Well my Saturday started off pretty much the same as usual – with a nasty hangover and some morning rugby. This one was different however because instead of drinking throughout the afternoon we decided to take it easy in anticipation of the evening. I can tell you now what a smart option that turned out to be.
The girl and I went to meet Penfold and Boss Hog who were visiting from Sydney at a bar near Victoria Station. We were there for a while and had a number of drinks before moving on to another bar. Penfold’s brother decided to lead us not far to a rather exclusive and ritzy bar called Boisdale.
We walked up to the door and had to knock on the window only to be greeted by a large gruff looking man who I assumed ate small puppies for snacks. Penfold’s brother is pushing 5ft so I figured it would be a rather amusing story if he had of said the wrong thing. He asked if the manager was working and I found out later that he works at a similar one in central (and actually used to be his boss while working at this particular club).
Once the manager appeared to let us in we were led down past a 3 piece jazz band who were playing some lively tunes. It didn’t occur to me until later that they were actually facing the wall while they played (whether for show and effect I wasn’t so sure).
Finding our table we were seated to have a look around at the various stuffed animals, old guns and tidbits lining the walls. The best description I can give of this place is a cross between a 1930’s style gun club with an old prohibition gangster bar. Probably the coolest thing was an AK-47 across a boars head over the bar.
We had a couple of bottles of particularly expensive Champagne (yes the real stuff) before the boys decided to move onto the whiskey. I don’t think I have ever seen a list quite like it – the list of whiskeys was 22 pages long and had some interesting selections.
Upon scanning the list I found that for a measly 625 squid you can get “The Macallan 1946, 56 year old.” Check out the range here: http://www.boisdale.co.uk/pdfs/belgravia/wisky08.pdf. Unfortunately nobody decided to give that one ago so I don’t have any feedback. Penfold’s brother and friend decided to have “The Macallan Vintage 1974, 30 year old” that was exceptional. It had a slight smokey flavour and although the price tag was a little exorbitant (to say the least), I think is probably one of the finest alcohols I will ever taste.
It was when Penfold’s brother headed to the boys room that I had a devious idea. We called the manager over to grab us a glass of the cheapest (and hence worse tasting) whiskey and swapped out the glass with his 30 year old vintage. Being a manger of one of these bars should mean he has a keen nose (probably taste as well) for the finer types. The funny thing was on his return to the table he didn’t immediately clue in to the stitch up. After a couple of sips and a bit of nose turning from others who sampled he compared it to the good stuff in his friends glass. To his disgust he realised that something was a miss and clued in to the culprits after we rolled around howling with laughter.
Just after the prank my sophisticated side (read drunk side) decided that I needed to up the stakes and move onto my martini. Alas it wasn’t on the menu which gave me the opportunity to slip into my best British accent “a dry martini in a deep champagne glass, three measures of Gordon's gin, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet vermouth shaken not stirred [long pause for effect] Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel.” Ahhh the Vesper – a drink oozing of class and respect. Unfortunately none of the traits made me look any better in my tatty t-shirt and yellow sneakers (mind you I was still oozing of quality swagger which the ladies clearly noticed).
By the time we left there was a substantial amount of the rich and snobby fellow patrons rolling around in a drunken state. It is good to see that the “social elite” (in their minds anyway) have the ability to get blotto with the rest of us. I am now saving my pennies for a return trip, to find out what a £625 glass of whiskey will taste like…
Monday 30 June 2008
Sunday 29 June 2008
The one with the indoor golf
A couple of the girls at work decided to organise a night out in central. Being the committed to work type of guy I am it was only fitting to attend. I headed in with 2 of the other guys in my team and met at a place called Bar Red next to Carnaby St. On arrival we were told that we were 2 drinks behind. It made perfect sense to me that I would have to down a pint and shot to catch up. For some reason they got me a shot of Wild Turkey thinking I might find it repulsive but was shocked when I complained it wasn’t the stronger tasting Rare Breed.
The group decided to all throw in for a kitty (which as a fairly reasonable drinker usually always works out in my favour). When we learned the destination of our dinner was closed for renovations we decided to skip looking for another place in favour of a more liquid meal.
