Amber nectar...only better

I heard the best news from my friend Dimitris in Arillas! The wonderful microbrewery Corfu Beer Ltd that produces the gorgeous Royal Ionian beer will open their doors to public this summer and one can go and tour the brewery and have a little taste of things to come. Heavy has confirmed her availability for a week of chilling at the end of August in Arillas so she will get dragged to the tour, even though she doesn't drink beer :)

"Our objective is the production of a new unique beer on the island of Corfu.

With the synchronization of state-of-the-art technology and manufacture, we offer the consumer a combination of highly-balanced flavours, which suits our particular Mediterranean climate.

In the following two years, we aspire to extend our range by producing other types of beer.

Our intention is that Corfu Microbrewery will offer both the residents of our island and its visitors, the outstanding quality of our product."

Hand of god Maradona is a god...to some

I have always been avoiding all kinds of organised religion and festivities, bar x-mas and easter beacuse they give me time off work. But do I believe in anything? Not really and I am proud to be a heathen, unbeliever and kuffar and leave those who care to worry about things I cannot be be bothered about. Today I saw in the news a new church and thought it to be as nutty as all the other recognised religions so why the hell not!

D10s is a church where they worship Diego Maradona. Yep, I couldn't make this up if I tried. Dios is apparently god in Spanish and 10 is from Maradonas shirt. It was founded on October 30, 1998 (Maradona's 38th birthday) in the city of Rosario in Argentina, but it wasn't until 2001 that they had their first gathering. They now reportedly count over 100,000 members from more than 60 countries around the world.

Three idiots in a plane

Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson are flying to a world economic summit. Peter looks at Alistair and chuckles: 'You know, I could throw a £50 note out of the window right now and make one person very happy.'

Alistair shrugs his shoulders and says: 'Well, I could throw five £10 notes out of the window and make five people very happy.'

Gordon says: 'Of course, but I could throw ten £5 notes out of the window and make ten people very happy.'

The pilot rolls his eyes, looks at all of them, and says: 'I could throw all of you out of the window and make the whole country happy.'

Smegging brilliant!

Good news on the comedy front! The ever so funny Red Dwarf is returning to our screens in digital channel Dave with a two-part Easter weekend special which sees the cast finally return to earth. Can’t wait!!! Cat has always been my favourite character but Dave Lister comes to a close second (minus the cruddy underwear, yikes!).

Here is the story of Red Dwarf in brief from the website:

On the mining ship Red Dwarf, professional slob Dave Lister works as a technician with his immediate superior and bunkmate, the officious Arnold Rimmer. To say that Rimmer and Lister don't get on would be like saying that high doses of radiation aren't entirely good for you.

Quite a coincidence, then, that a radiation leak picks this moment to wipe out Red Dwarf's crew.


Having smuggled his pregnant pet cat onto the ship, Lister is imprisoned in stasis - suspended animation - and so has no idea that his crew-mates, including love interest Kristine Kochanski, are being blasted into sherbet.

Lister is woken three million years later. Holly, the ship's computer, redirected the ship out of the solar system as soon as the accident happened, and then had to wait for the radiation to reach a safe background level.

To keep Lister company Holly resurrects Rimmer as a hologram. He can't touch anything, but he's as irritating as ever.

To everyone's surprise the team is soon joined by a humanoid animal evolved from Lister's pet cat. The shallow, self-involved creature is cleverly named 'Cat'.

After a year or so of drifting back through space, beginning the three million year journey home, the crew encounter Kryten - a servile mechanoid who thinks the phrase Cleanliness is next to godliness understates the importance of cleanliness.

In the following years Holly changes his gender from male to female (and back again), the crew misplace Red Dwarf and spend some time stranded on the small transport vehicle Starbug, Rimmer leaves to become an inter-dimensional space hero, a version of Kochanski appears from another dimension and, eventually, the entire crew of Red Dwarf are resurrected by nanobots.

And if you think that sounds complicated, just be glad we didn't get started on all the time-travel stuff that goes on...

