If I am going to recommend the movie "Manchester By The Sea" to anyone I should also point out that while being very good it is also horribly, crushingly sad, to the point some people couldn't sit through all of it. So just FYI.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Speaking of uneducated opinion - movies
I made a point of watching as many movies as possible on the planes as I don't usually watch as many as I would like to. I managed to get through more on those flights than I will probably watch all year otherwise. The ones I can remember:
Passengers: scifi/romance/drama type deal, sort of. Not too bad for what it is.
Patriot's Day: story of the Boston bombings and manhunt. A nice honest tribute, not too "USA!!"
Trespass Against Us: small budget crime/family drama. Good Brit actors. Liked it.
Manchester By The Sea: also a drama about people and not much else, well made and acted
Dr Strange: more Marvel super hero stuff. Different enough to be ok
Nocturnal Creatures: slightly weird 'story within story' drama/crime story. A bit grim but different.
Hell or High Water: a good "modern day Western" crime drama. Liked it.
Hacksaw Ridge: latest US WW2 effort. Good story, slightly overly sappy in parts, as usual. Brutal combat scenes.
Arrival: another scifi 'aliens arriving' drama but more about acting and production than action and effects. Liked it.
Allied: again, US attempt at a WW2 romance/drama with big name actors. Awful. Just rubbish.
Split: new M. Night Shamalamalamaron thriller but not as corny as some of his recent terrible efforts. Carried by superb acting from McAvoy and not too bad overall.
24 Hour War: a doco on Ferrari vs Ford at Le Mans in he 60's. Annoyingly makes a bit too much of a big deal out of the fact Ford eventually won, given it was the equivalent of a massive international corporation beating a small Italian racing team to death with a giant bag of money. But a good doco with interesting insights from people who were involved on both sides.
This Giant Papier Mache Boulder Is Actually Really Heavy: a random little low budget scifi comedy/parody which is getting a bit of a cult following. Good on them I suppose. Worth a look if you like weird and quirky.
Passengers: scifi/romance/drama type deal, sort of. Not too bad for what it is.
Patriot's Day: story of the Boston bombings and manhunt. A nice honest tribute, not too "USA!!"
Trespass Against Us: small budget crime/family drama. Good Brit actors. Liked it.
Manchester By The Sea: also a drama about people and not much else, well made and acted
Dr Strange: more Marvel super hero stuff. Different enough to be ok
Nocturnal Creatures: slightly weird 'story within story' drama/crime story. A bit grim but different.
Hell or High Water: a good "modern day Western" crime drama. Liked it.
Hacksaw Ridge: latest US WW2 effort. Good story, slightly overly sappy in parts, as usual. Brutal combat scenes.
Arrival: another scifi 'aliens arriving' drama but more about acting and production than action and effects. Liked it.
Allied: again, US attempt at a WW2 romance/drama with big name actors. Awful. Just rubbish.
Split: new M. Night Shamalamalamaron thriller but not as corny as some of his recent terrible efforts. Carried by superb acting from McAvoy and not too bad overall.
24 Hour War: a doco on Ferrari vs Ford at Le Mans in he 60's. Annoyingly makes a bit too much of a big deal out of the fact Ford eventually won, given it was the equivalent of a massive international corporation beating a small Italian racing team to death with a giant bag of money. But a good doco with interesting insights from people who were involved on both sides.
This Giant Papier Mache Boulder Is Actually Really Heavy: a random little low budget scifi comedy/parody which is getting a bit of a cult following. Good on them I suppose. Worth a look if you like weird and quirky.
Last days of Blighty
Following the ANZAC commemorations and return to Chichester we were well in need of a rare sleep-in, which thankfully we got. Wednesday was spent fairly quietly which was good after weeks of activity. We wandered Chichester a bit and did some looking for a few bits and pieces to bring home... we are not much for souvenirs or shopping as already noted so we didn't end up with much, and nobody has great presents to look forward to! Sadly I couldn't fit any walnut writing desks or vintage wingback armchairs in my fairly small gearbag. We spent the evening with family.
Thursday we headed to Portsmouth with father-in-law and took one last swing at history with a visit to the historic port and naval base. We spent a most interesting day there visiting the extremely impressive HMS Victory (250 year old flagship of the great Admiral Nelson, on which he died while winning the famous Battle of Trafalgar against the dastardly French), which now lives in dry-dock, and the also impressive Mary-Rose museum, where the preserved remains of the 500 year old warship and many amazing surviving relics are now on display after being recovered from the mud at the bottom of the harbor in the 1980s and having been through a preservation process which only finished at the start of this year.
