Really basic biscuits for really basic people

So it's day two of the Great £10 Food Challenge. So far, still so fun.

Woke up this morning feeling a bit strange (might have been the appetite suppressants we've been necking) so decided against the much hyped kippers and scrambled eggs. Instead I had a bowl of the cheap coco pops, which lovingly cling to each other in the bowl. Not like the Kellogg's ones, which bob independently in their own pool of milk all confident like. This sticky sugar content saw me through until about 2pm when I had a bag of potato rings. The salt content in these little babies had me immediately craving something sweet again. As our budgets don't stretch to McVities I cracked out the recipe book and set to work on some home-made peanut butter biscuits with extra nuts.

Peanut Butter Biscuits with Extra Nuts

* 250g Butter (c)
* 140g Light Muscovado Sugar (c)
* 1 egg yolk
* 2 tbs peanut butter (or as much as you like) (c)
* Mixed nuts (handful) (c)
* 300g plain flour (c)

Mix all this stuff together, form into biscuit shapes and cook in 180oC oven for 15 minutes.

mmmm...nutty

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on your marks COOK!

Unless you are thoroughly well paid or live in the woods, there are always a couple of months a year when you have a bit of a freak out about your lack of money. August has become that month in our household. Sacrifices will have to be made on both sides. My side consists of not buying Word Magazine and looking up pictures of crusty old folk musicians on line instead, not indulging in Boots' incredibly reasonable Meal Deals and staying away from the horses. But it was on the way to Tesco(s) that Martin came up with the biggest compromise of all, one that will help our bank balances as well as our ever-increasing waist sizes.

Martin has had a life-long admiration for the BBC's seminal pre-teatime television host Ainsley Harriot and in the spirit of his award winning show he suggested we take our sacrifice to the limit. I discussed the idea of wiggling our behinds whilst we one-handedly drove a sword into a shaven goat, humming euphorically. But that wasn't the Harriet Sacrifice he meant. Martin was more inclined towards the idea of setting ourselves a shopping limit of £10 each for a week, shopping separately and seeing who lasts longest. I laughed. Well no at first I scoffed, THEN I laughed as i realised it might be quiet fun and might make me think about the food i buy.

So here are the rules:

*We each have £10 with which to buy food and drink.
*This £10 must last 7 days, and money left after 7 days can be rolled over. However if we EXCEED £10 in one week this amount will be deducted from the next weeks money.
*The food that we already have in the cupboards is available to both of us.
*Milk, eggs, cooking oil and any essentials that are purchased,that we BOTH need does not count towards the £10. It would be pointless us both buying bread and half of it going mouldy.
*Bread can be made using the bread maker or bought.
*We are not allowed to let each other starve and the safety phrase is "feed me".

This week our shop of choice is Tesco (other supermarkets are available (no really! they are! and may appear in this blog during later weeks). I spent just £7.93. This was a much better result than Martin who having placed Special Beer in his trolley bumped himself over the £10 threshold.

Here, in all its Value glory is "My Bag"

Shiny aren't they? Those peppers. Going to be eating ALOT of peppers this week shiny or not. Please note the student staples pasta and cheap coco pops - lots of energy there. Star buy this week were the avocados which i got for under a pound. YOU TOO can dream of treats like these if you seek out the magical "golden price" person in store. This person is the guardian angel of the tight budgeted shopper. They go around in the early evening marking down all the stuff just on the cusp of freshness. If you enjoy a good soup, or know how to form a bag of apples into a crumble then this person can hold the key to a three course meal for a matter of pounds. Granted, some people may see this as just a step up from rooting around in bins, but be positive - its a step up. UP.

The potato rings you see there were the first things i tasted this side of my new life and they are incredibly salty and literally not for the faint hearted! But its all about those kippers! which i am already looking forward to. Tomorrow morning they will be flaked into some milky scrambled eggs and i shall sit back, my belly full, and declare: "today will be a good day".

But back to tonight. I had a number of options in mind, but eventually plumped for a lasagna. "But you didn't buy any mince!" I hear you call. Well, I'm a pescatarion so such things don't bother me (a fact which will make my challenge a slightly bit easier). So, here it is:

Purple and Red Lasagna

(c=cupboard)

You will need:
*One red pepper
*One red onion
*One tablespoon olive oil (c)
*One tin of chopped tomatoes (c)
*Dried herbs (c)
*Balsamic Vinegar (c)
*2 lasagna sheets (c)
*1 ounce plain flour (c)
*1 ounce butter (c)
*half pint milk (c)

Once you have formed all those things into a lasagna, voila! teatime!

