Dom Pannell's Blog

Unlimited drinks

The teambuilding course has been postponed, which means I'm free to take up Ewan's invitation and attend his very generous Unlimited Drinks tonight.

Here's Ewan, lovely chap:

Of course, I will be the model of sobriety tonight.

I love sushi

So I was pleased to read on chez pim that some kind person has released a video tutorial on How to Eat in a Sushi Bar.

Not sure I'm going to try out many of these tips, but the video is worth eight minutes of watching!

PS Pim says not to call your sushi chef Taicho - I believe her.
PPS Saying that, the chefs in my favourite London sushi restaurant, Kulu Kulu, are all Colombian, so they probably wouldn't know what I was saying...

More on that Man and his Monkey

You will recall, oh trusty reader, that I was very amused by Damon Scott's performance on Britain's Got Talent back in June.

Well, I've been invited to plod along to a hotel at Holborn to sample a "teambuilding through puppetry" course that Damon has put together. I can't wait.

I reckon that's a good excuse to post the clip again (not that I needed one):

The bad news is that because Damon has hooked up with CocktailStars, Kate and Sam will be providing alcoholic inducements to get the evening going... bad news for my fitness campaign, that is.

Since you ask, I haven't the foggiest if I've lost any weight, but I have been playing squash at least twice a week and I'm trying to fit in weight training as well (I even went to the gym before breakfast last Saturday).

Christmas is coming!

At least preparations have started for this Crisis Open Christmas 2007. To be totally honest, I'm sure that the permanent Open team have been preparing for it since the last one finished, but I'm not part of that.

Yesterday was the Key Volunteers Forum, which was held at Crisis Skylight on Commercial Street.

The forum was a chance for Key Vols to come together, discuss what worked well last year, what didn't and to find out what changes are afoot for this year's Open and Crisis as a whole.

We learned that four of the buildings that were used as centres last year have now been demolished and the hunt to secure suitable replacements is well under way - this year the plan is to have eight centres, up from seven, so the task is that bit harder... if any of my three avid readers knows of an empty building in centralish London, do drop me a line.

Actually, I walked past the 'East Centre' yesterday and took this snap of it on my mobile phone - it has indeed been razed to the ground and that's a crane picking over the ruins.

Happily the overall trend is that homelessness in the UK is falling, although as Crisis CEO Leslie Morphy told us, many rough sleepers aren't counted in the official figures and the number of homeless people from the Accession 8 countries continues to rise. This is something that has been obvious for several years and Polish/Russian speaking interpreters are highly sought after for COC. We were also told that we might see an increase in the number of ex-squaddies coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

I was particularly pleased to hear that Crisis is embracing the Internet for training purposes - with 6,500 volunteers last year and 1,000 more expected this time, it's not possible for the charity to extend face-to-face training to everybody. Starting in October, vols will be able to visit a secure part of the Crisis website and access courses in several essential areas.

Key vols will also have the opportunity of a couple of days training in September - on week days, so if I want to attend (I do) I'll have to take time off work. The subjects are 'homelessness' and 'conflict management' - I'll write an description of the courses when I've done them, assuming they're not full already.

The focus of the somewhat controversial Drinkers Centre is changing - Crisis will place more emphasis on it as being a dependency centre (rather than just being a 24-hour party venue... I bet it'll still be the most fun centre though!) which strikes me as sensible.

The policy of several smaller centres with centrally allocated services is continuing, albeit with tweaks that will recognise the different needs of each centre - I was surprised to hear that the volume of services delivered to guests last year was up last year. As I was at the 'Main Centre' for several years prior to 2006, it seemed to me that fewer services were on offer, but I guess that just demonstrates that the smaller centres were poorly served until last year.

I wonder if I'll be running the front gate at one of the centres again this year?

France 22 - England 9

I missed yesterday's match as it was in the evening and I'd already made plans to go out to dinner.

Reading the match reports it's just as well I had because it looks as though watching the match wasn't much fun for England supporters.

Oh well. Just as long as France don't win the World Cup - or Australia who I think are the world's least magnanimous victors in any sport.

Simon has bought us tickets to watch Tonga versus South Africa in Lens.

Come on you reds!!

French rugby

I've said it many times before: I'll never support the French at rugby.

Brian O'Driscoll, cynically injured and nearly killed in the opening match of the British Lions tour that he was captaining, has now been punched in the face in a pre-World Cup warm-up against France.

He's injured, but I guess we should be lucky they didn't kill him... bet they tried!

I really hope he gets to play in the World Cup - he's a brilliant player.

"Stand-up must be a very hard thing to do"

that's what our motley crew of comedy-goers kept saying last night, "you've got to admire them for having the guts to get up there."

