'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
I remember when they were saying no need for a booster or to do kids, we need to vaccinate everybody else.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I once spent $200 on a meal for one entirely by accident. It was an extremely stressful experience.
Tell us more.
Well, I was in New York for work, and I normally just grab dinner at the Grand Central food court because it's close to the hotel and I like railway stations. But my wife had recently also been in NYC and recommended a place she had gone, sending me a link. Turned out there were two restaurants at the same address, a relatively cheap noodle place downstairs and a very fancy Japanese vegan restaurant upstairs. The link she sent had the name of the fancy place, but she had eaten at the noodle place. I went to the named place. The menu was largely in Japanese and the main item was a $130 per person 12 course tasting menu. They also had a $65 "tea pairing menu" so I thought that sounds more reasonable. Turned out that "tea pairing" meant you paid $65 for tea on top of the $130 for the food. I got a $5 beer too! The food was very nice if a bit weird, but not worth that kind of money. And a combination of salty food, strong green tea and embarrassment at my predicament meant I was awake the whole night, despite the time difference. I managed to claim about a third of it on expenses. The whole experience simply reinforced my belief that I am more of a food court kind of person.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Another candidate for the British pioneering settlement on Pluto.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
I remember when they were saying no need for a booster, we need to vaccinate everybody else.
It's really really cretinous.
Meanwhile Northern Ireland has just dropped 4 days worth of data - if the UK reported like this and at the same rate it would be > 1 million cases.
There's no doubt Blair was very successful and an election winning machine who destroyed the Tories for a decade.
If electoral success is the criteria for a Knighthood then by all means give him one but I trust when the time comes OGH will also support a Knighthood for "Sir" Boris Johnson (London Mayor twice, won the the EU referendum for LEAVE and gave the Tories their biggest majority in a general election since 1987) ?
Of course Peppa will get a KG. It goes with the job.
There's no doubt Blair was very successful and an election winning machine who destroyed the Tories for a decade.
If electoral success is the criteria for a Knighthood then by all means give him one but I trust when the time comes OGH will also support a Knighthood for "Sir" Boris Johnson (London Mayor twice, won the the EU referendum for LEAVE and gave the Tories their biggest majority in a general election since 1987) ?
If massive electoral success is the criterion, how did we end up with Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg?
I believe Keir Starmer. If the Tories are not able to form a Government (ie they have fewer than, say, 305-10 seats), then Starmer will become PM. He needs no deals with the SNP in particular (he might certainly reach some sort of accommodation with the LibDems).
Are the Nats really going to vote with the opposition Tories to bring down his new administration and risk a second immediate election (the FTPA will have been repealed by then) at which they will be pilloried? I don't think so.
The nearest equivalent is February 1974, when it was the Conservatives, terrified of another election, who abstained and let Harold Wilson form a minority administration.
I imagine that is what will happen again. So Starmer governs for several months - no deals with anyone - and goes to the country a few months later to secure a majority. Which he will likely obtain.
Which sort of Lab policies do you think the SNP might oppose? Lovely, progressive cuddly owls for everyone, or gulags for scroungers and red, white & blue flag waving to show Johnny EU that SKS is as tough as BJ.
Dunno. You're a Nat - you tell us. All I'm saying is that Starmer will not need to do any deals with the SNP (contrary to the view by several here that he will be compelled to reach an accommodation which might include a second independence referendum).
If we end up with a hung parliament but with Tories having most seats but not enough for a majority even with the DUP, then Starmer would likely end up PM.
However he would find it near impossible to get any legislation on English domestic legislation through as there may still be a majority of Tory MPs in England and the SNP would abstain if Starmer did not give them indyref2 + devomax.
Hardly
Labour loses an English Domestic legislation vote - new election with Labour now having a message to convince SNP voters to vote Labour....
Why SNP voters? They wouldn't dream of interfering in English domestic legislation. No skin off their nose.
This election was created by the SNP not supporting something - vote Labour or look forward to continual elections.
The entire point of the October 74 election was to get a Labour Majority. This would be an almost identical election.
more bollox
And your reasons for calling it bollox? Oh you don't have any because you've pickled your brain.
Well smartarse , yet another clown who likes to insult through their ignorance. I have forgotten more than your tiny brain will ever know for sure. Since you wrote the bollox and have no clue , I can presume you have little brain to pickle, and prefer just to write bollox. The SNP voted against as Labour had ratted on their promise of a referendum and the SNP had said they would not have that and so gave Labour their just desserts. I happened to know that but any less than intelligent person could have easily checked the facts before they ignorantly posted rubbish and then had the temerity to question someone who knew the answer. You are far from as smart as you think you are sunshine and your use of old Scottish tropes says plenty about you, inferiority complex.
Sorry but what was you actual point within the diatribe of insults that merely emphasis how bad you are at creating an argument.
Where does your idea of a referendum appear from - the entire point in all posts so far is that 1 wasn't offered - as Labour once they have x amounts of seats can rule without explicit SNP support because the SNP can hardly vote with the Tories can they?
+ there is zero chance of a Scottish referendum being included within a Labour Manifesto so I can't see where your "promise" is coming from in the first place.
As I said diatribe full of insults containing an ill informed thought that has no basis within the thesis being discussed
Says the clown who accuses me of being a drunkard. They had promised they would hold a referendum and then stated categorically that they would not, is that not clear enough for you. Slightly better than your " they voted against something or other" pish. Jog on now and give me peace , and make it a very long one.
When did they promise a referendum and under what leader?
When SKS offers you one then you have a valid argument until then it's another of your pipe dreams.
As for calling you a drunkard, when else do people resort to insults before 10pm at night on a web forum...
The only person who does it on this site is you and being frank you exhibit a lot of habits of a drunk...
You can pay hundreds of pounds for very ordinary meals in London and hardly anything for highly-rated restaurants in unfashionable parts of the country. It depends whether people are bothered by visiting those unfashionable places.
We used to have one of those in Mansfield, by someone who had been working for one of the famous chefs. Superb - but eventually gave up the struggle. Even at those prices they were tight on customers.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
World number one Novak Djokovic will defend his Australian Open title later this month after receiving a medical exemption from having a Covid-19 vaccination.
I bet if he wasn't world number one that might have been a different decision.
?????? There's no way on God's green earth he's "medically exempt".
Well, the one loophole is he has just recovered from COVID, but that's amazing timing (and his social media doesn't give any suggestion he has). Other than you have to have a pretty serious underlying medical condition, which seems somewhat unlikely for a elite sports star.
Probably is that. And maybe he got a well-timed dose on purpose. Only way to reconcile 2 strong & conflicting desires, (i) Not to take the vaccine and (ii) To win the Aussie and get to the record 21 slams. I'm not usually a buyer of this sort of devious speculation but I can believe it here. He really is anti-vax and he really is into breaking all the records and thus nailing the GOAT status.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
I have never been (and hate strip clubs) but I’m reliably informed that the food at Stringfellows is actually very good? Or at least it used to be?
It was very nice in 2006.
I'm in manchester for a meeting in a couple of weeks, I've just learned the person I'm meeting is a vegetarian. Any recommendations?
I believe Keir Starmer. If the Tories are not able to form a Government (ie they have fewer than, say, 305-10 seats), then Starmer will become PM. He needs no deals with the SNP in particular (he might certainly reach some sort of accommodation with the LibDems).
Are the Nats really going to vote with the opposition Tories to bring down his new administration and risk a second immediate election (the FTPA will have been repealed by then) at which they will be pilloried? I don't think so.
The nearest equivalent is February 1974, when it was the Conservatives, terrified of another election, who abstained and let Harold Wilson form a minority administration.
I imagine that is what will happen again. So Starmer governs for several months - no deals with anyone - and goes to the country a few months later to secure a majority. Which he will likely obtain.
Which sort of Lab policies do you think the SNP might oppose? Lovely, progressive cuddly owls for everyone, or gulags for scroungers and red, white & blue flag waving to show Johnny EU that SKS is as tough as BJ.
Dunno. You're a Nat - you tell us. All I'm saying is that Starmer will not need to do any deals with the SNP (contrary to the view by several here that he will be compelled to reach an accommodation which might include a second independence referendum).
If we end up with a hung parliament but with Tories having most seats but not enough for a majority even with the DUP, then Starmer would likely end up PM.
However he would find it near impossible to get any legislation on English domestic legislation through as there may still be a majority of Tory MPs in England and the SNP would abstain if Starmer did not give them indyref2 + devomax.
