I've been hinting about this for a few weeks now, and I'm finally ready to launch. There will only be 250 tickets so each ticket has a good chance to win one of four great prizes:
- A table for 4 at Ascot
- A custom-made corset
- A case of vintage Claret
- A weeks' accommodation for 4 in Spain.
Tickets are £10 each. To reserve your numbers, just get in touch.
Jason
Here are the full details of the prizes:
Full hospitality for four people in the Parade Ring Restaurant at Ascot for a raceday of your choice (subject to availability and excluding Royal Ascot).
The Parade Ring Restaurant is the jewel in the crown of the new Grandstand and the finest restaurant at any racecourse in the world. It overlooks the 8,000 capacity Parade Ring to the south, with only a short walk across the galleria to reserved seating opposite the Winning Post.
The prize package includes:
• Exclusive table for the day
• Reserved race viewing area
• Premier Admission
• Car park label (one between two)
• Tea, coffee and biscuits on arrival
• Canapé and champagne reception
• Four course luncheon
• Cellar Master's selected wines
• Port or brandy with coffee
• Full afternoon tea
• Complimentary bar (excluding champagne)
• Ascot Television
• Totepool betting facility
• Racecard
• Racing papers
Approximate value of prize: £1000
A custom corset designed for you and made to your specifications.
Laura Whyte has worked as a costumière and corset maker on many theatre productions throughout the UK, which she combines with her own clothing label as a corsetiere. Laura works with her clients through a design process to incorporate their own ideas and explore styles that suit, so that every custom-made, handcrafted garment is unique to the wearer and fits like a glove. Whether designed for a special occasion, evening wear, or to be worn out with jeans, being laced into a corset will instantly reduce the waist size and make any woman look and feel stunning, sexy and sophisticated.
Approximate value of prize: £250
A case of Château Charmail, 2003.
A blend of 48% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot. Wine guru Robert Parker describes the 2003 vintage as "impeccably made", and scored it 88-90 (very good to outstanding). It offers a blue/purple color, medium to full body, and abundant notes of blueberries, creme de cassis liqueur, smoke, barbecue spices, and vanillin. The wine is fleshy, opulently textured and medium to full-bodied. Drinking now-2013.
Approximate value of prize: £200
A week for up to four people in a spacious apartment in Spain's Costa Blanca region.
The apartment is 1 hour's drive from Alicante airport, 40 minutes from San Xavier (Murcia) airport, close to Villamartin, with three golf courses within easy reach. It is about 15-20 minutes’ drive from the Mediterranean on a large (but currently quiet) development. There is a bar/restaurant within 15 minutes’ walk and several bars and restaurants in San Miguel de Salinas and Villamartin Plaza which are each about 10 minutes’ drive away. The accommodation available comprises 1 double bedroom with en-suite, 1 twin bedded room with adjacent shower and toilet; Living room with TV (Spanish, British terrestrial and some Sky channels) DVD/CD player; fully equipped kitchen, terrace area for meals, solarium with sunbathing equipment and use of the communal swimming pool. The prize is accommodation-only but cheap flights are easily available.
The apartment is a family holiday home rather than rental accommodation and the week on offer will be agreed between the winner and the owners but could be during school holidays.
Approximate value of prize: £150
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Saturday, 22 September 2007
Back in the saddle
Just when it was all going so well... something goes wrong. We all know the feeling; it's part of human nature. The ancient Greeks knew it so well that they named it for us: Hubris and Nemesis. Hubris (or excessive pride) was actually a crime in ancient Athens. And just in case the law didn't get you, Nemesis was the goddess of retribution. Her name is related to neimeis - a helpful verb meaning "to give what is due." We'll come back to that later.
I was feeling pretty good after my last blog. You might even have accused me of hubris (albeit not in the criminal sense of violating a corpse or humiliating a defeated enemy).
But the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley. First, I got a cold. I've learned that trying to cycle through minor ailments tends to make them worse, so I took a couple of days off from the bike. Then, the cold settled on my chest with the result that every attempt at physical exertion brought on a coughing fit. Cycling in London is dicey at the best of times, but cycling with a cough that could pitch you into the path of every passing bendybus, deathwish motorcycle courier or irritable trucker exceeds even my well-developed affinity for risk.
So, I stopped all training until I could be reasonably certain of being able to ride in a straight line. Which point came on the evening of the tube strike. Synchronicity, eh? The next morning, I strode happily down to the garage, confident of getting to work on time while all around me struggled in on the remains of London's public transport network.
Of course, piling hubris on hubris in this way invites nemesis as surely as picking Joe Worsley at 7 invites derision. It was almost inevitable that she would have it in for me. But her punishment was, I thought, overly harsh: some [expletive deleted] had nicked my bike, somehow getting into our garage and using a plank to lever the U-lock off. To mix my religious metaphors, is my karma really that bad? Is having my bike nicked really "what is due" for being a bit smug? Wouldn't a puncture would have sufficed?
Actually, as it turned out, not even bicycle theft was enough to satisfy She Who From Whom There Is No Escape (or Adrasteia, as the Greeks more succinctly put it). Oh no. I didn't have the option of working from home that day, because I had arranged an important meeting with my boss. So I took the bus in. 3 hours later I got to the office, only to find that the meeting had been cancelled. Ouch!
