Blog-hopping ...

ANYONE SEEN THAT FILM Six Degrees of Separation*, starring Will Smith when he was still Fresh Prince? It's based around the supposed "urban truth" that everybody knows everyone else by friend-of-a-friendships stretching back no more than six degrees. Well, I went bloghopping today, starting at Pink Ginger's, who I met through Dan and hopped and hopped via Barman, Lime, S and G-Man to name but four - saying hi every step of the way, you know me - until six blogs later I'd come almost back in a circle to Mom the Minx - Raymi's Mum. Which just goes to show what a small world this "blogosphere" really is.

*Incidentally that inspired a moviegame called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!

I am cooking intellectual pasta as I speak. I say pasta, actually the sauce bit is in an old slow-cooker I found about two years ago on the street. It did work then, so hopefully now it is mulling my mixed vegetable sauce to perfection. The recipe, incidentally is dead simple. Onions (+ garlic if liked: I do), mushrooms, courgettes, red peppers. Fried in that order. After five minutes add chopped plum tomatoes (or a tin if you're lazy or me). Simmer to perfection. Which is where this slowcooker comes in. Unusually I felt like cooking far more than eating so I'm experimenting. Also added a tad of babycorn, sugarsnap peas and baby carrots from frozen (see 2 days ago). They are horrible overcooked. A dash of this Arabic sauce called Maggi. (Arabic writing all over it, but made by one of the multinationals, Nestle's or something.) Actually I'm quite good at cooking, considering the effort I put into it. I don't understand people who can't figure out that fierce heat burns the outside, chopping big cooks longer, chopping small can leave you with mush ... you know - cooks' commonsense. But there you go, it's a mystic art!!

About my doorlock. I've just updated yesterday's post. The reason it was "unresponsive" when I got to it was that it already had been forced once and so was bashed out of alignment enough for my keys not to "take" ... I wasn't vandalizing for the sake of it!

Paterfamilias: you're coming on too late in local time. The last time I could begin a conversation would be 1.30am my time bc I have until 2am to finish it. If that's not good for you, try maybe 12 hours earlier or in between ... We will get to talk!!

翻译/Übersetzung/翻訳/번역/traduction/traduzione/tradução/traducción! Yeah, man! I'm all Babelfished up. Ruth provided me with Google Translate click-on flags (which include at least one language (Arabic) Babelfish don't do. Also Google's meant to be better. Does anyone know their (translation) url? I'd most appreciate it. As I'm unsure whether the html she sent me was one piece or so many individual pieces (one per flag).

Sidebar query: Does anybody know how I arrange my sidebar to have full-width elements (as now) interspersed with half-width ones (e.g. so I can have a New York and LA clock side by side - or whatever. Some people have loads of little icons for Technorati and all manner of blog-directories all pyramidded up. If I did that they'd appear in a pile. And take up far more room. Just wondering ...)

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O! BTW my clock, that "new kitchen clock" I was talking about is not in my kitchen at all. It is quite possibly opposite this and maybe up a bit. On my sidebar ... My blogclock. Know what I mean. So now if I mention local time y'all can see what I'm chatting about. From the Caribbean, North & South America I'm ahead. From central Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and most of the South Seas I'm behind. Africa: Ghana is the same (I think), South Africa 2 hours ahead or so. OK I've got brainache now so I'm gonna recline with a fizzy alcoholic beverage. Till later ...!!...

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STOP PRESS: Returned home to fantasticated saucey aromatixx: my sauce (more of a veggie stew) turned out well nice. At first I thought it was going to be horrible as it smelled of the mixed vegetables it actually was, but with a massive dash of ready-grated black pepper plus a few more drops of Maggi (which is a black sauce like Worcester or soy; you don't need much) ... & an Everest of cheese upon this and the fusilli (mature cheddar = a pasta essential!) it turned out well yummy all round. As tasty as my kitchen clock is tasteful. Almost like it was dollopped out by someone else. Yeah, man. Really nice. I'd trowel it all over your comments boxes if only I cyber-could. And if you didn't all like it, Ruth could make a wormery from it or add it to the rest of her manure-heap.!!...

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FIRST TIME I posted this up there was no comments box! (Glad I checked.) Had to highlight, copy and repost in a new box. Then all appeared as per normal. This seems to be happening all over Blogger this week. Ruth's latest post doesn't seem to have one. Raymi's exhibited the same phenomenon, only when I clicked on "borrow" the post reappeared with comments ...

Is it something to do with that new autosave function (grey box, beside "publish") that appeared briefly on mine then disappeared, I wonder?

Anyone else having this trouble?