Anne's Meze

On a night out with the CU boys some years ago, I took them all to Taz on Borough High Street and ordered meze all round. They toyed with the dips, awaiting the real meal, and still haven't forgiven me for it never turning up.

So lucky none of them were present last night:

Salted nuts/olives

Red pepper and feta dip
Beetroot dip
Baba Ganoush
Hummous (shop-bought)
Pitta breads (home-made by the pastry chef)
Tzatziki
Chicken wings (roasted in something vaguely tasteless)
Courgette and emmental cakes (scrummy)
Lamb filo parcels (yummy)
Iman Biyaldi (lummee)
Falafels (overcooked, shop-bought, overlooked)
Tabbouleh
Green salad (from garden)

There's enough left for lunch if you hurry. Simon, Billy, Slim, JJ, Iain and Daryl - no rush.

Being a regular

As opposed to being regular, (which I guess is also a blessing, and one I've always been able to take for granted).

And I'm not talking about the local pub here - it would just be nice for the woman in the newsagents to remember me. I used to be served by Pam who was lovely, but she's gone to Weymouth and the replacement has served me at last 30 times now, and each time treats me as though it's the first time we've met.

Obviously when you are a swirling vortex of lynx-like sexuality this comes as something of a shock. But, my smouldering good looks aside, you'd think she'd remember Bobby - he knocks down the Pringles stand most days, if he hasn't knocked over a young schoolgirl first. Plus I take the Guardian. The urbanites amongst you should know that the only paper sold in rural areas is the Daily Mail. The one copy of the Guardian is hidden away behind Fisting and Orgasm.

I not only remember most of my regulars from the Grove 1984, but can actually remember their drinks, and the cost.

"Large vodka tonic, ice and slice" (£1.52). - grey haired bloke in dirty raincoat we called 'Mac'.
"Half of Courage Best, not in a straight glass, I don't drink out of fucking jam jars" (44p) - Ronnie - or maybe Reggie - who owned the amusement palaces in most of South London.
And so on.

With every extra stone I seem to be becoming more invisible. Early on I treated this as a relief. It gets wearing having women throw themselves at your feet in the street. But now I appear to be The Man Who Wasn't There....


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Midnight Train To Georgia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6XZ7sgfG7c


Not only one of the all time greatest songs of all time, Smashy, but what about those backing lyrics. It's hard to beat Gladys Knight's version but...


"Superstar, but he didn't get far"


Glee. Shmee.


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Fields of Barley

At the risk of sounding like Sting (in which case kill me now), there's a lovely field of barley on my daily walk. The stalks are fully formed but currently a lovely shade of light green. It's very pleasing how they ripple and sway on the breeze.


Now, where's me Panamanian nose flute...



"Bell Boy - you gotta keep running now"...

Andy Murray

In the last two weeks I've heard him called "over-rated", "crap", "gone" and of course "a chippy little Scot".

We really are a strange nation. We often spend years aching for a world class sportsman and then, when one eventually turns up, we decide they aren't quite the right shade of "Englishness".

Linford Christie, Nick Faldo and Lewis Hamilton for starters. None of them as popular or heralded as super Tim "Timmy" Henman.

It's even worse for Murray, given that the strawberries and cream brigade think tennis exists for two weeks only each summer. Especially as his 2nd serve makes it unlikely he'll ever win Wimbledon. Still. He's already won four Masters tennis events (that's four more than super timmy), and reached the final of two grand slams only to be beaten by the greatest player the world's ever seen.

Right now his game is in a mess, and so is his head, and it's such a tough sport to get to the pinnacle of that he may even have blown his chances but he does have one thing so many of our sportsmen lack - the single most important element in top level tennis (and golf) - guts.

It's "gambling gold" is guts.


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The year's first salad harvest

A head of floppy lettuce, some rocket thinnings and four small radishes.

It looked like a small mouse had nibbled at the radishes, and there was a dead mouse on the patio so that'll teach him to mess with me.

