Dinner

I had some old friends for dinner. Kate ‘Lightning’ who used to drink at La Rue’s and work at Foyles was home from teaching in Egypt in order to marry her fiancee whom we have nicknamed ‘Thunder’. Jacs and Helen were invited too and also FF [Ian] who also used to work at Foyles and drink in the bar. So it was a bit like a school reunion feeling really. Still it was a really pleasant evening interspersed with glances of disbelief from 4 of us as Thunder and Lightning put on a show 😉
Even if I do say so myself the food was good – if a little plentiful.
We started with some nibbles of Crispy Peking Duck and some duck and plum parcels. Just to while away the time whilst I was preparing things in the kitchen.
The appetiser was seared tuna steaks with a home made mango and capsicum salsa and we followed that with a chargrilled chicken breast ceasar salad.
Unfortunately this meant there was little room left for the Tart au citron and fresh berries or the cheese and biscuits later. Still not to worry all the left overs went down a storm at work the following day!
Thunder and Lightning left earlyish which left the rest of us to catch up and gossip. It was lovely but ever so grown up!

Friday Night Dave’s leaving party

Friday Night

Dave‘s leaving party at Retro Bar turned into more of a blogmeet than anything else. Wendy and Leslie had done wonders with the bar and lovely food, even going as far as to include kiwi fruit on the platters 😉 After a few tears, a few tantrums, and discussions about sweet tobacco and iced gems, I was convinced to go to Popstarz to continue the celebrations.
The club was packed but fun and Oliver [flirty straight boy] and Cathy [his girlfriend] kept us amused with their antics. Later after Tom had fallen asleep for what seemed like the tenth time we joined the queue to get our jackets. It seemed to snake around the entire club before eventually arriving at the coat check. Still it gave us time to cruise and be cruised. All this excitement was followed by a cab journey back to south London for pizza and pringles.

Saturday

After getting up late and missing Simon in the process I had a very lazy but enjoyable Saturday. I also managed to get rid of the futon and fridge that have been in my hall for a year. So I now have space for my bike, and Fabio’s bike, and Elric’s bike…
Although we had intentions of going out or going to see a film we ended up staying in and vegging. I’m not complaining though it was nice quality time.

Sunday

Got up relatively early as Nige was bringing Jack back to mine. Also we had plans to go and have Sunday lunch with Meg & Paul, Tom and Scally. A change of venue from the Ship in Hammersmith to the Curtains Up in West Ken was probably not good. The food and service left a lot to be desired so it was just as well we were gathered for the company and not the cuisine.
We then ventured into Leicester Square for Ice Cream and a jaunt in HMV. All of which was a pleasant and undemanding way to finish off the weekend.

I think the main thing I’ll miss about the pesky antipodean is the relaxed attitude to everything.

weekend review

Saturday saw me in Brixton with Oliver again – getting mightily hammered and talking sex and girlfriends and stuff.
Blogger ‘A’ and Blogger ‘B’ where down my local pub for Sunday Roast this week – which was very nice 🙂 Also there were Jacs & Helen and Spence & Glenn. After gorging ourselves on stupidly large plates of Turkey and Beef dinners we opted for pudding and coffees too – The girls won a huge box of Milk Tray in the raffle and then Blagger’A’ and Blogger ‘B’ went to see Monsters Inc.
I enjoyed my night a lot snuggling on the sofa and watching sunday night TV after the movies and food with friends – a good end to a good weekend.

weekend in review

Friday night in Ikea shocker! okay so you know you are past it when the most exciting thing that happens on a friday night is you and spence go to Ikea for food and shopping. Then onto Asda – I mean how low can I sink? Oh believe me it got worse as then I needed to put my newly bought furniture together and so I got to bed around 3. Sad eh?

Okay so I made up for a sad Friday night by having a brilliant Saturday night spent in the presence of the Ice Queen.

