Diffordence

I will admit: I don't get invited to many album launches and it was with some diffidence that Mrs Botogol and I presented ourselves at the firmly-closed front door of Hurst House in Covent Garden. on Friday.

Before knocking I glanced again at my printed-out email

From: Chris Difford
Subject: Boo Hewerdine
Message: ...says your tickets are at the door

It didn't seem, well, it didn't seem very official. It didn't seem very authentic. Are all album launches publicised this way? What is it like to given the bum's rush? And what exactly is a bum's rush anyway? Does it hurt?

In last minute change of heart, and clothes I took off my jumper and stuffed it into my rucksack, wishing one more time that au pair hadn't ironed a crease into the front of my black jeans; and I knocked.

"I'm Botogol", I said, "and this is my wife"

And that was it - we were in: a small subterranean room, one corner cleared for action and, in another, a bar dispensing London Pride and chilled chardonnay. In other words: perfect. There were about 80 other assorted misfits there: Difford fans, Hewerdine fans and Paul Gambaccini.

The beers were free, so I had seven of them, and it was with blurry eyes that I caught sight of a familiar face - "She looks like Rosalie Deighton", I ventured to Mrs Botogol "Don't be silly dear - she is Rosalie Deighton". The room suddenly felt very hot.


It was with some some more diffidence that a round-looking Chris Difford eventually took the stage heading a four-person band of whom only the lean-looking Boo appeared completely relaxed and confident. An inappropriate anecdote about an inappropriate T-Shirt only compounded the unease and it was with some relief that the band eventually broke into music with the entertaining Fat as a Fiddle

(here's the official video)

The theme of the album is age: Difford's rapid-fire, quick-witted story-songs tell of memories, regrets, physical decay, nostalgia and missed opportunities.

My Mum played piano... she loved Gracie Fields
she would have been famous.. but we dragged at her heels

It was Squeeze, but submerged with a certain bleakness. Is that's what's life is like in our 40s? On stage Chris fiddled self-consciously with his old-man glasses, apologised for the coarseness in his lyrics, and shifted uneasily when he mentioned Squeeze and the old days. A softer, sadder version of Up The Junction didn't break the mood, either.

I liked it!

The album is called the Last Temptation of Chris, and is written by Chris and Boo, which is actually an intriguing combination when you think about it: how to combine Chris' long, densely-packed story lyrics with Boo's concise idea-in-a-single-phrase style?

At the launch there was no publicity material so it was impossible to determine who wrote what, but while Battersea Boys, and Fat as a Fiddle seemed all Chris, I fancied I detected Boo's style in When I am on my own I'm never bored. (I am probably hopelessly wrong)

Set list (so far as I can remember)

Fat as a Fiddle
Battersea Boys
On My Own I'm never bored
Never Coming Back
My Mother's Handbag
Up the Junction
Take Me I'm yours
End of the Party

The album launches Monday,but you can hear a few tracks on Chris's myspace page, and some previews on 7digital - via this clever little widget:

After the gig was finished we went to Asia de Cuba for a margarita. Because we could.

The American Way

squeezed lime
Originally uploaded by jspad.

If it was Super Tuesday it was New York City.

At JFK, very late at night, I squinted, bleary-eyed into the webcam and pressed my left index finger hard down on the glowing red fingerprinting square: the visa waiver programme is no longer the shoe-in it was in the nineties. "I am English" I murmured, "You know? The only country on your side in the War on Terror? Now introducing Sharia Law in the Home Counties?"

The crew-cut young immigration official remained unimpressed
- "Business? So what do you do?"
- "You work for a bank, OK, but what exactly do you do?"
- "Waddyamean, 'indescribable'?"

Reader, I tried to explain but it was no use; eventually we settled on 'rogue trader', my passport was stamped and I was in, yellow-cabbing excitedly toward the Mid-Town Tunnel, tracking my progress, while updating my Facebook profile, on the on-board cab computer.

I love America!

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, and also domain of No Loitering Laws.
So how does that work? You can be arrested for standing still?

I didn't stand still. After work I had to visit Abercrombie and Fitch (again). All the way to 57th Street and back in time for dinner.

You can eat a lot of dinner in New York, and in Dos Caminos on Wednesday night, I ate a lot of dinner. I was excited! I think I have found the perfect Margarita. I asked our wait staff person the secret - was it the more expensive Tequila she had upsold us? No, she said, it was the very freshly hand-squeezed lime juice. How fresh? Well let's just say twenty bucks changed hands and we were led, with some trepidation, down to the basement where we found a team of sub-prime borrowers squeezing limes for minimum wage. It's the American Way, she explained: needs must and money talks.