The remarkable, and large, HMS Victory, still a commissioned ship of the British navy after 250 years. She was badly battered at Trafalgar but survived that and various other conflicts, including damage by Nazi bombs, and is now in amazing restored condition, albeit without full masts.
I can only think it would be so much cooler to see Victory sailing... but I guess she is probably too precious to risk putting to sea again. A brass plaque shows the spot on deck where Nelson fell to a French sniper's bullet in the heat of battle, and a lamp in the lower decks shows where he died.
The Mary-Rose is a very different thing indeed, having spent over 400 years at the bottom of the harbour before being raised, with only the sections of the ship covered by the mud surviving.
Mary-Rose is now kept in a massive climate controlled four-storey enclosure with viewing decks on each level and many displays of recovered artifacts. While most metal objects and fittings have rusted away much of the wood and many more delicate items were preserved by mud.
A pretty amazing piece of history and likewise an amazing recovery operation and preservation effort. The biggest mystery is why she sank in the first place, at the start of a major battle. The leading theory is that various modifications including more and bigger guns made her unstable and a strong gust of wind during a tight turn heeled her over enough to dip the lower cannon ports below the waterline, rapidly swamping her... only about 35 of 400 crew survived.
Following these we moved on to a Battle of Jutland exhibit which was also good, and looked through the museum-like collection of the large antique shop that is also on the historic wharves. For sale there among thousands of other things were a brass lamp and a glass vase claimed to have been taken from Hitler's bunker by a British special forces soldier... allegedly the vase held Eva Braun's wedding bouquet from their wedding shortly before their suicide. The authenticity of the items has apparently been confirmed by people in the know, not sure how much to believe, but there was a fairly detailed explanation of how they came to be recovered... the price tag said 'POA'... given how much other similar bits have gone for I am guessing they would be asking in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for them.
Overall pretty impressed with the Portsmouth historical stuff, we probably only got around half of it in the end with the huge HMS Warrior also open to the public and a range of other museum buildings around. Not to mention looking at the rest of the town! Also a few miles away is the Royal Marines Museum, and I would be keen one day to get to the submarine museum which is in another nearby town. So much history so little time!
With sadness that night we bid farewell to cool new nephew and his parents over a nice dinner, and the following day did the same to our kind hosts, and bundled our gear up and were kindly taxied yet again to the airport. Long flights are never something I look forward to, but you have to do what you have to do. As you may have gathered, we made it home yet again in one piece.
I shall continue to update my previous posts with photos (if you haven't noticed, there are photos appearing now) and will probably post again soon with some additional images and a bit of detail on where I went looking at WW1 stuff, since that has been requested. No doubt along with a bit more rambling commentary and uneducated opinion thrown in for good measure. Stay tuned if you are still interested. Even if you aren't interested, you made it this far for some reason, and nobody likes a quitter...
Much love and many thanks to friends and family in the UK, leaving you all behind is only made a little easier by knowing we will see you all before too long.
Thursday we headed to Portsmouth with father-in-law and took one last swing at history with a visit to the historic port and naval base. We spent a most interesting day there visiting the extremely impressive HMS Victory (250 year old flagship of the great Admiral Nelson, on which he died while winning the famous Battle of Trafalgar against the dastardly French), which now lives in dry-dock, and the also impressive Mary-Rose museum, where the preserved remains of the 500 year old warship and many amazing surviving relics are now on display after being recovered from the mud at the bottom of the harbor in the 1980s and having been through a preservation process which only finished at the start of this year.
The remarkable, and large, HMS Victory, still a commissioned ship of the British navy after 250 years. She was badly battered at Trafalgar but survived that and various other conflicts, including damage by Nazi bombs, and is now in amazing restored condition, albeit without full masts.
The ship is now pretty much fully open with access to all areas for the public.
Officer's areas, Nelson's bedroom and lower decks are all faithfully restored
I can only think it would be so much cooler to see Victory sailing... but I guess she is probably too precious to risk putting to sea again. A brass plaque shows the spot on deck where Nelson fell to a French sniper's bullet in the heat of battle, and a lamp in the lower decks shows where he died.
The Mary-Rose is a very different thing indeed, having spent over 400 years at the bottom of the harbour before being raised, with only the sections of the ship covered by the mud surviving.
