Jade has had her first rehearsal in Moscow - the video is up on the Eurovision.tv website
Have to say, even in rehearsal, it works well on stage. Also, it's very clear Jade Ewen has one of the best voices (if not the best) of the entire competition. Still not a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's song, BUT it also works in the stadium format and the whole thing is helped by pretty classy production - the lighting design is great. Yeah, it is true we're going with a smoke machine and violins on stage (definitely this year's cliche). Nevertheless, I was quite surprised how positively I responded to this. Yikes! Mustn't become too invested in this!
*crossed fingers for Jade*
In other developments, a crazed costume designer ruins Zoli's chances. Boo. :-(
Zoli terms the costumes "a surprise". No shit Sherlock! - not a good one either!
Calling Zoli Ádok: It's not too late mate! The trackies/t-shirt look in the first rehearsal was HAWT! And you can't be that cruel to the girls. OMG! - Please put them out of their misery! Even dancing in their underwear would be better than this.
The final is on the 16th - Yay! All very exciting. One of the ironies is that while the ESC is the gayest event on the planet, the largely homophobic Eastern Europeans take it very seriously as a matter of macho national pride. Moscow especially is a very gay-intolerant city, and local activists have scheduled their pride event to run concurrently with the ESC. I'm feeling this could all end in tears. I hope the Russian authorities are mature about this.
Competitiion-wise, Hungary's Zoli Ádok's first rehearsal is worth watching. Zoli gets my douze points for his dance routine alone.
His official video has better sound, but I reckon his live routine is much better than the video. Keep that shirt off, Zoli.
Ok so who else? Sweden always seems to do a power-diva dinosaur-disco made-for-ESC number - this year's no different. Malena Ernman: Camp attack! The Swedish committee is definitely stuck in a bit of a rut. Nice dress, looks like they've left the wind machine behind this year though. Like the UK, Sweden actually has fantastic pop credibility which doesn't seem to exend as far as the ESC.
The favourites at this stage appear to be Norway's Alexander Ryback and Turkey's Hadise.
Norway's song is rubbish but Alexander is alarmingly cute and a good performer - he may just wing it on personal charm. It's funny how many of the acts this year have picked up on the violin action in 2008's winner Dima Bilan's performance. People: lightning doesn't strike in the same way twice! (However, Alex's cuteness is definitely more of a threat, AND he plays his own violin.)
Turkey's entry is attempting to buck the homoerotic tide with Hadise's sexy routine. She's undeniably gorgeous, and the song is fun, cute and utterly harmless. I hope she does well.
And us? What about the UK? Sadly, I just can't find the patriotism to get behind Andrew Lloyd Webber's terribly dreary dirge "It's My Time". When Lloyd Webber is bad he is truly awful. Poor Jade Ewen, a lovely girl and a good singer, tries her best to carry this crud but the task is simply impossible.
Props to the UK for trying a different approach, and Andrew Lloyd Webber has magnificent balls to put himself at such risk of embarrassing failure - especially in a contest as corrupt and political as ESC. I don't like the way he gracelessly dissed our previous entries: he's definitely riding for a fall.
Let's face it, when you look at the crap that wins we're at the bottom due to political factors:
1) It is very clear Europeans like voting for their neighbours regardless of the song's quality;
2) Europe has not forgiven us for Iraq;
3) The UK's music scene is the best in the world. It's obvious people will want to take us down a peg or two;
4) The four countries which pay for Eurovision get into the finals automatically. To ordinary voters in other European countries which have to compete at all levels, this must look unfair and therefore they vote against us: none of the big four do well, ever.
5) The vast majority of UK music acts prefer not to run the risk of looking bad, so we tend to send second-tier stuff and worse, stuff that we think will do well in Eurovision.
6) None of this really matters; win or lose the UK is only here for the laughs anyway. The Europeans can sense that and don't like being laughed at! - and vote accordingly. Terry Wogan, although utterly brilliant, really dragged us down voting-wise. It was probably worth it, though.
I don't think the ESC plan to bring back jury voting will work: it didn't before, so why now?
A total rethink of the entire competition is in order. I think we should run the competition like the Football: countries go into a draw for various groups; each group then has its own winner (perhaps voted by countries outside of that group), with the group winners going forward to the finals, voted by everyone. That should help disrupt political voting at least. We can but dream.
"Isn't Eurovision about like dancing turkeys and transexuals dressed as pirates?" - Youtube commenter
[EDIT] Update - just noticed (14/5/09) a spelling error - Alexander's name is spelled "Alexander Rybak" - I'm leaving it uncorrected above because I'm getting hits on the misspelling! Mustn't miss those!
[EDIT] BBC CHARTBLOG: "OMG you will not believe this, right, but according to a TV show I watched over the weekend, 'Fairytale' is officially the best song in the whole of Europe."
Lily Allen's song has been drafted into the USA's culture wars - this rather brilliant, joyous and liberating fan video has been popping up all over. Very well done, very good (Warning: about every second word in the song is 'fuck'):
Maybe Lily should adopt this as her official video? - Crowd-sourcing pop videos! How radical!
S. Giorgio Maggiore is the only building by Palladio I've been in, I think - although he did design other buildings in Venice. Its an extraordinary church, I was deeply impressed with his architectural usage of entasis - subtle curving - which enlivens the space. Working as he did from ancient Roman sources, I did not expect to see such an advanced grasp of the classical Greek aproach.
My friend Karen and I have planned for the longest time a trip to view the Palladian villas in the Veneto - I', very glad t=for the recent RA exhibition, which has re-ignited this ambition. I really enjoyed the mix of portraits and paitings, architectural models, artifacts, photographs and original plans and drawings. They even had digital constructions of Palladio's unrealised projects. Completely fascinating.
