polkadots and moonbeams

lath and plaster

2012-02-08T17:45:00.002Z

This morning this was a blue-painted wall which collapsed in less than two minutes in two almighty thumpsrevealing all this lovely lath and plaster work. This surely hasn't been seen since 1879 when the house was built and is a rather beautiful piece of handiwork. Sadly it will all be stripped out and replaced tomorrow with something less interesting and which probably won't last nearly as long.... but I am reliably told it has to be done.

And me and the builder are listening mainly to The Silver Seas.

welcome back old friend

2011-11-16T20:25:00.001Z

On the bus on the way home tonight I noticed they have finished the lights on Albert Bridge. Wonderful. It really does feel like seeing a dear friend who has been away for too long... plus the good news is that my journey to work will be halved once he is back in full working order!

last days of summer

2011-10-02T18:19:00.001+01:00

2011-09-29T15:56:00.000+01:00

Back from Tarragona and this year's fabulous Santa Tecla fiesta. Five days filled with fireworks, giants, dragons, drums, dancing and tiny tiny children ascending the human castles into the sky in defiance of every Health and Safety Act ever passed. All very marvellous and moving and for once my hair didn't catch fire. The Catalans really really know how to enjoy themselves. I should invite them all to Battersea to show us how it's done.

I've been writing a document...

2011-09-16T15:48:00.001+01:00

So I decided to wordle it to see if the emphasis is right!! Anyone who has worked with me before will recognise some familiar themes... Wordle is just one of the internet's great gifts to us all - that Mr Feinberg is a genius. Now back to the writing.

Oh... And today I'm listening to the Volcano Choir.

ai wei wei released

2011-06-23T17:42:00.000+01:00

...which is great news. Nothing, officially, to do with the imminent visit of the Chinese PM to Europe so it must have been my blog post that did the trick ;>

according to the news...

2011-06-10T14:16:00.000+01:00

we are in the middle of a drought. While out buying a paper I got soaked this morning and there's been a flash flood at the bottom of the road. Wonder if I am getting the news from another country?

release ai weiwei pt 2

2011-05-18T13:15:00.000+01:00

So... I've been told off for being too cryptic with my last blog post. My point is simply that one of the world's greatest contemporary artists and activists was arrested in China on April 3 and that is Wrong. We all know his work - he conceived and then pulled away from the wonderful Bird's Nest Stadium for the Beijing Olympics. He created the Sunflower Seeds installation (below) at the Tate. And his Circle of Animals are currently on view in the courtyard at Somerset House - where I took these pics on Monday.

Ther's lots more about his on the Guardian page here. So now you know... Hopefully just raising awareness of the wrongness of his arrest can help?

release ai weiwei

2011-05-11T19:25:00.000+01:00

kicking my addiction

2011-02-20T18:22:00.008Z

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.

happy new?

2011-01-02T19:01:00.000Z

Spotted this in Venice at New Year last year or maybe the year before...

macaroons

2010-11-18T18:27:00.001Z

macaroons
Originally uploaded by polkadotsoph

Is it possible to say the word "macaroon" without sounding like Alan Bennett..??

"omg ubb !!!"

2010-08-25T23:54:00.003+01:00

brilliant... brilliant... brilliant. Haven't watched one minute of this year's BB and then tonight I stumbled across Nikki and Chantelle embracing and forgiving each other for er ...whatever... and I am already hooked. Who cares about the rubbish weather when we have McCririck, Preston, Nadia, Coolio, Nikki and an alarmingly skinny Ulrika all trying to be natural and nice to each other. Fantastic. All we are missing is Jackie... yeah... Jackie.

strange encounter

2010-06-02T09:40:00.002+01:00

Walking on Dartmoor the other day I met this lovely person - reminds me of a great aunt I once knew...

why oh why

2010-05-02T18:51:00.002+01:00

...does it always rain on bank holiday weekends?

celebrities I'd like to see in the jungle No.2/3/4

2009-12-04T23:37:00.004Z

After this week's performance on Desert Island Discs I nominate "Kirsty - do you know your pretty face is going to hell" Morrissey, for making me laugh so early in the morning...

