The 12 tax dodgers of Christmas

If you keep being selfish, Santa will die

I used to be jolly and happy, a long time ago.  I made toys for little boys and girls. I loved my work and they loved me, but it just got out of hand. The world’s population kept growing and growing. Kids wanted more toys, fancier toys. We used to make wooden choo-choos and rag dolls. You ever try to make an iPod?! I’ve got orders for millions of ‘em! Look at the toxic waste we’re producing. In fact, I think the toxins are taking even more of a toll than the inbreeding.

 

 

I started with one family of magic elves. And every year, I needed more and more to keep up. Now they’re just a sickly race of mutated genetic disasters. At least 60% of them are born blind. The work load destroys them, but they don’t know anything else. It’s gotten so their instincts take over and near the end, they just walk out into the snow and die.

Then, the reindeer eat them, which just turn the reindeer into wild feral creatures with a bloodlust for elf flesh.  I don’t even pray for them anymore. Seems pointless. What God would allow this?

- Santa

 

 

Three Things: Budget Afternoon Tea

Restaurateurs and hoteliers have in recent years discovered that they can throw together a few sandwich triangles, a couple of reheated scones, and a bit of chopped up cake and charge up to £50 per head for it under the guise of afternoon tea.   This may be fine for the tourist who chooses to visit Harrods or The Ritz because they feel they should, but those who want a more local, regular experience of afternoon tea often have to dig a little deeper to find something that is of good value.

Here are three that I’ve found scattered throughout the city:

Tea, Paternoster Square, St Paul’s

Ok, so the setting isn’t very decadent – pine tables and chairs round the back of an office building.  BUT there is a very nice view of St Paul’s Cathedral should you choose to sit outside, and a cream tea (finger sandwiches, a scone, and a pot of tea) was a measly £8 the last time I visited.  Definitely enough to share between two or three as a snack or to yourself as a meal substitute.

 

Fifth Floor, Harvey Nichols, Knightsbrige

Forget the bloated nightmare across the way that is Harrods (plush on the outside, John Lewis clearance sale beyond the ground floor) and head to the sleek, stylish settings of Harvey Nichols.  The restaurant is a bit high-end, but the cafe – with its garden terrace in the summer – is just as quiet and elegant.  An afternoon tea tower (sandwiches, scones, cakes) is just shy of £20, but the staff don’t seem to be fussy about adding extra cups of tea to make one serving feed several mouths.

 

The Wallace Collection, Marylebone (just behind Selfridges)

You need to walk through The Wallace Collection’s…collection to get to the central atrium for tea.  With damask walls, antique paintings, and gold artefacts, that’s the opulent end of the deal sorted.  In the restaurant, tea can be served at three levels – cream tea, afternoon tea, and high tea, with prices ranging from £10-20 respectively.  If you approach the experience with a leisurely attitude, service is swift, discreet, and efficient, and the ambience is surprisingly calm for somewhere that’s a block away from the hell of Oxford Street.

Three Things: Tax

There are some entities whose tax evasion I don’t really mind, because I’ve either stolen from them in return (Jimmy Carr, who did it – technically – legally, who unlike the politicians is very good at his job and whose DVDs I illegally download every year) or they save me hundreds of pounds every year (eBay, my love).

I am however making baby steps in taking advantage of the others (Amazon – using their wishlist and marketplace functions but not buying anything on-site, and Starbucks – using free wifi, toilets, and heat without purchasing anything).

 

And I paid my tax bill this week because I am a good girl.

Lyon 2012

Lyon 2012, a set on Flickr.

This One Is On Us mentioned in the Empirical Musicology Review

This One Is On Us has been discussed in an article entitled “Artist autonomy in a digital era: The case of Nine Inch Nails”, which can be found in the Empirical Musicology Review, a journal created to “provide an international forum promoting the understanding of music in all of its facets”.