In an impulse of curiosity, desiring to widen the culinary horizons, I purchased a pack of Jerusalem artichokes from Sainsbury’s. I think I last ate these at least ten years ago.
I consulted my recipe books. I hit gold in Simon Hopkinson’s “Roast Chicken and Other Stories”: Scallop and Artichoke Soup.
Now, scallops are definitely not credit crunch material - however, the project suddenly developed into a treat to boost the animal spirits in a recession! ;-)
Scallops would feature in my top three edible favourites; I would choose them as my last meal. I don’t think they are available in South Africa - the first time I ate a scallop was on a visit to my cousins in Vancouver. Instant heaven; the highlight of the trip!
Since then, I have eaten them whenever and wherever:from the deeply luxurious and classic French Scallops au gratin at Marco Pierre White’s Mirabelle Restaurant to the new Brit classic from Kensington Place, Grilled Scallops with Pea purée and mint vinaigrette.
Nigel Slater has a recipe where you wrap the individual scallops in bacon strips, dust down with parmesan shavings and grill. Yum!
But recently my fave scallop recipe has been Nigella Lawson’s Scallops and chorizo from Nigella Express - this counts as so fast and simple it’s hardly a recipe! - but soooo spectacularly delicious. Just chuck some chorizo slices in a pan, fry to release the oils, chuck the scallops in until cooked (timing is all; don’t over fry - literally a couple of minutes; just until the scallops are opaque); then toss with lemon juice and chopped parsley.
The salty, meaty chewiness of the chorizo sets off the subtle smooth sweetness of the scallops; and the lemon and parsely take the edge off the richness of the dish. Possibly this is my last meal request, and it’s so fast I might be able to have it twice in one sitting!
Back to Simon Hopkinson’s soup recipe. I don’t think you can go wrong with scallops. Ok, maybe not with chocolate.
The artichoke soup recipe trends in the opposite direction to Nigel’s and Nigella’s - instead of contrast it works on complementaries: piling one kind of semi-savoury sweetness on another.
The artichokes have a subtle, rich, complex flavour of their own. The soup is your classic French butter, milk and cream concoction (enriched with fish stock, onion, bay leaf and thyme). The artichokes are blended and strained to velvety smoothness and then the poached scallops are added. Parsley and croutons for garnish. Fab.U.Lous.
Maybe my last meal could be the artichoke soup to start and the chorizo and scallops for the main course?
St Peter's, Cambridge has been around for a very long time, but the local community was slightly too ambitious when they came to build it: almost from the start it seems it was too large for the community to afford upkeep. The church was downsized (literally) in the 18th-century, but still fell into decay and neglect. When Jim Ede created Kettle's Yard, he also set about renovating and saving this church. It is now deconsecrated.
The doorway is Norman (11th, early 12th century). The inner column on the left is an 18th-century wooden replacement for the lost original. The church walls were built out of reclaimed rubble - the red bricks visible in the lower right are actually reclaimed roof tiles from ancient Roman buildings in the vicinity - the Roman fortress is nearby.
One can borrow the key to the church from the desk at Kettle's Yard and enter the tiny church.
St Peter's 11th/early 12th--century font has 'mermen' carved in each corner. Not a classic Christian motif; unless perhaps they are referring to fish imagery.
This is apparently the oldest surviving baptismal font in Cambridge.
Close-ups of the font carvings - these have seen almost 1000 years of babies being christened . . .
Jim Ede was a 20th-century aesthete, apparently the first modern art curator at the Tate, and the creator of Kettle's Yard in Cambridge: he transformed four cottages into an extraordinary space; a showcase for his modern art collection. He donated the whole thing to the University of Cambridge, and to this day it remains a remarkable ensemble of classic English craftsmanship and high modernist aesthetics. There is a memorial tablet to him in the church he helped save.
"It is salutary that in a world rocked by greed, misunderstanding and fear, with the imminence of collapse into unbelievable horrors, it is still possible and justifiable to find important the exact placement of two pebbles."
It is this ominous quote from Joe Nicolosi, speaker at the recent “Gay Cure” conference 1, which seems to me to most clearly and succinctly delineate his bigotry.
Of course, people are born gay and as law-abiding citizens we deserve acceptance and equal rights. But, say - completely hypothetically speaking - if homosexuality was a choice, why does Dr Nicolosi think “it changes everything”? Again, as a free, autonomous and law-abiding citizen, I would expect society to respect my free choice to love whoever I want. Nicolosi has no right at all to judge me or intervene in any way in how I choose to live my life lawfully in a free society, especially over a choice which has no impact on him whatsoever.2
The ex-gay brigade’s failures of logic are just astonishing. If homosexuality is a ‘choice’, why does there need to be such a large and activist “reparative” industry to “change” people’s “choices”? ~ and what about the gay penguins, flamingos, bonobos and the 1000s of other animal species demonstrated to evince homosexuality quite naturally? How do they fit into his ridiculous, completely outdated and discredited Freudian ideas of how gayness comes about?
The tragedy is this flim-flam only appeals to vulnerable gay people and their families, desperate out of fear and ignorance to clutch at any straw. Words like “reparative”, “choice” and “healing” completely disguise what their “therapy” really is: brainwashing and mental bludgeoning, forcing internal repression and the simulated appearance of heterosexuality. Underlying same-sex orientation and desire does not change, it is merely suppressed. The unfortunate victim of this “therapy” lives a zombie half-life, desperately trying to convince everyone, including themselves, they are straight, until they have some kind of breakdown. The established psychiatric opinion is that there is no scientific evidence reparative therapy succeeds in its objectives, and in fact it has the potential to do tremendous damage to the patient and their family.
So for Heaven’s sake, Dr Nicolosi, let my people go!