I'm very happy because it actually didn't taste that bad! And the best thing is, i get to eat coco pops for dessert, like i always wanted to. You are probably wondering what Martin had. He had soup and macaroni so it could only have been the Special Beer that made him go like this:

Balance: £2.07

This blog was bought to you by The Battle of Britain on Channel 4+1

ooooo you are awful.....really really awful.

"In my view some members of the gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society.

"Not having a privileged status means, of course, one must accept occasionally being the butt of jokes. A person's sexuality should not give them a protected status.”

This is how the editor of The Sunday Times, John Witherow, responded to BBC presenter Clare Balding’s complaint about an article written by AA Gill. Gill, reviewing Balding’s new TV series about cycling around Britain, described her as:

“The dyke on a bike puffing up the nooks and crannies at the bottom end of the nation."

As you will agree an absolutely HILARIOUS way to start a piece of writing! BECAUSE BALDING IS A LESBIAN! “CRANNIES!” Makes you think of vaginas! And who likes vaginas? LESBIANS! Oh Gill, you absolute hoot. One can only imagine this is what went through his mind when he wrote this piece [of turd]. He certainly wasn’t thinking about the possibility of offending anyone.

I find it utterly shameful that a newspaper, a highly regarded one at that, thinks it’s permissible and a “joke” to describe someone in such a derogatory fashion. When I read it for the first time, my jaw on the table, I couldn’t stop imagining Witherow as some fat, sweaty, cigar smoking arse guffawing all the way through Balding’s complaint. But that’s my own personal prejudice right there; I’m sure not all fat, sweaty arses are smokers.

As Balding herself has said “no-one would dream of introducing Stephen Fry as “The faggot from QI”, yet the introduction: “the dyke on a bike” can be written, edited, printed and dismissed as a “joke” when it’s offensive nature is eventually pointed out. According to The Sunday Times anyone who is offended is simply owning up to not having a sense of humour. A ridiculous statement as anyone who has watched Balding on Have I Got News for You will know, she can knock about with the best of them.

But not being able to take a joke seems to be the get-out clause of all ignorant comedians on stage and in the pub. You need look no further than the hideous creature that is Frankie Boyle. A man it seems who is hell bent on morphing, unapologetically, into this generations Bernard Manning. His humour is neither clever, nor witty but is just the drivellings of someone desperate for attention. Boyle will say anything he thinks will be shocking enough to make a name for him. And unfortunately it has worked.

Comedians like Boyle are making it “ok” for everyone else to act like rot. I have lost count of the times that people have made racist, homophobic jokes around me, or quipped about people with disabilities. People who don’t know me, who couldn’t possibly know if they are offending me or the people I love. They either truly don’t care or don’t believe that people who are gay, disabled or black actually exist. I had the misfortune of sitting not too far away from a work colleague for longer than was sanitary, who spent most of his day belittling any form of human that was not white, male and good at football. It wasn’t so much what he was saying, he lacked the imagination to come up with any jokes I hadn’t already had the misfortune of hearing, it was just his sheer and utter lack of shame when saying them. He saw nothing wrong with what was spewing out of his mouth, and like Witherow scoffed at and dismissed anyone who pulled him up.

I felt for anyone who had the bad luck to over hear this wretch, anyone who may have been more personally affected than I was. It upsets me still to think of the people I know and have known who have felt it necessary to hide who they are. I know someone isn’t DEFINED by their sexuality and some may feel, quite rightly, that perhaps this world doesn’t deserve to know all about them. But I am lucky that I can go to work and talk about my other half. I have never had to refer to a date as “them” and “they”, careful not to let slip a “she” or “her”. But I know people who have had to do this, people who have been the most intelligent, the wittiest and the sharpest person in a room, yet have felt it necessary to hide what they love for fear they will be deserted.

These people aren’t asking for a “protected status” as Witherow would claim, all they want I’m sure is to live in a society where they have the basic human status offered to everyone else - that of being allowed to be who they are. When we have that society, and I hope it comes soon, THEN I will be laughing.

