Tea and cakes and things I like

Oh my, what a day Saturday was. Somehow the Dublin Riots passed me by, despite being in the city centre relaxing over lunch with a friend while cars were being torched 5 minutes walk away on Nassau Street.

We had tickets for the cinema that night, and the plan was to stay in town until then, but there was a bit of an edge to the place, and a banger being set off just in front of us on Grafton Street put the wind up me a bit (yes, I am a coward). So, we headed to a local safe house for tea and knitting and a bit of rugby before heading back into the city centre to the cinema.

Anyway, we went to see The Proposition as part of the Jameson International Film Festival, and it was excellent. I highly, highly recommend the film. It’s sort of an australian revenge western. The director, John Hillcote, and John Hurt were there for questions afterwards, which was pretty fucking cool, I have to say.

Anyway, I’d been too full at lunch to have any cake, so I decided to make up for it with an ice cream at the cinema (Cineworld, up on Parnell St). This was an interesting ice cream. The Caramel Crisp is caramel ice cream wrapped in a caramel coating (sort of hard, like choc-ice coating texture, but caramel). So far, so good. Deliciously cool, creamy and sweet.

Unfortunately, in their wisdom, the good people at Haagen-Dazs decided to add wafer to the top and bottom of the caramel coating.
Now, this may sound ok, but the wafer breaks differently to the caramel coating. This means that sometimes you get some wafter in your mouth, sometimes it just falls off and lands in your lap. That’s just the way it goes, I guess.

I was treating myself to a bagel from Itsa Bagel for lunch (The Gormet Veggie, will review this next time), and decided to double the treat and have some carrot cake for dessert.

This cake was so close to being good. To describe it properly I will need to break it down into two parts: The Cake and The Icing

The Cake
The cake part was tasty. I like to taste the cinnamon, and there was plenty of it there. The cake was sweet and spongy, rather that carroty and wholesome, but I can live with that. There’s space for both types of carrot cake in my life. Unfortunately the cake part was too crumbly - breaking off bits with my fingers proved unsuccessful - it just caused the sponge to disintegrate and crumbs to explode all over the floor. Once I’d cleaned up the worst of the crumbs I tried again - the only way to eat it was to pick it up in the cling film and cram it in my mouth. No, really, it was the only way to eat it.

The Icing
I love the cream cheese icing that comes with carrot cake. I was really impressed by the cake:icing ratio here. However. This was not cream cheese icing. This was cream cheese with a hint of lemon. Somebody forgot the icing sugar. Icing on carrot cake should be really, really sweet, to complement the carroty wholesomeness of the cake. This was not the case. I left most of the icing. Scraped it off the top. This is unheard of and something I was not happy about doing. In fact, I think I’m still recovering from having to do it.

Overall this was a let down. The addition of bags of icing sugar would have made it delicious, but it was not to be. I will not be buying it again.

A little while ago some friends and I had a rather long (looking back on it now) conversation about how things might be in a biscuit based society. You can find a summary of the conversation here and I recommend having a read. Any comments on which of the views you feel most likely appreciated (especially if you agree with mine)

(For general buiscuit related news I of course suggest you visit a nice cup of tea and a sit down.)

Last FM is a sort of online radio station I was directed towards by a wise person. You have to register and stuff, but it’s free. Then you enter in music that you feel like listening to, and it plays you music like that - some from the bands and some from others that it feels you might like. You can skip songs you don’t like, ban songs totally, or say that you love a song, all of which helps it work out what you want to listen to.

Here’s what I entered:
Belle and Sebastian
Isobel Campbell
The Cardigans
A Camp
The Kings of Convenience
Beth Orton
Jim Noir
The Boy Least Likely To

So far it’s played me a selection from the above (good choices too - the Cardigans track was from Emmerdale, their first album and my favourite), plus:
Everything but the girl, which I banned as I don’t like them.
Air
The Shins
Architecture in Helsinki
Erlend Oye (the O should have a vertical line through it)
The Cranberries (skipped that one)
Databoy78

I hadn’t heard any A Camp before - it’s Nina from the Cardigans solo project, but the one track I heard was excellent and I shall be buying the album from amazon as soon as my credit card says I can.
The boy least likely to and Jim Noir I haven’t heard either, but they’ve been recommended by a friend with excellent taste in music who always steers me right.

