Word verification

After two days of thinking Google/Blogger hated me, I've found Blogger lists as a "known issue" word verification is failing to load for some users. Some users in this case includes me -- so, dear readers, if you feel you have been neglected from my always-insightful, never-bettered comments recently, blame the blogger bug.

In turn, I have turned off the verification here in case it was stopping anyone from sharing their thoughts with me, and the rest of the class.

End of public service message.


This is a picture of two kittens in a barrel, look at them in there, having a whale of a time. You see the one on the left? He's called Phillip. Now when you look into Phillip's eyes your anger will receed like an ocean...

Valentine

I wanted on Valentine's Day to link to a superb John Hegley poem about Saint Valentine, and the first Valentine's Day missive.

Unfortunately, the rotten shower of bastards that are Fileden have suspended my account for breach of their terms of service. Since I have been using the site to host various MP3 files to be used in Musical Monday posts, among other things, I expect it is that whole sharing copyrighted materials thing that's got their goat up. But it means I am now without a file hosting service and all the Musical Monday posts that had their own music no longer do.

In theory, I could type it up and post it -- but John Hegley is so much better if you can hear him. I think all poetry is better read aloud to yourself or heard read by the poet, than it is read silently on the page. John Hegley makes his pieces into performances, some become songs and others become songs with ukele in them, while others still become songs with ukele and audience participation -- especially from audience memebers wearing glasses. Anyway, MediaFire seem to offer file hosting for what I want so give this link a go.

Instead what I am going to have to do is copy out for your delectation the recipe from my tapas cookery book that I prepared for the girl. I may also include the recipe for the non-tapas dessert I made, and an explanation as to what went wrong with it. But not yet.

The girl and I agreed to keep spending to a minimum for Valentine's gifts, so I figured the best place to get her something special without spending a fortune was Etsy. That's where I found the sterling silver stud earrings pictured above. I would like to link to the seller's page so everyone (if anyone reads here) can see what amazing items they have, but I'd prefer the girl not to see it. I also decided to forego the usual tacky hallmark cards, and have one custom made from someone I admire -- again on Etsy.

I had to make her stay in the living room with the door shut, talking to the cat, while I unloaded things from the car -- because I didn't want her seeing the card, nor the dozen red roses, before I'd had a chance to prepare things. The card and earrings I hid in her bedside drawer for the morning. And if you're beginning to think it all sounds a bit one-sided, I was very pleased the girl remembered that I wanted a new notebook to take to Peru with me -- and so had bought me one as a gift. What's more she even made me breakfast in bed on the Saturday morning. Ain't she sweet? Before you get too put off by the public display of affection, I shall move swiftly on to Saturday night's dinner recipe.

Pollo a la Plancha
Grilled chicken thighs marinated with harissa, garlic and lemon

Serves 4 8 chicken thighs (skin on), boned
2 tablespoons harissa paste
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
juice of ¹/₂ lemon
olive oil
Maldon sea salt and cracked black pepper, to taste
4 lemon wedges, to serve

Stretch out a piece of clingfilm on a large chopping board, open out 2 of the boned thighs and place them on top. Cover with another piece of clingfilm and bash each one with a meat mallet (or rolling pin) until it's roughly a third bigger than it was originally. Repeat with the remaining thighs and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
Add the harissa paste, sliced garlic, lemon juice, 12 dashes of olive oil, 2 generous pinches of salt and 1 of pepper. Mix everything together to ensure the chicken pieces are well coated. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to marinate in the fridge for 12 hours.
When you are ready to cook, preheat your oven to 150^oC/300^oF/gas mark 2. Place your griddle plate, ridged-side up, on a high heat. When it starts to smoke, put 4 chicken thighs on top, skin-side down. Chargrill for 4 minutes each side -- thigh meat tends to be slightly pinker than breast meat, but don't let this put you off because it's incredibly succulent. If you find its too pink, cook for an extra minute, but take care not to burn it. When you are satisfied the chicken is cooked, transfer it to an ovenproof dish, cover with foil, and place in the oven to keep warm while you cook the remaining pieces. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

My own cooking of this differed slightly. I forgot to include and garlic, and had missed originally the part about marinating it for 12 hours. I also used skinless breasts rather than thighs. I don't think it suffered for not marinating, nor for missing the garlic, but expect both would add to the overall flavour. I'd never tried harissa before, which I understand is a North African chilli paste and available in most supermarkets, if you have the patience to look for it. It has a familiar flavour perhaps not too unlike piri piri -- but the lemon and the salt in this recipe give the whole thing a very unique taste. I recommend to anyone buying this book, my copy is from the library and will be returned with some slight food splatterings -- which I think is a compliment to a good cookery book.

