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Dr John Hawkins
Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff,
home to a huge load of pictures,
and my daily blog.
My email address is as above - I've put it in an image in a vein attempt to reduce the amount of spam I get.
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- Recent Entries:
- Afternoon with Junchan
St. Blaise's Day
Tapas with Junchan
South Bank, Gordon's and Wahaca
Saatchi Gallery
Aldgate Pub Crawl
Saturday
Burns Night
New Year Party
Wednesday
Diwana
Monday Evening in Belgravia
10 Year Anniversary
Borough Pub Crawl
Snow
Back in London
Off to the Airport
Enoshima and Ikebukuro
Eating in Tokyo
Asakusa
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- Afternoon with Junchan
 [Thursday 4th February 2010]
I took the afternoon off today as Junchan would be leaving on Friday, and it felt a bit mean if she was just left to entertain herself in the daytime for the whole time she was here.
We met up at my office at lunchtime, and then wandered from there, past Buckingham Palace, through St. James's to Fortnum and Mason. We had lunch at the Fountain restaurant there, which was rather nice - lots of very well heeled clientele.
(haven't quite finished writing this yet!)
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- St. Blaise's Day
- [Wednesday 3rd February]
A St. Blaise's Day outing to Holborn has come to be one of my odd little annual rituals, and this year I took along our friend Junchan as well.
A few years ago I was idly browsing around on the web and somehow came across a page about a "blessing of the throats" ceremony at St. Etheldreda's Church in Holborn. Given that the church is also associated with what is probably my favourite pub (Ye Old Mitre - both the church and the pub were originally part of the London estate of the bishops of Ely), plus the fact that the Scotch Malt Whisky Society use the Crypt at the church for some of their more formal functions, it has become something of a favourite London landmark for me. I didn't realise until recently that it is also one of the oldest buildings in London - built around 1280 during the reign of Edward I.
You can't actually get inside the church after 5pm unfortunately, but I'm happy just to stand outside and admire it. There's a great picture of the church from the 1700s on this wikipedia page which shows that despite the surroundings having changed somewhat significantly, the church really has remained just the same for centuries. I like that sort of thing.
Of course no visit to that neck of the woods would be complete without poking one's nose in at Ye Old Mitre - a "mositening of the palette" to follow the "blessing of the throat" if you will. Plus there's also Fabrizio's not too far away wherein rather superb pasta can be had, not to mention the Cittie of Yorke and the Whisky Society. It's my favourite area for a night out in London - oozing with history and a real visual feast in terms of architecture and interiors.
Here's a map of the places we visited tonight:
View St. Blaise's Day in a larger map
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- Tapas with Junchan
 [Monday 1st February 2010]
Our friend Junchan is starting a new venture in France this year - a sort of cultural exchange centre / language school in Lyon for French people interested in Japan, and vice verse. En route from Japan to France she stopped off in the UK to stay for a few nights from tonight.
Imagining she'd probably be a bit jetlagged we didn't plan to do too much this evening, and just popped out for dinner at the ever reliable tapas place near where we live. This seemed to go down rather well - tapas seems to get better when you have a larger group (i.e. 3 rather than 2) as it means you can order a wider variety of dishes.
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- South Bank, Gordon's and Wahaca
 [Sunday 31st January 2010]
A jolly nice Sunday. Started off the day with a traditional Japanese breakfast of rice, miso soup, pickles and tofu. Then lolled around the the remainder of the morning and the early afternoon, and the typical bowl of "weekend ramen" for lunch (this time with "vegetarian shrimp").
Went to see an Ozu film at the BFI on the South Bank in the evening, and had a very pleasant stroll along by the river to get there, taking in some nice views of the Houses of Parliment.
After the film had a drink at Gordon's wine bar, followed by dinner at Wahaca.
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- Saatchi Gallery
 [Saturday 30th January 2010]
Wandered over to Sloane Square / King's Road to take a look at the new contemporary Indian art exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery. Whilst in the neighbourhood we bought a new Dyson vaccuum cleaner in Peter Jones, where we also had lunch.
After heading back home to drop off the vaccuum cleaner we were surprisingly able to muster the enthusiasm to head back out again, this time toward the centre of London, where following a quick pint at the Dog and Duck in Soho we did some food shopping with a distinctly oriental theme - first some Chinese things from See Woo, and then some Japanese things from Rice Wine.
Had nabe for dinner, with a combination of the Chinese and Japanese ingredients we'd bought today.
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- Aldgate Pub Crawl
 [Tuesday 26th January 2010]
Went for what may well prove to be the last in the series of epic John and Andy London pub crawls, as Andy as imminently leaving to go and live in Japan. This time we went around Aldgate, finishing off the evening with dinner at a Japanese restaurant called Soseki by the Gherkin. Here's a map of the planned route (which we deviated from somewhat in the end):
View Aldgate Pub Crawl in a larger map
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- Saturday
 [Saturday 23rd January 2010]
Typical Saturday morning (breakfast at the ever excellent Regency Cafe) followed by Andy's leaving party in the afternoon.
