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Try to pretend you don't want one of these tweed caps.

Dr John Hawkins

Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff, home to a huge load of pictures, and my daily blog.

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Recent Entries:: Andy and Chika-san's Wedding
Cocktails
Boring Work Night Out
Curry
Horace Craigie Manders CIE
Fresh Pasta
Meeting Relatives
Breakfast Out and Coconuts
Working Late (on a Friday!)
Summer Party
Pizza Express
Stuffed Marrow
Monday
Afternoon Tea with Andy and Chika-san
Simon and Vanessa's Wedding
Writing Comedy
Curry
Shingo-san
Work Nights Out
Chinese Food Again

Andy and Chika-san's Wedding: [Saturday 23rd August]
Anyone in a "mixed race" marriage like Chie and I will understand the complexities of getting married. If your two respective families live in two different countries, on different sides of the planet, there is no perfect solution in terms of where to hold the ceremony. Getting family and friends to travel half way round the world for a wedding isn't generally very practical, and then after that whichever country you decided to hold it in you're bound to end up making someone feel left out. In our case we had the "official" ceremony in Japan followed by a family get together in the UK a few months later, however I do still feel like something was a bit missing somehow.

Our friends Andy and Chika-san were faced with a similar dilemma and decided the best way to approach it was to get the legal stuff out of the way completely separately to the family celebrations - in that respect neither side would feel like they weren't going to the "real" wedding. However for even the simplest possibly of wedding ceremonies, you do at least need a pair of witnesses, and I was rather delighted and honoured that Andy and Chika-san chose me and Chie for this role.

So this morning we met up with Andy and Chika-san at a café in Islington, and after a "wedding breakfast" (and in this instance it was quite literally breakfast) we headed over to Islington Town Hall. Therein we had a bit of a wait before the registrar called the four of us in for the ceremony.

I have been to a number of weddings over the last few years, but never before one where there were only a handful of people in the room... and I have to say if anything this was a strong candidate for the most emotional and heartfelt I have ever attended. It was all over in a matter of minutes, but the whole thing felt really rather special, and I felt extremely privileged to have been a witness (in the most literal and legal sense!) to this event.

After the ceremony we headed down the road for a celebratory bottle of bubbly at the nearby Carluccio's, and then we all jumped in a taxi bound for Victoria station, as Andy and Chika-san were heading straight off on their honeymoon.

After waving the happy couple off at Victoria, Chie and I then decided to walk into the centre of London from there, passing Buckingham Palace en route, where preparations were underway for the Olympic handover ceremony thing. We ended up on a long meandering stroll, which took us by way of a cracking pub called the Dover Castle, and ended up at the crazily cheap pizza place on Goodge Street. I rather like the fact that we were still wearing our posh frocks in there.
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Cocktails: [Friday 22nd August]
After leaving work (and the usual beer-and-pizza event, a very brief one for me on this occasion) I got a call from Chie who suggested it would be nice to do a spot of early evening shopping. So I hopped on a bus, and got off at one end of Piccadilly. I then had a jolly nice meandering stroll from there down to Fortnum and Mason, where I met Chie.

After a quick whizz round F&M, Chie proposed going for a quick drink at an interesting bar she'd found - on the 5th floor of Waterstone's on Piccadilly. It was a fairly swish cocktail bar, with a bit of a view out over London thanks to being on the 5th floor. I had a St James's Martini, which seemed to comprise a huge slug of Hendrick's gin in a glass which had first been swilled round with a dash of Vermouth. I don't think I've ever really had a "proper" Martini before, and have to say I rather enjoyed it. It reminded me of the giddy sense of light headedness I'd get from drinking in my early twenties - somehow alcohol seems to effect you different as you get older.

After that we broke our rule about not eating out in August and had a surprisingly good veggie burger at the unpromising looking "Ultimate Burger" in Soho.

We then rounded off our "shopping night out" by buying some Japanese food and drink at Rice Wine.
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Boring Work Night Out: [Thursday 21st August]
Went out for a couple of drinks with some people from work this evening. Apparently it was someone's leaving do, although I'd only ever spoken to the guy in question once before so I felt like a bit of a gatecrasher. We don't have a lot of leavings dos at my place, the few people that do leave seem to be either old timers who don't need to be paid any more, or people going off to form their own startups. I think this chap was in the latter group.

Anyway, it wasn't a particularly interesting evening (unbelievable though you may find it, software engineers don't always make for the most scintillating company) so I left after pint number 2. Not much else to report really.
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Curry: [Wednesday 20th August]
I left work "early" today - around 6:30, and met up with Chie at a pub not too far from where I live/work. After a quick pint, we decided to get a takeaway curry from the restaurant we've eaten at (or should I say from) a couple of times now. They do seem to have consistency problems there though - whilst last time the takeaway I got was fantastic, tonight's was good for two out of three dishes, but with the third one - a vegetable bhuna - they complete forgot the sauce! I guess this is the peril of takeaway over eating in the restaurant - you don't realise anything is wrong with it until you get it home and by then you can't really be bothered to take it back to complain. Oh well. We mixed some of the excess sauce from the other dishes in to compensate, and the overall effect was actually still quite tasty.

