Pasta is my birth right

Posted on 8 September, 2014 by Tina

I posted a photo of tonight’s dinner on Facebook earlier as a veiled complaint about how much mess cooking creates in my bijou kitchen. It does, and it’s often difficult for others to appreciate the effort involved in preparing a meal and the post-apocalyptic aftermath of the clean-up operation when you’re only cooking for one. But sometimes, given a little forethought and planning, preparing a really lovely dish takes very little effort, time or expense. Still though, there’s only yourself to appreciate it and you’re the one who has to clean up the mess it generates.

Anyway (:@), somebody wanted the recipe and I’m certain that the four people who happen across this might some day give this a go themselves.

Four mushroom papardelle
Or is it five? Whatever.

Prep time: five minutes max
Cooking time: fifteen minutes ish
Eating time: about two minutes because it’s so fuckindelish that you’ll devour it, the only thing slowing you down will be grating of the parmesan and taking time to emit ecstatic moans

This is what it turns out like:

What you need (for about two people)

Big clove of garlic (or two), crushed
Bird eye chilli, chopped
Fresh sage leaves – handful, chopped
Chestnut mushrooms – about five, sliced
Shitake mushrooms (“shite ache”, never fails to amuse me) – about five, sliced
Oyster mushrooms – a good few, sliced
Those dried mushroom things in a bag – use half a bag and get them soaking in boiling water
Papardelle or similar lah-di-dah fancy schmancy ribbon pasta – 250g
Creme fraiche – half a tub? Who knows? Just enough, couple or three big dollops
Oil – sufficient
Butter – add a dollop
Salt & pepper
Parmesan cheesiness (fucking LOADS)

What to do

1. Fill a large saucepan ⅔ full with water and get it boiling for the pasta
2. When the water is boiling, add a good handful of salt and a dribble of oil and add the pasta
3. Slice the chestnut mushrooms, crush the garlic and chop the chilli and sage, then get them frying in a frying pan over a moderate heat. Get them started then add the sliced shitake mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper. Blah, blah, blah.
4. When the pasta has been cooking for about ten minutes (cooking time is usually about 12 mins), add some butter to the mushrooms, allow to melt, then add the oyster mushrooms and the soaked, dried mushrooms (save the soaking liquor back)
5. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and hold to one side
6. Add the dried mushroom juice to the mushroom medley and bring to a simmer before stirring in the creme fraiche

7. Mix in the cooked pasta

8. Serve, maybe garnished with some parsley… but not too chopped
9. Add grated parmesan to taste, replenishing the plate throughout the culinary experience
10. In other words, don’t be like a stingy bastard restaurant, keep the cheese on the table and grate at will
11. That’s to say, as much as you bloody well like

I tried this with some single cream that I had knocking about (going off) in the fridge and it was OK, but creme fraiche is actually really nice. I probably wouldn’t use any old “creme fraiche/single cream lookalike” that was knocking about the fridge though. I can’t image that this would be nice if you used Muller light yoghurt or mayonnaise. I can’t imagine anything that would be improved by the addition of mayonnaise… other than a really irritating person with an egg allergy.

Mood

Posted on 2 September, 2014 by Tina

I’m in a terrible mood today. It started with a bad dream, continued with a hideous journey into work followed by eight hours of exasperation at faulty software systems, ending in another vile journey home. Somebody suggested that I cycle to work. Sure! I’ll go the whole hog, get a little basket for the front of my bike so I can stop off at the boulangerie for fresh bread and pastries and roll up to work as fresh as a daisy after a nine mile ride on some of the most treacherous roads in the city.

We’re supposed to be having an Indian summer, but I missed all two hours of it because I was held prisoner in a windowless office where the only weather I’m ever aware of is rain as it batters down on the timpanic roof that covers the building’s atrium. Other than that, I am cocooned in a soulless, airless hell where, if I sit still for long enough, the lights dim and I get plunged into darkness.

Within a day of returning to work my back has started aching again, my permafrown has returned.

