StewBlog

After a thoroughly interesting encounter on the social club astroturf I got a lift back to Canterbury with Dazza and quickly showered before making the very short journey down to The Cross Keys. The chaps were already all in place as I arrived about 5 minutes into the game... As a neutral, but slightly erring on the side of Liverpool, I found the first 45 minutes rather dull, although Drogba's goal was superbly taken! The second half was altogether more lively though and when Benayoun made his only real significant contribution to the game with a jinking run into the box, I didn't expect Torres to do anything else but score. Penalties, I thought! However, as the first period of extra time began, it was obvious that both sides wanted this settled. Lampard's spot-kick was fantastic and I think it was pretty much sealed then. Drogba added another to make sure and Ryan Babel scored a goal that will almost be forgotten, which is shame because it was a belter!

We rounded off the night with a brief yet pleasant visit to The Old City Bar. Afterwhich, I returned home for a corned beef and tomato sandwich.

Heston Blumenthal (a chef who I have a lot of time for) has just been awarded a prize at the Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards for his chocolate wine recipe using fortified, sweet red Maury wine.

— Bring wine to boil. Set it alight and allow flame to burn off. Boil until liquid becomes syrupy and reduces to 150ml

— Grate or finely chop chocolate and put to one side. In a separate pan, bring milk slowly to the boil, pour it over the chocolate and stir

— Add reduced wine to the chocolate milk, heat and froth using a whisk or hand blender. Serve immediately

I'm tempted to give it a go as well!

PS. Heston Blumenthal must surely be the only chef who is also a member of the prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry!

Well, who'd have thought after all these years that Paul Scholes would pop up with a winner like that. I wonder, is that the most important goal he's ever scored? I still can't believe that a team like Barcelona can play two legs of football and not come close to scoring a goal. Credit to United's defence, I guess...

After the game, we moved on to The Tally Ho, a local little alehouse, for a spot of pool - they have two nice tables in there. Another ill-advised trip to the late night Canterbury Tales meant that I certainly realised I'd had a few beers on waking the next morning...

Claire and Lucinda took the reins of their respective teams this evening and embarked upon an ice cream production and sales task. The idea was to develop three new flavours of ice cream, put them through some market research to identify the best two, and then sell those ice creams in bulk to the trade in London.

Alpha decided upon Avocado & Chilli and Toffee Apple after one old buffer thought that their Cosmopolitan flavour 'tasted like mashed poatato' Nice! Renaissance went for Cider & Elderflower and Chocolate Orange after taste testing on a couple of drunks in the pub.

I really enjoyed Michael Sophocles cameos in this episode and Claire Young came across as less of a bitch too. We also finally see that Lucinda can actually do something - manage! Jennifer Maguire meanwhile is quickly making a bad name for herself - Here's my tribute to her:

When it came down to the digits, Lucinda's team fell short and she called Helene "no bullshit" Speight back into the boardroom with Lindi Mngaza. Lindi got the boot in the boardroom for failing to manage the sales end of things which she was charged with - A bit unlucky, I think.

All done! We're flying to New York on Saturday 7th June and staying for 5 nights in an apartment, probably downtown, which I will hopefully be able to sort out today, then flying to Las Vegas on Thursday 12th June, staying at the Wynn Resort. Looking into doing a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam etc as well one day... Then we're flying back to the UK on Monday 16th June, arriving on the Tuesday and I'll be heading straight back to work

A few us made our first venture of the year into a beer garden this evening, and not just any old beer garden - probably the best in Canterbury at The White Hart. I'll definitely be spending many hours in there over summer chowing down on their excellent burger and home fries with coleslaw... More drinking ensued in Bramley's and Alberry's

I think it was on BenjaminBrum's blog that I saw this a while ago now... Anyway, I set up an account and lent some money because I thought it was a great idea and if it didn't work out I wasn't going to be too bothered losing a few quid...

It's all explained on the website, but basically you sift through the ads and lend one or more of these guys a microloan for a business idea and they start to pay you back once they get up and running.

I lent $25 (I guess around £12.50) to a girl in Samoa in December who was looking for a loan to build a fence on a plantation. She's already made four repayments on the loan and once the repayment term is complete I can either withdraw the money or lend it to someone else, so the cash just gets recycled, which means that one loan of £12.50 can really make a difference.

http://www.kiva.org/

Well, plans are afoot for a little trip stateside to the bright lights of New York and a visit to Las Vegas! I've been to New York several times but the anticipation of some quality time in Manhatten still excites me. Never been to Las Vegas before so I'm uber-keen to have a mooch around the strip, play some cards and check out the hotels - It is all a bit tacky, I guess, but a bit of escapism never hurt anyone...