Graphic showing the surviving parts of Mary-Rose
An entire case of longbows
A pretty amazing piece of history and likewise an amazing recovery operation and preservation effort. The biggest mystery is why she sank in the first place, at the start of a major battle. The leading theory is that various modifications including more and bigger guns made her unstable and a strong gust of wind during a tight turn heeled her over enough to dip the lower cannon ports below the waterline, rapidly swamping her... only about 35 of 400 crew survived.
Dentistry in 1500 wasn't flash
Following these we moved on to a Battle of Jutland exhibit which was also good, and looked through the museum-like collection of the large antique shop that is also on the historic wharves. For sale there among thousands of other things were a brass lamp and a glass vase claimed to have been taken from Hitler's bunker by a British special forces soldier... allegedly the vase held Eva Braun's wedding bouquet from their wedding shortly before their suicide. The authenticity of the items has apparently been confirmed by people in the know, not sure how much to believe, but there was a fairly detailed explanation of how they came to be recovered... the price tag said 'POA'... given how much other similar bits have gone for I am guessing they would be asking in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for them.
Overall pretty impressed with the Portsmouth historical stuff, we probably only got around half of it in the end with the huge HMS Warrior also open to the public and a range of other museum buildings around. Not to mention looking at the rest of the town! Also a few miles away is the Royal Marines Museum, and I would be keen one day to get to the submarine museum which is in another nearby town. So much history so little time!
With sadness that night we bid farewell to cool new nephew and his parents over a nice dinner, and the following day did the same to our kind hosts, and bundled our gear up and were kindly taxied yet again to the airport. Long flights are never something I look forward to, but you have to do what you have to do. As you may have gathered, we made it home yet again in one piece.
I shall continue to update my previous posts with photos (if you haven't noticed, there are photos appearing now) and will probably post again soon with some additional images and a bit of detail on where I went looking at WW1 stuff, since that has been requested. No doubt along with a bit more rambling commentary and uneducated opinion thrown in for good measure. Stay tuned if you are still interested. Even if you aren't interested, you made it this far for some reason, and nobody likes a quitter...
Much love and many thanks to friends and family in the UK, leaving you all behind is only made a little easier by knowing we will see you all before too long.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
NorthWestward again
Sunday the 23rd was another fine sunny day, and we piled back into the French tractor for another nice drive thought the countryside... Unsurprisingly we were off to another British country pub, this one in a village in the vicinity of High Wycombe, for a gathering of my lovely's mother's family and the largest gathering of my future in-laws so far. There were several special events to celebrate including recent arrival, a recent wedding, and of course a certain engagement.
It was great to see everyone and finally meet a couple more relatives who we had not been able to catch up with last time around. As always everyone was lovely and I feel very much like a member of the family already, albeit a slightly larger, less stylish, funny-talking one. A very nice lunch of roast and English ale was followed, naturally, by a walk in the outdoors... our large gaggle followed the path down out of the village with various dogs in tow (very doggy people these) and popped through a gap in a hedge and headed off across the open fields. In other parts of the world this would probably get you shot at by enraged farmers, but in the UK this is classed as recreation. It was a nice spot for a ramble though, and we watched as several gliders rode the thermals across the rolling green countryside, sharing the sky with numerous Red Kites, a stunning British bird of prey recently bred back from near extinction.
The day was over really all too quickly, it would have been nice to spend an evening or more catching up with everyone properly as they are a smart, funny and interesting bunch, and all characters. We will have to organize something longer next trip. Fortunately won't be too long until we can see some of them again.
Once back in Croydon we were hard pressed to decide on what to do for dinner... as much as the delights of local Croydon cuisine were inviting (actually there are some nice places in Croydon despite what some might say) we couldn't make our minds up re what we felt like. Eventually not being able to think of anything else I decided we should eat at Byrons at least once more while we could, and a quick check found one about 20 min away in a nearby suburb. It was getting fairly late, but we would make it.
After a considerable time winding through the residential streets of south London we got somewhere near where we were supposed to be, except that the interwebs pointed us to a very closed shopping mall. Confusion abounded between driver and navigator as we went into the deserted carparking building then back out, and spent a bit of time driving around the rather annoying one way system of central Bromley hunting for our dinner. Eventually we parked down the road and started walking around the pedestrian mall before turning back and trying the shopping complex... sure enough though all the lights were dimmed and shops closed the automatic doors opened, and in a very post-apocalyptic zombie movie moment we wandered through the dead complex and out the other side. There in a park area out the back we found several restaurants on a terrace including our Byrons. We got there just in time for the girl who appeared to be sweeping up to tell us they were closing in 30 minutes. More than a tad frustrated at this point we decided we didn't want to have to have to scoff our dinner and elected to look elsewhere.
