Shiver me timbers

I'm not really in favour of voting for "one issue" parties, but lets be honest here, my only alternative is to deliberately destroy my ballot paper come the next election, or just aim my pencil randomly somewhere.  The alternatives (apart from maybe the Greens) are just awful. 

 

The Pirate Party's campaign is at least straddling an area which gels very, very strongly with me. So they may just get my X.   

 

They are, apparently, the fastest growing party in Europe, and very popular with the kiddies.  And I'm only half convinced that file sharing is complete morally neutral.  The older I get, the more doubtful I become, but the heavy handed reactionaries in the music biz appear to resemble the horse and cart industry just after the 1,000th Model T rolled off a Detroit production line way back when. 

 

http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/

 

Jack 'n' Chill

I nearly always enjoy finding out "what happened next" to one hit wonders. 

 

This topic might become an occasional ongoing theme, we'll see.  To get the ball moving, here's what happened to Jack 'n' Chill who made the first UK house track, The Jack That House Built, which I  really liked at the time (I was 18, and this stuff mattered a great deal, especially as I was still trying - abysmally as it happens  - to play keyboards).   I felt rather nostalgic hearing it yesterday when rediscovering it on Youtube   

 

I had no memory of what the track was called or who it was buy, and since there are no lyrics, this required a fair amount of sleuthing (but thanks to Everyhit). 

 

A link to the track is here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDMu3r73Ko4

 

Its funny how some musos turn to drugs, and some to loose women and huge hamburgers, but in this case, one of the members of this band went on to become a dance floor backroom boy.  Hope these guys are still working -  it really was quite a pioneering track, being produced as it was in the UK - one of the first house tracks to have originated outside the USA and Chicago in particular. 

 

 

Jack 'n' Chill:  A duo consisting of producers Vlad Naslas and Ed Stratton, Jack 'N' Chill's hypnotic, instantly recognizable house instrumental "The Jack That House Built" was one of the first house hits produced in the UK (it reached no. 6 in the mainstream sales chart in February 1988). The similar-sounding follow-up single "Beat The Heat" was less successful commercially, and the duo then split up after just two singles. Stratton would then spend three years as a recording artist/producer signed to Virgin Records and later to Rhythm King Records and release a solo album entitled "Step into Time" under the artist name Man Machine. In 1990 he had the idea of creating the world's first dance music 'sample CDs' - a collection of 3 CD s called the 'Zero-G Datafiles' which featured over 3000 audio samples & loops. Although not intended to be used commercially, they became extremely popular. Together with Julie Stratton, Ed then formed the 'Time+Space' publishing company for sample CDs, and other talented sample producers were soon signed up to provide new collections for Time+Space to distribute on the Zero-G label. Meanwhile Vlad Naslas formed the instrument manufacturing company Lovetone with Dan Coggins, which (perhaps oddly) is specialized in guitar pedals.

Modern day peasants

I have nicked this comment from "Calli" from the Graunad comments section as this view so much echoes my own:

 

 

"... the only economic recovery that would mean anything to me would be a change of political system. The current system just puts us, the ordinary people - working class, middle class, small business - through this cycle again and again. I cannot accept that this is an acceptable future for myself or my children, especially because those principally responsible for these cycles sail through the bad times unscathed.

The only political message that would convince me would be a long term vision. I'm not tied to a particular ideology, but it would involve a constitution, getting rid of the 'second' house, long term planning, massive restrictions on "free market capitalism", and limits on how long people can "serve" as MP's. I would make the process of becoming an MP much more like jury service than the gravy train it currently is.

Brown, Cameron : neither has my vote because all they represent is more of the same rubbish that has plagued the UK since, at least the war - a public schoolboy's bunfight were the ordinary citizens are treated like pawns. "

So....what to do next?

 

 

Speech Debelle wins Mercury Prize: or, where's the other good stuff?

Ok, I've not heard Speech Debelle's album as I write this, so can't comment on its merits, but I have a question to the music biz in general.

 

If this album is so good, good enough to be recognised to be submitted for a major award (not to mention major sales jack), how come its only sold 3,000 copies up till now? *

 

There is so much good music around.  So why does the biz continually promote mediocre crud?  How many other brilliant artists am I missing, and who've also sold 3,000 CDs, when several million would be justified?

 

Biz: don't blame illegal downloaders, blame yourselves for not seeing the bleedin' obvious.  If you promote crud, you lose sales.  If you promote decent music then you gain sales.  You'll get illegal downloaders too, but I'll buy a CD and not rely on Spotify when the music is good enough for me to keep it permanently on my iPod.  Of course, when the Symbian version of Spotify is released, I'm becoming a premium subscriber. 

 

Another another thing: over 40s buy music too. I am old enough to remember when pop could be bought by a teeny, my mum, and sometimes my granny.  This does not necessarily indicate its high quality, but then pop is meant to be more Stephen King than Pushkin.  Quality isn't the point - listenablity is.  Most of the pop I love has no musical merit at all, but conjures up memories, grabs you by the feet and gets you bopping.  Its a heart, not a head thang.   

 

I will post a brief comment on Speech Debelle's album after I've played it. 

 

* Yes, I know,  Awards don't indicate whether something is good or not, and anyway, that's in the ear of the beholder of course.  But no smoke without fire, right?

Too darn hot: who paid for the (Mc)Kinsey report?

So a report is fired out by the McKinsey ("dya mind if I just borrow your watch to tell you the time and claim a tenner from you") management consultants, saying that the NHS needs to shave 10 percent of its staff to remain viable. 

 

What the f**k do management consultants know about running a hospital? Or anything else, really?

 

And the slightly sinister thing is that no politician wants to own up for commissioning this report in the first place.  SOMEONE paid for it.  Consultants don't work for free last time I looked. 

 

My theory is that actually, some stinking Nasty Tory paid for it to prepare us for when they inevitably win the next election.

 

"Hey look.  We won by a huge majority.  That means the public must really like what we intend to do.  So...let's do what we do best.  Close things.  Make life as hard as possible for the population who aren't us.  That's nearly everyone!!! Who cares - they are scummy old peasants.  What?  We are nasty.  Nooooo!  Never.  We're just saving you all from the big taxes from big government....".

 

Then, seeing the fuss made by the GBP (Great British Peasantry) against a bunch of US neocons about the "Orwellian" NHS,  backtracked.  But...the money had been paid, the report was let loose on an unsuspecting bunch of serfs anyway. 

 

Bet I'm right about this.   And I'll be pleased to name the name on this here blog, if it's ever revealed.   

 

 

 

Chopper!

Really glad to see one of these around.  When I was a kid these were all the rage.  You had a Grifter if you were hip, but a Raleigh Chopper if you were the daddy.  Mine was orange and black.

 

A few differences between this baby, which I snapped in Maldon at the weekend, is that the banana seat isn't suitable for giving friends a ride on the back ("backies") and I think the wheels on the modern-day version are closer in size to one another than the original 70s model, which featured a much larger back wheel, if my memory serves. 

 

 

Ad's eats: Tarantino: 51 High Strett, Hornchurch, Essex

For our 9th wedding anniversary, The Wife and I headed to Tarantino’s Italian restaurant in Hornchurch, after this was recommended by a work colleague.

Well, thumbs up to her, for this place was everything I’d been told it would be. Firstly, the service was really friendly. I think this is partly due to place being local, with another branch in Brentwood. Very much a family affair and all the better for without any sense of corporate blandness you sometimes find in Italian restaurants, though Zizzi nearby doesn’t do too badly in this respect despite it being part of the ASK group. Tarantino’s has a regular menu plus a couple of specials which change weekly.

I was told that the portions would be large, and that the quality would be high. Both assertions were not wrong.

