Here in the UK we are suffering from an excess of interfering busy-bodies who have pet theories about how the world should be run. All for our own good, of course, we cannot be trusted to be in charge of our own lives. No, rather we should all behave as these unelected control-freaks think we should and be damned grateful that they are saving us from ourselves. Most of these unspeakable swine work for fake charities that are really funded by the government to lobby the government on the subject of their weird ideas and distorted world views in the hope that it will result in a change of policy in line with the meddlers’ latest whim. These people are always publishing reports or appearing in the mass media in the hope that if they keep banging on and on they will eventually be taken seriously and so justify all that money that has been thrown at them by the government.

I’ll give you some recent examples. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is the perfect example of a bunch of self-satisfied pen-pushers who will take any opportunity to get themselves in the press. Some of their lunacy was reported on the BBC News website today. After the Christmas day bomber, Mr Abdulmutallab, hid explosive materials on his body and tried to blow up an aircraft heading to the USA there has been the usual knee-jerk, ‘something must be done’ reaction from the government who have committed to installing body scanners at UK airports. “That doesn’t sound so bad?” you might well be thinking.

The EHRC realised they could get themselves in the press and show that they have some point to their petty, whining existence by criticising these scanners. Apparently the devices risk breaching an individual's right to privacy under the Human Rights Act. Does that sound convincing? It sounds like a load of tosh to me. They go on to suggest that body scanners could generate illegal images of children and images of celebrities that could be leaked online. The BBC News website helpfully provides a picture of the type generated by these scanners. I’ve reproduced it to the right of this paragraph. These are characterised by the EHRC as ‘naked’ images which are are likely to have a negative impact on privacy, especially in relation to certain groups such as disabled people, the elderly, children and the transgendered community.

It is clear from the body scanner picture that they do not generate pictures of people looking as if they are naked. They are a fuzzy blur, with no real fine details about the target’s body visible. You’d have to be pretty desperate to find the opaque images from these scanners in any way a breach of someone’s privacy, they are just not detailed enough to tell much about a person’s body.

Moreover, even if body scanners produced a more defined image of someone’s body under their clothes, it still would not mean that the scans would be child porn as the EHRC suggests. Nakedness does not equate with pornography and body scanners do not automatically upload the images they scan to Flickr.

Finally, why should body scanners, with their fuzzy, indistinct images, be a particular worry for disabled people, the elderly or the transgendered community? It is just totally vacuous to suggest such groups would have any more difficulty with being scanned than anyone else. These kind of statements, which try to bring victim status to particular groups by saying they would be unfairly treated, are just a feeble attempt by the pressure group involved to make the whatever they are raving about seem a more serious, iniquitous problem and so justify the idea that ‘something must be done’. There are legitimate reasons why body scanners might not be a great idea, for example security experts have claimed that body scanners would only have a 50% chance of spotting the bomb carried by Mr Abdulmutallab, but the extremely vague possibility that a body scan may reveal that someone in a dress might have the suggestion of a penis being in their pants is not one of them.

There are more of these fake charities spewing out countless reports about how only their pet theories can improve the world and everyone else just cannot be trusted with anything important. A few days ago I discovered an excellent blog devoted to debunking the ravings on Don Shenker, chief executive of the government-funded pseudo-charity Alcohol Concern. Quite why the government should be funding this nutcase organisation is beyond me, but then the Labour government under the odious Gordon Brown is only too happy to let his ‘big government’ and the unelected special interest groups nanny us all.

The desire of the government to interfere with our drinking habits has been much on my mind of late. The recent report from the Health Select Committee (HSC) into alcohol consumption was woven from half-truths, manipulated data and unfounded assertions. These people clearly want to dictate how much we can drink, where we can drink it and how much it will cost. Most people have a perfectly healthy relationship with alcohol, I know I do, and yet all of us are being demonised by these jumped up farts who think they know better than us even if they have to publish reports which are a tissue of mendacity and duplicity to show they know best. I dropped by a good beer blog earlier and the author of the site has written a number of articles which debunk most of the claims in the HSC report. He demonstrates that alcohol adverts do not encourage under-age drinking, that cutting overall consumption of alcohol does not necessarily result in a drop in alcohol misuse, that alcohol is getting more expensive rather than cheaper as the neo-prohibitionists claim and much more. All of these blog posts of his are well worth reading; if you know how the bastards are trying to mislead you it is easier to stand up for them.

The problem with all of these hideous gits clamouring for their own ideas to be adopted as government policy is that, even if their most extreme ideas are not implemented, the propagation of the view that there are problems and ‘something must be done’ will result in legislation creep. Bit by bit our freedom will be eroded until it will be impossible to do anything without the government’s express permission. The suggestion floated recently that adults should have ‘entitlement cards’ that have to be produced when buying alcohol and act as ration books to control the amount we purchase shows that this is the aim of some of these nutcases. They want to control us, and unless we stand up for ourselves and our rights the filthy swine will get their way.

I updated the firmware in my TG01 so it now has Windows Mobile 6.5. I care little for most of the UI improvements as I use SPB Mobile Shell which provides the perfect smartphone UI. What has pleased me no end is that the update fixed a piece of TG01 flakiness: the reliability of bluetooth connections. I’ve read reports of this from other people. It would often take many attempts to re-connect a bluetooth device after disconnection and you could be fiddling about for a while getting it to recognise your headset again. This fix has resulted in me blogging on the TG01 when I am out and about using a fold-up bluetooth keyboard. That excellent boozer The Greenwich Union has free Wifi and I have been reporting on the beers live from the pub.

The other mobile thing that has tickled my fancy is the new beta version of Opera Mobile that is out, Opera Mobile 10. It is hilariously fast, in terms of downloading content and also panning and zooming about on pages. It is a very mature browsing platform and you do not feel limited by browsing on a phone.

If you are using a Windows Mobile phone that has a turn of speed to it (in terms of having OpenGL ES accelerated graphics) I’ve been playing two free 3D games which look just wonderful. Experiment 13 is a entertaining 3D puzzle game that has you warping gravity in order to save your avatar from the world he finds himself in. The Electopia demo doesn’t have the greatest control system in the world, but it is another looker of a 3D game. My long-time reader will know I like Xtrakt, a 3D shooty/racing kind of game. There is a lot of fun to be had with these new whizzy phones and mine certainly eats into the reading time.

No more means no posts tonight. And none for a while, I'm afraid. Tomorrow I will see the doctor and ask to get locked up in the 'nicer' bin. Sadly, I am now feeling really suicidal and that means bin time. See you when I get out.

more fail, owned and pwned pics and videos

I've spent the last ten days in Burgundy, Alsace and Champagne; three of my top four favourite wine regions. I had a lot of fun, tried some excellent wines and had some great food. I did feel a tad 'on display' which began to grind me down by the end of the holiday, but large it was a good trip. No pictures, alas.

I went to the London Wine Trade Fair today, I dressed in my most 'wine trade'-uniform:

With a suit as sexy as that I got to try all of the good stuff.

Yesterday we went to The Southerner in the city. This is a boozer that sells Speight's beers, imported from New Zealand. We went with the neighbours, one of whom is from New Zealand, because we were promised that they do good roast lunches on Sundays. Good roast lunches, my arse. They were bloody awful: overcooked, leathery, flavourless meat, wet tasteless vegetables and the roast potatoes defied description. I wasn't so impressed with Speight's beers, either.

So, we needed perking up. This required decent wine, teddy bears and nappies. You can see me enjoying these around the neighbours' place below:

As you can see by my bulging Miffy t-shirt, now I am not spewing all of the time I have put on a shed-load of weight. I've had to move up to large-size Abri-Form X-Pluses. The wine was a rather cheeky little Chateauneuf, Mont-Redon 2004, which really blossomed with time in the glass. The afternoon passed with much pleasure and I felt rather jollied along by the whole affair. The kebabs we ordered later were much better than The Southerner's roast lunches.

I met my Community Psychiatric Nurse today, he took me to Oxleas Wood. I had no idea it existed, it is a really nice piece of greenery in South-East London. I have to admit to not really feeling up to it. Another night of no sleep last night, my body is shrieking with pain and my mind is a real mess. I walked around holding Butter the bear in his bag staring at the ground. I didn't want to look up as there were lots of people about screaming abuse at me. Of course, there were not really, but I could see and hear them, and that makes dealing with going out very difficult.

