Seven Days to Say I Love You - Ashley Hames

Ashley Hames's first novel entitled, “Seven Days to Say I Love You” takes you through the week leading up to his fathers death. It is personal to the point of uncomfortable at times because Hames style drags you into the room. Standing next to someone while they fight the internal battle against insomnia and depression while struggling to verbally express feelings of love for someone that they know they are about to lose is very tough.

As the book begins and you begin to grasp what you have taken on but don’t know how far the story can go given its deeply personal nature. Unlike some books of a similar ilk, it is not difficult to get into and within pages you find yourself looking for any opportunity to carry on reading. It reads quickly and easily but at no point does it lose its sensitivity or poignancy. The book deals with loss with the maturity of hindsight but Hames doesn’t shy away from using his own experiences to illustrate why at points in his life his behaviour changed, such as his abstinence from drugs following the death of his friend.

Hames deals with grief in a no frills manner and people who have experienced loss will be able to relate to his honest descriptions of the weeks and months that followed his fathers passing. Throughout the book you want to reach out to Hames and his family and give them a hug. This sounds painfully simplistic and utterly unanalytical but you find yourself so attached that the instinctive human reaction is to reach out and hug them.

Hames has self published this book and it is only available on the kindle but even for those like me who love the printed word, it shouldn’t stop you giving this one a go. Many tears were shed on tube journeys reading it on my phone and

Meat Liquor, burger delights - 11/11/11

Meat Easy has gained cult status for its burgers and pop-up van but this was brought mainstream, to some peoples horror I imagine, by an appearance on Jamie Oliver’s around Britain show a few weeks ago.

I have always wanted to go to Meat Easy’s van but it was stationed all the way out in New Cross. I live in North London and so quite frankly I didn’t want to make the effort to go all the way to South London for a burger.

If I’d known then what I know now, I would have made the effort.

Meat Easy now known at least temporarily as Meat Liquor, occupies a tinted windowed venue just off Oxford Street in central London. This location may seem to be against the brands image but with no signage, you’d never find it unless you were looking for it.

You walk in past a bouncer (I have no idea why as he didn’t even open the door and it was only 5.45pm) and into a darkened room decorated in black, red and white paint splatters with pasted posters on parts of the ceilings. The bouncers’ one instruction, take your own seat and a waitress will spot you, served me well though, as I was quickly attended to by a friendly and charming waitress who took my order of a bacon cheeseburger and a side of fries.

The toilets were wonderfully clean and you could see throughout that nothing in the décor was an accident. All the customers around me were seen to immediately once they’d sat down and at no point was you made to feel like anything but a very welcome guest.

When my food arrived I looked upon it with awe. The burger was a true delight to behold and a large portion of fries accompanied it.

The burger tasted as good as it looked 10/10

I took a bite into my burger and the tenderest meat I have had in a long time melted in my mouth along with a delicious combination of pickles, onion and sauce. It truly was the kind of burger that you resent because you know that you won’t get anything like it anywhere else.

The waitress, being attentive not intrusive, came over to ask how my meal was and went to take away my unused knife and fork. I felt embarrassed by this as surely it was an example of my uncouth ways.

“Don’t worry.” Said the waitress, “no one uses their knife and fork. Just enjoy the food!”

I then tried to settle into my fries and this is where the experience nearly came unstuck.

My fries were lukewarm at the hottest end of the bowl and stone cold at the other. The fries that were lukewarm were rock hard from being overcooked and the cold ones were just the right side of raw to be acceptable.

If I wasn’t in a rush then I would most certainly have complained.

The rest of the burger was a delight with each mouthful offering something slightly different as the heaped salad and sauce combined with the juices from the meat.

I can only recommend Meat Liquor for their burgers and friendly staff but I would not recommend ordering the fries. I hope that the supreme taste of the burgers doesn’t distract them from making all the food pleasing and I would like to say that I am sure it was a one off but taking hot food to a customer is such a very basic thing that I cannot imagine it was.

The bacon cheeseburger was £7 and the fries were £3 and despite my bad experience with the fries, you won’t get a better burger, combined with the warm and trendy atmosphere and with such friendly staff for the same price.

Everybody should take a trip to Meat Liquor.

