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Tissue For His Issue
Feb. 13th, 2018 10:27 pmI toyed with the idea of staying out in London once Wolfie had left on the Sunday evening (4 February) but in all honesty I was feeling quite knackered. I did Google whether there were any craft beer pubs in the Baker Street area, with this being just two stops from my hotel at Wembley Park, but none particularly appealed. Indeed, Google seemed to conflate craft beer with real ale, suggesting The Globe which I knew was definitely a Cask Marque place and The Volunteer, which turned out to be a similarly traditional boozer. I decided I might as well try the latter though, as deserted as it was, and at least had a tasty half of a Thornbridge ale brewed specially for the Six Nations rugby championship. In the end though, I could have taken or left it in all honesty and after this brief tipple, I opted to head back to the hotel, with the idea of picking up a few beers en route to enjoy while I watched the Super Bowl. Knowing of a Sainsbury's around the corner from the hotel, I opted to go there, only to discover that their range of beer was somewhat lacking. I only really wanted two but the only craft they had in the whole place was four packs of Camden Pale Ale so this is what I was left with.
Arriving back at the hotel, I flopped on the bed before doing a little bit of work in preparation for the conference later in the week. This needed to be done on Sunday night as I wouldn't have time throughout Monday due to my personal arrangements. I was feeling incredibly sleepy though and I won't lie by denying that this hour and a half of work was something of a chore. Still, it did get me through to Super Bowl kick off and soon I was enjoying an enthralling end-to-end affair with the only can of Camden Pale Ale that I could be bothered to drink. I was really getting into it and had I not felt so tired, I would have probably stayed up all the way until the end, but the thoguht of sitting through forty minutes of Justin Timberlake as the half-time show was enough of a signal for me to turn out the lights and crash instead. In many ways it was a shame such was the Philadelphia Eagles' scintillating victory, but at least I had watched far more than I had done the previous year, when I had got quite wasted at the sadly now closed BrewDog Homerton bar and ended up missing most of the game.
Monday was quite a sunny if cold day, and as Wolfie had already taken the vast majority of my stuff the night before, packing and checking out of the hotel proved to be a rather painless process. I headed out shortly after 11:15am as I had arranged to meet my brother for lunch. He works as a lawyer in the city, and so we decided to meet outside the Monument, erected in rememberance of the Great Fire of London. The Hammersmith and City line was back open making travelling through the city somewhat easier, and I ended up being around ten minutes early, giving me plenty of time to marvel at this monolith, which I believe to be the tallest monolith of its time in the world. My brother was typically on time and as soon as he arrived, we weaved our way through a number of side streets before heading into Blacklock, a rather fantastic steak restaurant under the shadow of the walkie-talkie building (whatever the hell that thing is actually called). Blacklock specialisies in meat and is one of those wonderful places that only had a very limited menu, which tends to mean that what it does, it does well. And this was certainly the case here. While there were Monday specials which my brother had not yet tried, he decided to recommend the Porterhouse steak to me. You order it by weight, and it comes in pre-cut strips cooked to your liking (in our case medium-rare), so we decided to share 650g of meat while ordering our own sides. I went for the goose fat cooked chips while my brother also ordered some beef dripping infused with garlic, which was so unctuous and bad for you, yet fantastic at the same time. Our waitress was really nice and casually chatted to us, interested that for me it was a day off but for my brother it was a day of work, before the board of meat arrived for us to sample. The meal was absolutely exquisite and not too expensive considering where we were, while it was also great to catch up with my brother again, who I hadn't seen since Christmas. It's very rare that I actually see my brother - and indeed twice in six weeks is an exceptional occurance - but it was good to meet up and see a little of his world, with me living far away from the giddy sights and sounds of that there London.
