Rambling Thomas

2007-10-26T07:35:00.001-05:00

2007-10-22T08:47:00.000-05:00

Trainee Terrors

2007-10-10T10:51:00.000-05:00

I saw a student on campus wearing a t-shirt that made me chuckle the other day -- it read "Rockville Intermediate Vikings." I walked off, picturing longboats with stabilizers attached and weekly berserking practice, and thinking "I'll blog about that." When I came to do so today, I thought I'd google the phrase to find out what it actually referred to (it's a youth football team) -- but the google search also revealed that the Intermediate Vikings sadly no longer exist: this year "Intermediate Vikings must register as Intermediate Wolverines."

Well, I'm off to Philadelphia for the weekend. I'm hoping to run into Nicholas Cage and get caught up in an adventure involving Masons.

2007-09-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

Duncan.

2007-09-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

~~Duncan~~ Dave.

Oh, Americans

2007-08-18T08:18:00.000-05:00

You learn all sorts of interesting things watching the Food Network (something I do a lot). For instance, last night on Giada's Weekend Getaways, Giada visited London and we learned that "Trafalgar Square was built to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar Square". I assume that the square was flooded for the occasion, while the celebrated admiral Nelson commanded operations from atop a custom-made column in the centre of the tiny battlefield. They probably boarded up the windows of the National Gallery so they wouldn't be smashed by cannon fire. Never let it be said that US cable channels don't take British history seriously.

2007-08-16T11:16:00.000-05:00

In the old web-log mode again -- here are a couple of amusing news items, the first from me, the second courtesy of a friend:

Memo to the Dept. of Magical Copyright Enforcement

The UN lays the smack down on Megadeath

2007-08-14T16:11:00.001-05:00

Duncan.

When passengers noticed the primate, they asked the man if he knew he had a monkey on him

2007-08-08T13:39:00.000-05:00

Heh. Monkey.

2007-08-04T07:56:00.000-05:00

I listen to a lot of Radio 2 at work, and Mark Lamarr has been playing a lot of a band called The Snugs, who are quite good. Their song "Strugglin'" is up on their Myspace page here.

Also, Drewsie sends evidence of the following complete bloody travesty involving the newly re-famous Lovejoy.

In other news we're off to Lake Geneva for the weekend (that's Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, not Switzerland) to stay in a garden shed disguised as a cottage, where Ian McShane will have no chance of finding us and recruiting us to save the world.

2007-08-04T07:36:00.000-05:00

Duncan.

Lesbian, in space

2007-07-27T15:01:00.000-05:00

You have to take fun where you find it in my summer job (the one checking for mistakes in pdf files in a windowless office). So, a couple of index entries from scholarly tomes that made me snigger in juvenile fashion during an interminable afternoon:

body:
black 70
as city 65-8
definition of 40-1
disabled 60, 72
docile 50
as landscape 45, 69, 197
lesbian, in space 64
male 163
as a map 50, 199
maternal 59
memory 42
multiple 53
politics of 42-4
pregnant 58-60
research on 36-9
scaling 48
at school 56-8
sexed 23, 42
sick 60-1
in space 41-2
as a surface 47, 51-4
two-sex view 46

American Bottom, 4-6, 43, 44, 46-48, 49, 50-53, 55, 57, 61-85,
92-102, 105-6, 122, 140, 152, 169, 172-78, 181, 183, 186-88;
uplands, 158. See also Northern Bottom Expanse

2007-07-27T14:59:00.001-05:00

Duncan.

Epithalamion

2007-07-20T11:41:00.000-05:00

Michael Meeuwis has sent us this terrific pastiche of a metaphysical poem, all about our wedding list, which I thought I'd share with you, seeing as how it's so good (the poem, not the list).

ON TRYING TO WRITE A WEDDING POEM BASED ON WEDDING GIFTS WHICH, ALTHOUGH IMMENSELY PRACTICAL, ARE LESS ROMANTIC THAN THOSE THAT I HAD WISHED TO SEND, OWING TO THE MILDLY PICKED-OVER STATE OF YOUR REGISTRY, (PARTICULARLY THE FOOD GRINDER ATTACHMENT, WHOSE ABSENCE I MISS SORELY), AND ON THE WILLIAMS-SONOMA CATALOG COPY FOR SAME

A pair of TONGS has metal legs,
As stiff twin compasses have two,
Just like two souls alike and so on
Plus good for fishing things from stew.
Compared by “chefs” to "extra...hands,'
They sing of joy and love’s surrender;
No apter symbol could I find,
Unless I’d got to buy the blender.
The WHISK is shaped like a balloon
Whose airy form bespeaks inflation,
Through it, I wish you love, peace, health
And joy of “maximum aeration.”
A SALT MILL limns the earth’s estate,
Its stone is brow-sweat’s stark reminder;
It both evokes our mortal span,
And has a “noncorroding…grinder.”
I hope, like marriage, that it brings,
The wanted mix of “coarse” and “fine,”
May kosher salt explode in praise,
My Lucite hymn the match divine.

Just in case it carries on being really really hot or else unbelievably humid so that you can't bear to be in your kitchen*...

2007-07-19T13:03:00.001-05:00

...I thought I'd leave this link lying around where I can find it easily.

*I discovered just how crappy it is cooking in heat yesterday when I decided to choose the most humid afternoon to date this year to make tomato ketchup for about four hours.

2007-07-18T16:36:00.000-05:00

An embarrassment of double Duncans.

2007-07-12T09:57:00.000-05:00

Further Duncan.

2007-07-10T08:18:00.001-05:00

Duncan.

Our Super Sweet Twenty-Seven

2007-07-04T10:55:00.000-05:00

Felt v. decadent on Monday. E. and I borrowed her dad's BMW convertible to drive up to the Botanical Gardens and then to the florist to sort out wedding stuff. This involved motoring along miles of glorious tree-lined country road just outside New York City in order to select bouquets, tablecloths and (most important) foie gras lollipops. If we get any snazzier MTV will have to make a reality show about us. Though they might get a shock when we move back to grad-student penury in Chicago (they could call it Problematize my Ride -- or Lacuna Beach).

"What would you do if three men hypnotized you and demanded information as to Wogan’s plans?"

2007-06-30T11:12:00.000-05:00

What's this? A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thriller set at Eurovision? Sadly no. But just imagine.

