Le Peri

Le Peri

2.95Gbp

2/5

since bought a new watch strap...

Right, first I shall apologise for a prolonged absence...

Tonight/today's tipple is Le Peri, pear cider. I think I weighed in at 7.5% alc/vol and came in a handy 1.5L bottle. Unfortunately it begin a habit of drinking on the train after work drinks on Friday, with the goal of being in a mood to dance to bad music in Egg. (East Grinstead, I've been here long enough to start making my own names up for things...) safe to say, it's never worked, only made the bike home in the dark far more dodgy.

Having started working I've had to learn to get up early and bike 6kms uphill to the train station, then it's an hour on the train to London. Not the most exciting trip in the world and getting a wee bit painful as the weather cools and the sun goes to bed earlier...

On the upside works good. It's great being in London, around London Bridge, where the Normans attacked the English (then Anglo-Saxon) successfully in about 1000ad after taking Harold's eye out at Hastings. In a funny way Hastings isn't to far from the Row, so maybe tomorrow on the way to work I'll pretend to be a Norman, (or not, as that guy from the Naked and Shameless beat me to it...)

In-between work drinks I've been brushing up on my British history which has been great. I've learnt that England has been conquered many times, firstly the Romans, then Germans/Danish (Anglo-Saxons, and some Jutes) followed by the French (Normans) (that as far as I've got...). Reading adds a nice sense of history, in what is a country that it not short of the stuff.

When I'm not reading on the train, or getting real good a Bejeweled I take to wondering why "on-peak" train tickets cost more than there "off-peak" look-a-likes. Ya'see, on-peak trains are always full of passengers, so are more uncomfortable and according to economies of scale they should be cheaper to run (the ol' Pak'n'Save "we buy big, you save big policy"). I think at the end of the day, people going to work is a captured market, as one must be at work on time, an the private rail companies can charge what they like, but I'll stop there before shit' get politicool (reading far to much of the brilliant Private-Eye magazine)

Green Park, where lepers were buried

On Saturday, unfortunately waking up in Forest Row and not a floor in London feeling hungover, I went and knocked off my errands in London (after the aforementioned 1 1/2 hour trip in and another 30mins on the tube). It was a nice day and decided I would get a pint and came across an unusual problem I find in London. It seems that whenever I feel like a beer I can never find a suitable pub. Usually the place is full of them, but not when your thirsty it seems. On the upside I got to go for a nice walk trough Green Park, I've heard it got it's name through someone trying to pick up the kings missus by bringing her flowers from there (the Palace is next door), and so the king ordered all the flower removed. As much as this makes for a rather lovely story, I can't find it verified anywhere, Wikipedia just says that it's where they dumped bodies and where the occasional robbery happened and I'm sure still does...

Incidentally the Queens house...

While still on the way to a pub a noticed again how much the sky is never really blue in London. The sky, when not grey is forever criss-crossed with vapour trails. It's something that I've never noticed in EnZee, most probably because there simply isn't anywhere near the amount of planes, that said, these guys disagree with me and would have a mind explosion if they zipped from Kingsland to this Hemisphere....

Anyway, I eventually found a sufficient pub and had a beer and compared it to the Le Peri big bottle o' cider. Safe to say the beer was much nicer. The cider was sub-par but represented very good value for money, or "piss for pounds" but otherwise wasn't all that good. To be quite honest it took me a while to work out what it was, and only found out that it was cider when reading the label on the back...

there's a guy at work who used to pull their tails for  LOLS.

Looking back onto that night I drank the pear cider, (well actually looking back onto the photo from that night), I found the above gem of a fox hangin' in the Sainsbury's car park. Having now seen a badger and a rather flat rat on the bike to the station today, my wildlife hunt is coming along pretty well.

In a final note for now the upside of living in the country is that you get nice sunsets. I'd happily trade the sunsets for a divey flat in the meanish streets in London (not Peckam, Old Kent road obviously hasn't improved much since monopoly was invented), but getting a flat is a bit of a challenge. They come and go so fast that you need a bit of luck it seems to get one, but alas that is a tale for another day.

