Naquada

Last night we headed down to Henley on Thames for a full fat, blow out evening of Champagne and Puddings. Obviously we were going for the Charity side of it, supporting Guide Dogs for The Blind, and not the all your can eat home made puddings and as much champagne as you can drink side of it!!!!

We were meant to be having the event in the beautiful gardens of Courtyard House in henley, but due to the downpour that started at about half an hour before the started, the organisers admitted defeat and moved the event inside their house, which thankfully was a converted barn/farmhouse with a huge conservatory. The “joss stone” style singer sat on the landing, and played two sets as we tucked into possibly every type of home made pudding you could imagine.. With three tables of at least 20 different types on each, (and additional cheese and biscuits!) picking ones to fill your plate was a difficult choice.. thankfully there were always second.. and third visits!!

After careful balancing and arranging.. 5 puddings made it onto my first round (plus a side order!).. Trifle, New York Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Strawberry Cream Pavlova, some other chocolate thing (much goo!!) and on the side, Apricot Brandy Fool. The second helping was some of that raspberry swirl mouse cheesecake, the lemon meringue pie next to it, some banoffee pie, and some fool fool!!

It was a great evening and well organised by Spice and Oxfordshire Fundraising arm of the Guide Dogs for the Blind, There are hundreds of Guide Dogs Branches across the UK, staffed solely by dedicated volunteers,and this was a great event to help raise vital funds for them.

The Henley-on-Thames Branch is run by Jill Stewart (JillStewart@shaunandjill@onetel.net.uk)

We’re very much under water now, the heavy rain on Friday causing the floods to start lapping at our front door step, The Loddon burst it’s banks yesterday in spectacular style. This photo taken about 5 minutes from our house shows the cinema and major roundabout (see on googlemaps) under water.. As you can see from the aerial view on google. this is a massive roundabout, and the entire thing is underwater.

It’s quite frightening really that almost all the views on the BBC Berkshire Website are from around this area.

This view is just along from the above photo, it’s the george pub on the river loddon. The water level is up to and almost covering the bridge, the decking outside the pub is normally about 5-6 foot over the highest I’ve ever seen the river.

We have more rain forecast for this evening, and We’ve seen quite a few pictures from near to our other house in Wokingham that show the area flooded. So we’ll be heading over there in a bit to check on that one..

Tomorrow I’m meant to be driving up to Chester.. but with more rain forecast for early monday morning as well, I’m not sure it’s going to be a possible, or easy trip..

Technorati Tags: berkshire, flooding, floods, loddon, berkshireflooding, reading, river, shindlesham

Today and tomorrow I’m in Paris, Le Defense to be exact, at the IBM facility. I’m running through some SOA roadmap tools to help customers establish suitable projects, benefits and entry points into IBM’s SOA offerings.

It’s a little in at the deep end really, since I’m new into the IBM SOA team, but from what I’ve seen, there should be a good amount to offer going forwards, for IBM’ers there should be a bit more about the tool on my internal blog next week when I return from the training..

Of course on a social note, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner this evening, although we were aiming to go to Spoon, they couldn’t fit us in, I’m not sure if it was actually Mark’s wonderful french, or our bedraggled state from the downpour outside that didn’t endear us to the staff, so we ended up across the road in a small traditional restaurant..

I’d not actually planned to do any magic over dinner, but someone asked if I’d brought something with me (totally unprovoked I promise!!), so I did some bits between courses… a bit of mentalism which went down well, in-fact better than my normal magic stuff to be honest, and generally a bit of talking about human behavior and peoples predictability..

..I really enjoyed the performing and the discussions afterwards…

After the success of the last London Mentalism Meeting, Dr Todd Landman is organising another event up in London on the 27th October 2007.

Tabula Mentis is to take place in Mallow Street, London EC1 from 10am until sometime later on!! If the last meeting is anything to go by this will be an amazing event again, With more space (1500 sq feet), more time, room for beer and food and more structure to the day it’s will bring a lot to an already excellent gathering.

Todd’s put out a call for all mentalists who would like to contribute in some way. In particular, Stage and corporate mentalists to present material on performing mentalism for large audiences, Close-up mentalists, One-on-one performers who combine mechanical magick with a good story, Bizarrists and storytellers that combine magick and mentalism, Readers and ‘naked’ mentalists, Scholars, mavens, and tradespeople..

