Ad's eats: Tarantino: 51 High Strett, Hornchurch, Essex

For our 9th wedding anniversary, The Wife and I headed to Tarantino’s Italian restaurant in Hornchurch, after this was recommended by a work colleague.

Well, thumbs up to her, for this place was everything I’d been told it would be. Firstly, the service was really friendly. I think this is partly due to place being local, with another branch in Brentwood. Very much a family affair and all the better for without any sense of corporate blandness you sometimes find in Italian restaurants, though Zizzi nearby doesn’t do too badly in this respect despite it being part of the ASK group. Tarantino’s has a regular menu plus a couple of specials which change weekly.

I was told that the portions would be large, and that the quality would be high. Both assertions were not wrong.

For my starter, I ordered baby back ribs with honey barbecue sauce, and that’s exactly what I got, with the ribs falling off the bone. I would have complained that the sauce was a bit sweet, but then I remembered it said it would come with honey, as indeed it did. The portion on the platter was main meal size. My Dearly Beloved had meatballs which were the best I’ve tasted, made of a combination of beef and veal, very finely minced and tasting expensive. Again, a larger than average portion. So far so good.

Next we both had a tagliatele dish. Mine was with creamy tomato and garlic sauce, with strips of scotch steak. The beef tasted like it was not from the cheapest cut - I guess it came from sirloin, and was very tasty and perfectly cooked, so chewy enough without arguing with the teeth. This was, perhaps, the best pasta dish I’ve ever eaten. The sauce was delicious and robust, matching the steak strips perfectly, and the pasta firm and not claggy in the slightest. The Wife also gave her pasta dish eight out of ten, though I never tasted any of hers as it contained broccoli. I’d rather die before eating this.

Mrs Dukc was what full after this extravaganza of flavour and so went straight to coffee. I went for the strawberry cheesecake, which I would rate highly, though it didn’t have the wow factor of the pasta. Big portion though, so gets 7 out of 10.

Overall, I’m going to give this place a highly recommended rating. I do love Italian and it is quite easy to get a pasta dish. But it is very difficult to make a pasta meal exceptionally well, and that’s just what they’ve done here. Its won two awards, one being the “Best Regional Italian Restaurant” award. With good reason.

Despite the reputation Essex suffers, Hornchurch is an area of well-kept secrets, with Bonaparte being better than most French restaurants in London I’ve tried. Tarantino’s has barged its way into my “restaurants I now love” list. On a limb in the RM postcode area, all these delights are skipped by the London critics who tend to stick around the West End, Mayfair and Kensington. Great if you live or work there. However, for us in the far eastern suburbs, Hornchurch is a real unsung oasis.

Ssssshh. We’ll keep it to ourselves before all those peasants further west discover it.

Did Roger Linn love Alice too?

Most people – that is the vast majority of punters who aren’t electronica/muso types – can ignore this post. But I was playing Spotify at work, and re-stumbled across an album my dad used to play a lot – “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John.

Listening to All The Girls Love Alice made me think “by golly, that drum kit doesn’t half sound like a Linn Drum LN1, as used on countless Human League and Michael Jackson “Thriller” era tracks”. Well of course it wasn’t as the first Linn wasn’t made til at least 10 years later.

I wonder though if Roger Linn had a particular kit or track in mind when putting together those famous ROM chips? If so, I think the sounds on Alice are a definite possibility, the snare and toms are VERY close matches sound-wise.

The LN1 was a groundbreaker and is still iconic, and I have to confess I find it very pleasing to listen to nearly 30 years after it crashed and banged its way into the charts. The bass drum on the later 9000 – now that’s a full bodied sound – wowzer.

The simple happiness of finding Ricardo Autobahn's "Beep Beep"

Just a random muse on a Friday night, after watching Demon Seed with Julie Christie (man, that computer has a frightening voice), I was noodling around the music files on the PC and found Beep Beep by Ricardo Autobahn, from the album Interrobang.

