DLL

DLL

The youngest of the three, she's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. In my opinion, and my opinion doesn't count for very much, particularly not around here, of the three she's the least likely to back herself, while at the same time probably being the one who should back herself the most.

Who, exactly, is she?

She's my Walking Dead buddy. Without her, I'd never go to the pictures (and nor would BLISS). She's really good company, but then they all are (they get that from me, obviously).

She's a fish-eating vegetarian, whatever the proper name for one of those is, without ever getting too anal or preachy or in your face about things. She's got a fantastic circle of friends.

That thing about getting something...she gets Twitter. Of everyone I follow, I look forward to her tweets more than anyone else's. She's uproariously, hilariously funny, if her assignments and essays had a 142 letter limit (is that right?) she'd ace every one without breaking sweat.

She can frustrate. She's a natural ball player (did I say she gets some stuff from me – I'm ready for no end of disagreement in the comments) always excelling at whatever she's decided to give a go: netball, cricket, hockey, but never enjoyed getting too serious about it. Gloriously unanal, beautifully laid back, but frustrating nonetheless.

She has a Women Behaving Badly thing going with BLISS. I'll never admit it, but it gives me a warm glow seeing them side by side on the sofa. They've replaced the Stella Artois with Cornettos, and they watch endless hospital reality shows, hospital dramas, medical docu-dramas. I'm sure they have a special channel of their own piped up the arse of the Sky box just for them.

Again, she doesn't recognise her own talents, but she's really good with people. She's caring, gentle and patient (she definitely does not get any of those from me).

Random memories pop up. We went to see a full-on, no holds barred blood and guts production of Titus Andronicus at the Globe. Grown people were fainting away at an average of five or six every performance. After the particularly blood-thirsty last scene before the interval, she said “do we have any more sandwiches?” She went missing when we were picking her up from her junior school. I was absolutely frantic. She reappeared. “I went to the toilet” she said, calmer than a very calm thing. She came up to a meeting in Birmingham with me recently, and we listened to talk radio, Radio 4 and Radio 5, all the way there and back. I remember driving out to the Witterings with a much younger version of her, both of us laughing at Bleak Expectations. She's currently going through a very late-onset “why?” phase. Recently I'm increasingly having to answer a lot of “why?” questions, generally with the answer “I don't know”. She makes me laugh with the football team shortened onscreen names. Who's pissgah? (Paris St Germain (PSG)); who's teth? (TH (S***s)); who's wah-hem? Who's cep? Who's Eve? Who's chey?

I could be wrong, I often am, but I think we have a very robust relationship. I'm sure Kiz and MM couldn't ask for a better sister.

She's also a lot braver and a lot more stoic than I could ever aspire to being. She's my Star Trek buddy, my Hobbit pal, and bit of an action film fan.

Obviously, I'm biased and entirely subjective, incapable of a rational judgement, and I love her dearly.

New Musical Experiences

So much good stuff about...

...it's almost impossible to keep up with it all.

Debbie Harry, in the Guardian (The Soundtrack of My Life):

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/mar/30/debbie-harry-soundtrack-of-my-life-blondie?CMP=fb_ot

says:

“When I run into people who complain that there's no good music today, or go, uggggh, the old music was so much better, I have to laugh. There's so much good stuff now, it's almost impossible to keep track of it.”

When you have to tick the “Frankly, knocking on a bit” box when a form requires your age, it's always refreshing to hear anyone in the same age bracket enthusing about new music. One of the last things Lou Reed did was to write about how much he was enjoying Kanye West's Yeezus album.

What can you do to keep up as best you can, with all that other stuff that needs doing?

Word of mouth

That's an odd phrase, isn't it? Word of mouth? Personal recommendation. That's more like it. Personal recommendation. AD and MM are among the best sources.

Pitchfork

I have a Pitchfork weekend policy. As far as possible, anything that gets a 8+ star review over the last week, I give at least one listen, if it's available. There are some exceptions. If the review says 'death metal' for example, I may give it a miss, but reluctantly, because one listen don't kill you, and there's always the pleasant surprise lurking.

The NME

Increasingly less as it becomes more and more accepting of middle of the road mediocrity.

The Guardian

For the classical reviews. Often they don't point me directly to anything, they're too specific: this conductor, this orchestra, this recording; but rather used as a guide and to inspire some new composers to listen to.

The London Jazz Review

A free online magazine, and a good one.

The Internet

For reggae, for various 'must listen to' lists, for Listmania and the never-ending tangents and obscure branches that can offer up.

The impossibility

It isn't a losing battle, because it isn't any sort of battle, it's an absolute joy. Just enjoy the cornucopia, and don't fret about what you may be missing.

Late night viewing...

In the wee small hours...

...one of the best things about Friday and Saturday nights is that, without the pressure to be rested for work the next day, on waking at one or two or three, and unable to sleep, I can read or watch or listen until sleep comes naturally...

...so, goodbye The Killing...