Although the naked bit is not quite what you think, it might make the day even more interesting if taken literally!! The fee for this round is £10.00 to cover food, drink, and overheads, which personally I still think is well worth it based on last weeks event.

If you’re interested in registering for the meeting, head over to the current homepage for the event

Unfortunately I’ll be at our Halloween party in clearwell caves that weekend..

Technorati Tags: mentalism, magic

So I actually did make both the London Mentalism Meeting and Marvellous Festival at Wellington Country Park yesterday. It was a bit of a rush though…

The London Mentalism Meeting was fantastic, about 30ish people turned up in the end, and we had a long discussion around mentalism, performance and the like in a little room under Treadwell’s bookshop.

The afternoon started with an introduction of everyone that was attending, before we took a break for lunch (sandwiches supplied!!), during that time I met up with quite a few interesting people, and we discussed some of the aspects of the art I’ve been having trouble with (like how do I practice this stuff really!?!) and listened to their stories and advice on getting into it all. I also managed to hook up with a few new, and some old acquaintances during the day.

After lunch we started to perform. I didnt (obviously!) but I did chip in a few ideas of some peoples stuff, and suddenly got that buzz again from thinking about stuff and coming up with new ways to get to an effect. My mind did start to wander a bit into other effects once the seed was sown, and I did come away with lots of notes and ideas on things to peruse later on..

At five o’clock we had to leave treadwells, most of us headed off for drinks and food, but myself and Dale Shrimpton decided to jump into a cab and head back to Paddington. There was an outside chance that I could also make it to Wellington Country park to Marvellous.

I did actually just manage to get home, changed and call a Taxi with a bit of time to spare. Bizarrely my local taxi company I use for the airport and local trips seems to have ‘upgraded’ me, in that when I go to the airport I get a BMW or Mercedes, then I go into the station I used to get a normal run of the mill car, however lately I’m always seeming to get a BMW or Mercedes regardless. So it was interesting to get one to drop me down at the festival!! I was waved straight through the barriers to almost as close as you could get to the stage.. I’m sure they thought I was the last act arriving late!!!

I was met at the gate by Colin and we got down to our pitch of the field to enjoy the rest of the acts (in fact I think I only missed the first and part of the second art!). I then enjoyed the rest of the evening drinking, eating and dancing with my close friends and my fiancee..

..it was a wonderful day..

Technorati Tags: gigs, magic, mentalism

So I’m pretty nervous about heading into london today for the London Mentalism Meeting. I think mainly because of my lack of experience, and the combined goliath knowledge of the others going, including Looch, and Andy Nyman, I’m definitely the new boy at the back here!!

Still, everything is a learning curve isn’t it, and I’m sure jumping in at the deep end with these guys will give me plenty to think about and experiment with..

The book pile is growing, and I guess I really need to stop buying, and read faster.. I’ve always been a book worm with technical and magical books, but I really need to give myself a kick and put this stuff into serious practice…

treadwells here I come…

Technorati Tags: magic, mentalism

I’ve not vanished from the face of the earth (yet!), blog updates have been few and far between the last week or so, mainly down to the intensive hunting for venues for the wedding.. Which we’ve now pretty much got to the end of..
The whole process of picking a venue is far more complicated than I ever thought, we tried to narrow it down to three final options; Trunkwell House, The Manor Hotel in Datchet, and Silchester House, each had their merits (and price tags!), and we’d thought when we took our mums out to see the venues, we’d get a final nod from the new in-laws..

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we had a late runner come in on the friday before we were due to visit the final three. Heckfield Place in hook, looked quite nice, and even though they weren’t expecting to show us round, they went out of their way to make us welcome at short notice..

In fact we liked it so much, we moved our wedding date.. The house is lovely and the 400 acres of grounds, lake and woods are apparently at our disposal for the day. They also have amazing gardens (which should make the whole wedding photo experience good), and we get to have the marquee!!!

Needless to say, we’re very excited.. if not very tired!!!

Technorati Tags: berkshire, hook, datchet, venue, wedding