For my starter, I ordered baby back ribs with honey barbecue sauce, and that’s exactly what I got, with the ribs falling off the bone. I would have complained that the sauce was a bit sweet, but then I remembered it said it would come with honey, as indeed it did. The portion on the platter was main meal size. My Dearly Beloved had meatballs which were the best I’ve tasted, made of a combination of beef and veal, very finely minced and tasting expensive. Again, a larger than average portion. So far so good.

Next we both had a tagliatele dish. Mine was with creamy tomato and garlic sauce, with strips of scotch steak. The beef tasted like it was not from the cheapest cut - I guess it came from sirloin, and was very tasty and perfectly cooked, so chewy enough without arguing with the teeth. This was, perhaps, the best pasta dish I’ve ever eaten. The sauce was delicious and robust, matching the steak strips perfectly, and the pasta firm and not claggy in the slightest. The Wife also gave her pasta dish eight out of ten, though I never tasted any of hers as it contained broccoli. I’d rather die before eating this.

Mrs Dukc was what full after this extravaganza of flavour and so went straight to coffee. I went for the strawberry cheesecake, which I would rate highly, though it didn’t have the wow factor of the pasta. Big portion though, so gets 7 out of 10.

Overall, I’m going to give this place a highly recommended rating. I do love Italian and it is quite easy to get a pasta dish. But it is very difficult to make a pasta meal exceptionally well, and that’s just what they’ve done here. Its won two awards, one being the “Best Regional Italian Restaurant” award. With good reason.

Despite the reputation Essex suffers, Hornchurch is an area of well-kept secrets, with Bonaparte being better than most French restaurants in London I’ve tried. Tarantino’s has barged its way into my “restaurants I now love” list. On a limb in the RM postcode area, all these delights are skipped by the London critics who tend to stick around the West End, Mayfair and Kensington. Great if you live or work there. However, for us in the far eastern suburbs, Hornchurch is a real unsung oasis.

Ssssshh. We’ll keep it to ourselves before all those peasants further west discover it.

Did Roger Linn love Alice too?

Most people – that is the vast majority of punters who aren’t electronica/muso types – can ignore this post. But I was playing Spotify at work, and re-stumbled across an album my dad used to play a lot – “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John.

Listening to All The Girls Love Alice made me think “by golly, that drum kit doesn’t half sound like a Linn Drum LN1, as used on countless Human League and Michael Jackson “Thriller” era tracks”. Well of course it wasn’t as the first Linn wasn’t made til at least 10 years later.

I wonder though if Roger Linn had a particular kit or track in mind when putting together those famous ROM chips? If so, I think the sounds on Alice are a definite possibility, the snare and toms are VERY close matches sound-wise.

The LN1 was a groundbreaker and is still iconic, and I have to confess I find it very pleasing to listen to nearly 30 years after it crashed and banged its way into the charts. The bass drum on the later 9000 – now that’s a full bodied sound – wowzer.

The simple happiness of finding Ricardo Autobahn's "Beep Beep"

Just a random muse on a Friday night, after watching Demon Seed with Julie Christie (man, that computer has a frightening voice), I was noodling around the music files on the PC and found Beep Beep by Ricardo Autobahn, from the album Interrobang.

What a very good track. Two years ago, I heard this when I was a) extremely drunk; and b) incredibly, almost terminally depressed due to a lot of aggro at work, and its retro cheerfulness really helped me put the crappiness of the day - which in fact led to me leaving the job and taking my present (non crappy) one – to one side, if only for a few hours. As heard on The Zone (but where else?) Bought the album off iTunes, this track was the absolute banger!

It sounds like what what you’d get if you artificially inseminated a Spectrum computer with the sperm of a first gen Akai sampler.

I challenge any electonica fan not to grin mindlessley when playing it - which you may by clicking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb2buOocwaQ

Weekend doing nothing

This weekend I mainly sat on my arse, reading and watching DVDs with the Dear One. We also went to the pub for Sunday lunch. All in all a weekend to savour (I am not being ironic, really). No, really, why can’t more weekends involve the grand sum doing nearly bugger all?

So, the only thing I missed was The Freak Zone. Chest la, I’m sure it’ll be on iPlayer this evening. There certainly won’t be any telly on, so at least I'll have an evening free - no a whole week really - to catch on musical weirdness.

But yesterday I saw it: a 42 inch Panasonic TV: £699 from Tezzers. A lovely trinket to treasure before I die. It has a great picture too, audio description facility built in (an essential for Mrs D) and even I can see it with my errant eyeballs.

(By the way, this isn't the telly concerned, in case you were wondering)

BBC1, 2, 3, four, and you can forget most of commercial channels, apart from CH 4 news, which is the only news worth watching other than Paxo on form. ALL FREAKIN’ RUBBISH.

So, my Panasonic dream telly will be surely like the world’s most elegant picture frame.

With a turd inside it.

Not a picture of a turd, which might be at least artistically interesting, but a real live turd, once that’s warm its fresh extraction form one’s botty, one that stinks of garlic and eight hour digested cider. This is the state of telly today. Quite literally, shit. Even the good shit is reconstituted shit. Shit is shit. Telly is shit.

Time to buy some more books or get out more. Oh no, I just wrote how much I enjoyed not going out. What a bloody hypocrite.

1938 tube train

A few of us travelled down to Russell Square for a trip on a 1938 tube train to Ealing Broadway. This train has been lovingly preserved by the London Transport Museum’s Acton depot branch and looks, as far as I can remember, just as it did when trains of this type left the Bakerloo line around 1984. Not a bad innings for a hard worked tube. A few technicalities aren’t quite the same – the notching relays seem to come from a 1958 type tube, and the very tuneful original compressors have been replaced by Westinghouse units, straight from a Met Line train, but that’s stuff only a nerd would notice (yes, I’m one of ‘em).

We were impressed by the quality of the seats which were deep and accommodating. Those thirties chaps certainly knew a lot more about lumbar support than us – why are all seats in modern public transport so hard?

It was great to go back in time to a type of tube stock I just about remember. I would ideally love to ride an R stock train, as used on the District until about 1984, but I don’t think it’s possible as I’ve only seen them in 2 car formation at the same museum. They featured the loudest MA whine of any Underground train – ever.

Some interior shots of the train are below and I’ll be posting a video or two on Youtube shortly.

A new Grimm Bros fairytale

Ever heard of that well-known Brothers Grimm story, “Goldilocks and the Two Bears”.

Three bears, surely?

Well, if you’re parliament, then the two bears version is all we’re getting, because we’re not worth it.

The two bears story could, by a creative parent, me made to work for a slightly gullible and young child at bedtime. But we know the story has changed beyond recognition. Without the porridge being “just right” as it was with the third bear, the story flops and in fact becomes a non-story. Who cares?

I wouldn’t trust this lot to sell me a dog. I’d get a cat, and they would tell me I was privileged to receive a new breed of feline-hound.

Weasel words and phrases: "Lessons have been learned"

When politicians, those in public office and others in the business world, when referring to avoidable cock-up or more likely, spin malfunction say “lessons have been learned” I wonder what they mean?

Translated, if we take “lessons” to their natural environment, a school context, do they mean: “oops, we screwed up on the fire evacuation, so lessons have been learned and we won’t leave bin containers in front of the fire exits any more because if this had been real, there would have been child deaths on our conscience and more importantly, a raise on our insurance premiums”.

Or do they mean “lessons have been learned by this year’s intake of students?” In which case, the lessons will be unknown by next year’s intake of students.

You’d wonder how many “lessons” in the political/business sense actually stay learnt.

How I hate that phrase. Really, really hate it.

If at first you don't succeed

I couldn't sleep a few nights ago, so started comiong up with these "isms".

If I come up with any more, I'll probably not post them:

If at first you don't succeed...

...you didn't succeed.

...leave the band and start playing free jazz.

...give up on the IVF and know that 57 is too old to get pregnant.

...resign from the job as MP. Your constituents won't forgive you.