And my next suggestion is Nikki from the Big Brother House a couple of years back... and in the chef's corner we should, of course, have Delia (and failing her Clarissa Dickson Wright)....

finest hour: beaker

2009-11-27T23:39:00.003Z

celebrities I'd like to see in the jungle No.1

2009-11-27T23:36:00.002Z

Christopher Lee.

finest hour: oliver reed

2009-11-19T17:41:00.006Z

halloween

2009-11-19T17:34:00.003Z

Americans REALLY know how to do Halloween and put our puny attempts at trick-or-treating to shame... The owners of this house in Georgetown had to fight their way past a huge ghoul just to get into their house... and just look at all those pumpkins! All gone now I suppose... wonder what they do for Christmas...

hitler's reaction to the oasis split

2009-09-15T20:50:00.003+01:00

I'm not going to be able to watch Downfall again that's for sure...

plinth charming

2009-07-23T22:54:00.008+01:00

my sister... my little sister... making doves of peace and love for the world on the fourth plinth this evening.

underneath waterloo station

2009-06-22T19:30:00.002+01:00

Profound in so many ways...

flower shows

2009-06-02T19:55:00.009+01:00

Chelsea has the best hats but Tavistock has the best cakes. I spent more money at the Tavi show...

now we are three

2009-05-21T21:47:00.005+01:00

brian reminded me the other day that our blogs are now three years old and he's blogged gazillions of times (sometimes two or three times a day!). I momentarily felt guilty about the paltry number of entries here (particularly because I am always harpying on at work on how blogs must be regularly updated) but I'm over it already.

Have given the blog a facelift (philadelphus from my garden if you're interested) and a couple of new entries and that will probably be it until July.

Am listening to Iron and Wine - v. summery.

duck islands for all

2009-05-21T18:07:00.005+01:00

Am thoroughly enjoying the continuing discomfiture of MPs but one story in particular has reminded me of something that has been bothering me for a long time...

If we can build duck islands for our feathered friends why can't we build something slightly bigger for polar bears and walrus in the arctic..? I can hardly bear (no pun intended) to watch wildlife documentaries showing exhausted polar bears swimming for miles in search of food and safety.. So why can't we populate the northern seas with a series of rafts and man-made islands to replace the ice? There might be a project somewhere to do this but a cursory google search hasn't yielded much so far.

Am listening to Joanna Lumley on pm - when she does that warcry it really is quite scary. No wonder Gordon Brown caved in.

now, where did I leave the car?

2009-02-02T14:44:00.003Z

somebody wordled obama's speech...

2009-01-20T23:38:00.000Z

god bless aretha's hat

2009-01-20T23:05:00.001Z

R.E.S.P.E.C.T to the inaugural headwear...

` year in 40 seconds

2009-01-13T19:41:00.004Z

One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

Someone at work showed me this today - there's more like it on Eirik's lovely site.

the worst day of the year

2009-01-13T19:31:00.002Z

The second Tuesday in January is the worst day of the year... obviously. January is the worst month of the year. The second week is the worst week of january (Christmas is over and summer is so far away) and Tuesday is the worst day of the week. So I wore flowery trousers to work, ate a milky way and am going to get haircut. Not such a bad day I suppose but it's good to know but everything will start to get better tomorrow...

christmas presents from afar

2008-12-28T21:40:00.003Z

Father Christmas-shaped Japanese rice crackers.... I can't quite bring myself to eat them...

difficult decisions

2008-11-04T23:49:00.003Z

Am noodling around on here (ooooohhh slideshow is cool) while I watch the US election coverage on telly. Jon Sopel seems to have found a coffee called Obama-chino in Virginia. Can't decide whether to go to bed now and wake up early to hear the historic result... or do I stay up and see the first results... or do I go to bed and listen to it on the radio all night but then I won't get any sleep and I have an early start at work tomorrow... Maybe I should run a poll?

This is a Big Night.

august. raindrops on roses

2008-10-04T19:36:00.003+01:00

Next month... whiskers on kittens.

august

2008-10-04T19:22:00.003+01:00

july

2008-10-04T19:06:00.003+01:00

june - look! no house!

2008-10-04T19:02:00.002+01:00

the most expensive light bulb in the world

2008-05-06T20:22:00.005+01:00

This light bulb is costing more than fifty thousand pounds to replace.