...series one, episodes nineteen and twenty, and (almost) all of the red herrings exposed as such, and loose ends tied, and, as was always on the cards, a slightly messy conclusion, but one that made perfect sense. Characters acting according to the characters developed over those twenty hours of the first series. I'm going to miss having this to watch...

...but, as one door closes...

...Spiral is French, much shorter at six forty-five minute episodes, and the first one is very promising...

...Dadi Waz A Badi...

...shocking revalations as it comes to light that DLL's never seen Blazing Saddles. What have I been thinking of...

...she's not so bad...

...considering that major omission in her social, and cinematic education. I'll have to line up Young Frankenstein (my personal favourite) too. DLL's remarkably patient with my dementia-affected mum. She's as good as I'm useless. We never had much in common in any case. I know as much about jigsaw puzzles and knitting as she does about football and cricket. She has that religion-inspired belief that she's right and everyone else is going to hell in an alcohol-fuelled handcart concealed by a cloud of fag-smoke. I fully understand that there's more to life than football and curry, and as soon as I discover what, exactly, that is, I intend to give it a good go.

So, with the World T20 cricket on the radio headphones, DLL had to do all the interfacing with her while I did the kitchen stuff. Cups of tea. Dinner. That sort of thing.

I suppose it's an indicator of my relationship with her that I'm convinced that she's to blame for us losing two wickets and slowing down the scoring rate, because of the negative vibes she radiates with such intensity.

DLL manages her so well, so deftly, and with such good humour. Effortless...

...which was Arsenal during the first half...

...effortlessly conceding possession, momentum, territory and a goal to Citeh. We looked like we were holding on by the skin of our teeth, causing them no problems at all, and destined to go down by about three nil as the inevitable-looking late goals were given away.

Instead we came out a different team in the second half, caused them no end of bother, grabbed a deserved equaliser and arguably were unlucky not to get a winner, too...

...the cricket team's coming home...

...narrowly losing a great contest with South Africa by a small margin, and, basically, paying the price of losing that joke of a lightning storm curtailed game to New Zealand.

Miller, culture. Charles Hawtree, bodybuilding.

Culture?

A woman needs as man, the saying has it, like a fish needs a bicycle.

The unholy alliance has a culture secretary. It needs one the way a trout lake needs a branch of Evans Cycles. Maria Miller, she's called. Just in case anyone thought that the expenses fiddling had stopped, just because there's been little heard about it, she's just sold a house the taxpayer bought her and made over a million quid profit.

If you're wondering, her credentials for being minister for culture, sport and media is a degree in economics, and working for Texaco.

The Bez Party

Can I vote in Salford and Eccles?

The Coventry Telegraph (see the lengths and depths of research I go to in order to bring you this rubbish?) says of his anti-fracking views:

“[He] is an unlikely champion of the environment, being once (once having been?) famous for having plumbed the depths himself in search of substances better left alone.”

Well, I think anyone sensible would take substance abuse before abusing the environment. I want the Tramazi Parti to launch a nationwide campaign. Then I might even wander down to the poll booth once more. Shaun William Ryder, Chancellor. The Reverend Black Grape as archbishop of Manchester.

Other countries are much better at the ex-celeb politician thing, electing more colourful characters than we seem able to manage. I think Swampy's overdue a tilt at getting elected, too. A constituency with plenty of trees would be ideal.

I'd hope, as well, that when he forms his administration, Bez will find places for David 'Bumble' Lloyd, Ian Wright and Elvis Costello, and makes it illegal to be Michael Parkinson.

Same sex marriage

Long overdue, this.

Odd, too, that after twenty years of supposedly socialist government, the unholy tory-led right-wing alliance has finally done the right thing. Were Tone and Gord homophobic or were they hamstrung by their religious beliefs? Either way they've been shown how to do the right thing by an unlikely source.

Tone, Son of Margaret, has gone on record saying that, or more or less saying that he's some sort of God's own politician and did whatever he did because of the guidance he received from on high. That's mental enough to suggest that he's revving up for a not guilty but insane plea should the war crimes thing ever land on his doormat.

In any case, believing in walking on water, immaculate conception, winged horses, any of that gumph ought to disbar you, forever, from political office. Indeed, from any sort of position where your decision making is likely to be compromised through falling for all that.

Still, it's absolutely shocking that this lot have dragged things into the present day. It reinforces the feeling that we've really no longer got a socialist agenda party to vote for and a traipse to the polling booth is truly one of the greatest imaginable wastes of time.

What have they done to me?

They're ruining my good name, so they are

BLISS and DLL think it's hilarious. I don't. They've taken books out on my library ticket. I was reserving some books and saw that I was down for four loans, when I've only got one book out. On my ticket, there's...I don't know if I can say this...The War Diary of a Midwife (or something like that), Astrology, and The Alzheimers and Dementia Guide (no, it hasn't got a sonar bleep thingy so that you can remember where you put it). I'd rather have a criminal record than those on my library loans record. I feel sort of soiled.

Astrology is even worse than religion, and the misery memoir of a nurse (or whatever). I'll have to see if there's a way to erase them forever from the cyber-loan register.

