Under the milky way

Last weekend I was in Marrakech with a troop of others to celebrate Caroine's birthday. It's very fashionable right now to celebrate your birthday by taking a trip away with friends, and the more exotic the location the more fashionable you are. Marrakech is, naturally, very exotic and very fashionable, as the following facts prove:

• Richard Branson is building a hotel there;
• Gladiator was shot in the desert near Marrakech (I've seen the film set); and
• Brad and Angelina stayed nearby while shooting the movie Babel (I've visited the hotel where they stayed (they rented out the entire place while they were there, but this is less impressive when you find out that it's only got 8 guest rooms)).

But even if it were not so fashionable, the bustle and turmoil of Marrakech and the frenzied locals makes a fantastic contrast to dreary greyness of London and the bland urbanity of Londonites. Although we were only there for 4 days, we managed to pack a lot in. In order to save time (and, being realistic, so that the readers of this blog don't tune out half-way through this posting), I'll just list some highlights:

• an amazing dinner on the first night in a courtyard of an old riad hidden down a maze of narrow streets, far away from the usual tourist thoroughfare. The setting was beautiful - all candle light and intricately mosaiced walls - and the food was terrific (the honey glazed chicken hot was a particular favourite);
• the madnes of Jamaa el Fna (the main market in Marrakech), whcih totally lived up to the pre-trip hype. You can hardly turn around in the market square without stumbling across cobras, street kids trying to force-feed you macaroons (though our group didn't require much forcing) and grinning men with massive moustaches offering you chipolatas straight from the BBQ or boiled snails straight from the pot. A little word of advice, it's fun to look at the stall-owners cooking the food, but when you actually order it, it generally doesn't taste nice and there's a high probability that you'll get food poisoning. Luckily, we were seasoned enough travellers to know that chicken that's cooked properly isn't pink;
• the apparently barren Atlas mountains that we drove through with our guide Hassan, where every corner brings a new amazing view. The mountains look fairly inhospitable and you'd think it's practically impossible to grow anything there, but somehow the Berbers who live in the mountains manage to get by. In fact, they seem to be thriving as there was always people hanging around by the side of the road even in the most remote of the mountain passes that we drove through. I have no idea what they were doing there, but I respect the fact that they were doing it;
• the local Berber pharmacy that Hassan kindly showed us for nothing other than some substantial kick-backs from the owners (he was generous like that). The pharmacy was full of exotic spices, scented oils, potions, lotions, perfumes and other exotic things. The shop assistant spent a long (and fairly lucrative) time while talking us through the various products that he had to offer and we all walked away smelling quite a bit better than when we walked in. Afterwards, while the others were busy pulling out their wallets though, the shop assistant came up to me and in a conspirational whisper mentioned that he could give me some traditional Berber viagra if that's what I was after. Now, I appreciate the manner in which the guy addressed a sensitive issue, but why did he assume that I was the one in need of help and not my travelling companions? Very worrying;
• camel riding through the desert at dusk. OK, I'm not sure that the camels qualify as a highlight, because all of my previous experiences of camels were confirmed on this trip (they are ugly, have extremely bad dental hygiene and are supremely uncomfortable). But the camels did manage to get us to a desert camp where we spent the night around a bonfire, playing drums and staring up at the most amazing display of stars that I have ever seen (I've never seen the Milky Way as clearly as I did from the Moroccan desert). Our accommodation was a tent made out of Moroccan carpets and we slept wrapped in camel hair blankets. In a word: awesome.

And that's another Miami Dolphins FIRST DOWN!

So it's Halloween tonight (or at least it was when I started writing this post) and the streets are full of kids dressed up as devils and witches and skeletons and (rather disturbingly) Britney Spears. Luckily I live in an apartment so I should be relatively safe from trick or treating. And even if they do come knocking, I'm on the 4th floor, so it's going to take some enterprising kids to play any serious tricks on me. Of course, I'm sure they'd find a way if I took my Dad's traditional approach of opening the front door to trick and treaters and then spending the next 15 minutes giving them a lecture on how Halloween isn't an Australian tradition and they should spend their time learning a bit more about Australia's colonial era instead of scouting for sweets. Or, alternatively, I could just try and offer them something nice to eat. Unfortunately, all I've got to offer at the moment is a tub of hummous and some carrots. I quite like it, but I'm not sure the sugar content in the hummous is high enough to satisfy the kids. So, to sum up, I may just need to take my chances.