2007-06-28T12:33:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed the following, from the volume The Scientific Literature: A Guided Tour, an anthology of science writing:

Scientific Verse
J. F. Bunnett and F. J. Kearley, Jr., 1971. “Comparative mobility of halogens in reactions of dihalobenzenes with potassium amide in ammonia.” Journal of Organic Chemistry, Vol. 36, pp. 184–86.

Speaking of the birth of potassium nitrate in his long scientific poem The Botanic Garden (1791), Erasmus Darwin, the poet and grandfather to Charles, wrote:

Hence orient Nitre owes its sparkling birth,
And with prismatic crystals gems the earth,
O’er tottering domes the filmy foliage crawls,
Or frosts with branching plumes the mouldering walls;
As woos Azonic Gas the virgin Air,
And veils in crimson clouds the yielding Fair,
Indignant Fire the treacherous courtship flies,
Waves his light wing, and mingles with the skies.

In a modern revival of this practice, the authors of this article composed it in blank verse. We excerpt the resounding conclusion, ending in a rhymed couplet:

The haloanilines do not react
Extensively with excess amide ion
As shown in Table III. In harmony
Appears the fact that yields of halide ion
With surplus amide ion slightly exceed
One ion from each dihalobenzene molecule
(Table I). However, ortho-iodo
Substrates afford much more halide ion
Than can be attributed to subsequent
Attack on haloanilines that form.
An unexpected pathway of reaction,
Unclear in its details, is thus revealed.
This complication, our thanks to him,
Is under study by Jhong Kook Kim.

American Sand Association?

2007-06-28T07:41:00.000-05:00

Looking for some info on the upcoming American Studies Association conference, I Googled "ASA" this morning. Here is just a selection of the ASAs that Google ranks above ours:

Acoustical Society of America
American Society of Appraisers
Autism Society of America
American Society of Agronomy
American Supply Association
American Subcontractors Association
Archery Shooters Association
American Staffing Association
American Society on Aging
American Sportfishing Association
American Soybean Association
Australasian Sleep Association
American Sand Association
Amateur Swimming Association

It's nice when you know that what you do matters.

2007-06-24T08:15:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth would like your opinion on her daemon too. Apparently she is somewhat more formidable than I.

2007-06-24T08:03:00.001-05:00

Heh.

2007-06-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

Here's fun. On the website for the forthcoming Golden Compass movie adaptation (that's Northern Lights for you British ones) you can take a quiz to find out what your daemon is. Then -- here's the clever part -- you can get your loyal blog readership to decide if you've given an accurate assessment of yourself. Click on the widget below some time during the next 12 days and you can alter the final shape of my daemon (after 12 days my virtual "childhood" ends -- there must be something significant about turning 27 years and 233 days). I have to say I'm not sure how I ended up with this "responsible, modest, solitary" gibberish. Though I warn you, if I change from this osprey into some kind of pond grub I shan't be happy.

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I am Handy

2007-06-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

That's right! I've just constructed something called a "buffet/hutch" in which to store all the wedding gifts that will doubtless be pouring into our home in the near future. A near thing it was too. I sustained a nasty paper cut from the packaging, and had to resort to a back-up screwdriver when the screws were so hard to drive into the wood that they completely wore away the tip of the first. Then, in a final challenge, the hutch door wouldn't shut! But, luckily, a little strategic hammering saved the day. Phew! Now I just have to figure out a way to get the two six-foot by six-foot cardboard boxes out of the apartment.

2007-06-13T15:16:00.001-05:00

Duncan.

2007-06-11T11:57:00.000-05:00

I suppose I should be embarrassed about googling former acquaintainces, but not when it yields hilarious things.

2007-06-11T11:09:00.000-05:00

Having finally watched Eurovision on Saturday, I enjoyed this from the Eye:

The central questions gravitate around the cultural implications of the still relatively recent collapse of the Berlin Wall. The taste gap between East and West can be addressed in one of only two ways: radical introversion or a more enthusiastic opening up to the new.

JOHN WATERS, co-writer of the Irish Eurovision entry, attempts to explain why it finished last, Irish Times

Mr. President! We cannot allow a taste gap!

Some recipes

2007-06-11T08:07:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to give these recipes to a few people. Why not utilize the blog form?

Guacamole
1 avocado
1.5 tblspn chopped white onion
0.5 tspn finely minced garlic
1.5 tspn finely chopped serrano peppers
2 tblspn diced plum tomatoes, seeded
1.5 tblspn chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)
1 tspn fresh lime juice
0.5 tspn coarse salt

Using a wooden spoon or pestle, mash the garlic, peppers, onion and salt together in a bowl to release their juices. Dice avocado, add to bowl and mix to a creamy but chunky consistency. Add tomatoes, cilantro and lime and mix gently. Serve with tortilla chips.

Osso Buco
4 3in.-thick osso buco (3.5 to 4 lbs)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 tblspns extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium carrot, cut into 0.25-in.-thick rounds
1 small spanish onion, cut into 0.5-in. dice
2 tblspns chopped fresh thyme
2 cups tomato sauce (see recipe below)
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups dry white wine

For gremolata:
0.5 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
0.25 cup pine nuts, toasted
Zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 375˚F. Season osso buco all over with salt and pepper. In a large dutch oven (casserole), heat olive oil over medium-high heat until smoking. Place the osso buco in the pot and brown on all sides, rolling them on their sides to get all the edges, 12 to 15 mins. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Add carrot, onion, celery and thyme to the pot and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are golden brown and slightly softened, 8 to 10 mins. Add tomato sauce, stock and wine and bring to a boil. Place the osso buco back in the pot, making sure they are submerged at least half way, adding additional stock if necessary. Tightly cover the pot, place in the oven, and cook for 2 to 2.5 hrs, until the meat is falling off the bone. Meanwhile, make the gremolata. In a small bowl, mix the parsley, pine nuts and lemon zest. Remove osso buco from oven and let stand for 10 mins. Sprinkle with gremolata before serving.

Tomato Sauce
Makes 4 cups.

0.25 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 spanish onion, cut into 0.25-in. dice
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
3 tblspns fresh thyme
0.5 medium carrot, finely shredded
2 28oz. cans whole tomatoes
salt

In a 3-quart (6 pint) saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, 8 to 10 mins. Add the thyme and carrot and cook until the carrot is quite soft, 5 mins. Add the tomatoes, with their juice, and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer until as thick as hot cereal, about 30 mins. Season with salt.

