Via DHM, here’s an absolutely fascinating, well-argued and downright terrifying article by novelist Jane Smiley, outlining just what damage George Bush is doing to the US, and therefore to the world we all live in…
The Space Race
I’m not a consumer of “Reality TV”. I watched the first series of Big Brother, as it seemed like such a great idea for a social experiment. Everything else I’ve seen of the reality genre has made me want to kill people. However, the new Channel 4 series Space Cadets intrigues me.
On the surface, it’s nothing new… a bunch of ambitious, misguidedly self-confident young adults, with the usual personality types. If you’ve seen any reality TV shows since 2001, you’ll know the stereotype we’re dealing with here… student in some pointless media-related subject, likes clubbing and shopping and wants to drive a Formula 1 car and be famous. Yep, we once had beauty pageants for this sort of stuff, but now we have reality shows. Johnny Vaughan fills the Davina MacCall role by being more or less as cringingly irritating as Davina. And as ever, the contestants are aiming to survive all the challenges, overcome all the interpersonal struggles and win the coveted prize… in this case the chance for four people to go into orbit in a Space Shuttle.
Except, of course, it’s all a hoax.
They think they’re training in Moscow, but they’re actually in Suffolk. Apart from one genuine ex-KGB fitness instructor, all of the instructors and “experts” are actors. The Shuttle is a Hollywood prop, as is much of the equipment they’re using for training. This could be the perfect antidote to the whole sorry reality genre. Rather than squirming uncomfortably as stupid triumphs over stupid, we can now delight in the fact that they’re all being well and truly had.
I really cannot emphasise enough just how stupid, blinkered and self-obsessed these people are. Well, maybe not “stupid” as such… several are students and they mostly seem quite wittily articulate. They just seem so smug and self-satisfied in their worldly wisdom, their cat-got-the-cream delight at being in the Space Cadets shortlist. After a few days of very basic training, and with no background in the military or aeronautics, they’ll be going into space, following in the footsteps of a very select bunch of highly trained and specialised people. No, wait… they’re stupid, utterly stupid. Forget the hoax. Fire them into space.
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Murphy’s Law
Apologies for the lack of blog content just lately… the usual combination of busy and lazy.
It was my birthday yesterday, and my (combined Xmas/birthday) present from Nicola was a weekend in Cork. I’ve been wanting and intending to go to Ireland for years and years, so it was good to get there at long last, and with the price of Easyjet flights from Gatwick, it’s actually cheaper and more convenient to fly to Cork than it is to get the train to most large cities in England.
In summary… great weather, friendly people, fantastic architecture and scenery, loads of food and beer. I can’t wait to go back to Ireland and do some more exploring. Here’s a few photos…
Cork, December 05 set on Flickr.
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Dinnerlog #3
(Chronology dispensed with for the time being – I’ve been a bit busy to keep track)
I find my culinary urges change quite markedly as the seasons move from summer into winter and vice versa. With even the slightest hint of bright spring evenings, I’m all for zesty Thai salads and plenty of challenging flavours. At this time of year, though, it’s all about rib-sticking comfort foods and this is where (among other things) a year-long experience of Swedish food comes in handy as a reference point. Like, I imagine, many people of my age, I left home and started fending for myself around the time British supermarkets started to become more cosmopolitan, meaning that my generation was probably the first in a long time to conceive of meals being based around something other than the humble potato. We now have easy access to pasta, rice, noodles, dhal, bulgar wheat, cous-cous and even quinoa… all able to provide a solid, earthy basis for a meal. However, the Swedes can teach us a lot about the comfort food qualities of the potato. You just have to be prepared to throw cardio-vascular caution to the wind, forget your boiled/mashed/baked/roast preconceptions and be liberal with the cow products.
Swedish Comfort Dinner 1
Pytt i panna
Assuming you’ve recently eaten roast pork (any slab of pig meat should do it; even lamb or beef at a push) and have enough left for another meal, take it out of the fridge and cut into 1cm cubes, fat and all. Then grab some spuds. Anything, really, as long as they’re not new potatoes. For a good two-person feed with just enough leftovers for most of tomorrow’s dinner, a kilo should do it. Peel and cut into 1cm cubes. Do the same with two onions. Now heat a large knob of butter and a couple of glugs of oil in a big pan… fry the potato, stirring. I also throw in a teaspoonful of caraway seeds [later edit: a tablespoonful of dill seeds also works!] because I love them with potato (some Swedes may well do the same, but I don’t know for sure).
