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I have just spent the week in London with work, attending the biggest conference in the industry. It's always a busy time, what with a large number of meetings slotted around the exhibition itself, meaning that there is an awful lot of client meeting and greeting to do, not to mention selling of our products to prospective new clients. I quite like the lead-up to the event as it tends to give the month of January some sort of purpose, but it is incredibly full-on, meaning that I worked exceptionally long days, particularly on Tuesday and Wednesday. Added to this is the pervasive drinking culture that forms part of everything, meaning that I had alcohol on nine successive days, which isn't particularly adviseable. Indeed my last dry day was a week last Friday, so I am looking forward to today being considerably healthier.
There was quite a lot of drink on the stands at the conference, but much of the socialising was done afterwards as every evening we went out for a meal as a team. This saw me go to a nice little Italian place around the corner from the exhibition centre on Monday, followed by a rather adequate and overpriced steak meal at The Ivy near Tower Bridge on Tuesday. I wasn't in the best of moods going into this though, partly on account of a severe hangover following Monday's escapades and also an intransigent taxi driver who insisted he could drive us right in front of the restaurant even though it was by the river on a pedestrianised area. What made this worse was that he was listening to TalkSPORT's coverage of Middlesbrough's miserable defeat at Newport, a team two leagues below us, in the FA Cup which didn't put me in such a good humour. Still, at least the close up views of Tower Bridge were worth it, not to mention the winter fog circulating around the top of the Shard. There is an Ivy in Leeds now, but after my experience here, I can't help but feel they are trading off the name somewhat as it really was quite average. Still, perhaps I was just cranky after an involved day which had seen me do ten hours of constant work on the back of a previous day that had seen us arrange a meeting in a Brewdog for 2pm only for the client to turn up at 4:20pm instead, with us now being four pints into the afternoon. Add this to the pre-meal drink in the hotel (where my boss noted that I was already struggling), the wine at the meal and then some double gins someone was inexplicably buying afterwards and suffice to say that on Monday night I headed to bed pretty wrecked.
Wednesday's meal was at The Ned, but two of our directors were dining an important client, so there were only three of the team there. Situated in the former Bank of England, this had a Roaring Twenties style, with a band on a central circular plinth playing jazz versions of modern pop songs. It worked quite well with its dark lightning and plunging green columns, and we grabbed a drink at the rather swish bar before heading to our seats for our meal about forty-five minutes later. I had the salmon followed by the burger here, with both being particularly divine and at very reasonable prices considering our surroundings. It was certainly one of the better meals I had had during my stay in the capital.
I didn't join everyone for dinner on Thursday, opting instead to go into Central London where I tried the sumptuous garlic, spring onion and paremsan fries at Shake Shack. This is one of those chains that seems exclusively confined to the centre of the city, where there are many of them, but with succulent burgers and reasonable prices throughout, it was certainly a good place for a quick bite to eat. I had walked from Green Park up to Leicester Square, with my destination being the Leicester Square Theatre where I had booked to see Remainiacs Live. I have been pestering the team to come outside of London as it's very rare I am in the capital on a weekday, but as luck would have it, their fifth ever live show was on the Thursday I was down there on this conference. Consequently, I snapped at the chance of getting a ticket, securing a front row seat too. I was sat next to a rather charming old lady from the Forest of Dean, who just so happened to be working in the city that week too, while the lovely atmosphere began pretty much as I walked through the door of this rather quaint old theatre when I got chance to speak to the wonderful producer Andrew Harrison who was manning the merchandise stall. I promised to buy a mug afterwards, which I dutifully did, while the evening very much felt like being amongst friends. The Remainiacs podcast, it is no understatement to say, has kept me somewhat sane during the last thirty months of hell and with the future looking increasingly grim, it's one of the few solaces I have. It was therefore great to hear live the voices who have kept me company for so many a lonely bus journey and to share our frustration and indignation at the clusterfuck that is Brexit. All presenters - Dorian Lynsky, Ian Dunt, Niomi Smith and guest David Schneider, a man I have followed ever since The Day Today - were on great form and the warmth and humour of the show certainly alleviated the horror that is the reality. It was also great to bump into Ian at the end, if only to rant to him about my pro-Brexit MP, highlight how good Hilary Benn has been and to apologise for my continued petantry in terms of highlighing the mistakes in his columns. He was most thankful as it turned out, warm and charming, and it was a real thrill to have met my political hero.
