Not drowning, waving
Turkey memoirs may well be pushed back until I can't rememoir anything except "gobble gobble", but who has time for the past in today's dog-eat-dog present? Maybe in the future we'll have time for the past, which ironically will be at least partly the current present. Is this then the golden age? the day we looked forward to and will look back upon for the rest of our lives, as if all the surrounding time is only there to act as a halo to this angelic day? Unlikely, because today was a pretty dull day, but who knows, dog-eat-dog world and all that. Actually I will be going back to Korea later this year, which is more like the future's man-eat-dog world, or at least man-eat-live-squid world (although that was the Korea of the past for me).
After the crocfest in crocland with Lil B, I went to Stockholm for a day to join forces with Dickman and Anita, who had just flown in from Italy. The weather was beautiful and the program for the day largely consisted of Dickman ranting about how much Italy shat him, and how much he prefers Sweden, much to the chagrin of Anita (who is of Italian descent). Dickman has a very low regard for Italian people (except Anita, his wife, but including all of her immediate and extended family). At one point during the day she said to him "You know, I kinda hoped that seeing Italy and all the culture would improve your opinion of Italian people, but deep down I guess I knew it would only make things worse".
Then I went to Lyon, where I had a few mycket bra days sightseeing with Martina, and a conference on biomedical engineering. There I caught up with some old buddies like the Sav-man, Branko, and Nigel L. The conference itself was okay, my talk went well... but the banquet was extraordinary.
It was held at the restaurant of Paul Bocuse, and is one of only a few restaurants in the world to have been given 3 stars by the Michelin guide, and has been referred to as the best restaurant in France by people who don't say that about anywhere that serves all-day breakfast (i.e. people who aren't me, or Mary). Obviously this Bocuse character is pretty famous food-wise and cashed up by now, because he seems to have lost his Focuse* decor-wise somewhere along the way, but retained his 3-star rating.
Observe the following pictorial exhibits:
As each course was served, the giant pipe organ blaired circus music, an animatronic Chef Bocuse conducted a band of animatronic racial stereotypes, and 15 or 20 waiters came in procession and precession down the stairs and across the floor carrying trays of food with sparklers spurting out of them until they reached some kind of head waiter and/or/slash traffic cop, who would direct them to disperse in spirals throughout the room and dish up their lading to a roomful of drunk engineers. It was like above-water synchronised swimming. (I will hopefully be able to get video footage of this later from a friend.) All in all, 6 courses of food and 3 different wines. I asked one of the waiters if he had ever met Gabriel Gaté, but got a non-committal response.
Several people have asked what the hell I'm doing in the coming months, so time to set the record as straight as can be for the mo:
*- Believe it or not, that's a pun, not a typo.
After the crocfest in crocland with Lil B, I went to Stockholm for a day to join forces with Dickman and Anita, who had just flown in from Italy. The weather was beautiful and the program for the day largely consisted of Dickman ranting about how much Italy shat him, and how much he prefers Sweden, much to the chagrin of Anita (who is of Italian descent). Dickman has a very low regard for Italian people (except Anita, his wife, but including all of her immediate and extended family). At one point during the day she said to him "You know, I kinda hoped that seeing Italy and all the culture would improve your opinion of Italian people, but deep down I guess I knew it would only make things worse".
Then I went to Lyon, where I had a few mycket bra days sightseeing with Martina, and a conference on biomedical engineering. There I caught up with some old buddies like the Sav-man, Branko, and Nigel L. The conference itself was okay, my talk went well... but the banquet was extraordinary.
It was held at the restaurant of Paul Bocuse, and is one of only a few restaurants in the world to have been given 3 stars by the Michelin guide, and has been referred to as the best restaurant in France by people who don't say that about anywhere that serves all-day breakfast (i.e. people who aren't me, or Mary). Obviously this Bocuse character is pretty famous food-wise and cashed up by now, because he seems to have lost his Focuse* decor-wise somewhere along the way, but retained his 3-star rating.
Observe the following pictorial exhibits:
As each course was served, the giant pipe organ blaired circus music, an animatronic Chef Bocuse conducted a band of animatronic racial stereotypes, and 15 or 20 waiters came in procession and precession down the stairs and across the floor carrying trays of food with sparklers spurting out of them until they reached some kind of head waiter and/or/slash traffic cop, who would direct them to disperse in spirals throughout the room and dish up their lading to a roomful of drunk engineers. It was like above-water synchronised swimming. (I will hopefully be able to get video footage of this later from a friend.) All in all, 6 courses of food and 3 different wines. I asked one of the waiters if he had ever met Gabriel Gaté, but got a non-committal response.
Several people have asked what the hell I'm doing in the coming months, so time to set the record as straight as can be for the mo:
- In a few weeks (Sep 18th) Mandy and Dean and Hal(?) come up here for a visit, and we head towards Finland and the madness of Annika and Marjukka. There may even be a cameo from Mary somewhere in there. Russia has turned out to be a royal pain in the rectum, visa-wise, and will most likely be skipped for now.
- Late October I'll be in San Diego (not again!) for another conference, possibly also visiting some other universities around the states (most likely Michigan, Chicago, LA) for meetings/talks.
- Still not sure exactly when I'll come to oz, it's getting extremely complicated, but it should be in November some time. Possibly in time for the reunion on the 10th, possibly not.
- Late November I'll go back to Korea for 3 days of meetings (possibly from Australia, possibly on the way there). But for reasons obvious to some I have to be back in oz for the 1st of Dec at the latest.
- Mid December I'll probably go to another conference in New Orleans, but I'll just be away for a few days. Apart from that, most of Dec and Jan I'll be hanging around Sydney
- Maybe another reef trip at the end of Jan, then I'll head back to Sweden.
*- Believe it or not, that's a pun, not a typo.
posted by I-Rock at 8:14 PM
7 Comments:
Yay!
Well worth the wait!
I don't mean that, I hate waiting!
All of us in Oz at the same time! Yay!
Yay!
Phew - lots of enthusiasm, and all of it heartfelt.
I-rock - the dinosaurs are UP IN ARMS looking at your schedule.
Now, commence the jibber jabber.
xxxxx
except the t-rexs. They have very little arms proportionately, making it hard to gesticulate.
I was just trying that out...
sprinklers in food is just so festive.
sprinklers or sparklers? well, now that you mention it sprinklers... December 1st... a farm dog in an official role... what do dogs love to chase in the summertime? Okay, everything, but certainly sprinklers are included. That has "winning combination" written all over it!!
You'll be pleased to know that there's a little uniform involved. It's being made as we speak.
Don't spoil the surprise, but she's going to look HOT.
ooooh sprinklers would be siggy. Bad typo.
sOggy, argh!
Post a Comment
<< Home