Several drinks later we ventured off to the main act for the evening – Urban Golf. This basically involved you teeing up and hitting a ball at a giant image being projected onto a big screen. Somehow it calculates from where the ball contacts the screen, the direction, speed etc it is travelling and displays accordingly. It was quite a novel idea – especially after a few drinks.
What I have now come to realise is there is a direct relationship between how much alcohol has been consumed to how much ones ability (or lack of) deteriorates with a golf club. I must say that my putting was exceptional – especially considering I had forgone the putter option to roll the ball at the hole. My chipping improved when again I rid my self of the club in favour of a decent throw. Unfortunately I must throw like a girl because on the drive I couldn’t seem to throw all that far. This brought on my Happy Gilmore style and although I had to jump a small barrier on my run up – I produced the best drives of the day.
We certainly must have been playing rather slow as in 2hrs we only managed three and a half holes. I don’t exactly remember where we went after leaving but I know I was buying drinks (completely forgetting the kitty) and a few lasses (unknown to me) threw an order in with mine. They thanked me and walked off but it was only later someone told me what they had done.
After a couple of more bars we eventually decided to call it an evening. As it was rather late, I was not sure exactly what time only that I had missed the last tube home (1am). It was apparent that I had to try and get the night bus. Being the former Boy Scout my preparedness was rather shallow as I had no clue where it left from or what number to get. Deciding to follow my mate who lives in Kingston in the direction of his stop I was fortunate enough for an offer to crash on his couch. Jumping on the bus, we set off. The thing with the bus is it goes in every direction before arriving at your destination.
We began chatting but after an hour my mate had nodded off to sleep. He had told me it would be about 2 hours to reach his place so I decided to watch the scenery go by. A couple of minutes later I realised we were going past Wimbledon station. What luck I had thought jumping up to get off. I pressed the bell and tried to wake up my mate. His snoring got louder. Shaking him violently and lifting his eyelids did nothing so I decided to leg it off the bus and send him a text message.
I sent the message and decided to grab an evening delicacy for the short walk home. Within minutes I arrived home, kebab in hand and dropped to find my resting place on the couch.
My phone woke me the next morning with an SMS. I sat up with half the kebab encrusted on my face and some Saturday morning cartoons in the background. My mates reply to my message was a confused “What the hell are you talking about?” so I went into my sent messages and looked at the one I had sent “Got off on Bus so no need to come back to urs cheers anyway.”
It took a little explaining to get out of that one especially considering he didn’t remember us getting a bus home at all.
The group decided to all throw in for a kitty (which as a fairly reasonable drinker usually always works out in my favour). When we learned the destination of our dinner was closed for renovations we decided to skip looking for another place in favour of a more liquid meal.
Several drinks later we ventured off to the main act for the evening – Urban Golf. This basically involved you teeing up and hitting a ball at a giant image being projected onto a big screen. Somehow it calculates from where the ball contacts the screen, the direction, speed etc it is travelling and displays accordingly. It was quite a novel idea – especially after a few drinks.
What I have now come to realise is there is a direct relationship between how much alcohol has been consumed to how much ones ability (or lack of) deteriorates with a golf club. I must say that my putting was exceptional – especially considering I had forgone the putter option to roll the ball at the hole. My chipping improved when again I rid my self of the club in favour of a decent throw. Unfortunately I must throw like a girl because on the drive I couldn’t seem to throw all that far. This brought on my Happy Gilmore style and although I had to jump a small barrier on my run up – I produced the best drives of the day.
We certainly must have been playing rather slow as in 2hrs we only managed three and a half holes. I don’t exactly remember where we went after leaving but I know I was buying drinks (completely forgetting the kitty) and a few lasses (unknown to me) threw an order in with mine. They thanked me and walked off but it was only later someone told me what they had done.
