The London Lounge

The Rules is a great venue, agree. Just keep you hat with you - it might walk away with another guest :cry: A part from places already mentioned, the Durrants hotel bar is another rather cosy place. cheers, david In my last visit to London I went to the Durrants. Nice and cosy place, the carpet tho...

"If you want to be happy some hours get drunk If you want to be happy for a week kill your pig If you want to be happy two years get married. If you want to be happy all your life till a garden" Chinese proverb. (Or so was I told) Voltaire translation into French of Horatio "sapias vina liques" (fro...

David was very kind and took the initiative to send me a couple of Ms. Lambert´s apricot jams jars. I was surprised and delighted for after his praise of the product I was tantalized so to speak though also paralyzed for Ms. Lambert´s apricot is something of a surprise. Shipping and handling put the...

Dear David, Hector et al.. I finally laid hands (or tongue) on Staub´s apricot jam. Donau Tal Marille in the original, I think, not bet. Tasting notes. 1.- Colour. Darker than the usual apricot jam and by a considerable margin. 2.- Consistency. Purée like. Though every now and then you get a chunk o...

It seems gloves continue to be the formal thing when it comes to balls. Here you have the Vienna event hotly contested usually by demonstrators.

BEFORE...AND BEYOND. Just to add a bit of pepper to the topic. Our forefathers used the glove in formal occasions in quite a different way. With tails always in a ball to prevent the crude experience of skin to skin contact. Here you have a couple of examples. http://i.imgur.com/eHw8G.jpg http://i.i...

Quite frankly, gents, I never ever imagined I would be discussing hat and glove etiquette in my days. Would you believe that I happened to actually study how to don (whatever) a hat? Primary School (private, nuns, I was five and six years old, never forgot the lesson. The book must be somewhere in t...

You see Hector, I am trying to find a distributor for Ms. Sarah Lambert jams, recommended by davidhuh for his distributor http://www.rvrtee.ch/shop/honig__konfit ... __provence is German Swiss and therefore his shipping and handling are very expensive. I cannot find anywhere in the web any reference...

As a tailor I look for amazing feats of craft. How about Sydney Greenstreet in "The Maltese Falcon" ? And Robert Shaw in "The Sting". Shaw was a barrel chested rugby player. His "quick" fitting suits never move. Also Jackie Gleeson. Always Elegant and Easy. He had true style. And of course DiNiro i...

Dear Castiglione, since you are living in Spain, have a fondness for marmalades but seem not to have an utterly sweet tooth, may I recommend, for your apricot-off days of course, you try the RAF tomato marmalade from de la Vega de Almeria ? I know, I know,... its name -which comes from the tomato v...

I watched yesterday "The Big Sleep" once again. Great sartorial culture all around. Not only Bogart but the bad guys too wore flawless garments, suits and coats. . If you like The Big Sleep for its story watch Chinatown (Polanski) if you haven't already. It has the same enticing kind of complicatio...

I heard about it and I know they got a prize somewhere "to the best taste of the year". Too conservative, I think, for new tastes, I will change my mind just to humour you, my obliging friend. Will let you know. Thank you for showing me the ways of the vega. Salud.

To loarbams. No you are not too fussy. I am too lazy. My keyboard is not English I sometimes dispense with some marks. As to sightings in hotels, sorry I have no sightings to remember. Well upon second thought Don Ameche at the Miguel Angel in Madrid and Walther Mattau and Ed Harris at the Sutton Pl...

Dear Alden and David. What an awesome couple! Well I started to order in all directions; we will see if I get answers when and how. I do not feel up to the task of discussing Demel for all I did there was to have millefeuilles usually on Sunday morning. I can advice, though, not to go to Demel late ...

Thank you for all the tips. In due order. Demel is my list of hauts lieux and it used to my a favourite waterhole during my Vienna days. Never tried its apricot marmalade, just its mille feuilles. Sublime! As to Ms. Lambert I was instructed to order and to wait for instructions, which I am doing. I ...