Au Revoir Malcolm

The beer was good in the Stag as we gathered for Malcolm's little farewell soiree. Jeb Tyrie, Andy Gore and Gerry Mullins came along for a few beers, although they couldn't stay for the meal, and Andy Robertson made the effort to travel out from Aberdeen to join us.

Here's the team gathered in Franco's restaurant:

I'd run off a few of the old photos of Malcolm, going back over the last 20 years, and copies of "The Goredian" from 1996 and "BVFG - a Brief History" from 1999 were included in the pack that Colin, doing his Eamonn Andrews, presented to Malcolm:

This was prefaced with CK reading out the pen portraits from 1996, including the reference to Malcolm's "burger addiction".

Andy R had to catch his bus back to Aberdeen but the rest of us retired back to the Stag again, and it quickly became a double dram evening:

What was Malcolm thinking about?

Colin managed to feature again - this time with Andy M:

Andy M managed to find a guitar somewhere and, after some arm-twisting - never usually required - Gary finally gave us a tune:

And so we said our farewells - and Malcolm told us he's back in 6 weeks' time anyway!

London footy weekend

Our long planned weekend trip to London and the Emirates stadium was now upon us, but the weather didn't look like it was going to be very kind to us. In fact, the Friday night forecast was for heavy snow and massive transport disruption in the South East on Sunday. On the back of that, Colin was a last minute cancellation - he couldn't afford the possibility of 2 nights away. So, it was just Malcolm Grigor (Banchory Car Centre and avid Arsenal supporter) and I that headed off on Saturday morning to meet up with Dave in central London.

The plane down was delayed a little, but we were still able to meet Dave at Paddington around 11am. Time for some ale - let's tick off a few Good Beer Guide entries and grab some lunch before we head for the Emirates stadium. Our first port of call was The Duke of Hamilton in upmarket Hampstead, where the walls were adorned with sporting memorabilia, mostly rugby and cricket, including this bat from England's 3-1 Ashes win at the Oval in 1985:

We had an excellent lunch at the nearby Flask - pie and chips for £12! - and I took this slightly blurry photo of Dave on my Blackberry - notice the spooky mirrored image of me taking the photo in the distance:

On to the Emirates then:

It was absolutely perishing - colder even than I can ever remember at Pittodrie - and Dave decided he needed some extra protection, so it was a quick trip to the shop for the Arsenal scarf and hat:

The stadium is much more impressive inside than its approaches. This was our view as the second half started amidst snow flurries:

We watched the Birmingham - Man Utd match in different pubs and then headed back to Dave's pad in snowy Reading. Dinner at Wagamama (http://www.wagamama.com/) and then back to the flat for drinks and Match of the Day. It had been a long day and Malcolm was the first to falter:

followed by Dave a few minutes later:

On previous sporting trips with Dave, my sleeping experiences haven't been the greatest - many may recall the famous shared double bed at Luton airport a couple of years ago; and last year, it was a rather narrow couch for me after CK won the toss and he got the single bed. This year looked like being OK as the toss this time gave me the larger of the two available rooms - but there were hazards ahead. I was warned about the low entrance to the upper mezzanine area - this girder was about 5'9" off the ground:

I slept on an inflatable double bed, which apparently had a faulty valve (or so I was told in the morning) and so I ended up feeling rather sore, virtually lying on the bare floor. I staggered up for my shower and headed for the narrow spiral staircase, but, of course, completely forgot about the low beam - bang - flesh wound on the top of my skull - what a great start to the day!

After Dave cooked Malcolm and I some bacon and eggs, we went back in to Central London. First stop was the National Portrait Gallery (http://www.npg.org.uk/), just behind Trafalgar Square, where we saw the Beatles to Bowie: the 60's Revealed. The West Ham match had been prematurely and unnecessarily postponed, so we had time for a leisurely lunch at the Porterhouse brewpub (http://www.porterhousebrewco.com/coventgarden.html). There's a bit of a sporting theme on one of the walls - all Chelsea related - Chopper Harris and all. Here's Dave and Malcolm posing in front of it:

After lunch it was off to the movies (see Headbang blog for details) and then Malcolm and I headed off to Heathrow and Dave went back to his flat in Reading. We were back home, after only a short delay, about 11 pm. Sod's law, Colin could easily have come with us - the weather forecast for heavy snow in London and major transport disruption on Sunday all came to nowt.