Just wishing everyone a Happy New Year and all the best for the year ahead.
Music, music, music
The last two weeks have been fairly busy and in between travelling away on long weekends, I’ve managed to get to a few concerts around townw. Last Monday (December 1, 2008), I caught The Kooks at one of my favourite venues, The Roundhouse. Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that their music is indie pop, but regardless of genre, their high energy songs and enthusiasm mean that they just put on an amazing set. They played a mixture of their first and second albums with a couple of new songs thrown in just for the mix. Of course, the only downer at the end of the evening was trying to escape The Roundhouse with their main staircase the only way to exit. I can’t imagine what it would be like there if they ever had a fire (although fortunately they also have the lovely outdoor terrace to escape to I guess).
The Wednesday after (December 3, 2008), I saw Coheed and Cambria’s Neverender Tour at The Astoria. This was my first, and sadly, probably my last time to go to see a gig in one of the more relatively intimate venues in London (since it will be demolished to make way for the crossrail). It’s a great sized venue with the standing area being slightly wider than it is deep meaning that pretty much every gets a great view of the stage. Anyway, back to CoCa… I was surprised to first read about CoCa’s Neverender Tour, a series of gigs, one night after another where they would play one of their albums each night, with a bonus acoustic set for those fans that went every single night. Although I like them, four nights in a row was a bit excessive (and impossible since I was leaving the country for a long weekend) yet it still seemed to sell out. Gerrod and his mate Al, were one of the many that went every night.
As far as the evening went, their progressive rock went down a treat with the audience with a lot of people in the audience singing along to many of their songs. Funnily enough, their lyrics are quite different from your typical band, instead reflecting the storyline and tales of the fictional universe from The Armory Wars comics, written by one of the band members.
Finally, on Tuesday this week (December 9, 2008), I saw Californian born and Texan raised musician, Ben Kweller at the Union Chapel. Firstly, the venue is simply amazing with fantastic acoustics and an extremely intimate feel. Unfortunately I found the pews to be quite uncomfortable by the end of the evening. Extremely talkative and obviously very friendly, Ben Kweller struck me as an American version of Ben Lee. Kweller seemed to have some story to tell about a lot of his songs and talked casually to the audience. Also, considering it was just him and his buddy, Kitt Kitterman, I liked the way that he still seemed to be energised, and unphased by anything, such as when a guitar string broke for their “specially tuned” encore song and he simply shrugged it off and changed songs until Kitt mended his guitar.
I like jumping in ice puddles
… was the quote in the guest book when Wes and I went hiking around Loch Muick. This weekend, I went to visit both Wes and Stacey who’d moved to Aberdeen about six months ago, some good friends from back home in Australia. I’d spent all of about two hours in Aberdeen before, on a previous trip to the Speyside region, though this time I was looking forward to just hanging out, and seeing the local countryside for a bit of a winter walk.
Everyone I’d talked to about going hiking in north Scotland at this of year thought I was mad given the combination of short hours of sunlight, and the cold and wet weather conditions making it all the more difficult. I had come prepared though with thermals, over trousers and new hiking boots and we certainly needed it. Luckily we had absolutely amazing weather for pretty much most of the weekend, with blazing blue skies full of sunshine (at least when the sun was up) and the only chill coming from the winds.
Wes had Friday off so we planned out our hike Thursday night, looking for one that would take around four hours as we had to account for the small number of sunlight hours. We settled for a lakeside hike instead of a peak, as Loch Muick was something that he was yet to do and I was happy to see a loch (i.e. lake) in great weather. It also helped that it was within reasonable driving distance. We stopped in Ballater on the way to grab some sandwiches for lunch, and with a backpack full of supplies we started out on the trek.