While I'm waiting for the rotten eggs to start raining down on my roof, I may as well write a little bit about last Sunday, when the NFL came to town. It was the first time that any NFL regular season game had been played outside the US and they did it in style, playing in front of 85,000 plus one (me) fans at Wembley. About 50 players from the Miami Dolphins and NY Giants made the trip over for the match and they were accompanied by a team of around 100 Dolphins cheerleaders (supposedly the finest cheerers in the league, but then I bet they say that to all the girls).

Now the weather on Sunday wasn't great - hey, this is London after all - but that wasn't going to put my little crew off following NFL tradition and doing a little bit of tailgating. Tailgating basically involves breaking out a BBQ behind your pick-up truck and sinking a few beers before the game. Well, we didn't have a pick-up but we did have a little disposable BBQ, a packet of Sainsbury's finest wild boar bangers and a couple of 6 packs of Carlsberg, which went down a treat (both with us and a couple of friendly coppers who were a little hungry and a little too cheap to buy their own sausages). We had kind of expected there to a be a crowd of tailgaters, given that that there were several thousand Americans flying over especially for the match. But I suppose they all left their BBQs at home, because we were alone out the front of Wembley. Anyway, having wolfed down a couple of lonely sausages and more than a few lagers, we finally made it into the stadium as the players charged onto the field, fireworks exploded, cheerleaders bounced and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" blared through the stadium speakers. Americans really know how to do entertainment.

The match itself was entertaining, but I don't think it was the best football ever played. The weather was partly to blame, as the players were having a hard time getting a grip on the wet ball, which meant that both teams preferred a running game over a passing game. So, really, the game soon degenerated into something closely resembling the recent rugby World Cup final, with two teams grinding it out for field position and then knocking over penalty kicks. Still, we were a few more beers down by that stage and were happy enough watching the cheerleaders do their thing. Also, I was becoming excellent at screaming out FIRST DOWN every time the Dolphins made their 10 yards. In fact, it was a bit of a shame that the crowd wasn't a bit louder - I was half hoping that the Giants fans would start singing "are you Tottenham in disguise" to the Dolphins players, but they don't seem to have the same sense of humour as the Gunners fans. Maybe next time. Anyway, the final result was 13-10 to the Giants. But on the day, we were all winners.

Jealous?

Many bloggers write interminable postings about exciting nights out, brushes with celebrity and travel to exotic locations. I think a deep seated need to make other people jealous must form a significant part of the psyche of these people. But I for one am above such pettiness, as I shall demonstrate by telling you about the least eventful weekend of my life.

It started on Thursday evening when I managed to concoct one of the least appetising meals of history out of a seemingly innocuous combination of ricotta, spinach, pasta and (for some reason) plum tomatoes. Usually when I'm hungry I can eat practically anything, but even I had to ditch the slop I served up on Thursday. But unfortunately I had managed to plow through a good portion of it before coming to my senses and I was made to pay early on Friday morning when the sound of my gurgling stomach woke me up and told me it was time to head to Borehamwood (the world's least inspiring office location). 7 hours of keyboard tapping later, my stomach hadn't settled down but it was time to head off for a 10 course duck and crab banquet. I (manfully, in my opinion) battled through most of the duck courses, but I didn't get very far with the crab - partly due to my rebelling stomach and partly because I'm never very good with crab - the shell:meat ratio just doesn't work for me.

I woke up late on Saturday still feeling under the weather and spent most of the day curled in a ball in bed. Somehow I forced myself to wake up long enough in the evening to watch 80 minutes of the dullest rugby ever played. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Springboks won, but really you shouldn't be allowed to win a World Cup without at least scoring one try in the final. Fiji would have been worthier winners.