In the case of Nine Inch Nails, and returning to reciprocity, perhaps the best illustration of how  important the working relationship is between artist and fan can be found in the organisation This One Is  On Us, an international group of Nine Inch Nails fans who have filmed and produced a series of live  concert films, with high quality audio provided by Reznor himself. The commitment to work towards a  shared goal is inspirational, and indicative of their commitment to the band. Their positive mission  statement, below, draws together several of the threads discussed so far, shining optimistic light on the  potential future of how fans and artists will interact:

We aim to restore live music as a shared, passionate entity, and work with those who embrace new  media and the realities of the Internet to build on their relationship with fans through collaboration and to create unique documents of their live events. Providing organizational, technical and financial support, we encourage fan communities to plan and execute first-rate film and audio recordings, and turn the resulting content into professional quality releases. Direct fan involvement allows us to capture the essence of a live experience, not only providing a souvenir for those that attended, but also allowing the world to live the show virtually first-hand. This One Is On Us profoundly enhances the relationship between artist and fan; a revolution emerges where the two meet
(This One is On Us, 2010)

The full article can be read here.

London Cocktail Week – The Weekend

This week is London Cocktail Week – seven days of workshops, tastings, pop-ups, and drink offers.  There’s far too much going on to be able to sample everything, so my friends and I have decided to stick to the cocktail tours on the website.  This is how we got on.

Saturday

1.) The Player

The Player, and in particular their sliders provided by Lucky Chip, have been hotly touted by review sites and magazines recently, so it was right at the top of our list of places to try.  The reality of the venue was extremely underwhelming, however, with decor that was more of a throwback to the 70s than anything the name or reputation suggested.  Our waitress told us that the LCW offer was a take on the daquiri with added gin and grapefruit.  She then proceeded to bring us two margheritas.  Oh well, at least the food looked good.

2). La Perla

The sister bar of Cafe Pacifico, our visit here was brief but successful.  We ordered a trio of margheritas which were well balanced, hit the spot, and almost made us forget our previous stop.  This bar is also close to Bam-bou and Bourne & Hollingsworth (also on the LCW list) which I had been to before and enjoyed, so it was also nice to know that there was another place to visit in the area.

3). Dabbous

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Dabbous.  It’s a Michelen-starred restaurant with a bar that, from the website, looks like it would be at home in New York.  On arrival, we were quickly taken to our reserved area in the downstairs bar, which luckily was a lot more low-key and low-lit than anticipated.  Our service was speedy, our drink interesting if a little juicy (and again a good sign that this was something from their standard menu), and our experience fun.  The bar snacks were slightly overpriced, however, at £8 for a boiled egg and £9 for four cubes of cheese, but if you save your appetite for the (surprisingly reasonably priced) menu above, the prospect of returning becomes very attractive indeed.

4). Reform Social and Grill

I had very high hopes for this one.  Housed in the Mandeville hotel, which has a reputation for being “for men” and with an afternoon tea that is either “vintage” or “gentleman”, I thought it would be exactly what I was looking for.  So much so, that I opted to bring high heels and fully fashioned stockings with me for the occasion.

The hotel is very boyish, with chesterfield sofas, car models, and a lot of dark wood.  What let it down, however, was the clientele.  They were nothing particularly rude or low-class, but of course this being a hotel just off Oxford Circus, it was populated with tourists in trainers and rainproof coats – not exactly the sartorial experience I was expecting.  Still, I made myself comfortable, draping myself across a sofa with my bra exposed and sipping on the biggest gin sour I’ve ever seen in my life.  I might come back here, position myself where there are a lack of humans, and daydream about the 50s.

Sunday

1) Smatt’s Rum & Ice  Cream Shack

Hugely popular, and by consequence hugely overcrowded, this LCW pop-up has a simple theme – rum in drinks and rum in ice cream.  Their cocktails are largely based on classics, and their ice creams are largely based on their cocktails.  By Sunday evening, they could be forgiven for having run out of several flavours, but with the experience being the reason for our visit, we tried a couple of pineapple-flavoured scoops.  As an alcoholic thing it’s not very remarkable, but as an ice cream it is quite interesting.  I probably wouldn’t order this in a restaurant but I would want a tub to take home for a dinner party.

