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Cab
Jul. 11th, 2009
12:29 pm - Cambridge Event - French food and humanists
Just got back in with new shoes and piles of things from the Cambridge Event thingy. I really should learn that my French is better than their English, then I'd have got what I asked for. No more interesting than what I actually got, I suppose... Just about enough cured meat to see us through till we make more in Autumn, cheese, brioche, and from the flea market a drill (the kind thats like a whisk, 'cos I don't have one) and butter patters (well, why not? I make butter sometimes?).
Stopped and talked to the Cambridge Humanists. I was curious, so I asked why I (as an atheist) should be a humanist; to summarise their response, its because the 'religions' get it too easy and its not fair, dammit... I'm not impressed by that. I'm pro-atheism, but I don't want to join an anti-religious group.
Jul. 10th, 2009
10:57 pm - Just once in a while...
...theres a news story that doesn't make the news, but it still worries me.
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?p=2
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?p=2
08:36 am - Yesterdays 'featured article' on Wikipedia
Sometimes I find the history of England to be quite wonderful. Other times its just odd. This is an example of the latter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_
Jul. 7th, 2009
05:48 pm - Fake pound coins
The Scottish bloke at the local Budgens was on the tills. Think he's a manager of some description, he was as ever trying to do two things at once; while serving me he was also trying to tell one of the other staff to be vigilant for fake £50 notes.
I suggested to him that they ought to also be careful of fake pound coins, and in a timely fashion he handed one to me in my change. I gave it back, he gave me another while heading off... And the replacement was a way worse, less convincing fake. And, of course, the original fake went back into the till.
No one, in any shop, at any time, ever seems to give a damn about fake currency, unless its a high value note and they'll get caught out and lose money. The banks haven't got anything taking out the fakes from circulation. I've always checked, I hand the fakes back, the few that I get end up being given to others as curiosities. But, really, fuck it. Ain't me who is making them, and telling the shop passing fake currency achieves nothing if the coins just go back into the tills, so from now on I'll save them and spend them back where they were handed to me.
Jul. 6th, 2009
02:28 pm - Weekend...
Went up to stay with Firekitten and Gremln. The latter seemed most ill, but Firekitten was on better form. Saw many others there, had a pleasant time.
Watered for hours on Friday evening. There is no moisture left in the soil. None. It has been so dry for so long. Getting hard. At least some showers today so far, can't hurt.
Jul. 1st, 2009
11:19 pm - Dinner at Alimentum
Went there with the BS two.
Had, as a starter, an odd little round salmon pill with crab, samphire and rocket, and some odd green stuff wiped across the plate. It was sublime, the only criticism would be that the samphire could have been fresher, but I'm pretty much impossible to please if a restaurant is serving me wild picked ingredients; I expect the best. But here I'm being picky, it was an excellent dish.
Main course had some beef cooked rare, with more beef that was cooked till it fell apart, and 'girolle' (thats chanterelle in English, dagnammit) and snails. They flavoured the sauce very well, pity the flavour of the beef totally demolished these subtle flavours. The chef just didn't understand the flavours all that well, the snail and shroom worked, the beef worked, its just that the two components of the dish weren't communicating in any way. Still, both were at least on passable terms with the Beaujolais.
Dessert was a lemon jelly like thing with a frozen lemony thing and lemon saucy stuff, and something jellyish made with lemon, with a layer of rice pudding flavoured with vanilla and what can best be described as a wet fart of lemonade on top of it. Excellent.
So, on the whole... Okay. Just missing the mark though, I'd expect better of the main course, the chef tried to be too clever and failed on that one. And why the heck would a place claiming to be into 'local' or 'ethical' fail to make better use of the excellent local produce we've got at this time of year? That means vegetables. We're in East Anglia for pities sake, its where England does a lot of its vegetable gardening, why wasn't that there? Where were the broad beans? The new potatoes? The runner and French beans that are starting now, the super local greens and courgettes? Beetroot? Carrots? Where, in short, was the rest of it?
Anyway, had a good evening.
Jun. 29th, 2009
03:17 pm - Veal and coastlines
I keep forgetting to post omnomnom posts.
Got a small joint of Veal on Saturday; pink veal, so its lived outside and eaten grass, its been raised as well as any beef I'd buy.