...you should have read the notice CAREFULLY before trying to bring drugs inito Singapore

...you will probably fail again next time. Some peeps are just born to lose.

...consider renaming yourself Giles and tell 'em you went to Eton.

Susan Boyle: I was right

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I'm in love...with a careless whisper

I've just had a Google for it, and no-one seems to have spotted it yet, but Alexander Rybek's Eurovision winner is George Michael's Careless Whisper dresed up.

Chord for chord it is almost identical. It is even in the same key.

I wonder if George has noticed he's been ripped off? Maybe he's shagging the Norweigian and its an "in joke" of sorts.

I don't suppose we'll ever know.

Boyle-d in the bag

So Susan Boyle does her thing on Britain’s Got Talent and wows the cynical judges. And the huge audience on Youtube. Even I watched her with my work colleagues yesterday.

Great. Good luck to her. She has a real talent – at last – and isn’t just a moronic, oh-so-knowing pretty face famous for being famous. In fact, she is the polar opposite.

Her problem is that she is a member of the peasantry. Same as me, same as most people.

She hasn’t gone from some “masters of the universe to be” public school background, being groomed for stardom from leaving the nappy. She is in fact unemployed.

She has (allegedly) some form of learning difficulty.

She is, in some people’s opinion, not the prettiest in the world. As Shawaddywaddy might have said “nature didn’t give her such a beautiful face”. Of course, beauty is the in the eye of the beer-holder, but it’s an opinion that’s been stated in such an obviously brow-beating sort of way that dissenters (lovers of the fat girl or the boy with the baldy head) need not collect £200 or pass Go. YOUR OPINIONS DON’T COUNT. We’re the media. We know best.

She’s a Christian. (Ooh, maybe that’s a cunning front for her ack-tu-ally being an Islamist terrorist scumbag).

She volunteers. (Yeuuucccchhh).

She has a positive attitude. (Wot – not a cynic like US???)

All the better ammo for the shithawk, rat-laden press to knock her down.

There isn’t much hope in Sleb-land for the, ungroomed, ordinary, nice person, who slips through the processing plant, such as her good self.

I truly, honestly, wish her the best of luck.

I just think she’s being set up to be cooked and eaten for breakfast by a petty, squabbling rat-pack with nothing better to do. Remember Michelle McManus, anyone? Oh yes, the fat girl who was knocked down and knocked out after the X-Factor win.

It is simply the question of “how long will it take”?

I’ve already taken a £10 bet that within three months, she’ll be a child-abusing, 30-years-ago abortion having, wicked, stupid, inadequate zero. And she’ll also be described as whatever the media slimeballs refer to these days as the politically correct version of “peasant”. Cos she is one. God bless her.

Reunion

South Africans really love their shopping malls. Menlyn Park, near our hosts’ house, was around the same size as Lakeside Thurrock to give at least South East Englanders a sense of perspective. Every large city seems to have three or four of them. There doesn’t seem to High Street culture as with the UK. Sad, but not so bad when the rain is tipping down as it did for a few days before we left for home.

Our arrival in Johannesburg was a bit momentous as neither ourselves or our taxi driver could receive mobile phone coverage and hence we could not let one another know where we were (platform 16, a rather obscure, out of the way place as it turned out). What might have been a disaster turned out to be a minor glitch. Just as we were considering making our own way to Pretoria, our driver found us and transported us through the congested northern suburbs for over 1.5 hours. The traffic is easily as dense as London’s.

I won’t name them here. All I want to say is that it was pure delight to meet our friends and their young children (who had been babies last time we were there). Most of the next few days was spent with them catching up on old times round the bra’ai, talking into the night with plenty of Windhoek beers, good South African wine and Johnnie Walkers (which I’ve grown a taste for thanks to our hosts).

We visited the local shopping mall, I bought some specs – much cheaper there and of equal or better quality than the ones I currently own and wandering round the Pick ‘n’ pay. Pretoria is not a hotspot on any tourist trail of South Africa, but that wasn’t the reason we came. Mrs D found a fellow wordsmith with our lady host and plenty of female bonding took place.

And their kids were charming, intelligent littl’uns. I had been quite nervous in case we didn’t get on with each other, but that wasn’t an issue as they at best ignored or and at best asked us to read to them and in turn tell us some of their stories. I feel a career in writing may be in order.

I feel a little bland not mentioning their names, but for sake of their privacy I won’t.

To our hosts though – THANKS. Your boundless hospitality was and still is most appreciated by me and Mrs Dukc. I hope we’ll be able to reciprocate in the not too distant future – though sadly I can’t see how we’ll squash into our postage stamp sized house, unless it becomes suddenly blue, makes strange growling noises and sprouts the word “POLICE” above its door.

Tomorrow, I’ll write about a momentous, perhaps life changing event, which won’t name anyone.

Shosholoza Meyl Train

Pardon me boy, is this the Shosholoza Meyl train?

Now we come to one of the highlights of our South African soiree – the Shosholoza Meyl train. Not quite up there with the Trans-Siberian, this is the longest train journey I’ve made. At 27 hours from end to end, and at £30 for the joy of being on the train this long, not only is it the budget alternative to flying, this has to be one of the biggest rail bargains anywhere in the world. Apparently, a sitter costs £7.50 one way, but I really don’t know how anyone could possibly do this and remain comfortable.

At 1230 sharp, our train left the far end of Cape Town station, trundling its way through the suburbs and into the country. Our first stop, Belleville, was unremarkable, and a few hours later, after travelling through some mountainous countryside, we travelled for mile after mile towards Worcester and onwards. Our beds were made up at 6, we ate at around 2030 and had a very relaxed time reading and talking crap until about 2330 when Mrs D hit the sack, and I carried on reading and admiring the starlit view – we rarely see stars in England due to light pollution.

It was a fairly large area in which to sleep – the arrangement is light that of the old slam door compartment trains which ran south of the Thames until recently. You have about three quarters of the entire width the carriage to sleep on, and have a fold down bunk above you. Fortunately, these are only really used when the trains are full, which since we were out of season, they were not. Between the seats is a fold up table, beneath which is a small sink (ours only gave out the meanest of dribbles). There are two toilets per carriage, so you essentially share one with about 8-10 others. The showers and toilets seemed to be given a thorough clean every few hours. British train companies could learn a lot from this. Food from the dining car was no more expensive than outside the train (a burger and chips was about £2.50) and was pretty basic though perfectly fine. It helped that we’d bought lots of bottled water with us and you do tend to get quite thirsty on these trains, even though ours did not feature air conditioning (the premier class train which does the same route is about seven times more expensive, so dream on).

I can’t think of anything negative about this trip, apart from being told that were running on time, when in fact we were an hour later than scheduled. Not a major concern, but we had contacted our taxi, meant to be picking us up at the station, and who had travelled from Pretoria. He became increasingly irate with us for keeping him waiting as he was on a meter and had already picked up a shared fare returning to Pretoria.

It was an interesting journey for its countryside, for the gentle tck-tck, tck-tck of the rails and because there isn’t a better way to travel apart from maybe a cruise ship if time is not a concern (we made time for this one and was definitely worth every hour “lost” to not having flown).

The company slogan is “A Pleasant Experience” and despite my reservations the strapline was spot on. It was and I’d recommend it to anyone who can make the time to do it.


Inside a sleeping compartment

Robben Island

Robben Island "welkoms" you.

On the Monday, we travelled over to Robben Island, holding place for many apartheid-era political prisoners, including of course, the main man, Nelson Mandela. We had to hang around a while after buying tickets, since there was a bit of a backlog for the ferry, but after a meal of very large burgers, the boat took us across the five or six miles of water to the island.

