I should really mention a little more about the weekend, for the sake of posterity.
I stayed in a Club for Gentlemen located on Pall Mall. Its noted for being the place from where Michael Palin set out for his epic trip around the world in 80 days a few years ago. This is because when he returned, having successfully circumnavigated the globe, they wouldn't let him in as he didn't have an invitation. You've got to admire a place that can be quite so bloody minded.
It was also featured in a recent Bond film as the backdrop for scenes where Madonna was doing something with swords. Thankfully, I believe she was fencing rather than the sort of unsavoury thing for which she's normally noted.
Lastly, it has a billiard table that is listed in the Top 100 Places In London To Have Sex.
Very surreal. Not least because I had to wear a suit and tie (although not during the whole 'having sex' thing - that would be just plain weird), which is something I usually reserve for weddings and funerals, and this was neither (although an awful lot of the members looked like they had just returned from their own burials.)
I saw a show. Something called Festen. The link will give you a review written by someone much cleverer than I. It was a fantastic play, beginning as a dark comedy of manners at a family birthday before turning inky black in the second half. If you're in London, I'd highly recommend it.
Finally, there was a bad curry in a very stylish restaurant. My companion chided me for referring to the establishment as a 'curry house'. She was correct, a curry house serves up huge platefuls of mysterious steaming spiced dishes. Usually in elderly oval metal bowls (doubtless liberated from the local hospital) and left on hotplates that are older than me. Unintelligible music with wailing women bounces around the flock-wallpapered environment to create the proper ambience. This place, on the other hand, served up mere mouthfuls of lukewarm food, artfully arranged on new white porcelain. And the music? Something dreadful that was in the popular music charts a few months ago. Tch.
Best call the council and demand a 'missed the point' notice be sent to the offending establishment.
