It’s hard to overstate the importance of a good brunch. It sets you up for the rest of the day, particularly after a heavy night the night before. It’s what’s on the collective minds of our friends at Gecko 3 when they entreat us to join them for a Jazz Breakfast.

Wherever you live, you need ‘places. And so we’ve always had our habitual brunch venues. Edinburgh spoils you for choice; Ryan’s, Indigo Yard or the City Cafe will all sort you out. In Cape Town it was either the Barnyard Farm Stall or the River Cafe at Uitsig. Twickenham? Arthurs on the Green, converted from an old Victorian toilet. Wimbledon? Tootsies, of course. But here in Moscow, we’ve struggled a bit.

Hemingways was the obvious choice for a while, until its sad demise. Same goes for Volkonskiy Kaiser on the old Arbat. The Starlite is pretty good, and LPQ’s great for pastries and pretending you’re in Europe. But nowhere’s quite hit the spot yet.

Until, perhaps, today.

Enter Kitch Kock - ??? ??? - on Petrovka. Achingly trendy bar / club by evening (David Lee Roth/British anarchist punk/80’s late night MTV goes velvet rope exclusive, says BlackBook), unlikely brunch venue by day? Perhaps. But the new ‘New York-style Brunch’ came highly recommended, so nothing ventured …

And it works. Comfy sofas, good staff, superb decor, and Cuban jazz playing as we arrived. You couldn’t be anywhere else but Moscow. In a good way. Oh, and the food? If the rest of the menu’s as good as the breakfast burritos, you’ll know where to find me on a Sunday afternoon.

One of my blogging colleagues from my H&K days, Phil Turner, is back in the saddle.

Phil’s previous blog was a combination of rock ‘n’ roll, storytelling and internal comms in neat, bite-sized chunks, which I enjoyed from beginning to end.

Phil’s new blog is here. And now that I’ve suitably bigged him up, we shall expect great things.

DOMODEDOVO AIRPORT - I remember when my hometown in Surrey got its first MacDonalds. I must have been about twelve or thirteen. No-one really knew how it worked, so they had staff on hand to explain the simple three-stage concept of fast food:

1 - Go to counter, get your food.
2 - Sit at a table.
3 - Eat your food.

Not all that difficult once you’ve got the hang of it.

Unfortunately, here at Domodedovo Airport - and in the burgeoning Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Mickey D’s all over Russia, the order appears to be 2, 1, 3. Which just doesn’t work.

Right now, for example, half the tables here at CoffeMania are occupied by people with no food (or coffee). Including several where children have been left, bereft of both company and sustinence, to mind the bags while their parents go to the Duty Free.

Half the customers with coffee, on the other hand, are standing around or squishing, like us, four people onto two chairs, because there aren’t enough free tables.

Do the math, people. It takes roughly as long to queue for your food as it does to eat your food. There’s enough tables for everyone, if only you’d stop occupying them for twice as long as you have to.

Ah well. I’m off to Barcelona for a week.

People often ask me if I’ve ever worked as a journalist. Which is a fair enough question. Some of my ilk indeed are former hacks. In this line of work you need an understanding of the media mindset, you need to understand what makes the media tick and how to get the best from each other.

Some people tell me I ‘think like a journalist’, which I take as a compliment. One colleague recently commented that I dress like a journalist, which I think is a compliment.

But I’ve never been a journalist, barring the odd primary school magazine piece. Not that I would rule it out. Actually I think it would be quite fun.

‘What sort of journalist would you be?’, a (journalist) friend asked me the other day. Not a TV one. It looks dangerous.

(thanks to Theo for the clip)

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I like Moscow very much, I really do. This past week has been Easter holiday for the children but, while many of the city’s expats (at least those who still have jobs) flew to London, Frankfurt, New York etc I chose to stay here. And we’ve spent a fantastic week enjoying Moscow’s hidden (and not so hidden) gems. According to the kids, the Darwin Museum has been the highlight. I’m inclined to agree (although our youngest learning to ride his bike without stabilisers has to come a close second).

The weather’s been exceptionally pleasant, so there’s been much strolling around the Boulevard Ring and discovering endless stunning back-street architecture. And of course at this time of year the city emerges, bleary-eyed, from its long, grey Winter, shakes off the last of the slush, and starts to beautify itself again. Everywhere you look there are people painting, planting, sprucing the place up for Summer.

The city’s elite, too, are swapping Winter fur for Summer Gucci, garaging the American 4×4 and breaking out the European sports car. From where I’m sitting now (the same place I took the photo at the top of the screen, unless you’re following via RSS) I can hear the howl of Italian V8s and German flat-sixes tearing around the city to blow out the cobwebs.