Now the dessert was strawberry mousse. Or supposed to be.

I think where I went wrong was with the gelatin. The only gelatin I could buy was in sheets, the recipe here calls for a tablespoon. Trying to break a sheet into pieces small enough to fill a tablespoon wasn't easy, and I guess I just didn't manage enough -- half a sheet seemed like it would be plenty, but the next morning it was still like a strawberry smoothie with a lot of sugar in. It made for an interesting breakfast for me at any rate...

25 things

I was tagged to do this so many times on Facebook, I thought it might provide interesting reading for anyone who might happen by this corner of the internet today.

1. I talk to myself. Out loud. Sometimes people in the supermarket give me strange looks -- I don't know if it's because I'm muttering to myself, or if they think I am talking to the food.
2. I like plants. And planting things. I don't have the patience or attention span to have a well-tended garden, but I like growing random plants -- like the half a dozen chilli plants I left growing in my parents conservatory. Or the sunflowers I grow every year. I hope my garden here gets enough sun for sunflowers.
3. I like to pretend there is an international cat network, where cats talk to each other and report to each other their sightings of people. If I see a cat when I am on holiday, I imagine it is checking up on me and reporting back that I have been sighted, and that I am OK.
4. I like to cook. Though as with many things -- favourite songs, bands, items of clothing -- I have favourite recipes and styles of food I like to cook.
5. I am scared of failure, in almost every area of my life. Scared that I will fail in my professional life, in my personal relationships -- scared that I will fail in Peru. It is probably just a deep seated lack of confidence.
6. I believe I have abandonment issues, from being seriously ill in hospital as a child.
7. Recently, I've lost my passion for my photography. My trouble is, it all feels like it's been done before or I've seen it before. There's nothing remarkable that I haven't seen on a hundred flickr pages. Though I will take pictures in Peru almost compulsively, I doubt any of it will have that unique edge I crave.
8. Number 7 sort of relates to how I feel with a lot of my life.
9. Sometimes I spend absurd lengths of time wondering how my younger self would see me as I am now, and what they would think.
10. There is almost no vegetable I would prefer to eat raw than cooked. Peppers are maybe an exception.
11. I don't believe that extra-terrestrial life forms are visiting the earth. I think if they were smart/advanced enough to be able to visit the earth, they would be smart enough not to.
12. I like the sound of foreign languages, regadless of if I can or can't understand them. Often moreso if I can't. An inane conversation about Big Brother if it was spoken in French and I couldn't understand it, would still sound beautiful. I really like learning and speaking other languages, though I lack the motivation to ever learn them fully. Sometimes I have a mental lapse in a restaurant and forget in what language I should be thanking the server.
13. On equal opportunities forms, or the like, I like to describe myself as "French Irish" -- though it's not untrue, it's quite far removed now.
14. Sometimes I believe that I am special or gifted in some amazing and awesome way, like in the Heroes or X-Men sense, and that any day my special powers will manifest. No sign of them yet.
15. I used to have a large, ugly birthmark on my left side. Except it turned out it wasn't a birthmark at all, it had a texture and in spots where I had knocked it or caught it, it had turned black. It was removed in surgery perhaps 18 years ago. I still have to keep a close watch on other moles I have for anything unusual. I have a sensitivity to the sun that would technically be described as an allergy.
16. I can't name just one physical feature about myself I dislike.
17. I can remember whole poems, entire songs, or the order of songs on mix tapes made for me 10 years ago or more, but sometimes I forget to make any lunch before I go to work.
18. I think the universe is meaningless and random and that coincidences are not meaningful.
19. I get inexplicably excited about stupid things, or the strangest things. Even work at times. It's usually related to writing.
20. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, worried about something trivial, and have to work on going back to sleep.
21. There was a time, probably for a period of about a few days, I was scared of Spontaneous Human Combustion. I was a strange child.
22. I think Alexei Sayle's books of short stories are perhaps the best 'guides' to English life I can think of, without them ever meaning to be. Inspired by an Alexei Sayle short story, I want to write to eminent poets and invite myself over for tea, and wonder what cakes they might offer.
23. I'm a bit of a sad fan boy about poets, and was once star-struck meeting Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy. I was afraid Duffy would hate me for being a man, on the contrary she was incredibly nice. Simon Armitage was shy and probably didn't know what to do with an over-excited fan boy who thought he was a rock star. John Hegley scares me a little.
24. Sometimes I see people with dalmations, and I worry that if I ever one as a pet, I wouldn't be able to keep it as clean as they do, and then people would see it and think badly of me for not keeping my dog white enough. I have no great desire for one as a pet, and since you ask I would prefer a huskie.
25. I would like to be able to whistle so that I could whistle inappropriate songs or tunes at opportune moments for my own amusement, and perhaps to provide strangers with something noteworthy in their day -- like when you walk into a shop on a cold and wet day and hear 'Summer Holiday' playing, or hear a random but memorable snatch of someone's conversation as you pass them in the street.