STATELY, PLUMP

I have just finished watching the Channel 4 book group thingy, a programme I find confusing but compelled to watch due to my current working situation. Jo Brand aside, who picked that panel? Watching Dave Spikey and that woman from……um, well that other woman makes me feel very odd. I want to appreciate the differences Channel 4 are trying to convey here, namely: class, sex, age and ethnicity and put their odd casting down to good intentions gone wrong. But it just upsets me, it’s like eating dumplings and cream – enjoyable to some people served separately, but together? And what happened to Gok? Were there just too many social bases covered last series?

The fat funny woman – check
Sexy young woman (though not afraid to appear intelligent) possibly from a non-European background – check
Northern, middle aged man of the people, salt of the earth, not going to intellectually intimate the boyfriends and husbands forced to watch the show – check
Chinese feminine man/boy whose contract stipulates he will be given opportunity to front non-clothing based show – check

I’m guessing viewers found this cultural spread a little hard to digest and producers cut loose the one presenter (Jo Brand aside) who they knew would be ok on his own. They spend each show discussing books that I would never think to pick up from the shelf and probably have never been sufficiently interested by to flip over at work. Not a bad thing at all, afterall there isn’t much point trying to get people to read books they would happily find by themselves. However, after this odd ball bunch have finished discussing said book I’m still not interested, so much so that I am nervous about tomorrow in case I find myself holding the book by accident, what if someone sees me and thinks “she saw that programme last night and was encouraged by that weird, bizarrely cast panel! What a loser, she must have NO MIND OF HER OWN”. I do however always make a mental note to have a look at Jo Brand’s autobiography (now available in paperback).

So whilst the rest of the planet watched the world cup final I tried to crowbar some inspiration from The Channel 4 book group. And oddly enough, I did. But not about the book on discussion but a book written by the subject of their “Bluffer’s Guide to…” segment. The author was James Joyce (a man who most of those featured in a “do you know who James Joyce is?” voxpox did not know who James Joyce was) the book was Ulysess. I grew up thinking this book was a Greek play or epic poem, which having watched the informative “Bluffer’s Guide to …..James Joyce” I feel confident enough to say probably is a bit. I remember being pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't a greek tragedy. That it was actually written in my own language and was a book that I MAY be able to read. But then you hear the horror stories. The boy presenter (for he looked younger than I have ever been) did nothing to dampen these terrors. He hammered on about how difficult it is to read, how people have gone mad just looking into its covers. He may be right. I’m looking at my copy now, the paperback edition first published in 1961 (the reason I bought it) and find just a single corner turned over to mark its previous owner’s attempt. My Ulysses ancestor stopped on page 8, and there isn’t any indication that that journey included any of the forewords. This is a worry. But the way it was described grabbed my attention, I like the idea of reading something written in numerous different genres (afterall, this is how Channel 4 present their shows); a book that’s impact and looming presence hasn’t waned over the years. People are still scared of this book and I would like to know why. I also don’t want to be one of those people that just buy books because they look good on a shelf and have a cool retro cover. I would like to crush the next person who goes “ahh Ulysses! Cool cover, but I bet you haven’t read it!” with an informed, just patronising enough touché. As an English literature graduate I find it only right that I should at least give it a go and while the world watches “22 millionaires ruining a lawn”( – Charlie Brooker) I feel enough alone in the world to open up that book and let it make me go a bit mad without damaging those I love. It will also be better than answering “what classics have you read?” with the meek response “weeeeell I did Mary Barton at Uni…..”

Ill let you know how I get on, keep your fingers crossed I make it passed page 8…..

Those Who Dont Send Cards in June

I can remember the evening he died. He was leaning against the full draining board in the kitchen. I was watching him, his back to me clearing away the meal we had prepared together. I watched him shuffling about on his diabetic legs, captivated. I followed him about and dried, I think, about one plate. My heart was rushing with love for this man, this white haired rotund man steadying himself on the kitchen sideboards. Tears pinched my eyes as he told me about his day “A good day actually, managed to have a good hour or so snooze”. I couldn’t stop looking at him, worried for him with all my might. I was in danger of becoming the parent to this man, of reversing our roles and keeping my own troubles from him in order to make the load of his days even lighter. That selfless love consumed me with every wince that whipped across his face. I regret, that in all that emotion I did not say what I was thinking – “I love you”.

