Stumbled on this great floor

How amazing is this?

In case you can't see what is so amazing about it, it is a timber flooring that doesn't have straight lines. The edges of the floor boards are left in a natural state to give a more natural effect to your design. Because --as they say on the site-- Life is not a straight line.

I warned that things would get a little more design related here at Tea and Whiskey, well this is one of those times.
The company that puts out this amazing flooring is called Bolefloor. I could rattle on about all the technical reasons they have started this, but I am sure it is just as simple to add a link at the end so you can go check it out yourself.

Before you get too excited and click on the link, lets look at one more picture of this stuff.

Okay, off you go, click the link and go check out this awesome flooring.
If you need anyone to give advice on how you can work this into your home, give us a shout, we are happy to chat.

The link

Rock Star Bingo

I have just invented a new game. It shall be called, Risk. What? Risk is taken? Crap.  Maybe I will call it, "Keep a little card of rock stars and when you see one, put a small tick next to their face." Too long?

How about, Rock Star Bingo?

Please allow me to give you the back story that spawned this game.
The other day -I say the other day, but it was probably last year- I was walking down the Kings Road when I saw a gray-haired man with a weak chin reading the newspaper at a table in a noodle bar. He looked a lot like Eric Clapton.
He looked like Eric Clapton because he was Eric Clapton. Reading a paper and waiting for some noodle-based lunch. 

When that happened, I thought to myself, I really like living here because I see things like this from time to time.

Then, a few weeks later, I was passing a book shop near World's End (Okay, it was the World's End Bookshop) and there was another gray-haired man looking in the window.  This one had a small pony tail and was wearing a green army coat. He spun around as the person in front of me tapped him on the shoulder, so I got a good look right in his face as I was trying to get past them on the street. This guy looked a lot like Jimmy Page.

That is because it was Jimmy Page. Tada! I sent a note to my friend Harvey and he mildly trumped me by stopping to offer water to a tired looking Christopher Lee (Dracula, Willy Wonka's Dad, Bond Villain, That guy from Lord of the Rings,  etc) on a hot day. But this isn't about Movie Icons, this is about Rock Star Bingo!

What more could I possible want? Two Guitar Heroes in the same stretch of road? Amazing. I thought that was the end of it until last night.

I was running home from my Pilates class (Pause here so you can all get a good laugh in) when I saw a lovely young lady walking toward me followed by a shortish wrinkly man with wild hair and a pretty big nose, he was walking a half-step behind her and I looked them both full in the face as I went by. I don't run that fast so I had a good couple seconds to stare. This time, I was on Fulham road near the Michelin Building. Not on Kings, so I was off my guard. Yet there they were, Ronnie Wood and His girlfriend wandering down the road.

There it is, my trifecta of Rock stars, to date. I was looking at my Rock star Bingo Card and trying to see where I need to go to get my last two spaces. I am missing Paul McCartney and Pete Townshend in the "G" line still. I doubt I am going to run into Sir Paul in my hood, and I think Pete might be a tough one to bump into... This might be the end of my "G" line.
Oh well, I still got to see three of my guitar heroes just living a normal life. I like that. I would hate them to be mobbed by loonies. They deserve a normal life. Let the loonies mob Katie Price. I can't stand that fake, plastic woman... And yes, I have met her.
 
I am kind of glad that the other two names on my card might be impossible to get. If I fill my Bingo Card, I might have to go back to America to try and get another one... That would be sad.

A year!

Last time I posted was in 2010?
That has to be a joke. Maybe not. I do feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle. I just handed in my last project on a VERY INTENSE interior design course at KLC School of Design. That would be in London at the Chelsea Harbour.
Three years worth of schooling packed in to a year. A prison year really as it was only 9 months.

All that being said, you should all now be warned that I am probably going to lean this blog a little to the interiors side and maybe not so much ranting about whales and turning grandmas into oil.
Oh, who am I trying to kid, I am still going to rant.

Thank you, Charles Saatchi. Tell your wife hello.

In fact, lets talk about my least favorite thing at the moment.

Tourists.

You can tell it is summer in the rest of the world when London fills up with tourists. It doesn't get warm here, so that is our only indicator.
I am fine that tourists want to come visit my (adopted) city, if enough of you do, maybe you can plug the hole in our economy, but I have one request. A simple thing really. Not too much to ask when you think about it.
Can you PLEASE. Pretty-please, with sugar on top, WALK IN A STRAIGHT FUCKING LINE!!

I don't know if it is all the bags you are packing, or the electronica around your neck that throws your internal compass out of kilter, but you wobble down the street like a drunken sailor still getting his land legs back. And, because you have two rucksacks, four shopping bags, an umbrella, two cameras and a bin bag pulled over your head, it is impossible to navigate around you without stepping into traffic. 

Mmm...Trashy.

So a shorty today. Just a small update. I am headed to a riveting lecture about something Amazing and Fabulous today. (see how well practiced I am with the design words?)