After a couple of more bars we eventually decided to call it an evening. As it was rather late, I was not sure exactly what time only that I had missed the last tube home (1am). It was apparent that I had to try and get the night bus. Being the former Boy Scout my preparedness was rather shallow as I had no clue where it left from or what number to get. Deciding to follow my mate who lives in Kingston in the direction of his stop I was fortunate enough for an offer to crash on his couch. Jumping on the bus, we set off. The thing with the bus is it goes in every direction before arriving at your destination.
We began chatting but after an hour my mate had nodded off to sleep. He had told me it would be about 2 hours to reach his place so I decided to watch the scenery go by. A couple of minutes later I realised we were going past Wimbledon station. What luck I had thought jumping up to get off. I pressed the bell and tried to wake up my mate. His snoring got louder. Shaking him violently and lifting his eyelids did nothing so I decided to leg it off the bus and send him a text message.
I sent the message and decided to grab an evening delicacy for the short walk home. Within minutes I arrived home, kebab in hand and dropped to find my resting place on the couch.
My phone woke me the next morning with an SMS. I sat up with half the kebab encrusted on my face and some Saturday morning cartoons in the background. My mates reply to my message was a confused “What the hell are you talking about?” so I went into my sent messages and looked at the one I had sent “Got off on Bus so no need to come back to urs cheers anyway.”
It took a little explaining to get out of that one especially considering he didn’t remember us getting a bus home at all.
Monday 16 June 2008
The one with the memory loss
This story might turn into a long one so I will start from the beginning….
I woke up at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning to go and watch the Wallabies game from the Larrick in Putney. I had taken along the girl and the Muppet met us there. The game started at 10am and considering it was before midday I wasn’t prepared to start drinking beers……. pause for shocked gasps……. so we decided a nice cider might be appropriate (it’s like a fruit juice right?).
The game was not all that convincing but a win is a win and I thought the new look team, only having been together for 2 weeks, with a new coach, faired pretty well. If anyone is asking (which I am sure you are not but it is my Blog so I will type it anyway) I probably wouldn’t have started Barnes with Giteau, instead bringing on Cross at inside (yes I am aware of the position change) to shore up the backline’s defence a bit better. I thought the pack did well but our front row is still appalling (more noticeably without the ELV’s in place) and Sharpe should be shelved for good (bring on the young talent) as he is only there because of his dominance in the lineout. But I digress…
After the rugby finished the girl headed off to get her hair done – which looks fabulous (is that what I am supposed to say?). The Muppet and I continued drinking before we were surrounded by Saffa’s for the next match. For some reason we decided to stay and cheer on the Welsh team. They certainly impressed me in the first half so it was quite a good afternoon with lots of drinks. After the game finished I was required to head to the Albion in North London to meet with a mate from Perth that was working in Paris. The Muppet had a ‘blindish date’ that night (he had only met her while being very drunk and didn’t recall what she looked like) so decided, contrary to my beliefs and persistent taunting, an afternoon drinking with me was not going to prepare him for it.
We downed our beers, left to some glorious sunshine and went our separate ways. It was about mid afternoon and I was feeling a little drunk but figured a tube ride may help to sober me up. I arrived at the bar and was (jealously) told I looked a little smashed. Taking this as a complement we continued to drink. There had gathered a large number of antipodeans so the drinking progressed rather well. At about 6pm the memory gets a little hazy, and this is where the story should of been ending…
Disclaimer: The following is a recount pieced together from the reports of the people who may have seen me that evening. I cannot attest to the accuracy of these facts (and as you all know I am not one to embellish a story…).
According to my mate from Paris we had some shots before I departed around 7pm to go meet the girl, my cousin and CM for dinner. I met the girl in Bank tube station before heading to Tooting Broadway. It was said that I was running all over the place trying to get phone reception as it is a large station and also connected to Monument, so the girl did an excellent job in finding me and getting me to Tooting. CM mentioned I had told her later upon exiting the tube I had gotten confused and thought that because it was still rather light (around 9.30pm) I had thought it was first thing in the morning and we had been out all night. We found my cousin and CM and headed to the restaurant. Apparently the restaurant was a vegetarian Indian cuisine type of place.
