Had a little mini-break over the weekend. Went up to Cirencester to visit friends of the ladyfriend. We went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park, it was rather ace. For some reason I was thinking it’d be a bit small-scale, but it’s actually huge. Good ‘spread’ of animals. I saw monkeys and penguins and meercats and wolves and bats and those giant guinea pigs and zebras and rhinos and the worst display of falconry ever. No bears, but you can’t win ‘em all. Actually I did see a sign for Red Pandas somewhere, but they’re not proper bears anyway so I’m not fussed about missing them.
In the evening we had food in a nice bistro place attached to a butchers. I had rabbit for starts and steaks for mains and sticky toffee pud for afters.
On the Sunday I went on to that London to stay with various friends. BONUS PIZZA SLICE ACTION: We had pizza for tea on Sunday. Can’t remember the name of the place, just a small pizza place in Crouch End. Reasonably priced. I had a spicy italian sausage with tomatoes and extra mushrooms. Thought it was very enjoyable. After that we had a pint in a nice pub. Their menu said that they had beer-battered cod, and the named the beer as Bombardier. Which is weird, because what with Bombardier being an ale, you don’t really get many bubbles. The whole point of beer-battering is that you get lots of bubbles so that the batter is crispier. You need a lager or something.
Anyway, after that we went home and watched a DVD of Gone Baby Gone – the Ben Affleck directed picture that had its release pushed back because of the ‘similar’ real-life vanishing of Madeline McCann. The film was okay, 6ish/10. It started well enough but descended into a fairly standard thriller. Ending was nice and ambiguous mind; it left you to decide on some moral issues.
On Monday I sat around in my friend’s flat for a bit, reading The Escapist comics that spun off from the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay novel. Personally I thought they should have been drawn in a more ‘traditional’ 1930s style as opposed to the more modern look they had. After that I used public transport to go over to the Roundhouse to see David Byrne’s Playing The Building. Essentially a piano wired up to various devices around the Roundhouse which created various noises. I liked that you couldn’t really tell at any point if the room was being played by a bunch of toddlers or a concert pianist. I had a little tinkle of the ivories myself, but felt a bit self-conscious. There’s a real glee to the whole thing though. Worth seeing.
Spent the afternoon wondering around, lunch in Wagamamas, met friends for teas and coffees, visited the gift shop of the Transport Museum (didn’t have the £9 to actually visit properly), and then went to a nice pub called The Harp to meet another friend. The pubs are the best thing about London really. Cardiff centre lost a lot of its old proper pubs back in the 60s – all in the name of developments which have now been knocked down to make way for new developments…
Then it was the main reason of my visit. The National were playing the Royal Festival Hall. Our seats weren’t great, right near the back in row U, but it was still a brilliant concert. They played an amazing set and it wasn’t until the following day that I realised they’d missed out some of my favourite songs of theirs. I really want to see them again and again and again. Easily one of my favourite bands.
The next day I caught a slow commuter bus to Victoria, saw a man get told off for being too loud on his phone, and took a megabus back home.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Friday, 7 August 2009
I wish I was going to ATP New York
What a line-up!
FRIDAY
The Jesus Lizard / Iron and Wine / Dirty Three Performing ‘Ocean Songs’ / Suicide Performing First LP / The Feelies Performing ‘Crazy Rhythms’ / The Drones Performing ‘Wait Long By The River’ / Comedy Stage hosted and curated by David Cross featuring Eugene Mirman, Jon Benjamin & Jon Glaser and Derrick Brown & The Navy Gravy.
