Archive for the 'General' Category

Today’s list: fashion trends that really need to just GO AWAY already

Published on September 6, 2010 in General and Lists. 0 Comments Tags: .

1. Ugg boots. The clue’s in the name, people. These things are U-G-L-Y. And they get even uglier after a couple of months of shuffling around on the pavement wearing down the heels (and making that insanely annoying sshhk-sshhk sound). If you must wear them, at least pair them with jeans – do not, I repeat DO NOT wear them with a miniskirt and a sparkly top, like you’re about to go out to a nightclub but have somehow tragically morphed into a Muppet from the knees down.

2. Leggings. Jesus Christ, can we move on please? They looked like shit in the eighties, and they look like shit now. And in case you were wondering, they don’t count as trousers. No, no they don’t. Nobody needs that much information about your anatomy. At least wear a skirt over them, or risk unflattering comparisons of a dromedary nature.

3. That weird hairstyle all the young girls seem to be sporting – extremely low side parting, fringe drooping over the eyes, and the rest looking as though it’s been styled by letting a ferret nest in it. Why? WHY? Is ‘seriously unkempt’ the new black?

4. Ankle boots. SIGH. Even if you have legs like Barbie, these make you look stumpy. Can you not see this, people? Just because they’re for sale in H&M doesn’t mean they’re not hideous.

5. Jumpsuits. Here is a quote from Spaced, possibly the best TV show of all time, that sums up the case against jumpsuits:
Tim: So how does it feel to be twenty-six?
Daisy: Uh…a bit gassy.
Tim: Oh, well, you’re getting old. You’d be dead in four years. If this was Logan’s Run.
Daisy: That would be terrible.
Tim: I know. I look like a twat in a jumpsuit.
Daisy: Don’t say that, Tim. That’s a word that hates women.
Tim: What? ‘Twat’?
Daisy: No, ‘jumpsuit’.

Minimalist cooking: super-simple garlicky pasta

Published on September 2, 2010 in General. 0 Comments Tags: .

I haven’t been feeling much like cooking lately. Not sure why, really – I go through phases where I would quite happily be chained to the cooker, but sometimes it just feels like a chore and I’d rather eat stale Doritos for supper than have to actually cut things up and combine them, ohhhhhhh the humanity. But! I recently stumbled across the fantabulous Stonesoup, and my ennui, it is cured! Jules at Stonesoup specialises in minimalist cooking – five ingredients, ten minutes, that sort of thing. To be honest, I’ve never gone in for the ‘quick and easy’ type recipes before – partly because most Q&E recipes seem to include premixed spice blends, which is CHEATING! and also because most of them seem horrifically bland. I love using lots of abstruse spices, and while the trend in cookery these days seems to be towards simple dishes focusing on the flavours of a few well-chosen ingredients, I’ve always been more of a fan of the alchemical approach. When I’m done cooking, I want the final result to bear little or no resemblance to what I started with.

However, as previously stated, lately I’ve just not been up for all the reducing and pureeing and what-have-you. Yesterday I tried a recipe from Stonesoup, and HOLY MOLY, it was SO very yummy. And so, so easy! Leaving out the time it took to cook the pasta, it was less than ten minutes from start to finish, including prep. This is possibly my new favourite way to cook garlic. I can sense an obsession with quick, simple, healthy dishes coming on.

Here is the original recipe, and here it is with my variations:

Big handful of spinach
Coupla cloves of garlic
Half a tin of beans (I used black-eyed peas, but chickpeas, butter beans, or just about any other kind would work)
Big sprig of rosemary, leaves picked
Olive oil
Pasta (any kind you like – I think whole wheat tastes WAY better though!)
I added half a stock cube as well, because I add stock to EVERYTHING, but totally optional

Roughly chop the spinach. Cut the garlic into thin slices. Start cookin’ up your pasta. Heat some olive oil over medium heat, and fry the garlic and rosemary until the garlic is golden brown and the rosemary has darkened, stirring fairly often to avoid burning. Chuck in the spinach and crumble in the stock cube (if using), and sautée for a minute or two until the spinach is nice and wilted; then add the beans and stir until warmed through. Remove from the heat, add the pasta and stir through. Season with a bit of salt and lots of freshly ground pepper. NOM NOM NOM.