Hardly
Labour loses an English Domestic legislation vote - new election with Labour now having a message to convince SNP voters to vote Labour....
Why SNP voters? They wouldn't dream of interfering in English domestic legislation. No skin off their nose.
This election was created by the SNP not supporting something - vote Labour or look forward to continual elections.
The entire point of the October 74 election was to get a Labour Majority. This would be an almost identical election.
more bollox
And your reasons for calling it bollox? Oh you don't have any because you've pickled your brain.
Well smartarse , yet another clown who likes to insult through their ignorance. I have forgotten more than your tiny brain will ever know for sure. Since you wrote the bollox and have no clue , I can presume you have little brain to pickle, and prefer just to write bollox. The SNP voted against as Labour had ratted on their promise of a referendum and the SNP had said they would not have that and so gave Labour their just desserts. I happened to know that but any less than intelligent person could have easily checked the facts before they ignorantly posted rubbish and then had the temerity to question someone who knew the answer. You are far from as smart as you think you are sunshine and your use of old Scottish tropes says plenty about you, inferiority complex.
Sorry but what was you actual point within the diatribe of insults that merely emphasis how bad you are at creating an argument.
Where does your idea of a referendum appear from - the entire point in all posts so far is that 1 wasn't offered - as Labour once they have x amounts of seats can rule without explicit SNP support because the SNP can hardly vote with the Tories can they?
+ there is zero chance of a Scottish referendum being included within a Labour Manifesto so I can't see where your "promise" is coming from in the first place.
As I said diatribe full of insults containing an ill informed thought that has no basis within the thesis being discussed
Says the clown who accuses me of being a drunkard. They had promised they would hold a referendum and then stated categorically that they would not, is that not clear enough for you. Slightly better than your " they voted against something or other" pish. Jog on now and give me peace , and make it a very long one.
When did they promise a referendum and under what leader?
When SKS offers you one then you have a valid argument until then it's another of your pipe dreams.
As for calling you a drunkard, when else do people resort to insults before 10pm at night on a web forum...
The only person who does it on this site is you and being frank you exhibit a lot of habits of a drunk...
Jog on loser
So you've not been offered anything by SKS - thought as much.
Yep the drink has pickled your brain - allowing very brief moments of clarity within a sea of pointless insults.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
"Hitler was the most successful German leader ever."
Discuss.
Hmmm. Hitler -
1) Killed Hitler 2) Implemented policies that resulted in the complete destruction of Fascism in Germany. And most of the rest of the world.
3) successfully shifted the focus of the next generation of Germans' energy from militarism to economic performance, thus making Germany the powerhouse and political leader of Europe. {he was clearly playing the long game, sacrificing his personal image for the good of the German people 50 years hence)
Bit like Japan. Tojo was a genius?
I'm trying to remember the AltHistory story where some people form the future end up in the 1940s - "So you are saying that Germany and Japan are now pacifists? And the Jews have built the new Sparta?"
4 - Was not assassinated by the Allies as they thought he would do more damage alive.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Another candidate for the British pioneering settlement on Pluto.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
I have never been (and hate strip clubs) but I’m reliably informed that the food at Stringfellows is actually very good? Or at least it used to be?
It was very nice in 2006.
I'm in manchester for a meeting in a couple of weeks, I've just learned the person I'm meeting is a vegetarian. Any recommendations?
Don't discuss vegetarianism during your meal.
How do you know when someone is a vegan? They tell you.
But it has buggered up my plans somewhat as I was thinking about booking hawksmoor, until I learned of my friend's dietary requirements. Now I'm not sure what to pick - I don't know Manchester very well.
We have at least achieved something on PB today namely that far from being a weakly-executed chain seeking to monetise a popular or established brand (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver) Ivy restaurants throughout the country are in fact a welcome addition to the High Street dining scene and good for dates and anniversaries (up to and including 10th wedding anniversaries).
And are therefore unlikely to go the way of other such attempts (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver).
No guarantee of that, if they dilute the food quality and keep prices the same they'll fail the same as Jamie Oliver did. That's the underlying issue, the failures served crap food for high prices (relative to the quality). The Ivy spin offs, as yet, don't do that, the food is reliably decent, the locations are great, the restaurants themselves have a good vibe and the service is solid, plus easy to do for 2 under £100 without a bottle of wine.
Unfashionable take: I am always glad to see a Pizza Express, if I am absolutely stuck for somewhere to eat in some nightmare town. Especially if with kids
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
Another difference between UK and US television, is that the comedy panel show is almost unheard of across the pond.
Comedy Central did @midnight a few years ago - you can guess what slot that was on - which was a variation on comedians play Jeopardy; but it’s an alien format otherwise. Which is surprising, because as Harry and Paul alluded to in the sketch above, it’s a really cheap way of making television.
Sitcoms and sketch shows are much more prominent in the States.
I believe Keir Starmer. If the Tories are not able to form a Government (ie they have fewer than, say, 305-10 seats), then Starmer will become PM. He needs no deals with the SNP in particular (he might certainly reach some sort of accommodation with the LibDems).
Are the Nats really going to vote with the opposition Tories to bring down his new administration and risk a second immediate election (the FTPA will have been repealed by then) at which they will be pilloried? I don't think so.
The nearest equivalent is February 1974, when it was the Conservatives, terrified of another election, who abstained and let Harold Wilson form a minority administration.
I imagine that is what will happen again. So Starmer governs for several months - no deals with anyone - and goes to the country a few months later to secure a majority. Which he will likely obtain.
Which sort of Lab policies do you think the SNP might oppose? Lovely, progressive cuddly owls for everyone, or gulags for scroungers and red, white & blue flag waving to show Johnny EU that SKS is as tough as BJ.
Dunno. You're a Nat - you tell us. All I'm saying is that Starmer will not need to do any deals with the SNP (contrary to the view by several here that he will be compelled to reach an accommodation which might include a second independence referendum).
If we end up with a hung parliament but with Tories having most seats but not enough for a majority even with the DUP, then Starmer would likely end up PM.
However he would find it near impossible to get any legislation on English domestic legislation through as there may still be a majority of Tory MPs in England and the SNP would abstain if Starmer did not give them indyref2 + devomax.
Hardly
Labour loses an English Domestic legislation vote - new election with Labour now having a message to convince SNP voters to vote Labour....
Why SNP voters? They wouldn't dream of interfering in English domestic legislation. No skin off their nose.
This election was created by the SNP not supporting something - vote Labour or look forward to continual elections.
The entire point of the October 74 election was to get a Labour Majority. This would be an almost identical election.
more bollox
And your reasons for calling it bollox? Oh you don't have any because you've pickled your brain.
Well smartarse , yet another clown who likes to insult through their ignorance. I have forgotten more than your tiny brain will ever know for sure. Since you wrote the bollox and have no clue , I can presume you have little brain to pickle, and prefer just to write bollox. The SNP voted against as Labour had ratted on their promise of a referendum and the SNP had said they would not have that and so gave Labour their just desserts. I happened to know that but any less than intelligent person could have easily checked the facts before they ignorantly posted rubbish and then had the temerity to question someone who knew the answer. You are far from as smart as you think you are sunshine and your use of old Scottish tropes says plenty about you, inferiority complex.
Sorry but what was you actual point within the diatribe of insults that merely emphasis how bad you are at creating an argument.
Where does your idea of a referendum appear from - the entire point in all posts so far is that 1 wasn't offered - as Labour once they have x amounts of seats can rule without explicit SNP support because the SNP can hardly vote with the Tories can they?
+ there is zero chance of a Scottish referendum being included within a Labour Manifesto so I can't see where your "promise" is coming from in the first place.
As I said diatribe full of insults containing an ill informed thought that has no basis within the thesis being discussed
Says the clown who accuses me of being a drunkard. They had promised they would hold a referendum and then stated categorically that they would not, is that not clear enough for you. Slightly better than your " they voted against something or other" pish. Jog on now and give me peace , and make it a very long one.
When did they promise a referendum and under what leader?
When SKS offers you one then you have a valid argument until then it's another of your pipe dreams.
As for calling you a drunkard, when else do people resort to insults before 10pm at night on a web forum...
The only person who does it on this site is you and being frank you exhibit a lot of habits of a drunk...
Jog on loser
So you've not been offered anything by SKS - thought as much.
Yep the drink has pickled your brain - allowing very brief moments of clarity within a sea of pointless insults.
