RANT - Milk Substitutes

Despite living a huff 'n a puff 5-minute walk uphill from the nearest grocery store, being out of fresh milk and bread makes it feel like I'm stranded in the Kalahari. Which predicament brings me to today's puzzle: how to make a decent mid-morning capuccino when the only "milk" in the house is the dreadful rice milk her ladyship splashes on her Cheerios every morning.

I can't go any further without linking to Lewis Black's rabid rant about milk.

Strangely, Lewis Black failed to mention rice milk, which looks and tastes like dirty water. Needless to say, minus the stuff that makes real milk so good, rice milk sits like a nasty film on top of the espresso, daring you to sip it. With each swirl of the cup, the layer of non-foam disappears until it's just the nasty non-milk taste that's left to tarnish an otherwise excellent cup made with freshly-ground Blue Bottle coffee.

RAVE - Walking the Amazon

Somewhere near the top of my list of things I should've done when I was younger and fitter, along with "Learn to play like my namesake Jimmy Page, form a band and live the life of a rock star", is "explore the Amazon".

Former British Army Captain Ed Stafford is 574 664 days into his attempt to walk the length of the Amazon, from its source to its mouth, a superhuman feat that he expects to complete August 2010.

The trip began April 2, 2008, but Stafford and his initial traveling companion, Luke Collyer argued over an iPod some way into the expedition, and Collyer buggered off back to England.

Stories like this, and watching The Amazing Race, make me wonder if Pavey and I would make it out of the parking lot to the riverside without arguing about whether our cats had been left enough food, and one of us packing it in.

Witty captions are invited for the picture above, and before Roger quips "is that an Anaconda in your backpack, or are you just pleased to see me?", I've got that one.

RANT - Belichick's Overdue Geography Lesson

The New England Patriots played The Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday at Wembley Stadium in London, for this year's "foreign" NFL game.

I read The Times from the UK each day, thanks to my Kindle subscription, and from which I'm quoting this gem:

Bill Belichick, head coach of the Patriots, said he was excited about the chance to play at Wembley, but he said it in the way that Madonna says she's excited about getting the chance to play Vladivostock. Then he went on to say that his team has "never played an overseas game, other than in Toronto" - prompting this geography question, worth five points: name the sea that separates New England from Canada.

The rest of the article was equally readable, but I think I'll skip Belichick's autobiography when it comes out.

RAVE - Gossip at The Regency

It's been said before - mostly in the UK press, because she's less known in her native USA - Beth Ditto is a superstar.

Am I the only person who thinks she's as important as Janis Joplin? Comparing her to Tina Turner is fitting, but likely to send you off on an R&B tangent. At their peak last night, Gossip sounded like the Sex Pistols would've sounded in their heyday, if they'd had a female vocalist and enjoyed themselves a bit more. Got the picture?

With her shock of orange hair and expanse of white flesh, Ditto looked like a plus-sized match.

She apologized at the start for being hoarse, but the way she powered through their hour-long set belied that. They performed most of their latest CD, Music for Men (buy it now!), and encored with Standing in the Way of Control, with Beth thundering away from the top of a speaker-sized box on one corner of the stage.

The Regency was heaving, boasting an assortment of girls dressed like guys, guys dressed like girls, and three guys dressed like Dexy's Midnight Runners!

RAVE - Accidental treasures on the Web

I used to work for a software company in Denver. I won't mention the name, because the a-hole who ran the company doesn't deserve the mention, but one of the sales guys used to describe our software as having a "serendipity factor", meaning that users would find hidden gems in there. Now, spare the silk-purse-out-of-a-sow's-ear gasps, he was only trying to make a living. What is serendipitous however, is bumbling around on the web and finding wonderful facts or stories you weren't looking for in the first place.

For example, while waiting for the Liverpool versus Manchester Scum game to start this morning, I caught the end of Burn After Reading, where during the credits it featured CIA Man, by The Fugs. Now, I'd never heard of The Fugs before (I'm sure Roger Espley still has one of their 8-track cartridges in his car), so I strolled on over to YouTube and found the song.

In the right-hand frame - at least when I dallied there - were links to some treasures by The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. These included rarities like Terry Keeps His Clips On, about an uber conservative gardener who doesn't want bugs to get up his trouser legs.

Incidentally, young music combo (as Private Eye magazine would introduce them) Death Cab For Cutie got its name from the title of a song written by Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall (pictured above), founders of the Bonzos.

Wondering whether Stanshall was still alive led me to Wikipedia, which informed that he isn't - sadly he died in a fire in his flat in 1995. Our Viv was a true eccentric, and a funny one. In one of his Rawlinson End tales, he wrote about enjoying a new Jewish musical, Oklahymie. This story however, was the real accidental treasure I found:

"In particular, his exploits with close friend Keith Moon are legendary, perhaps the most notorious involving Stanshall going into an unsuspecting tailor's shop and admiring a pair of trousers; Moon then came in, posing as another customer, admired the same trousers and demanded to buy them. When Stanshall protested the two men fought over them, splitting them in two so they ended up with one leg each. The tailor was by now beside himself but right then a one-legged actor, who had been hired by Stanshall and Moon, came in, saw the trousers and proclaimed "Ah! Just what I was looking for."

Sans prix.

One postscript to this story is that Roger (the 8-track cartridge sporter) tells me he and I luxuriated in front row seats at Vivian Stanshall's Stinkfoot comic opera in London many years ago. Now, I don't remember luxuriating in much of anything with Roger, except maybe a pint of Bols at an Austrian ski resort, but that's for another blog post.

