Looking Out To Sea

We did eventually see something in the Edinburgh Film Festival, though it was pretty last minute. We saw WALL·E on the last day of the festival at the midday screening at the Filmhouse.

The audience was full of parents and little kids. I was fully expecting to see someone from my work there. It was exactly the intersection of geeky interest and child-friendly that I’d expect to draw my colleagues, who all seem to have kids. But no!

The film was great though. It managed to take the central character of a robotic can crusher and create a romance. Pixar’s ability to create emotion and expression never ceases to amaze. Not to mention our own ability to fall for their animated charms as if they were real people.

Also, contains the most intelligent cockroach ever to appear on the silver screen.

Friday night was another of Radiohead’s gigs on Glasgow Green. Many years ago they brought a whole tent to the green. This time it was just a stage, so we all stood outside in the rain.

It seems to be the done thing for doors to open a very long time before anything happens on stage. It was four and half hours between doors open (4pm) and Radiohead taking the stage. I’m pretty sure if they cut that time in half there would be fewer drunk, antisocial jerks in the crowd, throwing drinks over people and knocking each other over.

The show was really good. Ben tried to memorise the set list but I don’t know if he succeeded; here’s one on a fan site. The wonders of the internet! They played everything off the new album except House of Cards, which happens to be one of my favourites.

The support were Bat for Lashes — very good. Kind of Björk with darker music. (I’m assured Björk can be very dark but I’ve never heard her do stuff like this.) Give the album Fur and Gold a listen.

I mentioned in a previous post that Citylink were really rubbish when I tried to book transport to Glasgow. Well, not nearly as bad as when it came to putting on the transport. I paid for special “event” tickets, which would theoretically bus us from Edinburgh to Glasgow Green and then back again afterwards. The bus took us to Glasgow’s main station on Buchanan Street, so we had to make our own way across the city (buying an A–Z in the process). After the gig there were no buses to be seen so we went back to the bus station, which was chaos. The drivers insisted there were buses waiting empty at Glasgow Green but it’s pretty obvious why they were empty — because nobody knew where they were. Being a ticketed event there was only one entrance/exit to the Radiohead show, but wherever the buses were parked it wasn’t in front of this entrance. Nor were there any signs to tell you where they’d be parked. I felt quite embarrassed for convincing our friends that the bus would be better than the train, considering it turned out to be slower, more uncomfortable and not as advertised.

This is the guy that wrote the bread book I’m always raving about. I’d embed the video here but there doesn’t seem an easy way to do that. Watch him make sweet dough for doughnuts and so on.

It’s been a busy few days here. At the beginning of the week I had a birthday (I can’t remember if I mentioned that). I made some cake for work, instead of buying something from Greggs. I got a lot of compliments for the Chocolate Gingerbread, so I’m glad I went to the extra effort. It was also a good excuse to spend Sunday using our new pans and putting the oven through its paces. In fact that day I made:

• Chocolate gingerbread (from Nigella Lawson’s Feast)
• Banana and walnut loaf (from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course)
• Flapjack (from Katie Stewart’s A Young Cook’s Calendar)
• Pain façon beaucaire (from Richard Bertinet’s Dough)

It was quite a busy but very productive day. I’m just sorry I didn’t think to take any photographs. So instead I’ve posted a photo of the Ice Cream Cake that Helen made. If I was being properly critical I would say the banana loaf didn’t turn out very well (maybe the bananas weren’t properly over-ripe) and the bread looked a bit funny (but still tasted great).

On Tuesday we had our second last BSL class. Alarmingly I have to redo one of the assessments because (typically enough for me) I wasn’t participating enough. This assessment was a three person discussion/debate, with one of the participants a tutor to lead the discussion and introduce the topics. I’m quite nervous about repeating the same mistakes this week. We’ll just have to see.

By Friday we were both pretty tired. All week the weather had been hotter than expected. We spent the evening eating takeaway pasta from La Favorita and drinking wine with Emily. The throbbing sensation in my head the next morning was there to remind me how much more wine I drank than I should have.

Saturday afternoon we were at Lawrence’s for his birthday barbecue. Watched certified-fire-loon Rory set fire to things — marshmallows, slices of lemon, whatever else was to hand. Burning marshmallows quickly move between pleasant sweet, acrid sweet and oh-god-i’m-trapped-in-a-smoke-machine. It starting chucking it down later on, so we didn’t go back out to another party (guilty guilty). Also, we hadn’t put any thought or effort into costumes,

(Fascinating aside: I’ve just noticed that someone found my website by searching for the phrase “robert kilroy silk cannot die soon or painfully enough”. And indeed, I’m hit number two when I search for that without quotes.)