When the potato is golden, remove it with a slotted spoon (leaving as much oil in the pan as possible) and replace with the onion and meat. When the onion is soft and translucent, return the potato to the pan and heat the whole lot thoroughly. To share my blissful memories of eating this at the school I attended, serve topped with a fried egg and with pickled beetroot on the side.
Swedish Comfort Dinner 2
Jansson’s Frestelse
Or “Johnson’s Temptation”, in translation. I’d go for a bit less potato here, otherwise it overpowers the other ingredients… go for around 700-800g. This one’s a bit more labour intensive; you need to peel and cut the potatoes into little matchsticks about 0.5cm thick and as long as is convenient (mine usually end up being about 3-4cm long). Chop an onion and open a can of anchovy fillets and a small carton of single cream.
Heat a knob of butter and a slug of oil, then fry the potato matchsticks and onion until the potatoes lose their crispness. Add the cream, along with the same amount of milk (using the handy empty cream carton) and a generous grinding of black pepper. Cook the whole lot on a gentle heat for 5-10 mins. Now for the closest this blog entry is going to get to poncy culinary artistry… put half of the potato slop into a large casserole dish, arrange the anchovies evenly over the top, and layer the rest of the potato on top of that. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the whole thing, like the first snow of an idyllic Swedish winter, and bake in the oven (gas 4 or 5) for about 30 mins. Serve with cold ham and pickles.
Oh, and join a gym. You’ll thank me for it in the long run.
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lol!!!1!! ur spam skillz0rs are like so not 1337, d00d
For some reason, the standard spam filter in my email program has been fooled on several occasions today. First, there were around 20 instances of a Viagra/Cialis advert, poorly disguised as an undelivered mail. Then came 25 instances of the W32/Sober-Z worm, purportedly from the Home Office. Blunkett’s last revenge, perhaps?
And now, I’ve just received what appeared to be one of the lamest phishing attempts I’ve seen…
From: Mail@fbi.gov
To: XPost@spaghetti-factory.co.uk
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 14:48:48 GMT
Subject: Your IP was logged
To: XPost@spaghetti-factory.co.uk
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 14:48:48 GMT
Subject: Your IP was logged
Dear Sir/Madam,
we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.
Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison
*** Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
*** 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 3220
*** Washington, DC 20535
*** phone: (202) 324-3000
Now, this probably indicates that I’m the most horrendous pedant, but the first thing I noticed was the grammatical error… “The list of questions are attached”.
The attachment, in case you wondered, is just the old W32/Sober-Z worm again. Send as many as you like… can’t hurt my Mac one bit!
Posted in Drivel, Technology
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No Sleep ’til notWigan
I was in Albrighton, Shropshire over the weekend, the occasion being the fifth annual UKMG National. As usual, a lot of people got together to play a lot of guitar, while drinking a lot of beer and generally having a lot of fun. Our traditional venue, the Mabs Cross hotel in Wigan, is no longer available for functions, so we relocated to the Lea Manor in Albrighton.
It’s difficult to describe our UKMG Nationals to “outsiders” without sounding like some kind of freaky evangelist, but they really are special. I said it all last year, but it bears repeating. It’s a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends and play music in a warm, appreciative and encouraging environment. Now, I certainly don’t need any encouragement to overstretch… er, challenge myself musically, but there are several people who have gained their first experience of playing live at Wigan (or notWigan, as we referred to this year’s event). It’s an interesting paradox… you’re playing in front of 50+ other guitarists, which ought to be terrifying, as they probably know exactly how each song is supposed to sound, but at the same time everyone is willing each other to do well, without a hint of egotism or competitiveness.
This year, I decided to push myself a bit. I wanted to have a blast through something from the first Van Halen album, so why not go for the jugular with “I’m the One”? I can’t remember whether it was Dave Barlow or me who suggested “Big Trouble” from Steve Vai’s stint with David Lee Roth, but that one also took some dedicated practice. Two other songs were complex, but quite comfortable to play in the end… Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” (of course I just had to duplicate the classic Larry Carlton solo) and Frank Zappa’s “Peaches en Regalia”. Easier (but no less interesting) guitar parts came via Blur’s “Girls and Boys” and XTC’s “Sgt. Rock” and I even managed a bit of blues with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. I then allowed Jim Nugent to talk me into doing a couple of jazz tunes (Miles Davis’s classic “So What” and Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints”) at the last minute… I really regretted my lack of preparation, but it was still bloody good fun.