There was still life in the place next door, the interestingly named and decorated 'Giraffe World Kitchen' which claimed to serve "international foods" and had a menu featuring a bit of all sorts from all round the planet. Apparently the founders travel the world and find things they like and add them to the menu. Or so the marketing tells us. I was somewhat skeptical, but we hoped at least we would find something to suit both of us. As it turned out, unsurprisingly, it was pretty terrible. And not just because the Eastern European, English language challenged waiter brought me the wrong meal, which I could not be bothered sending back, realizing that the right one was probably going to be awful anyway. I suspect few if any of the cooks had ever been to any of the places they were cooking food from, or possibly even had authentic versions of what they were cooking. Having worked so hard for our Byrons it was a highly unsatisfactory result. We decided to cut our losses and head home without dessert.
The next day was Monday, and we packed up our bits and dropped the rental car off and headed in to Mayfair, as already covered previously...
It was great to see everyone and finally meet a couple more relatives who we had not been able to catch up with last time around. As always everyone was lovely and I feel very much like a member of the family already, albeit a slightly larger, less stylish, funny-talking one. A very nice lunch of roast and English ale was followed, naturally, by a walk in the outdoors... our large gaggle followed the path down out of the village with various dogs in tow (very doggy people these) and popped through a gap in a hedge and headed off across the open fields. In other parts of the world this would probably get you shot at by enraged farmers, but in the UK this is classed as recreation. It was a nice spot for a ramble though, and we watched as several gliders rode the thermals across the rolling green countryside, sharing the sky with numerous Red Kites, a stunning British bird of prey recently bred back from near extinction.
The day was over really all too quickly, it would have been nice to spend an evening or more catching up with everyone properly as they are a smart, funny and interesting bunch, and all characters. We will have to organize something longer next trip. Fortunately won't be too long until we can see some of them again.
Once back in Croydon we were hard pressed to decide on what to do for dinner... as much as the delights of local Croydon cuisine were inviting (actually there are some nice places in Croydon despite what some might say) we couldn't make our minds up re what we felt like. Eventually not being able to think of anything else I decided we should eat at Byrons at least once more while we could, and a quick check found one about 20 min away in a nearby suburb. It was getting fairly late, but we would make it.
After a considerable time winding through the residential streets of south London we got somewhere near where we were supposed to be, except that the interwebs pointed us to a very closed shopping mall. Confusion abounded between driver and navigator as we went into the deserted carparking building then back out, and spent a bit of time driving around the rather annoying one way system of central Bromley hunting for our dinner. Eventually we parked down the road and started walking around the pedestrian mall before turning back and trying the shopping complex... sure enough though all the lights were dimmed and shops closed the automatic doors opened, and in a very post-apocalyptic zombie movie moment we wandered through the dead complex and out the other side. There in a park area out the back we found several restaurants on a terrace including our Byrons. We got there just in time for the girl who appeared to be sweeping up to tell us they were closing in 30 minutes. More than a tad frustrated at this point we decided we didn't want to have to have to scoff our dinner and elected to look elsewhere.
There was still life in the place next door, the interestingly named and decorated 'Giraffe World Kitchen' which claimed to serve "international foods" and had a menu featuring a bit of all sorts from all round the planet. Apparently the founders travel the world and find things they like and add them to the menu. Or so the marketing tells us. I was somewhat skeptical, but we hoped at least we would find something to suit both of us. As it turned out, unsurprisingly, it was pretty terrible. And not just because the Eastern European, English language challenged waiter brought me the wrong meal, which I could not be bothered sending back, realizing that the right one was probably going to be awful anyway. I suspect few if any of the cooks had ever been to any of the places they were cooking food from, or possibly even had authentic versions of what they were cooking. Having worked so hard for our Byrons it was a highly unsatisfactory result. We decided to cut our losses and head home without dessert.
The next day was Monday, and we packed up our bits and dropped the rental car off and headed in to Mayfair, as already covered previously...
Friday, April 28, 2017
Posts coming thick and fast folks
...hope you are keeping up. And photos soon! Eventually!