Bitterly cold doesn’t really begin to describe the first parts of our walk with a strong gust flowing over the loch that continually cut into our face. Despite the many layers we both wore, it still proved to be a shock to the system. The wind eventually died down by the time that we hit the lakeside, and we got to enjoy the amazing scenery. We managed to see some amazing scenery including some awesome frozen puddles, a gushing waterfall, some deer, and what we think was black grouse (it was a black bird with a red beak that looked like the combination between a duck and a chicken). Somehow we also ended up chasing a pheasant on our drive back, and randomly passed a peacock that happened to sit in someone’s backyard. Exhausted, we had a dinner at the Potarch Hotel, carpeted with far too much tartan, but at least had a very warming fireplace to sit by and enjoy dinner.
Stacey joined us on Saturday, and we all celebrated the news of her passing her recent exam that she’d been studying for quite a number of months. We had a lovely day, heading out to places like Stonehaven (which I still can’t pronounce as the locals do), seeing a frosty beach (what the?), and the lovely Dunnottar Castle, that sits alongside the coast on what looks like a donut shaped island. We also ended up having a great dinner at Cafe 52 (with fairly poor service) though a cosy room that fitted us perfectly.
I had a wonderful weekend, and I have to thank Wes and Stacey for being such wonderful hosts, sharing their wonderful lifestyle with me, and giving me a great local tour of the surrounding area. Find the rest of the photos from the weekend here.
Another BBC Good Food Show
(I’m quite late writing this post as it was meant to be two Sunday ago but better late than never.) Another year and another Good Food Show in London, this time held at Kensington Olympia and although I had already been to one when I first arrived in London, this year’s event had both Heston Blumenthal (of Fat Duck fame) and Nigella Lawson (of various TV shows and cooking book fame).
I couldn’t see Heston as I couldn’t take a day off work, so I went on the Sunday when Nigella was going to be talking. Her session was brief, just over and hour, almost an hour and half where she mixed her Christmas cookies, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. She didn’t actually bake her cookie mixture as she mentioned how boring that would be, instead choosing to relate it to her own personal story with her sons and the role they play in Christmas for her family each year.
I think the thing that I liked about her, besides her striking appearance and gorgeous voice was how humble and chatty she was. Despite the numerous books (her latest being a Christmas book) and TV shows she has, she still attests that she’s not a very good cook and continued to joke about how it was her greed that steered her towards her (second) career path (the first being a journalism one).
The rest of the show wasn’t particularly memorable, especially since after recently visiting the Salone de Gusto however seeing Nigella was definitely worth it.
Brunch with Gerrod and Kristy
I love a lazy brunch on the weekend, and I’m glad that I already had a date booked in to catch up with Gerrod and Kristy because their schedule (and to be fair, most people’s schedules) seem to fill up well in advance most of the time.
We ended up in Roast, a restaurant I’d never been to, though have always wanted to go but just always seems to be heaving with people, particularly with the market open on the Saturday. Pre-booking definitely helps and it didn’t seem to be too much of a problem getting a table a couple of days ahead. With its bright, airy loft space, converted into a dining area, I think we all agreed it was a great choice and combined with tasty food that left me full until dinner was a nice experience overall. I’ll write up a better review at the other blog, when I get a chance.
After brunch, we walked around the market for a while, and though I felt extremely tempted to buy lots of ingredients, my current commute to my client would me too many of them would be wasted and neglected whilst I was away. It didn’t stop me suggesting new ingredients and great produce for Gerrod or Kristy to try (I hope you enjoy those Chorizos!)
With the weather so nice (okay, it wasn’t sunny but at least it wasn’t raining and cold!) we then headed towards the Tate Modern to see the latest installation in the Turbine Hall by Dominque Gonzalez-Foerster. I didn’t quite get it when we were there, but after reading the essay, it does make a little bit more sense.
I thought this one sculpture was particularly good because the pose worked really well with all the prams lined up (they aren’t part of the exhibition). I’d probably react like that too if I had to deal with that many at once!
A fun morning, and even though I wanted to continue on along the southbank, my day in Manchester had left me pretty tired.
Day tripping in Manchester
Since I was in the area for Agile North, I took another day off work to hang around in Manchester because my last visit had been less than an afternoon, and I did want to test if there was really any truth to the, “It’s grim up north” comments you hear about all the time. I arrived fairly late on a Thursday evening, shattered from the full on conference day, and ended up on a slow train between Preston (where the conference was) and Manchester.