I should have anticipated that he would only have about an hour for lunch, yet for some reason I had scheduled in a lot more time, meaning that by the time he left shortly before 1:20pm, I had about an hour to kill before my next appointment. Fortunately, the Monument was open and I was able to climb up it, which was something that I had never done before. My brother also recommended doing this and for the sake of £5, I thought it was a worthwhile thing to do. I had to leave my rucksack in a special plastic bin at the bottom of the winding stone spiral staircase, which was an absolute bugger for someone as unfit as I to climb up. Still, as you peered out at the intermittently placed windows, there was a real sense of progress being made as you climbed up, even if you were frequently out of breath with legs burning. Regular breaks were needed and the stairs just seemed to stretch on and on, but I did eventually reach the top, where a metal cage and some stunning views over London could be seen. You could see many of the key sights from up here, where the old and new elements of the city were rather neatly juxtaposed. To the West there was central London, to the East Canary Wharf in the distance, while to the North there was a number of the new skyscrapers which are in the process of being erected. You could see the gritty southern suburbs with the River Thames in front of them, with catermarans bombing up and down the waterway. There was a warship, I think HMS Belfast, moored near Tower Bridge, with the full panoramic vista just adding to the sense of London being a rather magical and special place. I was alone up here apart from two German tourists who were using a giant fold out map to try and identify all of the sights, something which didn't work too well due to the sharp wind gusting around at this height. All this enabled me to stay up here for a good length of time before I headed back down to ground level to pick up my bag.
I had arranged to meet Nall and Ferret at the Londonfurs meet venue near St Paul's at around 2:30pm, giving me around forty minutes to get there after reaching the base of the Monument. This was pretty easy, although I hadn't realised just how large this part of London was. As I made my way there, I called in at Marks and Spencer's to use the toilet, having had two pints of beer with my brother, while I also stopped off to see the Old Bailey, not realising that the highest court in the land was just around the corner from Jamie's. I arrived with a good ten minutes to spare and ordered myself a Diet Coke, not realising that Nall and Ferret had just arrived themselves. Having already ordered a drink, I encouraged them to do the same, and we chatted on one of the high tables near the entrance to the establishment. The place was incredibly quiet, with only one other table occupied, making quite the change from how busy it was two days earlier for the meet. Still, it was rather pleasant and as we mulled over what to do for the rest of the day, we swiftly came to the conclusion that there was nothing much else happening apart from visiting some bars. By the time we had finished our first drinks, it was already 3:15pm and with the winter light already fading, the wind becoming increasingly bitter and the cloud thickening, we didn't really fancy being outside. We toyed with the idea of going to a museum but all the ones I knew were either closed on a Monday or shut at 5pm. Consequently, and against my better judgement, a pub crawl it was but we decided at least to head to Farringdon, where I knew of a couple of good bars.
What I didn't realise was how much into drinking Nall and Ferret were, so it proved to be quite a fun afternoon. The first place we went was the Craft Beer Company, a place that JM Horse had taken me at exactly the same time of year three years previously. Nall hadn't had anything to eat but the barman kindly let him take external food into the bar, so this wasn't a problem, and we spent the next two hours in this moderately busy establishment sampling the wonderful range of craft beer they had on offer as well as chatting about all manner of subjects. I was sticking to half pints but must have had five, while Nall and Ferret were both on full measures. We didn't really have a specific plan but Ferret had already inquired with a few of his friends about whether anyone would fancy meeting up for dinner, which apparently is a Monday tradition amongst certain circles of Londonfurs. As it turned out, a couple of furs were interested, so at around 6pm we boarded a bus to Soho, where we met Scorcher in one of the bars in the area (I can't remember for the life of me which one specifically but they had a few interesting craft beers on tap I noted). I hadn't seen Scorcher in something like nine years so it was fantastic catching up with him while we waited for a fifth fur to arrive, a fascinating Australian whose name sadly escapes me. When the quintet was complete, we headed across Oxford Street towards a Korean place called BiBamBap, which turned out to be quite the revelation. The food is served in piping hot pestle-like bowls into which a raw egg is cracked. When you stir it into the pork/rice mix in my case, the egg cooks such is the heat of the bowl, creating a velvety and delicious meal. This was incredibly filling and a definite winner with me, so much so that I will have to take Wolfie there at some point in future.
