Why is it that whenever you get a big item you can never bring yourself to throw away the box… it’s like you never know when it might come in handy. I could count the times I have needed and had boxes on the fingers of one hand and yet still I keep them.
Tonight I tore up and threw out 3 or 4 empty boxes and all the while dreading that I will soon be regretting the act.
I appreciate after months on not writing a blog this isn’t going to break the world but I had to get it off my chest.
After a hard day at work clearly being professional and certainly not whizzing emails back and forth discussing food the creation of a generation is being prepared tonight by me.
The Jamju Pie (working title) is the glorious east meets west combination of curry, pastry and mash! After a long discussion about how mashed potatoe could breathe new life in as the alternative to rice the fruition shall be born.
As I am intensely lazy I decided that quick fixes such as take away Chicken Bhuna, pre rolled pastry and (much against my love of mash) some M&S pre made mash spud were involved in this recipe to increase speed. I suppose I could include the cheese here as well seeing as I decided against milking a cow months ago to produce my own.
As I let the over pre heat I started to prepare the dish and instantly my dream turned to nightmare as the pre rolled sheet of pastry that I was promised cracked like an egg in front of me. Clearly I had been led up the wrong path by this quick and easy golden egg. Or something. Anyways I moved swiftly on to my second horror as I laid the pastry strips carefuly into the dish and pressed them down before realising I had not greased the damn bowl. 5 minutes and much swearing later I had extracted all pastry, greased and replaced said pastry. As the pastry needed to cook but the rest needed to warm I decided to slip it in the oven for 5 minutes or so to get a head start.
After taking it out of the oven I poured the warm Bhuna into the pie to which it fitted like a glove, having breathed a sigh of relief at dodging that bullet I started spooning the mash on top – no fancy pants moulding of the creamy white goodness I went for good old fashioned splodging. A generous grating of mature cheddar to finish the job and a slap back in the oven til it looked ready – about 15 minutes I’d say.
I realised after a few moments that I had omitted the fresh red onion I’d bought. Both from the meal and also the list of items I hadn’t grown myself.
Well the spoon has been put down, the bowl is empty and the stomach is probably too full. What a tasty treat… I don’t know if I’ll be able to rice ever again now… that was truly amazing even with my intense bias. Now I shall have to settle down and see what The Mighty Q comes up with… especially with his feta cheese tactics… I regret nothing of the vintage cheddar and am more certain than ever that it was the right choice…. in fact I think it needs more melty cheddar goodness.
From now on I think this needs refining and testing to discover the best type of curry to combine this with… looking forward to more experiments
Am I too soft?
Businesses over here are slack as a wizards sleeve… I don’t know which annoys me the most – small businesses where every penny should count and yet the staff/owners can’t be arsed or the big chains who come over here but employ people who are incompetent/don’t care.
I bought some new glasses about 2/3 weeks ago and was told they’d be ready on the 13th August, which is fine… I can wait a few days for things to be ready and don’t expect them to be done next day. But when I went in on the 13th they are nowhere to be seen and no one seems to know where they are – the staff while friendly enough phone up to the magical back office store room and it seems that they have more interest in the weekends events than my glasses. Two more trips to see them and it pretty much seems that they’ve lost my glasses… thing is I just stand there nod and walk away saying “that’s ok” it’s just not in my nature to get angry and I figure I will no doubt deal with them again in the future and don’t want to have them pissed off or be embarrassed about it all. And yet…. They just keep getting away with it. I deal with customers who jump up and down and are horrible and I sit here and think evil thoughts but then deal with them professionally and don’t hold prejudice over them in future so why do I constantly roll over when I’ve been mistreated? I’m down £250 but at what point do I ask for my money back or get my money back? They haven’t upheld their end of the bargain but what can I do about it? Nothing? I contemplate writing a letter of complaint but realistically what will I get back? Some half assed apology letter that is meaningless? Meanwhile I’ll probably go down in some little book as “that guy who wrote a letter and got us shouted at” and will get even worse service ever after. Maybe I’m just paranoid.
Pizza King is an establishment and an owner I feel sorry for though – it’s very good at what it does. Good food and I would find it hard to name a take away on the Island that has as nice an interior to sit in while waiting for and eating food. Not to mention it’s opening hours. The owner is always friendly smiley offering great service and cooks a mean pizza. Her employees however are clearly not cut from the same clay. Barely able to speak English… and I don’t mean foreign, most of them appear to be Manx/British just completely unable to use the language they have had since birth. They look like they would rather kill themselves than be there and their ability to take simple orders off a menu and then calculate the right amount… or to be honest even know what things cost is quite frankly an embarrassment to the manx education system and their gene pool. Also the one thing that consistently annoys the heavily pedantic side of me is the sheer volume of spelling mistakes on their menu. I mean… Salapeno Pepper? Piza King Special? Donna Kebbab??? Frightening…
I am so tired, who’d have thought screaming for 2 hours would take it out of you that much. All Star wrestling hit the Villa Marina last night after a 3 year absence and I loved it. I have no shame or embarrassment. I’ll tell people in work I went to it. I know it’s not real but for me I don’t see any difference between wrestling and a play or a film – it’s all about getting carried away for a little while and being entertained. It’s not the result that matters it’s the build up and entertainment gained by watching a couple of performers.