On Sunday Keith and Jo came by on a brief visit before heading back down to London. Jez came round for the afternoon too. I made more bread which was doubleplusgood. Jo also gave me a recipes for her grandmother’s Irish soda bread, which was typically folksy in its details: one loaf has “about 3 handfuls” of flour. It turns out that Jo and Jez, who were both staying for tea, are almost dietary complements of each other, since one is a pescetarian and the other doesn’t eat seafood. This makes cooking interesting, especially cooking from Nigella. There’s a lot of meat and a lot of fish recipes and precious little else.

Those are the highlights of my week. I’m ready to drop now.

I’ve had less time to read since we moved house. I’m now within walking distance of work so I don’t have the chance to read on the bus while commuting. But I have managed to finish A Life Stripped Bare: Tiptoeing Through The Ethical Minefield by Leo Hickman.

He’s a writer for the Guardian who wrote about his attempts at living the “ethical” lifestyle. The difference being that he was not a green activist or eco-warrior type. It’s interesting to see how the changes he tried to put in place conflicted with his pragmatic needs and his usual way of doing things.

Ethical Audit

The story starts with a trio of “ethical auditors” coming to his house to interrogate the family and show them all the ways in which their lifestyle was unethical. I admit to disagreeing violently with most of what the auditors said, and being in violent agreement with the rest.

At the time it was just a dislike of their claims. For instance, suggesting that the contents of the medicine cupboard (painkillers and cold remedies, I suppose) “only treat the symptoms”. As if that wasn’t the point! Then they had the gall to suggest homeopathy as an alternative (slogan: “it doesn’t even treat the symptoms”?).

The auditors were not above implying imminent danger for the couple and their young daughter — toxins in the cleaning products, in the baby’s bedroom, in the food and so on. And I began to wonder what was supposed to be ethical about the “ethical auditors” — it was surely not their behaviour. I don’t consider it ethical to exaggerate or lie about the risks of whatever chemicals we are exposed to.

The unexamined life is not worth living. —Socrates

So with time I realised it wasn’t just that I disliked the specific claims they made, but that I rejected the auditors’ whole idea of an ethical life. It was unjustified and vague, and seemed to be just as uncritical as the author’s own lifestyle before they arrived.

The advice given was a mixture of typical pro-recycling, waste reduction advice, using public transport and walking more, etc, combined with more reactionary ideas about Big Pharma, GM, chemicalz!!1 and nuclear power. I feel quite content in my view that the auditors had little real idea what they were talking about, extrapolating from their demonstration of ignorance in the wide range of areas they did cover.

The idea of the book was interesting, in the same way that life-swapping reality shows are interesting: watching people living by other people’s rules. But there’s no way we can tell if what they are doing makes any difference. Everything was incredibly important/ dangerous/ relevant without qualifiers.

Good shopping, Good living

I have a copy of the Good Shopping Guide around here somewhere, from a few years ago. It also suffers from the same problem. Each company is given a score for its ethics, but they aren’t effectively weighted to take account of things that matter. Running nuclear power stations is just as liable to affect a company’s rating as having slave workers. That’s not really equivalent in my mind.

At least the Guide gives a breakdown for the different categories, so choosing things which matter to you is easier. I would rather be given real information, and valid reasons, to make up my own mind than the approach shown by the auditors of Leo Hickman’s book.

Last Christmas, when I went home to see my parents we found a cookery book I used to like as a child, though I never made much from it: A Young Cook’s Calendar by Katie Stewart (Piccolo, 1976). A bargain at 40 pence!

One of the recipes I do remember making a lot was flapjack. (I’m still very scathing about the flapjack available in shops. They’re never right.) This is the charming little introduction it gives before the recipe:

Flapjacks are everybody’s favourites. If you are going out for the morning wrap up a few pieces to put in your pocket. Take an apple too and you should last until lunchtime.

Hmm, tempting…

So what’s been happening? Since Friday night we have been officially moving out/moving in, depending on what your frame of reference is. The whole time we were at the old flat we talked about “moving out” but now it seems a strange phrase. We moved in! We’re here now.