RAVE - The Damned United

A riveting character study of someone I never liked.

In fact, I hated Brian Clough, whether he was managing Derby County, Leeds United or Nottingham Forest. I hated his whiny voice, his superior attitude, his success.

This film focuses on the 44 days Clough spent as manager of Leeds, and amply demonstrates what there was to hate about him. His selfishness. His pig-headedness. His treatment of his assistant, Peter Taylor.

Aside from the stunning acting by Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall, the big big takeaway from this movie is the shocking difference between the way the game was managed and played in the 70s, and the way it is now. Players smoking in the dressing room before the game, shabby stadiums, pitches and stars' homes. And those haircuts!

Best quotes:

In a TV interview after Derby County won the First Division championship: "I wouldn't say I'm the best manager in the business, but I am in the Top One".

When Clough and Taylor traveled to the south coast, to talk to the directors at Brighton: "Bloody Southerners. What are we doing here, we're almost in France!"

We were intrigued to see how a mostly American audience would take to this gritty as grit English film, but they seemed really into it, even without sub-titles for the Yorkshire, Scottish and Irish accents.

Awesome, dudes.

RAVE - Echo and The Bunnymen at Fox Theater, Oakland

There were no decent dancers in the 80s - the music didn't lend itself to the sashay. And that deficit was much in evidence* last night, at the gorgeous Fox Theater in Oakland.

* I'm not sure if a "deficit" can be "much in evidence", in the same way a "secret" cannot logically be "obvious", so sue me for assault with a deadly phrase.

As Echo & The Bunnymen delivered two sets, the first a performance of their 1984 album Ocean Rain, followed by another 45 minutes of classics, the assorted post-punks and pre-baggies barely kept in time.

Thanks to our hosts, Mikki and Jonny Larner (owner of The Independent venue in SF), we were in the friends and family section, which afforded plenty of "dancing" space for keen fans like the thirty-something woman writhing and swirling next to us, clearly channeling Siouxsie Sioux while auditioning for second witch in the next Harry Potter movie.

But what about the music? At his and their best, Ian McCulloch and the band sound like Richard Ashcroft and The Verve. At their worst, there are comparisons with plenty lacklustre 80s outfits. It also depends who you listen to, as to whether the first, orchestra-backed half was better than the second, band-alone set. I preferred the latter, which freed the band from the tempo and sound-system issues of balance between guitars and a string section.

Last night, McCulloch's voice showed what being raised in possibly the wettest part of England (Liverpool), and smoking 2 packs of Marlboro a day can do to a man. At times he sounded less Ian Curtis and more aging Neil Diamond. He also demonstrated a grumpiness akin to Mark Smith and the Gallaghers, which makes me wonder how hard it must be to stay pissed off for 25 years!

Curiously, the lighting carefully kept McCulloch in near total darkness. On one of those rare occasions when he WAS visible, he shouted "turn the effing lights off!!!".

So there it is then, Ian McCulloch's a vampire.

RANT or RAVE (I can't make up my mind): The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown

My first Kindle book completed, and I don't know if I can take another of Dan Brown's formulaic series of denouements.

The book is fine, but Brown suffers from a Tolkien-esque need to label everything as ancient and belonging to someone: The Holy House of Heredom, The Winding Staircase of Freemasonry, The Code of Kryptos, the Ad of Nauseum (tee hee). See also The Mirror of Galadriel, The Riders of Theoden, The Dagger of The Witch King, The Fighting Knives of Legolas ... but I go on. (or at least Tolkien did).

And while good suspense writing demands some, er, suspense, every freaking chapter ends with stuff like "Wide-eyed, Mal'akh lay gasping for breath .. all alone on the great altar".

After a while, the persistent cliff-hangers got to me. I guess I'm suffering from something like my brother Lawrence, who maintains that he hates any book or film that starts with the result, and then tells the story of how things got to that result. My complaint is that I don't like writers or directors that can only maintain suspense using the same old devices. I'm tempted to write a spoof porn script using those devices, but someone might print it and show it to my mum! So you'll never get to read:

Chapter 2: .......... Ricky gasped as Rebekka tore violently at her stiffly-starched blouse, while fumbling frantically at his belt.
Chapter 3: Meanwhile, over at the grocery store, Joe deliberated over his choice of ice cream. "What flavor should we have tonight?", he wondered. This was always a problem for him. He knew he should have thought about this before trudging around every aisle at Safeway.

On a positive note, The Lost Symbol made it even more likely we'll spend a weekend in DC, armed with a list of alleged pyramids, obelisks and hidden-in-plain-sight evidence of the Freemasons' fabulous-ness.

RAVE - The Professor and The Madman, by Simon Winchester

The riveting tale of how the original Oxford English Dictionary was compiled. Believe me, it's a gripper! (–noun 1. a person or thing that grips. 2. grabbing you by the tender bits and keeping you focused).

When I was at school, I remember my English tutor banging on about how the only newspaper worth reading was the Manchester Guardian. Simon Winchester, a journalist for that paper, writes this account of the process behind the first edition of the world-famous OED.

James Murray - the "professor" in the book's title - and his team started by advertising for contributions to what would become the OED. He placed newspaper ads, and more inventively put slips of paper inside certain library books that he thought would be read by the educated contributors he was seeking.

The ads asked for people to submit words with definitions supported by examples of those words in contemporary and classical writings.

