Do you know the muffin man...

...who lives on Drury Lane? Cause if you do, you might want to tell him that having four security guards escort my two Lawyer friends off the Tamarai premises is not best way to get them to pay the discretionary 12.5% service charge he added to the bill! Here comes Lesson 4 - Tamarai sucks!

Confused, trust me so was I when I heard the story and to be honest I still am... here’s a breakdown of the events.

1. A friend of mine goes to a chic Asian fusion restaurant called Tamarai (on Drury) with another of her friends
2. The bill (no more than £180) arrives and due to crappy service they decide not to pay the full 12.5% discretionary service charge - they want to pay less
3. The PIlsbury Dough boy in the cheap suit then says that they must pay and if they don’t then he won't accept payment for the meal
4. He then says “If you can't afford to eat in places like this, you shouldn't come out - this is fine dining, not Mcdonalds"
5. After much wrangling he calls for four security guards to escort the two off the premises
6. She has now received a claim for £1,000 because apparently my friend “abused other diners, intimidated staff and vandalised property”

Right so when I finally heard the whole story I thought it would be best for me to write a list of rules for the muffin man management of Tamarai, I’m calling it ‘Restauranting 101’.

Rule #1 - A Discretionary Service charge is just that

Since when did discretionary’s definition in the dictionary change to compulsory and a discretionary payment compulsory to the point of it’s absence causing an entire bill to be forfeit. I’m pretty sure that the definition of 'Discretionary' is having the ability to decide or act using your judgement - SO A DISCRETIONARY SERVICE CHARGE DOESN”T HAVE TO BE PAID IT IS AT THE PATRONS DISCRETION!!!!

Rule #2 - Not accepting payment is kind of stupid

As a restaurant, surely it’s better for you to be paid for the food rather than allowing your muffin man staff to refuse payment because they are not going to receive 12.5%. Would you not prefer to take full payment and allow the discretionary charge to be paid - oh no not if your Tamrai, you simply treat your restaurant like it's William Hill and hope for the best.

Rule #3 - Four security guards + two girls = overkill

Even if you want to remove a couple of ladies from your premises, using four burly security guards is kind of going too far - neither of my friends aren’t in the WWF, they are normal, mild mannered legal professionals and don’t really need Grant and Phil Mitchell clones to get them to leave.  Telling them it’s not Mcdonalds and that it is a fine dining establishment does the trick!

Rule #4 - £180 does not equal £1,000

Now I know that being in the restaurant business means that food is your speciality, not numbers but a basic grasp of mathematics would probably serve you well. Not allowing two diners to pay a £180 does not give you cause to try and claim £1,000 at a later date (honestly a lobotomised goat with an 'F' in GCSE Food Technology could tell you that. Now you've got to prove that they broke the law (which they didn’t) and then spend more than £1,000 going through small claims (and probably lose).

Rule #5 - Don’t employ offensive staff

The whole reason I’m writing this post is because of the offensive nature the entire event played out. I know I don’t know all the details, but I do know that my friends were told that they basically should go to Mcdonalds because they weren’t good enough to dine in Tamarai due to questioning the service. Well if you hadn’t employed freakin’ idiots maybe they’d get their service charge and everyone would be happy.

Lesson learned -Tamarai sucks

But I guess I’m less confused now than I was at the start of this blog... the one clear thought crawling through the thicket of ‘What the heck’ is simply don’t go and eat at Tamarai - you’ll get shoddy service, be expected to pay for it, get insulted, be ejected by the Mitchell Brothers plus clones and then get a £1,000 bill a week later! Don't go and tell all your friends not to as well - the muffin man might make great cakes, but he makes shitty restaurants!

Parents, your children are calling you!