The fact that I'd left work early meant that I hadn't got an important chore for the day done, so after dinner I then had to spend an hour or two on the computer.
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Horace Craigie Manders CIE: [Tuesday 19th August]
Recently I've found a renewed interested in my family tree once more. This was largely prompted by an email from a new found Canadian relative, and so I've once more dusted off all my old records, and renewed my subscription to ancestry.co.uk. I've been quite impressed with what they've done with their website in the intervening time - they have tools to actually build your family tree on the site, including some fairly clever automated searching which does a lot of the searching for you.

When I went to visit Nigel and Mary on Sunday, they had a picture of Muriel and Horace's wedding. Muriel is my great grandfather's sister, although I haven't quite figured out how to express that as a relation to me (my great grand aunt? or great great aunt?). Anywho, as a result I'd become quite interested in that bit of the family and wanted to find out more. I'd heard that Muriel and Horace had gone to India - probably in the late 1910s or 1920s. I'd also heard that Muriel (and possible Horace?) had died of a fever whilst out there, and never had any children. Whilst I wasn't able to dig up any more information on Muriel herself, I was able to find out quite a bit about Horace. It turns out he survived to a good old age - at least into his 70s.

He was in the army in India, and for his endeavours was awarded the Order of The Indian Empire. So from then on he had the letters CIE after his name - almost a knighthood! At some point it appears he returned to England, and to my delight I was even able to find him in the phonebook in the 1940s (living near Gloucester Road in London) and again in the 1950s (living in Richmond). Hardly any of the people I have found in my family tree ever really spent any time in London, and it's great to think that an ancestor of mine spent a good few years here in the not too distant past, and maybe drank at some of the same pubs etc.
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Fresh Pasta: [Monday 18th August]
Fresh pasta for dinner, that we'd bought at M&S the day before. Also had a mozarella and tomato salad with it, and a glass or two of wine. It was rather nice.
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Meeting Relatives: [Sunday 17th August]
Today Chie and I travelled to Uckfield in Sussex (roughly in the vicinity of Brighton) to meet my Dad's cousin Nigel and his wife Mary. Given that Nigel had lived in Malawi for most of his life, and I was always in another part of the UK whenever he came back to visit, I don't think we'd ever actually met before, but I'd often heard other people in the family talk about him and his brother Martin.

...and what lovely people they are! I instantly warmed to them both, and they instantly felt very much like family. We chatted about all sorts of things - family history (both recent and "ancient"), life in Japan and Malawi, the olympics, and inevitably house prices.

We also went out for a surprisingly nice meal - a sort of Thai / Indian restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I had some of the best paneer tikka I've ever had.

We got the train back to London just after 6, and stopped off on the way back home at the little Marks and Spencer in the station which was conveniently still open. I had a uninspiring but satisfying pizza for dinner, whereas Chie decided to have ramen instead.
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Breakfast Out and Coconuts: [Saturday 16th August]
I'll quite often make a cooked breakfast at least one morning of each weekend, but today we had none of the ingredients in, so thought about venturing out for a change. I guess one of the appealing things about having breakfast at home is that we can slob around in the morning and not have to get washed / dressed and ready to go out.

So today we scoured the local area for a suitable cafe to have breakfast in. We turned out noses up at a couple, and then happened upon this interesting looking Portugese deli / cafe, wherein we decided to have a "pre breakfast" - a quick coffee and a custard tart. Everybody was speaking Portugese, it felt a bit like being on holiday (not that I've ever been to Portugal).

Then for the "main course" of breakfast we went to our standard local haunt, the Polish cafe, which I've become rather fond of. This was good as ever, although Chie shied away from a full English on this occasion and instead had a bagel. Lightweight!

Given that this is just a couple of doors down from our local supermarket, we then took advantage of this and did some food shopping. We were back at the flat by not long after midday - sometimes we don't even head out for the day until a couple of hours later than this!

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, mainly on the computer.

Oh, but we did crack open one of the coconuts I got from the summer party the other day. I grated the flesh and added it to a sort of Thai curry. It was actually rather nice.

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Working Late (on a Friday!): [Friday 15th August]
Chie went out for dinner with some friends from work, so after the usual Friday beer-and-pizza thing I took the unusual step of actually going back to my desk and carrying on with some more work.
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Summer Party: [Thursday 14th August]
Today was my company's summer party, which was done in the style of a village fete, with a marquee in a field out in Putney, overlooking Richmond Park.