Speaking of Scroobius and sticking with a UK theme, today on the headphones is Ghostpoet who reminds me a little of Roots Manuva, which is a good thing. And he did some stuff with Massive Attack so he can only be awesome. And shortly some Burial because when in Rome... (Act Like The Vandals...) (Sorry, so many Obscure References they are writing themselves, I just can't help myself).
Where was we me li'il lovelies? So by now in recapping it's Saturday last, not too far back, and we are in Croydon. I am most proud of myself for leaving the flat (which, I am sure I mentioned, is the 2 bedroom place of dad-in-law to be that he used to live in when working sometimes in London) and walking to the train station without being even a little bit murdered, and catching a train waaaay across the big town to Earls Court. My companion meanwhile headed off to catch up with a friend recently moved to London. I was lonesome, but most happy to be attending the London Antique Arms Fair, held in the luxurious (erm...) facilities of the Ibis hotel.
The conference room of the hotel was packed with vendors from all over the country meaning a fantastic array of weaponry and some armour and other bits to look at... Unfortunately being packed with dealers obviously all the prices were fairly premium and there were not exactly a lot of bargains to be had. If there is one thing I have learned lately it is that dealers in antique and vintage stuff at the moment are riding a massive wave of profits from the recent surge in popularity of "old stuff" in general from many eras, and boy will they happily help any schmuck rid themselves of money. As I overheard one dealer saying to someone in conversation while I was in his shop "Oh don't ever listen to the bullish!t dealers spin to customers about being collectors and enthusiasts themselves, that is utter rubbish, dealers are only in it for one thing... their sole aim is not to generously help you, a fellow enthusiast, find a dream item at a bargain price, it is to tell you what you want to hear and take your money".
Among the items on sale were some very nice pieces but few I would call truely amazing... I would imagine any true gems go quickly to rich collectors and spend little time with dealers. One chap did have a nine barrel volley rifle that was the subject of much attention as they are pretty rare. He was asking £37,000 for it. I didn't bother to talk to the specialist Japanese sword dealers as those are of course worth moonbeams now. There were plenty of other bits for upwards of £10,000. Many lovely pairs of cased pistols in the £10k - £20k range... But again, these were not show stopping sets only average ones. I was certainly born rather a bit too late to be interested in this sort of thing, values across the board have soared in recent years. Guys who have been collecting since the 80s and 90s are now getting very rich off parting with their investment.
My personal items of envy from the show (ok I wanted most of the stuff at the show, but there are a couple of bits I certainly want in particular) were considerably cheaper than those mentioned above but dearer than I need to be considering. Funnily both were from the impressive stocks of West Street Antiques who we visited in Dorking. And as already alluded to, if you want that sort of stuff you need to find it in places like auctions, not pay obscene markups to dealers. The West Street guy was nice enough and good to chat to, but they trade off their name as a very well known and established dealer... If rich folks want to buy from them for peace of mind etc then good on them, but I am not paying them double what something is worth for that privilege. The hard part of course is finding that stuff before the dealers do.
I wandered back to the train and was again most proud of myself for managing to get THREE trains and tubes across town to Angel... Albeit with detailed instructions from my helper. Angel is, by the way, an area, not a person or indeed celestial being. Once reunited with my lovely we looked at more stalls and antique shops and vintage stuff. There was some good stuff, a lot of rubbish. Basically people will try to sell you any bit of stuff older than about ten years now and try to claim it is a classic vintage something somehow. We ended up looking for late lunch and finding Byrons which is a burger chain of unknown origins but their food was super good... Current special a Korean theme with Kimcheese burger and loaded fries and spicy Korean chicken wings etc... Washed down with a Salted Caramel and Bourbon shake... Great stuff.
From here we headed to Bond St where there was a half-hearted attempt by my lovely to find some shoes in aforementioned big stores for a special event...we eventually gave up and wandered Soho, visiting the pub George Orwell used to drink at, The Dog and Duck, and finding an amazing butchery selling ultra-high end cured meats including little cardboard cones of cubed offcuts. In this age of idiotic food trends and PCness it was heart warming to see a mother treating her kid to a cone of cubed meat. We got some too, it was awesome. Being Saturday, and I think World Record Day or something, the area was heaving with trendy people and there was a street party underway a couple of blocks over, so we found a quiet Vietnamese restaurant with a spare table for tea, and it was good. From there, various rail lines back to Croydon. Job done.
