NB's Birthday

Thursday was NB's birthday, he's managed to reach the ripe old age of 24 (god to be back there again - without the trappings that I had then though - we're thinking coming towards the end of first long term boyfriend nightmares, finishing college and being unemployed - if I had it to do all over again armed with the knowledge that I have now, actually not sure I'd want to go back).

He invited his regular crowd to eat with him at Sarastro in Covent Garden. Having been there before I was quite excited to go there again. Its a funny restaurant plushly decorated with many nooks and crannies - tables are on balconies or in turrets or tucked away. The waiters, dressed in formal black and white rush around with trays lifted over their heads. And opera plays in the background. They have swaths of fabric and gold leaf and paintings of sexual orgies in the toilet.



It all seemed to start out wonderfully - we were sitting on a huge balcony table looking down the whole length of the restaurant. But it turned out to be awfully disappointing - the food wasn't as good as I remembered, the waiters were overly pompous and the drinks waiter couldn't understand us, the music was soooo loud from a speaker right by our heads that we had to shout at each other over the noise (and they played one tape round and round so that we eventually heard the same arias 3 times), on closer inspection the decor was sort of cheaply done (couldn't help but inspect too closely because we were sitting so close to the ceiling) and to cap it all the chocolate cake ordered two weeks previously had been dropped onto the pavement on the way from the bakery earlier that day (this was the story) and was replaced by a lemon meringue pie sans meringue (very very tart) that just didn't cut it as a birthday cake. Oh the disappointment of it all. And it had been such a great quirky restuarant. Perhaps they were just having an off off day.

I did gleen some useful information however from the Australian contingent - just in case you ever go to live in Oz. The Aussies called a duvet a doona and they buy them and their covers from the Manchester Department in their equivalent of Department Stores. Weird. Lots of stories of when they first arrived going into John Lewis asking for directions to the Manchester department to be met with blank stares. Did Australian sheets always come from Manchester in the early days of settlement or is there some other explanation for this name for the bedlinen department? One of the party was also SOOO anal that he safety pins his duvet cover to the duvet in order to stop the cover slipping off!! Methinks he needs to get one with press studs on it. He didn't have any advice for keeping the feathers equally spread throughout the quilt all night though, aparently even those quilted into squares suffer from feather slippage.

Another story that tickled both the gay and Australian contingent this evening was the Metro article about the findings of a study in australia that masturbating is actually good for you. Masturbating can help prevent prostate cancer. So its official - at least 5 times a week but the more the better. You may be blind but you won't get prostate cancer, tough call!