Meatballs and Chickpeas and New Shoes, Oh My!

So I just spent a very nice weekend with Zoe and Matthew in sunny Guildford, and it only rained for about 65% of the time. For some reason, that we won't go into here, I decided to fly down to Gatwick instead of getting the train. Ugh! NEVER doing that again by the way. Security at the airports is so strict these days. Obviously there are good reasons but when you've been standing in a huawge queue for 10 minutes already and then have to have your luggage rummaged through and your extremely fluff-filled handbag turned inside out then your irritation levels do reach fever pitch. Couple that with the fact that there are people EVERYWHERE in airports and rather a lot of them seem to be small, sticky and whiny (not just the kids!) and the decision to go by train from now on gets much easier. Oh God though, I'm flying again next weekend because we're off to London to see Spamalot. *whimper*

Anyhoo, besides that the weekend was very enjoyable. There were meatballs for tea on Friday, washed down with Cava and orange juice... and then meatballs for lunch on Saturday. Yumsle! The other staple of the weekend was chickpea stew, courtesy of Matthew. Zoe's getting him trained slowly but surely. After we'd spent Saturday afternoon shopping he was tasked with getting wur dinner ready and I think he did a not bad job. It was chickpeas for lunch again on Sunday though and by that point I was all chickpea'd out! There was a lot of "Pull my finger" going on I'm afraid. Luckily we all find that most amusing ;o)

So, fuelled by meatballs and with the promise of chickpeas to come, Zoe and I actually went girly shopping. Schock! Horror! This is what comes of not having a television dude! We eventually pulled ourselves together enough to leave the house (after an epic battle between me and the hot water system. Humph!) by about half past three on Saturday afternoon, so it wasn't a full day of retail delights. The shops in Guildford are not bad though. We got distracted by about 3 shops while trying to get into Next and spent a very happy 20 minutes or so perusing the pocket money toys in a shop that stocked the sorts of things you never knew you needed until you saw them. Love it!! Wind-up toys a go go.

After dragging Zoe away from that shop I managed to find a lovely pair of Kurt Geiger espadrilles on a sale rack. They're like the picture above except navy blue with a white ribbon. Oh so gorgeous!! I made the mistake of trying them on and then they had to be mine! I'm looking forward to wearing them on my holiday in April though, and I found a lovely skirt in Next that matches. I just need to find a nice navy blue and white striped top to complete the outfit I think.

Oh my God! When did I get so girly??? Sorry Zoe!

Anyhoo, we completely failed to go to the gym or go around Guildford cathedral or track down the Bearded Lady but we did catch up on Lost and eat a heck of a lot of chickpeas. The flight back up from Gatwick was just as unpleasant as the flight down (though I did witness a woman having hysterics at security over baby bottles. Entertaining but train next time for sure!!) so breaking free from the heaving throng in the airport was a great relief. I was exhausted but had to go feed the Duff's cat on Sunday evening. She's so squeaky! She was incredibly pleased to see me though so I felt obliged to hang around and get covered in cat hair. I watched some programme about a girl that's 'addicted' to chips in the end as I thought it may have some insights that would help me with my fondness for the frites. Unfortunately the girl that is 'addicted' to chips seems to be an attention seeking fruitloop so the programme just left me wanting to slap her silly. I did not want to eat chips after it though. BTW - I noticed there's quite a hot guy in the chipper the other week but when I asked for lots of sauce he was quite stingy. Obviously it's not meant to be between us....

Phwooooooooarrrrrr!

My pal Kirsi has loaned me the first 3 series of Sex and the City on DVD and I'm utterly bingeing man! Love it! Love it! Love it!

Especially loving looking at the yummisome Mr Big, aka Chris Noth. Oh Em Gee! What a knicker-wettingly beautiful man. So this is just another excuse for me to put some eye candy on my blog ;oD

Sigh, shall I wax lyrical on how great the series is or shall I just bask in the beauty for a moment? Oh go on, just for a moment...

Mmmmm....

Let's Go Fly A Kite...

That's what I'm doing, though you probably can't see the kite in this picture, and what with me being so unphotogenic it's a bit rubbish really, no offence to the photographer though. Ho hum. It was an absolutely bee-yoootiful day on Saturday so when Naomi called me all my good intentions of spending the day spring cleaning went out of the window. I packed my kite up and got a bottle of Irn Bru from the shop (for you can't go to Holyrood Park without Irn Bru, that'd just be WRONG! Unless you have cava, that would be an acceptable substitute.) and toddled down to soak up some of the spring weather.