I'm off to Oxford tomorrow to meet up with an old friend for lunch and get some wine from my cellar. I hope I am in better form, and in less pain. Hauling a bastard load of wine back on the train will be difficult if my back is hurting this much. I am getting some magnums for my birthday celebrations in November. Some friends have said they will make the trek into Town for a mass booze-up. It'll be good to have some wine in the flat, at the moment I am completely bereft of things to drink.

I am back in Estonia after spending the weekend in Helsinki. People were commenting how good the weather was for the time of year whilst I found seven Celcius to be a tad on the chilly side.

I had a truly excellent bottle of wine in a Japanese restaurant that had perhaps the worst fish I have ever eaten. It was dreadful. If you are ever visiting Helsinki I can highly recommend Hotel Glo, but just avoid the sushi joint next-door. The cynic in me says avoid most of the restaurants, as I have rarely eaten well in Finland. What can you expect from a country where they love meat donuts?

I'll be here until Wednesday, then it is back to civilisation and my little cat.

I am in Tallinn at the moment. Most of the city that I have walked through looks like Communist-era concrete monstrosities, but the old town is reasonably pretty. I wouldn't come here if you are expecting decent food or drink; all of the beer I have had here has been foul and the food isn't much better. It is pretty cold, the warming power of my tweed jacket has been greatly appreciated.

I am off to Finland tonight for the weekend, then it'll be two more days in Estonia. I have to say I'll be pleased to get home, I miss my little cat.

Oh I say, which the excitement of new clothes arriving I forgot to say I visited the neighbours last night. They don't mind if I occasionally check how wet my nappy is:

And don't mind if I find trousers too difficult to work after I've had a change:

That is obviously chocolate-flavour milk I am drinking, not a creamy cocktail.

Not terribly much has been happening to me over the past week; only one anecdote...

I got off the tube near where I live and because I was loaded down with shopping I got a taxi to take me the last bit of the journey. As we went through South-East London we drove toward a group of 10-11 year old children who were waving at the taxi as if they wanted it to stop for them. As we passed there was an enormous crash and the passenger window next to turned into a spider's web of cracks with a big hole in the middle of it. The little bastards had thrown a rock at the taxi window and smashed it to smithereens. They disappeared where the taxi driver couldn't follow them so he drove back to the taxi rank whilst he tried to contact the police. I have to say I really felt for the taxi driver as the cost of replacing a window would be less than his insurance excess, so he'd have to stump up the money himself, and as it happened in the morning he lost a day's worth of fares.

Today's excitement is going to one of the local microbreweries. Their beer is excellent and they make really rather good pizzas.

We are told that a sugary drink before bed helps one to sleep. I tried it with a Harvey Wallbanger:

Problem is, those HW's are rather heroic for a toddler like me, and drinking them from a baby bottle does increase the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into the blood-stream:

It didn't help me sleep. Curses!

Last night I met a couple of ABs, one of whom had travelled over from the US on business. We had went for some London-brewed beer, had a look in in Tate Modern then went out for dinner at a place called Chili's in Canary Wharf. Here I proved that I am the master of unconvincing smiles:

My smile was unconvincing because I found the margarita to be weak and lacking ferocity. The baby back ribs were quite nice; I plastered my face with the sauce.

Whilst we were out in Canary Wharf and anecdote occurred. My overalls have a teddy bear printed on the back pocket and I was wearing my sweater that has a picture of Butter on the front and bear paw-prints on the back. I was hanging around with the chap from the US whilst our other dining companions had to visit the little boys' room when suddenly a quite fetching young lady of about twenty came up to us. She said, "Excuse me, but why do you have teddy bears on your clothes?"

What could I reply but, "Because I am an enormous toddler, of course."

She hesitated a moment before saying, "Oh, and I thought you just liked teddy bears. That is quite cute, I suppose." And off she went.

It is 2007, what joys await us all this year, I wonder? The march of time doesn't stop, despite the protests that took place in France last night. As I wish to remain a toddler for a long time I wish those protesters' demands to the UN to stop the 'mad race' of time were possible to be granted.

The Christmas period has been quite fun. My partner had ten days off and I really feel a lot happier when he is about. Shame he has to go back to work tomorrow. We drank some mind-bendingly good wines and, even though I didn't cook the goose and huge chicken terribly well, we ate some lovely food. Good meals will continue with our first dinner party of the new year occurring on Saturday. We'll be dining with a friend from university and his partner; she always likes to steal Butter when they come around. Butter doesn't seem to mind, he smiles, but I do!

Well, time for me to start washing some of the glasses used for yesterday's celebration. Happy new year to you all.

I'd just like to wish anyone who reads this a happy new year. New year is a good thing partly because it is an excuse to drink some Champagne, but also because all of my wines become one year older and so closer to drink-ability.

The past year has had some entertaining moments. Our trips to Burgundy and the Basque country were a lot of fun. Going to Sweden was also pretty good; another booze-fuelled holiday. I've had Butter the bear for two years now and much cuddling has taken place. There have been some great wines drunk, and they'll be a few more tonight. I survived the one serious attempt I made on my life and at the moment I am pleased I did survive.

Hopefully the new year will bring some excitement, new experiences and general jollity. I hope it goes well for all of you who read this.

Oddly, I woke up quite early this morning. When I was a smaller child I used to get so excited by christmas I'd feel sick and have to see the doctor. After opening presents it was back to bed for a couple of hour kip. I've now done my duty and rung up family, so now it is just frittering away time until it is time to roast goose and open the wine. Hooray for food and drink!

I purchased a four and a half kilogram chicken that we had at a dinner party last night. This is really rather large for a chicken, all of my cookery books only give instructions for roasting chickens up to two kilograms. This required some inspiration on my part to work out how long to cook it for. Sadly I mis-judged it and the chicken was rather dry. It tasted nice enough though. Nice for chicken sandwiches for lunch earlier.

It was quite a fun dinner party. Five bottles of wine between three of us, some of which were quite special. Went to bed at 2am and had a much-needed change. It is twelve hours later and I am still in the same nappy. For all of that wine I had I am still not very wet.

I live in the outer reaches of darkness as far as London is concerned; this is also known as 'zone four'. Today I made the trek in to Town proper for the last time before Christmas to buy some wine. I got a rather special magnum of premier cru Pommard from one of my favourite producers, a couple of bottles of a more recent vintage of the same and some Champagne. The Champagne is to be consumed on 4th January which is the fifth anniversary of my partner and I moving in together. I enjoy shopping for wine.

My next trip will be on the 27th to go to the Liberty's sale. Sometimes even toddlers have to smarten themselves up and Liberty shirts are just great. Some of my best shirts have been purchased in previous sales. I'll be on the look out for discounts on flowery shirts.

I am back in pretty good form as far as eating and drinking go so I was pleased to be able to drink wine for the first time in a while last night. I didn't finish the bottle. This afternoon a friend popped around and we finished last night's bottle then popped another. It was incredibly dull and very disappointing. This made me unhappy and annoyed that I had purchased a poor bottle. Needless to say after a few glasses of wine my nappy was rather wet and I was squirming a bit. My friend finally left, leaving me still hacked off about the poor wine, and I could finally get a change. The simple application of a dry nappy really cheered me right up. I am a lot less bothered by the poor wine now I am comfortable in a fresh nappy.

My birthday dinner party last night was really good. The food was delicious and the wine was very good. Our guests got me some Port which we drank, and I am not sure whether it was that or the bottle of Madeira we opened after that that has given me a really stinking hangover.

I was roaringly drunk last night, so I didn't manage to stay up all night to watch the cricket. This is perhaps good as Australia did very well, some lack-lustre bowling from England. Shame, England!

It is my birthday today, I am ancient... I mean, two. I've been given a magnum of rather good Austrian wine and some new wine glasses. Not terribly childish, I admit, but good nonetheless.

I started cooking a daube for tonight's dinner guests at eight this morning. Daubes are beef and bacon cooked in white wine and beef stock with some vegetables. That last one I made was excellent so I have high hopes for this.

Tonight the Ashes start, I'll be awake all night watching the first day of the first test. Come on England!

