Tag Archives: radio presenter
Party Goals
The year seems to be flying by the summer appears to have come and gone in a flash there is now a definite chill in the air. The other weekend Lynda and I went to Northampton to celebrate a friend’s 60th Birthday, something which we did in style as it turned out. I will be honest with you nowadays a great night out for me is one where you have an amazing time but you are still in bed by midnight. This is not exactly how this tripped worked out.
We headed there after I had got home from work on the Friday. It was about nine when we checked into our hotel and by half past we were in their local pub having a drink with the birthday boy, his girlfriend and some other mates. It was a great night just chatting and laughing. We stayed there until closing time, then went back to their house for a few more drinks and got to sleep at 3am in the end.
The next day we had to be up reasonably early as a big group of us was going to see the rugby team that the couple we knew supported. We met up at midday and found ourselves in a pub just down the road from the stadium an hour before kick off. We went to see Northampton Saints play London Irish in the Premiership which is the main rugby union division in the United Kingdom. It was the first time that I had been to their ground and to a top flight professional game. The atmosphere was great and there were plenty of places to get drinks and food, sadly though I could not eat any of it.
The home team won and I did enjoy it although a lot of the time I was not totally sure what was going on. I mean I did know when a try had been scored but that was about it. I had no idea that you were meant to stay silent whenever there was a kick to be taken. That does not happen at the football when there is a penalty kick in fact normally the crowd make more noise at that point. The first half lasted an hour as unfortunately one of the London Irish players suffered a nasty injury after being knocked out.
After the rugby we went back to the hotel and because I had not eaten at the game or was not totally sure if there would be gluten free food at the party we were going to later. I ordered a takeaway from Pizza Express. I ate that while I was watching the first half of Tottenham against Leicester on my phone. At halftime we walked down to the local pub again to meet everybody else and I watched the second half of the game. Obviously I was very happy with the 6-2 win and it was brilliant to see Son get a hat-trick. A nice way to sign off before the international break. We got a minibus from the pub to the party venue which was about a fifteen minute drive.
We arrived and nobody had any idea where the function room was so we ended up going in the furthest door away and then twenty of us had to all trudge through the restaurant and bar there to get to the private room. It was a nice little set up with its own bar, toilets and outside area away from everybody else. We saw a few people we knew so had a good chat to them. There was a barbecue which did have some chicken and salad that I could have. There was also a band who were great. The played a nice mix of cover versions and even got me up on the dance floor a few times. That is quite a rare occurrence nowadays.
The party finished at midnight then we got the minibus back to our friends’ house and just continued the celebrations there. We got to bed around 4am this time. This weekend away did prove to me that I could still be rock and roll when I needed to be but it is a lot harder doing it than it used to me. We headed back to Lynda’s house on the Sunday afternoon after stopping in to see our friends’ for a cup of tea and a quick debrief of the previous night.
As it was now a Bank Holiday Weekend we decided to go to Prezzo for a meal and to raise a glass or two for Queen Elizabeth the Second the day before her funeral. I enjoyed a three course gluten free meal there with some Prosecco. That just happened to come free with the food thanks to an offer they were running. I mean we could have stayed in after a busy weekend, but I am glad we went out. We did however have a fairly early night in the end to try to catch up on some sleep and because I did want to watch all of the funeral proceedings the next day. I am a royalist and support the whole family but the Queen was always somebody I held in very high regard.
I started watching the television coverage just after nine in the morning. The first journey for the coffin was a relatively short one but it was still a very impressive spectacle as Queen Elizabeth The Second was taken to Westminster Abbey. The building in which her Coronation had taken place nearly seventy years earlier. I thought the ceremony was lovely and I was holding myself together well until I noticed Prince Edward crying and then that set me off.
Once I had recovered my composure I watched almost transfixed as the procession made its way gracefully to the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park. It was so well marshalled and organised but then you would not expect anything less from the armed forces. Everyone who took park in that parade was immaculate. It was a fitting send off from the capital for our longest reigning monarch.
I stayed with the coverage as she was transported by road to her final resting place at Windsor Castle. As she arrived there it was beautiful to see a couple of her Corgi’s and her favourite riding pony on the grass to welcome her “home”. The committal service was very emotional particularly at the end when they removed the Jewell’s and the Crown, then the coffin started to disappear into the vault below.