I realised that I've had my kite since I was about 12 years old and it's still going strong. It really is a Super Tube! The pocket kite fared less well though, it seems a bit lopsided so it just kept flying around in circles and then crashing to the ground. I think my Super Tube was the second best kite out in the park on Saturday afternoon though. The best kite was one of those huuawge ones that can lift you off the ground, somebody was out with an orange and white one (so not Matthew's old one) and it was flying beautifully. My kite just went almost straight up and stayed up. Joe (Naomi's bro*) did want to run the string out to the end just to see how far it would go but he's that sort of guy. Having just realised how long I've owned that kite for I was less inclined to take the risk of losing it and took it back off him. There's a metaphor for life if ever there was one! He likes to go to the end of the string just to see what happens or if he can and I'm quite happy to accept there's an end to the string but I don't need to see it or risk my kite to know that it's there. Very zen... or something.

The third best kite was being flown by a mummy and her wee boy. It was several kites, about half a dozen, all strung together and they were sparkly. Oooh pretty! The most rubbish kite was a stunt one that 2 boys and their dad were attempting to fly while the mother and, presumably, the grandmother, stood by and looked unimpressed. They only managed to get it in the air once and it didn't stay up there for very long. I tried not to snigger too much as I stood there and enjoyed the serenity and calm engendered by my kite. I always forget how satisfying it is to fly my kite and I must make an effort to do it more often now the weather is getting better again. Hoorah!

*Literally mofo. Check out the gansta stylee. Word.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nao1/394419844/

Music and Man in Small Shorts...

I actually went and bought some popular music that wasn't in the bargain section. I'm hip with the kids man! Honest...

This is a new release as well, only came out on Monday. Gosh! Am I becoming a pop picker? Nae chance of that, trust me ;o)

So this album is ace. It's basically what it says on the tin, this guy has got 2 pop tunes and 'mashed' them together. What comes out of this is almost as good as my famous mustard mash with the added bonus of being less calorific. Some of my favourites on this album are:

Horny as a Dandy - Mousse T vs Dandy Warhols
Passenger Fever - Peggy Lee vs Iggy Pop
Can't Get a Blue Monday Out of My Head - Kylie vs New Order

All groovy stuff kids, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

I would also like to publicly give my thanks to the wonderful Simon Pegg for releasing Hot Fuzz on that most despicable of capitalist celebrations - Valentines Day. Instead of spending the evening cursing Hallmark and ranting about the meaninglessness of it all I got to go to the cinema with 4 good friends and laugh my ass off solidly for a couple of hours. That's what the film is about too, good friends. It's a homage to the Buddy Cop movie and beats the pants off any of them. *

*I had some stuff in here about friends and how they disappear out your life sometimes but that was all a bit depressing and neither of those barstewards read this thing anyway so there was very little point in it. Back to the pants.

And that brings me to my confession...

There was also a trailer last night for yet another Simon Pegg movie. Oh joy! It's called Run, Fatboy, Run and Lordy knows when it'll be released in the cinemas, I'm hoping it'll be this summer but maybe that's wishful thinking. That's not what I'm confessing about though. I have to confess I'm haunted by the vision of Simon Pegg in the most ridiculously small shorts you've ever seen in your life! It's probably extremely clever marketing because those lycra monstrosities will be lurking in my brain until I see the movie... But they're stragely compelling. I probably need professional help!

Bumholes!!

Did you know that it's National Chip Week?

Well, apparently it is. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I can't join in the fun. I fell off the diet wagon and into a vat of lard last week so I've got to be very good now. Harumph!

The plan seems to be to convince people that chips aren't as bad as you think. I don't think chips are bad, I think chips are wonderful. They're just lardy too. Sigh.

I've known some good chips in my time, and some bad chips. Possibly the worst chips on the face of the planet were available at any refectory in Edinburgh University, back in the day. When I was at uni I used to wonder what on Earth they did to the poor potatoes to make them that awful? I mean, chopped potato and some hot oil - how can you go wrong? Ask the catering staff at the uni circa 1995-1999! I suspect perhaps the oil wasn't hot enough but they weren't exactly soggy, they did manage to stick together in big clumps though. It was quite disturbing and they were like that the whole 4 years I was at uni. Maybe I should go and investigate what they're like these days? I'm horribly afraid they're still the same though. Eeeeuw!

Good chips? Where does one get good chips? I still haven't tried that place on the Royal Mile that Zoe recommends. The Sea Breeze or something? Dude - next time you're in Edinburgh it's fish suppers all round yeah?

Oh, and curly fries! Why can you not find curly fries anywhere anymore? Bar Oz is apparently back to being Oddfellows and is wanky and overpriced so I doubt you can get them there. A billy can of curly fries used to be the mutt's nuts though, with lashings of ketchup. Drooool.

Oh well, I've got more of The Great Meatball Experiment Mark II for my dinner tonight. I've been experimenting to see if you can do meatballs in a Le Creuset. Marks I and II have tasted splendid but have been a bit on the runny side. It's difficult to get the amount of liquid right but next time I'm going to try adding passata to see if that gloopifies it up a little bit. If Mark III doesn't work I may have to admit defeat and come to the conclusion that you can't do meatballs that way. Booo!

The Million Dollar Question

What's In The News Today?

Genius!!

