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WEST END GIRLS (or a TALE of TWO FELLAS)
Had a great night out in London last Friday with my good mate Nick, the perfect mix of low brow and high brow culture all in one evening. High brow was taken care of when we attended St Giles' Chapel, Cripplegate for a virtuoso performance by pianist Llŷr Williams, as part of BBC Radio 3's celebration of Mozart's 250th Birthday. Williams has been described as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation, a confident and intelligent musician who brings a refreshing simplicity to the most complex pieces. The acoustics in the 14th century chapel, where Oliver Cromwell was married, were simply superb, the perfect foil for the natural, rich sounds which emanated from the Steinway Concert Grand Piano set temporarily in front of the altar. Williams played two pieces by Mozart, his Sonata in B Flat, K281 and his Fantasy in D minor, K397, and the concert was broadcast live by BBC Radio 3. An hour later, having taken his final bow, Williams left, shortly followed by the audience (most of whom were overwhelmingly white-haired, bald of pate, and wearing clothes designed seemingly with comfort rather than fashion in mind, it must be said). Nick and I seemed to be the only two men there who weren't staring our sixties in the face, which was a little worrying - we did feel a little out of place, but then it made a pleasant change to do something different at 17:30 on a Friday evening and besides, it meant we had an early start on the fun stuff! We hopped on a tube west, alighting at Picadilly from where it was but a short walk to Mint Leaf, my favourite London bar, bar none. Leila, my favourite waitress was there, the atmosphere was just right, and Nick and I were in the mood to relax, chat, and drink in the ambience. Leila set us up with a couple of dry Bombay Martinis, and we were set. Which is pretty much how the evening continued. The second Martini went down a little slower than the first (although not by much!), the third one was served with a delicious plate of Tandoori King Prawns, and after those, we couldn't simply up sticks and go, so we perhaps ill-advisedly had a fourth each. Which was fine until the bill came (an eye-watering £95.63!) - and until I totted up that the gin content in eight Martinis is roughly equivalent to a litre. So that's why my legs felt funny on the walk outside! We caught a taxi over to Brick Lane, in the East End and were accosted as soon as we alighted by a waiter from one of the street's countless restaurants, who promised us everything but a free meal if we would grace his establishment. We were too drunk to argue, and from what I remember, the beer, poppadoms and curry were all excellent, the perfect end to a perfect evening. Caught the 00:36 train home if I recall correctly (the drunk train, by any other name), but since I fell asleep, I couldn't tell you what it was like. Woke up as the train rolled into the station though, and the walk home in the freezing night air was just what I needed to take the edge off of my lack of sobriety. This week has been a nice mix of busy and laid back, kicking off on Monday with a lunch appointment in Covent Garden, courtesy of Sophie, a new PR contact. I arrived at her offices to be met by her, Toby and Natalie, two colleagues of hers, and together, we walked a short distance to Cafe des Amis, a delightful modern French restaurant in Hanover Place. There, we enjoyed a delightful lunch, shared conversation which was both constructive and enjoyable, and drank fine wine. I came away with three new contacts and a raft of ideas for potential features, they left with the knowledge that I could place the stories that their clients wanted told.
Strike Force: Group Captain Susan Gray, OBE, one of the RAF's highest ranking female officers. From there, I caught a tube the short distance to Liverpol Street, where I met with Sarah, one of the journalists that I met on the BA press trip to India. We walked the short distance to the Great Eastern Hotel (wash your minds out!) and took a seat in Terminus, its brasserie, where we talked business over tea. Sarah's now editing a new magazine, and has commissioned me to write for it, so I came away with some more work, after an enjoyable couple of hours in her company. From there to Kings Cross, where I met with blogger Pixel Diva, and thence home. Tuesday had something of a military hue to it, seeing me driving into Buckinghamshire for a 10:00 audience with Group Captain Susan Gray, OBE, at RAF Strike Command in High Wycombe. Susan is the officer in charge of the RAF's media and communications, and we spent a couple of hours chatting. Strike Command is awash with senior RAF officers, so I wasn't entirely surprised to bump into newly-promoted Air Chief Marshall Sir Joe French, previously Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief and a key player in the Hutton Affair. With effect from January 13th, he was appointed an Air Aide de Camp to Her Majesty the Queen and is one of the RAF's few four-star Generals. He knew Susan from the earliest days of her career, so she introduced us and we spent ten minutes or so chatting on the stairs (as you do!) From there, I drove the short distance to RAF Uxbridge, where I met another contact for lunch, and I was home disgustingly early! I've spent the week since working on a raft of new commissions, interspersed with emails and phone calls in connection with ideas for assignments that I'm planning for later in the year. Before I go, thought I'd give you a quick heads up on three very useful bits of software that I really couldn't do without and have revolutionised my PC. The first, Videora iPod Converter, will prove invaluable to anyone with