Professor Murray noticed that a disproportionately high number of contributions came from a post box address in Reading. Intrigued as to the source of those contributions, he tracked the sender down to someone in Reading Jail. The Jail was the kind of place where the authorities placed all manner of people, some genuinely disturbed, and others (like Oscar Wilde) whom they found hard to categorize.

The Professor eventually identified his prodigious contributor as linguistics expert Dr. William Minor ("The Madman"), who was incarcerated for life for having committed murder in 1872, alledgely driven by the atrocities he'd witnessed in the American Civil War.

Who knew that the detailed account of how the first OED was compiled would be such a fantastic story.

RAVE - John Peel, by Mick Wall

I, like many music fans, revere John Peel.

For many years he was the only meaningful figure on British radio. He eschewed the pop blah that other DJs paraded nonstop.

His reputation for discovering musical talent far outweighs anything that dipsticks like Simon Cowell or Piers Morgan can muster.

When I was doing my school homework, I used to record every minute of Peel's early evening radio show, and amassed a collection of hundreds of cassettes that I wore out in my Walkman.

This book tells how we got where he got, and tells many inside stories of the music biz, how bands we now know well first broke, and how much time Peel would spend sifting through the thousands of demo tapes sent him every week of his life.

The thinking man's music legend, RIP.

REVIEW - Capitalism: A Love Story

Boy, did we argue about this afterward. I thought it was unbalanced and gimmicky; Pavey thought that it accurately slammed the iniquities of capitalism.

We all know Michael Moore can resort to massive overstatement in order to make his point, but his use of a criminal case where owners of a privately owned juvenile detention center bribed a local judge to sentence kids to time behind bars as "a typical example of what's wrong with capitalism" was just too much of a stretch for me. Claiming that crime -  when the illegal pursuit of money harms the innocent - is capitalism, is just plain stupid in my view.

Similarly one-sided was Moore's focus on just one half of the sub-prime mortgage debacle. He banged on endlessly about those despicable Goldman Sachs types sneakily promoting variable rate mortgages to the unsuspecting, under-educated and poor, totally ignoring the fact that it takes two to tango.

Finally (for me anyway) were Moore's stunts - schlepping around Wall Street in an armored truck demanding that bail-out recipients return their ill-gotten gains to the taxpayer, and stretching "Crime Scene" tape around the headquarters of AIG and Morgan Stanley - were just time-wasting.

One interesting and potentially disgusting thing to check out is whether your company takes out life insurance on YOU, their employee. The film used this as more evidence of the evil nature of capitalism, and your view may depend on whether your company will make money when you die. See for yourself.

I could go on - and did last night, over dinner. Sorry Pav.

RANT - Rain = Power Cuts

What kind of 3rd World country is this anyway? Whenever we get heavy rain, San Francisco gets power outages!

My flight back from Austin, via Denver was delayed FIVE HOURS because of rain in San Francisco. And when I did get back, at 4am yesterday, the clocks were flashing, the fire doors on the elevator were closed, and the shrubs on our front deck were flattened.

Seriously, the only place I've been with a flakier power supply is the Caribbean. Oh good, the TV's back on :)

RAVE - Social Media Video

I spoke at the Texas CIO Academy earlier this week, a trip that allowed me to stop in for dinner and a glass or two with old and dear friends Bill and Margaret Eley in Houston (well, Bill's old and Margaret's dear).

Researching the material for my preso, I found (and used) this excellent video describing Social Media's meteoric rise.

RAVE - Corde Valle Resort, St Martin, CA

Spent our 6th Anniversary weekend at Corde Valle resort, about 70 miles south of San Francisco. And what a gorgeous place it is too. Boasting a top class golf course that we admired but didn't play, our Anniversary special suite flanked the 9th fairway, and we enjoyed breakfast each morning on our patio overlooking that fairway. In our private garden we had our own hot tub, which was hastily evacuated when we saw our own private Garter Snake slithering within reach! Verdict: otherwise blissful.

RAVE - Yank Sing

Something hit me 10 minutes into sitting at the counter for Sunday brunch at Yank Sing.

I got into one of those euphoric moods where I wanted to order everything on the menu. The M.O was perfect for that rush. Every few minutes, someone pushes a cart up to you with various steaming, spicy concoctions in little wicker baskets or on open dishes.

All bite sized. All irresistible.

The fact that the place was full of mostly Chinese families in a festive mood made for a great Sunday meal.

RAVE - Farmhouse Inn and Restaurant

I picked this place from various online recommendations when we rented a house near Healdsburg for our anniversary weekend.

The Farmhouse Inn is an un-spectacular building in the otherwise un-spectacular hamlet of Forestville.

Walking in from outside it's like entering Dr Who's Tardis - with the exterior giving no hint of the wonders inside. The decor, the furnishings, the ambience are all country house luxury.

The food was exceptional, and well worth the schlepp up to Sonoma.

I don't know if it was the euphoria surrounding our anniversary, or the super good mood I was in having found this place, but I believe the wine was one of the best I've ever had, a 2005 Vosnes Romanee.

RAVE - My new Kindle

Having a blast with my new Kindle (thank you Pav).

Reading books on the Kindle became second nature within a few minutes. It's not that it's the same as reading printed pages, it's that reading from a Kindle is easy on the eyes and easy on the hands. Controls are natural, the screen is crystal clear.

We'll see how the device lasts after being manhandled around the pool over Christmas, but until then, I'm sold.

