StewBlog

Just bought my ticket for this today! Better still, I can walk home afterwards rather than camping as it's only up the road - Cool!

Matty and I went on a little bike ride today. We took a route round the Rheims Way, along Wincheap and down Tonford Lane, then up the hill to the edge of Bigbury Woods. We biked around the muddy footpaths in there for a while before coming out of the woods near to Vernon Holme school. We made our way up to The Plough in Upper Harbledown for a spot of lunch only to find that it's under new management, as of last Saturday, and the kitchen isn't on-line yet... So, we cycled back over the A28 and into Harbledown to find that the Old Coach and Horses had closed their kitchen at 2pm as well! All-in-all a nice little trip out on a Saturday afternoon, but I was really looking forward to a pub lunch...

The next disc arrived from LoveFilm yesterday so that's pretty much decided what I'm going to be doing this evening, especially as I'm still slightly jaded from last night's endeavours...

I jumped off the bus from work and joined Leon and Brian in the Dolphin. They had already acquired the Risk! board and were waiting for me to arrive to set up a game. It was rather an old version of the game (circa mid 70s) so the board looked a bit different and the pieces were a bit odd as well. There was no clear definition where Alaska joined Asia on the other side of the board, but after some deliberating, we settled on Kamchatka. In addition, there was a lengthy discussion about the order of merit of the military icons on the cards but we eventually established the following hierarchy from lowest to highest:

Infantry -> Cavalry -> Artillery

I went for the brown pieces, Leon went for yellow and Brian chose blue, upon which, battle commenced! Yukari joined us for a little while but it was quite an involved game and it was all talk about that. We all had rather a nice dinner though and carried on with the game afterwards. Fast forward to midnight and the game had not significantly progressed - We each roughly took up around a third of the world so the game was declared a draw (whilst I was in the gents) and we made a fateful decision to head to The Works which was as empty as I have ever seen it...

Firstly, I can't iterate enough what a thoroughly enjoyable hour of television this was. I had prepared for the occasion with a tender beef stroganoff and popped the top off of an ice cold beer at 8:59pm in anticipation...

Having eyed their profiles beforehand, the candidates weren't new to me but I was keen to see how the predictions in my earlier blog post would pan out. Immediately, Nicholas annoyed me, barking on about his qualifications and his disappointment at obtaining only a 'B' grade in one subject - check. Raef, in contrast, rather amused me with his bizarre haircut and his unashamed pomposity - check.

Onto the business end of things. The task this evening was to sell £600 worth of wholesale fish at one of four London Markets. Sir Alan divided the candidates by gender and both groups of eight set about choosing a team name and a project manager. The girls team, led by Claire, took the name Alpha and the boys team, lead by Alex, took the name Renaissance.

Both teams donned white wellington boots and chose, independently, to set up shop in Chapel Market, Islington. However, the girls arrived considerably earlier and bagged a prime spot leaving the tardy boys floundering (no pun intended).

The first task was simple in my view; identify the fish in each of the boxes... They were even given a large laminated booklet with named pictures of all of the fish, so it was something of a primary school exercise really - Raef managed to mess it up though and mis-identified 3 types of fish, although he only recalled mis-identifying one type of fish in the boardroom and was quickly corrected by the ever-vigilant Margaret Mountford.

Nicholas was charged with pricing, which, if I'm totally honest, I would be rather hopeless at as I rarely look at the prices of anything when I go supermarket shopping - I just buy things that look nice (M&S Cheese Knot Rolls) and ignore things that look nasty (Cheese and Onion Pasties). Having said that, surely all he had to do was add 50% to the wholesale price of everything to get into the right ball park? Also, if I saw whole Lobster on sale priced at £4.90... each, as the boys did, I would buy them all and move on somewhere else to sell the things myself!

After hours of chaotic, disorganised fishmongering - the highlight for me being Simon's efforts to bisect an eels head with repeated cleaver blows - the teams returned to the boardroom for the verdict. The profit margins were laughably low from both teams but the girls won by about £100 and were sent back to the (very large) house for a meal cooked by Jean Cristophe Novelli; the boys meanwhile were given a typically thorough dressing-down by Sir Alan before being sent to a local greasy spoon for a meal cooked by Lyndsey from Crystal Ski (See previous Alpe d'Huez posts).

