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Tuesday proved to be a very wet evening but that didn’t stop me from heading out to Camden’s Electric Ballroom to watch American Indie band, Spoon. They’ve got plenty of albums and although they never really hit the mainstream, they certainly had enough fans to fill out the Electric Ballroom. When listening to some of their albums, I recognised a few of their songs, although by far probably the most popular is, The Way We Get By off their Kill The Moonlight album.

They were supported by New York band, White Rabbits who also put on a really amazing set. I noticed that they had their own gig at the ICA next week, so I’d definitely recommend checking them out if you happen to be free.

Spoon were here promoting their new album, Transference, which definitely takes a much more experimental take on their style of music, full of songs lacking choruses. Still pretty decent performance. A great night out and a perfect way to beat the poor weather.

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Over the weekend, I managed to see the movie, Up in the Air. I remember this getting some really positive comments at the BFI Film Festival last year, and thought some of it would be quite appropriate, doing a lot of travelling as a consultant. It stars George Clooney, and Vera Farmiga, who looked stunningly different from her role in the thriller movie, Orphan and a very talented Anna Kendrick.

The movie focuses in the travelling lifestyle of Ryan Bingham (Clooney) who works for a firm that is brought in specifically to fire people. It reminds me of a scene out of Officespace or some movie like that. However his preferred lifestyle of not being attached to anything comes under threat when firm newbie, Natalie Keener (Kendrick) comes up with the idea of replacing this face-to-face lifestyle with video conferencing software.

There’s many great parts to the movie, including where Bingham teaches Keener some of the finer arts to travelling light. I can definitely relate to this, thinking of the many hours I spent last summer travelling to and from Copenhagen. Perhaps more typically represented is the life of the US-based travelling consultant where it’s all about racking up miles, status points and credit points. Overall the movie started off really well but then it started to drag its feet, pursuing too many different story lines to properly address in a single movie. This left the conclusion rushed and it felt like arriving at a banquet only to be told the kitchen was closed when dessert arrived. I’m puzzled as to why it’s had big screen success, as I think it’s place is definitely in a bit more of a niche crowd.

TheKua.com Rating: 6.5 out of 10

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It’s that time of year to look back and see what’s been going on for 2009. It seems like it’s been a quieter year than most before and despite not wanting to do a lot of travel, it still seems like I ended up doing a fair amount.

Travel
The year started off in the US where I spent the day getting back from Boston before celebrating the New Year in New York. Since I was travelling to Marlow for work during the week, I didn’t end up going anywhere until March where I met the rest of the family in Japan.

Rather than hitting Tokyo, we met them in Osaka where we headed out to places like Kobe, Nara, Himeji and then spent the rest of the time visiting the temples and shrines of nearby Kyoto. April saw me head up north to visit my old flatmate, now living in York. The start of May then saw me head to Chicago for the first time, for a wedding and catching up with lots of people I knew living there.

I also took advantage of the great weather to head to Brighton for the first time. The end of may, I headed out to Sardinia for a conference where we ended up pretty much isolated from anyone else for the entire week. Great times yet I still remember the water being particularly cold.

It was around this time that I also started doing the weekly commute to Copenhagen for several months. I think I ended up staying over on the weekend twice – once to see what life in Denmark was really like, and then another to head over to Malmo (Sweden) on a very convenient and modern train.

August then saw me returning to Chicago for another conference before finishing off the year with a trip to Edinburgh in November and then Finland for a pre-Christmas holiday. I’d also mention travelling to Cambridge daily since returning from Copenhagen but other than eating out and resting, I don’t really get to see much of Cambridge.

Music
I don’t think I got to see as many bands this year seeing Aussie bands Eskimo Joe and The Living End in April, followed by amazing musician and talented whistler, Andrew Bird in May. I then saw John Butler outshine the Union Chapel in July. October then saw a flurry of activity including The Cribs, Franz Ferdinand and then Scottish musician, Calvin Harris play a sweat inducing performance at The Forum. The year finished off with a performance by Japanese musician, Ryuichi Sakomoto.