Waste less food

£700. That's the value of the food the average family throws away every year. Here's my ways of reducing food waste:

• Juice it. Before fruit and veg goes bad, spin up the juice extractor and get some apple, satsuma and carrot juice down your neck. Don't bother with recipes or any formalities or quantities. If it's sitting still in the fridge or fruitbowl it's fair game and it'll be delicious, trust me. If it has beetroot in it, don't worry about the apparent blood in your urine the next day.

• Don't buy what the books tell you to. If a recipe calls for a teaspoon of something, don't buy a shedload of nearly off something just because Heston or Delia or Nigella or Jamie say you need it. You don't. Use what you already have, or something else that looks in good nick, and preferably something else that looks in good nick and you can earmark for near-future use.

• Make stock. Most stuff you throw away makes stock. Don't peel unless you have to. If you do, save the peelings in the container in the fridge, and make stock. Throw chopped tomatoes into some water and a stock cube and you've got some rubbish tomato soup. Throw them into home made stock and you've got something worth eating.

• Apparently many Indian restaurants (that's restaurants in India as opposed to curry houses over here) offer only two choices at any given sitting. Like one non-veggie and one veggie option. The more bases a restaurant tries to cover, the more they're chucking away, or the more is actually sub-standard or frozen rubbish. My heart sinks when I see those pub blackboards that take up several walls, filled with tiny writing, a menu hundreds of pages long. The food's never really good. Look at the traditional café lunch menu: liver and bacon, a roast, a pie, all served with the same vegetables. I like the set menu, plat du jour idea, I don't like agonising over what I'm going to eat, and I like to try new things. The shorter the menu, the less waste.

• One I fall down on: use up those leftovers. Curry, chilli, stews and casseroles all taste better for an overnight stay in the fridge.

• Don't tolerate fussy eaters, and ignore use-by dates, they're just a guide for the chronically queasy.   

Fence panel frenzy

Pssst. Wanna buy a fence panel?

Wind. Rain. Floodwater. The scientists have predicted that the effects of climate change will include unpredictable results. There's a UK shortage, of fences. Now is the time to set up a cottage shiplap, featheredge, or closeboard fence panel production facility in the garage. Prices are rising. £20 panels are changing hands for £80. There are teams out in the wee small hours, creeping about taking down people's fences to resell.

A whole new meaning to 'fence', in the stolen goods context.

“He's been up to no good.”

“Right Guv, I'll check his pockets for galvanised ring shanks and his van for creosote.”

The Walking Dead

The last two, and maybe the last three, episodes have been fantastic. On the subject of post zombie apocalypse dystopian stories, I need to find a way to con BLISS into watching World War Z now it's on Sky Movies. She's a treat watching anything other than a situation comedy, but she'd be hilarious with her nerves jangling during the sneaking through the labs segment.

Actually, eat what you like

My medical instincts are non-existent. My eating habits are...well...cave bloke-ish. But now, it's all good. Apparently my distrust of chem lab solidified 'healthy' spreads was well-founded. You're better off with butter. Processed food, without shedloads of salt, sugar, MSG and the like, would taste of bugger all, and a lump of fatty red meat from a grass-fed animal is healthier than some low-fat processed, clingfilmed, microwave alternative.

Our elected expense fiddlers have lost the ability to review their position on anything and some bad advice still stands.

Too many eggs a week? Egg cholesterol cannot become blood cholesterol, and eggs represent a low-cost, simple source of protein and amino acids.

There's no connection, apparently, between fat consumption and the likelihood of heart attack event.

Oakwood: X-Box good, Books bad

Whether or not the New Labour Torys under Tone, Son of Maggie continued the policy, the right started the privatisation fetish. Fanatics, they care not for the rights and wrongs, nor for the practicalities of the circumstances. It is a relentlessly pursued agenda. Hardwired. Deep-seated. In-built.

Oakwood is an example, a privately run prison. Privately run under the radar. Riots and protests go unreported. G4S run the prison. We pay them to do so, as taxpayers.

An inmate revealed that prisoners can use their wages to buy DVDs, video games, and X-Boxes and Playstations.

Books are unavailable. Not for “love nor money”.

So. Privately run prison. Rehabilitation materials include Grand Theft Auto and the Prison Break box sets, but not Crime and Punishment or The Trial.

Can't pay why pay?

Licence to print money

There's a lot of views about the BBC licence fee, and decriminalising failure to pay it. Here:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/25/bbc-licence-fee-debate-decrinimalising-non-payers

Mary Dejevsky follows the other sheep in the debate, and misses or evades the main points. At least, my main points. Which are these:

1. The reason for decriminalisation isn't taking up disproportionate time in the courts. The argument for retaining criminal status isn't that otherwise there'll be more evasion. The reason for decriminalisation is that, plainly, it is the right thing to do. Not paying the licence fee isn't on the same playing field as mugging someone or thumping a granny.