The Last Waltz

Published on August 4, 2010 in Collage sheets, General and Reviews. 2 Comments

I apologise for any downtime you may have noticed on Friday and Saturday. I’ve been in the process of switching web hosts, and man oh MAN it is so COMPLICATED. Why is it so complicated? Seriously, EVERYONE has a website these days, and surely changing hosting companies and transferring domains is something that happens all the damn time. How can the process still be so arcane and difficult? What with the DNS nameservers and the ISP tags and creating new FTP accounts and procuring a single griffin’s feather and “answer me these questions three” and so on and so forth, I nearly broke my brain. It didn’t help that I use WordPress for this blog, which is generally awesome, but being open source it is rather DIY, and involves doing things with SQL databases and PHPMyAdmin. I know, right?? Anyway it’s all done now, thank god, and my hosting fees have dropped massively.

Simon recently bought me the soundtrack to The Last Walz. It’s funny how much I’ve come to love The Last Waltz: during my teenage years, I would have had a hard time deciding who I hated more, The Band or Supertramp. (I still fuckin’ hate Supertramp. Screw you, Supertramp.) You have to understand that in Canada, so-called ‘Classic Rock’ is ubiquitous and comprises a melange of the most obvious and/or annoying hits from a small selection of good bands like Led Zeppelin and a much larger selection of unbelievably shit bands like Nazareth, Boston and Journey. (And Supertramp. DAMN YOU, SUPERTRAMP!) Classic Rock, to me, is the soundtrack to Labatt Blue in bottles, Trans Ams, mullets, moustaches, tight jeans and unironic trucker caps. And of course, since The Band are both Classic Rock AND Canadian, they are constitutionally guaranteed radio play on every single station in the country at least once an hour. By the time I was fifteen years old I had probably heard ‘The Weight’ approximately eighty thousand times, and I HATED that damn song.

So when Simon started trying to get me to watch The Last Waltz, I was all, “HA! Yeah right.” But he’s persistent, bless him, and eventually I sat down and watched a few minutes of it. And then I couldn’t stop watching it. Holy shit, what an amazing bunch of musicians. And what a lineup of guests. I even love the interview-y bits, where everyone involved (including Scorsese) is very clearly stuffed to the gills with enormous quantities of drugs. Canadian Rasputin (sorry, I mean Garth Hudson) in particular is highly amusing.

Ironically, the Band song I historically liked the least is now my favourite song in the concert, thanks to the Staple Singers. Hearing them sing ‘The Weight’ gives me goosebumps EVERY SINGLE TIME, for reals. (And did you know that there’s all sorts of geeky debate about the meaning of the lyrics? Interestinger and interestinger.)

AND, as it turns out, Robbie Robertson? Was a bit of a hottie. Who knew? He is hella sexy in Last Waltz, despite the bouffant hair. I’ve figured out why, too: his guitar gurn is blatantly a preview of his sex face. It’s a shame he’s gone so puffy in recent years.

Finally, a new collage sheet…see my Etsy shop for details!



Luscious Vintage Ovals

Whither weather

Published on July 13, 2010 in General. 0 Comments

This summer (so far) has been weirdly summery, for England. In my six years here I have not seen one summer worthy of the name. There is generally a promising week or two in May, all cheery and clement, but then June rocks up and it is all rain, rain, clouds and more rain – in other words, indistinguishable from every other English season. But this summer has been HOT! HOT! HOT! now for several consecutive weeks. Unbelievable! Of course I’m perversely fond of the noncommittal English nonweather, because I come from a land with unmistakeable capital-S Seasons that feel not so much like meteorological phenomena as a punch in the face. And then another punch to the kidneys. And then a solid kick in the ribs when you’re down. (Seriously, Canada has some mean-ass weather.) BUT, since I have been away from the Land of Fire and Ice for a while now and am recovering nicely from my PTSD, I have actually almost been enjoying the recent unremitting heat.

HOWEVER, I am not at all physically suited to hot weather. Like Conan O’Brien, I am “genetically engineered to live in a bog”. The sun HATES ME. On Friday I managed to get a mild sunburn while SITTING IN THE SHADE AND WEARING SUNSCREEN. Yeah. It’s like the sun has a personal vendetta against me. Like I ran over the sun’s dog or something. And the sun is all, “You can run but you can’t hide, bitch. Imma find you and imma CUT YO ASS.” In order for me to spend even a few minutes in direct sun, I need all manner of expensive unguents and protective gear; and I always manage to miss one tiny spot when slathering my entire body with SPF One Trillion sunscreen and end up with a comedic yet painful localised burn somewhere on my person shaped like a map of Bolivia.