The dream I had last night has been with me all day too; thoughts of past betrayals coming back to haunt me out of the blue.

Frustrations with bad traffic, work technology and my own personal failures have put me into a bad humour and I’m feeling snarly and miserable.

But this time of year scares me as I anticipate the darkness and the cold, never knowing quite how badly I’ll react to it all. There’s a strong possibility that my recent depression has had a physiological cause which has now been rectified and I will be fine this winter, but I only have the past few years to go on and so I am naturally apprehensive as the days shorten noticeably.

I should embrace the winter months, starting with Bonfire Night. Standing in front of a raging bonfire, holding a sausage while fireworks explode above me. Looking up as the smoke clears to reveal a starry sky on a crisp November night. Walks in the woods, kicking through the fallen leaves as the sun starts to set at 3.30pm. Frost that persists all day on hard surfaces. Big jumpers and scarves, warming casseroles and the autumn TV schedule. Yes! I can see how that would be lovely.

But what’s the reality? The temperature hovering around 10ºC, high winds and torrential rain. That’s what we get. And that ruins everything. And the TV schedule isn’t that good when X Factor yields the same ridiculous stories each year while one contestant becomes a tabloid hate figure.

Work becomes more stressful and the journey gets worse as December approaches. And as December approaches, you resign yourself to spending another festive period on your own, putting a brave face on things, putting on parties for the family, but they’re really for yourself.

And at the back of your mind, you tell yourself, just see it through to March; things start to feel better in March.

Little and large

Posted on 1 September, 2014 by Tina

It’s always a bit risky, hanging out with a seven year old, as I found out to my peril when I took my niece to the Lake District last week. First off there was the constant need to tell her to hold my hand and not run around on pavements near busy roads. Then there was my pleading with her: “Please don’t touch A SINGLE THING in this gallery!” where the pieces ranged in price from ninety to several hundred pounds. Of course, she was impeccably behaved in the establishment until the time came for us to leave when that certain thing inside all seven year olds compelled her to almost put her index finger through a canvas.

I’d buy her food, which she wouldn’t eat. Then she’d ask for crisps and sweets.

In another shop, I had to give 80% of my attention to her while I was trying to make a purchase. The woman at the till had that air of resignation that betrayed six weeks of children messing up the display of items on the shelves. “They’re back at school next week”, she sighed to me, eyes and soul looking to a distant happy place.

It was Little Con’s clumsiness and total lack of social awareness that was both simultaneously charming and infuriating. In Grasmere, the duck food dregs were, despite warnings from myself and “Auntie April” emptied out over the river, where the dusty fishiness was caught by a breeze and blown into the faces of the people sitting at the table adjoining ours. What can you do except apologise?

Her piece de resistance came in Keswick, our destination for our stay in that most beautiful of English regions. Walking down the high-street, I’d noticed a beautiful Giant Schnauzer. His coat was black and silky and he walked with his companion human with the air of a young dog; slightly excitable, very interested in all the smells and sights of his surroundings. Among the group was a an adolescent on a push scooter. He had dwarfism. As we walked past, my niece did a double take, spun round and started pointing.

“YES! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!” I said, trying to drown her out as she was shouting “There’s a dwarf on a scooter there!”

“Yes, Connie, he’s a GIANT schnauzer, that’s what Rocky wants to be when he grows up! Isn’t he lovely?”, I said with false joy in my voice. “Ha ha ha!”

“But it’s a DWARF on a scooter!”

Jesus.

My embarrassment was my fault. A grown up would’ve spoken to the guy and just explained that she’d never seen somebody with dwarfism before and, her being little, got a bit excited. You know, struck up a conversation so that Con could talk to him and realise that he was normal, just with reduced height potential.

That’s the thing about being a grown up: the awkwardness that comes from being around others for fear of being judged or causing offence due to a slip of the tongue, or just being ourselves? So long as being ourselves doesn’t mean that we can deliberately be complete arseholes of course.

We lose that joy from skipping down the street, or just bursting into a run (no matter how ridiculous we look) just for the sake of it. The extent of my silliness is limited to pulling faces at other motorists in traffic queues, or complimenting them on their choice of headwear.

