a smart car for getting around

The car might look small to those accustomed to other roads, but around here it's still one of the giants.

That is, compared with the scooters and all-terrain-hoppers that many drive.

Being a car, there's no requirement to wear crash helmets (although at times it almost feels as if one should).

Neither, it transpires, is there a legal requirement for the bikers and scooterists on the twisty roads around here to wear any form of headgear.

Best to drive slowly in any case. I've noticed that even the bus drivers and taxis drive sedately around here.

It's also easy to see that the main season hasn't started, because the hire shops are still full of the little four-wheeled scooters in luminous colours and we didn't have any trouble ordering the Smart as a cabrio.

Highly useful as the temperatures nuzzle thirty degrees.

midday sun

The streets around here are looking a little different from my usual ones.

Somehow brighter.
Quite often narrower.
Noticably steeper.
And in some areas just as bustling.

Like London there are also different personalities, based upon time of day. This picture is probably around mid day, when only the mad dogs and Englishmen abound. Later the area goes a bit bonkers.

But my mission later is to pick up a car.

It will be very small.

refreshment

A mini mission was built into today as we were told of a particular bar to find a particular drink. The cloudiness of the drink in no way represents the sky above, which remains resolutely blue.

Quitr often this is the time that we visit rashbre north in Scotland, although this year's change of venue gives scenery a little different and the deer have given way to pelicans.

Sunshine week

This post is a hint that it might be difficult to post during this week. Although I do seem to have discovered a wi-fi signal.

It's also rather fun having a famous film star as a next door neighbour.

white kitten intermission conference call wait video

Am I the only one that sometimes watches these videos when I'm waiting for a conference call to start?

if you know what I mean

Just refreshing my iPod (yes old school) ready for some time away. I think Cults need to be on the playlist.

They've come up through the bandcamp route (a few online tracks preceding success). I know its all a bit retro, but it's certainly not twee, if you know what I mean. Edgy twee, maybe.

If you've not heard them but want to decide on a new band for some great listening this weekend, then here's a track, complete with the listening comments. If you know what I mean.

Cults - You Know What I Mean by cultscultscults

prepared, for once

It's slightly unusual to be prepared to travel several days in advance. It's usually the night before, chucking a few items into a well used bag with wheels.

This time there's already a little heap of clothes and bits ready for tomorrow's departure and I may even put some into the car tonight to save time in the morning.

But for now, it's work.

more marmite

This was in the adjacent cupboard.

You can sort of sense the gloopyness.

marmite moment

I've always liked the advertising for Marmite, along the lines "we don't care whether you like it or not" and the subsequent quotes around "its like Marmite, some do, some don't".

There's always been the Marmite Love and Marmite Hate sites - both with links from Marmite's home site.

It's reached a whole new level now that a whole country has banned it.

The guilty secret cupboard at rashbre central now has a stash of substance that's illegal in Denmark.

a Grimsvötn's gonna fall

I've been sniffing the air to try to detect this year's Icelandic volcano dust heading my way.

Last year's one did create a sort of brown smear in the air but at the moment it's all clear blue up above.

We do already get those mystery days when the car has a sudden layer of glittery dust on it, although I usually put it down to sand storms in a distant desert.

And I'd have thought that planes flying around in Arizona or parts of the Middle East or Africa would also have to filter away various kinds of dust particle?

I suppose its like the British railways with 'wrong kind of snow', where this would be 'wrong kind of grit'?

Anyway, now we've got the Cobra committee deciding what to do as the days tick nervously towards a long weekend when I intend to use my passport.

Well on Dylan's birthday Grimsvötn's 'grim waters' do indeed become a hard rain that's gonna fall.

Quaglino's

We found ourselves in St James at Quaglino's. There's a few traditional London haunts that one goes back to like le Gavroche any time, Langham's for lunch and Quag's in the evening.

All three have secrets for a Londoner, so when we booked Quag's we decided to opt for the Champagne Menu.

This may sound counter-intuitive but actually the whole three courses with bubbly can be enjoyed for a very reasonable all-inclusive amount.

Quaglino's is something of a London institution, tucked away just around the corner from the Ritz and other bits of the high-life.

Along the years its had updates and revisions but continues to feature the upstairs bar, complete with a jazz band from quite early in the evening, and then down the marble sweeping staircase to the buzzy restaurant.

The food is brasserie style and well-prepared. There's plenty of waiters around and good attention although my blur-vision picture above may not do it much justice. And that was just on the berry smash fruit cocktail.

The team style service worked well and we had an enjoyable evening. It was obvious that the people around us were also enjoying themselves and overall there was that pleasant uplifted happy-vibe from the tables.

A place to be a part of the scene and to watch others similarly engaged.

Cheers.

flare path

After my Isle of Wight post referencing Sienna Miller at Steephill Cove, the least we could do was return the favour and visit her in her current West-End show at the Haymarket.

It's Terence Rattigan's wartime story of a Bomber Command airbase in Lincolnshire and the to-ings and fro-ings based in the adjacent hotel. Rattigan himself was a tail-gunner on bombers, so there's some direct realism to parts of the plotline as well as the central story of the actress played by Sienna.

The main plot is a love triangle handled with 1940's embarrassed manners and massive use of understatement, except for moments when the stress of bottled up emotions are allowed to run riot.

We get a spectrum of English class portrayed within the confines of the hotel suite with riotous off-stage bawdiness in the adjacent lounge bar.

The story's backdrop revolves around the air-crew spending time in the hotel between missions. To the front is the playing out of the scenes between Sienna, her movie-star lover and her bomber pilot husband from a whirlwind wartime romance.

Throw in a perilous overnight mission and there's a full and engaging story for the characters.

A very enjoyable production, a warm-hearted ending and some insights into a very different world of some 70 years ago.