The weather was decidedly non ideal to start with - when we arrived at East Putney station there was a brief hailstorm! However it did seem to improve throughout the day and could almost be described as summery in places.

The highlight of the event for me was probably the coconut shy - I won myself a coconut fair and square (and then blatantly stole a further two on the way home as there was still a whole sack left). It's surprising how complete strangers will talk to you on the tube for no other reason than you have a coconut in each hand.
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Pizza Express: [Wednesday 13th August]
Picked up some takeaway pizzas from our local Pizza Express for dinner (remember we're in "no eating out August"!). I guess this is very close to defeating the object, as Pizza Express charge the same for the pizzas regardless, but I suppose it does at least save us all the add-ons like drinks and service charge.

In a way though I actually kind of prefer eating pizza at home - you don't feel bad at all for using your hands and there's something appealingly slobbish about being able to eat straight out of the boxes.
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Stuffed Marrow: [Tuesday 12th August]
Chie had bought a marrow recently, which had been lurking in the fridge and looking threatening. This sort of vegetable is all well and good, but what are you supposed to actually do with it?

So I think Chie did a bit of research, and came up with the idea of stuffing it - following a recipe that uses minced beef (and obviously substituting that for vegetarian mince). The result wads actually quite nice - well, the stuffing was very tasty - I can't say I was hugely convinced about the marrow itself.

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Monday: [Monday 11th August]
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Afternoon Tea with Andy and Chika-san: [Sunday 10th August]
A fabulous Sunday afternoon outing with our friends Andy and Chika-san, involving a couple of cracking pubs in Kensington, and afternoon tea at the Orangery.

(will fill this entry out with a bit more detail later - I was in a rush!)

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Simon and Vanessa's Wedding: [Saturday 9th August]
Our friends Simon and Vanessa finally tied the knot today. They'd been together about the same length of time as me and Chie had so it was definitely long overdue!

The wedding was held in rural Berkshire, somewhere near Midgham / Aldermaston. Conveniently for us it wasn't until 3 in the afternoon, giving Chie and I plenty of time to get the train there.

We got the train as far as Midgham, and then stopped off there for a quick drink in a very nice pub called the Rowbarge. I had originally thought about trying to walk from there to the venue, but I wasn't exactly sure where we were heading, and it was raining, so I thought we should probably get a taxi instead.

Consequently we arrived at the venue a bit too early and had to hang around for a bit, trying not to get in the way. More guests started to arrive just before 3, and by shortly after 3 we were all seated in the hall where the ceremony was going to be, and waiting for the bride to arrive. After the customary wait Vanessa turned up, looking fantastic of course, and the ceremony got under way. A few minutes later and I had one less unmarried friend!

There was then the usual gap between the ceremony and the reception proper, giving us a chance to mill around a bit, drink bucks fizz, and have the photographer take lots of pictures.

By this point I was getting a tad peckish, so was quite relieved when we were invited into the other building for the reception. The food was all done to a very good standard, and we were lucky to be seated at a table where we actually knew most of the people, so that was all very nice.

I thought the speeches were all very good indeed - Vanessa's brother's speech was really heartfelt, Simon's was very forthright and confident, and David's best man speech was hilarious as expected. I've known Simon and David for a good 6 or 7 years at least, but haven't really seen either of them do much public speaking before, and was pleasantly surprised by how professional they both were. Although I do feel a need to berate Simon for use of the well worn "I can't read my wife's handwriting" gag.

As always at weddings, they put a glass of champagne in front of you before the speeches begin, which everybody else seems to innately know they should not touch until the toasts, whereas I have usually polished it off before they've even started talking.

Anyway, after the meal and the speeches were over, the tables were cleared, and some music was put on (initially over the sound system, but a bit later on there was a proper band), and the remainder of the evening passed in the usual post reception banter.

Chie and I were aiming for the last train back, so left the reception at 10 to get a taxi to the station. I was a bit concerned that the trains just weren't going to be running at all - especially when we were the only people waiting at Midgham station, but thankfully it all worked out pretty well, and we were home by not long after midnight.
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Writing Comedy: [Friday 8th August]
Went to the usual end-of-the-week beer and pizza thing. A few people hung around until about 7PM and then went home, and I decided to do the same at that point.

Chie had made us a quick dinner as she was heading out for the evening (her Hiroshimakenjinkai - the night out for people from Hiroshima). I decided to give the kenjinkai a miss this time as I was a bit tired, and it can be hard work speaking Japanese all evening. So instead I just stayed in and watched telly.

There was a program on called Comedy Connections which this week focused on Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and in particular the post Monty Python series they did called Ripping Yarns. I found this very interesting, particularly as I have recent been reading the (auto?)biography of the Pythons (a present from Rob by the way - thanks Rob!).