Just for you arsehole
Scotland Act 1978 The government returned to the issue of devolution in November 1977. Separate bills for Scotland and Wales were published and support from the Liberals was obtained. In spite of continued opposition requiring another guillotine motion, the Bills were passed.[1] During the passage of the Scotland Act 1978 through Parliament, an amendment introduced by Labour MP George Cunningham added a requirement that the bill had to be approved by 40% of the total registered electorate, as well as a simple majority (50% + 1).
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Another candidate for the British pioneering settlement on Pluto.
Antivaxxers in the replies are lapping it up.
If nothing else, manufacturing 16 billion doses of a vaccine every year is perfectly possible. In world GDP terms that would be a fart in a thunderstorm.
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
We have at least achieved something on PB today namely that far from being a weakly-executed chain seeking to monetise a popular or established brand (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver) Ivy restaurants throughout the country are in fact a welcome addition to the High Street dining scene and good for dates and anniversaries (up to and including 10th wedding anniversaries).
And are therefore unlikely to go the way of other such attempts (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver).
No guarantee of that, if they dilute the food quality and keep prices the same they'll fail the same as Jamie Oliver did. That's the underlying issue, the failures served crap food for high prices (relative to the quality). The Ivy spin offs, as yet, don't do that, the food is reliably decent, the locations are great, the restaurants themselves have a good vibe and the service is solid, plus easy to do for 2 under £100 without a bottle of wine.
Unfashionable take: I am always glad to see a Pizza Express, if I am absolutely stuck for somewhere to eat in some nightmare town. Especially if with kids
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
I think that's what Nandos is for, though I don't have kids. It's a good value cheap meal that's also not horrible. Quick and easy, great for pre or post movie viewing depending on the time of day.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
MPW's first restaurant was in Earlsfield SW17 in Wandsworth - it was over the road from Wandsworth common and very near my first 2 London homes - a rental in Balham when it was still quite cheap and my first ever property in Honeywell road, Wandsworth - in 1981 I think again before the area became super pricey during the glory years of the blessed one! Checking google maps looks like the restaurant is now called Chez Bruce!
I believe Keir Starmer. If the Tories are not able to form a Government (ie they have fewer than, say, 305-10 seats), then Starmer will become PM. He needs no deals with the SNP in particular (he might certainly reach some sort of accommodation with the LibDems).
Are the Nats really going to vote with the opposition Tories to bring down his new administration and risk a second immediate election (the FTPA will have been repealed by then) at which they will be pilloried? I don't think so.
The nearest equivalent is February 1974, when it was the Conservatives, terrified of another election, who abstained and let Harold Wilson form a minority administration.
I imagine that is what will happen again. So Starmer governs for several months - no deals with anyone - and goes to the country a few months later to secure a majority. Which he will likely obtain.
Which sort of Lab policies do you think the SNP might oppose? Lovely, progressive cuddly owls for everyone, or gulags for scroungers and red, white & blue flag waving to show Johnny EU that SKS is as tough as BJ.
Dunno. You're a Nat - you tell us. All I'm saying is that Starmer will not need to do any deals with the SNP (contrary to the view by several here that he will be compelled to reach an accommodation which might include a second independence referendum).
If we end up with a hung parliament but with Tories having most seats but not enough for a majority even with the DUP, then Starmer would likely end up PM.
However he would find it near impossible to get any legislation on English domestic legislation through as there may still be a majority of Tory MPs in England and the SNP would abstain if Starmer did not give them indyref2 + devomax.
Hardly
Labour loses an English Domestic legislation vote - new election with Labour now having a message to convince SNP voters to vote Labour....
Why SNP voters? They wouldn't dream of interfering in English domestic legislation. No skin off their nose.
This election was created by the SNP not supporting something - vote Labour or look forward to continual elections.
The entire point of the October 74 election was to get a Labour Majority. This would be an almost identical election.
more bollox
And your reasons for calling it bollox? Oh you don't have any because you've pickled your brain.
Well smartarse , yet another clown who likes to insult through their ignorance. I have forgotten more than your tiny brain will ever know for sure. Since you wrote the bollox and have no clue , I can presume you have little brain to pickle, and prefer just to write bollox. The SNP voted against as Labour had ratted on their promise of a referendum and the SNP had said they would not have that and so gave Labour their just desserts. I happened to know that but any less than intelligent person could have easily checked the facts before they ignorantly posted rubbish and then had the temerity to question someone who knew the answer. You are far from as smart as you think you are sunshine and your use of old Scottish tropes says plenty about you, inferiority complex.
Sorry but what was you actual point within the diatribe of insults that merely emphasis how bad you are at creating an argument.
Where does your idea of a referendum appear from - the entire point in all posts so far is that 1 wasn't offered - as Labour once they have x amounts of seats can rule without explicit SNP support because the SNP can hardly vote with the Tories can they?
+ there is zero chance of a Scottish referendum being included within a Labour Manifesto so I can't see where your "promise" is coming from in the first place.
As I said diatribe full of insults containing an ill informed thought that has no basis within the thesis being discussed
Says the clown who accuses me of being a drunkard. They had promised they would hold a referendum and then stated categorically that they would not, is that not clear enough for you. Slightly better than your " they voted against something or other" pish. Jog on now and give me peace , and make it a very long one.
When did they promise a referendum and under what leader?
When SKS offers you one then you have a valid argument until then it's another of your pipe dreams.
As for calling you a drunkard, when else do people resort to insults before 10pm at night on a web forum...
The only person who does it on this site is you and being frank you exhibit a lot of habits of a drunk...
Jog on loser
So you've not been offered anything by SKS - thought as much.
Yep the drink has pickled your brain - allowing very brief moments of clarity within a sea of pointless insults.
Just for you arsehole
Scotland Act 1978 The government returned to the issue of devolution in November 1977. Separate bills for Scotland and Wales were published and support from the Liberals was obtained. In spite of continued opposition requiring another guillotine motion, the Bills were passed.[1] During the passage of the Scotland Act 1978 through Parliament, an amendment introduced by Labour MP George Cunningham added a requirement that the bill had to be approved by 40% of the total registered electorate, as well as a simple majority (50% + 1).
So 1978 -
Firstly it's ancient history and pre Thatcher.
Secondly all the oil money has now gone (which is annoying and explains the attacks but the damage cannot be undone).
Personally I would be very happy for Scotland to inherit what is left of the North Sea Oil Industry (from memory it's mainly decommissioning costs that haven't been saved for and that the Government is going to cut corners to reduce).
I'm sure it can be done for £50-70 per head without wine by going for a lunch sitting and specifically picking cheaper menu items but that's not what happens at client meetings. Let's be realistic about how those operate.
Indeed, as I said in my OP, it's perfectly possible to do it by oneself in order to prove a point, but you have to do some or all of the below:
a) choose from the cheapest roster b) eat during deal times c) choose the cheapest, unmatched, wine d) deny yourself several choices that you would otherwise have selected
If you adhere to any of the above, I would contend that there is no point going to a Mich star place, you might as well go somewhere cheaper – and still very good – yet enjoy the run of the menu.
Do something properly, or do something else.
At Chez Bruce (and the sister restaurants) there is only one menu, with 8 or so choices each, for starter and main course and a few less for dessert.
I actually knew one of the owners, slightly, and he said that this was to make life simpler for the chefs and staff, stop people trying to do "I want the set menu plus x" etc....
Yes, my local fancy restaurant has the same system – although it does not (yet) have a star.
It's the principle that Gordon Ramsey among others) has been pushing for years - short, simple menus are cheaper, easier to get the chefs expert in all the dishes and actually are preferred by the diners.
The bit at the start of the meal where everyone is asking "Should we go for the set menu 1, 2, 3, 4.... or order off the main menu or the special menu or the specially special menu or...." , just shortens my life for no added value.
That’s quite common where you have a chef with his name on the door, but who isn’t usually there, even when they have a star or two. Better to have a short menu, which can be done well and also prepared for in advance, which is especially useful at lunchtimes or when trying to double-stack the evening tables.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
Isn't that some kind of crime nevertheless? Stealing paperclips from your employer because you paid for some photocopying paper the week before.
We have at least achieved something on PB today namely that far from being a weakly-executed chain seeking to monetise a popular or established brand (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver) Ivy restaurants throughout the country are in fact a welcome addition to the High Street dining scene and good for dates and anniversaries (up to and including 10th wedding anniversaries).
