There's a restaurant at Disney's MGM Studios called The Prime Time Cafe.

As you would expect from the masters of themeing this eatery has exquisite design.

The idea here is the perfect 1950's family home at meal time.

Vintage TV's play vintage shows like 'I Love Lucy and 'Leave It To Beaver' to add to the atmosphere.

You need to make a reservation for lunch or dinner as soon as you enter the park in the morning as this place is very popular. When you return for your meal you are directed to the lounge to soak up the ambience or maybe have a cocktail.

The servers are all 'cast' as your cousin, sister, aunt, mum, brother etc and are annoyingly good at playing up the family meal atmosphere. We've seen diners getting applauded for joining the 'clean plate club' and we've seen others getting the 'open wide' treatment when they don't eat all of their vegetables.
When your meal is over 'Mum' sits at the table with you and explains that "you're a big boy now so you need to give me some money for groceries" then hands you the bill. On our last visit our 'Mum' got a little flirty with us which threw a kind of sick twist into the scenario. Eeda-puss-shmee-da-puss.
The food itself is superior quality comfort food in enormous portions and the desserts are stunning. Here's the menu.

This place gets two spellcnut thumbs up.

It was very bright and sunny at EPCOT in December last year. It was so bright that I was forced to purchase some sunglasses (I gave up buying them years ago as I always sit on them or lose them 12 hours after purchase). I bought these in the gift shop at Mission Space (the best simulator EVER and I was not nauseous afterwards).

In the gift shop mirror I looked cool and a bit 'pop star-ish'. In the gardens at the Canada pavilion an hour later I just looked silly and 'a bit twat-ish'. So I took them back and swapped them for the ones below. Much more middle of the road and now kids didn't point at me and laugh.
I even splashed out an extra $2 for that little bit of string that old people use to keep the specs around your neck which has made it impossible for me to sit on them.

Coincidences and six degrees of blah blah blah
I was sitting on the tube the other morning minding my own business. I looked up from my book (Man About Town by Mark Merlis) and the book being read by the chap opposite me caught my eye. He was a fairly ordinary fella. Tall, grey hair, plain looking and about 50 years old and he was reading ‘Keep On Dancing (My Life And The Paradise Garage)’ by Mel Cheren. I knew this book existed and I knew it would have a fairly cliquey readership but I had never seen a copy (let alone a hardback version like this chap was reading). Not that I’m a big disco fan you understand (though I did have a Studio 54 phase a few years ago and bought a shed load of books about that place but I was never really keen on the actual music). Anyway, we all know the importance of The Paradise Garage in the larger scheme of things (don’t we?) but the real reason my interest was pricked on the tube was because Mel Cheren owns the hotel Darren and I Stay in when we visit New York. It’s a lovely Brownstone in Chelsea called The Colonial House Inn. That crackhead from Brookside, Jimmy Corkhill, was also a guest when we were last there.
Here’s Mel doing a disco laugh with Grace Jones.

While I'm on a rollercoaster tip I think I'll bore you with tales of riding one of the greatest wooden big dippers in the world (imho). Ghostrider at Knott's Berry Farm is enormous, so enormous that it stretches out into the car park and you get to drive under it's 2nd huge drop as you enter the park (this made me squeal like a two year old in the car).
That building with the spire to the right in the picture above is a full size replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia complete with Liberty Bell. Anyway, I digress, Ghostrider scared the bejesus out of us. So much so that Darren refused a second go. The entrance to the ride is marvelous. You walk through an underground tunnel just like an old mine then through a pretty cactus garden and then into a huge barn where you climb the stairs towards the station.




The climb to the top of the first drop takes forever cos this baby is huge. And the view from the top of the first drop is stunning (and by view I mean the view of the track below not the view out over Orange County).


At the bottom of that first drop there is no speedy climb up another incline as on most woody's. This evil twister has a banked corner at the bottom of the drop before it speeds up the second hill. The g-forces in that banked curve (at 60mph) are horrendous and from then on you know that you are in for a relentless white knuckle two minutes.


I remember Darren shouting at me half way round (as well as being very fast it is also very noisy, truly multi-sensory) "it's fucking broken and we're going to die!" We didn't die of course. I went straight back on and Darren had a sit down.

