The Boy brought home a bit of paper strongly recommending that we buy him an entirely optional OUP workbook in preparation for the exam he will take on Tuesday 16 January, which will contribute towards his final GCSE grades.
Hang on, that's ... running out of fingers here ... 49 days time.
THE BOY'S GCSEs START IN 49 DAYS TIME??
You can't do that! He's too young! Too young I tell you!
I remember my first O-level, as we called it back in the days when you could still buy 75s to play on your gramophone. History. Spanish Civil War. (The subject of the exam, not the time it happened.) I was ill. Didn't stop me taking the exam, only interrupted by idiot nurse trying to offer me tea and cake halfway through and almost being screamed at to go away in case she invalidated the results or something.
But I was sixteen. Sixteen! That's old enough to marry. I was prepared. I was emotionally and spiritually mature. I got a D but let's not go there.
He's at Scouts at the moment. We have an hour to shriek and wibble and run around the flat, before getting into supportive mode. Must try not to hug him when he comes through the door.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Compare and contrast
Two books finished this week.
- Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. Approx. 200,000 words, took a fortnight to read for review in Vector. Seventh in the back-wrenching Dune series (not counting Brian & Kevin's two prequel trilogies), based on notes left by Frank Herbert; intended by Frank as the series finale, but B&K have thoughtfully decided at least one further volume can be wrung out of it. The first Dune novel I've read since struggling through God
AwfulEmperor of Dune all those years ago. It's ... okay. Could have been half the length and lost absolutely nothing. Only finished it out of a sense of reviewer's duty. - Small Steps by Louis Sachar. Approx. 30,000 words, read it within 24 hours. A follow-on from and not quite as good as Holes; still a delight from beginning to end with charm, fun, excitement and a hook that keeps you reading.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Me and the Maori
I was reminded of this by this from Liz Williams. Let the upmanship begin.
My great great grandfather, George Cleghorn MD, lived in New Zealand and gave a lot of health care to the local Maori. Also because he could do joined up writing, he wrote letters to the Government on their behalf. He was made a paramount chief - Arikinui - as a reward. This being at a time when some of his contemporaries in Australia were clearing the land by driving Aborigines over cliffs, I'm quite proud of him. The routine included being presented with a kiwi feather cloak and other gifts. The title lapsed when he died, and his second wife (who is also my great great great aunt, by a strange quirk of genealogy), not knowing what else to do, loaned the cloak to an Oxford museum, on a 3-year lease. This was 1913.
The first we heard of this was when New Zealand relatives came to visit in the late nineties. "Oh, Ben (rather: 'Ow, Been'), you live in Oxford, go and find the cloak." Apparently Maori culture suggests that after a generation or two an heirloom should be returned to the donor.
Finding it wasn't as hard as it sounds as there was really only one museum in Oxford it could be; and sure enough, in the Maori section in the far left corner of the ground floor of the Pitt Rivers, there it is, along with a load of others. It's dark purple with darker spots - as kiwis are.
(Later we took some relatives to view it. The cloaks are stacked like wrapping paper in a shop and you can only see a little bit of each. "Oh, you're interested in cloaks," deduced a smiling guide, and she pulled back the curtains on a special glass case and switched on the light so that we could see an entire specimen, a quite impressive thing done [if I recall] in red and white and black. "Very nice," we said politely, and turned back to our five square centimetres of personal heritage.)
The museum weren't having any of this "heirloom reverts to the donor" stuff, of course, taking the (not unreasonable) line that even though the tag on the cloak says "loaned by Mrs Cleghorn" an unclaimed loan after a century is pretty well a gift in its own right. But the upside was that contact with the Maori was restored, and they were so touched that we had thought of returning the cloak that when my parents made the trip to the other side of the world Dr George's title was bestowed on my mother. For good measure they made my father a slightly inferior paramount chief (just ariki) so that he could make a thank you speech, as women can be paramount chiefs but they still can't speak publicly. They were presented with cloaks of their own, of pheasant feathers and (ahem) puppy fur, and one day the title will come to me.
But since my mother would have to die first, I'm really in no hurry.