And are therefore unlikely to go the way of other such attempts (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver).
No guarantee of that, if they dilute the food quality and keep prices the same they'll fail the same as Jamie Oliver did. That's the underlying issue, the failures served crap food for high prices (relative to the quality). The Ivy spin offs, as yet, don't do that, the food is reliably decent, the locations are great, the restaurants themselves have a good vibe and the service is solid, plus easy to do for 2 under £100 without a bottle of wine.
Unfashionable take: I am always glad to see a Pizza Express, if I am absolutely stuck for somewhere to eat in some nightmare town. Especially if with kids
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
I think that's what Nandos is for, though I don't have kids. It's a good value cheap meal that's also not horrible. Quick and easy, great for pre or post movie viewing depending on the time of day.
They both work for that. Indeed, I think a big chunk of their respective markets is parents-with-younger-kids.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's a UN level/type decision. It simply isn't the JCVI's remit.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
MPW's first restaurant was in Earlsfield SW17 in Wandsworth - it was over the road from Wandsworth common and very near my first 2 London homes - a rental in Balham when it was still quite cheap and my first ever property in Honeywell road, Wandsworth - in 1981 I think again before the area became super pricey during the glory years of the blessed one! Checking google maps looks like the restaurant is now called Chez Bruce!
Yes, that's it! An obscure part of Wandsworth. Took us about ten hours to find. But so worth it. He really was a genius chef - he did something with snails which I can still remember. Decades later
I'm sure it can be done for £50-70 per head without wine by going for a lunch sitting and specifically picking cheaper menu items but that's not what happens at client meetings. Let's be realistic about how those operate.
Indeed, as I said in my OP, it's perfectly possible to do it by oneself in order to prove a point, but you have to do some or all of the below:
a) choose from the cheapest roster b) eat during deal times c) choose the cheapest, unmatched, wine d) deny yourself several choices that you would otherwise have selected
If you adhere to any of the above, I would contend that there is no point going to a Mich star place, you might as well go somewhere cheaper – and still very good – yet enjoy the run of the menu.
Do something properly, or do something else.
At Chez Bruce (and the sister restaurants) there is only one menu, with 8 or so choices each, for starter and main course and a few less for dessert.
I actually knew one of the owners, slightly, and he said that this was to make life simpler for the chefs and staff, stop people trying to do "I want the set menu plus x" etc....
Yes, my local fancy restaurant has the same system – although it does not (yet) have a star.
It's the principle that Gordon Ramsey among others) has been pushing for years - short, simple menus are cheaper, easier to get the chefs expert in all the dishes and actually are preferred by the diners.
The bit at the start of the meal where everyone is asking "Should we go for the set menu 1, 2, 3, 4.... or order off the main menu or the special menu or the specially special menu or...." , just shortens my life for no added value.
That’s quite common where you have a chef with his name on the door, but who isn’t usually there, even when they have a star or two. Better to have a short menu, which can be done well and also prepared for in advance, which is especially useful at lunchtimes or when trying to double-stack the evening tables.
It's just common sense - have a dozen or 16 dishes and the kitchen crew can really perfect them, rather than trying to do an ok job on 128....
We have at least achieved something on PB today namely that far from being a weakly-executed chain seeking to monetise a popular or established brand (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver) Ivy restaurants throughout the country are in fact a welcome addition to the High Street dining scene and good for dates and anniversaries (up to and including 10th wedding anniversaries).
And are therefore unlikely to go the way of other such attempts (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver).
No guarantee of that, if they dilute the food quality and keep prices the same they'll fail the same as Jamie Oliver did. That's the underlying issue, the failures served crap food for high prices (relative to the quality). The Ivy spin offs, as yet, don't do that, the food is reliably decent, the locations are great, the restaurants themselves have a good vibe and the service is solid, plus easy to do for 2 under £100 without a bottle of wine.
Unfashionable take: I am always glad to see a Pizza Express, if I am absolutely stuck for somewhere to eat in some nightmare town. Especially if with kids
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
Last time I ate in a Pizza Express I vowed never to do so again. Pizza quality at Pizza Hut is higher.
The only place that rivals it for disappointment is the Californian burrito chain (Tortilla?)
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
I apologize for turning pb.com into the fancy restaurant review session. My bad.
Too late now. You've opened the floodgates and there will duly be a flood.
It makes a nice change from the fucking plague, or indeed politics - which is really quite boring at the moment. Stasis
Yes, but I can't contribute because I hardly ever go to restaurants. Feel excluded. Let's get back to perceptive & densely argued scenarios for the next general election complete with estimated probabilities and steers to standout bets.
We have at least achieved something on PB today namely that far from being a weakly-executed chain seeking to monetise a popular or established brand (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver) Ivy restaurants throughout the country are in fact a welcome addition to the High Street dining scene and good for dates and anniversaries (up to and including 10th wedding anniversaries).
And are therefore unlikely to go the way of other such attempts (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver).
No guarantee of that, if they dilute the food quality and keep prices the same they'll fail the same as Jamie Oliver did. That's the underlying issue, the failures served crap food for high prices (relative to the quality). The Ivy spin offs, as yet, don't do that, the food is reliably decent, the locations are great, the restaurants themselves have a good vibe and the service is solid, plus easy to do for 2 under £100 without a bottle of wine.
Unfashionable take: I am always glad to see a Pizza Express, if I am absolutely stuck for somewhere to eat in some nightmare town. Especially if with kids
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
I think that's what Nandos is for, though I don't have kids. It's a good value cheap meal that's also not horrible. Quick and easy, great for pre or post movie viewing depending on the time of day.
Yes, I have frequented Nandos for that exact reason. Once I got quite blotto, to bleach my mind of the Smurfs movie I had just witnessed
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's a UN level/type decision. It simply isn't the JCVI's remit.
Not his remit. But definitely his field. And how we manage the pandemic globally directly affects how we manage it here.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
We have at least achieved something on PB today namely that far from being a weakly-executed chain seeking to monetise a popular or established brand (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver) Ivy restaurants throughout the country are in fact a welcome addition to the High Street dining scene and good for dates and anniversaries (up to and including 10th wedding anniversaries).
And are therefore unlikely to go the way of other such attempts (eg. Patisserie Valerie, Jamie Oliver).
No guarantee of that, if they dilute the food quality and keep prices the same they'll fail the same as Jamie Oliver did. That's the underlying issue, the failures served crap food for high prices (relative to the quality). The Ivy spin offs, as yet, don't do that, the food is reliably decent, the locations are great, the restaurants themselves have a good vibe and the service is solid, plus easy to do for 2 under £100 without a bottle of wine.
Unfashionable take: I am always glad to see a Pizza Express, if I am absolutely stuck for somewhere to eat in some nightmare town. Especially if with kids
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
Last time I ate in a Pizza Express I vowed never to do so again. Pizza quality at Pizza Hut is higher.
The only place that rivals it for disappointment is the Californian burrito chain (Tortilla?)
That's sad. Maybe it has gone downhill? My kids are older so it is fair to say I haven't been for quite a while
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's a UN level/type decision. It simply isn't the JCVI's remit.
The issue is that we can't vaccinate the world, heck we can't vaccinate all the UK and that's before I look at places like Bulgaria let alone Africa.
So we need to learn to live with the disease and hope we don't end up with a mutation that makes it both easily transmittable (Omicron) and serious (Delta) and they continue along the Omicron trajectory (easily transmittable but mild and hopefully milder as our bodies get used to identifying and attacking it).
Here in Almeria we live in a small village - under 3k and we have a super restaurant 200 metres from the house and at least a dozen more [ several award winning] within 10 miles where you can eat superbly well for much less than €50 a head including wine. We are near a tourist area but popular with Spanish tourists and even at the height of summer the whole area has probably under 100k of locals and holiday makers. Nearly all of the eating options from tapas to totr offer great quality and value. Apart from the 320 sunny days and fantastic semi-desert terrai it is one of the joys of living here.
Another difference between UK and US television, is that the comedy panel show is almost unheard of across the pond.
Comedy Central did @midnight a few years ago - you can guess what slot that was on - which was a variation on comedians play Jeopardy; but it’s an alien format otherwise. Which is surprising, because as Harry and Paul alluded to in the sketch above, it’s a really cheap way of making television.
Sitcoms and sketch shows are much more prominent in the States.