Find Meat Liquor at: http://www.meatliquor.com/

Hamlet - Young Vic Theatre - 11/11/11

The man of a thousand voices, Michael Sheen, has taken on one of literatures most iconic characters, Hamlet, in Ian Rickson’s depiction of Shakespeare’s classic at the Young Vic theatre in Southwark.

Despite the season being sold out I turned up on the first day of the limited morning release of tickets and as I was on my own, I managed to secure the very last ticket…seat A2. I was filled with excitement as I have been a huge fan of Michael Sheen but my worry, as I am sure many peoples worry was, that we had never seen Michael Sheen. I shared a few jovial texts with friends before the show debating whether Cloughie, Blair or Frost would grace the stage. I needn’t have worried.

Before the show, the audience had the opportunity to go on a pre-tour ‘experience’, which it turned out was a walk through the back stage of the theatre and as the play went on, the context of what was going on on stage fell into place with the walk around.

The backstage and indeed main stage seemed to be leftovers from the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest soundstages. Big mechanical doors, office space and a giant sand pit were all things that you are greeted with but in the end it all works. This mental asylum style of staging is reinforced by the theatre staff being dressed as orderlies as they show you to your seats.

Sheen and Robinson star as Hamlet and Ophelia

The language of Shakespeare is the language of a long gone era and in my opinion takes a supremely talented actor to pull it off. I have seen many productions of the Bards plays but none have had a cast like this. The speech can often be stunted, as I imagine it feels like you’re performing in a foreign language, but in this instance, apart from some of the more minor roles, it flowed well.

Michael Sheen is commanding and has the audience on tenterhooks before uttering his first line. As the play progresses he becomes all-consuming making the audience cower as he spits his lines in rage and takes Hamlet’s madness to crashing crescendos.

I was also entranced by the performances of James Clyde as Claudius, Sally Dexter as Gertrude and Vinette Robinson as Ophelia. These three fine actors were shining lights in a cast that could have easily fallen into complacency knowing that they were playing alongside such an enigmatic leading man. Clyde and Dexter combined the childish hedonism of newlyweds with the vindictive cruelty of a King and the naïve heartache of a Queen and mother who is losing control and Robinson was chilling and came close to stealing the show from Sheen as Ophelia crumbled following her father’s death.

When I saw that the play was 3 ½ hours long I was worried and I don’t care how much of a philistine you many think this makes me. In the end, the 3 ½ hours just weren’t long enough to watch this majesty unfold before me.

I don’t read Shakespeare, I only go and watch it being performed and for anyone like me, I cannot recommend this production highly enough. The Young Vic should be applauded for taking a leap of faith in Rickson’s vision for this play. I haven’t been to the Young Vic before but they have demonstrated themselves to be innovative with their productions and so I won’t hesitate to go back and see anything they are putting on in 2012.

I can understand why the play has its critics. It certainly isn’t a purists delight but it is enjoyable throughout.

It must also be noted that The Young Vic have some wonderful and very helpful staff and their merchandise and programmes are all very reasonably priced.

After the show I met Michael Sheen and the rest of the cast and they were very humble in the face of the many compliments that people were throwing at them, however well-deserved they were.

Tea Tea Tea!

Tea is seen by so many as a staple of our nation. We built an empire on leaves plucked from the hills of India, the plains of Kenya and if we were ever in real need for a cuppa, we could have exchanged goods for all the tea in China.

The London Tea company was formed in 2003 and as with, in my opinion, most good businesses, they started by producing the flavours that they liked. They say they were ahead of the game in wanting to produce teas that weren’t produced without using harsh chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Now they are hoping to be ahead of the game with a new range of teas and herbal infusions.

Raspberry and Chilli – This fair-trade and organic tea is less subtle that most fruit teas that I have tasted but that is not a bad thing. The danger of a fruit tea is that their bark is often more power than their bite but with the chilli added to the more subtle raspberry flavour, there is a real kick to the flavour with every mouthful. If there was such a thing as a ‘getting ready to go out’ tea, then this is it.

Peppermint and spearmint – This fair-trade and organic infusion of two flavours you would not normally expect to be sharing the same bag is a curious little creature. Each sip held me on the cusp of something, I kept waiting for that final burst but each time I was pulled back from the brink. This mixture of mints was a tender kiss that left you wanting more.

