occasionally acerbic, cultural and political comment “People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics, they have jobs.”
~ P.J.
O'Rourke (NB. )
I have spent the last couple of days in Hertfordshire working out of our head office. Last night I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Aston Clinton, near the town of Aylesbury.
It s about 30 miles north of London.
The hotel was fine, even if the room was a little predictable. It had one of those featureless sofas that you only get in British hotels.
You know the sort. Corduroy covered (or flowery canvas if you re really unlucky), and almost exclusively in a hideous green. They are never quite deep enough to be comfortable, so you just sort of perch on them.
It had a TV with no 24hr news channel, an empty fridge, and a strange decorative throw at the bottom of the bed. It was about 40cm wide, patented with flowers (what else?) and laid across like some sort of bed-scarf.
I don t do pointless decorative touches so I threw it in a corner.
There were also leaflets from the hotelier everywhere, even on my pillow (no chocolate though).
At 9 pm I was lying on my bed eating a Sainsbury s falafel and houmous tortilla wrap.
I decided this Greek-inspired snack was rubbish and hit the hotel bar. A pint cost £3.30.
Is this how much beer costs now? I have no idea. I usually only drink beer on the continent, preferring wine or scotch here in the UK (unless it s with a curry and then the cost gets lost in the bill).
But £3.30 seems a bit steep to me for a pint of the Caffrey s. I also ordered the house burger.
Yes, I know it s not healthy to eat a burger so late in the evening, but Mrs. tyger wasn t around so I decided to indulge.
Why the fuck do they put mayonnaise on a burger?
Don t get me wrong, I like mayo; but mayo has its place. And that s not on a burger. A chicken burger perhaps, but not beef, NEVER BEEF!
Relish, mustard, and even ketchup are perfect accompaniments for a burger. Just because a burger is dressed with a little lettuce and tomato, people feel compelled to pour mayo all over it.
Why?
Does one have mayo with one s steak? No, one fucking doesn t. So why the bejeezus do they put it on burgers?
It makes me so unbelievably angry. I scraped the mayo off the beef patty and threw away the bottom half of the bun. I had a good mind to throw the soggy bread at the bastard who ruined the burger, but the chef wasn t to be found.
Wanker.
Thoroughly pissed off at the mayo episode, I decided to grab my laptop and go online with the hotel s Wi-Fi service. I pulled out my Mac and clicked on the browser.
£15 for 24 hrs of high speed Wi-Fi access. What the fuck? £15?
I browsed through the options. It was £6 for an hour s internet access. I m sorry dear readers, I do love you all, but even you re not worth £6 an hour.
I expect a 20-minute massage and full sex for that sort of money (I know, I m cheap).
The one thing they did offer FOC was a copy of the Independent. I hate the Indi.
Ever since they went tabloid I find the whole experience utterly painful. The pages are chaotic compared to the elegance of The Guardian s Berliner format. I spent 20 minutes reading the sports section, then got frustrated at an Op-Ed article and decided I d had enough.
Drunk; I retired my room to listen to music on my iPod very loud.
I fly back to England tomorrow. I have just uploaded some photos to my account, but there will, I promise, be more posted when I get chance.
It has been a great break. I haven t had chance to write as much as I would have liked, but it has been great to spend time with my family. The snow had blanketed Tallinn like a fairy-tale and it has been a beautiful week.
I can t wait to move here for good.
I m on the laptop in WAYNES S COFFEE. I am on my second large green tea and have just polished off a cherry muffin.
Muffins are my weakness, and I would take a blueberry one over any snack in the world.
I hope this post finds all my readers well and normal tygerland service will resume on Sunday.
I’m sat in a café where in December I had a good, fast internet connection, and now it’s no longer supplied.
Maybe I’m out of range and need to move around. I don’t know.
It’s been a fun few days with my parents seeing Tallinn.
Although now, with the temperature plummeting to –12ºC, it’s too cold for them and they’re pining for more temperate weather. The snow is dry and plentiful, so it is thick on the ground.
It’s my parents last day here; they fly home at noon tomorrow (although I’m here until Saturday).
So we have an eventful afternoon planned: a trip to a frozen waterfall, then to see the beautiful forest grave of Mrs. tyger’s mother. Then we’re off for a walk near the beach (frozen solid; the sand is like marble), and then into Old Town for a drink at the Beer House and then a meal at the Russian restaurant Troika.
Yum yum.
Right, I better go and find an internet connection so I can post this and catch up with emails and blogs.
My parents are here until Thursday so I ll not be doing any serious writing until then.
I don t spend much time with ma and pa, so it s nice to show them around the city and make sure they re enjoying their break. Also, I m having to slum it here on a Windows laptop as the net connection is IP specific (bastards). Quite why anyone would use Microsoft s evil operating system is beyond me.
Mrs. tyger s father asked me to pair his cell with his laptop (via bluetooth), it wasn t too tricky, but a damn site more complicated and finicky than on a Mac. Do yourself a favour if you re still using Bill s car wreck of an OS, and buy a Mac or at least boot Linux.
PS. I have taken loads of photos, so pop by over the next couple of days for an update.
It’s gone half-one in the afternoon.
I’m not sure when this post will get uploaded as we’re off to a beer house later. That’s right, you read that correctly – a beer house (where they brew beer). Ever the professional writer, I’m having a glass of Estonian beer (A.
Le Coq: 5,2%) before I leave – purely research you understand.
I fly back to England tomorrow, so it seems apt that I have one last bender before I return. Fair enough, don’t you think?
I’ll be shooting straight out when I get home (busy guy), so I doubt there will be any entries on Sunday at all. I’ll reply to any emails/comments on Monday. Have a nice weekend and be safe.
P.s. I have the Woody Allen film, Match Point, to watch when I get home.
Scarlett Johansson and a beer house: what a way to say goodbye to Tallinn?
Originally written at 1pm today.
Shhh!
Everyone’s asleep. Mrs. tyger has opted to use tyger jnr’s snooze time to get some shut-eye herself.
Meanwhile I, always looking to exploit such moments of personal tranquillity, have decamped to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a sandwich. As I write I am munching on a salmon and cucumber sandwich, which, if you were here, I would gladly share.
The wind is blowing a gale outside, so we decided, or rather our idle procrastination dictated, that we would spend the morning lazing in the apartment and allowing the boy to potter around cheerily and then have a long nap in the afternoon.
Bliss.
I watched The Da Vinci Code last night on DVD. If you have read the books, as I have, you will find the film a pleasant diversion, which fleshes out your interpretation of the novel.
If you haven’t seen it however, you will find the film a rambling dark mess. Don’t say you haven’t been amply warned.
Also Tom Hanks is not Robert Langdon, who I always had down as an early 1980’s Robert Redford.
I was not, and will not be, convinced otherwise. The utterly scrumptious Audrey Tautou was awkward but tolerable as Sophie, and this was nothing like as good as her performance in , which is one of cinema’s real treasures.
Give it a miss, unless you really have nothing better to do.
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