UPDATE: After using the Kindle for a couple of weeks, I'm even more impressed. Interestingly, I've found I can read faster on the Kindle than I can with a regular book, mainly because with the text re-paginated to fit a screen that's narrower than a real paper page, there's less lateral distance for my eyes to scan the lines, and it's easier to deploy that speed-reading trick of looking at the start and end of a line or paragraph before reading the full text.

ROMANCE - Happy Anniversary Pavey

What with Global Warming, tsunamis and recession, I'm not sure if this is the compliment it once was, but you are the World to me.

While this weekend it's our 6th wedding anniversary, you've been on the receiving end of my wit, washing and wonderfulness for 12 years. (Would love, laundry and lasciviousness have worked better? I don't know).

Anyhow, this is to remind you that I love you.

RAVE - Noel Coward's Brief Encounter at American Conservatory Theater

Front row seats are always a hoot at the theater. You see every nuance of the performance, every bead of sweat, and in this case, even get to speak to members of the cast before the show.

This production mixed film, music and live performance - with the cast serving cucumber sandwiches and singing in the bar during intermission - and was wonderful from start to finish.

This tour comes direct from England, so the 30s English mannerisms and accents were perfect. Of course, I'd done my Noel Coward plummy-accented, cigarette-in-a-holder, top hat under the arm impersonation for Pavey in advance, all to no avail. This is no elegant drawing room melodrama, but a suburban railway station mostly populated by working staff, soldiers and 3 pairs of vexed lovers.

Is there any other kind?

RAVE - A Day At The Beach

Was it The Pope who said "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"? It might've been, seeing as everyone from Oscar Wilde to Mark Twain has been credited with that zinger.

What they DON'T tell you is that after the alleged summer has gone, during autumn (and even winter) the ozone layer opens up and we're treated to warm days and nights.

Hence, wheretofore and thusly, yesterday we deposited ourselves onto Dunes Beach, at Half Moon Bay, 20 miles south of San Francisco. While admiring the surfers for their skill and resolve - the sea NEVER warms up off our coast - I buried Pavey up to her armpits in the sand and was able to give her a playful slap without fear of reciprocation ;)

REVIEW - Manic Street Preachers at The Fillmore, Sep 24 2009

For those of you who think I don't know squat about Classical Music, I just revelled in the Manics with friend and software conspirator Ed Gaudet.

I last saw them supporting Oasis at Knebworth in the UK in 1996, along with Prodigy and Ocean Colour Scene. The sound that day was abominable, with a 1 second delay between what we heard from the bus-sized speakers at the front, and those at the back of the 250,000 crowd. No such problems at The Fillmore, which as always hosted an excellent show.

10 years after guitarist Richey Edwards disappeared (his car was found near the Severn Bridge, and it's assumed he jumped), the Manics' new album features his lyrics set to new tunes. I think one ends with "peace out" at these moments.

RAVE - L'Ardoise

The best French food I've tasted in America, let alone San Francisco. 

I hate to say it, because we live just 2 blocks from Chez Papa on Potrero Hill, but L'Ardoise is what Chez Papa aspires to be. 

My wife started with the Tomato and Basil Tureen, which was "tasty and refreshing", and I ignored American sensibilities and had the Foie Gras, which was excellent. She moved on to the Coq Au Vin, with a "wonderfully rich sauce that made chicken an exciting choice for once". I had the Duck Leg Confit, which was the best I've had in years. The Pommes L'Ardennes (I think that's what they were called) somehow tasted like they'd been cooked in a French oil on a French flame in France.

I guess I would have preferred the same fare in a larger space - the place is perhaps too cramped, with tables too close together to properly relax and enjoy the food.

The staff was energetic, friendly and helpful - what more could you ask?

RAVE - Brunelleschi's Dome, by Ross King

To borrow a much-vaunted phrase from the art world: I'm not an expert on architecture, but I know what I like.

This is an exciting account of how the word's largest Renaissance dome was designed and built.

I wish I'd read this book before I visited Florence and gazed up at Il Duomo. It was a dramatic experience, and the icing on the cake would have been to know what it took to build it.

The book also extends the list of Italian words you know (pasta, pizza, macaroni, ferrari, etc. - now you know that Il Duomo means "The Dome").

RANT - Extended Car Warranties

While I've got my synapses wired to the main power supply and the dial turned to 'Full Rant', imagine my surprise to find this! Looking into another annoying TV ad I suspect being perpetrated by scammers - namely, add-on car warranties - at Ripoff Report.com, there among the complaints about stoprepairbills.com, is an ad for Cash4Gold.com. Does this need another exclamation mark?

I don't know whether to focus on the confirmation that people ARE being scammed by these companies offering cover for repairs they eventually wriggle out of, or on the fact that Ripoff Report is getting ad dollars from another company alleged on their web site to be ripping people off!

Lewis Black makes big money wobbling his chops and spluttering over these incongruities.

RANT - Cash for Gold ads

What is it with all these ads telling us to send our gold rings, bracelets and nick-nacks to some company we've never heard of? Most of these companies sound like scammers, smell like scammers and, if you research them online, are in fact alleged scammers.  

How is it that TV advertising has moved from plain old crushingly dull to outright punter-swindling?

There are a number of sites where ripoff-ees have left their "Disgusted, of Sudbury" posts, including this one.

Caveat emptor (which is Latin for "watch your ass").

RAVE - Sociale

Very impressed with Sociale, a restaurant in Laurel Heights, San Francisco.

We had an exceptional evening with Holly, Stephen, Ginger and Ross, starting with a snifter at Spruce, directly across the street.

