Sky Sports recently ran a competition to be a presenter for some behind the scenes coverage of the British Masters golf tournament. I thought it would be a laugh to enter.
Turns out I am not a fun person. But I am a person with a weird eye twitch. The camera likes that kind of thing, right?
Last month we popped down to Burbage for the weekend to visit Hugh & Anna.
If Hugh was not a middle-aged man trapped in a young man’s body before, owning his own house has only increasing this vasty. They are like proper grown up people with furniture, and a garden, and a plan for where their lives are going.
Worse still, it is infectious. Hugh took me to the driving range at his local golf club and it was actually quite a lot of fun. I’m 28 years old, golf should not be fun!
They also have two new additions to the family, of the feline variety.
It is difficult to take a good picture of a creature that insists on licking your camera lens.
I am normally pretty disappointed with the camera in my iPhone. However, some results are not too bad.
The Robots of Dawn is the third novel in Isaac Asimov’s Robot series, following on from The Naked Sun.
It is not my favourite novel. It is approximately twice as long as the previous one, which gives it the noticeable advantage that protagonist Elijah Baley occasionally goes long stretches without yelling “Jehosaphat!” but otherwise makes for a rather long tale.
It is set on the spacer world of Aurora and while it does advance Asimov’s universe in some important ways, a lot of it feels like more of a detective novel than a science fiction story. The conclusion of which is not overly satisfying either.
Thug Kitchen is a cookbook with the subtitle “eat like you give a fuck”. It is also an organisation of the same name and comes with a quote from Jamie Oliver on the back. It is full of vegetarian recipes.
It is a pretty good cookbook. The recipes can be a bit long winded, but not to the extent of River Cottage, and the results are usually pretty good. Around half of them have pictures.
I found quite a lot of the recipes of limited use though. I’m somewhat reluctant to make recipes without photos as seeing the end result provides an object and motivation, so that comes out a lot of them. Then other sections. Other recipes are breakfast,s ideas or other small dishes that do not fit into my schedule.
The swearing is rather over the top too. I’m always having to “chop that mother fucker.” Why? I have no problem with swearing, but I do find it silly when someone tries to make non-magic mushrooms part of gang culture. They mock out the word “fuck” on the cover. If you are going to spend your whole book swearing, at least have the balls to write fuck in full on the front.
My biggest issue with the book it is that it very American though. I can manage cups, because those translate into litres quite well. However, the use of imperial measurements, particularly temperatures, means I regularly have to google what it is in modern measurements. No alternatives are provided.
Overall, it has some nice recipes in, but not ones I would use regularly.
As my friends and I get increasingly old, it’s nice to remember that some people are still young guns with hopes and dreams. Mini-Gijsbert, better known as Samantha, is one such person.
It turns out that it is really difficult to buy a present for a one year old. Even soft toys are often come with a two plus years age rating. As one of my other friends pointed out, I should probably have just got a present for Gijsbert and Weili. Like a large bottle of gin for example.
I have some nice photos. However, I am not posting them because I do not know what percentage of the people who read this blog are pedophiles. So instead, here is a picture of the birthday cake.
It is made by Maxi’s Chinese restaurant. Apparently they are a good place to get a cake made as they only require 24 hours notice.
Earlier this month I competed in the Leeds City Toastmasters 2015 humorous speech contest. Even though it was only club level I was quite nervous. Perhaps because it was at club level, which is not a level I want to go out at. Mostly though because I has not competed in a speech contest in 18 months due to my year as Area Governor.
Lukcily I managed to take victory with my speech “Hell in High Heels”. I will be posting the video after the whole contest is over.
Cookbooks often come with chapters on breakfasts, desserts and sides. I usually ignore them. Not on purpose, but I usually work through the recipes for dinners, so they just do not get scheduled. For lunch, I’m normally eating whatever I cooked last night.
To correct this, I’m making an effort to try a few other recipes. Such as this raspberry trifle.
They may not look quite the same as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s, but they did taste good.
Recently Richard Dawkins spoke at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. He is flogging his new book, My Life in Science, which is a second book of memoirs. It was ably chaired by my friend Chris Hassall, who made a natural choice as a biology lecturer at the University of Leeds.
The format was a 20-30 minute conversation in which Dawkins told a few anecdotes and read a few things out. Some of them very funny, though Elina felt the obscurity of the subject made them less enjoyable. The second half was Q&A which eventually drifted off religion but was mostly a bit dull.
Overall, the event was enjoyable though it could have been a lot better. Some of it was a bit boring and Dawkins actually taking about something interesting rather than re-hashing anecdotes and answering unimaginative questions would have been a lot better.
Aww no, not Paul! Weeks and weeks and bakes and bakes after and we all still remember the lion. Eliminating Paul was the wrong decision in my opinion. He definitely had bad days. However, on the good days he showed real flare, creativity and skill.
Here are my power rankings for week 8.
1. Tamal
Tamal did not do the double for Star Baker this week, but he was up there. He soon recovered him his shaky start to put in another consistent performance with excellent flavours throughout his bakes. So for me, he still maintains his number one spot.
2. Nadiya
Obviously an excellent for Nadiya willing Star Baker, so moves up one place from last week. Now is the time to get hot, so things are looking good for her.
3. Ian
Only a week after I said Ian does well when he goes bold and not-so-well when he doesn’t, he goes bold with his two different kinds of pastry and things do not go well. Whether he did this deliberately to prove most pundit predictions are nonsense, I do not know. he needs another consistent weekend to secure him a place in the final.
4. Flora
Flora’s bakes are consistently boring. They might have a lot of fancy touches on them, but the core bake cannot match the flare of the other bakers. She also achieves consistently mediocre results. Lovely as she is, can you honestly imagine her winning Bake Off? I can’t, which makes her an obvious candidate for elimination.