My great great grandfather, George Cleghorn MD, lived in New Zealand and gave a lot of health care to the local Maori. Also because he could do joined up writing, he wrote letters to the Government on their behalf. He was made a paramount chief - Arikinui - as a reward. This being at a time when some of his contemporaries in Australia were clearing the land by driving Aborigines over cliffs, I'm quite proud of him. The routine included being presented with a kiwi feather cloak and other gifts. The title lapsed when he died, and his second wife (who is also my great great great aunt, by a strange quirk of genealogy), not knowing what else to do, loaned the cloak to an Oxford museum, on a 3-year lease. This was 1913.
The first we heard of this was when New Zealand relatives came to visit in the late nineties. "Oh, Ben (rather: 'Ow, Been'), you live in Oxford, go and find the cloak." Apparently Maori culture suggests that after a generation or two an heirloom should be returned to the donor.
Finding it wasn't as hard as it sounds as there was really only one museum in Oxford it could be; and sure enough, in the Maori section in the far left corner of the ground floor of the Pitt Rivers, there it is, along with a load of others. It's dark purple with darker spots - as kiwis are.
(Later we took some relatives to view it. The cloaks are stacked like wrapping paper in a shop and you can only see a little bit of each. "Oh, you're interested in cloaks," deduced a smiling guide, and she pulled back the curtains on a special glass case and switched on the light so that we could see an entire specimen, a quite impressive thing done [if I recall] in red and white and black. "Very nice," we said politely, and turned back to our five square centimetres of personal heritage.)
The museum weren't having any of this "heirloom reverts to the donor" stuff, of course, taking the (not unreasonable) line that even though the tag on the cloak says "loaned by Mrs Cleghorn" an unclaimed loan after a century is pretty well a gift in its own right. But the upside was that contact with the Maori was restored, and they were so touched that we had thought of returning the cloak that when my parents made the trip to the other side of the world Dr George's title was bestowed on my mother. For good measure they made my father a slightly inferior paramount chief (just ariki) so that he could make a thank you speech, as women can be paramount chiefs but they still can't speak publicly. They were presented with cloaks of their own, of pheasant feathers and (ahem) puppy fur, and one day the title will come to me.
But since my mother would have to die first, I'm really in no hurry.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Fewer photo opportunities than an impaled chicken
Take:
- 400g mushrooms
- 3 celery stalks
- 1 onion
- as many cloves of garlic as you're comfortable with
- 40g flour
- paprika
- thyme
- 1/2 pint milk
- 2-3 teaspoons lemon juice (or just juice the half a lemon that's hanging around in your fridge)
- 750g potatoes (though we actually went a couple of spuds over this and it was still a bit thin)
- 6 tablespoons milk
- more paprika
- Find a dark, wet, windy November evening requiring warm spicy comfort food.
- Simmer spuds for 20 minutes to make tender
- Fry chopped onion, celery and garlic for five minutes in butter, then add mushrooms and cook for a further 2 minutes
- Sprinkle flour over mushroom mixture, stir, add paprika and thyme. Remove from heat, stir in milk, return to heat until sauce thickens. Remove again and stir in lemon juice. Season to taste and set aside.
- Mash potatoes with milk and butter.
- Pour mushroom mixture into oven dish, cover with mashed potatoes, sprinkle with paprika, bake for 20 minutes.
- Accompany with red wine and follow up with chocolate-intensive dessert.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Quote unquote
Poking through the darkest recesses of my documents folder I came across a file of quotes. I have no memory of making it; in fact it probably dates back over a decade to the earliest days of PC ownership. But since I still by and large enjoy and/or agree with most of them, here they are.
"This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript, and wound up with a sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took the first prize."
- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Jesus said unto them: Who do you say that I am? And They replied: 'You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationship.' And Jesus said: 'What?'
"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper."
-- Rod Serling
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.
"Science investigates: religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complimentary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns and to the broader concerns of all humanity."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"It is still one of the tragedies of human history that the 'children of darkness' are frequently more determined and zealous than the 'children of light.'"
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day, but give him a case of dynamite and soon the village will be showered with mud and seaweed and unidentifiable chunks of fish."
- Anon (but definitely not Martin Luther King)
"We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity."
*** quotation in the FT of a rejection letter from a Chinese journal***
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
- C. S. Lewis, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children"
"It is always the writer's duty to make the world a better place."
- Samuel Johnson
"It's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, it's that it has so rarely been tried at all." -
GK Chesterton
"I'd like to teach you all a little saying
And learn these words by heart the way you should.