Unfortunately I didn’t really get much of an impression of what Preston was like – it seemed to be a large University town, and since most people seemed to be travelling in from around the area, instead of from the area, I figure there wasn’t too many IT opportunities around. Anyway, back to Manchester.
I stopped at the Manchester Oxford (Street) train, one of four major train stations in Manchester as it was closer to the hotel I stayed at than any of the other ones. As I found out on Friday, all of the stations aren’t actually too far away from each other, and that Manchester itself is extremely pedestrian-friendly. I grabbed a bite to eat at a non memorable Thai restaurant, before walking around the area and turning in for the night. I noticed several places around town setting up for the Christmas markets, and a gigantic, very rounded Santa perched next to, what I think was, their Town Hall.
Waking up the next morning, I skipped the breakfast since I had dinner so late and proceeded to walk around town. Most people were on their way to work, and it was once again nice to have a day off when everyone else seemed to be a terrible (not quite London pace) rush to get to their office place. Like many English cities, Manchester has it’s fair share of cobblestoned roads that admittedly make it a bit of challenge to walk fast, particularly when they’re covered with a slick from the continuous light drizzle.
I stopped at Katsouris Delicatessen (113 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 2BQ) hoping that they would make some great coffee, and they certainly disappoint. That latte kept me going all the way to lunchtime as I walked around. I love the fact that the space invaders also managed to hit up Manchester on their visit to England. Although I enjoyed seeing all that there was to see in Manchester, it definitely had a bit more of a homely feel, and I can understand why people might enjoy living up there.
My highlight of the day was making it out to SportsCity, where I had prebooked a ticket to do the Manchester City Experience, or basically a guided tour around the Manchester City Football Club grounds. As you can see from the picture above, we got to get up very close to all different parts of the stadium, including the different suite rooms they have available, the press room, the home city changing rooms, and the tunnel all the football players come running out of.
I think it definitely helped that our tour guide was an obviously fanatical fan, and recounted many of his own stories about events that happened in the stadium, turning the tour into something much more interesting. I didn’t realise how many different places football stadiums had for watching (with the above, very comfy chairs reserved for the more exclusive suite room season ticket holders). It also helped that there were only three of us on the tour, and so we had plenty of opportunities to ask our own questions and just take in the whole atmosphere. I loved the way they had the sun lamps blasting yellow light down on to the pitch, the fact that we were standing right next to where all the players would come running on, and I can understand the thrill that footballers must experience running into a roaring crowd.
I really wanted to spend a weekend in Manchester and the surrounding area, but due to prior commitments ended up having to return late on Friday. Fortunately I had prebooked an advance first class ticket on Trainline, that made the very long journey home less unpleasant.
Whoops
Don’t you hate it when you get off at the wrong train station. Like Wigan instead of Preston… for example.
Warlords
On Saturday night, I went out to see Warlords with Kath Dob, the latest Jet Li film showing at the cinemas. Here I was, thinking it would be another action packed kung fu extravaganza. Instead it told the sad and tragic tale of the end of a blood oath between a set of bandits and a madly driven general of the Ching army.
We saw it at the Covent Garden Odean theatre and although I can’t remember the last time I’ve been the cinemas, it really struck me how many console game advertisements they played as it seemed like they had more game advertisements than they had trailers for other films.
Before seeing this movie, I’d read about people comparing it to other well known films like Hero and the House of Flying Daggers. Don’t expect the same richness in colour, the same vibrancy, and the same emphasis on close up hand to hand combat. In fact, this movie really doesn’t deserved to be compared to all of them because I found it so different. Most of the movie seemed to focus on the estranged relationships between the main characters, and the struggle between the bandits needs to feed their families and the need to please their new general.
I’m not sure if I would recommend this movie for other people, though I’d suggest watching it at home. Sure there are some magnificent battle scenes and a complex, constantly interweaving storyline even including some elements of Romeo and Juliet.
TheKua.com Rating: 5 out of 10