Literal eye candy

For the past week or so I have been entertained by gorgeous Mr Rupert Everett in the form of his autobigraphy book Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins. I have always been a fan of his good looks and the Sherlock Holmes film at x-mas time on telly inspired me to get this book and look into his world in his own words. Mr Everett is a shameless diva at times and insufferable twat but all in all he does not come accross as an total asshole, just an honest (?) and self critical man. His writing is rather superb and the way he for example describes his old girl friend (yes, he has been swinging which ever way at times) is brilliant:

"She was wild, unpredictable beauty, tinged with a sparkle of madness; the latest in a long tradition of French sirens. Although she was quite scornful about her coutry, she was as French as Joan of Arc - the suicide bomber version."



This book has made laugh aloud in the tube and I have no hesitation of recommending it to anyone. Well actually, if you are particularly squamish about the gay sex references, then this might not be the book for you.

Arillas memories

Min has been messing about making videos for a couple of weeks now and I thought I have go as well with the pictures I have taken in Arillas for the past couple of summers. Here is the end result. Good times!

Pablo the drug mule dog

In the telly there has been an advert going for few weeks now about stupidness and dangers of taking cocaine. I was first quite shocked as the start of the ad is a dog called Pablo who is the drug mule. But I do have to admit that it is quite an effective advert and although it is made in light manner the message is dead serious

I have known few coke freaks in my time and they whilst none of them have died to my knowledge, there must be some long term damage to their already messy heads, not to mention to their body in general. Talk To Frank is a service that you can call here in the UK if you are in need of information regarding coke abuse.

Good George news!

Gorgeous George Clooney is returning to the last ever series of ER, YEIIIII!. The news this morning seem to confim it, which is nice :) *sigh*

2009 Travel Plan

This years travel plan has formed nicely. The first trip is to pay a visit to Heavy at end of March in Finland and that is only 56 sleeps away.

Second trip will be to Kefalonia, where I will meet Heavy and Miss R for a fortnight of sun therapy. This is a new Greek island so expectations are great. 199 sleeps!

Third one is to my home away from home, the tranquil Arillas in Corfu. This will be a solo trip unless someones boss gives unpaid leave to someone (fingers crossed and I am not trying to tempt fate!). Arillas is always good, going alone or with friends. Mere 219 sleeps to my B-Day which is also the day I travel to Corfu.


And then there is the cherry on top of the travel calendar when Min and I return to our favourite European capital, Lisbon on October 14th. Just 265 sleeps later we will be there meeting friends and enjoying local food and wine.

Until those dates the grey everyday, London Underground and work continues on and on and on...

Compliment

A woman, standing nude, looks in the bedroom mirror and says despairingly to her husband: "I feel horrible and I look fat and ugly. Please pay me a compliment."

The husband replies: "Your eyesight's damn near perfect."

He never heard the shot...

Monday moan

After really well rested weekend this Monday morning dawned with heavy rain. If that didn't get my spirit down, London Underground managed to do that quite nicely. I had to get to work a bit earlier to set up a video conference and another meeting but inconveniently some poor sod took ill on the train before us which left us standing at the Tooting Bec platform for over 15 minutes whilst they were doing what ever they were doing in Balham. So naturally by the time I got to work the time was way too tight and chaotic frenzy to get everything done and the attendees to these meeting naturally arrived too early. Start as you mean to go on...balderdash I say....

Daily cost is too much

I have been buying my Daily Mail for years always on my way to work during the week, Saturdays with my food shopping and on Sundays I get the Mail on Sunday. I have been belonging to the despised Daily Mail brigade quite happily, although I very rarely agree with any of their writers, with the exception of Richard Littlejohn and sometimes Allison Pearson.

This morning I was getting on with the quick cross word on the back page when I started to think how much I spend on the paper per day, per week, per month and annually. The sum came to a total of £244.40 annually. It is a lot of money at the time of this wretched recession and I much rather spend it on something else. I can pick up a free Metro at the station in the week mornings and for the rest there is always the internet.

Today is the last day I paid for a daily newspaper. I feel strangely liberated...