I don't say I'm no better than anybody else --
But I'll be danged if I ain't just as good!"
-- Aunt Eller, Oklahoma!
"It's okay to have something cute on the show (kids, bears) as long as something terrible happens to them by the end"
- J Michael Straczynski, on Babylon 5
This writing business, pencils and whatnot. Overrated if you ask me.
-- Eeyore
"The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability."
-- Tom Lehrer
"Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair:
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where."
-- C.S. Lewis
"I'm all for teaching creation and allowing prayers in schools, as soon as scholars begin teaching darwinism and geometry in church."
-- J Michael Straczynski
"Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us."
-- Thomas Paine
"You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, and that's been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians."
-- Monty Python
"There is no half-way house and there is no parallel to other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him 'Are you the son of Bramah?' he would have said, 'My son you are still in the vale of illusion.' If you had gone to Socrates and asked, 'Are you Zeus?' he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, 'Are you Allah?' he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, 'Are you Heaven?' I think he would have probably replied, 'Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.' The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are looking for a piece of toast to suit you, you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you. We may note in passing that He was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects - Hatred - Terror - Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval."
-- C.S. Lewis
"One of the advantages of pure congregational singing is that you can join in whether you have a voice or not. The disadvantage is that your neighbor can do the same."
-Charles Dudley Warner
"Too narrow is the house of my soul for you to enter into it: Let it be enlarged by you. It lies in ruins; build it up again."
- Saint Augustine, Confessions
"When I consider the extreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in this old rotten state ... numberless and needless places, enormous salaries, pensions, perquisites, bribes, groundless quarrels, foolish expeditions, false accounts or no accounts, contracts and jobs that devour all revenue ..."
- Benjamin Franklin, on why Britain and the 13 Colonies would not be entering into a closer union
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
--Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address)
Life is art, art is life
From the Internet Movie Database today:
"Pope Benedict XVI has turned down an invitation to attend the premiere of new movie The Nativity Story on Sunday, even though it will be screened in The Vatican. Sixteen-year-old Whale Rider actress Keisha Castle-Hughes stars as Jesus' mother Mary, but the fact the New Zealander is pregnant and unmarried is said to have embarrassed the Catholic Church."...
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Oh-h-h-h yeah, feels go-o-o-o-od ...
The new, charity-supporting credit card has arrived and been activated. It has a small, realistic credit limit. Its statements are concise and easy to read, and do not announce the sum of credit limit minus balance as "available to spend". Nor do its backers send me blank cheques drawn against it, with helpful hints like "why not write yourself a cheque for your current account to give yourself some funds?"
The old MBNA card has been cut in two and returned to its owners with its final statement. Thought of scribbling "that's for my parents' friend's daughter and the git you employed that she married", but felt that would be childish unless by some million-to-one chance he was the one to process the cancellation.
Yes, it feels good.
The other day I got some junk mail from MBNA exhorting me to take out a loan to finance a putative dream holiday. The envelope was emblazoned "Do You Like to Get Away?"
The irony is not lost.
The old MBNA card has been cut in two and returned to its owners with its final statement. Thought of scribbling "that's for my parents' friend's daughter and the git you employed that she married", but felt that would be childish unless by some million-to-one chance he was the one to process the cancellation.
Yes, it feels good.
The other day I got some junk mail from MBNA exhorting me to take out a loan to finance a putative dream holiday. The envelope was emblazoned "Do You Like to Get Away?"
The irony is not lost.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Ben: the musical
Okay, of all the various self-revealing memes to be doing the rounds of the blogosphere, this is probably the least meaningful. Well, possibly except the "which tarot card are you" one that I did a couple of days ago and chose not to reproduce here. ("The Hierophant", if you really want to know.)
So, revealing absolutely nuthin' with a big nut, the rules are:
[2] I only have three Cher tracks, honest, and one of them features Sonny too. [And no, it's not "I got you babe".] It's just a shame that two of them came up here ...
[3] Especially the ones you meet driving over the double mini roundabouts on Drayton Road.
[4] Actually a song I keep meaning to delete. On the plus side, it manages to rhyme "coolly" and "patchouli", and get away with it.
[5] Oh, please play this at my funeral!
[6] Clearly, Ben will return ...
