Eeek, I have been neglecting this blog majorly again. Only excuse – too much work. Anyway, I took some time out this weekend to go and see Elley and Avenue Q in London and it was hysterical. Go see it, especially people with a dave like sense of humour!
It was super great to get nearly everyone in one place round Orsi’s on Saturday. I still can’t believe someone fished out photos from the ball, Barcelona, Prague and all the other weird stuff we have been upto throughout the years. Looking at those, I definately need to get my hair cut soon! Thanks everyone, it wasn’t so hard to sort out so we should so it again.
Went up to Nottingham this weekend although the original plan of actually seeing the place completely didn’t happen. But we did go and see the new pixar movie ‘up’. It was very cute and in polarised 3d which is sooo much cooler than red and green 3d. Go see it for the heart warming entertainment you have come to expect from pixar.
Saturday went to Lord Byrons ansestoral home Newston Abbey. It has great gardens and a tea shop, but the best bit is spotting the peacocks up the top of the treas =)
Orsolya and dave are acting very grown up with their proper shiny new house. It is in a nice residential area and even has a turret on the corner. Unfortunately the most imaginative thing the builders decided to put up there was the boiler. But it was great catching up with orsi, hearing about ina’s placement in Cali, being inspired by ina’s mom’s sailing escapades and being jealous of cecilia’s travels in Honduras. And the best part was that all of this involved about five cafe visits per day!
Much cheese – the tastiest was a wensleydale with ginger and mango (not very tradtional I know)
A little cider – we are in the west country after all
Tasty tapas – god I love stuffed vine leaves
Passing port – sweet, rich and scrumptious in sample sizes
Many wines – the wine tasting lesson focused on a pinot noir from NZ which was beautifully acidic with little tannin. It left a tingle on the side of the mouth.
Good times =)
Went to the Banksy museam yesterday with Dave. It turns out that 9:30 is a pretty good time to turn up in order to minimise queuing; not long after the line was massive and when we got out the line stretched as far as MVB. Pretty incredible considering we are several months into the exhibition and this was a standard boring monday.
Most of the stuff on show was awesome, satirical and witty. Dave and I agree that the hardhat tortoise was one of the best. Some of it was less good, but it was entertaining wandering around the rest of the museum looking for Banksy pieces. Anyone in Brizzle or planing to visit should definitely definitely go. And it is free!
I went to the Globe with Claire to see Romeo and Juliet on thursday. Apart from having to stand up due to my strictly limited budget it was absolutely amazing. At the best of times you can’t go wrong with R+J, it has the classic heart wrenching story and some superb lines – but in the right setting and performed in the traditional way it was captivating. Oh, and the sword play was sooo cool, don’t know how they didn’t end up killing each other in rehearsals.
We also had pizza at the rumoured best pizzaria in London – Rossopomodoro in covent garden if you were wondering. Not sure it was quite as amazing as everyone made out, but it was very tasty indeed and highly recommended if you don’t mind some rather ‘abrupt’ service from the italian staff.
I know it is very sneaky going to London without seeing all the people I am supposed to see but I will be back to make up for it soon =)
As far as logic goes this wasn’t very. Ina flew back from Rome to Heathrow Wednesday morning at about 3am and took the national express back to Brizzle. By 3pm we were on the train to Paddington at a cost of about £11 each. We then when to a sushi bar near bond street for some dinner – it was very good by the way. Next it was the tube to the Brixton Windmill which is a very strange pub/live music venue. There was a complete cross section of people there, from 60yr old motorcyclists to punk rockers to tourists to swish middle aged people… and us of course.
We were there to see the Veils start their tour in support of their upcoming third album. And what an amazing concert it was! We knew it was going to be, but there you go. The audience never got a breather from the intensity, regardless of whether the band were playing emotion-dripping ballads or raging torrents of sound. The new material is going to be classic but definitely a bit weird. It was all quite random really, and the singer even came in his wellington boots.
Finn Andrews of the Veils
And then we had to rush away at the end of the set to get the last National Express home (£16). This involved a somewhat exciting £15 taxi journey though the snowy London back streets and over the speed bumps. When we got close to Bristol we realised it was massively snowing (obviously we were also massively delayed). So we got to trudge through the swirling snow making virgin tracks through the whole of the centre. Outside Lounge people were starting to emerge from their student night and indulging in a massive snowball fight in the middle of Park Street.
Ina's street
Ironically, Ina had bought the tickets for Tuesday nights show which turned out to be canceled due to the weather. She originally hadn’t realised she would still be in Italy so we bought a second set of tickets for Wednesday. All in all the adventure cost about £60 for what was essentially a £5 concert. And I would have paid twice that it was so good!!
It was great to zoom over to London for two days this weekend and see Orsi and Cata. After some strenuous calculations we concluded that I hadn’t seen Cata in over a year (and that time even more briefly than this) and it was certainly more than six months since Orsolya came to Bristol for some undistracted exam revision. Regardless, the best thing about our group of friends is we can just pick it all up again however long ago it was that our paths crossed.
Cata knew an amazing japanese tea place in Soho – first time I have ever been shown to a table by a waiter for afternoon tea. We had a pot of Taiwanese green which was a first for me. It was a little like Japanese Sencha, but more ‘crisp’ and very refreshing. We also had unbelievable cakes. Mine came in a small glass and was a mixture of exotic fruits, green tea flavoured mouse, sake and some other unrecognised ingredients. Needless to say I have never tasted anything like it, but it was without a doubt the most ‘flavour-diverse’ ‘cake’ I have ever had.
And then after wandering around some record shops it was time to meet up with Orsi for dinner at a great (and very reasonably priced) Thai place. The calimari was sublime, as was the jasmine and fruit smoothy. The curry could have been hotter but all in all…
‘Potion’ by the UCL area and BT tower was the cocktail destination. Embarrassingly I ordered the same cocktails as Ina did the last time she visited, but you can’t go wrong at £3.50 each.
And brunch up Orsolya’s end of town was beyond belief – pancakes with maple syrup have never been so needed. Finally to round off a ridiculous marathon of eating, drinking and catching up we went to a cute little cafe (don’t know where) but it looked something like this:
Orsolya and Pecan Cake!
Cheers both for a great time x
An absolutely amazing concert. And bands are always so much better live when they are back home…
In 90% of cases I would say that any tour called a ‘greatest hits tour’ is bound to be a bit of a let down, but in this case it was what saved a concert that would otherwise have been dominated by songs from their meager latest album ‘Pull the Pin’. To be fair it was always going to be impossible to top 2005’s Language Sex Violence Other and Seterophonics have managed to get consistently better at song writing over their twelve years of existence until this recent album. There was always going to have to be a down turn.
OK, so their live sound is squeakily similar to their recorded sound but you still can’t argue with the brilliance of Kelly Jones’ husky voice melded with a gritty Fender Jaguar/British valve amp chugging guitar line. And it is so much better with floor vibrating volume and fancy lights and pyrotechnics. And he is still the coolest guy in the world…
Actually, Slash from Guns ‘n’ Roses is the coolest guy in the world but unfortunately it is not 1987 anymore and you can’t really go and see them. Next band I really need to see live: U2. Where have they disappeared to at the moment?