Nine months ago on our first night in the old flat we went to The Sizzling Scot for food. We ate large meals and got rather drunk on hand-poured measures of fine whisky. We decided a reprise was the best way to finish our time at the old flat. We went out together, ate rather too much, had a pleasant chat with the head waiter about moving house, and got given two whiskies before we left, this time on the house. A fine establishment!

We were up on Saturday morning to pack furiously, though I think the only things furious were the headaches. Between one and two o’clock a bunch of friends came with vehicles and we started ferrying stuff to the new flat. It just so happens that most of Edinburgh is closed or diverted at the moment because we’re working towards a city tram system in 2011. This makes moving across town all the trickier.

By about four o’clock the heat and the hard work had everyone else running for home and comfort. We still have at least one more car full of stuff to ferry over before we’ve properly “moved”. Even a couple of heavy bags and a rucksack taken by bus didn’t make much of a difference.

In the new place we are gradually making little safe havens — most notably the kitchen, which looks quite normal. (Apart from the missing dining table and chairs; that is a small flaw.) We spent a good evening yesterday unpacking lots of boxes and putting things in kitchen cupboards. Nothing is in a permanent position yet. We’ll just place everything and see what happens when we need to use things on a regular basis. Some stuff will be moved to easier access places, and other stuff hidden away.

Our furniture buying has been quite unsuccessful — unless you count ruling things out as a success. I think our biggest problem with the “ruling things out” technique is we don’t stop once we’ve ruled out all but one item. So having ruled everything out we have to start looking for more options.

As for successes — I baked bread this evening and Helen cooked stir fry. This counts as proper food preparation, I think, even if we only have one pan. I had some problems with the bread but it was my first time with this recipe and with this oven. Things will fall into place when I’ve had practice and more experience of both.

We’re both on holiday until Wednesday to give us time to get everything sorted — including transporting our old sofa to Helen’s brother and making a trip to Ikea for all those little essentials. More details to follow, when I can think of them.

We spent last weekend painting the front room in our new flat. It’s the first time I’ve painted a room and it shows. Well, it’s not that bad but it could be more evenly coloured.

It was easy to get all the painting done last weekend because we don’t have any furniture yet. This could become quite awkward as we’ll be moving in this weekend. We have no dining table or chairs (though there is a window seat…) and no sofa either.

We haven’t really made any firm decisions about dining tables. I don’t really like formal or “modern” tables — I want something that has character and feels friendly. A farmhouse feel to it, rather than a silver-service restaurant aesthetic. What can I say about my romantic notions that is not apparent? ;-)

I’m looking forward to the new flat with an almost silly amount of excitement. Despite not even having any furniture to eat at, I’m excited about baking. I bought the book Lawrence recommended a few months ago¹ — Dough: Simple Contemporary Bread by Richard Bertinet. I just watched the included DVD and now have to resist the urge to just not bother going to work and baking bread all day instead. The Amazon reader reviews for the book are similarly effusive/evangelical/ominous: buy this book and you will become dangerously addicted to bread-making.

The other cooking we’re doing, the Nigella Express Challenge, is a bit neglected at the moment. We are the furthest behind schedule we have been since we started. By my reckoning that’s about 13 recipes behind schedule, assuming a regular timetable. Moving house will may impact us in either way:

• An excuse to eat a lot of easy food or takeaway pizza. Having La Favorita across the road is a dangerous temptation.
• Lots of food-laden gatherings. Dozens of flat-warming parties!

The more enthusiasm we get for option two the more likely it will happen that way!

But back to the move: we haven’t done any packing either. Our brave friends have volunteered to bring cars on Saturday and haul our various bits and bobs from one end of town to the other, through massive roadworks and diversions. If there are any lone bodies out there who are willing to lend a hand on Saturday or Sunday then get in touch. Getting all this stuff up to the third floor might be more trouble than we’ve anticipated.

Saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls on Saturday. Spoilers if you follow the link…

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I mentioned that Helen bought REM’s new album Accelerate last week. It’s been a while since I’ve said this but I’m really enjoying their new stuff. For a start — and this has proved to be a good sign in the past — Michael Stipe is angry. His lyrics have bite and his singing does too.

Peter Buck and Mike Mills have given up farting around with their E-bows and keyboards and started making some loud noises with their instruments again. There’s real distortion on some of these songs! Angry chords! I’d say their current style is an amalgam of Monster, Automatic for the People and Up in all the good ways: political, loud, tuneful, energetic and alive.

It’s so good to hear them back on form again. We’ll just politely pretend that this is their first release since Up and all will be well.