Oh, I am working on a portfolio website as well, I will link things up here shortly and post some pics from the final project. I think it came out well. I will be available for consultation soon. Feel free to contact me.

Update: And another thing! -this is sounding like a drunken rant now- You starbucks nut-jobs... "I want a Americano with an extra shot, pouring cream on the side, fill the water only up to here, then I need one splenda and half of a sugar. Thanks"
UGH!
Order a filter coffer and put whole milk in it. Twat. Oh, she was American as well. Sad day to be on the team...

Back from a Dino De Laurentiis film.

Did you know he passed away? Do you even know who he is?

Here he is with his lovely granddaughter Giada. He was 91 and had made 500 films in his career. please allow me to name a few of my favorites. In no real order.
Army of Darkness
Barbarella
Conan the Barbarian
Flash Gordon

Seeing a trend here? Yes. They are all amazing films. Especially that last one.
"Flying blind on a rocket cycle?" Ah, Brian Blessed. Such a personality.

Anyway. God save you Dino De Laurentiis. You gave us many a great thing including your granddaughter. Wow. What a package she is... lovely, can cook like crazy, and probably watched over by a legion of Hawkmen.

But like I was saying, I just returned from a holiday where the sky looked just like a Laurentiis sky.
I was in the Maldives and it being December, they were having splotchy weather. It may have been splotchy, but it was 100 times better than London's freeze and riot combo that was going on here.
I think Dara O'Briain is right. The English are a much more angry and fight prone people than the Irish. They riot and rumble at the drop of a hat. "You want to do what?! Pay teachers a decent wage?! and cover the fees of running an institution of higher education? And you want STUDENTS to pay for it?! Take to the streets! We are setting some fires!"
You dumb shites. Pay for your school like everyone else does. And if you can't afford to go to school, go into a trade and learn how to build something for Christ's sake. This country doesn't make anything anymore. Neither does America it is beneath them.

Anyway. Off on a tangent. I was in the Maldives, and the sky looked like this. I thought it was very cool and I was waiting for an army of Hawkmen to come out of the clouds with Brian Blessed screaming out " Second Wave, Dive! " While lasers shoot all around and Brian May plays some futuristic licks on the guitar.

Sadly, that was not what happened, but it was still an enjoyable holiday even without Ming or any of the residents of Mongo.
Happy Christmas all.

I'm not dead

I feel a bit like it, but I am not.

I have been working on a project (project number 2 actually) for the Interior Design course I am on.

Project two was a living room, a bathroom and a kitchen for a house here in London. I present the stuff I cobbled together tomorrow (that would be thursday to those not sitting here in the room with me) at 15:40 if anyone wants to come see the show. I doubt it will be that exciting, so feel free to stay home tucked in your beds.

In other news, London is in the grips of an Arctic blast. Those of you that think Climate change is a joke should come to my flat and sit by the door for an hour. Given that London has a mild climate all year round, no one saw fit to put any sort weather stripping or insulation in the old Victorian Brick homes. The 50 mph, arctic winds are whipping through my flat like it was made of tissue paper. I think I am going to go out today and buy a roll of weather stripping of the door into the lift. I have a draught excluder excluding the draughts from under the door, but they are still coming in around the edges.

So just to recap, I am alive. I am cold and I am working hard on my schooling. With any luck, I will be back to posting once I get caught up with all my school work. Or, I will have a real job and not be able to post because I am busy making money.

I heard somewhere that it was all about the Benjamins. What making a living and being happy has to do with the captain of the Mary Celeste, I will never figure out. But, if that is what the kids are saying, then it must be true. It has to be true, right? I read it on the interwebs.

Dear America,

Grow up.

I was reading this morning on the BBC that America is minting more $1 Dollar Coins even though the American public is resistant to them. In my typical fashion, I have a way to get Americans to suck it up and start using the new dollar coins that are cheeper to produce, last way longer and just look cooler than dollar bills.

Step one. Issue a press release saying that dollar bills (the paper ones) will be no longer be accepted as real money. You can change them at your local bank for coins for the next few months, but starting on X date, they are no longer considered money. And before you get your pants in a wad, it happens here every so often when they change the notes. I found an old 20 the other day and swapped it at the bank for a proper one.

Step two. Follow through with it. Not like that dumb-ass "switch to digital" thing that cable was supposed to do. Actually stop taking the money. Full Stop.

The article quotes US Mint Director Edmund Moy saying, "We have tried every major idea that we can come up with, with limited success." Really? Have you tried telling people that dollar bills are no long going to be accepted? I didn't think so. The article goes on to say that legislation halting the use of paper dollar bills or halting the minting of the coins would not likely pass given the partisan condition of congress at the moment, and to that I say "America! Grow UP!"

