Date:	2009-06-27 20:20
Subject:	Another one bites the dust
Security:	Public
Mood:	unimpressed

First of all, if you haven't yet seen the end of "Robin Hood" series 3 and don't want to be spoilt, better give the rest of this post a miss.

( There should be a rule against this... )

It's been a while since my last food-related post, so since I'm cooking dinner tonight, I thought I'd add a couple of recipes. Nothing fancy or particularly funky, just basic things that B and I make regularly at home.

( Poached egg; Nachos@home... )

Date:	2009-03-01 19:51
Subject:	Sunburnt Firmin
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

There are some advantages to living near London. Last night B and I went to the theatre, to see an adaptation of a Russian film, "Burnt by the Sun"/"Utomlennye Solntzem", which won an Oscar a while back. Despite my prejudice (to wit: distaste for Nikita Mikhalkov, who starred in and directed the original film), I must admit it was a brilliant, brilliant play. Gorgeous production and performances, spot-on adaptation for the stage, with the kind of denouement that leaves you speechless at first, and then makes you want to talk about it all night. Which we did on the bus back.

The funny thing was -- the lead turned out to be Ciaran Hinds (aka Firmin in POTO). I didn't recognise him until I saw the cast list!

By way of rowan_d.

BOOK MEME
The BBC allegedly believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here:
How do your reading habits stack up? [bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish]

The sad thing is that I've read most of these years and years ago. If I had to stack up the books I've read in the last couple of years, it would be a sorry little pile. Note to self: make more time for reading!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (I know, I know... eventually!)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (well, all of it, as long as you don't count the New Testament...)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (hey! Shakespeare gets one entry for his entire oeuvre, and Narnia gets two?!)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (Never heard of it... But I've read "Ash: A secret history" by Mary Gentle, does that count?)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks (No... But I've read several of his other books. Why is this one special?)
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Oh. So Shakespeare gets another entry as well? Why just "Hamlet", then?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Date:	2009-02-16 20:26
Subject:	You can run, but ...
Security:	Public
Mood:	geeky

My return to the Xenaverse doesn't seem to be abating. On the contrary, it's actually gaining momentum. I've gone as far as re-watching a couple of episodes a week -- haven't done that in at least ... hmm... five years. (My God, I've been in this fandom for 12 years! The current generation of fans at the XOC forum was still in preschool when I was watching Season 1!)

As that fandom meme said: this is The One for me. There will be other fandoms and other ships might sail, but nothing will ever rival XWP and Xena/Ares. It's like the perfect drug designed to hook me: Greek mythology (a childhood fascination) and Roman history; a dark, fascinating, conflicted (and female!) hero; swords and fantasy; humour and tragedy and farce and sweeping epics; geek chic; moral dilemmas; an amazingly flexible 'universe' for fanfic or general flights of fancy... and of course, Xena and Ares. The only ship I've ever encountered where both characters are equal and perfectly matched, and where the chemistry feels so utterly, blisteringly real.

Maybe I'm on a sort of elliptical orbit around it: sometimes closer, sometimes further. Always coming back.

Date:	2009-02-05 09:38
Subject:	Snow!!
Security:	Public
Mood:	snow-happy

For the first time in quite a few years, and certainly for the first time outside Russia, I got to walk to work in the snow! And it still hasn't melted, except on the larger roads -- nobody has bothered to grit or spead salt on the side-streets, so cars and bikes are slowly crawling through whiteness. Seems I didn't completely miss out on all the fun during my race-around-Europe.

It may be causing more chaos in London, but around here everyone was walking around with happy grins this morning. A guy in front of me, wearing wellington boots and carrying a pair of business shoes in his computer bag, answers his mobile: "Hello, Miles! I'm ... walking in a winter wonderland!" In the park students are throwing snowballs and kids are building a snowman. A girl runs past: "This snow is so awesome!"

I even saw some kids with a small toboggan. Wonder why they have one, if it hasn't snowed like this in 18 years? Pity there are no hills around here.

OOOHHH, it just started snowing again!

What a totally awesome idea! And I don't even mind that it's for an ad :D -- pity I wasn't in London last week.



There's a "making of" video on how they did it here.

There's a POTO fic in there just dying to get out. (No pun intended. :D)

Despite rumours to the contary, you *can* actually get mangoes in the UK. Don't believe me? Why, shame on you. Here is one, proudly displayed on the Tesco grocery site:


Something tells me I'll be sticking to the cabbages.

Delivery man, a nice elderly guy, upon my opening the door: "Ah, smells amazing! What've you cooked up?"

Tango: "Honey cake."

Delivery man, wistfully: "Never heard of that. My missus just keeps makin' me those bread-and-butter puddings."

... Alas. I'd have given him some, except it was still baking. :( Everyone needs honey cake in their life! (Including my gluten-intolerant friend, which is why this particular honey cake is gluten-free).

Oh, how I love this song. *melts* Just wish I could find the version from the end of "One More Kiss".


Click here for a translation of the lyrics.

Date:	2008-11-10 22:19
Subject:	DIY herbal tea (yet another instant fix)
Security:	Public
Mood:	cold

Why buy those ridiculously expensive herbal teabags, when you can just raid the spice rack...