Reading the book has made me quite envious of the lifestyle of the Pythons around the time they were writing it - whilst I'm sure being a writer can sometimes mean hard work and long hours - and the constant fear that what you're doing isn't good enough - it sounds like at least some of the time they really enjoyed sitting round writing comedy together. Or more accurately, writing in their respective pairs - Cleese/Chapman and Jones/Palin - with Eric Idle working mostly alone. Their work days sounded pretty free form, they'd often work at somebody's house, or even go and sit in the park, and there were plenty of pub lunches etc.

Whilst I have no real intentions of seriously trying to pursue any other career, reading that book has made me keen to have a go at doing a bit of comedy writing myself. I'm obviously a million miles away from natural born comedians like John Cleese and Michael
Palin, but I know what I like when it comes to humour, and surely everyone has the potential to write a few sketches in them...?
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Curry: [Thursday 7th August]
Not much to report. Chie and I met up at the supermarket after work, and bought things to make curry with. The end result was a bit of a disappointment though.
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Shingo-san: [Wednesday 6th August]
Shingo-san was a fellow student of Chie's at her university (the Japanese college which used to be in Reading, and sadly is no more) who also stayed on after graduating to work in the college. Alas the college finally closed its doors in the spring of this year, and Shingo-san decided, after spending all of his adult life living in the UK, that it was time for him to go back to Japan. It was quite sad for Chie as he was the last Japanese friend of hers from her university days to still be in England.

Anywho, to our pleasant surprise, Shingo-san had decided to come back to England for a short holiday, and so this evening we had arranged to meet up with him.

Chie asked me where we should take him for the evening and without even really thinking about it I proposed my standard Holborn / Faringdon night out.

So we started off with a quick dinner at Carluccio's on Smithfields which was pleasant as ever, and then from there headed over to the whisky society for a quick dram. Shingo-san is apparently not a huge fan of whisky, so we didn't linger too long, but I thought it would be nice to at least show him the place.

The next venue on this very well trodden route was Ye Old Mitre. Ely Court was bustling with people (I'd been on a Monday night just a few weeks prior and it had been deserted), but we did manage to find seats inside the pub itself - in the back bar for a change. I decided if anything I might even prefer the back bar now - it is somehow more homely, and feels even more detached from the modern world.

Chie and Shingo-san naturally had some catching up to do, so at a number of points during the evening I just tuned out of the conversation and left them to it. Whilst in the Mitre this was particularly easy, as it's the sort of place I can just get lost in. After a few minutes of me sitting in silence, soaking up the atmosphere, Shingo-san said something to me in Japanese which neither he nor Chie could entirely translate, but it was along the lines of "you look utterly content"... and it was true - I am seldom happier than these blissful moments spent in this magical pub.

We rounded off the evening with my other much visited old favourite The Cittie of Yorke. This too had an almost dream-like ambience to it this evening and I was in no hurry to leave.

If ever in the future I start doubting whether it is really worth me living in London, I should just immediately go to those two pubs (and the whisky society!).
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Work Nights Out: [Tuesday 5th August]
Chie had a work night out planned for this evening, so I thought I should follow suit and persuade some people from my company to go out for a drink or two. Unfortunately it did end up as literally that - a drink or two - and by around 8 or 8:30 everyone had gone back home.

I took the rather unusual decision to go back to the office to just "finish one or two things off" and ended up staying until 11.

I didn't really eat very much today - I had all three meals at the office, but my mind was occupied with work and I didn't seem to have much appetite. Once I finally stopped thinking about work, and went to bed, it occurred to me I was actually hungry. I see this as a good sign - (A) it means I'm not overeating as I usually do and (B) it must mean work is particularly engrossing at the moment.
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Chinese Food Again: [Monday 4th August]
We'd bought rather a lot of Chinese ingredients on Saturday, and so today I felt compelled to cook something Chinese with the goal of using all the perishable things up.

It ended up a relatively simple meal, compared to Saturday's multi course feast. One thing I was keen to do was having a go at making hot and sour soup - it's a favourite of mine at Chinese restaurants and takeaways. However, I'd never actually seen a recipe for it, and could only guess it what the ingredients were. Obviously there are at least a couple of clues in the name. So, I started with a base of seaweed stock, then added ponzu (a Japanese citrus sauce), some rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and some Korean chilli powder. For the actual ingredients I put in some straw mushrooms, some deep fried tofu, and a few peas. The end result was extremely pleasing - whilst it wasn't quite like the flavour of "real" hot and sour soup it was a pretty good approximation.

For the main course I decided to try and re-attempt a black bean sauce dish, still feeling some embarrassment for Saturday's failure in this department. So I did tofu and chinese leaf, again with a few straw mushrooms (I think), and used only a very small amount of the black bean sauce this time, plus some mirin and a bit of stock to water it down. This too came out rather well. I served this with steam vegetarian cheung fun (a type of noodle I suppose - but the real version is made from intestines!). All rather good.
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