The Edge Of Madness

Been playing Ikariam lately. Same guys who did Ogame, but no real need to fleetsave, so I'm not stuck in front of the pc all the time. Much more chilled.

It's a war game still, so you attack and get attacked. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win.

But some ppl seem to take the game very, very seriously.

Take this comment, but a guy we're at war with. Much, much bigger than me, and yep, he's prob going to stomp me. I'm afraid he's going to have a heart attack though.

exactly...TELL TO YOUR PARENTS TO BE MORE PROUD FOR YOU....

you are a pathetic stupid kid...you are using lies for a game....what kind of pathetic person you are really?

You have to learn how to be honorable kid...and you have to respect peoples that you dont know...

Yes i am a bartender and also a musician,a sound engineer...what are you exactly?

Just a kid with pathetic behaviour.... My congrats to your parents boy

Amazingly, he claims to be 33. Oh well, amused me today. I'll keep you all updated.

Didn't know I had to tell the truth to someone I was at war with

Yeah, I've been slack with the updates. Got next week off, so should catch up a bit.

Think I had a month with my parents in Bris Vegas, weekend at Sunshine Coast, weekend at the casino in gold coast, coming home $2k up from poker at the casino, week in hamilton island with lana and her mum, revisit to Sydney.

BTW, if you're in Sydney, and I haven't zapped you a line, feel free to buzz me. Down here until the start of June.

Sorry been a bit slack.

Few posts I've got to get around to posting:

Dinner/Lunch at Ivy, J Sheekey, Scotts, Chefs Table At Claridges (again).
Return to Sydney.
Nick & Bonnie's Wedding in Melbourne.
Brisbane with my parents.

But the following is what this post is about. Sometime you shouldn't google yourself...

Shamelessly stolen from http://visualrian.com/images/item/316061

Yes, you've read that right.

My wife has given me an STD.

Now that you've picked your jaw off the floor, here's the story....

I've been throwing up after 2 beers. (And yes that didn't stop me drinking, 4 days straight I was throwing up after a couple of after work bevvies). And I've been pissing every 5 minutes.

So after a fortnight of this, I dragged my arse into the Doc's.

Slightly worried I was going to get a finger up the butt (prostate = pissing), but thankfully all I had to do was piss in a cup.

The verdict? UTI (Urinary Tract Infection). Girls get it at the drop of a hat, but for guys it's a little more tricky (the extra plumbing in the way). The 3 main ways for a bloke getting it is

• Homosexual Sex
• Sex with an infected woman
• Sticking a catheter up there

So since I ain't shagged a guy, ain't shagged another woman, or stuck a tube up my cock, I've been blaming Lana.

Yes I know it's technically not an STD, but I've been having great fun dropping into conversation my wife gave me an STD and watching people's faces. At the pub on thursday I was even being fed lines to drop that one. Highly humorous.

BTW, it's no biggy, on antibiotics for a week, if it don't clear up, then I might have gallstones or something more painful, but I'll worry about that then.

So I'm in Hammersmith shopping centre, waiting for Lana to get a crepe.

I look over and see this store, selling greeting cards. And do I see in the window?

And a closer pic.

That's right, Cyanide and Happiness now gone reasonably mainstream and available as greeting cards.

Took a pic of the display on my mobile. Please excuse the quality.

Here's a link to the store in question. Go and check it out yourself.

http://www.qype.co.uk/place/103477-Scribbler-London

Cards were selling for £2.35. Main reason I didn't get one, was we were going to queue for up Britain's Got Talent Auditions, so didn't want to carry anything. I'll post about that later.

So for my birthday, Lana took me to Gordon Ramsay's Royal Hospital Road restaurant. The only 3 michelin starred place in London.

The quick review. 2nd best meal Lana's ever had, and her first experience of fine dining, so she loved it. Myself, I wouldn't rank the meal in my top 20 meals, and the experience itself not in the top 10. Good, but not great. Details to follow.

Forgot the camera, so no pics. But this place was pretty stuffy, and no-one else was taking pics. And at the end when I took a picture of my b'day cake, one of the snobby diners made a comment that you shouldn't be taking pictures in a place like this. wtf?

Firstly, Lana's got a bunch of allergies. Basically any spices, anything acidic (tomatoes, onions, garlic, vinegar etc). So normally I don't take her to the top notch places, as getting a plain piece of steak isn't worth the cash. This time decided to risk it (plus Royal Hospital Road is more a date place than a rowdy bunch of guys place). So she e-mailed them 2 weeks before and let them know of her allergies.

Pull up to the place in a cab. Door is opened, walk in. Coats taken (no coat receipt which is great). Shown to the table. Lana's dressed to the nines, I'm suited up. I start poking fun at her that her boob is about to pop out of her dress, so she gets self conscious, and puts her jumper on

Back to the meal. Service is top notch here. About 12 tables, and around a dozen waiters. One of the head waiters came over, and ran through what Lana's allergies were. This was without prompting. The Maitre D' came over for a bit of chat. But soon realised that we weren't that interested in chatting to him so left us alone.