I woke up on Sunday to a beautiful autumn day in London with clear blue skies and bright sunshine. I was feeling much better as well, until I realised that it was almost 11am and I'd just slept for roughly 22 of the last 24 hours. Thinking I could just fight my way through the stomach issues, I then proceeded to make a series of really, really bad decisions by: going swimming, eating a lunch consisting almost entirely of rice pudding (my first meal in 36 hours), playing squash (a truly terrible effort - I could barely move) and downing a pint of Kronenburg 1664. The final move was my worst and my stomach exacted swift retribution. I spent the rest of the day crawling between the bathroom and my bedroom. I went to bed at 9pm.

I woke up this morning feeling just better enough to not be able to justify a sick day. In fact, I had to get up super early and arrive at the office at 7am in order to use the printer because the one in Borehamwood doesn't work. Lucky me. 12 hours after choosing the double-sided, two to a page option, I'm lying here on the couch watching Britain's Official Top 40 (which is reminding me why I don't generally watch TV any more). Feeling jealous yet? Thought so.

Keeping it real

What a weekend. I am feeling exhausted even though I got a solid 7.5 hours sleep last night. My tiredness is possibly due to the game of squash I've just played. Or possibly it could be traced back to the six bags of groceries I've just hauled up the 4 flights of stairs up to my apartment. But I think it's more likely to be the effects of a long week at work (put in perspective by having dinner with two people from Clifford Chance and hearing how hard they work) followed up with a fairly packed weekend schedule.

On Friday night I snuck out of my temporary office in Borehamwood early and took the 4.54pm commuter special from Elstree&Borehamwood into West Hampstead station. Not used to the novelty of getting home so early and with dinner reservations at 9pm, I was at a bit of a loss for things to do, so I went for a jog, had a shower, rearranged my socks into colour groups and then headed out the door in the direction of Geales in Notting Hill. Supposedly one of the best fish n chip restaurants in London, which would make it one of the best in the world, I have to admit I was underwhelmed by Geales. My softshell crab starter was delicious, but my square shaped parcel of crisp fried haddock was fairly ordinary, which basically means it wasn't anything better than what you'd get from your local chip store. So I won't be hurrying back. But, hey, it was a fun night with friends and Friday fish suppers are part of the London experience.

I got up early on Saturday to run errands, which I had to finish by midday so I could shoot off to Marylebone in time to meet the chartered train to Wembley. I managed to sneak a ticket to Bird&Bird's corporate box to watch the England v Estonia game. I have to say, I was amazed by Wembley stadium. It may make you feel like you're inside a Heathrow airport terminal, but it is massive and comfortable and like no other stadium I have ever been in. Except for Arsenal's Emirates stadium, which is almost as good. MCG, take note, you have some serious competition out there. The corporate box was pretty sweet too - all plush leather, polished wood, full fridges and magnificent views, the box is a prime example why it is worthwhile having money. The clients and workmates I was with were a stellar group of people and we had a real ball. The game wasn't too bad either, though half our party missed significant chunks of the second half because of the rule that you can't drink alcohol in view of the pitch and the rest of the stadium - solution? you have to drink in your box with the blinds closed - bizarre. And to top it off, I won 20 squid by picking the correct final score (3-nil England). Nice.



While the others headed out to Paddington to watch the England v France rugby match (something that no longer interests me given that the Wallabies have lost and, as a reasonably rational person, the game of rugby confuses and frustrates me - practically anything you do on the pitch results in a penalty of some sort) I raced back home for a pitstop before shooting out East in the direction of Farringdon to meet up with my b boy and b girl buddies, Dan and Vanessa. The knock-out rounds of the UK b boy championship were being held on Saturday night and Dan, Vanessa and I wanted to represent the old Collins St crew. At first, the event was a bit underwhelming, as it basically seemed to involve a crowd of teenagers fighting over the free Snoop Dogg CDs and t-shirts that the MCs were throwing from the stage. But after the formalities were over and the dancing started, everything took off. As the fat MC said, this shit was real - no bullshit. The first competition was a doubles event and I have to say, I never realised break dancing could be so camp. From the French couple dressed like Marcel Marceau and doing their best to combine breaking and miming to the Japanese boys dressed in fluoro orange headbands and crop tops, there was a fair amount of preening and posing going on in between the popping and locking. But the action was fast and furious. When the one on one b boy battles started, though things went to a whole new level and started to get personal. There was a whole lot of attitude being thrown around the room that night and not all of it was coming from Vanessa - there was a fair bit of it up on the stage as well. Overall, a great night. To top it off, I managed to resist buying a sausage at Oxford Circus on the way home, so when I woke up on Sunday morning I didn't have a stomach ache. Brilliant.