Feeling aloof, I entered the weekend in good mood, leaving the conference on the final day at 3pm to head to Barking, where I had booked a hotel to stay the weekend. I tend to do this when I am down in London on business and I had arranged to meet a number of people both before and after my week of work. Indeed, on the Sunday evening beforehand I had stayed over at Ferret and Leo's in Twickenham, sharing some beers amongst the Pawpet Show puppets, not to mention going to a fantastic little boozer with Ferret for some top quality pies. On the Monday, before heading for my meeting at Brewdog, I had caught up with my brother around Chancery Lane, heading to a small greasy spoon style deli where I had the largest omelette and chips you had ever seen while on Friday I had arranged to meet Viper in the Tower Hill Brewdog after he had finished work as he wanted to go to a number of Brewdog bars to fill up his Intergalactic Visa. With Wolfie scheduled into London at around 10pm, I was more than happy to oblige, and we ended up going to four bars in the end, walking between all of them. This turned out to be positive as despite the vastly increased alcohol consumption of the week, I also increased my calorie burning by over 2,000 which offsets some of it at least. After Tower Hill, we went to Shoreditch where we grabbed a burger (my seitan one was a little too chewy in all honesty) followed by Clerkenwell then Angel before Viper headed back home, saying he was feeling tired after a long week of work. It was great catching up with him and we both took a bus back to King's Cross. Having said goodbye at the entrance to the Circle Line, I had about a half hour before Wolfie's train was due to arrive, so I situated myself in the average Fuller's bar above the Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 sign - still wierdly popular even though it's nowhere near platforms 9 and 10, nor is it even where it was filmed - and waited for him to turn up. In the end, we just agreed to meet in the bar as it was pushing past 10pm now and there was nowhere else to go in the time available. As it turned out, Wolfie had had a very rough week and was feeling incredibly down - far worse than I have ever seen him - so after a couple of halves and a reassuring chat, we headed back to the hovel that is Barking and to our hotel.
Saturday we had planned to meet up with Gothi, arranging to meet at BrewDog Tower Hill at 1:30pm, which was pretty much the time we were all up and ready, after picking up the one and only geocache in the place of course. I had chosen Barking as a place to stay due to the twenty minute train ride into Fenchurch Street, which was convenient for the bar, although I must admit the place reminded me a lot like Middlesbrough so I doubt we will be back. The clientelle in the hotel were also somewhat ropey, so I think we'll be staying elsewhere in future. Still, it served as a base, and we were looking forward to seeing our friend, who we rarely get to see out of conventions or meets these days. She is quite a drinker though and the day proceeded thusly, with us sampling a few in BrewDog before heading over to The Draft House around the corner. This chain is also BrewDog owned, but I wanted to go as Wolfie had never been. Alas, like with the BrewDog bar, the Six Nations rugby was being shown in both, which somewhat altered the atmosphere and made it difficult to talk. Still, we needed food, so we had some nachos while Gothi grabbed some whitebait while the barmaid also confused me for a girl, which pretty much made my week.. We were also recommended some bars in Hoxton, just north of Shoreditch. This was only about a half hour walk away, so we proceeded up there, with me soon realising that this was where the Mikkeller bar was. This has only just opened with the help of Rick Astley, a fact that amused Gothi particularly, and it turned out to be his birthday on Tuesday meaning that there was a party in full swing. Alas the man was not there but we did manage to sample a couple of excellent beers from their taproom before heading over to a microbrewery right underneath Hoxton station.
Gothi had mentioned there was a munch on in Holborn and that a few of her friends were attending. It was an under-35s thing, but I doubted anyone would mind me being 36, particularly as my partner is under 35 and the rules stipulated that this would be fine. Not fancying a forty-five minute walk. Gothi introduced us to a new taxi service which is run through an app and delivers people from one bus stop to another bus stop in central London. I quite liked it and the taxi driver, a big bearded fellow, was very chatty and amiable. It was a very pleasant ride and soon enough we were outside the Cittie of Yorke, outside which stood Gothi's friends. After saying hi and going inside, we grabbed a beer and chatted as a threesome for a while, then decided to go to the far end of the arched underground space which was where our friend's friends were sat. It was great meeting them and we had a pleasant couple of hours chatting about all manner of stuff. It was great to meet some people outside the fandom and while we will not always be able to get down to this munch, we will certainly do our best. Alas, it was rather sad when it was time to leave, but we had plans back at the hotel and it was getting quite late, with the meet starting to wind down. The three of us therefore went back to Barking, with Gothi inviting another local friend of hers, who had a short bus journey to make from Dagenham. After a quick trip to the off licence and then McDonald's, we made our way back to the hotel for a few hours, with Gothi's friend swinging by about ten minutes after we had all arrived back.
