Manchester Weekend!

I tried a bit of live blogging from my mobile during the weekend, but it all went horribly wrong and none of the emails found their way across cyberspace onto the blog. You will just have to put up with a long blog now!

I travelled up on Friday night with my friend Luke. As we approached the train he went up to the Train Manager and asked him if First Class was being de-restricted. Completely new to me, but apparently it is quite common for ticket restrictions to be lifted due to over crowding. It was First Class all the way and something I will be checking out in the future.

Friday night was a curry in Rusholme with Luke, Mike (pictured) and Claire. For me nothing can beat Rusholme for a curry. It has choice, atmosphere, edge, is cheap and kebabs are served in a naan bread. Perfection! After dinner we went down to Fallowfield for a drink in Snook Bar. It was full of some scally locals, but I am assured that it normally has a much more refined crowd!

Saturday started with shopping all over the city centre - Christmas Market, Deansgate, the Arndale Centre, King St etc.... Drinks in the Northern Quarter followed. The day became more sophisticated as we went for a drink at Cloud 23 at the Hilton Hotel. A bar twenty three stories up in Manchester's newest and tallest building. The wine, company and atmosphere were all unbeatable, but Manchester's skyline isn't exactly London, New York or Sydney.

For dinner we went to No 4 Dine and Wine an excellent little restaurant in Didsbury. For my main course I had the slow roast pork belly. Usually utterly tender meat with rich and flavoured rendered fat. The meat was tender, but the fat was almost like crackling. Beautiful, but how did the do it? A little gem of a restuarant if you are ever in Manchester.

On Sunday we did a quick tour of our old student houses in Fallowfield (not much change, but a little more worn) before it was off to lunch at the Metrolpolitan for a Sunday roast.

On the way back down to London Luke and decided to open a Pizzaria in Vietnam with a drama student we met on the train. Oh the ideas you have one a long and boring train journey.........

Greenwich Foot Tunnel

I can't remember the last time I left work in time to catch the last lift of the day in the Greenwich foot tunnel. It must be at least 6 months. Most days I pass through the tunnel before the lifts open in the morning and after they have closed in the evening. It tells you something about how bad my work life balance is! So tonight, I was very pleased to leave work in time for the last lift! ;-)

I'm off to Manchester for the weekend. Going to see my old university housemates Mike and Luke. Expect a few stories next week.

From Australia to Greenwich

I'm very partial to a Coopers Pale Ale, which is difficult to find in the UK. (Not to be confused with Coopers Sparkling which is becoming increasingly common.) I was pleased to discover last week that the Theatre of Wine in Greenwich sells it.

I went back to the Theatre of Wine today to buy some wine and I picked up a few bottles of Coopers Pale.

People are generally very down on Australian Beer thinking it is all Fosters and Four X, but it isn't at all. There are some very good regional breweries of which Coopers is one.

Just in case you think I only drink Australian beer, my favourite beer is probably Hook Norton.

Blog Links

One of the weird and wonderful things about blogging is the strange but enjoyable blogs that you stumble upon and the unrelated people you discover link to you.

Yesterday I discovered that Andrew Brown's Lewisham Blog has linked to a few of my efforts on local issues. I'm happy to reciprocate.

Olly Kendall has an interesting take on Iain Blair's struggle to stay on as Chief of the Met.

John Dang Showcase!

This blog started in Thailand with a visit to my friend John who is living over there. Tomorrow night he has a show case of some of his songs and there will be a few industrial professionals there. Hopefully it will be the start of something big.

Log onto his MySapce page and check out some of his music.

Good luck John!!!

Internet Woes

The wiring in my building is completely shonky and despite the fact I am advertised to have 8 meg broadband (I live quite close to the exchange) it is a lot slower. A fact that has been brought painfully to my attention now that I have started to download the odd programme using the BBC iPlayer or watch a clip on You Tube.

As if the go slow wasn't enough emails can take up to 48hrs to arrive. When I was at uni a friend of mine set up a Bigfoot account and I thought it was a great idea to have an email address for life so I set one up too. Now I think it is the cause of the problem and I am thinking of taking the pain and moving over to Gmail. Does anyone have any adivce?

Dinner with Olly & Pub Review

Last night I met my uni friend Olly for dinner and drinks. Unlike me Olly has actually used his Politics degree; he used to be Charles Kennedy's assistant press secretary and now works for a lobbyist / consultancy firm. While working for Charles Kennedy he helped me fill one of my life long ambitions and took me on a tour of the Palace of Westminster. I'm fascinated by politics and the inner workings of our governments decision making process, so Olly is a great person to know.

He's recently appeared on Doughty St TV an number of times and has written articles for the Guardian Unlimited. He's thinking of starting his own blog which I can't wait for.

We had a very pleasant couple of beers and some Thai food in The Ring public house opposite Southwark tube station. Very pleasant and reasonable too.


