Vegetable Soup

| Richard

Here’s a quickie recipe for some halfway decent vegetable soup; cheap as chips as well!

Soup and some of my wine lake...

You’ll need one butternut squash, one large carrot, one red onion, a tin of chopped tomatoes, garlic, a dash of sugar and then two Knorr veg stock pots in a litre of boiling water. Fry the onions and garlic in some olive oil, add the other dry ingredients (peeled and chopped) and coat. Add the stock and simmer covered for 15 minutes. Add the tomatoes and sugar, cover and simmer for another 15 mins then blitz with a wand thing or in a blender. Add frozen sweetcorn and heat through. Serve with wine and enjoy!

Bank Holiday Weekend

| Richard

Well that was a busy one!

After a somewhat heavy session on Friday night at Abacus with colleagues – damn you Happy Hour! – Saturday found me packing for the weekend and heading over to GT for Saturday, including seeing “The Avengers”/”Avengers Assemble” (which I can recommend as a good, fun film) and a nice meal out afterwards.

Sunday morning and GT was running a half-marathon so I left at a reasonable time and headed off to Manchester with a stay at the comfortable Radisson Edwardian and an evening out at the Comedy Store‘s “King Gong” stand-up show with some very good (and some really awful) stand-up comics.

Monday was a day shopping at various stores in Manchester including a 20+ minute wait at Starbuck’s in the Arndale Centre for a coffee. I was somewhat disturbed though by this that I saw whilst walking through Top Shop:

I'm sorry? "Formal"? Jogger?

Then another night at the Radisson Edwardian that ended with me watching Homeland’s disappointing end (well, for the first series anyway): why do the US networks insist on keeping these series running on and on rather than actually developing a story with a start, a middle and an end? I won’t now bother with the second series.

Tuesday saw me mainly sitting in traffic jams on my way to Birmingham for a meeting and then back down to London. Somehow, despite excellent driving conditions, people had variously managed a series of crashes on the M6 and one on the A406 North Circular that closed it leading to really long tailbacks. How do people manage to crash in such excellent conditions?

Unofficial Sarcasm Provider to the London Olympics

| Richard

I’ve pointed out previously that the last place anyone living in London should want to be in August 2012 will be London whilst the London Olympics is on as it’ll be chaos.

This week, there’s been news about locations for missile batteries in the East End as well. Presumably there to protect the £24bn “investment” that it has grown to (up from the £2bn that Tony BLiar’s Government promised us it would cost when we bid for the Games).

Having decided to spend a whole shedload of our cash, LOCOG have also sought to “monetise” the Games as best they can – no doubt on advice from their Strategic Consulting Provider- and may have taken (or possibly, ignored…) advice from their official market research services provider to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as to which companies to approach to get an Official Doodah Provider to the London 2012 Olympic Games moniker:

“The Nielsen Company will assist us in the decision making process by testing our ideas in the market place. One of our challenges – and opportunities – is connecting with young people. Nielsen will help us do this and will, I’m sure, prove to be a huge asset to our marketing push.”

Said Lord Coe. In excellent marketing-speak.

Part of this connection with young people, presumably, is telling them they can’t upload photos onto Facebook or Twitter or whatever from the event if they’re lucky enough to have bought tickets for a quick slot to see a heat of an event before being told to bugger off for the next spectator to take their place:

“Sir Keith Mills, deputy chairman of organisers Locog, said said organisers wanted to make sure that media rights which have been paid for are protected.”

The same goes for the 70,000 (presumably young) people who will be acting as “Games Makers”.

And I suppose that this connection with young people will be to “inspire a generation” – how much did that cost? – perhaps by steering them towards some of the other companies who’ve chipped in (despite growing concern as to their products) to be Worldwide Partner (Coca-Cola), Official Lager Supplier (Heineken, with “exclusive pouring rights”), Official Restaurant of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Official Treat Provider (Cadbury/Trebor) and of course choose from any selection from drugs company and Official Laboratory Services Provider to London 2012 (GlaxoSmithKline). What could possibly go wrong?

Some smokes, some beers...

 

Still, it’s just business…

iPhone Date and Time Failing to Update?

| Richard

One of the good things about my two iPhones – three if you count the work one – has been the way the time gets updated whenever I turn them on in a new country I visit.  Indeed, when I was in Vienna last week, I was saying just that to a colleague.

And then I got back to the UK and they wouldn’t change back to UK. They were both set to automatically adjust the time zone and the Apple Support pages were suggesting contacting my cellular comms. provider, 3, in case of issues. I tried lots of things, turning them off, going back to “Airplane Mode”, turning off WiFi, etc., before I stumbled across the fix:

From Settings, choose Location Services, then scroll down until you see System Services:

Then you may well see that Setting Time Zone is off, for some reason: in mine, I had turned it off to keep the battery life up, yet it still changed when I was in Vienna; just not changed back.