On the radio they do have "Wait, wait, don't tell me." Which is a superior version of the News Quiz.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
MPW's first restaurant was in Earlsfield SW17 in Wandsworth - it was over the road from Wandsworth common and very near my first 2 London homes - a rental in Balham when it was still quite cheap and my first ever property in Honeywell road, Wandsworth - in 1981 I think again before the area became super pricey during the glory years of the blessed one! Checking google maps looks like the restaurant is now called Chez Bruce!
When my sister was at Oxford many years ago we took our parents out for dinner at a very unprepossessing, but well-known place "Les Quats'Saison" in Summertown. The chef came over was very chatty (and French) and the portions miniscule. We enjoyed the food such as it was, came home, and ate packets of chocolate digestive biscuits because we were still famished.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
I have never been (and hate strip clubs) but I’m reliably informed that the food at Stringfellows is actually very good? Or at least it used to be?
It was very nice in 2006.
I'm in manchester for a meeting in a couple of weeks, I've just learned the person I'm meeting is a vegetarian. Any recommendations?
As I said earlier, try The Ivy – their dedicated vegetarian menu is as extensive as their normal menu. I swear by it because 99% of the time at least one of my guests is vegetarian.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
I endaevour to have a decent enough mobile signal that I can tether so don't need to use the Hotel wifi signal. It usually isn't any great shakes.
I apologize for turning pb.com into the fancy restaurant review session. My bad.
Too late now. You've opened the floodgates and there will duly be a flood.
It makes a nice change from the fucking plague, or indeed politics - which is really quite boring at the moment. Stasis
Yes, but I can't contribute because I hardly ever go to restaurants. Feel excluded. Let's get back to perceptive & densely argued scenarios for the next general election complete with estimated probabilities and steers to standout bets.
Surely the bar snacks at "that bar" are out of this world.
I see poor old Professor Pollard is in danger of having his right to be regarded as an 'expert' revoked by the Political Betting Expertise Licensing Committee.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
Interesting to read their whole backstory though. I had never heard of them before. The most remarkable thing is how they managed to make themselves look so ridiculous (both physically and otherwise) in their later lives.
Here in Almeria we live in a small village - under 3k and we have a super restaurant 200 metres from the house and at least a dozen more [ several award winning] within 10 miles where you can eat superbly well for much less than €50 a head including wine. We are near a tourist area but popular with Spanish tourists and even at the height of summer the whole area has probably under 100k of locals and holiday makers. Nearly all of the eating options from tapas to totr offer great quality and value. Apart from the 320 sunny days and fantastic semi-desert terrai it is one of the joys of living here.
Thanks for that. It is 4C with flakes of snow here in London. And we have 2-3 more months of this
It is going to be quite wearing. I am desperate to flee, but everywhere interesting, hot and sunny is either shut or too risky or about to explode with Omicron
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
With unlimited mobile data [ we've had that for several years in my obscure part of Spain at €30 a month] why on earth does anyone bother with free wifi anymore?
I apologize for turning pb.com into the fancy restaurant review session. My bad.
Too late now. You've opened the floodgates and there will duly be a flood.
It makes a nice change from the fucking plague, or indeed politics - which is really quite boring at the moment. Stasis
Yes, but I can't contribute because I hardly ever go to restaurants. Feel excluded. Let's get back to perceptive & densely argued scenarios for the next general election complete with estimated probabilities and steers to standout bets.
Surely the bar snacks at "that bar" are out of this world.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's a UN level/type decision. It simply isn't the JCVI's remit.
The issue is that we can't vaccinate the world, heck we can't vaccinate all the UK and that's before I look at places like Bulgaria let alone Africa.
So we need to learn to live with the disease and hope we don't end up with a mutation that makes it both easily transmittable (Omicron) and serious (Delta) and they continue along the Omicron trajectory (easily transmittable but mild and hopefully milder as our bodies get used to identifying and attacking it).
Without the boosters, we would be in a far worse place in the UK (and in Europe)
In addition the ludicrous miscalculations of the percentages of children that would get COVID meant that JCVI slowed down/blocked child vaccinations in this country. At one point they were using a percentage of 5-15 getting the virus that was lower *than the number who had got a positive test already*.....
I believe Keir Starmer. If the Tories are not able to form a Government (ie they have fewer than, say, 305-10 seats), then Starmer will become PM. He needs no deals with the SNP in particular (he might certainly reach some sort of accommodation with the LibDems).
Are the Nats really going to vote with the opposition Tories to bring down his new administration and risk a second immediate election (the FTPA will have been repealed by then) at which they will be pilloried? I don't think so.
The nearest equivalent is February 1974, when it was the Conservatives, terrified of another election, who abstained and let Harold Wilson form a minority administration.
I imagine that is what will happen again. So Starmer governs for several months - no deals with anyone - and goes to the country a few months later to secure a majority. Which he will likely obtain.
Which sort of Lab policies do you think the SNP might oppose? Lovely, progressive cuddly owls for everyone, or gulags for scroungers and red, white & blue flag waving to show Johnny EU that SKS is as tough as BJ.
Dunno. You're a Nat - you tell us. All I'm saying is that Starmer will not need to do any deals with the SNP (contrary to the view by several here that he will be compelled to reach an accommodation which might include a second independence referendum).
If we end up with a hung parliament but with Tories having most seats but not enough for a majority even with the DUP, then Starmer would likely end up PM.
However he would find it near impossible to get any legislation on English domestic legislation through as there may still be a majority of Tory MPs in England and the SNP would abstain if Starmer did not give them indyref2 + devomax.
Hardly
Labour loses an English Domestic legislation vote - new election with Labour now having a message to convince SNP voters to vote Labour....
Why SNP voters? They wouldn't dream of interfering in English domestic legislation. No skin off their nose.
This election was created by the SNP not supporting something - vote Labour or look forward to continual elections.
The entire point of the October 74 election was to get a Labour Majority. This would be an almost identical election.
more bollox
And your reasons for calling it bollox? Oh you don't have any because you've pickled your brain.
Well smartarse , yet another clown who likes to insult through their ignorance. I have forgotten more than your tiny brain will ever know for sure. Since you wrote the bollox and have no clue , I can presume you have little brain to pickle, and prefer just to write bollox. The SNP voted against as Labour had ratted on their promise of a referendum and the SNP had said they would not have that and so gave Labour their just desserts. I happened to know that but any less than intelligent person could have easily checked the facts before they ignorantly posted rubbish and then had the temerity to question someone who knew the answer. You are far from as smart as you think you are sunshine and your use of old Scottish tropes says plenty about you, inferiority complex.
Sorry but what was you actual point within the diatribe of insults that merely emphasis how bad you are at creating an argument.
Where does your idea of a referendum appear from - the entire point in all posts so far is that 1 wasn't offered - as Labour once they have x amounts of seats can rule without explicit SNP support because the SNP can hardly vote with the Tories can they?
+ there is zero chance of a Scottish referendum being included within a Labour Manifesto so I can't see where your "promise" is coming from in the first place.
As I said diatribe full of insults containing an ill informed thought that has no basis within the thesis being discussed
Says the clown who accuses me of being a drunkard. They had promised they would hold a referendum and then stated categorically that they would not, is that not clear enough for you. Slightly better than your " they voted against something or other" pish. Jog on now and give me peace , and make it a very long one.
When did they promise a referendum and under what leader?
When SKS offers you one then you have a valid argument until then it's another of your pipe dreams.
As for calling you a drunkard, when else do people resort to insults before 10pm at night on a web forum...
The only person who does it on this site is you and being frank you exhibit a lot of habits of a drunk...
Jog on loser
So you've not been offered anything by SKS - thought as much.
Yep the drink has pickled your brain - allowing very brief moments of clarity within a sea of pointless insults.
Just for you arsehole
Scotland Act 1978 The government returned to the issue of devolution in November 1977. Separate bills for Scotland and Wales were published and support from the Liberals was obtained. In spite of continued opposition requiring another guillotine motion, the Bills were passed.[1] During the passage of the Scotland Act 1978 through Parliament, an amendment introduced by Labour MP George Cunningham added a requirement that the bill had to be approved by 40% of the total registered electorate, as well as a simple majority (50% + 1).
So 1978 -
Firstly it's ancient history and pre Thatcher.
Secondly all the oil money has now gone (which is annoying and explains the attacks but the damage cannot be undone).
Personally I would be very happy for Scotland to inherit what is left of the North Sea Oil Industry (from memory it's mainly decommissioning costs that haven't been saved for and that the Government is going to cut corners to reduce).