In the end, Alex brought Nicholas and Raef back into the boardroom and after an embarrassingly paltry defence for somebody who is supposed to be a barrister, including some inane babble about enjoying the arts and not football, Nicholas was awarded a big 'F' grade by Sir Alan - Oh, the irony - and sent packing.

Despite several of France's top players being ruled out at the moment, including Henry, Benzema and Viera it'll still be a tough test for England in the Stade de France tomorrow evening, not least because a number of our players were involved in two big Premiership games on Sunday. However, it'll be interesting to see how Mr. Capello organises the side, given that almost everyone is available for selection. Beckham will surely get his 100th cap, but it looks almost certain that Terry will take the captain's armband after losing it to Steven Gerrard. Capello seems keen to try a few players in the role prior to the World Cup qualifiers later in the year.

Prediction: 1-1 with goals from David Trezeguet, who scored for Juventus on Saturday and is currently topping the leading scorers table in the Italian league; and Wayne Rooney, who was unlucky not to get a goal on Sunday.

The movie is almost exclusively shot in a deserted Manhatten where Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the sole survivor of an apocalyptic viral outbreak, trying desperately to maintain his own sanity whilst conducting research into a treatment to save mankind - No pressure then.

It appears that the virus, with an exceptionally short incubation period, causes humans to undergo a genetic mutation turning them into hairless, ultra-aggressive, photophobic cannibals. Therefore, our hero potters around during the day with his alsation, Sam, and locks himself inside his fortified house, 11 Washington Square, from dusk till dawn, to avoid being eaten alive.

The footage of many of New York's famous landmarks overgrown with months of weeds and trees shows that CGI can work very well - It was very believable and I guess this is one of the main things that held my interest.

All-in-all, I'm glad I watched this but I certainly won't be watching it again. I'm not sure hows things are wrapped up in the book, but the ending of the film was rather poor, I thought...

On Wednesday night the first episode in a new series of The Apprentice will begin, following another group of sixteen hopefuls in a bid to secure a one year, £100,000 contract working for Sir Alan Sugar.

I'll be following the action and posting my thoughts each week. To begin with, I'm going to stick my neck out and make a few predictions, based on hunches from reading the candidate's profiles on the BBC One website...

Most annoying: Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, who added the 'de Lacy' Moniker himself because he thought it made him sound more sophisticated - What a loser!

Most likely to get to the final episode: Jenny Celerier, who fought menengitis and has combined a successful sales career with bringing up her son as a single mother - A born fighter.

Most likely to go in the first episode: Simon Smith, who says 'I'm too soft at times - I fall for the little old lady factor.' Not exactly a winning mantra, is it?

Most likely to back-stab/turn bitchy: Lucinda Ledgerwood, who I reckon will do 'anything' to win this. She's just got that Ice Queen look about her and I don't like it one bit.

Most entertaining: Raef Bjayou, who includes acting, lawn tennis, antiquarian book collecting and cognac among his interests.

I'm looking forward to re-appraising my initial thoughts, so roll on Wednesday!

The name for our new Rock Band, on Rock Band, formed today!

1973 saw the launch of R White's most famous advertising campaign, ‘The Secret Lemonade Drinker’, which remained on screen until 1984. The ad featured a man in striped pyjamas creeping downstairs to raid the fridge for R White's Lemonade. Ross McManus - the father of singer Elvis Costello - wrote and sang the original song, with his teenage son, providing backing vocals. The ad won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival.

Met Vijay, Leon and Brian at Canterbury West Station and we boarded the late 18:59 train to Ashford. It seemed to take forever to get there! Anyway, we finally arrived and met up with another of Leon's workmates, Vic, and we made our way into town and to a bar called Three Zero, where Natalie joined us a little later on...

Leon mentioned that he'd bought some Aussie Bums and was keen to show me them... Looks like they've launched a few new things so I'll have to check out the website again.

I asked the girls what they thought about this fashion of wearing really high belts and they decided to have a go themselves, just so we knew what we were all talking about...