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- Burns Night
 [Friday 22nd January 2010]
Held my third Burns Night this evening, pretty much along the same lines as last year's. There were seven of us in total, and I stuck to pretty much the same tried and tested menu:
- Scotch broth to start (this time potato, parnsip, carrots, leeks, shallots and pearl barley)
- Haggis, neeps and tatties for main. Only slight variations this year were a creamy whisky sauce to go with the haggis, and the addition of truffle oil in the mashed potato.
- Scottish ice cream with shortbread and raspberries for dessert (a bit like the "Marr's Hurdies" from my first Burns night in 2005).
I gave a particularly enthusiastic rendition of the "Ode to a Haggis" this year, with somewhat more hand gestures and stabbing than than usual. It was observed that sounding angry is a very good fallback for people who can't do a Scottish accent convincingly.
Of course there was also a plethora of whisky to be sampled, and for once it was slightly less Islay-centric, including a few interesting speysides (An SWMS Tomatin and Longmorn I'd got as part of a bundle, and a very spicy 25 year old Gren Grant Al had brought along).
Was also pleased that I was not the only kilt wear this year! Excellent effort by Andrew there.
I hope my guests enjoyed the evening - I certainly did. I've never actually been to any Burns night other than the ones I've held myself, so no idea really if I'm doing it "properly", but I always seem to enjoy them nonetheless.
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- New Year Party
 [Thursday 21st January 2010]
My company's second Christmas party, which we decided to postpone until after New Year. This time held at Namco Station, a kind of games centre / amusement arcade near Waterloo.
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- Wednesday
 [Wednesday 20th January 2010]
Went home after work, had dinner with Chie, then got a call from Al who happened to be in the neighbourhood, so we went out for a quick pint. Met up at CASK, and then later on headed over to The Morpeth Arms.
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- Diwana
 [Tuesday 19th January 2010]
Went to Diwana, the very good vegetarian Indian restaurant on Drummond Street this evening for dinner.
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- Monday Evening in Belgravia
 [Monday 18th January 2010]
Decided to go shopping at the Waitrose in Belgravia this evening. As I finished work a bit before Chie, I decided to go by way of The Grenadier and then The Nag's Head.
As pretty much always ends up being the case after shopping at Waitrose, we had fresh pasta for dinner - a kind of mushroom tortellini, with fresh pesto.
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- 10 Year Anniversary
 [Sunday 17th January 2010]
Today marked 10 years since the day Chie and I very first met. So it seemed appropraite to go back to the place where we first met - Reading University. Of course being a Sunday pretty much everything was closed, and we couldn't actually get into the student union, but it was a nice day which made for a very pleasant stroll around campus.
Also took the opportunity whilst in Reading to meet up with Rob and Kate and their little boy Felix.
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- Borough Pub Crawl
 [Saturday 16th January 2010]
An afternoon and evening spent exploring the fine pubs of Borough with Andy (and later on Chie too). Here's a map of the route (although we didn't actually make it to all of these pubs):
View Borough Pub Crawl in a larger map
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- Snow
 [Wednesday 13th January 2010]
A few pictures from (hopefully!) the last flurry of snow of the season.
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- Back in London
 [Tuesday 12th January 2010]
Back at work today. Having gone to bed pretty early the previous evening, I predictably woke up around 4am this morning, and am not really sure if I managed to get back to sleep or not.
Fairly quiet day in the office. Had a very nice lunch - bavettini ai carciofi (a kind of pasta with artichokes) at Oliveto (see here for a picture).
In the evening met up with Al in Fitztrovia for a couple of drinks. Particularly liked the Newman Arms.
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- Off to the Airport
 [Monday 11th January 2010]
I often don't bother taking pictures on the absolute last day of a trip to Japan, as pictures in airports are usually not that interesting! However I noticed on my camera I was just a few pictures shy of having taken 500 during this trip, and was determined to get there!
Rather pleasingly our friend Ai-san, who works as a flight attendant, was passing through Narita airport at the same time we were, so we had a chance to meet up and have a bit of a natter while we were waiting for our flight.
The flight itself wasn't too bad I suppose. Watched quite a few films: Zombieland, The Informant, Surrogates, Four Christmases and The September Issue.
Surrogates was a particular surprise as the opening titles included a brief sequence of my friend Jim Wyatt talking about robots. He came to visit us on New Year's Eve last year.
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- Enoshima and Ikebukuro
 [Sunday 10th January 2010]
Spent the afternoon on the island of Enoshima near Tokyo, including a visit to the spa there. In the evening met up with Chie's friend Miyuki-san and headed over to Ikebukuro for the usual dinner at Rohlan followed by a wee dram or two at Quercus.
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- Eating in Tokyo
 [Saturday 9th January 2010]
A day spent almost continuously eating in Tokyo - vege ramen in Akihabara for lunch, and a feast of Taiwanese vegetarian food at It's Vegetable in Kinschicho in the evening.
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- Asakusa
 [Friday 8th January 2010]
Spent the daytime working from my company's Tokyo office, then in the evening met up with my friend Tanaka-san for a night out in Asakusa.
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