Facebook the new blog

2007-06-06T13:05:00.000-05:00

It's true -- this week I've been neglecting the blog in favor of messing about with Facebook, which I have just joined. Many people I know are on Facebook. It is surprisingly fun to keep checking Facebook every few minutes to see if anyone new has made me their friend. It is surprisingly easy to get paranoid about those people whose friend I have requested to become and who have not (yet) approved my request. Why? I asked all of two hours ago! What are they doing? Do they hate me? Must go now. Back to Facebook.

"Steven Seagal boasts the world’s first bulletproof kimono"

2007-05-31T11:36:00.000-05:00

The story isn't so great. Mainly I wanted to use the title. Oh, and speaking of articles with good titles. . .

2007-05-30T08:34:00.000-05:00

Michael Meeuwis sends this wedding video, with the advice "Please don't do this":

We won't. Perhaps Harry will.

Also, an excellent Duncan, courtesy of Gowan, honorary chief Duncan-finder.

Oh, and speaking of Gowan, there's a good piece about Tintin in the most recent New Yorker that caught my eye.

The same work [King Ottakar's Sceptre], which takes place in the imaginary kingdom of Syldavia, was described to me by Timothy Garton Ash, a British historian steeped in the culture of the Balkans, as one of the most acute parodies ever written--or drawn--of the region's nationalist politics.

Not just a lookalike, but a research-alike, of sorts.

2007-05-02T07:52:00.000-05:00

Hello all. You'll be glad to hear that I passed my exams on Thursday, thus giving me ample time for blogging again. However, I'll start with something sent to me by someone else (Richard G):

Yes, it's more prog rock, but intentionally funny this time. Oh, and speaking of rock, Crystal Zevon's new biography of her husband Warren sounds great, if this quote from the Times review is any guide:

On his deathbed, discussing the merits of having a funeral, he said, "I just don’t want to have to spend my last days wondering whether Henley" — Don Henley of the Eagles, who did not attend — "will show up."

One more funny quotation (this one's only funny if you read a lot of articles about American culture, but it made me laugh out loud):

For scholars of the early period, the discovery of empire as the skeleton in the national closet is a bit like "discovering" Jeremy Bentham's skeleton in its cabinet at University College London. Both skeletons have been on public display for a very long time. [Source]

Anyhow, bye for now. See you in England.

2007-04-13T10:16:00.001-05:00

Another Duncan, and a correction to an old one.

2007-04-10T21:02:00.001-05:00

Duncan.

2007-04-10T06:50:00.000-05:00

Remember the days when we used to plan to put things "on ice" at The Playroom all the time? Well Rick Wakeman did just that* for his album about King Arthur. Also, watch for the triple guitar (it's right in front of the choir and the symphony orchestra).

*At Wembley Arena. Not The Playroom.

2007-04-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

Duncan.

2007-03-21T19:05:00.000-05:00

Have been reading Mickey Spillane today. Not a very rewarding task. At times, not even his characters understand the nonsensical noir-speak in which they converse with one another. Take this example (from The Big Kill):

"I don't have any blood left," I told him. The dame grinned and rubbed herself against my knees some more.
    "I bet you got plenty of everything for me."
    "Yeah, but what I got you ain't getting because you probably got more than me."
    "What?"
    "Forget it."

Plus, we have a new toy!

2007-03-20T08:29:00.001-05:00

Duncan.

2007-03-16T08:34:00.000-05:00

I had a peculiar dream last night. My old Director of Studies from Cambridge (to whom I apologize, if she ever happens on this blog) was explaining to me that she had found conclusive evidence proving that wacky German critical theorist Walter Benjamin had had an affair with children's author Beatrix Potter. Apologies are due because even in the dream it occurred to me that the former DoS could have been the fruit of such a union...

Alan Attack

2007-03-16T08:32:00.000-05:00

St.-Albans-based beer advocacy group CAMRA appear to be acknowledging their Partridge tendencies. I recently received a letter from them giving their address as 230 Hatfield Road, St. Alans (on their headed notepaper, no less -- they'll have to have it pulped!)

2007-03-13T08:45:00.001-05:00

Another Duncan!

2007-03-13T08:18:00.001-05:00

Duncan

2007-03-10T07:42:00.000-06:00

Amazon emails to tell me about the "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Definitive 200: The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have put together a list of 200 albums that should be in every music collection."

Spirit of the Tin should be pleased with this selection, which contains not only the Grease soundtrack, but the soundtrack from Footloose. On the other hand, this is a list to make the blood of old AOR fans like me boil. Not only does No Jacket Required by Phil Collins appear above anything by Neil Young, but Radiohead, David Bowie and Steely Dan are all relegated to places below (go on, guess) Breathless by Kenny G! I suppose some might say it's poetic justice or something.

Tired and thinking cold

2007-03-09T21:12:00.000-06:00

Tragedy strikes.

CSI Miami - Endless Caruso One Liners

2007-03-08T06:59:00.001-06:00

He looks like Duncan. He looks a bit like Paul. I'm kind of obsessed with his show. Now you can watch seven whole minutes of David Caruso doing those one-liners from the start of CSI: Miami!

Articles from Godey's Lady's Book (1852)

2007-03-06T15:41:00.000-06:00

"FANCIES OF A WHIMSICAL MAN. By the author of 'Musings of an Invalid.'"

"Crazy Mary; or, The Determination to Marry for Wealth"

"ALABAMA.—A SONNET"

Actually, "Alabama.—A Sonnet" is worth reproducing in its entirety:

FROM her Olympian and Castalian home,
My muse to Alabama's clime doth roam;
Where Helicon?—no—Chunneenuggee soars,
And, for Ilissus, Chixeenoxee pours!

To Locheepoko turkey sportsmen go,
And where magnolias cheer Escambia's flow;
Where Coosa under giant pines bears trade,
And swoll'n Tombigby rolls in live-oak shade.

Towards Tennessee ride hunters of the fawn;
They leave Wedowee with the opening dawn:
Red men from Talladega there are gone.

How hushed, betwixt Tuscumbia and Mobile,
The savage warwhoop! while the Saxon's wheel
And Lybia's banjo ring their merry peal!

Well worth rescuing from oblivion, I'm sure you'll agree.