What a very good track. Two years ago, I heard this when I was a) extremely drunk; and b) incredibly, almost terminally depressed due to a lot of aggro at work, and its retro cheerfulness really helped me put the crappiness of the day - which in fact led to me leaving the job and taking my present (non crappy) one – to one side, if only for a few hours. As heard on The Zone (but where else?) Bought the album off iTunes, this track was the absolute banger!

It sounds like what what you’d get if you artificially inseminated a Spectrum computer with the sperm of a first gen Akai sampler.

I challenge any electonica fan not to grin mindlessley when playing it - which you may by clicking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb2buOocwaQ

Weekend doing nothing

This weekend I mainly sat on my arse, reading and watching DVDs with the Dear One. We also went to the pub for Sunday lunch. All in all a weekend to savour (I am not being ironic, really). No, really, why can’t more weekends involve the grand sum doing nearly bugger all?

So, the only thing I missed was The Freak Zone. Chest la, I’m sure it’ll be on iPlayer this evening. There certainly won’t be any telly on, so at least I'll have an evening free - no a whole week really - to catch on musical weirdness.

But yesterday I saw it: a 42 inch Panasonic TV: £699 from Tezzers. A lovely trinket to treasure before I die. It has a great picture too, audio description facility built in (an essential for Mrs D) and even I can see it with my errant eyeballs.

(By the way, this isn't the telly concerned, in case you were wondering)

BBC1, 2, 3, four, and you can forget most of commercial channels, apart from CH 4 news, which is the only news worth watching other than Paxo on form. ALL FREAKIN’ RUBBISH.

So, my Panasonic dream telly will be surely like the world’s most elegant picture frame.

With a turd inside it.

Not a picture of a turd, which might be at least artistically interesting, but a real live turd, once that’s warm its fresh extraction form one’s botty, one that stinks of garlic and eight hour digested cider. This is the state of telly today. Quite literally, shit. Even the good shit is reconstituted shit. Shit is shit. Telly is shit.

Time to buy some more books or get out more. Oh no, I just wrote how much I enjoyed not going out. What a bloody hypocrite.

1938 tube train

A few of us travelled down to Russell Square for a trip on a 1938 tube train to Ealing Broadway. This train has been lovingly preserved by the London Transport Museum’s Acton depot branch and looks, as far as I can remember, just as it did when trains of this type left the Bakerloo line around 1984. Not a bad innings for a hard worked tube. A few technicalities aren’t quite the same – the notching relays seem to come from a 1958 type tube, and the very tuneful original compressors have been replaced by Westinghouse units, straight from a Met Line train, but that’s stuff only a nerd would notice (yes, I’m one of ‘em).

We were impressed by the quality of the seats which were deep and accommodating. Those thirties chaps certainly knew a lot more about lumbar support than us – why are all seats in modern public transport so hard?

It was great to go back in time to a type of tube stock I just about remember. I would ideally love to ride an R stock train, as used on the District until about 1984, but I don’t think it’s possible as I’ve only seen them in 2 car formation at the same museum. They featured the loudest MA whine of any Underground train – ever.

Some interior shots of the train are below and I’ll be posting a video or two on Youtube shortly.

A new Grimm Bros fairytale

Ever heard of that well-known Brothers Grimm story, “Goldilocks and the Two Bears”.

Three bears, surely?

Well, if you’re parliament, then the two bears version is all we’re getting, because we’re not worth it.

The two bears story could, by a creative parent, me made to work for a slightly gullible and young child at bedtime. But we know the story has changed beyond recognition. Without the porridge being “just right” as it was with the third bear, the story flops and in fact becomes a non-story. Who cares?

I wouldn’t trust this lot to sell me a dog. I’d get a cat, and they would tell me I was privileged to receive a new breed of feline-hound.

Weasel words and phrases: "Lessons have been learned"

When politicians, those in public office and others in the business world, when referring to avoidable cock-up or more likely, spin malfunction say “lessons have been learned” I wonder what they mean?

