Friday, September 29, 2006

Birthday quarter

To celebrate my birthday quarter drawing to a close (for future reference, my birthday quarter spans July to September), I treated myself to two new dvds from Amazon:

Middlemarch (BBC version - another 5 hour epic to enjoy on "poorly days", when I've already watched P&P)

and

Mansfield Park

You will note from the reviews of Mansfield Park that everybody who bought it hated it. I, however, quite like it. And mostly BECAUSE it is not faithful to Jane Austen's original. In the book, Fanny Price is the most dreary, mousy and annoyingly wholesome heroine you can imagine. Naturally this won't do for a film, where she becomes witty, modern, feisty, feminist and not a little capricious. Oh, and is on the receiving end of a bit of lesbo fondling too, just as Austen captures in her own charming style in Chapter.... oh? She doesn't?

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Grubistan

Email just in from Uzbekistan:

This week is like ticking off my last meals...
Monday was tasty soup (the lumps of meat in it very tasty, but had to nibble round the gristle though) followed by mante (savoury dumplings) with a dollop of yoghurt and chilli paste and the obligatory "non" (bread) all the princely sum of 1300 som (75p)


Tuesday
Meal at posh restaurant. The place is called SNOBBS and yes it lives up to its name - at the weekends all the Uzbek bling is on show!! Very nice meal, mushroom soup, and pork cutlet in sauce and rice. Cost: Everol paid as I am going to give him the chlorine i bought for the pool and obviously have not used.


Wednesday
To the local place near the office: "BEEBEEGUN". I had my usual Iskander (Balshoy:- large) this is like kebab meat on small lumps of bread topped with spicy tomato sauce, a small lake of yoghurt, and rice, all this accompanied with my cucumber, tomato and onion salad, 4500 som (£2.25) including 1 beer.


Thursday
Not sure yet - will update. Think I am meeting Everol for lunch.


Friday
My favourite place "POLLYANCHA" (the spelling of that is close). I will have Samsa: small savoury pastry parcels (mini cornish pasties), Borsch (chuchu:- small, i.e. half a bowl) this is the beetroot soup topped with cream but tastes savoury and herby - mostly dill. Then I will have plov or the lagman. Plov you know
[ed: this is Uzbek pilaf - i.e. meat on rice] and the lagman is a spicy soup with thick noodles and veg and meat. It will be washed down with a couple of beers, and will cost about 2500 som (£1.25) and I will feel absolutely stuffed!!!

Saturday
Dodgy aeroplane food. Fingers crossed. And not sure what to have sat. night.
[ed: actually, will probably be up to me, and I'm not sure either. Probably toast and marmite]

BRS-Fest

My department (BRS) sort of prides itself on being just everso slightly less square than the rest of the firm (although whether this is difficult is a separate subject).

To prove it, a bunch of people arranged "BRS-Fest", which was (essentially) a rock festival held in the office. It involved hiring lighting, a gantry and a giant screen for the central courtyard of our building, plus numerous giant screens for the "secondary arenas" in the meeting rooms on the ground floor, playing rock videos and forcing us to drink Veuve Clicquot (not sure how rock'n'roll the last bit is, but the excuse was that it was only served in the VIP area. Unless you knew the people who arranged it). They also had proper gig tickets and wrist bands made up for the occasion, because us accountants are nothing if not thorough...

Vivre la Veuve.

Hospital food

I'm working at the Department of Health in Whitehall today.

As a taxpayer, I find it reassuring to know that public money is not being wasted on such frivolities as edible food in the staff canteen.

Of course, as a person, I found it rather annoying.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Baltika 8 and vodka

The man in the stan is reaching the end of his span, and will be home this weekend.

Diligent to the last, he's found sufficient time to fit in one final beer test: the Baltika 8, which (as you will recall) is a wheat beer. Unfortunately, he didn't really rate it any better than the Czech 12% beer, and had to wash the taste away with a large vodka orange.

Apparently, the vodka there is not sold in measures of volume as it is here. Instead, it is done in measures of weight: 50g, 100g, 200g (ok, ok: mass). I'm not sure how this corresponds to volume measures - a standard UK pub measure is only 25ml, but vodka also looks like it must weigh less than water. Which would mean that a 50g measure is more than 50ml. Perhaps I should experiment with this at home...

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Treehorn's sweeties

My friend Treehorn has just come back from America. He brought sweeties that are shaped like monkey nuts (i.e. peanuts in their shells, not anatomical primate parts). Dead tasty. Full of peanut butter.