Canadee-i-o

2007-03-06T11:49:00.000-06:00

You know I've been meaning to post this for ages and ages. It's a tab of Nic Jones's version of "Canadee-I-O" I did before Christmas.

Gowan and MacGowan

2007-03-06T11:38:00.000-06:00

I tried to make Osso Bucco last night. The meat was a bit gristly. Not a huge success, perhaps due in part to my choosing the recipe where it says you cook the meat for half an hour, not the one where it says you cook it for two hours. However, we cut off all the gristle, put the sauce, rice and leftover meat in the fridge for leftovers. At lunchtime today a lightbulb went on above my head. Sauce. Rice. Little pieces of meat. And what's this? Some leftover tortillas? Time for a Osso Bucco burrito! I am a cooking genius!

In other news, have just had a very fun week with Richard, who was here for an international relations conference. Visiting the Russian churches in Wicker Park, we got pressed into going to Vespers at the Ukranian Catholic Cathedral by an earnest young deacon ("The church is very beautiful to look at, but to understand the true beauty of the Ukranian church, you must experience the music"). It was very beautiful, although we blasphemously nipped out after fifteen minutes or so to keep our dinner reservation. Also we discovered the name of the kind of music we used to listen to at Corpus.

Will be seeing The Pogues this evening, which is quite exciting, as long as Shane MacGowan doesn't fall down drunk after one song, which he does quite a lot I believe.

2007-02-23T22:13:00.000-06:00

Saw The Prestige this evening. I only have one comment to make:

A Likely Story

2007-02-18T18:00:00.000-06:00

In a terrible rock-trivia moment, the DJ on the radio today reported that My Chemical Romance's current album, The Black Parade, is in large part based on "a creepy picture that singer Gerard Way found in the basement of a haunted mansion." I'm sorry, what?

2007-02-14T11:30:00.000-06:00

It's snowing and snowing outside today and yesterday, and consequently I have only left the house once over the last two days in order to drag some local children home over the snow in a wagon. Meanwhile, I am studying Kant, and Lyotard's book on Kant, which is proving difficult. Thankfully I was finally able to find a catchy yet theoretically enlightening solution to my difficulties.

2007-02-10T18:44:00.000-06:00

Ian Richardson is dead, which is sad. What does seem a bit of a shame is that the obituaries I have read so far seem to make more of his appearance in "Sky One's The Hogfather" than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I suppose people just don't remember incredibly slow-moving seven-hour spy thrillers from the 1970s. I wonder whyever not?

Tom of the Antarctic

2007-02-05T09:37:00.000-06:00

It's currently -20˚C here, which makes for a fun walk to campus. I've actually never been in weather this cold before. It has the curious effect of making your nose run and freeze simultaneously. Mmmm.

Bears lose

2007-02-04T21:04:00.000-06:00

Well, the Bears may have lost the Super Bowl, but luckily we can switch over to watch the following (real) show that appears to have been invented by Dave: Puppy Bowl III: "Puppies cavort in a play area that looks like a football stadium in the third annual event that offers an alternative to the Super Bowl. Included: a halftime show featuring kittens."

2007-01-20T09:10:00.000-06:00

As my anonymous commenter reminds me, I haven't posted in over a month. Sorry about this. I've been taking a bit of a break from the old blog while I study for my exams, which are coming up in April. Now I warn you, I'm liable to blog a lot about the wedding if I start this up again, which might be quite boring for you, especially in these days when the Doomsday Clock stands at five to midnight, etc. However, unlike most bloggers, I have no vitally important opinions about world events. Or at least, not on a daily basis.

At any rate, since you last heard from me we have a wedding place, a date (September 2), and some rather snazzy "Save-the-date" cards. You may be receiving one soon. We also have a rudimentary website – which will get more useful (and hopefully get a better picture of us on it) soon. We are still investigating bands, though we did find quite a cool DJ who plays 50s dance music on bakelite record players, so that might be an option too.

Less jolly is the news that I can't leave the country after we get married until my papers are processed – which could take nine months or so. The good side of this is that we can go to Hawaii on our honeymoon. The bad side is that I won't see anyone British at Christmas or for some time after that.

Next weekend is the third annual U of C Burns' Night, hosted by m'self and m'colleague Andrew Yale. Improvements over last year will include properly cooked neeps and the introduction of cranachan as a substitute for "Tipsy Laird" (trifle with whisky in it). Hopefully our wee, timorous beastie, still at large in the apartment, won't make a guest appearance.

2006-12-12T14:18:00.000-06:00

Sorry you haven't heard from me for a few days. Earth-shattering events of world-changing importance have been occurring on I———. Avenue (to adopt the nineteenth-century convention). Such as: the place where we wanted to have the wedding is going to be under construction through September (Aargh!) and, all the wedding bands I can find online seem to be staffed by dodgy old bemulleted men and to be called things like "Leggz" (eek!).

So, for a change, I thought I'd tell you about some new breakfast foods that have become favourites of mine. First, scrambled eggs with home-made guacamole (avocado, tomato, white onion, salt, lime juice, chilli and garlic), wrapped up in a tortilla. Mmm. And second, excessive French toast, made of chocolate-filled panettone, dipped in beaten eggs mixed up with a pinch of cinnamon, fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Mmm also. With any luck, these two will get me through the next nine months.

The Rubbish of Frankenstein

2006-12-02T21:40:00.000-06:00

Hammer's The Evil of Frankenstein with Peter Cushing is on TV this evening. It's rubbish. Baron Frankenstein has just had a flashback to his moment of greatest failure -- his creature has been caught and shot by three locals who have found it eating their sheep. A police constable, apparently dressed as Kaiser Wilhelm, turns to Frankenstein: "We've heard what you've been up to, Baron. You're under arrest." Fade back to the present. "I was arrested," Frankenstein explains to his young assistant, "and charged with assaulting a police officer -- and working against God" -- two crimes that often go hand in hand, I imagine.

2006-11-29T08:48:00.000-06:00

Duncan -- updated.

And after Thanksgiving comes ...

2006-11-28T15:59:00.000-06:00

... Christmas! Luckily, here in Chicago, we have our own all-Christmas-music radio station, just to make sure that we stay in the Christmas spirit absolutely all of the time.

Thanksgiving fun

2006-11-28T08:13:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving: turkey, nuns, Richard Gowan, college football, me playing American Football (briefly), looking at wedding reception venues (which are looking good) -- but mainly, weird things they advertise in in-flight magazines, such as The Zaky -- a disembodied hand that you can leave on your baby when you are not there!