It’s all over now, though. Looks like I’ll have to find something else to think about until next November. In the meantime, there’s a few pictures on Flickr…
Posted in Friends, Guitar, Music
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Antipodean Pictures
Well, I intended to do this weeks ago, but time management isn’t one of my greatest skills. Still, it’s better late than never… a selection of photos from our recent trip to Australia is now up on Flickr…
As usual, if you want to see the details of each picture, *don’t* use the slideshow facility. Just click on the first picture in the set display and then follow through the set, using the “next” thumbnail in the top right corner.
Posted in Photography, Travel
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Lazy Weather
We switched our central heating on yesterday.
It’s one of those inevitable things you have to do as summer changes into winter, the next step after closing most of the windows and putting on a jumper, but I still don’t like it. I prefer the house to be cool and airy, rather than cosy and stuffy, but there’s such a thing as too cold, so I have to put up with the stuffy nose I always get when the heating’s on.
Still, at least we’ve been able to hold out longer this year… I’m sure we switched it on sometime in late October last year. This autumn has been late and slow in coming, and despite the predictions of impressive leaf displays to rival even New England, it all seems a bit half-hearted even now. I’ve taken the camera out on two occasions just recently, but have only managed to take pictures that were predominantly… GREEN!
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Dinnerlog #2
Monday
Morrisons “finest” filled pasta
“What’s in the fridge” sauce
Typical midweek food. The pasta was on special offer and quite nice, although the fillings (one Beef & Chianti, the other Chicken & Lemon) had something of a “squirted from a big machine” texture to them. The sauce was just a typical hacked together thing based on the Salsa di Pomodoro from Saturday except we added chopped peppers at the frying stage. I’m really into the red wine vinegar at the moment… usually, my default “easy pasta sauce” involves adding some vermouth just after frying onions/garlic/etc.
Tuesday
Erm… beer mostly
Well, not just beer, but we didn’t have a full evening meal as such. We met a couple of friends at the truly wonderful Royal Oak in Southwark and punctuated the excellent Harveys beer with a couple of bowls of chips. I’d already grabbed leftovers from the previous couple of days for lunch, so didn’t exactly starve…
Wednesday
Pad Thai
Although I’m a big fan of the sauce-heavy Thai curries, this stir-fried noodle dish is a particular favourite. I frequently eat it at Thai restaurants, despite it being quite an unadventurous choice, seeing as it seems to be to them what fish & chips or chicken tikka masala are to us. However, it’s the ultimate comfort food as far as I’m concerned.
It’s a little more awkward to make at home than the creamy curries, but the results (using a recipe not dissimilar to this one) were quite encouraging. I’m not sure I’d use the Sharwoods rice noodles again… they seem to go soft and gooey far too quickly. Might try standard wheat noodles next time; I’ve certainly seen those used in plenty of thai restaurants. I’ve no idea what the correct transliteration from the original Thai is, either… I’ve seen Pad Thai, Phad Thai, Paht Thai and probably a few others.
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Dinnerlog #1
Not sure how long I’ll keep this going, and it’s more for my own future curiosity than as a proper “food blog”, but…
Saturday
Lamb & Olives
Salsa di Pomodoro
Puy Lentils
We don’t eat much red meat, but found some lamb in the freezer. The lamb recipe is from Valentina Harris’s “Regional Italian Cookery” (coat your thin-sliced lamb in flour, fry in olive oil and then stew a few mins longer in chopped black olives and juice of a lemon).
The other two bits are from the Guardian’s free booklets containing extracts from Jamie Oliver’s latest, Jamie’s Italy. Both dead simple. Cook the lentils (with a whole clove of garlic) in boiling water, drain away practically all the water, mash and stir in the garlic, add a few glugs of olive oil and a couple of tbsp of red wine vinegar. For the salsa, cook a finely chopped onion, a small cinnamon stick and a couple of thinly sliced garlic cloves in olive oil until soft, add a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tbsp of red wine vinegar. Stew until thickened (about 30 mins).
Sunday
Pork & Leek Sausages (from M&S)
Sweet Potato Mash
Onion & Red Wine Gravy
The sausages and sweet potato mash are self explanatory, although I think sweet potato can stand to be mashed quite coarsely… it seems to suit the more fibrous texture. Added a knob of butter and a splash of milk at the mashing stage, just as I would for normal potato. Got the gravy recipe from yesterday’s Guardian magazine.
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