Well, quite. But I don't have to admire them for being funny. They weren't.

I've been to a fair amount of stand-up in my life. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I once made Eddie Izzard apoplectic with rage when I pretended to be a Swede who didn't understand him (I love you, Eddie, really) and I do like a laugh.

I didn't do a huge amount of that at the Laughing Horse last night, though.

Sure, I admire the guts of the men and one woman who stood up in front of the audience and I accept that we might have been a tough bunch to please, but as Bood said, "Alexei Sayle would have won us over..."

I thought that one half of the Ham Yard Tourists was funny (in the spirit of the act, I won't say which half) and there was a Geordie whose jokes were OK - hotly disputed by others in our group, but I reckon that's partly because his accent was so thick and they had a hard time following him.

One boring thing I have noticed over the years is the number of comedians who, either because they are struggling with a tough audience (maybe I'm the common denominator?) or simply because their material is weak, fall back on being rude and/or swearing for comic effect.

It doesn't work. I can swear. Really, I can. I can swear quite effectively, but I try not to because profanity in itself isn't funny.

I concede that picking on members of the audience can get a few laughs, but they're pretty hollow because it's the same sort of laugh that you hear from the bully's sidekick in a schoolyard.

Hats off to Nessie Flange for trying to engage with the audience rather than just insulting us. The rest of our group thought there was lots of potential in this character. Maybe.

Yesterday's show won't stop me from going to stand-up, but I'm glad the friend I invited last night couldn't make it.

Still, you've got to admire them for having the guts to get up there.

Half an hour a day

The Today Programme has been running a story this morning about 100 Northern Ireland civil servants who took part in a controlled experiment to see what would happen if they followed the Government's recommendation of 'a brisk thirty minute walk five times a week.'

Actually, one group only walked for thirty minutes three times a week AND they broke up the thirty minutes; they might have been walking for ten minutes three times in the same day, for example.

Apparently their collective blood pressure dropped over the length of the experiment* and they witnessed noticeable reductions in their waist and hip measurements.

The sad thing is that when polled, a considerable number of Brits said that they didn't have time in their normal day for this minimal amount of exercise.

Sadder still, until recently I didn't seem to have enough time in my normal day and I saw the results in weight gain.

Saddest of all: the Today Programme are running the story on a day in which England is enjoying 'unseasonally wet weather' so the chances of me walking to work are nil.

Ho hum. At least I'm playing squash three times a week!

*I can't find the story on the web, so I'm unable to check how long the experiment was running.

England 15 - France 21

The scoreline was a tad disappointing, but the match was pretty close so it's not that devastating. Most worrying is a feeling that France won because they are more clinical, particularly Sebastian Chabal who was made Man of the Match following his match winning try.

Mitch Phillips gives a good account of the match here.

Next week, the same teams meet again in Marseilles. That will be interesting.

[EDIT: Bood enjoyed watching his first game so much he's capitalising the name of the sport. Due respect for the only sport that matters, obviously./EDIT]

Whack and waddle

that's how I described my style of squash-playing to a colleague yesterday. I think it's pretty accurate.

I took squash lessons when I was about ten and attended the first four or five classes until I realised that if I didn't turn up, nobody would notice that I was spending the time (and my pocket money) on the Space Invader machine in the local sports centre.

So began a video-gaming career that lasted until I was old enough to get served beer in pubs (about 14 years old) and I found I had a different need for cash. My drinking career is highly successful and ongoing, hence my renewed interest in squash.

The few lessons I had in squash taught me enough technique to be marginally better than utterly crap, but I lack the fitness to be any good.

Squash is now featuring prominently in my current campaign to lose weight and get fit.

The plan is to play three times a week and I have a personal goal of being able to run round the court in two months' time. Right now it really is whack and waddle - last night's game against Paul proving this to be the case.

In the end I won last night, but it was a totally different game to what I've been used to playing Sven. Sven is a better squash player than I am and he wins because we both play with a similar style - in short we both know that a half-decent shot to an open space will be enough to win the point because neither of us is quick enough round the court to reach the ball. Consequently, the rallies tend to be rather short affairs.

Playing Paul is very different, because he's considerably fitter than Sven or me. As a result, he attempts to play every shot and more often than not, he reaches it. Consequently, I have to run more to win points. I'm aching today as a result of longer rallies.

I reckon that by forcing me to get off my fat ass, Paul is going to help me improve my fitness (although I will still need to use the dreaded CV machines if I'm seriously going to lift my stamina level). Hopefully this will have an effect when I play against Sven and I'll start beating him (I got very close on Wednesday - leading 2 : 0 and 4 : 2 before finally losing 5 : 4) and force him to raise his game.