Wedding venues: some are more promising than others. We looked at The Cloisters, a New York museum housed in a medieval monastery shipped over brick by brick from Europe, The Lighthouse, a glass-walled ballroom thing on Chelsea Piers, looking out over the unpicturesque New Jersey shore, as well as Wave Hill, a really nice old house in the Bronx, and (probably looking best right now) Elizabeth's mum's old school, housed in a townhouse on the Upper East Side. Plus, it's all very involved. Some come with caterers, some make you find your own, but only from a list they provide; some caterers do food only, while some do decorations and tables and everything. Perhaps it's for the best that I am going to England in a couple of weeks and will thus be unable to plan any wedding things for a bit.

Oh yes, and the One (Engagement) Ring was retrieved. Worn by Elizabeth's great-grandmother, grandmother and mother for their engagements, it is extremely nice and features a bloody great big diamond. Slightly eerily, it fits Eliz perfectly.

I am happy

2006-11-21T15:06:00.000-06:00

As most of you know by now, Elizabeth and I are going to be getting married! This will most likely be in September in New York -- we're starting to look at possible locations this weekend. I strongly suspect there will be no rest from wedding tasks between now and next summer -- as it is, I proposed on Saturday night (Elizabeth took me to the Custom House, a fine restaurant specializing in "artisanal meats" for my birthday), and by 7.30 on Sunday morning we were registered on weddings.com, and going through pictures of cake...

Anyhow, no doubt there will be much, much more on this topic.

PS -- in less significant news, here are some fun photos from when we went apple picking. I especially like the one where we are all sticking our heads through the big wooden apple tree.

They should employ some of these round here

2006-11-18T08:42:00.000-06:00

Michael Greenberg in this week's TLS remembers "the neighbourhood library of my childhood" [I actually had to track back and insert the 'u' into 'neighbourhood' today. I am getting naturalized]:

Filled with down-at-heel types trying to cop a nap, the message coming from the Rockaway branch of the New York Public Library was that reading is a waste of time, an occupation for the powerless and unemployed.
Part of the librarian's job was to shake them awake. "If you don't read, I'm afraid you'll have to leave". At which the poor slacker would open some enormous encyclopedia and stare miserably at the page.

This sounds disturbingly like our university library, with the exception that in Chicago students can sleep in the library for as long as they like, snoring very loudly and preventing everyone from working…

2006-11-09T08:42:00.000-06:00

Duncan mania! Actually, it's funny -- Harry's latest Duncan pick is in Footloose, which was co-written by Kenny Loggins, who is one of the main characters in the hilarious Yacht Rock, alongside Daryl Hall, who is also a Duncan lookalike. Coincidence? I don't think so.

2006-11-08T08:30:00.000-06:00

An anecdote reminiscent of Partridge somehow -- in 1977, the folk singer Roy Harper was forced to drop a track from his album after being threatened with legal action by Watford Gap service station, having recorded a song criticising their food ("Watford Gap, Watford Gap / A plate of grease and a load of crap..."). Think twice, then, next time you consider writing that satirical chapbook on Julie's Pantry.

Go Blue Party!

2006-11-08T08:20:00.000-06:00

No Eccles Cakes , disastrous or otherwise, this time. We went to see The Pillowman at Steppenwolf instead, which was terrifically good -- I guess it was in London some while back now, and we didn't get to see David Tennant in it, but, you know, Chicago can't have everything. So the moral of the story, I suppose, is that if you want the Democrats to win, don't have an election-night party -- go and see a gruesome play about child-murder instead. Nevertheless, hooray!

Yet another …

2006-11-08T08:17:00.000-06:00

… Duncan!

A rash of Duncans

2006-11-03T15:28:00.000-06:00

Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five new Duncan lookalike entries -- and one of them is multi-part!

2006-11-03T12:26:00.000-06:00

Melissa sent me this, which is funny. I thought I'd share it.

2006-11-02T09:01:00.000-06:00

I'm so far behind with this blog! Still catching up with work after the (successful) graduate student conference. My paper on Kant went well, but I've been horribly busy since. Would you believe there's actually a queue of Duncan submissions I have to put up. I'll try to get to it later. Anyway, nothing else interesting going on here, unless you want to hear about American Renaissance, F.O. Matthiessen's 1941 classic of American Studies. Whats that? You do?

2006-10-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

The first new Duncan lookalike in a while…

2006-10-14T19:18:00.000-05:00

Many people have discovered this already. Not me, until today: see Yacht Rock, the only internet comedy show about Steely Dan, Jeff Baxter, The Doobie Brothers and The Eagles. The last episode is v. funny.

Goddammit!

2006-10-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

The mouse has eaten the peanut butter but the traps didn't go off! Tarnation!

2006-10-13T21:09:00.000-05:00

On tonight's CSI: Miami: a rapper has been shot during a gig. Callie to Horatio: "You know rap?" Horatio: "No, but I know rap sheets, and what's a felony." Genius.

In other news, I had something of a driving baptism of fire this evening. Having decided not to drive Elizabeth to the airport this evening (wedding in New Jersey) on the grounds that I was still having trouble not veering over to the right hand side of the lane, I packed Elizabeth off to the bus, but shortly afterwards received a panicky phonecall. Turns out the airport bus had been mobbed by local schoolchildren, who had broken the doors and windows and the bus engine, then run away (oh, our lovely neighbourhood). While seven police cars arrived and arrested a twelve-year-old who was not involved, I drove 20 blocks to pick up Elizabeth (plus another girl who had been stranded on her way to the airport), dropped them off and drove all the way back again. Not only did I feel slightly heroic, but I didn't hit any parked cars or anything!

Right, back to loading my CD collection onto my *new iPod*.

Tourism, Kazakhstani style

2006-10-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

I just saw the television ad created by the Kazakh tourist board to encourage us to holiday in their fine country. In between shots of rivers, people on horses, and bits of steppe, the commercial-makers have helpfully included a shot of Kazakhstani President Nazarbayev chatting amiably with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. One presumes that the message to tourists is "Look, the Russians like us! -- they won't be cutting off our energy supplies during your stay!" I for one feel reassured. Or perhaps I'm over-reading things -- it may be that there just wasn't enough picturesque footage of Kazakhstan to fill a 30-second commercial. After all, the Lonely Planet guide to the country does begin: "If you're not a fan of endless semi-arid steppe and decaying industrial cities, Kazakhstan may seem bleak […]."