They had some kind of happy hour on until 10 o'clock where cocktails were on a two-for-one offer so we stayed in Three Zero for the first part of the evening and finally met up with the girl whose leaving party it was in another bar a bit later.

Leon and I made our way to Liquid and the other guys joined us later.

Early Bird tickets have just being released for Lounge on the Farm, to be held just outside Canterbury at Merton Farm on 11, 12, 13 July. The line-up is quite sparse at the moment but it'll definitely pick up in the next few months...

http://www.loungeonthefarm.co.uk/index.php

I missed it last year but I'm definitely gonna make it in 2008!

Well, it's the last day of work now before the Easter break and I fully intend getting on the 3 o'clock bus out of here. That does mean I have lots to do before I leave so I'll probably have to skip lunch.

If all goes to plan the long weekend should begin with a night out in Ashford this evening. I haven't been out there since I was in my teens so it'll be interesting to see if I recognise anything or anyone. The plan is to end up at Liquid nightclub which used to be called Flatfoot Sams and Cales many years ago. Leon assures me that it's quite fun on Thursday nights.

I have been tasked with cooking some soup for the family so I'll slot that in somewhere on Friday. Gonna go for a Tuscan recipe from the BBC Food website that I've had a go at before - turned out really nice last time.

In addition, there should be some Rock Band action on Saturday. Gav is bringing his guitar down so we should be able to play with a full set of instruments in a classic band arrangement: Lead guitar, Bass guitar, Drums, Lead Vocal. The songs that I'm really into at the moment from Rock Band are:

Orange Crush - REM
The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
Say It Ain't So - Weezer
Here it Goes Again - OK Go
Dani California - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Finally, I can think of no better way to spend a slightly hungover Sunday morning than with a nice cup of tea, marmite on heavily buttered toasted muffins and the next four installments of Lost: Series Two.

And even then, there's a whole Monday to do stuff as well!

...Is in the post and winging its way to me... Can't wait!

This evening, we had a small family get-together at the Old Gate Inn in anticipation of Aaron's 18th birthday tomorrow. Summer and I shared the photographing duties!

Somebody showing how the drums should be played on The Hand That Feeds on Rock Band!

Cool song too!

An 80s Classic!

I'm off to the George & Dragon in Fordwich this evening for Emma's 30th birthday meal. They have a thing on Tuesday nights called Pudding Club where you may order as many puddings as you like! I've pre-ordered thai fishcakes with sweet chilli sauce to start with, followed by barbecue spare ribs (which I haven't had for years!) for my main course. Not having a really sweet tooth, I'm not sure how I'm going to get on with the puddings though...

Aside from all this, the pub is supposedly home to the ghost of the ‘Lady with the Green Hat’, who has haunted the building for as long as anyone can remember. She is said to wander the building and grounds, always wearing her green hat, and whilst the staff have not seen her the unconnected telephone downstairs still rings occasionally... Spooky.

A jolly good effort this evening coming in second place, just behind a team of nine, who should have had points deducted due to an overpopulated team - We were robbed!

A few questions from the quiz...

Who was the youngest of the Beatles?

What landmark price did an ounce of gold reach last week?

To take my mind off the post-holiday blues I decided to get stuck into a bit of Lost: Series Two. LoveFilm are currently sending me each of the discs from the box set in order. The first disc contained 4 episodes, so I'm up to the bit where the Scottish guy, Donovan(?), has done a runner from the hatch and Locke is organising shifts for tapping in the numbers into the computer... Looking forward to getting the next disc in a few days!

Most of the other guys had early flights so they popped their heads in at something o'clock and I think I mumbled a goodbye. Much later on, Gav, Vicki and I got up and after a cup of tea and bit of packing and room tidying we had a walk into town for lunch and to a restaurant called Au P'tit Creux that we'd spied earlier in the week nestled in a quiet corner of the town. The menu looked great and the food didn't disappoint either. Although not very French, I went for the special of the day, lasagne - Just right, it was!

Well, today started when I finally arose from my bed at 13:00. A pretty poor effort for a hot, sunny final day before my ski pass expired... Anyway, I decided that I couldn't be bothered to get booted up and trek up the mountain again and pottered around town with Gav instead, taking the odd snap here and there, including one of the most unusual church in Alpe d'Huez and one illustrating the local swimming baths skin tight trunks rule...