Chem-Trails over th' Row

Supreme Burger Meal

Supreme Burger Meal

3.49Gbp

3.5/5

Yup, hash brown as-well

Something greasy was what I was after and something greasy was what I found. The above value meal came from a knock off KFC not to far from the Elephant & Castle tube stop. I went there thinking the market might be on and maybe get some more knock off products (namely an Iphone case) no such luck.

Had had a pretty decent day, the weather was pretty good at Mr Lanham had told me that the Notting Hill Carnival was going down, so figured what better a day to zip in to London.

Upon getting there I had to use my cunning to work out a way to get to Notting Hill, as the nearest tube stop was closed. I managed to make it but didn't really know where I was going. Unfortunately I didn't see Hugh Laurie either. In fact in my time over here my star spotting has been a write-off, I mean, I was never good, but all I've come up with is a guy, who looked like a guy on TV in Liverpool (so said my great Aunt) on the train and today managed to see a  slightly crazylooking lady being pushed  in a wheel chair who had a striking resemblance to Susan Boyle, possibly it was her and celebrating the paralympics?

BACK TO THE STORY of the carnival. I followed some crowds there and the party was pretty good. It was kinda like a street party over the whole suburb, which was very cool, with live music and drinking on the street. The drinking part inspired me to go to a dairy to get a couple of beers, I didn't have to walk far but getting back turned out a bit loltastic.

Having opened my first beer, and drinking thirstily, I turned out of the street and figured I was walking in the right direction to get back to the Carnival,. Unfortunately I had more than opened my second beer when I realised I was well off course, by the time I was on my third I was walking through a somewhat crowded Westfield mall drinking, with another can in my hand. I felt a little out of place. There's a point I must have crossed when drinking in the street on a Sunday afternoon began to feel a wee bit inappropriate. Probably as soon as I left Notting Hill... On the upside, it's not really that out of place here; a guy drinking on the street, as booze is fairly available, so no one was looking side ways or nuttin'...

Bauhaus

ANYWAY, after stocking up with another couple of beers from the Supermarket in the mall, I set my compass and made it back to the Carnival which was pretty good times. There must have been about a billion people and everyone was having a bit of a groove to the steel bands in the rare London sun. Think I had bought a couple of the fairly  average "Red Stripe" beers, it says it Jamaican, but is brewed by Diago I think, who brew Fosters, and it tastes just as good as the Australian Classic...

Wrong side of town for a riot ,officers... Brixton's on the other side of the Thames,

BRIEFLY, before marrying up this nonsense with the food in question, I wish to explain my initial surprise at how big Fosters is here, It's like one of the most popular beers here. A quick bit of research tells that Fosters isn't big in its Australian home no more, as it really doensn't have a place in their market (VBs working class and Heinken is for the office clerks spose toothy's is in the middle?) but over here it's branded as fairly working class and it's sponsorship in prominent at major sporting events. Either way though, it tastes pretty blah.

At the end of the day I was hungry for something unhealthy and feeling a wee bit guilty for not doing my errands I had missed on account of drinking, and knock off Dirty Bird was the winner. The meal wasn't too bad, I think the real K-Fry does it better, but this was cheep, if you excuse the pun, and filled the space desired.

Beef burger and pint of bitter

Beef Burger and pint of bitter

11.60Gbp

3/5

Couldn't find the rotate button, soz

Righto, so today we have a pub meal; beer & burger. Had this beast after spending the week Mersey side, living the Liverpool dream. After a bit of a drive from Forest Row and a stop off including the aforementioned average Americano, we made it to Liverpool, where I had no reviewable food, until we had left and I had this burger and beer at a pub just out of Shakespeare country (Stratford-upon-Avon).

We stayed in a nice wee cottage on the site of Lord Levers mansion. The same place as some guy that won Big Brother had a wedding and Wayne Rooney once had a party. ANYWAY, Lord Lever is most famous for being the "Lever" part of "Unilever" who pretty much make everything toiletry. Here's a quick history lesson, from what I can remember,

The guys best known, socially, for building 'Port Sunlight" for his workers (kinda like Mr. Cadbury I hear), a nice wee village where all of his workers received a cottage, although also had to adhere to somewhat strict rules, otherwise they'd be given the boot. We/he stayed in Thornton Hough, a village he built for his managers, naturally it had bigger houses than Port Sunlight, unfortunately  these days it doesn't have a dairy to get a paper (although the breakfasts at the town hall arn't too bad)

Don't worry we stayed in a cottage, not quite the manor,

When Lever wasn't getting caught in controversy for using slave labour to harvest palm oil in the Congo, he indulged in Freemasonry, getting to one of the highest ranks, which presumably came with a pretty awesome handshake.