1Zefrog organized a well-attended protest outside this conference. 2 Apart from destroying the rationale behind his business, of course.
Ok - I've signed up for a chance to be a statue! In the terms and conditions it says I have to abide by copyright law. I hope this doesn't mean that if I'm accepted I will become ⓒ Antony Gormley.
Imagine hobnobbing with Nelson in Trafalgar Square! Good luck to me!
My head, heart and stomach are still heaving from this morning’s Guardian news. Although cynical to my bones, even I thought the Grauniad was pushing it a bit when they highlighted the first Tomlinson pathologist’s questionable record. Well, now they look like they were bang on the nail. The new pathologist’s finding that death was caused by “abdominal bleeding” makes this a clear-cut case of manslaughter. But as always the lying and the failed spin do the most damage to the Met’s reputation. And the IPCC’s actions do not inspire confidence either.
So, since my last post in this here website thingy, the story has developed as follows:
1) The police “heroically” “come to the aid” of a dying “heart-attack” victim, under a “barrage” of bottles/bricks*/intercontinental ballistic missiles** (delete as necessary) thrown by a “crazed mob” of “rioting” protesters.
2) A balaclaved riot policeman callously and brutally attacks an innocent bystander from behind in full view of his colleagues, who do nothing to intervene or assist the victim. The victim dies minutes later from the injuries sustained.
The Guardian’s video footage of the attack was the crucial evidence moving the story on from (1) to (2), cutting though the IPCC’s apparent failure to take protesters’ evidence seriously. By now it is very clear the protesters evidence is far more credible than that of the police and IPCC (“no CCTV cameras in the area”).
Ironically the Guardian’s footage is probably illegal under section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (and 58A of the 2000 Act). The public’s right to identify individual policemen is absolutely crucial, and arguably this includes the right to photograph them should they - as is apparent in the G20 police action - choose to disguise their identities by covering their faces and number badges. The rules regarding photography of police officers need to be repealed urgently.
*The “bricks” claim was made on the day of Ian Tomlinson’s death by the Evening Standard. They have since deleted this claim from their website (video evidence shows one plastic water bottle thrown, by someone possibly unaware there was a medical emergency). Ian Tomlinson was a newspaper vendor for the Evening Standard.
The Guardian has put the video up on You Tube and invited people to repost it, so here it is. It's absolutely great that it exists, because it clearly shows the violence perpetrated on Mr Tomlinson was completely unprovoked, and exposes the lies that emerged in the media immediately after the G20 protest last week.
Very similarly to the Jean Charles de Menezes case - downright lies are disseminated about the victim first, only for the truth to come dribbling out later.
Except in this case, we have corrective video evidence, the best kind. It will be hard for them to spin this, and even the Home Secretary is talking about criminal investigations.
I suspect this will be the last case of its kind. Anti-terror law now forbids the photography of police officers pursuing the course of their duties. Expect this law to be ruthlessly enforced at the next protest. We really are becoming a police state.
Once again, I broke my rule of never going on the last day . . . but forgot about this one until Catriona reminded me and we caught it on the final Saturday.
Byzantium is wonderfully exotic - a heritage we in Western Europe share only though a distant kinship at best; it feels exotic, romantic, rich and strange. I studied the Byzantines in history of art, and we concentrated particularly on architecture, one of the glories of Byzantine culture and the most obvious of their developments away from the Roman tradition. The Byzantine Church developed a total aesthetic which aimed to immerse the worshipper in an all-pervading religious atmosphere, and the RA exhibition did not really go anywhere near getting this across.
Architecture was pretty much ignored; instead we had loads and loads of Byzantine bits and pieces, separated out into categories of object. Much of this was quite spectacular - the quality of the items was superb - but the whole unfortunately was less than the sum of the parts.
Part of this was the unfortunate queueing system imposed by having a series of display cases lined up with tiny objects and tinier and hard-to-read labels. There was a lot of amazing bling, but all small scale. The largest piece was a tiered hanging candelabra from Munich - about 25 feet in diameter and greater in height. This was in the entrance to the show and that was that.
That candelabra would have lit an ambiguously vaulted space crowded with glittering mosaics - mosaics specially angled to catch and refract the light. There would have been incense burners and gorgeous chanting choirs to bathe all the senses. It would have been amazing. The show completely lacked that sort of excitement.
The British Museum’s latest shows have used multimedia to great effect, and I don’t see why the RA couldn’t have done the same here. I think the subject was crying out for it - and a video screen or two surely can’t be so expensive? As it was, a very worthy effort, but it felt slightly dated in its presentation.
“This sumptuous exhibition brings together some of the most magnificent paintings by Belgian-born painter Sir Anthony van Dyck, startlingly portraying many of the leading characters of the Stuart period.” - the advertising hook for the Tate’s current Van Dyck exhibition.
I disagree. The Tate’s Van Dyck exhibition is slghtly underwhelming - it feels almost provisional, as if it was hastily arranged in celebration of the Tate’s recent acquisition of Rubens’s Banqueting Hall sketch. Rubens being Van Dyck’s master and Van Dyck being thus partly the reason for the national collection of British art buying a foreign artist’s work. The Royal Academy had a Van Dyck show relatively recently, and it truly felt sumptuous - this one perhaps is missing too many of the great Royal pieces, concentrating mostly on the court paintings (and some of those overfamiliar, from the National Gallery and even another outing for two paintings the Tate showed last year in the Orientalism show, of Charles I’s ambassador to Persia and his wife (hung on the opposite wall in this one). The show never seems to come to a considered argument about the artist’s work - it just hangs what it can on the walls and ‘celebrates’.