White tea elderflower – This organic tea seems to stick more stringently to the rules of flavoured teas than the first two. It smells delicious and looks delightful as the tea infuses in the water and the flavour is wonderfully subtle. It certainly doesn’t give you that dry mouth feeling that some flavoured teas do. The tagline on the packet is, ‘an English summer’ and I couldn’t agree more. It is light, refreshing and takes you to an open space as the sun is setting.

Intense chai – As someone who has spent a good chunk of time travelling around the Himalayas, it was with trepidation that I made this fairtrade beverage. When products have words like ‘chai’ on, they are implying some kind of cultural connection, and most tea manufactures manage to produce something so generic that you could mistake one brand for another. This is where the London Tea Company have excelled themselves, this drink could be set down at any table with pride. It carries flavours from misty mountain sides straight into a mug.

Green tea tropical – By my own admission I have never been a huge fan of green teas but I live to be disproved, plus the label says organic and that’s good for you, so I went for it. I found there to be an initial dry mouth attack but that quickly made way for a thin, floral fruitiness, akin to warm Um Bongo. It was refreshing and I am sure it carries many wonderful health values but for me it didn’t hit the spot. It was however well received when I asked other people in my office to give it a try.

There we have it. Hardly a culture vultures guide to tea but they have been tested, well and truly, by someone who drinks a lot of hot drinks throughout the working day.

The London Tea Company have the right ethos and many larger companies could take note of their approach but for us, the drinker, it’s not so much about the company. They have produced a set of very fine teas that I would not hesitate to give to my Mum.

If that isn’t a recommendation, what is?

If you want to find out more about the London Tea Company or to order your supplies, please visit: http://www.londontea.co.uk

Many thanks to the lovely people at Story PR 

Grace Dent - How to leave twitter

Grace Dent’s latest literary offering is a 198 page hug. The kind of hug you get from your Mum just after she has told you off for being very bad indeed. A hug that knows you couldn’t help yourself, couldn’t stop yourself from inflicting pain that turns into self-loathing.

‘How to leave twitter – My time as queen of the universe and why this must stop’  is a how to kit for knowing when you have just taken things a little bit too far and have become detached from real life.

The book begins with a list of 100 things about Grace and twitter. You will read it and cringe as you realise at least 75 apply to you. This isn’t a bad thing as Grace herself has admitted that they are about her and her relationship with twitter, but they will provide food for thought and are an excellent introduction to the book and its point.

For those who don’t follow Grace (@gracedent) then you’re missing out. For those who don't know Grace's work, you are also misses out. She is an incredible writer who has a must read column in the Guardian guide and has published on many other platforms. Worth a google.

Like so many tweeters you just extract what you want and disregard the other stuff. I like when Grace tweets about Eastenders, despite not being an avid viewer I know enough to laugh at the jokes about characters and plotlines. I have never watched The Killing and as such choose to ignore those bits, you get the idea.

We all have something to learn about the bridge between real life and social networking. I used it to interact socially with people with a common interest, for work and career networking and to follow a few celebrities. I do sometimes find the line between twitter and real life blurred but I have in the past enjoyed tweetups with great people who work in my industry and I have discovered great writers through it. I have also found myself trapped when following someone who spouts so much bile and who I was worried about unfollowing lest the unleash it on me, though this morning whilst reading the book, I did manage to unfollow them and so far, no recriminations.

A key theme that runs throughout the book is that you should treat real life and twitter in much the same manner. You would not walk down the street and shout abuse at a stranger, or go up to someone and expect them to listen to your every whimsy even though you quite obviously haven’t got anything in common.

Many readers will smugly think, oh that’s common sense, I would never do that. I was one of them readers but a brief period self-reflection, I knew that I needed to modify my online behaviour. Every time I log on now all I see are the stereotypes that Grace mentions and as with all stereotypes, they are based in very intelligent observations of others. The one stereotype that bothers me most are the people who will retweet (RT) anything.

“@football_hero you’re amazing and I loved watching you play. RT pls?”

Why would anyone RT that? I don’t believe it is an example of people self-promoting their achievements because that made up example is exciting compared to some of the crap people pass on. Much of it is a comment on something current, my examples mainly relate to football, and people ask for their point to be RT’d. It is mainly middle aged men that do it and I have no idea why and even less idea why the person asked to RT something do.

You will laugh and blush as you walk hand in hand with Grace through her experiences on twitter and you will close the final page believing that you can change your ways. I hope I can but probably not to the extent I should being so I will undoubtedly post this on my twitter and ask people to RT it.

