I was going to do Big Society today. I'm not. Many bloggers have blogged it, mostly badly to my mind, but that Bastard Old Holborn has done it well. I have to doff my cap. And the bastard's got a good picture on it.
Read it, I implore you.
You have? Excellent. You're supposed to do good things. Of course you are. You already do? Even better.
While you do this, the elected governments continue to show their utter contempt for you. NOTHING you do will matter to them. Here is some contempt.
Old Holborn's penultimate paragraph tells you what to do.
Do it.
Or continue to tweet, blog, go back to your house and garden, your barbecues, your kids, and let the governments laugh at you while they continue driving your country further and further down the road to the global finance-driven monster.
I'm not going to bang on about NWO (New World Order), because I think it's paranoiac. But it's there. Call it the banks. Call it the EU. Call it the Fabians. Call it whatever you like, you're in it. And you can get out.
So, as Yoda would say, do not think about it. Do, or do not.
It's your choice.
Incidentally, I'd really like to know whether you intend to do, or do not. And why. Or why not.
Please feel free to comment.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Spin
I don't normally do pictures, because I like words. There is a picture in this one. It is evidence.
A Mr Alasdair Campbell, Spin Doctor for New Labour, aka the Fabians, is disingenuous. I realise that I am inviting a libel action for this, but honestly, I don't care, I think it is more important that people know that the man largely responsible for the rise (and hopefully, fall) of the social engineering experiment, or dead donkey raffle, known as New Labour, and the subsequent enrichment, financially and socially, of its instigators Blair, Brown and Mandelson, realise what a mindjob has been done on them. Even if only for the sake of my kids, and yours. Let it never happen again.
Mr Campbell, Spin Doctor (look "Spin Doctor" up on Wiki, it tells all of the techniques) has been instrumental in brainwashing, fiddling facts and figures, and possibly more. You probably all knew that. I certainly did. I let it go. My friend Pam recently did a piece (sittinginthesky, same blogspot) which made him bite. Until then, I couldn't be bothered. Another friend, Carolyn, recently prompted me to ask him, as a man of great following, to retweet something which I felt strongly about. Yet another friend, Lochnagar, had already asked him.
Sadly, our Campbell couldn't find, or work, the retweet knob. You can see below that this is the case.
Sometimes, a picture paints a few words, you know. Read it from the bottom up. It's not very far.
A Mr Alasdair Campbell, Spin Doctor for New Labour, aka the Fabians, is disingenuous. I realise that I am inviting a libel action for this, but honestly, I don't care, I think it is more important that people know that the man largely responsible for the rise (and hopefully, fall) of the social engineering experiment, or dead donkey raffle, known as New Labour, and the subsequent enrichment, financially and socially, of its instigators Blair, Brown and Mandelson, realise what a mindjob has been done on them. Even if only for the sake of my kids, and yours. Let it never happen again.
Mr Campbell, Spin Doctor (look "Spin Doctor" up on Wiki, it tells all of the techniques) has been instrumental in brainwashing, fiddling facts and figures, and possibly more. You probably all knew that. I certainly did. I let it go. My friend Pam recently did a piece (sittinginthesky, same blogspot) which made him bite. Until then, I couldn't be bothered. Another friend, Carolyn, recently prompted me to ask him, as a man of great following, to retweet something which I felt strongly about. Yet another friend, Lochnagar, had already asked him.
Sadly, our Campbell couldn't find, or work, the retweet knob. You can see below that this is the case.
Sometimes, a picture paints a few words, you know. Read it from the bottom up. It's not very far.
I'd like to ask anyone else with experience of chap whether they had an opinion. Unfortunately, David Kelly wasn't available for comment.
Any legal beagles are welcome to contact me, simply reply below and I'll contact you forthwith.
Haddock
There will be four (4) people in the whole of the world who have any idea of what the title means, and I’m not sure about at least three (3) of them.
Toller Porcorum is a mixture of Olde-Anglo-Saxon toller, meaning valley, and latin porcorum being the genitive (plural) of pig. According to the internet, so it must be true, the Toller is the old name of the river which flows through the village of Toller Porcorum, which has since been named the river Hooke, but my friend Rosalind Buttered-Crumpet informs me that it means “valley” and so “valley” it is.
So I spent the weekend in the valley of the pigs.
“Are there pigs?” I enquired.
“Not a one.” retorted Rosalind, authoritatively.