After watching the game last night in the Cross Keys, a few of us moved on for half-price jugs of cocktail in Alberrys. I ended up drinking a whole jug of Long Island Iced Tea, but it is probably my favorite cocktail...

Shot of gin
Shot of rum
Shot of tequila
Shot of vodka
Sour mix
Splash of triple sec
Splash of cola
Serve with lemon, on ice

Magic.

I've decided that whilst the weather is not quite nice enough for barbecues and days out in the sun, I ought to get some jobs done inside the house so that I can concentrate on jobs outside when it finally starts to get nice... Such indoor jobs include:

Painting the stair well, but it's double height and I don't know how I'm going to get right to the top to paint yet. Go-Go gadget arms?

Organsing all the stuff which is currently cluttering the spare room. I've only ever sold two things on eBay but I might list a few more things and see what happens.

Installing more photo frames. I've had a load of frames for ages that I need to put some photgraphs in.

Fixing faulty ball-cock in the cold tank in the loft. The overflow pipe is currently dripping water onto the rear extension.

Phew... That should keep me out of mischief!

The pub quiz was a disaster last night! Every now and then, Pete, the landlord of the pub and resident quiz master decides to set a really difficult set of questions and last night was the night. There were rounds on Dames, Hampshire and Drum & Bass which were all tough... Needless to say, we didn't win, but as always, it was good fun!

Now then, this old photo album of my Great Grandfather's that I've been going through is proving thoroughly interesting... For instance, he has a photograph of a battle cruiser called HMS Repulse, in Haifa

After a bit of Google action, I managed to find a complete log of this ship which places it in Haifa in July 1938, where it was called suddenly due to Jewish-Arab riots in the Holy Land. This ties in with some other photos that I found labelled Jewish-Arab Riots...

This is much more interesting than work

I have been going through an old photo album which has been passed down via my father and on to me for safe-keeping. The album contains many old photographs taken in the Middle East, where my Great Grandfather, a cavalryman, was stationed in 1938. I thought it might be a good idea to get some of this stuff on a hard-drive and try and figure out who's who. My nan has just helped me identify this portrait, taken in Edinburgh in 1939, so I've made a start at least! I was interested to see that his boots appear to be adorned with spurs, so I guess this confirms that he was indeed a horseman?

One of my favorite TV Series has just appeared on iTunes, so without the slightest hesitation I set about downloading series one to watch this evening. I think this was originally broadcast around 4 years ago on BBC Two and is a deliciously dark comedy, written and starring the superb Julia Davis in the role of the thoroughly unscrupulous Jill Tyrell

I went to see this on Friday night in Ashford. I had a walk round to meet Nuala and picked up some 'old school' confectionery on the way - Chocolate Limes and Bassett's Allsorts. I had a brief conversation with the shop-keeper about these items and I recommended that he get to work stocking Jelly Babies, one of my favorite sweets which I was dismayed not to find on the shelves in there. Anyway, the chap warned me that cinemas are cracking down on people bringing in their own food these days and advised me to keep the contraband well hidden upon entering Cine World... What's the world coming to, eh?

Marc drove, Mirage, Nuala and I over there and we all paid our first visit to a branch of Frankie and Benny's. It was really busy so we were invited into the bar for drinks and given a little buzzer to indicate when our table was ready. I didn't really know what to expect from this place but I was pleasantly surprised all round really! The service was good, my chicken parmigiana was vast and very nice so I'd definitely go back for a spot of pre-movie repast.

The movie played host to an unusual mish-mash of themes all set against the backdrop of the ancient Belgian city of Bruges. I love movies set in cities and filmed on location and some of the footage here was brilliant and set against a fantastically evocative score; I got a real sense of the city so a trip to Bruges could well be on the cards sometime soon so that I can experience the place for myself.

Hallelujah! The weekend is almost upon us again and various time-slots are already getting filled...

At 4:15pm, I am off to The Chair for my monthly barnet trim - Gonna go for a pretty short cut this time and shave off this wretched beard!
Next up will involve a short journey to the Ashford Multiplex Cinema to catch the 6:30pm showing of In Bruges - Looks like it could be interesting, although I don't particularly like Colin Farrell, so we'll see... I reckon I/we might go for a few quiet drinks afterwards in Canterbury and possibly catch up with some friends who have been whispering about a jaunt over the pond to New York in the next few months - Really need to get some form of long weekend/holiday plan in place soon and that could be just the ticket!