Strolling across to Sociale, the front yard was full, with everyone enjoying the party atmosphere. We were seated inside, and began what turned out to be a very different 3.5 hour dinner than the Cafe Jacqueline experience (see August 30 RANT). Admittedly, we ate and drank almost continuously, with 3 top-notch Italian reds (Nebbiolo, Rosso di Montalcino, Nobile de Montepulciano), and an excellent Moscato D'Asti with dessert). Everything we had (stuffed olives, peppers stuffed with lamb, Fava bean risotto, lamb chop, quail) was cooked to perfection, while the service was top notch.

Hugely recommended.

RAVE - The Forger's Spell, by Edward Dolnick

Another great history mystery book, sub-titled "A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century", this one, er, tells the true story of a fake Vermeer, painted by budding hoaxer Han van Meegeren and sold to one Hermann Goering.

Apparently, Van Meegeren was a lousy painter, but driven by jealousy and a desperate need for money, he set about working out how to create a painting (and in the end, a series of them) that, though painted in the 1940s would look, feel and smell like something painted 300 years earlier.

Reading this wouldn't enable you to forge an old master, but it shows you to what lengths you'd have to go if you tried. It's not just painting like Vermeer, but using 300 year old wooden frames, 300 year old canvas, paint and minerals, and choosing a subject that would fit into Vermeer's canon.

After doing all of that, you have to come up with a credible story about how and where you uncovered this "lost" work. And in Van Meegeren's case, because his initial success encouraged him to repeat the process with a number of additional "Vermeers", eventually led to his downfall.

Forgers vs Nazis, an exciting, true story.

RANT - Our fridge is broken. Please send cold beer.

As we used to say in England "It never rains. It pours" - a piece of logic that would make a meteorologist turn in his grave.

The cause of my linguistic lash-up? Last week we bought a new washer and drier, because the washer retired with a groin strain, or something. Yesterday, we came back from our week away to find that the refrigerator had decided to heat everything, rather than freeze it. Our repair man has just left to order an $800 part! So, until Friday we are living the Victorian life, sans refrigeration. How will we keep the pheasant and foie gras edible? How will we get by with warm champagne? At least it's given us something else to argue about, seeing as the failed fridge is apparently my fault. I must've broken some rule on planet Pav.

REVIEW - Maui

I have to be very careful about my critique du paradis. That'd be biting the hand that feeds me. We took the 20-minute flight from Honolulu to Maui, and checked into the Ritz-Carlton for 4 days of finding out what it's like to share a big-ass pool with dozens of other schmooze-fans.

Short answer? Pretty darned good.

Sticking a bunch of volcanic islands in the middle of the Pacific necessarily means you get a lot of cloud and a permanent brisk, warm wind whipping around your speedo. Nevertheless, it is gorgeous here, and only the hedonistic pursuit of luxuries elsewhere and a doctorate in pickiness gives me a somewhat jaded view of resorts like this.

Eaves-dropping on a group next to us in one of the many restaurants at this hotel gave me the perfect get-out - how to criticize the place without inviting too much criticism myself. What do London or New York give you that you can't get here in Hawaii, or in San Francisco? Style.

That might sound a little disingenuous, coming from someone who loves life in SF, but I'm just, er, "being real, dog."

No amount of fancy furniture or million dollar view can make up for an alleged 5-star resort that insists on offering fries with every dish, or not listing the year with any of the wines on the menu, or having 2 flat screen TVs in the suite, but no slippers, or having TVs blasting ESPN into the lobby and main bar all bleeding day, or thinking that having every member of staff intone "Aloha" every time they see you gives them a big check mark alongside "service". Sorry, I'm foaming at the mouth now. Back to the view from our room. Aaaaaaaah.

Will we go back? Almost certainly.

RAVE - Best office in the world?

This is arguably the world's best view from an office desk. I know some of you prefer gazing out of your corner offices at the throbbing pulse of the financial district in [insert throbbing city here], but I'm sure we'd all live longer and happier if we had this view of the Pacific from IBM's Honolulu office.

Sadly, I only spent a day in this office, and left fingernails on the door jambs as I was dragged out to the waiting airport taxi.

RANT - Hawaii 0-5

Thanks to an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time, I was asked to co-present at an IBM seminar in Honolulu. That very pleasant task meant we decided to extend the visit by a few days, Pavey flew in and we blissed out in Maui. I may be a curmudgeon, but I know what side my bread's buttered, so I'm separating my negatives from my positives.

No mistake about it, Hawaii is not all pineapple chunks in Paradise.

First, there are the visitors:

1. Washed out, grey-haired salesmen with paunches stretching generic aloha shirts, droning on about zzzzzzzzz

2. American and Japanese tourists, doing the same thing Brits do in Benidorm, wabbling around with bright red faces and umbrella festooned concotions, telling their whining brats they can get another big mac when they get back to the condo.

3. Then there's everyone else, suspecting that as long as they hang out here they'll not have a proper career.

That's not 5 negatives? I said I would hold the curmudgeanity.

Oh, alright.

4. Two words. West California.

5. Another two. American Luxe.

RANT - Town Hall

There are several things that can take the edge of a restaurant, if not outright spoil it.

I've already banged on enough about singing "happy birthday", and how that drops an otherwise classy place down into TGIF territory. 

Then there's having to stand around for ages in limbo waiting for your reserved and already overdue table. 