One does not argue with Rosalind. An acclaimed (and bronzed, she told me not to omit) erstwhile writer of many things not limited to cordon-gendarme cookery, she knows. Had she not made the decision to spend time in the real world, in a Felicity Kendal stylee, she would be a rather good blog writer.
Anyway, we had spent some considerable time discussing the merits of the American (mis)use of words such as “leverage” as a verb, management-speak and its uselessness and, more importantly, the word “like” as a hesitation mark. Like, er, like, um, ah. And the general concensus is that it had close to zero value in any context apart from that of its original meaning, for instance when introducing a simile. But more than simile, it introduced a smile. And a conundrum, as you will see.
Sunday brought us to a publick house known as the Spyway, a smugglers pub in Askerswell. I can recommend this pub on a nice day as there is an ample garden with attractive water feature and, if you ask, you can get an ashtray too. Inside if wet is not so attractive an option as the bar is small. Cosy is a word which would also describe it adequately, but small is more accurate.
Into the second pint, mid-discussion into the colouring of the bee orchid (don’t ask), the young lady-in-waiting approached our table and interjected “Excuse me, did you order like haddock?”
Conversation stopped. “Like haddock? No, not us.”
She left, bearing what was presumably like haddock, to seek those who ordered it, leaving us to work out how “order like haddock” should be punctuated.
I have since tried going into the shop to order some Marlboro, like haddock. It is not easy, you have to mouth the words in a haddocky way, as haddock (so far as I can gather) can not, or will not, speak. You can’t point like a haddock, as haddock’s extremities are designed for navigating the salty depths, not for pointing. It is like being paralysed in a foreign country whose language you know not wot. Of. I assume that you can’t order like haddock, you can only really order like a human.
I have tried Joe’s Fish Restaurant. “Have you anything like Haddock?” I asked. Apparently there is nothing like haddock, although obviously cod would be more like haddock than, say, cottage pie. So I assume that there is nothing that, technically, is like haddock, and conclude that the young lady must have meant “Did you order, like, er, um, haddock?”
My message to young (and old, alike) is this:
“Like”. It is a versatile word, being a noun, verb, adjective, preposition, conjunction, adverb, even a verbal auxiliary and not least a suffix, in the case of haddock-like.
It is not a substitute for er, em, like, arrrgh.
And my message to those lovely people who explain from positions of apparent authority that it doesn’t matter if we spell properly, use our native language properly, and pick up junk American langauge faster than we can build a new McDonalds is this:
Yes, it bloody well does. Like.
Toller Porcorum is a mixture of Olde-Anglo-Saxon toller, meaning valley, and latin porcorum being the genitive (plural) of pig. According to the internet, so it must be true, the Toller is the old name of the river which flows through the village of Toller Porcorum, which has since been named the river Hooke, but my friend Rosalind Buttered-Crumpet informs me that it means “valley” and so “valley” it is.
So I spent the weekend in the valley of the pigs.
“Are there pigs?” I enquired.
“Not a one.” retorted Rosalind, authoritatively.
One does not argue with Rosalind. An acclaimed (and bronzed, she told me not to omit) erstwhile writer of many things not limited to cordon-gendarme cookery, she knows. Had she not made the decision to spend time in the real world, in a Felicity Kendal stylee, she would be a rather good blog writer.
Anyway, we had spent some considerable time discussing the merits of the American (mis)use of words such as “leverage” as a verb, management-speak and its uselessness and, more importantly, the word “like” as a hesitation mark. Like, er, like, um, ah. And the general concensus is that it had close to zero value in any context apart from that of its original meaning, for instance when introducing a simile. But more than simile, it introduced a smile. And a conundrum, as you will see.
Sunday brought us to a publick house known as the Spyway, a smugglers pub in Askerswell. I can recommend this pub on a nice day as there is an ample garden with attractive water feature and, if you ask, you can get an ashtray too. Inside if wet is not so attractive an option as the bar is small. Cosy is a word which would also describe it adequately, but small is more accurate.
Into the second pint, mid-discussion into the colouring of the bee orchid (don’t ask), the young lady-in-waiting approached our table and interjected “Excuse me, did you order like haddock?”
Conversation stopped. “Like haddock? No, not us.”
She left, bearing what was presumably like haddock, to seek those who ordered it, leaving us to work out how “order like haddock” should be punctuated.