Translated, if we take “lessons” to their natural environment, a school context, do they mean: “oops, we screwed up on the fire evacuation, so lessons have been learned and we won’t leave bin containers in front of the fire exits any more because if this had been real, there would have been child deaths on our conscience and more importantly, a raise on our insurance premiums”.

Or do they mean “lessons have been learned by this year’s intake of students?” In which case, the lessons will be unknown by next year’s intake of students.

You’d wonder how many “lessons” in the political/business sense actually stay learnt.

How I hate that phrase. Really, really hate it.

If at first you don't succeed

I couldn't sleep a few nights ago, so started comiong up with these "isms".

If I come up with any more, I'll probably not post them:

If at first you don't succeed...

...you didn't succeed.

...leave the band and start playing free jazz.

...give up on the IVF and know that 57 is too old to get pregnant.

...resign from the job as MP. Your constituents won't forgive you.

...you should have read the notice CAREFULLY before trying to bring drugs inito Singapore

...you will probably fail again next time. Some peeps are just born to lose.

...consider renaming yourself Giles and tell 'em you went to Eton.

Susan Boyle: I was right

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I'm in love...with a careless whisper

I've just had a Google for it, and no-one seems to have spotted it yet, but Alexander Rybek's Eurovision winner is George Michael's Careless Whisper dresed up.

Chord for chord it is almost identical. It is even in the same key.

I wonder if George has noticed he's been ripped off? Maybe he's shagging the Norweigian and its an "in joke" of sorts.

I don't suppose we'll ever know.

Boyle-d in the bag

So Susan Boyle does her thing on Britain’s Got Talent and wows the cynical judges. And the huge audience on Youtube. Even I watched her with my work colleagues yesterday.

Great. Good luck to her. She has a real talent – at last – and isn’t just a moronic, oh-so-knowing pretty face famous for being famous. In fact, she is the polar opposite.

Her problem is that she is a member of the peasantry. Same as me, same as most people.

She hasn’t gone from some “masters of the universe to be” public school background, being groomed for stardom from leaving the nappy. She is in fact unemployed.

She has (allegedly) some form of learning difficulty.

She is, in some people’s opinion, not the prettiest in the world. As Shawaddywaddy might have said “nature didn’t give her such a beautiful face”. Of course, beauty is the in the eye of the beer-holder, but it’s an opinion that’s been stated in such an obviously brow-beating sort of way that dissenters (lovers of the fat girl or the boy with the baldy head) need not collect £200 or pass Go. YOUR OPINIONS DON’T COUNT. We’re the media. We know best.

She’s a Christian. (Ooh, maybe that’s a cunning front for her ack-tu-ally being an Islamist terrorist scumbag).

She volunteers. (Yeuuucccchhh).

She has a positive attitude. (Wot – not a cynic like US???)

All the better ammo for the shithawk, rat-laden press to knock her down.

There isn’t much hope in Sleb-land for the, ungroomed, ordinary, nice person, who slips through the processing plant, such as her good self.

I truly, honestly, wish her the best of luck.

I just think she’s being set up to be cooked and eaten for breakfast by a petty, squabbling rat-pack with nothing better to do. Remember Michelle McManus, anyone? Oh yes, the fat girl who was knocked down and knocked out after the X-Factor win.

It is simply the question of “how long will it take”?

I’ve already taken a £10 bet that within three months, she’ll be a child-abusing, 30-years-ago abortion having, wicked, stupid, inadequate zero. And she’ll also be described as whatever the media slimeballs refer to these days as the politically correct version of “peasant”. Cos she is one. God bless her.

Reunion

South Africans really love their shopping malls. Menlyn Park, near our hosts’ house, was around the same size as Lakeside Thurrock to give at least South East Englanders a sense of perspective. Every large city seems to have three or four of them. There doesn’t seem to High Street culture as with the UK. Sad, but not so bad when the rain is tipping down as it did for a few days before we left for home.

