Chinese Curry Sauce Recipe: the net closes in! + Hillary for President!!

FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE MY HUNCH SEEMED TO BE RIGHT! Hillary is pulling through... I know lots of people see Hillary as rather strident, and Obama has the "likeable" vote, but Obama seems to have said little more than that he's going to "change things" ... Hillary already HAS changed things (as she keeps hammering on) ... I must admit she does have the air of a stateswoman - whether you like her or not. Sorry Hillary fans for those photos: when they came up on the image search I just couldn't resist!

NOW ON TO MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS: CURRY SAUCE. Chinese curry sauce, I might add. NOWHERE on the internet have I found even a vaguely satisfactory recipe for this. They all say basically "take garam masala or Madras curry powder and make a sauce out of it" - duh! If I wanted to make Indian curry I wouldn't specify Chinese would I? Now this Chinese curry has a secret ingredient and I'm pretty sure I'm zeroing in on it. This morning I chucked five-spice (which contains cinnamon, ginger, star anise, fenugreek (STOP PRESS: NO! fennel not fenugreek) and cloves) on to fried noodles - tried it and instantly the inimitable flavour of Chinese curry came up. So either it is just fivespice sauce, or it's a curry heavy on ginger and Star Anise (the only top tip I DID get from my Chinese curry secrets searching). I'm due to trot out the first experimental batch this afternoon so I'll let you know how I get on.

Am I right that this is a basic curry sauce recipe: stirfry onions and garlic in a little too much oil. Add spices to the oil. Fry for as long as possible (ie 15 minutes if you can) add water to this. Allow to simmer another 10 or 20 mins... and that's basically it? I also bought cornflour this morning but have no idea how to use it. (Maybe if I do I'll end up pulling faces like Hillary's.)

Wish me luck!

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Here are two specially good photoblogs:

1. Greek person's magickal Czech photos

2. Dutch person's mysterious morning photo/etc...

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Today's (campaign) video:
Hillary vs Obama

Water Chestnuts; Poor Britney Spears; Howling Hounds, etc...

POOR BRITNEY SPEARS! I have been meaning for quite a while to present her behaviour for "blogside" examination. I mean, what on earth is wrong with the woman? She's been regularly reported driving "wrongly" in her car. Driving round Los Angeles with your baby on your lap then saying it's "because you're country" doesn't really wash, Britney.

The most obvious cause of her odd goings-on would, of course be drugs. She certainly looks like she's on something. Legal or not it's surely something strong as well!

Repeatedly the scatty girl has failed to take and allegedly failed numerous court-appointed drugtests. The famously mysterious headshaving escapade was suposedly an attempt to thwart a proposed hairstrand analysis. The strand test, you must understand, goes into far more embarrassing detail than a simple urine or blood screen. Not only does it blare out what you've taken - but how much of it and how often... going back at least two months - potentially far longer. THAT's what got Britney and those clippers together... see what I mean now?

Surely though, even she could see that, by shaving her bonce coot-bald and garnering Alp-sized mounds of publicity even if she HAD taken drugs, even heroin (and I'm not saying she has) the scandal, rumour and speculation kicked up by all this has lost her out far more than she could ever have hoped to have "gained".

So what's behind poor Britney's increasingly "lost" and "odd" and frankly incomprehensible behaviour? All manner of speculation has been mooted. The most persistent pointer being (drink and drugs aside) that Britney is "bipolar" (that is manic-depressive to me and you) ... which would put down her irrational outbursts and oddball acting out as symptoms of "mania". I'm not so sure. (Well I'm not a psychiatrist either.) But surely if she IS taking even half the drugs she's alleged to, then her hyper episodes have nothing to do with any "disorder" and everything to do with a good oldfashioned drug-induced HIGH!

And now we hear she's supposed to be holed up with a slimeball Brit visa-dodging paparazzo and two of his chums. The guy in question has, according to the Sun newspaper, been stalking her for five months, has filmed her and got all manner of "revelations" out of her in recent days and is demanding a million dollar fee to reveal all... Honestly even I am beginning to think we've seen and heard enough already...

The worst incident of all happened last weekend when, facing the prospect of having to give back her children, who she'd taken in on an "access" visit, back to her ex-husband she freaked out totally, threatening to kill herself and wound up being carted off by ambulance to a mental hospital. This is perhaps the most lurid episode yet in this terribly sad publicly played out tale of personal decline. If she's not careful, Britney's going to lose her kids for good. And to whom? That spivvy rat Kevin Federline?

C'mon Britney! "Bipolar", drug-addict, whatever ~ you're better than that!

I HAVE DISCOVERED THE WORLD'S ULTIMATE BAYING HOUND! It's a rare (and real!) species called the New Guinea Singer. Reportedly the world's oldest breed of dog, and only semidomesticated, the New Guinea Bayer (as I like to call it) prefers "singing" a whistly howl - to their worldwide doggie cousins' traditional bark. You'll see the New Guinea Bayer on my Youtube screen of the Day. Or if you'd prefer to find out about the squealy swines in more detail (with more baying sqeezed into less time than ever before!) clickonthis and select the "listen again" option. Once you've done that you can minimize and the prog will play on while you can lope off bloghopping or emailing or doing whatever you please online.

I REALLY MUST GO TO THE CHINESE SUPERMARKET on an ingredients hunt one of these days. The ordinary supermarkets' "oriental" sections with the industrial blackbean sauces etc I've been chucking on my quick-chop chicken stirfries are hardly replete with the currymixes of my heart's desire... For example last week I looked everywhere for canned waterchestnuts, which I love and which are expensive... only to find waterchestnuts melanged with nasty cheap old beansprouts. Now I don't mind beansprouts but I'm not stupid. They are cheapo and common. Waterchestnuts are rarified and uncommon. I don't want gold mixed with dogs' doings!

Babycorn is another fave and also costly. For £1 you can get about 15 fresh ones - but usually packaged with mangetout. Though I must confess those are the deluxe mangetouts that go ultrasweet and yummy in mixed stirfry. My secret ingredient for that (as well as the controversial MSG) is a couple or three pinches of dustpepper, especially over the fried rice. Now there's a time for coarse ground pepper - I'd say it goes best on European dishes. But dustpepper (you know the working class type of pepper most of us used to sprinkle on our fondues in the 1970s) comes into its own on Chinese food. It adds that jazzy pep without getting obtrusive.

