Painting all day. The idea is to keep ahead rather than on schedule because something always goes tits up. I finish off the spare room and start tackling an annoying bedroom decoration pasted to the main bedroom wall. I thought I could just peel it off but no such luck. Fortunately, my parents are up [...]
Filed under: house move | Leave a Comment »
Day one of a being a home owner. Just 25 more years minus one day and I will have paid off my mortgage. There is no time to waste. I start preparing the “Wine-Journal HQ” by painting the walls “Middleton Pink”. Tomoko has insisted that her interior design ambitions cannot be fulfilled without “Farrow & [...]
Filed under: house move | Tagged: alexandre burke, farrow & ball, middleton pink | Leave a Comment »
Funny how closure can be so silent. I have spent four years with the nagging thought that I may never get back onto the property ladder, destined to remain in rented purgatory for the rest of my life. I would fret every time house prices rocketed or heard news that banks were lending to nobody, ever [...]
Filed under: alsace, house move | Tagged: seymours, trimbach | 1 Comment »
I am rationing my wine tastings at the moment for two reasons: the backlog of articles and demands of composing a book, notwithstanding the oppressive amount of organization one needs to undertake in moving house. Still, I need to get back into the swing of it and so today I nip down to “The Bunch” [...]
Filed under: london tastings | Tagged: 2009, big brother, nick mills, rippon, von buhl | Leave a Comment »
Tonight I have my annual gig of the year. I used to frequent countless, but then kids came along and ruined everything. I am just waiting for them to reach the age when I can drag them along to Brixton Academy or Glastonbury and usher them towards music that their father is not going to [...]
Filed under: music | Tagged: janelle monae, jesus jones, koko, london | Leave a Comment »
I work in the morning, I drive Lily to her new Infant’s school. She takes to it like a duck to water, no fear and no trepidation, even if she does blank the headmistress when she bids hello in the school playground. I then head into town for a lunch and tasting with the shy, retiring [...]
Filed under: london tastings | Tagged: charles smith, k vintners, timothy taylor, walla walla | Leave a Comment »
The day starts well: Michael Ball back on Radio 2 with his Sunday Brunch. I know it’s sad and middle aged but it sets me up nicely for the day. I work through the morning working on the Pomerol book and articles for Wine-Journal. I can’t remember the last weekend I did not work at [...]
Filed under: lily & daisy, pomerol book | Leave a Comment »
Work all day (comme d’habitude). Then at four I travel into London for a long overdue haircut and then sashay down to The Ledbury for a splendid La Mission/Haut Brion dinner. It’s a faultless marriage: Brett Graham’s mouthwatering cuisine and what I consider the most pleasant, more intellectual Bordeaux to actually drink rather than fawn [...]
Filed under: bordeaux | Tagged: haut brion, la mission haut-brion, laville haut-brion, the ledbury | 2 Comments »
All day writing. I spend a lot of time pummelling the Internet and I am realizing just how much crap it is filling up with. Everything is about connections and lists. Nobody is bothering with original content. It’s all about building huge shopping lists of links with minimal information…if any. Or websites dependent upon user-generated [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: celebrity big brother, internet | Leave a Comment »