Our arrival in Johannesburg was a bit momentous as neither ourselves or our taxi driver could receive mobile phone coverage and hence we could not let one another know where we were (platform 16, a rather obscure, out of the way place as it turned out). What might have been a disaster turned out to be a minor glitch. Just as we were considering making our own way to Pretoria, our driver found us and transported us through the congested northern suburbs for over 1.5 hours. The traffic is easily as dense as London’s.

I won’t name them here. All I want to say is that it was pure delight to meet our friends and their young children (who had been babies last time we were there). Most of the next few days was spent with them catching up on old times round the bra’ai, talking into the night with plenty of Windhoek beers, good South African wine and Johnnie Walkers (which I’ve grown a taste for thanks to our hosts).

We visited the local shopping mall, I bought some specs – much cheaper there and of equal or better quality than the ones I currently own and wandering round the Pick ‘n’ pay. Pretoria is not a hotspot on any tourist trail of South Africa, but that wasn’t the reason we came. Mrs D found a fellow wordsmith with our lady host and plenty of female bonding took place.

And their kids were charming, intelligent littl’uns. I had been quite nervous in case we didn’t get on with each other, but that wasn’t an issue as they at best ignored or and at best asked us to read to them and in turn tell us some of their stories. I feel a career in writing may be in order.

I feel a little bland not mentioning their names, but for sake of their privacy I won’t.

To our hosts though – THANKS. Your boundless hospitality was and still is most appreciated by me and Mrs Dukc. I hope we’ll be able to reciprocate in the not too distant future – though sadly I can’t see how we’ll squash into our postage stamp sized house, unless it becomes suddenly blue, makes strange growling noises and sprouts the word “POLICE” above its door.

Tomorrow, I’ll write about a momentous, perhaps life changing event, which won’t name anyone.

Shosholoza Meyl Train

Pardon me boy, is this the Shosholoza Meyl train?

Now we come to one of the highlights of our South African soiree – the Shosholoza Meyl train. Not quite up there with the Trans-Siberian, this is the longest train journey I’ve made. At 27 hours from end to end, and at £30 for the joy of being on the train this long, not only is it the budget alternative to flying, this has to be one of the biggest rail bargains anywhere in the world. Apparently, a sitter costs £7.50 one way, but I really don’t know how anyone could possibly do this and remain comfortable.

At 1230 sharp, our train left the far end of Cape Town station, trundling its way through the suburbs and into the country. Our first stop, Belleville, was unremarkable, and a few hours later, after travelling through some mountainous countryside, we travelled for mile after mile towards Worcester and onwards. Our beds were made up at 6, we ate at around 2030 and had a very relaxed time reading and talking crap until about 2330 when Mrs D hit the sack, and I carried on reading and admiring the starlit view – we rarely see stars in England due to light pollution.

It was a fairly large area in which to sleep – the arrangement is light that of the old slam door compartment trains which ran south of the Thames until recently. You have about three quarters of the entire width the carriage to sleep on, and have a fold down bunk above you. Fortunately, these are only really used when the trains are full, which since we were out of season, they were not. Between the seats is a fold up table, beneath which is a small sink (ours only gave out the meanest of dribbles). There are two toilets per carriage, so you essentially share one with about 8-10 others. The showers and toilets seemed to be given a thorough clean every few hours. British train companies could learn a lot from this. Food from the dining car was no more expensive than outside the train (a burger and chips was about £2.50) and was pretty basic though perfectly fine. It helped that we’d bought lots of bottled water with us and you do tend to get quite thirsty on these trains, even though ours did not feature air conditioning (the premier class train which does the same route is about seven times more expensive, so dream on).