Lost in good books

I have been spending couple of hours a day with a fictitious man for a couple of months now. He is called Harry Bosch and he is an LA cop, sort of an anti hero in Michael Connelly's books. He is also an Vietnam veteran, insomniac, emotionally crippled but never the less quite attractive to my mind. He does have time for a semi romantic interlude in all his books and he always goes for a strong independent women. But predictably he is as unlucky with his relationships as he is a brilliant, albeit very unorthodox detective. I have nearly missed my stop in the underground for few times because I have been engrossed in the Harry Bosch escapades. Good stuff!

Grey Monday

This weekend just gone I did more or less nothing (after laundry, food shopping and having my nails done) and nice it was too. With moon full I slept 10 hours during both nights and nodded off in the afternoons whilst watching DVD's. So I can say I feel truly rested for once.

The weather has turned and the south westerly winds are blowing lovely warm air and there is a spring like smell in the air. Mind you, any moment now the heavens will open as the weather forecast has promised heavy rain for the rest of the day.

In the photo shop opposite, Ed has shaved off his hair as well as Larry so now the pair of them look indeed like Mitchell brothers from East Enders. I wonder why they both have done it? Have they got a bad case of head lice? Have they became buddist? I guess we'll never know...

Pettiest man alive

This news this mornign left me gasping. This idiot bloke in States wants the kidney back from his soon to be ex-wife or 1 million dollars because they are divorcing. What a sad sad sad "Cee U Next Tuesday". I wouldn't give him a bean, not to mention a kidney bean!

Wednesday words

The beginning of this year has been ever so busy at work. With one person down it is at times impossible to cope with the work load, but I am still extremely happy that I do have a job. I have had time to notice that Ed and Larry are back to work across the road after their holidays and their shop is buzzing with clients. But yesterday I witnessed an ugly thing as some f*%$kwit nicked a couriers bike while he was delivering to my reception and when the courier tried to ran after him shouting “He has nicked my bike, somebody please stop him!”, no one helped him and people just stared at him and the thief got away. *shaking my head, but not really surprised*

Good news from Finland! Heavy's company kicked out couple of hundred people, but luckily she was not one of them. She had her stomach in seven kinds of knots waiting to hear her faith from the powers that be. Phewwwwww….

Our temporary kitty lodger Iddy Piddy has moved today to a foster home whilst waiting for a permanent new kind owner who will look after her. I hope all is well that ends well with her and that she will find a purrfect home.

Dropless January

In Finland it is a kind of tradition after x-mas time excesses to have a "dropless" January to give your body a rest from the ravages of alcohol consumed over the holidays. After Heavy left yesterday there was some wine left which I proceed to enjoy with my dinner. But as from today the January will be dropless but I possibly cannot promise what happens in February ;)

Tea For Two

Yesterday Heavy and I headed to to town and accidentally got into the horror of Oxford Street sales. We escaped the hoardes and made our way to more affluent part of town to use my leaving present from my old colleagues in the city.

It was Champagne Afternoon Tea for Two at The Egerton House Hotel. We were actually dressed in trousers and shirts avoiding our normal off the scale casual look and all the tattoos were hidden too. And what a nice time we had! We didn't spill anything, drop anything or get crumbs every where and we loved the gorgeous hotel whose staff was very attentive and polite. Of course after all that behaving we ended up in the pub and watched the FA Cup game Preston - LIverpool along with few pints to restore the balance in the universe.

The tea was set in the beautiful lounge

There were delish cakes and sandwiches

Then there were not...

The Champagne was good stuff

Alas all the fun comes to an end this afternoon when I say good bye to Heavy at Heathrow terminal 1. Thank you for visiting my friend and I see you 19th March in Finland! Good times ;)

1st hangover of the year

Heavy arrived yesterday and the merriment commenced. The Stifado was good and Min joined us for dinner. The we hit The Standard and to our delight (????) it was a New Years eve karaoke night. We concentrated on the drink side and left the singing for the people who could, only to join in the chorus of Angels. Today we went for a walk and some hangover food in the form of Burger King, which was surprisingly good. In the afternoon we lit a small bomfire in the garden and enjoyed couple of beverages in the glow of the fire. Tonight there is only wine with the dinner as I am working tomorrow. The ladies will go and do some shopping and they will meet me for lunch and I believe there might be few drinks in the evening, just because it is Friday ;)

Stifado was good and there was enough of it

Us happy in the pub with proof that we din't only drink