Nearly four years have passed since that night. The night I switched groups. I no longer existed in the realm with those who buy cards in June. My sister, brother and I were handed membership to another group – Those Who Don’t Send Cards in June.

It can be a bitter, jealous group. Just last year I spent Father’s day in a pit, clinging to my boyfriend’s bed not wanting to acknowledge the day. The weeks build up, cards and gift ideas start flooding the stores. You see something that would have been perfect – a card that sums him up brilliantly or a new book about the Lancaster Bomber and you chastise the manufacturer for bringing it out too late - sure that no other father would appreciate it as much as your dad would have. This year I am working in a shop and have myself lavished shelves and ordered in items to decorate The World’s Greatest Dad, fully aware that the holder of this title has long gone and the stock will remain unsold. And this year, I see them, my fellow People Who Don’t Send Cards in June. Some linger, stony faced as if the words on the signs no longer mean anything to them. Others allow a smile, brief and sweet – a tentative nod to a party they cannot attend.

The world can be brutal when it throws others lives you covet in your face. But this Sunday will allow me and my fellows a third unadulterated day this year where we can think wholeheartedly about Him. Sandwiched neatly between his two other defining dates I will swim gloriously in my dad’s memory. Dads can be excruciating, embarrassing, ignorant, shallow and insensitive. My dad could be all these things and more. But they are also true wonders for those of us lucky enough to have felt their love. My main memory of my dad is his hands. No-one had bigger hands than my dad. They fought, lit fireworks, stroked away tears and fixed my school bag a million times (I only needed one bag throughout my time at secondary school). In his 60s his hands told all he needed to tell, split knuckles and shaded by car oil my dads hands were a mans hands. Even when they were fumbling to tidy dishes on their last day on this earth, they could still slay a dragon if I insisted one lurked under my bed. As the man attached to those hands slipped away that night they still remained one of the greatest things about him.

Cherish every card you place in your dad’s hands. And if you feel the urge to say something he might find “daft” just say it.

The World of Twee or why Sophie Dahl should have taken more drugs with Kate.

We are living in a world of softness, so light and fluffy it's a wonder we dont float away everytime we leave the house. Everything is so bloody *nice* it makes me sick. You cannot watch an ad break these days without drowning in a pool of glucose. I dont want to be sold things as though I am a child by talking rabbits or lured into a false sense of security that "Smileys" get the giggles from mechanical tickling fingers rather than the truth that thier faces are stamped, million upon million of them by a great rusty machine and then churned out by some huge smoking capitalist factory; the air in the surrounding area thick with oil, where people have to scrape the layer of fat from thier cars in the morning and all thier children are dying of obesity, thier faces so heavy with blubber that they themselves are unable to heave their muscles into a smile - the very symbol of thier downfall. The irony.

I blame Innocent Smoothies. They started all this with thier twee self referencing packaging: "hello, i am a really friendly personified product. I want you to feel really great about yourself and will use all the most patronising words i can find to entice you into buying me. We will be the best of pals and ill see you everyday as part of your Boots meal deal, making you healthier and more able to cope with your joyless life. But if i ever, EVER see you buy a Boots own brand Smoothie, with thier formal and factual packaging that gives you just INFORMATION, I will hunt you down....i swear to god i will". In fact, I promise to buy which ever product is sold with the tagline "buy this or die bitch" spelt out in the blood leaking from the severed head of a lamb. it would be a blessed relief. Even if the product in question is lamb and it means eating lamb (which i dont want to do because they are so CUUUUUTE!).

Twee is the virus left over by the 90s plague that was "Kooky". Kooky is a word that hates true eccentrics. Kooky people are generally women who are so normal they have constructed some woolen alter ego for themselves which is far more annoying than the person they actually are. Kooky people will usually act like children and thier cupboards will be laden with the products described above. They will lose weekends baking, updating their twitter pages with pictures of themselves shrugging covered in flour. Flour that you know they have purposefully dredged themselves in just to appear more bumbling in the kitchen: "oh I'm such a klutz, my cake is all lumpy bumpy but will be delishness". This scene is beautifully captured in the new Lurpac advert, where some adult/child hybrid tiptoes round her kitchen smiling softly to herself as she clumsily puts together a chocolate cake. If this was real life and that girl was really having trouble making a basic cake she would not be smiling. She would have spent 45 minutes sobbing and slapping herself in the face muttering "idiot, idiot, idiot", falling to the ground to shake for an hour before crawling over to the preheated electric oven to lay her head in it, recalling this tale later with laughter: "and i didnt realise it needed to be a GAS oven and lived! oh im so blonde!"