Dinner for one

Being single can be pretty OK, but the disadvantages far outweigh the positives. As a frexample: beetroots. I wanted to cook roasted veggies with some sausages for my tea. For this, I needed carrots, parsnips, red onions, sweet potato, garlic and beetroot. With the carrots, onions and garlic already at home, I needed parsnips, sweet potato and beetroot. But you know what? You can’t buy individual beetroot at Sainsbury’s, they only come in massive bunches. It’s the same at all the supermarkets. Everything is set up for families, with us singles being pushed to the bottom of the pile as per with everything else in life.

You live on your own, you pay 25% less Council Tax than the family of five next door, despite them using so many more services than you. You pay the same for water as those who use so much more than you. And now you find yourself paying for the school meals of kids whose parents who earn multiples of your own salary. As a single person on a modest salary, I find myself being a net contributor to the tax system to the sum of £12,000 per year (there was a calculator on the BBC website a couple of months ago, so I doubt this figure is correct).

It would be nice, therefore, for the fucking supermarkets, restaurants and cafes to cater for us singles by allowing us to not buy a bunch of twenty fucking beetroot, or enough runner beans to feed a family of four, etc, etc, etc.

Still, I really do appreciate the concept of boxed wine.

Happiness is a cold gin

Posted on 1 September, 2014 by Tina

I have bid a temporary farewell to the ever delightful April and “Jesus, Sacha!”. It’s been a tiring, yet enjoyable week. We didn’t get to do as many things as I’d hoped – cheeky! – but part of that was down to jetlag and unfortunate weather.

As if compelled by a strange force of nature, April brought us a litre of Tanqueray gin. I finished the last of it this evening. Served over ice, with a squeeze of lime juice and Indian tonic water (not slimline, ever), this is one of the finest drinks known to mankind: refreshing; antimalarial; and hangover-free (in moderation).

Irksome beans
The tinned beans on offer at supermarkets are vile, expensive and not worthy purchase. I am referring to the vegan staple fartogenic borlotti beans, red kidney beans, cannellini beans, chick peas, etc, etc, etc. The only varieties on offer at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons are undercooked, without salt, sans flavour. Why? Why do we have to be victims of the salt nazis? Even bread has no flavour any more because it is baked without sufficient salt.

I despise the health-freaks who impose their taste-free lives on the rest of us. So fucking what if your systematic review shows that reducing salt in pre-cooked produce by 80% reduces the risk of early mortality by 0.5% (0.3-0.8% CI)? Who gives a crap when it reduces enjoyment of what life we do have by 80% (75-100% CI)? Mongs.

And yes, I do realise that the previous paragraph exposes my lack of understanding of statistics and that, but the salt nazis more than make up for it by exposing their lack of understanding what things taste delicious.

My Tuscan bean soup won’t tolerate the inclusion of inferior ingredients. It simply cannot be eaten with the undercurrent of resentment induced by the incorporation of bullet-like, tasteless borlotti beans. Having reached the age of 44 (bon compliano to me, btw), I refuse to subject myself to this shit. Accordingly, I shall henceforth be boycotting beans of the precooked, tinned variety on offer at the supermarkets and be cooking my own, from the dried ones, that you buy in bags.

I love dried beans. You can buy half a kilo for less than a pound (sterling) and freeze them once cooked. Even more exciting is the fact that a lot of them contain highly toxic lectins that will actually kill you if you don’t soak and cook them properly prior to eating. I remember watching That’s Life! as a child and there being a campaign about kidney beans because people too stupid to soak and cook were actually dying. There’s this thing called natural selection…

Anyway, I’m sure that in a few years time, dried beans will be banned for one reason or another, but until they are, here’s how I love to prepare the poisonous little fuckers.