THOSE NAUGHTY GREMLINS! Remember I said I'd put down an extra Parmesan tube as the original - a urine-stinking toilet cubicle - had been taken over by Bashful and Itchy as a new bedroom. Well the naughty swines had taken to peeing and then sleeping in BOTH tubs. The tubby swines! They do look entertaining, specially when they poke their pink noses out in response to my nonsensical cooed greetings. Just like Pingpong the Chinese hamster (click here to see Youtube film) who had no fewer than FIVE nests in his old house at one time - my gremlins (and they do look just like minigremlins when they sit on their haunches) - have FOUR beds. The teabox, two Parmesan toilets and their strawberry Jaffa Cakes box. The boxes are going to have to be changed soon as their whole house pongs of pee-pee. They are funny critters. That teabox was so stashed up with birdseeds at one point they barely had room to sleep. (They love sleeping on their seeds. Weird creatures. Imagine bedding down for the night on the contents of your refrigerator!) I have to say they're wise to stash their dinner rather than leaving it out. I personally wouldn't trust those naughty wild mice not to sneak in and pinch bits of it...

MY MEMOIRS are crawling slowly along... Far more slowly than I'd like. I have to be incredibly careful not to miss anything out. Unlike blogging this writing is meant to be permanent and authoritative - I can't be quite so casual. Can't say "oh I was going totell you this or that but I can't remember so I'll fill you in later." You expect a precision and authority from the printed word that blogs don't always provide.

I know it doesn't always show thru my bouncy-bouncy writing style, but I am still feeling pretty down and exhausted and wading through honey and sleeping hours and hours each day. (Not just at night, but halfway through many of my daytimes too...) I am making effort to pull myself out of all - in line, I suppose, with my Resolutions that aren't really Resolutions.

Now I am exhausted. I have chicken in the fridge - chicken and mixed vegetable ciao maine is calling me. OK so I'm off: cheerio everyone!

AND LAST AND MOST CERTAINLY LEAST: THOSE YUKKY UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL "PRIMARIES" are blithering up the radio waves. And far too much in my view. Three floating voters were just on prevaracating on and on about who they might "favor". They Republican former mayor of NYC Giuliani seems to have pretty much dropped out. Hillary's trailing badly, so I hear, behind Obama. I know she's a highly controversial figure and that lots of people don't like her... but I have an inkling, a hunch, that she might somehow steal through and snatch that crown at the end!

PS What's all this crap about Obama being "black" - he's MIXED RACE - duh! ie just as WHITE as he is black!!

Veal Brains: Two for Ten Dollars

I KID YOU NOT. My local butcher is selling calves' brains (at first I thought it was ready-made microwaveable spaghetti bolognaise) two for five pounds or ten dollars US. I'm not sure why. Do people actually eat these things? (Maybe foreigners do~?) Ukk!

It is dark and cold. Christmas is over, though the council's special lights are still up along the main road. They promised us a dip in temperature over the last two days. Dip? Siberian subzero they should have said!

My "Chinese" takeaway cookery is coming along wizzingly. Best method for egg fry rice is definitely hollow out a "well" in the middle of rice in the pan, crack an egg into this "well", vandalize the egg with a fork, allow to begin cooking, then, when about half done, rapidly stir into the rest of the rice. This gives lovely ricey clumps and makes the eggs integral to the dish, rather than the other method, which basically just treats scrambled egg as yet another ingredient in the stir-fry...

I've not a lot to say today as I'm tired and bleak. Well a bit. We had a miserable morning: all wanting drugs and our favoured dealers switched off. (Dunno what's wrong with them.) I'm plotting my escape from all this scene so it's no great loss if they do all retire on me. Eventually I accompanied French Pascal on a ten minute walk to a place where I used to live... he was funny. Not one but TWO drug deals went on pretty openly before our eyes and he missed both of them. And HE calls ME dopey!!

On an "alternative" note I'm reading Leap of Faith: Memoirs of Queen Noor of Jordan. A fascinating book, especially if you're into Israeli-Palestine or Middle Eastern politics...

I hope your day went better than mine everyone. Peace!

Video of the Day:
Queen Noor of Jordan: Life in Pictures

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Come here for some really entertaining pictures...

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"BAYING ALERT!" 100% TRUE! I heard a radio documentary this evening about the New Guinea singing dog which is a rare bordering on endangered breed and said to be the oldest breed of dog alive today ... (clickonit for the Radio 4 info page...)

I've got a video of New Guinea singing dogs on my pets blog which I shall post up here tomorrow...

Hey I've just found the New Guinea Singing Dogs Conservation Society link (http://www.canineworld.com/ngsdcs) ~ which has a silhouetted doggie baying soulfully as its trademark ... I am in my element ("LOL"!!!)

(Click here for a link with one of the furry bayers lying down...)

Szechuan Chicken Egg Fry Rice with MSG

YES! FINALLY I MADE EGG FRIED RICE proper. There are two ways of doing this and I tried both.

You must boil basmati rice properly and according to the instructions. ie use boil-in-bag as I did or the 1 cup/2 cup method (twice the volume of water to rice). If you overcook the rice it will be too mushy and sticky.

Drain and heap out the cooked rice into an uncovered bowl. Refrigerate 30 mins to 1 hr (or overnight if required but beware; keeping cooked rice for days on end can breed a foodpoisoning fungus all over it!)

Method 1: Separate egg. Crack egg into a glass. Whisk with fork until thoroughly yellow. Heat ring medium-high. Blob butter/oil into pan. Bring to heat. Pour on egg. Within 30 seconds it's cooking. Scramble it. Literally 1 min later it is done. You add this egg midway or towards the end of rice-frying (too early and it gets so mixed in you merely have yellow rice without visible eggy bits).

Method 2: you chuck rice into pan or wok. If doing mixed vegetable fried rice fry these first THEN add rice. When rice has been fried for a minute or two: make a hollow in the middle of the rice. Crack an egg right into this. Immediately bash it up with chopsticks or a fork. Allow the egg to half-cook, then quickly stir into the rice.

I think the second method works better - it looks more like the way the takeaway does it.

As for monosodium glutamate (MSG) - this is a fine crystalline powder - like salt. The flavour is slightly salty, but warmer. They say that MSG "intensifies" flavours. I would say it smooths them over, like a magic factor-x. Making things like fried rice less bland. (It doesn't go nearly so well with boiled rice.) I added one pinch to the rice-water before boiling (so it was right spread throughout). And two pinches to rice just before frying. Lots of people say MSG is bad for you. But on the plus side it does give egg fried rice that "direct from the takeaway" buzz.

The Szechuan chicken was just plain chicken stir fry with Morrison's own Szechuan sauce piled on. I wasn't too impressed by the quality of this sauce. It had needlessly demoralized vegetable traces in it. And more to the point I found out that "szechuan" was the horrible spicy yet sweet and sour stuff I got fobbed off with by the takeaway the other day when I'd ordered Thai chicken with babycorn. I love spicy but loathe sweet and sour. Urgh.