Good hell, if most of the countries in the G8 (of which you are a member) have stopped circulating paper singles due to their short lifespan (just a few years versus four decades for a coin) what makes you so good that you have to keep them? Is it the massive strength of the American Economy? Is it just because America is so cool? Is it because we have Sarah Palin and she is looking out for us and representing america? If America would switch to the coin from the paper, it would save between 500 and 700 million dollars a year. That is enough to put a dent in the health care coverage cost, or if you prefer blowing shit up, buy a few new planes and maybe a tank* or two.

I will admit. There might be a potential side effect from switching to the dollar coin from the dollar bill. Someone is going to have to retro-fit all the vending machines that so many school-children get their lunch from every day. Plumbers are going to have to buy belts to hold their trousers up from the extra pocket weight. But you know what I call that? Job Creation! Sorting the vending machines out alone should knock a percent point off the unemployment rate. There are factories in Detroit just housing crack addicts, lets put them to good use! 

In closing, President Obama, Congress, and Americans at large, here is a small ladder. Please step down off of your high horse, and join the rest of the world in coinage use. Use the money you save to fund a school, or feed children, or buy Haiti, (I bet property rates there are low) or tanks, guns, bombs and bullets to take over Mexico and end the immigration dispute. I don't care what you do with it but it kills me to hear you argue about the cost of something America needs (schools, police, health care) when you are pissing away money on something you don't (dolla, dolla bills, y'all).

And while we are on the subject of growing up, can you please learn to use your Inside Voice when you are inside? If not I am going to give you a time out and you are all going to have to sit on your bed for the next ten years and think about what you have done. 

*That isn't really a tank. It is a Self-propelled artillery vehicle capable of launching 155 mm rounds 42 kilometers downrange, at a rate of 10 a minute. That means it can blow your house up from two towns away then start in on the surrounding neighborhood just for practice. Mexico, we are coming for you. 

The nice man at Apple.

Say what  you will about the Evil Apple Empire. They may throw little Chinese men that loose the secret new products out upper story windows, they might call you all idiots for holding your phone wrong, and they may come out with a brand-new, must-have product the day after you bought the old one, but they are good with the customer service.

I went into the Apple store on Regent street today and was gobsmacked by the horde of people standing in queue waiting to buy something. I got ready to be pissed off and angry at the first people I spoke to -- this stems from the fact that I was 8 minutes late to my appointment at the Genius bar because tourists don't understand what to do in London when it rains. Did you not buy the guide book? It rains here. Often. Be prepared. Sheesh! Anyway, late to my appointment, went to the wrong genius bar (because  there are two now) but the nice lady let me into  the queue anyway. Woo Hoo!

I was promptly collected from the queue by a nice man named Nick, but not before I sent off a quick pic to my little brother. (He too is an Apple Genius and works in Phoenix.*) I knew that this nice man's name was Nick because the Appleites wear little tags around their necks. Nick asked me what the problem was and I explained that the vibrate feature on my iphone has started thinking it is 1990 and it should sound like this 'WAAAAAHHH!' Instead of the nice 'Bzzzzt' that I was used to. With it wailing like that, I can't say I didn't hear it when people call me and I can't be bothered to answer. Nick looked at my phone, listened to the noise a couple times then asked me if it was okay if he gave me a new one. 

UH... Okay. If you have to give me a brand new one, I guess I can deal with that. He grabbed a new one out of the back. Swapped my SIM and asked if I was going straight home? Otherwise he would have tried to collect my data from the old phone and pass it on to the new one... As it was Stupid-Busy in the store, I said I would just go home. I signed to say I had collected the new pieces and was on my way. But not before Nick very patiently explained how I would get all my old info back onto the phone. What a trooper. 


I was so impressed with the staff at the store, that I started looking around at iphone cases. This was a bad idea as I was elbowed aside by four different people trying to be in the same spot I was standing. Given the crowd at the ipod/iphone case area, I thought I would walk over and look at the bags for my Mac Book Pro.  Somehow, the assish customers followed me to this, the least popular section of the store and again attempted to stand in my back pockets while I looked at laptop sleeves. Obviously, this is not the time or place to attempt to purchase anything, so I crowed back down the stairs to gawp at the queue waiting to pay. On the way out the door, I think I figured out what all the people were doing there. 


London is plagued blessed with a load of tourists right now. It is so bad in my area, that you can't walk down the streets at night from the mass of bodies toking up at the hookah cafes on my street and the council is so fed up that it has started clamping cars outside Harrods. What do those drivers think? That they own the place or something?  We have rules in this country and the number one rule is "No aviators in my neighborhood. Especially after dark." Personally, I think they clamped the cars because they are painted such a hideous color. I don't care if it is the livery of the Royal Family. Toothpaste Blue is not a color for a supercar. 




* Notes: Thank you Apple. Please don't shut off my accounts because I said you tossed an Asian out the window. 
If anyone is curious about my little brother and his new baby (that would be my Niece) you can track the progress of her little, cue-ball head on her own blog. She updates about half as much as I do but, to be fair, she can't really read or write and she just got teeth. But I am sure she will be driving next week. Ask her mom.