Nordic Bakery

Spending a lot of time laptop-ing in Nordic Bakery, the brewers of the finest cup of coffee in London. Despite their Nordic brand, the coffee is Spanish, from Barcelona and it's unbelievable. Mind you, it's also down to the way the staff at Nordic Bakery make it.

Back in London

Pretty skies here too. These from my living room window in Paddington Sunday afternoon/ Monday morning. Feverish jetlag. Drinking Yerba Mate.

My reading chair in L.A

Many times sitting in this chair reading, sunbathing, drinking Acai pulp, admiring the overhead telegraph wires and my in laws orange trees

The Rooftop bar @ the Standard Downtown L.A

Wow.
What a place to have a drink.
Earlier met with Saskia and Micah for a drink at a whiskey bar called Seven Grand. Put Ghetto Defendant and Guns of Brixton on the jukebox, while sipping drinks and navigating pool cues from the too close for comfort pool table.
Then Saskia suggested we go onto the Standard's Rooftop bar.
And that's where the wow came in.
A bar on top of the world, with projections of a film going out onto a neighbouring building. A super blue swimming pool. A live DJ. And the amazing Blade Runner-esque wraparound view of skyscrapers, all lit up beautifully:

When you step out of the lift, and hit the fresh air, all those floors up and see the skyscrapers, you are literally stunned. I couldn't stop staring, it was unreal.
After staying at Chateau Marmont and then coming to the Standard Downtown for drinks, I am seriously impressed by Andre Balazs' vision. Impeccable. I can't wait for his hotel to open up the road from me on Chiltern Street. Seriously exciting.

The antique silent movies organ in the hotel reception is a nice touch, as are the station/ airport style photo-booth (yes, we took pictures) and the old fashioned finger dial phones (which remind me of my childhood: my mother's index finger working our cream coloured set).

Great burrito in the Mission, San Francisco

Interesting afternoon hanging out in the Mission in San Francisco. Parked by Dolores Park and headed to Valencia for great Mexican food at El Toro Taqueria:

Dropped by Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia. Then a few doors along for coffee at a place packed with people hammering their shiny laptops.

One Night at the Chateau Marmont

Amazing night's stay at the Chateau Marmont. Incredible Huevos Rancheros & coffee for breakfast, sitting outside. Great selection of magazines (V, Paper) in the room. Nice stereo/ docking station. Loved the touch of the bed getting turned down and a scented candle left burning. When I asked what time breakfast started, I was told, "Whenever you wake up" - my kind of hotel.

Also loved the vintage furniture and the brilliant 'time stood still' thirties bathroom complete with beautiful deco tiling, a leaking shower and plastic light switches which you twisted to turn on and off. When we checked out, we were in a haze, things were so perfect at the hotel. The epitome of what I call hands off hospitality. Nothing fussy, everything super downplayed in the most elegant manner. I can't think of many hotels that get it right. When I've stayed at places in this 'legend bracket' before, you always feel the staff are lingering after tips constantly - nothing like this at the Chateau Marmont, you feel like a guest at someone's home. Very hard to pull off and very very clever. The staff are both utterly visible and invisible simultaneously. Great, great place.

Christian Boltanski, Missing House, Berlin

Beautiful public art exhibit by Christian Boltanski opposite the Jewish school, a former Jewish old people's home and the once oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin. The empty space where the apartment building sat, can be found at 15-16 Grosse Hamburger Strasse.
Invited to create a public artwork in Berlin, Boltanski researched who lived here when the Nazis came to power and found, because of its location in a former Jewish neighbourhood, that many of the residents were Jewish.
When the Nazis began their atrocities, the Jewish residents of the building were deported and their apartments stolen and taken over by non-Jewish Germans. Fate had its say when the house was bombed and destroyed.
Boltanski placed plaques of the names of those living in the building when the Nazis came to power, in the exact positions of their one time apartments, on the walls of the adjoining buildings. When we visited, the work was closed to public, as if still a private residence, but a woman who lived in the apartment complex which includes the missing house was heading out on her bicycle and kindly let us in.