I’ve just realised that my life is about to move to a new age category. A few months ago I registered with a new Doctor’s surgery and had to fill out some personal information and I was still in the 21-29 bracket, but as I type I'm mere months from my 30th birthday I am about to having to tick the 30-39 check box. I don’t know why I’m surprised, the signs are everywhere; for the past couple of years the people in my life have been getting married, buying houses and having more and more children (seriously, they're popping them out everywhere). And I guess it's this progression from youthful checkbox to maturity laden checkbox is the reason I find myself writing on this particular subject matter - parents - or the lack there of.

Reading ‘The Week’ as I do every week, I came across a story focussing on whether young children were unduly sexualised in the media and how that makes them interact with one another. Boys treating girls as sexual objects, young women seeing sex as a legitimate way of realising their dreams. After reading the whole piece all I could ask was WHERE WERE THE FREAKING PARENTS? And not just where were the parents, but where were they when they could still make a difference? As parents surely it's our job to be the most positive influence in our children's life . To shape their World view because the last time I checked it wasn't the media's job to raise children - it was their job to sell units! But that doesn’t mean if parents don’t take charge of what they're consuming the media won’t.

So instead of pressurising the government into serving up a ‘Mc-Happy Meal’ of censored entertainment to ensure the future of our children, why don’t we take back control? You don't like the fact your children can see Lady Ga Ga flashing her crotch in her latest video looking like an extra from Prisoner Cell Block H you can do something about it - turn of the TV. Wondering why a 9 year old is talking about being too fat or the fact there is an alarming rate of eating disorders in children under 10? It might have something to with the same child sits in front of 'What Katie did Next' every week ingesting the utter nonsense emanating from everything Jordan does and the messages her ridiculous lifestyle endorses. Wondering where your son is getting his questionable views of women from? Maybe refuse to buy him latest copy of Nuts magazine and replace it with something a little less breast heavy.

It’s not rocket science, if we want to stop the ‘pornification’ of our children and change the patterns of behaviour, it’s up to us, otherwise we’re just shifting the raising of our children from the media to the government and not where it should lie... with us.

The Third Lesson - Celebrities can be kind of stupid

Ok, so I'm back on my soapbox - it's getting really comfortable up here. Once the sunny days of Summer come along I'm thinking about pimping it out. You know, a deck chair, a jug of Pimms, iPod and some stunners just chilling. Because in all honesty so many things are going on at the moment that my mind cannot comprehend. My mother once told me that common sense is not common and for years I treated it with the same disdain as most of her other old mother's tales. Tales of  square eyes and face freezing gusts of wind, but you know what, she was right!

Carol Vorderman should communicate in binary code...

Spending Thursday night doing what I do every Thursday night, I found myself in front of a Question Time panel that included the usual mix of politicians and celebrities (Journalist Will Self and Carol 'I've done nothing since Countdown' Vorderman were the guest celebs). My main bone of contention is with the former Countdown host, who while trying to appear to be an impartial commentator was quite clearly pushing  a conservative political agenda. Now I'm not a conservative and I didn't agree with much of what she said, but that's not my issue. My issue is that she tried to fool the audience and us at home that she wasn't repeatedly pushing an agenda only to then push said agenda with the very next breath. Whether she was talking about the public's right to know the crime John Venables' went back to prison for (we don't have a right to know by the way) or whether Lord Ashcroft was wrong to have not become a domicile of the UK when he said he would before accepting he peerage in 2000 (he was by the way) she just spouted out a load of Right Wing propoganda and slung mud at the opposition parties - that's what the politicians are there to do, celebrites are just there to prove they're not idiots and you failed. Honestly Carol, we're not stupid but you clearly are if you think we're going to fall for it. I sat there wondering whether Will Self was going to call her on it, but clearly too kind to embarrass her in front of millions simply gave her a masterclass in impartial commentary as only he can.

A quick mention for Estelle. What, if anything, were you thinking?

I was reading one of my favourite blogs the other day (Soul Bounce) and it turns out Estelle's latest track 'Freak' finally got a video. I watched it and Estelle, for whatever reason, decided that blacking up her face like some kind of freaky golliwog was a good look. We all know that Estelle's not exactly had the best stylists over the years - in fact I can't recall when she's ever looked as good as she probably could with some direction - but blacking up really?!?!?!