Allegedly I did enjoy the food (although without meat I am not convinced this was the case) and was rather talkative with the wait staff (which is probably the case). The reason for the dinner was to thank my cousin and CM for picking me up at the airport when I first arrived (all those many months ago) so I had kept demanding they eat more food. Towards the end of the evening Matt had some menu envy of CM’s dessert and I took it upon myself to order another one for him. I can only imagine his horror after the dessert arrived, as a joke, I swirled the spoon in it and sent it back exclaiming it was finished.
A few bottles of wine later we ended up being herded out of the place – but not before my lecturing of the owner on the 2 fundamental problems with his restaurant. The first being the fact I could only pay with cash and the second being the fact there was no meat on the menu. Apparently my argument was anytime I go into a place accommodating meat eaters there were always a few token veggie dishes to appease the grass eaters, and thus we should not be persecuted when entering the vegetarian domain. I hope he took it all in good fun because I would actually like to go and see if the food is any good (in a state where I would remember it).
From there I believe we headed back to SW19 for some well earned slumber. It was estimated I got to bed at around 2am. Surprisingly, after a good 16hr session, my hangover was only a Force 7 on the Beaufort scale. I am thinking that it was a direct result of my Nacho / Fajita breakfast combo but will try my theory out this weekend and let you know.
Thinking back about the whole day I was rather impressed by my efforts to crawl around all the different areas of London (clearly most of it in a less than quality state) and wind up home unscathed. On further consideration (I can’t believe I am going to type this) the new alcohol ban on the tube probably helped me out in giving me a few small ‘breather’ sessions in between.
I woke up at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning to go and watch the Wallabies game from the Larrick in Putney. I had taken along the girl and the Muppet met us there. The game started at 10am and considering it was before midday I wasn’t prepared to start drinking beers……. pause for shocked gasps……. so we decided a nice cider might be appropriate (it’s like a fruit juice right?).
The game was not all that convincing but a win is a win and I thought the new look team, only having been together for 2 weeks, with a new coach, faired pretty well. If anyone is asking (which I am sure you are not but it is my Blog so I will type it anyway) I probably wouldn’t have started Barnes with Giteau, instead bringing on Cross at inside (yes I am aware of the position change) to shore up the backline’s defence a bit better. I thought the pack did well but our front row is still appalling (more noticeably without the ELV’s in place) and Sharpe should be shelved for good (bring on the young talent) as he is only there because of his dominance in the lineout. But I digress…
After the rugby finished the girl headed off to get her hair done – which looks fabulous (is that what I am supposed to say?). The Muppet and I continued drinking before we were surrounded by Saffa’s for the next match. For some reason we decided to stay and cheer on the Welsh team. They certainly impressed me in the first half so it was quite a good afternoon with lots of drinks. After the game finished I was required to head to the Albion in North London to meet with a mate from Perth that was working in Paris. The Muppet had a ‘blindish date’ that night (he had only met her while being very drunk and didn’t recall what she looked like) so decided, contrary to my beliefs and persistent taunting, an afternoon drinking with me was not going to prepare him for it.
We downed our beers, left to some glorious sunshine and went our separate ways. It was about mid afternoon and I was feeling a little drunk but figured a tube ride may help to sober me up. I arrived at the bar and was (jealously) told I looked a little smashed. Taking this as a complement we continued to drink. There had gathered a large number of antipodeans so the drinking progressed rather well. At about 6pm the memory gets a little hazy, and this is where the story should of been ending…
Disclaimer: The following is a recount pieced together from the reports of the people who may have seen me that evening. I cannot attest to the accuracy of these facts (and as you all know I am not one to embellish a story…).
According to my mate from Paris we had some shots before I departed around 7pm to go meet the girl, my cousin and CM for dinner. I met the girl in Bank tube station before heading to Tooting Broadway. It was said that I was running all over the place trying to get phone reception as it is a large station and also connected to Monument, so the girl did an excellent job in finding me and getting me to Tooting. CM mentioned I had told her later upon exiting the tube I had gotten confused and thought that because it was still rather light (around 9.30pm) I had thought it was first thing in the morning and we had been out all night. We found my cousin and CM and headed to the restaurant. Apparently the restaurant was a vegetarian Indian cuisine type of place.
