Tractors

We love em. One day I would like to have my own.

Birthday

It is Oscars second birthday today and we celebrated by having a party yesterday. He doesn't really have any mates yet, so he invited a load of Ellies' girlfriends around instead, then stuffed them full of cake and sweets. He was the perfect host and entertained his guests throughout the afternoon, he even dropped his trousers twice during the Musical Statues game. Good lad.

Pancakes

1. The tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is nearly 1000 years old.

2. The first recorded pancake race was in Olney, Buckinghamshire in 1445.

3. The largest number of pancakes tossed in the shortest amount of time in the UK is 349 tosses in 2 minutes (Dean Gould at Felixstowe, Suffolk, 14 January 1995).

4. The longest race in the quickest time was held in Melbourne, Australia. Jan Stickland covered 384m in 59.5 seconds on 19 February 1995.

5. The largest pancake ever made and flipped measured 15.01m wide, 2.5cm deep and weighed 3 tonnes (Rochdale, Greater Manchester, August 1994).

6. It is customary in France to touch the handle of the frying pan and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in one hand.

7. Maple Syrup was originally a sweet drink, discovered by the Algonquin Indians who collected sap from Canadian sugar maple trees and then boiled it to produce 1 litre of pure Maple Syrup from 40 litres of sap.

Late Night Viewing

A very long time ago, in a distant land known as "Art College", there was a weekly film club, where we would all gather and watch strange movies whilst drinking cans of lager. For some reason, most of the films had subtitles, which made for difficult viewing whilst under the influence. I can still remember a handful of them though, "Eraserhead", "Freaks", "Satiricon", "Aino Corrida" were all excellent in their own way, but my favourite by far was Fellini's "Roma". For a few years in the eighties I had a video of it, but that disappeared or got recorded over somehow, and I haven't seen the film since. But then, a few days ago, those nice chaps at Film Four put it on and I managed to record it again.

So the other night at about 4 am, Oscar woke up and vomited in his bed (there's a bug going round) and we ended up, just the two of us, watching Roma whilst munching crisps. Not much point in trying to describe it, there's a review here - If you've never seen it then perhaps you should, you will either love it or hate it. Oscar didn't seem much bothered either way.

Dinner

Today I made a moroccan lamb tagine. Every time I make this dish I do it differently because I never use measurements, and always use different ingredients. Sometimes it's ok, sometimes good, and sometimes it's very good. I should make the effort each time to write down how I make it, so that I can get it right every time.
Todays effort involved frying lamb chunks in really hot oil till till very brown then transferring to a pot. Then I browned off some chunks of carrot, potato, parsnip and shallots, then turned the heat down and added some fresh ginger and garlic, and a big helping of nomades lamb tagine spice. By now the bottom of the frying pan was getting dark and sticky so I poured about a glass of leftover cava in to clean it off, then poured that lot in with the lamb. Next was some cumin, and tin of chopped tomatoes and half of one of those mini honey pots you get at hotel breakfasts. Everything is now bubbling away gently. I might add some chick peas and dried fruit later, but probably not. I make couscous by making a stock with butter, boiling water and swiss vegetable bouillon, then just pour it over the couscous and leave it to soak.

Rant

I popped down to my local 'corner shop' today to pick up a few bits and bobs and came away, as always, wishing that I had simply not bothered. "CostCutters", which most of us locals refer to as "PayMore"' is an absolute crap shop. I find it hard to believe that in 2007, when asked for 'parmesan cheese', that these idiots insist on handing over a drum of buitoni powdered foot shaving fake cheesey stuff. It is simply pathetic.
But the thing that really annoys me there is what happens when I ask for 40 marlborough lights. The guy turns around and reaches up to the shelf and then asks " Twenties ?". Well yes off course 20's you pillock. If I had wanted 4 packs of 10 or 2 packs of ten and one pack of 20 then thats what I would have asked for... This guy spends all day sat behind his counter selling faggs to us puffers- surely he has figured this out by now. How often does it happen that someone asks for 60 Rothmans and really means 6 packs of ten ? Never, I bet you. I'm going to save up and go in and ask for 180 marlboroughs to see what happens - will he think I want 18 packs of ten, or 5 packs of 20 and 8 packs of ten? Or some other absurd combination? I'm not going to answer him, just keep saying 180 till he gets it. Or maybe, just maybe, this might actually be the one thing that finally pushes me to give up smoking. Imagine that - being irritated into quitting. Forget hypnosis and acupuncture. Perhaps I could set up a "Stop Smoking" clinic, and just spend all day annoying people till they quit.