It is still going to be odd not seeing her or hearing from her ever again. But I do take comfort from her being buried with her parents and her beloved Philip in the King George V chapel. I did not realise that there are quite a few royals laid to rest there at Windsor Castle including Henry VIII.
Last Sunday Lynda and I went to see a play that had been on our radar for a while. First of course we went for a meal at Wahaca. They are really good with Coeliac Disease sufferers and have a special gluten free menu plus they send out all my food with a special little allergen flag in it, which I really like. After a three course late lunch in there, a dessert is a must at all times, we took a slow stroll to the Criterion in Piccadilly.
We were there to see 2.22 A Ghost Story. It has been playing in various theatres in London for quite a while now and they seem to regularly update the cast. It is written by Danny Robbins who also has his own podcast and Radio 4 series called Uncanny which features real life ghost stories. The play however to the best of my knowledge comes from his imagination. We both really enjoyed it the plot was very clever. It makes you jump and laugh in equal measure, it is funny but it touches on a lot of very modern real and serious subjects with a constant spookiness running through it as the title suggests. And I hope this is not a spoiler but there is also a clock on stage.
The cast in the current show are Laura Whitmore, Matt Willis, Tasmin Carroll and Felix Scott and they are all brilliant. We had seats in the stalls and you really do fee part of what is happening on stage. It is very clever how they create the atmosphere and at times leave the whole audience feeling on edge. The other great thing is they have a performance at 6pm on a Sunday which means you can see the show and still be home at a reasonable time ready to start the week.
I went to the England game at Wembley on Monday with my dad and a mate. There are few bigger games in world football than us against the German’s. Although the first half did not really live up to the billing, it seemed very slow and more like a game of chess. It did pick up in the second half and ended up being an entertaining three all draw, which was about the right result in the end to be fair. I did enjoy seeing Harry Kane get his 51st goal for his country with an unstoppable penalty.
After the game only to wait for the queues for the train home to die down you understand my dad and I found a nearby pub. We plonked ourselves down on a couple of seats at a table with another lad who had also taken his father to the match. As it happened both kids and parents were around the same age, so we had a great chat for about an hour or so. They were both ace gentleman from Cheshire who had some good stories and who had done some fun and cool things. In is always interesting to meet new people randomly and have a good laugh with friendly strangers. We left them in the bar and wandered to the now nearly empty platform to get our train home. Another successful family night out for me and the old man!
A reminder that you can listen to me every Saturday afternoon between 2pm – 4pm on Radio Ninespringshttps://www.radioninesprings.co.uk/
Yesterday I had a day out at the races with a group of friends. It was our annual Ascot trip which had to take an enforced two year break, so it was good to all be together having a few drinks and watching the races. I will tell you about it next time we speak. Have fun and we will catch up again soon. Stay safe! Cheers Neil.
Time After Time
I hope you enjoyed your Easter Weekend. My mum still insists on buying me an egg which although I always tell her that she does not need to, I did as ever enjoy. In other news I did find some gluten free Hot Cross Buns that I had with some mini eggs for breakfast on the Sunday. Chocolate is an acceptable breakfast food for that weekend that is just a fact!
The trains were completely screwed during the Bank Holiday weekend, with lots of cancellations due to engineering works. Therefore I had to for the first time ever drive to a Tottenham game. Parking at the stadium is not that easy, so I decided to be organised and use one of those parking websites to book someone’s driveway. It worked out great to be fair I found a space in a nice little cul-de-sac about a thirty minute walk from the ground. The sun was shining and it was quite warm so it was a pleasant stroll. Even the traffic there and back was not too bad. In fact what was on the whole a decent experience was quite predictably ruined by the team getting beaten by Brighton thanks to a goal in the last minute. That made the walk back to the car in the sun a little bit less fun.
When I got back to Lynda’s after the match she was doing a barbecue. Her brother and his family were there along with her aunty and one of her cousins. It was nice to see everyone and have a laugh. Plus to be fair the burgers and sausages did actually cheer me up after the football. It was still nice enough to sit out in the garden and eat. The food was great as ever and there just happened to be some homemade gluten free chocolate chip doughnuts for pudding to. I think I may have eaten my own body weight in meat but in my defence I did miss out on lunch while I was watching Spurs lose.
