Viva le weekend! Insead is a large international business school that each year hosts an alumni ball at a chateau in the ancient forests of Fontainebleau. It's an amazing event. 11 of us (Organic and BT clients) got on the Eurostar on Friday afternoon with 12 bottles of champagne and hampers of food. Two hours later we had demolished the champagne and made a quite disruptive presence on the train. We arrived at Fontainebleau at 12.30am ready to continue the drinking only to find Fontainebleau shut down for the night. As our one French client said to the concierge "In the whole of France we must be the only people not drinking at this hour."



Saturday we had a private lunch for 20 at the 17th century Chateau de Bourron. I promptly got a sunburnt head (a theme for the weekend) enjoying the first real sun we'd seen in a very long time. After a nap, I donned the monkey suit, we met for more champagne (another theme for the weekend), and headed to the ball at the Chateau de Courrances.



The ball was themed the Silk Road, but was more Arabic in actuality. Lots of tents ot bellydancers and camels and champagne. There was a spectacular fireworks show set to music which flooded the valley in smoky, moody light, and a brilliant vodka and vibe lounge spinning Algerian-French lounge music. There is something just overwhelming about 2000 men in tuxedos, though as it was a business school they weren't the best looking crowd (lots of short men with leggy, bored blondes) and seven hours later we climbed on the busride through the dawn back to the hotel.



Sunday afternoon we visited the Chateau de Fontainebleau, by far the most impressive of the three chateaus, and wandered through the Napoleon rooms (it was in Fontainebleau that he gave up the Empire) and gardens. I continued getting sunburned and then napped in the afternoon heat. We gathered for one last boozy dinner with our client team who I like immensely even as they pressured us into joining them in the hotel room for a late night raid of the mini bar.



I love being in France. Everytime I'm there I resolve to study French and become fluent and it was a great pleasure to get to know another part of it. They really have the balance of life and pleasure well-defined. It's something I wish I was better at packing and bringing back to London.

Don't you hate it when an event doesn't live up to it's promise? Last night a group of us went to see Closer to Heaven at the Arts Theatre. The new Jonathan Harvey and Pet Shop Boys musical was meant to be the highlight of the Summer season but is an immense piece of stinking, steaming crap. Terrible acting, a suprisingly lame script from the brilliant mind of Gimme Gimme Gimme and ridiculous choreography made for bulky inflexible steroid queens. I spent the first act offended by its dull dull dull script then the second trying not to giggle during the high-school-monologue-death-scene acting "I cry these tears for you, I cry these tears for me, I cry these tears for all of us." Bloody hell, why not cry for those of us who paid 28 quid for an evening of pre-pubescent gay teen improvisation set to badly programmed drum loops. If nothing else, you learn that apparently you can convert from straight to gay if your drug dealer blows you in the toilet whilst your girlfriend watches on the security monitors. Apparently being in a k-hole is like watching Jonathan Livingston Seagull on an uncalibrated monitor. Did we really need to set all of the insipid gay stereotypes to pounding electronic music? It needs to be way more camp to be laughably bad until then it's less fun than the sound of a drag queen's fingernails scrapping across a chalkboard. Stay far away from it.

Success at last. Signed an agreement on the flat in Maida Vale. It's a lovely Victorian apartment on Elgin Avenue and has a large sunny reception/dining room that will be perfect for entertaining. It has two bathrooms, one which has a bidet, and a large bedroom. The commute to work will be reduced to 15 minutes, and it's on the tubeline that hits Soho, Oxford Street, the Heathrow Express, and Eurostar. I'm much relieved.

Just made an offer to rent a 1.5 bedroom flat in Maida Vale. Crossing my fingers that they accept it and that this nightmare come to an end.

The sun's gone, and we continue our nephologous discussions. We did have a briefly spectacular glimpse at summer when temperatures rose to 27 degrees over the weekend.



Estonia was the winner of this year's pageant of Eurotrash flash, Eurovision. Several Americans came over to sit on my couch, drink champagne, and revel in the tackiness. We had picked either France or Greece to win, and were surprised by the ascendancy of the Estonian entry to offered such dazzling musical bon mots as, "Not even time can take away The starlight from us, no, it won't fade Still we believe that we Were made to laugh and sing." It was painfully tacky, but surprising less tuneless than last year's debacle. There was a dirth of cute boys, however, with only Spain's Ricky Martin-look-alike getting any sort of appreciation. The UK entry bombed scoring only slightly higher than last year's monumental bomb, Nicki French. And Ireland,winner of more contests than any other country, scored so badly it was relegated out of next year's competition. Even more surprising, only Lithuania managed the complete lack of taste that's very much in fashion this year.



Still flathunting, and have now broadened my search to include Maida Vale. Looking at two places today and hoping one of them will be a winner.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

The sun is finally out and the temperature starting to warm. We may have Spring yet, though I'm sure I'll soon be complaining about the humidity. We had another holiday weekend here in England but I stayed home and worked on getting over my recent cold. I got up early on Saturday to look at yet more tacky, pastel-coloured, overpriced, badly furnished, inconvenient flats in Clapham. If I walk into another peach-coloured room I may scream. And as several agents have described places as tasteful, I'm starting to doubt there's any taste at all in the industry. Plain white walls would be a blessing right now. I then had a mediocre mexican lunch with Lance to celebrate cinco de mayo.

Rented a tuxedo for the Insead ball at the end of the month. They're quite cheap to rent here, 46 pounds for the four-day weekend, but I'm afraid I'll rather look like a waiter in mine. I'm looking forward to a weekend of drinking champagne in a French chateau even if it is with a bunch of MBAs.