I have since tried going into the shop to order some Marlboro, like haddock. It is not easy, you have to mouth the words in a haddocky way, as haddock (so far as I can gather) can not, or will not, speak. You can’t point like a haddock, as haddock’s extremities are designed for navigating the salty depths, not for pointing. It is like being paralysed in a foreign country whose language you know not wot. Of. I assume that you can’t order like haddock, you can only really order like a human.
I have tried Joe’s Fish Restaurant. “Have you anything like Haddock?” I asked. Apparently there is nothing like haddock, although obviously cod would be more like haddock than, say, cottage pie. So I assume that there is nothing that, technically, is like haddock, and conclude that the young lady must have meant “Did you order, like, er, um, haddock?”
My message to young (and old, alike) is this:
“Like”. It is a versatile word, being a noun, verb, adjective, preposition, conjunction, adverb, even a verbal auxiliary and not least a suffix, in the case of haddock-like.
It is not a substitute for er, em, like, arrrgh.
And my message to those lovely people who explain from positions of apparent authority that it doesn’t matter if we spell properly, use our native language properly, and pick up junk American langauge faster than we can build a new McDonalds is this:
Yes, it bloody well does. Like.
Free
So, the dead donkey raffle's on again, is it?
RaceOnline2012, aka some bird who cobbled up a website for cheap late holidays, now the god of the internet and all things digital, advising H M Government (don't get me started) on why it is a basic human right to have the internets?
Have I got it about right?
Oh, good.
In "my" office, the airconditioned shed I cling on to while I offer some sort of service to this sack of shit that struggles to maintain health and safety as a religion whilst decimating the share price on a daily basis, I have access to broadband. This mainly because I conned them years ago into having it, unpoliced, so the people in the ivory towers can see what's going on. I can therefore throw porn into the ether at a guaranteed 8 million bits a second, yay!
In my "home", the non-airconditioned shed in which I eat and sleep, I don't have broadband. I don't have a telephone. I can't have a telephone. I have an iPhone, which slowly gleans information from the ether and pops it up onto my screen, so I can wang away with my thumbs and give my opinion on things that I think matter. That's why I like Twitter, when it works. I also have a huge laptop thing which I use as a DVD player, so I don't need a TV licence, and so I can't watch the H M Government Propaganda Channel even if I want to. And, trust me, I don't. I have bought a dongle which I attach to this laptop via a long cable, and put onto the roof of the shed inside an upturned saucepan, which will get me something like 48 thousand bits per second on a good and clear night. That's means I can also be a Twit there, using all of my fingers.
Sometimes I can access blogs. I can access mine, because I haven't filled it full of pictures and videos. I can't access some that I would sometimes like to access, although with the dongle there's a cunning thing that skips most of the pictures, so that's nice. I can't watch youtube videos, so please stop posting links to them unless they're obviously links to videos, eh?
I had my iPhone bought for me, by a customer, to do a job on. I paid for my dongle. I can have access by the day, week, month. My choice.
The government CAN'T give me broadband, even if I want it, which I don't. And I don't want to pay for anyone else's, thanks.
There are three reasons why anyone would need broadband. There is NO need for it for email.
These three reasons are:
RaceOnline2012, aka some bird who cobbled up a website for cheap late holidays, now the god of the internet and all things digital, advising H M Government (don't get me started) on why it is a basic human right to have the internets?
Have I got it about right?
Oh, good.
In "my" office, the airconditioned shed I cling on to while I offer some sort of service to this sack of shit that struggles to maintain health and safety as a religion whilst decimating the share price on a daily basis, I have access to broadband. This mainly because I conned them years ago into having it, unpoliced, so the people in the ivory towers can see what's going on. I can therefore throw porn into the ether at a guaranteed 8 million bits a second, yay!
In my "home", the non-airconditioned shed in which I eat and sleep, I don't have broadband. I don't have a telephone. I can't have a telephone. I have an iPhone, which slowly gleans information from the ether and pops it up onto my screen, so I can wang away with my thumbs and give my opinion on things that I think matter. That's why I like Twitter, when it works. I also have a huge laptop thing which I use as a DVD player, so I don't need a TV licence, and so I can't watch the H M Government Propaganda Channel even if I want to. And, trust me, I don't. I have bought a dongle which I attach to this laptop via a long cable, and put onto the roof of the shed inside an upturned saucepan, which will get me something like 48 thousand bits per second on a good and clear night. That's means I can also be a Twit there, using all of my fingers.
