Pig In The Kitchen

Yesterday's chicken korma proved palatable enough and preparations for today's truffle chips are well in hand - spuds have been peeled and the oil will go on when Sharon gets back from work. I'm a domestic god.

An interesting wine from Majestic to comment upon. I think it's the cheapest I've ever purchased from them and it's definitely the first time I've chosen a non vintage Vin de France there. I've always had an unjustified (but it was mine and I was sticking to it) prejudice against French reds but lately I have mellowed or more accurately my taste has mellowed and I like the everyday usability of lighter French reds over their harder New World cousins. As I have said before I do however have the palate of a stray dog - but a stray dog who knows what he likes.

Anyway the bottles in question - Pied Tanque. When all is said and done it was the label that won me over. But having now tested it out, I can say that it's passable stuff and makes a good workaday choice. Just to show my philistine side I can confirm that it is nice chilled.

It's either chorizo or chilli spiced sausages to go with the truffle chips. What do you think?

As I write this I am listening to the second One Day International between England and New Zealand. In the first England scored a scarcely credible four hundred. Today New Zealand have done much the same and England are making a good initial fist of chasing that target down. I have to accept that it is arguable that these improved scoring rates have been begotten by my bete noir, Twenty20. However I say it again - this mania for instant gratification endangers the joy that is test cricket. Having said that, I'm going to sit down with a glass of chilled Pied Tanque to watch the match whilst awaiting Sharon's return.

It's A Beautiful Day And I'm Cream Crackered

The reason? Well I felt a slight twinge in my calf when out running yesterday (not a full recurrence but I'm actually listening to what my body says to me) and that plus today's hottish weather led me to go for a swim, my first for some time.

My mood in transit to the baths was made lighter by hearing former teacher and all around good egg Ian Marchant on Radio 4. He, you will recall, is the reason I started this blog in the first place. So blame him.

Speaking of all around good eggs, today is the birthday of my brother, so many happy returns to WJR.

Yet again I have been good boy and prepared a meal for Sharon's return from gainful employment. Today it is a chicken korma made from scratch rather than from a jar. Tomorrow I plan posh sausages (code for Waitrose) with home made truffle chips. Admit it, you're impressed.

Cultural Exchange

As bid by our favourite poster ViperJohn, here are the expurgated highlights of the exploits of the Birmingham trade mission to Dusseldorf.

What a great place. We flew Germanwings which got the sick jokes for the weekend off to a flying start. The first night in Dusseldorf set the tone. We headed for the old town and moved easily between bars partaking of the local alt bier. We were back at the hotel for 1.30 but the hardiest of us were in the hotel bar until near 5.00. MH disgraced himself and invited scorn on all rugby players when he moved onto the Baileys. The Overgraduate brought the house down (well that is how he's choosing to recall it) with his oh so accurate rendering of M C Hammer's meisterwerk 'Hammer Time'. Much good sense was talked - of the type that ancient rugby players make a speciality. Brilliant night.

I was sharing a double with KF who claimed that my nocturnal writhing was such that he chose to sleep on the floor. I reckon he fell out of bed and didn't want to admit it. On Friday we took it relatively easy and worked out the lie of the waterfront land - it's mostly bars. We topped this off with a more than passable Lebanese meal.

Up latish on Saturday and forsook breakfast for early drinks in a scruffy but amiable bar where the assembled elderly locals were tucking into a fruhstuck of a mixed grill and schnapps. Who says the Germans don't have style? Onward from there on foot towards the old town, stopping only to have a sustaining beer in a Turkish bar with quite the most inept service in Europe. The afternoon took in more bars and a tram ride before most of us (certain members admitted fear of heights) ascended the 178 metres to the cocktail lounge atop the Rheinturm. MH and BH on the mojitos, OG cleansing his palate with a couple of pilseners.

Dusseldorf's finest

Saturday evening was one of those times when it all just fell into place. We timed it just right to grab a table in the Uerige brew-pub and thanks to an attentive waiter (you can see where that reputation for efficiency comes from) we never had to move from the big screen showing the Champions League final. There was even an Italian sitting next to us with whom we could share Juventus' pain. For me it was a pleasure to take in a whole game of football, something I do too infrequently. Played well it deserves that 'beautiful game' sobriquet. And boy do Barcelona play it well - supremely athletic and hugely skilful. A word though for Paul Pogba the tireless Juventus midfielder who was a giant in defeat. One of those nights. Thanks to CC, TW, PB, BH, MH and KF.

Sunday, scorching sun and a lot of walking between drinks before the evening flight back to Brum. Tired but elated would be the best way to describe my emotions. Good company can too easily be taken for granted, as can simple pleasures. As for Dusseldorf, you should go.

A Good Film. A Good Meal.

Two of my favourite actors in the same film - John Cusack and Alan Arkin. Do you know what it is yet? The dangerously dark Grosse Pointe Blank - a blood-spattered comedy about a hit man and his visit to his high school reunion. 7/10.