I want to learn my own saucemaking.

Tomorrow: egg-sucking for the experienced cook.

The Pink Noses

THAT IS A DOGGIE'S NOSE. But tonight I came to my tubbers and called "come out you fatty pink noses! Come out you furry old gremlin swines!" ~~ sure enough, direct from the teabox two tubby pink noses appeared. Sergeant Itchy and Bashful sure enough, who sleep together. Spherical, who I am not sure is related to them, sometimes sleeps separately in the "jagoda" strawberry Jaffa Cakes box, sometimes sleeps with the other two. When it's particularly cold Bashful and Itchy bed down in the Parmesan lavatory (now bedroom complete with cotton wool provided by me). I've put down another Parmesan tube for them to peepee in ...

As you can see not much news. I've not been sleeping too much lately... Last night I seemed to catch up bigstyle. Hours and hours of vivid-dreamy sleep... the dreams quite confused (be thankful: else I'd be posting them in blow-by-blow detail); but ended up with me and a princess in the Romanovs' (that is the late Tsars of Russia's) Winter Palace running through ballrooms escaping some secret adversary.... Not quite sure how/wherefore/why/etc... but hey it was "just" a dream...

The Chinese cooking is coming on dreamily. I've yet to remember to make the scrambled eggs for the rice and so the present fried rice is egg-free. But I've made a fantastic mixed vegetable one and my chicken blackbean sauce is coming on whizzingly...

AND SO! The first weekend of 2008 approacheth. What am I saying: it's here! Have a great one everybody and don't get too exhausted.

Take care

Gleds
xxx
xx
xx

Video:
Queen Alexandra: the Danish aristocrat who became England's darling...

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Here's a really good blog about perfume.

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"Unlawful rendition"... sorry "combatants"... have a look at Damp Dog's blog to see what George W Bush has made of America's laws...

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PS Re: monosodium glutamate/MSG I've discovered that to jazz up one portion fried rice for example you would add a quarter to a third of a flat teaspoon (ie a large pinch or so). Do NOT be taken in by the packet instructions saying to put on afterwards this means even with a bit of tossing it's not properly mixed in and will stay in the mouth long afterwards leaving a horrid aftertaste. NO! The best thing is to add it in the last five mins of cooking and make sure thorougly mixed in. MSG is essential not to all dishes but to egg fried rice in particular to make "just like from the Chinese" flavoured for sure...

I'm a little dubious about using this stuff at all.


Here's the wikipedia article on MSG which gives some cons
Here's the "glutamate association"'s website which gives some pros!

Read well! And nb I am NOT recommending the stuff. I really don't know too much about it...

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O righto te! It's nearly 9pm and I've just had my special "leftovers" chicken-peppers-blackbean sauce mixed vegetable fry rice ~ ALL cooked myself and gleddered specially into specially saved plastic microwaveable Chinese takeaway cartons* for added authenticity... Now that I've finished I've had a real yen for Cadbury's Mini Eggs (100g). Now if you live outside the old British colonial "axis" you may not be aware of Cadbury's chocolate but let me tell you they make the best milk chocolate in the world. Loverrly-doverrly. Best dark choc, as I said yesterday, is in my opinion Ritter Sport.

*in the UK, takeaway cartons tend to be either foil with waxed card tops like this; or microwaveable plastic. Not posh origami-style like these American ones ...

Bon appetit everyone and have a lovelly weekend!

Fried Lice Nice; Mini Eggs Are Back!

YET AGAIN I have mysteriously managed to cook a meal just like the Chinese... I always knew they knocked out marvellous dishes with zero effort, but seemed to believe the magic lay ... I dunno where ..??... perhaps in their ability to shout in Chinese while tossing woks over metre-high flames. Or something. Tonight I successfully managed fried rice (no eggs; I saved that pleasure for later). And I must reprimand the authors of online Chinese recipes. If you don't specify "boil the rice first and leave in fridge to dry out for an hour" someone like me is not going to know that! Well that's how I did my rice. Boiled first. Left uncovered in fridge for one hour. Did mixed vegetable stirfry. (Onions, btw are NOT part of takeaway mix vegetable fry rice, at least not round here.) Mine was carrots, mushrooms, peas. I'd have chucked in babycorn if I had any... Then I repeated my chicken and blackbean sauce trick, but added onions to THAT. Far nicer. Wahey!

AND ON TO CHOCOLATE. Cadbury's Mini Eggs are back. Very nice they are too. Cadbury's inimitable (milk) chocolate (cannot be replicated). In a yummy crisp sugar shell. Goes very nicely with a cup of tea (in my opinion). Best dark chocolate is Ritter Dark Whole Hazelnuts (50% cocoa solids). You can click here to see it - look at the bottom right hand corner. Yummmm.

Sorry for the blabber I am fantasizing about chocolate I have to go in case someone buys all the 100g packs of Mini Eggs. They only had 40 left last time I checked...

PS Hamsters really like chocolate!

Chicken with Green Peppers and Black Bean Sauce

YESTERDAY I made the all-famous chicken green peppers (actually, mine were red) in blackbean sauce with rice and peas. Eggfried rice I try later today...
Here's how I did it.
Ingredients:
(SERVES ONE:~~)
1 lb (about 450g) boneless chicken breast
One red bellpepper
One jar Sainsbury's own blackbean sauce
One sachet Uncle Ben's boil in bag basmati rice (this actually serves 2 so if you are sad and lonely like me just save 2nd half in fridge for tomorrow)
Stork Margarine for frying (check that the marge you use has at least 60% fat content; otherwise you'll end up with a pan full of spitting oilwater which needs frying off first. Posh people with cooking oil already in their houses are better off using that...)
Handful frozen peas.
(I added peas to the rice as boiled is so boring...)
Originally I tried to have the rice boiling and the chicken frying simultaneously. However, after a brief burst of heat and ten minutes with neither pan coming to boil I realized my cooker fuse must have gone yet again!
Desperately I sought out a butterknife to undo plug.
Philips crew on plug too fine for my knife.
Eventually I used chicken-chopping knife to open out plug.
Removed fuse. Toyed briefly with idea of placing tinfoil in its place. Whole idea seemed too dangerous so I replaced fuse and tried again with just one electric ring on.
Yes. It worked. Boiled "in-bag" rice for ten minutes. Five minutes into this add a handful of frozen peas. Do this bit by bit over about a minute and their frozenness won't impair the boiling process.
Drain rice and peas pan.
Chicken:
Cut it into thin chopstick-manageable strips.
I was shocked how much like smoked salmon the raw chicken appeared, and how easily my characteristically blunt knife sliced on in! My hands were left really sticky from handling this meat. But I licked them clean soon enough (joke!) In fact I was so paranoid about having handled raw chicken everything that had been near it got treble washed with a brand new scrubber!
Bring oil to boil first and chuck chicken straight in.
Fry for a good ten minutes until browning very slightly. In the takeaway (and remember this is authentic takeaway food, not authentic food from China!) they never spice Chicken in the wok (or pan if you're me) because the flavouring's in the sauces which come on last.
When you're sure chicken's thoroughly cooked (test by cutting the biggest bit) add chopped bellpepper. One pepper per portion is required. Fry for two minutes.
Add enough blackbean sauce to totally cover entire contents of pan (about a quarter or third of a jar (if you're stingy you can add less and top up with water (would I do a thing like that?))) Cook in for about 2 mins.
~Arrk! Nearly forgot. Added tiny pinch chili at end of chicken/peppers cooking.
Eat.
Seriously I am not that easily impressed especially by my own "culinary" efforts but what I conjured last night was JUST THE SAME as the local Chinese for a THIRD of the price.
Wooooh!!

