Jesus is risen, Hallelujah

Our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ has risen so let's all gorge ourselves on chocolates. Happy Easter everybody.

At least with Christmas you get the odd story about a baby being born in a stable and shepherds and things. I abhor the commercialisation of Easter more than the commercialisation of Christmas (or Xmas as it is correctly known). Easter is the most important event in the Christian calendar, but it pales into insignificance next to Christmas, at least judging by the TV schedules. People get born in unusual circumstances all the time, but the whole dying on the cross and being resurrected is what makes Jesus the special person he is today. A fact completely overlooked by the card industry.

Nothing about these delightful place settings make me think of the true meaning of Easter.Hmm..., we are having lamb for lunch, and had eggs for breakfast. People should eat more rabbit at Easter. Makes sense to me.

Now Easter has become associated with daffodils and eggs and chicks and lambs and new life and stuff because it coincides with spring. At least it does in the northern hemisphere. I wonder if in Australia, after they have had their summer Christmas BBQ on the beach they decorate their houses with pine cones and conkers and harvest things to celebrate Easter. Having said all that, here are some pictures of Tulips I took in my Garden recently.

Empty Tomb

Who is best?

See what I did there, "Who"???

To coincide with the start of the new season of Doctor Who I thought I would create a poll about who is the best (recent) travelling companion for The Doctor. Here are some things to consider when making your choices:

• One of them is completely demented.
• One of them is holding a rocket launcher.
• One of them is the subject of this blog about their clothes
• Three of them are a bit ginger.

Melanie Bush

Ace

Amy Pond

Rose Tyler

Donna Noble

Jack Harkness

Martha Jones

Basic Music

I quite like how Sainsbury's tell you what is different about their Basic range products. For example the vegetables say things like "No lookers, but the taste's all there". The coleslaw says "not as much carrot" (implying it is all cabbage). Their grapes say "not as big". Which is somewhat ironic, as they are the biggest grapes known to man. Remember, buy Sainsbury's basic grapes, they are huge. (I feel I must point out that even basic bananas are Fairtrade. Yay!)

That's a pound coin, and those are big grapes

I was considering blogging about how I feel about potato waffles being in the frozen vegetable section, when I spotted frozen stuffing balls in there. I didn't realise stuffing was a vegetable, I will have to see if I can't find some seeds so I can grow stuffing balls in my garden.

Just saw Snoop Dogg vs David Guetta. I feel it owes a lot to Felix - Don't you want me. Have a listen, see what you think. I like the combination of dance music and sexy videos. Often it is enough to just have some barely dressed women writing around, but this time Snoop Dogg's ego demanded that he appear in the video too. I have seen porn that was less erotic.

It's a classic combination, like steak and chips, or Ant and Dec. The most brazen early example of the pairing was in Two People which descends into a wet T-shirt competition. It's not a great video, and it's not a great song. But it was this video that made me realise they aren't even pretending any more.

That grass is far too long for tennis

Hotel Inspector

Saw "The Hotel Inspector" last night. I thought it was hilarious. It is very entertaining to see this feisty young woman clashing horns with stubborn or stupid hotel owners. To see her reaction when she discovers the tat and filth that is blindingly obvious to anyone that doesn't see it every day. And to see the owner's reaction when she points it out to them. You get a range of denial and trying to blame other people.

The curly haired Alex Polizzi uses swearwords effectively. She saves them for the most important verbal clashes when they become more effective and surprising.

Last night she was shown to her room by Barry, who was like a real life "Gareth from the Office". He had an introduction to the room and the facilities that he had obviously memorized word for word. He stressed that the bed had clean sheets, which Alex thought was an odd thing to say.

They tried to make some tension in the second part of the show (building to a crescendo climax) as they invited the customers that had previously written scathing reviews to the hotel to see if it had improved. I was in stitches when one visitor revealed she had discovered a used condom in her bed. I see now why Barry was so keen earlier to point out that Alex had clean sheets in her room. But then they spoke to one customer who had apparently written the worst review. Does he now think the hotel is better? Has Jon and Barry and Alex's efforts been in vain?

I was again guffawing at the pregnant pause that followed before he revealed his verdict.

The previous Hotel Inspector was Ruth Watson. She had an interesting colour-coded coat system. She always wore a red coat at the start of the show, when she turned up and was angry with inept hoteliers. Then as the show went on her coats went through orange and yellow shades until at the end she wears a green (or blue) coat and is all happy and pally with the owner now that his hotel is doing a bit better.

I have to share this video with you. It's brief, but the author clearly realises the benefit of vitamin DD.

Tunip is the Octonauts cook. The authors could have chosen to create a utopian underwater society teaching children about equality and the like. Instead they chose to create a weird servant race of part vegetable, part animal creatures. Tunip doesn't go on away missions. I don't know why, but a vegimal tossing salad seems more odd than a human cooking a steak.