Sometimes I can access blogs. I can access mine, because I haven't filled it full of pictures and videos. I can't access some that I would sometimes like to access, although with the dongle there's a cunning thing that skips most of the pictures, so that's nice. I can't watch youtube videos, so please stop posting links to them unless they're obviously links to videos, eh?
I had my iPhone bought for me, by a customer, to do a job on. I paid for my dongle. I can have access by the day, week, month. My choice.
The government CAN'T give me broadband, even if I want it, which I don't. And I don't want to pay for anyone else's, thanks.
There are three reasons why anyone would need broadband. There is NO need for it for email.
These three reasons are:
- to surf porn
- to research things for work or school
- to bring down a government
Obviously, the first one is very important. The second is even more so, but then there's access at work or school already.
And, thanks to Twitter, I can make my small contribution to the third, possible the most important, at 48kbps quite nicely, thanks.
Bye, Ms Martha Lane Fox. Get a proper job..
Monday, 12 July 2010
People
In the last glorious 24 hours I have seen it all.
My mate has had his car keyed. Probably because he parked where someone else thought they should be able to park.
I have been sent a copy of an email "politely" asking for people to ensure that they don't park opposite someone's drive.
I have been told "I get priority to park here" because I live nearest this bit of road.
What the fuck is it with people?
No, Old Holborn, I'm not a communist. I'm very, very far from being one.
But I'll tell you what. If I had a house with a piece of parkable kerb outside it, or a bit of river suitable for mooring a boat, I would get some signs printed that said "please feel free to park here" and put them up for all to see.
FFS. What IS the big deal with wanting to own stuff? Wanting people not to be able to use it, even though the owner doesn't use it himself? Wanting to make their plot just that little bit bigger?
These same people are the ones who will moan at society if society doesn't mow their grass verge. If they were own-verge-mowers, I might sort of begin to partially understand. But I don't. These people are also the people who moan because someone within their field of vision (aka if they crouch on top of the wardrobe and crane their necks round) has a compost bin which is not exactly the same colour as their house/bush/concrete path. These are the same people who will fill their dustbin to overflowing, leave it outside on the road four days before the collection is due, then start to leave carrier bags round it full of plastic wrappings and veg peelings so the rats will come at night and strew them all down the street.
Someone, please, what is it with people?
My mate has had his car keyed. Probably because he parked where someone else thought they should be able to park.
I have been sent a copy of an email "politely" asking for people to ensure that they don't park opposite someone's drive.
I have been told "I get priority to park here" because I live nearest this bit of road.
What the fuck is it with people?
No, Old Holborn, I'm not a communist. I'm very, very far from being one.
But I'll tell you what. If I had a house with a piece of parkable kerb outside it, or a bit of river suitable for mooring a boat, I would get some signs printed that said "please feel free to park here" and put them up for all to see.
FFS. What IS the big deal with wanting to own stuff? Wanting people not to be able to use it, even though the owner doesn't use it himself? Wanting to make their plot just that little bit bigger?
These same people are the ones who will moan at society if society doesn't mow their grass verge. If they were own-verge-mowers, I might sort of begin to partially understand. But I don't. These people are also the people who moan because someone within their field of vision (aka if they crouch on top of the wardrobe and crane their necks round) has a compost bin which is not exactly the same colour as their house/bush/concrete path. These are the same people who will fill their dustbin to overflowing, leave it outside on the road four days before the collection is due, then start to leave carrier bags round it full of plastic wrappings and veg peelings so the rats will come at night and strew them all down the street.
Someone, please, what is it with people?
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Stoned
I am harping on, I know.
I could easily point at a nasty page with a picture of a stoning. I won't. I don't want you to lose sleep.
I will describe one, as nicely as I can.
Stoning is a barbaric torture, intended to result in a slow, very painful, helpless death.
It is still used as a punishment in some countries, notably those countries whose laws are based on religious fervour. I'm not going to try to debate the rights and wrongs of these religious loonies, all I will say is that the "offences" that the stonee has to commit are not even illegal in most civilised countries. It's not as though they've done something heinous, such as lit up a tab in a pub. Stoning can be prescribed for merely making a decision to be married to someone of the opposite sex and forgetting to tell one's parents first.
It's not my business. I am truly glad I wasn't born in one of these shitholes. I'm not sure I'm over the moon about having been born in this one, but at least most of the barbarism has gone. You have to do something truly bad here to incur the wrath of Satan, such as failing to do your tax return on time. Pretty much everything else gets you a slapped wrist or a week of planting roundabouts, including paedophilia, rape and murder.