After running through the menu, I went for the Menu Prestige (tasting menu). Lana went for the a la carte. She wanted Lobster to start, but the waiter knew it was marinated in garlic butter so was out. But again, he knew straight away. This was damn good service. Instead she went for the sea scallops carpaccio of octopus, Pan-fried fillets of John Dory with Cromer crab, caviar, crushed new potatoes and Gianduja chocolate soufflé with milk ice cream.

Courses were mixed in with "surprises". Basically surprise courses. Amazingly each surprise course was also tailored to Lana's allergies.

Quick side note. I was talking to Lana about the Sommelier. For some reason she thought this was the woman's name, not title. Funny

First were the canapes. A little cornet of lobster, crab and asparagus. Lana's was just asparagus. Plus some crackers, cheese layered. Good, but not great.

Next was another surprise course. I think it was a beef tongue in pasta, with a chicken stock soup, with some vegetables. Good, but no bite. But lana's custom meal here was a small salad drizzled with olive oil...with some black truffles (which I shamelessly stole). The waiter had already checked with Lana's allergies to onions, and all the stocks were made with onions, so they were out.

I then had a foie gras terrine, which had black truffles layed within it. And some great nice and chunky toast.

Next was my Ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon with tomato chutney, vinaigrette. Lana had her scallops. I didn't have any of her scallops, but the octopus was great. My ravioli was really average. Don't know why, just nothing special there.

Lana go up to go to the bathroom. 2 things here. The waiters ran to get in front of her to show her the way. She left her chewing gum in her napkin. Now of course the waiter tidies her napkin up pretty much jams her chewing gum there. Lana gets back, has forgotten about that, and promptly sticks her napkin to her dress. Highly amusing.

BTW, on the topic of service. It was hard to have a conversation, as every 5 minutes a waiter would be over doing something. Yeah, I know you're meant to ignore them, I can't do that.

Next course, just for me. Fillet of turbot with braised baby gem lettuce, leeks and cep sauce. Lettuce was bleh. But I don't like braised much (though the pink veal last week was an exception). Turbot was good, but again not the best I've had (Amsterdam perchere much, much better).

Then I had the special of partidge with some vegetables, and stock. Good, but not great. Lana had her main, which was great. They also had done a custom butter sauce. I'm not sure what was in it, but it was green, and according to Lana delicious.

Now it was desert time. I had a pre-desert, which escapes me now. Nothing fantastic.

The next desert course was gold though. They even brought one out for Lana complimentary. Mango and passion fruit soup with lychee and coconut. But it had space dust at the bottom, so when you sucked from the straw, it bubbled in your mouth. Absolutely great.

Final desert course was pretty good as well. Presented brilliantly. I had Bitter chocolate and hazelnut cylinder with ginger mousse and blackcurrant granité. Picture perfect presentation, with some raspberry syrup poured in a great pattern. Really wish I had a picture of that.

Now here's where they get tricky. About 10 oclock now. They need to turn tables. So the waiter comes over, and says do you want a tour of the kitchen? Then we can adjourn to the bar where there's another surprise for you. Obvious what they are doing, but done brilliantly, very impressed. Plus you get free stuff

So get the tour of the kitchen. Ran into a face that I saw at Claridges last week. Didn't remember his name, just remembered his face. So told him I saw him last week, he reintroduced himself. Mark Askew. Great guy, had a bit of chat with him. He was rather impressed with Lana's strong handshake as well

Oh yeah, while we were in the dining room, we heard a huge screaming match going on in the kitchen earlier in the night. Highly amusing.

Didn't have a chat with the current head chef. She looked highly stressed. Though I did want to thank her for Lana's menu. Oh yeah, Mark gave Lana a little present. Renee, if you're lucky and it's not eaten before hand, we were going to bring it for you on saturday night.

Back to the bar. Some chocolates, turkish delights, and a bit of dry ice trickery with some ice cream. Nothing too flash. And the waiter brings out a little ball of ice cream with a candle in it and sings happy birthday to me All cool.

Lana has some camille tea, I hit the whiskeys.

All up, the bill came to £300 for the both us. £88.09 for a la cart, £117.45 for Menu Prestige. Water, beer, wine and whiskey the rest. With a £33 tip.

All good, Lana enjoyed it much more than me. She couldn't stop talking about it and telling everyone she knew about it the next day. Again, her first experience of fine dining. I had the same epiphany on mine, all us food snobs do. So for those of you, who read this blog, and have no idea how you can spend 300 quid on a meal, you really don't know what you're missing out on. As I keep saying, once in a lifetime, once in a lifetime

The venue & crowd was a little too snobby for me (myself and Lana were easily the youngest there, average age was 50). But the service was impeccable (again, esp in regards to Lana's menu and allergies, that alone was worth the price of admission). Would I go back myself? Nope. But Lana's itching to go back, so for her birthday I'd probably drag her along.

I'd give it a 16/20. 9/10 for service (just needed a little more breathing room, but that's particular to me), and 7/10 for the food. Though again, I know that chefs struggle in winter. I think spring is the golden time to hit the good restaurants.

But now that I've proven that at a good restaurant the chef will tailor the menu to her, I think I might take her to Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons for her birthday. 5 star country manor, with a 2 michelin starred french restaurant downstairs...