2) Westbourne House

There is little of interest in Bayswater, and to an extent Westbourne House echoes this.  The decor might have more in common with Croydon or Chelmsford that Notting Hill, but the service takes strides to make up for this.  Surprisingly, we were offered a choice of seven LCW cocktails to choose from, and went for a Bloody Mary and Raspberry fizz.  Both were fairly weak and inoffensive, but we were partly glad to be visiting somewhere that didn’t overload the drinks with lemon juice.  There was a nice roaring fire, reasonably priced tapas, but no real soul.

3). Beach Bar Babylon

Despite the fact that BBB were hosting the LCW shuttle service, our waitress informed us on arrival that they “had stopped the offer…it was just a vodka bubblegum thing anyway”.  Sat in opulent chairs by a roaring fire, we decided to stay on anyway, and ordered an a la carte cocktail and a pear cognac.  The decor upstairs is confusing, but the restaurant below has echoes of the Catacombs in Paris, with booths set into stone walls and several alcoves and alleyways.

London Cocktail Week: Day 4

This week is London Cocktail Week – seven days of workshops, tastings, pop-ups, and drink offers.  There’s far too much going on to be able to sample everything, so my friends and I have decided to stick to the cocktail tours on the website.  This is how we got on.

Thursday

1). Paramount

Paramount lives on the 32nd floor of Centre Point.  Until recently it was a members-only club, and the entrance procedure remains quite hush-hush; you need to be on the guest list, you need to give your name on arrival  and an operator will put you in the lift and tap in a code to get you up there.  I can understand why they don’t want this place to be made available to the unwashed masses.  With amazing panoramic views of London, appropriate level lighting, and an impressive drinks list, it’s the sort of place you would want to make an effort for. And the fact that the clientele had made the experience even better.

Our cocktail was a curious orange-gin-elderflower mix, with added vinegar and Noilly Prat.   It was a slow drink, with several layers of aftertaste.  I’m not quite sure if I liked it, but the experience of being at Paramount was worth any displeasure with the cocktail.

 

 

2). Circus

I’d been to Circus before, so knew what to expect from the venue.  It is essentially a high-end restaurant with Big Top-style entertainment.  The eating area has a long waiting list, but the show can be enjoyed for free from the bar area.  Food is expensive, but drinks are reasonable, with glasses of wine from £5.

Circus were offering a similar cocktail to Paramount, but with decidedly fewer frills.  Gin, an earl grey liqueur, and lemon juice made up the bulk of this drink, which came with a marshmallow perched on top.  This was perhaps one of the few venues that was making the most of LCW by showing off the best of their talents.  The drink certainly suited the venue, and was good enough for us to order a second round – for the first time all week.

 

 

3). Dial Bar

They had “run out” of their sponsored spirit.  This was baffling, so we left

 

4). Detroit

Again, an old favourite with a decent offering for LCW.  Detroit doesn’t look like much when you arrive.  The walls are garish, the seating basic, and you might be mistaken for thinking that this were a student bar.  But the bartenders certainly know their stuff.

Making the most of London Cocktail Week, Detroit offered us one of the signature sours from their menu.

 

 

5). L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon

This Michelin-starred restaurant would usually be above and beyond my budget, but the LCW offer found us winding up the night in their top floor salon, leisurely sipping (suitably) Prohibition-era Mary Pickfords (light rum, pineapple juice, pomegranate grenadine & Maraschino liqueur) until long after the tubes had shut.  This stop, if not this evening, made the entire event worth it.  It was a chance to sample something a little exotic from a connoisseur of the field – quite a treat!

 

London Cocktail Week: Day 3

This week is London Cocktail Week – seven days of workshops, tastings, pop-ups, and drink offers.  There’s far too much going on to be able to sample everything, so my friends and I have decided to stick to the cocktail tours on the website.  This is how we got on.