Our tour guide was an ex-political prisoner and really knew his onions, offering us a humorous (yes, really) tour of the island, with plenty of information and anecdotes about what it was like to live there involuntarily. We started the tour by bus, followed by a walk around the cells where prisoners were incarcerated. We then travelled to the individual cells, including cell number 7 where Nelson Mandela lived. Because of our lack of sight, the tour guide allowed us into the cell – a rare privilege apparently. My thoughts on the island (though not the prison, which was suitably grim) was how beautiful the island is, with its views across to the Cape. With its white limestone and eucalyptus trees, it was rather like a desert island. But would like to live in the harsh conditions of the prison cell and hard labour? Nope. I think had we arrived during a storm, I may have left with a different opinion. I’ve been to Kilmainham Jail in Dublin, and that place was a true representation of grimness. Apart from the physical humiliation of having to move loads of lime from one place to another…then back…then back again (there was no real work for the politicos to actually do) I think I could almost enjoy the environment here, though not the incarceration.

An evening of wandering around the Waterfront again, followed by our final eats at the Kraal restaurant bought our stay in Cape Town to and end. Tomorrow would be the mammoth trip to Pretoria on the Shosholoza Meyl train.

Tour of the Cape

The pleasant coastal town of Fish Hoek

Success at last with the rail tickets to Jo’burg! An early morning trip, surprisingly stress free bought us to the ticket office and our tickets. Hooray. This made the tour ahead that much more relaxed as, had we missed our tickets, we may have had to fly – or so we thought – incorrectly as it turns out.

We did the Cape Wine tour and southern Cape. What a beautiful country South Africa is, with landscapes which seem to change every few minutes, from wild costs to pleasant suburbs, all within a few minutes drive of each other. Our tour bus even met a baboon sitting, its red arse aloft, in the road.

We went through a country park, drove on to a rather nice seafood restaurant on the beachfront just outside Simons Town, and then on Stellensbosch and the winery. I thought the winery was a gorgeous building – there was a full scale wedding going on as we did our cheese and wine taste, and the guests had mainly come from England. Stellensbosch itself is the oldest town in SA, and looks a bit like a slightly more relaxed version of the back roads of Ealing. A great place to live as a Cape Town commuter I’m sure, providing you can afford it.

As we trundled our way from the southern cape coast on to the winery, our knowledgeable guide pointed out that we were passing the Cape Flats Township. “This”, she said “is where about 1.5 million people live”. I asked her to repeat it. I hadn’t mis-heard. About one third to one half (depending on who you believe) all Cape Town’s residents live here. And the place was, in appearance, rather like Langa. Only on a much larger scale. All in all, a worthwhile tour, simply the reason that it took outside the tourist zone in and around Long Street.

That evening, we had a wander round the Waterfront shopping centre. It was pretty much any other large and prestigious shopping centre. I must admit to quite enjoying going to foreign shopping centres which I suppose makes me a suburban fart. Some pretty decent tourist tat shops though, most of which only window shopped at. Please note NHS, asthma inhalers are only £1.40 here – and no prescription. I only wish buying straightforward meds was as easy here. I bought six of the buggers.

We dined in an Italian restaurant by the water’s edge – it was unremarkable, though it did serve gnocchi, something which seems, unfairly, to have gone out of fashion at UK Italian eateries.

This rather nice shot (not mine sadly) is of the

Waterfront shopping area.
We had another gander round the Waterfront, but at this point we were fairly tired, and at 11 returned to the Grand Daddy. A pretty successful day’s touring.

Robben Island tomorrow.

South Africa holiday: Township tour of Cape Town

An early start on Monday took us to the township of Langa (supposedly meaning “sunshine” in Xhosa). Our driver, a dweller of said township, took us on an experience I’ll not forget. Firstly, we travelled to church. This was full to capacity (with about 600 in the congregation as a conservative estimate). Some of our party were fairly moved by the service, though I had mixed feelings and was fairly untouched – it seemed like the kind of service I grew up with, although services at Holy Trinity in South Kensington were all in English. I found the sudden swap-over from English to Xhosa and back again for no apparent reason detracted from the message, which was kind of garbled and too much like hard sell for my taste. Oh well, horses for courses. The church was absolutely windswept as was the township itself, with 40 mile an hour westerlies blasting through.

Driving around the first part of the township, I was surprised at how orderly it was, with some concrete houses laid out in rows.

Next, we travelled to a shabeen, an informal pub. Informal just means that there is no licence, and therefore the government restricts its serving hours until the late afternoon.

Served here was some of the most disgusting beer I’ve tasted. Made of sorghum, this stuff is made en masse – fermentation time is a worryingly short three days - and served straight from the keg or barrel or whatever it is. The taste is weak yet sour, and quite unique, with a thick layer of foam on the top. The shabeen itself was buzzing with flies. One of the reasons these pubs are more heavily regulated is that there are no loos at all, prompting the question, where on earth do you go for leak? This lack of a satisfactory answer may account for some of the insect activity I suppose. I think this is the kind of place hardcore drinkers gravitate to. A very interesting experience indeed.

When the idea that people should be entitled to have any kind of fun outweighs the perceived need to raise taxes from alcohol sales, our pointless government, having successfully closed the last proper non corpo-pub, will force ordinary people to drink in places like this, as government approved beer will be over a tenner per pint as necking more than one of them will of course, encourage rampant terrorism and anyway, consuming more than one tenth of a unit will also be regarded by them and their media sheep as binge drinking. Bring on the sorghum.

On to the hostel: an especially grim place in the township which has got to be the most hemmed in place containing humankind beyond a prison I’ve been to. Some pretty nice people spoke to us there. I felt justifiably privileged living in my small house on the east side of London compared to these people. Hell, I am indeed.

Next was the healer (dubbed by me the witch doctor). Not sure if witchery goes on here, but the NHS its not. Practical healing involves animal parts so we’re not talking homeopathic remedies, despite the presence of lots of herbs.

Finally, a drive taking us past an unincorporated part of the township that comprised the kind of shack with neither electricity nor running water I’d thought would occupy the whole township. This was as desolate a place as can be. The next day we heard that around 400 of these shacks were burnt down that evening. It didn’t even make the national news as this kind of thing happens so often. Thank goodness no-one was killed or seriously injured. Unbelievable.

In the afternoon we sat in our hotel bar and drunk South African champagne. We then ate a rather lovely meal in an African restaurant. I don’t really buy into the brow-bearing “guilty am I” response to the townships. I was far too young to have been able to influence things during apartheid, and there is bugger all I can do about what has been left behind. But the sheer fucking irony of pouring wine down my throat, and having the cash to do so without thinking about it too much was not lost on me. Consider this: The average domestic help in Cape Town earns R80-90 per day. A bottle of mineral water in our restaurant was R15.00 (about £1.00 at the time of writing).

I have nothing but sheer admiration for those living in the townships (half of Cape Town’s population). They have remained patient far longer than any decent human being could expect.

Langa Township’s unincorporated area.

Top of the Table - and another lower one

The cable car spins round on its way up to the top of Table Mountain. The view from the top is quite stunning

After another fruitless trip to buy our tickets for the train to Johannesburg, we decided to head off to the Waterfront and take a tour bus around the city. The highlight of the day was definitely heading on the cable car to the top of Table Mountain.

What a stunning place, 1 kilometer above the city spread before us below. For anyone visiting CT, this is a must-do and I can not recommend it enough. It was relief to be away from the heat of town trolling round town on the open topper actually, and even more of a relief as the temps dropped by at least 10 degrees on top of the mountain.

A leisurely trip along the coast through some of the most expensive beach front housing on earth and one of the more exclusive resorts (so exclusive we skipped them) took us back to the Waterfront and back to our hotel for a well deserved food stop at the local Pick 'n' Pay - we were running low on soft drinks and choc and supermarkets apparently close on Sunday (this wasn't actually the case but we weren't to know).

After an hour or so reading in the hotel we headed to a restaurant called Mama Africa's, as recommended in our tourist guide, and if the amount of tourists crammed there is to go by,. Most of the other guides too.