A room focussing on the painter’s private life - his wife and mistress - is the highlight. The last couple of rooms chronicle Van Dyck’s posthumous influence, and seem to suggest that any old portrait painted in Britain in the last few centuries was somehow indebted to Van Dyck, filling the walls as it does with random examples of same. Weak and unconvincing.
I was fascinated by ladies fashions as displayed in the portraits. All the men seem individuated, but all the women conform to a very strict type. They all wear double-drop pearl ear rings and a single rope of pearls. They all wear their hair in very tight ringlets around the face.
Does this truly reflect the fashion of the time? If so, it remained remarkably stable throughout Van Dyck’s career (and into the careers of his immediate followers) - unlike the contemporary fashions for men. I can’t quite believe this. Could it be that this was simply the way he chose to portray women? - and that he had a pair of prop ear rings and a pearl necklace hanging around his studio? Weird.
You must take a look at the Italian photographer Giacomo Brunelli’s site. His use of monochrome is gorgeous; but his retro technique (analogue photos taken on a 1968 Miranda Sensomat camera) is at the service of an original eye for the wildness of the domestic pet. Lush, romantic, sometimes sentimental - but with an edge of animal violence and unknowability. LOLcats these are not. Considering the technique, astonishing captures of fugitive moments.
Yay for the vernal equinox! - Spring is busting out all over on Clapham Common, with sun-happy commoners soaking up the rays. Hard to believe just weeks ago we were all frolicking in the snow. I’m just back from a quick sortie to Sainsbury’s to pick up some fruit (just off a stressed 36 hours) and the Guardian. Just enough time to share some blog love with you all before heading off to the Royal Academy to meet Catriona and the Byzantines.
Guess who I saw in Sainbury’s?? Vivienne Westwood, that’s who!!! Amazing! Of course always knew La Westwood lived in Clapham but never in a million gazillion years did I think I would bump into her at Sainsbury’s. She was buying flowers and lots of fruit and vegetables. She was reusing shopping bags!
She was wearing a rather gorgeous lime green coat, and had beautiful glasses (own brand? - couldn’t tell). I pass over her footwear in silence.
Yep, unfortunately I spent my time in the queue scoping her out (I hope relatively discreetly) - I did however manage to refrain from asking for her autograph or a mobile phone photo.
Who knew? Apparently Time magazine regards this comic book as one of the 100 best novels written since 1923.
This factoid, as well as the exquisite trailer (Ok - especially the part with Billy Crudup as the nuclear-infused, cerulean blue, totally naked and hot Dr Manhattan) prompted me to see the movie. I haven’t read the book.
It’s had mixed reviews. Dr Manhattan’s blue penis provoked particular comment in the USA (Did I mention Dr Manhattan spends a large amount of the movie starkers?) Us Euros are clearly far more relaxed about such matters. Apparently, in the book the penis is quite small, like a grecian statue’s. The problems of translating this to screen are obvious. On the one side, male nudity is still taboo in the culture. On the other, one has the vanity of the actor to respect. The result is, the CGI penis on screen is massively larger than that drawn for Dr Manhattan in the novel, but the filmakers are quite subtle in its deployment. It doesn’t call attention to itself at all. I think this is a positive approach and quite healthy.
The length (almost 3 hours) didn’t bother me (you didn't think I was still talking about the big blue penis, did you?)- although the storyline did lack pace. I applaud the sophisticated, indirect, flashback style of explication. Classically, one of the problems of this style is its potential to stall the plot. I don’t think that was entirely the case here - the plot stalls mostly because the director Zack Snyders can't resist showcasing the beautiful design and the camera just spends too much time on the scenery (which admittedly is gorgeous - one of the real triumphs of the film; it kept me going through the 3 hours). Also, Snyders said in an interview that he ramped up the sex and violence - again, gratuitously lengthy fight sequences keep the plot from moving forward and actually sometimes actively distract from important plot points: the framing for murder of Rorschach, for example, is almost lost in the lengthy violence of his arrest.
Never have I seen a more excrutiatingly embarrassing sex scene - so bad the audience giggled. The silver lining is that surely this will now end the screen career of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” - the most clunkingly blatant and intrusive of a screed of banal music choices. Overfamiliar music just calls attention to itself and once again distracts from the action, slowing the whole thing down.
The graphic novel is a product of the late cold war, and was regarded in its day as innovative. The morally complex, dark universe is certainly a rich context for the story (one thinks of Hamlet, or the work of Graham Greene). However, complexity here becomes confusion: I lost interest in the issues at stake for the characters and the climax left me completely uninvolved. I don’t know how much of this is inherent in the original book and how much is the adaptation’s fault.
Catch it on a large screen if you can - the visuals demand it. The BFI Imax screen was amazing.
Aha! At last a really quite decent test to take, and one I did quite well in! Hoorah!
Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...
English Genius
You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 80% Advanced, and 87% Expert!
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Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!
For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.
Hmmm. I agree with protesting the third runway*. And it is true I have found direct action amusing before - the shoes thrown at President Bush, for example. But green custard over Mandy? I found it surprisingly upsetting. Green = poison, not custard, usually. It must have been frightening for Lord Mandelson on a personal level. It's just too premeditated and contrived and stalkerish and spooky. There are easier ways to laugh at our politicians.
On the other hand, props to protestor Leila Deen for her articulate defence of her action on the BBC. I wonder if Plane Stupid activists are given media training?
*Astonishing fact: I've lived in various abodes the length and breadth of Battersea and Clapham - however, wherever I've been, I have always been directly under a flight path. How can that actually happen? And the new runway is bound to make things worse.
The flat mate and I were duly impressed - me especially with the addition of a small glass of strong coffee - while the flavour of the coffee itself remains hidden, it dramatically deepens and intensifies the chocolate. Yum.
Thinking more on this theme brought me back to the ultimate flourless chocolate cake recipe: the River Cafe’s Chocolate Nemesis.