In the end, Gothi ended up staying the night, giving us an impromptu Sunday together. This started around noon, when we once again headed into the heart of London, with Japan Centre being our port of call for lunch. What we didn't realise was that the main Chinese New Year celebrations were taking place around Trafalgar Square, so everywhere was incredibly busy including this fantastic sushi restaurant in the heart of a Japanese supermarket. We did manage to find a couple of seats though, with me standing to eat my delicious plastic tray of sushi, and I do think it was ultimately worth it. Indeed, after a week of farily calorific and greasy food, it was good to get anything healthy in all honesty. We had our bags with us - in my case a huge heavy bag of a week's suppliers not to mention my work stuff along with another bag of crap I had picked up at the conference - so we couldn't really enjoy much of the New Year celebrations. True to form, we therefore went to BrewDog Seven Dials, where we sampled a few drinks, including the new Overworks ones, which are also now available in bottles for the first time. We were drinking thirds while Gothi was drinking pints, which had pretty much been the case the previous day too, but I was starting to feel the excess and really was taking it slow, for my liver, not to mention my wallet. After four drinks, we headed into Soho, checking out a number of shops before going to one of the bars on Bateman Street, which was a rather pleasant experience. They had the tail end of the rugby on - it had been in the basement of Brewdog but well away from us - as England hammered France so the atmosphere was buoyant. It was good to see some craft beer in there too, while some of the chinzy statues were somehow befitting of an LGBT venue.
Our last call of the day was just down the road - Herman Ze German, a currywurst restaurant serving traditional German sausage. I'm not a huge C-Wurst fan but as this is their signature dish, I thought it was worth a try. I went for Mild while Wolfie went for Burner, the second hottest to my second weakest, and I must admit it was rather nice. I also loved seeing the silly Berliner bear on the cans trying to carry his beer, not to mention the woodland theme murals in the basement. Anyway, the food wasn't as good as what you would get in Germany but it was rather nice and is a place worth going back to, and indeed we are glad we had visited it. I had only discovered it as we had walked from Embankment up to Charing Cross near the Theodore Bullfrog, the old London Meet venue, so it was fortunate there was another branch near where we were. The fact there was German football on a German TV channel on in the place too (Dusseldorf v Stuttgart) only added to the experience. With forty-five minutes to our train, it was sad to say goodbye to Gothi but this is what we needed to do before yomping through Soho to Leicester Square and our Piccadilly Line service. We had a slight incident at Russell Square where the train stopped for a while as the emergency chord had been pulled on a train in front of us at King's Cross but we did eventually get to our station in time, enabling us to travel all the way back to Leeds in front of sniffly mccough man who may have given me a cold.
There was quite a lot of drink on the stands at the conference, but much of the socialising was done afterwards as every evening we went out for a meal as a team. This saw me go to a nice little Italian place around the corner from the exhibition centre on Monday, followed by a rather adequate and overpriced steak meal at The Ivy near Tower Bridge on Tuesday. I wasn't in the best of moods going into this though, partly on account of a severe hangover following Monday's escapades and also an intransigent taxi driver who insisted he could drive us right in front of the restaurant even though it was by the river on a pedestrianised area. What made this worse was that he was listening to TalkSPORT's coverage of Middlesbrough's miserable defeat at Newport, a team two leagues below us, in the FA Cup which didn't put me in such a good humour. Still, at least the close up views of Tower Bridge were worth it, not to mention the winter fog circulating around the top of the Shard. There is an Ivy in Leeds now, but after my experience here, I can't help but feel they are trading off the name somewhat as it really was quite average. Still, perhaps I was just cranky after an involved day which had seen me do ten hours of constant work on the back of a previous day that had seen us arrange a meeting in a Brewdog for 2pm only for the client to turn up at 4:20pm instead, with us now being four pints into the afternoon. Add this to the pre-meal drink in the hotel (where my boss noted that I was already struggling), the wine at the meal and then some double gins someone was inexplicably buying afterwards and suffice to say that on Monday night I headed to bed pretty wrecked.
Wednesday's meal was at The Ned, but two of our directors were dining an important client, so there were only three of the team there. Situated in the former Bank of England, this had a Roaring Twenties style, with a band on a central circular plinth playing jazz versions of modern pop songs. It worked quite well with its dark lightning and plunging green columns, and we grabbed a drink at the rather swish bar before heading to our seats for our meal about forty-five minutes later. I had the salmon followed by the burger here, with both being particularly divine and at very reasonable prices considering our surroundings. It was certainly one of the better meals I had had during my stay in the capital.
