MrBen

Question: now that pop up restaurants and shops etc are everywhere. Is this just another passing fad or is the creative use of retail space here to stay?

Germany next competitive international is Scotland at home in September. Bring it on.

And a hand written guide of good places to eat and drink in the area and stuff to do.

Lots of small things make a big difference.keep it simple and go for functional over aesthetics alone. Get the layout of the space and light right by thinking how people will realistically use it. Pet hates of mine: - a shite bed. Get something solid and a good firm mattress with a high spring count.get decent bed linen with a high thread count in cotton. Muji do good stuff as do white company. - badly fitted showers with too many dials with no markings to help you work out how to use it. Get a single dial with hot and cold. Get the shower screen ls fitted perfectly. If it's on a bath fill the bath with water first to get the correct height of the door when fitting. Use big tiles which are easier to clean and less grout to go mouldy. If its a wet room get the angle of drainage on the floor right. Soft closing toilet seats. - wifi that doesn't work well. Gone are the days when b&bs could piggy back off the main house wifi. All decent places now have multiple routers or zones to ensure good coverage and bandwidth. Set an easy to remember password not 15 hexadecimal digits. - in the kitchen good solid pan, cutlery and decent sharp knives chopping boards and a quality range of utensils for cooking. Cheap stuff doesn't last. - Avoid fancy lighting schemes and keep it simple. I stayed in the Sir Alfred in Amsterdam the other week. Its a cava dispensing hipster joint with high class hookers crowding out their Peruvian Japanese diffusion tapas bar or whatever. It had a shower in the middle of the room and sex toys in the mini bar. Fine if that's your ticket but all I wanted to do when I got in that night was to switch the lights out and it took me 25 mins to find the Lutron switch and find the "night scheme".Fiddly bullshit like that is no use in the real world. - Sound proofing the barn walls . I had a terrible experience in a converted barn by stansted airport once with crap stud walls and floors which meant I heard two couples humping in stereo whilst every toilet noise from another room. Get foam backed plasterboard and rock wool in your cavity walls. - A big enough coat rack and place to put dirty shoes at door will help with cleaning overhead. - wireless music dock to play own music via blue tooth etc - a place to put your case in each bedroom. Protect walls in these areas with some clear perspex or a timber upstand. - decent sofa with cushions and throws. -A WOOD BURNER will help make it more lettable in winter

MrBen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Points for anyone watching who genuinely used one > of these descriptors tonight: > > - Organised > - Efficient > - Machine > - Ruthless > - Anything invoking Godwin CCat believe I didn't have clinically efficient on this list. Anyone who can describe the Germans tomorrow without using one of the above wins a point.

Yawn. Is any of this a surprise to anyone? Has a 20% a year rise ever sustainable historically? And looking back even just 30 years what happened next? I will vote for any party that has the balls to tax the sale of second or more homes at a special CGT rate equal to income tax. In 3 to 5 years i just hope anyone who just bought in London will be comfy at a 4% plus base rate. Whatever Carney just said. For the average home owner wanting tk be better off long term now is the time to pay down mortgage debt not to leverage further.

There is no comparison with Dulwichmum. SHe could spell and she was funny. This one is just taking a break from knocking one out on the free porn sites.

As in: "Whit y'oan the night then eh?" " Am oan the peevo n gas cookerz bud n few wee eccies aifter eh?"

Not sire there was ever any truth in that Hotel DV rumour anyway. It dates back to 2011. Any change would be good there to be honest.

If The Dog was Greene King or a small pub co it could be great. The location, history and interior has carried it along regardless of M&B. But I would welcome a Hotel du Vin provided it keeps a buzzy bar, prices ok-ish and doesn't trash that vintage panelled interior by painting it all black.

The Dutch and the Germans really don't love each other. In IMO that alone would make for a better final

Points for anyone watching who genuinely used one of these descriptors tonight: - Organised - Efficient - Machine - Ruthless - Anything invoking Godwin Brazil showed they were a house of cards. At 5-0 with 60 mins to go I was cringing for them though.

Anyone who cares about preserving London's musical heritage should sign the petition at: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/head-of-democratic-services-don-t-bin-tin-pan-alley

For music lovers...Danny Baker's radio doc on London's Tin Pan Alley was great: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b048j11z

...was bored. There's too much to do/experience and too little time.

Well that aside I really enjoyed most of it. I even enjoyed Kasabians set, despite having always thought they were a bunch of knobs.

And she's come out today saying she WASN'T miming. Perhaps the music showbiz equivalent of Paul Daniels saying the saw and the box were real. A white lie for the greater good.

Aw man...just watched that Dolly clip. I feel crushed and devalued. Empty actually. I'm due to watch it with the missus tonight. Being a mid west girl she's a big fan. I won't be telling her.

Possible exception for Ian Brown.

But why is that irritating? The act of discussing it, yes. But surely its not too much to expect rising rock superstars to actually sing live. Otherwise its just a pretty face and Apple Mac fronting a song written by a bearded man in a cardigan?

I really enjoyed this years coverage and had a great weekend with home cooking, beers, world cup and Glastonbury. I also swore others were lip syncing but my mates there texted back saying it was the time delay....so glad it wasnt just me. Look at all girl rockers Haim - they sounded way too polished to be live - perhaps guitar parts but singing was def not live?

MrBen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Good decision and about time more bans like this > were made to preserve some integrity in football. Next due up - Sepp Blatter himself. He's put himself up for relection again - corrupt, deluded and vain, most of him reminds me of Zimbabwe's Mugabe.

Good decision and about time more bans like this were made to preserve some integrity in football.

Its still possible to do cheap holidays though... Booking flights and trains well in advance saves a fortune as does camping. I really wanted to go camping in the UK this summer but was surprised at how busy campsites in England get which kind of spoils it for me. You cant beat cooking on a gas stove and smelling of fire smoke.

Really like staying at home in Dulwich during the school holidays and bank hols. Less queue's, quieter trains/buses in and generally more chilled out at weekends. A bit like how it used to be 10 years ago.