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I am 72 hours from Denver and I have just come down with a stinking cold and I am stuffy and miserable and generally afflicted with manflu. A malison upon the common cold!

Just doing my duty….

Spotted this as I planned my escape route from Denver into the Rockies for next week….

Google Maps image taken in two seasons

I can’t quite believe I have allowed things to progress this far without sharing with you the joy of Delia’s Toasties, mentioning it only in passing in an earlier post. Let me therefore correct that error…

For those of you who enjoyed “Tuna and Pasta Bake, Oh My!”, here’s the original from which I shamelessly lifted the idea. And, it turns out, some of the phrasing — though I hadn’t even seen it for about three years when I wrote. Weird, eh? Must be the urbane genius of the original. Note also my mangling of the original title — apologies.

This recipe is copyright Tom Witney.

Lesson 1: Scrambled Toast.

For this simple, yet time consuming, snack you will need:

one sandwich toaster (I find that geriatric ones work best for this
recipe)
4 slices of bread
some of that marvellous low fat olive spread
fillings of your choice

The first thing to do is to make sure that you clean the sandwich toaster
thoroughly using plenty of detergent. We don’t want any nasty grease do
we?!

The next step is to decide on which fillings you want to use. My
favourites are mozzerella, sun dried tomatoes, olives, parmesan, fresh
basil leaves, lime and coriander. (If you’re common don’t
worry. I’ve heard that mild cheddar and HP sauce work wonderfully.)

Now we’re ready to start cooking. Take your 4 slices of bread, I always
make sure I use fresh granary - it gives a lovely nutty flavour, and
spread thinly with some low fat olive spread. (Again, the common people
reading need not fret. Sunblest and lard work just as well I’ve been
told.)

When the sandwich toaster is good and hot, put in the bread spread side
down and assemble the fillings. Close the toaster and leave until the
cheese has melted and the bread is thoroughly welded into the toaster.

Taking care to burn yourself several times, laboriously scrape the bread
and fillings from the toaster and arrange on a plate using a sharp knife.
If you do it properly this can take up to half an hour!

When you’ve scraped all you can, you should find yourself with a plate of
slightly cheesy breadcrumbs and a knackered sandwich toaster. Delicious!
Leave the toaster to soak overnight, then attempt to chip the rest of the
cheese from the cooking surface. Spend a good hour or two over this.
Then throw the damned thing away!

Unfortunately this meal only serves one, but it makes a marvellous starter
at dinner parties (Common people: you can stop reading this now and go
back to The Sun crossword). Make your guests the toast in the usual way in
individual sandwich toasters. Serve hot and still in the toaster. Your
guests can experience the frustration and anger themselves as they try and
scrape the remains of their dinner from the awkward corners!

Enjoy! And remember. The time consuming nature of this dish makes it
ideal for times when you’re really busy. Like exam term perhaps.

Next week: Delia shows us how to burn eggs!

… that I didn’t go out and buy a Sony PRS-505 the other day. If I had, I’d have been tempted to eschew Sony and Waterstones’ generous promise that prices will be “Much the same as normal paperbacks” by finding a copy of, say, Neal Stephenson’s new opus Anathem on a site like Fictionwise (because Waterstones only have it in hardback and couldn’t bear the thought of cannibalising their own sales… another industry finds its Inner Dinosaur), pay for it in US Dollars, then use DRM removal tools in order to get it into a format the Reader can handle. And then not only would I have it the moment it came out, for less than the hardback price, instantly and conveniently, having saved Waterstones the trouble of trundling it around the country (and the planet the CO2 that that would have cost), but I would probably also be utterly engrossed in the doings of Fraa Erasmas and virtually unable to conduct my own life because of this engrossment.

Phew! What a relief that DRM keeps us from nightmare scenarios like this, eh?

If I ever grow significant facial hair again, send me this link.

How could I miss it? Shazz as Bottom was absolutely splendid. And keeps my theatre tally up, which is all to the good.

Now I just need a new car, a spare couple of hundred thousand quid for gifts, a place in the country and a couple of labradors and I’ll be practically Chelsea material. Well. Hmm. Maybe not.

Look closely…

Sat quietly here in Darklooks Mansions, I have been completely unable to get out of my head the snippet of doggerel Ethel Meaker came out with to explain Nadia Popov’s dangerous hayfever to, I think, some native American ghosts who, just to really lay the cultural understanding on thick, could only speak in Longfellowesque trochaic tetrameter:

Paleface maiden is Miss Popov
Known to us as Mighty Sneezer.
She may sneeze and blow your top off –
Treat her gently, do not tease her.

To this day, I can’t find the link between teasing and sneezing. Oh, hang on.

Anyway, had a nostalgic sniffle around IMDB and Wikipedia and found out that Michael Stanniforth (write the theme tune, sing the theme tune….) who also played Mr. Claypole, very sadly passed away in ‘87. That’s made me quite glum: I attribute much of my present sense of humour to the low camp of Rentaghost, of which he was a splendid, appropriately mugging exponent. Hmph.

In line with previously-stated policy decision in re: theatrical shenanigans, went with S t’other night to see Into the Hoods, a hip-hop dance-based musical reworking of Sondheim, I kid you not.

Obviously hip-hop is my thing now. I am buying my spray cans this afternoon and will be practising my “tag” all afternoon in a well-ventilated area. Just as soon as I’ve done the washing.

Right. Jolly good. I’ve had the most marvellously busy couple of months, which has kept me out of trouble and off the interwebs, probably to everyone’s benefit.

I’ve had three conversations with three separate people* lately which brushed gently across the same territory. The topic is, as you have probably guessed by now, my artistic input. Since you’re reading this, you fairly certainly know or are aware of me to some extent. You know that I lead a telly-free life here in the civilised London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, spending my evenings running loads through the washing machine on inappropriate programmes for thrills, and occasionally dipping into the print media to keep the old thinker ticking over. [Read more →]