Fortunately, my insurance covered it (the stolen bike, not the bus journey and cancelled meeting), and I now have a shiny (well, chic matte black) new bike. I've managed about 60 miles this week. Unfortunately, it seems that in the 4 years since I last bought a bike, suspension has gone out of fashion on road bikes. The new machine is much more responsive than the old one - I can feel the thickness of the paint on road markings - but it isn't half hard on my backside.
I'm also experimenting with joining a gym. Of course, the original reason I got the bike is that I'm not disciplined enough to go to a gym regularly... but one of the Everest Base Camp party has negotiated a fantastic rate with The Thirdspace in Soho, which is a gym with a difference.
The main attraction is that it has a hypoxic chamber - a room where they keep the oxygen at a level equivalent to about 3000m (the height at which our trek starts). Fantastic for boosting the cardiovascular capacity. So, asks I, on my introductory tour, do I have to book my sessions? No, comes the reply, hardly anyone uses it. My theory is that they've offered us such a good deal so that other gym users will see us training and get interested in using the room.
Meanwhile, fundraising continues to go well. Huge thanks go to my son Gregor's nursery (Gwendolen House Nursery in Putney) for donating the proceeds of their summer fete - over £1,000 - to VSO, and to the wannabe Schumachers, Alonsos and Hamiltons who have signed up for my karting event on Friday 28th (which is also set to raise around £1,000).
Next up on the fundraising front is my prize draw. We've got four great prizes:
- A table for 4 in the top hospitality suite at Ascot, for any event except Royal Ascot itself
- A case of vintage claret
- A corset - custom made to your own design (note to blokes: you may not get this, but I've had an enthusiastic response from the other half of the population. Think Christmas present...)
- A week's accommodation in a luxury villa in Spain
Tickets are £10 each, and I'm only selling 250, so you've a good chance to win. Get in touch to reserve your numbers.
I was feeling pretty good after my last blog. You might even have accused me of hubris (albeit not in the criminal sense of violating a corpse or humiliating a defeated enemy).
But the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley. First, I got a cold. I've learned that trying to cycle through minor ailments tends to make them worse, so I took a couple of days off from the bike. Then, the cold settled on my chest with the result that every attempt at physical exertion brought on a coughing fit. Cycling in London is dicey at the best of times, but cycling with a cough that could pitch you into the path of every passing bendybus, deathwish motorcycle courier or irritable trucker exceeds even my well-developed affinity for risk.
So, I stopped all training until I could be reasonably certain of being able to ride in a straight line. Which point came on the evening of the tube strike. Synchronicity, eh? The next morning, I strode happily down to the garage, confident of getting to work on time while all around me struggled in on the remains of London's public transport network.
Of course, piling hubris on hubris in this way invites nemesis as surely as picking Joe Worsley at 7 invites derision. It was almost inevitable that she would have it in for me. But her punishment was, I thought, overly harsh: some [expletive deleted] had nicked my bike, somehow getting into our garage and using a plank to lever the U-lock off. To mix my religious metaphors, is my karma really that bad? Is having my bike nicked really "what is due" for being a bit smug? Wouldn't a puncture would have sufficed?
Actually, as it turned out, not even bicycle theft was enough to satisfy She Who From Whom There Is No Escape (or Adrasteia, as the Greeks more succinctly put it). Oh no. I didn't have the option of working from home that day, because I had arranged an important meeting with my boss. So I took the bus in. 3 hours later I got to the office, only to find that the meeting had been cancelled. Ouch!
Fortunately, my insurance covered it (the stolen bike, not the bus journey and cancelled meeting), and I now have a shiny (well, chic matte black) new bike. I've managed about 60 miles this week. Unfortunately, it seems that in the 4 years since I last bought a bike, suspension has gone out of fashion on road bikes. The new machine is much more responsive than the old one - I can feel the thickness of the paint on road markings - but it isn't half hard on my backside.
I'm also experimenting with joining a gym. Of course, the original reason I got the bike is that I'm not disciplined enough to go to a gym regularly... but one of the Everest Base Camp party has negotiated a fantastic rate with The Thirdspace in Soho, which is a gym with a difference.
The main attraction is that it has a hypoxic chamber - a room where they keep the oxygen at a level equivalent to about 3000m (the height at which our trek starts). Fantastic for boosting the cardiovascular capacity. So, asks I, on my introductory tour, do I have to book my sessions? No, comes the reply, hardly anyone uses it. My theory is that they've offered us such a good deal so that other gym users will see us training and get interested in using the room.
Meanwhile, fundraising continues to go well. Huge thanks go to my son Gregor's nursery (Gwendolen House Nursery in Putney) for donating the proceeds of their summer fete - over £1,000 - to VSO, and to the wannabe Schumachers, Alonsos and Hamiltons who have signed up for my karting event on Friday 28th (which is also set to raise around £1,000).
Next up on the fundraising front is my prize draw. We've got four great prizes:
- A table for 4 in the top hospitality suite at Ascot, for any event except Royal Ascot itself
- A case of vintage claret
- A corset - custom made to your own design (note to blokes: you may not get this, but I've had an enthusiastic response from the other half of the population. Think Christmas present...)
- A week's accommodation in a luxury villa in Spain
Tickets are £10 each, and I'm only selling 250, so you've a good chance to win. Get in touch to reserve your numbers.
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