Had roast rib of veal on Saturday, followed by the veal rib-steaks on Sunday (it was roasted pink enough to get away with cutting for frying steaks), the steaks with blue cheese sauce, served with seedy bread, samphire (gathered on Elliphants works outing, a walk along the Norfolk coast between Clay and Sheringham), and broad beans. The former dish was good, the latter superb.
Said walk was great fun, but awfully hot. Heck, but its been dry up there; some of the salt marshes are practically parched.
Jun. 25th, 2009
11:14 am - In two minds about Team Sky
This news story here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_s
On the one hand... Gosh, but if the same kind of technology and training regime that has allowed team GM to marmalise the rest of the world on the velodrome is brought into road race cycling, that would be amazing. Not that it hasn't been done; Lance Armstrong and his near industrial (some have claimed pharmaceutical) approach to training and racing comes close. And I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't be excited to see a Brit win the Tour (Cavendish is best chance for the green jersey at least this year).
But on the other... Road cycling, the great tours, I don't think that their reputation will recover from the ridiculous morass of drugs scandals they've got into. Cyclists so doped up with EPO and blood cell transfusions that they can't risk sleeping (their heart rates had to be kept up to pump strawberry jam like blood through their bodies). I don't believe its anything like as dirty as it was in the '90s and early '00s, but to risk the reputation of team GB cycling on this related project, to sully their unsurpassed progress on the velodrome would be too great a cost.
But then... I dunno, the thing obviously missing from lists of names like Anquetil, Hinault, Merckx, Armstrong and Indurain is a Brit.
Jun. 20th, 2009
09:34 pm - Mostly picking...
... wild cherries, and from the plot all sorts of salad, carrots, early potatoes, chard, broad beans, peas, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, red currants, black currants, tayberries and mange tout.
Better year for soft fruit than last.
Jun. 17th, 2009
10:18 pm - Hamster Fud
Includes lettuce, wild strawberries, cabbage, pak choi, strawberry sepals, rose petals, carrots, toast, plain pasta, porridge, rice, bonios and cabbage white caterpillars (the green ones, not the yellow and black hairy ones, which haven't been tried yet). Oh, and most of the actual hamster fud too. The caterpillar was especially favoured, with immediate reversion to little wild rodent behaviour.
Hamster fud does not include raspberries or the strange brown things in hamster fud that look like hamster poos. Hamster poo is in fact more hamster fud than those are.
Hamster fud is a good way to get over having fallen asleep leaning against the water bottle. Again.
And whatever it is you're really doing with that towel to dry the hamster off when she's got a wet arse from sleeping against said water bottle, the hamster fears the worst.
09:51 pm - Overdue update
Went up and stayed with Bloomeenee the other week, for a family wedding at St. James park, Newcastle. Odd feeling being in a massive stadium and being the only one there, which happened when we arrived a little early. Odder still for the pitch to have been taken up and re-sowed.
Saw family.
Summer has hit hard here. Got more broad beans and mange tout than we can easily eat and we're buried in berries, salad and new potatoes.
Have mastered a cherry choc ice cream that is better than B&J's cherry garcia. At last!
Jun. 1st, 2009
09:45 am - Weekend, much done (Gujarati ladies, dinner at Winchester)
Sweetcorn (22 plants) planted out, 16 assorted chilli and pepper plants out, 12 sweet potato out.
Over wintering (Japanese) onions taken in, along with garlic. There was just a whiff, that lingering grey aroma of white rot, on the air, and on inspecting the bulbs I observed two garlic and one onion were infected. Glad I had them out, I've a hope of saving the bulk of them now, whereas the chap next to me has it bad on his garlic, and will lose the lot. They crop is now drying in the garden. Experimenting with red over-wintering onions failed, they all bolted. Whites are looking okay.
Main crop red onions and shallots weeded. Looking good; the reds re planted far too close so they'll be small, but they look very healthy.
Carrotopolis weeded and watered.
Squashes, cucumbers and courgettes all watered. Netting installed over redcurrants and strawberries.
Some sunflowers planted out.
Didn't quite get everything done; need to find time to bottle wine at some point, and also need to sow more lettuce (seed cunningly in fridge else as the temperatures rise it won't germinate).
We went out with Elliphants Gujarati colleagues on Saturday night. Went to that nice veggie place opposite Kings. Had a pleasant evening.
Then last night went to Winchester with udsctb, puddingcat and the BS two, had a nice enough dinner (on a table outside that oscilated, moving the attatched benches with it, at the merest hint of clenching arse muscles) but no one else seemed particularly hungry. Odd.