Food
I think this was definitely the year of the Michelin-starred restaurants for me. I was very thankful managing to find the only booking open in a three month window for the world’s 3rd best restaurant, Noma. What an unbelievable experience the tasting menu here was.

Amazingly local food accompanied by great service. I still remember the evening sun setting at just before midnight casting an amazing warmth into the converted warehouse when we sat down to eat.

We had just as an amazing meal at Restaurant Paustian v. Bo Bech before leaving Copenhagen. When visiting Chicago for the second time, I made sure to head out to Moto to enjoy the delights of clever cooking techniques and dining dazzlery. I can still picture the sparkling bombs that explode in the mouth for dessert. I also took my sister out to Rhodes 24 for her birthday (admittedly quite late in the year) and also ended up having a lunch at (overrated) Gordon Ramsey’s Maze restaurant. There was plenty of other amazing food places eaten ate but I woulnd’t be able to list them all.

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Before heading away for holidays, I managed to get a booking to see Avatar 3D at the BFI’s Imax. The last 3D movie I saw required the “special” 3D glasses during only certain parts of the movie unlike this one which required it for the entire duration. It’s definitely a strange experience, but just like most things, you seem to adjust to it after a while.

Being such a visually rich film, this was definitely worthwhile seeing at the Imax although you want to get some good seats. We were particularly lucky getting seats pretty much smack bang in the middle, enjoying all three stories of movie screen in all dimensions. It’s apparently sold out at the Imax until March and I’m happy to report it’s worthwhile paying for the experience.

You can read countless other reviews of the actual movie but I will say that although the story is a little bit predicatable, it’s still worth going to see on the big screen. I’m not so sure a TV set will do it as much justice, and watching it in 3D definitely adds a dimension worth seeing.

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Imagine bringing together the boutique suppliers of food, drink and unique innovative art to a warehouse in the middle of Dalston and you’ll start to get a feel for what Towards A Fluid State was all about. Everything was thought down to the littlest detail and every corner had surprises at all turns.

Not really knowing what to expect was part of the fun to it. All we knew when we bought the tickets is that the event would be located somewhere near Dalston, and even the wet weather and rain didn’t stop us from having a good time. The entrance was small, nothing more than a door down a dark alley (although you did have a blindingly obvious big arrow pointing should you look down from the high street). From there, you enter “passport control” where the lovely ladies behind The Tasting Sessions gives you your passports and the well-formed box that would hold your drinks and bite-sized foods. Any “flights of experience” you bought also end up stamped inside, alongside a free drink (randomly picked from each of the different tasting stands). Each stamp buys an experience, often a combination of three tipples from a particular type of spirit, combined with matching bite sized morsels.

The organisers divided the warehouse into differently themed rooms, centred around the unique combinations of food and drink, all compete with different types of entertainment. It’s hard to describe my favourite with the strong smells of La Fromagerie Cheese and Whiskey emanating from one (cleverly masking any smells that happened to escape from the restrooms) or the huge dining table near the Gin room atop which two roasted pig’s heads sat complete with sunglasses at night, contrasting the rest of the decadence surrounding them.

Our first “flight of experience” was easy, with a sampling of cold sake, provided by Akashi-Tai, and wonderfully tasting Japanese food provided by Tsuru (located near Southwark). A big fan of black sesame, we all agreed that the black sesame mochi was a definite highlight with mixed reactions to some of the different types of sake present. Present company preferred the classical flavours brought by one of the cleaner flights, although I was particularly interested by the more sharp flavours brought by the darkened sake shot.

We followed this with our free drink, provided by the Cognac stand which I went for the “Courvoisier Cooler.” Described as, “A generous serving of Courvoisier Exclusif lengthened with cloudy apple juice, topped with ginger beer, served long with ice” it definitely helped me cool down from the warmth starting to generate from both the spirits and the body heat generated from all the people present.

Some of our party, more particularly hungry swapped their next “flight of experience” for the roast hog meal, which I chose to take over to the Gin stand to watch one of the cocktail-meisters from the London Cocktail Club work his magic forming, “Sage, mint and lemon caviar” using some interesting chemical reactions. They also introduced me to the Chase Distillery’s unique Gin blend which really hit the spot filled with so much flavour. I was definitely pretty happy to give it a go although slightly disappointed I wasn’t able to yet find it anywhere to buy.