So, revealing absolutely nuthin' with a big nut, the rules are:
- Open your music library
- Put it on shuffle
- Press play
- For every question, type the song that's playing
- When you go to a new question, press the next button
- Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
- Opening Credits: Shakespears Sister - I don't care
- Waking Up: Cher - The Shoop Shoop Song
- First Day at School: Howard Jones - New Song
- Falling in Love: The Doors - Light my fire [1]
- Fight Song: Gerry Rafferty - Don't speak of my heart
- Breaking Up: Marillion- Fugazi
- Prom: Cher - Gypsies tramps and thieves [2]
- Life is Good: The Hollies - Air that I breathe [1]
- Mental Breakdown: Sweet - Blockbuster
- Driving: The Doors - People are strange [3]
- Flashback: Marillion - Assassing
- Getting Back Together: Fun Boy Three - Our lips are sealed
- Wedding: Animotion - Obsession [1]
- Paying the Dues: Goldfrapp - Ooh la la
- The Night Before the War: Al Stewart - Year of the Cat [4]
- The Final Battle: Stone Roses - Waterfall
- Moment of Triumph: Urge Overkill - Girl you'll be a woman soon [1]
- Death Scene: Jonathan Richman - Egyptian reggae [5]
- Funeral Song: New Musik - Living by numbers
- End Credits: The Stranglers - Genetix [6]
[2] I only have three Cher tracks, honest, and one of them features Sonny too. [And no, it's not "I got you babe".] It's just a shame that two of them came up here ...
[3] Especially the ones you meet driving over the double mini roundabouts on Drayton Road.
[4] Actually a song I keep meaning to delete. On the plus side, it manages to rhyme "coolly" and "patchouli", and get away with it.
[5] Oh, please play this at my funeral!
[6] Clearly, Ben will return ...
Monday, November 20, 2006
Money for old rope is not always a bad thing
Depends what you do with the rope, doesn't it?
The Boy didn't fully understand what was being done to Daniel Craig during the torture scene until I explained it on the way home in the car. Then he was writhing.
Anyway. Casino Royale.
Best. Bond. Ever.
It has acting. It has characterisation. The plot is not silly. The credit sequence is not boring and semi-pornographic. And when you finally get to hear the classic Bond theme right at the end, you actually feel it's because Bond has earned it.
The Boy didn't fully understand what was being done to Daniel Craig during the torture scene until I explained it on the way home in the car. Then he was writhing.
Anyway. Casino Royale.
Best. Bond. Ever.
It has acting. It has characterisation. The plot is not silly. The credit sequence is not boring and semi-pornographic. And when you finally get to hear the classic Bond theme right at the end, you actually feel it's because Bond has earned it.
Ben's Best Bonds By Bond:
Sean Connery- From Russia With Love
- Goldfinger
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (This being the only Lazenby it has to be the best and the worst of his offering. It's actually a darn good Bond movie, let down by a not very good Bond. Think of it as The One with Louis Armstrong and Diana Rigg.)
- For Your Eyes Only (also with acting and characterisation, and the best line of all the Moores, as a teen nymphette tries to seduce him: "put your clothes on and I'll buy you an ice cream.")
- The Living Daylights
- The World is Not Enough (finally giving M something to do; in fact, I'll be heretical and say Judi Dench brings more to the role than Bernard Lee did.)
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
I would say Happy Blogiversary
... except that even in a field renowned for its neologisms, that is a particularly naff one. Still, you get the gist. I started this blog a year ago. A full solar orbit later and that in-depth analytical critique of the music of Men Without Hats has blossomed into commentary on life, death, religion, matrimony (pending, imminent and on-going), writing, chickens and the occasional hint that I'm quite a Dr Who fan.
To mark the occasion I've even changed the picture at the top. No longer Ben and his good mate Cybes, taken at the 2005 World SF Convention in Glasgow; now Ben in his Matrix audition photo (I was smiling too much, I never had a chance), taken on the most important of the last 365 days.
Here's a last chance to see the old. For the record, you had to donate money to (if I recall correctly) cancer research for the privilege of being snapped with a cyberman, so it was all in a good cause. Also included in the background: a TARDIS, a TARDIS console and (if you look very closely at the blue blur on the left) a Stargate. Honestly, I was there for the literary criticism.
Bye bye!
To mark the occasion I've even changed the picture at the top. No longer Ben and his good mate Cybes, taken at the 2005 World SF Convention in Glasgow; now Ben in his Matrix audition photo (I was smiling too much, I never had a chance), taken on the most important of the last 365 days.