About a year ago it popped. I replaced it and the new one popped too, taking downstairs' electricity with it. So I replaced it and rang The Electrician. After a couple of hours in the cellar and under the hall floorboards The Electrician pointed out that I had Damp... enough Damp to fuse all the lights and present a small element of Danger. The Electrician disconnected the offending light fitting and told me to get a plumber.

So a couple of weeks later The Plumber came and moved the washing machine to find so much Damp he couldn't get the machine back into its slot. He also found some dry rot, disconnected further electrical fittings and said that he had done all he could "in the circumstances"... So The Architect came and said "the best thing to do is pull it all down and start again". The Surveyor agreed. And so The Project has begun...

bless the weather

2008-03-10T22:58:00.003Z

The loooooonnnnggg drive back in the storms from Devon yesterday was lifted by a series of rainbows across the Salisbury plains... I'm pretty sure my car was right in the centre of the pot of gold at several points but sadly I am no richer.

bloggable baby

2008-02-06T18:02:00.000Z

Mazel Tov to the Taylor Doctorow household for introducing Poesy Emmeline Fibonnacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow to the whole wide world. Such a big name for such a very tiny and adorable person.

I found this out when I got into work on Monday and it brought on one of those internet moments... Poesy was just a few hours old before everyone could see her, share the news, show other friends, comment, congratulate, say "aaaaahhhhhh"... and her picture will be there forever and ever. Methinks she might be the most-blogged-about-baby around. Life is good.

x marks the spot

2008-01-20T15:41:00.000Z

Not sure if this Venetian graffiti is actually graffiti... or whether it's a very obscure and artsy ad for some sort of aspirin... either way it was a cut above the rest.

My 2008 New Year's Resolution is not to buy the Sunday papers - three Sundays in and I find I have much more time on my hands (hence this blog) and considerably less rubbish to recycle but I have a vague feeling I am missing something. Must. Be. Strong.

senior service

2007-12-11T19:59:00.000Z

Spent yesterday buried underground in the Cabinet War Rooms. Much to think about of course but the thing that struck me most was that these people really SMOKED. Industrial-scale ashtrays everywhere, improvised lighters made out of red-hot phone cables and the maps aren't simply yellowing with age but with the leathery patina of nicotine. These were the people who had a Good War - men were men... women had to be single... adrenaline flowed like Niagara Falls and everybody smoked.

More nostalgia when I got home as Led Zep's Madison Square concert was on telly and I hadn't seen it since I was a teenager. Robert Plant still the sexiest thing ever (even in puffed sleeves which I didn't notice in 1970-doodah) but Jimmy Page will always occupy a small corner of my heart...

tvc r.i.p...

2007-11-06T20:56:00.000Z

Nope, not the lovely Television Centre (although I am rather gloomy about that too) but the wickedly well-informed and fake TV Controller has signed off this week leaving us all... still... guessing. He says he was Dom - but I know he wasn't.

Meanwhile I have blogged on the rather quaintly named BBC Internet Blog as myself... which has felt a bit like coming out.

last friday morning in geneva...

2007-11-06T20:43:00.000Z

I noticed this...

Is it graffiti?

Or is it an autograph?

Either way it puts Banksy in the shade...

one green chilli

2007-10-20T16:19:00.000+01:00

Last year my garden provided a festival of chillies - enough to rival anything Mexico could offer. This year my rather troubled plant has just managed to yield one, rather small and slightly apologetic green effort. I'm not really sure what to do with it as I feel it deserves a good send-off... Thai curry for one I guess.

I think it's all symptomatic of the fact that the back of my house and the garden are in dire need of attention. When the dry rot falling from the bathroom meets the damp rising from the kitchen the whole thing will fall down... I'm not sure whether the rampant ivy is eating into the walls or holding them up. So I am hatching a cunning plan...

facebook tart

2007-09-02T17:29:00.000+01:00

I've sorely neglected this blog lately because, along with the rest of the English Middle Classes, I've become a facebook slut. Now I spend all my spare online time turning friends into vampires, poking people, writing worthless comments, joining pointless groups and, best of all, getting back in contact with friends and colleagues around the world. I wonder how long it will last..? I gave this blog a year and it lasted longer than that (just) but facebook is certainly more addictive and more fascinating since I still don't have a clue how they make any money out of it. I for one have never clicked on an ad in it...