Busy weekend part three - night in

I invited Mick and Sarah round to dinner on Sunday night so that Mick could demonstrate his newfound mojito prowess. You will notice something of a recurring cocktail theme appearing in these notes. It's all the fault of the giant cocktail book that I got for my birthday. And the fact that the E&E-CBTM index thoroughly approves of cocktails prepared and consumed at home, which are both entertaining (particularly the shaking/muddling/dropping ice cubes all over the kitchen floor) and economical (hmm... comparatively).

I thought I would prepare a lovely salade nicoise, but it would appear that the Gods of Cooking were not entirely on my side.

Sainsbury's were able to furnish me with a rather nice lump of tuna (hurray!), but my bag of salad potatoes came with at least three or four that were rotten (boo!) so all of the rest of my groceries got slimed by stinky potato juice (double boo!!). The green beans were from Worcestershire (hurray!) rather than Kenya (boo!), which was balm to my middle-class Guardian-reading conscience.

The eggs were organic free range (hurray!) but I managed to soft- rather than hard-boil them (boo!). We were able to salvage this by judicious use of the microwave (hurray!) but one of them exploded (boo!). The tuna was cooked to perfection (hurray!) but one bit was full of utterly chokable gristle (boo!).

However, all the disasters were more than balanced by the triumph of discovering that my cocktail cabinet furnished up the ingredients for mojitos, champagne strawberry spiders and saketinis (hurray! hurray! hurray!). Recipes available upon request...

Monday, September 25, 2006

Japanese slipper

cointreau, midori, lemon juice

Pretty!

Tasty!

Pretty tasty!

Busy weekend part two (Saturday - the Queen)

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? Well, funny you should ask. I've been up to the Odeon on Kensington High Street to see the Queen. That is, Helen Mirren playing a rather taller and slimmer version of Her Maj, in the days following the death of Princess Diana.

Surprisingly excellent film. I'm not even much of a one for the royals, but it is fascinating to look back at a time when Tony Blair was young, dark-haired and enormously popular with the public and (particularly) the press. As the Queen says to Blair at one point in the film: "One day, they'll turn on you. Just as quickly, and without warning." Not particularly subtle, I agree, but effective nonetheless.

It's also rather remarkable to look back at the outpouring of public grief that occurred, which sort of passed me by at the time. I still can't quite understand what happened to everyone. Even apparently sane and normal people of my acquaintance went and laid flowers. Most perplexing.

Also saw a trailer for some kind of 9/11 film starring Nicholas Cage. I can't begin to convey how utterly dreadful it looks - from the uber-serious Cage working the "I know what's coming next" angle with every serious look, meaningful exchange with his family, and potentious statements to his crew in the opening scenes, to the "THE WORLD SAW EVIL THAT DAY" headline across the screen. Perhaps the trailer is doing it a disservice. But I don't think I'll be spending my £9 to find out.

Busy weekend part one (Friday - Milk&Honey)

My friend Mick's daughter Abby is about to turn 18. I know, I know - it seems but a moment ago that she was a scabby-kneed kid of twelve etc etc. Except that kids aren't scabby-kneed at the age of twelve these days, because they're all inside web-chatting, texting and ironing their hair rather than running around and falling over. But anyway, I digress.

She's turning 18, and so we reckon on showing her a proper grown-up night out in town. I am fondly imagining that this would have been wildly exciting to me at the age of 18, and even if I am wrong on this, she's far too polite to disabuse us of this notion.

In order to ensure that this is an evening of high sophistication, I enlisted the assistance of a resident girl-about-town from my office to compile a shortlist of venues. We have now commenced the arduous process of road-testing these bars (*sigh* - the selfless things I do!).

We began on Friday night with Milk&Honey - a members' only bar in Poland Street. It is just a tad on what you would call the pretentious side. For example, it has no sign outside, non-members are restricted to booking tables for 2 hour time slots (and you have to book 24 hours in advance) and there is a prominently displayed set of rules inside the door that range from the rather pleasant ("Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies") to the utterly w*nky ("Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided"). Also, it is without a shadow of a doubt, the darkest establishment I have ever been in.

This, of course, is a bit of a bonus on a bad-hair / coffee-stain / snagged stockings / pulsing blemish kind of day. But I must say that it left very little opportunity for the rest of the room to admire my fine shoes.

And it also made reading the cocktail menu almost totally impossible. I suppose the idea is that the cognoscenti don't need the menu and simply request "another of the usual", or go off-piste with whatever drink-du-jour the beautiful people are supping at that moment.

Sadly, the three of us (Mick, Sarah and me) were neither cognoscent (is that a word?) nor beautiful, and therefore had to grimace in the dark at the tiny letters by light of a single candle. (The people sitting at the next table to us had no problem with broadcasting their own lack of cognisance/beauty, and used a mobile phone for illumination.)

