The Blaze-ing truth....!

ET, move over; your day is done – pack away that eternally pointing finger and beating heart. Now is the time for aliens to get real. Those of you into little green men or grey men or whatever the skin tone, this is your week. Just tune into Blaze Channel Freeview at 9 pm, and you will turn bug-eyed with delight at this fest of lights in the sky, political intrigue, men in black and civilian accounts of alien abduction: egad, post-Roswell hubris doesn’t get better than this! And it’s on ALL this week (29 June to 3 July). Truly, it’s enough to make one want to rocket off to Mars and say “hi” to the universe. Remember, the truth is out there…...

The Very Tasty Cheese and Onion Pasty

The reason that I have never printed a recipe here before is because, like Grace Dent, I believe that food has one purpose: to be eaten – and my repertoire is very narrow. From that footing, I expound the virtues of my very tasty cheese and onion pasty. The following recipe is guaranteed to feed one, hungry human - a symphony of crumbly pastry, semi-sweet onion and tangy cheese. Take five fistfuls of Sainsbury’s bread flour (green bag) and three fistfuls of self-raising flour (blue bag) and mix in a bowl with enough fat (marg, butter or lard) rubbed in to create a breadcrumb-like texture. When done, mix with water until you have a firm mixture that pulls clean from the side of the bowl. The resulting pastry should roll out to an 8-inch diameter round (about the size of a side plate), on a floured surface. Meanwhile, fry a quarter of a diced onion lightly in oil. While the onion is frying, grate a hunk of cheese (Cheddar? Lancashire? ) into a bowl. Individual taste comes into play here. I like a good dollop of cheese, and two fistfuls supply sufficient filling - but you can grate more or less. Spread a layer of the cooked onion onto the pastry, but not to the edges. Place the grated cheese on top and close the margin of uncovered pastry over the mound of filling, to create an attractive pasty. Place the results on a floured baking tin and put into the oven. This size of pasty requires about 20 minutes at 200c to brown and crisp the pastry. At this stage, I find a volcanic lava of cheese bubbling and sizzling from the molten interior, onto the surface – and it renders the pasty all the tastier for that! Serve with a green salad or roast a mix of tomatoes and peppers alongside of it. Since my picture editing skills match my culinary experiese, it will take a little longer to “cook” the image of my very tasty cheese and onion pasty into an eyeful fit for human consumption. In the meantime, take on board the ingredients.

Telstar....the reason I didn't go into music.....

A few days ago, Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Laura Snapes and Alexis Petridis of The Guardian saw fit to publish “The 100 Greatest UK No 1” hit songs. I thumbed through it eagerly, pleased to see that my favourite instrumental of all time appeared at no – 86? Well, what’s a few digits between friends, and just think of all of bazillion releases that didn’t make it to that top 100? Friend, I tell you now that Telstar (Tornadoes, 1962) is the reason that I ruled out forever, even the notion of becoming a musician. How I thrilled to listen to that opening buzz sounding off of the radio, followed by that yearning paragraph, heavy with the ambition of would-be space travellers, those layers upon layers of luscious chords building up to something magical happening elsewhere, out there, the music of the spheres, indeed! But as I grew up, I discovered the truth, that there was Telstar and all of the others, that, to use the words of the above writers, “nothing had sounded like it before or has since”. So, at the grand old age of – six, I renounced forever the idea of a career in music. But X number of years later, Telstar is as aspirational and heart-stirring as ever and to anyone planning to go explore the cosmos, it might yet become the anthem... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B7ypA1fSwU

In a land of myth and a time of magic.....

“I’ve had some troubled nights,” said the inscrutable Morgana – or maybe she meant “knights”? Whatever, no sooner do I mention “Sir Lancelot” (see my previous post “The Lady of Shalott”) than I discover that the Pick channel is showing repeats of the BBC TV series from just over one decade ago (2008-2012), the wonderful and magical Merlin. Incidentally, this is a timely appearance since The Time Tunnel has just ceased its run – sob, sigh – on the Horror channel. But no matter! The Merlin in question is not the pointy-hatted, white bearded cliché of popular imagination, but a delectable young Colin Morgan, hiding in plain sight in a land, Camelot, to be exact, where the practice of magic is forbidden. Working as stable boy-cum-servant to a handsome, adolescent Prince Arthur (Bradley James), the young Merlin plies his craft in secret to bring about good health, freedom and justice to all. This duo are paralleled by the dark and unfathomable Morgana (Katie McGrath) and sweet-as-honey Guinevere, (Angel Coulby). With knights and maidens, lashings of sword-and-sorcery action, a talking dragon (voiced by John Hurt) and other magical creatures, and for a touch of class, Richard Wilson as court physician Gaius, what’s not to love? Showing weeknights on Pick channel, between 8 and 9 pm...

The Lady of Shalott

The longer this lockdown lasts, the more often my thoughts travel in the direction of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous narrative poem, The Lady of Shalott. I quote: “And moving thro' a mirror clear/ That hangs before her all the year,/ Shadows of the world appear./ There she sees the highway near/ Winding down to Camelot:” The poet may have written his narrative in 1842, but he seems to have exercised a curious prescience in the matter of social media. Because what else are our computer and television and telephone screens but highly technological mirrors presenting us with shadows and images of a world that we have been forced to withdraw from? And like the hapless subject, we are finding the lack of human contact more than a little irksome: "I am half sick of shadows," said The Lady of Shalott.” Our longing to interact once again with the physical world parallels her yearning for the ebullient Sir Lancelot, with his coal-black curls and silver bugle, as he rides purposefully through the purple night. Hopefully, when we do eventually emerge, pale and blinking, from our ivory towers, our fates will not be so devastating as the cursed, lady: “her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darken'd wholly, Turn'd to tower'd Camelot./ For ere she reach'd upon the tide/ The first house by the water-side,/ Singing in her song she died,/ The Lady of Shalott.” Reader, take heart; it cannot be for much longer.

The Evening Star

From a blue sky tinged with western fire
The evening star looks down upon a pink-tinted Earth;
Fulgent, shimmering in the great beyond;
Proud over this hushy, dusky blanket of ground;
In vain do our house lights seek to rival her brilliance,
Feeble tinsel glints against the majesty of gold.
What secrets does she harbour? I wonder
As I gaze awe-struck at the glittering orb;
What ancient sagas has she beheld upon this,
Her companion planet? Slyly, she winks
Revealing only her fabulous light
And bids us dwellers upon Earth “good night”.

I read, therefore I am....

There was never a leader in any field of law, politics or business who did not improve him or herself by reading. Sure, Genghis Khan was illiterate at the outset of his career. Then, he invaded China – and found the natives reading and writing. Next thing, he had hired himself a personal tutor. Abraham Lincoln’s political career began after he ploughed through a pile of law books. HG Wells spurned his family's many attempts to turn him into a respectable shop assistant. Eventually, he won a scholarship to train as a teacher….and the rest is science fiction….I can’t stand it any longer, these television journalists showcasing their vast reading collections – I feel obliged to add my own version of bookcase chic – and cheek! So, get an eyeful of my collection of history, art, philosophy, psychology, mythology, literature, poetry, drama, fiction, biography, critical theory….books….