Saturday morning, I have to collect a van at 8:30am and help my father shift a load of earth. After lunch, I'll aim to join Matt et al for his birthday in The Dolphin and must try and also catch up with a few mates down from London a bit later in the day...

Sunday is currently free but could involve nothing more than recovery from excess alcohol...

This weeks fairly simple task was presented to the teams, bizarrely enough, amidst The Wallace Collection in Marylebone. Not the High Street shop, Wallis, as somebody thought on hearing the news - Tsk! I guess our budding apprentices were to draw inspiration from the vast array of renaissance art, for their mission the following day was to set up a portrait photography stand in the shopping Mecca of Bluewater - Can't stand the place, personally.

The teams were shuffled by Sir Alan, and Simon, who tells us without the slightest hint of irony that he has an IQ of 170, proffered his I-did-laundry-in-Bosnia 'b*ll*cks on the chopper' for the role of project manager whilst Helene, who tells us she 'has a lot of balls', volunteers to lead the other team. What is all this talk of testicles about anyway, even from the girls...?

Simon's team, Renaissance, decided on a glamour theme and set about hiring props to woo the good people of Kent and Essex into having their snaps taken on a chaise longue with glasses of cheap fizzy wine and naff jewellery - Revolting.

Helene's team, Alpha, chose to hire a celebrity look-a-like and lined up five potential characters to interview. I have absolutely no idea who the first one was meant to be, a rotund old heifer with a drab looking Victorian dress, looking like she'd just crept out of page 147, paragraph 3, line 2 of a Charles Dickens novel. We were then treated to a vaguely credible Del Boy and Cherie Blair followed by a frankly embarrassing Britney Spears - great outfit, terrible execution and a sh!t George Clooney. They decided on the David Beckham in the end, who sported more than a passing resemblance to Golden Balls himself.

Both teams set up early in the morning and drew a different demographic of customers, taking plenty of pictures. However, administrative and technical hitches left both teams seemingly unable to print and deliver the photographs, so much time and money was lost throughout the day. Poor old Lucinda, a self confessed technophobe, was chosen by Helene to head up the technical side of things for Alpha - Bad choice. 'You've put me in the wrong skill-set' she quipped and continued using the computer as though it were one of Einstein's space-time equations...

When the verdict was given... Simon's team made a loss of about £50! Helene's team made a profit of about £150. So,let's get this straight, a dozen of the country's supposedly brightest entrepreneurial talents manage to make a total of £100 from two days work... I reckon they worked around 10 hours each day, so that's 240 hours work in total, which means as a group they made less than £2.50 per hour. I reckon I could make more than that begging in the street, so what's going on? Anyway, Simon picked Claire and Alex to come back into the boardroom and face the music, whilst Sir Alan adjourned. 'I'm going for lunch with the Prime Minister, then I'll see you back in here.' he barked - Legend!

Alex and Claire never really warmed to Simon's managerial style and stitched him up a bit with a shabby effort in the processing side of this task. Harking back to my pre-series post, I can't help but recall a soundbite from Simon: 'I'm too soft at times - I fall for the little old lady factor.' That's 'loser talk' as my friend, Jonny, would say and with a whimper, Simon's hopes of becoming Sir Alan's next Apprentice were dashed.

Having conducted my own experiment recently into the relative merits of loose tea vs tea bags, I can categorically confirm that the loose, dried leaves make a superior cup of tea...

Ringtons, who have branches like this one in Canterbury, stock an excellent range of loose tea. They also have outlets in Brighton, Exeter, Cambridge and Kingston.

Well, this is the last disc of series two and it's in the post to me now. There have been some seriously strange occurrences in the last four episodes, not least, Hurley's imagination running wild (or is it...?) Even aside from that Michael is back from his hunt for Walt and some rather unusual behaviour from him provides interesting prospects for the final 4 episodes of series 2...

Up until the mid-nineties, it was widely thought that gastric ulcers were caused by unhealthy levels of stress and spicy or acidic food. Although antibacterial medication was somewhat effective in the treatment of gastric ulcers, the wider medical community believed that no bacterium could exist in the highly acidic environment of the stomach long enough to cause these ulcers to manifest.

