Restaurant: The Archduke

Last Tuesday, Up in the Cheap Seats (UITCS) were supposed to be at Cake: The Marie Antoinette Playlist. At The Other Palace. I booked my ticket from Todaytix. Eating beforehand at the Bag o' Nails, where I'd booked before and had to cancel, when my event was cancelled. Except.. guess what happened? The show's finished early.. so the event was cancelled, and I got a mail from Todaytix, with a voucher code for the amount spent, to be used for future bookings. I preferred a refund - who knows when I'd get around to using the voucher? Checking the email carefully, I saw a link to the support page to request a refund - clicked the link, went on chat, probably got a bot - but as I had all my details, the process was pretty quick, and I got my refund. Yay. Ironic that I'd only just booked it - ironic, also, that I've now booked for the Bag o' Nails exactly twice, and had to cancel both times.. gee, must be cursed!

I had some trouble finding an alternative - with nothing decent on Meetup or my cheap ticket sites for the day, I was back to Time Out! I had to scroll a long way down, though.. Giant, with John Lithgow, at the Royal Court, was sold out for the day: Shifters, at the Duke of York's Theatre, had no decent seats available for the day at a decent price (and that theatre has plenty of bad seats).. after pages and pages of scrolling through things I didn't want to do, I finally booked for Coriolanus, starring David Oyelowo, at the National. Eating at The Archduke again. Hmm.. beef bourgignon..

It was a wet, grey miserable day. And predictably, I had a ton of work to do - especially with being off for the rest of the week (see anon). It was early in the evening when I decided to forego the play - I hadn't been that keen on it anyway. Dinner, however, was another matter - no way I was missing the beef bourgignon. So off I went.. and it was delicious, and so cosy, in out of the wet and grey. In fact, I was overlooking the piano, which was being played by some bloke. All very pleasant! I even had time for dessert, as all I was getting back to was work..

Which was what I eventually did. And finished about 3am, following up with my weekly and monthly reports.. I was glad to head to bed in the end. Do keep an eye out for the next instalment..

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