From the door of his manor he had a straight private road that would take him right to the door of his factory, I get a slight hint of elitism from what I've read, but he seemed pretty well looked upon for building places for his workers by my great uncles/aunts that lived around there so maybe he was OK.

All that said, he's probably be best know for sleeping outside, covered only by a glass roof on the top of his manor so he wouldn't get wet...

While we where staying in the cottage there was a bit of a mosquito plague, on account of being surrounded by farm land and constant rain. One night I managed to knock off 8 or so of them in a violent 1am rampage. Just in case you were wondering about my issue of bugs here.

the road was a wee bit flooded so I took a detour
through the road on the way back from a wander

Liverpool isn't a bad place but the pace is complete contrast to that of London (compare the atmosphere of Orkland to Dunedin). It calls itself the "European Centre of Culture", probably because the Beatles came from there. Liverpool seems to be all about the Beatles,their football teams (Everton & Liverpool) and maybe trips to the pub to get away from the missus and have some two quid pints.

As a place Liverpool seems to be in recovery mode. Once a great hub for UK shipping and a huge centre for industry (up to the beginning of the 20th century). Come containerisation and moving production off shore, there's a lot of abandon space with a bit of a rundown feel about it. Especially when heading out of the city centre.

the Liver building (said Ly-ver), named after a prevalent red weed.

To my surprise there is a place called New Brighton in Merseyside, all these years I figured New Brighton in CHC was named after Brighton (South England), but perhaps not. The New Brighton in Liverpool was eerily similar to that of East CHC, after having had a bit of money spent on it, it still felt depressing and isolated. Hopefully Liverpool as a city will continue to grow as it once did and not become another reflection of the New Brightons.

SOo this brings me to the burger. On the way back we stayed a lovely hotel, with a rather cool old, abandon(ish) church onsite, complete with grave stones. Unfortunately I didn't get a ghost hunt in, as it looked like the sort of place that could have a bit of a haunting going down, if my readings of Goosebumps are an accurately reflection of all things ghosty and monster-ey.

Owned by the Shirleys, apparently Shakespeare may have peed in the garden (so I was told).

NOW TO THE CASE AT HAND. The burger was OK. There seems to be a bit of a trend here for burgers to be a bit deconstructed, I mean, could that not have put the salad in the burger? Also the salad/pasta salad/caulslaw stuff seemed like it had been scraped off the plates of diners the previous night. On the upside it was a genuine 16thish centenary pub, with a low ceiling, dodgy flaw and genuine Crapper bog.

The other case at hand is the beer, which wasn't to bad. It seems the best beers I've had here are the ales, other that the fact they all taste a bit like homebrew, are fairly flat and are served room temperature. The cool thing is pubs here have different local ales from one to another on tap which gives me good reason to try out all the pubs I can find (I don't mean all, the country seems to have one on every corner, but yous know what I mean).

Anyway, it was an average meal, but kept me satiated until we made it back down to Sussex.

Americano

Americano

1.70Gbp

1/5

The coffee that takes the blame for all my bad coffees, Jesus coffee if you will...

Coffee, I never though I was all that much of a coffee snob, I liked a good long-black, but thought they were all much the same. I think in the end I was right... but only in New Zealand. Don't get me wrong, I've had some less than amazing coffees, but the mighty NZ, ('specially Orkland) have fairly consistent coffee, according to my pallet.

I was on the tube a week or so ago (after missing the last train home, and having to ask an acquaintance in London if I could stay at his...) and chatted to a guy who worked with a guy from ChChurch and said that it was a bit of a Kiwi thing to whinge about the state of coffee, so I feel bad saying this, but it's hard, near impossible to get a decent coffee here. FIRSTLY, you ain't going to find many places that don't think your just having LOLS asking for a long-black, SECONDLY the few places that do them are "Kiwi" cafes, and one doesn't fly around the world for that...

