September 2005 – Page 3

Who’s more skill?

I thought I would finally settle the question of “Who’s more skill” between myself and my business partner Darren Beale (co-director of Exponetic) with a Googlefight. Initial results were promising: ‘karl bunyan skill’ vs ‘darren beale skill’ gives me 12,700 results and Darren only 5,920, making me nearly twice as skill. However, putting quotes around the names changes the story. ‘”karl bunyan” skill vs “darren beale”‘ skill gives me only 98 results whereas Darren has 310. This is over three times as skill, although the smaller sample size does make this result somewhat suspect to my unbiased mind

It looks like the debate will have to rage on.

Googlefight

The Crown and Sceptre review, Great Titchfield Street

There aren’t many pubs I’d ever say this about, but I can honestly say I never want to go back to this pub again. The place doesn’t look too bad, and there’s space to stand outside, close to Oxford Circus, but the bar staff are absolutely the worst I’ve ever come across anywhere. The wait at the Crown and Sceptre surpassed my previous personal best by passing the half hour mark. We nearly were served once, but the woman who started taking our order mysteriously disappeared and our third of the bar was left unattended for the next ten minutes. (Had she gone home for the day? We didn’t know.) One of the other staff eventually noticed our side of the bar and we were the loudest shouters in the scrum who had the patience to wait. (That is the only way to get served there.)

So, that was the last time we went to the bar, and hopefully the last I’ll be seeing of The Crown and Sceptre. Very conveniently, the off-license on the corner diagonally opposite has a large chilled beer selection and sells bottles of Kronenberg for 99p each. I have the feeling they make a fair amount of money out of dissatisfied pub clientele.

My advice: don’t bother with this pub. If you do and you’re able to drink outside, take a bottle opener and remember the off-license on the opposite corner.

A very old review of The Crown and Sceptre

The Crown and Sceptre is here

The off-license is here

Review of Soho Thai, St Anne’s Court, Dean Street, London

I spent yesterday evening in the Soho Thai on St Anne’s Court, just off Dean Street. I’ve never noticed it before but it’s quite a small, unassuming place, especially given its location in Soho. Apparently it’s part of the Thai Square chain, but chain restaurants have never bothered me as long as the food’s good enough. We had a table booked and, even on a Wednesday night, I think this would be advisable either for a larger group or at peak time.

The interior is quite plain and the wooden tables make it feel more like a cafe than a full restaurant. The air conditioning was a bit over-enthusiastic, even on a very muggy day, but the waiting staff soon turned the vent near our table down. The menu looked pretty good, however, and there was also quite a large drinks selection (including Singha beer, of course).

I decided to share a mixed starter and wasn’t too impressed. There was the usual chicken satay (and, as usual, chicken of dubious origin), spring rolls, and random crispy things, and even the fishcakes weren’t especially good. For the main course, I went for a red curry with sticky rice and this did turn out well. I’ve also read that the massaman is good but I was in the mood for a bit of heat. There was no sign of the tinned vegetables that I often find in Thai restaurants and a good sprinkling of fresh chillies (not too hot) in the food. The rice portions seemed slightly small, although this could be due to it being brought to us in a large bowl to share and my land-grabbing techniques not being up to scratch.

Prices come to around £10 for a main course and starter, with drinks on top. This is where they really make their money, and they’re quite keen that everyone’s well attended to in this respect. Frankly, that doesn’t get any complaints from me.

Although I wouldn’t make a special trip to go to the Soho Thai, it can be hard to find a decent, reasonably priced restaurant so close to Tottenham Court Road and I expect I’ll be eating there again.

Review of Soho Thai on London Eating
Review of Soho Thai on Top Table

MSN Messenger 7 hack: Removing the search box and banner

This useful little program called the
MSN 7 Universal Patcher++ v0.8 is invaluable if, like me, you get really annoyed with the crap that Microsoft ads to every new version of MSN messenger. Since there’s no option to remove the search bar, or the little banner, this piece of software does it for you by hacking the code. Simply close messenger, download the file, run it, and then select what you’d like to disable. I disabled the lot.

MSN 7 Universal Patcher++ v0.8

Spurs activity in the transfer market

Spurs have hit the transfer market at the last minute, signing the Polish striker Rasiak from Derby, Jermaine Jenas from Newcastle (who I guess have to pay for Owen somehow), and Lee Young-Pyo from PSV Eindhoven. It’s quite a strong midfield now and it’s going to be interesting to see how competition between Rasiak and Mido (when he comes back from his ban) affects the performance of both strikers. It does leave me wondering how Robbie Keane fits into all this as he seems to be playing very little at the moment.

As well as buying some new players Spurs have also sold Erik Edman. I don’t know how this will affect the club’s performance, but it means yet again I need to make a transfer out of my fantasy football team early in the season.