Dom Pannell's Blog

The Rule of Eight

I first observed the Rule of Eight when I was at college (the first time round) and it has held true consistently since in several countries*.

It's the maximum number of people who can eat in a restaurant without there being a mess when it comes to paying the bill.

Eight or fewer, no problem. Nine or more, you're pretty much guaranteed that there'll either be an almighty argument ("I didn't have any wine, or a starter, so I shouldn't have to pay as much" "I don't think the service was any good, so I don't want to leave a tip!" etc.) or one or other of the diners will end up paying for a lot more than they consumed.

Yesterday was a case in point.

Once again, the food at the Norfolk Arms was excellent (half a dozen rock oysters followed by beef and finally cheese), yet those of us who stayed until it was time to pay the bill ended up forking out some serious money. I mean, I know I'm a big lad, but there's no way I can eat £120 worth of nosh in one lunchtime sitting, not in what is a reasonably priced pub.

Mind you, there was the champagne at the start...

*Sweden is an exception, as Swedes tend to pay for exactly what they consume, down to the last ore. No wonder they have the reputation for being boring! ;-)

Movin' on up

I don't know what to make of this... I just listened to Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. This week's guest was Paul McKenna, the smooth talking hypnotist/self-help guru:

What's odd is that I found myself liking the fellow and I certainly like his taste in music.

1. The End - The Beatles
2. He’s the Greatest Dancer - Sister Sledge
3. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
4. This is Your Life - The Banderas
5. Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai
6. Space Shanty - Leftfield
7. I Didn’t Know I Was Looking for Love - Everything But the Girl
8. Movin’ On Up - Primal Scream

Most unexpected.

Maybe I should become a hypnotist?

I AM THE BOWLING MASTER!

We had a school outing to All Star Lanes in Holborn this week to go 10-pin bowling.

What can I say? Plenty of cocktails, decent grub (Cobb salad followed by 'bleu' steak) followed by plenty of cocktails. Fun all round.

Naturally, I kicked butt. I did let the others get close in the first game - well, you've got to be seen to be giving people a sporting chance - but I got a bit peeved when it was rigged so that I went first in the second, so I spanked'em with a score of 164 (yeah, yeah, I know it's not a really high score...).

Warning: I have also been known to play darts and pool, although my best game has to be hood skittles:

Now there's an excuse to sink a few pints of real ale...

Browser Wars

I was looking at the visitor stats for people who visit dompannell.com and noticed that Firefox isn't too far behind Internet Explorer. I guess that either means IE is losing market share to Firefox, or that this site is read by a more discerning reader.

Browser Visits
Internet Explorer: 56.99%
Firefox: 37.63%
Safari: 3.23%
Mozilla: 1.08%
Opera: 1.08%

Well, I thought it was interesting, OK?

Hooray, I got my links back!

More than ten months after my blogroll disappeared, I figured out how to get it back - look, there it is below Little Neo and GapingVoid. Thanks to Wilbur in Saudi, I have also been able to put it in the correct place.

Now, I just need to figure out how to fix the formatting so that 'Dom's Chums' is consistent with 'Corporate Communications', etc.

My life feels almost complete.

[EDIT: Thank you to Cathryn for spotting the error in the source code. My blogroll is now properly formatted... Now I just need to weed it for dead links and update it with new ones. Oh joy, oh joy!/EDIT]

Formula One interesting?

Is it just me, or are Felipe Massa and newbie Lewis Hamilton actually making Formula 1 interesting again?

Now that Schumi has put his feet up, the Brazilian and the Brit are giving defending world champ Fernando Alonso something of a hard time. 22 year-old Hamilton is actually winning the championship.

At this rate, I might even watch a race this season.

OK I've signed up to Twitter

I know I'm months behind the curve and as I said to Graham last week, I'm not sure I see the point, but what the hell.

I've got close to 50 friends on Facebook, too. What do you mean 'act my age'?

www.twitter.com/dompannell

Nicolas mon pote!

Our Tone, the UK's outgoing Prime Minister, has wished Nicolas Sarkozy, France's incoming President all the best and he's done it in French:

It's a very positive gesture, especially as we Brits are renowned for not learning foreign languages. I can't imagine Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac making a similar gesture in English, despite being fluent after having studied at Harvard. He's famous for being a bit tetchy about the French speaking English in public.

"A bit like Marmite...

... you either love it or hate it!"

Not the ringing endorsement I necessarily wanted to hear from the salesgirl when I had just handed my credit card over to pay for a case of Lebanese classic red wine Château Musar 1999. Now I absolutely love Marmite, but not everyone does and part of the reason behind buying a case of wine is that I can give the odd bottle away as presents (thus justifying my drinking the rest). I don't want to give people something they don't like!!

So I've looked the vintage up on Musar's own website and this is what it says:

1999 was an exceptional year. Starting with a mild winter with very little rainfall, it was followed by our normal spring weather, which allowed a good flowering. However the yield seemed lower than usual due to the lack of water. The summer was mild and although July and August were cloudy, September was hot and sunny. This enabled the grapes to reach maximum maturity with great all round concentration – good acidity and a high sugar level.

Fermentation went very smoothly and took its time. It was followed by a good maceration, which enhanced the aroma, the flesh and the everlasting aftertaste.

These features were immediately apparent in the wine. Very high alcohol, high acidity and a lot of extract – the wine was rich, round and full bodied, highly concentrated with a very long finish.

This was really an exceptional year, perhaps the year of the Millennium.

Doesn't sound like Marmite to me.

Anyway, Graham's in town, so we may well crack open a bottle later. He's a fan of Marmite as well (he even had Twiglets for breakfast this morning) but I don't reckon he wants to drink Marmite-flavoured wine either!

[EDIT: Well, Graham and I have polished off a bottle of the Musar. The illustrious Mr Holliday's comments were as follows:

"Wow, that's a BIG wine!"

"It definitely doesn't taste like Marmite!"

So there you go./EDIT]

Santacon 2006 - The Movie

Fresh from watching Spider-man 3 at the cinema on Friday (I was given extra tickets when the Odeon messed up my order, so a small gang of us went along via a Chinese restaurant) my attention has just been drawn to a video of Santacon 2006.

A lot of the action - from the slides in Tate Modern, which I missed, to Cyberdog, Leicester Square and the barbecue beside the London Eye, which I didn't - and many of the Santa characters (including the reindeer) are there on film, so if you were there it's a good way to reminisce.

Thank you very much for making the film, Santa Pletts.

(Oh and Spider-man 3 is a cultural landmark. Obviously).