Summer barbecues with Sven and Marie-Hélène II

What a difference the weather makes. We had fun last month but yesterday, with the sun out, it was a much more leisurely (and warm!) affair.

Marie-Hélène had prepared some snacks of delicious 'Pimientos de Padrón' - prepared with salt from Kythira where Sven has a property, occasionally they would explode with peppery spice - and a Tunisian dish of broad beans in cumin. Both were perfect with a glass of pastis on the terrace.

As an aperitif (the pastis was just to cool us down) we tried the bottle of Txakoli that Richard sent me from San Sebastian.

Drunk chilled and poured from a height to aerate it, the txakoli was very refreshing as the sun bore down on us.

Sven proved something of a master of the high pouring trick

¡Olé!

Richard had very generously sent two bottles (a third was smashed in transit) sent a second bottle, this one a 2003 Rívola

I can confirm that Rívola goes perfectly with barbecued sausages and steaks (accompanied by various salads, courgette fritters...)

I'm glad we made the most of the sunny weather - it's Monday morning now and it's raining!

Summer barbecues with Sven and Marie-Hélène

My friends Sven and Marie-Hélène live between Balham and Tooting Beck in a wonderful Edwardian house with a large garden. For the past few years (Sven and I trained to be conference interpreters in 1998), I've enjoyed their hospitality on many occasions, which is great as they are both excellent cooks. Summers are especially nice as they love to make the most of their garden by organising barbecues at the weekend.

This summer, of course, has largely been a wash-out in London, but that hasn't stopped the fun.

A couple of weeks ago, I went round on the Sunday, only for the rain to come down in buckets as soon as the barbecue had heated up, resulting in one of my favourite photos so far this year.

In between showers, Sven managed to cook up a feast, however. On the grill here, there is an array of spiced chicken kebabs, pork ribs and merguez from their local Algerian butcher.

and we ate inside their conservatory, pretty much polishing everything off to a soundtrack of raindrops on a glass roof.

It was also the occasion to finish off my last couple of bottles of Château Musar, which incidentally, I noticed was for sale in Sainsbury's near Tottenham Court Road. Same year: 1999

The more observant of my three avid readers will notice the price: £15.39, which at today's interbank rate translates as SEK211.45 - factor in bank charges and you're not far off the price of a bottle of Musar in Sweden. Just goes to show what great value buying wine from Majestic Wine Warehouse, even if their sales staff don't know how to sell the stuff properly...

Anyway, I'm going over to Sven and Marie-Hélène's place again today and this time I'm taking the wine that Richard has sent me from San Sebastian! I'll let you know how I get on (bate yer breath!)

England 62 : Wales 5

A 57 point winning margin... blimey, who'd have thought it? And, thanks to my colleague Arthur, I was there.

Wales rolled out a reserve team today and were punished for it. While it must be good for the England team's morale (and devastating for the Welsh) it's difficult to say how well they played, because the opposition was so lacking.

If I'm honest, the winning margin should have been more if it wasn't for Wilko missing several kicks and England conceding a soft, if well-executed try, but I guess the English were still celebrating Nick Easter's hat-trick and the arrival of the old ox Dallaglio who, minutes later, more than made up for Wales's score by driving through a try...

I know Jones is injured, but do Wales really only have one player left these days? Maybe it was a cunning ruse just before the World Cup - clever if it was, 'cos right now the Aussies must be thinking that they've got the easiest group in the pool stage.

More likely though, the Red Dragons are asking themselves 'where do we go now?'

England dominated throughout and I had an excellent view from the upper section of the new stand. Great fun, although the number of red shirts had clearly diminished by Tait's final score/the final whistle.

Hard to pick it out, but this is Jonny Wilkinson converting a try.

(Must sort out a proper camera).

I wonder if Nick Easter has done enough to secure his place in the World Cup squad? His three tries showed how powerful a player he is. Worsley also had a good game and may have persuaded Ashton to pick him and Shaun Perry can't have hurt his chances by running two tries home (he's since attributed one to Easter, who consequently scored four).

Not sure which of today's Welsh XV I'd pick to go to France. Maybe none of them - if I'm honest they weren't very good at all.

'Le Crunch' next week will surely be a bit more of a match.

The washing man cameth again

He first came six weeks ago to diagnose my washing machine, which had blown up and tripped a circuit a few days before...

Then he came back when the broken part arrived (three weeks later, 'cos I popped over to Sweden) only for the new part to blow up and trip a circuit again - I only mention tripping the circuit as it adds the excitement of the moment because my radio and phone/fax go off.

Finally (I hope), he was back again yesterday. This time there were no explosions and the machine passed all his tests. It seems he'd been supplied by Hotpoint with a faulty part previously. He reckons he has to return £150-£200 worth of parts in an average month.

I'm already onto the third load.