Speaking of Scroobius and sticking with a UK theme, today on the headphones is Ghostpoet who reminds me a little of Roots Manuva, which is a good thing. And he did some stuff with Massive Attack so he can only be awesome. And shortly some Burial because when in Rome... (Act Like The Vandals...) (Sorry, so many Obscure References they are writing themselves, I just can't help myself).
Where was we me li'il lovelies? So by now in recapping it's Saturday last, not too far back, and we are in Croydon. I am most proud of myself for leaving the flat (which, I am sure I mentioned, is the 2 bedroom place of dad-in-law to be that he used to live in when working sometimes in London) and walking to the train station without being even a little bit murdered, and catching a train waaaay across the big town to Earls Court. My companion meanwhile headed off to catch up with a friend recently moved to London. I was lonesome, but most happy to be attending the London Antique Arms Fair, held in the luxurious (erm...) facilities of the Ibis hotel.
The conference room of the hotel was packed with vendors from all over the country meaning a fantastic array of weaponry and some armour and other bits to look at... Unfortunately being packed with dealers obviously all the prices were fairly premium and there were not exactly a lot of bargains to be had. If there is one thing I have learned lately it is that dealers in antique and vintage stuff at the moment are riding a massive wave of profits from the recent surge in popularity of "old stuff" in general from many eras, and boy will they happily help any schmuck rid themselves of money. As I overheard one dealer saying to someone in conversation while I was in his shop "Oh don't ever listen to the bullish!t dealers spin to customers about being collectors and enthusiasts themselves, that is utter rubbish, dealers are only in it for one thing... their sole aim is not to generously help you, a fellow enthusiast, find a dream item at a bargain price, it is to tell you what you want to hear and take your money".
Among the items on sale were some very nice pieces but few I would call truely amazing... I would imagine any true gems go quickly to rich collectors and spend little time with dealers. One chap did have a nine barrel volley rifle that was the subject of much attention as they are pretty rare. He was asking £37,000 for it. I didn't bother to talk to the specialist Japanese sword dealers as those are of course worth moonbeams now. There were plenty of other bits for upwards of £10,000. Many lovely pairs of cased pistols in the £10k - £20k range... But again, these were not show stopping sets only average ones. I was certainly born rather a bit too late to be interested in this sort of thing, values across the board have soared in recent years. Guys who have been collecting since the 80s and 90s are now getting very rich off parting with their investment.
My personal items of envy from the show (ok I wanted most of the stuff at the show, but there are a couple of bits I certainly want in particular) were considerably cheaper than those mentioned above but dearer than I need to be considering. Funnily both were from the impressive stocks of West Street Antiques who we visited in Dorking. And as already alluded to, if you want that sort of stuff you need to find it in places like auctions, not pay obscene markups to dealers. The West Street guy was nice enough and good to chat to, but they trade off their name as a very well known and established dealer... If rich folks want to buy from them for peace of mind etc then good on them, but I am not paying them double what something is worth for that privilege. The hard part of course is finding that stuff before the dealers do.
I wandered back to the train and was again most proud of myself for managing to get THREE trains and tubes across town to Angel... Albeit with detailed instructions from my helper. Angel is, by the way, an area, not a person or indeed celestial being. Once reunited with my lovely we looked at more stalls and antique shops and vintage stuff. There was some good stuff, a lot of rubbish. Basically people will try to sell you any bit of stuff older than about ten years now and try to claim it is a classic vintage something somehow. We ended up looking for late lunch and finding Byrons which is a burger chain of unknown origins but their food was super good... Current special a Korean theme with Kimcheese burger and loaded fries and spicy Korean chicken wings etc... Washed down with a Salted Caramel and Bourbon shake... Great stuff.
From here we headed to Bond St where there was a half-hearted attempt by my lovely to find some shoes in aforementioned big stores for a special event...we eventually gave up and wandered Soho, visiting the pub George Orwell used to drink at, The Dog and Duck, and finding an amazing butchery selling ultra-high end cured meats including little cardboard cones of cubed offcuts. In this age of idiotic food trends and PCness it was heart warming to see a mother treating her kid to a cone of cubed meat. We got some too, it was awesome. Being Saturday, and I think World Record Day or something, the area was heaving with trendy people and there was a street party underway a couple of blocks over, so we found a quiet Vietnamese restaurant with a spare table for tea, and it was good. From there, various rail lines back to Croydon. Job done.
Yes that does say £25 per 100gm
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