Allegedly I did enjoy the food (although without meat I am not convinced this was the case) and was rather talkative with the wait staff (which is probably the case). The reason for the dinner was to thank my cousin and CM for picking me up at the airport when I first arrived (all those many months ago) so I had kept demanding they eat more food. Towards the end of the evening Matt had some menu envy of CM’s dessert and I took it upon myself to order another one for him. I can only imagine his horror after the dessert arrived, as a joke, I swirled the spoon in it and sent it back exclaiming it was finished.
A few bottles of wine later we ended up being herded out of the place – but not before my lecturing of the owner on the 2 fundamental problems with his restaurant. The first being the fact I could only pay with cash and the second being the fact there was no meat on the menu. Apparently my argument was anytime I go into a place accommodating meat eaters there were always a few token veggie dishes to appease the grass eaters, and thus we should not be persecuted when entering the vegetarian domain. I hope he took it all in good fun because I would actually like to go and see if the food is any good (in a state where I would remember it).
From there I believe we headed back to SW19 for some well earned slumber. It was estimated I got to bed at around 2am. Surprisingly, after a good 16hr session, my hangover was only a Force 7 on the Beaufort scale. I am thinking that it was a direct result of my Nacho / Fajita breakfast combo but will try my theory out this weekend and let you know.
Thinking back about the whole day I was rather impressed by my efforts to crawl around all the different areas of London (clearly most of it in a less than quality state) and wind up home unscathed. On further consideration (I can’t believe I am going to type this) the new alcohol ban on the tube probably helped me out in giving me a few small ‘breather’ sessions in between.
Monday 9 June 2008
The one with the Foo Fighters
So I got a text on Wednesday that said "Do you want tickets to Foo Fighters on Friday" to which I had to reply "Shit yeah".
They played Wembley.
They were awesome.
There was a minute long triangle solo...
They played Wembley.
They were awesome.
There was a minute long triangle solo...
Monday 2 June 2008
The one with the Sunday Session
My tenure here in London was finally rewarded with a beautifully sunny day yesterday that we had to take advantage of. We had spent all morning getting our couch into the living room (having spent the last 3 months in my room). This was not an easy process as the hallway was too narrow to manoeuvre it through the door and when we stood it up it clashed with the glass panel above the door. The only 2 solutions were to either remove the glass panel or bring it in through the window. Being up on the first floor the second option was not preferred so I took it upon myself to try the second. In the end I had removed the glass pane and door frame and 4hrs later we managed to squeeze it through. By this time it was about 1pm and my cousin and I had decided to set out for some well earned beers and lunch.
I invited along the girl I have been seeing and in no time we were sitting in a beer garden in Wimbledon Village with our first pint of Staro (for those wondering Staropramen is a very nice Czech beer that a lot of pubs serve over here – in fact it has replaced Kronenberg 1664 as my first choice). The sun was shining, the drinks were flowing and the randomness was occurring. There was a guy painting the street and our table was included in his painting. I was stoked to find we were actually in the painting (well the back of us anyway). After I had spoken to the man about what I actually thought of the painting he took it upon himself to remove us from it and replace us with some old fogies. The beer garden is right next to the Wimbledon Stables so it was rather amusing to see the poor stable hands have to come out and clean up the horse mess with many drunken hecklers.
Although I have been meaning to have a traditional Sunday roast from a pub here (even as it was beef with Yorkshire pudding) I was swayed by the burger adding Brie cheese and bacon, and a side of chips. I must say it was a rather tasty burger.
Once the sun went down we decided to head (stagger) back down the hill and for some reason stopped for a drink at an Irish bar. My cousin kept going to catch the +1 of big brother (which he is addicted to). For some reason he thinks a cross dressing blind man, an American albino who talks like a gangster, and a fake wedding between a 19 year old glamour and a 42 year old hairy Italian is entertainment. (Although I must admit the Tourettes winner from a couple of years ago was hilarious).