Next Wednesday it is my birthday; two again. I'll be having the neighbours around for a baroque feast and some rather nice wine. The real entertainment starts at 11pm UK time when the Ashes begin. This is the grudge match in cricket between England and Australia that happens every eighteen months. England won when Australia came over here for the last series, older readers may remember my frenzied blogging during the matches. Sadly, the England team have lost some key players from the last series due to injury so there are a few new and unproven faces in the team. Australia have some undoubtedly great players in their side, but many people suggest they are getting a bit long in the tooth. It promises to be an interesting series of matches; I'll be sleeping during the day and watching television all night when they are being played.

I had to go to Oxford today. I took advantage of my time there to pick up some wine from my cellar. I have to say that lugging back eighteen bottles and two magnums was somewhat of a strain. This will provide me with good drinking over the next couple of months. I'll have the magnums around my birthday (next month) with friends.

Oxford is a great place to visit, very beautiful. May I suggest that should you find yourself there and after something to eat the Chiang Mai Kitchen, down one of the back passages off the High Street, is a great place to eat.

After only mere months of waiting I have a date for getting my hiatus hernia operated on: next Monday. I am more than a little apprehensive about this as last time I had this operation done I was in unspeakable pain for days and felt incredibly rotten for weeks afterwards. I'll still have the operation done, though, it'll be good not to have acid reflux all the time and it should stop me from spewing regularly. After the operation I'll have to be on a liquid diet for a month. G&T's, wine, Harvey wallbangers...

I've been really quite social this weekend. On Friday I met up with a friend who I have not seen for seven years. I was pleased that I am not alone in putting on weight in that time. Firstly we went to Dukes Hotel for martinis. This always pleases me, I get to say one of my favourite sentences, "Two Tanqueray martinis, please".

We then went out to a new place to eat, a gourmet burger bar in Camden called Haché. The burgers were really pretty good, I would be happy to go there again. Unsurprisingly, the wine list was laughably poor, but I really don't mind drinking beer with burgers.

Last night we had the neighbours around for pork and ham pasta bake. It should have been veal and ham pasta bake, but evil Sainsbury's don't sell veal. We indulged in much eating, drinking and cuddling of teddy bears. Not much stops me from cuddling Butter, but when everyone else has a teddy bear of their own he is in less danger of being taken from me.

Tonight is a bit more sedate, but I am still cooking something nice. It is a school night so there will be less boozing tonight.

No entries here for nearly two weeks; what a bad child I am.

We've had a guest staying with us this weekend; another AB as it happens. We went to the local microbrewery, Zero Degrees, and he refused to have a pint at lunchtime. Honestly! They brew the best lager I have ever had. It is nice and bitter.

We like to keep our friends well lubricated when they visit, so I purchased a pile of Australian wine to drink. I don't drink so much Australian wine these days. I used to love them, but now I find them a bit simple, and often far too big and ripe for my tastes. They were all well made and easy to drink, but I was a bit disappointed by how dull I found most of them.

Ah weekends. It is good that it is now half two in the afternoon and there has been no need to take off my sleeper yet. Not only does this appeal to my inherently idle nature, but also sleepers are very comfortable for mooching about the flat purposes.

Tonight's cocktail recipe is a calming bottle. For a calming bottle you will need:
225ml Marks and Spencer vanilla milk (I am sure similar things exist from other manufacturers)
75ml Dooley's toffee vodka
A 300ml baby bottle. This is a good one.

Mix the milk and vodka in the bottle. Drink. Hooray, it is a real Michael!

Soupy twist

Today I am being interviewed for a psychiatric journal. I will be explaining what it is like to live with schizophrenia. 'Very difficult' just about sums that up. At least this gives me an excuse to travel into central London and do a bit of shopping; there are a few things I need to get for my trip to France. Since I'll be visiting a lot of winemakers I should really get a notepad so I can write everything up. Given a bit of application I should be able to write an article or two about my trip.

It is less than a week until I go on my hilarious holiday to Burgundy. It promises to be a lot of fun. We will be visiting some great winemakers, I must take notes furiously. I'll also be taking my Ipod and PSP for entertainment when I am relaxing by the pool. Larks ahoy!

I've been attempting to organise which winemakers I'll see when I go to Burgundy. Two of my favourite replied today to say I can visit. Hooray! I love wine and visiting such great people will really slap a smile across my face. Visiting them means I'll have to wear something smarter than my nursery-printed overalls, but I don't mind if it means I'll get to freeload fine wine. I say freeload, but I buy wine from all of them so it all balances out.

I saw the doctor today and my dose of anti-psychotics has been increased. This should perk me up enough to be on form when I visit people.

I'm off to Burgundy in July. It is a brilliant place to visit if you like wine. I'll be staying with some winemaker friends, larking about by the pool in baby clothes during the morning, then going for tastings with other brilliant winemakers in the afternoon. I am already chortling with pleasure about this trip. The only fly in the ointment is that probably two out of the ten days there will have to be spent re-organising my cellar there. There was some rebuilding work in it and all the wines had to be moved. This was what it looked like when I last saw it:

Sadly my enormous double magnum of Pommard Clos des Epeneaux 1999 is out of shot, it is a brilliant bottle.

The anti-psychotics and anti-depressants I take at night are really powerfully sedating. This is great as it means I am getting a decent amount of sleep at the moment. A lovely lie-in is now a distinct possibility. The only problem this causes is when I am knocked-up early by someone on the telephone or at the door. This happened this morning.

I was not too annoyed to have my slumber disturbed as I knew it would be a delivery of wine. So I got out of bed in my new sleeper, making crinkly plastic noises with each step to open the door. The delivery person didn't seem to notice my sleep attire so wine was duly delivered.

One of the two bottles delivered was a magnum; a one and one half litre bottle, so double the normal bottle size. I really like magnums, they are such a happy size. They are good for two people at lunch or as part of a baroque feast at night.

Today is predicted to be the warmest day of the year so far; highs of twenty-six degrees Celcius. I am not sure what to do to enjoy such a nice day. I've put a bottle of Champagne in the fridge and will see if the neighbours would like to join me for a drink in the park later.

I went on a day trip to France yesterday. The idea was to buy cheap Champagne and beer. The three of us travelling got quite a lot:

The prices in Calais are very keen so we have plenty of beer and Champagne to keep us going for a while.

The other item of clothing that arrived yesterday was a footed sleeper with dinosaur prints:

I ordered this because the feet fell apart on my favourite sleeper. I mentioned this to Marcie of Forever a kid and she suggested I cut the feet off it and make it into a footless sleeper. She kindly sent some ribbing in with my order for the ankle cuffs. I managed to sew them on quite well:

I was a touch perturbed by the high acidity in that margarita.

I couldn't have had this kind of drink this when I was a smaller toddler:

I was so keen to open this that I was faster than the exposure time of the camera.

Butter looks most impressed by the flourish with which I popped the bottle. It was a very nice drink; childhood 2.0 certainly has its advantages.

One of the symptoms of schizophrenia that I have is paranoia. This is a really difficult thing to deal with. Even when I am speaking to old friends my knackered brain makes me think they are continually coming out with snide digs at me.

Last night I went to a cocktail party. I provided three litres of Bloody Mary and mixed margaritas and Harvey Wallbangers. Every one who had one of my cocktails said how much they enjoyed it. My twisted thoughts interpreted all of these as nasty, patronising attacks on me and my ability to mix cocktails. This is not really how you what to think at a party so I left early. I was cuddling Butter in full view of the party-goers from about half-way into the time I spent there.

Today marks five years since my partner moved to England. We celebrated with a damned good bottle of Champagne. He has kept me going through some difficult times so it was a real pleasure to have a good drink with him to celebrate the good times. There have been a lot of good times since we met. He is a lovely chap, and I love him very much.

Another happy call announcing the delivery of some Champagne and German wine. My wine cupboard is now looking very healthy

Five magnums in there seems rather excessive for a house-hold of two. I am sure we'll manage.

I was very satisfied with the Six Nations rugby results this weekend. Of course, I was happy that England beat Italy, but even more pleased that Italy played very well. In previous years they've been the no-hoper team but this time they seem to be fired up. France beat Ireland in a very exciting match, and Wales beat Scotland in another good match. Pleasingly, only England can now win the grand slam, winning all the matches they play. The entertainment was improved by the presence of a five litre keg of beer from one of my local microbreweries.