I think I would have enjoyed this place more had we not been completely spoilt by Nona’s the night before. There was nothing wrong with at all. The cocktails, which were high quality and generous in size, were £2.00 a pop, so the relatively disappointment we experienced with the food was partly made by the liquid refreshment. But the service became ridiculously slow as the evening progressed (45 minutes between main course and dessert), the desert itself, a malva pudding, which in my case was super-bland and the music, which was deafening - and we were tabled about as far away from the band as could be. I'm not too snobby about being a tourist - I am one - but I felt this was far to "corporate tourist mill Africa" for my liking. I had a pretty nice Cape Malay curry which was both spicy and sweet and apparently, according to our friends in Pretoria I spoke to about it later, seemed quite like the real deal.

We had an early start on Sunday, so by 2230 we were back at the hotel and I read Christopher Fowler's marvelously easy to absorb autobiog, Paperboy, while Mrs DD slept like a wee child.

Andy Taylor - a sad farewell

Andy's singing persona, Jimmy Johnny, bellows down the mic at a friend's barbie. It is a contentious topic as to whether he could actually sing though. Hmm, naysayer me.

My friend Andy Taylor died last month and his funeral took place last week, on Thursday, in Eltham.

He was a big man indeed in the disabled community. His company, Access Made Easy, has a record which I doubt any other private sector employer can match - 60 percent of his employees were disabled: I am one of them, albeit on an ad hoc basis.

I met him at the age of 18, 20 years ago now, while still at university, on the premise of meeting his then-girlfriend, Laura, whom I knew from school. Although Laura and I remained friends until a few years back, knowing Andy was like having a wiser, more knowing and definitely more motivated elder brother. For the next 20 years or so, we played music together, drank beer together, talked rubbish together and even tried to save the world in the way ten beers allows you think you are able to.

We recognised instantly our similar class and family backgrounds, we have a few sisters each and both of us had a broad taste in music - I spent many an evening over his various flats in Deptford going through his vast CD collection, eating food from the Good Friends and later The Orient, and sleeping on a succession of sofas in various states of rot. His kitchen ceiling once collapsed spontaneously while he was standing under it. I'm glad his accommodation improved soon after, though his temporary sleeping arrangement never improved much.

It would be wrong to make Andy out to be some kind of latter day saint because he was a welded-to-the-earth human, nothing more. But he was, for sure, a man of action (and a rather able wordmonger too as it happens). He could definitely talk. While wearing a super strong pair of walking shoes too, prepared to travel the extra mile. Lending a hand if that should be required. No slouch, he really did put his money - hard cash too - and his effort, as well as his mouth, into just about everything he was passionate about.

I know that his partner, Amy, his parents, sisters and his numerous friends and work colleagues all feel his loss within our lives.

So I will, with the greatest of pleasure, salute Andy. A well loved and now very much missed colleague, thoughtful friend, great sounding board, shrewd businessman, man of action.

And mostly for me, fantastic mate.

It was a great journey Andy. Just far too short.

Arrival in Cape Town

The exterior of Nyoni's Kraal restaurant, which kept us fed for three nights. This place gets a highly recommended rating and if you go, ask for Deborah the waitress - she's a star and a half.


The South Africa trip started at Heathrow Terminal Five, which I must say was actually a gorgeous looking and importantly, easy to use building and nothing like the squalor I’ve experienced at the other older terminals. The flight was relatively comfortable for an over nighter and we landed in the baking sun of Cape Town at about 9 the next morning.

Our taxi landed us at the Grand Daddy hotel in Long Street. The Daddy Long Legs seems to be a chain comprising a boutique hotel, an “art hotel” and a trailer park filled with genuine 50s Airstreams.

So, after a breakfast of French toast with banana, maple syrup and bacon, and a few hours sleep in our very comfortable room, we were ready to hit the mean streets of Cape Town. Not a very intense day as we tend to spend the first day of any holiday abroad just finding our feet. Today we tried to pick up our rail tickets for the Shosholoza Meyl train, but the ticket office was closed (in rush hour, just when it might be used by people – nice to know the service ethic is as strong here as it is in the UK (sarcastic remark). We wandered around Long Street, and spent our evening at a restaurant I can highly recommend called the Nyoni’s Kraal.

http://www.capetownmagazine.com/todonight/Western-Cape/Local-is-Lekker-at-Nyonis-Kraal-Restaurant-in-Cape-Town~115

Our waitress, Deborah, was a complete mummy, explaining everything we were curious about in a most enthusiastic way. She actually made the place work for us in the big way and we returned twice more. Sure, this might be regarded as unadventurous but when you get African food this good, why spoil your stay by going somewhere else only to be disappointed.

So after our meals of Meat Towers and Pap (pap being mealy maize shaped and fried), and stew with samp (samp being a mixture of mealy maize and beans) we returned to our hotel, tired but stuffed.

A fine start to a wonderful holiday.

The last month - one holiday and a funeral

The swanky yet homely Grand Daddy hotel, Long Street, Cape Town, where my and Mrs Dukc stayed for half our South African adventure

Myself and the wifelet have returned from a rather brilliant holiday in South Africa which took place in what started out to be a rather tumultuous month. I’ll make a separate entry for that event, hopefully later this week, though my bloody diary never fails to fill up - not that I’m hugely complaining, you understand.

This is a summary of events – with more retrospective blogging to come over the next few days Unlike Mrs D, who elected to bring her netbook with her, mine remained in the place where it should while I’m on holiday. Firmly at home.

So...for the first of our two weeks we stayed at the rather splendid Grand Daddy hotel in the centre of Cape Town, a place I’d be more than happy to recommend. We then travelled to our friends in Pretoria via Jo’burg on the Shosholoza Meyl train, whose slogan is “a pleasant experience” and for once, the phrase was not hyperbole, but pretty close to how I’d have described it.

While in Pretoria, we stayed in the rather nice suburb or Constantia Heights with our friends in their rather lovely and jealous-making house. On the Saturday and Sunday we visited a lion breeding centre where we handled lion cubs, and during the following days, we spent long evenings over the bra’ai with plenty of great South African wine and loadsa bottles of Namibian Windhoek beer. Lovely. We also did more prosaic stuff purchasing specs for me (which are of at least equal quality to those I buy in the UK and a third cheaper). We also visited quite a few Pick ‘n’ Pay supermarkets for typical SA food. I think food needs an entry on its own too.

Over the next fortnight I’ll be posting more deails and some pictures too.

I predict a riot

I know its easy to say it, but I have a date in mind that the riot(s) in this country will kick off, and have been saying it now for the last two weeks at work. We've even opened a book - the prize, a case of beer. That date is 17 July. Watch and see if I'm right.

I have no evidence and no prior knowledge of anything, and I'm certainly no Mystic Meg (not that she's ever been wildly accurate, other than the the frequency of her paycheck).

No, my prediction is based on nothing but a wild stab in the dark. But I think a combination of the continuance of government ineptitude, further nest-feathering of greedy, psychopathic bankers and a really sunny, hot day...well, the combination of goodies is there.

I'll see you at Trafalgar Square or nearby on the day then.

I'm seething and can't see my fury lessening. I doubt I'm alone.

Madder than mad people who are certified as mad

Geert Willders, a guy who wishes to point out the possible correlation between the Quran and terrorism is refused entry to this country. Given the evidence, I can’t see how anyone can deny the link. This film being freely available on Youtube. I have watched it and fail to see the controversy.

1) Terrorism happened.
2) Muslims did it.
3) The particular muslims who did it claim it was a good thing and should happen again.

PDQ.