Not to mention doggy bags on the table, waiters telling you what their favorite dish is on the menu, imagining that their taste buds are twinned with yours.

Town Hall suffers from all of these.

I picked this photo because it perfectly highlights the Applebys-with-chandeliers vibe exuded by this place.

Enough said.

RAVE - Spruce

Elegant, sumptuous and tasty. But enough about me.

Spruce would be perfect if it hadn't pulled one of our wine choices and suggested another, much more expensive one, and then repeated that "trick" with two of our entrees.

I wouldn't normally mind, but it smacked of the waiter and/or restaurant just trying to leech more money out of their customer.

Aside from that, it's a very special place, for eating or cocktailing.

Not much choice in the leather-bound menu for our vegetarian guest, but all-in-all a great place for a mini-celebration or otherwise special night out.

Last time we were here we just sat in the bar for cocktails before heading over the street to Sociale.

Nice.

RAVE - Michaelangelo and The Pope's Ceiling, by Ross King

Another vivid account by Ross King (see Brunelleschi's Dome), this one covering (no pun intended) the Master's job on the Sistine Chapel.

I'm ashamed to say that on the many times I've visited Rome, business engagements or the long lines to get in to see the Chapel have prevented me from viewing one of the most famous "paintings" in the World.

I say "painting" because in fact - as I learned in this excellent book - it's actually a fresco, which were and still are created in a unique fashion. The laborious method of applying colored minerals to a still-wet plaster surface was one of the many reasons Michaelangelo didn't really want the commission.

Compounding that were the sheer scale and unpleasant working conditions - in cramped, dangerously high locations, mostly working on his back and in poor light.

The large scale of most frescoes, and the fact that panels or sections needed to be completed before the plaster completely dried, meant first sketching the composition on paper, making pin pricks along the lines of that sketch, attaching the paper to the wall or ceiling and then applying colored chalk through those pin pricked holes. The result was an outline on the plaster that could then be colored in. Not exactly painting by numbers, but you get the drift.

Arguably, any job linked with a politically corrupt, soap-opera-ish organization can, and did get unpleasant.

A fabulous thread running through the process of painting the Cistine Chapel was Michaelangelo's jealousy of and rivalry with his "competitor" Raphael.

This might have been called "Holy Roller", if Michaelangelo had done it all a nice flat color.

RANT - Cafe Jacqueline, North Beach, San Francisco

First of all, this dinner would have been a complete disaster if it wasn't for Cheri and Gareth, who joined us for 3.5 hours in this horrible restaurant. Also, to stave off any "grumpy old man" aspersions, I wasn't feeling 100% when I went into the place. And so ...

Anyone peeking in through the window of this North Beach tiddler would think I've gone off the rails. True, first appearances are of the quaint living room of an elderly French maid. However, once inside, this wolf in sheep's clothing reveals its teeth.

After being seated by a gruff waiter (American, not French), my heart sank when I realized that everything on the menu was a freaking souffle. This place has no website, so there's no way in advance to learn of the total lack of variety. Now, I know that souffles are somewhat of a culinary art form, but I don't count Asparagus Souffle, Cauliflower Souffle, Spinach Souffle, Cheese Souffle, ad nauseum (literally), as any kind of entree choice. And each souffle had to be shared by two guests, so that cut the table choices down even further.

I could go on, but I'll summarize a few things that made this place such a wash-up.

1. It was over ONE HOUR from being seated to getting our first course - soup!

2. It was TWO HOURS before we got our entree!

3. And it was THREE HOURS by the time we got dessert! My Writer's Guild aspirations prevent me from having more than one exclamation mark after each of those zingers.

4. They only had one white wine chilled - and it wasn't the one we wanted. It wasn't much of a hardship to drink a Crozes Hermitage (red) while we waited for the white to chill, but it was strange that the tardy onion soup was scaldingly hot while they couldn't serve a sufficiently cold white wine.

5. You know how it is when you've been driving for several hours, and you arrive at home, park and switch off the engine, and you sigh. Deep. At that point you realize how negative the droning, incessant noise of the road, the engine, the traffic had been. That's exactly how it felt when Mme Jacqueline turned off her bloody Cuisinart after each souffle. The noise was constant and intrusive, adding to the already booming noise from the tables.

6. After all the web reviews about the "fabulous" souffles, they weren't. In future I'll remember to discount most of those tourist comments, and lump them in with the rest of the weak-ass "tiramisu was to die for" group.

RAVE - Stonehenge (2,000 BC), by Bernard Cornwell

Like many people I'm intrigued by how structures like Stonehenge and The Pyramids of Giza (and everyone else) were built.

Was it a virtually unlimited supply of slaves + ancient ingenuity + religious fervor?

I'm not sure how historically accurate this book is. I read with awe how the source for Stonehenge's blocks was chosen from Wales, by Druid priests presumably bored with the notion of choosing a place closer to the required site in modern day Wiltshire, about 70 miles west of London.

The story spends a lot of time fantasizing about the characters that might have been involved in the planning, selecting, retrieving, manhandling over 100 miles of hills and rivers, and finally erecting the temple. 

Hard to believe, Cornwell's story is likely closer to the truth than this folk tale from the 16th Century states: The Devil bought the stones from a woman in Ireland, wrapped them up, and brought them to Salisbury plain. One of the stones fell into the Avon, the rest were carried to the plain. The Devil then cried out, "No-one will ever find out how these stones came here!" A friar replied, "That’s what you think!," whereupon the Devil threw one of the stones at him and struck him on the heel. The stone stuck in the ground and is still there.