Today I’ve been feeling better, plus I was on a day off work (owed from a saturday worked a few weeks ago) and this is what I’ve done:

1. Gone to the library. More on libraries in another post.

2. Studied. For several hours. I’ve been learning about the brain. It’s been fun, I enjoyed the neuroscience stuff I did in a basic module at college, this was a sort of revision of that as preparation for learning about addiction and ageing. I should have done this part of the course before now, but the DVD it’s on only arrived last week, so it’s not my fault.

3. Made hummus. Mmmmmmmm.

4. Felted (or fulled, if you’re an american, or shrunk on a hot wash on purpose, if you just want the common sense explanation) a knitted bag and strap. Pictures to follow soon.

5. Cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms. My hands need a lot of moisturising now.

It’s been a productive day, I’m happy.

I’d forgotten that I’d read this before, which was good, because although I sort of remembered it, I didn’t totally, so still enjoyed it.

Hadn’t read this one before. It was good. Jane Austen, you know, they’re all kinda similar.

Been having headaches, and nausea quite a lot recently. Kinda like a hangover, all of the time, without drinking any alcohol to cause it. I spent last weekend in bed, asleep mainly. I don’t want to do the same again this weekend.
So, I shall update the books a little, but that is all, I want to limit screen time.
(and yes, I’ll be drinking loads of water and I promise to go to a doctor if it continues, I think I’m just a bit run down.)

I never used to like breakfast - I just couldn’t eat in the mornings. Recently I’ve come around to the most important meal of the day, and am quite fond of it.

I have a sweet tooth. I have been known to eat leftover dessert for breakfast (apple crumble is a particular favourite of mine). The fun of that lies in the fact that it’s not for every day. It’s an occasionaly treat, to be balanced out with weetabix or muesli and toast most days.

Above is a picture of the cereal on special offer in my local supermarket at the moment. Yep, you read it correctly: Chocolate(y) chip cookie cereal. I saw it quite a few people’s shopping trollies. There were quite afew kids heading towards obesity in the supermarket too. Hmmm, any connection I wonder?

Only in Japan of course, but a company has been selling cakes that look like burgers so that people who are embarrassed to be seen eating a cake in the street can do so, and fool everyone into thinking that they are eating fast food instead.
This is all wrong. It is not shameful to eat cake. In public, in private, with your friends, alone: there is no time when it is not acceptable to eat cake. (actually, I can probably think of a few, but you get my point).
I’d be more embarrassed to be seen eating a burger in public than a cake.
They do look quite clever though.

Another fantastic gig. She has an amazing voice, and is just, well, really sweet and down to earth. Add to that excellent company and a great venue (I do like Vicar St, it’s intimate but not squished up), and it was a wonderful night.

I do however have a few messages for the good people in the audience.

1. To the people who insisted on clapping along to everything:
Some songs just aren’t suited to clapping - the quiet, melodic ones for example. Please shut up. Also, if you do insist on bashing your hands together to make noise over the performance, do you think that possibly, maybe, next time you could try to do it in time with the music? Maybe if you practise really, really hard before she comes to play again.

2. To the lady who sat next to me:
You smelled. I suspect this was down to your bulk. I recommend purfume, or a better deodorant. Also, if I happen to be sat next to you again, please keep your fat ass on your seat, not mine. I appreciate I’m not the largest person in the world so may not have been using the whole space, but really, it’s just not polite.