I do not have my own Netflix account but Lynda does and the other Sunday night she managed to convince me to watch one of the films on there. I do not mind a good heist movie I normally find them quite entertaining. The one we watched was called Red Notice. It starred The Rock, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. I actually really enjoyed it, helped by the fact that it was more of a comedy than a thriller. There were some nice set pieces and nods to lots of other well known films plus a rather surprising but obvious cameo at the end. If you fancy some easy to watch light hearted fun, I would recommend it. This film is not going to change your life but it certainly will amuse you for a bit. Maybe I could still be the new Barry Norman with insight like that.
I appreciate I am a little behind the times on this one but last weekend we finally got round to completing series three of After Life. I like Ricky Gervais and always enjoy his shows, as ever there were some very funny and largely unexpected moments. It is I guess in many ways sadly a pretty accurate reflection of real life and the different types of people we come across most good some of course bad. This may just have been me but if I am honest I did not like it quite as much as the first two series. It was still good and I am glad I have seen it but it just felt like something was missing somehow. As far as I am aware he is not doing any more of them and it did tie up a lot of the loose ends nicely in the final episode as you would expect.
I did keep getting a bit distracted as a lot of the outside shots were filmed around the Hemel Hempstead Old Town area so I kept seeing a few locations that I recognised. I have the same problem when I very occasionally see any Midsomer Murders or Morse as a lot of that was made near where I live and always like to work out where they were. The first series of After Life used Beaconsfield quite a bit and I do remember watching an old episode of The Professionals where I was thrilled to see Bodie and Doyle driving through Old Beaconsfield in their Capri’s. Not sure why I like seeing places I have been to in random television programmes but I do!
I have recently celebrated the fourteenth anniversary of the day that John Nettles came on to my radio show in Somerset to film for a documentary that he was doing about the arts. I interviewed him on my show and then he asked me some questions afterwards. Both sections were used in the finished programme. During my bit to camera when he was asking me about the pressures of live radio when things go wrong I out of nowhere uttered a phrase I had never used before saying “you have just got to power on basically” which I still maintain is good life advice. I have a DVD of it which I do watch every now and again. John was great and it was a pleasure to meet him and appear on screen with him.
Late Easter Monday afternoon I met up with a mate of mine who I had not seen for a while. It was a nice day so we decided to go for walk, meaning not only could we have a good chat but we could also get some fresh air and do some light exercise. He suggested we go to Dunstable Downs. Even though I must have driven past it a hundred times I had never actually been there, so I caught up with him there. To be fair it was also pretty much the half way point between us which as I am not a massive fan of driving was another selling point for me.
The car park machine either accepted change which I did not have on me or you had to pay via an app or by calling a phone number. Annoyingly I did not have any 4G signal so I could not get the app which left me with the phone number. I called the automated line thinking that I could just pay for the parking and be done, but oh no! I had to first create an account then assign a credit card to it before trying to enter the registration number of the car, in to some sort of voice recognition system that could not seem to understand a single word I said!
Ten minutes into this process just as I was losing the will to live and still miles away from completing the task in hand my mate arrived and lent me the change to pay at the machine. Most of them accept cards nowadays but not that one. Anyway to relax after my parking issues we had a nice ninety minute walk with a tea break at the cafe in the middle. It was good to see him to talk radio, football and quote various comedy shows’ dialogue at each other, a great way to round off the Bank Holiday weekend.
Last Saturday Lynda and I went out for a meal at Pizza Express. It is on the Coeliac UK accredited list, which means that it is totally safe for me to eat there. I booked us a table for 8pm and when we arrived the place was packed. We both had a three course meal each with a couple of glasses of wine. By the time our main had arrived we were the only people still left in there. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves.
The girl who was serving us had already told me her mum was also a Coeliac which made me feel relaxed as she was clearly fully aware of the condition. Then as I was paying she spotted the screen saver on my phone which is a picture of Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son she told me she was not only a Spurs fan but was also having a trial for our ladies team. We had a lovely meal in there and needless to say our waitress got a nice tip courtesy of the information we learned about her.
I have a new fun challenge at work next week as I am covering for someone who is off on holiday and working on Radio 4 Extra. I just hope I do not break the station while he is away. I am sure it will all be fine!