However, so convinced was Australian scientist, Barry Marshall, that the bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, was responsible for this common illness that he drank a petri dish of the stuff with the aim of developing gastritis, and treating himself with a course of antibiotics to prove his theory! With this brave experiment, Barry Marshall and his co-researcher, Robin Warren showed that antibiotics targetting H. pylori specifically were effective in the treatment of gastritis and in 2005 they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work.

I was just reading a news article about the Russian's plans to send monkeys to Mars and I was tickled by the following picture and comment...

Krosh flew in space in 1992 and
is still in rude health

I'm not sure it's all that fair to send monkeys into space though!

Just follow these ten steps and you too can have a shiny beast of a hangover like me...

1. Eat nothing after lunch at 1pm
2. Drink very little water to get nicely dehydrated
3. Head out at 8:30 starting on the Guinness
4. Move on to Vodka Red bull from midnight until 2am
5. Attend house party and continue drinking vodka
6. Round the night off with a few shots of sambuca at around 4am
7. Get home and eat a whole packet of Doritos with a tub of creme fraiche
8. Go to bed without any water
9. Wake up at 1pm
10. Fail to drink water for several more hours

What started off fairly tamely from 8:30pm with a few pints of Guinness in the Cherry Tree became something rather less tame by the time I finally got home at 5am...

Anyway, The Cherry Tree juke-box has had something of a facelift, so the Rolling Stones are back on with their double album, Forty Licks! I delved into that and completed my selections, as follows:

Sympathy For The Devil - The Rolling Stones
Diamond Dogs - David Bowie
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
Guns and Roses - It's So Easy
Hot Love - T Rex

It was inevitable that further drinking would occur so after being kicked out of The Cherry Tree, Vicki and I moved on to meet some guys outside Alberrys and we all ferried ourselves to The Works for vodka and wig-wearing(!) followed by a little house party and drinking games at Emma's house, whose birthday it was...

Took a short bike ride with Matty this morning out to The Duck Inn at Pett Bottom. It was a pretty good day for cycling with a fresh breeze and the sun peeping through the clouds every now and then. Our route took us up Wincheap, along an old Roman Road called Iffin Lane, past The Granville pub and through Lower Hardres before the steep hill into Pett Bottom and the Duck Inn. I ordered my staple pub lunch choice of chilli con carne with rice and soured cream, while Matty had the slow-roasted garlic and tomato pasta with salad. We had a go at a few of the Dingbats cards as well
A very enjoyable lunch indeed!

The Duck Inn is actually famously linked with James Bond. The Author of the original books, Ian Fleming, whiled away many an hour in the pub, thinking of ideas for his books... Some of the roads in the area actually feature in some of the novels with James Bond haring around them in his Aston Martin!

My latest Lost disc arrived in the post the other day so by the time I've got through those four episodes I'll be exactly 5/6 of the way through the second series... Still really into it and keen to see what happens! Currently, Sawyer has control of all the guns and a mysterious chap - one of 'the others' - is being held captive down in the hatch...

More shenanigans from the aspiring apprentices this week saw them running a lunchtime and evening food service in a London pub for the day.

Lucinda's outfits are becoming a weekly highlight for me, but for all the wrong reasons and in the opening scenes of last night's show, she didn't disappoint, sporting her trademark beret (mauve this time) and partially striped knee-length dress, rounded off with a green shawl... Where are Trinny and Suzannah when you need them, eh?

Sir Alan chose Ian Stringer to lead the boys team. I'm sure he was keen to see how he would perform given his pre-match talk:

"There are two kinds of people in this world. Winners and... I don't know how to spell the other word... I can't say it... I'll give a clue, it begins with L."

Careful, Ian, that sort of talk can come back and bite you.

Sara Dhada, who is apparently an international car trader (although I have no idea what this actually means), was chosen to head up the girls team and almost immediately began talking incessantly - How annoying...

The girls hosted a Bollywood themed day, blagging costumes and marketing for free and very shrewdly selling tickets for £5 each - to be taken off the food bill later - Very smart, whoever thought of that! Unfortunately, none of them were able to cook curry so they completely missed the lunchtime service whilst faffing around for 5 hours with a chicken korma.
The boys, meanwhile, went for an Italian theme and spent bucket loads of cash on marketing and ingredients, buying many jars of Dolmio and rank-looking pizza bases from a local supermarket. The only thing to really amuse me about their efforts was the following outburst from Raef:

"We should all feign Italian accents for the evening, all feign Italian accents, write that down."

Comic genius!

We got a good look at Kevin Shaw in this episode. Is it just