But sometimes, you do need a break. Perhaps you just need to see a Tesco, or eat a sandwich that doesn’t have smetana on it. It’s not so much a case of being tired of London = being tired of life, but that being a little Moscow weary = need a few days in a cleaner, less frenetic environment, to come back refreshed and ready to deal with the unique, brutal and unpredictable combination of pace, beauty and excitement. Even the medical professionals here acknowledge this - come down with a cold and you’re as likely to be prescribed a week in Sochi as a dose of antibiotics.

So in a couple of weeks’ time, when tax filing season is over (the joys of twin careers), we’re off to Spain forr a week. Nice little villa just outside Barcelona, tapas, aqua-park not far away, a stack of paperbacks and some cheap neckable red wine by the pool … bliss.

Which is why I find it just a little disconcerting that one of the advertisers on Facebook has, this evening, entreated me to book myself one of its

Elite-niy Russian flats and villas in the best locations, for my next trip to Barcelona

…

By the way, apologies for the long silence. I wish I could put my hand up and say yes, Simon was right, two blogs is too difficult. But it’s not even that - I’ve just been too crazy busy lately for even one of them. Sorry. New leaf duly turned over …

No offence to Neville, but this amused me:

Perhaps a Google Reader thing - the clip works fine on his blog when not using a reader.

Around the time I arrived in Moscow, in mid-2007, Russia resumed long-range patrol flights by its fleet of strategic bombers. For a few months we had fairly regular media excitement as the Tu-95s embarked on a tour of the Frozen North - Scotland, Norway, Canada, Alaska.

Around the same time, thanks to the heroic efforts of the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, Avro Vulcan XH558 took to the skies for the first time in fifteen years. XH558 is a truly special aircraft, the last airworthy reminder of a force which once threatened some sixteen million Soviet citizens.

Both Vulcan and Tu-95 were technologically impressive. The Vulcan, with its delta wings and four Olympus engines, was hailed as being decades ahead of its time. And its Cold War rival, the ‘Bear’, remains the fastest propeller-driven aircraft nearly 50 years after its introduction.

Here, though, the similarities end. Russia currently has 64 Tu-95s in service, and expects to keep the type operational until at least 2040. India has another ten. The UK has one flying Vulcan, XH558. And if the Vulcan to the Sky Trust can’t raise £500,000 in the next three days, XH558 may never fly again.

Even in the current global economic gloom, there must be someone out there with a spare half-mil. And hey, the pound’s cheap at the mo.

via Theo

Too much noise on Twitter.

Stuff I like:

- Tweets that make me think, that are part of a debate
- Tweets that show me stuff I hadn’t seen before
- Retweets that introduce me to new and interesting people

Stuff I don’t like:

- Hearing that you’ve just put the kettle on. Save the mundane and the banal for facebook.
- Being told to read your latest blog entry. If I’m following you on Twitter, I already know you’ve got a blog. And if I want to read it, I will.
- Tweets like @BorisBorisovichBorisov: yeah, me too - that’s what DMing is for

James Blunt’s in Moscow this week, playing the B1 Club on Thursday night.

Which is a great excuse, if one were needed, for this, from my old mate Mitch:

Sky News will celebrate its 20th birthday at 1800GMT today. And I’d like to wish everyone there many happy returns. Not that they’ve been shy of congratulating themselves …

I like Sky News. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day at their place in Isleworth a few years ago, coming away mightily impressed with the professionalism of those who work there.

I like ‘Boulton & Co‘, and I like Tim Marshall’s ‘Foreign Matters‘. And I like Alex Rossi here in Moscow, too. Or, as I should properly call him, ‘Alex Rossi, Sky News, Moscow’. It’s a shame, though, that most of Russia can’t (legally) get Sky.

Just the other week, I watched an A321 floating serenely on the Hudson, live on Sky News. Seven and a half years ago, I watched 911 unfold on Sky, from my office in Cape Town. I’ve at various points had relatives call me to tell me they’ve glimpsed me on Sky News in the margins of someone else doing something important. I’ve had half an eye on Sky News while sitting at my desk for significant chunks of my career. I’ve routinely dashed home from work to put Sky on, in case my story’s moved on. And pretty much every morning I eat my breakfast with Sky in the background.

So join me in wishing Sky News a very Happy 20th Birthday. There’s some pretty cool stuff on their 20th Birthday website - take a look.