Cupboard Love

I don't think I have got so excited about a piece of furniture since our bed was delivered from Lombok 3 and a half years ago. But on Saturday our new kitchen dresser arrived, and I can't stop looking at it and stroking it - very worrying I'm sure.
It is a beautiful thing though - we had it built to the measurements we wanted and we specified exactly what we needed it to do - play host to our cookbooks, glassware, and all the bowls, serving dishes and gadgets that used to reside in the kitchen units that were the most awkward to get at. There's also enough room on the top of the bottom cupboard bit to put nice things like flowers* and even use as a spare work surface if need be. It's made from reclaimed pine by the wonderful folks at Foxwood and I love it. It suits the space perfectly and what was a pretty empty wall space now seems homely and inviting without being too cluttered. Of course, it's taken us 18 months since we moved back in after doing the extension to be able to afford to buy any new furniture at all, so at this rate we might get a new dining table in 2010...



* thanks Ali for the last 6 years :o)

Gigtastic

This is turning into a bit of a culture blog at the moment (well, TV and music anyway) but we've had a couple of really good gigs this week so I thought I would document them for posterity. Now that it's nearly a year since my first post, it's quite nice looking back and seeing what we've done over the previous months, especially since I started to tag up my posts with basic categories. Much more interesting than my tightly maintained 'home calendar' spreadsheet which is actually very useful for planning weekends away etc but when all's said and done is just a boring bit of excel.

So this week we had Hot Chip at the Oxford Academy on Tuesday night, and last night we saw the Gutter Twins at Koko. It's lovely going into Oxford for a night out - don't have to leave work early, and can eat a normal dinner at home, drive in and park up near the venue, and have a swift pint or two beforehand, all before the main act comes on. Then at the end, it's a mere 15 minute drive back up the A34 and home to bed at a relatively normal time for a school night. Bonzer! Hot Chip were great too - one of those kind of contented gigs, where the music doesn't massively lift you, and you don't go mental down the front, but you leave smiling and seem to have been bouncing up and down on the spot for the entirety of the show. The new album's great and they were on top form live.

I wasn't massively looking forward to the Gutter Twins, it has to be said. The combination of trekking into London after work, having to find somewhere to eat, seeing a band who had the potential to be very dark and depressing, and then haring back to Paddington for the last train home only to get to bed in the wee small hours of the morning and get up a mere 5 hours later to go to work, seemed all too much to take after having already been out once this week (and following a full on weekend at Center Parcs, more of which in another post). However - all in all it was a pretty amazing night. Got into town by 6.30 and we went up to Camden to find somewhere to eat, with vague ideas of consuming Japanese food in a Time Out-tipped restaurant a stone's throw from the venue. We were turned away as we hadn't booked, so wandered up (or frog-marched - Ali was ravenous) into Camden in search of a Wagamama or the like. We didn't find Wagamama, but we did find another Japanese place which had an article in its window from the Observer Food Monthly advertising it as Julian Clary's Favourite Table. Based on this recommendation alone (!) and the fact that the menu offered quite a bit of additional stuff for a sushi-hater like me, we got a table and started to eat - the food was way better than Wagamama's and they even gave us some carved fruit at the end as a little freebie dessert. Fortified we made our way back to Koko for the gig.

First nice surprise was that Ed Harcourt had been drafted in as a last minute replacement support act - his set was only half an hour and very enjoyable (not quite taking away the sting of the £3.80 charge for a pint though). Then the Gutter Twins came on. What surprised me most was how ROCK they were - I was prepared for an hour and a half of doom-laden gloominess, given the 2 frontmen (Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan) aren't renowned for their chirpy pop sensibilities. There were some tracks that were really upbeat and almost headbanging, and overall it was just good, LOUD raw rock music in a great venue. We had to leave before the last encore (Martina Topley-Bird didn't add *anything* to the track she came on for) and sadly (for us) Dulli announced as we were leaving 'now for some stuff you'll know'. Boo sucks to First Great Western timetables. Still, home by 1am, knackered today, but very glad we made the effort and didn't wimp out.

Coming up, we've got Eels in Oxford on Easter Sunday, Elbow in Oxford in April, and Radiohead twice(!!!!) in Milan and London in June so it's shaping up to be a great year for music so far.

Fire up the Quattro!

I wonder how many bloggers today around the UK are eulogising over Ashes to Ashes on BBC1 last night. We had a ball watching it - the music was fab, the clothes were hilarious (who really wore skirts quite that short in 1981? Mind you I was 8, so still in T-bar sandals from Start-Rite) and Gene Hunt a proper pastiche of his Life on Mars version - un-PC-ness turned up to 11.