The SNP also went from having 11 seats to 2 at the following GE. I know the SNP try to claim they weren't to blame for Callaghan's government collapsing, but their collapse in 1979 makes it much less likely they'd be willing to bring down a Labour government again.
At Suntory (sadly no longer with us) on St.James's you could pay £150 for prawn tempura.
Not that I ever did, mind. I was taken there, though and bonkers isn't the word for the prices and this was a couple of decades ago.
Anyway, TB yes of course he should have (had ages ago) a knighthood and probably more than that.
What on earth did they do? Take you down in a Roller to Essex to choose your prawn before it was seined?
A Russian (v rich, you know the profile type) friend said let's go. To me and a friend. We gulped because it had a reputation for being fiendishly expensive. The menu bore this out. Cheapest set menu which was six pieces of sushi = £87. My friend, thinking oh god, ordered that. I ordered the next one up - some sushi IIRC and some tempura = £147. Expensive but I thought sod it I'll never come here again. No way were these full meals just the very cheapest two things on the menu. My Russian friend ordered food at around £500 and very kindly shared it with us. There was then a tense wait as the bill arrived at which point the Russian friend paused, smiled, and then said - here I'll settle it.
Mega rich friend of mine took me to Kaspar’s at the Savoy for a Xmas lunch about four/five years ago
He dropped £1000+. On lunch. For 2
And the thing is, apart from the oysters and caviar (which are quite hard to get wrong, you just have to serve them) it wasn’t very good. Totally unmemorable
We then jumped in his chauffeured and armoured Bentley, went to the Ivy, where he dropped another £3k buying everyone champagne and martinis and the like
Unfortunately (for me) he’s now completely sober
Were you not embarrassed to let him pay whether rich or not.
Never be embarrased, to let someone seriously rich buy you lunch. Especially those from cultures where the extravagant display of wealth is part of the personality, and they get off on how much they can drop in a restaurant in a couple of hours.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
I misread that as "vacate the planet" and thought I'd won you over to the cause.
World number one Novak Djokovic will defend his Australian Open title later this month after receiving a medical exemption from having a Covid-19 vaccination.
I bet if he wasn't world number one that might have been a different decision.
?????? There's no way on God's green earth he's "medically exempt".
Well, the one loophole is he has just recovered from COVID, but that's amazing timing (and his social media doesn't give any suggestion he has). Other than you have to have a pretty serious underlying medical condition, which seems somewhat unlikely for a elite sports star.
Probably is that. And maybe he got a well-timed dose on purpose. Only way to reconcile 2 strong & conflicting desires, (i) Not to take the vaccine and (ii) To win the Aussie and get to the record 21 slams. I'm not usually a buyer of this sort of devious speculation but I can believe it here. He really is anti-vax and he really is into breaking all the records and thus nailing the GOAT status.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
With unlimited mobile data [ we've had that for several years in my obscure part of Spain at €30 a month] why on earth does anyone bother with free wifi anymore?
There is a question or was as to whether roaming will continue post-Brexit, wasn't there?
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
Not sure it's that much of an oddity – aren't around 40% of the leading p*rn site's visitors female? I'm sure I read as much.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
Sounds like early nouvelle cuisine - de rigeur for us supermodels back in the day
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
MPW's first restaurant was in Earlsfield SW17 in Wandsworth - it was over the road from Wandsworth common and very near my first 2 London homes - a rental in Balham when it was still quite cheap and my first ever property in Honeywell road, Wandsworth - in 1981 I think again before the area became super pricey during the glory years of the blessed one! Checking google maps looks like the restaurant is now called Chez Bruce!
When my sister was at Oxford many years ago we took our parents out for dinner at a very unprepossessing, but well-known place "Les Quats'Saison" in Summertown. The chef came over was very chatty (and French) and the portions miniscule. We enjoyed the food such as it was, came home, and ate packets of chocolate digestive biscuits because we were still famished.
Sounds like early nouvelle cuisine - de rigeur for us supermodels back in the day
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
Sounds like early nouvelle cuisine - de rigeur for us supermodels back in the day
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
MPW's first restaurant was in Earlsfield SW17 in Wandsworth - it was over the road from Wandsworth common and very near my first 2 London homes - a rental in Balham when it was still quite cheap and my first ever property in Honeywell road, Wandsworth - in 1981 I think again before the area became super pricey during the glory years of the blessed one! Checking google maps looks like the restaurant is now called Chez Bruce!
When my sister was at Oxford many years ago we took our parents out for dinner at a very unprepossessing, but well-known place "Les Quats'Saison" in Summertown. The chef came over was very chatty (and French) and the portions miniscule. We enjoyed the food such as it was, came home, and ate packets of chocolate digestive biscuits because we were still famished.
Sounds like early nouvelle cuisine - de rigeur for us supermodels back in the day
Yep it was the very beginning/height of nouvelle cuisine and Raymond Blanc (for it was he) was its cheerleader.
Here in Almeria we live in a small village - under 3k and we have a super restaurant 200 metres from the house and at least a dozen more [ several award winning] within 10 miles where you can eat superbly well for much less than €50 a head including wine. We are near a tourist area but popular with Spanish tourists and even at the height of summer the whole area has probably under 100k of locals and holiday makers. Nearly all of the eating options from tapas to totr offer great quality and value. Apart from the 320 sunny days and fantastic semi-desert terrai it is one of the joys of living here.
Thanks for that. It is 4C with flakes of snow here in London. And we have 2-3 more months of this
It is going to be quite wearing. I am desperate to flee, but everywhere interesting, hot and sunny is either shut or too risky or about to explode with Omicron
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
With unlimited mobile data [ we've had that for several years in my obscure part of Spain at €30 a month] why on earth does anyone bother with free wifi anymore?
Because quite a lot of hotels are in places with bad or no signal, and often the really old grand hotels have thick walls and long corridors so even if the signal is good, you can't get it in the bedroom
So you need the wifi. And they know this. And they know you fancy a *quick* visit to Xhamster or Alohatube, so they charge for that wifi, because that quick visit will turn into 4 hours
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
How ghastly.
It was actually rather good.
I have no doubt. 1996 Wanchai wasn't the first destination for Stingers, or hotels, though. Although I see "on my own tab" which explains it.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
Here in Almeria we live in a small village - under 3k and we have a super restaurant 200 metres from the house and at least a dozen more [ several award winning] within 10 miles where you can eat superbly well for much less than €50 a head including wine. We are near a tourist area but popular with Spanish tourists and even at the height of summer the whole area has probably under 100k of locals and holiday makers. Nearly all of the eating options from tapas to totr offer great quality and value. Apart from the 320 sunny days and fantastic semi-desert terrai it is one of the joys of living here.
Thanks for that. It is 4C with flakes of snow here in London. And we have 2-3 more months of this
It is going to be quite wearing. I am desperate to flee, but everywhere interesting, hot and sunny is either shut or too risky or about to explode with Omicron
We do have a lot of Covid now - and probably 3/4 weeks more to come but a lot of us oldies are now boosted so best to just enjoy the sunshine and get on with it.
Interesting to read their whole backstory though. I had never heard of them before. The most remarkable thing is how they managed to make themselves look so ridiculous (both physically and otherwise) in their later lives.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
Travelodge only gives a few minutes of free wifi. However, that is plenty of time to open the last 500 PB comments to read at your leisure, every story on the BBC and Sky News websites you want to read and update your email inbox.
Too many of my work trips have involved stays in a Travelodge.
Bloody hell Cineworld are thieves, my dad wants to see Spider-Man so asked me to book tickets for his local cinema to go tomorrow, £20 for 2D IMAX, what a rip off. We're going to the Vue in Finchley near me, £5.99 each for the giant Vue 4k digital projection (around the same size as 2D IMAX). No wonder Cineworld are going out of business.
The Viking fish and chip shop on Milton Road, Cambridge. Always does good fish 'n chips; not much queuing, and you don't get wannabe posh w@nkers or politicos in there.
The waitressing service when we unwrap at home is second to none ...
I thought everyone in Cambridge is a wannabe posh w@nker or politico. There are drug dealers in the Arbury that many Northerners would think "oooh posher than t' Queen"!
There's no doubt Blair was very successful and an election winning machine who destroyed the Tories for a decade.
If electoral success is the criteria for a Knighthood then by all means give him one but I trust when the time comes OGH will also support a Knighthood for "Sir" Boris Johnson (London Mayor twice, won the the EU referendum for LEAVE and gave the Tories their biggest majority in a general election since 1987) ?