The thing with Irish bars is that people are either really drunk or working there (not necessarily separate). I don’t know what was funnier. The old guy who fell off his stool many times (to his credit never spilt a drop), the guy who ordered a shot with every beer to pour over his head or the lady who was serenading (rather loudly) her poker machine in order for it to pay out (I don’t actually think she put any money in). What was stranger, these individuals, or us for not thinking anything unusual was occurring (I had to ask about it today for confirmation that I hadn’t dreamt it up)?
After we left the Irish bar it seemed like a good idea to grab some more alcohol and head home to order a pizza. I would be lying if I could tell you what was on the pizza or what actually occurred after we ate it but I do remember stumbling into bed around 2am.
Deservingly I woke up at 9.30 with a massive hangover. Rather than take the day off I foolishly jumped on a train for work. At lunch today I took my full hour and went for a sleep in the park. I was woken up by a dog licking my face only to realise I had missed the start of a meeting (lucky for me it had been cancelled). Why is it that the days you know are going to be slow always turn into massive workloads after a previous night of indiscretion?
I thought about the day and was pretty happy a traditional Perth style Sunday Session had been achieved – minus the Cott/OBH and late night kebab. I don’t actually think there will be too many more Sunday Sessions, as while I type this my head is pounding and knowing I should have been home over an hour ago....
I invited along the girl I have been seeing and in no time we were sitting in a beer garden in Wimbledon Village with our first pint of Staro (for those wondering Staropramen is a very nice Czech beer that a lot of pubs serve over here – in fact it has replaced Kronenberg 1664 as my first choice). The sun was shining, the drinks were flowing and the randomness was occurring. There was a guy painting the street and our table was included in his painting. I was stoked to find we were actually in the painting (well the back of us anyway). After I had spoken to the man about what I actually thought of the painting he took it upon himself to remove us from it and replace us with some old fogies. The beer garden is right next to the Wimbledon Stables so it was rather amusing to see the poor stable hands have to come out and clean up the horse mess with many drunken hecklers.
Although I have been meaning to have a traditional Sunday roast from a pub here (even as it was beef with Yorkshire pudding) I was swayed by the burger adding Brie cheese and bacon, and a side of chips. I must say it was a rather tasty burger.
Once the sun went down we decided to head (stagger) back down the hill and for some reason stopped for a drink at an Irish bar. My cousin kept going to catch the +1 of big brother (which he is addicted to). For some reason he thinks a cross dressing blind man, an American albino who talks like a gangster, and a fake wedding between a 19 year old glamour and a 42 year old hairy Italian is entertainment. (Although I must admit the Tourettes winner from a couple of years ago was hilarious).
The thing with Irish bars is that people are either really drunk or working there (not necessarily separate). I don’t know what was funnier. The old guy who fell off his stool many times (to his credit never spilt a drop), the guy who ordered a shot with every beer to pour over his head or the lady who was serenading (rather loudly) her poker machine in order for it to pay out (I don’t actually think she put any money in). What was stranger, these individuals, or us for not thinking anything unusual was occurring (I had to ask about it today for confirmation that I hadn’t dreamt it up)?
After we left the Irish bar it seemed like a good idea to grab some more alcohol and head home to order a pizza. I would be lying if I could tell you what was on the pizza or what actually occurred after we ate it but I do remember stumbling into bed around 2am.
Deservingly I woke up at 9.30 with a massive hangover. Rather than take the day off I foolishly jumped on a train for work. At lunch today I took my full hour and went for a sleep in the park. I was woken up by a dog licking my face only to realise I had missed the start of a meeting (lucky for me it had been cancelled). Why is it that the days you know are going to be slow always turn into massive workloads after a previous night of indiscretion?
I thought about the day and was pretty happy a traditional Perth style Sunday Session had been achieved – minus the Cott/OBH and late night kebab. I don’t actually think there will be too many more Sunday Sessions, as while I type this my head is pounding and knowing I should have been home over an hour ago....
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