I am hereby establishing a sub-set of the World Famous Entertainment & Economy (TM) index specifically for cocktail bars (since "economy" is something of a relative term in this context). Anyway, the E&E-CBTM index gives this place the thumbs up. It's about the same price as any other cocktail bar (£7), but for your money you get a whiff of exclusivity, some excellent cocktails, and the most charming staff you can imagine. It's also pleasantly quiet for a Friday night. "Pleasantly quiet", mark you, not "dead" - i.e. you get a table, rapid service, and no risk of some braying meejah knobhead putting a fag burn in your jacket.

But, despite the approval of the E&E-CBTM index, this venue got the thumbs down for the Big Birthday Night. On the grounds that the cocktail menu only stretched to two pages, rather than the more prolific 25 pages at LAB bar and Townhouse. So a further reconnaissance mission is required... Oh, the hardship!

New link - FunkyBookClub

I've just added a new link at the top of the page.

This leads to the International Order of the Funky Book Club - based in Fayetteville, North Carolina. My parents used to attend when they lived there, and now seem to belong to the club remotely...

Given that the point of a book club is not actually the book, but instead the drinking, nibbling and nattering that goes on around it, virtual members ought to only contribute with a nice glass of red in hand.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Quick post

A quick post just to say:

(i) lordy! How early am I in the office today??!! I am at my desk and it is only 6am

(ii) two articles in the paper caught my eye this morning:

(ii) (a) the first was about a bull mastiff that eats its owner's knickers. Yawn. So what? Everyone's got a pant-eating dog. Mine ate boots, filofaxes and whole frozen pheasants too, but you don't see me making a fuss in the papers, do you?

(ii) (b) secondly: apparently people fail to learn how to use "almost half" of the features of their fancy pieces of technology like mobile phones etc. Almost half?? I reckon my phone has a secret life of its own in which it controls spy satellites, detects bombs, zaps baddies and irradiates bunkers out of sheer frustration since I can only operate about 0.03% of its functionality.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Book club

The cultural attache has surpassed himself this time, with attendance at a book club evening.

>>>
Was at a book club last night. I felt a little out of place: 16 people there and they all brought food and wine. I turn up with 6 bottles of Baltika 5 and make the male contingent 1 - yes, on my own. How out of place did I feel?

I made a few comments about the book and quite enjoyed the evening, (maybe this was because there was some decent red wine on offer, the first since I have been here). More of an even mix of sexes for the future I think, or maybe I commited a social faux pas and interupted a Ladies night?

Anyway, it is now 12.20: time for lunch. Will it be plov or iskander, beer or sprite? Decisions, decisions...

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Beard evidence III


I think this can only be called: The Sandpaper

More from the man in the 'stan

Have had further updates from the 'stan - on remarkably similar themes to last time:

This weekend saw another meeting of the Friday curry club, as usual ate too much. For the first time since I have been here was not very well. [editor's note: apart from that time with the Russian vodka, eh?] Saturday was spent feeling sorry for myself, but I fought on and by the evening was able to go out til 4 in the morning.

After leaving the nightclub, Gavin and I caught a taxi back home. I was the first to be dropped off, and Gavin was a little impressed because:
1) I actually knew where I was going and how to get to my house; and
2) This was proved by me sitting in the back seat giving the driver directions:

pryama, pryama naprava, nyet naprava, pryama pryama, nalyeva, da, astana vityes.

[Translation: straight on, straight on, no right (at this point the taxi wanted to go left down a dual carriage way in completly the wrong direction and the nyet had to be repeated several times getting louder with hand signals as well, resulting in the taxi stopping on the main junction, reversing and setting off to the right - the driving here is a little erratic), more straight on then a left and hey presto we are at my house, finishing off my Russian with a "stop here".

The weather here has taken a dramatic turn: it is dark, raining and chilly - one of those miserable wet days when you should be at home in front of TV watching films and thinking of what casserole to make.

Had to put a sweatshirt on the other day as it was down to 19 degrees. It's surprising how the body gets used to the hot weather. I think i am in for a shock when i return - the igloo is going to take a little getting used to.

[actually, I had an update from him on the phone this morning - the temperature finally dropped to 13 degrees yesterday (brrr.....) but is back at 27 degrees today]

Monday, September 18, 2006

Beard evidence II

Number two: the Rolf Harris

Can you tell what it is, yet?

New link

I've just put in a new link at the top to Olivia's blog. Her recurring themes are RUGBY and FUN.