Remember the stag party in amsterdam? Well Ben and Vic got married last weekend in Sweden [at the icehotel™] and Vic wore a wedding dress for the occasion. This weekend they had the reception in York House and it was beautiful they had fake snow, ice sculptures and enough absolut to keep me happy. So they kept with the swedish and ice theme from the wedding. They truly made a stunning couple – and I don’t normally get all gooey at weddings but this one even had me mushy.

I was amazed how long it is since I saw so many of the people there as well. And they are all doing so much – Gavin even played in the band 🙂

annoying

oh and I am beginning to get really pissed off with people at work who fail to respect other peoples property – certain people just come and help themselves to biscuits and food without replacing – small thing I know but starting to bug the hell out of me while others hand back the decorations you lent them in pieces as if it is expected that you rip them down so they are unusable next year… gah!

World AIDS Day and Scally’s Birthday Party

What a weekend 🙂

Friday saw me at the gingerbeer‘s lyrical lounge at the battersea barge. Had this been an event affiliated to a gay men’s website you would have had scantily clad men wandering around and lots of sexual innuendo. As it happens this was a lesbian affair so there was not so much nudity and they had talented musicians on stage.

Saturday saw me shopping for birthday presents for scally – I’d seen a t-shirt at the gap I wanted but other than that I had to resort to the wish list 🙁 Wandering around town on World AIDS Day it was good to see a lot of people with red ribbons and donating in collection boxes.

Saturday evening saw me at Spence‘s festive party which set the evening off well – lots to drink and more food than you could shake a stick at. It felt a bit early to be drinking mulled wine but hey it was alcoholic so why not.

Moving along the high Street to Scally’s Party and I walked in almost mistaking it for a work party – it felt like the entire office was there. They weren’t of course – not all of them were invited 😉

The least said about that party the better I think – although I do remember offering to convert a couple of the straight boys to the dark side and generally having a laugh and catching up with people I haven’t seen in ages. Nice to see Jonathan and Marky too – looking relaxed and tanned after their notahoneymoon and also matt and clare and max [even though he came close to the bone a few times and needed to really just get a room] plus a few other assorted individuals too numerous to mention. I realised that there is a very fine line between friendship and stuff.

chicken and dave crashed at mine – I eventually got to bed around 8 and so you can imagine most [well actually all] of sunday was a write off – we watched random TV programs and lusted after random TV people, from Will & Grace to Young Americans through Mutant X and Now & Then. We also pigged out on fried food as I had no food in the house at all worth eating. I then headed off to Streatham Odeon to watch Harry Potter – yes I know I haven’t read the books and I know I was really against seeing it but I figured I just had to see what all the fuss was about. I’ll sum it up for you. The advert for Monsters Inc which lasted around 2 minutes had more entertainment value [charades]than the entire 2 and a half hours of potter trash. Oh well I’ve seen it now and also saw the trailers for Attack of the clones and Lord of the Rings so was happy enough to vegetate in front of HP. Although the sniggering everytime an AOL Time Warner branding came on screen was kind of off putting through the trailers – they really are the borg you know!

amsterdam from another viewpoint

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been to amsterdam now and yet my trip this weekend was very different from any of my previous ones. When I lived in Tilburg in the south of the netherlands I visited Amsterdam frequently. I visited friends and more recently had a partner living there.

This weekend I saw the city in an entirely different light.

The weekend started off as usual with me getting merry at the bmi [british midland] lunge at heathrow before food and champagne on the flight and arriving in a much more relaxed mood than I left!

Steve met me at the airport and we went back to his for some more drinks and got ready to go and hit the town.

Aprils, Havana and a few more drinks later and it was time to catch some zeds.

Saturday was an entirely different ballgame. I arrived at Schipol to meet Ben a friend from my old work and a few of his mates for a stag party. Now this is definitely new to me – normally the people I know have no urge to get married even if they could so it was strange to have 13 heterosexuals in one place.

Once Ben and I had sorted the hotel and bus fares out we all headed off to the hotel. Now call me paranoid but I was always the one at school who was last to be picked for the footy team. I mean always last – even the fat kids got picked before me. We had 3 doubles and 4 twins for 14 of us so that was 2 per room and funnily enopugh I was last to be picked – even though I had paid for all the rooms 🙂

Anyways we all headed to our rooms and got changed and met downstairs around midday for our first drink – I needed mine badly to cure the hangover and shakes from the night before.