And today I am mostly listening to Ali Farke Toure.

thirty one men

2007-07-29T17:49:00.000+01:00

Antony Gormley's wonderful statues will only be here for a few more weeks... I wish they would stay. Apparently there are thirty one of them but I can only find about seventeen so either my specs are rubbish or I need to walk about a bit more. Their very stillness makes them moving.

the stuffing of nightmares

2007-07-05T18:25:00.000+01:00

Kent Rogowski has been turning teddy bears inside out and taking pictures of them and they are really really disturbing... mainly because they still look like soft toys.

Marvellous.

daily wail

2007-06-17T16:45:00.000+01:00

A fixed point in our ever-changing world is the editorial stance of The Mail. There is no news story so mighty or so insignificant that it cannot threaten, in however tenous a way, the house prices of Middle England. Today it is something to do with schools, but it could just as well be global warming, terrorism, immigration, drugs - it really doesn't matter because whatever happens in the world all Mail readers really want to know is whether or not it will have an impact on the value of their gracious homes.

My gracious home currently has an outbreak of damp and ants so, rather than deal with these things I have spent the afternoon flickering on flickr, facebooking on facebook, blogging here and listening to the Isley Brothers. When indeed will there be a Harvest for the World and, if there is one, what will it mean for house prices..?

encounter with orcs

2007-06-10T18:26:00.000+01:00

Highly memorable Monday at Lord of the Rings - The Musical. As usual I had too much white wine in the interval and had to nip to the loo half way through Part Two only to be chased through the foyer by a bunch of rather short orcs. As I sought refuge in the ladies a rather smart animal-print clad woman emerged to be confronted by growling orcs waving swords. She took one look at them and told them to piss off... If only Gandalf and the crew had done that earlier the whole thing would have been over much much sooner...

cat kit

2007-05-30T19:02:00.000+01:00

Not having had a new cat for over a decade I had forgotten how much kit they need. New bowls, beds, grooming equipment adorn my house but best of all is their own special stick of catnip dynamite...

boing

2007-05-24T17:54:00.000+01:00

They're here. The one on the left has named himself - Zebedee - because he goes boing. Not sure about the other one yet...

gilbert and george

2007-05-09T17:53:00.000+01:00

Spent a happy twenty minutes at work today downloading and laying out the Gilbert and George free art - a great gesture in a troubled world even if it is only available until tomorrow night... I probably won't name the cats after them (although it is an option - see below) as it might predispose the kittens to wearing old-school tweed suits.

more names

2007-05-09T17:48:00.000+01:00

Two more suggestions just in today which I can't use but I liked them so much I thought I'd blog 'em.

Baruch and Balthamos - the Angels in His Dark Materials
and
Search and Destroy...

naming convention

2007-05-07T16:33:00.000+01:00

After a weekend of indecision I am now going to get two kittens because the brother of the (as yet nameless) chap below is equally irresistible. Currently their names are Titus and Theo but I am considering renaming them from the list below unless anybody else comes up with a better idea...

Eric and Ernie
Mungo and Jerry
Gilbert and George
Ben and Jerry
Bill and Ben
Derry and Toms
Hamlet and Horatio
Hengist and Horsa (or is it Hausa?)
Jeeves and Wooster
Frankie and Dino
Demetrius and Lysander (too posh perhaps?)
Butch and Sundance
Stan and Ollie
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Cheech and Chong
Nelson and Walter Gabriel
Waldorf and Stadtler
Fred and Barney
Dweezil and Moonunit
Oscar and Bosie or Oscar and Felix
Jules and Sandy...

I would have Arding and Hobbs bit I've used those names before...

for I will consider my cat...

2007-05-05T15:59:00.000+01:00

Jeoffry? Tiger? Tigger? Dylan? Zozo II? Henry? I have two weeks to decide what this perfect little person's name is to be. All suggestions welcome.

maxwell

2007-05-05T15:48:00.000+01:00

Didn't want to miss the drama about Robert Maxwell last night and all the papers were saying how closely David Suchet looked like the monster but, as Brian pointed out about five minutes in, Suchet bore a rather closer resemblance to a Munster!