We got in a load of cold meats and cheese from the supermarket and tucked into that back at the chalet whilst the other guys slowly drifted back after a decent day on the slopes. Dave was sporting particularly impressive panda eyes so I had to get a snap of that!

Dinner this evening was rather nice! A simple tomato salad with lamb's lettuce and balsamic vinegar followed by a piece of 'slightly' overcooked breaded salmon. We all went off to Lily Muldoon's for a few quiet drinks and inevitably ended up moving on for more boozing at Underground... Gav, Dave and I went on to Les Caves de l'Alpe for more mischief!

After creeking out of bed, the plan was for the Sarenne run this morning, reported to be the longest black run in Europe at 16km. The start of the run is at the highest reachable peak, without the use of a helicopter, and is known as Pic Blanc. It took ages to get up there as we had to take a double gondola and then another cable car to the top, but the views were amazing!

A superb filet steak in peppercorn sauce with french fries was scoffed for lunch in a nice little place along the Sarenne Gorge. The restaurant had an interesting relief map with accompanying magnifying glass which was quite fun. I just about managed to locate Alpe d'Huez and the range of mountains we were on known as Les Grand Rousses.

After lunch, Gav and I found a great powder field just off the ridge at the end of the chair lift back towards Alpe d'Huez.

Once again, we made our way to Crowded House for slightly more subdued apres ski...

I have been urged to write something here about an incident occurring just before our main course at dinner in the chalet, when a foul pot of orange stuff was placed before us all... As Gav later exclaimed at around 4am the following morning, water and carrots mixed together do not make carrot soup, but this is pretty much what we were served! Bizarrely, some of the carrot was in big chunks, whilst some of it was grated; either way it was all sitting in orange coloured water and to make matters even worse, the salt had run out

Eight of us made it down to Lily Muldoon's for their weekly pub quiz and split into two teams. Myself, Gavin, Stu and Vicki on one team and Liz, Gav, Andy and Dave in another team. After a healthy competition with plenty of banter and some loudly whispered answers (Andy!) the scores were like Bobby Davro's impressions... both exactly the same.

After the quiz, we moved onto Smithy's for a game of KILLER except we only played up to KIL as the full game would have taken too long. My beer-addled brain struggled to make out the rules, but I just about got there in the end - I'm not sure if I've ever played it before, to be honest... Dave 'The Power' Beryl finished off the game with a 3-dart flourish!

It was Rock, Pop, Electropop night in Igloo so we had to pay a visit there... More boozing and dancing...

Made our way over to the black run into Vaujany again today with Dave, Gav, Stu and Andy. It wasn't anywhere near as nice as the time we did it earlier in the week. I was glad to get to the bottom and start thinking about lunch! We all went back to La Remise for a nice bit of food. As it was actually raining (not snowing) we decided to call it a day and head back to Alpe d'Huez.

Once again, Crowded House beckoned for apres ski and we ended up spending most of the evening in there. It was our chalet host's night off, so it was up to us to organise our own dinner, which we failed miserably to do. Our dinner, in fact consisted of 3 x 75cl bottles of Wipe Out toffee vodka... We caused a bit of a scene in the bar. Stu was convinced to attempt a caterpillar and a head stand, in ski boots! There was some random dancing in windows also before we made our way down the hill to the underground. Gav took a turn for the worse soon after our arrival and was carried back on what seemed like a very long journey back to the chalet...

Gav and I met up with Dave on Signal - a blue run right down into the resort - and popped over to Villard Reculas for lunch via some nice blue and red runs.

We met a charming lady at the start of the button lift who offered to look after our boards and recommended Chez Bruno which turned out to be great - Lovely homemade burgers, a nice shade of pink inside, served with many chips. After lunch we sauntered back up to the button lift and I narrowly avoided disaster on my one and only go one of these dreaded things during the holiday. As was becoming customary, we all piled into Crowded House at the end of the day for a few beers and a spot of Deal or No Deal! A little dog joined us for a game of retrieve the ball as well

Another late morning start sans petit dejeuner... Gav and I decided to make our way down to Vaujany for lunch via an excellent black run called La Fare - There was plenty of snow on it, wasn't too mogulled and barely a sole on there so it was a great run down ending up at a rather slow, rickety tri-pod gondola up to the base of the Village. After a lengthy wait on a very long escalator we arrived just below the centre of a deserted town but found a nice little restaurant called La Remise, where we ordered excellent pizzas and Heineken. Gav couldn't resist a little go on Battle Cat (from He-Man) before lunch...