I first ate this at the famous restaurant itself. I remember our party of six admired the huge cartwheel of a pudding on the counter as we came in. However, I was the only one to actually order a slice.
My involuntary orgasmic gasp on my first mouthful brought 5 large spoons down on my plate - “for a taste” - leaving me with virtually no pudding left. The nightmare of maintaining a polite composure as I watched my nemesis disappear lives with me still.
So once Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray published their River Cafe Cook Book, I tried to do the recipe one Christmas - with disastrous results. I later found out I was not alone. In fact, this recipe had become pretty notorious in London: Julian Barnes himself wrote about the social phenomenon:
“Moralists know that Hubris inevitably leads to Nemesis, but never before had the theory been given such literal expression. Overweening pride in one's ability to cook led to chocolate disaster. The pudding - in case you need reminding - was a signature dish (as the vile phrase has it) of the River Cafe. People had eaten at the restaurant, discovered this most decadent of puddings (2lbs chocolate, 10 eggs, 1lb butter, 1lb 5oz sugar), and, when the first River Cafe Cook Book came out, decided to try it for themselves.
Why it went wrong we Nemetics never discovered. The paranoid explanation was that some key element of the recipe had been deliberately omitted, thus driving customers back to the restaurant for the authentic item. The more plausible one was that there is a difference between the professional and the domestic oven, that certain dishes exaggerate this difference, and Chocolate Nemesis exaggerated the exaggerations. But the failure was generally so spectacular that few got back up off the floor and tried it again.”
Well, I laid my nemesis ghosts and tried it again, from their River Cafe Easy book. It worked! - at least, it came out, stood up, and was deliciously rich and fudgy: but not quite the perfection that in memory lives forever fresh.
Marc Quinn is probably my favourite sculptor working in Britain today. He recently exhibited a sculpture of Kate Moss made of cast solid gold at the British Museum, as part of the Statuephilia show. It was brilliant.
The museum staged a talk between writer Will Self and Marc Quinn as one of the events accompanying the show. It was very well attended and reasonably enlightening. Quinn spoke about how the piece was about cultural notions of 'value' and contemporary myth. The sculpture clearly links a contemporary cultural icon, Moss, with classical mythological systems and questions our value systems, or the process whereby cultural value systems are created.
Unfortunately, the audience question section threw the floor open to retrogrades who felt authenticity means the artist should make everything himself (the romantic cult of the mark of the artist dies hard). I was impressed with the good humour and ease with which Self and Quinn handled these comments. I just squirmed in embarrassment for the questioner.
I salivate over Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes every Saturday in the Guardian, although his usual massive list of sometimes obscure ingredients usually deters me from trying anything. However, his recent mushroom lasagne recipe looked so delicious, and so relatively easy to do (we've all made lasagnes before, right?), that I decided to try it out on my friend Marie, who was visiting on her way to Minneapolis recently.
We paid a touristy visit to Borough Market where we loaded up on fancy mushrooms - pied de mouton and girolles (and then back-tracked to Sainsbury's for loads of more ordinary chestnut mushrooms.
A letter in the Guardian the following week pointed out that Yotam's recipe called for almost a kilogram of butter and cheese. Checking back, this is true. All I can suggest is avoid thinking about it too much. The results are truly spectacular. Since this was the very first Ottolenghi recipe I was trying, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and use all of the specified cheeses: Gruyere, Feta, Ricotta, Mozzarella, and Parmesan. I do admit I thought the list was a bit extravagant but the genius of this selection of cheeses, and the way the lasagne is constructed, means you get the full value of all the different flavours and textures coming through. The same goes for the herbs, which add a welcome green sparkle to the cheesy construction.
We got 6 very generous servings out of this, and I'm definitely adding it to my list of party tricks.
Heh, no, this isn't something I have treasured over the years: I bought it last month, via Ebay!
I was of LP buying age when this came out. To be honest Pink Floyd weren't my cup of tea then - I was more into Abba. Also, my parents really hated music or "noise" and we did not have a hi-fi in the house at all - I used to tape record Abba songs from the radio.
A local framers has a line of top-slot beechwood frames for LPs, and Animals is in the window. It looks great, and BatterseaPowerStation is a real icon of mine (as well as being a local landmark), so I decided to make my own.
It was £10 off Ebay. The seller helpfully left a price sticker on the (perfectly preserved) LP - he got it for £3 down in Devon. Nice mark up!
I'm wondering if these things will escalate further in price, especially for albums with classic artwork?
It it wasn’t for Qype, I might never have known about this restaurant: and for years, I lived virtually around the corner!
What interests me is that this place has certainly captured the imagination of the Claphamites (or, at least, the qyping section of the Claphamites), as opposed to its competition on the common, Trinity, which hasn’t attracted nearly as many reviews, despite hanging in the same sort of price range, and with similar pretensions to above-average cooking.
Trinity’s decor feels a little bland and soulless - 409 gets it absolutely right. It’s a gorgeous, welcoming space, even though they cram as many tables in as humanly possible - great planning, from a turnover point of view. It feels intimate, not necessarily over-crowded, but it got completely ram-packed the Friday we were there.
I was emailed to confirm my booking, and then called on my mobile to re-re-confirm on the day, too. With (I thought) a pretty rude stipulation that we had the table for 2 hours max - pretty rich, I thought, coming from a neighbourhood restaurant (and this in the dog days of February).
I booked an early slot because Marie was just off a long-haul flight. We arrived just before 7 to a very quiet restaurant - but by 9 the place was heaving, and we had to shout to hear each other. We weren’t hassled to leave.
The staff were all pretty wonderful - friendly, polite, helpful and efficient. I really felt they were concentrating on making the experience good for us, but our waitress didn’t hover unnecessarily either - she actually had quite a large number of tables to look after.