Once again we were the only “adults” there without children and we were far more vocal and the only people there sporting signs – this also got us an invite backstage to meet the wrestlers from the announcer “as her personal guest”. I kind of flit between pride and shame on this…. I love going there and making some noise and having a tonne of fun making signs beforehand and to a certain extent repaying the wrestlers, they put on a show for my entertainment so in return I cheer and boo and wave signs and make them feel like they’ve made an impression on people rather than just another bunch of faceless kids or not arsed parents. I suppose I think of when I play gigs and what makes an evening is having the crowd look like they genuinely enjoyed themselves because of you. Xtreme Dean came running right over to us with a big smile on his face loving our posters and he was really keen to have us add him on myspace afterwards which made the evening – just like the midget absolutely loving our sign and wanting a picture taken with us and the sign. They looked really happy to be there and seemed to want to come back.
Other than that excitement the MGP is due to be on this week although the weather is shocking at the moment. I’ll get out and marshal when I can but I’m still pretty disillusioned by the whole organisation and health and safety… it just seems a far cry from 10 years ago when I started. Less of a friendly event and more red tape and pointless beaurocracy all designed to stop some ignorant bastards forming legal action because they’re unable to accept personal responsibility for their own actions.
Next weekend should have lots to look forward to as well with the snake race down castletown on Saturday with Team DKY once again embarrassing ourselves and the IOM Transport beer challenge on the Sunday which should hopefully be lots of fun and not too messy!
Yeah… so I am as slack as ever
I have loads of time to spend doing what I wish and I waste it…. so as I sat in work today reading this; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7530594.stm I felt quite guilty.
I have a tonne of projects and chores and god knows wha else I need to get done… I mean I need to sit down and practice Plug In Baby by Muse for band – Jon has really put effort in for it and I am holding it back which makes me feel like a cunt… and yet I spent tonight after practice sitting on here playing champ man and pissing about watching south park drinking cider and gin.
oh well there’s always tomorrow.
It’s been terribly action packed this weekend and I’ve had a bit of a realisation about myself as a result.
I need to have a project on the go at all times. I’ve not really picked up on this cause the africa rally stuff has always been horrenduously long term like 8 months run in but after Timbuktu we jumped straight into the Allegro…. only that was far too far away and after the initial excitement has dwindled onto the back burner. Enter DKY and all its many facets. I bought a digital camcorder last week and I can justify it all I like it’s to film the crazy shit on road trips or DKY. As Danny Wallace had it – boy projects.
So enter the latest incarnation the Port Erin Soapbox Derby. I’ve never been to it or seen it or have any real inclination to soapbox derby except for seeing it once on an episode of the simpsons. I think scouse is a good outlet for these things and I can take on a role or organiser. I’d never really do this sort of thing myself and even if I did I’d feel bad about demanding peoples time to help me but…. to turn it into a big piss take with scouse the willing figurehead…. it’s amazing how many people rally behind the cause. And what a cause… who wouldn’t like to see scouse roll down a hill in port erin in a big pink…. go kart….. of course as it happens we accidentally made it look like a giant pink penis. Really that just adds to the fun. I just hope the organisers will overlook this small issue. Overall thought Saturday was a great laugh – started with a McDonalds breakfast which whilst full of grease and just plain wrong is always a great way to start a day. I spent most of the day sat back watching James work his magic and everyone else chip in with ideas and piss taking until we had the kart in all its penis shaped glory. Great day.
Sunday was raft race day. Another event I seemed to have organised this time with work people. I am not really a water sport kinda guy (fnar fnar) but I’ve done this 4 times now and really enjoy it every time… sad really. We came something like 7th out of 20 and there was a good turn out and we all had fun. I enjoyed my one solitary beer before driving home and definitely enjoyed my sleep once I got home, I think I’m getting old.
Tonight sharon is cooking some form of gammon and coca cola dish which sounds wrong, looks wrong and yet smells lovely… which is wrong. Clearly. If I live I’ll report on how it tastes.
No apologies this is a pure venting spleen moment of pure bias.
I fucking hate the long way down and long way round and charley boorman and ewan mcgregor.