As someone who works in PR, I could not think of a better example of a book to show the people in charge of social media at your work as an example of how not to conduct yourself on twitter. It has the capability to be used as much as a marketing tool as it is to be used a fine piece of writing.

Grace is entertaining throughout and I cannot recommend this book highly enough to those who do actually use twitter for more than telling people that you’re having a shower now.

As an end note, the first tweet I read from Grace after I finished the book was “@gracedent about to take Britain’s most pregnant woman out for lunch. Beware London”. I guess it is sometimes a case, and my Grace’s own admission, a case of do as I say, not as I do.

£7.99 well spent, cheaper than the priory.

The picture in the piece is of a signed manuscript I received from Grace after she said she had a few to give away on twitter. I was at Glastonbury very drunk when she made the offer and I only turned my phone on and checked it my chance. Twitter can be wonderful.

In case you're interested, I have written further on the topic of twitter at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dominic-stevenson/twitter-dont-abuse-or-it-_b_901564.html

You can buy Grace's book online at http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Leave-Twitter-Queen-Universe/dp/product-description/0571277748

but I bought my copy at The Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green - support your local book shops.

God Collar - Marcus Brigstocke

This is only a short review because I was genuinely astounded by the quality of this book. I want to explain why I was astounded not spend a while droning on about what good language the author used.

‘God Collar’ by Marcus Brigstocke took me by surprise. I have always known him to be among the more educated of comedians, someone who offers out thoughts rather than choosing to pick on someone and unleash bile in their direction. I took a stab at God Collar, I had heard of it but not read any reviews but I had enough trust in his reputation as an entertainer to make the purchase.

Brigstocke manages to ask the questions that a lot of us really do want to ask. Is there a god? If so, what form does god take? Who is god’s allegiance really for? What has religion done wrong throughout history? What has religion done right throughout history?

When I was at university, I asked a friend of mine who was a born again Christian, if there was a god and what had god brought to their life? I was going through a tough time and like Marcus, I felt there to be a gap in my life. Instead of answering me, my friend lectured me and dragged me along to a Christian union meeting. This was incredibly unhelpful and pushed me away from embracing any consideration that a deity may have started this giant ball rolling.

The book opens with Brigstocke telling us about his friend James who had tragically passed away a few years previously. He told of how he fell into a depression and struggled for a long time. Many people say that writing can be cathartic but throughout this book you really do take a journey with him. You see him question things with a desire to learn not a desire to listen and then rebuke.

When my Great Granddad died I was eleven years old. I was woken up to be told that he had died in the night and for the first time in my life, there was someone who I loved who I would never see again. I cried and then went to my parents bed, laid there for a long time, refusing to eat anything other than a fish and chip player meal with mushy peas that you could buy in my local shop. There was no relevance to the meal but I remember it and so it must have meant something. It took me days to get the strength up to leave the house and when I did, it was for the funeral. The only thing I remember from the funeral is my Great Grandmother crying and the coffin going on the conveyor belt behind a curtain. I strained my eyes to look until the last second and then I closed them and opened them once I knew it had disappeared. It was the only thing I could do in the whole situation that was on my terms. I chose the last moment to see him.

Sometimes prayers aren’t answered. I knew my Great Granddad was ill, I prayed for him but it didn’t work.

Some prayers strangely enough do seem to work. A few years after this my Great Grandmother fell and fractured her skull. She was very old at this point and the doctors said that all they could do was try and reduce the swelling so she wasn’t in pain but that she probably wouldn’t even make it through the operation. That night I went to bed distraught and decided to say a prayer. About two seconds after I said amen, the phone rang and it was the hospital to say that somehow she had pulled through and would make a full recovery. In my heart of hearts I know that all this had already gone on but I couldn’t help thinking that someone had given it all a nudge in the right direction.

A similar thing happened when my Uncle was ill, the hospital told us to say our goodbyes and we did, but we also said that if he made it through the night we’d drive down and see him to say goodbye in person. I prayed again and the next morning he was alive. We drove down to Reading where he was and saw him. Again, I know that amazing doctors probably had more of a hand in this than a god but it still felt good. My Uncle survived until a week before my eighteenth birthday. He tried his best to make it but couldn’t.