I didn't join everyone for dinner on Thursday, opting instead to go into Central London where I tried the sumptuous garlic, spring onion and paremsan fries at Shake Shack. This is one of those chains that seems exclusively confined to the centre of the city, where there are many of them, but with succulent burgers and reasonable prices throughout, it was certainly a good place for a quick bite to eat. I had walked from Green Park up to Leicester Square, with my destination being the Leicester Square Theatre where I had booked to see Remainiacs Live. I have been pestering the team to come outside of London as it's very rare I am in the capital on a weekday, but as luck would have it, their fifth ever live show was on the Thursday I was down there on this conference. Consequently, I snapped at the chance of getting a ticket, securing a front row seat too. I was sat next to a rather charming old lady from the Forest of Dean, who just so happened to be working in the city that week too, while the lovely atmosphere began pretty much as I walked through the door of this rather quaint old theatre when I got chance to speak to the wonderful producer Andrew Harrison who was manning the merchandise stall. I promised to buy a mug afterwards, which I dutifully did, while the evening very much felt like being amongst friends. The Remainiacs podcast, it is no understatement to say, has kept me somewhat sane during the last thirty months of hell and with the future looking increasingly grim, it's one of the few solaces I have. It was therefore great to hear live the voices who have kept me company for so many a lonely bus journey and to share our frustration and indignation at the clusterfuck that is Brexit. All presenters - Dorian Lynsky, Ian Dunt, Niomi Smith and guest David Schneider, a man I have followed ever since The Day Today - were on great form and the warmth and humour of the show certainly alleviated the horror that is the reality. It was also great to bump into Ian at the end, if only to rant to him about my pro-Brexit MP, highlight how good Hilary Benn has been and to apologise for my continued petantry in terms of highlighing the mistakes in his columns. He was most thankful as it turned out, warm and charming, and it was a real thrill to have met my political hero.
Feeling aloof, I entered the weekend in good mood, leaving the conference on the final day at 3pm to head to Barking, where I had booked a hotel to stay the weekend. I tend to do this when I am down in London on business and I had arranged to meet a number of people both before and after my week of work. Indeed, on the Sunday evening beforehand I had stayed over at Ferret and Leo's in Twickenham, sharing some beers amongst the Pawpet Show puppets, not to mention going to a fantastic little boozer with Ferret for some top quality pies. On the Monday, before heading for my meeting at Brewdog, I had caught up with my brother around Chancery Lane, heading to a small greasy spoon style deli where I had the largest omelette and chips you had ever seen while on Friday I had arranged to meet Viper in the Tower Hill Brewdog after he had finished work as he wanted to go to a number of Brewdog bars to fill up his Intergalactic Visa. With Wolfie scheduled into London at around 10pm, I was more than happy to oblige, and we ended up going to four bars in the end, walking between all of them. This turned out to be positive as despite the vastly increased alcohol consumption of the week, I also increased my calorie burning by over 2,000 which offsets some of it at least. After Tower Hill, we went to Shoreditch where we grabbed a burger (my seitan one was a little too chewy in all honesty) followed by Clerkenwell then Angel before Viper headed back home, saying he was feeling tired after a long week of work. It was great catching up with him and we both took a bus back to King's Cross. Having said goodbye at the entrance to the Circle Line, I had about a half hour before Wolfie's train was due to arrive, so I situated myself in the average Fuller's bar above the Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 sign - still wierdly popular even though it's nowhere near platforms 9 and 10, nor is it even where it was filmed - and waited for him to turn up. In the end, we just agreed to meet in the bar as it was pushing past 10pm now and there was nowhere else to go in the time available. As it turned out, Wolfie had had a very rough week and was feeling incredibly down - far worse than I have ever seen him - so after a couple of halves and a reassuring chat, we headed back to the hovel that is Barking and to our hotel.
Saturday we had planned to meet up with Gothi, arranging to meet at BrewDog Tower Hill at 1:30pm, which was pretty much the time we were all up and ready, after picking up the one and only geocache in the place of course. I had chosen Barking as a place to stay due to the twenty minute train ride into Fenchurch Street, which was convenient for the bar, although I must admit the place reminded me a lot like Middlesbrough so I doubt we will be back. The clientelle in the hotel were also somewhat ropey, so I think we'll be staying elsewhere in future. Still, it served as a base, and we were looking forward to seeing our friend, who we rarely get to see out of conventions or meets these days. She is quite a drinker though and the day proceeded thusly, with us sampling a few in BrewDog before heading over to The Draft House around the corner. This chain is also BrewDog owned, but I wanted to go as Wolfie had never been. Alas, like with the BrewDog bar, the Six Nations rugby was being shown in both, which somewhat altered the atmosphere and made it difficult to talk. Still, we needed food, so we had some nachos while Gothi grabbed some whitebait while the barmaid also confused me for a girl, which pretty much made my week.. We were also recommended some bars in Hoxton, just north of Shoreditch. This was only about a half hour walk away, so we proceeded up there, with me soon realising that this was where the Mikkeller bar was. This has only just opened with the help of Rick Astley, a fact that amused Gothi particularly, and it turned out to be his birthday on Tuesday meaning that there was a party in full swing. Alas the man was not there but we did manage to sample a couple of excellent beers from their taproom before heading over to a microbrewery right underneath Hoxton station.