The evening ended once Scorcher had left us, with the remaining four heading to BrewDog Soho for a few final drinks. It was 9[m by now and having started at 12:30pm, this was perhaps the last thing I needed, but it was a rather nice way to end the evening. I noticed that a pint of Punk IPA here had tipped over £6 and realised that this was only £1 more expensive than Leeds as opposed to the £1.20 it had been previously. I raised this at the Leeds bar and was told that they had been moved up a pricing level for whatever reason. Anywho, I enjoyed a number of great beers here too before we all walked to Tottenham Court Road, where we all went our separate ways, in my case over to Canning Town to stay at the hotel that work had booked for me. Checking in was quite straightforward and once I had dumped my bag in my room, I headed back downstairs to get some snacks. It was at this point that the company directors walked through the door after they had gone out for a meal with the other five people who were down in London representing the company at the conference. They insisted on a pre-conference drink in the bar, which was probably the last thing I needed after fourteen beers, but in the end it turned out to be an inspired move as we got quite a lot of business planning done, which was rather surprising.
The conference lasted from the Tuesday through to the Thursday, and I don't think I have had a more busy three days at work ever. I ended up walking over 20km on all three days, as well as attending numerous meetings and trying to sell our services to around seventy potential clients. I am not really a salesman but as our Sales Director was busy with meetings of his own, I had been partially brought down to do some pitching. I got more comfortable with it as the week progressed and in the end, I was pretty pleased with the reactions I received, but of course now it's all about converting the interest that I managed to garner. At these kind of events, there was an awful lot of beer flowing, which gave some of the meetings a more social feel to them, particularly with clients with whom we were already working. Furthermore, on the evenings it enabled us to sample a few of London's delights which saw us go to a sumptuous Danish/Japanese fusion sushi restaurant called Sticks N Sushi on the Tuesday evening. This was attended by all six of our team and while the food was expensive (and a bottle of beer £9), it was certainly worth it.
I had arranged to meet Tom on the Wednesday, but he cancelled last minute, and with all of my colleagues spread out across various social events, it meant I was on my own. This saw me go to the fantastic Beer and Buns near Liverpool Street station, a place that is only open on weekdays and thus one I can very rarely get to. Their steamed Japanese buns are a real delight, as is their range of Japanese beer, so I felt very much at home here, even if I was a little lonely, what with being on my own. I just caught final service though at 9pm, and due to this level of lateness, I didn't really want to arrange meeting up with any of my other friends as they would almost certainly have had a long wait for me to get across London after the conference to meet them.
Thursday was the shortest day of the conference and consequently I ran out of time to meet all of the potential clients I wanted. However, I could do no more, and upon leaving the venue at 4pm I was pretty pleased with how the week had gone. I was going to meet the Sales guy for a final beer, but Wolfie had had a bitch of a day and wanted to talk to me on the phone, so I obliged and decided to just walk back to the hotel instead. Here I waited for the company director to return as my posessions were in his room, what with me having checked out earlier that day. When he arrived, I changed out of my smart clothes and tried to cram as much of the literature I had picked up into my rucksack, meaning I had less to carry independently on my journey back north. Alas, as is often the case, I had picked up a hell of a lot and so it was a struggle getting back to Kings Cross. However, I managed to achieve this with plenty of time, so much so that I was able to treat myself to some fish and chips at the Fullers pub above platforms 9-11. This was incredibly busy but a friendly waitress found a table for me, and once I had made her aware of my tight schedule, she was exemplary in ensuring my food was delivered promptly. It was a nice way to end my six days in London and I headed home pretty content with how the trip had gone.
