Life in Dulwich

I have nothing to write about. My life is an endless parade of working long hours and ranting at useless people.

M-A's wedding was nice. It went by very quickly. It's amazing how many months agonising has gone into it and then - poof - it's over like a flash. We drove 3 1/2 hours to get there and back. Still, she looked radiant and the important thing is they're off for a well-earned holiday.

I've signed up for a Mandarin course in April. Optimistically, I've gone for module 3 in the course as I have fulfilled the requisite being able to recognise over 60-80 characters and can make simple conversation about everyday things.

Yesterday, in the space of 5 minutes, I had a conversation in Cantonese with the proprietress of my fave Vietnamese café about why I hadn't been there so long and about moving office, then, was collared by a woman in the street in Mandarin about a place called Beijing Ding something something, which she couldn't find and I managed to squeeze out a quick 'Sorry, I don't know where it is' back. I feel quite the linguist!

Xin Nian Kuai Le everyone! Have a very happy Chinese New Year of the golden pig.

Off to M's wedding this weekend near Cardiff. Nothing much happening here except hard work and heel pain. Wearing my orthotic lifts does help but, gosh, doesn't that make me sound like a decrepit old person?

Notice Moxon's the fishmongers has opened down the road. Must go and get some fish next week.

We went to the Bishop for their roast last Sunday again. Third time running and it was consistently the best roast we've had in East Dulwich. My meat of choice is lovely rare roast beef and BB went for the belly pork with crackling again. Perfectly cooked meat, a little jug of gravy, great roast potatoes, lovely al dente broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and french beans, a great whopping Yorkshire pudding and horseradish cream for me and apple sauce for BB - all homemade. Perfect! And they do good English puddings like jam roly poly and rhubarb crumble. Yum!

London Underground has started playing classical music in stations - apparently to calm frazzled commuters' nerves and dissuade youths from hanging around in gaggles playing tinny rap music loudly on their mobile phones. The only problem is, the classical music that I heard in Vauxhall Station recently was not of the soothing Mozart/Bach ilk, but more of the disturbed chords veering from massive crescendi to straining to hear diminuendi Wagnerian ilk which is not all that soothing and a little bit disturbing.

There was a large (read 'overweight') teenager playing tinny music on her mobile yesterday behind me on the bus. I keep meaning to download some nice screeching soprano or something onto my phone and turn it on whenever that happens, but keep forgetting.

We had snow yesterday again. It came, everything ground to a halt, and then it went.

Bought lots of comfy shoes for work today - all European and a mix of sporty yet smart, a combination sadly missing from most British designed shoes (excepting Clarks). The most exciting is a pair of knee high boots that can encompass my massive guppy shaped calves from a German company called Gabor. Hurrah! At last I can sashay down the street pretending to be a fashionista from the pages of a magazine.

Spent some of my Christmas vouchers on silicone heel pads for my plantar fascitis (better known as heel pain).

Tried out L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon with my friend, P, who is a mad keen foodie. The food was spectacular. I had a crispy langoustine spring roll which contained all the bits of the langoustine most people I know avoid like the gooey bits in the head and it was delicious. Then, clams baked with a mushroom and garlic persillade. After that, crispy frogs legs with a basil sauce and, finally, three perfectly grilled pink lamb chops with a spoonful of mash potato garnished with a slice of truffle from P's plate. The food is really amazing but the portions are small... and expensive. That's really all there is to say.

Oh - they had really clever tissues to clean your fingers after picking things up. They drop these little pill shaped things into a small glass bowl of water and the pill things miraculously expand into long tubes, which unroll to become little moist towelettes. Ingenious!

We watched Little Miss Sunshine the other night. It was highly entertaining and the moment where Toni Colette breaks open an ice lolly and eats it is worth the price of admission alone.

Went to a new Singaporean restaurant yesterday which BB's friend, E, works at sometimes. It's called Shiok! It's on Southampton Row, somewhere halfway between Holborn Station and Russell Square. Apparently, it's been open several months, but there is no mention of it anywhere on the internet, except in one food directory listing spelt 'Shoik'. So I thought I would be the first.

First impressions. It's kind of like your de rigeur dark wood, moody lighting Eastern restaurant but also kind of like a canteen in feel. The tables are tiny and there weren't many people there so they put us in the window to drum up business. Well, honestly, in this day and age if you don't have an internet site to promote yourself then you're just plain foolish.

Anyways, the menu is quite short but select. Sadly, the otak otak was off and so was the beef satay. The waitress steered us towards ngo hiang (fragrant rolls is how it appears on the menu) which must be their speciality but we had chicken satay instead. The satay was okay. I could taste that all the elements were in the marinade, lemongrass, galangal, turmeric etc but somehow or other they hadn't all melded together but stayed distinct and individual from each other. Very strange. Satay sauce wasn't right but, all in all, not the worst satay I've had by far.

My char kuay teow was pretty good. No see ham (cockles) of course, but there was very nice lap cheong (chinese sausage) and massive prawns. Lots of gao choi (chinese chives) and tasted pretty much how a char kuay teow should.

BB's laksa was excellent. There was definitely the flavour of daun kesum in the broth and it was tasty, tasty, tasty. Everyone on the table next to us was having the laksa, so I guess that was a pretty obvious sign.

According to E, the chilli crab is very good, so we shall have to go back.

Had the gula melaka for dessert which BB didn't like at all, especially when I started talking about it's similarity to frog spawn. Comparing the texture to fish eggs and little polystyrene balls didn't help much either. Anyway, the sago and coconut bit was great but they didn't make the gula melaka into syrup, but grated it onto the top which is all wrong.

Still, I think I'll be back if I'm in the area.

Question of the day: BB was watching Bill Oddie going round the US on telly and they showed America's most amazing wildlife spectacle which was the migration of some cranes or storks or something. Anyway, BB has taken it into his head that when we next go to Malaysia he wants to see Malaysia's greatest wildlife spectacle (that is, fauna, rather than flora). So, what is Malaysia's greatest wildlife spectacle? Answers please.

All the snow has gone and it's warm again. Unseasonably so, apparently.

Have had a busy, busy week. Filming went well and was only thrown a couple of curve balls in my cross examination, but they didn't have to recall or rewrite on my account, so that's good.

Dragged myself out to two production parties - one was just drinks and the other was the wrap party. Both were at Soho House, which I've never been to - so that was quite cool. It is a very pleasant member's club experience, I have to say. If I had loads of dosh, it would be quite fun to belong - although not a patch on the Lake Club tennis court, swimming pool extravaganza. Didn't see anyone famous there though, except for the celebrities who were part of our show.

Had M-A's hen party in Brighton over the weekend. Boy, were we lame. Drove down on Saturday, bought some jeans, had a manicure (for a casting) and then ate a big, big dinner near the beach. Then we went to sleep. Problem is we're all over thirty and hold down busy, busy jobs - so the last thing we wanted to do is get hammered, giggly and stupid. The one concession we had to hen partydom was making M-A wear a veil and we wore badges which said 'Flirty', 'Cute', 'Sexy', 'Dizzy' etc on them.

The day after, my insides felt so bad from all the food, that I had a long swim and sauna to detox. Then a big breakfast... We were staying at the Grand, scene of the Conservative party bombing all those years ago. It was quite grand, but a bit rundown and definitely not what I would call 5 star. Still it was only £30 a night, so we can't complain.