We all know the racial history associated with this look, so why would you want to recreate that? It's not even a parody. Then she went ahead to defend it basically saying that she's black, how can she black up? That's not an excuse... it's like a Jewish person dressing up as an Auschwitz guard and saying, it's ok I'm Jewish! It was offensive and stupid - anyone with common sense would have known better... but then again it's not common is it?

The Second Lesson - John Mayer is a douche

Yeah that's right, I said it. John Mayer for all his 'Waiting for the World to Change' antics is pretty much a douche and here lies the second lesson. Now don't get me wrong, I love his music (Continuum is my album right there and Gravity is my tune). But having caught wind of his Playboy interview I kind of find myself feeling like he's a little bit of a big mouthed... ummmm, what's the word I'm looking for, oh yeah DOUCHE! But I don't actually think he is a racist, maybe a dirty dawg, but not a racist.

Sure he used the 'N'word, but when I read it I immediately saw the context of his sentence and there was no malice in it, he was simply highlighting the foolishness of the question about his so called 'hood pass'. I know he shouldn't have used the 'N' word, but all it would need would be for someone to pull him aside and say "You know what John, that's never cool for you to say." If he repeats it again, then cyber space can deride him as whatever they like.

And as for his comments on not dating black women, I know plenty of people who wont date outside their race and they aren't labelled racists, they simply have a type of person they go for. Plus why would anyone want to date him when his M.O. is pretty much do the dirt then tell the world about it - not exactly a great dating experience (tell me if I'm wrong ladies). As far as I can tell, he's only getting such a hard time because he's a celebrity. If he were John the tube driver, no one would give a rat's crusty ass  who he wanted to date.

I honestly think there are more important things to be worried about right about now than if some musician drops an 'N-Bomb'. I mean last time I checked there's still devastation in Haiti, people are talking about racial profiling in transport hubs to combat terrorism, a general election is on it's way and we're still in the grip of a credit crunch. I don't know about you but that's all a little more interesting than John Mayer and his obviously far too big of a mouth!

Lessons learned!

So it’s been well over a month since I wrote my last piece and a lot of things have changed since then. I moved house. Got robbed (which is part of the reason I’ve not written – they stole my laptop). Been on holiday to Nigeria. Welcomed in 2010 and bought myself a new Macbook Pro - which is the reason I started writing again. There are so many topics that I feel like I need to address, but I can’t do it all in one piece, so I think I might start a series. Maybe like a five part series on the lessons I have learned since my last post (and trust me there are a few of them). And you know me (actually you don’t but anyway), I’ve always believed that when life is teaching you a lesson, it’s best to sit up and pay attention so you don’t need to repeat the class over and over and over again.

Lesson 1: Apple Macs are kind of cool

Ok so I know I might be a late comer to this party, but better late than never right? My Mac has given me a new lease of life for writing. Ok so it hasn’t, simply having a computer again did that. But having such a comfortable and intuitive machine does help. All I want to do recently is write (that and play Mass Effect 2 like a huge video game geek). I know that simple technology shouldn’t be the inspiration for my creative outlets but I often look back at the days I would carry 5 or 6 note books around, full of scribbles, anecdotes and whatever section of my debut novel I was working on at that time. You know what I’ve learned - if you’re going to carry something around you might as well make it as sexy as a Macbook (pro). So I guess this post is more about introducing you to Applonia (that’s her name by the way) as much as it has been about me reminiscing about pukka pads and sharpie pens!

Disney, oh why do I love you so?