As I sat cuddling Butter I had another happy call to tell me these were being dropped off:

Two magnums of brilliant Burgundy, three litres of pleasure in years to come. Hooray! Both the magnums are Pommard, which I admit isn't a very childish drink as it is quite tough and manly. However, after a decade in my cellar they'll become lovely, soft and charming. Just like me.

As I sit around playing with Butter and generally frittering time away I occasionally get a happy telephone call. One just came in, "I've got a wine delivery for you." Things such as half a case of wine being delivered make me very happy. I am really pleased that it arrived because for about two years this supplier, the Wine Society, messed up every order I placed with them. On one memorable occasion they sent me the wrong wine three times. Needless to say in a hot-blooded toddler like me this provoked many tantrums. However, I am now very pleased that they are delivering the ordered goods as promised.

Last night I went to the bar in Duke's hotel. This used to be the site where I would say one of my favourite phrases, namely "A Tanqueray martini, please." Sadly, my stomach is now so fragile that a big glass of gin, even if poured with a charming little ceremony, provokes unspeakable agony in me. So I was forced to drink their excellent Raffle's Singapore Slings. Three of them to be precise. I felt very good. A pink, slightly fizzy drink with fruit juice in it seems toddler-esque enough for me.

I am going out again for pizza tonight. I am going to my local microbrewery, which has a restaurant attached. It is called Zero Degrees. The pizzas are all really good and the beers are excellent. I do like their pilsner, it is a really lively, bitter lager. They also have a beer suitable for toddlers like me, it is their current seasonal beer and it is flavoured with strawberry and vanilla. Lovely stuff, and not at all girly.

I went around the neighbours for coffee last night, of course I took a bottle of wine. After we'd finished that I opened a magnum of wine. Needless to say, I felt quite tired and emotional after drinking the best part of a bottle of wine so I asked if any cigars were on offer. One was:
 

A fine time was had by all and I ended up sleeping very well after we'd finished up the wine.

Dinner was quite fun, we went to the Bermondsey Kitchen. Roast duck breast was quite nice, but the wine list left things to be desired. A rather alcoholic New Zealand Pinot Noir seemed more like lighter-fluid than a nice, elegant Pinot. Still, good to see a friend and nice to have something decent to eat in my currently food-barren world.

... The champagne for tonight.

As you can see, Fluffy Bat has made a rare trip out of bed in order to soothe me in the difficult task of handling a magnum of fizz. It is Gratien 1996, by the way. It is lovely, I've had it before.

The approach of my birthday was celebrated last night with a rather nice meal. We also drank rather well as can be read here. This soothes my frayed nerves about becoming the grand old age of two (again). The actual event tomorrow will be celebrated by a visit to the gastroenterologist to find out if my stomach can be operated on (please say yes) and the consumption of a magnum of champagne with the children from next door. This will be a good thing, although I imagine the acidity in the fizz will really hurt. Drinking at the age of two, I will certainly grow up to be a balanced and reasonable person.

How miserable. It is half past four and already effectively dark. If I was not such a chipper chap, and today's cricket helps with that, then I could be throughly depressed.

Another thing that helps my mood is the email I received from one of my favourite winemakers earlier today. I have been given a place on his private clients' list. Hooray! This means I get to buy some of my favourite Burgundy direct at knock down prices and have it delivered direct to my cellar. It may be dark, but life is good.

Well, we all do, but I was suggesting something in a less physical-necessity sort of manner. I am sitting around at home, cuddling Butter and reading in a half-arsed manner, and I find myself incredibly bored. If this was the weekend I'd be cooking something baroque and planning what to drink later, but no such luck. So I need food and drink to keep me interested. Hardly a bad thing, but a real swine when there is no food in the house and all of my wine is too young to drink. Perhaps I'll chop the onions for dinner....

Much to my chagrin it is my birthday in a little over a week; two again. I'll be meeting up with some chums from university and going to dinner at a Gordon Ramsay joint. We all seem to have acquired partners in the last few years. As one of our number is a wine-maker he has arranged for us to take our own wine. Hooray! The corkage is astronomical, the meal will be a bit pricey for a humble toddler, but at least we will drink very well. Very well indeed. Meeting nice people and drinking and eating well makes even the pain of getting old less of a burden. Oddly, on a significant birthday of mine (I was two) a couple of years ago England beat Australia to win the rugby world cup; I've just watched England drubbing Australia in the rugby again. Good things can happen even though I am approaching further oldness.

Bored, bored, bored. Until moments ago I was stunningly bored. The work of toddler doesn't get me out of the flat that much, day-care has limited calls on my time, so I usually just sit here writing thrilling prose all day. Today, alas, I've just got stunningly bored with it all and I want a bloody drink. As luck would have it, I've got one or two things to drink in the flat. At the moment it is Château de Pibarnon (Bandol) 1999 which is simply lovely. It is arguably a bit too heroic for a toddler, but if a toddler of my enhanced magnitude cannot manage the odd bit of heroism then what is the point in being large? After two smallish glasses I feel a song coming on... They call him Butter, Butter....

As I've mentioned, I've been feeling incredibly anxious of late. Well, the pleasing news is that this is hopefully behind me. I've seen a doctor and the evil anxiety-producing drugs have been stopped and I've been put onto something else. I throughly except within days to stop leaping about like a gazelle on speed and get back to my normal relaxed loafing, back-sliding and farting-around. I might even visit the children next-door tonight to see if I can steal something to drink to celebrate. It is pretty bad, I have a hundred-odd bottles of wine in the flat but they are all too young to drink. I'll be taking them to one of my long-term storage cellars within weeks and liberating stuff to drink. Hooray! Some '97 Northern Rhône wines should make great drinking this winter.

I have an appointment to sort out my medication-related anxiety; sadly with this being the wonderful NHS it is not for eight days. The NHS is generally pretty good, things get done (given time) so I cannot complain too much. Just in case, dear reader, you are worried that I am turning into even more of a booze-hound after my last comment about medicating the anxiety with alcohol allow me to say that you should not knock yeast as it is the only culture I know.

I've been a bit slack on keeping the spume of drivel up-to-date in recent months. Obviously this is largely down to sheer idleness, but I do have a vague excuse. A while ago I was prescribed a new drug to assist with my various ailments and it has not worked out to well. Firstly it just didn't work as the dose was too low; I felt rotten all of the time. More recently, the dose has been increased. Turns out this drugs is quite stimulating in reasonable doses. Very stimulating I find it. Stimulating to such an extent that I am hardly sleeping and I have constant anxiety levels akin to those following the consumption of vastly too many espressos. I sit here jumping and twitching like a flea on a plate too warm for a flea's comfort. It is very difficult to sit down and compose rants and other drivelly prose when sitting down for more than a few minutes is beyond the realms of my tension-handling ability. Sadly the anxiety is not terribly assuaged even by cuddling lovely Butter.

I am perfectly willing to admit that I may seem like a comedy bunch of ailments, but at least high-anxiety levels can be very, very slightly medicated with the odd glass of wine now and again. And again.

My wonderful purveyor of quality pork products, Sillfield Farm, is again providing tonight's dinner: Sicilian-style sausages. In an attempt to pander to passing popularity these sausages are flavoured with Chardonnay wine. Ignoring the fact that Chardonnay is not a local grape in Sicily, it is pretty silly to suggest that any Chardonnay character beyond 'being a bit wine-y' is going to make it into the sausages once they've been cooked. It also irks me that Chardonnay is used in order to capture the vague popularity this grape has, when most Chardonnay (certainly at the quality level for putting into sausages) is not very interesting. How can I exorcise my spleen? By having a glass of Riesling, of course.

That is about as close as I can currently get my knees together due to the rather bulky nature of the cloth nappy I have been put in.

I went to a concert last night, some rather good Vivaldi was played. However, before the concert I went to dinner in a boozer. Only two things on the menu did not contain wheat, something that is a source of much discomfort for me, which were chips and mushy peas. I was not disappointed by this as I love mushy peas, they are the food of my youth. However, I was less pleased when the mushy peas arrived and they were livid green rather than greeny-grey, a bad sign. A taste confirmed it, they had been made from fresh, or at least frozen-fresh, peas. Proper mushy peas (ie. those I used to eat all of the time when not eating custard) are made from dried peas that have been soaked for a long time; they are much siltier and much less green. Little I could do about it really apart from choke down my livid-greens with a pout and drink four pints of strong real ale. I did say I enjoyed the concert.