A week later, Abu Qatada, a guy who has proposed multiple fatwahs against non-believers (that’s anyone who isn’t a hard core fundamentalist brainwashed Muslim –and even the majority of gente minded Muslims are most likely included here) who has been described as “bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe” is awarded £2.500 of my hard-worked for money by the European Court of Human Rights. I can’t even blame my country’s wretched excuse for a government for this justice abortion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/19/abu-qatada-compensation-european-court

When such madness is over, would a reader this blog please wake me up. I’m taking some heavy duty drugs which I hope will aid the hibernation process.

Zanu-Labour reach new low

Our glorious government has reached a new low. Yes, my Victor Meldrew-esque habit of exclaiming "I don't belieeeeeve it" has been stretched to lengths I didn't think possible.

Now you can't take photographs of coppers or millitary personnel in the streets of its somewhat-less-than-free city.

Even the police union has claimed this legislation which came in without any mandate or consultation, today, say its ridiculous.

Here's the story.

Zanu-Labour. Bringing the laws of downtown Harare to London. Political prisoner being beaten up? I give it two years.

Psychopoaths say sorry

I'm sure I'm not the first to have compared the highly overpaid leaches in the top end of banking as "psychopaths" but actually, their so called apology displays all the characteristics of classic psychopathy.

"We're profoundly sorry" they cried unanimously yesterday. Ah, good, those’s what the public want, so let’s appear to do the right thing, goes the mindset.

But later on, they claimed that they were either "not responsible" for causing the crisis, or only "partly" responsible. They were quite happy to blame ministers, the regulator, even the general public for buying into the get rich quick, easy credit, pay back whenever culture. Excuse me, but the sheer amount of junk mail I received offering ridiculously easy credit terms during the "good times" mean I'm now on the mail preference service - I was receiving one or two pieces of mail per day. I don't, and didn’t need the credit - I'm an old fashioned kind of "if you don't have it, don't spend it" guy. A pretty fortunate position I know, but even if I wasn't just doing the maths would have indicated to me that it looked too good to be true, and therefore probably was. Or is, as it turned out.

My wife gave me a very important lesson soon after we were first married, after one of our first quarrels. I was trying to placate her by saying that whatever it was I'd done to cause her offence, I was sorry. Her lesson was: "If you don't know why you are saying sorry, then don't say you are, because it is meaningless".

Makes good sense to me.

These bankers aren't sorry - not in a way which expresses real empathy. They are just looking to do with right thing, but with no personal stake involved, their apologies are meaningless, drivel. It may have been better for them to have just kept schtumm.

Corporate humour

I'm glad there are some companies left who understand that mission statements, targets, mention of the weasel-phrases "passionionate" and "committed to blah blah blah" are regarded by some of us as wank-words.

I much prefer the humourous approach, although your friendly neighbourhood lawyer might be scratching his or her head over this on-the-box statement.

This company's website is also a giggle:

www.x-keys.com

Blame it on Peston - they do

I've just heard some bankers on Newsnight more or less claim that Robert Peston, the esteemed financial journalist, is "partly responsible" for the demise of Northern Rock. I didn't catch their names as I was having a shave at the time with the bedroom telly behind me. Life rocks on as usual in Dukcingham Palace.

I caught most of what they were saying though. Once I picked my jaw from the floor and glued it back on, I had to remind myself that these guys are:

1. psychopathic: a non-psychopathic banker can't do their job. the same as a intellectual, bolshy solider can't do his.

2. Unfortunately, sharing the same oxygen as me.

I suppose Peston could have told us all how wonderful things were cooking in that august institution's kitchen, and all would have been well. In fact, fine gateaux would have been served throughout the land.

Poor Robert. He does get excITE-ed to be sure, but I don't believe there'd be many, apart from a few rogue loopers who would claim he's actually inaccurate, or at least knowingly inaccurate.

ANY-way, his excitedness about all things financial make him SUCH an entertainer.

5 February: I found the story on the Reuters website:

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-CreditCrisis/idUSTRE5135MO20090204

A quick review of Zizzi, Hornchurch

This branch of the Italian restaurant chain (part of the ASK Group) is located on Station Lane, just south of the town centre. It is situated on what looks like an old pub. My work group went there for our Christmas do, and it was quite crowded. Although I had a few complaints, mainly on the speed of service, I thought we'd try it again, especially as Mrs D had printed off a voucher entitling customers to a free second main course. Fortunately, it was not overly full this time.

The service started well, as did the food. Mrs D had a large garlic bread (large it was, and tasty too with mozzarella and caramelised onion splurged all over it), and I had a vegetable bruschetta, which was everything I hoped it would be. My seafood pasta was just about spot on too, though it could have been a bit bigger, and would have gained the place an extra point if it had been. Wifey had a chicken risotto, which she gave a good mark for.

We waited a while for dessert though. Having said that, when it arrived, my banana and chocolate waffle was perfect, as was Mrs D's apple crumble. Both of these dishes were baked in the wood fired oven, and the menu at least warns you of this.

However, the wait for the bill, having been twenty minutes, was too long. The only way to make the point was to get up and put our coats on. Why do restaurants insist on doing this? Not the first time its happened by any means, and annoying. Waiters can lose a good tip from my by drawing out the bill.

Overall, I'd give Zizzi's 6/10. The food is well cooked, though it does overdo the options involving tomatoes, though I admit to being a despiser of this particular Satanic fruit. Don't mind 'em squashed into a pizza paste or processed by H J Heinz & Co, but on their own...vile.

The service was somewhat slow and haphazard, ranging from top notch to slow and disorganised over the course of one evening. This does mirror our experience over Christmas too, so something to work on, guys. Oh, and the mens' toilets were not working. I won't mark them down on this, as it may have packed up earlier that day - but it is a bit rich of a restaurant featuring a large wine list not to warn newly arrived customers about this. I was about ready to wazz up the wall on the way home - fortunately, home being fairly close.

A pleasant, and not too risky local night out. Not too many thrills, but nothing done especially poorly either.

Snow and London buses

Here's a picture of my street taken at 0730 this morning.

I was on my way to Grays (about 15 miles south east of here) to meet a client. It is ironic that NOT ONE BUS was running in London this morning. Not bloody one of 7,500 buses. And yet in Grays, the buses appeared to be running in quantity. Sounds like a nice day off for London bus drivers anyway.

Snow showers

Not much snow in London, ever, so although this is pathetic by the standards of Winnipeg or Stockholm, this is the first snow of the year. Flurries started at about 1630 this afternoon. and the snow, though puffy and fluffy, is finally settling. I think tomorrow is going to mean transport grinding to a halt. That should be fun.

Snow, does prettify places, even Dagenham.

Accessibility whine: Google Chrome browser

I'm frigging frustrated and intend venting a bit of spleen here.

I've just bought a PC netbook (a rather nice Samsung NC10), which is pretty good given its obvious limitations. The battery life is phenomenal and the keyboard, even given my fat fingers, is usable, just. I'm pretty pleased with it, but I'm forced to use Zoomtext on its higher powers due to the lappy's tiny 10.2 inch screen. Zoomtext is a bit of screen magnification software, and because I've the level 2 version, includes a degree of speech feedback, which can be used to read whatever the mouse is hovering over, or just to read a text file from start to finish, should that be your wish. I mainly use its AppReader tool, which allows you point a mouse at a thing, such as a paragraph within a web page, and have it read from that point onwards.

Now I'm hardly a coding genius, but I know that Zoomtext is pretty intelligent these days at working out the design of a web page, and reading the bits you actually need. In effect, if there's an advert at the side of a page, and you want to read the middle body text, Zoomtext will not shoot over to the ad. This wasn't always the case. Some of this I know, is down to the design of the page itself, some the browser and I know a lot of work has gone into Zoomtext itself (this is product I like one heck of a lot and can recommend it to just about any partially sighted computer user who can afford it, or who can get it on Access to Work is DSA if you're a student).

I wanted to try out the Google Chrome browser as it is safer to use than Explorer, allegedly, though nothing is as safe as my beloved, ageing Mac, it has to be said. So, on it went. And off it went.