SATURDAY: curated by ATP
Animal Collective / Panda Bear / Sufjan Stevens / Deerhunter / Melvins / Shellac / Boss Hog / Autolux / Dead Meadow / EL-P / Anti-Pop Consortium / Circulatory System / Atlas Sound / Akron Family / Grouper / Sleepy Sun / Bridezilla / Black Dice
SUNDAY: curated by The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips / Boredoms perform 9 drummer BOADRUM / No Age perform Husker Du with Bob Mould / Caribou perform as Caribou Vibration Ensemble / Deerhoof with Martha Colburn / Crystal Castles / Super Furry Animals / Boris performing Feedbacker / Low Lows / Oneida Presents the Ocropolis / Hopewell / Black Moth Super Rainbow / Birds Of Avalon / Menomena
FRIDAY
The Jesus Lizard / Iron and Wine / Dirty Three Performing ‘Ocean Songs’ / Suicide Performing First LP / The Feelies Performing ‘Crazy Rhythms’ / The Drones Performing ‘Wait Long By The River’ / Comedy Stage hosted and curated by David Cross featuring Eugene Mirman, Jon Benjamin & Jon Glaser and Derrick Brown & The Navy Gravy.
SATURDAY: curated by ATP
Animal Collective / Panda Bear / Sufjan Stevens / Deerhunter / Melvins / Shellac / Boss Hog / Autolux / Dead Meadow / EL-P / Anti-Pop Consortium / Circulatory System / Atlas Sound / Akron Family / Grouper / Sleepy Sun / Bridezilla / Black Dice
SUNDAY: curated by The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips / Boredoms perform 9 drummer BOADRUM / No Age perform Husker Du with Bob Mould / Caribou perform as Caribou Vibration Ensemble / Deerhoof with Martha Colburn / Crystal Castles / Super Furry Animals / Boris performing Feedbacker / Low Lows / Oneida Presents the Ocropolis / Hopewell / Black Moth Super Rainbow / Birds Of Avalon / Menomena
Monday, 3 August 2009
"I've Never Seen A Movie That Looked Or Felt Like This"
Author Maurice Sendak giving his blessings to Spike Jonze’s adaptation of his book Where The Wild Things Are. I really can’t get over how amazing the footage I’ve seen of this film is. Stunning stunning stunning stunning. Stunning.
Thursday, 30 July 2009
At The Pictures 29/07/09
Trailers I saw at the Pictures last night:
Inglourious Basterds (or whatever it’s called) – I wasn’t really looking forward to this before, but it actually looks like quite a good fun film. I snorted with laughter at the “it’s a bingo!” line. Good work.
Adam – some kind of rom-com about a guy with Aspergers who hilariously tells it like it is (or something). It also featured the police commissioner guy from The Wire. Nice to see he’s branching out from Angry Police Chief to Kind Old Man AKA The Morgan Freeman. Staggering range of rolls available to black actors isn’t there?
Something with 2 girls’ names in the title – this looked really bad. The tag line is “Based on TWO true stories!”. It’s about some woman who trained at Cordon Bleu in the olden days, and a woman who writes a cookery-blog in the modern days. Blogs and cooking! You’d think this film was aimed squarely at me, but no. Shoddy. It’s all about learning stuff about yourself and that guff.
I can’t actually remember what else there was, they all looked bad though (except for Basterds – “It’s a bingo!” hehehehehe, the delivery’s amazing). They also showed some Blackberry advert featuring U2. Almost shat my pants when Bono’s big face showed up and sang at me.
Special mention as well to the knocker sat behind me. He kept making ‘hilarious’ comments to his girlfriend during the trailers; which got me really worried because I often make ‘hilarious’ comments to MY girlfriend when we’re watching TV at home, and if my comments are anywhere near as ‘hilarious’ as this chump’s then she has pretty ample grounds for divorce. He also decided to eat a massive bag of crisps throughout the film. Not even cheap crisps, they were like them hand-baked posh crisps that are really loud eating. I was almost on the verge of snatching the bag out of his hands – I guess that’s why they don’t let you drink beer in cinemas. And it’s not like we were watching some noise film like Transformers, it was Moon for-crying-out-loud. It was quite a quiet film!
I really hate the multiplex. Moon was good though, fair dos.
EDIT – oh now I remember, there was also a trailer for the new Almodovar film – Broken Embraces. I read a review of it in Empire and the review and the trailer seemed like 2 completely separate films (neither of which particularly interested me).
Inglourious Basterds (or whatever it’s called) – I wasn’t really looking forward to this before, but it actually looks like quite a good fun film. I snorted with laughter at the “it’s a bingo!” line. Good work.