[later edit: My mistake - it would appear that the link is for Kasatnasato. Whoever that is]

Beard evidence



Thanks to my sister (beardless), I can now bring you the photographic evidence of the facial hair on display at the Royal Tea Party

Number one: The Old Testament Prophet


Sunday, September 17, 2006

The Tail of the Cock

Actually, just before I really turn in for the night (see previous post, which I've only just finished writing), I feel compelled to add what will probably (sadly) be the final instalment in the Epic Birthday Month calendar of events before normal service is resumed.

I went out for (birthday!) brunch this morning with Mick & Sarah. Haven't seen them for a while - in fact, I've probably only seen them briefly since the cake/cocktails evening discussed below. We sat out in the sunshine (scorchio, scorchio - have sunburned neck to prove it) and ate fry-ups (hurrah!) while they told me of their recent conversion to the way of the cocktail. (This is a rather big departure for people actually observed drinking Strongbow for pleasure). Apparently, they've got so into making cocktails at home that they've stripped their mint plant bare and have had to resort to purchasing mint from the supermarket. Which reveals the true and troubling extent of their mojito habit. They even discussed at length the comparative merits of rum-based versus gin-based mojitos, and the benefits of shaking your cocktail until the outside of the shaker is frosted.

They also, very thoughtfully, have sought to encourage me in my endless pursuit of alcoholic perfection with the provision of a two-inch-thick tome on cocktail-making, and a pair of the most beautiful cut-glass 8oz martini glasses. Which I intend on christening at the earliest opportunity. What shall it be....? Decisions, decisions...

The Royal Tea Party

What a fabulous weekend I've had. I confess that I'd had my doubts about the afternoon tea - it seemed to have escalated from family get-together to full blown party (probably complete with mad hatters, dormice etc), and the prospect had seemed somewhat daunting.

I suppose you could tell how things were going to go when within minutes of arrival a recorder trio had formed from the assembled guests and treated us to a quick bagatelle (well, don't forget: the houses of primary school teachers are frequently equipped with such items as recorders and "let's play together"-type music. We're lucky they didn't get down to potato printing or something). And it just got better from there. We played lots of chamber music, Charlotte sang, Olivia played the oboe and scrummaged (although not at the same time) and people sat and chatted in the garden, drank Pimms, and ate cucumber sandwiches. Also, my sister had compiled a couple of CDs of music that charted in 1976 (I know - I was very worried too. But she eschewed glam rock in favour of funk, for which we were all most grateful). And then later on, my parents played the video of me aged 10 appearing on Take Two (the children's TV programme fronted by a very youthful Philip Schofield). This was so utterly cringeworthy that I was forced to quit the room to avoid witnessing the time-trapped mini-me in a pointy collared shirt and oversize school tie talking in a very small voice about various children's telly progs.

[In case you're interested, my views were as follows:
  1. The Krankees - it's quite silly, as the kitchen they're in is clearly too small for the size of the restaurant they are purporting to run
  2. Animal is my favourite Muppet
  3. The nature programme on polar bears was (I quote myself exactly here) "on the whole, interesting"
which shows that absolutely nothing changes except my collars got smaller and my voice got bigger]

There were about 5 different kinds of cake, including my sister's famed Chocolate Nemesis cake (30 candles: so many that even my well-trained lungs couldn't puff them out in one go) that requires 57 eggs, four metric tonnes of butter, the entire EU chocolate mountain and some other exciting and unhealthy things, and has to be cooked in a warm bath for a period of time so precise that you have to contact the atomic clock three days in advance.

I also put together the Dime Bar Cheesecake (TM), which I now discover has to be renamed the Daim Bar Cheesecake (TM) since I could only obtain dodgy German imported Dime bars. For the payment of one Dime bar, I managed to enlist the assistance of my very big little brother, who looks increasingly like an old testament prophet (tall, angular, crazily curly hair and a beard) as time goes by. Turns out he's a dab hand at biscuit and Dime bar crushing. Perhaps he has a lot of internalised anger? Or maybe it's just those oversized hands, coupled with youthful (bah!) enthusiasm.

In fact, talking of Bo, it occurs to me that there was a truly remarkable quantity of facial hair on display at the gathering, given the age and demographic grouping of the gentlemen present. This notable point has only just occurred to me, so I cannot offer at this stage any possible explanation or outcome. I will cogitate upon it some more.

Good night all.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Dime Bar Cheesecake (TM)

The birthday celebrations continue unabated with a tea party tomorrow, just like the queen. Unfortunately (given that most people will be driving) this really will be a tea party, and not an excuse to do a spot of mid-afternoon tippling. But there you go - you can't have everything.