I am looking forward to going to a Comedy Night at the Boxmoor Social Club in Hemel Hempstead tomorrow night. It is being run by a mate of mine Lee Bryant. He puts on a lot of events in the area. Back when I was doing a tiny bit of stand up comedy I did a few gigs with him. I will let you know what this one was like next time we speak.
A quick reminder that you can listen to me every Saturday afternoon between 2pm – 4pm on Radio Ninesprings https://www.radioninesprings.co.uk/
Have fun and we will catch up again soon. Stay safe! Cheers Neil.
Grand Weekend Away
I first went to Ladies Day at Aintree in 2010 and had such a good time within three years it had basically become a tradition. I would go up every year on the Thursday afternoon and come back on the Sunday staying with my mate Jeff. A group of us would then go to the races on the Friday, then watch The Grand National in a pub around Liverpool on the Saturday. Then of course Covid happened meaning I had not been able to go on this pilgrimage since 2019.
Fortunately the world has now reopened so the festival was back and welcoming spectators once again. Last weekend Lynda and I got the train from London to Liverpool Lime Street on the Thursday and set off on another fun adventure. Before we left we had a big meal at Leon who are a fast food chain that caters for gluten free people like me, so they have become a bit of a regular option for me.
When we got to Liverpool we then took another train to the station nearest Jeff, where he picked us up and took us back to his place. We had a cup of tea and a chat to him and his fiance plus I got to meet his son for the first time. Then Jeff, Lynda and I went out for a few drinks at a lovely local bar he knew. The plan was to ease ourselves gently in to things but failing slightly, we had a few more drinks back at his place before we took ourselves off to bed. We managed to have a bit of a lie in before it was time to get a late breakfast and get our suits on and head to Aintree. A big breakfast is very important as you can never be totally sure when you will eat again.
We were joined at the house by Jeff’s sister for a pre racing glass of fizz. The girls got a lift with Jeff’s girlfriend’s dad while we jumped on the train. We met up with them at the entrance before all heading in together. We had got tickets in the festival zone which is basically a huge marquee with bars, big screens, bookies and a stage where a band plays in between races. It is great in there as you get to have a drink, place your bets, watch the races and sing along to the band without moving too far. The racing was first class. Lynda had a couple of winners early on but I had no success on that front whatsoever. We always leave before the last race so we can get the train in to the city centre a bit ahead of the rest of the crowd. I did manage to get a quick picture with the Grand National Trophy before we left.
We arrived in the city centre and on the way to the first pub we decided to get some food. They all found a pizza place for a quick snack, while I found a subway where I managed to get a chicken salad box, not the ideal mid drinking session food but often as a coeliac you have to be a little creative in these situations. After a few different random bars including a quick dance in a place called Flares we ended up in a cocktail bar that we seem to every year now. It just so happened to be two for one happy hour so we had a few cocktails, me of course with the sweet rum and pineapple ones.
Next door there was an Only Fools and Horses themed bar. Jeff had told me about it ages ago and I really wanted to see it. Nobody else fancied it so Jeff and I literally popped in there for five minutes just so I could get some pictures of the place. We were straight in and out with the photos. I have no idea what the staff or the other customers thought we were up to. I liked it in there and the pictures are great. We then went to Eric’s on Matthew Street for more drinks and a bit of live music.
By this point we had been out for ten hours so we decided to call it a night and head back to Jeff’s for another drink and some takeaway pizza. This was my first experience of Domino’s gluten free offering and although it only comes in a small size it was very tasty. It was fantastic to get dressed up again and spend the day at the races. The atmosphere is brilliant and I always have a good time when I am out in Liverpool. My granddad grew up there and for that reason I have always felt an association with the place.
I woke up the next day feeling a lot better that I possibly deserved to, which from previous years’ experience was a bit of a result. Jeff is a huge Everton fan and they had a lunchtime kick off so he went to the game, while Lynda and I went for a nice walk round Crosby near where he lives to find some food. We tried the Moroccan restaurant that Jeff and his girlfriend recommended to us. The food was really good in there and once again we had a big meal to set us up for the day. We then went to a great bar called Inside Number 4 where we found a table near the bar to watch the day’s racing from Aintree including of course the main event The Grand National.
Jeff joined us after the match and we had some drinks while seeing the races. In the second race of the day one of the horses that I have shares in Stage Star was running. He led pretty much from the start but then tired quickly as they came to the home straight and sadly never troubled the winner. That was a bit of a shame as we thought he might run well and with a bit of luck he could win it, but sadly that was not meant to be. The Grand National is such a tough race to find the winner of, there are forty horses and thirty of the hardest fences there are, so a lot can happen over the course of the race.