And the food was faultless. Every element was just perfect. My sea-bass was fabulously fresh and tasty; Marie loved her chicken. We both had a sublime rhubarb compote and blood-orange sorbet for dessert.
Yep, it’s not cheap, and extras are very efficiently padded onto the basic special-offer menu (in the end, making up over 60% of the bill - despite we only had one glass of wine each). But I would say this is a real peach of place - can’t wait to go again.
Very exciting news - Antony Gormley has announced his work for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square: members of the public will stand for 1 hour each on the plinth, day and night, for 100 days later this summer.
So, I've registered my interest already. I'd love to do this! Knowing my luck, though, I'll get the 3am shift on a rainy weekday night.
But still. Imagine being able to say you are a priceless artwork by a famous sculptor :-)
Well, it was probably always going to happen. The Brits award, together with the recommendations of friends whose opinions I cannot ignore, finally wore my resistance down and I bought it:
What do I think of it?
I eat my words. It's actually a masterpiece - soaring, sublime melodies and beautiful lyrics. A grown-up, more sophisticated Coldplay, if you like. The rather stately, repetitive rhythms are enlivened by clever, imaginative musicianship and the whole thing is just perfectly produced. Wonderful stuff.
The price of CDs has come down and down, and the space HMV devotes to them has become smaller and smaller. I’ve always liked to purchase a CD as a back-up for iTunes - because I distrusted Apple, and it just seemed sensible. This approach was vindicated when my computer and iPod were stolen simultaneously, and I lost over 100 songs purchased on iTunes. The burglar however turned his nose up at all my CDs, so I was able to rip them all again. It’s very annoying when iTunes still recognizes I’ve bought a song before - but I have no way of accessing my previous purchase.
So I was alarmed to read a prediction that this new Depression will kill off the CD as a format entirely. Oddly enough, in January, due to the sales and fall in price of CDs, I bought more of them in one month than I ever have before.
But nevertheless, even I am now moving slowly into a post-CD world. First, Apple announced an ease of restrictions on iTunes songs (good!), and secondly, I have signed up for a new back-up service, which backs up my whole computer on a continuous basis. Of course, it is a worry that my stuff is being backed up in California (earthquakes, anyone?), but on balance I feel a lot safer. As expensive as it is to replace a stolen laptop, the data you lose is far more precious.
I have noticed that some CDs - usually compilations - are cheaper to buy on Play or Amazon. This I am afraid is the CD’s last competitive quality. It is indeed now an unsustainable format.
Boz alerts us to the legal imperatives here, so I rush to comply forthwith.
This is state of play at 1am last night:
and at 8 am this morning:
This BBC weather forecast made me laugh:
Meanwhile, out in the garden:
And on the Common:
The Common erupted in a frenzy of snowman making:
I spotted two ambitious souls making an igloo on the paddling pond. I'll check to see how far they got tomorrow morning: I'm [supposed to be] off to Birmingham!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Starting to think about birthday cakes. Should I remake Nigella's Chocolate Malteser cake, above? Other contenders are the "Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruitcake" from her Christmas book, or a carrot cake. I also fancy Nigel Slater's dried cherry and apricot buns (in last week's Observer Food magazine). Yesterday the flatmate made Anzac Biscuits to celebrate Australia Day; I took the overflow to the office where they were a smash hit. Perhaps I could commission him to make another batch?
Decisions, decisions. Weighty choices to consider.
Every visit to Sainsbury's for the last THREE MONTHS has ended in disappointment. Clearly, the Clapham hordes are buying it just as fast as Sainsbury's can get it in. However, today, at long and final last, my very own jar of Sainsbury's Belgian Milk Chocolate Spread:
Yippee!
I have a feeling it won't last long. * Scrapes bottom of jar *
The space is intimate yet glamorous - there’s a definite “see-and-be-seen” vibe with elevated booths surrounding a square of mid-century modern wooden tables and chairs. Lots of floaty white drapes and beautiful lighting - bright yet subtle - complete the scene.
As Lesley and I are in the middle of a credit-crunched January, we opted for the set menu: quite a brief choice (four courses for £19.50, three choices for each course) but still difficult to choose - everything on it sounded tempting. The waiters are great - service was first class; slightly formal but friendly, gracious and even witty.
The food is a revelation. Without a doubt this meal was one of the very best I have ever eaten. Food-wise I’m biased towards Italian or Asian; Le Cercle reawakened me to the French tradition. Every course was fantastic; but the highlights for me were the sashimi-like salmon strips on mushrooms doused with a ginger foam; and the intensely flavoursome choucroute with a delicious selection of porky bits. Tarte Tatin with cinnamon ice-cream to finish was sublime.
The extras do add up quickly and in the end amounted to more than half the bill; however I as I write this I am wondering when I can go again! Check out my review of Le Cercle - I am hedgiecc - on Qype
1) I have mislaid my oyster card. It must be somewhere in the house, but I haven’t found it yet.
2) Last night I lost my wallet! AAAAARGH!! – while running for the train. And whoever picked it up has not handed it in. Bastards.
3) All cards cancelled, one by one, by a call-centre lady in India, who asked me my personal details – name, address, birthdate – for each one in turn.
4) I have fixed the plumbing in the bathroom, however.
Watching the rehearsals for the Presidential inauguration last night, I was wildly cheered to see a helicopter rehearse airlifting former president Bush to wherever he has chosen to live out the rest of his days (Guantanamo might be quite nice).
The reporter was grinning broadly at this too. I think the BBC is doing this sort of thing on purpose – last week a report on Bush’s last press conference lingered lovingly on the very sparse applause he got as he exited.