A lady named Ashianti is now incarcerated in an Iranian jail, awaiting her stoning. To her, this isn't just something happening a long way away. This is going to happen to her. Just to let you know how she must be feeling, and how her children must be feeling, this is what a stoning is.
If you're a man, you are buried to the waist in sand. That's because that's pretty much what they have available, sand. You are then faced with a bunch of beardy bastards who for some inexplicable reason, to me anyway, think that the Great Allah (PBUH) is going to be most mightily chuffed if they can manage to clock the victim in the face or chest with a nice sharp rock. So they bellow, and pray to the Almighty, and rock chuck. If the victim is lucky enough to get himself free before too much damage is inflicted, his sentence is commuted to prison, instead. Not too bad?
If you are unlucky enough to have been born a woman, and have committed the disgusting and most heinous crime of adultery (that's where you snog another bloke, or woman, possibly because you've found that the husband who you didn't ask to marry anyway has turned out to be a twat), you are in deep shit. Or deep sand. Because you're a woman, you have tits. It is not on, under the law of Allah (PBUH) for the stoner to see the tits of the stonee, so it is decreed (possibly by the Great Allah (PBUH) Himself), that you are to be buried up to the neck.
And trust me, the fervour, the misguided loyalty, that these beardy bastards have when there's a WOMAN involved go far, far beyond the wildest imaginings of someone born and bred in a cushy English village.
So, especially you ladies. Imagine. Buried up to the neck in sand. You CAN'T get out. You CAN'T. All you can hope is that one of the beardy bastards manages to hit you a cracker and knock you out first blow. If not, then I'm afraid that you're in for a bad time. It starts at sunrise and stops at sunset, then starts again tomorrow. And tomorrow. Until you die. Sharp rocks. In your eyes. At your nose. Your cheekbones. Ripping the flesh from your face, so the flies and birds can peck at your flesh. And you can't move. You can't escape. You can do nothing, your family can do nothing. You can only scream and sob. You can hear your children wail for you. And you can see the hatred in the eyes of the beardy bastards who are doing this to you - your fellow "humans".
The gates of Hell apparently have a legend above: "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here".
That's fuck all.
Now, sign this http://tinyurl.com/3xg3rbw and draw attention to it, in whatever way you can.
Enjoy your day.
I could easily point at a nasty page with a picture of a stoning. I won't. I don't want you to lose sleep.
I will describe one, as nicely as I can.
Stoning is a barbaric torture, intended to result in a slow, very painful, helpless death.
It is still used as a punishment in some countries, notably those countries whose laws are based on religious fervour. I'm not going to try to debate the rights and wrongs of these religious loonies, all I will say is that the "offences" that the stonee has to commit are not even illegal in most civilised countries. It's not as though they've done something heinous, such as lit up a tab in a pub. Stoning can be prescribed for merely making a decision to be married to someone of the opposite sex and forgetting to tell one's parents first.
It's not my business. I am truly glad I wasn't born in one of these shitholes. I'm not sure I'm over the moon about having been born in this one, but at least most of the barbarism has gone. You have to do something truly bad here to incur the wrath of Satan, such as failing to do your tax return on time. Pretty much everything else gets you a slapped wrist or a week of planting roundabouts, including paedophilia, rape and murder.
A lady named Ashianti is now incarcerated in an Iranian jail, awaiting her stoning. To her, this isn't just something happening a long way away. This is going to happen to her. Just to let you know how she must be feeling, and how her children must be feeling, this is what a stoning is.
If you're a man, you are buried to the waist in sand. That's because that's pretty much what they have available, sand. You are then faced with a bunch of beardy bastards who for some inexplicable reason, to me anyway, think that the Great Allah (PBUH) is going to be most mightily chuffed if they can manage to clock the victim in the face or chest with a nice sharp rock. So they bellow, and pray to the Almighty, and rock chuck. If the victim is lucky enough to get himself free before too much damage is inflicted, his sentence is commuted to prison, instead. Not too bad?
If you are unlucky enough to have been born a woman, and have committed the disgusting and most heinous crime of adultery (that's where you snog another bloke, or woman, possibly because you've found that the husband who you didn't ask to marry anyway has turned out to be a twat), you are in deep shit. Or deep sand. Because you're a woman, you have tits. It is not on, under the law of Allah (PBUH) for the stoner to see the tits of the stonee, so it is decreed (possibly by the Great Allah (PBUH) Himself), that you are to be buried up to the neck.
