Birthdays, Beers and Brentford Beaten...

...actually, make that thrashed!

A 5-0 defeat is never good and it's even worse when it comes against (at one point at least) one of our major rivals.

Last night was the first friendly of the season and Fulham came down to GP.  To be honest the result, although dissapointing, didn't really matter.  Having been postponed last pre-season, the match was Kevin O'Connor's testimonial and a celebration of his 11 years as a Bee.

A very decent crowd of 4,136 came down to GP and gave Kev a night, erm, to remember!  I met Gabs inside the ground and we took up our usual sport on the Ealing Road terrace.  There were plenty of familiar faces in the crowd and

It was my first friendly for a fair few seasons and I won't be going to another one in a hurry.  The main reason for going was to show support for one of my favourite ever Brentford players, and after 11 'interesting' years in the red and white stripes I thought my £12 contribution to his testimonial fund was money well spent.

As frequently happens, Gabs and I spent most of the 70 minutes (yes we left early, when the fifth went in!) we were in the ground catching up.  One of the worst things about growing up, actually I've not down that yet, lets say growing older and having responsibilities, is that you don't get to see your mates as much.  Brentford games are the main occasions we Bees supporting buddies get to chew the fat.  I'm looking forward to seeing Londra at GP when the season kicks-off.  He's just had his first kid, a boy, no name yet.  CONGRATULATIONS PAUL AND LYNDA :)

Fingers crossed the Bees' pre-season will get better.  Next up are Tonbridge Angels away on Saturday and then Wycombe (and their gaggle of ex-Bees) at GP next Tuesday.  I'll be at GP on 14th August for our first home League game of the 2010/11 season.  I'm on holiday for the first game, Carlisle away.  OK, OK, I wasn't going to schlep up to Brunton Park anyway!  We won 3-1 up there on the first day of last season, here's hoping for more of the same.

Away from football, although I do need to blog about the World Cup and my bloody post about video technology at some point, Sarah turned 27 on Tuesday.

Over the weekend I baked her traditional birthday cake.  Nothing too flash, a Victoria Sponge, but I think I've got it nailed on now :)  I have to give some credit to mum, Ruth, Mrs Malcolm because I used her homemade raspberry jam in the filling which as expected lived up to her Delia Smith-esque cookery reputation, amongst us Malcolms anyway!

Being creatures of habit we went for a meal at Maggie Jones's.  I first went there with work many years ago and it's one of my favourite restaurants in London.  The food is amazing and the house red comes in a magnum and you pay for what you drink which is usually the whole bottle for us two greedy gits.  We go there most birthdays so we'll most likely be back there in September :)

Last Thursday work put on the annual 'Profits Party', in fact I was nicely oiled this time last week!  It's basically a celebration of the previous financial year which with the parent company being American, ends on 30th June.

For the previous couple of years we've had the party in the atrium at work.  Redundancies, and the general downturn didn't warrant a big celebration but with things picking up in CACI-world this year the venue was Aqua Nueva.

Inside it's a typical, large West End bar with a few different rooms but what sets this place apart, especially for a geeky west Londoner, is the roof terrace.  It's always exciting for me, probably a bit too much so, when I get to see London from a new viewpoint and I was more than happy to geek it up with my camera...before too many colleagues arrived anyway ;)

The party was winding down by 01:00 so I took myself off home.  I walked it back which took about an hour.  The journey was uneventful for the most part but I did walk past a couple going at it over one of the street cabinets just after Queensway tube station.  They must have heard my footsteps because by the time I reached them the bloke was hurriedly pulling up his jeans and the knickers of his lucky lady friend. 

Just another ordinary night in London!

Gourmet ou Gourmand?

After a couple of beers in the Village after work on Friday I met up with SB on Threadneedle Street at 19:20.

I was twenty minutes late but considering I didn't leave the bar inside the 'gated community' until 18:40, I made it from Earl's Court to Bank via Holborn in pretty good time.

We headed straight into the restaurant and were shown to a nice table for two.  There were four or five tables already occupied but over the course of the meal the place filled up and by the end of the meal it was pretty much full.

The restaurant is on the ground floor of the old London Stock Exchange with the entrance on the passage way between the redesigned LSE building and DTZ's 125 Old Broad Street office.  Handy for lunches when you're in the City eh SB!


Rather than describe the interior, here is a photo from the website:

On the walls there is a poem by Jean de la Fontaine called Le Corbeau et le Renard, the Crow and the Fox.  The crow has a cheese in its beak which the fox wants so the fox flatters the crow who goes to speak, well crow I suppose, and drops the cheese.  SB was quite impressed when I said it's like someone saying that your phone is nice, you letting them have a look at it and then them running off with it!  (Over-)proud iPhone owners beware!

Whenever we go to France we HAVE to bring back some Rillettes de Mans, shredded pork that is made into a paste, similar to pâté.  It was on the menu so it was no surprise when SB chose this for her starter.  I had a sausage salad from the specials board.

For the main we both had a 10oz steak, (gourmand?!?) with SB having a dark chocolate slice and me a rhubarb and custard cup for desert.  Pretty good value for £52 I think :)

We didn't go to Abacus.  Instead we headed back to the Bush and had a pint in The Green.  Not one of the most salubrious boozers in W12 but it serves a decent pint of Kronenbourg and doesn't have twats on the door (or inside) like the 'tarted up boozer' across the road.

Grubs Up!

I'd not been to the City for well over a year and like buses two, in this instance visits, have come at once.

Yesterday morning I was at a client site by Southwark Bridge installing an update to the GIS system they take from us here at CACI Towers and tonight I'm off to the new Brasserire Blanc that is opening up on Threadneedle Street.

SB works for DTZ who have an office on Old Broad Street, next to latest addition to the Raymond Blanc empire, and a couple of weeks ago she received an E-mail giving staff the opportunity to have a sneak peak of the new place and get 50% off the total bill.  RESULT :)

Might see if SB wants to pop into Abacus after the meal to see what the City's most celebrated meat market is up to.  It made for pretty interesting viewing last time I was in there with Gabs and Londra ;)

Failing that I might be able to taunt a few of the eastenders who will surely be heading down to TW8 tomorrow afternoon watch Leyton Orient pit their wits against the Bees.