Carrots handbags cheese toilets Russians planets hamsters weddings poets Stalin

Yesterday xugglybug and bethanthepurple met me at work and we caught up. bethanthepurple then went her own way so xugglybug and I went off to a restaurant that we'd booked earlier in the break. The restaurant was called Dans Le Noir. This place has the dining area in complete darkness with blind waitstaff. Before entering the darkroom (fnar!) you choose the type of meal you want (meat, fish, veg) and then you enter. The dish served is a surprise. They tell you what you had when you leave the dark room.

I was given rare beef on a bed of noodles with pak choi and brocolli. I "identified" the meat correctly but the veg as fennel and carrots. I'd not had pak choi before so this is another veg to add to my 101 in 1001 list (item 91). I got the brocolli wrong, I think, because it was headless and the stalks were served as slices, in the way that carrots often area.

It was a really fun experience. The first thing I remember when entering the dining area is that when I had sat down I felt incredibly dizzy. It went after 5 minutes or so though. It was culturally weird too because normally when dining out you'd make eye contact or perhaps wave to catch a waiter's attention. Naturally this wouldn't work with blind staff, let alone in a darkroom so beforehand we were introduced and when dining called out to one other by name. We were guided to our seats conga fashion, by placing our hands on the shoulder of the person in front and following.

I had no idea how big the place was but as best I could work out it was set out as two long tables about 10 feet apart and 20 feet long. It did mean that we were sat next to other dining couples but it wasn't too instrusive. (Except for the noisey group of 14 on the other long table. grr).

Well worth a visit, especially if you like the element of surprise in your food.

One of the items on my 101 in 1001 list is to have a knitting sesion in Slimelight. I meant to post about this before, but having spoken with people about it and raised some interest, we've decided to have this tomorrow. bluehelen is in search of UV-reactive wool, and I'll be bringing a few sets of spare needles. Who's up for it?

ION, I hear news of a one-off UK Placebo gig on March 7th at Elephant&Castle, but AFAICT all tickets have sold out. Ebay is stupidly extortionate and I'm not sure I'd like to pay in excess of 50 quid for a ticket. I'm on the lookout for at least 1 ticket, but it's probably a lost cause.

Today:
Today was the 100th anniversary (to the day) after the baptism of St John Betjeman, Poet Laureate from 1972. It was from his poem Slough whence the subject of this post comes. St Anne's in Highgate was one of his favourite churches, and to commemorate there was a special service with ringing afterwards.

Then I went to Archway Cat Shelter with one of the other rings who was a cat lover. I spent almost 2 hours there and provisionally picked a couple for the house. I let the people know there that it would be dependent on the move happening as planned (a post about that to come, probably tomorrow). As fate would have it, when I called immiscibility to tell her the news and of my choice, she mentioned she would have gone for those cats too, so *fingers crossed*

Tomorrow:
A few days ago mrk told me about an exciting opportunity near my house-to-be. There's a nearby church with bells and a gorup of willing learners, but noone to teach them. They're looking for someone, and I've been volunteered (I don't mind this - it's something I'd actively like to do - see item 81 ). My reason for mentioning this is that tomorrow is the demonstration, just to maintain enthusiasm and let them know what it's all about.

* * *

Off out now to bluehelen's housewarming, and if circumstances permit, to sort out the 'Net access there.
I just found a bug in either my journal style, or part of the public one - tags are not shown on the preview page. I shall hunt it down and squish it later; it's been far too long since I last poked the LiveJournal internals.</geek>

Oops. I seem not to have updated for several weeks. I am still alive and, for the most post, I have still been reading and commenting.

I'll drop in some backdated entries at some point, once I've finished writing them up as quite a lot has happened.

My new job is going well and I've been making a good impression, or so it seems. Mid last week I fixed a bug which had existed for about 2 years, but was well hidden and didn't occur very often, hence it remaining undiscovered for so long.

Whilst I'm on my lunch break and without copious free time, I'll write about last weekend.
Saturday was a wedding in the afternoon. I'd not rung for a wedding for a long time, and the London rates were a pleasant surprise :-) Paid for my night out, which was a pleasant chilled evening in the Dev making a detour via Wagamamamamamamama.

Once again discovered that it is a very small world, with kittygoth knowing both bitty and martling.


Sunday I visited my Mum and had a belated birthday dinner with her in the form of a BBQ, thus completing item 44 (Have a barbecue) on my 101 in 1001 list.

I met up with kelemvor on Saturday afternoon, as he was checking the area out for forthcoming work events. We had lunch in the nearby Coronet pub which despite being only a few hundred yards down the road I'd still not been in. Very much an old man's pub, but nice enough.

I accomplished two (well, one and a bit) things on my 101 in 1001 list today.

The partial one is:
91. Try at least 5 new fruit or vegetables - I tried fresh papaya from the local market. I didn't like it - it was too bland and not sweet enough for my palate.

The completed one is
67. Write a Wikipedia article from scratch
duranorak - this one will probably be of interest to you. The article was A list of albums containing production errors. Unlike the other link I posted for you, it won't break you :-)

Sorry for not posting for ages. I am still here, and I have still been reading. I've spent much of this evening poking in a few backdated entries for the tail end of March detailing what I've been doing in recent weeks. Many contain photos, and as such I've created a useful tag: http://matthewp.livejournal.com/tag/photos for if you want to look over them.

I might write a book / Hand feeding squirrels - http://matthewp.livejournal.com/214472.html
Sigur Ros gig - http://matthewp.livejournal.com/213972.html

Going back to my 101 in 1001 list, I guess that based upon those latter entries, I can also tick off
69. Get into the habit of taking more photos

29. Upload photos from old CF cards
I uploaded most of these yesterday - you can see them at [http://pics.livejournal.com/matthewp]. I've not put captions on them yet, but will be doing that as and when I can be bothered. Some of the photos date back to 2004 - they were quite overdue :-)

There's one CF card still to find; it's in a box somewhere but now that I'm in a small flat there isn't the room to have everything out.

* * *

Late last night, as hunger was creeping up on me, I had cravings for tabouleh. My cupboards were getting bare so I took a trip to the Sainsbury's in Camden at 2330 ish. Reminds me of when I lived near the Portwood Tesco which was open 24 hours. Late night shopping is so much more preferable. The morrisons near me is far too small for the amount of people that seem to want to try to use it. SHopping there is such an unpleasant experience, especially between 1700 and 1830.

Strange music courtesy of markslut.

I've been thinking recently about the goals on my 101 in 1001 list, and these are the ones worth mentioning at the moment.

Number 42: - Ride the London Eye
On Sunday 12th March, I'll be going on the London Eye with stephmog and anyone else we can entice along. Who wants to join us?

Number 69: - Take more photos
I have been taking more photos recently, and last night I copied them from my CF card. I'll upload them shortly. I just need to keep in the habit; it's very easy to get behind.