Well, hip hip hooray for President Obama. As from today the world feels a significantly safer place. Let’s hope so.
A lovely spontaneous evening. The relatives were down in London Friday night catching the Warhol exhibition at the Hayward and were debating where to eat afterwards. Caroline hankered after Ping Pong (again) but John wanted novelty and steak. As it happened the Evening Standard had an article that day about businesses beating the recession - Sophie’s steakhouse was one of them (a branch has opened recently in Covent Garden), so we decided to try it.
I was a bit alarmed by the red neon outside - a bit too similar to another rather touristy steakhousy chain. However, inside is more sophisticated, with rather beautiful teardrop lights, lots of warm wood and leather. The room is much larger than appears outside, and the place was busy, yet we got a table immediately on arrival at 9:30 p.m. (they don’t take reservations).
Service was brisk, efficient, and just the right side of friendly. The food arrived quickly: very handsome, generous burgers and fish cakes. They take care to get your steak the way you want it: my steak salad was perfectly rare, juicy and tender. My brother didn’t want his steak “stupidly rare” but he didn’t want it medium either; a tricky request which the kitchen delivered; no complaints from John.
I didn’t enjoy the blue cheese dressing on my salad - I like a more intense dressing, perhaps with actual crumbed cheese. This dressing absolutely drenched the leaves and was way too creamy and bland. I had to check with the waitress that it actually was blue cheese dressing. I’ll take her word for it.
I had a toffee and vanilla milkshake for pudding: sugarholic’s heaven - toffee crumbles, yum!
All in all a rather pleasant experience. I’d be happy to go again if in a carnivorous mood. I’m giving it 4 stars - one star being a benefit of the doubt star, for the salad dressing. Check out my review of Sophie's Steakhouse & Bar - I am hedgiecc - on Qype
Ha ha. With the ongoing credit crunch and collapse of the property market, like many thousands of others my net worth has probably taken a big hit. It’s possible my flat may already be in negative equity.
I’m not bothered. I love my flat and have no wish to move, have a steady job and can pay the mortgage.
Just in case, I have now got full insurance against illness, accident or redundancy – although it’s vaguely possible I may be let go, the other possibility is that my company may cease trading, so it’s best to be prepared.
I diversified my income streams this year and am looking to continue this process in 2009.
Thinner or fatter?
I think about the same, although general fitness still needs more attention.
What kept you sane in 2008?
Music.
Which personal accomplishments in 2008 are you most pleased with?
Being there for relatives in distress.
Expanding my revenue streams.
Continuing to blog while computerless; hitting my target of an average of 12 posts a month, with monthly totals being more consistent overall.
Finally replacing my apple mac – bought a brand-new powerbook 13” in November.
Buying an almost-new Nikon SLR off eBay.
What was the happiest moment of 2008?
Ingrid, Peter and family visiting.
What was your saddest moment of 2008?
My mother had a difficult year, but by December things were looking massively up for her.
Which bad habit are you most motivated to break?
Procrastination and hoarding are endemic issues with me – I have improved over the last few years but still need to be constantly aware. Flow.
What are you looking forward to in 2009?
One of my drearest friends is coming to visit London in the Spring.
More travel. I have promised the niece and nephew a trip to Rome in May; a German visit is on the cards; I would love to go to Poland if possible. My brother, sister and I plan to bring my mother across in the Summer – I may have to fly out to Johannesburg to collect her. If so, I would like to combine that with a visit to friends in Cape Town.
“Tell yourself, if you like, that it was just that Tintin hasn't yet met the right girl. Or maybe that it's only a stage he's going through. But if you expect a Belgian Catholic born in 1907 to have unmasked the hero of his blockbuster series of comic adventures as an out-gay activist and homosexual icon, you expect too much. Hergé was no Andy Warhol (Hergé's great admirer). But Snowy saw everything; Snowy knows all. And Snowy never tells.”
- Matthew Paris’s provocative yet hilarious outing in The Times
1) At work I was drafted in as an amateur (cheap) stylist on a food shoot - the very trendy (expensive) photographer demanded an array of photographic comestibles from Baker & Spice.
2) My friend Mark works in the food industry in Cape Town, South Africa. On a recent research trip to London Baker & Spice was top of his “must see” list.
3) On their website Baker & Spice have a section offering catering on private jets.
The above gives some idea of what the B&S experience will be like - some, but definitely not all.
My photographer was probably thinking less of visual aesthetics than of her stomach. As gorgeous as they are, B&S creations focus more on superb (largely organic) ingredients and technique than on visuals. The food is appetizing, no doubt, but in a slightly hippy, good-earth, bountiful Mother Nature home-made sort-of way. Dainty chi-chi cupcakes you can find elsewhere.
I somewhat fancied a slice of blueberry cheesecake - although it looked huge and generous, I was slightly nervous it would turn out to be disappointing stodge. The risk was escalated by the vertiginous price of a slice - second mortgages required.
I needn’t have worried. This was the Platonic ideal of cheesecake - although my relationship with it was savagely carnal and all-too-brief. Rich and smooth and yet deceptively light, the creaminess was set off by the tartness of the blueberries. Addiction at first hit.
The service amused me. The staff seemed to regard the shop/cafe as their personal space and accommodated customers’ needs grudgingly. While we were there two of them gossiped loudly about an absent colleague.
For those of us on average wages, go there for a treat. For those of us with private jets, go for it! Check out my review of Baker & Spice - I am hedgiecc - on Qype
The British Museum and the V&A are putting on tremendous shows at the moment. My best of year award goes to Francis Bacon at Tate Britain. It has to, really - Francis Bacon is without question the greatest British artist of the 20th century; and this is a fantastic appraisal of his work. It’s still on, and I am planning to go again to spend some quality time amongst the carcasses.
