Mixed messages

Today's music session was in Merrion, beside Vincent's Hospital, and it was my turn to be  in charge of the final thirty minutes. It was a good session, though my choice of music by composers with nicknames -- York Bowen ('The English Rachmaninov') and Franz Berwald ('The Berlioz of the North') got a bit of a mixed reception.

We went across the road to the Merrion Inn to wet out collective whistles afterwards. It wasn't only the plethora of posters outside which brought it on, but conversation unfortunately drifted into the dreaded realm of politics and next Friday's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (our second time to vote, not having got it right the first time). I was glad when the topic changed to less contentious matters, and happy enough when things broke up after just one drink.

Carl's dad is in hospital in St Vincent's, so I dropped in to see him for a few minutes. Carl was there, and we went on to his place together, stopping off on the way for something to eat in Blackrock. Our first choice was Dali's, a place we've tried several times previously to get into, but never with any success. This evening was no different. We were offered a table for an hour, but felt this would be too rushed. Apart from that they were 'chock-a-block' for the evening, so once again we left with our tails between our legs. We went searching for an alternative, and came across Chi, which we weren't aware of previously. It was empty, and we weren't keen on being the first to sit down. The guy at the door told us they'd begin to fill up later, so we said we'd be back in about an hour, which left time enough time to do some shopping in the Organic Supermarket on the main street, to get a bottle of wine in Oddbins, and to even fit in a pint in the Breffni pub.

Chi was okay, but far from great. My green curry was good in flavour, but a bit weird in colour, while my tempura vegetables were a bit of a disaster (batter not great, vegetable pieces too big). We were on a menu special which also covered dessert, but we skipped that.

Carl recently got hooked up with a satellite dish and connected to the Freeview Plus box which he got during our trip to Belfast. He'd picked up my LCD TV yesterday to test it out for size, and we watched some stuff on it when we got back to his place. The exercise established both that the size is fine in his room and that my TV will indeed work just great if I upgrade my own system from standard Freeview to Freeview Plus.