Back in the office, time is money, and I saw the coolest labour saving device ever: A digital photo frame with a remote control. You never need to lean forward again. Only in America.
What will those crazy Americans think of next?

119/365: No Loitering
Originally uploaded by Mr. Guybrarian.

Dumbing Down

An American reader tells me my blog is too complicated for her friends to understand, and that I need to dumb it down.

"Don't tell me!" said I, smugly, "it's the irony and the cultural allusions right? Too much irony and too many cultural allusions." She told me no one likes a smartass, and did I imagine that The Simpsons was made in America solely for the benefit of Brits? Sometimes I feel very Old Europe.

I asked her to explain

Well, for one thing, she told me, you should start a story at the beginning and then go on to the middle before getting to the end. And stick to the subject; quit wondering off. And don't mention Tesco so often. Or Blue Peter. And sort out those long sentences and what's the 'lower remove' did you make that up? And, omigod, would you please, please just finish things off properly and not leave them dangling: I mean, dude, did you get to see the semi-final or not?

Perhaps I should have explained: my friend is a New Yorker. They don't talk like that in Colorado. No siree, Bob mcDandy they don't.

Actually I like New York - it's just like London. Only with more weather; and 40watt lightbulbs, and it has never palled that one of the perks of my indescribable job is that I regularly get to visit London's twin city.

Mind you, trips to mirrror-world are less rewarding since old Forbes sold his Fabergé egg collection in 2004 - nine eggs he had along with toy soldiers, and old monopoly sets, in a tiny dark gallery on 5th avenue where sometimes I'd be the only visitor, marvelling over painstaking exquisitry.

However, while Manhattan may have lost its Forbes' eggs I can still recommend it, as it's the venue for some fine margaritas; indeed perhaps the perfect margarita can be found in Dos Caminos, where they have 120 brands of Tequila and a basement full of Mexican wetbacks hand-squeezing the limes. And don't miss the weirdly unpromising but surprisingly excellent blood orange margarita in the louche and low, chic and charming, bad and baleful, Morgans Bar.


"So do you think?", I asked my friend, absently, for one part of my mind was back in that dim-dark bar, struggling to double the tax in my tequilia-swimming head, "So, do you think that if I DID dumb down my blog, would I get more comments?"

Manzanilla and more

Example of Flor
Originally uploaded by catavino.

If there is a single drink in the world that rivals the margarita for style and sophistication it's a manzanilla sherry. Produced from fields of alien, white soil in a remote corner of Spain, its pale colour and its dry, salty, yeasty flavour is without compare.

Thanks to the mathematically-pleasing solera system each and every glass of manzanilla contains wine of inestimable age and that, with its subtle flavours should ensure that it commands vast prices, yet its so unfashionable you can buy it in supermarkets from €2.95 a bottle. How does that work? What is there about this drink not to like?

Unfortunately for me, though, in last night's blind triangular tasting, I was unable to distinguish it from a fino.

It's hot here, but it's breezy enough to be comfortable; it's remote but we have sky TV; in the evenings the pool is warm and the tennis court is cool. I have hired a mountain bike; I have drunk a bottle and a half of manzanilla.

Mud and Philosophy

Muddy Bike + Tired Legs = Dirty Smile
Originally uploaded by gonebiking.

Every Sunday morning at 7.45am I pull my weary body out of bed, put on a pair of baggy lycra shorts and go mountain biking with two friends (counting Jake, I have three friends).

Last Sunday my bike and I celebrated 3000 miles together: this magic number rolled up on my handlebar computer somewhere in the middle of Richmond Park (I can't be sure precisely where: having anticipated the moment for months when it came, of course, I missed it)

3000 miles! 3000 mainly muddy miles, for south west London has unexpected pleasures to offer the enthusiastic mountain biker. That's around 170 Sunday morning outings, perhaps 100 ascents of Richmond Alp, 75 crossings of the Col de Teddington, 30 wild descents of the Wimbledon Common Massif.

I like statistics.