Having said that, I've just read quite a damning review of it in the Guardian which has somewhat dampened my rosy memories of Gene, Ray and Chris brandishing machine guns, hair blowing in the wind as they tear down the Thames on a motor boat to rescue Keeley Hawes. I shouldn't let myself be so influenced by Guardian critics really but I kind of agreed with him in some places, after all, the plot, such as it was, was ludicrous. Didn't stop us having a great hour on the sofa laughing at the obvious jokes though, same as the ludicrous plots don't stop us watching Spooks. The only thing I hope improves over the series is the drippy WPC 'Shaz' who is in no way a replacement for Annie from Life on Mars. Life on Mars was altogether a more credible drama series - grubbier (especially Sam's bedsit which always looked as if it was coated with years of chip grease and nicotine and crawling with bugs) and grittier and actually seeming more authentic. Sam was also, lest we forget, a proper DI, with real experience, whereas Alex Drake is a criminal psychologist pretending to be a DI, which seems a bit unethical to me. So Ashes to Ashes is really a Gene Hunt spin off series to showcase the wonderful Philip Glenister - but none the less enjoyable for that.

Get your lips around that

I've been strangely drawn to the latest series of Masterchef which is currently on most week nights on BBC2. When Loyd Grossman presented it in the 80s? 90s? 00s? I never bothered with it - after all this was the era of Jamie, Nigel and Hugh when cooking shows became exciting, and I had finally got my own little kitchen to experiment in.

Now, Jamie et al are ubiquitous on our screens - Jamie at Home is on as I type - and they have become the mainstream. I make no apology for being shamelessly middle class eco-hippy, organic veg box every week, only organic free range chicken on the menu, Ecover washing up liquid by the sink, jute bags for the shopping and compost bin in the garden. I know that we're lucky to be able to afford to salve our consciences this way and blithely ignore the European trips on budget airlines and other convenient modern day gadgets that make our lives easy. We're not going to stop trying to do our bit for the environment, but I think I have eco-fatigue when it comes to the ever-present Channel 4 JamiechickenGordonorganicgrowyourownHughrecycle shows. I know what stuff to get in the supermarket, I know not to buy battery farmed chicken (although I do now know that buying British veal is actually a good thing, due to the 'Kill It Cook It Eat It' programme on last night). I'm fed up with having it all shoved down my throat every week.

Which is partly why I'm enjoying Masterchef. It's not preachy, but instead is just about a load of amateurs who desperately want to cook, being judged by 2 blokes who I've never heard of. One of them looks like Dr. Fox, but apparently both are food critics, own restaurants, blah. There's a round in the quarter finals each week where the contestants have to identify different food items which is fascinating. Who doesn't know what couscous looks like? And who can possibly confuse Worcester Sauce with balsamic vinegar? The only round which seems faintly pointless is where 3 would-be chefs go to a random brasserie in London and help with the lunch service to see if they can cope under pressure - as this rarely seems to have any bearing on what the judges decide at the end of the day. The arrogant judges are engaging, in their way, and none of the contestants have become too obnoxious through overexposure on the screen yet. At the moment we're at quarter final stage so I assume the semi finals are next week. I haven't yet been inspired to cook any of the recipes that have been shown off, but overall it's been an entertaining piece of television. Either that or there's bugger all else on at 8pm from Monday to Thursday at the moment, which shows a certain savviness from the schedulers...

Getting On With Things

It’s amazing how perky you feel once you’re better after a poorly spell. I’m still coughing (mostly when having conversations with people, which makes me sound a lot worse than I actually am) and my sinuses are into overdrive a bit, but I feel about 3000% better than I did this time last week. It feels like it’s my first proper week back in the office since Christmas so I should be taking advantage of the renewed vigour for work, rather than blogging, but hey…

Had quite a quiet weekend, being as I was still in recovery mode; although I was pleased to make a start on a few jobs that had been bugging me. We got stuck into the piles of clutter in the top room, many of which had been sitting in dusty boxes since before we did the extension – that’s OVER 2 YEARS! – and most of which ended up in black bin bags for recycling or dumping. The room looks a lot clearer now and we even started to have a discussion on what we’ll end up doing with it – en-suite, bespoke shelving for an office, the possibilities are there but all expensive. We’re both agreed that the hideous lemon yellow artex that’s on every ceiling surface and the eaves will have to come off though. We got a guy in to give us a quote for re-fencing one side of our garden before the dilapidated boards that are there now collapse entirely. And we went to the pictures to see The Golden Compass, which was enjoyable enough but couldn’t match the fantastic quality of the book, and seemed to end very abruptly too.

What I didn’t do, mainly because I was paranoid about getting my carving knife cut infected (it’s getting better and I don’t have to wear rubber gloves in the shower any more which can only be a good thing) was re-pot some house plants that are in dire need of it. The peachy coloured anthurium in the bathroom hasn’t stopped flowering for about a year now and needs room to spread out a bit; and about 3 or 4 weeks ago one of the cacti on the kitchen windowsill put on an amazing growth spurt and started flowering! The flowers didn’t last long and are looking a bit wizened now but Ali managed to capture them when they were in their glory. So that’s my job for next Sunday.

I also just ordered the cutest looking knitting kit for a new born baby cape, which I’m going to aim to have completed before Stuart and Alison’s baby is due at the end of March. It doesn’t look too hard and Alison’s a big cape fan so hopefully it’ll go down well. So my good intentions are back firing on all cylinders now I’m better again – it’s Body Balance tomorrow too!