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FRIED RICE: does anybody have a good recipe for this?
Do you fry straight-from-the-packet rice directly in oil?
Or do you cook rice first in water?
Here's a recipe for mixed vegetable fried rice but it states rice should be cooked first. The Chinese recipes I dug up yesterday (eg this one) seemed to imply raw rice should be fried... can you really do this?

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!

My Vision

LAUNDRETTA INSISTS she has found a dead rat in her room. I don't believe this, but I don't like it. Because talk of rats is liable to mobilize Evilstein to put rodenticide everywhere. And having three baby gremlins (Itchy-Bashful-Spherical) and a furry freight train (Pingpong) under my auspices, I cannot have poisons left lying round my room. If I thought we really did have rats I'd be the first one to go mentalist. Rats eat smaller rodents - and that would especially include tubby Roborovskis who don't bite and, living Hannibal Lecter-style within four walls of glass, have nowhere to run... Not to worry: the proliferation of wild mice in here tells another story. Mice only thrive where rats are absent. And rats are most certainly absent from our midnight-scuttling, all-squeaking, all-shrilling mousery of a house!

FIVE MINUTES til appointed appointment time and here I am in the junkies' waiting room. Full of fellow clients with snivels. Walls choc-full of posters warning us of injections, infections and crack burns. Table strewn with dated magazines. (Shockingly lower class selection: the private clinic I briefly attended had Time magazine, Vanity Fair and Tatler! And, along one wall, shelves upon shelves of "borrow for free but please return and do not sell on" (well it doesn't exactly say that but may as well do: everything's prominently branded in theft-deterring rubber stamp...) Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre... among a 1960s Encyclopedia of Photography, The Piano Teacher, a novel by Elfriede Jelinek and Queen Noor of Jordan's memoirs: Leap of Faith. I purloined the last of these, plus Jane Eyre.

VISION. I'VE GOT SOME of my vision back since the New Year and posting those Not Really Resolutions (that strangely I have since found myself working towards: strange what "no pressure" can do...)

Each new day is a gift and a chance to effect changes. I used to really feel this. Actually, without getting too sobworthy, I finally grasped this fact some years ago in one of the most lost and forlorn times of my entire existence. I wasn't a junkie, and yet in my foolhardy quest for new experience, I had somehow got myself invited back home (to a nasty flat on an infamous estate or "project" as New Yorkers would put it). I had put £5 into a £20 bag, held out my arm and let myself be injected with this £5 hit of heroin in one...

All I remember was remarking how "good" the gear was... and dissolving into a dazzled protracted unconsciousness... surfacing time and again in near-amnesiac fuge to ask where I was. Finally breaking the surface of my dreams to find myself laid out under a clinical striplight. The metal handles of a trolley gleamed on either side of me. "What happened?" I had just asked (a strange snapshot of memory stretching into the shallowest layer of my personal haze). A nurse was telling me, not for the first time I was somehow sure, "You overdosed on heroin. You're in hospital." Bang! Suddenly I was back. And unable to digest these facts... I slipped slightly back into the warm dreams of my oceanic sleep...

There are ODs and there are ODs. I really had OD'd. For despite having been narcan'd to bring me round, I had somehow stayed unconscious or at least in white-out, for fifteen hours or longer: I had been given the heroin injection around midnight. Now it was late afternoon.

When a nurse informed me: "We want to keep you in overnight because we were worried about your breathing," I didn't argue. Merely lay in bed for hours longer. Repeatedly dunking back under warm bath-temperature water... In my alternative state I floated into an infinite haze of poppy-pollen gold. I was floating in the centre of the sun. Glowing yet not burning.

It was a pleasant place to be. The nearest place to "heaven" that drugs had got me thus far, in fact. For days afterwards I just wanted to return to this timeless, placeless place, realized that I couldn't; and cried.

Later on in the evening I got wheeled up to a ward, where, despite all that time spent flat out, I slept like a log all night.

Next day, when showering, I discovered multicoloured sensors stuck all over my torso. The same ones that feed into that machine we all know from Casualty and ER, the one that goes bleep-bleep and tells shocked relatives and associates how dangerously ill you really are.

I told no-one of my experience. Not family. Not friends.

Afterwards I was desperately upset and alone. So upset in fact, that I only wished for the issues this whole nightmare had stirred up to go away. To forget them, totally and utterly, for ever.

What irony: years of craving Death and now it had come so close without my willing it I was falling apart with the trauma of it all!

It was now that I learnt that life is precious. Life really is a gift. Not a chore, not an imposition. That each day is a wonder and a privilege. And that the meaning of life is appreciating the fact.

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OK FOLKS, it's getting late and I've raw chicken fillet, a tub of black bean sauce, a red pepper (sweeter than a green one) and a boil-in-bag sachet of basmati rice (rather unadventurously I'm trying boiled maybe specked with peas if I've still got some...) as well as chili powder, monosodium glutamate ("MSG") and light soy sauce... wish me luck, for "learning to cook just like the Chinese takeaway" starts today. Wahey!!

If you're curious as I was, however, here's a recipe for Chinese egg fried rice.

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Today's music:
The Prodigy: Everybody in the Place
...= my favourite piece of "commercial" rave ..!

First Day of Tomorrow!

2008. Here we are. Fourteen hours into the new year already and it's all change..!!.. NOT!¬

ACTUALLY I FEEL QUITE INVIGORATED AND INSPIRED today... to rise, like the cream or scum that I am right up to that top where I belong... onwards and upwards!!

My Mum rang me at 00:04 hrs from intellectual France wishing me a happy one. She said she and Brian (her husband) had done it with champagne and massive stacks of oysters. (Well there is an R in the month.) I told her I'd done it with a cheese roll and a can of cyder and she laughed.