1. Rinse beans in cold water a couple of times and soak overnight in fresh water.
2. Rinse again, transfer to a bigger pan because they’ll have doubled in size, cover in fresh water, add bay leaves and a couple of cloves of garlic, bring to the boil.
3. Boil for ten minutes, ADDING AS MUCH SALT AS YOU LIKE half way through.
4. If using beans for a casserole, remove from heat after boiling and allow to cool.
5. If eating beans, simmer for ten to twenty minutes until soft.
6. The brilliant thing is that the beans can be frozen in batches. Just cover them in cooking liquor and freeze for future use.
7. That’s about six cans’ worth for £1, cooked properly and so very tasty.
8. So fuck off and die on fire, salt nazis.

Anyway, I now have three batches of borlotti beans in my freezer; the remaining batch went into my soup.

I have no idea why borlotti beans are called borlotti beans in cans, but pinto beans in their dried state.

Horeetho
Chorizo annoys me. Inappropriate, overuse of chorizo annoys me. You can’t move for this Spanish so-called sausage in supermarket deli aisles and sandwich shops. It isn’t even nice; the overpowering overtones of paprika are harsh and unpleasant. I simply cannot comprehend why shops and sandwich bars serve this doppelgänger of a pork product and not the beautiful, refined salamis from Italy.

Nothing can beat the combination of salami Napoli with an olive oil-dressed rocket sandwich, oo-la-la’d up by a few parmesan shavings. If you’re feeling a bit cheeky, substitute the Napoli with Coppa, Ventriciana, Finocchiona or Bresaola. For a thunderbolt of piccante, go for the full-on blast of a Calabrese. In each of these, the subtlety of flavours flow, sometimes followed by a hit of fennel seeds, other times, the warmth of chilli washes over you. Never though, are you hit in the mouth, face and nose by the simultaneous assault of paprika, chilli and pig.

Inappropriate absence of Chorizo is utterly inexcusable
While in York the other day, my search for a lovely cafe that, thanks to Google and Twitter, I know still exists was abandoned due to a raging headache, low progesterone, hypoglycaemia and the company of others. Desperate for food and painkillers, I suggested going to La Tasca for lunch.

Now, about, Jesus Tina! twenty years ago, La Tasca was an excellent tapas bar in Manchester, it then became a chain with outlets all over the place. Needless to say, after patronising the one in York, I’ll not be going back. I paid over £10 for paella, recalling the one that I’d had on my visit to the restaurant on Deansgate in 1995. It was bursting with authenticity, flavour and colour, overflowing with excellent ingredients, and even provided the entertainment of ripping the flesh from langoustines. The one in York was bland. It was lacking in even the basic flavours you would expect from the dish: there was no blast of saffron and where the dish isn’t the dish without the paprika-infused oil from the initial cooking of chorizo, there was not a sausage. Literally, there was not a sausage. How could they make a paella without starting off the dish by cooking chorizo? Where was the garlic?

It was dreadful.

I hate going to restaurants and knowing that I could cook what I’m eating so much better for a fraction of the price. The restaurant being part of a chain is absolutely no excuse. The fact of the matter is that I know I can’t cook a quarter pounder with cheese better than McDonald’s, so from now on, when I’m out and about, that’s where I’ll be going when I’m in need of a quick lunch that’s prepared to high standard without being eaten with an element of resentment and an unwelcome dollop of mayonnaise.

All quiet on the Stoneclough front

Posted on 22 August, 2014 by Tina

It’s the calm before the storm. They arrive tomorrow morning. I am prepared and ready to do battle with my introvert tendencies; I can deal with the exhaustion in a week. The thing about living on your own and having a routine, and being an introvert, and slightly high on the autism spectrum, and a bit miserable… is that spending time with others for any length of time really does take it out of you. It’s difficult for some people to understand this; some people thrive on the company of others, get a little stir-crazy if they’re not around people for any length of time. For me though, apart from my time at work, I don’t have that much contact with people and, well, I actually quite like that.

April though, she is very special to me and her company is so uplifting, so very easy. I do joke about fancying her, she’s an attractive woman in all senses, but my affection for her is grounded in her being one of the best friends I’ve ever had. She has provided some of my best times over the past nine or so years; she has supported me through some of my toughest times. She has encountered devastation and loss herself, but always, she is April.