The lettuce had an exotic name - butterscotch crunch or something - and was nice enough, but had been nibbled by a rabbit and was sweetened with the merest hint of slug sputum.


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Peter Riegert

Or, more accurately, in praise of modern technology.

Remember how you used to watch TV and see someone you recognised and ponder on it all through the film/programme, and often half the night?

Nowadays you can just pause Sky+, google the title, scroll about a bit and then go, oh my god - it's Peter Riegert.

Most film actors seem to have just a small window when they are hot property, and they'd better make some long-lasting films in that time, before a decade of straight to dvd, a hiatus in obscurity and then if they're lucky some juicy TV cameos. (I hope you're paying attention Sally Sparrow.)

It's good to see that Peter Riegert (Animal House, Local Hero, and Crossing Delancey), has managed to pass unnoticed through many of my favourite US TV shows before currently falling asleep as a fat old judge in The Good Wife, which I don't suppose was where he saw himself when he was on Arisaig beach all those years ago.


"A good sky you've got here MacIntyre. Well done."

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Shade

There's something taken for granted in this country. Not by me. Not any more. No way Jose.

Yesterday we went for a stroll to the Rollright Stones and back again, and after just a few miles it turned into a re-enactment of 'Ice Cold in Alex'.

Shade. Well-played.



"For you know only
A heap of broken images where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."


(toilets ahead of the curve as usual...)


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Oxford

Enjoying a lovely break in Oxford. Strangely I've never been here before even though I was supposed to be coming here before people realised I was too lazy/thick.

Enjoyed all the usual sights, and JJ and Catherine attended an "industrial tour" midweek just so they could show us the old marmalade factory. Our stroll round Merton could hardly compete with that. Particularly liked the old prison (Norman Stanley Fletcher balconies etc) now converted into a boutique hotel. If you get the chance do go and have a look at it. Or stay in the Correction Room for only a £30 supplement.


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The Scoop 6

There'll be £2 million in the pot this afternoon.

The Tote is a terribly run outfit but this bet is really well-designed and when the pot swells like it has done everybody who likes winning something for very little should have a dabble. For everyone out there who does the lottery - I should tell you that a couple of quid on this today offers significantly better odds, at least 13,000,000 to 1 better.

(Here's how bad a bet the lottery is - if you spent £1000 each week buying lottery tickets you would, on average, match all 6 numbers once every 270 years. Or, to put it another way, at my age, to have a better chance of winning the lottery than actually still being alive when the draw is made I'd have to buy my ticket at around 7:40pm on Saturday.)

Of course, the big rollers will be out in force today - Harry Findlay alone will be responsible for about £1million of the fund - so if you are playing make sure you put at least one outsider in your perm, otherwise you'll have to share your winnings with the fat cockney chancer.

And don't get too carried away - back in the golden betting days Slim and I threw £2k plus at one roll-over - but Iain/Daryl it has to be worth your normal single win bet today. Personally, I'll be carving out a beautifully-balanced, and all encompassing perm totalling £2 and shall be very surprised if I'm not a millionaire this time tomorrow. Rodney.


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Foxes

I love 'em.

Apologies to anyone who has lost chickens to the little buggers. No apologies to anyone who thinks it's appropriate to dress up in silly clothes and kill them for the fun of it.

Some of you probably have cubs in your urban back gardens about now. Enjoy. There were 14 cubs under our neighbour's shed in Tooting one Spring, and they used to come out in the evening for their nightly grand steeplechase over and through our small box hedging. Anne actually befriended the one vixen who lived a few years, and called her Lillian. She used to follow Anne round the garden and used to play with our cats.

Strangely I hardly ever see a fox up here. But when I do they are so proper foxy - full of colour and bushy-tailed, as opposed to the grey mange-ridden scroungers of London and Bristol - that it's even more of a treat.

(I had a horrible feeling writing this that I'd already praised the fox, but I've just checked the blog and I don't appear to have done so.)