I did manage to back the horse that finished fifth each way Fiddler on the Roof so I did get a little money back but there was no way I would have picked out the winner. Although with hindsight as it was Sam Waley-Cohen’s last ever race I guess it was one I should have done just in case, as it would make an amazing story as indeed it did in the end. Big congratulations to him that is one way to finish your career off on a high by winning one of the biggest occasions in the world. Fair play if you picked Noble Yeats and had a few pounds on him, you did very well there.
Last Season in the FA Cup my team Tottenham were drawn away to Marine. It was during lockdown so no fans were allowed to go to the game. That meant the club would have missed out on some vital extra ticket money, so they decided to sell virtual tickets to raise some funds. Lots of Spurs fans bought them and with the money they have been able to build a few new things at their ground including a brand new bar. The club’s base is near where Jeff lives so on the way back to his we stopped in there for a few drinks and if I am honest to see the Tottenham game which they had on the TV’s there. It was a nice bar and as Spurs won it was a lovely experience all round.
When we got back to the house we again ordered a Domino’s pizza delivery and I had exactly the same one as the previous night. Jeff is a massive Beatles fan and I had not got round to watching the Peter Jackson documentary Get Back. Therefore we watched the final part of that which culminates with that iconic rooftop concert on top of the Apple Building in London. I really enjoyed it but it is quite long so that meant we all had another late night, but having fun and being a bit rock and roll was the whole point of the weekend.
We had another leisurely start to the day on the Sunday, which did mainly involve drinking tea and chatting. Lynda and I had to get the train home so Jeff and Fiona took us into Liverpool City Centre and we had a walk round the Albert Dock with them before we left them to have a very nice steak meal at Miller and Carter. Afterwards we just about managed to get ourselves to Lime Street Station to get on our train back to London. It was as ever a fantastic weekend, it was great to see all my mates up there and I am already looking forward to Ladies Day at Aintree 2023.
Although it was not meant to be for Stage Star at Aintree another one of my horses Proclaimer just won his eighth race the other night at Kempton. He has been successful there several times this season so it is turning into his favourite place. Obviously he cannot keep winning and eventually the handicappers will catch up with him or he will have an off day, but he has been magnificent this year. He is being entered for his biggest ever race this week, so it will be very interesting to see how he does in more high class company.
My football team Tottenham have been doing a little better again recently they have managed to string a few wins together with good performances while scoring a lot of goals. I was happy when Antonio Conte got the job and he has finally got the team playing in a certain pattern and style of play that seems to suit the players we have and is making us seem a lot more stable and competitive. Admittedly if you have two world class players like Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son up front that also helps quite a bit. It could well be an interesting and entertaining end to the season now, I hope.
I went for my annual dentist check up in the week. I am sure when I was at school we had a special assembly one day demonstrating that we should really scrub our teeth clean, well either I imagined that or they were wrong. Although my teeth are perfectly healthy the gums are receding at a rate that could cause me real problems in the future. I need to adapt the way I clean my teeth. I already have an electric toothbrush but now need to just place it on each tooth and let it go between them for a few seconds. Hopefully I can master this new skill and keep my teeth and gums in good order.
Have a great Easter Weekend whatever you decide to do. I will be hunting down some gluten free chocolate eggs and possibly some Hot Cross Buns to as my way of marking the occasion. I may have a glass or two of red wine across the long weekend but as that was drank at the last supper I think that is perfectly acceptable and dare I say what he would have wanted.
A quick reminder that you can listen to me every Saturday afternoon between 2pm – 4pm on Radio Ninesprings https://www.radioninesprings.co.uk/
Have fun and we will catch up again soon. Stay safe! Cheers Neil.
Meat And Greet
How are we in October already? At the start of the year we could not really go anywhere or do anything. Ten months later and I am now able to do all of the things I did before February 2020 albeit with some extra considerations and actions of course. The time seems to have flown by although that could just be due to the fact I am getting older. I have gradually gone out more since restrictions were relaxed, when I have felt ready and comfortable in doing so. I am still curious as to how the Autumn and Winter months will go as we continue to live with Covid but if everybody is sensible and we all look after each other I am very optimistic that it will all be fine.