May. 28th, 2009
12:07 pm - Greens
Saw their broadcast last night. So, according to the Greens, they're not all about environmentalism, reducing dependence on unsustainable resources, and other ethical stances to which I adhere and look for in an environmentally conscious party?
So why would I vote for them, then?
Going to abstain.
May. 27th, 2009
09:06 am - BNP
Saw most of their party political broadcast last night.
A very reasonable way of saying some entirely unreasonable things. I don't disagree with everything they said, it was too well crafted for that. But I sure as hell disagreed with the message.
I kind of hope that they get crucified in the coming elections. But I also hope that their likely improvement in the polls serves as the good solid kick in the knackers that our mainstream political parties richly need and deserve.
May. 26th, 2009
09:00 am - Almost all planted out...
Carrotopolis is nearly complete. Beetroot, chard, lettuce 3, squashes and courgettes, tomatoes... Heck, lost track, but most things that can go out are out. Still need to plant up tomatillos into final position, cape gooseberries, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes... Trouble is I'm out of space. Still, first early spuds will be ready very soon, as will broad beans, and early peas etc. so I can get 'em out then. 'Course if I use all the spud space too quickly then I'm left without somewhere to plant winter brassicas...
Huge help from elliphant this long weekend, now I think we're nearly caught up again.
May. 22nd, 2009
May. 18th, 2009
01:44 pm - Star Trek
Finally we see what was missing from DS9, Enterprise, and Voyager. Star Trek was missing from those.
The film rocks.
May. 13th, 2009
03:56 pm - Random observations of the week so far
Found a bottle of something or other outside the pharmacist close to work; opened the box it was in and the patient information leaflet was still there, undisturbed, so this pack was new and unused. Rational conclusion was that it was from the pharmacists, someone had bought it and lost it, and probably hadn't gone far... So I picked it up and took it back in to the shop. The woman behind the counter looked at me as if I was an alien when I explained this, didn't really care to take it back from me, but thankfully a chap in a bright red bow tie turned up and loudly exclaimed that he'd lost the product, so all was well. I suppose there are enough bright red bow tie wearers around to make the whole phenomenon of shopkeepers looking at you like you're mad something to be expected.
Bunch of kids (boys, 12 or so in age) in town moaning to each other about one of their group not sharing his sweets. Struck me as odd that a kid of african extraction should have been called 'Enoch'; has enough time passed that there is no longer strange irony in parents naming a black kid Enoch?
By Homebase on Monday evening, a fat woman was looking at a weighted down helium ballon she'd bought or been given. You know the kind, the sort you might get as a gift or give for a birthday; tacky but fun. Wind picked up and blew it away, she must have maintained her persuit for all of 15 feet before giving up on the balloon (hadn't got much further) as too much effort, bending down very tired. Sad to see, maybe it was medical, looked like she just decided it was too much like hard work. Got into her tank of a car and drove off.
Damn homebase for three for the price of two offers on fruit plants where they've only got two interesting plants in the offer. Damn them, damn them, damn them.
May. 11th, 2009
03:32 pm - Too... many... plants...
...and too much to say about planting them really.
Lettuce 3 out, lettuce 4 sown, cabbage 2 and 3 both half planted out, winter brassicas sown, cauliflower 2 out, pea 4, 5 and 6 soaking to be planted, runner bean 1 planted out, chillis potted on, tomatoes and sweet potatoes hardening off, climbing french beans hardening off, dwarf runners hardening off, more carrots sown, more carrot patch dug over and nearly ready, sweet corn germinating, fennel germinating... And more on top of that too.
More bathroom stuff done; elliphant finished grouting with tiny amount of help from me.
Turns out that ox-heart makes a passable substitute for kidney in a steak pudding, and that if you pressure cook it with rice wine, stock, soy sauce and five spice then its great cut up and stir fried. Very, very filling still.
May. 8th, 2009
11:41 am - Moomin and the wheel
Sure enough, by morning, all of her bedding, and all of her food, was in the wheel. With the hamster. Thus rendering the wheel useless.
She didn't really want to be transferred to a bed chamber, but she has been, and went back to sleep. Just before I went to work she came down from there and sleepily looked for the (temporarily removed) wheel, before going back to bed where I'd put her. Possibly a success, we'll see whether she does it again this evening after I give her the wheel back.
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