I am very lucky to know her and I’m certain those words would be said by everybody who has been fortunate enough to know her. I’m so happy that she’s taken the time out to come over to visit me. I feel extremely privileged.

Sacha, on the other hand. Well, the jury is out on that one, but eight years is a long time and there is a huge difference between a three year old and an eleven year old. I’m looking forward to seeing her again, it’s going to be… interesting.

Anxiety levels were a little high earlier on as I scoured Morrison’s for inspiration as to what to feed two jet lagged visitors tomorrow. I went for fruit, cheese and crisps. And coffee. I’ll let them decide what they want when they get here. Needless to say, they’ll want feeding seal cub wellington at 2am, but they’ll have to settle for a kebab. Oh GOD! That just autocorrected to kabob – must’ve known I was referring to feeding North Americans.

Twots.

Dogatitis

The dog is barking his head off. His skin has flared up again and he shouts to tell the world that he’s not happy about being itchy. And there’s nothing I can do to help him. He has his medicated baths and his flea treatments, but this is just how he gets at this time of year. It’s desperately sad to witness, but more than that, his incessant barking and scratching and nipping is fucking irritating to the point that I want to kill him.

SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!

Off radar

Posted on 21 August, 2014 by Tina

My folks, sister, her boyfriend and my niece returned from their Italian adventure today. I was so looking forward to having them back, selfishly, because it meant returning Otto to his mum and dad so I could start to clear up the mess of having an additional animal in the house prior to my guests arriving at the weekend. I got a text from Mum this morning, telling me they were getting on the flight at Bologna and were due to take off on time. This was an invitation for me to enter full “people like me” mode and get onto my Flightradar24 iPhone app and follow their journey back home.

Once I’d found their flight number, I keyed in the details into the website to find that they’d already taken off and were ascending at 26,000ft. Ten minutes later, tracking on the iPhone app showed they had reached cruising altitude of 38,000ft.

The information provided for each flight is incredible and you can even have a “flight eye view” by selecting the 3D option of the app. Amazing. People are so fucking clever.

Anyway, I checked on them throughout their flight and, as they entered UK airspace, Flight FR2241 began its descent.

And then… it disappeared.

What the fuck? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

I checked the website… nope, wasn’t there. Checked the iPhone app… nope, not there either. I checked the BBC News website for the red “BREAKING: Passenger jet disappears over Derbyshire” banner. Nothing. Nooooo, planes do NOT crash over the UK and the ash cloud from Iceland isn’t due until the weekend. I was going to have to look after Otto forever. I’d have to deal with cat litter and dried Felix on my desk FOREVER. And what about Skippy? And what about clearing out my parents’ house? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

I checked the Manchester Airport website for arrivals. “On approach” Yeah, they always say that when planes crash until it suddenly changes to “Phone Ryanair emergency help desk”.

One final check of the iPhone app and I noticed this:

An unknown Ryanair 737 had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, landed at Manchester and was now pootling along, without a care in the world, to the gate. The absolute fucker! Why would a plane change its radar on its approach to landing? Why on earth would it do that? And why did it have to be the one that I happened to be tracking with my anxieties?

Blimey.

Anyway, they’re back. The purry one is back with his dad and all is good with the world.

Needless to say, I’ll be using the Flightradar app to track April as she comes into Manchester on Saturday. That’s if her dodgy airline is even registered with radars and stuff. Icelandic volcanic ash clouds permitting. I can’t believe they’d name a volcano after Tony Soprano’s strip club. Bardarbunga!

Late detention

I’m running late. It’s 10.42pm, but I can’t go to bed yet because there’s a load still quite a way off final spin in the Whirpool (shit washing machine, never buy one). I’ve had a large glass of red and I think I’m snack food-depleted. Pffft. I could run the vacuum around, but I’m not sure the neighbours would appreciate it. Then again, they’re all STILL off for the summer. Not that I’m bitter or anything. But teachers, seriously? For a so-called profession that’s hardly ever in work, they don’t half fucking whinge about it. And you can get paid an absolute stack for teaching lies.