I can’t think of anything negative about this trip, apart from being told that were running on time, when in fact we were an hour later than scheduled. Not a major concern, but we had contacted our taxi, meant to be picking us up at the station, and who had travelled from Pretoria. He became increasingly irate with us for keeping him waiting as he was on a meter and had already picked up a shared fare returning to Pretoria.

It was an interesting journey for its countryside, for the gentle tck-tck, tck-tck of the rails and because there isn’t a better way to travel apart from maybe a cruise ship if time is not a concern (we made time for this one and was definitely worth every hour “lost” to not having flown).

The company slogan is “A Pleasant Experience” and despite my reservations the strapline was spot on. It was and I’d recommend it to anyone who can make the time to do it.


Inside a sleeping compartment

Robben Island

Robben Island "welkoms" you.

On the Monday, we travelled over to Robben Island, holding place for many apartheid-era political prisoners, including of course, the main man, Nelson Mandela. We had to hang around a while after buying tickets, since there was a bit of a backlog for the ferry, but after a meal of very large burgers, the boat took us across the five or six miles of water to the island.

Our tour guide was an ex-political prisoner and really knew his onions, offering us a humorous (yes, really) tour of the island, with plenty of information and anecdotes about what it was like to live there involuntarily. We started the tour by bus, followed by a walk around the cells where prisoners were incarcerated. We then travelled to the individual cells, including cell number 7 where Nelson Mandela lived. Because of our lack of sight, the tour guide allowed us into the cell – a rare privilege apparently. My thoughts on the island (though not the prison, which was suitably grim) was how beautiful the island is, with its views across to the Cape. With its white limestone and eucalyptus trees, it was rather like a desert island. But would like to live in the harsh conditions of the prison cell and hard labour? Nope. I think had we arrived during a storm, I may have left with a different opinion. I’ve been to Kilmainham Jail in Dublin, and that place was a true representation of grimness. Apart from the physical humiliation of having to move loads of lime from one place to another…then back…then back again (there was no real work for the politicos to actually do) I think I could almost enjoy the environment here, though not the incarceration.

An evening of wandering around the Waterfront again, followed by our final eats at the Kraal restaurant bought our stay in Cape Town to and end. Tomorrow would be the mammoth trip to Pretoria on the Shosholoza Meyl train.

Tour of the Cape

The pleasant coastal town of Fish Hoek

Success at last with the rail tickets to Jo’burg! An early morning trip, surprisingly stress free bought us to the ticket office and our tickets. Hooray. This made the tour ahead that much more relaxed as, had we missed our tickets, we may have had to fly – or so we thought – incorrectly as it turns out.

We did the Cape Wine tour and southern Cape. What a beautiful country South Africa is, with landscapes which seem to change every few minutes, from wild costs to pleasant suburbs, all within a few minutes drive of each other. Our tour bus even met a baboon sitting, its red arse aloft, in the road.

We went through a country park, drove on to a rather nice seafood restaurant on the beachfront just outside Simons Town, and then on Stellensbosch and the winery. I thought the winery was a gorgeous building – there was a full scale wedding going on as we did our cheese and wine taste, and the guests had mainly come from England. Stellensbosch itself is the oldest town in SA, and looks a bit like a slightly more relaxed version of the back roads of Ealing. A great place to live as a Cape Town commuter I’m sure, providing you can afford it.

As we trundled our way from the southern cape coast on to the winery, our knowledgeable guide pointed out that we were passing the Cape Flats Township. “This”, she said “is where about 1.5 million people live”. I asked her to repeat it. I hadn’t mis-heard. About one third to one half (depending on who you believe) all Cape Town’s residents live here. And the place was, in appearance, rather like Langa. Only on a much larger scale. All in all, a worthwhile tour, simply the reason that it took outside the tourist zone in and around Long Street.

That evening, we had a wander round the Waterfront shopping centre. It was pretty much any other large and prestigious shopping centre. I must admit to quite enjoying going to foreign shopping centres which I suppose makes me a suburban fart. Some pretty decent tourist tat shops though, most of which only window shopped at. Please note NHS, asthma inhalers are only £1.40 here – and no prescription. I only wish buying straightforward meds was as easy here. I bought six of the buggers.