The final part of my whinge is that an Americano (kinda close to a long black) at one place maybe pretty much a Double Espresso, at others will be a big Black Coffee, it's a painful, often disappointing lucky dip.

The beast pictured above was a sort of murky thing, neither here nor there, I think the barrister slipped a little milk in, half heartedly, so it's no white nor black. To be honest it's one redeeming feature was that I got it in a lovely, sleepy village (Kineton?), like many dotted around this country, rich in history, just not rich in coffee finesse.

One day I'll be all grown up and not get mah LOLS from this...

While we're on the subject of fox pee (sorry for this abhorrent segue, I really am!) but I've had a wee checklist of wild-life I wanted to see, which I've just finished...

Firstly was the squirrel. These strange beasts, a cross (probably) between a rabbit and a mouse was something that rates pretty highty in the novelty rating (think of all those songs, albums and films they're known for?). Can't remember the first one I saw, but can remember getting kinda excited about hearing they had been running around the backyard to the amusements of the cats; squirrels are fairly common here and seem happy to reside in tree's in central London, don't tell Boris though, as I think he might come up with a way to charge them for their multi-million dollar views...

Next was the Fox. Guess these guys are pretty common too and also share the squirrels taste for the high life in London. I saw one in Camden once (central London), I was pretty drunk at the time, but was pretty sure it was a fox. Word on the street is they come out at dawn & dusk and search through bins on a fruitless hunt for the dregs of a decent coffee. The legend goes on to suggest that when they find one they turn into some awesome man beast. Think thriller. It has happened only that once...

Lastly is the bat. A cross between a mouse and a pigeon. It took a while to see a couple of these flying mouse things, as they prefer to keep it rural, but they're out there. Unless it was just a busy night for batman, but will we ever know for sure, he like's to keep these things quite.

Kineton, the mean streets.

The're are also wild deer down Sussex way. They add a quaintness to the area, which the place already has in spoon-fills. I've heard that if your driving and happen to survive hitting one, that you're not allowed to take the corpse, instead the car behind you is the one that is allowed venison caserol... just in case you were wondering...

I like how they too are unsure about the title.

My quest to find a decent kitshless coffee endures. On the wildlife front, I would still like to see a snake. I've also have been chased by a wasp from the south to the north, I think it maybe the same one. If any one has any tips on how to get rid of it, I'm all ears...

Fish Burger

Fish Burger

1.79Gbp

3/5

The choice of crumbed fish was a bit unusual by NZ standards....

Have spent a bit of time trying to get through all the museums around London; there any number of them on every topic you could never want. Around the corner from where this par fish burger came from was a museum of typography. I decided that as much as a museum like this could maybe be interesting to someone, the fact that I write in whatever the default is made me think it would be all a bit over my head.

A quick review of the museums I've been to would(does) read:

British Museum: Pretty much all of the ancient world, nicked by the Brits and now in one place for your viewing pleasure.

War Museum: Genocide, some really big guns and a wee bit more genocide for the lols, (those jews eh!??)

Natural History Museum: Rocks, lots of rocks, some crystals that came from rocks and a few bones that came from aforementioned rocks.

V&A: Nice stuff designed for rich people and how the upper crust has lived over the last aages.

I've eaten many a fish burger in my time, I think a perfect fish burger should have fish (and buns, two) tartar sauce, something green &crunchy and onion. The above had all the above other than the knunga but somehow wasn't anything to special, bought from a place a bit down from that tube station where police shot that guy wrongly and where they hold riots every ten years, the streets did feel a bit meaner.

I think what made this burger only average was that the buns were a bit soggy, it just felt a bit like they guy who made it was a bit bored, and maybe that's the secret to a good fush burger, bit o' luv? maybe...

While I was over on the wrong side of the Thames I tried this drink called Supermalt. Possibly the horribleist think I've ever drunk, tasted like half brewed beer with no fizz. Also needed a bottle opener to get into it, which meant opening it on a fence and getting the very sticky contents all over myself. Keep classy Clapham.