There are actual things called religious education teachers, I seem to remember having one myself. People who get paid three times the national average salary for teaching fairytales shrouded as truth to impressionable youngsters. I could be an RE teacher. I’d be more than happy to teach kids about religion. When are they going to ditch this shit from the syllabus and teach kids about world cultural history, philosophy, morals and ethics instead? Only when I’m in charge, I fear.

Cinderotto

Posted on 20 August, 2014 by Tina

The little cat goes back home to his beloved daddy tomorrow. He adores his dad, his dad adores him; it’s a beautiful thing.

Otto has missed his dad this past fortnight, I can tell. I can tell by the way he wakes me at dawn by pummelling my face with his paws and purring loudly, his nose touching mine. He does this to his dad and his dad lets him get away with it, he gets a “fuck off Otto!” from me. He’s a floppy, silky pyjama case of a cat and I too adore him, but my love of him is a fraction less than my love of sleep these days and, as much as having him flop over me is delightful, I do actually have to get out of bed at some point and drag my arse into work at a reasonable hour.

I think I’ve been a good hostess to the little feller while he’s been here. Of course, he’s not been allowed to leave the house, but he’s had a nice clean litter tray every day, lots of cuddles, four meals a day… three if you count what goes into the dog because… well, here’s the thing, I have to put his food on my desk in the little study so that the little dog can’t get to it. The odour, of course, filters into my bedroom. God, it stinks to high heaven. I do wish he could eat it a) without throwing it all over my desk and b) in one sitting. While it’s hanging around, Rocky gets ever so jealous, so he’s been having the odd pouch of Felix too, just to prevent him from exploding with envy.

Otto came with his own food parcel: a box of Felix pouches and about ten trays of extra special “gourmet” Sheba. Like a wicked step mother, I’ve been feeding the Sheba to the dog to keep him quiet and the cat has been left with stuff that smells like poo.

Wax

I don’t hide the fact that I use wax strips to remove my moustache hair. Despite reassurances from well-meaning blind people (or utter cocks who are lying to me), it can be quite substantial moustache hair, especially if caught in the cruel light of the mirror in the lift at work. Or caught in heavy machinery.

Anyway (:@), after waxing my moustache last night, I had a spare strip left over. Tempting as it was to try it on the dog, I refrained and, in that moment as i held it over the bin, ready to discard it, I had an epiphany… try it on your chiiiiiiiiin… try it on your CHIIIIIIN! So I did, and it was great.

You see, I can’t see close up enough anymore to tell whether I have out of control beard growth. People are often too scared to mention these things (or liars), and I can’t pluck blind, so this was a revelation. I’m so happy!

At the hospital

I had a hospital appointment today to see the neuro-endocrine people following my recent surgery. I actually thought the appointment had been made in error because I only attended the same clinic in July. Soooo, I entered the full-to-bursting waiting room with less than positive expectations for the experience that awaited me. I was appalled by one particular site that greeted me as I took my seat: female; overweight; shorts; tattoos; crew cut; bleached hair; talking rubbish at the TV. But you have to accept that there are lots of different people in the world and that it’s not for long that we have to be in proximity of those we’d never be caught dead associating with.

The TV was on, set to BBC because that’s the safest way to ensure that none of the people in the waiting room are also appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show. It was a programme about antisocial behaviour, as usual. After I’d had my blood pressure taken, I returned to the waiting room and, to my horror, the only seat available was next to Madame Tattoo. I sat down and admired her… ink… on her knee caps… while sending out calls for help via text.

Looking up, I saw the noticeboard that informed me my doctor’s clinic was running an hour late. Thank fuck I’d charged my phone.

I sat and waited, watching the site visits to my blog go up and up following a recent post about a potty-mouthed, but adorable, Dane

Unbelievable.

Time ticked on, and the waiting room emptied. The TV was on a timer and turned itself off. Mercy!