The Boy Eats Chocolate...

And who can blame him really ? Personally I love a bit of a chocolate fest. So, if you have any spare choccys, please send them here. Ta...

Ooh Yes I Do

Maverick

I thought it was about time the kids tried to get a grasp on the concept of 'War', so we went to the Britain at War exhibition in Tooley street today. There were lots of things to investigate including an anderson shelter and an unexploded bomb. Despite the sombre surroundings, they found it quite good fun, and only got scared in the "Recently Blown Up Pub" exhibit. Oscar has decided that he wants to be a fighter pilot, but I'm not sure they accept applications from people who still drink milk from a baby bottle.

Teraflop Madness

My dad once told me that he and his team put a satellite into space using an 8Mhz computer which had 4k of RAM.

Intel today announced a chip with 80 processing cores and capable of more than a trillion calculations per second (teraflops). The chip achieves performance on a piece of silicon no bigger than a fingernail that 11 years ago required a machine with 10,000 chips inside it.

The first time teraflop performance was achieved was 11 years ago on the ASCI Red Supercomputer built by Intel for the Sandia National Laboratory. That machine took up more than 2,000 square feet, was powered by almost 10,000 Pentium Pro processors, and consumed more than 500 kilowatts of electricity.

Intel says that commercial spin-offs of the chip could see it being used in high-definition entertainment PCs, servers and handheld devices.

Cars

We rented the "Cars" DVD today, thinking that the we could all veg out in front of the telly for the afternoon and eat crisps and chocolate and stuff. About 5 minutes into it, Ellie fell asleep and shortly after that, Oscar walked off to potter around with his toys. Then Alison disappeared into the kitchen to cook dinner, leaving me on my own to enjoy this wonderful film. Brilliant stuff - thoroughly recommended. Best enjoyed without the company of children.

Blast From the Past

Nothing much to report today, so here's an old picture of the missus instead.

Classic

I just couldn't resist posting this clip sent to me by mate Tobes. Its been around a while but still worth a look.

The video clip is from a Russian news programme.

There was an accident at a coal mine and people were accused of drinking on the job.

The interviewer is trying to see if there is any truth in the rumour, and then one of the other workers turns up unannounced. Don't need sound, unless you can speak Russian.

The chaps face is stuff of legend.

Illogical

Back in 1973, the art of mens hairdressing was somewhat unsophisticated, as you can see from the appalling selection of hair-dos' in this picture. I cannot remember if someone was actually paid to do this to me, or if it was a DIY job. What I can remember is being told that I looked like a relative of Doctor Spock, the chap with pointy ears in Star Trek, which I didn't think was very funny.

Even Stevens

A couple of days ago I spoke to Alison who is on Koh Samui in Thailand. The line was terrible and had that echo that echo that echo that long distance calls had years ago, and we both had to shout and interrupt each other to get a conversation through the interference. She told me that everything was fine out there and that she had just been for a Thai massage which was great and ridiculously cheap. I was kind of jealous but didn't say so, for fear of spoiling her obvious joy.
Anyway, today, in a kind of strange cosmic Karma kind of way, something very peculiar happened. A friend of ours who is a homeopath, rang me up to say that her husband had been booked in for a free massage at the place where she works, and had decided that he wasn't feeling up to it - AND did I fancy a free Thai massage? Well I couldn't believe my bloody ears, but of course accepted the offer immediately.
Julia (the homeopath) came round this evening and babysat whilst I went for a glorious one and half hour, very full on, massage, followed by a quick pint at "The Wisher" (apparently you need lots of fluids after a massage.
So, in case you think the world is shite and unfair, just remember this- there is no such thing as coincidence, what goes around comes around, and the whole world IS fair and very very lovely. Probably.