Dinner Theatre and Tractor Rides

2006-10-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning all week to write about our apple-picking trip last weekend. At this rate, the apples we picked will be gone before I have a chance to write about it. No, actually, that's a lie. We still have two huge bags of apples in the dining room, even after considerable apple-eating efforts, a large apple pie, and the removal of a further large quantity of apples for a prospective "Cherry–Apple Pandowdy," whatever that may be.

Anyway, last weekend Jeff Rufo, who is just leaving the U of C journal Critical Inquiry as Manuscript Editor, organized an apple-picking trip to Wisconsin as his leaving party. Elizabeth has been working for CI over the summer, so I got to go along as her plus-one. Luckily I knew most people, since all my friends seem to work for CI too. Having sat in traffic for almost three hours, owing to roadworks on the Interstate, we arrived at Apple Holler, where our apples were to be picked. This turned out to be a pretty amazing place -- kind of an apple theme park (incidentally, I hope it's still there after the huge storms we've had this week. Lots of the trees on campus have gone (plus Dave's girlfriend's apartment was flooded!)). Sure, there were apples (and pumpkins) to be picked. But who needs to do that? Instead, we could feed the goats on the "Golden Goat Bridge" (a high, narrow walkway full of goats, up to which one could winch food via a primitive pulley mechanism), make our own toffee-apples, or listen to free musical entertainment from a surly busker doing reggae covers of Crowded House songs. That is, when he wasn't loudly berating six-year-olds for making too much noise during his set ("If you don't want to listen, go home! There's plenty of people who do!"). Or, we could buy all kinds of farm food, like a beer tankard made out of cheese, or a rice-crispie cake covered in chocolate dyed blue and iced with the Chicago Bears logo. Actually, we settled for Polish sausage, cider and toffee-apples. Had we stayed longer, we could have seen Apple Holler's renowned mystery dinner theatre, but we chose not to.

After an hour or so, we finally got to the apples, which are actually very nice indeed -- although, as I say, we have bags of them, owing to the fact that we weren't allowed to purchase less than twenty-five dollars' worth. The only down-side is that I was bitten by some strange midwestern creature (most likely a spider, apparently), so my arm swelled up in a slightly scary way all Sunday and Monday, and still hasn't entirely gone down. That's just the price you pay for kitschy farmyard-themed apple-picking, I guess.

TV's greatest mystery …

2006-10-04T12:21:00.000-05:00

… solved. Well, maybe second-greatest. Third-greatest. Top-ten?

Where is that no good cat?

2006-09-27T09:09:00.000-05:00

Back at the gym again then. Ugh. I went to bed at 9.30 last night. Never mind. As I recall you start to feel OK again after the first two weeks. Also, we have a mouse. Obviously a fan of John Cleese, it ran out into the living room during A Fish Called Wanda the other night. We have set traps baited with cheese and peanut butter, but without success as yet. Perhaps we ought to alter our tentative dog-buying plans and look at cats instead. Everyone now, "Thomas!"

My grave's bigger than your grave

2006-09-24T08:03:00.000-05:00

I was telling the story over the summer about how Adam Smith's grave, which Elizabeth and I went to see in Edinburgh, is adorned with a big flagstone inscribed with a quotation from The Wealth of Nations reading "The property which every man has in his own labour; as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable" -- here is a cool picture of it taken by somebody else. How funny, I thought, that Smith's grave thereby becomes kind of a big shrine to capital. This is, it turns out, just the point. The flagstone is brand new this year, an element in a long-running campaign to turn Smith's grave into the right-wing counterpart of Karl Marx's tomb in Highgate cemetery, a monument to capitalism to outdo Marx's to socialism. The Scotsman wrote in June:

A campaign to give the grave more prominence was started four years ago and has resulted in today's official unveiling of an Adam Smith flagstone on the Canongate entrance to the Kirk and markers through the graveyard to the tomb of the Kirkcaldy-born philosopher.

Oil boss Bob Lamond, who was educated at George Heriot's and studied geology at Edinburgh University, donated £10,000 for the improvements, which he hopes will attract more visitors to the historic grave.

The grave has been given further prominence by a large Caithness stone slab, inscribed with a quotation from Smith's most famous book The Wealth of Nations, being installed in front of it thanks to a donation from the private bank Adam and Company, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Mr Lamond's interest in the grave came after he read an article in a business magazine during the mid-nineties contrasting the state of Smith's dilapidated tomb in Edinburgh with the well-kept grave of socialist philosopher Karl Marx in London.

"I was amazed to read this," explained Mr Lamond, 61, a regular visitor to the Capital since he moved to Canada in 1965. The contribution that Smith made to the world should be recognised."

If Smith's contribution sometimes goes unrecognized, his profile, which has since the '80s adorned the ties of right-wing economists, certainly doesn't. Now Smith's grave has become part of the push to make him into a neoconservative pin-up. The stone seems a little bit like taking all of Smith's work and replacing it with a big sign saying "Having lots of money is OK!" But then I suppose all iconography works something like that.

2006-09-22T06:35:00.000-05:00

"I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail." -- H.L. Mencken

Chi-town again

2006-09-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

Anonymous is right -- I have been slacking. But it's been the holidays, and I think I'm entitled. Not any more, though. Back to work, and back to blogging. So what's been going on? Well, I've been back less than a day and already the car is playing up and a cupboard has fallen off the wall. Have fixed the latter. The former is probably better off without my attentions.

Thanks to the hard work of Will and Palmer, I've finally become a belated convert to The Decline of British Sea Power. What an album! "From Scapa Flow to Rotherhithe, I felt the lapping of an ebbing tide" (etc.). Also on my CD player right now are the best of Sam Cooke and Donald Fagen's The Nightfly, which features some of Fagen's finest sardonic lyrics, e.g.:

Have you got a steady boyfriend?
Cause honey I've been watching you
I hear you're mad about Brubeck
I like your eyes, I like him too
He's an artist, a pioneer
We've got to have some music on the new frontier

Will and I have been at the ukuleles again. This year we produced uke versions of "Something," by The Beatles and (more importantly) "Urgent" by Foreigner (complete with kazoo solo). Hopefully these will appear online soon... In Polecats style I produced a cassoulet, which was quite nice, though it did take two days to make, and involved slow-cooking duck legs in lard for two hours.

