The leaden skies pevail. We drive to Reading via Argos to return our awful lamp shades. They should label them awful lamps shades in the catalogue so people like myself do not become confused. We are heading for Dunelm Mill in search of decent lamp shades, preferably ones not like those from Argos that effectively [...]
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Grey and overcast. Driving down to Homebase I decide to surprise my wife with a much needed new ironing board. I am shocked how much they cost. Sixty quid? For a bloody ironing board? Then up to Argos to buy new shades for the hallway, although it takes about two nanoseconds to realize that they [...]
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Tonight I have dinner with writer Harry Karis, whose Chateauneuf-du-Pape bible you should own. I wait for him at Swiss Cottage tube station and fortunately he recognizes me as I don’t have a clue what he looks like. Its after about two minutes en route to The Arches that I have to ask the question… [...]
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Today I did something I vowed I would never do: sell some wine. Three bottles to be precise, but those three bottles will furnish my bedroom and it is simply a case of opportunity cost. I am lucky…I’ve tasted Chateau Latour 1982 several times and if I hadn’t, I would never have sold my bottle. [...]
Filed under: bordeaux, london tastings | Tagged: armand rousseau, l'evangile, latour 1982, pomerol, vcc | Leave a Comment »
Good night’s sleep at Hotel St. Josef and after a slightly stale croissant (well, this is Germany, not France) it is a short walk does to Zurich Bahnhof back to the airport. I have an urge to write up last night’s memorable tasting, but the battery on my laptop is flat, so all I can [...]
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Mr. Blackberry beeps at 4.30am – it’s another early start, for today I am heading to Zurich to taste a few wines. By complete coincidence, my taxi driver is the brother of the erstwhile owner of our house and so I have this drowsy conversation as we drive round the M25 to Gatwick about how [...]
Filed under: sauternes | Tagged: sauternes, suduiraut, switzerland, yquem, zurich | Leave a Comment »
Writing, writing, writing.
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Wife is ill. The house goes into lockdown. I spend the morning trying to put up our solid gold curtain rail. A majority of the time is spent shouting expletives at the wall, bemoaning the lintel that seems to be built out of diamond (the previous owners had warned us.) I have spent millions on [...]
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Curtain day. The mid-1980s, chintz-tastic curtains, a remnant from the erstwhile proprietors of our new home, must go. They are driving me insane. So we drive to John Lewis Home in Purley Way, Croydon, where a smorgasbord of lovely home furnishings means that we end up filling our basket with useless candles and incense burners [...]
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I take the family up to Radjoot, our local Indian. It is our first visit, indeed, it is Lily and Daisy’s first Indian meal and so I discretely ask the waiter to go easy on the spice. Unfortunately, he thinks I am speaking on behalf of the entire family and as a consequence our adult [...]
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