Adam – some kind of rom-com about a guy with Aspergers who hilariously tells it like it is (or something). It also featured the police commissioner guy from The Wire. Nice to see he’s branching out from Angry Police Chief to Kind Old Man AKA The Morgan Freeman. Staggering range of rolls available to black actors isn’t there?
Something with 2 girls’ names in the title – this looked really bad. The tag line is “Based on TWO true stories!”. It’s about some woman who trained at Cordon Bleu in the olden days, and a woman who writes a cookery-blog in the modern days. Blogs and cooking! You’d think this film was aimed squarely at me, but no. Shoddy. It’s all about learning stuff about yourself and that guff.
I can’t actually remember what else there was, they all looked bad though (except for Basterds – “It’s a bingo!” hehehehehe, the delivery’s amazing). They also showed some Blackberry advert featuring U2. Almost shat my pants when Bono’s big face showed up and sang at me.
Special mention as well to the knocker sat behind me. He kept making ‘hilarious’ comments to his girlfriend during the trailers; which got me really worried because I often make ‘hilarious’ comments to MY girlfriend when we’re watching TV at home, and if my comments are anywhere near as ‘hilarious’ as this chump’s then she has pretty ample grounds for divorce. He also decided to eat a massive bag of crisps throughout the film. Not even cheap crisps, they were like them hand-baked posh crisps that are really loud eating. I was almost on the verge of snatching the bag out of his hands – I guess that’s why they don’t let you drink beer in cinemas. And it’s not like we were watching some noise film like Transformers, it was Moon for-crying-out-loud. It was quite a quiet film!
I really hate the multiplex. Moon was good though, fair dos.
EDIT – oh now I remember, there was also a trailer for the new Almodovar film – Broken Embraces. I read a review of it in Empire and the review and the trailer seemed like 2 completely separate films (neither of which particularly interested me).
Monday, 20 July 2009
The Pizza Slice: Tesco Finest's Italian Meats
Found this in the reduced section due to slightly bashed packaging, thought it’d make a good lunch. Salami, pancetta, Parma ham. Meaty! Took it home, deboxed it, unwrapped the cellophane, added some olives and a bit of leftover sweetcorn we had knocking about in the fridge. Put the oven on to heat up. 20 minutes later and the oven still wasn’t hot. In fact, the fan ‘assistance’ meant it was actually colder. Seems our oven is broken. The joys of moving house. So we ended up having to grill the pizza, which lead to a slightly undercooked base and a slightly overcooked topping. It was nice enough I guess.
List of problems with new house so far:
1. Broken oven.
2. Fridge bulb not working (have tried replacing)
3. No keys to open any of the lockable windows (most of which are currently locked)
4. Two of the upstairs radiators come on when you turn on the water heating.
5. Had to (violently) remove one of the back door locks so that I could actually close the door. Technically my fault I guess, but if they’d given us all the keys then it shouldn’t have been an issue.
6. Broken shower bracket, so you can’t fix the shower head to the wall whilst washing. I now have to clamp the shower between my knees when lathering.
7. House was filthy.
8. Cutlery drawer won’t close as the runner is broken.
9. Various issues relating to overly comprehensive inventory.
10. No gas safety certificate because of the pipe connecting to cooker to the gas supply.
Being a letting agent – easiest job in the world (if you’re a bit of a scumbag)?
Friday, 17 July 2009
The Pizza Slice: STRADA – Cotto
Once again, Martin Money Saving Expert – patron Saint of cheap pizza – came up trumps with BOGOF vouchers, and so off we went on my first visit to Strada. I was rather excited as they’re apparently the main competition for Pizza Express; aka The High Street Pizza Chain Benchmark.
I’d been a bit bored earlier at work and browsed their menu online. I was pleased to see that they offered one of my favourite topping combinations; ham, mushrooms, and olives (meat and a double dose of umami). My excitement level was set to medium-high. At the restaurant itself I couldn’t decide between that one and a spicier option, but eventually decided to go with my gut instinct (pun!).
