Woody

After a busy weekend in the real world, here's an old one from one of the greats:




Now, tell me what's so bad about America, eh?

Viva Espana

Been watching a cool little series on one of my favourite channels UKTV Food (sad, i know) called Spain On The Road Again. With the most unlikely cast larking about Espana, not a slick young cheffy dude or boringly knowledgeable doyenne of cooking amongst them but a film star, great chef, actress and NewYorkTimes food writer. That's 4 different people not one.
They make for a cheery bunch of friends just cruising around Spain in convertible Mercs enjoying the local cuisine and having a blast (well, wouldn't you?).

Spain has to be the unsung hero of european food, generally ignored by the english speaking world where it's mostly french and italian food that gets all the kudos. I reckon its years of isolation under the Franco dictatorship held it back while the world discovered France and Italy. But the range of food ingredients, the regional diversity, the intermingling of Moorish with Christian, not to mention the sublime things they can do to a pig can all stand up to the so called greats of France and Italy.

So here's a taster and the music's deadly too:




So guess where we're going for the summer holiday? Well, France actually, sorry!

Hey Me

Watched a film tonight - Juno. Very good if a bit too nicey nice in a kooky kind of way, good soundtrack, great acting and writing (all that hip teen talk (talk to the hand, girlfriend).
Anywhoo, (there i go again) the point of this post is to alert you people to Screenclick, an online film rental service i should have joined ages ago but have been too old and non-technical.
Pay your money, pick films, they arrive at door, return it and get your next pick. No more crap video stores. No more weird bearded assistants hoping to be Tarantino - sorry, only one in a generation.
Simple. And. Perfect.


Which actually leads me, Barry Norman like, on to a bit about Tarantino. Don't know if anyone else felt like this but when he arrived into the early 90s with that brilliant writing and jumped around narrative it completely changed my attitude to cinema, which was still in the star wars 70s, mainly because the 80s were so crap for movies. (remember Back to the Future, Top Gun). It was now about the words written as much as about what the camera showed you, very much like the Coen brothers around the same time. More anon.

I leave you with a band which, embarrassingly, my uncle-in-law discovered. In the post arrived this:







Bleedin Magic.

Half as High

The Observer Music Monthly, (along with Food Monthly, Sport Monthly and SmugMiddleClass Monthly makes it one cool paper) has brought on my interest in music in the last couple of years and this long piece on U2 is great. Sean O'Hagan seems to think of it as another transformation of the band and Bono tries to justify his activism by quoting scripture: "I would always use the scriptures to argue my corner". So dodgy, in these days of religious extremism. Use reason, please. And he wonders why people don't or won't see his funny, edgy side.
Great stuff in the album reviews too, check out the suss on The Prodigy (first para could be about U2 hehe), Van's Astral Weeks and the new one by Bruce.

Today's ditty:





Also, following representations from our NYC correspondent in the wee small hours of Sunday and with the help of imported foreign muck, we concluded that The Wire is better than The Sopranos. A dirtier urban under-belly you will not find and the writing is shit hot (this is one of my favourite bits, so far):

Where lieth St Valentine?

These guys' album was the soundtrack to a three week holiday in Catalonia in 2006:






And for something completely different, last night's dinner, try the delicious Uncle Martin's Fennel and Cod Soup. If you have Pernod, (a cookbook thing to say, who the hell has Pernod?) a splash in the pan will add an extra dollop of pre-crisis sophistication.


For the day that's in it and by special request:
(not without a little irony on my part)

Fifty years ago...

The Promises of Capitalism

"Honest failure is even more corrosive of trust than outright criminality." Discuss

Lunch