I downloaded a quite simple page, www.mobile-review.com and selcted the English translation, and a piece of news. Whereas Zoomtext would be happy to speak the whole website without issue using MS Explorer, it failed to get beyond the first paragraph, before getting lost and drifting off to the bottom left hand side of the page. Completely useless. I could probably use the Chrome browser at work, since I use a giant 30 inch monitor there, but on the netbook, the issue is somewhat forced. So it Chrome was sullenly de-installed.

I wrote to Google summarising the issue, but I do wonder (time and time again) why access tech users are nearly always regarded as an inconvenience or afterthought by mainstream software developers? One of the glorious things about Apple's Mac, is that the technology needed by a blind or partially sighted people to make it speak or mag up the screen is built into the operating system. its not perfect - I'm using the Zoom feature right now, and it will never as smart or easy to use as Zoomtext - but hey, it means I can use my computer for the same initial cost as a non-partially sighted user. A rarity though, and Apple really can't be congratulated for their iPods which are generally an accessibility disaster area. My suggestion: install Rockbox on your pod, but only if you are have 4.5 gen or older as it won't work at all on the Classic version (as I write). And be very careful, read the instructions and follow them to the letter unless you want a dead iPod.

Another rant, while I'm on the subject of access tech. When I type in "Android" and "partially sighted" on Google, looking for information on any third party apps which may have been written in the area of screen mags or speech for the HTC G1 'Google Phone", why are all the phones which appear simple, stupid, big button affairs designed for the extremely old, or non-technical users. HELLOOOOO developers. Wakey wakey manufacturers. I am not a thickie. i am not an ooohh-aaaaahh phenomenon. I have a very specific problem with my eyeballs, and its a relatively simple technical problem to solve with tried and technology on existing products, not a phone for technophobes.

Just because I'm partially sighted doesn't mean my brain is dripping out of my arse (feel free to send it back to me if it should fall out). Most of the recent pictures on this blog were taken on a Nokia N82 phone, which is a great mobile indeed, and hardly a low tech jobby by 2008 standards. It is, indeed, a phone I like one heck of a lot due to its massive feature set. I would rather eat my own hairy turds than voluntarily give it up for a basic crappy phone designed for me, sorry, errrm, partially sighted people. But I would like my N82 a lot MORE if I didn't have to use a £10 hand held magnifier in order to see it. The alternative to credit crunch solution is mag software, going for the easy going sum of £150. As they say in German, warum? Nokia phones running Symbian actually are accessible with speech and screen mag - at a price - but they are a rarity amongst mobile phones (Samsungs, come to think of it, used to be able to, and still might manage to have their screen fonts scaled, to quite large sizes).

Wacky flavoured crisps

Last year, Walkers crisps held a competition in which the public were invited to submit flavour ideas for a forthcoming range of crisps. The competition was called "Do Us A Flavour'. I was buying lunch and coffee from our sandwich van on Monday, and spotted the Do Us A Flavour range, all available from said van. Needless to say I had to try them all, and my guess is that you greedy lot will want to try at least a few of these flavours.

Here's your choice of crisp, with my opinion on each flavour below:

Fish and chips: I reckoned this would be a the tamest flavour, but the flavour is quite fishy and chippy. There is vinegar with a hint of fish essence, plus some lemon. Just like a day out in Margate. Works pretty dang well for me. 7 out of 10.

Crispy duck and hoi-sin sauce: quick a strong flavour of duck. My boss thought it was too ducky, though I considered this an advantage. At least it says what it is going to do on the packet. 7 out of 10 again.

Chocolate and chilli: You can taste the cocoa for the first five seconds, then the chilli kicks in. The flavours on their own work well, but the the flavour overall is chilli. 4 out of 10.

Onion Bhaji: The smell is pretty good, I bought my Indian colleague Amir a pack and he thought the smell was Ok, and the taste, he rated as "nice". However, the main flavour for me seemed to be monosodium glutamate. Very salty taste with a hint of onion only. Only 3 out of 10.

Builders Breakfast: This again is quite a good replication of the flavours, which, according to the packet, are sausage, bacon, egg, buttered toast and tomato ketchup. Quite a challenge for the flavour chemists then, and one which they've made work. For its sheer accuracy, I'm giving these 9 out of 10.

And the weirdest flavour, I've saved till last: Cajun Squirrel. Since I'm not Ray Mears, I've no idea what a squirrel, cajun spiced or otherwise, is meant to taste like. If this was described as cajun chicken, then I'd give it a very high mark indeed as that's just what it tastes like. I'm going to give it 7 out of ten as the cajun spice is just hot enough to give your tongue a small whack without blowing your face off. A good novelty flavour.

I think Walkers have done a pretty good job overall, and i envy the person whose job it was to replicate these flavours.

Happy crunching for the credit crunch.

Adam

Pimp my watch

I am a great fan of TokyoFlash watches. LED watches which are totally pointless in they do no more than any analogue and much less than even a cheap Casio. But that's the not the point of TokyoFlash. They are in this world for gadget freaks and people who just love to show off in a particular way and for whom gold and jewels probably don't impress. If you have ever purchased a hi-fi for its display over its music out, or been to a nightclub to admire the light show over this music, you're a prime candidate as purchaser.

Here's how you tell the time on my Pimp P1 Pusher, below. On the left hand side, follow the column of red LEDs. 5. Now read the number of multi-coloured dots. The red lines indicate quarters: 15, 30 and 45 and 00. So the time here is 5.22 and I'm about to leave work. Easy. This is not the hardest to read TokyoFlash watch, the Barcode range really taxes the brain.

The watch does a little flash every two minutes between 1800 and 0100 - what the accompanying blurb calls 'Pimp time'. Lovely. Isn't 6pm a bit early for pimps?

It is actually quite a comfortable watch to wear, despite its gigantic size, courtesy of the wide leather strap, though wearing it under a shirt cuff is not possible. At £130 (Amazon.co.uk), its not the cheapest of watches either, but it has been a rather pleasant timepiece to use so far, and anyway, my wife bought it for me as a Christmas prezzie, so I paid nowt!

Ad's eats: Bavarian Beerhouse, 190 City Road, London

Possibly the hardest working in London, these waiting staff are in danger of heading for deafness at an early age. They should be awarded with medals for their top service in the face such a racket.



German food, like British native food, does not seem to travel well internationally, at least not without being first maligned for being stodgy, porky and plain. Nothing wrong with any of these qualities if the food is prepared well. I've never quite understood why us Brits, of all people, should snigger at German food. We invented the pork pie after all. If you're a veggie, granted, you're going to stuggle a bit with Deutsch grub, at least with the pub grub type menu Germany is most famous for.

It was this kind of pub food we sought out when a eight of us headed into City Road for Mrs Dukc's birthday do - no, I don't reveal her age, though she is considerably older than me.

The restaurant's website describes the Beerhouse thus: "Bavarian Beerhouse is an unique
combination of excellent food, outstanding service, great German beer and fantastic atmosphere."
The description is oh so accurate, but for one thing. We'll get to that later.

Let's start with the good bits. The food at the Bavarian Beehouse is pretty authentic. I'm not exactly the widest-travelled wanderer, but I have been to Berlin twice and the food served at at the Bavarian Beerhouse tasted very much like the real deal to me.

My starter was a cheese special "Obazda Cheese" which consisted of a soft pretzel with a mixture of different cheeses which tasted like a grated cheese mixture bound together with mayo. My main was about as typically German as you can get, Munich Roast Pork. Four thick slices of butcher quality pork, in rich beer infused gravy, served with a large, gravy-soaking potato dumpling and piles of delish sauerkraut. For dessert, I had a light cinnamon-y pancake with spray-on cream. Cream aside, the cake itself was light and tasty. All in all, the food was fairly close to the perfect German experience.