Gothi had mentioned there was a munch on in Holborn and that a few of her friends were attending. It was an under-35s thing, but I doubted anyone would mind me being 36, particularly as my partner is under 35 and the rules stipulated that this would be fine. Not fancying a forty-five minute walk. Gothi introduced us to a new taxi service which is run through an app and delivers people from one bus stop to another bus stop in central London. I quite liked it and the taxi driver, a big bearded fellow, was very chatty and amiable. It was a very pleasant ride and soon enough we were outside the Cittie of Yorke, outside which stood Gothi's friends. After saying hi and going inside, we grabbed a beer and chatted as a threesome for a while, then decided to go to the far end of the arched underground space which was where our friend's friends were sat. It was great meeting them and we had a pleasant couple of hours chatting about all manner of stuff. It was great to meet some people outside the fandom and while we will not always be able to get down to this munch, we will certainly do our best. Alas, it was rather sad when it was time to leave, but we had plans back at the hotel and it was getting quite late, with the meet starting to wind down. The three of us therefore went back to Barking, with Gothi inviting another local friend of hers, who had a short bus journey to make from Dagenham. After a quick trip to the off licence and then McDonald's, we made our way back to the hotel for a few hours, with Gothi's friend swinging by about ten minutes after we had all arrived back.
In the end, Gothi ended up staying the night, giving us an impromptu Sunday together. This started around noon, when we once again headed into the heart of London, with Japan Centre being our port of call for lunch. What we didn't realise was that the main Chinese New Year celebrations were taking place around Trafalgar Square, so everywhere was incredibly busy including this fantastic sushi restaurant in the heart of a Japanese supermarket. We did manage to find a couple of seats though, with me standing to eat my delicious plastic tray of sushi, and I do think it was ultimately worth it. Indeed, after a week of farily calorific and greasy food, it was good to get anything healthy in all honesty. We had our bags with us - in my case a huge heavy bag of a week's suppliers not to mention my work stuff along with another bag of crap I had picked up at the conference - so we couldn't really enjoy much of the New Year celebrations. True to form, we therefore went to BrewDog Seven Dials, where we sampled a few drinks, including the new Overworks ones, which are also now available in bottles for the first time. We were drinking thirds while Gothi was drinking pints, which had pretty much been the case the previous day too, but I was starting to feel the excess and really was taking it slow, for my liver, not to mention my wallet. After four drinks, we headed into Soho, checking out a number of shops before going to one of the bars on Bateman Street, which was a rather pleasant experience. They had the tail end of the rugby on - it had been in the basement of Brewdog but well away from us - as England hammered France so the atmosphere was buoyant. It was good to see some craft beer in there too, while some of the chinzy statues were somehow befitting of an LGBT venue.
Our last call of the day was just down the road - Herman Ze German, a currywurst restaurant serving traditional German sausage. I'm not a huge C-Wurst fan but as this is their signature dish, I thought it was worth a try. I went for Mild while Wolfie went for Burner, the second hottest to my second weakest, and I must admit it was rather nice. I also loved seeing the silly Berliner bear on the cans trying to carry his beer, not to mention the woodland theme murals in the basement. Anyway, the food wasn't as good as what you would get in Germany but it was rather nice and is a place worth going back to, and indeed we are glad we had visited it. I had only discovered it as we had walked from Embankment up to Charing Cross near the Theodore Bullfrog, the old London Meet venue, so it was fortunate there was another branch near where we were. The fact there was German football on a German TV channel on in the place too (Dusseldorf v Stuttgart) only added to the experience. With forty-five minutes to our train, it was sad to say goodbye to Gothi but this is what we needed to do before yomping through Soho to Leicester Square and our Piccadilly Line service. We had a slight incident at Russell Square where the train stopped for a while as the emergency chord had been pulled on a train in front of us at King's Cross but we did eventually get to our station in time, enabling us to travel all the way back to Leeds in front of sniffly mccough man who may have given me a cold.