And trust me, the fervour, the misguided loyalty, that these beardy bastards have when there's a WOMAN involved go far, far beyond the wildest imaginings of someone born and bred in a cushy English village.
So, especially you ladies. Imagine. Buried up to the neck in sand. You CAN'T get out. You CAN'T. All you can hope is that one of the beardy bastards manages to hit you a cracker and knock you out first blow. If not, then I'm afraid that you're in for a bad time. It starts at sunrise and stops at sunset, then starts again tomorrow. And tomorrow. Until you die. Sharp rocks. In your eyes. At your nose. Your cheekbones. Ripping the flesh from your face, so the flies and birds can peck at your flesh. And you can't move. You can't escape. You can do nothing, your family can do nothing. You can only scream and sob. You can hear your children wail for you. And you can see the hatred in the eyes of the beardy bastards who are doing this to you - your fellow "humans".
The gates of Hell apparently have a legend above: "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here".
That's fuck all.
Now, sign this http://tinyurl.com/3xg3rbw and draw attention to it, in whatever way you can.
Enjoy your day.
Monday, 5 July 2010
Pasta
I am so excited about one of my birthday presents that I have to write about it. So if either of my regular readers is expecting the usual booze-fuelled rant, I'm sorry to disappoint. Please feel free to bugger off and wait until something upsets me, whence I shall continue to scrawl the usual stuff.
Meanwhile, this one is about my awesome pasta machine. It is an Imperial. It is super-shiny and the best therapy I've come across in a long time.
I had some tip-top ravioli recently in a restaurant in Belgium. I didn't realise that ravioli could be tip-top, as my usual experience is some sort of baby food wrapped in gunge which, when boiling water is added, produces the wrappy equivalent of a pot noodle. So I set out to make my own.
Pasta is flour and eggs. Being the educated kind of chap I am, I didn't know this. I thought it grew on trees. The flour is supposed to be "00" grade (superfine), which I used, because it is expensive, organic, and I don't know any better. To make pasta one mixes the flour and the eggs (or egg, as one egg is enough to make a sheet of pasta suitable for a tarpaulin for the centre court at Wimbledon), into a dough, or mess, then squidges it between the hands, knees or boomps-a-daisy until bored. This is the first part of the therapy. It has the added advantage that if one's fingernails have become grimy, owing to just having done an engine oil change for instance, all of this residue is easily absorbed by the dough. For those who wish to copy this "recipe", 6 good old British ounces of flour is about right for one large egg. Free range.
Once the dough is homogenous, it is left to "rest". I don't understand why it needs to rest - I'm the one who's been doing all this kneading, not the bloody dough, but apparently it is important.
At this point, it is wise to drink some cider and smoke a couple of Marlboro Reds, and sit in the sun.
Next, take the brand new shiny Imperial pasta machine from its box. Find a table to which to screw it down - it doesn't damage the table top, only the bottom. Plug in the handle. At this point, make a decision about what you're going to fill this ravioli with, because once you start making the pasta it is like glue, and will stick like shit to a blanket to itself, the table, you, the floor, the dog or anything else with which it comes into contact.
I chose prawn and onion, because that has a certain ring to it, and because Waitrose (my shop of choice, no chavs) had some on special offer. But you can fill it with anything, it doesn't have to be minced up baby food. I suspect that even veg would work (veggies please note my contribution to vegginess there).
So, the filling.
Meanwhile, this one is about my awesome pasta machine. It is an Imperial. It is super-shiny and the best therapy I've come across in a long time.
I had some tip-top ravioli recently in a restaurant in Belgium. I didn't realise that ravioli could be tip-top, as my usual experience is some sort of baby food wrapped in gunge which, when boiling water is added, produces the wrappy equivalent of a pot noodle. So I set out to make my own.
Pasta is flour and eggs. Being the educated kind of chap I am, I didn't know this. I thought it grew on trees. The flour is supposed to be "00" grade (superfine), which I used, because it is expensive, organic, and I don't know any better. To make pasta one mixes the flour and the eggs (or egg, as one egg is enough to make a sheet of pasta suitable for a tarpaulin for the centre court at Wimbledon), into a dough, or mess, then squidges it between the hands, knees or boomps-a-daisy until bored. This is the first part of the therapy. It has the added advantage that if one's fingernails have become grimy, owing to just having done an engine oil change for instance, all of this residue is easily absorbed by the dough. For those who wish to copy this "recipe", 6 good old British ounces of flour is about right for one large egg. Free range.