A cure for insomnia

I was going to call this blog "Seventh Level of Hell" but that really would have been doing Tuscany an injustice. I mean, I had a really good time in Tuscany last weekend. But then, I've never been a particularly harsh critic, unlike Huy who came out with the Seventh Level quote in the middle of the 14th (of around 53) hair-pin turn on the (scenic) route from Calci to Lucca.


You see, a group of 6 of us had set out on hired bikes from Pisa on Saturday morning in search of rural scenes, (gentle) adventure and gastronomic fulfillment. Only, in hindsight, we should probably not have left the navigation to the hard-core fitness freak German residents in our party. If the indolent Londoners in the group had been in charge, we probably wouldn't have chosen the longest and steepest route to Lucca. But then, if the indolent Londoners in the group had been in charge, we probably wouldn't have gotten much further than the first pizzeria in Pisa. Anyway, as things turned out, we spent a fairly large (and grim) part of Saturday struggling up a series of mountain passes trying to remember what it was like to have a sense of humour.


Needless to say, there was a fair amount of pushing mixed in with the cycling. In fairness, the conditions weren't exactly in our favour. For one thing, the bikes we hired were perfectly decent town bikes, but not exactly made for climbing up mountains. Joyce's was a particular stubborn beast that refused to change below third gear and kept on dropping it's chain at the most inopportune moments. And the paniers and front baskets may have been useful for carrying things, but they did make it a little more difficult to balance and made us look faintly ridiculous next to the multitudes of serious cyclists powering up the mountain in their fluoro-pink lycra and carbon-fibre racers. They may have been going quicker than us, but at least we were keeping it real.


Fortunately, once we'd crossed the peak and had a well-deserved picnic of bread, cheese and salami, we were able to roll all the way down to Lucca. While the cycling got a little easier, our troubles weren't quite over, as a small break-away developed near to Lucca and managed to leave the peloton far enough behind to cause some navigating confusion. Search parties were duly dispatched, tasked with locating the peloton somewhere "near a church with a green roof". Given the number of churches in Italy, this wasn't the most helpful of clues. But the combined deductive reasoning of 6 university educated minds overcame this small problem and we were soon ensconced in Lucca's oldest restaurant, admiring the copper pots and sinking Tuscan red late into the night, well, at until at least 10pm at least, at which point we were all dead on our feet. For all you insomniacs out there, a hard day in the Tuscan mountains followed by a bottle of red should fix you right up because I can't remember ever sleeping as well as I did on Saturday night.


I cleverly managed to forget my camera at home, so I didn't take any photos. But Tim had the trust SLR to hand and took some great shots, a sample of which I am pleased to present below.

My week

It's Sunday night, which is my usual blogging time and I'm short of inspiration. I'm searching for a stand-out event of the past 7 days to write about, but I'm drawing a blank. In fact, I was speaking to my parents earlier this morning and was struggling for topics of conversation as nothing much seemed to have happened this week. But really, looking back on it, there are a few things worth writing about.

On Wednesday, I went to the theatre with Yalin to see "In Celebration". I've never been a regular theatre-goer, but there's so much out there in London that it's hard to avoid. In fact, I'm really growing to like the theatre and I almost prefer it to the cinema these days - for one thing I seem to have less of a problem staying awake when the actors are standing live in front of you. Anyway, although my opinion of theatre generally is rising, this particular production was a total bomb. The play itself was really quite dull - it's essentially an extended family melodrama, set in Yorkshire in the 60s and revolved around 3 brothers coming home for their parents' 40 year wedding anniversay. There's obvious tension between the family members but you never learn what the underlying cause is and it is never resolved. Everyone gets a fairly extended opportunity to have a philosophical rant about life in general and to accuse each other of vague misdoings. And then the lights go out and the audience is expected to clap. A total anticlimax. The most frustrating thing about it was that it made no sense from a production point of view. I mean, it "starred" Orlando Bloom and you would have thought the director would try and capitalise on his Hollywood profile. But instead they dressed him in a daggy brown cardigan and fake moustache and then got him to spend most of the play crying in bed. Very odd.