2. The long term solution isn't tacking the fee onto taxes or council tax bills. That, entirely wrongly, continues the assumption that anyone with a TV or computer will watch BBC programmes. The current system fines me, and I can happily go years without feeling the need to watch BBC output, for owning devices capable of receiving that output I'm uninterested in.

I would happily pay a radio licence fee, because I do frequently listen to BBC radio.

It is patently unfair to charge a licence fee in relation to owning a television. It is the equivalent of a subscription service demanding payment just because you have the necessary hardware to receive it, whether or not you do. The only fair way is to find a way to block their signal. Then, if I want it, I'll pay for it, and otherwise, I'll give it a miss, thanks. It's that choice thing our in-charge blokes keep promoting.

Another unfair point is the cost. When the licence fee was conceived there was only the BBC, and the licence fee was a fraction of the cost of a telly. Now, while it remains a fraction of the cost of a full-on widescreen extravaganza Carlos Fandango model, you can pick up a telly for less than the licence fee, which is ridiculous.

I will admit to the Six Nations Rugby, but only on the BBC when I can't get it on a proper sport broadcaster that makes a better job of it and gives the games more pre- and post-match airtime. On a pay per view basis, that round about a tenner a game, which I certainly wouldn't be forking out for, say, Italy v Scotland.

When is and when isn't text okay?

Phil Collins made headlines when he divorced his wife, or informed her of their separation with immediate effect, or something like that, by text.

Now the airline has told flight MH370 relatives that there's no hope of any survivors. By SMS message.

It sounds reasonable. Wherever possible the news was given face-to-face as a first preference. Then over the telephone. Where neither of those lines of communication worked out, then a text was sent so that the news didn't come via the media, who could not be trusted to sit on the news until all the families were informed.

There would be, though, wouldn't there, the temptation to download and use a plane-crash smiley? There wouldn't? Probably right. Evil thought.

A cardinal sinner

Well, aren't you going to give your mate a few tips?

Walking along Wembley Way. On our left, the manic street preacher. Microphone. Amp and speaker in a shoulder-sling...

“...and God is...”

Here there was a pause, and he genuinely started to sound like the rubbish preacher in The Life of Brian just before the gourd and the sandal bit.

“...like the referee in the game of rugby you're going to see...”

Right. So. Either our referee will have a long grey beard and be omnipotent, or God depends on his touch judges and telly replay guy, and has a watch on both wrists, and a whistle.

On our right, four blokes, one in fancy dress. Roman Catholic Cardinal fancy dress.

“Oy. Mate. Over here” (a lot of pointing).

(To the Cardinal) “'aint you going to give your mate there a few tips?”

No books for you, you old lag

A nasty move by a nasty piece of work. Chris Grayling represents Epsom and Ewell, seventeen miles from Westminster. He has a taxpayer-paid flat in Pimlico despite having a home in his constituency, and two buy to let properties in Wimbledon. His expenses fiddling score was an impressive £125,000.00. He's the justice secretary (or something like that, whatever one of those does).

Actually, whatever one of those does includes stopping prisoners' families ability to send them books to read. Not just copies of the bible hollowed out to accommodate a pistol or some breaking out gear or some drugs. Just books. Like to read.

Chris Grayling has a degree in...history. What is it about having a history degree that makes you an absolute git?

He's written and published some books himself, including The Bridgewater Heritage: The Story of Bridgewater Estates (catchy title there, Chris) published by...er...Bridgewater Estates PLC. Then there's Holt's: The Story of Joseph Holt (forming a pattern here, d'ya think?) published by...er...Joseph Holt PLC (yep, definitely a pattern forming).

Chris, is it because no prisoner ever reached for anything you've written from the library trolley that you're so bitter and nasty?

Or is it because you look like a smug egg?

We're on our way to Wembley

Manuscripts don't burn

Book burning is absolutely wrong. Like flag burning, or effigy burning, but, somehow, infinitely worse. It says “not only am I a fanatic and barking mad, but I'm also an idiot and intend to deliberately remain so”. The burners of the world will probably disagree. That's how I see it.

The manuscripts don't burn quote is from The Master and Margarita. A book that, along the way to its eventual construction, did have the manuscript burnt, by the author, living in fear of political oppression in Stalin's Russia. A book that the author retained in his memory. Now more than ever, book burning is an empty gesture. Everything exists electronically, in a number of places, simultaneously. The minute I press “publish” this is on the Google server, it's backed up, it's dropboxed into the cloud. Not only is book burning a moronic gesture of crass stupidity, it's an utterly empty one. Meaningless. Pitiful.

Only fanatics burn books, and only religious and political fanatics at that.

Yes, it was an awesome fry up

ME: I don't want to complain or anything, but my full English hasn't turned up.

KIZ: Get the stuff and I'll do you one.

ME: I was only joking.

KIZ: [A short time later] here's the shopping list.

That was that. Absolute bargain. Whiz down to Lidl and back. Quick David Gower, and there it was: egg, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomato, beans, fried bread (I'm sure I've forgotten something). Sorry, Harlequins. It was my fault, I cost us the game, but I was just too full up to manage the lucky kebab roll on the bus.