Despite my pathetically extreme photosensitivity, I’ve just had a marvellous weekend spent mostly outdoors. On Sunday I went for a long walk all round Hemingford Grey Meadow and Holt Island, wanting desperately to swim in the lovely cool clear river but not quite enough to subject myself to the trauma of wearing a bathing suit. I am very, very Feminista! and RARR about body image issues, but I just can’t bring myself to traipse around in skin-tight spandex. I am determined to swim in that damn river though, so I plan to cobble together a modest swimming costume at some point from a pair of boys’ trunks and a tank top, or something. COVER ME I’M GOING IN.

I capped off the weekend by half-paying attention to the World Cup final at the Floods Tavern, but mostly goofing around in the garden with Buddy the Dog. Buddy loves me (he even followed me to the toilets and waited patiently outside for me to come out) because I know how to play rough with big dogs (boy does THAT sound wrong). We were doing some fairly Extreme Playfighting, which was lots of drunken fun at the time, but yesterday morning I woke up with my arms all covered in scratches and bruises. No, my husband is not bashing me about due to World Cup-induced rage, concerned passers-by! I merely cannot restrain myself when full of Bulmers Cider and presented with a rowdy labrador.

Maneaters and wife-beaters

Published on July 9, 2010 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , .

L-O-L-A Lola

I got to spend last weekend taking care of Stepdaughter’s dog, the lovely Lola. ‘Lola’ is a great name for a dog, although it does result in me having The Kinks in my head all the time – not that I mind, of course; and the name is especially fitting since Lola is very butch, for a Lady Dog. I feel certain she could break someone’s spine. (AND she could dance all night, under electric candlelight.)

Lola has all my preferred characteristics in a dog: she is solid and stocky, with a head like a pile of bricks wedged on top of a body like a bigger pile of bricks. She is short-haired, with lots of extraneous folds of flesh to tug and stretch out in amusing ways. She has a world-weary air, soulful eyes, and lots of interesting scars. She looks like she could rip your arms off and eat them for breakfast. And most importantly, she is old. I just love mellow old dogs.

Not only does Lola look like my perfect dog (i.e. a grizzled maneater), but she is the sweeeeeeeeetest, loveliest soul on four legs – loves lots of fusses and cuddles and kisses. AND she walks well on a lead, which is SUCH a contrast to MOST DOGS, who act like they are in a race to strangle themselves. We had very nice long meandering walks along the river, occasionally wading into the water and being hissed at by swans. I HEART LOLA 4-EVA!


N’awwwwwww! Whoosa wuzza!

Good effort, Cambs constabulary

I found this poster in the local pub (weirdly, in the ladies’ toilets):

Bwaha! This is all kinds of awesome. Though I shouldn’t laugh, because apparently domestic abuse goes up 30% when England does badly during the World Cup (is this an English thing? I don’t remember Canadian women getting their eyes blacked every time the Maple Leafs failed to get into the Stanley Cup playoffs). Still, though: HA! So much drama! I like that they’ve come up with a catchy little rhyme to really drive the point home – “If England lose, don’t abuse!” Because nothing soothes the savage breast* of a pissed-off lagered-up hooligan like a nice rhyming couplet. I do love the idea of some no-neck meathead, fist raised, about to clobber six shades of hell out his wife, suddenly thinking to himself, “Hang on, what was that rhyme again? ‘If England lose…don’t wear shoes?’ No, that’s not it…”

*Yes, it is ‘breast’, not ‘beast’. LOOK IT UP.

Folksy Friday: sepias and neutrals

Published on July 2, 2010 in Folksy and General. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

And so, England’s World Cup dreams are dashed once again. I used to get all sad every time England let yet another World Cup pass them by, but lately I’ve decided to start thinking of the national side as an amusingly reliable disappointment. Oh, England! You’ve done it again, you scallywags! If you think about it, it really is quite incredible how a group of such individually talented players manages to form such a totally inept team. It’s an achievement not to be sniffed at.

And anyway the English aren’t happy unless they’re miserable. It brings out the best in them. I was out and about in St Ives in the deathly silence following the match, and came across a couple who had stopped to look at a very freshly dead pigeon on the pavement that looked to have bounced off a window only minutes earlier. “Must have seen the England match,” remarked the bloke.

We participated in a barbequeing/football viewing type event on Saturday, which was very enjoyable, even after I performed my party trick of getting a sunburn in minutes flat through several layers of suncream. Ta-daa! We watched the tail end of the US/Ghana match, and I will freely admit to experiencing shedloads of schadenfreude at the sight of the US team shedding tears after their defeat. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m Canadian, and for me, seeing the US occasionally get creamed in a sporting event is basically the pinnacle of human happiness (similar to how the Scots felt watching England get Das Booted last week, I should think). G’WAN GHANA!