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Peace and Quiet

Now my mum is back in her box we can get back to enjoying Shropshire life.

A Shropshire Sigh

The other day my sister-in-law phoned me to say:
“Gary, you and Anne are becoming just like mum and dad”
“Thats not good.” I said.
“No, it's definitely bad.”

Anne gets involved in a lot of things, as is her wont:
WI, walking, gardening and book clubs. I don't.
I sit at home and watch the clouds slide by.

Anne's dad exhales deeply every few minutes.
We've come to calling it the Shropshire sigh
And it seems to be catching. I've even caught
The dog doing it when no-one's watching.

Some bloke's fenced in some fields where Bobby used to run and hunt,
I'm cross about it all day, every day, and it's out of all proportion;
(Though don't go buying a car from this bloke, he's a lying cunt.)

I'm slowly turning into a rural nutter.
I lie in bed at night dreaming of wire cutters.
And the thing that fills me most with dread
Is the thirty years of this before I'm dead.



I was scared of turning into a rural nutter when I wrote that sometime last year. Yesterday I enjoyed the peace and quiet. Looks like job done!



Anne's mum has just phoned and asked me to look up something on the internet for her....

Latex-free underwear...


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The Coen Brothers

With yet another Guardian article wondering why Woody Allen hasn't made a good film since about 1993, let's praise instead the last remaining film-makers I insist on following.

I remember watching Blood Simple when it came out and about half the audience left - mainly because the sound was so poor - so the boys did well to even get started let alone churn out successful films every couple of years.

To be honest I'm not sure they've made a great film (Fargo maybe), but every film has at least one great scene and at least one great acting performance (often a cameo - John Goodman, John Turturro, Steve Buscemi and even Woody Harleson). In fact the only casting I think they got wrong was Javier Bardem. They should of course be sued for denying the wider world Frances McDormand.

I saw A Serious Man last week and I'm still thinking about it, which is unusual because I'm sure their films are supposed to flow over you dream-like - more visual than story, more tune than lyrics. I loved the opening sequence, and the second rabbi scene, which even has a punch-line, and the scene-stealer this time round is the sadly underused Adam Arkin.

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Dead Dad

My mother has been visiting. Normal service will hopefully be resumed tomorrow. Until then here's one of my favourite sculptures...


http://www.artmolds.com/images/wpe19.jpg


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Staying out of Hospital

Without wishing to tempt the gods, there's a blessing - I've never spent a night in hospital. To be fair Anne's dad seems to think the food's pretty good, but then he describes it to me...


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My New Paella Recipe

We've been lucky enough to have eaten some great stuff around the world but we can usually replicate them back home. Of course, sometimes we fail because we can't get the same quality ingredients, (eg iberian ham, fresh ricotta, soft shell crab, onglet) and sometimes we can't because we're not good enough cooks.

And sometimes, as we all know, the dish is relatively simple, but just doesn't travel back home. For me, these dishes are nearly always seafood eaten outside.

Sardinas in Portugal, lobster rolls in Maine, and in particular paella in Benidorm (strange but true).

For over 20 years we have tried to make paella at home and it has always managed to end up tasting of Bachelors savoury rice, a memory redolent of my mother's less than epicurean approach to cooking.

But Friday night I stumbled upon a new recipe - and the key ingredient appears to be finely grated orange zest - which came tantalisingly close to a madeleine-dipping epiphany.

(Recipe from Gourmet Food for a Fiver by Jason Atherton)



The only non-seafood example I can think of is pastrami on rye at the Carnegie Deli, but then back home you don't get Jackie Mason stopping by your table for a chat before heading towards the Broadway Danny Rose crowd at the back.


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Dogs With Doggy Names

When did everyone start giving their dogs children's names?

In Shifnal we have Megan, and Milly, Lilly, Ben, Freddy, Dylan, Rio and three Harrys. (And Bobby of course, though when we rescued him he was called Ozzy). All we need is a bouncy castle and we've got a kids' party.