I was getting a bit restless, needed a pee, was starving hungry, was anticipating a negative experience with the doctor. Humph. [Insert unsmiley face emoji here] And then I was called into to see the consultant… some other guy I’d never seen before… here we go, I rolled my eyes (internally of course, I didn’t want to seem impolite).

I couldn’t have been more wrong. He explained everything to me, all the different types of hyperparathyroidism, how and why they can occur and then he said: “With you, it’s clear that you’ve been deficient in vitamin D for a number of years. When you had a test early on in 2013, you had a negligible amount. Over a period of time, this will affect the feedback mechanism and cause your parathyroid to produce more and more PTH to compensate, and this is probably what happened with you. We’ll take a blood test and either give you a massive dose of vitamin D, like you’ve had before, or just put you on a maintenance dose for life.”

I was like, what? Really? Is this anything to do with my Pepsi Max addiction?

So that’s it. It should all be sorted. What I really wanted him to prescribe was a new life in the Mediterranean, but what with NHS cutbacks, they’re no longer offering this particular treatment. I’ll have to stick with my vitamin supplements and oily fish.

Bedding

Posted on 19 August, 2014 by Tina

I’ve been very lax in the bedding department over the past couple of weeks. The set that I removed last weekend hadn’t been washed by the time it came to change the current stuff this evening. I’ve had to wash two sets and stick the heating on full blast to try to get it dry. In the meantime, I’m resorting to emergency bedding that consists of a way past its best duvet cover and… shame of shames… a polycotton fitted sheet.

The depths to which I’ve sunk. I might as well be sleeping in a homeless shelter tonight.

But they say you have to hit rock bottom before you can start to rise again. Come tomorrow, I’ll be back on top with two full sets of clean bedding. Of course, I have guest bedding that I’d never let anywhere near my own memory foam. Visitors have something called “easy care”, whatever the hell that is. All I know is that that it’s not white, high thread-count Egyptian cotton and it’s going nowhere near my sleepy body.

Sofie Gråbøl drops the F-bomb on teatime radio

This woman is utterly charming, and look at how OSX treats her!

Anyway, lovely Sofie was on the Radio 2 Drivetime show this afternoon to talk about the National Theatre/of Scotland production that she’s appearing in in Edinburgh and then London. The show is on National radio, broadcast between 5 and 7pm to a family audience.

Of course, the host of the show, Simon Mayo, asked her about what she’s most known for, her performance as Sarah Lund in the wonderful, The Killing and what she thought of the US version. Having never watched the US version myself, I was interested to learn that she’d played a cameo in it. Describing her appearance, what she said is paraphrased in the following:

“The producer wanted me to play a cameo and so I went over to Vancouver to do this. I was playing one scene as a solicitor who was meeting the equivalent of the Sarah Lund character. I was dressed smartly in a suit and thought it would be OK to do the scene opposite Sarah Linden. She approached me in that pony tail, and that jumper… inside I was four years old, give me my FUCKING jumper… I meant ‘bloody’…” What followed was the some of the best radio I’ve heard in a long time.

The BBC playlister of the show is available here for the next week, it even warns of strong language and asks that listeners confirm that they’re over 16, this must be a first for this programme… for Radio 2.

I’ve managed to save the sequence to keep and keep again…

Anyway, I love her even more now, and I hope that the Edinburgh and London production of James III: the true mirror is even more successful as a result of her appearance on the radio this evening.

Who’d have thought the BBC might need to employ a 10 second delay for a such a sweet woman though. I think she needs a cuddle. I’d happily give her a very special cuddle.

WI vs IS

Posted on 18 August, 2014 by Tina

I have a huge problem with religion. There’s nothing more worrying than people and entire populations being controlled in their thoughts and actions by what men tell them some fictional deity dictates… in books and scriptures that were written by primitive men hundreds or thousands of years ago. It defies all logic. Rather than thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for their lives and behaviour, people are more than happy to hand over control to something that doesn’t exist.