Wembley, more awesomeness

I know you're supposed to moan about the transport and this and that, but the stadium is superb, the arch is majestic, the views spectacular. Even the toilet provision is adequate (not something in the usual stadium design manuals).

Thanks to BLISS for the chance to get there, and to DLL for the company, and to KIZ for having me so full up I even managed to resist every single tempting smelling food outlet along Wembley Way.

Unfortunately, and, I think, inexplicably, given the chance to impress a 83,000 crowd including loads of possible converts to the cause, 'Quins decided to rest Chris Robshaw, Mike Brown and Danny Care, and didn't offer much significant resistance to a dominant Saracens team.

The dreaded Mexican wave

Strettle was knocked unconscious. It was only five to ten minutes to get a neck brace on and stretcher him off (thankfully, he's ok), but that was long enough to challenge some attention-spans and a Mexican wave broke out. I think it's hugely disrespectful to start that sort of nonsense at any time, but particularly when someone's knocked out and may have a broken neck or worse. Tossers.

On a happier note...

...paraphrasing one of the match reports:

Steve Borthwick (Saracens), Joe Marler and Nick Kennedy ('Quins) had an exchange of views about the incident that left Strettle unconscious. Afterwards, as Borthwick was examining his bloody nose...

Well, we won that one.

That lucky kebab roll thing

Obviously applied to the Arsenal, too. Arsene's team is embarrassingly fragile.

I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, and it's something I grew out of with advancing age and fragility, but, whenever the younger me was on the wrong end of that sort of hiding, I eased the pain by running around kicking lumps out of anything that moved until I was sent off or subbed off. Violence is never the answer, but it can be a partial solution, and Wenger needs reinforcements with psycho tendencies. He needs to lose the perma-injured players, with their physio-tendencies, too.

HMHB

Half Man Half Biscuit

Shepherds Bush Empire – Friday 21^st March

Thanks to MM for the (Christmas present) tickets, and for looking after me. At least until he bailed at Oxford Circus to jump onto the Bakerloo, leaving me to do the long Tottenham Court Road Central Line to Northern Line hike unsupervised. Somehow I managed to get on a southbound train and stay awake way past my bedtime and get off before it hit the buffers at Morden depot.

I had a spot of luck, the Oyster card was given the last rites by Padraig (Customer Services) (the badge said), and the balance of twenty-odd quid was resurrected, or, more strictly, reincarnated on Oyster Card II, on successfully supplying the password. Highbury. Football, international language, even spoken in Northern Line ticket booths, then caused a slight delay, as Padraig (fellow Gooner) then had to mercilessly give a huge pile of stick to his oppo (name and designation unknown – badge unseen behind the window not in use pull-down blind), a S***s fan, about last Sunday.

Perfect timing, we were in just as they hit the first chorus of “When the evening sun goes down”.

I shout my obscenities from steeples

But please don't call me a madman

I'm off to see the Bootleg Beatles

As the bootleg Mark Chapman

In the blink of an eye it was two hours later and they were playing encores of 99% of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd (one of the best-observed song lines in history) and The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Is The Light of an Oncoming Train).

It was an elderly audience. About 99% male (and 50% gargoyle-resembling), 60% bald (that's 60% in number at least partly bald, not uniformly with just 40% of their hair remaining), 72% speccy, and, I'd guess, judging by some overheard conversations:

“That's off Achtung Bono”

“No. That's off Trouble Over Bridgewater”

“Or is it off Cammell Laird Social Club?”

“Which is the black cover one?”

“That is Achtung Bono...”

and so on, about 80% somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

There were several pairs (pairs? sets? PPE's?) of oven gloves brandished during Joy Division Oven Gloves.

I,

Keep wicket,

For the Quakers,

In my,

Joy Division oven gloves

As you'd imagine a band highly recommended by Bumble Lloyd to be, they're funny, quirky, deeper and spikier than they may appear on the surface, and very, very good at what they do. Jump on the spectrum, get some tickets. They don't play live that often or go on long tours. See them if you can.

Spoiler alert

The Killing

*Sort of spoiler alert, sort of...*

ME: I'm going to watch another episode of The Killing.

DLL: American, or, er...

ME: Danish. Subtitles.

DLL: I watched the American one.

ME: Did you?

DLL: Yeah. Twenty episodes, and you still don't find out who did it in the end.

ME: Oh. Thanks.

DLL: What?

There's true legends...

...like Miles Davis and James Brown. They only ever wanted to make great music, and keep moving on. They have left huge and significant legacies.

...and there's...

...Thatcher and her boy Tone. Both desperate to make their marks and leave their legacies. Already consigned to the “who?” pigeon holes of 99% of the population, undone by their desperation for their greatest desire.

You'll never hear anyone say: “rock 'n' roll – it's the new politics.”

On the News Quiz this evening...