I'm sure when I was young dogs were called doggy names. Prince mainly. Our boxer was called Honey, there were two Cocos, a Patch and, yes indeed, a Rover.

The only dog named similarly here is a male pit-bull called Bubble, and to be honest that just seems cruel!

I'm thinking of changing Bobby's name to Scout. This shouldn't be too much of an issue as he currently thinks Bobby means "sit"...



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Matthew Fort

Struggling to think of anything this morning - roll on October.

However, every time I turn on the TV I seem to stumble across Matthew Fort. Eating. Eating with verve and gusto. There was a very sad old bloke I used to serve in the Harvester who lived alone, was a chronic alcoholic and once a week he used to eat a discounted steak and chips, which appeared to be the only food he ate all week, judging by the way he enjoyed it. Very similar to Fulton McKay in Local hero when they cook him dinner and try to get him to sell his beach. That's how Matthew Fort eats. No picking the food over making snide comments. No waxing lyrical about the presentation, sniffing it and declaring it divine.

No. Like a US Marine. Sit. Pray. Attack.

Trencherman Fort. Good job. Well done. Carry on.


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Fields of rape

Every rural idyll has its "frigging brigadier" as Jake Thackeray would have it, and here's no different. Ours carries the burdens of the world on his shoulders, at least until he can unload them onto me as I walk past with the dog.

Twice he's reached a moment when the sheer volume of horrors of modern life appears to be funnelling into a vortex of doom swirling across the fields towards him as he shakes his head and says "And did you know, the CEO of Prudential is a black man?"

These last couple of weeks, by way of a change, it's the colour yellow that's been vexing him. I may have a few details wrong but apparently rape is the bringer of hay-fever, headaches and nose bleeds and last week a nasty outbreak of yellow fever in Sutton Maddock. It renders the soil barren, and causes johnny foreigner to feather the nests of bastard farmers with subsidies sucked from the souls god-fearing huntsmen. And all so a bunch of deluded food snobs can pay a tenner for a bottle of extra virgin vegetable oil.


Personally, I rather like it when the fields are in full-bloom as they are now, so full of colour it actually hurts the eyes. There's a view between here and Kemberton of ten huge fields stretching across the landscape as far as the eyes can see that I can stand and admire for as long as it takes the swallows to tire Bobby out.



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People who can't do accents

There's lots of things I idly wish I could do:

I'd like to be able to go into a pub, sit down at the piano and belt out a show-stopper.

Or be able to run up a hill as quick as Anne can walk up one.

Or be able to build a defensive wall around my vegetable seedlings that the sparrows didn't perch on giggling.

But most of all I've always wanted to be able to do accents.
Absolutely hopeless at them. Can't impersonate anyone. My welsh sounds pakistani, my american sounds australian. At a push I can do Roland Gift singing "She drives me crazy". Just that one line mind, and it isn't easy to force that into conversations to showcase my virtuosity. I only manage it about once a week.

So, a big thumbs-up to Saskia Reeves on Luther last night for treating us to the worst cockney accent since Dick Van Dyke. What makes it even more a thing of utter beauty is that apparently she's a Londoner. Saskia, I salute you.



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Lawrence Block

Who has kept me entertained for at least 60 books now (I've just counted that many on my shelves and I must have given at least 20 more away), every single one of them read in no more than two sittings.

I've just read "Killing Castro" a novella written in 1961 - which belongs to the decade when he wrote pulp fiction, paid by the word, often soft porn and usually under all manner of pseudonyms. All helping him learn how to tell a story in simple, clear, compelling prose.

Then came the early 70s "Tanner" series about a bloke heavily involved in the machinations of a just-about-united Yugoslavia, which reads like prophecy when read now.

Then his masterpieces - The Matt Scudder crime series, tracking a detective from 1970s New York right through to the present day. As the streets of Hells' Kitchen get cleaner, so these books get darker. Start with "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes", then once hooked, go back to the beginning and read them all in order.

