fuel legislation.

Not that we're lighting any fires with the temperature currently at a balmy 13 degrees C.

Anyway, it's New Year and I've bought a bottle of Champagne and a packet of fags to celebrate: So cheers!

Ta Ra!

I was watching my neighbours seeing off their son as he left for the airport on his way back to Barcelona.

As the car moved down the road, they waved at the back of the car and I witnessed the old fellah lift the flat cap from his head and do that hat-waggling thing that you see in black and white footage of long-dead football crowds.

Just a little bit of culture clinging on, like a carriage return, or the click of a telephone dial, still fresh in the memory to us elders, yet already dead to the youngsters.

Lights; Camel; ACTION!

They Were The Days

Vampire Santa!

Our works' intranet site carries the suggestion;

"Give Blood This Christmas!"

Well, call me conservative, but I'd rather NOT find a bag of that in my stocking thank you very much!

I mean; really!

New Kitchen Arrived: In Boxes

All we need now is a builder able to understand the turning up bit of the contract.

Mugabe; The Nandos Years

Ding!

Well, we finally ripped out the kitchen in anticipation of the new one's arrival, albeit once the floor goes down at the end of this week, and once the guy arrives next week.

We are, therefore without a means to cook.

My partner has borrowed a microwave, with which we experienced our first microwave meal.

Suddenly we turn into Brian Sewell and Penelope Keith, APPALLED by the outcome. Blazing hot and devoid of flavour.

Is this what the hoi polloi actually eat? Is it food for those that dislike eating?

We have two weeks of this!

Delivered; With History

Home Town Latest

Mascot "Berserk" In Playground

As if school isn't bad enough without being hunted down by some sort of penis-allegory mascarading as an olympic mascot.

But not a word about it from Boris Johnson!

Someone should do something about it.

The Minotaur @ Lazarides

Great exhibition space , as long as you like your art in the dank & dark.

Pretentious? Moi?

Want to waste an hour? Why not visit the V&A's Postmodernism; Style & Subversion 1970-1990 ?

Shyte and Derivation more like it.

Did you know that the fashion mag The Face was part of the postmodern "movement"? I doubt if the editor did either.

The whole thing is a teleological conceit where the curator has taken the attitude that "it's postmodernism if I say it is".

Basically, they have cobbled together a pile of unrelated (usually trendy) crap and dressed it up as having some greater "postmodern" significance.

Yes, I do understand that that is a "postmodern" concept in it's self, but it still proves that it's just pretentious twaddle.

Tssk!

I Am The Walrus

OMG!

And to think that I nearly forgot that next week is BRITISH EGG WEEK!

Pub Latest: Vessel Surfeit

A couple of years ago, I stopped frequenting my local The Gate, a fine example of a grand Victorian pub which combined a superb pizza oven with notoriously poor service.

The decision to quit was made on the evening I ventured in with a regular drinking partner, ordered two pints and chose from the menu. When the chump behind the bar thumped our drinks spillingly onto the bar, we informed him that we would also order food.

"Sorry" he mumbled "No Pizza; we've run out of cheese!"

It was 8pm. They had "run out of cheese". There was a convenience store next door. The nearest supermarket was 5 minutes walk away, yet they were unwilling to trade in Pizzas because they had managed to run out of cheese. British pubs are closing in their hundreds every year, and this one had run out of cheese!

Imagine his confusion as we then declined to pay for the pints and opted to go to The Victoria Stakes, which was further but could guarantee decent service AND food.

I mention this because this evening at 7pm, the same drinking partner and I approached the bar of The Rocket on the Euston Road in time to hear the hapless youth serving tell a female customer that they had "run out of wine glasses". She agreed to have her drink sold in a half pint glass. Yes, they had "run out of wine glasses". British pubs are closing in their hundreds every year, and this one had run out of wine glasses.

Thus is the state of the British service industry.

Skip The Warm Towels: Call An Ambulance

I find it interesting that the British obsession with alcohol poisoning as a rite is considered insufficient as a means to convey native robustness, that we have to have Curry Competitions to separate the men from the panty-waists.

Apparently, a restaurant in Edinburgh has hospitalised contestants in a apparent bid to "raise charity".

One wonders if the totals raised exceeded the cost to the tax payer for the abuse of our cash-strapped free-on-demand health service.

One attention-seeking contestant admitted;

"I've always enjoyed spicy foods and thought this was for a good cause. But it came with a price, I had to be taken to the ERI twice.

"I first went to hospital at around 4pm and the second time was at 9pm. It got really bad. I have never endured such pain in my life."

Mr Ali (the perpetrator) said he felt the competition had gone well, but that he had overestimated how much heat the competitors could take.

As the Media Blog so succinctly observes:

Ah yes, the old "vomiting, collapsing, sweating and panting" publicity stunt - a winner for any restaurant.

Pub; Holborn

Yukata Sone

Really cool Manhattan in stone from China.