The train journey, aside from being about three minutes late, was largely uneventful and at the other end, Wolfie picked me up outside BrewDog, where I wanted to pick up some of the bottles available as part of the Crooked Stave takeover they had launched that evening. These were quite rare and thus expensive, with one 500ml bottle costing £27, so hopefully these will be worth it. He then drove around to Shuffledog to pick up some more, resulting in us spending £73 in total on beer. We then headed home, but hadn't encountered on the M621 being closed and no diversion signs on view, which frustrated Wolfie to a level I had never before seen. He was very angry and I did feel pretty bad asking him to pick me up after such a bad day, but we did get home eventually and share the growler of beer I had also purchased as part of the Crooked Stave event. At least this was a nice end to the day.
Arriving back at the hotel, I flopped on the bed before doing a little bit of work in preparation for the conference later in the week. This needed to be done on Sunday night as I wouldn't have time throughout Monday due to my personal arrangements. I was feeling incredibly sleepy though and I won't lie by denying that this hour and a half of work was something of a chore. Still, it did get me through to Super Bowl kick off and soon I was enjoying an enthralling end-to-end affair with the only can of Camden Pale Ale that I could be bothered to drink. I was really getting into it and had I not felt so tired, I would have probably stayed up all the way until the end, but the thoguht of sitting through forty minutes of Justin Timberlake as the half-time show was enough of a signal for me to turn out the lights and crash instead. In many ways it was a shame such was the Philadelphia Eagles' scintillating victory, but at least I had watched far more than I had done the previous year, when I had got quite wasted at the sadly now closed BrewDog Homerton bar and ended up missing most of the game.
Monday was quite a sunny if cold day, and as Wolfie had already taken the vast majority of my stuff the night before, packing and checking out of the hotel proved to be a rather painless process. I headed out shortly after 11:15am as I had arranged to meet my brother for lunch. He works as a lawyer in the city, and so we decided to meet outside the Monument, erected in rememberance of the Great Fire of London. The Hammersmith and City line was back open making travelling through the city somewhat easier, and I ended up being around ten minutes early, giving me plenty of time to marvel at this monolith, which I believe to be the tallest monolith of its time in the world. My brother was typically on time and as soon as he arrived, we weaved our way through a number of side streets before heading into Blacklock, a rather fantastic steak restaurant under the shadow of the walkie-talkie building (whatever the hell that thing is actually called). Blacklock specialisies in meat and is one of those wonderful places that only had a very limited menu, which tends to mean that what it does, it does well. And this was certainly the case here. While there were Monday specials which my brother had not yet tried, he decided to recommend the Porterhouse steak to me. You order it by weight, and it comes in pre-cut strips cooked to your liking (in our case medium-rare), so we decided to share 650g of meat while ordering our own sides. I went for the goose fat cooked chips while my brother also ordered some beef dripping infused with garlic, which was so unctuous and bad for you, yet fantastic at the same time. Our waitress was really nice and casually chatted to us, interested that for me it was a day off but for my brother it was a day of work, before the board of meat arrived for us to sample. The meal was absolutely exquisite and not too expensive considering where we were, while it was also great to catch up with my brother again, who I hadn't seen since Christmas. It's very rare that I actually see my brother - and indeed twice in six weeks is an exceptional occurance - but it was good to meet up and see a little of his world, with me living far away from the giddy sights and sounds of that there London.
I should have anticipated that he would only have about an hour for lunch, yet for some reason I had scheduled in a lot more time, meaning that by the time he left shortly before 1:20pm, I had about an hour to kill before my next appointment. Fortunately, the Monument was open and I was able to climb up it, which was something that I had never done before. My brother also recommended doing this and for the sake of £5, I thought it was a worthwhile thing to do. I had to leave my rucksack in a special plastic bin at the bottom of the winding stone spiral staircase, which was an absolute bugger for someone as unfit as I to climb up. Still, as you peered out at the intermittently placed windows, there was a real sense of progress being made as you climbed up, even if you were frequently out of breath with legs burning. Regular breaks were needed and the stairs just seemed to stretch on and on, but I did eventually reach the top, where a metal cage and some stunning views over London could be seen. You could see many of the key sights from up here, where the old and new elements of the city were rather neatly juxtaposed. To the West there was central London, to the East Canary Wharf in the distance, while to the North there was a number of the new skyscrapers which are in the process of being erected. You could see the gritty southern suburbs with the River Thames in front of them, with catermarans bombing up and down the waterway. There was a warship, I think HMS Belfast, moored near Tower Bridge, with the full panoramic vista just adding to the sense of London being a rather magical and special place. I was alone up here apart from two German tourists who were using a giant fold out map to try and identify all of the sights, something which didn't work too well due to the sharp wind gusting around at this height. All this enabled me to stay up here for a good length of time before I headed back down to ground level to pick up my bag.