• miles covered - 3000
• punctures in the rain when I was in hurry - 7
• punctures in fine weather when I have all the time in the world - 0
• broken spokes - 3
  
• new front tires - 2
• crushed squirrels -1
• dog bites, while actually cycling along quite fast, actual teeth actually closing on my foot - 1
• falls on to hard, dry ground - 4
• falls into the cold, clammy River Crane - 1
  

We go pretty fast, for forty-something mountain bikers, but not so fast that we can't speak. "Of course its more than 3000 miles, really", I remarked casually, carelessly, to my cycling buddy as he pedalled, red faced, sweating and panting beside me, dutifully admiring the display that read 3001 "yes, a lot more than 3000 miles if you count the miles I've ridden with the computer not working"

"Well I don't count them," he replied, "No one would: just as the tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear it, makes not a sound, so the mile cycled without a computer to record it, is a mile untravelled" and with that he shot ahead.

Now, over the years the conventions for philosophical argument on two wheels have become very well established between us: in order to make your rejoinder you have to catch up, pull out of the slipstream and work your way alongside.

Put it this way: it's a form of philosophy in which you don't waste words.

It's also a form of debate that has the advantage of being the only type of philosophical discourse, at least so far as I am aware, that can be won by the strength in your calves. It's a bit like Alan Turing's run-around-the-house-chess, except you are more likely to end up sprawling on the floor with the contents of a water-bottle emptied down the back of your neck (a roughly 2 times in 170 chance, to be precise).

I couldn't quite catch him, so I squirted my water-bottle from a distance. I missed.

But 3000 miles! Did I celebrate? Reader: I held a margarita party. But is it still a party, if nobody comes?

Wimbledon and the Hawk-Eye delusion

The Crouch - pic by aluytenuk.

Quite the best part of Roddick v Gimelstob on Monday afternoon was Hawk-Eye doing its stuff.

Court 1, first day: Two enormous men, in enormous shorts, face up to each other across a half-size tennis court. One bounces a ball on the turf and straightens up; the line judges take up their ludicrous Wimbledon Crouch. The ball is tossed into the air, Serve!

Thwack! A flash of agassi-belly, "FAULT!" "15-30"

But what's this? Instead of retiring meekly, a player apologetically raises his hand.

"Mr Gimli", intoned the referee incredulously, "Mr Gimli, son of Thimli, son of McEnroe, is challenging the line call!", then adding rather needlessly: "the call made was: 'out' ".

It was the first ever Hawk-Eye challenge at Wimbledon (and I was there) The crowd loved it. The offending line judge hated it. How he squirmed in his seat as Hawk-Eye blinked into action ("Hawk-Eye operator, actually". Wouldn't that be a great response when quizzed at parties?).

On the big screen a virtual No 1 Court appeared and we gasped as our virtual pov zoomed, dizzily, like google earth, down, down until we took up position a few virtual centimetres above the virtual grass, to see exactly where the virtual ball would bounce. In came the ball. In the background a tiny, virtual line-judge leapt from his virtual seat and a speech bubble yelled 'OUT', but in the foreground we could all see the virtual ball just touching the virtual line - it was in.

Although personally I wasn't convinced: no cloud of virtual dust, see.

Great fun but, at its heart, not entirely honest, for this isn't really a replay. The system isn't really watching to see whether the ball is out or not. It already decided that. This is an animation. It follows the decision, not the other other way round.

-0-

Wimbledon sorts people: Centre Court, No.1 or Outside Courts? Members' Enclosure, Debenture Holders' Enclosure or Henman Hill? Food Village, picnic or Pimms & Champagne bar?

Mrs B and I know where we stand, and we headed for the last-named, and a glass each of watery Pimms (no, sir, no Margaritas) where we watched the people. Young people, old people, all middle-class people. To our left a couple were kissing quite passionately, his hand on her leg. The rings on their fingers, showed they were married but not, opined Mrs B confidently, to each other. They were oblivious to our gaze.

Over their heads, on the big screen, a virtual tennis player tucked a virtual tennis ball into her virtual knickers.

One day they'll probably have Hawk-Eye in the bars as well.

In Two Minds

Prawn tempura by agentdeclan.

One of the advantages of working for a very large, very posh big-city firm is that it has no corporate memory; consequently it forgets which of its staff left voluntarily and which were hustled indignantly out the door and both sets are invited to the alumni evenings. Which makes for excellent alumni evenings. Last week I was invited to just such an event - drinks and canapés - by the employer before last. Initially, I was in two minds whether to go, but....

... but when I got there, I found I was in two bodies. Either that, or I'd slipped through a gap in the space-time continuum and I had arrived 10 minutes before myself as - it seemed - someone had taken my name badge and gone inside with it.

