Cook me a green veyron
Had an excellent weekend mooching around with A. Really glad I swapped out of the Sunday at the stinkhole. An unexplained crabbyness on Sunday afternoon was sorted out by a few beers and watching the rugby. I was pleased to see England beaten by the French despite being a supporter. I want to see England do well in the world cup and a few domestic defeats will wake them up a bit. The mechanical almost German like method on display during the last world cup has been lost. There is individual flare but the cohesiveness has been lost. In the last world cup we showed the world the way the game should be played and they have learnt and have turned it round on us and we can't do it as well as they can now. I think that has happened several times with just about every sport to come out of Britain. Did we invent curling?
'A' bought me an awesome book 'Great British Dinners' by James Martin. Its a fantastic book it has everything your mum would cook in it. It has included in the category of British food things like goulash, CTM and spag bol which of course only an idiot would deny are as British as her majesty. They are unrecognizable to natives of their supposed countries of origin. In Hungary goulash is a soup not a casserole of housebricks like it is here. Because that's what British means just like Lizzie who herself is a mixture of genes from a wide assortment of countries so Britain draws on influences from its historical links with the whole world, bastardises them and then incorporates them into the national identity. Then we proudly export them as our own invention. There are restaurants in Delhi run by ex pat British asians serving Anglo-Asian cuisine. In other words we're selling British curry to the Indians. Notice I didn't say "British" but British because it bloody well is British curry.
I digress the book is awesome it has nice simple recipes emphasising real solid flavours and I intend to become expert in things like shortcrust pastry, roast potatoes and real custard. In summary I want to cook like a granny. I want to cook a gooseberry pie with lard in the pastry and eggs in the luminous yellow custard. I want to cook dumplings made from suet. If you had to explain what British cooking is like to someone from a part of the United States where people never close their mouths even when not eating or speaking (South Dakota for example) this would be the book to read out loud to them.
A also bought a timeout guide to ski resorts and she discovered that there are some excellent restaurants in Corcheval one of which is a 2 star and runs a weekly halfday regional french cookery lesson. In fact there are two 2 star restaurants. I have been bigging up the quality of the food in the chalet to A in the hope that she would be keener to go. I am conscious of the fact she isn't mad keen on heights, speed or cold. The prospect of good food on the other hand always lights her eyes up. She actually seems excited at the prospect of going now and therefore I'm looking forward to it all the more.
If there are any readers of this blog and if any of those readers don't know A you might be forgiven for thinking she is an amorphous blob who eats and grows ever larger and that this is one of those 'Fat girls and feeders' fetish based relationships. In fact A is very small and trim despite eating more than me. She exercises daily but I don't think she really gets out of breath. Its all very gentle but I guess it must work.
I watched best of Topgear instead of the BBC's flagship 'Planet Earth' program. Putting them on at the same time was an inspired piece of scheduling as people interested in super-cars tend not to be interested in the planet. Jeremy Clarkson was driving the Bugatti Veyron in fact he was racing it against a light aircraft. Clarkson pointed out that the car was an engineering exercise. Apparently the head of Volkswagen on purchasing Bugatti said "lets build a car with I -dunno 1000 horsepower and capable of somethin-like 400 kilometers per hour without looking into what that would mean in terms of engineering reality and the engineers were given an unlimited budget to just get on with it. I say it is a Foley. Just like those towers on country estates put up to improve the view. Its a fantasy made real. Yes it is stupid to build but by building it we all gain. Apparently Ken Livingston is christening those areas of London likely to flood in the event of a rise in sea level 'Clarkson Zones'. He said so everyone would know who was responsible for them flooding. Now Clarkson and his kind possibly me included have to take the blame for our share of climate change but come on Ken! Clarkson flooded London all by himself. Does Clarkson have a patio heater? Do you Ken? How about your mates? Ken is pushing hybrid car technology and the fuel consumption figures are no better than conventional engine technology. You are still burning fossil fuel to turn the wheels. And things like the weight of the car and its equipment battery etc are the factors which determine the fuel economy not the method of translation of bang energy to move energy. Ironically people like Clarkson striving for ever better car performance paying huge sums for silly cars have enabled engineers to push the development of lighter materials and more efficient engines. If you want to go green Ken then lets all go to biofuel. We can pay our underemployed farmers a decent living to produce huge amounts of vegetable oil for us and we can all drive round in slightly converted supercars with a clear conscience. A green Veyron just imagine! VW boss make them build it please!
The long awaited Audiolab Digital to Analogue Converter (8000DAC) should arrive this week and I am seriously looking forward to hearing my CDs and music stored on my computer sound (almost) as good as the vinyl LPs I have been playing.
I must get on with some work.