And speaking of Canada, yesterday was Canada Day, and I’m proud to say that my streak of forgetting about it every single year since I left the country remains unbroken. I was only alerted to the fact by a Canadian colleague, who noted the occasion by bringing in homemade Nanaimo bars. Holy shit, dude, I had forgotten about Nanaimo bars. So much buttery icing. They manage to be simultaneously delicious and disgusting. My colleague and I discussed this strange paradox and comisserated about the foodstuffs we miss most. Weirdly, whenever I talk to a fellow North American emigré about this, Kraft Dinner is always the first thing mentioned. I have not met an expat yet who doesn’t have Kraft Dinner shipped to them by their relatives (my mom always sends me a half dozen boxes at Christmas). If you describe Kraft Dinner to an English person, they will look at you in disgust (of course I brook no culinary criticism from a country that actually considers Scotch eggs to be edible). It’s hard to explain what’s so addictive about it, but MAN do I miss that lurid orangey goodness. Send more please Mom!

Here’s my Folksy Friday treasury for the week…

Remember This – Vintage Style Handmade Scrapbook Embellishment, by CraftyPagan Natural Leaf Coasters, by Charlotte Hupfield Ceramics Book Lover 8x8 Print, by Lola’s Room Retro Wind-up Robot Cufflinks, by FluffsStuffs Paper Wreath – Pride and Prejudice, by Bookity Amber Butterfly Patterned Brooch, by Julia Smith

Miscellaneous

Published on May 20, 2010 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

1. I’m currently reading War and Peace. There’s a good reason that W&P has become the universal point of comparison for any hyperbole involving lengthy text (“These instructions are like War and Fucking Peace, man” and so forth). Because, dude? Motherfucker is LlloooOOOOONNNNNng. One thousand pages of itty-bitty type. More than FIVE HUNDRED characters (all called things like Prince Bolkovski and Prince Bagration and Count Markov and Count Rostov). Incredibly detailed battle scenes that go on for chapters on end. Fortunately, it is also super awesome – though I hate the cover on the edition I’ve got, which is the painting of an incredibly camp Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques Louis David (I can’t stand Jacques Louis David. Don’t get me started). Nice breeches, Boney. The horse needs a voice bubble saying “That had better be your musket poking my back.” Anyway I’m around 200 pages in now, and love-love-loving it. I especially liked the bit where one character in a vodka-induced fit of chicanery takes a bear in a carriage to the opera, and when stopped by a policeman, proceeds to tie the policeman to the back of the bear and chuck them both in the river. Oh, those Russians, as the man says.

2. Recently, Simon and I were attempting between ourselves to answer the Question of the Ages: Who is the superior Hoff – David Hasslehoff, or Philip Seymour Hoffman? I think the answer is inherently subjective and depends on what variety of Hoff you are in the mood for, but I’d like to see the matter settled once and for all, Hoff vs. Hoff, in a ‘Hoff-Off’ if you will, live on pay-per-view. Hasslehoff has the height advantage, but I think Hoffman would fight dirty.

3. There’s a village outside Cambridge called Babraham. Every time I see a bus go by with ‘Babraham’ written on it, in my head I hear Dana Carvey saying, “If she was a president? She’d be Babe-raham Lincoln.” Every time. Every freakin’ time. Damn you, Wayne’s World.

4. Did anyone else feel a weird shiver of dread run up their spines when they heard that scientists have now created a synthetic life form? No? Just me? It is possible I’ve watched Blade Runner one too many times. Damn you, Blade Runner.

Happy springtime list!

Published on April 28, 2010 in General and Lists. 2 Comments Tags: , .

TODAY’S LIST: Things that have been making me very happy indeed in recent weeks…

1. Spring! Spring is here! It was quite a “long”, “cold” winter this year (as a Canadian I’m legally obligated to use quotation marks when referring to winters that don’t claim human casualties), and spring was very sudden and VERY welcome. Cambridge is lovely in the spring. And I mean seriously lovely, like almost dangerously so: every day when I’m driving home from work around the back of King’s College I get hugely distracted by the profusion of greenery and flowers and strapping college lads in exercise gear. NICE.