I had arranged to meet Nall and Ferret at the Londonfurs meet venue near St Paul's at around 2:30pm, giving me around forty minutes to get there after reaching the base of the Monument. This was pretty easy, although I hadn't realised just how large this part of London was. As I made my way there, I called in at Marks and Spencer's to use the toilet, having had two pints of beer with my brother, while I also stopped off to see the Old Bailey, not realising that the highest court in the land was just around the corner from Jamie's. I arrived with a good ten minutes to spare and ordered myself a Diet Coke, not realising that Nall and Ferret had just arrived themselves. Having already ordered a drink, I encouraged them to do the same, and we chatted on one of the high tables near the entrance to the establishment. The place was incredibly quiet, with only one other table occupied, making quite the change from how busy it was two days earlier for the meet. Still, it was rather pleasant and as we mulled over what to do for the rest of the day, we swiftly came to the conclusion that there was nothing much else happening apart from visiting some bars. By the time we had finished our first drinks, it was already 3:15pm and with the winter light already fading, the wind becoming increasingly bitter and the cloud thickening, we didn't really fancy being outside. We toyed with the idea of going to a museum but all the ones I knew were either closed on a Monday or shut at 5pm. Consequently, and against my better judgement, a pub crawl it was but we decided at least to head to Farringdon, where I knew of a couple of good bars.
What I didn't realise was how much into drinking Nall and Ferret were, so it proved to be quite a fun afternoon. The first place we went was the Craft Beer Company, a place that JM Horse had taken me at exactly the same time of year three years previously. Nall hadn't had anything to eat but the barman kindly let him take external food into the bar, so this wasn't a problem, and we spent the next two hours in this moderately busy establishment sampling the wonderful range of craft beer they had on offer as well as chatting about all manner of subjects. I was sticking to half pints but must have had five, while Nall and Ferret were both on full measures. We didn't really have a specific plan but Ferret had already inquired with a few of his friends about whether anyone would fancy meeting up for dinner, which apparently is a Monday tradition amongst certain circles of Londonfurs. As it turned out, a couple of furs were interested, so at around 6pm we boarded a bus to Soho, where we met Scorcher in one of the bars in the area (I can't remember for the life of me which one specifically but they had a few interesting craft beers on tap I noted). I hadn't seen Scorcher in something like nine years so it was fantastic catching up with him while we waited for a fifth fur to arrive, a fascinating Australian whose name sadly escapes me. When the quintet was complete, we headed across Oxford Street towards a Korean place called BiBamBap, which turned out to be quite the revelation. The food is served in piping hot pestle-like bowls into which a raw egg is cracked. When you stir it into the pork/rice mix in my case, the egg cooks such is the heat of the bowl, creating a velvety and delicious meal. This was incredibly filling and a definite winner with me, so much so that I will have to take Wolfie there at some point in future.