We dined in an Italian restaurant by the water’s edge – it was unremarkable, though it did serve gnocchi, something which seems, unfairly, to have gone out of fashion at UK Italian eateries.

This rather nice shot (not mine sadly) is of the

Waterfront shopping area.
We had another gander round the Waterfront, but at this point we were fairly tired, and at 11 returned to the Grand Daddy. A pretty successful day’s touring.

Robben Island tomorrow.

South Africa holiday: Township tour of Cape Town

An early start on Monday took us to the township of Langa (supposedly meaning “sunshine” in Xhosa). Our driver, a dweller of said township, took us on an experience I’ll not forget. Firstly, we travelled to church. This was full to capacity (with about 600 in the congregation as a conservative estimate). Some of our party were fairly moved by the service, though I had mixed feelings and was fairly untouched – it seemed like the kind of service I grew up with, although services at Holy Trinity in South Kensington were all in English. I found the sudden swap-over from English to Xhosa and back again for no apparent reason detracted from the message, which was kind of garbled and too much like hard sell for my taste. Oh well, horses for courses. The church was absolutely windswept as was the township itself, with 40 mile an hour westerlies blasting through.

Driving around the first part of the township, I was surprised at how orderly it was, with some concrete houses laid out in rows.

Next, we travelled to a shabeen, an informal pub. Informal just means that there is no licence, and therefore the government restricts its serving hours until the late afternoon.

Served here was some of the most disgusting beer I’ve tasted. Made of sorghum, this stuff is made en masse – fermentation time is a worryingly short three days - and served straight from the keg or barrel or whatever it is. The taste is weak yet sour, and quite unique, with a thick layer of foam on the top. The shabeen itself was buzzing with flies. One of the reasons these pubs are more heavily regulated is that there are no loos at all, prompting the question, where on earth do you go for leak? This lack of a satisfactory answer may account for some of the insect activity I suppose. I think this is the kind of place hardcore drinkers gravitate to. A very interesting experience indeed.

When the idea that people should be entitled to have any kind of fun outweighs the perceived need to raise taxes from alcohol sales, our pointless government, having successfully closed the last proper non corpo-pub, will force ordinary people to drink in places like this, as government approved beer will be over a tenner per pint as necking more than one of them will of course, encourage rampant terrorism and anyway, consuming more than one tenth of a unit will also be regarded by them and their media sheep as binge drinking. Bring on the sorghum.

On to the hostel: an especially grim place in the township which has got to be the most hemmed in place containing humankind beyond a prison I’ve been to. Some pretty nice people spoke to us there. I felt justifiably privileged living in my small house on the east side of London compared to these people. Hell, I am indeed.

Next was the healer (dubbed by me the witch doctor). Not sure if witchery goes on here, but the NHS its not. Practical healing involves animal parts so we’re not talking homeopathic remedies, despite the presence of lots of herbs.

Finally, a drive taking us past an unincorporated part of the township that comprised the kind of shack with neither electricity nor running water I’d thought would occupy the whole township. This was as desolate a place as can be. The next day we heard that around 400 of these shacks were burnt down that evening. It didn’t even make the national news as this kind of thing happens so often. Thank goodness no-one was killed or seriously injured. Unbelievable.

In the afternoon we sat in our hotel bar and drunk South African champagne. We then ate a rather lovely meal in an African restaurant. I don’t really buy into the brow-bearing “guilty am I” response to the townships. I was far too young to have been able to influence things during apartheid, and there is bugger all I can do about what has been left behind. But the sheer fucking irony of pouring wine down my throat, and having the cash to do so without thinking about it too much was not lost on me. Consider this: The average domestic help in Cape Town earns R80-90 per day. A bottle of mineral water in our restaurant was R15.00 (about £1.00 at the time of writing).