Getting over to Brixton(ish) was made pretty easy by the amazing tube network here, it makes the place so easy to get around, who would have thought a city heaps bigger than Auckland would be much easy to navigate. The thing that grinds my gears are the constant "mind the gap reminders" though, they're everywhere, on boats, trains, buses probably and  reckon British Airways uses them too. I think it's a ploy to bring in tourist money, as there's nothing as quintessentially London than "Mind the Gap", and if you can get that on a tote bag, then you totally just "done" London. I've hopefully got a wee way to go before I make it to that stage...

Not quite "far out" but we're getting close.

On the subject of advertising and tourists have been to a few Olympic things, which has been pretty cool, saw the babes at the Beach Vollyball, tried to work out what was going on with the horsies at the Dressage and watched super fit people run around a field and some less fit people throw some frisbees at the athletics. All have been pretty cool, albeit super commercialised with more security procedures to go through than boarding an aeroplane. Still haven't seen any celebs, or more importantly eaten with some celebs and taken a snap of the meal and reviewed the shiz out of it, perhaps in time.

Some goof slept through the marketing lecture on brand association.

Hopefully in the future I'll find a meal that can bust a 4/5, could be a while, but we'll get there. Haven't managed to find a bacon and egg pie here yet, maybe that'll be the game changer...

Ham Pizza & Cinnamon Pretzel

Ham Pizza & Cinnamon Pretzel

Gbp2.50

3/5

The second day of walking around London for hours upon hours, I decided it was time to eat, it wasn't the first time I had eaten in days, but was the first I though I would do a review for...

Probably should have said I was eating in...

I managed to find a cheapish bakery in centralish London, not far from the trendy Camden markets, where I got the above treats the day after the Olympic opening at Hyde park. Duran Duran were cool, although the rest were a little MOR. Was pretty cool to see the opening amongst so many people (50,000 I think were there maybe?) although there were no fireworks where we were and I didn't really understand the jet-planes flying over and doing the French  flag (or Russia/Holland... pending on your perspective).

Nothing excites me as much as a field of litter.

The pizza was a good filler (albeit only a luke-warm one (that funny temperature that make you think "has this been warmed in the microwave or just left in the sun" (perhaps the worst temperature to eat sushi at))) after browsing the British Museum. It took about 2hours to get through world history from 2000bc to only 20ad. Might have to go back and see what relics the English have nicked from the rest of the world over the last 2000 years. There was just a bit too much to take in in one day after yet more coffee disappointment... (ordered an Americano at the cafe, their interpretation of Americano is a black coffee, London might be teh most inconsistent places for a coffee in the civilised world)

One thing that has been bugging me as I was biting down on the pretzel that tasty much like a cinnamon doughnut was that why Olympians when they win feel the need to bite on their medals?! Historically miners would bite down on gold, as it's a fairly soft metal to tell if it was the real deal (I'd imagine it'd bend or you could leave a mark) but none of the medals are made from gold (the gold medal is made from silver if this site is to be believed) it's just silly, unless they're real hungry after training, which then is understandable.

Anyway the food was good, although somewhat standard bakery fair, nothing to get excited about and certainly nothing worth wearing holes in the soles of you shoes to get.

English Breakfast

English Breakfast

Gbp3.70

3/5

I found out the other day that I have been risking my life on the countryside stroll up to East Grinstead. Word is on the street (more around the BBQ) is that there is a ghost of something somewhere on the track. Maybe I'll go out one night and see if I can track this apparition down and get some snaps... maybe...

Today's meal is the traditional English breakfast, which I did track down and manage to find at an affordable price. The funny thing is, as much as I was warned not to compare prices with NZ$ I'm seem to be finding that the humble NZ$ is about 10% stronger than the GBP (maybe that just AKL prices compared to "village" prices). This breakfast being an easy example, but even better is that you can get Laproiag 10yo at the supermarket for 25gbp!!!

Not a bad meal, the cup of tea came with it too! It was called the budget breakfast, 'cause there was only one of everything (excluding the beans...). The egg was cooked very well and would give some of the Chums  a run for there money (or vinegar, or whatever other tricks you have up your sleeve...).

Not bad but not amazing. I also hear you can get a breakfast buffet it London for 4Gbp if  you know where you're going...