A stunning success, of course. The meat was tender, moist and full of flavour, the boiling liquor was rich, porty and meaty. I can be seen below enjoying it with a glass of a rather cheeky little Bandol:

Sauza Commemorativo is a necessary ingredient in the margarita, I have also just learnt it was John Wayne's favourite drink. It also serves very well in tonight's cocktail recipe: the tequila sunrise.
For this you will need:
A generous shot of Sauza Commemorativo tequila
A splash of grenadine
Freshly squeezed orange juice
A highball glass

Mix the tequila with the orange juice in the highball glass, add the splash of grenadine. This is a drink they make to great, and memorably incoherent, effect at The Crillon in Paris.

Soupy twist.

dasBlog and my server keep a track of where people come from in order to visit this spume of drivel; it appears that lots of livejournal users find People with AIDS plaza to be the funniest thing they have seen in a period of time. A worryingly large number of people are visiting the spume of drivel thanks to those people half-inching my picture. Not that I mind the picture being spread around in the slightest as I thought it was hilarious too. Mind you, I thought that whole trip was hilarious, the bits that I remember, anyway.

I do worry that if lots of people come here they might well be expecting something the spume of drivel cannot deliver, and they'll leave feeling let down that there was little here beyond highly articulate outbursts and references to soft toys. Not that anyone could possibly feel let down by Butter, I hope.

---

On a related note, looking at the logs once again I note that Yahoo! thinks I am the fourth best source of information on toddler boy hairstyles. I am flattered that Yahoo! takes my style suggestions so seriously but I do wonder what the people doing those searches think when they arrive at the spume of drivel.

The new excitement in my area of town is the river taxi. Yesterday I took a trip to Canary Wharf for huge steaks and beer at the rather good Gaucho Grill. The sights on the way there include the Thames Barrier:

We also go past that great white elephant the Millennium Dome:

Then the now-unused Royal Naval College in Greenwich:

And finally the Cutty Sark in also in Greenwich, the end of the Greenwich foot-tunnel is just visible on the right of the picture:

Quite neat little journey, and lunch was brilliant. One of the best rib-eye steaks I've had in quite some time, and when I asked for it rare rare it was. Beers from the Meantime Brewery, which has merited a mention here before, so I was very pleased to have a drinkie.

Given my toddler-esque limited attention span I am somewhat weary of the cricket; it has all been too much. The old Oxford chap Peter Medawar said that "Scientists are boring people with interesting ideas whereas artists are interesting people with boring ideas. Of course, athletes are boring people with no ideas but fantastic physical control." They may be boring, but their degree of physical control can be damned thrilling. Shame Warne's bowling has been frighteningly good, and Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath have done damned well. The Australian captain has fielded like a demon and whilst his bowling choices have often lacked inspiration he deserves credit for leaping around like a frog on a hot-plate. Obviously, I hold the battling batting of 'Piggy' Flintoff and Andrew Strauss in high regard. Well, Mr Strauss has batted with such care he is more of an assassin than a battler, but it has been most exhausting to watch his thoughtful, interesting play.

Cricket is pleasingly compelling, but I am more pleased I have a bottle of wine in the fridge to entertain mine host when he gets back from work to thank him for internet use and just to have a little chuckle with a nice chap. It is a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz: nice things are nicer than nasty things.

A final few snaps from Alsace. Firstly two snaps of the great Grand Cru vineyard Rangen, a vineyard that has been producing famous wines for over seven hundred years. The second picture shows St. Urban's chapel, from which one famous maker of Rangen draws the name for their sub-section of the vineyard. Cannot say I am an incredible fan of wines from either of Rangen's two most famous producers, but it is clearly a serious vineyard.

Finally we have a room in the gite that we hired for most of our stay. This room is not one of the bedrooms, but it is the kitschen:

Right, a select few pictures from Alsace.

Firstly we must realise that even though a lot of Alsace was pounded to dust in the middle of last century, an awfully large amount of it is terribly pretty. Even if we ignore the majestic vineyards we have innumerable views like this:

Strasbourg also manages to have a spooky and foreboding cathedral

Obviously, a trip to a wine region will have a slight theme of drinking, so here I am lashing my way through a magnum of Trimbach CFE 1995. Trimbach make very acidic wines so you'll note the two bottles of Gaviscon in front of me.

Finally, at the three-star mentioned below I didn't feel it polite to spend the entire meal sucking my thumb like the other toddler present, so at the end I sucked on something else.

I have been away from the spume of drivel for a period of time on the grounds of being in France. Apart from extended separations from computers I simply find the French keyboards too irksome to manage serious typing. As soon as mobile phone providers start flogging these lovely little toys I will have less of an excuse, but I am sure I'll think of another by then.

News from France? Little of general interest. I did spend some time in my cellar:

Also some time in the cellars of wonderful winemakers, including the chap who was about to lose the bung in this barrel:

I attended the awfulness that is a toga party. Being a toddler I naturally wore a child's tunic and made sure I had a toy projectile weapon with me:

And finally I stopped by the local purveyors of meat:

There has been a reasonable degree of intensity today. The fire alarm went tits-up and started beeping like a British comedy on US television so I managed to get an electrician around. A terribly nice South-African chap, he asked me to turn the fire alarm off at the mains whilst he ripped the front off and disconnected its internal battery. I've done this lots of times before, it takes moments, but I am not allowed to do so any more as it 'ruins the fire alarm'. Since he arrived ten overs before the end of today's cricketing excitement and looked quite interested what could I do but pour him an a drink and offer him a seat? I hope he charges the full period of time spent here to my hopeless flat-builders; ah being paid for such sweet pleasure.

Even though there has been excitement, I must admit to feeling generally spent today. It might have something to do with the temperature measurement taken on my balcony (in the shade) this afternoon:

The minimum reading was a particularly lovely night in my bedroom in March. Oh, I did love that.

Sometimes, possibly after a long evening drinking fizz in the park, one just wants a glass of fizzy pop. So, that brings me to tonight's cocktail recipe, Cream soda. For this you will need:
A half pint glass
One shot Galliano
One shot vodka
The balance of the volume of the half pint glass of lemonade.

Pout the last three ingredients into the first and drink.

Soupy twist.

We all have things that we like very much. For example, I am a huge fan of Burgundy. It is important that we recognise our likes and dislikes and not be blinded into sloppy-thinking by them. Only last year I was presented a glass of wine with no idea what it was after much sniffing, swirling and swilling I confidently claimed, "Well, this is quite big, but has a pleasing degree of refinement. Since most Australian Chardonnay tastes like oak-ridden lighter-fluid I think this is probably a good bottle of French Chardonnay. Possibly Grand Cru Chablis from a producer who likes oak." Seconds later when I was told it was Sorrenberg Chardonnay I was delighted; not only because it was a lovely and well-priced bottle of wine but also because my hideous prejudices had been caught out.

Much the same is true with software. I am a reasonable fan of the works of Microsoft; Windows XP is an easy, powerful operating system and their recent programming languages are terribly pleasing if one can generate enthusiasm for that kind of thing. Yet, some people seem to have balanced personalities (ie. a chip on both shoulders) when it comes to using Microsoft software. They buy it, use it with rarely a significant problem (even though they may never download updates) yet despite this successful experience they whine like dysfunctional teenagers about them. They will berate Microsoft and yet praise other software companies producing niche-market applications even when they behave in completely the same way.

An example. I am a generally happy user of Firefox for some of my interweb browsing requirements, yet in the four or five months since I first installed it I have had to download four updates, the first two of which required me to completely uninstall the old version before installing the new one. Clearly, this is a tad irritating, but nothing terribly burdensome. Yet, Microsoft's monthly patches merit streams of incoherent abuse from the hard-of-thinking about how terrible it is that they cannot write perfect software that meets the needs of 90+% of all desktop users in the world the first time around. Hmmmm...

Not only are these updates for Firefox accepted by the critics of Microsoft, they are praised for quite the most bizarre reasons. An experienced programmer (who should know better) said to me the other day, "Well, with Firefox there are not as many problems as IE which is so easy to hack and at least with Firefox they do not wait until the problems have been found before they are fixed". I shall assume he meant something else apart from the hilariously howling logical error he trotted out (how can one fix a problem if one does not find it first?) and concern myself with his first comment. It is wrong. In the last six months of 2004 the well-known company Symantec found more security flaws in Firefox than in IE. Not only has it had more security flaws in recent times but also we are told by the youth with too much time on his hands who found one of the recent ones that, "The assumption that IE is easier to exploit is a common misconception. IE has become quite tough and it is very difficult to find venerabilities in it." Strangely, he used techniques that used to work with IE (but do not any more) to find the hole in Firefox.