Of course, this was just one of the many structures built on this site since 8,000 BC. Earlier structures were made of sticks and antlers, or with fewer stones.

Nevertheless, whoever quarried the stones and brought them here, for its most recent makeover 4,000 years ago, this book is an interesting take on the project.

REVIEW - Inglourious Basterds

Notice, this is not a RAVE, just a REVIEW. The movie fell short of deserving a RAVE.

I can see why so many writers have praised Chistoph Waltz's performace as Col. Hans Landa over Brad Pitt's as Lt. Aldo Raine. Waltz is maniacally over the top at times, in a good way.

I liked the film - perhaps even loved it - yet somehow it was too typically Tarantino. Good character development, although maybe a little drawn out in places, and once you realized those repeated drawn out stretches were solely set ups for the next slice of action, the formula seemed a little artificial.

QT's work isn't reliably excellent:

Reservoir Dogs (1992) was shocking but patchy.
Pulp Fiction (1994) was perfect.
Four Rooms (1995) was again patchy (he only directed 1/4 of this film).
Jackie Brown (1997) was fabulous.
Kill Bill (2003/4) was mixed (ground-breaking but pointlessly long).
Sin City (2005) was just plain lame (The Rt. Hon. Roger Espley * points out that Mr T. only directed one scene from Sin City, so he's largely absolved of this stinker)
Grindhouse - Death Proof (2007) was shabbier than the B-movie roots it tried to emulate.

* Roger also claims Tarantino directed From Dusk Til Dawn, but he only wrote the screenplay (presumably getting drunker and drunker as he did so - have you seen it???)

Therefore, the so-so nature of Inglourious Basterds should come as no surprise.

RAVE - Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, by Jimmy McDonough

Did you know Roger Ebert is a Russ Meyer fan, and wrote the script for Beyond The Valley of The Dolls? Nor did I.

It turns out that one of America's most loved film reviewers liked hanging around with Russ Meyer, because Meyer liked hanging around with well-endowed women.

When I was younger, I had no idea what Vixen!, Supervixens and Beneath The Valley of the Ultra-vixens were about. By the time I was old enough to appreciate them, they were already old hat.

This is a funny and well-written account of the life and times of the alleged inventor of the adult movie industry, a claim I'm sure Russ Meyer put about himself.

One snippet from Wikipedia is of special interest to me:

In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Roger Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled Who Killed Bambi? According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren proved unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project actually died at the behest of main financier 20th Century Fox, under the pretext that "We are in the business of making family entertainment.") The project ultimately evolved into The Great Rock & Roll Swindle.

RAVE - 1491, New Revelations Of The Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Man

Nothing like the 1421 example above. This one reveals that not only were there well-developed civilizations here before Christophe landed (we already know about the Inca and Maya), but those "Indian" empires were preceded by several others going back as far as 15,000 years ago.

That means several things:

1) Whenever and from wherever these earliest settlers landed, most of Northern Europe was iced over, making the Americas the first or second world, not the "New World".

2) The many cities built by the earliest settlers (especially in what are now Peru, Mexico and Brazil) were way bigger than any then current European cities.

3) Lots of other interesting stuff.

RAVE - 1421, The Year China Discovered America, by Gavin Menzies

The incredible true story (or is it?) of how China discovered North and South America, Australia and Africa, long before Europeans.

Gavin Menzies is an ex Royal Navy submarine captain, and when he retired from the Royal Navy he combined his passion for history with his knowledge of winds and sea currents to retrace the steps Columbus would have followed on his path to the East Indies.

As we all know, he fetched up in what became known as the West Indies, and named the island on which he landed La Española, meaning "The Spanish Island". When d'Anghiera wrote his history of  the island in Latin, he translated the name as Hispaniola. Because Anghiera's account was translated into English and French very soon after, the name "Hispaniola" is the most frequently used name for that island. Of course, now its Eastern half is Dominica and its Western half is Cuba. 

This is nothing to do with the main story.

Briefly, Menzies surmised that other, much earlier ships discovered the island, and they might have been from China. Having retraced the prevailing tides and potential winds to China, he explores outwards from China, discovering not only that winds and tides could be used to plot ancient Chinese fleet movements up the West and East coasts of The Americas, to Africa and Australia.

The evidence he found to support his theories are stunning, and you need to read this book in order to decide whether he's gullible, or a genius.

To make matters even more intriguing, in the blue corner are a number of other "experts" who say they don't believe Menzie's theories: www.1421exposed.com

RANT - Product labels that take hours to remove

Having just spent 3 days soaking, drying, soaking, and scraping, to get 4 "Made in China" stickers off some new light fittings, I thought a potentially petty rant was in order. I know retailers don't want people switching one price label for a cheaper one while fiddling with products in a store, but why do they use cheap 'n nasty labels that require a flamethrower to remove them?

Next time I'm in a store and like the look of something, but see that it's got awkward stickers on it, I'll try to remember to say to a member of staff, "You remove these stickers while I wander around and do the rest of my shopping. I'll be about 30 minutes. If, by the time I get back, you've got those labels off, I'll buy the product".

RAVE - Roku

One of my favorite gadgets is the Roku player, initially released to allow you to play Netflix movies on your TV, but now allowing you to play Amazon.com's movies on demand, and most recently adding MLB.com. I know that Xbox and Wii now give you access to Netflix and Amazon on Demand, but the Roku interface is waaayyy better.

