We popped into Infinity for some food for the week and decided we were hungry, so figured we’d try some of Clive’s Pies. And I have to say, they were fab. We went for one Arabian chickpea and one Hungarian – the chickpea one was our favourite, but we’re going to try some of the others soon.
Spotted in Habitat Tree
Spotted in Habitat – Tree lights and reindeer lights – shame we’ve got nowhere to put any.
The Argus says bar
The Argus says a “bar has cancelled a monthly science event because academics do not drink enough alcohol“. Total nonsense. I’ve never met a sober academic, and the Cafe Scientifique bunch are quite the piss heads. I mean all that in the good sense.
Another busy evening last
Another busy evening last Tuesday, with both a Cafe Scientifique and a Sussex Geek Dinner to go to. We headed off to Cafe Sci and listened to Jim Skea of the UK Energy Research Centre talking about UK energy policy – what’s science got to do with it? We stayed for the talk, but moved on before the questions and answers as unfortunately this talk was very similar to one we’d heard earlier in the year.
The Sussex Geek Dinner was held in the Black Horse again, and despite a slight mix up with the food (new owners, insufficient details on Simon’s booking) the venue was good. Simon hosted well, despite his sniffles and a good crowd showed up. It was good to catch up with some familiar faces, as well as to meet some new ones. As long as Simon keeps organising them in Brighton, I’ll probably keep turning up.
Now to get on and organise a Brighton Bloggers meetup for January…
Suran has film out
Sunday Sunset
Organic lunch at Gravetye Manor
As part of the Ashdown Forest Food Festival, we headed off to Gravetye Manor for an 5 course organic lunch accompanied by organic wines.
We arrived slightly early, and so settled down in the lounge. We started with a glass of Richmond Plains, Nelson 2005, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc served with olives and radishes. This was probably my favourite of the wines, and is the only full glass I had, being the designated driver.
We were called into the dining room, and started with an espresso cup full of Cream of organic celeriac soup with italian truffle. This was a really flavoursome soup, and if it wasn’t going to be followed by an additional 4 courses, I could have imagined myself happily eating my way through a large bowl of it.
The next course was Seared fillet of organic salmon served over creamed leeks and tomato butter accompanied by a glass of Sauvignon Sur Lie 2005 Domaine St Paul, Vin de Pays d’oc. The salmon was lovely, and the tomato butter was amazing and very rich.
We then moved on to a glass of Coudoulet de Beaucastel 2003 Cotes de Rhones to accompany an amazing 3rd course of Roast Loin of Tablehurst farm pork served with fondant potato, Autumn savoy cabbage and apple sauce. The pork was incredibly flavoursome and the gravy was amazing. This wine was Richard’s favourite of the meal.
The penultimate course was Lightly poached pear with vanilla yoghurt ice cream and light San Zemo sabayon accompanied by a glass of San Zeno 2003 Riciota de Soave. The pear was wonderful, the wine was nice, but too sweet for my tastes.
Our final course was a tasting of three organic cheeses, my favorite was the Scottish Criffel which was a ripe semi-soft cows milk cheese. The other two were Perl Wen white rinded cows milk cheese from Wales and Mature Cheddar from Plaw Hatch Farm.
And to finish, coffee (or tea for those of us who don’t do the coffee thing). After this we managed a quick wander around the grounds before heading back to Brighton.
London Metro Ski and Snowboard Show 2006
We spent this afternoon at the London Metro Ski and Snowboard Show 2006 at Kensington Olympia. We didn’t have much to do today, so thought we’d go and take a look at the show. Overall, I’m glad we did. At £14 per adult, it wasn’t the cheapest day out, especially when you add the £12 parking, but we got some great ideas for trips for our next few years. We found out more about snowboarding in Japan (apparently February is the best time to go as it is the time of the snow festival, and there are lots of ice sculptures and ice caves created), and also another company (dreamski) offering guided trips to Chile and another company offering ski weekends.
Ice climbing at the show
The Skill Slope did great business today, lots of skiers – no snowboarding today though 🙁
Skiers and snowboarders performing on the Quarter Pipe
We also found the SportsDo gps system, making use of a java enabled or windows mobile phone using a bluetooth connection to an external gps unit to record journeys of all kind – drive, walk, run, ski, cycle etc. Sounds like a great idea, now to see if it works!
Paul Merton’s Silent Clowns
We went to the last of our comedy events for the festival yesterday – Paul Merton’s Silent Clowns. To be honest, I’d expected more talking about the films, but what we got was three silent films shown in their entirity.
Charlie Chaplin in The Cure, Laurel and Hardy in Big Business and Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr. All of these were accompanied by Neil Brand whose timing was excellent. A great afternoon of entertainment, and a foray into a genre of films I know very little about not to mention a reminder of just how amused I am by Laurel and Hardy.
blogged over at jane
I blogged over at jane.dallaway.com about my success at getting the booklist running off del.icio.us tags. This morning I had a bit of a brainwave, and decided to do the same with snowboard resorts. So, with the addition of a couple of new del.icio.us tags of “riddenat” and “torideat” I’ve got a list of resorts (and I’ve added country tags too) by country that I’ve been to, and a simple list of ones to visit in our next trip (to Utah).