kicking my addiction

I'm busy making a whole lot of changes in my life.

Some, like ceramics evening class, are a spontaneous attempt to try something new however hopeless and messy.

Others are spurred by outside forces, most forcibly The Archers Sixtieth Birthday "celebrations" which, far from making me feel celebratory, are forcing me to reconsider my lifelong addiction to All-Things-Ambridge. I've listened to the Everyday Story of Country Folk forever. In pre-internet days se once had to drive up a steep and dodgy white track to a hilltop in Provence on a wet Sunday morning in order to get just enough of the crackly signal to hear Lizzie being abandoned by Cameron in a motorway service station. But now, just as I was getting over the death of Nigel we get Biscuitgate and the toe-curlingly awkward Royal Variety Performance this morning. Whoever plays Caroline deserves an award for trying to invest some sincerity in the line "It's just like talking to anyone else" plus she had to feign sympathy for a brand new relative (Uncle Adrian) who was specially invented to give the storyline a clumsy heavy-handed connection with osteoporosis. These things never work - they just break the magic.

I doubt we will ever hear of Uncle Adrian again. So I am beginning my trial Ambridge-free period today... and I am currently listening to Noah and The Whale. Oh - and the mug is by Simon Drew - but you know that already don't you.

Comments

underneath waterloo station

Profound in so many ways...

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.

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

polkadots and moonbeams

Search This Blog