Yes. On topic. No libdem should support bomber Blair, who lied about need for a war that killed millions of people. It’s as simply put as that.
I came in from school and watched fireworks called shock and awe, and all I could think was people under that war just wanting to do honest days work, put food on table for their kids, enjoy their lives and their holidays and birthdays. And the Blair government and Americans were so smug about what they were doing I have never felt so angry. I charged upstairs and slammed bedroom door. It’s amazing what you clearly remember.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
How ghastly.
It was actually rather good.
I have no doubt. 1996 Wanchai wasn't the first destination for Stingers, or hotels, though. Although I see "on my own tab" which explains it.
It was recommended to me by someone who spent quite a bit of time in HK - one of those hidden gems. The bar tender was real expert, the place was small, but very modern and ran like a Swiss watch.
World number one Novak Djokovic will defend his Australian Open title later this month after receiving a medical exemption from having a Covid-19 vaccination.
I bet if he wasn't world number one that might have been a different decision.
?????? There's no way on God's green earth he's "medically exempt".
Well, the one loophole is he has just recovered from COVID, but that's amazing timing (and his social media doesn't give any suggestion he has). Other than you have to have a pretty serious underlying medical condition, which seems somewhat unlikely for a elite sports star.
Probably is that. And maybe he got a well-timed dose on purpose. Only way to reconcile 2 strong & conflicting desires, (i) Not to take the vaccine and (ii) To win the Aussie and get to the record 21 slams. I'm not usually a buyer of this sort of devious speculation but I can believe it here. He really is anti-vax and he really is into breaking all the records and thus nailing the GOAT status.
Greatest of all the tw@ts ?
I'm a fan but on this, yes, sadly I think that's fair.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
Sounds like early nouvelle cuisine - de rigeur for us supermodels back in the day
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
MPW's first restaurant was in Earlsfield SW17 in Wandsworth - it was over the road from Wandsworth common and very near my first 2 London homes - a rental in Balham when it was still quite cheap and my first ever property in Honeywell road, Wandsworth - in 1981 I think again before the area became super pricey during the glory years of the blessed one! Checking google maps looks like the restaurant is now called Chez Bruce!
When my sister was at Oxford many years ago we took our parents out for dinner at a very unprepossessing, but well-known place "Les Quats'Saison" in Summertown. The chef came over was very chatty (and French) and the portions miniscule. We enjoyed the food such as it was, came home, and ate packets of chocolate digestive biscuits because we were still famished.
Sounds like early nouvelle cuisine - de rigeur for us supermodels back in the day
I am so glad the nouvelle cuisine fad passed, but that its best techniques, combinations and flavours survived.
Bloody hell Cineworld are thieves, my dad wants to see Spider-Man so asked me to book tickets for his local cinema to go tomorrow, £20 for 2D IMAX, what a rip off. We're going to the Vue in Finchley near me, £5.99 each for the giant Vue 4k digital projection (around the same size as 2D IMAX). No wonder Cineworld are going out of business.
The Vue are generally good value - lots of opportunities to go for lower prices earlier in the day. And BAFTA members get in free....
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
How ghastly.
It was actually rather good.
I have no doubt. 1996 Wanchai wasn't the first destination for Stingers, or hotels, though. Although I see "on my own tab" which explains it.
It was recommended to me by someone who spent quite a bit of time in HK - one of those hidden gems. The bar tender was real expert, the place was small, but very modern and ran like a Swiss watch.
Sounds like a place in North London that I have heard about.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Has that 'expert' been certified by the Political Betting Expert Licensing Committee? because if not, we can safely disregard their views, whatever the facts.
Here in Almeria we live in a small village - under 3k and we have a super restaurant 200 metres from the house and at least a dozen more [ several award winning] within 10 miles where you can eat superbly well for much less than €50 a head including wine. We are near a tourist area but popular with Spanish tourists and even at the height of summer the whole area has probably under 100k of locals and holiday makers. Nearly all of the eating options from tapas to totr offer great quality and value. Apart from the 320 sunny days and fantastic semi-desert terrai it is one of the joys of living here.
Thanks for that. It is 4C with flakes of snow here in London. And we have 2-3 more months of this
It is going to be quite wearing. I am desperate to flee, but everywhere interesting, hot and sunny is either shut or too risky or about to explode with Omicron
Florida is the place to go!
I have considered Florida, but the weather is pleasant rather than great in January
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Not just people either, Covid is a general mammalian phenomenon
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
I have never been (and hate strip clubs) but I’m reliably informed that the food at Stringfellows is actually very good? Or at least it used to be?
It was very nice in 2006.
I'm in manchester for a meeting in a couple of weeks, I've just learned the person I'm meeting is a vegetarian. Any recommendations?
Don't discuss vegetarianism during your meal.
How do you know when someone is a vegan? They tell you.
But it has buggered up my plans somewhat as I was thinking about booking hawksmoor, until I learned of my friend's dietary requirements. Now I'm not sure what to pick - I don't know Manchester very well.
Perhaps a vegetarian Indian or Asian place?
In London my goto used to be Rasa on Charlotte Street in that line, but that was some years ago.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
With unlimited mobile data [ we've had that for several years in my obscure part of Spain at €30 a month] why on earth does anyone bother with free wifi anymore?
There is a question or was as to whether roaming will continue post-Brexit, wasn't there?
There was and I think it's ended to the UK but open to us here in Spain andfor the rest of Europe so personally it doesn't affect me. My only irritant is telephone calls to my one UK bank and public offices in the UK like Pensions, etc. None of these are internet based - ridiculous in the modern age - and are the only calls now that cost me money when occasionally they have to be made. Does anyone know why the UK Pension Agency has virtually no online service worthy of the name - while all the private ones do? Even the TPA has an excellent web-site but not the actual OAP one. A total puzzle.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
If the hotel doesn't have free wifi I am going somewhere else. Premier Inn does free wifi. Everywhere does free wifi, and if they don't... well, haven't they heard of tethering?
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
Travelodge only gives a few minutes of free wifi. However, that is plenty of time to open the last 500 PB comments to read at your leisure, every story on the BBC and Sky News websites you want to read and update your email inbox.
Too many of my work trips have involved stays in a Travelodge.
I honestly quite like the premier inn hubs, for an overnight stay. They're a bit cramped for a longer stay. But still, free wifi, free coffee, very friendly and polite staff. And most importantly the mattresses are good.
I can't begin to tell you how many hotels I've stayed in at between two and four times the cost of a lowly premier inn hub, where the mattress is basically some spring loaded thing that has been shagged out by every call girl and prozzer in the hotel for two decades, and now you get to sleep on it.
At this point, I literally just want a tripadvisor category specifically for mattresses, to soothe my aging, middle aged back.
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
At the more modest (read pathetic) end of the scale, in my very first job as an IT manager I was sent to a meeting in Germany. After we'd finished, I went to my room with The Times. The hotel had the usual channels plus some adult channels, with a notice saying that you could watch for 6 minutes and would then be charged 20 marks (as the currency then was).
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
The advent of internet porn was a real downer for hotel owners. They used to make squillions charging customers for naughty movies, now they don't. This is one reason they charge for wifi use, so they can at least get q few quid out of your wanking
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
The company I used to work for back in the early 90s had its main European training centre in Holland. the local hotels all had hard porn available for a small fee as part of the list of movies you could pay for, when such moves could only be accessed illicitly in the UK. I entertained many customers there and I don't remember any that didn't partake of the chargeable movie channel!
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Just as well no-one thought of this before Omicron emerged.
Wait. Are we sure variant prevention is a good idea? I mean, on the other hand there's Delta, but...
Shaun Lintern @ShaunLintern NEW: @UHP_NHS has today declared a critical incident. Message to staff warns of 15 ambulances waiting and no space in A&E and 475 Covid staff absences. Full details:
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
Most stressful meal (to put onto expenses as well) was the time I had to meet up with a client, and the only available slot in his calendar was 8pm onwards, so he said he'd take me to a nice restaurant and we could have a meal on it.
All the senior bods at work told me, pay for it, pay for it all.
The restaurant he took me to?
Stringfellows, who knew the lapdancing club also had a restaurant attached, the meal and drinks were reasonable (£400 all in but most of that was drinks), the thing that terrified me and wasn't sure if I might get sacked.
The heavenly money you buy at the front door which you give to the ladies for a (private) lap dance, that came to over £2,000.