...an apparently infallible but entirely reliable test of whether a relationship will last is these three questions:

1. Do you like horror films?
2. Have you ever travelled alone?
3. Would you, given the chance, just take off on a sailboat?

Apparently researchers have found that women are attracted to men who have sexy and mysterious looking photos.

“So” said the panel “that'd be Speedos...and a balaclava.”

Too early for chips?

Sun, yardarm, chips

I've been asked twice:

“Is it too early for chips?”

First was Rich. A telephone query. I think he knew the answer before I gave it. Then Fat Dave. Greasy spoon, breakfast. One of those numbered option blackboards.

“Number six” I said. Two bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, fried slice, egg, beans. Had I been bothered, I'd've swapped the beans for tinned tomatoes or fresh mushrooms.

“I fancy an eight” he said, “is it too early for chips?”

“It's never too early for chips”.

Tea with that?

I don't like paying the greasy spoon tea tax. Fair enough in one of those bargain basement places. Ten items, three quid, upstairs over the racks of old man jackets, slippers and nighties, round the back of the checkouts and the customer bogs. Not on when you're at around the fiver for a full English. That should stretch to an included teabag, hot water and a dash of milk.

Tea and symphony

Well, song and dance, anyway.

Here's something the human behaviour people ought to look at: cup of tea at home? One bag or two? Long steep, or short dip? How much milk? Whoa, take it easy with the semi / skimmed / full fat boy. It has to be a certain brand, or at least one of a small number of brands. Squeezed or just flipped into the bin? Every slight error or judgement, tactics, game plan and execution severely punished.

Mug of tea. Café. As it comes. Happy with that. Hot and wet, nice cuppa splosh. No probs. Lovely. Absolutely no fuss. No stuff 'n' nonsense.

Proof that we're governed by philistines

Super-smug Little Lord Fauntleroy, or The Chancellor, as Osborne prefers to be known, has closed the VAT-free book download loophole. Thanks George.

George is a product of rich, posh folk. He rivals Lord Coe in the slimeball smug-fest stakes. As if that wasn't enough, there's now 20% moat / duck island / Mars bar / second home tax on ebooks. Thanks George.

George doesn't hang much with normal folk. There was a photo opportunity of George pretending to lay a brick on a site somewhere, in the papers. He probably held on and waited, or had his own personal antique-panelled Portaloo delivered to site especially for the visit. They probably cleared the area of Polish labourers and hid the carpenters in the pub for the duration. He prefers spending time on the yachts of those super chaps he calls friends, the ones he helps dodge taxes and earn massive bonuses. To anyone on a budget, it'll mean being able to access fewer books. His party like closing public libraries. What do the plebs need to read for anyway, eh George?

George looks after his own. He needs the 20% book tax. Otherwise, how can MPs keep up appearances? £1,500 suits, £500 brogues, it all costs money, don't'cha'know. Great. A reading tax. Thanks George.

Yo! Raw fish!

Yo! Conveyor belt

I've got a vague idea that I shouldn't really like Yo! Sushi. But I do. When all the intuitively sensible advice is to get some good food and do as little to it as possible before eating it, sushi must be one of the ideal things to eat. I like raw fish. When the focus of so much fish cooking is simplicity and stopping the fish falling apart, what could be simpler than just slicing, dicing, shredding, and serving? I like the simplicity of the system. Colour coded plastic bowls, four or five per-bowl prices. It reminds me of the old dim sum places where the bamboo steamers and plates of various sizes were left stacking up on your table until the bill was calculated according to the empties. I like having taps supplying as much still or sparkling water as you want at each place setting, along with little dishes of wasabi and pickled ginger, and bottles of soy and chilli sauces.

It is a way of eating I've always preferred. Frequent offerings of small amounts. The chance to try a number of different dishes. The opportunity to stop for a while, talk, chill, then resume.

Maybe it's the slightly futuristic idea of the conveyor belt, see food, grab food, eat food, that makes you feel a bit guilty. Is it all a bit technology and machinery heavy and people light?

It is easy to run up bit more of a bill than you intended, but isn't that a sign that you're getting stuff you're actually enjoying eating?

Don't read the Daily Mail...or the Telegraph

Why no one should read the Telegraph

The Mail remains, at the moment, the absolute no-go zone, newspaper-wise. Why would anyone read such a hate-filled publication?

Anyway, the 100 books Telegraph article I looked through raised some questions:

• No Murakami? I don't get that. Where's Pynchon, where's Gravity's Rainbow? Edna O'Brien?

• Why are authors limited to one book?

• No modern sci-fi? There's (the overrated) Ballard but no William Gibson?

• Where's Lowry's Under the Volcano?

• What about the beautiful but obscure? Two authors you really should read before you die: Richard Brautigan and Russell Hoban.

• There's Amis (M) and M^cEwan, but no Iain Banks? Is it because he had that favourite FTT t-shirt?

There's two ways the Telegraph scores points:

1. Training puppies. It is now probably behind the Times (thicker paper, more supplements, more pages) but it was once top of the table in terms of absorbent newspaper per pound, ideal for owners house-training young dogs.