You will note that I do not claim for a second that all Microsoft programs are utterly perfect or that the company is above indulging in the under-hand tactics that every other company feels they can get away with. Microsoft are one of many big companies so they try and make money by pleasing their customers and by stiffing their opposition as much as they can manage. If this seems a surprise to some people then perhaps they need to just check up on how companies other than Microsoft behave and what the average bear's toilet habits tend to be.

We all like many things but we have to recognise their flaws as well as their functionality. I love Riedel glasses far more than nasty Spiegelaus but I recognise that one can put the very best Spiegelaus in the dishwasher with little chance of them exploding (and they cost less to replace if they do) whereas Riedels have to be washed by hand (with a reasonable chance of them exploding even if you give them a hard stare). I am sure that in some ways Apple's new and whizzy version of the ancient Unix operating system is better than Windows, but it also has security flaws that need fixing and is not used by that many people so personal familiarity is lower and getting free support from your next-door neighbour is harder (for some people all software needs free support). Screaming incoherent abuse at people because OS X is better than Windows XP or Riedels are better than Spiegelaus is more likely to make one look unthinking and boorish rather than result in making friends and influencing people.

Woefully boring people who insist on parroting other people's humourless constructions such as "M$" or "Microshaft" may as well be parroting the Nicene Creed; even though it is contemptible at least it has a bit of historical background and has provided many people with a sanctimonious glow in the past.

Lawks, no entries here for a week. What with being locked in the cot for being loud, bad and complaining of headaches and experimenting with new, heroic cocktail recipes (are these related?) time seems to have just disappeared into a safely-enclosed but loudly throbbing miasma.

As a consequence, I was so pleased to actually make it out of the flat today that I decided to celebrate by going out dressed as a belisha beacon:

That is another custard cocktail. Sadly that recipe is still under investigation but Galliano and vanilla vodka seem to be providing enhancements to the earlier concoction.

So, I shall leave you with tonight's cocktail recipe, the margarita. For this you need:
One shot Sauza Commemorativo tequila
One shot Cointreau (both of these straight from the freezer)
The juice of one and one half of the ripest, juiciest limes
The juice of one half of a ripe, large lemon
Plenty of ice
Perhaps one half of a teaspoon of sugar (depending whether or not you need super-grade raw acidity to wake a slumber-dizzied mind)
Shake all of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with as much vigour as your youthful muscles can manage then strain off the ice into a martini glass. Drink. Then mix yourself another, drink it and wonder if the loudness of the walls breathing will distract from you finally getting around to serving your guests.

Soupy twist.

There was supposed to be some anecdote/revelation/tale of vague interest with this picture. Something about local breweries, the pleasure of summery afternoons, I cannot recall. Sadly, I got distracted. A minute or so before the 'warm-up' picture below was taken, just after a late lunch, a car alarm started hooting:

As the picture was about to be taken a voice from nearby screamed, "Shut that bloody racket up; some of us are trying to have a hangover!" You can understand my desire to instantly look and see at which residence this obviously top-flight neighbour dwells.

I do wonder if you, dear reader, have pondered upon the link between my moniker and the film 'Sideways'. I am afraid to say I was not enamoured with that film.

A frien... no... an associa... no... someone I know was terribly keen for me to watch it, suggesting the wine-buffoonery and Pinot-loving rants might in some way unsettle me. That night I sallied forth to the motion-picture house and sat through the film. The assessment emailed to my acquaintance upon my return read as follows:

It was really quite tiresome. If I wish to watch dysfunctional¹, middle-aged people² dealing with their lives with laughable ineptitude I have a mirror, which will allow me to see much more handsome people. More importantly, surely anyone who really enjoys Pinot would not be such a miserable, irritating swine? Perhaps I am wrong. That it was a piss-boring film is beyond doubt.

---

¹Some people claim my jokes are terribly puerile, but I feel this is their problem rather than mine.

²Two is middle-aged for a toddler. So much is behind me now....

During the dark days of the 1970s the wonderful traditional drink of Britain, real ale, was at risk of shuffling off its mortal coil all due to rise in popularity of fizzy lager. This would have been a real shame, partly because having a bit of very good history die is often bad, but largely because the vast majority of lager tastes better coming up than it did going down. Well, at least it gains some flavour.

Thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Campaign for Real Ale it is now a lot easier to get a decent pint in the UK. I admit that, due to real ale being alive when you drink it (hence being served warm-ish and pretty flat), it can often be poorly kept and bad pints are all too frequently encountered. A decent pint has, as well as the slightly dirty flavour of cold tea, a refreshing bitterness that will forever remind me of sitting chatting on a summer's day in the country boozer of my youth and stopping talking and glowering (along with everyone else) should a stranger walk in. Real ale is a serious, complex, refreshing and lively drink, that can charm jaded palates for at least a few pints. So, what am I going out to drink tonight? Lager.

I feel I am not selling out to the rise of mass culture. The pub I am visiting the tap-pub for a local microbrewery who are skilled in the uncommon art of producing terribly good lager. As I suggested above, the lager generally consumed is pretty bland. I know such things are referred to by brewers as "chucking lager"; a lovely epithet I am sure you'll agree. The Meantime Brewery (and its competitor down the road) make lager that bursts with flavour and bitterness. They are drinks that catch my interest even though I feel more attuned to fine wine. Since I lost a bet recently I am obliged to buy my drinking chums a few pints; we shall leave feeling refreshed.

Needless to say, I am going to see the doctor tomorrow morning to discuss a couple of things. I imagine the diagnosis will be, "You are hung over, you laughable old soak."

Last night I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of the company of my next door neighbour. Sadly, Butter was clearly feeling dissolute and so soon began to corrupt we toddler-types.

At least he appeared to be enjoying the vastly expensive tequilla I scored. Butter, as I may have suggested, is a big teddy bear who normally looks after me; after he had set such a bad example I just felt I had to pop a bottle of wine. Since it was a rich and hearty, winter-esque sort of red wine we were charged with enough energy to spend a while watching life's passing parade from my balcony.
 

As it was such a warm night we were there until quite late letting Butter and Ted wave and sing incoherent songs at people as they walked past. Honeestly! What kind of message does this send to impressionable minds?

Mind you, I was quite excited in a childish manner for being allowed to stay up late. Naturally, I soon got tired and started getting grumpy, but I am easy to convince to belt up and after such a soothing send-off to the evening I slept. Three cheers for a baby bottle before bed!

 

Whilst in New York City I had the good fortune to visit Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. This suited me very much as it is themed on the twin delights of well-mixed, well-presented, neurone-frying cocktails and large, childish murals. It is one of the best bars I have visited. Even if it is not as intimate, quiet and sedate as Duke's, I certainly left in a refreshed and relaxed state of mind.

As I have pointed out in the past, unconventionally-named locations charm me very much. So after leaving the bar and going for a restorative stroll I was charmed, not to mention highly amused, by the name of the plaza I found I had arrived at:

Place names can suggest many things about the history and nature of an area. I suppose in some ways this was quite suggestive.

One of the interesting things about the US was the supply of different celebs. There are plenty rolling around London, but perhaps they are not quite so famous as those one ends up boozing next to in New York. I am not of the Avid Merrion persuasion but I was amused to have a few people pointed out to me whom I really should have recognised. Kevin Spacey sat next to us in one restaurant and was terribly charming, although he did not like a restaurant that I thought was great. He was spot-on about dining in London, though. Mel Brookes was staggering around in quite the silliest hat I have ever seen, and his voice is quite recognisable when shouting down a mobile telephone in order not to be drowned out by the ever-present traffic noise. Willem Dafoe was asked for an autograph in one dining establishment, possibly a touch intrusive. Far better, I thought, to keep giving him sidelong glances in order to work out from where one recognised him before it finally clicks, you bang the table and shout, "Ah, him!" Then get back to muttering about the service, they clearly had more well-heeled people to keep happy. Finally, I was not only impressed by Elliott Gould's choice of bar, but also by his steady gaze after drinking their heroic cocktails.