Once the dough is homogenous, it is left to "rest". I don't understand why it needs to rest - I'm the one who's been doing all this kneading, not the bloody dough, but apparently it is important.
At this point, it is wise to drink some cider and smoke a couple of Marlboro Reds, and sit in the sun.
Next, take the brand new shiny Imperial pasta machine from its box. Find a table to which to screw it down - it doesn't damage the table top, only the bottom. Plug in the handle. At this point, make a decision about what you're going to fill this ravioli with, because once you start making the pasta it is like glue, and will stick like shit to a blanket to itself, the table, you, the floor, the dog or anything else with which it comes into contact.
I chose prawn and onion, because that has a certain ring to it, and because Waitrose (my shop of choice, no chavs) had some on special offer. But you can fill it with anything, it doesn't have to be minced up baby food. I suspect that even veg would work (veggies please note my contribution to vegginess there).
So, the filling.
- 1 packet of prawns, indonesian, uncooked, on offer (200g, I think)
- 3 bunches of spring onions, the small kind
- plenty of garlic
- big chilli (not a raging hot one, one of those long red jobs)
- a big lemon
- salt
- pepper
- light oil such as sunflower or rape
- cider
Put some oil in a frying pan and heat it up. Finely chop a pile of garlic (I think I used 6 cloves) and fry until pretty overdone, dark brown. Add salt and a bit of pepper. Chop the spring onions into smallish bits and add them, frying gently until the whole place smells like a Chinese restaurant. Split the chilli lengthwise into four pieces, scrape off the seeds, chop it finely. Add it to the mixture and fry for a few more minutes. Turn it off.
Wash the prawns several times, then drain them. Cut them into smallish pieces and put them on a plate, squeeze the juice of a lemon over them and leave them for as long as it takes to drink another pint of cider. They will cook themselves in the lemon juice. When the cider is finished, drain the prawns, add them to the frying pan and heat the whole lot through for maybe five minutes. The juice of the prawns will cause the mixture to become a bit gooey, which is good. Let it cool, while you drink a cider.
Take the dough you made earlier. This is the next part of the therapy. Feed it a lump at a time into the pasta machine, set to its widest-apart setting. It is tricky at first but then becomes simple as you realise what you were doing wrong. Each time you feed the lump, fold it over and re-feed it. Do this about ten times. When you have processed all of the dough, set the machine to the next narrowest setting, feed the dough through once. Repeat until you are at the narrowest setting. The sheets will now be wafer-thin and pretty unmanageable, so you have to get on with it.
Take a piece of baking parchment. Cut out two pieces of pasta (for that is now what it is) about four inches square. Put one square on the parchment. Plonk a big spoonful of the stuff from the pan onto the middle of one square. Put the other square on top and pinch the edges together so it looks like ravioli from the shop but much bigger. Repeat until there is no more mixture left. I ended up with nine ravioli. Throw the rest of the pasta into the bin.
Cover this up with cling film and have another pint of cider.
You now need to make a sauce, because that's what people do with pasta. I eventually made a mushroom, white wine, onion and tomato sauce. Only because that's what it ended up as, though. It went like this:
- 1 tin of tomatoes, chopped
- 1 handful dark mushrooms (chestnut)
- 1 handful white mushrooms (button)
- 1 onion
- 1 glass crap white wine (such as Sauvignon Blanc)
- big lump of butter
- some oil
- salt
- pepper
- cider
- Marlboro Red
Skin the dark mushrooms. Take the stalks off both sorts, and chop them up well. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add mushrooms. Drink cider, have a couple of Marlboro. Once it has all gone a bit dry, take it out and put it on a plate. Heat some oil in the pan with salt, chop up the onion, fry until soft. Put the mushrooms back in with it, heat through, add pepper. Tip in the tin of tomatoes, turn down low, have another cider.
Everything is now ready. You will realise by now that you won't be able to eat all of this, so you will need to find a volunteer to help with this. Neighbours can be useful here; failing that go to the pub and find someone who hasn't eaten yet.
When you're ready, boil up a lot of water in a huge saucepan, add the ravioli, one at a time (because if you sling the whole lot in, they'll stick together). While continuing to boil, heat up the sauce. After about three minutes, take out the ravioli carefully and arrange on a plate. Tip the sauce over the top.
