Throne Of Blood

Wotcha

Dubstep is, astonishingly, taking off incredibly here.  I've seen posters all over town for a few nights and today, while strolling around in the sunshine, came across this:

HPIM0568

Skream is one of the best dubstep roducers around at the moment, whose album (on Tempa) you can't even buy in the alternative music shops in this city, and whose reputation appears to have come from downloads and radio play alone.  Now the venue he's headlining on Friday is called Storan, which means something like "the big one"; it is a massive theatre in the city centre.

How cool is that?  Big names from one of the UK's most exciting scenes have already made it over here.  It can't be long before dubste is a regular fixture in the city, which is good news.

Anyway in other developments, the sun is very shiny today and the Swedes were out basking in force.  Very pleasant.

Show us you craziest or funniest self portrait.
Submitted by djgk.

HPIM0484

My Pulitzer shot.  Something about it says "writer".  I'm not sure what.

A few weeks ago, while I was having a nice cup of tea on a Saturday morning and thinking about doing a bit of work, my old laptop - which actually comes from the 20th Century, GASP - started to make some very peculiar noises and then simply stopped working.  So I had to go and buy a new one.  While this was bad for me financially, it means I have a new PC with cool Scandie keys - öäåööäåöäöåöäöåöäöåöä - and a CD burner.  Hooh hah!  The last one couldn't record CDs.  It actually had runes on the keyboard, it was so old.

Anyway I put all of my music on the computer and have just made my first compilation CD.  How exciting!  It's nearly electro and fairly mainstream. 

Here is the tracklisting.  And it's a list, which I like, as I am a man, and it appears that anything with a penis also likes lists and justifying their own tastes.  There we go.  Oh, there's a lot of Radioactive Man on it.

Matt's Almost Electro Mix Mix Mix!!!!

1) Hair Of The Dog by Cursor Miner.  Very breaky, excellent fucked-up bassline.  Minimal, good in nightclubs, sometimes used as the trailer music for WAGs Boutique apparently.  Gertcha.

2) Airlock by Radioactive Man.  Nice, quite fizzy electro from Keith Tenniswood, one of the Two Lone Swordsmen and longtime Beth Orton producer.  Great drum samples at the end.

3) Vincent Van Dance by Alter Ego.  Shit name!  Great song!

4) Uranium by Radioactive Man.  From his first album, has a very cool Marie Curie monologue at the start and a nice Geiger counter sample.  Clearly made on a Korg ES-1 sampler, which excites me in ways I can't begin to describe or justify.

5) Peacock Tail by Boards Of Canada.  I think this is pure electro, even though it has a lot of nice, melodic instruments all over it.  But then I think that Jolene by Dolly Parton is pure hip hop, so what do I know?

6) Dat's My Part by DJ Shadow feat E-40.  Shadow's last album was a crushing disappointment, being mostly consisted of shit yphy tracks and shit frat-rock tracks, but this one's actually quite good.  Nice 808s.  It's almost electro.

7) Radio Eins by Radioactive Man.  More of the same.  More ES-1.  Awesome bass.

8) Blo Dem Away by Deekline & Wizard.  The best of the booty tracks on Breaks, Beats & Blondes, a nice slab of hardcore electro breaks.

9) Phat Planet by Leftfield.  Yes, Guinness advert music, yes overplayed, but fuck me, what a tune.

10) I Like The Girls by Tricky.  I think this qualifies as electro thanks to the music.  Produced by Dame Grease.  Features and absolutely filthy vocal from some kid called Mad Dog, most other vocals - even Don't Eat Da Vagina by Deekline and King Koop - pale into prudish insignificance next to it. *heaves bosom*

11) Girls by The Prodigy.  The only song they've released recently which isn't complete poop.

12) Kik Yerself by Radioactive Man.  One day, I'll be able to program drums like Radioactive Man, and then I can just die straight away.

13) Satanic Circus by Alter Ego.  Nice stompy 6/8 electro house track.

14) Fed Ex To Munchen by Radioactive Man.  Quite a sad song.  Good noises.  I wonder if Radioactive Man would let me marry him? 

