Around three weeks ago I was in an Italian restaurant made to look gritty using urban wall paintings. Artful Zoolander Mugatu that brought a smile to each of us.
This time, no smile. More a sense of High Street decline.
A well-known global burger chain's signature look recreates the ambiance of a derelicte car park. Their old design point was to make the seats hard so that people won't stay more than 20 minutes.
This spray-on tattiness takes it to another level. Graffiti, distressed peeling walls, a token festive snowflake on the window.
It is about as cynical as it could be. Order from screen. Wait in noise. Consume in trashed car park ambiance.
Somewhere a proud agency concocted this 'edgy' scheme, as cheap as chips to create with its hose down surfaces. Nathan Barley c.2005 would be proud.
I'm expecting a new disk for the old iMac to arrive today. It'll be the second replacement.
The 2008 vintage machine has become rather sluggish and I'm pretty sure it's the hard drive that has begun to wear out.
In an attempt to bypass the problem, I ran Disk Utility's First Aid and then rebuilt the catalog's B-tree index using that sudo fsck_hfs -r -d /dev/disk0s2 terminal command, which isn't for the faint hearted (I had to look it up to be sure I'd get the right syntax). The command took around 20 minutes looping through its repair sequence 3 times before it declared everything was once more tickety-boo.
I'm getting the subliminal message that all is not really well.
Temporarily, I've created a copy of the internal drive using Carbon Copy Clone, and have been externally booting the computer from that, across a USB link. It's already faster than using the internal disk, so it is really time for a new disk.
I've decided to move it to SSD, which means it should run faster.
A typical HDD takes about 5,000 to 10,000 microseconds to access data. By comparison, an SSD has access speeds of 35 to 100 microseconds, which is nearly 100 times faster.
If it works then it should breathe new life into the machine. I'll update when I've attempted the exchange. Meanwhile, here's that video of Grace Hopper explaining about nano and microseconds.
It's getting too difficult to keep up with the rate of change of current strong and stable events.
Yesterday's @hugorifkind cheese submarine analogy kept me amused for a while although today's announcement from the Chairmam (sic) of the 1922 Committee hardly inspires new confidence.
Others are talking about zombie governments although the New Statesman's depiction was back in June 2017.
There's about 100 days until the UK simply drops out of Europe, unless a decision on an exit is made. In between could there be leadership tussles? more votes of no confidence? an election?
It'll be more May-hem whether or not the PM is blackballed. New complications, new moves for the Oh-so-silent opposition and more crazy days at the office.
More brilliant mayhem at Live Theatre, as the MixtapeXmas show kicked off. A brilliant cast, each of whom has starring roles, as well as ensemble pieces.
Ranged across multiple musical genres, with just the lyrics from the songs being rearranged to create each sketch. The audience could enjoy the show and try to win the coveted Golden Mixtape.
Not 'sit-down-and-shut-up-theatre', this is loud and lively. Plenty of the audience came along in groups to form teams and to vie for the separate fancy dress prize. It's a great way to slam into the party spirit for the festive season.
Being the Xmas show, there were plenty of seasonal numbers as well as classics given a festive twist.
Just don't ask what happens if there's a tie for first place. One night two teams managed to score an amazing 54 out of 62 points. Tiebreaker time. It got loud!
Smoke and haze machines all work on a similar principle, which is to heat an oil and pump it out as fog. Add a DMX channel to control it and everything should be fine.
The latest show used one but on day two it started to sulk.
Fortunately, a road-tour ready substitute was sourced at short notice. I imagine it's the kind that Disney would use to create swamps effects in Epcot.
We've fixed the slightly temperamental one. The blue light on it was flashing, as if to say it didn't have any fluid in it.
It was the little plastic tube that slurps the fluid from the reservoir. I looked at the instructions for the bigger machine and notice it has a very similar looking tube, so I guess it's a design feature that needs to be treated with special care.
Just ahead of its trip to the north east and back. The car doesn't have separate summer and winter tyres, but these cross climate ones seem to be the next best thing. Also very quiet and very confident in the winds and rain.
Our hotel in Soho had a fully stocked mini-bar.
Some hotels don’t bother nowadays. They’ll say it's too expensive to replenish them. Or that they have such good service that you might as well either use the bar and restaurant or call for room service.
I’ll admit to sometimes visiting a nearby food shop and bringing my own goodies into a hotel, in any case.
But, here we were, with a fridge and shelf full of almost old-school riches. It was the gin bottle that caught my eye. King of Soho, which should be appropriate to this part of London.
Gin made a come-back after years as deeply unfashionable. I ignored all of that and continue to order it as my emergency cocktail.
I still prefer London gin, unflavoured with much more than juniper, and a straightforward tonic. Not all the elderflower, rhubarb and cucumber concoctions that have sprung up from the artisan stills of Hoxditch.
This Soho gin’s marketing seems to be trying very hard. I like the bottle, and the idea of the urban fox.
Closer examination of the bottle in the minibar reveals the symbolism of the night creature, with a jazz trumpet and a book. It's a dressed up homage to Paul Raymond, the once self-styled king of the older seedier Soho. And yes, the gin is manufactured by a family member.
That already leaves a dubious taste in the mouth. The marketing company can’t quite make up their mind either. They say the drink should be enjoyed with pink grapefruit (I approve of that). But then they show it with lemon. In another picture it is shown with apple slices.
They say it is best complemented with Fevertree tonic, but then a pack-shot shows it with Schweppes.
I know, I’m digging far too deeply into this. But they have set up a pop-up winter gin palace (a.k.a bar and shop) for the rest of this year, in Windmill Street. The cocktails there are served with Schweppes. Including a 1783 Cucumber tonic. Oops.
They also feature an accidentally retro offering. The first drink is served as a 'Gin and Taste experience which comes with a Small Bite and Rosemary Salted Popcorn'. It reminded me of Soho's old late night bars that offered a quarter scotch egg as 'food' to get around late night licensing laws.
Okay the Bogart bit too.
First mistake was when I tipped wine vinegar into the basil and parmesan pesto, instead of mixing it with the olive oil to make the salad dressing. I'll call the result a bold basil pesto, to blend with the garlic and tomato base and the torn mozzarella.
Still, nothing a splash of Savvy B and some balsamic wouldn't put right in the green leaves dressing.
Then, I tried to put two on the same oven shelf, which created that slightly creased appearance.
