A morning after

I felt rather toxic this morning: it's strange what a couple of beers will do to you. Well, it's horrible what a couple of filthy cheap beers will do to your morning after, and it's annoying what two cheap beers will do to your wallet when they cost $15 each. $15 for a horrible drink when I should have been drinking decent cocktails somewhere else for pretty much the same price. Then again, a gin hangover can be as bad as a beer one, and a hangover on two beers is scarcely worth the name. I should just blame feeling lousy and dehydrated on being - well, lousy and dehydrated.

Back on stage once more

I don't even remember the last time I performed - my comedian life seemed almost like a strange dream from before I was married. So tonight, to jump back into it after 5 weeks off, felt strangely intimidating.

Early

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

But on the other hand, early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy and wealthy and dead.

Year of Eating Differently (83): Caffe V, Rathbone Place

Free soup with every filled sandwich. I thought there was a catch, but there wasn't. I needed a sandwich, and I got soup as well. Happy days.
Sandwich - well, it was focaccia with mozzarella and sundried tomatoes, plus some rocket. So pretty much the same as the Tricolore from Make Mine, but not dripping with so much oil that you could feel the early onset of a heart attack.
Soup was courgette and vegetable. If I didn't know better, I'd say that a courgette was a vegetable, but ours is not to reason why, ours is to do and dine. It's very good soup. The last soup I had was probably some of that godawful Covent Garden stuff (half soup, half salt, all man!) whereas this tastes like, well, soup. Could have done with a bit of salt though.
Also got a muffin - toffee apple yoghurt - that will contribute to the muffin directory, and a packet of crisps, for only 5.35. Jolly good.

Year of Eating Differently (67): Cafe Tosca, Noel Street

Unfortunately today is the ensuing saga of my duff Sony Ericsson K850i, which came back from the repair shop today, rather than the rather nice brie sandwich and cup of leek and potato soup I had at Cafe Tosca today. That was fine. The phone, on the other hand, wasn't. Due to a senior moment at the repair centre, they couldn't figure out the handset's serial number, so they sent it back with a note that said it had probably been tampered with and they weren't going to fix it.
I got ready to blow my stack. Meanwhile the droid on call in the Vodafone shop kept telling me it was just because they couldn't find the serial number (but this is the second time - why didn't it show up the first time?) and then kept saying to the person on the other end of the line at the service centre that the customer doesn't understand her. I understand what you're saying, I just don't understand why you're talking such claptrap right in front of me, when the letter says as such. Finally I get them to send it off for repair again (after they ask me what I want to do - what do I want to do? Take away a phone you didn't bother to fix properly? After waiting 45 minutes? Eh?), and then have to call up Customer Services, who tell me that if it goes wrong three times, I deserve a new one. I'm livid anyway, because I don't do very well at being patronised by somebody who's got the wrong end of the stick.
So I shuffle off to Customer Services. I tell them that as far as I'm concerned, it has gone wrong three times, because it's had to go to get repaired three times. This is good enough logic for the guy on the other end of the phone, who wants to be shot of me, so he tells me to go back to the shop and demand a new handset. I'll be back in a while, complaining about how they haven't done this, and wondering if I should feel guilty about spoiling somebody's Christmas by making a complaint about her.

Year of Eating Differently (63): Lindsay House, Romilly Street

OK, first expense account lunch since records began. Lindsay House is great - slighly odd decor (lots of paintings involving cats, or policemen, or policemen with helmets made from cats) but there's a fireplace, the service was excellent, the wine worked, there was a fine, fine amuse bouche of pumpkin soup and walnut brioche to begin with, and it wasn't like Claridges and their snooty "if you're vegetarian why not eat some of Gordon Ramsay's snot" attitude. I can even forgive the guy who came around to comb the crumbs off the tablecloth.
Talked business for several hours, ate lunch, came back to the office. S'all good, baby baby.

Year of Eating Differently (35): Sainsbury's, Charing Cross Road

Busy day today so a quick run to the supermarket. Covent Garden soup, which looks like bright yellow baby food/sick and tastes similar after three minutes in the microwave. Yogurt's not so bad though, although after those two things and the chocolate bar and a vegetable samosa, I started to feel quite nauseous and therefore I've stuck the pasta in the fridge to eat before I go out fighting tonight.

Year of Eating Differently (26): Tesco's, Dean Street

So it's back to the wonderful world of supermarkets again. Time for some soup, to ease my aching mouth (courtesy of the Oktoberfest, but that's a story for another time).
It's cheap, but it's a bit dull. Sadly they don't sell loose mushrooms in the supermarket to upgrade the soup with, and there's no salt or pepper at the office. But it smells pretty good (much better than that awful Covent Garden Soup Co. stuff) so hopefully there's no complaints.

Year of Eating Differently (22): Taste, Rathbone Place

Going here does raise questions about the whole enterprise. If you choose to have soup that turns out to be from a Covent Garden Soup Company carton, and it's warmed up in a microwave, and the sole addition that the staff make is to put some pepper onto it, are you doing anything different to going to Tesco's and buying a carton of soup yourself? But on the other hand, how many cafes are growing their own potatoes/baking their own bread/churning their own butter? If I were that concerned with getting back to the source of the food, then I probably wouldn't be eating out so much. Or I'd be eating out of the kitchen window of a farmhouse somewhere. But I digress.
Taste is ok. It's a shop by itself rather than a chain (what difference does that make anyway?) but the food on offer isn't much different to elsewhere. Seems a more limited range than Shellys or Make Mine, but I haven't dipped too deeply into it. And although the added pepper to the soup improves it, it can't get over the flaw of Covent Garden Soup - it's far too goddamn salty, and a bit of pepper can't overcome that. It's enough pepper to make your tongue tingle a bit though, which is a novel experience. Crisps - well, so what. They work. I did resolve to stop eating crisps recently. Then I went to Charing Cross station, and the experience was so horrible I could only get over it by eating a packet of Frazzles. How weak willed am I?
Akrasia aside, the chocolate coated ginger biscuits are good. Very good indeed.