'A' bought me an awesome book 'Great British Dinners' by James Martin. Its a fantastic book it has everything your mum would cook in it. It has included in the category of British food things like goulash, CTM and spag bol which of course only an idiot would deny are as British as her majesty. They are unrecognizable to natives of their supposed countries of origin. In Hungary goulash is a soup not a casserole of housebricks like it is here. Because that's what British means just like Lizzie who herself is a mixture of genes from a wide assortment of countries so Britain draws on influences from its historical links with the whole world, bastardises them and then incorporates them into the national identity. Then we proudly export them as our own invention. There are restaurants in Delhi run by ex pat British asians serving Anglo-Asian cuisine. In other words we're selling British curry to the Indians. Notice I didn't say "British" but British because it bloody well is British curry.
I digress the book is awesome it has nice simple recipes emphasising real solid flavours and I intend to become expert in things like shortcrust pastry, roast potatoes and real custard. In summary I want to cook like a granny. I want to cook a gooseberry pie with lard in the pastry and eggs in the luminous yellow custard. I want to cook dumplings made from suet. If you had to explain what British cooking is like to someone from a part of the United States where people never close their mouths even when not eating or speaking (South Dakota for example) this would be the book to read out loud to them.
A also bought a timeout guide to ski resorts and she discovered that there are some excellent restaurants in Corcheval one of which is a 2 star and runs a weekly halfday regional french cookery lesson. In fact there are two 2 star restaurants. I have been bigging up the quality of the food in the chalet to A in the hope that she would be keener to go. I am conscious of the fact she isn't mad keen on heights, speed or cold. The prospect of good food on the other hand always lights her eyes up. She actually seems excited at the prospect of going now and therefore I'm looking forward to it all the more.
If there are any readers of this blog and if any of those readers don't know A you might be forgiven for thinking she is an amorphous blob who eats and grows ever larger and that this is one of those 'Fat girls and feeders' fetish based relationships. In fact A is very small and trim despite eating more than me. She exercises daily but I don't think she really gets out of breath. Its all very gentle but I guess it must work.
I watched best of Topgear instead of the BBC's flagship 'Planet Earth' program. Putting them on at the same time was an inspired piece of scheduling as people interested in super-cars tend not to be interested in the planet. Jeremy Clarkson was driving the Bugatti Veyron in fact he was racing it against a light aircraft. Clarkson pointed out that the car was an engineering exercise. Apparently the head of Volkswagen on purchasing Bugatti said "lets build a car with I -dunno 1000 horsepower and capable of somethin-like 400 kilometers per hour without looking into what that would mean in terms of engineering reality and the engineers were given an unlimited budget to just get on with it. I say it is a Foley. Just like those towers on country estates put up to improve the view. Its a fantasy made real. Yes it is stupid to build but by building it we all gain. Apparently Ken Livingston is christening those areas of London likely to flood in the event of a rise in sea level 'Clarkson Zones'. He said so everyone would know who was responsible for them flooding. Now Clarkson and his kind possibly me included have to take the blame for our share of climate change but come on Ken! Clarkson flooded London all by himself. Does Clarkson have a patio heater? Do you Ken? How about your mates? Ken is pushing hybrid car technology and the fuel consumption figures are no better than conventional engine technology. You are still burning fossil fuel to turn the wheels. And things like the weight of the car and its equipment battery etc are the factors which determine the fuel economy not the method of translation of bang energy to move energy. Ironically people like Clarkson striving for ever better car performance paying huge sums for silly cars have enabled engineers to push the development of lighter materials and more efficient engines. If you want to go green Ken then lets all go to biofuel. We can pay our underemployed farmers a decent living to produce huge amounts of vegetable oil for us and we can all drive round in slightly converted supercars with a clear conscience. A green Veyron just imagine! VW boss make them build it please!
The long awaited Audiolab Digital to Analogue Converter (8000DAC) should arrive this week and I am seriously looking forward to hearing my CDs and music stored on my computer sound (almost) as good as the vinyl LPs I have been playing.
I must get on with some work.
posted by Phil at 10:49 am
1 Comments:
Gorgeous one
Is there any point in still calling me 'A'? Well, I suppose a lot of Americans do this blogging thing and have brain cells the size of erm, atoms (you'll have to tell me what's smaller than atoms).
I know we've discussed this - and this is a massive improvement on the previous entries. Clarkson is a great writer, let's not deny it, and although he's an absolute prat, thank God you've got him influencing your writing rather than Jasper Gerrard.
You really do have to get informed about grammar. You've semi-mastered the spelling (discovered the spell check I believe) - but you can't rely on the damn thing because of the blasted Yanks. Didn't they spot Foley rather than folly? Idiots.
What you're good at is short sentences and humour, so build on that. Write the thing in Word which can help with your grammar, then publish it.
Make sure you define your paragraphs and use commas, hyphens and semi-colons liberally; they make the sentences shout - without caps.
On the positive side, your story telling/humour/ cultural interpretation is excellent. Your comments on 'britishness' are interesting as are your touches on green issues.
As you can imagine, I'm with Ken every inch of the way to the 'Clarkson' Zones! Brilliant idea! Although I was reading that every short journey by air you contribute one million tonnes of carbon dioxide, so perhaps Ken would be better off calling them 'Branson Boundaries'.
Biofuel is the way to go.
Lots of love as always xx
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