Last Friday night I went to support some old friends of mine at the Bucks Radio 80’s Night at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury. The two men behind the Buckinghamshire station are Nathan Cooper and Richard Carr. I used to work with them both at Mix 96. I think I must have been about twenty when we first met so it is fair to say we have known each other for a very long time now. They launched the new station online at the start of the year and this was their first big live music event.
I went with my girlfriend Lynda. It was in the second space area of the theatre as the touring version of 9 to 5 the musical was playing to a full house in the auditorium, which as a huge fan of the theatre was great to see. Although that combined with it being the release of the new James Bond film at Cinemas made it pretty difficult to find a car parking space in town. We did eventually find one and got there about half an hour after it had started. I always feel you need to be a little bit late to these things if you like to make a big entrance, as I do.
I saw both Nathan and Richard when I arrived and had a good chat to them about how they were doing in general as well as a little bit of reminiscing about the good old days. It was a very colourful event as fancy dress from the decade had been suggested and fair play most people really made an effort. We had a Faith era George Michael, a Freddie Mercury from the “I Want To Break Free” video, a couple of new romantics and The Pink Panther. I only decided that I was going quite late on so I wore some double denim and channelled my inner Shakin’ Stevens.
Dan Blaze was the DJ. I think he must have been around fifteen or sixteen when I first met him back in the Mix 96 days. He has been working in various pubs and bars in the Aylesbury area for a lot of years now. The set up he was using reminded me of the old school Chicago Rock days as he had the video playing as well as the audio. I am a massive music fan so obviously I enjoyed a night of nothing but tunes from the eighties. They also had a band, although the act they had originally booked sadly had to cancel as their lead singer had caught Covid. However the replacement group did a good job and played a very wide range of songs from the decade.
I was driving so I was drinking water all night that is not unusual for me at a disco style event as I rarely drink when I am working doing a gig. Although I do remember this one event for Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio where I had been at a football match enjoying the corporate hospitality in the afternoon and then went straight to the gig in the evening. It was a party for the station so we were all taking turns, I was only meant to do half an hour so I went on and half way through my set I managed to stop the track that was playing, which is always highly embarrassing. Nobody wants a sudden silence on the dancefloor. But normally I am always sober and really good for the record!
We had a good night dancing in our spot at the back of the room, while singing along to the music. It was nice to see so many people out together letting their hair down and enjoying themselves. It just felt normal to be back out in this kind of scenario again. I always find myself playing a game in my head where I try to second guess what song the DJ will play next based on what I would do in that situation. It is something I have done for years and proves that I spent way too much time doing gigs in my twenties and thirties. I did manage to avoid joining the large human chain during Kylie’s version of “The Locomotion”; I just felt that personally I was not quite ready for that level of contact with group of strangers just yet.
We had our picture taken by Richard on the way in as did most of the people who attended. It was against a green screen and you had the option to use some inflatable props. As soon as I saw it I had to grab the big microphone they had and start pretending to talk into it old habits die hard you know. It was a well organised and fun event. I am glad I managed to get there, hopefully it will now become an annual event and a good excuse for us all to get together and have a laugh. I also got to meet the new drive presenter Craig Wakeling. It is a great sounding local radio station run by two mates of mine, who know a lot about radio so it is definitely worth a listen if you are in or around the Aylesbury area.
Since I have been diagnosed as Coeliac I have to be more selective and careful about where I eat out. I need to find places that have a good selection of gluten free meals and that have good practices in place which means there is no risk of cross contamination. I must confess I have been very lucky and founds lots of very good places that I have felt safe eating at. The latest one of these was just a ten minute walk from Lynda’s house. It was somewhere that we had been thinking about going for a while, so we had already done the research on it. Finally we managed to find the time to try it out last Saturday.
It is called the Villas Brazil and it is as the name suggests a Brazilian steak house. We had heard very good things about it and discovered that all the meat they serve there is gluten free. The other thing that people were saying about it was that it served up a decent selection of classic cocktails. We booked a table for six. On arrival the lovely staff showed us to our seats and explained how everything worked. You could select different meal options. We went for the premium meat option. That meant we could have as much food as we liked from the buffet plus unlimited meat from their rotisserie section.