one of Apple's iPod videos. Unlike Apple's own QuickTime Pro, it's seemless, efficient, and blsiteringly quick at connverting any video format you care to throw at it, to mp4 format, so that you can transfer it to your iPod and watch it. Since downloading it late last year, my iPod has stored my favourite music videos, films and TV prorgrams, all of which has previously been viewable only on my PC. Secondly, and also media-related, is Media Player Classic, an extremely lightweight and tightly-coded media player whose features far outweigh its size. It's based on the original Media Player, except it’s open source and released under the GNU GPL, and doesn’t have the annoyances of MS’s original. The interface is similar but a little more up-to-date and XP friendly, and comes with some more advanced features. Without doubt, the best thing about this player is the range of formats it supports. It’ll play just about anything you throw at it, whether it’s an MP3, an Ogg, a WMA, even a QuickTime file. And with Real Alternative (which Media Player Classic is bundled with), you can add RealMedia files to that list, negating the need for RealOne Player, which has to be enough reason to download it in itself. It'll also handle QuickTime files, sand since it doesnt doesn’t take an age to load, doesn’t annoy you with an ‘Upgrade to QuickTime Pro’ popup and lets you view movies in full screen, it's worth it for that reason alone, too. Try this, and see it beat MS' over-bloated media player to a bloody pulp. Lastly, for anyone who hasn't yet heard about it, TechnoBubb's blog archive software is a must for anyone with a blog on 20six. It's a tiny piece of code that Bubb has written, which runs inside Microsoft's .NET framework, and makes a backup of your blog on 20six, including all images, comments, and images within comments, in RSS format. He's also written an RSS archive importer for Word Press, meaning anyone from 20six who wishes to migrate to the vastly better featured and independent world of Word Press, can do so, bringing with them all of their archives from 20six - images and comments too! Which has to be a good thing. Three cheers for Bubb, for a selfless and inspired piece of work. |
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2.2.06 14:24 |
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BACK TO IRAQ
Hello world. Thought I'd bowed out, did you? Tell you the truth, I had. What with the changes that are hanging over 20six like the sword of Damocles and the mass exodus of Old Skool bloggers to the four corners of blogsville, I was ready and willing to join the flood, seeking pastures anew on WordPress. Still am, come to think of it. But all that was before I was struck down by the return of my sciatica, the same excrutiating and all-consuming pain that afllicted me and so blighted my summer throughout last August. For the past ten days or so, I've been laid up, unable to move, unable to sleep and unable to escape or alleviate the pain. So once again, I'm drugged up to the eyes, lost in a sea of opium-induced drowsiness as the various drugs in my pain management regimen fight for supremacy in my central nervous system. Oh, and I've now got a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon too, so hopefully I can discover what's causing these intermittent bouts of intense pain. Ironic really, as I spent the day before the onset of this particular episode with an eminent neurosurgeon, planning the logisics of a forthcoming feature which will see me shadowing him for a week as he performs brain surgery, talks to patients, and looks in on them in intensive care. Should be fascinating to say the least.
Otherwise, I've spent an awful lot of time working up forthcoming assignments, trying to put into place the neccessary arrangements for me to get where I need to be, with the right people, and at the right time. Oh, and along the way, making arrangements for the builders to move in for six weeks from the beginning of April to address the small problem of our house literally slipping away from under us. That little hiccup will require us to vacate the premises for a few weeks, so we rather have our hands full at the moment. Thankfully, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel for me pain-wise, which is just as well as I'm going back to Iraq next week. The date had been pencilled in my diary since the tail end of last year, but it's taken until this afternoon for the neccessary approvals to come though. They have though, so myself and the man from The Times will fly out to Kuwait next Wednesday night, the first stop on the lengthy process of getting us into theatre. Only a short trip this one, but it looks like being action-packed and given what I know of the itinery, fascinating too. I'm due home on the 5th, but just two days later, I've got another assignment which will take me to the northern-most tip of Norway, way up in the Arctic Circle to watch the Royal Marines undertake their cold weather training. Brrr. So, desert to arctic within a week. Never let it be said that my life isn't about extremes! Looks like this is going to be a busy weekend for me as I'll have lots of last-minute packing to do, plans to make, and things to buy. Oh, and it would be nice to try and live a little in there somewhere too, as I haven't done much of that in the past week or so due to being in so much pain. I shan't make any more lame promises of 'service returning to normal' because I won't be able to keep them. I'm definitely planning a move to WordPress which I shall facilitate upon my return, but until then, this is where you'll find me. A toute a l'heure |
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24.2.06 16:24 |
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