Do you notice anything different about me yet? That’s right, I’m now 30 years and 5 days old, whereas last week I was 29 years and 364 days old. That’s 6 days more discerning than I was in my last post. Enlightened by the days following my birthday, as promised this new blog will be intelligently written and I will attempt to tackle the issues and challenges us 30 somethings face in today’s society.
However, I’ve had a bit of a busy week, so the sharp, quick-witted blog will have to wait until I’ve fully recovered.
I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to London, where I was wined and dined and generally treated beyond the call of duty by my wife. I hope she knows that I will not be able to return this quite generous excursion when she eventually reaches 30. By then our world will be full of baby wipes and soiled nappies and the best she can expect would be a fried chicken bucket and a vienetta with a candle on top, slowing sinking into the ice cream as it melts.
Now I’ve wrote that sentence, I feel really awful, especially as I was treated to a night in a 5 star hotel and lunch at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze Grill. However, KFC is finger lickin’ good, so I think that makes up for it.
I’ve had many trips to London throughout my 30 years, but this one felt very different. It was as if we didn’t really belong there. For example, when we sat down for lunch, it appeared that we were the only table visiting for pleasure. Everybody was doing business. I couldn’t concentrate, as the flurry of business cards exchanged hands at a rather impressive pace. Handshakes concluded deals, bills were being paid on company credit cards and expensive suits were the order of the day, but we didn’t get the memo.
We must have had ‘TOURIST’ tattooed across our foreheads with indelible ink. Whilst we waited for our food, I wondered if I should start schmoozing with my wife, trying to close deals and sound important. I opened my wallet to see if I had any old business cards from previous companies I had worked for, but I couldn’t muster a single one. The only business card I found was one that I had picked up on a stag weekend in Prague a few years back. It was for a minibus company we used whilst we were visiting. The card was adorned with a catchy slogan. In broken English it read ‘CHIP, FAST, SERIOUS’. From what I remember, he was fast and serious, but I don’t remember Chip.
I was pretty sure that the business deals taking place at the Maze Grill weren’t about a backstreet minibus firm in the Czech Republic, unless the past four years had been very kind to him and now he run a worldwide conglomerate, picking up pissed-up young men on stag do’s. So with that in mind I decided that we weren’t the typical clientèle on this particular afternoon, but I was going to enjoy the experience immensely.
The medium grilled rib-eye steak that was served was stunning. Every mouthful was a pleasure. I purposefully cut the steak into small pieces to drag out the dining experience, it was that good. My wife’s pig cheeks were equally stunning. Actually, after re-reading that last sentence, I should rephrase that before I get myself in trouble. My wife ordered the pig cheeks, which were equally stunning. Washed down with an expensive glass of red wine, I was now totally satisfied.
We were pleased even more when the bill arrived and we were told that they had not added a service charge because of the long wait we had endured before our food was served. We were both unaware of this long delay, in fact, we thought the service was pretty quick. It suddenly clicked with me, maybe we had fooled the staff into thinking we were both high-flying executives from ‘CHIP, FAST, SERIOUS’ and we had important meetings to attend in the afternoon and due to their tardiness, our whole Czech minibus empire was on the line. The least they could do was not charge the 12% service fee.
Once we had explained who we really were and that the whole saga had been a mix up, the waitress relaxed as she knew she wouldn’t be getting an angry letter from Mr. Chip.
As a tourist, visiting London during the working week is an interesting experience. Everyone who works in London seems to be busy constantly, everybody also seems to be running late. Tube stations are full of people running in various different directions as if they were never taught to walk as a child. They quite obviously went to school’s where the ‘no running in the corridor’ rule wasn’t enforced. With so many people in a rush, I started to think why is every commuter so late? Why don’t they just leave 10 minutes earlier? Do alarm clocks not work correctly in the capital? Are they training for the 2012 Olympics? Until I work in the big smoke, I suppose I’ll never know, but until then I’ll continue to think that white-collar workers can’t walk. (Catchy name for a film, don’t you think?)
As you may have gathered from my ramblings over the past few weeks, I’ve had a little hang up about reaching thirty and I’ll finish this weeks edition with another little observation from my stay in London.
Our hotel was a prestigious, 5 star hotel, right in the middle of one of the most affluent parts of the capital. Every other car we saw was a Rolls Royce or a Bentley, just to give you a gauge on the opulence of this area.
After we had gone crazy in London town, or as crazy as you can with a 4 month old bump along for the ride. We decided to head back to the hotel and enjoy the room. It had bath robes, a trouser press and a bible, so you can imagine the fun we could have. The room was very classy, decorated well and the furnishings were excellent, it was an enjoyable place to stay. However, there was a drawback. The hotel bar was directly below our room and very surprisingly for an old London building, the floor and the walls didn’t do a great job of holding back the noise. Whilst the DJ was cueing up another ‘phat one’, I was queueing up to shove his vinyl where the sun doesn’t shine. This continued until 1am. I wouldn’t have minded if it was good music, but instead I was treated to wish-washy, boom-boom, bang-bang music that had the same repetitive beat all evening.
You’ll be glad to hear that I didn’t storm down to the bar dressed in my bedtime regalia and bathrobe to accost the young DJ. As much as I wanted to, I thought it would do nothing for my street cred in this part of London. Also, I couldn’t trust myself not to request a little bit of Jive Bunny to show the hip and trendy patrons at the bar what real party music is all about.
Ta Ta for now.