Yesterday's Thai babycorn green leaves chicken from the Chinese takeaway was far from inspiring. I couldn't believe they had the cheek to do what they actually did... What I basically got was one container normal fry rice - no prob. The other container even before I opened it... couldn't help but remark to myself how very bright pink it was... exceedingly so. It was not Thai at all. What they had done is take a standard industrial, over-coloured Chinese sweet and sour sauce (which I loathe. I can't stand sweet and sour; as well as being the most cliche'd westernized shorthand for oriental food, the taste of boiled sweets really does not go with fried chicken... anyway... in this psychedelically bright pink sweet and sour they'd tipped another sauce. This one was pretty spicy and nice. So spicy in fact that it drowned out sweet and sour enough that I didn't take the whole thing straight back and complain. But there were literally 3 tiny green spinach leaves. And the baby corn were limp and wilty and so obviously long past their best it was horrible. I really am going to have to have a word with them about that it was well substandard...

Anyway: all this talk of Eastern food has got me pondering: and I present!:~

The Fantasy Chopstick Chinese and Thai Takeaway!!

Sample menu:
Try the Squatting Dragon set meal!:~~

Shi Tibum Chicken with Faast Pu Sauce
Big Pong Pork with Run Toy Let Dressings
with complimentary Ae Ki Be Li pancake rolls
Optional recommended:
(Northern Thai) Ru Ni Spla Ta Yuk Yuk curry (warning: extra hot!)
or an equivalent "dish" from the south (actually only a large tureen will hold it:)
King Prawn and Squid Special Go Khrap Cuiq
or perhaps try the even hotter:
King Prawns Fiil Laik Dai (it's what the prawns died of: comes up even quicker than it went down...)

I hope that amused y'all...

EVILSTEIN's "fixed" the front door (yet again) and done it so badly that the inner mechanism fails to engage with the outer keyturny chamber or latchyflick knob. Meaning that I spent ten minutes confronted last night by a heavy thunky front door that had locked me in... and only judicious excavations with a pea-fork would finally dislodge the Yale bolt from its bolthole... even then it proved to have jammed. I unjammed it by forcing it and then something went click inside and the lock was totally disengaged. Meaning the handle just turned fatuously round and round without unlocking anything. And the key turned round and round and even worse got stuck! Thankfully bashing the (open-doored) lock-part sideways released this. But imagine coming back at 2am on the street. Locked out! With your keys! And to add insult to injury: the door grabs hold of said keys and will not let them go! Hopefully this will happen to Gnomenstein..!! (haha!!)

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"Charmed I'm sure" as my grandmother's generation used to say...

Now I must go and compose to great literary themes (ie the tale of my life - what could be grander than that..?!? (lots of things actually: but hey!))

and if I get stuck I'll just have poor Gwendolina, locked in the kitchen for her misbehaviour, baying sorrowfully at the pale striplight and fruitlessly trying to nudge her giant snout between the sink unit and cooker to retrieve a dropt piece of bacon...

righty-ho!
hope the new one's going good Everyone

did anyone actually get a hangover? if so please do tell how/wherefore/etc etc in my comments: c'mon!!

***

I've found two magnificent "videos of the day"~~~
1: Mr Putin: Why Can't All Men Be Like You (Russian girlgroup political promo for the revered Dictator)
2: Shock News: Cigarettes are Good For You!

Resolutions!

DO YOU LIKE PRINCESS MARGARET (the late Princess Margaret) with her drink and fag? I was sure every other photo I'd find would have her with drink in one hand, cig in the other: that's how I remember her. Seems in actuality she was more discreet than that - as you can see the rum-&-Coke's been quickly stashed behind her and the fag put down in the bottom of the frame but not quite out of shot... Rumour even had it that Princess Margo's drunken dropped Dunhill that sparked the great Windsor Castle fire of 1992 though Buckingham Palace still vigorously denies this ...

Actually I am writing this on Sunday night the 30th of December. And I am all forlorn and lost-feeling and depressed. Hmmm. Also I've had the heating on and working so very successfully I am now sweltering...

Well, whatever: on to Resolutions.

I don't actually make New Year's resolutions these days, having always believed that just doing things, whatever the time of year is by far the best course of action. Also, January 1st is but an arbitrary date to me. I've always felt my personal New Year began around September - in line with the academic year.

Having said all that, here are some things I'd like to accomplish in 2008:

~ Finish Memoirs
~ Write Baying Gwendolina novel
~ Get 1000 hits a day on blog (as if - I think it would be easier to sell five million books and at least I'd get paid handsomely for that)
~ Learn to cook just like Chinese takeaway (and save £££s)
~ Move out of present craphole where I live (by choice; not eviction)
~ Cease all nonprescribed drugtaking and immoderate drinking
~ Give up smoking

If I manage just one of these I'll call it an achievement; all 7 and it's a genuine miracle!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008 EVERYONE!
MAY IT BE FAR BETTER THAN YUKKY OLD 2007!!

Aargh! I am sposed to finish here. And yet the emptiness is killing me. So here's a poem I really like. (From Shakespeare.)

Fear no more the heat of the sun
nor the furious winter's rages;
thou thy wordly task hast done,
home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown of the great
thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat;
to thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physick must,
as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;
fear not slander, censure rash;
thou has finished joy and moan.
All lovers young, all lovers must
consign to thee and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee
nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee;
nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consumation have
and renownèd be thy grave.

Cymbeline 4:2:259-282


The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
he makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside the still waters.
He resores my soul;
he leads me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the prescence of my enemies;
you annoint my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I will dwell in the house of God
for ever.

Psalm 23


R: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
J: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
which mannerly devotion shows in this;
for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
R: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
J: Aye, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
R: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
J: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
R: Then move not while my prayer's effect I take. - (they kiss; woo!)

from Romeo and Juliet 1:5:93-106...

After 3am

I KNOW WHAT my real Resolution should be: to have some respect for myself. Because some couple of years ago, feeling suicidal and yet unwilling, when it came to it, to actually perform the act. Though even the train drivers (well, one driver in particular somehow saw into my eyes at 90+ mph. I wasn't being stupid, either. Wasn't acting out or hanging off the edge of the platform.) He just saw my eyes and frantically waved his arms across each other as if to say "DON'T!"

Something else along those lines happened another time.

And I lost all respect formyself. Let everything go. RAtcheted up my beloved bank account, which allowed me a Visa debit card with holographic flying wings, right far past the max until the entire account was suspended on me. I had kept that card through thick and think and the pits of homelessness and addiction. It represented my future and a nominal place as a respectable member of society. I was the ONLY junkie I knew who'd managed to hold on to such a relic of past life. Most had never had Visa cards. Because, being fulltime junkies since 18 or even 16, they'd never had jobs or normal lives...