Then we headed into town – now here is the paradox – we walked past the part of town I normally head for and ended up on Damrak. the server in McDonalds had the nerve to ask me in dutch if I wanted sauce with my McNuggets Kip merely because I had asked in my most faltering dutch. I had to look at her blankly and ask for an english translation which was kind of embarrasing!

After sustinance we headed immediately for the red light district. Now as I was saying I have been to the city a number of times before, the red light district on the other hand is entirely new to me. We ogled half naked girls and wandered into sex shops selling donkey porn, granny porn and much more in between. We saw virtualskin™ and prosthetic fists and forearms before finally settling in a bar. The rest of the night is a blur except I remember there being no food and an awful lot of alcohol. We also managed to take in the Banana Bar. for those of you familiar I need explain no more. For those in the audience with whom the thought of men and women having intercourse is off putting, you may wish to skip the rest of this paragraph. We watched a live sex show with some very bored dutch people attempting to look erotic whilst actually proving that keeping some clothes on is often more erotic than taking all of them off. It also dispelled the myth that all black men are hung – the one I saw certainly wasn’t – mind you he was having difficulty getting a stiff anyways and with his co-star laughing uncontrolably whilst giving him head I’m sure it wasn’t easy. In fact the only one who looked like she was enjoying herself was the girl who pulled a 6 feet length of chain out of her beaver. I was happily wondering how much drugs she could smuiggle up there but I’m sure the rest of the audience were wondering what else they could put up there. I have never been referred to as a pervert quite so often in a 1 hour period either.

Teasers was also on the list of must do Stag party venues so we ended up there and that is where I lost the plot and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday was more of the same really lots of bars, coffee shops and wandering past scantily clad whores with very little food and even less energy. The only one of us who looked even vaguely alive was Si who had dropped a pill [or paracetemol bought off some dodgy street corner dealer] and was a bit hyper. I’m sure he would have been buzzing from the orange buds he had had earlier in the day anyways.

Photo’s and quotes to follow…

top night out

Last night saw me venture out in the world for the first time since being sick. Started with pre theatre drinks and lovely food at Titanic in Brewer Street – nice food but not sure about the 6 foot wide mirror balls all over the restaurant though. Did the real Titanic have those? MPW probably didn’t cook our food but hey what the hell was lovely and relatively inexpensive too.

Then we moved onto the highlight of the evening Chicago which was really good. I think I am in lust with Simon Breen [I think that was his name anyways – he played the jury and was horny as…]

The a quick drink in Retro Bar and a flashback Wendy behind the bar ans Leslie DJ’ing – now in my day we had Leslie and Wendy behind the bar and Chris Reardon DJ’ing. HOw times change eh?

So all in all a top night out and a fun time had by all – lovely company great food and an entertaining show.

weekend report in brief: Friday

weekend report in brief: Friday night saw Jacs for the first time in ages [well since her birthday] and then she stayed over and we drove down to Brighton the following morning for B&HP which was really nice – bumped into loads of people – in fact too many to mention. And then meandered back after a meal at food for friends.
Sunday was a quiet day in really pottering about and thinking about the impending weekend in Amsterdam.

okay well update on the

okay well update on the weekend I guess. We started with cocktails in the hotel [free for happy hour] and then moved on to food at Mercury Grill and drinks at JR’s all of which got very very messy. The following morning when we got all the happy campers back together we wandered around DC for a couplke of hours before giving into the heat and heading back to the Brenton for a disco nap. We met a guy at cocktails and ended up going for dinner with him and then drinks to a bar called windows I think and we never made it to the foam party at velvetnation [I think much to the str8 boys relief].
The following morning Jonathan remebered his camera and here is a weekend in pictures? With a pic of the coolest number plate we saw that weekend.
Went for the greasiest burger in Johnny Rockets as well in Georgetown a quick trip to A&F and then back to the hotel.