As I hope I have mentioned in the past, the USA can be really rather a lot of fun.

I realised I was being terribly idle not writing this up immediately so here we go with the report that matters from my trip: the food in chronological order.

New York City first round

Honmura An

Oyster and scallop sashimi
Beef tataki
Kobe pork
Various soba
De Montille Pommard Rugiens 2000
Quality: Good, but small portions and hardly thrilling

 

Rare Bar and Grill

Calamari fried in beer batter
Mexican cheeseburger
Chilli burger
Fries
Onion rings
Quality: Perfectly reasonable, staggeringly large portions

 

Cru

Duck meatballs
Mascarpone ice cream cones
Raw fluke with caviar
Raw langoustine with truffle
Burrata three ways
Grain fed veal "sous vide" with black-truffle anchovy mayonnaise 
JJ Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 1995
Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet Ruchottes 2000
Mugnier Chambolle-Musigny les Amoureuses 1993
JJ Christoffel Ürziger Würzgarten Beerenauslese Auction 1975
Quality: Great wine list, wonderful service and well-priced. Quite brilliant

 

Kuruma Zushi

Neck and belly toro
Herring
Spanish and horse mackerel
Kampachi
Hamachi
Shima aji
Seabream
Sweet shrimp
Eel
Monkfish liver
Japanese tiny shrimp
Kuruma shrimp
Squid
Sea urchin
Several more grades of toro
Herring roe
Lots of sake
Quality: Amazingly good.

 

Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches

Pate sandwich
Chicken sandwich
Quality: Nice sandwiches for the price

 

DB Bistro Moderne

Chicken oyster salad with shrimp
Roast chicken salad
Twenty-nine dollar burger
Biale single-vineyard Zinfandel
Quality: Quite fun, quite cheap. I did like the burger and use of chicken oysters

 

WD-50

Pickled tongue with fried mayonnaise
Corned duck
Octopus
Monkfish and pear consommé
Flatiron fillet steak with caramelised onion tart
Pineapple, pine nut, pine needle
French toast with brown-butter ice-cream and bacon
Kreydenweiss Pinot Blanc 2002
Joguet Chinon Clos des Chenes 2002
Quality: Really very good indeed. Very inventive with a high level of skill in ingredient selection, menu composition and preparation. Certainly this was much better than Kevin Spacey told us the night before. Wine list was rubbish, alas.

 

On to Washington DC

Blacksalt

White anchovies
Malpeque oysters
Serrano-wrapped white shrimp with aji blanco
Braised octopus in tomato, garlic and olive oil
Maine diver scallops and duck ravioli
Rock shrimp risotto with asparagus, thyme and mascarpone
More Maine diver scallops with duck ravioli
Chateau Ste-Michelle Eroica 2003
Quality: Very good. Top class ingredients handled very well

 

Ben's Chili Bowl

Half-smoke chili dog
Chili burger
Cheese fries
Vanilla shake
Diet Coke
Quality: Well, I enjoyed it apart from the cheese fries that were more disgusting than I can articulate

 

Sushi Ko

Tuna sashimi
Toro sashimi
Rockfish sashimi
Ama ebi sashimi
Flounder sashimi
Yellowtail sashimi
Salmon sashimi
Crab with ikura sashimi
Uni sushi
Monkfish liver sushi
Flounder sushi
Seared white tuna sushi
Seared toro sushi
Eel in some form of sauce canapé
Tuna with spring onion canapé
Yellowfin with Japanese potato and garlic crisp canapé
Salmon canapé
Burgundy 'three ways'
Mugnier Musigny 1999
Quality: Stunning. Slightly less traditional than Kuruma, but really good nonetheless. Great Burgundy list

 

Corduroy

Filipino spring rolls
Warm goat's cheese with potato scrapings
Lobster roll
Flatiron steak
Creme brulée
Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Spätlese 2000
Cristom Marjorie Vineyard Pinot Noir 2001
Quality: A good, well-executed, interesting and affordable meal

 

New York City round two

Peter Luger

Shrimp cocktail
Porterhouse steak
Fries
Brooklyn lager
Quality: Good ingredients, cooked with a surprising lack of ability

 

Pearl Oyster Bar

Fried oysters
Fresh oysters
Lobster rolls
Hot fudge sundae
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Quality: Very good, lobster was top-hole and very affordable

 

Wallsé

Lobster ravioli
Spätzle supposedly with rabbit
Kavalierspitz with rösti
Wiener-schnitzel with cold, tasteless, deeply nauseating baby-food
Gobelsburg Heiligenstein Riesling 2003
Quality: Woeful, one of the worst meals it has been my displeasure not to have avoided eating. The service was laughably poor, but I did not laugh at the time, I shouted, in fact

 

Tomoe sushi

Baby spare ribs
Monkfish liver in ponzu sauce
Toro sushi
Yellowtail belly sushi
Squid sushi
Sweet shrimp sushi
Scallop sushi
Stimpson clam sushi
Smelt roe sushi
Sea eel sushi
Kirin Ichiban
Quality: Variable, from awful to reasonable

Rice to Riches

Traditional romance rice pudding
Coast to coast cheesecake rice pudding
Quality: Nice enough, but cold rice pudding? Hmmmm....

 

Gotham Bar and Grill

Scallop ceviche with avocado
Pasta with prosciutto, chorizo and baby clams
New York steak with onion rings and mustard custard
Martinelli Charles Ranch Chardonnay 2002
Celera Mills Vineyard Pinot Noir 2000
Quality: Very good, but not the most exciting of food

 

Grand Central Oyster Bar

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail
Various fresh oysters
Smokehouse platter
Bay scallops in herb butter
Brooklyn lager
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Quality: Passable, but the service was piss-poor

 

Jewel Bako

Black sesame tofu
Toro tartare with oscietra
Monkfish liver
Two other appetisers
Rockfish
Green tea fried shrimp
Sashimi:
Three types of yellowtail
Toro
Sweet shrimp
Grunt fish
Live yellow clam
Another type of live clam
Akami tuna
Japanese snapper
Sushi:
Squid
Seared toro
Sea eel
Chopped mackerel with ginger
Akami tuna
Little white shrimp
Uni
Seared white fish
Baumard Trie Speciale 2000
Quality: Staggering good. Lawks!

 

Le Bernardin

Smoked salmon rillettes
Flash-marinated scallops with truffle and parmesan snow
Progressive tasting of marinated fluke ceviche
Lobster choucroute with pineapple and bacon
Boxler Riesling Sommerberg V 2000
Quality: I was pleased there was raw and barely-cooked fish on offer, and the prices were reasonable, but not up the the standard I had hoped

 

Pearl Oyster Bar (again)

Fried oysters
Oyster, clam, lobster and shrimp cocktail
Lobster roll
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Quality: Still good

 

Lombardi's

A vast pizza with sweet sausage, red onion and anchovies
Quality: Good enough and cheap

 

Weight gain in a little under two weeks:

Two and one half kilogrammes

The trek by train to and from South East London is normally a woeful experience. I have seen people smoking drugs on countless occasions, really quite intimate activities a few times and one memorable afternoon a chap dropped his trousers in the middle of the aisle and did a rather smelly turd. The problem is not only with one's travelling companions, but also with the scenery on offer. It is not immediately aesthetically pleasing for most of the journey. It is easy to dread the journey to and from central London.

Today when I was travelling home I felt remarkably chipper and was determined to have a good time. As the train pulled out the station I started looking out of the window, set my mind to 'appreciative' and gazed at the sights.

It did not take me long to revel in the marvellousness that is present even in a nasty area of London. The mix of building styles reflecting the long history of our wonderful city, all of those people doing all the interesting things they are no doubt up to, all those businesses engaged in a multitude of activities and so on. There is interest everywhere, if one can see it.

Sitting opposite me was a chap in builders overalls and a few minutes after I started looking out of the window so did he. About ten minutes passed before he turned to me and said, "London, it is bloody marvellous, isn't it?" He thought for a moment and continued, "If you didn't live here you would not believe it, but most of the bastards don't even notice. It is a shame." If I had a drink with me I'd have offered him one there and then.

Cooking for meal for some friends is an activity filled with pleasure. Of course, since you wish to entertain your friends and spend time in their company hiding in the kitchen all evening is not an optimal strategy. Therefore, one must choose food that is easy to cook yet satisfying. A very successful meal is 'petit salé aux lentilles' or 'bacon, lentils and vegetables boiled in big pot', if you prefer. My recipe comes from Simon Hopkinson's book that I have mentioned elsewhere.