I have nothing but sheer admiration for those living in the townships (half of Cape Town’s population). They have remained patient far longer than any decent human being could expect.

Langa Township’s unincorporated area.

Top of the Table - and another lower one

The cable car spins round on its way up to the top of Table Mountain. The view from the top is quite stunning

After another fruitless trip to buy our tickets for the train to Johannesburg, we decided to head off to the Waterfront and take a tour bus around the city. The highlight of the day was definitely heading on the cable car to the top of Table Mountain.

What a stunning place, 1 kilometer above the city spread before us below. For anyone visiting CT, this is a must-do and I can not recommend it enough. It was relief to be away from the heat of town trolling round town on the open topper actually, and even more of a relief as the temps dropped by at least 10 degrees on top of the mountain.

A leisurely trip along the coast through some of the most expensive beach front housing on earth and one of the more exclusive resorts (so exclusive we skipped them) took us back to the Waterfront and back to our hotel for a well deserved food stop at the local Pick 'n' Pay - we were running low on soft drinks and choc and supermarkets apparently close on Sunday (this wasn't actually the case but we weren't to know).

After an hour or so reading in the hotel we headed to a restaurant called Mama Africa's, as recommended in our tourist guide, and if the amount of tourists crammed there is to go by,. Most of the other guides too.

I think I would have enjoyed this place more had we not been completely spoilt by Nona’s the night before. There was nothing wrong with at all. The cocktails, which were high quality and generous in size, were £2.00 a pop, so the relatively disappointment we experienced with the food was partly made by the liquid refreshment. But the service became ridiculously slow as the evening progressed (45 minutes between main course and dessert), the desert itself, a malva pudding, which in my case was super-bland and the music, which was deafening - and we were tabled about as far away from the band as could be. I'm not too snobby about being a tourist - I am one - but I felt this was far to "corporate tourist mill Africa" for my liking. I had a pretty nice Cape Malay curry which was both spicy and sweet and apparently, according to our friends in Pretoria I spoke to about it later, seemed quite like the real deal.

We had an early start on Sunday, so by 2230 we were back at the hotel and I read Christopher Fowler's marvelously easy to absorb autobiog, Paperboy, while Mrs DD slept like a wee child.

Andy Taylor - a sad farewell

Andy's singing persona, Jimmy Johnny, bellows down the mic at a friend's barbie. It is a contentious topic as to whether he could actually sing though. Hmm, naysayer me.

My friend Andy Taylor died last month and his funeral took place last week, on Thursday, in Eltham.

He was a big man indeed in the disabled community. His company, Access Made Easy, has a record which I doubt any other private sector employer can match - 60 percent of his employees were disabled: I am one of them, albeit on an ad hoc basis.

I met him at the age of 18, 20 years ago now, while still at university, on the premise of meeting his then-girlfriend, Laura, whom I knew from school. Although Laura and I remained friends until a few years back, knowing Andy was like having a wiser, more knowing and definitely more motivated elder brother. For the next 20 years or so, we played music together, drank beer together, talked rubbish together and even tried to save the world in the way ten beers allows you think you are able to.

We recognised instantly our similar class and family backgrounds, we have a few sisters each and both of us had a broad taste in music - I spent many an evening over his various flats in Deptford going through his vast CD collection, eating food from the Good Friends and later The Orient, and sleeping on a succession of sofas in various states of rot. His kitchen ceiling once collapsed spontaneously while he was standing under it. I'm glad his accommodation improved soon after, though his temporary sleeping arrangement never improved much.

It would be wrong to make Andy out to be some kind of latter day saint because he was a welded-to-the-earth human, nothing more. But he was, for sure, a man of action (and a rather able wordmonger too as it happens). He could definitely talk. While wearing a super strong pair of walking shoes too, prepared to travel the extra mile. Lending a hand if that should be required. No slouch, he really did put his money - hard cash too - and his effort, as well as his mouth, into just about everything he was passionate about.

