Easter
had lunch at Arbutus in Frith Street with LSS the other day as had just read a Fay Maschler review in the Evening Standard raving on about how wonderful it was that you could have lunch at this place for only GBP15. Well, it was ok, though none of the clientele (including ourselves) was going to win any prizes for pulchritude. In toto though we did compose a pleasing picture of cosmopolitan sophisticates (excluding ourselves)in THE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.
Then we had lunch at Cafe Anglais in Whiteleys at Easter with the little squish and Rambo the Architect. Again, it was OK, though expensive I thought, but I wouldn't go on about it. Perhaps being a food critic makes you rave on about stuff that other people think is just so-so. It's the same with book reviews - I've read reviews that make you think Shakespeare would be grateful to write so well, then read the book itself and thought, what, was the reviewer a friend of yours or something? The best you can say about this book is that it's nicely typeset.
Easter was spent at Langsmeade in Bucks - very cold, with snow flurries, but sunny in the meantime. Took kids to the Pitt-Rivers Museum which was great - just one man's collection of assorted weirdnesses from around the world. Went to the Kings Arms for lunch, which was delightfully unrefurbished. Kids endured several more lectures about how this is what a pub should be like, not somewhere that has been gastro-pubbed to within an inch of its life, just so it can have the gall to charge you 13 quid for fish and chips. Resolved to throw away my edition of the Good Pub Guide. What is the point? All they ever do is direct you to the gastropubs. What I want is a normal pub where they will serve you a baked potato with tuna mayonnaise within 3 minutes of your ordering it and charge you three pound fifty. And charge you 20p for your lime and soda, NOT two pounds.
Easter Sunday service at Christ Church Cathedral. LSS bunked out on pretext that he would have to move the car halfway through the service. Lovely singing and surroundings. Sermon lamented the fact that the service was not packed out and had a dig at Richard Dawkins. Good. The way he goes on, if I didn't believe in God already, it would be enough to convert me.
Took the kids to see the Yamato Japanese Drummers at Sadlers' Wells on Saturday. It was fantastic. I can give them no higher compliment - from a Chinese person - than to say that it made me want to be Japanese. Very manga, punky, youth-tribal, high-energy and at the same time very very Japanese, strength through conformity, all parts working together like a well-oiled precision machine etc.
Very tired. I think I must be trying to do too many things.
Slovenia next week. Very glad we are not flying via Terminal 5. Hope Slovenian Mountain Woman will not be offended if I spend the whole time asleep in bed. Mind you, she's used to it...
Then we had lunch at Cafe Anglais in Whiteleys at Easter with the little squish and Rambo the Architect. Again, it was OK, though expensive I thought, but I wouldn't go on about it. Perhaps being a food critic makes you rave on about stuff that other people think is just so-so. It's the same with book reviews - I've read reviews that make you think Shakespeare would be grateful to write so well, then read the book itself and thought, what, was the reviewer a friend of yours or something? The best you can say about this book is that it's nicely typeset.
Easter was spent at Langsmeade in Bucks - very cold, with snow flurries, but sunny in the meantime. Took kids to the Pitt-Rivers Museum which was great - just one man's collection of assorted weirdnesses from around the world. Went to the Kings Arms for lunch, which was delightfully unrefurbished. Kids endured several more lectures about how this is what a pub should be like, not somewhere that has been gastro-pubbed to within an inch of its life, just so it can have the gall to charge you 13 quid for fish and chips. Resolved to throw away my edition of the Good Pub Guide. What is the point? All they ever do is direct you to the gastropubs. What I want is a normal pub where they will serve you a baked potato with tuna mayonnaise within 3 minutes of your ordering it and charge you three pound fifty. And charge you 20p for your lime and soda, NOT two pounds.
Easter Sunday service at Christ Church Cathedral. LSS bunked out on pretext that he would have to move the car halfway through the service. Lovely singing and surroundings. Sermon lamented the fact that the service was not packed out and had a dig at Richard Dawkins. Good. The way he goes on, if I didn't believe in God already, it would be enough to convert me.
Took the kids to see the Yamato Japanese Drummers at Sadlers' Wells on Saturday. It was fantastic. I can give them no higher compliment - from a Chinese person - than to say that it made me want to be Japanese. Very manga, punky, youth-tribal, high-energy and at the same time very very Japanese, strength through conformity, all parts working together like a well-oiled precision machine etc.
Very tired. I think I must be trying to do too many things.
Slovenia next week. Very glad we are not flying via Terminal 5. Hope Slovenian Mountain Woman will not be offended if I spend the whole time asleep in bed. Mind you, she's used to it...
posted by FBT at 3:23 pm
3 Comments:
Sleep on the plane, dammit. Otherwise we'll leave a collection of Richard Dawkins and New Scientist on your bedside table and hide the back issues of the Economist.
Seriously, you sound stressed. I prescribe fresh air and gentle exercise. How about sitting and watching us sweat in the veggie patch?
We passed like ships in the night (well, Vauxhall Vectras, in my case). I took the wife and nipper round Oxford on Easter Saturday on the way to the space-age Madejski Stadium - football's equivalent of the gastro-pub.
For that sort of pub, I suggest the North Pole, Manilla St, E14 (you can walk there in 10 mins). All the dishes cost about £3.50 and the staff talk in that forty-fousand-fethers-on-a-frush's-froat sort of way. Ham egg and chips v good, as are the omelettes.
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