This delusional behaviour, if enacted by an individual, would see that person being locked up for their own safety and for that others around them. But when entire populations do it and when it’s based on ancient works of fiction, it’s seen as something to be protected and even encouraged. The biblical religions claim that their gods are real, the only true gods, yet they claim that the gods worshipped by the ancient people of South America and the Romans and the Greeks are all bogus. Why? How come their god is real and the ancient ones aren’t?

The Why won’t God heal amputees website offers a good read on this matter.

It’s all bollocks. It is mass mental illness that is responsible for war, murder and misery all over the globe.

It’s all very, very dangerous bollocks, as is being witnessed around the globe as extremists of Islam (lazy Wikipedia ref) commit atrocities in Nigeria (boko haram), Syria (IS), Iraq (IS), Gaza (Hamas), Pakistan (Taleban/al Qaeda), Afghanistan (Taleban/al Qaeda), etc, etc, etc. The aim of this form of Islam is to establish a caliphate where, well, if you’re not a muslim – the right kind of muslim – you will die. If you’re a woman, you might as well die because you are destined for a life of uneducated, mutilated servitude. What is even more worrying is that there are muslims who were born in this country to good families and educated here who also hold these beliefs and would happily see an Islamic state established here in the UK.

It’s not very religion of peace-like, is it? Fucking brilliant.

Anyway, it’s not all bad news. I understand that our very own Women’s Institute has a military wing that is now recruiting to go and fight the murderous savages and blow them from the face of the earth before they even dare try to knock on the door of our beloved, free, secular, enlightened Europe.

The first meeting took place last night, and don’t they look a formidable bunch?

So watch it, you fucking, shit-for-brains, fuckers, we’re coming for you. And we all know how all boys are terrified the fuck of mums.

Tossers.

My head will be on a spike by the weekend.

Autocorrect

In addition to my problems with religion, I’m having even more problems with iOS autocorrect at the moment, it’s fucking didic! Oh god!!! Mac OSX is at it too. RIDIC! Not fucking didic. Just earlier, it corrected “school bag” to “school day” Why did it do that? Is it trying to be clever? Does it think it knows what I’m trying to write? There must be an algorithm that’s been designed by a spotty youth with a diploma in fucking people off.

The problem is that when you’re trying to respond to text messages quickly, you don’t actually notice that a term has been corrected against your will until you hit send. It’s about time iMessage came with a “cancel send” button, you know for those occasions when you accidentally put “xxx” at the end of a message to your boss.

Best day in the office for AGES

It was a brilliant day in my office today. Just me and another colleague shared the space, other desks abandoned by those on annual leave. I really like Darren, we get on well, have a giggle, make sex noises to each other, but he’s really conscientious and so very, very helpful. I admitted to him that I was a bit distracted from my work because I’d encountered a technical issue with this blog whereby the Twitter cards (I’ve discovered they’re called) weren’t pulling through since changing the domain name for this place last week.

Twitter card

No twitter card – fucking annoying as fuck

So we talked about me blogging and what I get out of it, how it works, this and that.

We did a bit of work, I had a meeting, did a bit more work. Then I decided it was time to play pirate ships on my colleagues’ desks. Because, you know, when will the chance arise ever again?

I think we’re being joined by another returning colleague tomorrow. This the day we finally get to draw pictorial messages on the roller blinds for sending to people in the offices on the opposite side of the atrium.

Such fun!

An e-mail to the snoring dog

Posted on 18 August, 2014 by Tina

Hey,

This is just a quick test to see whether I can publish a post via e-mail. You see, I’ve spent pretty much all morning fucking around with my blog’s domain and sharing settings that I figured I might as well go the whole hog and do this as well.

I’ve learnt a new term: twitter cards. I’ve also learnt that twitter cards don’t work when you add a non-Wordpress domain. Bastards.

Anyway. Let’s see if this works.

The Snoring Dog

It's all just stuff

Pasta is my birth right

Mood

Little and large

Happiness is a cold gin

All quiet on the Stoneclough front

Off radar

Cinderotto

Bedding

WI vs IS

An e-mail to the snoring dog

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