The evening ended once Scorcher had left us, with the remaining four heading to BrewDog Soho for a few final drinks. It was 9[m by now and having started at 12:30pm, this was perhaps the last thing I needed, but it was a rather nice way to end the evening. I noticed that a pint of Punk IPA here had tipped over £6 and realised that this was only £1 more expensive than Leeds as opposed to the £1.20 it had been previously. I raised this at the Leeds bar and was told that they had been moved up a pricing level for whatever reason. Anywho, I enjoyed a number of great beers here too before we all walked to Tottenham Court Road, where we all went our separate ways, in my case over to Canning Town to stay at the hotel that work had booked for me. Checking in was quite straightforward and once I had dumped my bag in my room, I headed back downstairs to get some snacks. It was at this point that the company directors walked through the door after they had gone out for a meal with the other five people who were down in London representing the company at the conference. They insisted on a pre-conference drink in the bar, which was probably the last thing I needed after fourteen beers, but in the end it turned out to be an inspired move as we got quite a lot of business planning done, which was rather surprising.
The conference lasted from the Tuesday through to the Thursday, and I don't think I have had a more busy three days at work ever. I ended up walking over 20km on all three days, as well as attending numerous meetings and trying to sell our services to around seventy potential clients. I am not really a salesman but as our Sales Director was busy with meetings of his own, I had been partially brought down to do some pitching. I got more comfortable with it as the week progressed and in the end, I was pretty pleased with the reactions I received, but of course now it's all about converting the interest that I managed to garner. At these kind of events, there was an awful lot of beer flowing, which gave some of the meetings a more social feel to them, particularly with clients with whom we were already working. Furthermore, on the evenings it enabled us to sample a few of London's delights which saw us go to a sumptuous Danish/Japanese fusion sushi restaurant called Sticks N Sushi on the Tuesday evening. This was attended by all six of our team and while the food was expensive (and a bottle of beer £9), it was certainly worth it.
I had arranged to meet Tom on the Wednesday, but he cancelled last minute, and with all of my colleagues spread out across various social events, it meant I was on my own. This saw me go to the fantastic Beer and Buns near Liverpool Street station, a place that is only open on weekdays and thus one I can very rarely get to. Their steamed Japanese buns are a real delight, as is their range of Japanese beer, so I felt very much at home here, even if I was a little lonely, what with being on my own. I just caught final service though at 9pm, and due to this level of lateness, I didn't really want to arrange meeting up with any of my other friends as they would almost certainly have had a long wait for me to get across London after the conference to meet them.
Thursday was the shortest day of the conference and consequently I ran out of time to meet all of the potential clients I wanted. However, I could do no more, and upon leaving the venue at 4pm I was pretty pleased with how the week had gone. I was going to meet the Sales guy for a final beer, but Wolfie had had a bitch of a day and wanted to talk to me on the phone, so I obliged and decided to just walk back to the hotel instead. Here I waited for the company director to return as my posessions were in his room, what with me having checked out earlier that day. When he arrived, I changed out of my smart clothes and tried to cram as much of the literature I had picked up into my rucksack, meaning I had less to carry independently on my journey back north. Alas, as is often the case, I had picked up a hell of a lot and so it was a struggle getting back to Kings Cross. However, I managed to achieve this with plenty of time, so much so that I was able to treat myself to some fish and chips at the Fullers pub above platforms 9-11. This was incredibly busy but a friendly waitress found a table for me, and once I had made her aware of my tight schedule, she was exemplary in ensuring my food was delivered promptly. It was a nice way to end my six days in London and I headed home pretty content with how the trip had gone.
The train journey, aside from being about three minutes late, was largely uneventful and at the other end, Wolfie picked me up outside BrewDog, where I wanted to pick up some of the bottles available as part of the Crooked Stave takeover they had launched that evening. These were quite rare and thus expensive, with one 500ml bottle costing £27, so hopefully these will be worth it. He then drove around to Shuffledog to pick up some more, resulting in us spending £73 in total on beer. We then headed home, but hadn't encountered on the M621 being closed and no diversion signs on view, which frustrated Wolfie to a level I had never before seen. He was very angry and I did feel pretty bad asking him to pick me up after such a bad day, but we did get home eventually and share the growler of beer I had also purchased as part of the Crooked Stave event. At least this was a nice end to the day.