My current favourite: dash of dry ground ginger, dash of mixed spice, two whole cloves. Pour boiling water over, stand for a minute, add honey and/or a slice of lemon if you like it. Yum.

...Yes, the weather is cold and miserable and necessitates the use of warming spices, why do you ask? :D

Halloween in Oxford looks like a party in Hogwarts.

Go on, you know you shouldn't... http://www.devinettor.com/aki_en/index.html

Date:	2008-10-24 22:46
Subject:	Anti-Semitism in the UK
Security:	Public
Mood:	meh

There is a sick, train-wreck-voyeuristic fascination in reading a thread like this one, at the Independent's blog (this is a major, respectable newspaper in the UK) -- Anti-Semitism in the UK It's not so much the original post that reveals anything about attitudes to Jews. It's the thread itself.

All the usual suspects are there -- the language pedants, the conspiracy theorists, and my personal favourites, the anti-Semitic anti-Zionists. The latter are easily distinguished from people with genuine views on the Mideast (and genuine criticisms of Israel's foreign policy) by their disproportionate concern with Israel to the exclusion of any other country, except perhaps the US. Of course, there is an element of self-selection in any blog thread; those without strong views don't tend to post. But it nonetheless reveals enough to make for pretty depressing reading.

These things are not unique to the UK; the same picture was very much in evidence in Australia when I was there, and I doubt things have changed in the meantime. It's one of those issues where the far-right and far-left seem to close the circle and shake hands.

Bigotry has always existed and will always exist, in whatever shape and form -- and for some reason, anti-Semitism seems to be a particularly pervasive form of bigotry. I guess it's silly to get upset about it, particularly when it is (generally) confined to rhetoric and doesn't translate into verbal or physical abuse. But it's nevertheless a tad depressing.

So to lighten the mood, I think this calls for a little bit of Avenue Q:

I opened the front door this morning, and was met with ... a frog. A warty, green-brown, average-looking frog the size of my palm, which leapt right at me (cue a very girly scream) and into the house. I was running late for work, so couldn't deal with it -- I assume it's still hanging around the house somewhere and will eventually alert me to its whereabouts either by another frantic leap, or by a peculiar odour. I'm not sure which option I prefer.

Oh well. At least it's not a rat.

UPD: Turns out B. has dealt with it before he headed out to work -- apparently he managed to catch it in a paper towel and take it out. He claims it was "cute".

Date:	2008-10-12 16:19
Subject:	(Nearly) instant cakes
Security:	Public
Mood:	working

All the memes going around lately about the wonders of making chocolate cake in a cup make me think it's time to give a bit of airplay to the lost art of microwave baking. Not that it's a substitute for oven baking, but it's kind of fun -- and useful in a need-cake-NOW sort of emergency.

Back in the early 90s, giant microwave cookbooks roamed the Earth. There were no great recipes within them (alas), but there were certain rules for micro-baking that, with a bit of imagination, can be applied to adapt just about any cake recipe. These boiled down to the following:

1) Cut liquid by about a third. This means the mixture should be thicker than you're used to seeing, if you're adapting your own recipe.
2) Whatever you do, do not overcook -- the cooking process will finish as the cake cools.

This means you can pretty much take your favourite recipe, divide it by (say) 10, and mix it up in a mug, ramekin, or small bowl. Zap for 3 mins, and you're done. For example:

Microwave honey cake (for one, very impatient, person)

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons ground almonds
1/2 tablespoon plain flour
4-6 walnut halves, crushed in your hands (or chopped nuts of your choice)
1 egg
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or mixed spice, to dust

In a small bowl or mug, mix almond meal with flour and nuts. Using a fork, beat in the egg, then the honey. Microwave on full power for 2.5 to 3 mins. (No more, or it will dry out).

While still hot, dust top with half the cinnamon, turn upside down, spread with a bit more honey and dust with more cinnamon. Slice and eat.

Date:	2008-10-09 22:55
Subject:	Ghost. Opera Ghost.
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

It is just me, or does ALW's "officially revealed" title for the POTO sequel -- Love Never Dies -- sound like a porn version of a James Bond flick?

Seems Gerard Butler's newly-craggy face is all over the place in the UK these days (and I'm guessing not just here), predominantly gracing posters for films that are not, shall we say, deep and meaningful. Oh well, if that's his niche, fair enough, it certainly seems to work for him at the box office... but I really, really dislike his new hybrid accent. Particularly the LA-style rising tones on phrases that do *not* end in a question mark -- GB turns valley-girl. Ew.

To prove my point, may I refer you to exhibit A: an interview with Rotten Tomatoes about RockNRolla. Let's just say I miss "Dear Frankie". :-/

Date:	2008-09-24 20:51
Subject:	Two (guys) to tango
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper

I'm talking about tango the dance, not myself -- let's just get that, uh, straight (no pun intended). :D This little gem is from a 1977 film I'd never heard of, so I can only assume it wasn't a great hit at the time, but this scene has to be - well - seen.

Here's Rudolf Nureyev, no less, as the silent-film star Rudolph Valentino, doing an awesome tango with Anthony Dowell (now artistic director of the Royal Ballet, I believe) as Vaslav Nijinsky.

Dance fans, slashers, and generally people with an appreciation of dinner jackets -- enjoy!