3. To the audience members who felt that they were having an open conversation with Beth Orton, and could tell the punchline to her jokes, heckle her, and generally behave like arses whenever she stopped to re-tune her guitar:
Seriously, show some respect. There’s a bit of banter between the performer and the audience, and then there’s just acting like pricks. You were the latter. You’re not funny. I don’t want to hear you.

4. To the woman sat behind me, singing:
I did not pay to hear you sing. You aren’t that good. Yes, I recognise that you know all the words - so do I, it’s not that hard. I don’t want to hear you sing. If I want to hear badly sung Beth Orton I can create my own performance in the comfort of my own home. If you have such a burning desire to perform, get a fucking record deal. Oh, sorry, what’s that you say? You can’t? Because you’re shit? Yes, that’s what I suspected.

Anyway, those are my messages. Just little things really, I had a fantastic night overall.

One finished knitted bag. I just need to finish the strap, and then felt it, so it’ll end up looking completely different to how it does here, which is a good thing, as I probably wouldn’t use it looking like it does right now.

Now, I was always going to enjoy this gig. There was no way they would disappoint me, I just knew it. And, white jeans aside, they did not.

I used to go to loads of gigs, mainly when I was a student living in Sheffield, where there were lots and lots of bands playing. I enjoyed most of them a great deal. One or two were a little disappointing, but that’s what comes of seeing bands play live, and I really shouldn’t have been suprised that Evan Dando was totally wasted and couldn’t remember the words to his songs.

Anyway, most gigs I’ve loved. Some bands/performers are good: it’s nice to see them live - there’s a great buzz about it. Some people (Bowie for example) have this awesome stage presence and energy. I’ve been to three gigs where the performers have sounded simply amazing: Lamb, Beth Orton, and now Belle and Sebastian. I generally figure that bands have the noise they make tidied up in the studio so it sounds all pretty for the cd - these guys sounded better live.

Everyone last night was just, well, nice. The band are so talented - everyone seemed to play a selection of instruments and 12 musicians all paying at once could have gone horribly wrong but didn’t, it sounded beautiful. I could have listened to them all night. They have a really broad repertoire, but even the slower songs sound cheerful on the surface, and even the faster, more disco like songs sound fucked up when you listen to the lyrics.

Anyway, go see them if you get the chance.

Ahhh, stories of posh English people in days now sadly passed. Just think, I could have been a debutante…..

I finished my wristwarmers! There are 2 of them, only the left hand one pictured.
Knitted on 5mm double pointed needles in a 1x1 rib, using Debbie Bliss Maya. The yarn is different thicknesses throughout, which affects how the stitches look together - I like it for these - wristwarmers like this are never going to look smart, so why try to make them that way?
What I really love about them is that they’re made just for me, so they fit perfectly around my tiny childish weak wrists. They’re an adaptation of Voodoo from Knitty, except the yarn is different, the measurements are different, and I used a different rib. So, I changed most of it really, but the end result is kinda similar - mine aren’t so neat and tidy, but I like them that way, they’ll go well with my battered old jeans.

Yummy. I prefer regular kitkats, but the chunky ones are good too - more of a chocolaty hit than a gradual meltyness.

Horrid, nasty, burnt coffee. That is all I could drink of it, and all I have to say on the matter.
I don’t even care that the picture is facing the wrong way. It doesn’t deserve to be corrected.

Is there any finer snack? Really? They just go so well: the crispness of the wafers, the sweet meltyness of the chocolate, the solid, comforting, safe warmth of the tea.

This actually happened by accident - I didn’t have change for the bus, so went to buy a ticket from a newsagent - I didn’t think that the one I went to sold bus tickets, so bought a kitkat to get change. Then I saw that they did sell bus tickets, but I was already holding the kitkat, so it would have been rude not to buy it, no? Later on, I was settling down to a nice cup of tea while watching CSI on dvd, and decided to have my kitkat. Well, I’d forgotten how great a combination this was. I shall be returning to it again sometime. Possibly very soon, as I only ate 3/4 of the pieces, and the other one is right here with me as I type. Mmmmm.