In true "afternoon tea at the Savoy" style, we should get a bit of ivory tinkling from my friend Roland. However, all this fingerwork necessarily requires fuelling, so I have promised to make him my World Famous Dime Bar Cheesecake(TM).

Recipe:
  • Digestive biscuits - squash to crumbs, and glue back together with real butter
  • Tin of condensed milk - if you've got 4 hours to spare, boil the whole tin. If not, boil the contents for a couple of mins with MORE BUTTER until it looks golden and tasty
  • The white bit - mascapone / curd cheese / philadelphia / whatever opaque cheesiness you prefer. Possibly with some sugar and lime juice to zip it up a bit.
  • Dime bars - crush them with a hammer. Or by banging them on the counter. Or stomp on them.
  • Assemble all the above in a logical order
  • Lick fingers
  • Er...
  • That's it!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Beer of the 'stan


We knew that it couldn't be long before our cultural attache came up with a beer review for us. Apparently the major brand available locally is the Russian-made Baltika beer. This comes in nine different numbered varieties, from ordinary to scary. It would appear that the odd numbered beers are lager-like, and the even numbered beers are dark. (Apart from No. 8, which is a wheat beer.)

Our man's favourite, Baltika No.5 Gold Beer, comes in at 5.3%. But the good people of Russia have not earned their reputation as hard-drinkers lightly. Baltika No.6 (Porter) comes in at 7%, and Baltika No.9 ("Extra Beer" - no kidding) is a mighty robust 8%.

Apparently, our brave brewhouse ambassador has also tried (purely in the name of research) a Czech beer with an alcohol content of 12%. "Undrinkable filth" was his verdict.

Extended birthday celebrations


Why have one birthday, my dears, when you can have several? Particularly for such a dreadful one as 30. I think you have to do it in style to make up for the shock of now being officially "not young" any more.

So apart from a nice Friday night at Vivat Bacchus (fabulous cheese room, wonderful wine list, excitingly close to the office) just before I went on holiday, I also then managed an extended celebration on the Saturday as well.

This involved a lovely lunch, followed by a trip to a ridiculously OTT cake shop (see slightly blurry pic). And then we took the cakes, in their huge waxy box complete with ribbons, into LAB bar in Soho.

And ate them with cocktails. Mmm-hmm. That's how you do birthdays, people.

Monday, September 11, 2006

From the diplomatic bag


Another update from our man in Tashkent:

He seems to be keeping himself relatively out of mischief. He's played another football match (did I mention the one where he tackled the Israeli ambassador?), but this time with the Italians, playing against the guards. He scored a peach of a goal (it says here...) and didn't get booked. Which has left me wondering whether the rules are different out there, or something, since he ALWAYS seems to gets booked playing football back home. Particularly as his defensive strategy involves knocking over anyone who can run faster than him (i.e. everyone else on the pitch). Perhaps that is actively encouraged in "Uzbek-rules" football. Who can say?

This weekend he went to Samarkand in a taxi. It was a four hour drive, and cost a fiver (which is a scary thought - I mean, you can squander a fiver in Starbucks without even blinking). The cultural commentary I have had back from him so far indicates that it was interesting enough, but once you've seen one islamic monument, you've seen them all. Strangely, Wikipedia does not quite view it this way, and describes the Registan (pictured) in Samarkand as "One of the most awesome sights in Central Asia, if not one of the most remarkable in the world..." But perhaps I am doing him a disservice - echoey long distance phone calls not being the best medium for discussing one's aesthetic response to 17th century Madrassas.

The diplomatic bag has yielded no further updates recently, although perhaps I should quickly find time to boast about getting thirty separate 30th birthday cards from him. Presumably all purchased in the UK before his departure. I'd better start collecting now for his 40th...

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The three best things about the holiday were:
  1. The bar that served great mojitos while a constant parade of beautiful people, drag queens and muscle boys sauntered past
  2. Celebrating my birthday with a 3 hour lunch at an almost ludicrously attractive beachside restaurant (with an almost ludicrously attractive waiter, come to think of it)
  3. Fried doughnuts for breakfast

The three worst things were:

  1. Given that we were pretty much the only non-Spanish on our beach, my glow-in-the-dark whiteness looked almost cadaverous. Once in the blue blue ocean, I looked like some kind of ship's beacon.
  2. Getting horribly sunburned in a tiny narrow strip where my cream rubbed off around the edge of my cozzie on my right hip. It looks like I've leaned on a barbecue.
  3. Suddenly discovering one night where all the English tourists hang out prior to clubbing. I'll give you a hint - it's not the fab mojito bar.

But can anyone tell me: what is all the fuss about with the clubs? We went to one and although it was ok, I wouldn't rave (ha ha ha) about it.