First impression: The restaurant was tastefully decorated though the deep reds and the mood lighting combined somewhat murkily. Couple of nice touches; I particularly liked the tap water served in refrigerated Grolsch style pop-top bottles, and the glasses were pretty nice as well. At the end of the night they got an indie point by playing We’re From Barcelona.
Pizza itself was in a slight naan bread shape, which I’m a fan of. Perfectly symmetric circles always look a bit machine-made and I like the more rustic hand stretched approach implied by the tear-drop on my plate.
The base itself was really good. Nice and floury, thin but not so thin that it shatters at the touch of a fork. Slight charring. All good things. The mozzarella hadn’t quite started to brown yet, which I don’t mind that much but as the pizza cools the cheese can get slightly rubbery. There was a generous helping of toppings evenly distributed, which is always welcome (particularly after the 5 olive fiasco in Prezzo). The waiter also brought a bottle of chilli oil stuffed with dried chillies if I wanted to spice things up a little. Gave the oil a spin on one section. It didn’t really pack a punch, instead it packed a slow-burning jujitsu arm lock; pleasantly surprising. The toppings started to get a little sickly as I progressed through the pizza, but I endeavoured and the summit was scaled. Celebrated with a macchiato.
The lady-friend had a ‘Rustica’ pizza which combined thick slices of Italian sausage, roasted plum tomatoes, ‘caramelised’ onion and some form of artichoke (I get them confused). It was also rather good. I had her leftovers cold for lunch just now confirming one of my feelings that cold leftover pizza is one of the greatest lunches known to man. Up there with re-heated leftover take away curry and re-heated leftover take away Chinese.
All in all, I don’t think it was quite at the standard of Pizza Express, but I’m definitely happy to go again (if only to sample that spicier option). Their bases were better than Pizza Express, but Strada just couldn’t compete with the depth of the Pizza Express menu (for pizza at least, they do offer other kinds of dishes if that’s the sort of thing you’re in to…).
I’d been a bit bored earlier at work and browsed their menu online. I was pleased to see that they offered one of my favourite topping combinations; ham, mushrooms, and olives (meat and a double dose of umami). My excitement level was set to medium-high. At the restaurant itself I couldn’t decide between that one and a spicier option, but eventually decided to go with my gut instinct (pun!).
First impression: The restaurant was tastefully decorated though the deep reds and the mood lighting combined somewhat murkily. Couple of nice touches; I particularly liked the tap water served in refrigerated Grolsch style pop-top bottles, and the glasses were pretty nice as well. At the end of the night they got an indie point by playing We’re From Barcelona.
Pizza itself was in a slight naan bread shape, which I’m a fan of. Perfectly symmetric circles always look a bit machine-made and I like the more rustic hand stretched approach implied by the tear-drop on my plate.
The base itself was really good. Nice and floury, thin but not so thin that it shatters at the touch of a fork. Slight charring. All good things. The mozzarella hadn’t quite started to brown yet, which I don’t mind that much but as the pizza cools the cheese can get slightly rubbery. There was a generous helping of toppings evenly distributed, which is always welcome (particularly after the 5 olive fiasco in Prezzo). The waiter also brought a bottle of chilli oil stuffed with dried chillies if I wanted to spice things up a little. Gave the oil a spin on one section. It didn’t really pack a punch, instead it packed a slow-burning jujitsu arm lock; pleasantly surprising. The toppings started to get a little sickly as I progressed through the pizza, but I endeavoured and the summit was scaled. Celebrated with a macchiato.
The lady-friend had a ‘Rustica’ pizza which combined thick slices of Italian sausage, roasted plum tomatoes, ‘caramelised’ onion and some form of artichoke (I get them confused). It was also rather good. I had her leftovers cold for lunch just now confirming one of my feelings that cold leftover pizza is one of the greatest lunches known to man. Up there with re-heated leftover take away curry and re-heated leftover take away Chinese.
All in all, I don’t think it was quite at the standard of Pizza Express, but I’m definitely happy to go again (if only to sample that spicier option). Their bases were better than Pizza Express, but Strada just couldn’t compete with the depth of the Pizza Express menu (for pizza at least, they do offer other kinds of dishes if that’s the sort of thing you’re in to…).
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