It'll soon be time for me to start teaching section of an undergrad. Henry James class. As anyone who has talked to me this holiday will know, I am quite scared about this. However, I have managed to remember two verses of the Henry James song I made up in the Wenlock a while back.

Henry James, Henry James
He wrote The Turn of the Screw
And he also wrote another book
That was called What Maisie Knew

Henry James, Henry James
He had a famous brother
Who wrote about one variety of religious experience
And then he wrote about another.

Sadly I fear there was more, but I can't remember it right now. Not to worry -- I'm sure this will tell the undergraduates all they need to know.

Lots of other things happened over the past month -- but then I've seen most of you Englishers to tell you about them, and people in Chicago, well, you probably aren't so interested in Drewsie's wedding etc. So -- onward and upward.

2006-08-17T05:54:00.000-05:00

Ah, Britain! Land of narrow roads, minimal humidity and reasonable temperatures! Went for a drive this morning, and I can still do it, which is good news as far as the trip to Scotland goes.

Other than that, I have been doing nothing. Nothing, I tell you! Ah, holidays!

2006-08-15T10:40:00.000-05:00

So, back home today (well, tomorrow, by the time I land), with a head full of stitches acquired while slipping on a picturesque local lakefront rock. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, but, more than that, I'm looking forward to huge airport security lines, convincing security men to let me take my head-wound-related medicine on the plane, being strip-searched for looking all beat up and therefore a bit like a terrorist, having my connecting flight to Heathrow cancelled, and all kinds of other fun.

Behind me I leave the blueberry season in full swing. Over the course of the past week we have made: blueberry and sour cherry Cobbler Supreme, blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes (twice) and blueberry pie (very nice indeed). I say we--it's really Elizabeth who has wholeheartedly embraced the baking. In front of me I have the prospect of more driving lessons -- Pass Plus -- so that I won't crash while driving from Inverness to Edinburgh in a few weeks time. Given the option, I'd rather have the blueberry products, but oh well.

Besides, Britain will no doubt be awesome. Real beer, fry-ups, Drewsie's wedding, the Scottish Highlands. I really have nothing to complain about.

See y'all on the other side.

Hello

2006-08-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

The server is down at work here, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to post. Some Perrins on the web.

What else has been going on? They were shooting a feature film named Quebec in an apartment building a couple of streets away on Saturday. All kinds of trucks, and lights, and stuff. Very exciting, kind of.

Plus, I'll be in the TLS again tomorrow, reviewing Irvine Welsh.

I'll be available for UK-based activities from Wednesday, until September 19th, if I ever manage to get through airport security...

From pauldaniels.co.uk

2006-08-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

Did you Know?
Paul and Debbie own a 1930 mahogany and elm canoe.It's not for exercise because it is too big and heavy to paddle being 7.5 metres long and seating 7 adults. It runs for 8 hours on its batteries because it is electric. Just over a year ago Paul renamed it The Lovely Debbie McGee and Debbie has only just got over the shock.

In haste

2006-08-07T09:50:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the lack of posts -- our home internet is "on hiatus," as they say. I'll be back soon. Back in England, too, as of the 16th.

Dry up, Lewis

2006-07-31T18:35:00.000-05:00

Dry: Owing to temperatures of 98 degrees (that's 37, for UK-dwellers), our plants keep getting very dry indeed. Sadly, everything else is damp, because of all the humidity. I'm so looking forward to British temperatures (provided the UK heatwave breaks, of course).

Up: We've been up to some fun holiday-type things. Yesterday we went down to Chicago's prettiest lakefront wooded knoll, The Point, which is, luckily, only a couple of blocks away from our apartment. Now I have a slight tan, plus a small cut on my foot from where I bashed into some submerged rocks while swimming. A small price to pay, however, for the escape from the heat.

Lewis: We saw ITV's pilot for Inspector Lewis on PBS last night. Unbelievably, I thought it was quite good. Could it be that Kevin Whateley is a worthy successor to John Thaw? I'm probably the only one who thinks so.

"Love… Lust… Madness… Murder!"

2006-07-28T11:01:00.000-05:00

Just blogging other people's funny stuff again today. First, Richard Gowan and Harry respectively bring me two extremely funny Hasselhoff items.

Secondly, Elizabeth points out that an obituary for a leading member of the Northern Irish real ale community printed in the most recent What's Brewing drifts into dangerously bathetic territory with its closing line: "His last pint of real ale was a Theakstons in Heathrow Airport." I hope it wasn't off. Airport bars can be pretty unreliable.

That's all.

Not quite. A special addendum.

A steel-drivin' man

2006-07-23T10:19:00.000-05:00

Alaric, the autistic four-year-old for whom Elizabeth babysits quite a lot, is a big fan of Disney's American Legends, a patriotic tale of such American folk heroes as Johnny Appleseed, Casey Jones, Paul Bunyan and John Henry. So taken with John Henry is he, however, that he has started walking around the house, telling everyone who will listen that "the steel drill's going to take our jobs!" A union man in the making?

2006-07-19T08:29:00.000-05:00

Saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie last night. It has no plot. But it does have a voodoo lady.

Sublime violence

2006-07-17T10:08:00.000-05:00

On Friday we went to a Bastille Day party. Here are some pictures of me attacking a piñata in the shape of Edmund Burke with a rolling pin.

A popular beat combo for your listening pleasure

2006-07-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

As with the Radio Ballads, I emailed this to one person, then thought other people might be interested. So, here we are:

Thought you might be interested in this band The Beauty Room — Bob Harris has been playing their track "Holding On" on his radio show. Their website says:

There's an undeniable sense of timeless urban sophistication at play here. Indeed, this album most readily brings to mind those high priests of the cerebral groove, Steely Dan. What The Beauty Room achieve here is a similar blend of sharp-creased strut and spiritual meditation, all of it laced with plenty of that most essential yet undefinable alchemical element, soul. Fans of singer/songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and the whole late sixties/early seventies West Coast scene, should also be hastily marshalled toward this beguiling distillation of downtempo eloquence, for while the overall mood is smooth and mellifluous, this is by no means lightweight music — far from it.

But actually they sound more like under-rated soul maestro and "British Todd Rundgren" Lewis Taylor than anyone else — anyway — enjoy.

