There's a whisper down the line...

[venta]

I met elethiomel for dinner on Friday night.

Having decided to return to the rather nice Satsuma sushi place on Wardour Street, we thought it might be nice to have a cocktail before turning up there. Having narrowed our choice of bar down to: near Satsuma, not more than 75% full of people by volume, and willing to let me in with a large bag, we ended up in the 'O' bar, more or less opposite.

It is not a quality establishment. The girl who served us had some obvious assets, but they didn't include being able to make cocktails. As we sipped rather inferior drinks, and watched them churning out £7 jugs of brightly coloured beverages, we concluded that perhaps our judgement had been a little lacking...

However, Satsuma was nice[*], there was much food and a rather nice bottle of shiraz. I'm very fond of the order-lots-of-small-dishes school of eating. Having proceeded through the orderly ranges of intellectual and catching-up conversations, we ended up swapping verses of dirty songs instead. (Anyone with a good working knowledge of The Ball of Kirriemuir or Dinah[**] should get in touch).

[*]This space left blank for condign to tell me why it's bobbins:

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[**] elethiomel thinks this song is called Ilah (spelling uncertain). Probably any two syllable girl's name will do - it's the song with the chorus "Show us your leg", anyway.



Then I went to Glasgow for the weekend.

Firstly, I got to go on a sleeper train. This combines my liking of trains with my liking of sleeping to excellent effect :) In an attempt to save money, I'd booked myself a reclining seat rather than a proper bed, which turned out to be comfy if a little light on legroom. However, while I was dozing someone came and herded us all off... for reasons which (owing to being asleep) I didn't fully catch, we were being moved to proper cabins. So I got a real bed after all, and slept remarkably well.

The downside of this was that it obfuscated what a bloody long way it is to Glasgow, and the train journey home today was a bit of a shock.

No surprises, I was in a random city because I'd gone there to perpetrate rapper dancing - the Dancing England Rapper Tournament (DERT) is held annually, and is exactly what it says on the tin. Well, apart from the England bit :)

Previous years, the competition has been held in a hall of some kind, with teams dancing in turn on a stage, to be marked by judges. In some ways this is rather grim (particularly if you're competing) as the day is spent sitting about waiting, and worrying that you'll cock up the one dance you get to do... This year, it was organised as a pub crawl. Better already :)

My team wasn't competing this year, as a couple of people didn't want to go. However, we just raked 5 people together, made up a dance last week, and had a bit of a go when we got the chance. The rest of the time, we settled our backsides comfortably in one of the competition pubs, drank beer and watched people come and dance for our delight and edification.

Which brings me again to the theme of friendly pubs. Glasgow has 'em too. The pubs involved in the competition were obviously pre-arranged, but we wandered into a couple of others. Could we dance there ? Of course... In the first competition pub (which was the Victoria Bar, on Bridgegate, in case inskauldrak's reading), a friend of mine ordered two pints and a coffee. Sorry, they didn't do coffee. Though there was probably a jar of instant about somewhere, if that was OK ? He'd bring it over. No charge.

To repeat: Learn, you grumpy southern bastard pubs.

Incidentally, there was a bewildering lack of handpumps in bars. Someone told me that Scottish beer works differently - the pumps look electric, but are actually run off mains water pressure. Anyone know if there's any truth in that highly unlikely sounding rumour ?

Apart from that, I saw some good dancing, drank some nice beer, caught up with a lot of friends, and found an art gallery.

Actually, finding an art gallery in Glasgow really isn't that much of an achievement. It's overrun with the buggers. However, having nobly chosen a smidgeon of sightseeing over another trip to a pub this afternoon, I ambled gently round the town centre for a while, then went to the Gallery of Modern Art.

The town centre (sorry, city centre, I guess) is really rather pleasant, with lots of dignified looking buildings from the <mumble> period of architecture. They're of the quirky kind, where the supports for arches and balconies are often human figures, and there seem to be all kinds of unnecessary stone curlicues slapped about the place. The modern art gallery is more neo-classical with overtones of Victorian, but inside is a pleasant building, with mixtures of what I guess to be the original fixtures, and modern additions.

To be honest, I'm not sure I appreciated much of what I saw - I'm not that good at modern art in general, despite my best efforts to educate myself. In particular, there were some paintings by Bridget Riley, in what I'm going to choose to call her early deck chair period, which confused me utterly, and some driftwood sculptures (think cacky planks nailed together) which I'd have thought a bit poor if made in a junior school art class. Still, I enjoyed looking about, even if I didn't like what I saw much - there were at least some very good black and white photos, which impressed me although I'm a little annoyed to find I've forgotten the photographer's name.


This week's DHW is condign, for rising superbly to a challenge set him a few days ago. For reasons which don't entirely exist I was refusing to return something of his, and demanding as random[***]:

a paper hat

a bubble

a flower

three interesting words

a good joke

I received a rose patterened piece of wrapping paper, made into a hat. Unfolded, its blank side provided three interesting words (mostly to do with roses), and a bawdy limerick which was an agreed substitute for the joke. A small tub of rose-scented soapy water, and a carnation with its stem curved into a loop provided the bubble.

See what happens when you combine stupidity with judiciously applied creativity ?

[***] despite seeming appropriateness, this was a typo and should of course be "ransom"

Comments

Re: While I appreciate the designation...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nah, you merely said that it was far better than Gashi Gashi. I interpreted this as "GG is so awful that even these big chain joints are better", which now seems to have been wrong :)

Actually, I dunno if Satsuma is a chain, the other one you mentioned is.

Re: While I appreciate the designation...

[condign.livejournal.com]

Weren't you the one I recommended Satsuma to for some kind of work/association gathering?

Re: While I appreciate the designation...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Good lord, you don't think they let me organise work gatherings, do you ? Along with the other programmers here, I'm just about trusted not to put my paws through the bars to beg for buns when visitors come round.

So no, I don't think it was me... but if it was, I'll let you off :)

Re: While I appreciate the designation...

[condign.livejournal.com]

OK, this is driving me nuts. In the last six to eight months I've recommended Satsumas to SOMEBODY... grr... I think it's referenced in my work emails, which I can't get to at the moment.

When was your first time, then? (That you went to Satsumas, I mean...)

Re: While I appreciate the designation...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm quite prepared to believe it was me, really, I just don't remember it. The first time we went was for my birthday meeting with elethiomel, metame and leathellin which (bizarrely) was in January.

To be honest, I think I did ask you for recommendations then, so it's possible that you mentioned Satsuma.

Re: While I appreciate the designation...

[condign.livejournal.com]

I'll have to figure it out... it's bugging my memory, now. :)