2. A Fish Called Wanda. Lately I can’t stop watching it. It’s all about Kevin Kline, man. Shitting Christ he’s funny in that film. He is SO. GODDAMN. FUNNY. The look on his face when he first hears Michael Palin’s stutter. The armpit-sniffing. The ninja shoulder-roll he does when he’s outside John Cleese’s house and hears him breaking in. “WAKE UP, LIMEY FISH!” The famous O-face. Every second he’s onscreen he’s so flippin’ hilarious I almost can’t stand it. Simon has been quite happy to watch and re-watch the film with me, because he has an enormous stonker for Jamie Lee Curtis. In fact, in our house she’s known as Jamie Like-‘er-Tits. Hahaaa!

3. Robyn Hitchcock’s new album. We went to see him again recently, and he was marvellous as always. I’ve seen him four times now, and I’ve never seen him play the same song twice. (However, I have seen him wear the same shirt three times out of four. Robyn, I hope you have several changes of black-and-white polka dot shirt, or a very good dry cleaner.) Simon downloaded the new album, Propellertime, and while it’s no Goodnight Oslo (his previous album), which is so mindbogglingly good it deserves its own lengthy post, and possibly a commemorative statue, it is wonderful and a perfect springtime soundtrack. His songs are perfectly formed, sweet, and devilishly catchy to an almost McCartney-ish degree: the litmus test being that you WILL find yourself singing along, helplessly, to at least one track off the album the very first time you hear it. And such happy melodies! He can put together a chord progression that will make you want to run out into the street and hug a stranger. EVIL. His lyrics, of course, are madder than a mad thing made of mad, but have their own internal logic and recurring themes like mortality, religion, and bees. I think of him as a surrealist existentialist. One of my favourite snippets off the new album: “…God has many names / One of them is Mr Spinks / And one of them is God / Mira fishes off the rocks / For the Da Vinci cod.” May Mr Spinks bless you and keep you, Robyn Hitchcock!

Lebowskilist

Published on April 13, 2010 in General and Lists. 0 Comments Tags: .

TODAY’S LIST: Big Lebowski quotes I have a hard time keeping myself from saying at work:

“He’s a good man. And thorough.” (Actually I lost the battle on this one today.)
“You’re not privy to all the new shit.”
“AM I THE ONLY ONE AROUND HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“You fucked it up! YOU FUCKED IT UP!”

Reasons I Love Britain Nos. 16,354 & 16,355

Published on December 18, 2009 in Collage sheets and General. 0 Comments Tags: .

No. 16,354: Is this getting press anywhere outside the UK? Every year in Britain there is a publicised battle for the number one Christmas hit single, as judged by sales. For the past several years, the battle has been easily won by the winner of the X Factor. This year, one couple got so sick of Simon ‘Twat’ Cowell’s merchandising machine that they started a Facebook campaign encouraging people to go out and buy ‘Killing In The Name’ by Rage Against The Machine instead of whatever dreck the X Factor happens to churn out. You remember ‘Killing In The Name’ – it’s the one with the repeated refrain “Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!” Awesome. And as of right now, Rage Against The Machine are beating [X Factor schlock-monger whose name I can’t be bothered to look up] by 60,000 singles. OH YEAH. I am SO buying a copy. Fight the good fight!

No. 16,355: When the credit crunch hit, Radio 4’s flagship Serious News Programme, ‘PM’, introduced a daily segment about the current financial situation. They invited listeners to suggest names for the new feature, and the winner, awesomely, was ‘Upshares, Downshares’. They even started playing a bit of the ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ theme song to introduce the segment.

At some point, some listener sent in the original version of the theme song, which was played on that evening’s programme. Then someone sent in another version, or their own version, or something – this was also played on the air, with a comment from Eddie ‘Sexy Voice’ Mair saying thanks very much, but please stop sending in new versions of the theme now.

Being the contrary sort (see above), this lit a fire under the British public, and the homemade versions started pouring in in their thousands. The BBC conceded defeat, and now every day they feature a new listener-contributed interpretation of the theme (keep in mind this is the Straight-Faced News Programme, during which Eddie Mair REGULARLY causes experienced politicians to stutter in desperation during interviews). Recent styles have included retro-futuristic disco synth-pop, mariachi, traditional hand bells, and a lovely rendition tonight on an Irish bouzouki (different from the Greek bouzouki in having a flat instead of a rounded back. Apparently). This coming Monday the programme is featuring an interview with the composer of the ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ theme, in which they will play him several of the versions sent in by the listeners.

How utterly, delightfully bonkers. THIS COUNTRY.

More gift tags…see my Etsy shop for details…