- USA Trip Day One - Napa Valley
We arrived in San Francisco last night. I watched Kung Fu Panda, Son Of Rambow and all but the last 20 minutes of Speed Racer between eating and naps on the plane.I have a feeling that Son of Rambow is the only one that didn’t suffer from being on a tiny tiny screen. Speed Racer was like being stabbed in the face with tiny rainbows, only with less plot.
Today we were picked up by Mike The Awesome Limo Driver in a limo. We weren’t expecting a limo in all its neon-insides glory, but that’s what we had. We drove out to Napa Valley and had tastings in Home Sutter, V Satui, Alpha Omega, Cakebread and Domaine Carneros, picking up a few bottles along the way.
In Alpha Omega we tried their ‘Era’ new wine, which they will be botling next spring and which is going to be bloody expensive, by the sounds of things. It’s is the first time I’ve tried a barrel tasting, and the catheter-style pipette thing amused the more childish of us (yeah, OK, me). It was amazing, a wonderfully complex wine with a long, long finish that kept on going.
I now am sleepy.
Tomorrow, Alcatraz and stuff.
- The Assembly
Popped into Leamington Spa’s been-about-to-open-for-ages venue, the Assembly, at lunchtime to buy some tickets for Henry Rollins, who is playing the opening night in a couple of weeks and was treated to a sneak peek at the inside of the venue. I have to say they’ve done a really good job.
It’s a massive (1000 capacity apparently) venue, with a proper stage, dancefloor, several bars and a mezzanine-style viewing platform and has been really nicely done out. The backstage area looks like it’s going to be well-appointed too (including Tammy Wynette’s trailer as the main band dressing room), which can only help get the acts in. Hopefully it’ll do well - too few dedicated venues are being built around here nowadays. The focus seems to mainly be on clubs or pubs that occasionally put bands on, which generally have accordingly awful sound. It will be interesting to see what it’s like when it’s finished and full of punters, but so far, the signs look very promising.
- Breakfast - the most impotent meal of the day
Spotted on the BBC website this morning by The Hot Dog. It’s either a beautiful accident, or it’s someone’s last day.
I like the fact that in case the larger context is confusing the issue for you, there’s a little thumbnail on the right which really gets to the meat of the story.
- Blip
Oops. Bit of a blip there whilst updating to Wordpress 2.6. The update process itself was as easy as ever, although not entirely foolproof because I managed to get it wrong and break everything. I am a special kind of fool.