Definitely not about carrots

I was recently reading "Look" magazine, like you do. And they suggested that Nicola Roberts (aka The Pasty one from Girls Aloud) has taken over from Karen Gillan as the hottest red-head around.

I strongly disagree with this.

Nicola Roberts

 Not because Nicola Roberts is in any way unattractive, but because Karen Gillan is properly hot.

Karen Gillan

And it appears the BBC don't need much of an excuse for her to get her legs out.

Here is a quote from Mark Twain, I don't get it:

While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.

April showers bring May flowers

Have used the nice weather this weekend to get some stuff done in the garden. I cut one of the two evil hedges and got chance to do some general tidying and weeding and things. It does feel quite manly getting covered in scratches while pruning a giant plant of some sort. Reminds me of man's eternal struggle against nature: I hack it back every year or so, and it keeps growing to be too big and unruly, so I hack it back again. But not before it has done a few points of damage to my flesh. The garden is mostly looking alright at the moment.

I do enjoy using some chemicals on my garden. (It's okay, they are organic.) I get to feed the plants I like and want to nurture, and I get to use my industrial grade poison to indiscriminately kill everything else.

Muscari (Grape Hyacinth)

It seems everybody has been enjoying this unseasonably nice weather with barbecues and sunbathing and stuff. And I hate to be the grumpy bastard (but it is my blog). People have been talking like this is summer. Fudge that! It is 10th April. Early - mid spring. "April showers bring May flowers"? When was the last time that was true, my garden is dry, dry, dry. My lawn should be lush and verdant at this time of year, but looks brown and barren. And my flower beds are turning to dust. I, for one, want it to rain.

Daffodils

As usual, the spring in the north is several weeks behind the south, and the spring in my garden is another couple of weeks behind the rest of the street. My daffodils are flowering now when everybody else's were out ages ago, and my neighbours tulips were out last week, while mine are still getting ready burst open into their brief display.

Dashi Dog (aka Sauci Dog)

In other news, I saw "The Last King of Scotland" last night. Thought I would try something a bit different and I enjoyed it. (Despite saying it isn't what I would usually watch, it still had violence, nudity and a car chase.)

Whoever wins, it’ll change their life!

Have been enjoying the latest series of masterchef. Although the beeb are continuing their pattern of lowering themselves to the standards of their competitors. This time by making masterchef less about food about more like X-factor or some shit (which I have never seen). Like they keep having eliminations between some of the cooks or giving others an extra chance to stay in the competition. And they made a point of changing their tagline from "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this" to "Let's get fatter". I guess the next step is that Cheryl Cole develops an interest in gourmet food and becomes a judge.

Just found a Masterchef random quote generator. My favourite so far:

Bruschetta is not worthy of a Masterchef - it's basically just tomatoes on toast

This week they challenged the remaining contestants with every chefs worst nightmare: restaurant critics. It was good to see sour faced harpy Kate Spicer (wearing a bizarre grey and leather outfit, where the zip gradually moved down as the show went on). She didn't seem as grumpy as usual - she must be getting some. Good for her, but the show is better when the food receives snarling yet eloquent put-downs. I sense that the era of the celebrity chef is being joined by the era of the celebrity food critic.

Celebrity chef James Martin (back). Left to right, the lovely beard-wearer Jay Raynor,  the changeable stroke victim Kate Spicer, some slapper Toby Young and the lovable Charles Campion.

My favourite food critic is Giles Coren. And my favourite Giles Coren moment was when he drank a "cement mixer". This 80's cocktail consists of separate shots of Baileys and lemon juice. You drink one then the other, then swill them round in your mouth while they curdle. It didn't stay in there long... Here are some of his tweets:

Next door have bought their 12-year-old son a drum kit. For fuck's sake! Do I kill him then burn it? Or do I fuck him, then kill him then burn it?

Wayne Rooney is a vile human. May he die choking in hot dog shit while his eyes are burned out with lye and skewers are pushed into his ears

So, you are watching your favourite competition based TV show, and it is getting to the crunch where they eliminate someone, or announce the winner. The host/judge says "and the winner is..." And then we get this enormous pause. The technique of anticipation through delay is well known and has been used in music for centuries. I think it was Davina on Big Brother than started taking this beyond a normal speech pattern, and indeed that show took it to its most ridiculous extreme with some ginormous hiates. I noticed today that Great British Menu has its own piece of music to fill this pointless void.

Cauliflower

The Crusha adverts are lots of fun, with dancing cats and all. I would like to share this older one with you.

That's a xylophone

I saw "Great British Food Revival" recently and was inspired to eat more cauliflower. Figured I would go for a cauliflower cheese dish. It turned out rather well, although it was rather a lot as a side for two people. Almost all cauliflowers we eat are grown here, which is good. I expected a mad rush on them the day after the program aired, so instead I waited a few weeks before buying mine. The plastic containing my new purchase said,

Steam, Boil, Soup, Wok.

. I rather wish I had taken a photo of it.

Cauliflower cheese

This egg still had a feather stuck to it.