After lunch we made our way to the furthest point on the left of the piste map taking us on quite a nice empty blue run called Edelweiss. We pottered around over there a bit longer and made our way back to Alpe d'Huez through biting wind and snow - my hair actually froze on the way down (as captured by Gav below) as I forgot my hat.

I believe I was likened to Philip Schofield immediately before this shot was taken... Very soon after we found ourselves in Crowded House again for an apres ski session.

After missing breakfast, Dave, Gav and I went out to meet Kathryn and Vicki who were mucking around on the nursery slopes with their boards. We broke for lunch soon after and Gav, Dave and I went up the DMC gondola and onto a blue run called Couloir while Vicki and Kathryn went for their lesson. We lost Dave after only a few hundred metres somehow and headed off for the other side of the mountain via the, locally known, 'scare chair' which traverses a very steep ravine across to Auris. Another slow chair-lift took us up the other side of the valley and we took a red run run back down called Fontfroide which was mogulled and a bit of a chore really. After a few more runs down we made our way back to meet Vicki, Kathryn, and finally, Dave, in the back of Crowded House for our first spot of apres ski!

After listening to the spiel from the Crystal Rep, Duncan, we were back, showered and changed promptly for a thoroughly unappetising dinner at the chalet... We went out with Andy, Stu and Paul to Zoo Bar. I had a game of darts with Paul on one of those electronic boards with plastic arrows that you have to throw really hard, otherwise the score doesn't register. I lost - Grrr...

Once again, the Jager Bombs were supped! The bar staff had an interesting way of preparing them this evening, by lining up all of the glasses of red bull then balancing the shots of Jagermeister where the glasses met. A gentle tap on the shot glass at the end caused something of a domino effect and all of the shot glasses fell into the red bull glasses.. Voila!

We moved onto Smithy's for more pub games in the form of table football! Stu fell asleep with his head in the corner of a chair, whilst there was some dancing from almost everyone else in the sparsely populated bar...

Vicki picked us up at 10:15am and we had a trouble free journey to Gatwick's North Terminal. The First Choice section was mayhem though with the queue stretching outside the building. Fortunately, Gav had got there a bit earlier and sneaked in the queue so we joined in too and spent a rather dull 45 minutes snaking around to check-in. We had a while to wait in the departure lounge and had a very nice lunch in Yo Sushi! before heading to gate 101 for our 13:55 flight. The food was rank (and photographed by Gav, below) so I'm glad we got some nice tucker in before boarding!

After a fairly quick passage through passport control and baggage reclaim we were aboard our transfer coach clutching beer, water and croissants. We followed our climb into the Alps on Gav's new phone which, amazingly locked onto 7 GPS satellites to give our location on the earth to within about 10 metres as we neared Alpe d'Huez - Cool!

We were last off the coach arriving at Chalet Josephine just in time for dinner - a hearty tomato soup, followed by a fairly bland beef stew - cooked by our buxom, pregnant, no-nonsense chalet host for the week, Lyndsey (pictured below). Around the dinner table we made each other's acquaintance :- Myself, Gav, Vicki, Kathryn, Dave, Andy, Stu, Paul, Gavin, Liz, Ian, Barbara and a 9-month-old baby called Jasmine.

A post-prandial scout around for nightlife led us to Le Sporting, which we dismissed as too quiet, Free Ride, which we entered and left almost immediately due to pumping Euro-pop, and finally to Zoo Bar showing great snowboarding footage, playing excellent music and serving the oddest Guinness I have ever seen. I saw what I thought was a Guinness pump, so I ordered a pint of that to test the water... The barmaid got out a can of non-draught Guinness and poured it into a glass, which was confusing and frankly upsetting. She then popped the full glass on to a metal disc and pressed a button to 'ionise' the contents creating a not entirely embarrassing creamy head at the top... Whatever next? Jager Bombs ensued - Nice.

