Ants & Art....Car(d) Trouble Oh Yeah!

Happy Saturday folks......and Glad Melodiefestivalen Dag! (for my Swedish friends).

I've decided that if I can get through this month without contracting Rickets, Trench Foot or boring old flu, I'll have done well.  I'd like to say I've been sitting out in the sun, eating ice-cream, and watching the world go by in sunglasses but I fear it hasn't happened. Enough now rain!

Last weekend saw my yearly visit from my NY friend.  We drank cocktails at Kiss the Sky, looked round charity/vintage shops, and had lunch in the scrummy Monkeynuts.  Pretty standard really - unfortunately all ruined by the fact I had my debit card skimmed from the ATM.....to the grand total of £633.  If you're reading this card skimmers, I got your description and the details of your car, and 'YOU'RE GOING DOWN'.  Just saying.  Hope you enjoyed your £58 worth of KFC and my cash, you thieving so and sos (who have no food standards I might add).  I would like to swear lots but my Gran reads this!

Despite card trouble, a fun Saturday night was had in Camden.  We tried Joes Bar (www.joescamden.co.uk) and loved it.  Great R 'n B/Ska (and they even played 51st State by New Model Army) and even greater cocktails which are cheap as chips if you get them before 8 (or was it 9?).  I even faced my fear of midgets (nearly) when the infamous punk midget (normally seen lying in a gutter somewhere in Camden) sat next to us.  To the Roundhouse over the road afterwards, for Adam Ant's 35th anniversary concert.  Tickets sold out months ago and I'd been calling every day for a week to see if any spares came up....they finally did on Thursday afternoon - talk about cutting it fine hubby!  Although we had boring, old people, seated tickets, we managed to sneak into the standing area and got a pretty good view.  Visiting swedish friend who is at least 7ft tall (Joakim & Frida to confirm) had a better view!  Enjoyed the set very much and the two encores.  Top form Mr Ant!

On a very rainy Tuesday, we trekked down to Chelsea Futurespace (www.chelseafuturespace.org) for the Peter Blake Four Decades Private View.  The gallery is a bit hard to find but what a fascinating place!  It's actually a residential building with the entrance hallway opening out into the gallery itself.  Would love to see what the flats are like inside so if anyone who lives there is reading this, please invite us round for tea!  The exhibition itself was nice, Sir Peter turned up, we drank wine, ate snacks and played "now who IS that bloke who looks like Noddy Holder?".

And finally on this wet, grey week in North London, Dear Catastrophe Waitress #7 took place last night.  Something was missing for me last night, unsure what.  Hoping the hideous folk that came this time, don't next time.  Surely they have somewhere more suitable to go?

With that, I'm off to prepare for Eurovision and do some ebaying.  NB:  Only one of these things is true. 

Soho Days, Soho Nights....

Slighty distracted from writing todays ramblings by "Snog, Marry, Avoid" and a pink-haired camp child from Brighton called Danny Go Go.  Concentrate woman!

Hello May.  Hello sunshine.  Oh how I've missed you.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress' April night went well.  Lots of good tunes and lots of folk dancing which pleases me greatly.  Celeb visitor of the night was Sean from 5ive.  Pretty sure no-one recognised him apart from me and the drunk boy who called him Scott.  Drunk boy, return to 5ive school immediately!  Who will come next time I wonder?  Suggestions on a postcard.

A new experience for me on Tuesday - going to the cinema on my own.  A year after I donned a ridiculous wig and made a prat of myself in Soho on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the King of Soho finally came out (although now for some bizarre reason called The Look of Love).  Luckily for me, I didn't see myself nor the bad wig in the film.  Unsure what I thought of it really - the film not the wig.  Interesting to know more about Paul Raymond, his entourage and what became of them all, but I found it very bitty (not a surprise really after the continuity issues on the day of filming) with way too many naked women and scenes of cocaine snorting.  Once you've seen one set of boobs, you've seen them all surely?  Glad I went regardless and glad I did my extra work that day - I won't forget it.

Thursday saw another Carnaby Street "grab all the freebies and run" evening.  Oh how we love them. I've blogged about these evenings before but the amount of free alcohol never ceases to amaze me.  5 mins after arriving, we were handed a fair sized mini bottle of champagne which couldn't have been cheap, followed by Kopparbergs, followed by more champagne, followed by god knows what else.  Looking forward to more of them in the summer.  Always fun.  Off to Camden after, to see The Prime Movers at The Blues Kitchen.  A good night and good to see some old friends.

Finally for this week, today was a superb, sunny, Soho Sunday and you know how much I like those.  An amazing lunch at Scandinavian Kitchen (www.scandikitchen.co.uk) - scrummy salads, scrummy cake and good coffee.  Definitely recommended folks.  Lovely people & lovely fresh food.  What's not to like?  A very civilised couple of glasses of rose' at The French House after.  I love people watching in this place & imagining what everyone does or did, and wondering how many people in there knew Paul Raymond (see previous paragraph).  Bar Italia after for people watching, coffee & martini.  No sign of their regulars Paul Weller, Bradley Wiggins etc. but we did see Louis Theroux so he'll do for today.

Enjoy the sunshine lovely readers x