Keeping London Tidy

2007-04-22T18:22:00.000+01:00

Apparently Banksy's wonderful Pulp Fiction with Bananas has gone... It's not quite clear whether this was an accident or whether the Transport Police cleaned it up. Either way it's a pity, not because it was worth 300k (how on earth would anyone sell it?) but because it was funny.

I suppose the graffiti I found below on April 1 is a Banksy too. Who knows? Wonder what it's worth if it is..?

graffiti, albert bridge, today

2007-04-01T18:51:00.000+01:00

shelter from the cold

2007-03-22T20:22:00.000Z

The

warmest

place

the

zoo

today

was

the

Aquarium...

nobody here but us...

2007-03-22T20:12:00.000Z

Along with a bunch of other managers from the Place Where I Work I went to a conference at London Zoo today. After sitting through lots of powerpoints and spreadsheets and presentations we were allowed out at lunchtime. We wandered around in the freezing cold and met these feathered colleagues...

Not sure which conference they were attending but I hope it had better heating than ours.

these boots are made for cleaning

2007-03-19T18:39:00.000Z

I am probably alone in the world in feeling a little sorry for Ms Campbell. I thought supermodels were meant to be moody, vapid and self-obsessed and she has just been behaving true to form. She doesn't really deserve the ritual humiliation she is currently going through. Impressive pair of boots though - I guess they will be next season's must have...

As for me, I am at last back online after two weeks of no connection at home and I Fixed It All By Myself without the help of a Proper Man. Feel very self-satisfied and am about to reward myself with a monster music downloading sesh. It will include the whimsically named Mr Hudson and His Librarians because somebody told me they've done a cover of On The Street Where You Live which is one of me favourites.

short films

2007-02-25T19:31:00.000Z

To Bafta on Friday to see all the winning and shortlisted shorts and animations from this year's awards. Like all these showcase-y things it was a really mixed bag which confirmed my opinion that like websites, short films are usually more fun to make than to watch...

Yet one has haunted me for the whole weekend - Corinna Faith's almost unbearably moving drama Care. Small, simple, totally true and uncompromising it features an extraordinary performance by Peter Vaughan. Even in his chiselled old age he has an air of menace about him. Brilliant.

separated at birth

2007-02-21T14:07:00.000Z

Watching telly last night I was struck by Mandy's close resemblance to the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz... and we all know what his problem was...

sweet vauxhall

2007-02-18T16:41:00.000Z

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.

apparently a whole year has gone by...

2007-02-17T19:09:00.000Z

...since that lovely day in Brighton that Brian has just recalled on his blog. It was a perfect day out and the pay off was being able to sit in a comfy bar on the pier watching the starlings doing their thing for nearly an hour. I don't really remember what the music was playing in the bar but now, of course, whenever I see starlings I think of lager and Hard-Fi's Living for the Weekend.

So what on earth have I done with the whole year that's gone by since that day? Not much clearly - Venice, Spain, a bit of blogging, grown lemons and olives, family things, driving, worrying.... but nothing much really to show for 365 days. i could get all gloomy about futility and the passing of time but I think I shall go and watch telly instead. I wonder if Bill Oddie's on?

grumpy old dream

2007-02-03T19:14:00.000Z

Last night I had a vivid dream in which I had been invited to lunch with Will Self in his gracious home. There were sixteen other people there all eating noodles at a big square table and as we were tucking in Mick Jagger strolled through the French windows and invited Will to join his jamming session in an adjoining room. They went off and while I could hear them playing I couldn't find them so I drifted into the kitchen and started doing the washing up...

I never think about Will Self during daylight hours. I've never read anything by him either so God knows why he popped up in my dream yet here's the thing that has been bugging me all day... when I woke up and put the radio on who should be guesting on Today? It was none other than Will Self. Hmmmmm....

my little elephant

2007-01-28T15:58:00.000Z

On the R4 show Genius a member of the audience had the troooly genius idea of genetically engineering very small elephants so that people could have them as pets. Tiny herds of these splendid creatures could then march elegantly across the plains of our sitting room carpets, grazing on very small plants along the way. Marvellous.