Gav and I decided at 1am(ish) that it was a bit too early for bed and sought out more drinking and Swedish Kronor eye socket balancing(?) in Les Caves de l'Alpe before finally retiring to our beds.

Well, I thought Daniel Day Lewis was fantastic in this and with brilliant support too. I have to agree with the Oscar in this case. However, I'm not sure if it's just me (probably), but I thought the musical score was completely at odds with the movie! There were significant parts of the film without dialogue, which is fine, but when this is drowned out by a bizarre soundtrack it's a little distracting. I swear they use the same piece of music as in the Lost opening/closing credits when the title appears out of the blackness...

Firstly, it's my last day in the office before heading off to the snowy Alps for a week of boarding and boozing in the charming resort of Alpe d'Huez, which is expecting a healthy dose of the white stuff next week, by all accounts...

Secondly, Vicki and I are off round to Leon and Yukari's tonight for a go on a new PS3/XBox360 game called Rock Band! I have been threatening to don a spandex leotard with cut-out chest to add a bit of authenticity to proceedings but it's not the sort of thing you can just pick up in Debenhams, so I may have to improvise... Anyway, check out the kick-ass website whilst I ponder over outfits...

http://www.rockband.com/

Brilliant!

I watched this movie the other night which sets out to tell the story of the enrollment of often poor, sometimes uneducated and untrained North Africans who were tasked with liberating occupied France from the Germans during World War II. I have to say, I'm not really all that familiar with the intricacies of World War II apart from the celebrated, dramatised success stories of the British and American regiments, oft the building material for Hollywood blockbusters... This movie is made in a different mould and aims to highlight the racism and exploitation suffered by the patriotic North African troops at the hands of the French army. The movie title itself is an ironic jibe and is crystallised in one of the final scenes of the movie, which I won't describe as I don't want to give too much away...

Now then, I don't usually recommend things but this stuff is the business! I was given a few free samples whilst wandering around Liberty's in October last year and opened them only last week. I'm particularly impressed with the Facial Fuel!

http://www.kiehls.com/_us/_en/men/index.aspx?

I don't think they stock this stuff on the High Street, so as soon as my sample runs out I'll probably have to order some online...

A Dutch student has come up with the ultimate way of making easy money - by staying in bed. Yde Van Deutekom, 22, from Zoetermeer, is selling advertising on a website featuring a webcam showing him in bed. So far, he has been in bed for 21 days and has had more than £3,500 paid into his bank account, reports GVA. Mr Van Deutekom said: "Sleeping is just a hobby of me, and it is the only thing I'm very good at. Everyone is asking what I want to do with me life, but what I really want to do is sleep. "I stay in bed all day, except for taking a shower, going to the bathroom and making something to eat. That's all I want to do. And I want to stay in bed until I'm very rich."

More than 450,000 people have visited his website: www.slapendrijk.nl

*From www.ananova.com*

Well, the snow forecast has been fluctuating wildly for Alpe d'Huez over the last week or so. One thing is certain though, 12cm of snow have fallen in the last few days so there's fresh powder on the mountain! The latest indications point towards more snow today, Sunday and Monday and then a huge dump (over 2 ft) on Tuesday, which could make Wednesday one of the best snowboarding days ever!

Just added Lost: Series Two (Part One) to my LoveFilm rental list. I downloaded all of Series One and finished watching that about a month ago now so I'm desperate to see what happens next! I know they eventually go down into 'the hatch' and discover a Scottish bloke tapping numbers into a computer. I also know they meet 'the others' but that's about it as I only watched about three episodes of the second series when it was on TV.

I think Gav and Leon bought this for me for my birthday many years ago...

Met up with Leon, Yukari, Gav, Vicki and a few of Leon and Gav's erstwhile university mates in Casey's. We played many variations of Jenga including a few games where you could only remove the blocks by sucking them out with the aid of straw!

Gav was made to parade his birthday t-shirt before we made our way to Pizza Express for a spot of dinner. I had my favorite pizza, fiorentina with added spicy beef - Yum! We popped into the Cherry Tree for more drinks befoer making our way to Girls and Boys at Studio 41.