Skip to main content

a grand day out

Skived off work for a day this week to go to the Hampton Court Flower Show. We spent eight hours in the hot hot sun and still didn't see all of it. So many National Collections - fuchsia, cacti, pelargoniums, delphiniums, chili peppers, orchids, ferns - wilting in front of our eyes in the Floral Marquee, but the most memorable National Collection of the day was the National Collection of Summer Hats. So many battered old panamas, faded baseball caps, threadbare canvas puddings which long ago lost their shape, half-eaten straw hats jollied up with scarves and silk flowers. Forget Ascot, Hampton Court on a hot day is where the real treasures are.

And all day I was humming The Cure's Caterpillar Girl.

Comments

Brian Sibley said…
I sent an earlier comment - which you DIDN'T publish - saying how much I liked canvas puddings...

This is your second chance... ;-)
9:51 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

underneath waterloo station

Profound in so many ways...
Post a Comment
Read more

sweet vauxhall

I'm too old, too wasp, too middle-class and just too busy to understand what motivates graffiti artists to risk life and limb in pursuit of their thing... but I often love their work and (yes, yes, I know it's illegal) it so often makes a dull place interesting. I used to pass this one at Vauxhall every day on my way to work and it's still as striking as the first day I saw it. Whoever created it I just want them to know that I really appreciate this free gift and I'm glad the London Transport Police haven't been able to get their bleach on it. Can't get Jamie Lidell's Multiply out of my head today. He deserves to be a big star.
5 comments
Read more

heston blumenthal's black forest gateau

...takes two or three days to prepare. It involves using a dyson, several plastic bags, a cocktail shaker, paint rollers and trays, an aerosol spray, lots of banging things on counters and sweat. This homage to Seventies kitsch cooking takes so much effort to make that you would actually lose weight just making it. However, I think Heston is missing a trick here. All the layers in his gateau have a perfectly acceptable, ready made, authentically 1970s equivalent which means you could knock together a Blumenthaley-stylee-gateau in about ten minutes and save a load of money. So here is my alternative recipe: For the biscuit base - use two or four Jaffa Cakes (this saves you having to make the apricot compote) Place a bar of milk chocolate Aero on the top of the base Add a layer of chocolate Instant Whip Add some cherries (glace or tinned) Add a good thick slice of chocolate Swiss Roll which has been soaked in kirsch Add another Aero (optional) Add another layer of Instant Whip Add some
5 comments
Read more