This was Olly's take on the evening. See Olly I did upgrade you from a comment on my Theatre of Wine Review:
Since Rich is probably busy leveraging some multi squillion interest rate transfer deal I thought it apposite for me to briefly update the reader’s of Richard Elliot’s blog of his movements over the last 24 hours – specifically last night.

Having not seen the old bean for about 18 months I’m amazed how little he changes (I think Richard will still have those rosy red boyish looks for the rest of his life, as the rest of us all get increasingly wrinkly, infirm and decrepit). In fact I had agreed to meet him outside the Bodyshop in Waterloo – just because whenever I go home back to Surrey, my mother will often ask me to buy her some ‘body butter’ en route so it’s seems an obvious place to meet. However, it now dawns on me that it could explain the radiant, shimmering glow of Mr Elliot’s fair skin when I met him – either that or the fact that I was 15 minutes late and it was about -20 in Waterloo station.

Given his Molotov-cocktail, Ivy lifestyle in the City I shan’t pretend I wasn’t a smidgen disappointed that he didn’t whisk me off to the Savoy for some electric tea and then onto the Wolsey for the a la carte. But having made him wait in Waterloo in sub zero temperatures and having only a daft pink pashmina to keep me warm, I think we were both relived just to thaw out - which we did at The Ring on Blackfriars Rd.

And so I will hand over to Rich and let him fill you in on his suave attempts to chat up the bargirl in Thai and his Damascene conversion to the Lib Dems and proclamation of loyalty to the Rt Hon Vince Cable MP (one of these might be a fabrication).

I will now spend the rest of the day waiting to see if this comment remains relegated to a string on another story or if Rich lets me share the limelight on his blog by elevating it to a co-posting as a main story.

The blogging world waits with bated breath…

Theatre of Wine, Greenwich

I don't think I could have had a more pleasant evening than last night. I went to the birthday party of two friends, Owen and Nicola, at the Theatre of Wine in east Greenwich.

The evening started with a walk through the Royal Naval College. The College was deserted and as I walked through I was struck by the beauty and tranquility of the place. Wren's buildings were sympathetically lit and the gleaming towers of Canary Wharf provided the perfect back drop. It was a I wish I had my camera with me moment.

The Theatre of Wine is a small independent wine retailer with a big table running down the middle of the shop. Sixteen of us sat down and tasted some excellent wines, champagnes and ports. The theme of the evening was to taste pairs of wines together - one from the traditional home of the grape and a second from a new producer. For example a Chardonnay from Burgundy with one from Margaret River, Australia, or Sangiovese form Italy compared to a wine from the Clare Valley.

The staff were friendly, knowledgeable and welcoming. I thoroughly recommend it!

For my Thai readers..........

I know, I know, probably about as limited as the number of people looking to rent a house in Didcot. One of my friends, Andre, is currently auditioning to star in TV show in Bangkok. If you live in Thailand text "B13' to +664554707 to support him.

P.S. I can'gt understand any of the website either........

Blackheath Fireworks

Last night I went to the Blackheath fireworks display. I've never seen Blackheath so busy! There were people streaming towards the heath from all directions. The pubs were operating a one in one out policy and the police had set up mobile cameras to monitor the crowd. At one point I thought I was heading to a football match!

They had slightly misjudged the health and safety aspect of the display and the section of crowd that I was standing in was showered in debris from the exploding fireworks. Mostly small pieces of harmless paper, but at one point a large piece of casing from a firework bounced off my shoulder.

Need to rent a house in Didcot?

Google Analytics doesn't suggest that I have a big readership in the demographic of prospective renters in Didcot, Oxfordshire, but ever the optomist I'm willing to give it a go. Click here to rent my sister's house.

London Cycling

I've been cycling to work for three years now and not an accident to speak of (touch wood). Two incidents recently made me realise how lucky I have been!

One of my pet hates are cars that overtake you only to brake heavily just in front of you and cut across your path. The other day I was cycling home along a main road when a pizza delivery bike tried to over take and turn left immediately in front on me. The moped driver misjudged the situation and had only drawn parallel with my as we drew level with the side road. Instead of braking he swerved into me and tried to force me to turn left as well. I carried straight on, forcing the pizza boy to do the same. He then stopped in front of me, hurled a volley of abuse in my direction, did a u-turn and shot off down the side road. Was it me in the wrong?

Each morning I have to navigate a cross roads controlled by traffic lights. This morning I waited patiently at the junction for the lights to go green for me. When they did, I entered the junction, only for some cyclist to fly through a red light to my left and head directly into my path. We were on a collision course. The other cyclist was listening to his ipod, wasn't looking in my direction and had given no indication that he had seen me. Fearing we would crash I rang the bell on my bicycle. Which you guessed it, lead to a volley of abuse! What did I do to deserve that? I wasn't the one who had been through a red light!

I did score a small moral victory. I saw the other cyclist a bit later on in my journey to work. He was lost and was motioning towards me to ask for directions. When he realised who I was, he sheepishly turned in the opposite direction and asked someone else.