I've had it for over a year, but having watched so many movies over the past week, it occurred to me that I should be sharing the love. It costs $99, plugs in and works right away, and gives us handy alternatives to all the cable stuff we've already seen.

RANT - Got Juice? THIS RANT HAS BEEN INVADED AND OCCUPIED BY PAVEY PAGE.

Seeing as restaurants often let us down one way or another, it's an ideal time to summarize those let-downs, prompted by brunch this morning:

The first opinion is 100% Pavey, but she doesn't want the rest ascribed to her, as "people will think I'm just a complainer". Darling, they know that already.

1. How can so many restaurants in this allegedly health-conscious city have $4,000 coffee machines but not find it in their budget to spring for a $100 orange-squeezer, thereby requiring that guests searching for an orange burst resort to Od-bloody-wallah, or some other preservative-laden excuse for a juice? Props to Slow Club, for always having fresh oranges and knowing how to squeeze 'em.

Just to keep the lady happy, the rest are my personal rants:

2. Wait staff who tell you what THEIR favorite is on the menu. Who gives a flying wosname what rocks THEIR boat? Follow that path and one of these days you'll be lying face down in a pool of battered spider legs.

3. Real men don't "split a salad".

4. Waiters that ask "have you eaten with us before?" as a prelude to telling us they serve "family style", and suggesting that we order various dishes so we can share. Next time a condescending waiter asks me if I've eaten with them before, I'll say "No, but I've eaten several times at various restaurants. and I DO remember how to eat, so just shut up and take my order".

5. What's the point of serving iced water in a glass that's still hot out of the dishwasher? It's at the other end of the beverage scale to those fine establishments that keep their beer glasses in the freezer.

The following tips for waiters come from Mr. Clarity's excellent blog:

6. Good waiters never say “you guys.” It’s childish and trashy. In adult English, the plural of the pronoun you is you. In other words, you don’t need to say “you guys” or “you folks” or “you kids.” Just say “you.”

7. When guests have studied their menus and appear to be ready to order, don’t ask, “All set?” It makes you sound indolent and uncouth. And especially do not ask, “Have we decided?” The smarmy use of we in place of you irritates many guests because it reminds them of condescending medical doctors who talk this way. The traditional and polite question is, “May I take your order?”

8. When you are checking to see if guests are enjoying their meals, don’t ask, “How are you doing?” This wording implies that the guests are somehow responsible for the quality of the meals. The traditional, polite and logical question is “How is everything?” It keeps the responsibility where it belongs: on the chef.

9. When a guest appears to have finished eating, don’t ask, “All set?” And especially do not ask, “Are you still working on this?” The guest is a human being enjoying a nice meal, not a beaver gnawing through a tree trunk. The traditional and polite question is, “May I take this?” or “May I clear your place?”

10. When a guest has paid his check in cash, don’t ask, “Do you need change?” or “All set?” Hustling tips in this way is presumptuous and offensive. The traditional and polite response is, “I’ll bring you your change.” It’s up to the guest to say, “No, please keep the change,” or to quietly leave the tip from the change that you bring back to him (or her).

RAVE - District 9

2 words. Alright, 3, maybe 4 if you're being picky - The Fly, plus Transformers. That's if you don't want the higher-brow critics' view that this is an excellent allegory of racial tension disguised as a great action movie. However you paint it, it's a damned good film. The first 15 minutes need to be got out of the way before it settles into a story you want to follow, but settle it does, with only the grating South African excents getting in the way. Mrs. Page is convinced the closing scenes set this up for a follow-up, not least of which is the forced relocation of the aliens to District 10.

I've not given anything away. Just go see it for yourself.

RAVE - The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens - Pasadena

Visited our friends George, Cecille and Peri / Perry / Peris (all 5 of them) this past weekend, in Pasadena. We were treated to a weekend of sightseeing and culinary indulgence. We visited The Huntington, one of those glorious country homes filled with treasures available only to the fabulously rich or government-funded. Rooms choc full of Gainsboroughs, original manuscripts (Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Samuel Johnson's original Oxford Dictionary, and an original version of Audubon's Birds of America that would make my favorite ornithologist - that's YOU, Bill Eley - very happy). I bought a Johnson bio at the bookstore, but now need to buy "Samuel Johnson's Insults: A Compendium of Snubs, Sneers, Slights and Effronteries from the Eighteenth-Century Master". Sounds like my kind of read. So, dodge the paparazzi next time you're in LA, and chill out at The Huntington

REVIEW - Perbacco

If ever a restaurant deserved a "Meh", this is it.

It's just one of a dozen FiDi joints busy as hell at lunchtime (when the suits just need somewhere handy for the office), but much quieter at night (when most people opt for genuinely relaxing or romantic nosh somewhere more salubrious).

So, unless you're already downtown, this one's not worth the parking hassles.

RAVE - Jardiniere

I'm usually suspicious of places that advertise their handiness for pre- or post-theater dinner, as though the only reason you'd ever go there is because it's within a pirouette of the SF Ballet.

No doubt many people use Jardiniere, Absinthe or Paul K for that reason, but I believe Jardiniere is worth much more than that.

Overall, the atmosphere is elegant, almost glamorous. Maybe it was seeing Larry David dining with a group of no doubt less-whiny-than-he friends. Maybe it was the fancy balcony, or the sweeping staircase leading to that balcony.

It's one of those rare places in San Francisco where you feel inclined to dress up.

Curiously, I forget the specifics of the food. It's not particularly adventurous, just very well made, and rich.