To clarify and too sum up....

Current mood: ILL (AGAIN!!!!)
Category: ILL (AGAIN!!!!) Music

Firstly...

To clarify the Italy move - we're talking about a year at the quickest - that piece originally had a line stating just that, but somewhere it got edited out...

So, it's London for another year or so - I still have things to complete before doing the runner for the fresh air and the fine wine....

Meantime, I'm learning to drive things in order to be ready...

As for yesterday...

The wine tasting was splendid...


The event was in the Institute Of Directors...

Now, I was thinking the IOD was some kind of post war forum designed to cater for when the aristocracy had to give up the complete stranglehold on the top jobs and settle for a mere 2/3rds...

Yes boss, I figured it was a modern and perhaps even quite progressive institution.

The only time you hear from that body is times like now, when everything is tits up or BANG ON RUNNING!!! You get some spokesman on the TV news saying:

'Oh yes, our members are saying that business is down 23% since last December - The government needs to take urgent action NOW!!!'

It struck me as maybe being a recent project of the middle classes...


Well, quite how I came to the conclusion is beyond me now, because in reality, it's a fucking huge great private members club in St James's and it's about as toff spanky as things come...

Yes boss, it's a fucking stately home in the most expensive part of London - full of huge paintings of Kings and Queens and Nelson and Cromwell and Great Battles on the High Seas!!!

Here's a rare picture of an increasingly rotund Mrs Giovanni modeling one of the staircases...

So, the main event was tasting the wine and you were supposed to do the time honoured thing of sniff and take a swig and wash it around the mouth and then spit it out again...

But FUCK THAT!!!!

Sure I did the smelling, and the swishing and the rolling - but then it was DOWN THE HATCH!!!!

Of course this isn't the done thing at such a civilised event, as this stare from my friend to the rear appears to be implying (or perhaps 'Who the devil gave that woman a camera?!?!?' Or maybe he thought I was Prince Charles???...)

It also caught up with me...

Yes boss, at a certain point (Table 23) my words became a terrible mess...

I was tasting the wine.

This older couple who barely spoke English were peering at me because I'd asked for the most expensive one....

The woman starred at my badge...

'Terra Divaldo?? Import Agent???' She asked...

'Ah yes, I said...My boyfirends siste-....NO!!...My sisters boyfrie- NO!!!...I can't speak English!!....My girlfriends moth...pHEWW....' I took a long pause and thought very hard about who it was....'My girlfriends brother runs the company - we're thinking of importing into the UK...!!!'


Well, I drank about as much as I could without falling over, puking or disgracing myself, in which time I covered a little under half of the 120 odd wines on offer.

It was a ncie day out...


Next it was onto Kings X for the gig...

Now, as I've said before, The Big Chill Bar is one of these temples to youth and creative mediocrity...

Yes boss, it's an offshoot of the festival of the same name, and it's a factory type bar that tends to attract trendy 'creative' young folk from all around the world who chatter away about their short films and their band and their plans to travel to Thailand to go look at the poor people....

Essentially, it's not really my scene and it shouldn't have been the scene for a folk gig that was dependent on people tuning in and listening rather than jabbering away about their wonderful fucking art...


Worse than this, the sound engineer couldn't cope with the concept of a 12 string acoustic guitar being miked up, instead of hooked up via a 'pick up' And that inability combined with the cavernous acoustics and endless chatter, lead to a perfectly good performance by Brigid Power Ryce becoming meaningless and impossible to hear...


The same fate befell Dominique who preceded her...

She was playing an acoustic set, which I'll give the benefit of the doubt, on account of not being able to properly hear it to know how good it was...


The band that came last were better able to fill the space in the room on account of having about 12 people on stage, but I'm afraid they didn't excite me in any way shape or form...


All told, it was a pretty appalling display of promotion and one I would hope (but doubt) the promoter was paying attention to not repeating....

Currently listening : Divine Liturgy Release date: 1994-04-05