Grande Cafe, Rosebank

Saturday, August 31, 2002

Service: * * *1/2
Food: * *
Ambience: * * *1/2
Babe Count: * *1/2

Alistair and I are playing backgammon here today. He's now the doubles champion, after beating sixteen other teams, including the one I was in, to take the trophy. It's a gaudy glossy plasticcy thing, that only a mother could love. And boy oh boy, Alistair definitely had some birth pains to deliver this one. So hey, Alistair -- congrats, boyo! Hard work pays off.

Alistair's game has notched up to a new level. He's been taking lessons with one of South Africa's top players, Tony Matsouris. And it shows.

Except for today. Cos I thrash him. Not once. Not twice. But thrice! Three matches up to 13 points, and I take him each time. With no Vaseline.

As compensation for the butt-stubbing he's just suffered, Alistair takes to gazing in authentic doe-eyed goofiness at the manageress. Blonde. Petite. Hair chopped in one of those bobs that gets motorcycle helmet designers wet around the extremities. Trouble is, Alistair is a romantic. So he doesn't want to find a way to take her home and shag her. He wants to make her like him so he can marry her and have children. Maybe she'll be a trophy wife. Then their children will look like little backgammon trophies.

---

After backgammon Alistair heads off, I decide to see a movie. I wander down to Cinema Nouveau and find that THIRTEEN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING is on. I pay my eight bucks (whah whah -- I'm a Vitality Club Platinum Card Holder) and go inside. Pretty darn empty for a Saturday matinee. It can't possibly be Rosh Hashonah yet, can it??? Nope. Just art movie time.

I settle down to a month or two of tedium. Well-acted, mind you, but tedious. I give it a yawn, and 4 out 10 on the Roy-o-meter.

The high point of my evening is when I come out of the movie and see Carmen studying the reviews pinned to the Cinema Nouveau board. I glance around the place, now fairly crowded, to see if her boyfriend is around. She seems to be alone. We chat a bit. Namely about the movie. Unfortunately, she's about to see the same one I've just seen. So I don't pan it. I just mildly encourage her to see AMELIE.

"Nah," she says. "We've already booked. And Alan Swerdlow said it was cool. So hey."

And then I notice the boyfriend, lurking around in the background. He doesn't look too difficult to get rid of.