I wrote most of this blog whilst at a gig where i was infruiated to be confronted with yet another twee-nonsense female acoustic songstress with uniform elfin haircut singing about bubbles. yes. really. Everyone loved her,thought she was lovely and unique. Except me, who typed this blog with my thumb whilst my other hand pulled tufts of my hair out to stuff into my ears. There are so many female acts like this nowadays. Why have women started turning themselves into cutesy morons? If they arent rubbing thier breasts together on the cover of nuts and zoo, they are skipping about like little girls. But maybe the latter is the consequence of the former. Women have become so sexualised in recent years that maybe some are running, chintz and all, to the hills where sex doesnt exist and they can remain young and innocent forever. By acting ditzy and quirky they are essentially relegating themselves to a social role where sex rarely bothers them and they do not need nor are encouraged to accept things that affect the adult world. I think this is probably the case and as a result the traditional symbol of sexual shunning -The Smelly Old Cat Women is evolving into The Sunshine Scented Kitten Loving Fluff Pot. Still cant decide which is worse.

Amazing, I have managed to link a five a day aid to the downfall of feminism. *shakes fist at smoothie.

too sexy for my blog

After my last two blogs, word on the street is that I have “issues”. They stem from deep rooted low self esteem seeds. And what is the fruit of the low self esteem tree? that’s right kids – great green eyed monsters. They are terrors, they have the power to render you completely useless for days on end because some other person had the audacity to be a tiny bit better than you. The green eyes can turn perfectly sunny days into grey miserable ones, flooded with embarrasing accusations. Just this morning I got in a tizzy because my other half has booked a fabulously attractive girl to play at one of his gigs. These are the facts which based her booking:

• To have a multi- musician gig you need more than one musician
• She is a musician
• She is free to play on that date
• My other half needs to book people for gigs so they are a success and he can buy food and clothing.

My list, however, was rather different:

• She is sexy
• Everyone will want to touch her clothes
• She will probably come one stage naked and sexy
• She is very very very sexy

I would also like to point out that I have never, ever heard her music. I haven’t even seen her in the flesh. I based this list purely on the handful of photos I have seen of her. My other half has never once alluded to the way she looks, it was me, and only me that turned her into Aphrodite. If I spent half and hour wringing my guts out about it I only have myself to blame.

I am of course a massive hypocrite. My background music of choice today is Florence and The Machine. Lungs as you probably don’t need me to point out is a dizzyingly assured debut album from a woman who is a brilliant lyric writer. I also don’t need to point that Florence Welch is entirely gorgeous, writhes about on stage like a woman ravaged with pent up sexual frustration and is extremely talented. Based on the above criteria I should therefore hate the breath that emanates from her lungs. But I don’t. I cannot work out what it is that lets certain women slip through my jealousy net, I can only surmise that it is because they exist in that other realm of fame. I will never have to encounter them; their shadow will never darken the sky above my head as I shrink deeper into the pavement. “Real” people on the other hand are THERE, you can sniff them and touch them and everything. In them I have proof sat across from me that fabulousness doesn’t affect just the fortunate, it can exist in the next friend of a friend you are destined to meet. And what are you going to do when you go home after meeting this pinnacle of womanhood? That’s right, you will eat biscuits and not do anything for a fortnight because “there is no point, they do it better than me so why should I even bother.”

I have always considered myself a bit of a misanthrope but I am probably more obsessed with other people than anyone else. It isn’t healthy and I could watch my whole life bob away on my pissy attitude. But I am not the only woman who feels like this. Every woman who has ever said “She is pretty in an obvious way” or “Yeah she has a great voice, but she’s a complete bitch” is guilty of letting the green eyes ruin a moment of her life. I hope I will get to the stage with my issues where I can accept them and make them something I am amused by. But until then I will accept any green eyes you want to throw my way ladies, go on, it will make me feel better: “She has a nice bum yeah, but she can’t write a blog to save her life. Bitch.”