We found ourselves with some “flights of experience” and decided to enjoy ourselves back with various congacs, and with the more dessert-sized bites including a slightly salted caramel lollipop, a small Portugese custard tart, and a dark chocolate truffle matching each of the different spirits. Some of the cognacs we tried were really smooth (I think they were the more than 30 year old ones) and with so much depth of flavour.

I remember wanting to leave the stronger whiskey flavours to last, but found ourselves at the end of their night where they’d almost run out of the cheese. By this time, they were happy to sample some of the more interesting blends of whiskey including some lovely single malts provided by Highland Park and Macallan.

I have to really put my hands together to thank the organisers, suppliers and all the people that put the event on. I love the passion the boutique suppliers demonstrated about their products, I love the interesting atmosphere and people that turned up and the quality of the whole experience made the whole night very enjoyable. It certainly helped that the food and drink were top notch as well.

Well done all for taking us Towards a Fluid State.

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A couple of weekends ago, I somehow found myself at the infamous, School Disco for their tenth anniversary. I thought it had shut down but apparently it had simply moved locations to somewhere near Great Portland Street.

We started the night off at Frankies place, then catching a couple of taxis to get us there. A few Red Bulls early in the night seemed to do their job well an I didn’t have any problem staying up.

School Disco wasn’t as bad a place I thought it could have been, expecting something more akin to The Church. Fortunately all it meant was everyone dressed up in themed costume, unsurprisingly around the whole school theme.

We definitely had a great night out and I was thankful it was walking distance home when we left sometime in the morning.

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Sunday evening say a long trek into Sloane Square to arrive at Cadogan Hall to see Japanese composer and musician, Ryuichi Sakomoto. It was pretty tough getting there with the heavy rain and the tube network down. I’d been invited to see this musician perform, with him being pretty famous for creating enchanting soundtracks for many movies and events. It’s not normally my thing for live music, and thought I’d still give it a go.

Cadogan Hall is quite small, probably the same size as the Union Chapel and it’s acoustics were definitely great with rich sounds coming from all angles. It seems pretty modernly built with comfy cushion backed seats.

The show had been sold out when I looked it up earlier that day, so I was still surprised to see handfuls of seats empty on the night. The inclement weather explains some of it no doubt.

Watching a pianist perform was quite an experience. Being fairly tired and warm from the outside cold, I honestly couldn’t help myself feeling drowsy at the start of the performance. It didn’t help that Sakomoto started off with long, fairly abstract pieces that whilst enchanting, also didn’t help me feel less drowsy.

Towards the end the pieces definitely became more lively, and the accompanying visualisation projected on the screen matching it’s vibrancy. I think I even recognised a number of the songs, perhaps backing tracks to some anime movie or something.

The performance was very impressive and whilst I wasn’t compelled to give a standing ovation like some members of the audience, I still found it a nice contrast to the week.

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October ended up as a busy month for seeing some live music. A couple of Fridays ago I ended up at Brixton Academy to see Franz Ferdinand. I’d last seen them at the massive Alexandra Palace and was stoked to see them in a much smaller venue. Although they hadn’t actually produced any new material for a while, they certainly put on a very impressive audience that kept the entire Academy packed throughout. They had amazing video and lights accompanying them and just put on an awesome show.

Wednesday this week, I returned to The Forum, this time to see the Scottish based DJ performance, Calvin Harris. I’d seen him live a few years back at a festival and although he was simply DJing then, he definitely got the audience up and jumping.

That night was the same and I can’t imagine that The Forum has ever been so hot with so many people jumping around. We arrived to see the support act, Mr Hudson who seemed to have a bit of a following of his own and did well to warm up the audience. I’m glad that I didn’t bother to bring my coat as I saw a number of people with sweaters and coats suffering from their layers in such an energised audience. Great night, great music and what a way to enjoy a good night out in London.

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