Jupiter in space agencies' sights

I've been teh suck and not updated nearly enough recently.

I can report that my recent foray into not taking medication has ended. That is, after relying instead on vigorous exercise and strength of character, I have given and gone back. I was beginning to feel decidedly shit and unable to cope at times, so I decided enough was enough. Since I have restarted I still have my moments: short spells of despair, almost sickening bouts of worry and anxiety, but overall I am much better off. We have to admit that there is "something wrong" with me, and really there's no getting around it. It's a little depressing in itself to have to admit it. It might well be a brain 'chemical' thing -- some people are diabetic, or anaemic, and reliant on certain supplements of whatever kind. Perhaps I have a defective brain in a similar sort of way. For the record, I have begun to wonder when I am not taking my medication if previous medical professional diagnoses of bipolar disorder might not have been too wide of the mark. But either way, it doesn't matter.

Also in the news here this week is that despite every intention of leaving my body to medical science -- albeit while I am still very much alive and kicking -- has also met with failure. I was invited to attend a screening for a trial that would have paid me about two grand for my time, trialling a drug for Alzheimer's and ADD. But the time they wanted was about two weeks, and there was no way I could take it off work. This week I discovered that I have no holiday left whatsoever to take this tax year, and only have 13 days available to me to take between April and October. This means most likely that the time I spend in Peru I am going to have to take as unpaid leave -- I can consider that my own charitable contribution.

The obvious drawback of not being able to take part in a clinical drug trial is it is going to be a lot harder to earn money quickly. Possibly less unpleasant, maybe even safer, but more difficult.

I'm still resentful of my car needing £700+ worth of repairs at Christmas. It's no use crying over spilled milk, but I would never have chosen to spend that money frivolously -- not that keeping my car on the road is frivolous. But sometimes I think "I could have bought a great big television with that money, but I wouldn't have" or I think how I could fly to Barcelona and back like 6 times for that amount. Sometimes I go into a record shop just to browse, and I will pause over a CD -- I don't buy myself things often, I'll think. But then the idea of spending the money for no reason makes me feel ill, and I put it back. Like I say -- crying over it (like I did at the time, to my shame) doesn't change a thing, and the girl and I need a car for a whole host of reasons, so it was important. But that doesn't stop me resenting it. Stupid to resent an inanimate object, I know.

Speaking of work and earning money... Dedicated readers who have read my old posts, or longer term followers who have been with me for longer, may remember a post last October when I gleefully announced having got a job. I opened the champagne for dinner with the girl -- a special bottle I had been saving for when I got what I considered a "proper" job, a job that I wanted and wasn't just a stopgap, and that I felt was advancing my career. It was a year's contract, but a bloody good opportunity just the same. We remember? Good.

On Tuesday a notice went out on email to all office staff that there would be a briefing from the MD at 1430 in the conference room. Nobody was sure what it was about, but we were under no illusions: it wasn't going to be good news. I did speculate that perhaps with all the budget cuts and general "credit crunch" doom and gloom they would be announcing that in order to try and cheer up staff and raise morale they would be buying us an office kitten. Shockingly, this was not what the announcement was. In the minutes before the meeting, word got out that there was to be a merger. Nobody was quite sure whether to believe it, or what the details were. I then got blind-copied into an emailed press release from my head of PR. The release was going out to all trade press, announcing the merging of my company and a neighbouring region's.