After not such a promising start with the service, it got better and better, and the German waitress serving us became more efficient and polite as the evening went on. She deserved a medal for staying calm as this was one of the noisiest restaurants I've been to. I was with a bunch of blindos and therefore, only two of us could read the menu. After being told the music could not be turned down (the music being a loop of the ten "best" Christmas tracks in the world...ever" (special limited restaurant edition), I had the bellow the menu to my friends like a crazed market trader. To be honest, I was glad to get away from the noise.

The restaurant has a wide range of German beers on tap too, which I'highly recommend, the dark wheat Pauliner beer being my favourite with a rich, fruity taste, and one suspects, rather higher than you'd expect in alcohol content.

So, overall I would give this restaurant a "wait and see" verdict. I can hardly fault the food and happily give it an 8 / 10 mark. The service was pretty good too, at 7/10. I think even the world's best waiting staff would struggle under these conditions. Tables were set out five-aside 'stamtisch' style and the main clientele on the evening we appeared seemed to be office Christmas partygoers simply having a wonderful corporate time. By the end of it, I was beginning to hope that the guys sharing my air were all employees of Woolworths having the last fling before receiving their redundancy notices.

To conclude, this is s a restaurant let down by its customers. I am going to give this restaurant a "recommended" rating because I really want to like it and intend giving it another bash in January when hopefully things are back to normal. It does exactly what it says it will do on the on the tin. But Christmas party season isn't the best environment in which to relax with friends, unless the Christmas party is your own.

Information about the restaurant and its menu can be found here:

http://www.bavarian-beerhouse.com/

Food: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 2/10
Value for money: 7/10

Water Gardens, Harlow

Rather liked the way this pic I snapped of Harlow Water Gardens yesterday turned out. The big and over-bright setting sun really brings out the starkness of the “spirit of optimism” 60s buildings to the right. Wish I’d got it when things were a bit more orange later, but that’s mobile cams for ya.

It was nowhere near as dark as it looks here, but I tried to force my camera’s processing thingy to behave rather like how the old fashioned recording level control in cheap radio-cassette players worked. That halo effect around the sun I only noticed on the big monitor. Absolutely no idea what that’s all about, Alfie – some kind of lens distortion maybe?

I go, we go, Yugo. Yu-gone.

The final Yugo car is rolling off the production line today. Apart from the fact I didn’t realise these were still being built, I tried in the mid 80s, unfruitfully, to persuade my dad to buy one of these with the idea that having such an unhip car would actually make you rather hip – this does, in my experience, work, as people are secretly rather curious about things they sneer about without knowing why.

Sadly, he didn’t buy one (or indeed, a Skoda Estelle which I was equally keen to promote). However, my parents managed to own two 2CV during the late 80s/early90s so my campaign was not entirely lost, and yes, people were impressed by their flaky flapping windows and the starting handle potential of it.

MOOG PARTY TIME, or Test Card tale

As a tot, which indeed I was in the early 70s, watching the test card was about as exciting as TV got.

Well, no, that's not quite true.

There was Bod, Mister Benn, Jackanory and a shedload of BBC kids TV. Television which the Beeb at the time thought very important, so lavished millions of pounds at making pretty decent. However, on those luxurious days where you were either sick/pretending to be or for when friends weren't around, you could sit, preferably huddle, under a duvet - and watch, or rather listen to - the Test Card. This was a thing which I doubt exists anywhere in the world today. There is no need. Tellies are too reliable for their own dang good.

Also known as "trade test transmissions" these were pretty un-entertaining, in that they featured a series of coloured vertiicle lines, dots, grey squares and a coloured picture of a girl and her clown doll, playing noughts and crosses. I believe their intended purpose was to assist TV service engineers adjust colour, tint, line-roll fiddle-di-doodahs or whatever engineers did with old valve monostrosities made of finest ticky tacky wood effect. In fact, here is one:

What I most remember about test cards though was the accoompanying music. This ranged from elevator classical to orchestrated film sound tracks to the synth-tastic sound tracks by Harry Breuer, Mort Garson and other mainly unknown, unsung heroes of the synthesizer.

I can't tell you how pleased I was then I my auntie Pat (known by me since as as "Gundigatt" from the days where I could genuinely not speak, resulting from age rather than level of drunkenness) came back from a trip to Woolies with a strawberry Mivvi and this little gem. A very, very fine album it is. The thrid track, Coconut, was one of those test card tunes! Joy - I recognised it and knew, in my smug five year old brain that NO ONE ELSE had this record, or would know from whence the track came!

I can't tell you much about this album's heritage. Even the website I managed to track a copy down from has the artist as 'unknown'. According to this site, I now know it was made in in Italy in 1973, and was on the Contour record label at least in the UK, a very cheap imprint if I recall. Most of the tracks were duds and made with a simple raison d'etre: "Moogs are in and cool, let's make some contemporary rock tracks with a MOOG in them ". Simple thought process, and mainly duff songs, though no less charming for their duffness On this album was a half decent version of "Son of My Father" and a version of Popcorn which in my opinion is better in atmosphere than the Hot Butter original but whose drumming is beyond bad. Where Wendy Carlos is regarded by some as a bit of a novelty artist (but isn't) this music is also regarded as a bit of novelty (and is). But how cartoonishly glorious it is too.

Other superb synthesizer remaindered and charity shop specials can be found at this website:

http://www.basichipdigitalgold.com/moog/moog.htm

Brand and Ross - nothing a good birching couldn't fix

Back in 2000 or so, my old dad made a comment about the Weakest Link, along the lines of it’s a quiz show for bullies and does nothing other than reveal society for its wretched, Darwinian, screw-you-Jack nature. I didn’t get it. I liked the Link. I liked Ann Robinson (and having read her book, admire her all the more). However, his point stuck with me and like many others, I’ve noticed in the intervening years that society seems to revel more in humour that is not funny or worthwhile, just unkind.

Taking the mick out Ann Robinson’s evil mamma persona (or parodying it) has potential for laughs. Taking the mick of Ann Robinson’s alcoholism is NOT, in my opinion, remotely funny. To be amusing, a comedic victim needs to have made a fool out of themselves, or have displayed contradiction between practice and preach (this is why Spitting Image was such a success). Even relatively tame comedies like the Good Life kind of work because of the contradiction displayed by “people we know” or think we do.

Unkind humour can work. But for it to do so, the target must have also been careless in their bad luck. George Osborne springs to mind. Not just unlucky, but stupidly so.

So, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have been publicly exposed for leaving rude messages on Andrew Sach’s answerphone suggesting one of them was shagging his grand-daughter.

What smart cookies they are.

What heroes of comedy.

I bet they slapped themselves on the back for this piece of wit.

And what, pray tell, has Mr Sachs done to deserve such a “witty” verbal missive? Has he made some derogatory comments about either of these two losers in the past? Has he committed an act of paedophilia? I’m not aware of anything.

They are freaking bullies, plain and simple. And for anyone who did find it funny…would you feel the same if it was your granddad?

Andrew Sachs = a comic great and a nice, old guy.

Ross and Brand = over-paid celebri-twats with who really, really should know better but who have probably never been told to shut up. I hope they get given the birch. Then get given the boot.

And I hope that when they are sacked, that anyone thinking they are clever enough to pull a similar stunt get the message loud and clear.

Stockholm holiday: goodbye

Here is a picture of the rather funky Arlanda Express. Groovy and expensive. However, it does exactly what it says on the tin - it gets you to the airport quickly and runs very regularly, so a nice, invisible service. But at £12 each way - there are no returns available - for at 15 mile trip it is twice as expensive as the Stansted Express which I regard as complete rip-off mile for mile.

Carly's blog

Daughter Daggersdukc has her own blog.

To read the the angst-ridden ramblings of an early 20something check this out.

http://catchcarly.blogspot.com/

Makes me feel old.

Hellooooo, I AM old.