From the Independent On Line - www.iol.co.za

Bus Passengers Treated to Soft Porn

Bus passengers in Sofia are being shown soft porn films on giant video screens at night.

During the day the plasma screens in the Bulgarian capital show bus times, but the night shift now has the porn films on view.

A spokesperson for the station management said: "We wanted to give the passengers something to take their minds off the cold and to pass the time while waiting for a bus, and there are unlikely to be children around that time of night."

The move however has angered many, including mothers with young children, who say the movies are a disgrace.

They also claim the security guards have stopped patrolling for troublemakers, and spend their time watching the giant screens instead. - Ananova.com

What I Are Been Reading....

Also this weekend I finally got my sticky little paws on a copy of Delta of Venus by Anais Nin. Zoe lent me the copy that's she's had since she was 18 and it's a beautiful copy. It has the cover shown and is yellowing and obviously old. I'll look after it dude, I promise!!

What can I say about this book?

Whoop whoop! Awoooga! Rrrrroooowrrrr! Zoinks!

Go read it!!!

From Vampire Hunters to Dirty Old Men... In One Weekend!

Friday was my colleague Ewen's birthday so we went to Assembly for drinks after work as they have a 2-for-1 offer on cocktails. Several raspberry mules and a couple of white Russians later and Ewen managed to get me to ingest my first ever Friday night kebab. It was a chicken kebab with garlic sauce from Palmyra and I have to say it was pretty dang tasty! It could have been the alcohol speaking but I distinctly remember thinking I could have done with another one. This is probably a bad thing! I then forced Ewen to watch one of my favourite late night drunk movies - Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. A musical horror with lesbians and Mexican wrestlers. What else could one ask for? Ewen showed his appreciation by falling asleep and snoring very loudly. Philistine!

On Saturday Zoe and Matthew had their farewell leaving do - dinner at David Banns. I have to say that the food was superb but I'm definitely too impatient to be happy with the wait it inevitably comes with. Oh well, apart from that is was a very nice meal. There were a few quality drunks on the way back to keep us entertained. The first one was so drunk his knees didn't work properly and we actually stopped to watch him try and negociate the kerb. In the end he gave up trying to get back on to the pavement and just started staggering off down the road. He was moving very slowly so hopefully motorists would have had enough time to avoid him. The second drunk seemed to have been locked out by his pal. He was shouting to be let in and when that didn't work the tirade of abuse towards his acquantance started. Then he started shouting at us for sniggering at him. I think this was a bit unfair, I personally was sniggering near him - not directly at him. Ah, I will miss the colourful characters that you see in Dumbidykes now that I won't be visiting Zoe. They do sometimes venture up into the Southside though so I'll still see them now and again.

Well, Zoe always joked that I was the bestest boyfriend ever because I'd bring her chocolate and fill her hot water bottle when she was crampy. My "boyfriend" has now moved to Guildford (and that's too far to go just to fill a hottie [f'narr] or deliver some ice cream) but she seems to have been replaced by a new "spouse" already. Emily and I spent Sunday afternoon viewing flats, shopping in Ikea and trailing around Sainsbury's for a weekly shop. Sigh. We didn't bicker or argue and nobody stomped off in a huff or insulted the other one's family though so I guess we can't be that much of a married couple - I'm still going to petition for custody of the tripod cat on holidays and weekends though ;o)

On Sunday evening we went to see Venus, which I'm particularly pleased about because it seems to be one of the ones that Cineworld only shows for about a week. They always do that with the ones I want to see. Bah. Anyhoo, it's currently sharing screen 13 (the posh one) with The Fountain (remember that??) so I doubt it'll still be playing after Thursday. This is the story of a 70-something actor and his unlikely friendship/romance with his friend's teenage grand-niece and I have to say I really liked this film. Some people will undoubtedly find the subject of an old man lusting after a young girl unsavoury but it's not all that bad and they really should give it a chance. The characters are so well done that you can't help but feel sympathy for O'Toole and excuse his lecherousness to a certain extent. He was obviously a virile man who now has one foot in the grave and the other one isn't far behind, why the Hell should he behave himself? The 'ick' factor is also tempered by the fact that he usually gets kicked in the nuts or slapped whenever he tries anything on. The character of Jessie, or 'Venus' is just as unlikeable as a lecherous old man to begin with. She's rude, uncommunicative and sloppy but as you understand more of her back story she does start to grow on you, and as her friendship with Maurice grows she becomes less hideous. This film does make uncomfortable viewing because you're reminded that older people don't just quietly and gracefully retire from life and dodder off into a world of biscuits and countdown. They swear, they have lustful feelings, they get bored and fed up just like the rest of us - but they're further impeded by just being plain old and things not working as well as they used to. No wonder we try and ignore older people - we're scared witless of ending up like that! Yikes!

Anyway, it's a bloody good film and it's given me an excuse to post a picture of the youthful and beautiful Peter O'Toole. When the light hits him in a certain way he's almost handsome.... *

* That's a quote from one of my favourite films - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059903/