So in the last post I admitted to watching Twilight and Sex & the City and now here I am admitting to loving Disney - but I promise I’m not really a 13 year old girl. It’s just all this excitement around the new movie The Princess & the Frog. In the days of Pixar and 3D it’s nice to see Disney going back to basics and hand drawing a movie again. But what’s more it’s a freakin’ musical! Is it me or has it been too long since Disney made a good old fashioned musical? Between Disney movies and Michael Jackson I acquired a love for music from an early age - but anyone who was between the ages of 4 and 10 since 2003 has been missing out. I’m going to watch it on Friday so I’ll be writing a review on it then - suffice to say I’m excited. If you’re excited like me, then here’s a little reminder of just how good Disney can be:

What ever happened to being an A man?

Ok, so I probably shouldn't admit this, being the proud alpha male I am, but last week I went to the cinema to watch Twilight Saga: New Moon. I know, I know... my status as an alpha male is in jeopardy, but hey I went to see Sex and the City so I guess I've been on shaky ground for a while! The worst thing about this is I hadn't even seen the first movie so I had no idea of the love between Edward, the 'vegetarian' vampire with a soul (ummm where have I heard that before, Joss Whedon might just want to sue someone) and teenage high schooler Bella.

Now I will admit, I was drawn quickly in to what is a visually stunning and surprisingly well written, acted and directed romance movie where the Bedward (that's Bella & Edward for those who don't know) chemistry is evident and that may be the very reason for this post. New Moon centres on the love triangle that forms when Edward leaves to keep Bella sage. Apparently being around blood thirsty vampires isn't exactly the best way to make it to your 19th birthday. Anyway, I digress, Bella starts hanging out with Jacob, who had obviously been eating some steroid shaped spinach and is now a hard as nails, vampire killing werewolf, and the thrid part of an interspecies love triangle the likes of which the cinema going public has never seen!

Now my issue is not about the film or even the tweenagers in the audience cackling every five seconds. No my problem rests purely on what is generally the emasculation of men. I'm pretty sure it started with Adrien Brody being cast as the leading man in Peter Jackson's King Kong. Our latte sipping hero fought the island's beasties, saved the girls and still had time to write loving prose and pretty much rewrote what it meant to be an alpha male. Even though Naomi Watts' Anne had another option (yes I know he was an 50 foot ape, but in essence he was the embodiment of the stereotypical alpha male).

Fast forward a few years to Twilight, where, for lack of a better descriptive term, Edward the vampire skulks about the place like an emo. He may be 109 years old but he has the emotional intelligence of a Fallout Boy listening 14 year old. God, he looked like he was going to cry in almost every scene and even when he had to show a little bit of fight when taking on the Vulturi to save Bella's life, he got his ass handed to him - repeatedly. And Jacob, the other member of this love triangle, the physically imposing werewolf who spent most of the movie saving Bella's life (from vampires, other werewolves and herself) while keeping her mind occupied was cast as the also ran to RPatts' emo vampire. Once again, the alpha male is recast as the undesirable, leaving Edward to cry his way back into Bella's heart.

But you know what, maybe I'm being harsh, maybe Edward really is a hero, maybe he's not a 100 year old cry baby. (I've since been told that if I had watched the first movie, I would be more sympathetic to Bedward and their love, but as it stands I'm not convinced). I'll save ultimate judgement until the next film though, but for now, I'm squarely in the Wolfpack even if that finishes off the job watching Sex and the City started!

Janet Jackson - you're still my homegirl!

I never watch the X-Factor. Ok that's a lie, but I never watch the live performances. Ok that's a lie too, but I only watch the live performances when there are guest artists worth watching. And in the past few weeks there have been some great performers (if not performances)… we've had cracked out Whitney, the gorgeous Alicia Keys and on Saturday we had the undeniable Janet Jackson.

With the sixth month anniversary of Michael's death fast approaching, I was feeling a little blue but watching Janet perform made me feel a whole lot better. I immediately remembered Rhythm Nation, Nasty and all the other great songs you've given us over the years. And the funny thing is that the void left by Michael's death might just have a little Janet shaped space in it. You helped to remind me that the Jackson legacy is much more than just one man (albeit a great man) and you are still very much alive! So here's to you Janet Jackson, I can't wait for the new album!

Check out the new single here