I haven't told the cats yet, but if anybody does manage to breed very small elephants I should be the first in the queue...

wireless

2007-01-27T14:49:00.000Z

My home is now wireless. It's very exciting. Of course there are now quite a lot more wires around the place than ever before and, for health and safety reasons, I now need a circuit breaker on the adapter in the office which looks like a miniature version of Clapham Junction but hey, I can now check my ebay bids from the kitchen. This has to be a Good Thing. There are several neighbours who've done the same but they've all chosen weird names (like Mr Holy NetGear) so I have no idea who they are if we meet in the street.

It's taken a while to sort out (hence the lack of blogging) and then of course I forgot all my passwords for everything. But today it is all fixed and tidy... and I am listening to Jim Moray.

ken russell

2007-01-06T18:13:00.000Z

gawd bless him and all who sail with him. He looks so very lost in the Big Brother house.

sparrers

2007-01-05T17:03:00.000Z

We don't have them in London any more... or at least there aren't any round my way and I really didn't notice until they had gone. In Venice they were everywhere. I spotted three hopping cheerfully into a cafe. Am reminded of Barbara Windsor singing something along the lines of 'ain't it a shame sparrers can't sing' and wondering if she will ever do an updated version.

nobody does it better

2007-01-03T17:16:00.000Z

The Venetians really know how to make New Year's Eve worth celebrating....

essence of christmas

2006-12-22T14:59:00.000Z

Fortnum's window. Wonderland indeed.

haven't blogged for a while

2006-12-20T19:59:00.000Z

Too much low-level crap in my life that I haven't really wanted to note BUT last weekend I got lost with the Wombat in the Enchanted Forest!

Who'd have thought Westonbirt Arboretum could be so much fun - green lights, mirrorballs and even a bubble machine all hidden among the trees.

I can't decide whether it was cheesy Americanised tackiness or genius... but there are worse ways of spending a couple of wintry hours.

sugar rush

2006-11-29T19:03:00.000Z

Surprised to find myself in the Crystallised Fruit Centre of the Universe at the weekend. Every fruit imaginable had been drenched in and dusted with sugar and joyfully wrapped for Christmas. One shop had a river of fruit running through it.

It all looked so lovely but, let's face it, crystallised fruit never lives up to the promise. The texture is always a bit weird and the sweetness too sweet.

Gimme a packet of Fruit Pastilles any day.

heston blumenthal's black forest gateau

2006-11-09T18:32:00.000Z

...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 more cherries and some whipped cream (fresh or spray.)

You can freeze this or eat it straight away - it really doesn't matter. If you're really lazy you could put all the ingredients on the table and ask your guests to assemble it themselves. The only thing I can't decide on is how to get the final suede effect - probably a good layer of Hundreds and Thousands would do... failing that I suppose you could use real suede.

foreign goods

2006-11-05T16:56:00.000Z

Brian's been blogging about funny foreign stuff so here's my contribution!

The coffee is from Spain and is just the thing for a post-prandial pick-me-up, while the can of "refreshing water' was purchased in Japan.

My all-time fave was a bar of chocolate I bought in France called Crap! ah - le plaisir de crapsiller. I ate it and it was indeed a plaisir. I should have kept the wrapper. There also used to be some French Lemonade called Shittt but they've stopped making that now which is a pity.

colds are so much more expensive

2006-11-05T16:51:00.000Z

...than they used to be. In Days of Yore a cold was an excuse to snuggle down on the sofa with the cats, a pot of tea and High Society. Today, feeling coldy and unwanted at the various social things I had lined up I have spent the afternoon in the study with my credit card, Amazon, iTunes and Britart. I will not end this month (or the next) in credit....

The telly beckons now but I'm not sure I can face Planet Earth as apparently the Polar Bear dies. I still haven't quite recovered from the grieving elephants on BBC Two last week and am certainly too low on tissues to risk too much more Natural Cruelty. At least I still have the one millionth episode of The Archers on Tuesday to look forward to.

i shall definitely buy Dove products 'cos of this...