Here's a last chance to see the old. For the record, you had to donate money to (if I recall correctly) cancer research for the privilege of being snapped with a cyberman, so it was all in a good cause. Also included in the background: a TARDIS, a TARDIS console and (if you look very closely at the blue blur on the left) a Stargate. Honestly, I was there for the literary criticism.
Bye bye!Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Boom, boom, boom
I wore my red (RED, got that? RED) poppy and I stood for two minutes silence on Sunday. Which is as well, because on Saturday, the actual anniversary of the Armistice, at 11 a.m. on the 11th of the 11th, I was running around in a wood near Andover, shooting at people with paintballs.
This was a company social at which family members were welcome, so a couple of spouses joined us and I brought the Boy too. The opposition was a bunch of chavs, oiks, bounders and general non-gentlemen who didn’t always take their shots unless there was a marshal actually there to tell them to (‘yeah, who does?’ was the response of one of them when challenged). Ours was the moral victory, theirs the actual one. So in a way, this was quite a suitable activity for the day as by the end there was the definite feeling that we were the ones upholding the standards of decency and civilisation. A doomed venture, but one worth fighting for. Come the last game of the day, when we had to defend a fort with our carefully measured remaining ammunition, I could feel the ghosts of Captain Mainwaring and the Alamo defenders looking over my shoulder.
But, back to the war. I have in my mind what I think would be a killer opening chapter to a novel set during WW1. But I can’t get beyond that opening chapter in my head, as every subsequent plot outline I can think of devolves into a fantasy novel of good vs evil, and you just can’t make the real world WW1 a secondary struggle to a purely made-up fantasy one. It would be demeaning and insulting. Nor could you link it to the real WW1, as even if non-Germans at the time thought it had a reasonably happy ending, sadly we in the present day know what came next.
Of course, you can set a novel during WW1. Bird Song. All Quiet on the Western Front. Private Peaceful (which, like Joey in Friends, I wanted to put in the fridge when I finished). Blackadder showed you can even set a comedy during it. But in all of these, even Blackadder, the war is treated with the utmost respect – it’s bigger than any of them, and ultimately it’s the war that wins. There may be a fantasy novel waiting to be written during WW1 and I (who knows?) may be the one to write it, but not yet. Not until I’ve got that angle completely straight.
If it does happen, it might feature another idea I’ve had at the back of my mind for some time – take the cute Victorian/Edwardian kids of E. Nesbit’s novels (The Railway Children, The Treasure Seekers, Five Children and It) and stick ’em in the trenches. Hah.
This was a company social at which family members were welcome, so a couple of spouses joined us and I brought the Boy too. The opposition was a bunch of chavs, oiks, bounders and general non-gentlemen who didn’t always take their shots unless there was a marshal actually there to tell them to (‘yeah, who does?’ was the response of one of them when challenged). Ours was the moral victory, theirs the actual one. So in a way, this was quite a suitable activity for the day as by the end there was the definite feeling that we were the ones upholding the standards of decency and civilisation. A doomed venture, but one worth fighting for. Come the last game of the day, when we had to defend a fort with our carefully measured remaining ammunition, I could feel the ghosts of Captain Mainwaring and the Alamo defenders looking over my shoulder.
But, back to the war. I have in my mind what I think would be a killer opening chapter to a novel set during WW1. But I can’t get beyond that opening chapter in my head, as every subsequent plot outline I can think of devolves into a fantasy novel of good vs evil, and you just can’t make the real world WW1 a secondary struggle to a purely made-up fantasy one. It would be demeaning and insulting. Nor could you link it to the real WW1, as even if non-Germans at the time thought it had a reasonably happy ending, sadly we in the present day know what came next.
Of course, you can set a novel during WW1. Bird Song. All Quiet on the Western Front. Private Peaceful (which, like Joey in Friends, I wanted to put in the fridge when I finished). Blackadder showed you can even set a comedy during it. But in all of these, even Blackadder, the war is treated with the utmost respect – it’s bigger than any of them, and ultimately it’s the war that wins. There may be a fantasy novel waiting to be written during WW1 and I (who knows?) may be the one to write it, but not yet. Not until I’ve got that angle completely straight.
