Wrote for luck?

The pre-Christmas run up is often a glorious time when work merely becomes a buffer between you and your next pint. You're hungover from December 2nd and remain in a state of semi-pishedness until the close of the year when you realise there has to be something else to life other than constantly getting bladdered. Everything comes to you through a thick cloud of lager which made our decision to watch the Happy Mondays perform a Christmas show at the Roundhouse seem a good one.

The Mondays themselves completely slayed the Camden venue - they married shambles to funk in a style which almost suggested they'd be rehearsing. Jokes of course, as these one time mad heads most definitely had been practicing their thing as they probably need to wrangle as much dosh as they can from the nostalgia flex - and why not? Every other fucker is at it. And Shaun's got middle class kids he needs to keep in school. But the Mondays sounded much more vibrant than the corpse of a acid house good time being wheeled out for the evening. In comparison much of the crowd seemed to be a much duller proposition. While there were some old gurners doing their thing, our attempts at smoking cigs in the venue were met with scowls or threatening verbal missives - 'Put it out - or fuck off'. Sorry gramps but it's Christmas!

The story of the season

Jerk up inside the place

Kedgeree

a muffin. For a twat. 

Jesus arriving on stage at the Roundhouse - aka Shaun Ryder

The Mondays

Do you do the sprat? 

A tale of two roasts

24 hours in the food game at Xmas can see a brother gobbling foodstuffs which, while being made of similar ingredients, exist in totally different dimensions. One roast can be from Mars, the other from Venus. And so it was that on a Sunday, we sat down to enjoy a juicy leg of lamb at a gaff of a mate's in Harlesden. A pavlova had even been constructed to follow it down the gullet - gobble gobble.

On the Monday we went down from the penthouse to see what was being consumed on the pavement as we visited Wetherspoons in Hackney to sample their traditional festive grub. The roast was priced at a very reasonable £7.25 for both the meal and a delicious drink. However, after handing over the dosh, we were faced by a series of obstacles. It may be worth investing a little more in your roast dinner to ensure all parts of the plate have been exposed to similar levels of heat. Much of our din dins were quite chilly in parts. I felt sorry for some of the sprouts who looked like they needed some thick, thermal underwear.

The spoons eating experience en masse is quite something to behold. Meals fly out of the kitchen with no logic or any sense of consistency to the order in which they were requested. Some turned up with weird bits attached while others just didn't turn up. After a while, one of our party opted for a replacement soup as the one he'd requested had got lost somewhere between the kitchen and our table. His soup substitute arrived but after a while our chum discovered hunks of ham cowering under the green sludge masquerading as soup. For some of our party, this would have been deemed a true victory but for this poor veggie it was only another thing to be let down by.

Even worse, when we asked to be refunded in booze, we were informed that it wasn't company policy. You bastards! To commiserate we had some more pints and ignored the lack of apology. Spoons, I love you but you're bringing me down. Only slightly. See you soon...

Pavlova

Spoons starter - pate innit mate

Salmon ting