2006-10-23T20:16:00.000+01:00

Mildly Diverting pointed this out to me today (in true Mildly Diverting manner) and, as ads go, it's mustard. Unlike the Budweiser ad mentioned elsewhere in this little blogiverse, this ad is aimed at me! Woo!

oh yes, i can predict the future

2006-10-22T20:36:00.000+01:00

so far all my Archers predictions have been right. David has made a fool of himself. Ruth has fallen into the arms of Sam I Am. Kirsty has yet to find out the Awful Truth (heralding a long overdue cat fight in The Bull in which Jolene might have to intervene). No sex has taken place. I should have put on a spread bet at Ladbrokes.

Meanwhile I am listening to the band with the fabbest name in the world, Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly and wishing I'd thought of it. With a name like that it wouldn't matter if all their songs were rubbish, but actually they're not bad and they've really cheered me up on this wet and rainy Sunday. They remind me a little of Pale Fountains - whatever happened to them?

the world would be a better place

2006-10-22T20:31:00.000+01:00

...if everybody (and particularly those in public life) wore shoes like these.

these i have grown

2006-10-08T16:52:00.000+01:00

I've been harvesting this year's chilli crop and there's a mini-Festival of Chillies going on in the kitchen. The purple ones which look like baby aubergines are really evil. If they were bagged in a supermarket they would need at least five chillies to symbolise how hot they are and as far as I know the scale only goes up to three. I haven't actually tried them myself but I tested them on a friend last night... he's still alive I think and his cold has gone, but I doubt he will be able to actually taste anything until 2007.

i can predict the future

2006-09-27T20:21:00.000+01:00

Sophie's back! So David is going to make a fool of himself and "aw naw" Ruth is going to fall into the muscular and welcoming arms of Sam. There'll be a cat fight at the Bull with Kirsty and somebody will leave Ambridge forever. There will not, obviously, be any actual sex.

wearing the wrong glasses in sainsburys

2006-09-27T20:05:00.000+01:00

in a rush this evening and bought lots of slightly wrong things - beef and heart cat food (instead of chicken and rabbit) and smooth instead of crunchy peanut butter. Bother. On the other hand, I did catch a glimpse of the Queen Mother's sprightly ghost in the ice cream department.

Meanwhile, try as I might, I just can't seem to care about Nectar points. Am I alone in this?

santa tecla

2006-09-26T23:32:00.000+01:00

The castles were held on the first Sunday of the week of Santa Tecla celebrations. I don't really know who Santa Tecla was. Edward told me once that she came out of the sea and killed a giant spider, losing her arm in the process. I think he made that story up.

The official guide to the festival is delightful but not very helpful. The description of the castles is as follows: "From the last third of century XVIII Santa Tecla has welcomed the best local gangs and they have reached constructions up to nine levels or floors of people like in the mythical celebration of 1881 when it was reached the four of nine without support and the three of nine without support which were performanced respectively by the gangs. At the end of the performance it will be served a vermouth and aperitive with the typical musicians which go always with the humans towers and cheer them " So there you have it.

I have to go back next year, if only to get a new offical guide and to see if I can find the vermouth.

castles in spain:4

2006-09-23T17:19:00.000+01:00

That little boy is very very very high up. The pipers are playing, the crowd is cheering and I am standing there with tears streaming down my face trying to take pictures! Strange and very moving... but you gotta ask yerself... why?

castles in spain:3

2006-09-23T17:16:00.000+01:00

It's at this point that you notice the Very Small Children wearing their very Big Hats. It's also at this point that I always start to cry.

castles in spain:2

2006-09-23T17:12:00.000+01:00

Whoa, steady there gentlemen...

castles in spain:1

2006-09-23T17:07:00.000+01:00

In Spain, last Sunday, I went to watch them making human castles. It all starts with a show of hands...

a lemon tree my dear watson

2006-09-11T19:33:00.000+01:00

Seven lemons. There are seven lemons on this little tree which in previous years has struggled to produce even one. Obviously this is all the fault of climate change and shouldn't really be happening in South London but I see it as compensation for that future rise in water levels. At least when my house is under ten feet of Thames flooding I will be able to look back at the happy summer when I grew lemons, oranges and olives in my back yard.