He alternated writing these with a "Burglar" series, a very English sort of take on a New York cat-burglar. I can't believe neither series has been successfully made into TV or film (despite plenty of attempts including Whoopi Goldberg as Matt Scudder - you gotta love Hollywood).

Then, this decade he came up with Keller, a hit-man who spends his time between assignments collecting stamps. Along the way he's written hundreds of short stories, also great, a book on speed-walking, and a book on writer's block, though he can hardly have been writing from experience there.

Go explore, go enjoy.

Jessica

Cruelly ousted from "Over The Rainbow" last night.

I watch far too many reality shows for my own sanity, though only if I can gamble on them. (They were, for a brief period, the golden goose of gambling, but sadly all markets move towards efficiency). And the gambling allows me to be fairly objective about the talent I'm witnessing.

And in the ten years or so of wading through this bilge-water I can count the number of contestants I've really rated/supported on one hand and still have enough fingers left for a perfectly satisfactory wank.

However, I have to say this lot are collectively the most talented bunch I've seen on a reality show, and Jessica looks like a proper potential star. Good luck to her.

The show also offers a weekly chance to hear "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" sung purely, which is to say without having to suffer Eva fucking Cassidy's bastardised re-phrasing...

King Charles's Wood

A modest little affair near me.

Named for when Charles the Second (to be) marched south with a view to regaining power. Sadly for him, the remaining royalists of the Midlands had got a bit fed up of being whooped by Cromwell and produced sick-notes from their mums. So, rather lacking an army, Charley boy ran for his life. Allegedly he used this wood as part of his escape route, ending up hiding in a oak tree at Boscobel a few miles away, like the fierce, brave warrior he plainly was.

When he eventually did gain power all the royalists who had failed to turn up in his hour of need felt a bit guilty and so in a show of support re-named all their pubs The Royal Oak. (Don't let anyone say these daily amuse-bouches aren't educational)

Anyway, I always find the wood rather evocative, as I like the idea of the monarchy running for their lives, and currently it's giving its annual bluebell display - which whilst not a vintage year - is also rather pleasing.



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Timothy Spall

High on my list of Greatest Living Britons (just behind Bill Bryson). Seems to have made a sailing programme where he sits in the same harbour the whole summer eating. My kind of sailor.


I've seen Timothy Spall twice, some ten years apart.
The first time I was a barman at the Grove, a Harvester
On the South Circular between Forest Hill and Dulwich.
He came for a steak with his wife and kids.
We gawped from afar and made jokes
In bad Midlands accents, not even knowing
He was actually from around here.

A decade or so later I was having dinner in a chinese
In Nottingham when the entire cast of Outside Edge
Came in for a meal. Robert Daws was at one end
of the table,and Spall was at the other.
He was flirting with two of the younger,
Prettier diners, when the matriarchal tones
Of Brenda Blethyn cut grandly through the air:
“Timothy, don't you think you should phone your wife.”


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Caroline Lucas

Well done Brighton. Surely only a matter of hours before she's asked to lead a new government!

A few other thoughts from a long night:

1. Finding "factors" undervalued by the market place is of course the best way to make money. There was a factor staring me in the face this time round. Anne's mum, sister and friends all said they were voting for their existing MP, because (a) their MP wasn't tainted by the expense scandal, (b) their MP did good work in their constituency and (c) they couldn't decide how else to vote.

This "incumbency factor" was massive this time round. Obviously I spotted this trend weeks ago and made a million exploiting it....

2. What exactly is the fucking point of students? Let's leave aside the obvious thought that if this was 1977 there'd be bankers hanging from gibbets from Millbank to Chelsea, Guildford to Richmond, Leatherhead to Canary Wharf.

What seems to have happened instead is that most of them, when they pressed the Facebook button saying "Who would you vote for if you could be bothered to get off your arse and move our tired country forward as is your youthful obligation ?", thought that they had actually voted for real.

