Restaurant Review

This Saturday was the third meeting of 2016 restaurant club and we ate at Maratimo on Plymouth Hoe. I thought it was fantastic, but I don't know if that was the restaurant, or the fact that I've never really eaten at a tapas place before. It's hard to find the restaurant, and once you have its hard to find the door. The entrance is unwelcoming and the dining room wasn't quite as nice as I was hoping. The view is fantastic – or would have been if the weather was good, and the food and drink were even better. We ordered dozens of dishes from a ridiculously cheerful Spaniard and they arrived in a steady and delicious stream until we were full. My favourites were the sardines and the squid... until we started ordering desserts... Freshly fried churros and crema-catalan were wonderful. Crema-catalan is basically a crème-brulee, but with a less rich custard. Mine was flavoured with orange and served with candied peel.

I ordered a paella, but the experience wasn't what I expected. As it was a Spanish restaurant I had expected to be warned sternly that it would take at least half an hour, and then a scalding charred paella pan would be balanced before me on a makeshift refractory trivet. In fact it was in a china dish, and it came too quickly to have been cooked specially for me.

Richard "the first rule of restaurant club" B

Misunderheard

Apparently it's called "bee keeping" rather than "bee farming" or "bee husbandry" because the little buggers are as slippery as eels and are always threatening to fuck off and set up home in a nice gorse bush. Or go back to where their hive used to be. Or wander off and look for a new queen. The challenge is keeping them.

Many years ago I found out that Mondays were unavailable for band-practices because my drummer went to bee-keeping classes that day. It made a very favourable impression on all of us, and we liked to picture him in white overalls with a net-curtain-hat and a watering can full of smoke. I don't understand how it happened, but it was a number of years before I found out that I'd misheard him, he was trying to get an accountancy qualification, and he couldn't make it on Monday nights because of his BOOK-KEEPING class.

For a similar reason, my shopping list at the weekend included "Kitten Roy". More than a decade ago one of my friends was shopping with a list that his girlfriend had written. It was a neat, feminine and loopy script, but ultimately slightly illegible. "Who the fuck is Kitten Roy?" "Kitchen roll. It says kitchen roll".

Richard "Brexit pursued by a bear" B

Musicians' Joke

How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?
Forget it, the keyboard player can do it with his left hand.

Richard "I won £110 on the lottery" B

Holbefest

When I first saw the Henry Rollins "Listen to the stage manager" quote in the wings of a stage I was insulted. Now it makes perfect sense and I'll probably print it out and pin it up everywhere I work.

At the weekend I ran sound for a monstrous cross between a village fete and a music festival. The bands ranged between dire and impossibly talented. Most of the musicians were charming and helpful, some were inexperienced overwrought children, some were disorganised, entitled teenage cocks who overran their timeslot, then took a fucking encore and then cleared down slowly despite the four bands waiting for them.

"Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for your rock star bullshit. None of the techs backstage care if you’re David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs. –Henry Rollins"

The stage was about 4 feet high, and there was only one step to help you get up to it. My PA weighs about 250kg, I carried it up and down there twice and I probably moved the same amount of band equipment too. I'm not used to high-stepping exercises with heavy weights. I'm now so stiff and sore that my ability to climb stairs is severely compromised, and my ability to descend them (forwards) is lost.

Richard "Jake Leg Blues" B

Eye of the Wind

This is what Brother-John has been doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tskx98B4tY&sns=em

It looks cold and wet, and apparently in German.



Doug (I'd rather be in the Gulf of Mexico) B

Crystal Maze

I got involved in the most fascinating puzzle game this weekend. A friend of mine visited on Saturday night and on Sunday she texted me to tell me that she'd stolen one object from my house, and that my challenge was to work out what it was.

Before I even went home and checked, I guessed that it was Kelly Deal (the cuddly polar bear that I accidentally won when I was trying to flirt with a girl selling raffle tickets). I got the ominous reply "Strike 1". I don't know much about baseball, but I guessed that 3 strikes would mean I lost the game, object, or my house.

It's a fascinating and compelling game. I spent hours wandering around the house thinking "did something else used to be here?". Can you confidently list every framed picture and ornament in your lounge? How many orphan toothbrushes are by the bathroom sink? By Sunday afternoon I was confident that it wasn't a piece of furniture, all the picture hooks still had something on them, and I still had all my musical instruments.

I collect fridge magnets from foreign holidays, and while both Space Needle magnets were still there with the Osbourne Bull and the Legendary Cock of Barcelos I convinced myself that one of the lesser magnets was missing. "Strike 2".

I'm delighted to say that I did laundry and ironing on Sunday evening and the duvet cover from the bed in the spare room was missing!

Richard "Joy in Mudville" B