I know that his partner, Amy, his parents, sisters and his numerous friends and work colleagues all feel his loss within our lives.

So I will, with the greatest of pleasure, salute Andy. A well loved and now very much missed colleague, thoughtful friend, great sounding board, shrewd businessman, man of action.

And mostly for me, fantastic mate.

It was a great journey Andy. Just far too short.

Arrival in Cape Town

The exterior of Nyoni's Kraal restaurant, which kept us fed for three nights. This place gets a highly recommended rating and if you go, ask for Deborah the waitress - she's a star and a half.


The South Africa trip started at Heathrow Terminal Five, which I must say was actually a gorgeous looking and importantly, easy to use building and nothing like the squalor I’ve experienced at the other older terminals. The flight was relatively comfortable for an over nighter and we landed in the baking sun of Cape Town at about 9 the next morning.

Our taxi landed us at the Grand Daddy hotel in Long Street. The Daddy Long Legs seems to be a chain comprising a boutique hotel, an “art hotel” and a trailer park filled with genuine 50s Airstreams.

So, after a breakfast of French toast with banana, maple syrup and bacon, and a few hours sleep in our very comfortable room, we were ready to hit the mean streets of Cape Town. Not a very intense day as we tend to spend the first day of any holiday abroad just finding our feet. Today we tried to pick up our rail tickets for the Shosholoza Meyl train, but the ticket office was closed (in rush hour, just when it might be used by people – nice to know the service ethic is as strong here as it is in the UK (sarcastic remark). We wandered around Long Street, and spent our evening at a restaurant I can highly recommend called the Nyoni’s Kraal.

http://www.capetownmagazine.com/todonight/Western-Cape/Local-is-Lekker-at-Nyonis-Kraal-Restaurant-in-Cape-Town~115

Our waitress, Deborah, was a complete mummy, explaining everything we were curious about in a most enthusiastic way. She actually made the place work for us in the big way and we returned twice more. Sure, this might be regarded as unadventurous but when you get African food this good, why spoil your stay by going somewhere else only to be disappointed.

So after our meals of Meat Towers and Pap (pap being mealy maize shaped and fried), and stew with samp (samp being a mixture of mealy maize and beans) we returned to our hotel, tired but stuffed.

A fine start to a wonderful holiday.

The last month - one holiday and a funeral

The swanky yet homely Grand Daddy hotel, Long Street, Cape Town, where my and Mrs Dukc stayed for half our South African adventure

Myself and the wifelet have returned from a rather brilliant holiday in South Africa which took place in what started out to be a rather tumultuous month. I’ll make a separate entry for that event, hopefully later this week, though my bloody diary never fails to fill up - not that I’m hugely complaining, you understand.

This is a summary of events – with more retrospective blogging to come over the next few days Unlike Mrs D, who elected to bring her netbook with her, mine remained in the place where it should while I’m on holiday. Firmly at home.

So...for the first of our two weeks we stayed at the rather splendid Grand Daddy hotel in the centre of Cape Town, a place I’d be more than happy to recommend. We then travelled to our friends in Pretoria via Jo’burg on the Shosholoza Meyl train, whose slogan is “a pleasant experience” and for once, the phrase was not hyperbole, but pretty close to how I’d have described it.

While in Pretoria, we stayed in the rather nice suburb or Constantia Heights with our friends in their rather lovely and jealous-making house. On the Saturday and Sunday we visited a lion breeding centre where we handled lion cubs, and during the following days, we spent long evenings over the bra’ai with plenty of great South African wine and loadsa bottles of Namibian Windhoek beer. Lovely. We also did more prosaic stuff purchasing specs for me (which are of at least equal quality to those I buy in the UK and a third cheaper). We also visited quite a few Pick ‘n’ Pay supermarkets for typical SA food. I think food needs an entry on its own too.

Over the next fortnight I’ll be posting more deails and some pictures too.