Alton Towers (nice new website) opened their new rollercoaster on Easter Monday. Rita Queen Of Speed was officially launched with a car full of drag queens. Theme parks are sooooo gay.

James Murphy on the cover of Wire.

Very nice.

We had a week in Los Angeles before we went to Las Vegas.


We stayed in Orange County and explored the beach towns.


The walk along the beach from Newport to Balboa was thirsty work.


And, being a right pair of nosy buggers, we loved peeking into the posh houses lining the beach path.


It's not in Orange County but we had a lovely day in Santa Monica.


There's a 'monument' on the beach to American soldiers killed in Iraq since the war began. There is also a sign explaining that if they placed a cross on the sand for every dead Iraqi there would be no beach left to walk on.


The original Muscle Beach was in Santa Monica near the pier.


The new location is in Venice Beach. This tattooed stud begged me for a date.


But I had to turn him down as we had dinner reservations that night at In And Out Burger. Classy!

There is so much hatred out there for The Bravery. Killers fanatics wanna kill them. Calm down ladies, it’s just pop music. I agree that The Bravery album is not as good as Hot Fuss but at least it’s better than the new New Order album. And lets not forget that The Killers have ripped off little known 8o’s synthers B Movie. The Kaiser Chiefs album is better than The Ordinary Boys album but both are still little belters to my ears (in a Jam-lite kind of way). It’s taken a while but the Lemon Jelly album has finally gelled with me and now I can’t stop playing it. That track featuring The Scars ‘Horrorshow’ is brilliant. I think only one band are hated even more than The Bravery at the moment and that’s Towers Of London. But looking at their pictures I can see why. The new Everything But The Girl remix album is a must have for all those 80’s indie-heads who have a special fondness for Tracey Thorns soothing voice. Ben must have dumped her a hundred times as that’s all she seems to write about. I finally got the Annie (Chewing Gum Annie not the ginger orphan) album and todays twisted playlist has been Anniemal and the new Queens Of The Stone Age cd. Rock on sisters.

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Pardon my lethargy and lack of imagination as I continue my romp through our holiday snaps.

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We stayed at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas. Not quite as extravagent as Bellagio but much better than Excalibur where we stayed last time. Here's Darren watching the New York New York rollercoaster from the footbridge near Excalibur.


And here's me under that rollercoaster.


The Monte Carlo looks great from the strip.


And especially good at night.


Some resorts close their pool areas over the winter months but luckily the Monte Carlo didn't. The heated pools were great before breakfast.


This was the view from our room.


We spent an afternoon in the Venetian hotel.


Where else but Vegas can you ride a gondola to Gap?


Here's me looking wistful at dusk outside the Venetian.


And here's the big fella.


This is what we had to put up with on the drive from LA to Vegas. Not nice driving weather.




So after we checked in and we walked over to Bally's and had some beers at Sully's bar.


They have video poker machines built into the bar so Darren decided to squander one dollar on a wee bet. He won nine dollars! No more money was gambled that week so we were eight dollars up!

It can take a whole day to explore Bellagio in Vegas properly.


There's the huge Chihuly ceiling to stare at in the foyer.


There's the Jean-Philippe Maury patisserie with its huge stunning chocolate fountain.


There's this huge cock in the Chinese gardens in the conservatory.


As we wandered past Sensi in the spa tower we thought we'd ask if they could seat us for a late lunch. Thay could. Sensi had only been open two months and was getting great reviews (we read about it the previous week in the LA Times).


The kitchen is in the centre of the restaurant and is surrounded by very thick glass walls. They class this as a 'theatrical' dining experience as the kitchen is the stage and diners get to watch a performance.
Japanese whizz kids Super Potato designed the interior and we loved it.


Here's Darren waiting for his grub (that cascading wall of water behind him was surprisingly silent).


And here he is after it arrived (seared tuna with green runny stuff and some chilli bread).


Other dishes included meat, more fish and fresh squeezed ginger beer (delicious and very peppery).






Vegas is great.

Help for all those with blogstipation out there.
Or you could do what mathematicians do and work it out with a pencil.