That was my brief journey into whether there is a god or not but Marcus expertly guides us through the theory, concepts, the historical facts without dismissing them as easily as most do.

He provides a raw and honest account of his friendship with James, of his own grandparents relationship and helps to break huge walls of theory and history to make it accessible to all. There is no preaching and if anything, he offers only encouragement to those he look inside to find something missing and fill it with god. If there is any anger, it is aimed at extremism, prejudice and the way people judge before understanding.

This book really took me on a journey, not of self discovery because we all have to do that for ourselves, but a journey where I didn’t feel stupid for thinking that a god may have helped my relatives stay alive or where I didn’t feel like I was disrespectful for not believing in what so many do.

Don’t buy the ebook, buy a hard copy to sit it next to the Gideons bible you stole from your last stay in a travelloge.

I cannot applaud the author anymore because anyone who can make you feel like Brigstocke can hasn’t written something for the plaudits, he has written it because he had to, there was no choice.

You can buy God Collar at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Collar-Marcus-Brigstocke/dp/0593067363

You can find out moreabout Marcus Brigstocke at: http://marcusbrigstocke.com/

I haven't used a capital G in god like Marcus did in his book. I used a little g to see what spell checker would do. It did nothing but it did change the c in Christian to a C.

The Descendents - Shepherds Bush Empire - 25/04/11

What do you get if you cross the Pet Shop Boys, Damien Hurst’s granddad and the fat brother from ‘My name is Earl’?


The Descendents.


Having been billed to me as the forefathers of punk, I expected more than four middle aged men in middle aged men beer garden outfits. I wasn’t ill informed though, their sound has been echoed and in many cases poorly imitated throughout their thirty three year career.


I am not a punk, nor am I that big of a punk fan but like most of my age group, I have heard of a lot of the bands. I have a particular fondness for The Vandals and The Dwarves but there are not many more that I could name off hand. I was kindly bought the ticket by my friend (Mighty Ducks Chris) who was visiting London for the bank holiday and as live music is ALWAYS a wonderful thing, I was more than happy to accompany him.


The first support band, Teenage Bottle Rocket, have a much more entertaining name than their sound. My heart did break a little when the lead singer announced that he had named his son ‘Milo’ after the lead singer of The Descendents and the majority of the audience ignored him. The lead singer was charming, in a fan boy kind of way and you couldn’t ever question his joy at opening for his heroes. Overall they were enjoyable and their enthusiasm carried them further into my heart than I was willing to let their music penetrate my ears.


Dead to Me rocked up, or should I say punked up, on stage next. The most I could bring myself to say throughout the first few songs of their set was, ‘the singer is a very angry young man’. I just wanted to hug him because clearly he’d never been hugged before. Their music was tolerable in the main and in what I suspect were accidently isolated incidents, they produced both lyrically and musically quality songs. It was just a shame that they didn’t slow it down, soften it up and show the crowd the obvious spirit that was in their hearts.


As the expected time on stage for the band that everyone had come to see came and went, fans got anxious, the support crews got anxious and Eric Melvin from NOFX got merrily pissed. A cheer worthy of their heritage greeted the band as they walked on but it was soon oh too obvious why the anxiety was present. Within thirty seconds of The Descendents appearing on stage, lead singer Milo threw his microphone to the floor and stormed off stage, a look of horror on his face.


It was swiftly explained that his voice had gone the day before and this immediately divided the audience. One half frustrated because having waited so long for the band to make a UK appearance they were now facing a cancelation and the other half feeling betrayed by a band who knew they couldn’t provide what they had advertised yet hadn’t postponed the show.


The show went on though. Not the show that anyone had expected and what many argued, a show that they didn’t pay for but as all pointed out, it was unique. The band were joined by members of both support bands and Eric Melvin at different stages of the set and Milo valiantly tried to sing on several songs but he just provided a death metal interlude into a reasonable set from a band struggling on. An absolute highlight for me was when they brought on their long serving soundman to sing a couple of tracks. He looked like the Shermanator’s dad (American Pie) but he did rock as hard as anyone. Kudos to him.


I cannot really comment on The Descendents as I cannot honestly say that I heard them play. I liked what I heard and I wish I had heard them in their hay day but it would be unfair to criticise. I hope to see them again though because in there, between the coughing a spluttering of an obviously upset front man, there was a definite spark and something worth seeing.