Serve with cider.
Ed, you cation.
I was at a party yesterday. At the party were ten people. Of these, three are contributors to society, if you include me. Two, including me, are in engineering. The remaining odd man out works for a council, and will probably continue to do so as they have been shedding jobs for quite some time and he remains incumbent.
Of the assembled party, seven are in "education".
These include a professor, a doctor, a dean, a middle state-school teacher, a development director in a posh "public" school, an undergraduate student at (a proper) University and a chap who works deep in the Department for Education. That's the one that Ed Balls has just finishing ballsing.
All of the people are anyone-but-New-Labour types.
All of the education types fervently hope that Ed Balls gets the Labour leadership job. This is because they know that this would mean that Labour have absolutely NO chance of ever getting back into power.
This makes me happy.
What makes me even happier is that the chap who works deep in the Department for Education is shortly going to be outed. He knows why. It is because he has become seriously well-off at the expense of the taxpayer for the last ten years or so, whilst achieving absolutely nothing. He is guilty about this but to try to admonish his guilt has promised to furnish a ghost writer, me, with some tremendously scary stories about what actually goes on, down there deep in the Department.
I am SO looking forward to it.
Of the assembled party, seven are in "education".
These include a professor, a doctor, a dean, a middle state-school teacher, a development director in a posh "public" school, an undergraduate student at (a proper) University and a chap who works deep in the Department for Education. That's the one that Ed Balls has just finishing ballsing.
All of the people are anyone-but-New-Labour types.
All of the education types fervently hope that Ed Balls gets the Labour leadership job. This is because they know that this would mean that Labour have absolutely NO chance of ever getting back into power.
This makes me happy.
What makes me even happier is that the chap who works deep in the Department for Education is shortly going to be outed. He knows why. It is because he has become seriously well-off at the expense of the taxpayer for the last ten years or so, whilst achieving absolutely nothing. He is guilty about this but to try to admonish his guilt has promised to furnish a ghost writer, me, with some tremendously scary stories about what actually goes on, down there deep in the Department.
I am SO looking forward to it.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Twat
I have a marvellous idea for the government to make loads of cash without affecting the vast majority of people.
It is like a tax, but it's voluntary. And it's very progressive.
It also closes a loophole.
Don't tell them, they'll love this.
These facts are all made up, but were true last time I knew. I haven't bothered to research them since.
The DVLA, those fine upstandingwastes of space body of men who police Vehicle Excise Duty, sell "cherished" number plates. This means that they basically reserve any combination of numbers and letters on which they can make a bit of extra cash. In the olden days it was all numbers between 1 and 100. Now it is various combinations which can spell a word or a name. B16 XXX is a fine example. It's meant to look like BIG.
They charge £250 each for you to to have these. Fair enough. Your choice.
If they increased the charge to £1000 I reckon they'd make four times as much. If you're stupid enough to pay £250 to have a plate on your car that the Plod will easily remember, then you're stupid enough to pay a grand.
The loophole? I know someone who has bought a crap moped. He's put a really neat plate on it (I won't say what). When he dies, his nephew will inherit the moped, value £20. The tax on the plate, worth about £25,000, won't attract inheritance duty or anything. Sneaky? Yup.
And for those who really can't afford the extra £750 to show that you're cool, trendy and special? Simply get some paint, a brush and a stencil. Write "I am a twat" across your boot and bonnet. Same effect.
Simples.
It is like a tax, but it's voluntary. And it's very progressive.
It also closes a loophole.
Don't tell them, they'll love this.
These facts are all made up, but were true last time I knew. I haven't bothered to research them since.
The DVLA, those fine upstanding
They charge £250 each for you to to have these. Fair enough. Your choice.
If they increased the charge to £1000 I reckon they'd make four times as much. If you're stupid enough to pay £250 to have a plate on your car that the Plod will easily remember, then you're stupid enough to pay a grand.
The loophole? I know someone who has bought a crap moped. He's put a really neat plate on it (I won't say what). When he dies, his nephew will inherit the moped, value £20. The tax on the plate, worth about £25,000, won't attract inheritance duty or anything. Sneaky? Yup.
And for those who really can't afford the extra £750 to show that you're cool, trendy and special? Simply get some paint, a brush and a stencil. Write "I am a twat" across your boot and bonnet. Same effect.
Simples.
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