I used to cradle this Visa card in my hand, as I slouched on a damp mattress all alone by flickering candle light in a raindripping cavern of an abandoned industrial building. I would tilt the card and watch the birdie flying free.

While I lived out this subterranean life...

And every day, when I woke I felt like I was lying face-down on the pavement, banging my head on the ground. "This does not work. I cannot do this any more."

And so I hit rock bottom every day. And yet lived on.

FOR MY SINS.

***

Video of the Day:
Queens' Speeches Go International -
This one is the:
Dutch Queen's Speech!!

***

I was going to post lots more blarble but I've got Thai chicken babycorn egg fly lice wafting mysterious oriental aromas out of a plastic bag so I must go back and devour it!!

***

Meanwhile, New Year has kicked off in Australia, New Zealand and many South Sea Islands already. It's nine minutes to 5pm as I write... Japan to get it very soon... America and Canada, you are still late morning in New York and the eastern seaboard; not even 9am in Vancouver and LA...

I will not be able to get to everybody's pages in time to say this individually, so I'll say it again here:-

HAVE A MARVELLOUS 2008 EVERYBODY!!!

STOP PRESS ~ 19/01/10 ~ someone put the most disgusting picture on my hyperlink here. If you click on this you either get needle and candle or a starfish. (Clue: not sea variety...)

Gledwood Has Images

YES! To celebrate the amazing future of 2008 I am adding lots of possibly irrelevant images to my daily blog. Do you like this hammy? He looks just like my "8 miles a night" ratwheelrunner Pandable, who lived till three-and-a-half and is hopefully still running the great rat's wheel in the sky as we speak.

Yeah!!

ps have a scroll down for "witty" visual comments on the week's "themes" ...

Sunday Slumber

IT'S AROUND THREE THIRTY Sunday afternoon. I am listening to Roald Dahl's The Witches on the radio via the wonders of internet technology. In a minute I am due to go up Mother Hubbs's house. I still look scruffy because my coat's a bit dirty but all my clothes are fresh and clean thanks to my efforts with a bucket, hot water and washing up liquid to get them clean and a cooker top, wok (as giant paper weight thing) and kitchen cupboard as drying board. One certain item made the water run nearly black, but I got it sunlight-fresh again...

Typical me describing Princess Diana's old home yesterday in all it's odd taste I forgot to say how I personally thought the Palace (who aparently have a giant central furniture and rugs store) had deliberately given Diana mismatched stuff. I honestly can't see how she'd have chosen such odd and clashing styles herself.

By the way, on clicking the Wedgwood link I found my favourite design for plates/cups/tureens etc. It is called Florentine Turquoise. Plates are "only" £50/$100 each, so ... hmmm, yeah... a full "service" might set "one" back £2000...

The poem was a joke! It comes from Shakespeare's Passionate Pilgrim... I just wanted to see if anyone recognized it!!

I slept for hours and hours last night and had so many odd dreams.... you will be relieved I am sure to hear that I can barely remember one of them, so no dream-posting today!

Righto I had better go it is getting late and I really don't feel well. I don't know why...

New Year's Eve tomorrow. Wahey!!

***

Video:
Chinese TV Commercial: Automatic Dr

Cheese and Onion Rolls

LOVELY CHEESE AND ONION ROLLS! The cheese and onion being baked upon t' top. These I am devouring with intellectual parsley French cheese and garlic "le roulé". It's v nice but the robos prefer it without the garlicky cream cheese. Neither they nor Pingpong the Chinese hammy can abide garlick. They don't like ginger biscuits either.

My tiny Tubbies TM are so cute I nearly cried. Intruding upon their enclosed tartanness, I witnessed their wheel a-spinning wildly. On closer look I saw all three tubbies a-rambling at once. One hangs on and a flash of white belly flares around and round and round until the poor robo manages to unhook herself...

Bad news from Yorkshire: a 13 month old baby boy named Archie Lee was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog in Wakefield yesterday. The infant was being looked after by his 16 year-old aunt, who went upstairs just for one minute. Meanwhile a seven year-old girl, also in the house, took the babe outside to pet said doggie. The 14-stone rottweiler sprang and grabbed the child in its powerful jaws and literally tore him apart. The 16 year-old auntie ran down and bravelly tried to grab the child back but to no avail. Realizing she had failed she called the emergency services. Armed police arrived within six minutes and shot the dog dead. Sadly the little boy died in hospital later that night.

In the library today I found a book called The Way We Were by Paul Burrel, Princess Diana's flunky butler (her "rock"). Among the blah-blah-blahs in the centre pages are pictures of the late Diana's home at Kensington Palace. Man! I was shocked! This woman, an international "icon" of style... had absolutely no style at all when it came to personal interior decor. Honestly it looks like Jack and Vera Duckworth's lottery winning mansion ... Take a room-by-room tour:~

Dressing Room: Walls crabmeat pink, curtains pea green with spaghetti white strips. Pea green carpet with crabmeat splotches.

Sitting Room: Cheap white rug with pink-and-blue pastel squares. Nasty blue-red-and-butter wallpaper colours tightly meshed together giving overall appearance of a nasty 1970s kipper tie. Middleclass dollshouse windows. Champagne chaise. Cobalt blue curtains. Magnolia shelves along one wall against Barbara Cartland shocking pink paintwork.

Dining Room Deep red walls. White crisscross Hamptons Holiday Home style rug. Round table with Daz-white plain cloth. Totally mismatched bamboo garden dining chairs.

Drawing Room Yellow walls. Same middle class windows as "sitting" room now with red ruffy curtains atop and around. Pea green satin sofas with red and yellow cushions. Other chairs - crabmeat pink and champagne. Arabesque rug in white with pink-blue-green flowers-&-stems stylee swirls. Totally mismatched dark mahogany tables and drawers plonked here and there atop it. And most clashing of all a floor to ceiling silk mediaeval style pastoral tapestry.

Staircase: Yellow walls. White detailing "Wedgwood" style. Nasty post-Victorian splashy paintings spaced irregularly up the stairs...

Nasty business!

How does everyone like my "rude" poem? 1st one I have copied up for ages. Hasn't the verse matured? And the style improved? Since the last poesies I posted?

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
and scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
when Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
a longing tarriance for Adonis made
under an osier growing by a brook,
a brook where Adon used to cool his spleen.
Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
for his approach that often there had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
and stood stark naked on the brook's green brim.
The sun looked on the world with glorious eye,
yet not so wistly as this queen on him.
He, spying her, bounced in whereas he stood;
"O Jove!" quoth she. "Why was I not a flood?"