The way it works is you grab a plate and get your first selection of items from the buffet. Then you have a place mat that you can use to say yes or no depending on which way up you put it. If yes is up they will keep bringing different meat to the table and serve it to you in slices. They had a decent offering including lamb, chicken, gammon, Brazilian sausages and several different cuts of beef like some rump, sirloin and rib eye. We sampled everything more than once. They will feed you as much as you like. It was all cooked perfectly and served to you at the table straight off the skewer.
As we were enjoying the amazing food we did both treat ourselves to some cocktails. Firstly I had a Pina Colada and Lynda had their traditional Brazilian one. Pina Coladas as I have said recently did used to be my go to holiday special treat drink of choice plus they remind me of Derek Trotter, who in many ways is an idol of mine. They were both really good.
Next she had a Margarita while I for some reason went for an Expresso Martini. I do not really like coffee but I remembered having one of these before and enjoying it. I was struggling a bit with this one when I remembered the last time I had it was after a day out at Aintree Races, so I may not have enjoyed it that day as much as I thought I probably just needed the caffeine hit!
After we could not manage anymore meat they then offered us slices of caramelised pineapple, which had also been cooked on a skewer. That tasted fantastic and was certainly something I had never tried before. Somehow we also both managed desert. At the end of the meal neither of us could move. I was paying for dinner, the waitress handed me the card thing, normally when they do that you just put your pin in but she had left me to press confirm and I did not realise so I was happily putting my pin in when I noticed the amount had gone up to over one hundred thousand pounds. I pointed out the error and she returned it to the actual price that I then gratefully paid.
I would definitely go back there, it was nice and friendly. The food was brilliant. The only thing I would do differently is not eat for a few days before I went as it was an effort walking home. I love my meat but you do end up consuming more of it than you need. It was also a nice change having a few cocktails. It made it feel a bit different and special. You do have a set time of an hour and forty-five minutes at your table but that is more than enough time to enjoy all they have to offer. Lastly they were great with me and explained clearly what I could and couldn’t eat and they generally looked after us really well. Another successful meal out!
I have once again along with my girlfriend I would like to add been watching the latest series of First Dates. It is the show that I guess made Fred Sirieix a star, although he does not really do much in it. I personally think Merlin behind the bar seems to do more talking to people as well as serving the drinks. He is exactly the barman you would want if you were meeting someone on a Blind Date, I think. I do enjoy trying to work out if the couples will be compatible with each other and how they might get on.
They do seem to get some interesting people on it but they do not seem to get that much success with getting the daters in long term relationships with each other. Mind you they are trying to make an entertaining television show firstly and anything else is a bonus. I find it funny how I warm to some people easily or decide who I do not like when I first see them then often change my mind about them halfway through their date. I think I would like to eat in that restaurant it does look like it would be fun. I would like to go there with Lynda and just eaves drop on the daters in real time during their initial meeting while eating a decent meal.
Tottenham Hotspur’s season is still very hit and miss. We lost to Chelsea and then followed that defeat by then getting beaten by Arsenal in the North London Derby. That is always very upsetting when that happens, since then though we have had a good win in the pointlessly named Euro Conference with Harry Kane getting a hat-trick. Then we beat Aston Villa two-one in the Premier League. I was at both of those games and we played well and showed a bit of spirit which had been missing recently.
We go into this latest international break in eighth place four points off the leaders, which is not that bad really. We are still in all of the cup competitions so there is a very long way to go yet. It seems the issue at the moment is consistency both with the team itself and the players. They are good in one game and then not so good in the next. I am delighted with Oliver Skipp’s development I think he has been outstanding this season so far. The one pleasing thing at the moment is that despite losing to them a couple of weeks ago we are above Arsenal in the League now, come of you Spurs!
I am heading up north to just outside Manchester this weekend to see some friends, which will be good fun. We are going out to a pub that not only serves gluten free food but also has a selection of some gluten free beer that I am looking forward to sampling. Just solely for research purposes of course you understand.
I am also taking my mum to an Elvis Presley Tribute night at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre on Monday which was part of her birthday present. We are both big fans of “The King” so I am sure we will have a great time. I will tell you what it was like next time we speak.
A quick reminder that you can listen to me every Saturday afternoon between 2pm – 4pm on Radio Ninesprings https://www.radioninesprings.co.uk/
Have fun and we will catch up again soon. Stay safe! Cheers Neil.