The rest of them wandered along to vote on their way to the pub, once they'd watched all the soaps, turning up without their fucking polling cards and ID, leaving hundreds of people disenfranchised.

I blame their parents.

3. One half of the country will now say the country voted for the Tories, and the other half will say the country voted against the Tories. As a betting man I'd put Cameron's performance up there with Jean Van De Velde's (Carnousite 1999).

4. Apparently a new government won't be formed today. Not least because the Queen is out.


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Election Betting Fever

What is the point of the fucking Lib Dems? Here's their great chance to shake up our tired electoral system, and they're busy fading away quicker than Man City's Champions' League prospects.

Which leaves me fretting over whether they are going to win any of Northampton North, Ealing Central and Acton, and Bournemouth West - the central planks of my "eggs in one basket" election betting strategy that is looking more and more like Baldrick's most cunning plan ("more cunning than a fox with a degree in cunning").

I won't even mention Brentford, Pendle, Plymouth and Sutton, Filton and Bradley Stoke, and Stockport, on which I intended to retire.

So, in search of restitution I look to today's racing. I'm going in large on "Give Your Verdict" in the 1:55 at Chester and dabble on "Total Command", "Thunderous Mood", "Honorable Endeavour", "I'm A Dreamer" and "Refuse to Give Up" , all at Goodwood, before hopefully landing the double with "Power Shared" in the 3:05 at Newton Abbot.


With great sadness, I have to report that there's a horse running at Chester tomorrow called "Dancing David".


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Detective Shows

I enjoyed Luther last night, and particularly good to see Ruth Wilson hamming it up with verve and gusto.

I've go to say it seems at first sight to be half-homage to Columbo - which is no bad thing - but I like to enjoy my cop shows in a drunken coma, as suspects and false trails wash slowly over me, before Anne and I have to guess whodunnit exactly halfway through the programme.



We use the following algorithm for naming the murderer:

1. Let the show's title cut through the confusion,
Particularly if it's literary, or a Latin allusion.

2. Pay special attention to the opening scene,
If it's discrete, or confusing, or a flashback, or dream.

3. Look for the finest ship in the harbour,
Michael Maloney, Lelsey Manville, Frances Barber...




I have my own idea for a Detective Show. They should re-visit all the old Inspector Morse shows and uncover how he actually named the wrong person in each case.


Inspector Remorse.


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Coincidence

Or "synchronicity" - much beloved hokum cooked up by Jung and pursued by Koestler - which has always mildly interested me, especially as a gambler.

We had two good 'uns this Bank Holiday. Anne was talking to Paula on the phone and the name of someone they had worked with at Croydon a few years ago came up in conversation. Someone neither had thought of since that time. Anne comes off the phone and onto facebook, and there's a friend request from said person awaiting her.

Sunday, we're in the car, and I say, apropos of nothing, "You don't hear much about Lynn Redgrave these days, is she dead?".

Once more unto the twiglet zone my friends, once more....



PS Lynn Redgrave was as talented as her sister. Just fatter.

Roast Duck

Whole duck roasted over tray of thick sliced potatoes. Add lardons and onions to potatoes whilst duck is resting. Make gravy from giblets and stuff. Serve with "cheesey peas" - which is really sweated onion, peas boiled up in cream with a smidgeon of mint, all juzzed up into a soupcon of loveliness.

Serves 4. Or me and Anne.


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England's Green and Pleasant Land

(Or Britain if you prefer).

The sun last week and rain this week has turned Shropshire green. All the trees have come alive and the crops are bursting through the soil. It's this time every year that I marvel at how we are able to distinguish hundreds of different shades of green. We also have some nice splashes of yellow rape for contrast.

Shame the BBC weather continues to view us as a brown island....


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Electric Toothbrush

What a simple blessing that is.

When it's on re-charge, and I have to revert to manual, I really miss it.

Once it's back on full-turbo my teeth and gums zing like I've just had a scale and polish (and when you haven't had one of those for 12 years you need all the electrical assistance you can get).


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