As for the good meal, well if you pressed me on my favourite ingredients I think belly pork, scallops and black pudding would all be up there in the top twenty. So high fives to the good people at The Cock Inn at Wishaw who have put all of them successfully together on one plate. The Cock Inn has always done a good job in my experience but that plateful on Monday was a cut above the old norm. Either I was very lucky or they've upped their game and judging by the reactions of Sharon and Number Two daughter to their meals, it seems to be the latter. Another 7/10. Oh and an interesting Romanian sauvignon blanc.

Mind you the food and drink left me heavy legged on Tuesday when I dragged myself out for a wind-swept run. Hard work. Better today though when I stayed out for seventy-three sun-kissed minutes. Tomorrow it is off with the lads (aged gents who ought to know better in truth) for Colin Cragg's fiftieth birthday.. we're going to Dusseldorf and before you ask, no I haven't a clue either. Auf wierdersehen for now.

What Did I Do To Deserve That?

I've been making a concerted effort to keep myself sound of body and mind. The body is catered for by the running which continues to go quite well. I didn't get out whilst in Anglesey last weekend and instead rather overfed and overwatered myself. Compensation came in the shape of seventy minutes up and down the local hills on Tuesday and three sharper efforts to round the week off. As for the old mind, I visited Waterstones to spend some vouchers and any bookshop visit always fills me with good intentions. Under this new ascetic regime I have largely foresworn the perils of daytime television (dangerously addictive) and instead got stuck into a variety of tomes. For most of my life I have read only one book at a a time but I have now adopted my father's method and I have two upstairs books and three downstairs on the go.  My reasoning is that if it is possible (as it is) to imbibe more than one television serial at a time then one can do the same with books. Yesterday I finished off Waugh's A Handful of Dust, quite simply a masterful novel, one I first encountered as a set text for English A level. The modern edition I have just finished includes as an appendix the alternative ending that Waugh was forced (for copyright reasons arising from the ownership of an original short story that went on to become the concluding chapter of the novel proper) to write for a serialised American edition. The author himself described it as a 'curiosity ' when it was appended to a 1963 reprint. 'Travesty' might be more apt and you rather suspect that Waugh bashed it out for the money, tongue admirably and firmly in his cheek.

Other books in the midst of which I find myself include Mrs Barrington's Life of Walter Bagehot, Atlas Shrugged (itself something of a curiosity but not unfascinating), Hearing Secret Harmonies and Jamaica Inn. Catholic tastes? That was rather the image I was going for.

Preferable to Blatter

Finally I get to what I meant to say and what you were entitled to expect from the heading of this post. I  did, between books, dip into the BBC News yesterday and I saw two reprehensible characters: that awful con-man Sepp Blatter was distancing himself from the chicanery at FIFA; Alex Salmond was giving  a withering speech in his new home, the House of Commons. Both in their way loathsome but there is an important distinction. Salmond is merely objectionable but acts within the law (even those he abhors). Blatter is either a kleptocrat or a massive idiot incapable of seeing beyond the end of his administrative nose. As I write this the good burghers of FIFA are voting on Blatter's continuation in office. Nobody is predicting that he will do other than survive. Hang your heads in shame.  

Man And Seascape

They're amongst my favourite things, the points where man and nature merge. Thus I like the bulky brutalism of the Wylfa nuclear power station against the North Anglesey coast. I will have to get used to calling it  Wylfa Newydd as the old magnox reactor is being superseded.

Yesterday we walked at a more subtle point of intervention, Penrhos Coastal Park - OS Landranger sheet 114, grid 275805. Car park borders shore before giving way to a tarmac path past the memorial to a local boy (he was hardly a man) who fell at Bluff Cove in The Falklands. The tarmac soon defers to rougher gravel paths laid through the woodland, which surrenders to the coastal path. And you stand on an unblemished beach with the cooling tower of Anglesey Aluminium behind you (the Park was endowed by that company) and peer across the bay to the great sea wall at Holyhead and witness a car ferry commencing its progress across the Irish Sea. All is unspoilt. It may change but my point, I think, is that change is not automatically bad. There is outline planning permission for the construction of a holiday park at the site. My instinct is that I like it as it is. My instinct is not infallible.

Of Food And Sea Air

At the old country estate for the weekend and spent yesterday doing a rather fabulous impression of nothing much before walking round to Red Wharf Bay for dinner at the Ship Inn. The food here is good - not cheap but a cut above average pub fare and served with a pleasing speed, not that they rush you away once you've eaten, you can sit and enjoy a second bottle of wine. We did. The choice of wines is pretty good and they boast that they are the only pub on the island with the Cask Marque. Certainly the pint of Adnam's I took as an aperitif was spot on. As for the food I had the lamb koftas (good though I could probably have handled one more - but I am a greedy boy) and Sharon had the smoked mackerel which she proclaimed very good. As is only right in a pub both dishes came with chunky chips. We both had a satisfyingly dark chocolate and beetroot (yes I did say beetroot) cake for pudding. Taxi home for five quid and then another bottle of wine whilst taking in the kitschfest that is Eurovision. As an antidote to that we caught the tail end of a broadcast of the incomparable Muse from the Radio One Big Weekend.

Off for a coastal walk soon and tonight is barbecue night. It's a hard life,