If it does happen, it might feature another idea I’ve had at the back of my mind for some time – take the cute Victorian/Edwardian kids of E. Nesbit’s novels (The Railway Children, The Treasure Seekers, Five Children and It) and stick ’em in the trenches. Hah.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Vows of sacrifice, headless chickens
For the record, this is what a chicken looks like when impaled on a pierced can of Adnams. Red colour is due to the heavily paprika-based seasoning rubbed into it. Roast at gas mark 6 for 75 minutes and it doesn't so much need carving as poking - the flesh just melts off the bone.Extreme yum.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Chicken in
Thanks to the fine people at Mostly Books I've been directed to Sophie Grigson's recipe for beer-can chicken. This strikes me as a most responsible use for (a) a chicken and (b) a can of beer. I may well be trying this. Maybe with some Italian arborio rice.
Game on
The Boy despairs of my gaming preferences. If it doesn't require at least 1Gb RAM and come on six CDs, it isn't worth the time of day.
He thinks Luddite, I say classically minded. Minesweeper and Tetris are horrendously addictive. Further up the ladder of complexity, the original Lemmings can still never be beat, even if it's a lot harder now to play the original DOS game on an XP computer. I mean, anything where the background music can segue effortlessly from electronic beepy 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' into electronic beepy 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly' can only be art.
More accessible to a modern PC, and written in very much the same spirit, is Flea Circus (thanks to friend David C for introducing me): it's still all about getting your little creatures from A to B avoiding various obstacles and using a limited set of props. It's a bit like plotting a novel. You know where you're starting from and you know where you want to end up. How you actually get there, goodness knows.
He thinks Luddite, I say classically minded. Minesweeper and Tetris are horrendously addictive. Further up the ladder of complexity, the original Lemmings can still never be beat, even if it's a lot harder now to play the original DOS game on an XP computer. I mean, anything where the background music can segue effortlessly from electronic beepy 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' into electronic beepy 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly' can only be art.
More accessible to a modern PC, and written in very much the same spirit, is Flea Circus (thanks to friend David C for introducing me): it's still all about getting your little creatures from A to B avoiding various obstacles and using a limited set of props. It's a bit like plotting a novel. You know where you're starting from and you know where you want to end up. How you actually get there, goodness knows.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Mushroom for improvement, and fireworks
Friday night is the night the two Bs cook – that’s Ben and Boy. This week’s menu choice was Delia’s oven-baked wild mushroom risotto, an eye rollingly delicious concoction of chestnut and porcini mushrooms, a glass of port (the menu said Madeira, but ...), three cloves of garlic (the menu didn’t call for any, but ...) and Italian Arborio rice.
Which Tesco didn’t have. Ah well, I thought. This is posh, proper cooking so I’ll eschew the easy cook stuff and get some of the decent long grain brown type.
Turned out easy cook would have been wiser ... you live and learn. Come the magic hour, everything was simmered and cooked to perfection and the rice was a mass of small, hard, floaty things bobbing up here and there out of the sauce. Best Beloved took a couple of bites and decreed it would make us ill. Thus our invention of the two stage risotto, in which rice and main ingredients are actually eaten separately. We picked out the mushrooms, ate them, and put the rice + mushroom stock into a saucepan and cooked it for longer. In the meantime we fought off the hunger pangs with mini Pringles and olives. I think it ended up an even nicer meal than it would have if everything had been eaten at once.
Then to the Didcot fireworks last night – a quite impressive display more or less choreographed to music including Queen’s ‘Don’t stop me now’, Carmina Burana, the can-can, and some interchangeable Celtic droning by Enya. Actually that’s not quite fair to Enya, who does at least two types of interchangeable Celtic droning – fast and slow. This was ICD (fast), with lots of twiddly electric guitar and synth chords and was actually the piece that worked best. I hadn’t realised, until hearing it on industrial scale speakers, that she likes to put in lots of blanket bass chords which makes it pretty good Music to Accompany Fireworks With.
After that, back to my Best Man’s house, where our Boy (14) could show his boys (11 and 7) how to get past a particularly vexing level in Lego Star Wars on the PS2, and we could sit in the kitchen and catch up over a couple of glasses of Old Pulteney Liqueur. I’ve not met this before but will pursue the acquaintance now it’s been made. It seems to be to Drambuie what Pepsi is to Coke – i.e. there’s probably a difference between the two that is discernible by those with a more than passing familiarity. Very nice, anyway – single malt scotch with herbs and other ingredients to soften the impact. Highly recommended.