The key to cooking is good ingredients. I was particularly pleased with the two kilogrammes of high quality bacon sourced from one of London's most useful places, Borough Market. My selection of ingredients is shown below.

All of this is boiled up (I add a couple of glasses of wine to the boiling mixture) and then just before serving the recipe gives one of my favourite cooking instructions: Stir in butter to add richness.

Even though there was plenty of fat on the huge slabs of bacon, butter is pretty much an essential ingredient in almost anything nice that one cooks. My guests seemed reasonably pleased when the food was served, as shown below.

Unsurprisingly, after a large, hearty and fart-provoking meal one can feel a bit jaded and in need of soothing, as we are all happy to admit.

Diet Coke is the general toddler-fuel of choice, but I have recently been informed of the 40 things every drunkard should do before death. Before death, mind, something to light up those few remaining miserable seconds that tick away before one's brief experience of life is snuffed out. What a depressing idea, 'things to do before you die', clearly the kind of thing one thinks if one does not really enjoy life.

Back to the point. I suppose one is allowed regional variations, so for number 37 I feel the Withnail and I drinking game is a suitably local and lethal alternative and clearly number 40 is quite bizarre, so I substitute a trip to John Maynard Smith's office, Sarah-Jane Selwood's studio or Bonnes-Mares. Given these substitutions, I've done the lot with ease. What surprised me was how woefully banal so many of them were. Still, I suppose I can get on with snuffing it now.

Occasionally when road-testing repaired shoes of an early evening, normally after forgetting to shave for days, one can find oneself sitting with a row of worrying looking drinks and people wondering why you are not living up to your reputation in that the glasses are still full. Suddenly, a realisation strikes you that is far more worrying than the drinks, "I am not sure I ironed my shirt."

It is at this point one can remember the words of Bertie Russell: Those who feel certainty are stupid and those with any imagination are filled with doubt and indecision.

Perhaps I did not iron the shirt, I cannot recall, but I think it might be quite a nice shirt as far as chap's attire from Liberty goes.

Today, I met up with a friend from Oxford who know earns a crust as a teacher. Our aim was to go to Duke's for the best martinis in the world and try to remember what it felt like when we were doing this over a decade ago. Naturally, it was beyond our ability, but at least the martinis were good. Not only the martinis, but also the little ritual the charming bar-staff at Duke's have when mixing what is basically a large glass of gin.

I do get an awfully large amount of pleasure from rolling up in the quiet and comforting bar, apologising for not having been there in ages (oh yes, have not been there for ages), sitting down then savouring the moment briefly before saying one of the happiest phrases I know: "Two Tanqueray martinis, please."

Given the dilapidated state of my stomach a martini is a screamingly painful experience, hence not going there in an age, but since it is less fun than it should be I am not unhappy. As we were finishing, rainy old London looking ripe for our delectation, my associate had a call from one of his ex-students who had heard he was in Town and requested a meeting. He looked pained during the call, but grabbed his martini, swilled the rest down and agreed to go to a less nice bar to meet this young lady. I felt it was my duty not to abandon my friend when he had been let out of school for the day, so followed.

The ex-student of my friend was a lovely young woman, but was not at her best because she introduced us, with a thunderous expression, to her guest from beyond our shores whom she had been asked to entertain today. She clearly felt this was a terrible imposition. Her guest was full of questions, including one I felt I could give a complete answer to. Thanks to my recent purchase of Bill Bailey's latest DVD when she asked the question, "What is it like living in England?" I was prepared.

"Oh, well, it is alright. We have Nectar Points, which are pretty good. We have understatement, as well. Our prevailing winds are South-Westerly and 52% of our days are over-cast; so as a nation we are enthused with a melancholy humour. We appreciate eccentricity, binge-drinking and are prone to occasional acts of random violence."

I expected her to be pleased with this full and incisive analysis of 'what it is like living in England' but she looked distracted and the second-hand wit fell flat. Disappointing? Yes, so also pleasing.

Custard is a noble thing with a noble history. There are savoury custards (such as in quiches), sweet custards and even things that call themselves custard that really are just horribleness. So I feel very happy that I have enjoyed custard all of my life.

Indeed, as a very young child I was a much more awkward diner than I am now I am a very old child. My dear mother would call and say she was going shopping and ask if I would like anything. "Custard!" was the always the reply screamed from the top floor. "Alright, a packet of fresh custard," she would reply with incredible tolerance, "anything else?" "Another two, no three, packets of custard", is usually all I could manage to conjure from my mind.

So, I was terribly pleased to visit my next-door neighbours last night, a charming and successful couple (one of them has a website with pictures), for cocktails and develop what could realistically be described as a custard cocktail. It is a simple mixture of one part advocaat with two parts vanilla milk from Marks and Spencer. This is best served chilled, ideally from a good baby bottle such as one of these or these; since the custard cocktail is quite thick, it is wise to have a reasonably sized hole in your teat.

I was as happy to drink this last night as I would have been to drink it when I was six. I admit, if I was presented with a baby bottle filled with it at the age of six I'd have been pretty embarrassed, even though I would have secretly been so very happy. Even happier after a few sucks when the alcohol started to kick in....

I am visiting New York City next month, and as this is a staggeringly big city, I can only hope that Mr Jefferson's observation is correct.

I have been furiously booking fine dining establishments over the past couple of weeks, and I thoroughly expect to be staggering around watching my toes disappear over the course of two weeks. Whilst many Europeans feel the need to be sniffy about food in the US, there appear to be an awfully large number of fine establishments in New York City. I particularly look forward to trying some first-rate sushi, of which there is a positive dearth in London, alas.

There are two things yet to be arranged: Excellent drinking establishments and nappies. As far as the first is concerned, I have a large tome and the power of the internet which together I hope will not lead me astray. Or, rather, allow me to lead myself astray. With regards to the latter, should anyone know where I can purchase decent adult nappies in New York City do feel free to drop me an email.

I greatly look forward to my sojourn in a new city. I have prepared the very best in classically styled, contemporary English tailoring to aid the locals in spotting me; I am always happy to provide people with a good laugh.

I drank a rather nice bottle of Burgundy last night, a 2001 Morey Villages from Domaine Dujac. Young, I know, but lovely. Dujac frequently make deeply lovely wines, but their 2001s were amongst the very best in Burgundy. As I sniffed, slurped and swallowed with a satisfied smile slapped on my face I began to muse about how good good things can be.

Britain has historically been a great trading nation, and this has done wonders for our fine wine trade which is still one of the most dynamic in the world even now we are largely a comedy nation. We have invented a number of wine styles throughout history including Sherry, sparkling Champagne, Madeira, red (as opposed to rosé) Bordeaux and fortified Port. Yet, the British are notoriously shy and retiring, not people given to the visceral, sociable pleasures that wine provides.

The cunning solution of the British wine lover was to turn the pleasure of wine into an intellectual one. Rather than drinking fun wines, the fine wine market has until very recently been almost exclusively obsessed with red Bordeaux. Whilst Bordeaux can be be complex and interesting, it tends towards the hard, lean, austere, not-much-fun end of the wine spectrum. The best wines are undoubtedly great, but not always designed to put a big smile on one's face.

So, one might prefer to drink riper, fleshier, more fruity wines, such as those that come from Australia and the USA. These wines often provide a lot of visceral pleasure but frequently lack that extra dimension that I, as a British wine lover, seek: interest. There are some very complex, very interesting wines made in this style, really quite a remarkable number considering the very short period wines have been made in these areas, but sadly they tend to be too expensive for your humble narrator. Moreover, drinking more than a few glasses of them often leaves me completely paralytic.

The solution is clear: drink Burgundy! Burgundy is fleshy and fun, yet complex and interesting. It speaks about the area it comes from, it cheers me up and I can think about even more clearly after a couple of glasses because it is not booze-tastic. Simple village wines even from serious producers can be deeply affordable, if one buys carefully, yet will provide an awful lot of pleasure. People claim that Burgundy is difficult to understand; idleness seems a poor reason to miss out on some good experiences. I certainly do not mind applying myself to maximise the pleasure of myself and my guests.

As one of my favourite wine makers puts it, "Burgundy is best!"