Enjoying a Czech beer in London - 26-03-2003 - Radio Prague

Having received both Guitar Hero and an extra-special sooper-dooper copy of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Friday, I went to Toby's for a house-warming. I staggered in smelling of meat, late and drunk, with the Guitar Hero fake Gibson Les Paul slung over my back. An excellent way to enter a party. The party was not dead when I got there, but definitely comatose with its grieving family standing round, weeping. I got out Guitar Hero.

...time passed...

At four in the morning, there were three men standing, banging away at the axe. I was begging them to stop. Literally begging, head slumped sideways on my shoulders, biting the sofa in frustration, just asking them to stop. I never want to hear Smoke On The Water or Ace of Spades or Ziggy Stardust again. EVER. Even though the game's awesome. I finally got it away from them, caught a few hours on the sofa AGAIN and wandered off for my traditional Deptford Pie N Mash breakfast.

Enjoying a Czech beer in London - 26-03-2003 - Radio Prague: "'It's not because it's undrinkable how they do it. They use the wrong gas. They serve the sort of pipe beer - what remains in the pipelines. It's basically lousy beer, it's an abomination (laughs) to proper Czech beer, because they don't really know...before you start you have to pour out three pints - they don't. Plus I've got only two kinds of beer so it's flowing constantly, they've got 25 so basically one man every three hour gets a Czech beer, or something like that. It's basically stale goods, and wrong gas and wrong taps...'"

Sleeping the day away, I woke and (after losing a few hours of my life to Oblivion - I have a haunted house now!) went to the afore-mentioned Gambrinus Czechslovak Community Centre for a few beers and some dinner. I can say, at this point, that I have never eaten so much fat in one sitting. I started with Tripe Soup, though my dinner companions had respectively brawn, a potato pancake dripping in lard and a big sausage. Main courses mainly consisted of small bits of meat soaked in cream (and some vegetables for colour), with dumplings (again, around 50% fat.) Yesterday I ate nothing but bananas until about midnight, where I balanced out the weekend with greens, garlic and pasta.