A train journey

The truth is, I thought it mattered - I thought that music mattered. But does it? Bollocks! Not compared to how people matter.

I think after all these years, I finally understand these words. (Obviously from the film "Brassed Off") I have been fantasizing about going to some awesome nightclub for a long time - since before I moved to a large city with an interesting nightlife. In the last few years it has started to dawn on me that such a nightclub does not exist. Not even in the most happening of cities.

This is completely down to changes in musical tastes. I could complain about how it was better in my day and try to hold on to how things were. That music was better back then. But, whatever, I don't need to do that. I barely scratched the surface of what was going on, even when it was my day.

So, tonight, I was sat on a train on my own, listening to music on my phone. Those friends that had bothered to turn up were on different trains going elsewhere. I realised that it isn't so much the music that is important, as the people you share it with. And of course, on this occasion I completely failed in both departments.

What I want is to hear some new music, music I don't know. And to let it take me wherever it will. And I want to share that experience. I guess this is the essence of the music I seek, but that no longer exists.

Michel Roux Jnr

I was pleased to hear on the radio this morning that Michel Roux Jnr. has won "Beard of the Winter". Congratulations Michel! The Beard Liberation Front picks a winner each season, so Michel is now on a very short list to win "Beard of the year".

I am a bit of a fan of the celebrity chef and read his book last year. I got to thinking what I would ask if I ever got the oppertunity to interview him. Naturally my questions are mostly food themed.

• Have you ever used a carrot to discpline a commis chef because you were dissatisfied with his Julienne?
• Which is better, Macdonalds or Burger King?
• What is your favourite pizza topping?
• Can you suggest something for me to do with my lardon?
• Will robots ever be our masters?
• What is your worst cooking related injury?
• Will you make my dinner?

Found this video today. Is worth a look...

Yet more carrots

Just got back from Sainsbury's where I purchased the biggest, most orange carrots I have ever seen. I think supermarkets are finally realising that their customers want the ability to use their carrots in self defence as well as in soup.

Some impressive specimens. I have put them next to a regular old pen so you can get an idea of their enormity.

Also, while I was there I heard a woman say to her child, "Come back here Armani!" I had to quickly scamper out of the vegetable section before I guffawed and embarrassed myself.

Toad in the hole

It's been a while since my last blog. Not for lack of something to say, but more due to lack of effort. I want to make my arguments convincing and accurate, which means I need to put some time and research into them. Which in turn means when I get a spare 30 minutes in the evening I just can't be arsed to write on my blog. Besides, I could play Starcraft for 30 minutes instead.

So instead of using my power as a writer to fix the world by influencing my audience, I will tell you what I have been up to: not a lot.

We have some impressive carrots in at the moment. And I used my unending power as a Yorkshireman to make yet another successful toad in the hole.

A carrot

Toad in the hole

Also, I was again shocked by Apple expecting me to read 56 pages of terms and conditions. Especially when the summary of the change didn't have anything to do with the products I was using.

Carrots

Got given a free taster of a chicken recipe thingy in Sainsbury's the other day. It was quite nice and on offer, so we bought a couple. The idea is that you put your (raw) chicken and your vegetables in a bag, then put the bag in the oven and bob's your uncle. Today we had the first one, "Rustic chicken". Let me give you a brief review.

Pros.

• Easy to prepare. 
• Tasted alright. 
• The chicken was tender. 
• Beans were alright.

Cons.

• Some potatoes were not cooked enough, but others were fine. I guess I should have turned it over half way through or something.
• The carrots were not so well cooked. Again that may have been my fault. Should have cut them up into thinner slices.
• It was quite difficult to serve. Tried spooning it out, but that isn't very easy with massive green beans in there. Tried tipping it out onto the plate, but only succeeded in getting the cooking juices everywhere.

In conclusion it gives you an easy, tasty meal with not a lot of washing up. I think it would be better the next time as I can learn from my mistakes.

Clarkson

I don't agree with Jeremy Clarkson on many issues, but carrots are one of them. I want to see a massive glow-in-the-dark dildo of a carrot. The kind of vegetable you could club somebody to death with. We do not like dirty wrinkly organic carrots, where there is nothing left once you have peeled them.

Nice carrots

Rubbish carrots

Which neatly Segways me to another favourite topic: GM foods. GM food is great, but we seem to have forgotten why it is here. Several years ago this new idea appeared in the mainstream media (I am thinking of Tomorrow's world), perhaps it had already been around for a while. The idea was that we could use "science" to do faster what people had already been doing for thousands of years by selectively breeding crops: to produce bigger, faster growing, more resilient (to pests and climate), juicier, tastier (in short: better) varieties. (Oh dear, I seem to have overused a certain piece of bipartite punctuation.)

The reason for developing the GM technologies was to help starving africans, to grow crops in arid, famine stricken lands where not a lot grows. We can develop crops so that the people that live in these parts of the world can feed themselves more easily. However, that seems to have been completely forgotten, the only noise we here about GM now is when it is grown in the UK and the USA. I have absoltely no idea if people are trying to grow GM crops in the otherwise unfarmable parts of africa. Like most new ideas, it only really gets going when we work out how to use it to make rich people richer (or fat people fatter).

I once told a friend something I had heard not long before on this topic, unfortunately I didn't quite get the quote verbatim. I said, "Give a starving man some rice and you can feed him for a day, give him a spade and you can feed him forever." Lee thought I was making a joke about black people.

And on that bombshell...