Not sure what one really does with seven lemons.. a very small bottle of lemonchello perhaps?

jeronimo

2006-09-09T18:19:00.000+01:00

Here he is. The Mighty, The Incomparable, Jeronimo - defending the patch where he faithfully weaves his web every day.

As I've said here before, I am rather scared of spiders and certainly can't tolerate them in the house but out in the garden they have their uses and this guy (at least, I think it's a guy, I haven't been that close) has obeyed my orders and stayed firmly in the same space for a couple of months now. He's a big chap - that pot in the background is a 12 incher - and sometimes the mainstay of his web is up to six feet long. It's stood up to some fair winds this week and today he had a bit of a set-to with a cat but I think he will still be there tomorrow. They say it's going to be sunny tomorrow too, so Jeronimo and I will be out there trying to get that last bit of tanning in.

"motherfing snakes on a motherfing plane!"

2006-08-30T13:13:00.000+01:00

In the light of the elevated threat level, the Federal Snake Marshals Service is providing expanded mission coverage for flights from the United Kingdom to the United States. Sighs of relief all round.

Next up: Tarantulas on a Train...

hampshire

2006-08-28T14:07:00.000+01:00

I've been to a house, a very nice house in the country. Crunchy gravel drive, labradors, lavender, swimming pool, the sound of laughing children in the garden, tractors humming in the distance and all that sort of thing. Pretty well perfect... but still I couldn't wait to return to the rainy old Smoke and my cramped little garden because, deep down, I know that the country is full of psychopaths and wifeswappers.

One of the Spiders I Have Trained, Jeronimo, has built an enormous web. I shall try to take a photo when it stops raining.

i'm no van gogh

2006-08-21T13:22:00.000+01:00

...but I've painted my chair!

Inspired by my favourite van Gogh painting (to which I cannot find a link which seems odd) I too have painted my favourite chair. The chair was from a boot sale. The paint from B&Q (specially mixed blue eggshell made up by their extremely helpful staff to my demanding requests). The cushion was made by Sally. Beautiful.

Of course Vincent would probably not have featured the dustbin in the background but I was so busy admiring my chair I forgot to look at the whole picture. And no, I can't be bothered to take another photo. This was a spur of the moment thing.

so farewell then

2006-08-20T17:35:00.000+01:00

...fair chicken of the sea. Lazy afternoons on the beach at Emborios will never quite be the same again.

day 793 in the big brother house...

2006-08-11T23:12:00.000+01:00

Only seven more days to go and then I'll get my life back. Thank goodness.... the washing is really beginning to pile up. I'm so glad Nikki's back in and so, clearly is Pete. Pete to win though.

prehistoric plants

2006-08-11T23:01:00.000+01:00

Gunnera. In Cornwall on a dull morning.

There are several children, a little old lady and some large dogs playing in here but you can't tell.

it's flying ant week!

2006-07-27T13:51:00.000+01:00

Last year it was last week (if you know what I mean) and the worst day was the 13th of July. Yesterday the street and my car were covered in them. By the weekend they will have all gone - but where exactly do they go? I should search the web to look for the answer to this but I am going to have lunch instead.

lightning strike addiction

2006-07-22T15:41:00.000+01:00

I can't stop looking at this site today... there's a huge big yellow patch over Berkshire right now... hope it comes this way...

bloggerheads

2006-07-22T15:09:00.000+01:00

I'd rather spend time with my friends than viewing their blogs but, since some of them are so far away, this medium (Is the Blogosphere a New Medium? Discuss) is a genuinely new way of keeping in touch... or at least keeping in touch with the public er... parts of their personalities. Alice and Cory have always been out there and they even make money out of theirs. Jamie's blog has been around for some time and while he doesn't make money out of the blog (as far as I know) he has written a book about blogging which is the next best thing. I would buy it, but I am secretly hoping for a free copy.

Brian, David and Irascible Ian are all more recent arrivals at the Blogging Ball but just look at all the stuff they have published. All these thoughts, stories, pictures - if we had dinner every week for a year we'd still never cover all this. But today, on a wet and humid afternoon, I have had some time to look around and it's been so much better than passing the time watching telly, or listening to Any Answers, or cleaning out the freezer (which is what I really should be doing).

And I'm listening to Lowell George singing I Can't Stand The Rain and thinking that in fact I Really Can.