PS The album is not out yet, but if you follow the link from the website to the band's myspace, looks like you can download some tracks.

Dan! Dan!

2006-07-12T16:10:00.000-05:00

I finally fulfilled a long-standing ambition on Saturday and went to see the mighty Steely Dan in concert. They were about a thousand times better than the lone Fagen. Perhaps it is the case that Walter Becker was always the true creative genius of the group. In any case, I'm sure the setting helped. The Dan (going under the terrible pseudonym "Steelyard 'Sugartooth' McDan") played at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in the "village" of Tinley Park, Illinois, which, much like the "village" of Rosemont is very definitely not-Chicago. It is, instead, a big empty field criss-crossed by highways of the kind Steely Dan might drive down in a magic car. Dave* and I revved up for the gig in what I like to think was appropriate Steely Dan fashion, with an Italian meal at "Gatto's," a charming local trattoria in a strip mall, where we sat outside on plastic garden chairs. Then on to the amphitheatre, where we sat on a plastic poncho on the grass and beer was sold in plastic pint glasses shaped like guitars.

The build-up may have been just the ticket, then, but the music was fabulous in its own right. All the hits were wheeled out to the delight of me, and the teenager with an ironic mullet sitting next to me: "Josie", "Peg", "Aja", "Hey Nineteen"…** Fagen, despite looking more than ever like Nosferatu, was eloquent on the keytar, but perhaps even better on the child's toy wind synthesizer thing [does anyone know what these are called, by the way?]. So anyhow, all is forgiven, Donald -- even though you did intersperse some of the songs with amusing spoken-word bits. And get the trumpeter and the trombone player to have a musical "argument." I'd be back like a shot.

*Dave told his students he was going to see Steely Dan at the weekend. "Who's that?" they asked. Dave's reply began, "Well do you know what Musak is?"
**check out the dubious "Hey Nineteen" T-shirts…

Yo ho

2006-07-12T15:16:00.000-05:00

If we're going to be interested in things pir ate, we ought to make sure know what we're talking about. I don't want to hear any more about pirates until everyone has taken at least a basic course in Piracy Studies. Here are some texts to be going on with:

C.R. Pennell, Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2001)

Claire Jowitt, "Parrots and Pieces of Eight: Recent Trends in Pirate Studies," Literature Compass, 1 (2003), 1-23

Gerald Horne, Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica (New York: New York University Press, 2005)

Hans Turley, Rum, Sodomy and the Lash: Piracy, Sexuality and Masculine Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2001)

Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)

Ulrike Klausmann, Marion Meinzerin and Gabriel Kuhn, Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger (Toronto: Black Rose Books, 1997)

Jo Stanley, Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages (Kitchener: Pandora Press, 1996)

Plus look -- translate your blog into pirate!

2006-07-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

Oh, and …

2006-07-05T09:01:00.000-05:00

Now in our apartment we have great big bookcases, a stained cupboard for putting DVDs in, and another one for videos. No internet yet, and no time, so still not much blogging, but luckily Richard G. is on the lookout for amusing stories to show you all.

Normal service will be resumed soon.

I liked the "video diary" Dr. Who, "Love and Monsters," a great deal, incidentally.

2006-06-28T08:53:00.000-05:00

Well, all my stuff is slowly being put away in what is now Elizabeth's and my apartment. There is still a pile of boxes and a fifteen-foot oriental rug taking up most of the dining room, but at least we found a home for the saute pan.

I'm posting this in a hurriedly snatched ten minutes away from German homework, which is my new spare-time activity. Apparently I am really into it, judging by the fact that I never seem to do anything else these days.

However, I wanted to tell you collectively (since I have told many of you individually) about a fine curio from the radio 2 website -- the Radio Ballads. You can access them at the Radio 2 website by clicking on the "Listen Again" tab. You want the ones from the fifties and sixties, not the new ones from 2006.

Anyhow -- it seems that the fascinating-sounding Ewan MacColl*, assisted by Peggy Seeger, made a series of peculiar folk documentaries about such issues as a train crash, the building of the M1, and the herring industry. The basic format is: interview with working man, followed by newly commissioned folk song based on the interview, followed by experimental modernist bit combining early sound effects with folk and bits of the interview cut up and replayed in funny ways. The first one, "The Ballad of John Axon," is the strangest and possibly the best. It combines folk, opera, jazz, Dr. Who-style effects, and such lyrics as "Curse the steam and the steam brake handle." They seem to have been up on the site since February -- don't know how long they will remain, but I urge you to check one out.

*father of Kirsty MacColl, too.

Fill in your own... / Thought for the day

2006-06-22T14:22:00.000-05:00

Phew. I am too busy working and moving house and doing summer school to write new blog posts right now. Instead, fill in your own, using this template.

It was the farmer's market today. I bought [pretentious foodstuff] and made [pleasant/hubristic dinner]. Earlier in the week I went to [bad film/restaurant of some variety]. After that I looked [in the library/online] and discovered this: [an amusing quotation/a stupid website/Richard Thompson's hurdy-gurdy player's connection with Peter Owen Publishers].

Enjoy. In the mean time:

Though for the day
"The Black Hand in Etching. One's hands are sure to become more or less thickly coated with ink, which moreover gets under one's nails and prefers to remains there. The wearing of thin gloves may be resorted to by the hyper-sensitive, but with their use one loses a certain amount of touch with things." -- Frank I. Emanuel, Etching and Etchings

It is all about my dinner

2006-06-15T19:23:00.000-05:00

After my latest farmers' market adventures I have a question and a suggestion.

i) Question. I bought some courgette flowers and fried them in batter. They were extremely pleasant. But even though I fried them very fast at a very high temperature, they went kind of limp? Is this correct? I have every intention of buying them again, so I will try to refine my methods.

ii) Suggestion. I also bought some potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes and turnips with the greens attached -- I should really say with the roots attached, since, round these parts it's considered more normal to eat the greens and throw the roots away. Anyhow, I had every intention of making some kind of grilled vegetable salad, parboiling the root veg, then char-grilling it on the griddle, then mixing it all up with the wilted turnip greens . . . anyhow I lost interest in this half-way through and just decided to boil up the veg, bung it all in a pot with the greens and turn the heat up. Guess what? It turned out to be an amazing variation on bubble and squeak. I thoroughly recommend it for all food ponces. I may send it to Nigel Slater.

Right, off to have some gin and watch The Muppet Show on DVD…