2. The crossword. This is just my (based on nothing concrete other than my own crossword-completing abilities) theory: Telegraph readers lag behind other broadsheet readers a bit, intellectually. So they have to simplify the cryptic crossword accordingly. Simplify it sufficiently that, despite my original intellectual shortcomings being compounded by heading footballs and opponents' heads for thirty odd seasons (I heard this on the radio recently: “I managed Manchester United for four seasons. Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring”), I can, on rare occasions, actually finish the thing. Without making words up or inserting random gibberish.

Actually, the heading isn't fair.

Those two mad old country ladies French and Saunders do, they should read the Telegraph. It would suit those Two Fat Ladies (now One Fat Lady) too. Anyone who retires from the services but maintains the title Brigadier. Tim Nice-But-Dim. Those blokes at the rugby in highly polished brogues and Barbour jackets. You know. Those types it quite suits. The same way a folded up copy of the Sun or the Sport is compulsory on the dashboard of every old white van littered with large paper coffee cups and empty fag packets.

I've been strolling...

I've been strolling down my favourite lane

And I've been bowling my left arm occasionals again

Life gets sweeter the more that I understand

The flora and the fauna and the hedgerows that abound in this land

Half Man Half Biscuit – Tyrolean Knockabout

Is your child hyperactive?

It's Half Man Half Biscuit...

...on Friday, and time for some revving up:

So help me Mrs Mendlecott,

I don't know what to do,

I've only got three bullets,

And there's four of Motley Crue...

and:

If Jesus came to earth today,

We'd crucify him straight away,

Upon a cross of MDF,

And we'd use no need for nails

and:

Is your child hyperactive,

or,

is he,

perhaps,

just a twat?

I can quote from memory. Thank the Internet and the music collection for the rest:

You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce

Although there was a drive-by shouting once

I'm gonna feed our children non-organic food,

And with the money saved,

Take them to the zoo

I ring up Dial-a-pizza

And say “That's not how I'd spell Hawaiian”

A particular favourite is from a spoken intro:

I tried to put everything into perspective, set it against the scale of human suffering. And I thought of the Mugabe government, and the children of the Calcutta Railways. This worked for a while, but then I encountered Primark FM.

She's the main man in the office in the city

And she treats me like I'm just another lackey

But I can put a tennis racket up against my face

And pretend I'm Kendo Nagasaki

In my debt I owe someone a fiver

Maybe I should try my hand at drag

James Dean was just a careless driver

And Marilyn Monroe was just a slag

From 99% of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd

100 books

100 Books to Read Before You Die

There's a lot of these lists. The Guardian go for 1,000 books. This is the Telegraph's list. Hence the redundant “before you die” in the article headline. I thought I'd see how I get on, ticking some of them off:

100 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein

Several aborted attempts at this, until I quit the anal-retentive read every word approach and skipped the fireside songs that do nothing to move things along. Much better. It was MM's box paperback set, I think.

99 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A truly beautiful book. Easy to read, easy to like. Knocked this one off pretty young.

98 The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

Nope. One for the future.

97 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

“What's your name?”

“Dent. Arthur Dent.”

“Well, Dentarthurdent...”

96 One Thousand and One Nights Anon

Nope, but it should have been read at some time.

95 The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nope. Don't think I ever will.

94 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

On the to-do list.

93 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

I watched the two series first. Atmospheric, compelling, and apparently an accurate picture of the “Circus” that runs our spies.

92 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Another yes, and a hilarious book.

91 The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki

The world's first novel, apparently.

90 Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

I need to catch up on my Murdoch. Another no, not any of her books.

89 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

That to-do list...

88 Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

...it's getting longer.

87 On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Another early doors book, another easy read. Raced through it, a long time ago now.

86 Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

Sadly, no.

85 The Red and the Black by Stendhal

No.

84 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Not unless a kids' comic version counts.

83 Germinal by Emile Zola

On the e-reader thanks to Gutenberg. To-do.

82 The Stranger by Albert Camus

Nope, but on the e-reader, too. I've only read Camus' The Rebel.

81The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Yes. A whodunnit. With maps and monks, and Eco's linguistic pyrotechnics. He a professor of semantics.

80 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

Just about my first Booker winning book.

79 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

No. Probably never will.

78 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Yes but not as an adult.

77 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Hilarious. Milo Minderbinder is the godfather of modern bankers' dodgy maths. Major Major Major Major must be the best character's name ever.

76 The Trial by Franz Kafka

Not so hilarious, and one that I would file under “hard work”.

75 Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

Not yet. Tried the audio book an age ago, but found audio books like chocolate fireguards.

74 Waiting for the Mahatma by RK Narayan

No.

73 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque

Fairly recently. The 60p library reservation service is brilliant.

72 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

The good things about these lists include the odd inexplicable omission, and the nudge to put it right.

71 The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

On the e-reader. Definitely to-do.

70 The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Nope.

69 If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

A postmodernist puzzle, it says. Just last year. Easier than they'd have you believe. Funnier, too.

