Lost Blues And Other Songs - Palace Music

Lost In Music

Advantages: Easy but not shallow reading, deeply chucklesome
Disadvantages: At the price, none

A book that is tremendously annoying in the sense that as a music fan you wish you'd written it first. Giles Smith's comfortable, easy writing style takes you through his life with popular music; listening to it, buying it, obsessing over it, and finally attempting to play it in public for money. Along the way he goes through such pivotal moments as buying your first single (and lying about what it was years later), realising that Dark Side Of The Moon is rubbish, discovering that a music fan can't lose his virginity with the record player on, being compelled to buy everything Nik Kershaw records, failing to heed John Peel's warnings that it'll all end in tears, the revelation that Andy Partridge is a total genius, being big in Germany for about five minutes, having your bandmate break down and run off to become a gardener ...

greenierexyboy 27.10.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Lost in Music - Giles Smith

Partying at the Palace (ish)

Advantages: Comfortable, clean, good staff
Disadvantages: A few faults, doesnt live up to expectations

. After the meal, a few of us progressed to the dancefloor to work it all back off again, while the others (men and old folk) stayed behind to ponder life. The music was spot on though, a bit of modern stuff, a bit of cheese and some oldies. We were particularly loving the Ricky Martin bit, and Channy and I were literally doing salsa to it, on the empty dancefloor (neither of us had done salsa before in our lives). The dancefloor was small, as it was just a side room of the restaurant, but with the number of people flaking out and leaving early from other parties, it was fine for us. We danced for most of the night, while others chatted in the restaurant, which was being cleared away for the following morning. However, no pressure was put on us to move elsewhere. At one am the disco finished, but the party was far from over. We made our way ...

fabulous_girl 19.12.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Strand Palace Hotel, London

The Strand Palace Hotel

Advantages: Central location, clean
Disadvantages: Food, rooms

and the staff were friendly but the resturaunt we ate in was very short staffed and the food was pretty tasteless and very basic, it took us about 15 minuites to get some tomato ketchup and then another 10 minuites to get some knife and forks! We only ate breakfast here as we went out for a meal in the evenings at other resturaunts but i wouldnt recommend the food... The hotel did not have a swimming pool and i dont think there was a gym at the hotel either which we were a little dissapointed about but there was a shop at the hotel which i think mainly sold jewellery...not very many facilities.. Check out took a little longer - About 30 minuites! My overall thoughts were that this was an average hotel that is okay for a short stay if you are going to say a show like we was but i wouldnt recommend this hotel if you are looking ...

kate44 03.05.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Strand Palace Hotel, London