***

(Saturday)
Video:
HM the Queen's first televised Message to the Nation 1957

***

See some wonderfully atmospheric seaside photos from the North Yorks town of Whitby ...

RIP Benazir; Predictions for Next Year...

SO POOR BENAZIR BHUTTO, former 1980s Prime Minister of Pakistan (and international best drest leader. Far funkier choice of outfits than Margaret Thatcher who was her contemporary)... was assassinated yesterday. Though the Pakistani government claim she wasn't shot at all, but fell and fatally clonked her head as bullets flew all around, her assailant subsequently blew himself up killing twenty bystanders. Whatever the precise cause, the lady is dead. I was wondering why on earth she went for Prime Minister when she could have been President, but have just discovered that the consitution of Pakistan supposedly places President as Queen-like figurehead with the PM holding the true reins of power. Some dictator-style Presidents, like Musharraf, have over the years, altered the constitution to their own ends to allow themselves to be President and All Powerful.

Valium Marilyn took me out for Chinese food tonight. Chicken-capsicums-blackbean-sauce-mound-of-lice for me. Very nice. Pad Thai for her. I could have done with a side-order of heroin, I must say, but hey. Lovely food, but neither of us could finish it and I ended up taking half mine home in a doggie bag!

Now Xmas is over I feel like the world. Drab and down. And overinclined to doze... I hope everyone else is OK. Most of you seem still to be off away on holidays...

Anyway: New Year's next week; here are my World Predictions for 2008:-

~ US dollar to decline further, maybe to $2.50 to the £ sterling, but to bottom out. Euro gains increasing favour as world reserve currency

~ Hilary Clinton to be US President (nobody's even heard of the Republican contenders over here)

~ As of February it's Chinese Year of the Rat, my own sign and supposedly my year. I shall get a publishing deal for my memoirs and the Baying Gwendolina novel (had to get "baying" somehow into 2008 predictions haha!!)

~ Violence and disorder spread across Britain's streets

~ Worldwide oil and fuel crisis deepens

~ Spherical, my tubbiest robo, at last gets genuinely pregnant

~ Osama Bin Laden captured - dead.

Video of the Day
Obituary of Ronnie Barker, my favourite comedian of all ...

(Thursday) Day After Boxing Day 2007

IT SAYS FRIDAY AS I TAPPED THIS IN AFTER MIDNIGHT...

THOSE PONGEROVSKIS ARE DOZING IN THEIR TEABOX IN DISGRACE. Whenever I dare venture a hand inside, Sergeant Itchy wakes like a light flicking on and glares reprimandingly at me. "Whatever you're thinking, don't bother. We're on to you." She gets more like Spherical every day.

Last time I poked my head in the tartan I kept whispering "hello you little Porkshires. Hello hello!" in the same tones that might have a puppydog scampering this way and that yapping (and maybe even "baying"~haha!). Then out come the three pink noses followed directly by their beady-eyed mini Porkshire terriers' faces. Then they're scampering about this a-way and that, all excited. And Bashful's following my fingers really closely, guaging which moment to seize to bite!

***

As you can see, not a lot doin' today. Actually when I last did look there was Robo-jamboree going on. One leaping out of the "jagoda" Jaffacakes box, another squashed down the magic-wand tube and violently gnawing at the Parmesan Toilet's door. Then out of the toilet Itchy springs all guiltily (again). I dunno what has got into them.

***

I did hear a very inspiring radio interview-cum-feature by Alvin Hall who is an American moneyman person who does TV and radio features on business and finance over here (dunno if he is well-known in America at all!) anyway this was on the subject of the American rapper Jay Zee or Jay Z* if you want to be cool (but Z says zed to me!)

Funny: when I was at school the only thing I wanted to be was very rich and successful yet now I'm poor and unsuccessful. But JZ fought his way up from dealing drugs on the drug-ridden streets to rapperstardom to massive success with clothing lines and many many hiphop-oriented endorsement deals in the US. So much so that he was worth $350 million last year which isn't bad.

Now I have to "fight" my way up to the top. But perhaps not much "fighting" is to be done at all: the top is my natural place. Scum, just like cream always floats right up there soon enough!

***

Nothing else to say: I spent most of the day asleep!

***

*Jay Z really does have his head screwed on: I found this link "Jay Z disses the dollar... appears flourishing euros in his latest video"... smart guy!!

Parmesan Toilet

THOSE SLATTERNLY ROBOHAMSTERS! I can't believe what they have got up to now. Remember my boast of how well-organized they were, even having their own Parmesan-tube public latrine for "hygeine"?

Well I was wondering why, when I stuck my head in the tartan earlier tonight and cooed "come out you tiny tubbies!" they seemed to appear from nowhere and go scampering clockwise in Grand National fashion, all guilty-like and agitated...

Now I know where they appeared from: the Parmesan Lavatory! No wonder Itchy, who looked more bashed-up, touselled and Porkshire Terrorizer-like than usual, ponged more poignantly of peepee than ever before.

They had set up home in the public toilet and were squashed in grooming one another among the urine-soaked woodchips! Well they must have been very cosy in that tiny tubby tub-tub. Barely any room to move past each other - surely a test of patience in most circumstances. They do get on admirably well. And as burrow-dwellers don't seem at all offended when, out of their nest one of their housemates rushes up to them, clambers all over their back or even pushes them backwards to collapse legs-akimbo and just walks all over them like an especially tubby bit of carpet!

The Parmesan Tube is being sternly washed out with extra-strong detergent. And now the teabox (three quarters full of hamster-gathered seeds already) is forming interim secondary accommodation...

And how was your evening..??

Right I didn't have much chance to answer messages until now as I was sneakily using the computer at someone else's and didn't want my own URL flagged up too much... you know I like to keep some dignified distance from the baying herds ... I do hope you all had a cheery time though and I shall be in touch with as many people as possible in the next day or two... ta-raa!!

***

And from my brief internet rambles:

This (real) family Xmas looks just like Christmas Day from the movies...

***

FINALLY I've dredged up a full and nonparodying version of the Queen's Christmas Message so clickonit or scroll above if you missed this year's or want to see it again ...

Boxin' Day Early Morn

WE HAD GORGEOUS ROAST LAMB with perfect potato mash, perfect industrial roast potatoes, cauliflour cheese and some seasonable vegetables and it was probably the best Xmas dinner I ever had. Two Two Ronnies were on literally all day 24-7 on the ITV3 digital channel which made me feel far more "festive" than all the tinesl and fairylights in the world could do! Ronnie Barker is my alltime favourite comedian - and not lauded enough in my opinion, considering how the BBC will go for almost any chance to dredge their archives and fill yet more time with repeats.