68 Crash by JG Ballard

Yes, but I struggle to like and admire Ballard the way writers I really enjoy reading do.

67 A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul

Not yet, but I'm finding good modern Indian novels coming thick and dast right now.

66 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

So many aborted attempts. I needed the advice on how to deal with the same character / multiple names thing. An odd psychological note, too. When I picked up a fresh copy, the trying and failing stopped and I finished it.

65 Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Nope. I just see that old-lady film poster with Omar Sharif on it. Can't fancy it, somehow.

64 The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz

Another one on the list.

63 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

No. More psychology. I feel too familiar with it to think about reading it now.

62 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Actually quite nasty and fierce. In a good way.

61 My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

Not yet. Definitely to-do, loaded ready to go.

60 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

My best ever holiday book investment. I came home and devoured everything else he's written. I'd never even heard of magic realism.

59 London Fields by Martin Amis

I have no Amis gaps. They're all there on the shelves.

58 The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

This is just about next on the to-do list, after all the Iain Sinclair references.

57 The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse

I've struggled with Hesse...

56 The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

...and with Grass.

55 Austerlitz by WG Sebald

Sebald on the catch up rota, too.

54 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Not yet.

53 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Another one in waiting.

52 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Wonderful. Funny. There's a bit of Holden Caulfied in us all, I think.

51 Underworld by Don DeLillo

It's sitting on the shelf, for some reason I picked up White Noise first.

50 Beloved by Toni Morrison

No Toni Morrison on my list, yet.

49 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Much, much better (but much longer) than that one kids get forced to read at school.

48 Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin

Nope. Unknown. Round here anyway.

47The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Will Self's collected food reviews for the New Statesman is called the Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker.

46 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Ballad of Peckham Rye, but not this.

45 The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet

This is a no.

44 Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm low on Satre, considering I agree so completely with his definition of hell.

43 The Rabbit books by John Updike

Four books, written over and spanning thirty years. My introduction to Updike.

42 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Always saw this as kids' stuff. I'm often wrong.

41 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

I raced through all the Sherlock Holmes books a long, long time ago.

40 The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Nope. It'll probably stay nope.

39 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Another one high on the coming right up list.

38The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Last year or the year before was that novel based on Hemmingway's wife. Quite a lot on Fitzgerald in there.

37 The Warden by Anthony Trollope

No Trollope on the CV.

36 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

No. Should be a yes.

35 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Yes, but Martin's much better than his Dad.

34 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Yes, but I find Chandler riddled with loose ends and inexplicable character behaviours.

33 Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

I have this down as too Mills and Boon.

32 A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

Earthly Powers is my Anthony Powell hit.

31 Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky

I need to pick this up.

30 Atonement by Ian McEwan

Like Amis, I'm a McEwan completist.

29 Life: a User’s Manual by Georges Perec

Perec is brilliantly insane, and this is a great book.

28 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Took this on holiday once but never got it going. It failed the 10% or stop there rule.

27 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Yes, but it's tough going at times.

26 Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Nope. Don't know why.

25 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

No. This is maybe one of the first 'nos' that's on more or less every list of this type.

24 Ulysses by James Joyce

Eventually, with a few give ups along the way. Another one where picking up a fresh copy broke the duck. As well as finally getting some help with understanding what's going on. Should be higher up the list, a number one contender.

23 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

No, but I have read Flabert's Parrot by Julian Barnes.

22 A Passage to India by EM Forster

This one, and A Room With A View, too.

21 1984 by George Orwell

The title's an anagram of 1948, you know. Big Brother. The Ministry of Truth. We're living in an Orwellian dystopia.

20 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

Too tough for me when I gave it a go long ago. Through the Laurence Sterne reference in a song on the first Dexy's Midnight Runners album.

19 The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

Okay until the weak ending.

18 Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Recent read, and a hilarious look at our newspaper industry.

17 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

No.

16 Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Pinkie, and a big win at the races. I did the Graham Greene complete back catalogue thing, then have foound him un-re-readable.

15 The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse

No, but I have done the collected golf stories. Laugh out loud funny.

14 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

No, I've always had this down as Granny-reading, too.

13 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Forced to read Dickens at school, I ducked and dodged and read only the Spark Notes for Oliver Twist. Not now.

12 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Yeah, but under protest, from memory.

11 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

This is on the Mills and Boon pile.

10 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

There's a much-praised fairly recent translation I couldn't put down.

9 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Not yet, copy on the shelf.

8 Disgrace by JM Coetzee

Does very nearly finished, interrupted by library books count?

7 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

This is a very Daily Telegraph list, isn't it? Costume drama abounds and Ulysses only at 25?

6 In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

Yep. All seven volumes, all the pages, all those words. All good.

5 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Wonderful book.

4 The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

No.

3 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

No. Millski and Boonski.

2 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael (is it Ishmael?).

1 Middlemarch by George Eliot

On the shelf ready to go.

Overall: Forty two. Must do better, or must ignore the Telegraph.