For the rest of the working week I had my head down at work doing a due diligence exercise and attending extended negotiations. Having meetings all day really makes it hard to get things done. I hate the feeling of being away from your desk for 8 hours in the middle of the day and then returning at 6pm to actually start working on all the things you've been discussing. But that's life I guess.

Next week looks like it will be busy again, but at least this weekend has been a good one - for some reason London seems to have been holding back the sunny weather during summer so that it can spend it all during the autumn. Which is lucky for the organises of the Thames Festival, which was on Saturday, because they'd basically organised a big series of outdoor events that would have tanked if it had been raining. For one thing, the fake beach on Southwark bridge would have turned into a muddy mess and the dancers with the flamenco-cross-hawaiian guitar band may have been a little chilly. Anyway, the sun was out and it was all good. In the evening I went to Brick Lane to check out Huy's new flat and ended up sticking around to help him move a bit of furniture around and eat some Vietnamese food. I have to say, I really liked the area around Brick Lane. It's very cool in a very self-conscious way. I'm not sure if it's ironic or not, but either way it's amusing. I think I may need to make a move east sometime in the next year or so.

And today I woke up late and then spent the day sitting in Kensington Palace Gardens having a picnic with friends and talking about crap. The perfect way to spend a Sunday - there is no need for pointless exertion on the day before you have to head back to work. And that's basically the end of my week. Interesting, huh?

Dublin

So this is my first post in a while. I think there must be something wrong with my diet as my appetite for blogging and even writing emails seems to be waning. I suspect it's all the pesto I've been eating. Pesto with pasta and canned tuna is my standard quick meal these days. It's bad on two fronts: (1) apparently people have been known to overdose on pesto and die (apprently pine nuts are toxic when taken in massive quantities). Urban myth? Possibly; and (2) basil and tuna are generally considered (at least by the respondents to a casual survey I took this afternoon) a vile taste combination. I must have seriously damaged taste buds, because I don't mind it myself.

Anyway, I took a break from the pesto this weekend while I was visiting my friends Bec and Frank in Dublin. Frank is a master chef and put together a magnificent slow-roasted lamb dinner for us on Saturday and I am still dreaming about it some 3 days later. Let's linger on the subject of lamb for a minute. Three weeks ago, I ate a sublime roast at my mate Nick's place. A couple of weeks later I made my own first ever lamb roast (a Jamie Oliver inspired, Italian-influenced number, which has anchovies as it's killer secret ingredient). And now Frank comes along with his own interpretation of the theme. I wonder who will make roast lamb for me this weekend ... any takers?

Back to Dublin. It's a great town and I managed to see a fair bit of it thanks to my two dedicated and charming hosts. From the historic (Kilmainham jail) to the cultured (literary pub crawl) to the tacky (Bono's house), we had it all covered. For those who haven't been before, Dublin is a nice town. It's got some nice buildings - Trinity College is beautiful. It's got it's own instantly recognisable land mark - the millenium spire - in Frank's words "epic", in my words "plain". And it's got a decent night life - think Irish pubs, Guiness and Irish whiskey. But the highlight for me was spending a weekend surrounded by a nation of people who love to talk but manage to do so in such a way that the rest of the world can't understand a bloody word of what they're saying. I had thought that the Welsh spoke the most impenetrable English in the world, but I now think they have strong rivals in the shape of the Irish. If you're thinking about going, I recommend bringing a pad and pen and asking people to write things down for you - it's so much quicker that way.

On a final note, I took my beautiful new camera to Dublin with me but only managed to take one picture - a half-hearted snap of the city centre taken just before I hopped on the bus back to the airport. I used to love taking photos but I seem to have lost the passion for it. Taking photos just seems like so much trouble these days. Which is strange, because pushing a button is hardly difficult. Maybe it's something to do with my diet ...