Author Archives: Fordiebianco

Murals in Mile End

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Here in the East End, where men are real men, women are real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri is a road called ‘Mile End Road’. It’s not a particular nice road, and it’s most prominent features are countless trans fat proprietors, but on one of its nicer corners the lawyers of TV Edwards have their offices. The senior partner of that particular law firm had the excellent idea (remember, we’re talking about lawyers, not a group of individuals gifted with much creativity outside their inventiveness of outrageous fees) to donate one of the office walls to public art. Good on him. He asked a chap called Mychael Barrat to come up with the design and all in all I think he has done rather well.

What do you think?

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Check out who is who here.

Mansion House

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I alight here about once a week to meet the people at my second job. A lovely bunch of coworkers, their place of productivity has recently been moved to a office in Bow Lane, giving me the chance to alight either at Mansion House or St Paul’s. I prefer getting out at Mansion House, but I never really invested a second thought on why it has this particular name.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

Turns out it is the official residence of the Lord Mayor and has been there since building finished 1752 and these days is mainly known for HM’s chancellor’s ‘Mansion House speech’ in which he talks about important macro-economic issues of the day.

The station’s tunnels are populated with the destitute and homeless, which are having mainly micro-economic issues.

There is some sort of actio/reactio in this. Funny that.

Douglas Adams’ virtual 60th. At times with virtual Humour.

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Dancing Rhinos. No, really.

So the best girlfriend and myself went to see the tribute to Douglas Adams, the aptly called ‘Virtual 60th birthday party’. Aptly due to the fact that the celebrant in question passed away while working out in a gym in L.A. (two things he apparently hated) in 2001. To rekindle the interest in Adams’ favourite charity, a bunch of celebrities thought it might be a good idea to put a show together celebrating the great man’s life.

A sassy frood who expected more. Or maybe less.

 

Being an enormous Adams fan myself I had to go, even though I had my doubts about how to throw together a celebratory party for a dead bloke.

We were promised loads of celebrities, of whom some pitched (Culshaw, Anderson, Jones, Ince, Singh, Bhaskar, Deayton, Lloyd, Curtis) and some didn’t, even though promised (Cox, Mangan, Fry). There were some of Adams’ sketches for Monty Python (some of them worked, some of them didn’t), dancing rhinos, comedy, science (Ince and Singh outstanding) and liff (John Lloyd reading the best of ‘The meaning of Liff’) and shite (Culshaw, Bhaskar, Jones).

There were some video clips, some rock by seventies rock gurus (Gilmour) and some plugs for the new HHTTG roadshow.

I am still puzzled and underwhelmed. I have no idea what the producers thought when they looked at the material available. The show lasted 3 1/2 hour. The good stuff would have made a good 90 minutes. While they decided to expand this into 270 minute borefest is beyond me.

Douglas might have stayed in a gym.

Pink Milkshakes = Good Sundays?

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Just look at it: Pink drink on pink wall in front of reddish condiments. No wonder I was frogmarched into the place by two beautiful women (who, I haste to add, didn’t wear anything pink). The Rose vegetarian restaurant in a north-western corner of London (just around the corner from Kingsbury tube station) may not offer much solace for the tired eye, but it makes it up in the quality of its food. Just like a certain other gentleman I am always on the prowl to find excellent south-east Asian food, and if that certain gentleman declares that the food is excellent I am happy to follow him blindly even into the deepest darkest alleyways.

The Rose restaurant is not in such an alleyway. Located on a busy high street this place is brightly lit and oozes fun. Pink walls and other primary colours reflect the light and distract from the gloom outside. The menu is exhaustive and caters for even the pickiest religion. The food was heavenly. Meat wasn’t missed a minute, and the four us raved about the delights that were put in front of us. Service was swift and friendly, the punters numerous and happy.

If I ever make it back into the foreign lands that are NW London, I’ll make sure to visit again. Recommended.