pastiche…

I apologise if the blog has been a bit quiet recently; doing the work video and publication of same has been occupying a lot of time, and personal life has been a bit hectic, but it’s been worth it. Over 300 downloads of the video to-date!

A pastiche of highlights of the past few weeks have included:

  • Dinner at Carluccio’s Neal St Restaurant in Covent Garden. Great evening. Excellent mushrooms, and baked salted cod.

  • Suzi (white/tabby cat) has had two epileptic fits in two days, the second rather more mild than the first. The first was a full-body thrashing and drooling fit with pupils so wide open that you could barely see the irises; the second she managed to get outside through the catflap and sit quivering and inextricable in the hedge for 30 mins.

    I am working on the theory that these are at least in part dietary related, having previously run some scenarios past the vet. I have changed her diet back to something closer to what she’s been brought up on, and will see if the attacks reduce in severity (example: milder second fit) and continue to improve. If there is no major improvement at the weekend, its time for bloodwork at the vet.

  • Weekend relaxation: cleaning house, sorting paperwork, burning dead receipts, and then down the supermarket to buy/prepare devilled lamb’s kidneys (fried in butter, after dusting with flour, smoked paprika and chili)


Just took delivery of a large swatch of DVDs, including the original 1969 edition of The Italian Job with Michael Caine, of which an American remake is being shot, which I can only expect to be a high-energy car chase abortion of a movie completely lacking the humour of the original. I cannot conceive of it being done right in this day and age.

Also The Dish, Ice Age, Alfie, and series 2 of Coupling which likewise is being re-done in an American version, but I have slightly higher hopes for some of the flavour of that surviving intact. The occasional five-minute comic diatribes which pepper the series – eg: “why men like pornography” and “why toilet doors need locks” will probably need watering down, but I think smoething decent may come out of it.

Anyone wanna DVD party?


colleague’s surreal quote of the day:

On the way back we discovered the backseat of a Volkswagen Golf is too small to play the hurdy gurdy (an attempt by my passengers to make the traffic jam less boring), though the front seat is large enough for playing whistles or spoons.


My cats watch television when I am at work.

I came back last night to find Buster lying on the sofa like one of Nelson’s lions, one paw on the TV remote control in a classic couch-potato pose, channel hopping whilst Suzi watched the TV from the floor in the middle of the floor.

They scarpered as soon as I walked in, so I presume I caught them unawares, and that they usually switch off when I put the key in the door.

I got home early last night – 6pm – in order to cook a steamed steak and kidney pudding, a British classic that requires time and care and therefore seems to have been relegated to the realms of trendy cookery. It’s delicious – too much to eat on my own, but good for 2..3 meals, taking about a pound of steak and 8oz of kidney, plus a few other simple ingredients, but four hours of steaming time – so I had dinner at 2300h.

I am having my father over for Christmas dinner – doing one of those father/son things – and was thinking of doing it then, along with school puddings and other nice, but slightly posh, comfort food. Nice to have practice beforehand.


Suzi seems to be settling down. Change of diet seems to be working?

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