Although it was published years ago now, I’m going to nominate Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa . Another category with very meagre pickings - I resolve to do better in 2009!
Yikes! According to my blog I hardly saw any this year. Out of a very slim field, the stand-out is Burn After Reading. Apologies to all those who preferred the Coen brothers’ other movie No Country for Old Men; I’m just too cowardly to see really scary films.
A good year for me. Very memorable was the London premiere of Damon Albarn’s/ Jamie Hewlett’s Journey to the West at Covent Garden - a spectacular and joyous production in a house feverish with anticipation. I didn’t enjoy the CD nearly as much, though.
Peter Hall’s production of Pygmalion at the Old Vic was a complete delight; however my most memorable theatrical night night this last year has to be the NT’s mind-blowing Revenger’s Tragedy.
Every meal out was pretty special this year. Hakkasan with Liz back in March for my birthday was absolutely wonderful; a real pleasure - even down to the hard-won doggy bag.
Trinity still slightly disappoints - my first visit was with the tardy relatives, who arrived two hours late for Sunday lunch, and one can’t blame the restaurant for the food in those circumstances. I chose badly on my second visit. The neighbours rave about it, and it is good to have a smart and decent restaurant within walking distance. I just need to be won over; for me it seems to be missing the Xfactor.
Wapping Food has the Xfactor in spades. Ingrid, Peter and I went just before Christmas an it’s absolutely magical. It’s in a refurbished power station across the road from the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping - modern art covers the towering walls and courtyard; banks of candles gutter on the old power station machinery. A really full-on event space, with bags of character and charisma. But the food is wonderful too - quite simple things superlatively cooked. I had a chunky, intensely fishy potted mackerel to start and a barbecued pork chop for my main course, which was the platonic ideal of pork chops - perfectly, juicily piggy, yet subtly enhanced with smoky barbecue flavours. The custard for my wonderful apple and plum crumble was just to die for. Some criticize the service at this place, especially the owner’s allegedly uncertain temper, but we had excellent, friendly and helpful service and the owner herself graciously put us back into our coats and gave us directions to the docklands light railway. So no complaints from me there.
Whoever selected the music has exactly the same taste as me; however, I have to say it was slightly too loud. But Ingrid and Peter didn’t complain.
I very much look forward to my next visit to this place; I might be brave enough to invite the tardy relatives.
The book is kiddie fiction - a bit Mills & Boone candy with some bite; very entertaining nonetheless: the film is faithful to the novel’s wonderful sense of place and atmosphere but improves the plot in crucial respects: notably, it increases the sense of menace as the evil vampires approach the little town of Forks, and speeds up the story. The special effects are a bit average, but are made up for by some delicious camerawork and the beautiful actors. The acting is uniformly good. Altogether, a quality adaptation and one the sequel’s director will have a challenge to better. I would pay more attention to the vampires’ make-up, especially in the neck areas. They were a bit white-face from the chin upwards.
The soundtrack is excellent too; quite adventuresome for the target audience - Muse, Radiohead and Debussy feature.
I can’t recommend this exhibition at the British Museum highly enough - the sculptures have been chosen and placed so intelligently; they really open up a dialogue with their surroundings. There are only 5 works, but all of them are fabulous. Tourists were clustering around Marc Quinn’s solid gold life-size Kate Moss with cameras; there were ‘no photography’ signs in front of Damien Hirst’s gaily coloured ranked skulls in the 18th-century bookcases in the Enlightenment Gallery: boo hiss. I really feel like sneaking back and taking a surreptitious one.
Mr Hirst has really gone down in my estimation: after making in excess of £100 million from his autumn auction he laid off the staff of assistants who actually made the works - into a savage recession. Lovely.
I finally saw the third part of Alan Ayckbourne’s The Norman Conquests trilogy early in December. Despite my reservations about the first episode, and despite reports that Round and Round the Garden was the weakest segment, I loved it. in the timeline of all three plays, RRG starts earliest and finishes last. Therefore, strictly speaking, I think one should see this one last, as it gives the final perspective on Norman’s shenanigans - although the plays convincingly demonstrate that humans are not susceptible to “final” analyses.
Appropriately for its outside setting, there is far more physical comedy in this play; but also some of the funniest lines. The audience was in raptures - the night I went had the most tumultuous applause of all three evenings.
My niece and nephew gave me a box of hand-made (by themselves) chocs - absolutely stunning. F made brandy-soaked chocolate cherries and T made whisky and champagne truffles. They are actually spectacular - far superior to shop-bought. I arrived in Cambridge to find T looking a bit like a truffle himself: covered in a light dusting of cocoa powder and with hands, face and t-shirt generously smeared in melted chocolate. His mother was beside herself, but determined he finish his task. Making boxes of chocs for relatives and friends seemed to be their Xmas party trick.
Back from the Xmas festivities in Cambridge, with my final deadline for 2008 looking quite daunting. Never mind, just get stuck in. Here goes . . .
I came back to find my poor tree in a very desiccated condition. Oh well.
Apart from humungous quantities of food, we had lots of wintry countryside walks in Cambridge - usually at sunset. That’s when my relatives usually come out to play.
I got Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight for Xmas - devoured it in hours; it’s highly readable and entertaining despite its many glaring faults. Funny to have socially acceptable, conservative “family values” vampires - my vampire frame of reference has always been the far more subversive Anne Rice version. Have to see the movie.
I’m very impressed with my mother. Fresh from her pre-Xmas “nervous breakdown” she scored a new boyfriend just before Christmas - in a target poor and competition rich environment. I’m impressed. And surely, if my 77-year old mother can do it, I can too?? The lucky 81-year old boy is showering her in flowers and meals. They had a date picnic with the Xmas hamper I sent.