And finally, to celebrate the new availability of Wingèd Chariot I did some redesigning to the web site. Which reminds me I haven’t recorded another chapter of New World Order since Thursday, so will proceed to that now.
Which Tesco didn’t have. Ah well, I thought. This is posh, proper cooking so I’ll eschew the easy cook stuff and get some of the decent long grain brown type.
Turned out easy cook would have been wiser ... you live and learn. Come the magic hour, everything was simmered and cooked to perfection and the rice was a mass of small, hard, floaty things bobbing up here and there out of the sauce. Best Beloved took a couple of bites and decreed it would make us ill. Thus our invention of the two stage risotto, in which rice and main ingredients are actually eaten separately. We picked out the mushrooms, ate them, and put the rice + mushroom stock into a saucepan and cooked it for longer. In the meantime we fought off the hunger pangs with mini Pringles and olives. I think it ended up an even nicer meal than it would have if everything had been eaten at once.
Then to the Didcot fireworks last night – a quite impressive display more or less choreographed to music including Queen’s ‘Don’t stop me now’, Carmina Burana, the can-can, and some interchangeable Celtic droning by Enya. Actually that’s not quite fair to Enya, who does at least two types of interchangeable Celtic droning – fast and slow. This was ICD (fast), with lots of twiddly electric guitar and synth chords and was actually the piece that worked best. I hadn’t realised, until hearing it on industrial scale speakers, that she likes to put in lots of blanket bass chords which makes it pretty good Music to Accompany Fireworks With.
After that, back to my Best Man’s house, where our Boy (14) could show his boys (11 and 7) how to get past a particularly vexing level in Lego Star Wars on the PS2, and we could sit in the kitchen and catch up over a couple of glasses of Old Pulteney Liqueur. I’ve not met this before but will pursue the acquaintance now it’s been made. It seems to be to Drambuie what Pepsi is to Coke – i.e. there’s probably a difference between the two that is discernible by those with a more than passing familiarity. Very nice, anyway – single malt scotch with herbs and other ingredients to soften the impact. Highly recommended.
And finally, to celebrate the new availability of Wingèd Chariot I did some redesigning to the web site. Which reminds me I haven’t recorded another chapter of New World Order since Thursday, so will proceed to that now.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
There's a kindred soul out there
Actually I already knew that and I married her. But it turns out there's at least another partially kindred one somewhere. Today's Golden Oldies slot on Radio 2 featured no less than four tracks that I have in my downloaded collection.
On the other hand, the same person who selected them also chose two tracks by artists that I wouldn't give a single byte of hard disk space to. This suggests that it would be a fraught relationship.
So that's six tracks total, that I caught. This is them listed alphabetically by artist - see if you can guess which the offending two were:
On the other hand, the same person who selected them also chose two tracks by artists that I wouldn't give a single byte of hard disk space to. This suggests that it would be a fraught relationship.
So that's six tracks total, that I caught. This is them listed alphabetically by artist - see if you can guess which the offending two were:
- Emma Bunton - Downtown
- The Jacksons - ABC
- The Motors - Airport
- Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the middle
- Tina Turner - River deep, mountain high
- The Tornados - Telstar
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
It lives, I tell you, lives!
My poor drowned kitten - Wingèd Chariot, published 2000, died 2001 when I jumped publishers and Scholastic had no interest in keeping it in print. Not that they had entirely helped matters by giving it a cover straight out of the Junior Book of Bible Stories and, as is usual for Scholastic, publicising it under conditions of complete secrecy.
But no more. With only the effort required from a couple of lunchbreaks, it is available once more to a waiting world, mwah hah hah hah hah! Treeware or e-ware, your choice, downloadable on-demand from lulu.com, with a cover that's a little more interesting than before. Go to http://www.lulu.com/content/496080 and see for yourself.
In fact, if someone would like to buy it just so I know how easy it actually is, that would be very useful research ...
To follow, when I have a moment: His Majesty's Starship.
Anyway, some gratuitous text now follows to hook the attentions of the search engines.
- novel by Ben Jeapes
- reprint
- time travel
- adventure
- far future
- medieval philosophy
- history of science
- download
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