Covered in this Newsletter will be the following: Neil Ibiza, Neil Trainer, alcohol, some upcoming corporate events, bikes, how to treat linen, Christmas, coffee, the EU, the Cork and Bottle, foreign languages and their uses in dating, the World Cup, summer entertainment, Michael Portillo, Wolf and his 3D printing ideas, more alcohol and Perseus the fridge magnet.

Firstly a little shop related news. The 14th June will be the cut off date for made to measure suits and shirts to arrive before the August closure. There is a skeleton staff working in the workrooms during the holidays, however we cannot guarantee delivery dates before the 20th September, but most of you knew that anyway.

A little aside for you all… Linen looks better creased and worn, much like me. Does that help Krishan?

And yes, Sam, I know I’m a little late….

Let’s begin the fun part of the Newsletter with a little hint to those of you who are already thinking of a Christmas present for me; remember it is only 203 sleeps till Christmas, and 7 sleeps to the World Cup in Brazil. Thanks for that Jake, still got that App then, and added to that Jake, be careful what you wish for, after all you did say holidays are for wimps!!

A grateful friend gave me a gift handily disguised as a bottle of medicine. However there was no note on the outside saying “Don’t Drink Me”. So I did. Well, it was in a bottle.

Anyway, back to the writing now that I have sobered up.

Oh the shame of it, I am getting old.

As many of you know, and a large number of you will know at first hand, I can go into any bar in any town and order a beer, and then find my way home after, albeit slowly and not in an entirely straight line.

The other day I did something I never do as I have a Nespresso machine and the lovely Emi to make my coffee amongst other things, if I ask her nicely, very nicely.

Anyway I walked into a well-known coffee shop to meet Neil (Trainer), when the person in front of me ordered a decaf, quad grande, skinny, wet, no foam, soya cappuccino with an extra shot and a sugar free caramel syrup lattice design on top. What no cherry!!!! And wet; I thought coffee was?

At this point I panicked, all I wanted was an Americano, and then the Barista(?????) asked me what my order was. It was like I had been stuck with a cattle prod or a Taser. The room started to spin, my mouth was dry, I felt light headed, my legs turned to jelly; struggling for breath, I reached for my adrenaline, but I managed to blurt out “A glass of Tap Water please”, before turning and fleeing, arms flailing, my mouth open in a silent scream….. I’m pretty sure I am now banned from the entire chain.

Well I feel better now, and I was able to walk into Gilli in Florence and order a café alto in tazze grande.

Mark, a good friend who these days is a high-flying lawyer, and I were discussing travel and languages, and shallow as I am, I was saying how I thought the easiest way to learn a language was probably to date someone from that country. There were some stumbling blocks to this, not least making yourself understood to them in the first place, but generally not a bad premise. OK, you at the back, no need for the “Why don’t you date somebody who speaks English” quip!

At school I made huge efforts to learn French because my French mistress, sorry, I mean teacher, was stunning and I can only say in my defence I was only trying to impress her. Mark on the other hand was explaining this from another perspective, different teacher, but driven by the same juvenile sentiments. Rather than impress, he opted for another approach and managed to achieve a mark of minus (negative) 23 in a French dictation test. Oh Mark, you shallow beast, do you really think you would be given extra-curricular lessons in French dictation….. Nice try Mark, but we were both only 13 years old at the time: sometimes it seems it takes a very long time to grow up.

Those of you who are not in slightest bit interested in the EU, look away for the next couple of paragraphs: go and make a cup of tea and watch Eastenders.

Last Tuesday I was at a debate held by Economic Research Counsel on whether it was worth us staying in the EU.

Wake up! You didn’t go and make tea.

I was flanked by my two minders Tony and Wolf, and I had the feeling this was going to get ugly. I was not wrong. Sitting down was like getting on a Ryanair flight and trying to get three seats together, in other words, it proved to be a challenge. Worse was to follow; on my seat was a booklet supplied by UKIP.  I glanced around and whilst no one was looking, gentle slid it onto the floor: it bounced, such is Nigel Farage’s inflated opinion of himself. I wonder if he’s known as NF to his friends, I rest my case m’lud, debate over.

No such luck, I had to sit through 15 minutes of coughing, spluttering and mumbling over the reasons for leaving the EU. It was accompanied by a slide show, and I kept waiting for a subliminal message between each slide. Wait a mo….. Why do I keep thinking “Up yours Delors”?

This was followed by the pro-EU argument, and no slides. Phew!

The highlight for me was when the pro-EU debater was responding and had used a major bank’s decision to have a UK base as a reason for easy access to the European Market. Feeling slightly guilty he apologised, just in case there was anyone from this particular bank in attendance. A large, shambolic man in the front row, who had been aggressively tapping his empty wine glass throughout the pro-EU debater’s answers in order to disrupt proceedings, raised his hand and announced that he was the global PR director of said Bank.

Clearly! He was wearing sandals and no socks.

After show of hands at the end, and even with a few of the anti-EU audience sticking up two hands, the consensus was two fingers to the anti-EU vote, and a V for victory to the Pro vote.

We de-camped to the Cork and Bottle for dinner without the guy in the sandals; French cheeses, Italian olives, Spanish wine, EU we don’t need you!

SLIDES – Well I was going to put some slides in here, but one or two of you are nodding off.

Currently I have sorting out my summer entertainment, well apart from Ibiza of course. August will see me enjoying a ****** Cinema experience of B%&* $£ %^& F*!&*$£, if I can get tickets, the website keeps crashing, and in September I will be sat in a cemetery watching The Dark Knight, such is the fun the that can be had in London when the sun is setting or as you know in my case, rising.

Talking of entertainment, one who will be familiar to most of you has been drawn to fame and fortune. I can only suggest it is down to two factors: firstly his undoubted charm as many will testify to, including my Marie, and secondly his excellent attire, displaying his plumage on television. Here he is below in a photo wearing a lightweight yellow cashmere jacket, with a rather wooden looking motley crew known as ‘One Direction’.  He’s the one wearing the rather impish grin!

The World Cup will be starting shortly, but I will cover that in a subsequent newsletter because, and I know this one is getting too long.

Shortly we will have a few more bikes in the Volpe stable available for customers with impeccable taste. The two below will shortly be available for sale, and they will be joined by a couple of Pinarellos. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested and I will arrange a viewing. Krish, you have first dibs to try any of them.

On the back of this we will be attempting to arrange some evenings for all you keen cyclists to slot in alongside, but obviously not in conjunction with our wine evenings. If you are interested in attending either please contact me and I will furnish you with all the details you need.

Wolf is now the proud owner of a 3D printer, he has promised to revolutionize a certain market. Meanwhile he is going to concentrate on making me a bike, whilst he works on the main thrust of his business.

Lastly we arrived at the bottom of the page, and Perseus. He was recently on a flight back from Toronto and the plane was stuck on the tarmac. Temperatures aboard had soared to 37C because the air conditioning wasn’t working.

One of the stewards seeing Perseus’s clear distress in the heat, recognised a fellow wearer of Aussie Bum underwear and offered him a position in front of an open fridge door, whereby he could cool himself down. Apparently he was charming and Perseus was a savage beast calmed.

Oh, how once again the world has found it’s natural order.

STOP PRESS: Neil from Ibiza is in Bologna as the Best Man at a superstar DJ’s wedding, later they will be visiting Emanuele to drink his cellar dry. Good luck guys and congratulations.

No Newsletter in complete without a photo of Neil

 

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