 

Goodnight Vienna

| Richard

Well that was a busy week! The Friday before last, I was heading back in the rain from a meeting with a Client when my phone rang and a colleague asked if I’d be available to go to Vienna for a day the following week to do some training for another Client.  The answer, as always, was yes. When I got back to the office, it all started going pear-shaped…

It transpired it was two days’ training: join mid-morning with a German lawyer’s last session and then repeat on the Friday before an evening flight home; my colleague would be staying at the comfy Hotel de France. But there were problems: firstly, I couldn’t guarantee arriving on time if I travelled on Thursday morning, so I had to make arrangements to fly out on the Wednesday evening (which meant cancelling another meeting) and I couldn’t fly back on the Friday because all the flights back were fully booked, so I now needed to stay another night and fly home on Saturday which meant cancelling all my plans up in Norfolk.

By Tuesday, more changes were afoot: half the delegates were calling in sick, so the venue (which had been a lovely hotel in central Vienna) had been cancelled and we would be doing it at the Client’s offices 15km outside the city. This meant cancelling the hotels I had managed to find and instead I was put up in what was thankfully a four star guest house 5km from the offices, the Landhaus Tschipan. They had also asked us to condense two days’ of training into one, the Thursday and I still couldn’t get a flight back!

Wednesday was horribly wet in London but landing in Vienna that evening, I was greeted by a lovely warm evening and I went for some beers with the German lawyer to run through the slides and edit them down.

Thursday went very well indeed and when we had finished we realised all the HR staff had gone home and there was no-one to take us back or even arrange a taxi … so we walked the 5km back in full suits and carrying laptops in high 20s temperatures! We then changed and grabbed a taxi into central Vienna to meet up with my other two colleagues for beers and a meal before heading back.  Vienna is a beautiful city by night!

Friday morning I checked out of the Tschipan and headed to my hotel for Friday: the five star Steigenberger Hotel Herrenhof in the historic part of Vienna. A bit more work until lunchtime and then I headed out for a sightseeing wander around the shopping areas and the Naschtmarkt: some 10km in the sun and high 20s temperatures: no wonder I got sunburnt!

Back to the hotel to change before I met up with my colleagues at the University of Vienna where they’d been delivering a course for the post-graduate MSc Law course. Lovely ribs and beers before heading off to St Stephen’s Square for more café culture and beer and a wander down to the Danube itself. I finally stumbled into bed at 2.30am!

A light breakfast – or two – before heading back to the airport for a flight home … to the same cold and wet London I’d left behind. Ah well!

 

Kawasaki Day at the Ace Cafe

| Richard

Today was Kawasaki Day at the Ace Cafe London. It was also the Virgin London Marathon and where I live the roads close at 8.00am. Despite GT taking part in the marathon – she managed a 4:00:44 finish time! – I headed off before the road closures to the Ace Cafe for Kawasaki Day, celebrating 40 years.

Of course, 11 and 23 mile markers en route were too good to pass unnoticed so I hoisted celebratory wheelies as I drove through!

Getting to the Ace at 8.00am I grabbed a cuppa and breakfast and then decided to have the ZRX dyno’d again now I’ve put some miles on it and the results were very impressive: 163.2bhp and 98ft/lb which even beat some poor bloke with a shiny ZZR1400 and Akra pipes!

Here are some photos too:

H2 750 Zephyr Chat H1 500 7cyl KH606! Zephyr ZRXs Z900s H1 Tank Z1000 Tank ZRX Tank ZX-10R Collage Yes... Blue Rex

Ireland for Easter

| Richard

With my 50th Birthday falling on Good Friday, GT decided to take me to Ireland with her kids to stay with family. Her mother has a house in Co. Carlow and there’s another family cottage (beautifully renovated and refurbished) to stay in just down the road … and that’s what we did: GT and I in the cottage and her kids staying at her Mum’s.

Thursday 5th and we went shopping and meeting and greeting family before settling down in the front of a log fire with a book and a bottle of wine.

Friday 6th brought a big surprise present from GT: a trackday in a Ferrari to be arranged by me to suit me! Then after lunch we headed over to Altamont Gardens for a wander around. A pity we couldn’t get closer to the spooky house:

Altamont House

Saturday 7th and I decided that after a few weeks break from running, I’d give the dodgy calf muscle a workout with a short 3.2 mile run whilst GT carried on for another 11.5 miles. She’s a machine! And all this before breakfast, after which we went for another walk out and about. The Irish provide handy hints for you when planning your next serial killing too:

Leave No Trace
Handy Hints

Then on for a wonderful meal in the evening at the excellent Sha-Roe Bistro 20 mins away in Clonegal, with delicious food and wine before a drink next door then back to the cottage.

Sunday 8th saw us heading up to Fraughan Rock Glen for a walk up to the upper waterfall and a few snacks before we headed back down to the pub for steaks and proper Guinness for lunch.

Fraggle Rock. Or Something.

Monday 9th was the only day that rain was forecast for, so we spent it at an activity centre in Carlow and I finished off the last of the Stieg Larsson Dragon Tattoo/Millennium Trilogy books on the Kindle App on my iPhone. I’d also seen this wonderful farmhouse on an earlier drive, so a photo opportunity presented itself.

Desolate

Tuesday 10th and GT and I started the day with another run before we headed off to Glendalough for more walking and sightseeing around the place after a couple of Guinnesses with lunch at the Hollywood Inn.

Hollywood Inn
GT and Blue
Poulanass Waterfall
Miners' Village at Glendalough

An early night and then back off to Dublin Airport on Wednesday.

Great long weekend!