Wednesday

1). Boyd’s Brasserie

A few moments away from Trafalgar Square, Boyd’s is a huge marble-looking room with several opulent wingbacked chairs mixed with Conran barstools and dining tables.  Its standard bar menu is reasonable (if a little short), so we started the night here with the hopes that it would be a place worth returning to in future.  The LCW consisted of a gin sour, a whiskey/ginger cocktail, and a fruitier option with pimms and mint.  We went for the second and third options  but was surprised to find that our cocktails were priced at £11 each, as opposed to the £4 expected on the promotion.  The menu (pictured below) did not suggest what our waitress later confirmed, that only the first cocktail was a part of the LCW offer, the remaining drinks being “bartender specials”.  Luckily, the bar manager accepted our complaint, saying that our initial waiter should have pointed this out and that it was his first day, and let us have the two drinks for £4.

Despite the menu farce, the service was very good and reasonably swift, the ambiance was cosy but classy, and the drinks were excellent.  Boyd’s is in just the right part of town to be a reliable last minute pit-stop, so we’ll more than likely return.

 

 

2). Christopher’s

There’s very little of worth to say about Christopher’s.  With lashings of Jack Daniel’s, innuendos all over the menu (where apparently JD is worth upgrading a Woodford Reserve Old Fashioned to by £5) and club music, this “Martini” bar would probably be a perfect place for those in their late teens or early 20s.  Their LCW cocktail contained Jack Daniel’s Honey, Limoncello and cranberry juice.  It was pretty abysmal.

Christopher’s does have very comfortable booths (spacious enough to sleep in!), but for good quality drinks it’s probably worth skipping across the road to b@1 (if you like your drinks trendy and juicy) or rolling down the hill a few steps to Cellar Door (which is unmatched for its cabaret, vintage ambience, and outstanding classic cocktails).

 

 

3). The Bourbon Empire

An LCW pop-up, this cash bar was comfortably busy for a Wednesday night.  Unlike several of the sponsored venues, The Bourbon Empire – sponsored by Buffalo Trace Bourbon – served a number of cocktails including Manhattans and Sours, along with a range of shots and bourbons to be savoured slowly.  Although service was a little slow, my Manhattan was flawless, and it’s such a shame that I won’t be able to come back again!

 

 

4). The Covent Garden Cocktail Club

Again, were I in my late teens, fascinated by Jack Daniel’s, and up for a bit of a dance with a posher-than-usual drink, I would probably come here.  But, sat at the bar with memories of my bourbon cocktail still fresh in my mind, I could only watch in distain as the side-cap wearing bartender poured vodka and pomegranate simultaneously into a glass, sprinkled dessicated coconuts over it, and handed me my “cocktail”.

We poured most of our drinks into a nearby pot plant and headed back to Cafe Pacifico for a reliable mojito to wash the taste out.

London Cocktail Week: Day 2

This week is London Cocktail Week – seven days of workshops, tastings, pop-ups, and drink offers.  There’s far too much going on to be able to sample everything, so my friends and I have decided to stick to the cocktail tours on the website.  This is how we got on.

Tuesday

I was flying solo on Tuesday so only had time for one – very important – stop.

After replacing my lost wristband at the LCW hub, I visited Coco De Mer, who were running a Cointreau pop-up.  Cointreau being my favourite alcohol and Coco De Mer being home to many decadent and beautiful things, this was a perfect match for me, and the deciding factor in my participating in this week at all.

It’s worth noting however that ONLY Coco De Mer customers are allowed to take part in the Cointreau event.  This (along with a few other bits of important information across the schedule) was not mentioned on the LCW literature, so was a surprise to several of the people visiting the shop while I was there.

Luckily, I don’t need an excuse to shop here, so I returned home with oils in my handbag, a “red stiletto” in my tummy, and six new recipies to try out at home.

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