Mother Hubbs and her partner Dodger have been charming. You couldn't ask for better friends. I've basically been staying in their house since showing up bedraggled at the door c 5pm Xmas eve till now, which is about 8am Boxing Day morning!

Now I had better go as I was very kindly allowed on their housemate's computer but I'm kind of on semi-illicitly at the present instant...

I hope everyone else has had a fantastic time!

Peace and love to all
G

xx

PS I watched the end of Finding Nemo yesterday and Nemo's like a fish version of my tiny tubby robbie Baby Itchy he really is haha!!

I shall endeavour to recite back The Mystery of the Baying Porkshire Terrier next time I am on. Baying because I yes ME! I was the accused thief!!


I'm going to endeavour to paste up Her Majesty the Queen's Xmas Message to the Common "Wealth" if I can dredge that one up too...

***

PS THEY'RE ALL AT THE PUB AGAIN it's about 3pm Boxing Day
I was at the shops on Christmas Eve. The world was going mad. Herds of tinselled people clutching tinselly bags full of goodies from the glowing shops. And outside the busiest of these - which was full of folks piling in to get last minute Cards and gifts - was a poor old doggie, a Yorkshire terrier. What first attracted me was that he reminded me of Itchy. Being tiny and gingery in colour. What was NOT like Itchy was that the poor thing was tied to railings, jumping this way and that barking and yapping and wagging his tail and causing all manner of fuss and now and then tipping his head and baying soulfully at the Christmas lights (OK, slight exaggeration. No "baying" but the dog was going nuts.) At one point a man asked me whether the dog was mine which made me worried it had been there for ages or been abandoned even. I checked the tag on his collar and he didn't live too far off ... Anyway five minutes later this same man, a huge black man comes back and starts haranguing me that I'm "going to steal the dog". Whether he was drunk or high I don't know but I was so offended and nothing I could do, e.g. pointing out that this dog was so old his eyes were fogged and almost white and also surely dog thieves just take dogs and don't stand about talking to them for ten minutes first! I was so offended! Anyway thankfully the owner came back and the black man said to me "you missed your chance" "no," I said; "you've missed YOURS" and his composure flickered but he tried to keep up the self-righteous act (maybe he wanted to nick the dog for himself?) and meandered off. So much for Christmas "spirit"~!!

I've had a wonderful time here. It feels really civilized and not like living on Orwell's Animal Farm. I will get in touch again later from the cybercaff.

Have a good one everybody!!

Xmas Afternoon

I'M AT MOTHER HUBBARD'S. EVERYONE ELSE HAS GONE DOWN THE PUB so I get the chance to sneak quickly on this machine.

Dinner's still a-roastin' in the kitchen. Everyone's sober. The Queen's speech isn't on for three quarters of an hour. And the weather outside is really pigstrotterly. All mizzly and drizzly and white-sky'd and soggy.

I'm so glad not to be at "home" with Matran and Laundretta. Something one of them did (or their "friends" involved hammering and hollering at the front door at three AM the other night. Eventually breaking the door open (which isn't that difficult it's been kicked in, broken in, charged in so many times it's used to it now. You just practically have to sneeze on the doorstep and the door springs open in instant surrender...) Then a huge fracas broke out in the hall with a man raging and a strange woman shouting... Next morning the fire alarm was almost broken off the wall. But Laundretta pleaded ignorance.

It's lovely and warm here, even though I don't think the heating's on. I had better go ...

... next time I will tell you about the scandalous dog thief allegation levelled at me last time I went down the shops.

Hope you're having a merry one everyone. If it's not merry I hope it's tolerable. And if it's not even tolerable then I hope you are at least surviving!

Take care!

xxx

Video:
Two Ronnies Gameshow Courtcase Sketch
(it's a cracker!)

Compliments of the Season!

THE ROBBIES ARE PINGING INSIDE THEIR TARTAN hidehout. Pingpong the Chinese hamster is hiding under his luxury pea-green spiral staircase. It was foggy and white upon white with winter trees like an Xmas card earlier. And now it's dark and London is lit up like an Xmas tree...

... I'm off to Mother Hubbs's. Don't know if I'm coming back tonight ...

So have a VERY HAPPY PAGAN-MASS EVERYBODY!

(Or "Saturnalia"! Or Christmas if you prefer ...)

And all being well I should be back long before the New Year!!

Heat Is Back!

I HAVE HEAT! All for the sake of a busted 13A fuse... now refrigeration is back... heat is back (from cooker-power)... TEA is back too. I've bought 250g of McVite's digestives ("70% wholemeal wheat and goodness!") in celebration.

Whooh! To be honest I thought after last night's sounding off nobody would ever want to talk to me again.

Mixed sex hospital wards (especially for the over 50s) in this country nobody wants them. And I really feel sorry for old ladies trapped with old men going "rampant" upon them. Not (usually) literally... but who knows.... How on earth is that condusive to getting better. Yes it probably is a cultural thing, but it's not part of the culture here. Surely (as I said) someone can simply re-divvy up the floorspace M~F~M~F again... what's so difficult about that?

Kids: I don't hate kids at all but if you've seen how badly they let rip (here in London, I'm not trying to speak for anywhere else) they seriously are little devils-in-the-making... Even Americans, people from the very home of guncrime and disorder say our kids are something else which must surely make you think...

Now it's not so to-the-bone chilly I might be able to tempt Itchy out for a heavily supervised ramble. Before this morning I don't blame them all for hiding in teaboxes, nests of cotton ... etc...

Hey! Now I've got heat back I can also wash clothes... which was temporarily pretty impossible (well, unless you were willing to give them 2 days per item to dry)... and then risk it smelling of a summer camping holiday. Eurgh.

I've dredged up some extra-special pagan Xmas things on video. The sacramento "flower crowns" people go on for 20 mins but are fairly entertaining. If you don't like that go for the Two Ronnies "Worm That Turned"... an "Apocalyptal" View of the World ruled by women in leather hot-pants.

Videos:
True Meaning of Xmas
Two Ronnies Worm That Turned I and II

***

PS (11:40pm) Poor Baby Itchy went out for a highly supervised nonjumpy-down ramble tonight. She was awfully subdued and circumspect. I think she's got bored of her enclosed life of toilet tubes, a wheel and an old Parmesan cheese tub as a toilet!!

***

Rudolph the red-nose rain-DOG ... from Lamplight's blog ...

***

Hey I got visitors from all 6 continents again!

My stats are no more voluminous than anyone else's, but my visitors do seem to come from especially far and wide, which I find enormously flattering... as well as mysterious as I don't know who the vast majority of these people are!

***

Look at this amazing front lawn parrotry pecking about the grass... rainbow lorrikeets etc etc...

(from Bimbimbie's, which means "place of the birdies" in mysterious Aboriginal...)