To be fair…. although why the hell should I?…. I do still love ewan mcgregor for his film roles etc BUT…. the fucking bike stuff is such a “tv” adventure – it’s all acting… there are a tonne of film crew and mechanics and doctors and people to oil wheels and everything is fucking paid for them and brand spanking new… oh is that a problem with your bike? just take it back to the factory for a repair and airlift it back out no worries – fuck you! you’ve not had an adventure unless the shit hits the fan and you’re on your own… and I mean on your own – not a whole 10 minutes away from a crew specialised to help you.
Bastards…
Also the whole holier than thou charity thing they do really gets on my nerves….
Fuckers
I think Jel put it best…. I’m paying for abusing so many old cars and taking them to god forsaken hell holes.
Bad Carma.
I picked up my Focus today, it looked great with the paint job done up and as I pulled away from the garage I was chuffed with my choice. Sure it’d taken from the first bank holiday in May to pick it up but stuff that! it’s mine now! I picked up Marty and took her out the back roads to Sulby and back having a little feel of how different it is to have something with power and handling…. to be honest I think it might be a bit too much for me.
Anyways… exhilirated I pull into my drive. I look down at the front and see smoke pouring out the front grill… I’m not petrolhead expert but I took that as a bad sign. Pop the bonnet and first thing you see is oil everywhere and a missing oil cap… well bollocks.
I phone up the garage and am met with an “oh shit” as I tell them the score, to be fair they stright off said bring it round and we’ll give you a courtesy car tilit’s cleaned up and fixed, it brings me back to customer service I guess – I’m a painfully reasonable guy and whilst I was damn angry I was happy that they were ready to fix the issue no worries – I can forgive a simple mistake as long as its rectified. Only worry now is if any last damage is done. Time will tell.
Still at least work wasn’t a complete bombsite for the day…. oh wait.
I’ve noticed a change since I’ve started this blog stuff in the way I think.
Driving into work on Friday I was left to my own thoughts as my car stereo is not working until I trade it in. After a few minutes I came to the realisation that I was thinking as though I was blogging – just kind of mind dumping… wish I could “blog” on the move like that – probably be fuller and more interesting.
I was reading on Friday about some american womans blog that caused an advert to be pulled about donuts because someone was wearing a scarf that was of middle east origin. The idea that something like this has that much horrenduous right wing power is scary stuff.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7427206.stm
People like Michelle Malkin really do my nut… I mean who is she? some nobody from the US who makes ridiculous claims and causes whole ad campaigns to crumble for no good reason. The power of media and paranoia around can only lead to no good.
The photo in my previous post was taken approximately half a mile away from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the Ukraine, home of the worlds worst nuclear disaster. Even at this distance the alarms on our Geiger counters had started to go off, at this our guide Maxim had calmly turned and suggested we change the warning setting to maximum as “the noise will just start to get annoying”.
The day had started with an hour long taxi ride from our hotel in Kiev to the border post of “the forbidden zone” and on to the town of Chernobyl where we completed paperwork and were given a list of do’s and don’ts which included not touching the cute kittens as they have rabies as well as radiation to contend with. First stop was the power station which was 9 miles away from Chernobyl and had little to do with the town in anything other than name. We were taken into the stations visitor centre and told about the work they are undertaking in decommissioning the reactors which has so far taken 8 years. Here we enjoyed radiation levels around 200 times higher than you would get here in the Isle of Man.
After the power station we moved on to the abandoned city of Prypiat which was home to 50,000 people and was purpose built for the power plant workers to live. The city was evacuated in 3 hours once the extent of the disaster was realised, 22 years on nature has reclaimed a lot of the city which added to the eerie feel. We were the only people in the whole place and the absolute silence was very strange, especially as we made our way through the abandoned school and swimming pool. The saddest part was the fun fair, where dodgems and a ferris wheel stood rusting but still intact and a slowly rotting teddy bear lay on the ground by a stall.
On our way out of Prypiat we stopped at a piece of road that looked no different from anywhere else, the only remarkable feature being that due to the wind direction 22 years ago when the disaster occurred this 50 yard stretch of tarmac was the most radiated area of the forbidden zone at a delightful 450 times higher than back here. Even with Maxim’s new warnings settings all the Geiger counters started to sound their alarms here.
Back at the base in Chernobyl we all went through a radiation scanner to make sure we weren’t too contaminated to leave and had a lovely 4 course meal at the Chernobyl Hotel, it was a tough choice but we decided to go back to our hotel in Kiev rather than stay there for a night. Back in Kiev a couple of hours later we’d all showered and put our clothes in a bin bag, the trip was truly amazing and brought home the reality of something that is easy to forget about due to 22 years and a few thousand miles.
