First Lunch of the Year

Following on from yesterday's "Last Lunch of the Year" post where Lynn and I ate in the new Patisserie Valerie in Norwich and thoroughly enjoyed it, the new year finds me sitting in the same seat in the same café with our Peahen, enjoying much the same yumminess.

We'd also enjoyed the morning's New Year's Day Organ Recital at Norwich Cathedral.
Here's a little taster. Please excuse my shaky camerawork.


Happy New Year, folks!

Now home again and enjoying the Pasadena Rose Parade live on a KTLA5 link Petrea posted.
Mmm … cheerleaders … Yay!

Well, Let's Start As We Mean To Go On …

Hey ho …

Last Lunch of the Year

One last post of 2012:
Our lovely Lynn is over on the correct side of the country for Christmas with her parents and that's as good a reason as any to misuse the word 'party' as a verb.
So we went to try out the new Patisserie Valerie that's recently emerged from the cocoon of Clark's shoe shop betwixt the Market and the Castle in Norwich.

It's been beguiling me for a couple of weeks now, with its pretty waitresses and comfy chairs and Parisian style cakes in the window.
Who do I know who likes cake?
Aha …

Anyhoo … Other than Breakfast Club, any visitors meeting me in the city are now likely to get dragged inside Patisserie Valerie. It feels genuinely Parisian (crowded, chatty - but not overly noisy - filled with yumminess) but is not so dark and dingy as a genuine Parisian café so you can actually see what you're eating and who you're talking to.

Review time:
A matching pair of Croques Champignons … perfectly delicious, with a bonus point for the excellence of the salad dressing.
Black Americano and tall mineral water (still) … as good as anywhere else that serves illy, which is pretty darned good.
My dessert was an espresso and pair of mini-macarons (pistachio) … scrummy.
Lynne's chocolate cake and cappuccino looked pretty good, too.
Add in a fruit juice for Lynn and two obscenely mouthwatering cakes in pretty boxes tied with ribbon to take home for her Mum and Dad and the whole lot came in at a very affordable price, including a big tip for the excellent (attractive, polite, attentive but not obtrusive) waitress.

More places like this, please, Norwich. I'll be back for lunch on Saturday.
Tomorrow I'm meeting Peahen and friends for the New Year organ recital in Norwich Cathedral.
Hope you all have an unconscionably spiffy 2013.
See you there.

WTF Monday - Fa-fa-fa-fa …

Discovered last week in a Westminster menswear store.

I am SO going to wear this down the gym.

Why Political Correspondents Love The Damart Catalogue

No reason for today's post; I'm steering clear of the pooter for a couple of days so this is filler.
This is a photo I took mid-afternoon just before Christmas of some poor sap from the BBC shivering in the freezing cold, waiting to interview some imbecile politician.

This place is known locally as "Liars' Lawn" because it's where all the political interviews take place for the news channels. It's actually the flat grass roof of Abingdon Street underground car park …

… but where the guy's camera is pointing gives this as a backdrop, which is pretty cool.

Enjoy your run-up to the new year. I'll be enjoying an early night tomorrow, for all the usual reasons.

Meanwhile …

Yay for http://xkcd.com/

Saturday Statuary - Gratuitous Boobage

Meanwhile, on the South Bank, two naked women sit by the river, bewailing the decline of elegance that resulted in their being located by the South Bank Centre, whose utter hideousness only makes them pine more keenly for the unreachable grace of Somerset House away across the water.

Blah di blah

Nothing to say, today. Been shopping, had a haircut, enjoyed two leisurely coffee shop breakfasts and now I'd better get some work done.

Click here to see an article that had me giggling into my coffee yesterday.

Lucy … I Am Your Father

This has to be one of my favourite photos of the year; taken on December 23rd. when Gerry and Old Dive hit the town to find it empty of pre-Christmas shoppers.
What we did find, however, was this Imperial Stormtrooper collecting for charity with his little girl.
How painfully cute is that?
Hope you're all enjoying the post Christmas exhalation.
May the Force be with you.

So Much For The Sales

"Boxing Day Sales! British Public Set To Spend £3 billion!"
At least according to the desperately pathetic pleading of the news headlines this morning.

Consequently, I moseyed on into town to play Gawp and Giggle at the insanity.
Only it never turned up …
The streets have been about as crowded today as the river.
It was a beautiful day, too … the first without torrential rain since the end of the early December Ice Age, so no excuses for staying indoors. I've been walking for hours and it's been lovely.

Castle Mall is usually a lot more crowded than this on a normal weekday. There were far more staff than customers in every shop I visited.
The coffee shop was almost deserted. I sat chatting and laughing for three refills of coffee with a family who had come out for a walk to escape the dreadful misery of Christmas TV. They'd dragged their whiny adolescent daughters out for some fresh air and I regret to say we poked fun at the girls mercilessly as they blinked in the sunshine and whimpered at their mum to let them have their phones back so they could retreat from reality. Hoo boy, I'm glad I'm a non-breeder.

The Forum was so quiet I could faintly hear the screams of stock market analysts and retail shareholders as they plummeted to their deaths from the nearest tall buildings.
I did my best for the economy by buying a new jumper (four sales ladies to one customer … yay!) reduced from £45 to £5.
The high street stores have seen the sign saying "This Way Down The Shitter" and they're trudging wearily after it.

The teeming hordes thronging Tombland bear mute witness to the fact that the rich have bled us so dry that we have nothing left to give.
Look out, 2013 … you're fucked.