I was nonplussed: I didn't like the idea of an alter-ego working the room, meeting my network, making new contacts and, well, probably eating less, drinking less, sweating less, being more polite and making a lasting positive impression. Suddenly I cheered up, and the bright, bubbly hostess reassured me further: "Don't worry! we'll just print you off another badge!" she said brightly, bubblily, "What's your name again ?"

My spirits fell once more - it was noisy in the bar, and my name is sometimes difficult to pronounce and hard to hear and, sure enough, within moments I was one half of a ghastly sketch routine.. "NO!" bellowing politely over the din, while still smiling charmingly (I hoped) "NO! NO! IT'S BRAVO, OSCAR, TANGO, OSCAR, GOLF, OSCAR, LIMA!",
"Sorry Oscar. Oscar what?"
"LIMA! OSCAR LIMA! ..... LIMA -ALPHA-MAMA-ALPHA LIMA!"
"Mr. Lima?" (doubtfully)
"NO!, HERE! LET ME WRITE IT DOWN FOR YOU".
She inspected the spoiled tablecloth suspiciously: "Aaah", she said, "like the mountain in Siberia! Why didn't you say so?"

Eventually she gave me a ruby-red badge. There was a system: alumni had red badges, junior staff had silver badges, partners had gold badges, and senior partners (alpha males all) had circles of silver-badged acolytes taking advantage of rare face-time with their Gods. A passing waiter offered a me Pineapple Martini so convincingly disguised as a margarita that I actually took it, and that's how I found myself encircled by my horny-handed beer-swilling old friends, clutching a girlie drink.

Every last one of them was running a triathlon. What is it with these people? have they no originality? We descended immediately into OCD training talk and before I knew it, hours had passed. I wasn't drunk, though: I had eaten far too many canapés for that.

Eventually the triathlon conversation began to pall (really) and I paid attention with one part of my mind while with another I scanned the passing name badges half looking for myself and half for escape; scanning carefully for it was dark and I had left my old-man glasses at the office; until a moving plate of prawns tempura provided the perfect opportunity to slip away, and I plunged amongst the serried ranks of red-badged blue-chip FTSE 100 employees, holders all of indescribable jobs for a bit of reunion oneupmanship

".. so you must know Roger then?", "Yes he works for me"

"..I'm retired, actually. Well, we didn't plan to sell up but they were offering silly money, so.."

"...then somehow Country Life got to hear of it, and the next thing you know our old barn was featured as their Organic Eco Conversion of the year. It was all rather boring, but Sue's actually made quite a business of it since..."

"...well, I just write about ordinary life and so on.. Well, 5,217 hits last month and eleven comments, I don't know if that counts as a lot - yes I did see it - Sunday Times yes, she's very good isn't she? No I - ha! ha! - no I don't think any publishers going to be interested in mine..."

I felt I was in two places at once (perhaps three, if the badge-thief was still present) both participating in and observing the ritualised work-based exchanges, and standard personality-types. With them but not of them. And I wondered if everyone else felt just the same. Or are they all like that at home?

Then I pulled myself together and had a mini roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, washed down with one of those rather-nice Pineapple Martinis. At the far end of the room I could see someone who looked strangely familiar. It was all far too much excitement for one evening and I reached home far too late.

In search of the perfect margarita #91

Without a hint of a shadow of a doubt, the world's most elegant drink is the Margarita, and no matter how travel-weary, how foot-sore, how sledge-hammer jet-lagged, my relentess search for the perfect Margarita goes on.

It's not just the intriguing pale green liqueur, it's the ineffable ritual of the thing: the lime juice, the triple sec, the frozen-or-on-the-rocks, the are you completely familiar with our range of Tequilas, Sir? Is that with salt or without?

But where did that last question come from? Of course I want it with salt. That's why I ordered a Margarita and not a pint of lager. I'd also like it with Tequila, just in case you are wondering.

The Margarita in the picture was from the Bar Canadien, Les Gets, France. It didn't come with salt, subtled around the rim of the glass with a smear of lime juice. It came with dessicated coconut, slimed on a coating of strawberry jam. It wasn't the perfect Margarita.

But it still had magic. The immutable, golden rule of Margaritas is that in any bar, in any part of the world: if they serve a Margarita at all then a Margarita is the most sophisticated drink that they serve.

Rest assured: the monkey-nut sprinkled Bar Canadien in Les Gets, France is no exception to this rule.