There was lots of words like cost savings and efficiencies and stream linings, but the important thing to those of us in the office -- and presumably the other region's offices -- is that there are going to be job losses. We expect a lot of the job losses will be higher up -- there will be duplication of various positions, but nobody feels they are safe. We don't know when cuts will be, and we don't even know where this new amalgamated company will be based.

I feel particularly unsettled as my position was only "interim" to begin with. I've had the uncertainty that if the girl whose job I am doing wants to come back after maternity leave, then I would have to find my own way. Now it's impossible to know what will happen to me or to my job, cue random bouts of despair and almost sickening spells of anxiety and worry. I felt very fortunate to get this job, I felt so many times I had been passed over or fallen at the last hurdle when applying for jobs I could do so well -- this to me represented so much. Now I'm afraid it's all going to disappear again.

Up until now, I hadn't been directly or personally too affected by the now-official recession. Fuel costs have fallen by 25%; this meant I had more spare money. VAT was cut: again, more money for me. I was still getting paid the same. But of course it couldn't last forever. I was never unaffected, for months my older brother has been on the brink of bankruptcy -- to the point where my parents have given him all of their savings and more to keep him afloat. Finally he has had to give up ownership of his business, but luckily has escaped bankruptcy. So I was never completely unaffected -- just the same, when it's suddenly your own company, and you and your own colleagues looking at possible redundancy, you feel the impact.

I don't know why I thought I would get away unscathed. I've friends who have been made redundant two or three times in recent years, my own Mum has been made redundant at least twice -- although she usually manages to come back brighter. Which isn't bad for someone with a history of depression themselves.

Anyway. Without ending the post with thoughts of doom, gloom or the like I am pleased to report that having the girl's love and support makes a world of difference, and the next post should really be about valentine's day...

P.S. You haven't missed anything, this post doesn't have anything to do with Jupiter. I was just stuck for a title so I used a news headline.

Musical Monday #32

In 1994, I was 13 years old. What was on my mind at age 16, what was important in my life, what made me happy and what worried me -- all of this is largely forgotten to me now. I guess music was important to me, and girls. So what else is new.

In April of 1994, on the day Kurt Cobain died, I was walking to school with a friend, just like any other day. He told me Cobain was dead, and I didn't know who it was. I'm not cool enough to say that I was a huge fan and had a candle-lit vigil for him. My friend told me Cobain was "the guitarist" for a band called Nirvana. This meant nothing more to me than it had done a few moments before. Had I heard of them? Probably, yes. Had I heard anything by them? Unlikely.

I was 16 when I did.

My friend John and I had formed a band. Just the two of us. We could barely play, but we wanted a drummer. We recruited this obnoxious half-wit called Tim, who had a lot of power and strength but no natural flair or subtlety. What he did bring to the band was Nirvana. He liked them, we didn't know them. Over the summer, he lent John a couple of VHS recordings from MTV, of Nirvana Unplugged and Nirvana, Live and Loud. John also copied a Nirvana album from a cousin he had. A casette copy of a copy of a copy.

I take some music snobbery pride in knowing this album and the first material I ever heard by Nirvana was their debut album, Bleach. It sounded dark and dirty, grunge was the made-up genre used to describe their style, and the word seemed fitting. Detuned guitars and a sound like aural sludge. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. Gone were the guitar solos of Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses, the theatrics and the pomposity.

We listened to it all, I'd watch Unplugged over breakfast, with my cornflakes.

Bleach was fucked up, Nevermind the difficult second album that the original fans felt was a sell-out, In Utero was my favourite at the time -- with better production than the debut, and less radio-friendly than the follow-up.

At that age, Cobain's untimely death at 27 seemed a world away. I could objectively acknowledge that he had "died young", but at the same time 27 was adult, grown up. He had a wife, and a child, and I won't give any oxygen to the claims of conspiracy and murder, because I don't much care.

Today I turned 28, having outlived Cobain, along with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones -- not mention various others. He doesn't seem so fully grown to me any more.

I have more or less grown out of listening to Nirvana, in time. The rage and angst of their music got a little old, although I still like to dig out their albums from time to time, and still roll my eyes at commercial stations playing the listener-friendly In Bloom, or Smells Like Teen Spirit, the latter being every bit the Pixies rip off that Nirvana said it was.

Heart Shaped Box