Wasn't sure how to put that on expenses.
Most disastrous meal I have ever heard of was a mate of mine, in the Far East
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
In 1996 I was in Hong Kong. When I ordered a Stinger at the bar, the bartender asked if I wanted to the bar bill put on the room as "Dry cleaning", "Food" or something that I could suggest.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
Chinnery or Captain's Bar?
I can't actually remember - sorry. It was on the edge of Wan Chai, IIRC.
How ghastly.
It was actually rather good.
I have no doubt. 1996 Wanchai wasn't the first destination for Stingers, or hotels, though. Although I see "on my own tab" which explains it.
It was recommended to me by someone who spent quite a bit of time in HK - one of those hidden gems. The bar tender was real expert, the place was small, but very modern and ran like a Swiss watch.
Sounds like a place in North London that I have heard about.
No, none of the SeanTs would have liked it - no... er.... professionals in the place.
I apologize for turning pb.com into the fancy restaurant review session. My bad.
Too late now. You've opened the floodgates and there will duly be a flood.
It makes a nice change from the fucking plague, or indeed politics - which is really quite boring at the moment. Stasis
Yes, but I can't contribute because I hardly ever go to restaurants. Feel excluded. Let's get back to perceptive & densely argued scenarios for the next general election complete with estimated probabilities and steers to standout bets.
Okay I hear your cry of pain.
Back to proper news agenda now. 24hrs news full of NHS falling into crisis. Last couple of weeks of Boris now before he is vonked! Bye bye Boris. 😘
Comments
The menu was largely in Japanese and the main item was a $130 per person 12 course tasting menu. They also had a $65 "tea pairing menu" so I thought that sounds more reasonable. Turned out that "tea pairing" meant you paid $65 for tea on top of the $130 for the food. I got a $5 beer too!
The food was very nice if a bit weird, but not worth that kind of money. And a combination of salty food, strong green tea and embarrassment at my predicament meant I was awake the whole night, despite the time difference. I managed to claim about a third of it on expenses.
The whole experience simply reinforced my belief that I am more of a food court kind of person.
Meanwhile Northern Ireland has just dropped 4 days worth of data - if the UK reported like this and at the same rate it would be > 1 million cases.
If massive electoral success is the criterion, how did we end up with Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg?
He had a frankly brilliant job, as a producer for Al Jazeera Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. They were paying crazy money, tax was minimal, he got sent around Asia to do stories (all on exes with 5 star hotels), and the stories were really interesting: Papua New Guinea one day, Japan the next
A superb job and if he'd stayed in it a decade he would have been set for life
Then he went to Hong Kong for a story, had another luxe dinner on the company, forgot company policy, and mistakenly claimed for one beer. ONE
Al Jazeera does not like paying for alcohol. He got sacked immediately, no appeals allowed. His career crumpled and he has never recovered. He now scrabbles around for badly paid freelance radio gigs
Quite an expensive beer. Actual cost maybe £4
Yep the drink has pickled your brain - allowing very brief moments of clarity within a sea of pointless insults.
Sadly, I was there on my own tab.....
But it has buggered up my plans somewhat as I was thinking about booking hawksmoor, until I learned of my friend's dietary requirements. Now I'm not sure what to pick - I don't know Manchester very well.
The kids get the doughballs and puds, I get a decent salad or pizza and pleasant wine in an affable joint, and no one goes bankrupt
A bit curious, I turned it on, Emmanuelle somewhere or other. She lounged around toplessly for several minutes, without anything else much happening. Bored, I returned to The Times to read about the (much more interesting) balance of payments crisis, and forgot the 6-minute rule.
Next morning "Miscellaneous, DM 20" was on the bill. So, a dilemma. Do I claim it on expenses, cheating my multi-billion employer of a trivial DM 20, or do I tell my supervisor (a notably austere but absent-minded manager who never checked claims) why I'm not claiming that item?
I compromised. I left it in the claim, but didn't claim for the DM 25 taxi ride to the airport, so Ciba-Geigy was DM 5 better off.
Innocent days! Nowadays I'd just not claim and explain without the slightest embarrassment. But in my first job in the 70s...
Another difference between UK and US television, is that the comedy panel show is almost unheard of across the pond.
Comedy Central did @midnight a few years ago - you can guess what slot that was on - which was a variation on comedians play Jeopardy; but it’s an alien format otherwise. Which is surprising, because as Harry and Paul alluded to in the sketch above, it’s a really cheap way of making television.
Sitcoms and sketch shows are much more prominent in the States.
Scotland Act 1978
The government returned to the issue of devolution in November 1977. Separate bills for Scotland and Wales were published and support from the Liberals was obtained. In spite of continued opposition requiring another guillotine motion, the Bills were passed.[1] During the passage of the Scotland Act 1978 through Parliament, an amendment introduced by Labour MP George Cunningham added a requirement that the bill had to be approved by 40% of the total registered electorate, as well as a simple majority (50% + 1).
All the bar bills are billed to Extra veg
interesting gossip: it is - or was - a well known oddity that solo female guests watch just as much porn as solo men, perhaps more
Firstly it's ancient history and pre Thatcher.
Secondly all the oil money has now gone (which is annoying and explains the attacks but the damage cannot be undone).
Personally I would be very happy for Scotland to inherit what is left of the North Sea Oil Industry (from memory it's mainly decommissioning costs that haven't been saved for and that the Government is going to cut corners to reduce).
Isn't it called something?
The only place that rivals it for disappointment is the Californian burrito chain (Tortilla?)
Speaking of fine dining, I met up with an ex of mine a few weeks ago, and I asked her what she was doing with her life, career wise, these days.
She said to me "Kyf, I feed and cook meals for the homeless, unemployed and alcoholics, the people on the very bottom rung of society, the people who can't help themselves."
I said "Oh, so you work in the charity sector then?"
She replied "No, I'm a chef at Wetherspoons."
So we need to learn to live with the disease and hope we don't end up with a mutation that makes it both easily transmittable (Omicron) and serious (Delta) and they continue along the Omicron trajectory (easily transmittable but mild and hopefully milder as our bodies get used to identifying and attacking it).
Interesting to read their whole backstory though. I had never heard of them before. The most remarkable thing is how they managed to make themselves look so ridiculous (both physically and otherwise) in their later lives.
It is going to be quite wearing. I am desperate to flee, but everywhere interesting, hot and sunny is either shut or too risky or about to explode with Omicron
In addition the ludicrous miscalculations of the percentages of children that would get COVID meant that JCVI slowed down/blocked child vaccinations in this country. At one point they were using a percentage of 5-15 getting the virus that was lower *than the number who had got a positive test already*.....
This little countertop pizza oven is tempting. 450C.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/reviews/optima-pizza-express-napoli-pizza-oven-review
So you need the wifi. And they know this. And they know you fancy a *quick* visit to Xhamster or Alohatube, so they charge for that wifi, because that quick visit will turn into 4 hours
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
Too many of my work trips have involved stays in a Travelodge.
I came in from school and watched fireworks called shock and awe, and all I could think was people under that war just wanting to do honest days work, put food on table for their kids, enjoy their lives and their holidays and birthdays. And the Blair government and Americans were so smug about what they were doing I have never felt so angry. I charged upstairs and slammed bedroom door. It’s amazing what you clearly remember.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
Prof Francois Balloux
@BallouxFrancois
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/4164143
And also I don't find Florida that interesting. Tho I do like the bit around Sanibel island
I keep looking at Sri Lanka, that IS tempting, but will it explode with Omicron?
In London my goto used to be Rasa on Charlotte Street in that line, but that was some years ago.
I can't begin to tell you how many hotels I've stayed in at between two and four times the cost of a lowly premier inn hub, where the mattress is basically some spring loaded thing that has been shagged out by every call girl and prozzer in the hotel for two decades, and now you get to sleep on it.
At this point, I literally just want a tripadvisor category specifically for mattresses, to soothe my aging, middle aged back.
Wait. Are we sure variant prevention is a good idea? I mean, on the other hand there's Delta, but...
https://twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/1478379407882559493
Shaun Lintern
@ShaunLintern
NEW:
@UHP_NHS
has today declared a critical incident. Message to staff warns of 15 ambulances waiting and no space in A&E and 475 Covid staff absences. Full details:
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
Back to proper news agenda now. 24hrs news full of NHS falling into crisis. Last couple of weeks of Boris now before he is vonked! Bye bye Boris. 😘