Morning, losers

It is snowing HEAVILY here now.  I was woken last night by hail pounding the windows, following an evening of gales and heavy rain, and now it's snowing so hard that the wet ground has had to surrender and let it settle.  Madness.  Yesterday noon, it was so pleasant outside that I could wander round the park, climb a little hill and see across the city.  Ho hum.

Anyway here's a recipe.  i cooked this for my folks when they came to visit.

STRÖMMING, MASH AND LINGON

Serves öäå

• 24 fillets atlantic herring (known here as strömming)
• Parsley, lots of it
• An egg
• Plenty of breadcrumbs
• A celeriac head (hurrah for celeriac, still)
• Some potatoes
• Some banana shallots, say three or four
• Chives
• Skimmed milk
• Salt and pepper
• A jar of lingonberry preserve
• 2 very firm apples
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp or so of sugar and the same again of salt, mixed
• Butter or oil to fry
• A head of fennel
• 2 sticks of celery
• A small bag of radishes
• 2 carrots

First, prepare everything.  Chop the parsley and chives very finely.  Peel and cut the celeriac into chunks, ditto the potatoes.  Using a mandolin, slice the peeled banana shallots into very thin rings.  Quarter and core the apples, and slice the quarters thinly.  Slice the fennel, celery, carrots and radishes on a mandolin to about 2mm, and place in a bowl with half of the vinegar, and half of the salt and sugar mix.

Lay 12 pieces of herring on a board, skin side down, and sprinkle with plenty of parsley.  Top with the last 12 pieces.  Beat the egg.  Dip each pair of fillets in the egg and then drag through breadcrumbs until well coated. Set aside.

Boil the potatoes and celeriac until cooked.  Start to fry the strömming so that the breadcrumbs are browned, and transfer to an oiled oven tray.  Put the lingon, apples, remaining vinegar and remaining salt and sugar in a pan on a moderate heat, allow to bubble nd reduce a little.  Place the strömming in a hot oven and mash the potatoes and celeriac.  Mix in some milk, the shallots, and the chives, and keep over a low heat for a couple of minutes.

Serve a dollop of mash with a couple of strömming fillets, a couple of spoons of the coulis and some salad.

Hullo

So there's this new pop song in the hit parade (or something) by Beyonce and Shakira.  Apparently it's called Beautiful Liar.  Anyway, there is a video for this song, which features the two of them.

In case you'd forgotten, this is what Beyonce looks like.

And this is what Shakira looks like.

If anyone, ANYONE, can name a video which is more easy on the eye than this, I will give them a fiver.  I imagine that it had to be filmed on a closed set with only women allowed in, and that despite this, by the time the video was shot, all of the women present had left their partners.  It's astonishing to think that both Beyonce and Shakira were actually allowed in the same room at the same time, in case the levels of sexiness got too high, and the two of them imploded under the weight of their own sexiness and became antimatter, or something.  It is such a great video that, after I watched it, I felt as if my mind had been erased or formatted.

Anyway, as a result, I've forgotten how to cook, so no recipe just yet.

What is your favorite greasy spoon?
Submitted by S@ngarang.

The St. Giles Cafe in Oxford is very good, and they give enoromous portions, but it's always packed out with hungover poshos.  So my vote goes to the Cafe On The Hill on Brixton Hill.  It's a combination between a traditional greasy spoon (so, as you'd expect, you can get stuff like liver in onions and quiche with your bacon butty) and a Thai cafe, with a menu that changes all the time.  The food costs virtually nothing, the opening hours are entirely random, and it's the only place in the world where you can enjoy your enormous plate of fried stuff sitting next to a clown in full make-up eating tom yum soup, a Guardian-reading eco-couple with hemp-clad baby enjoying a few pieces of black pudding, and prostitutes from the corner of Josephine Avenue discussing last night's johns over a plate of chips and some tea.

What's the story behind a time when you got locked out?

Howdy.  Once, I lived in Surrey Quays in SE London with two friends.  Both of them had jobs, but I was unemployed, having just got back from a few months in Amsterdam.  I was doing what I did every day - laying around in my pyjamas and dressing gown "finding work" - when there was a knock at the door.  I opened the door, at the end of the hallway I shared with the upstairs flat, signed for my package, and heard the door go "click" behind me.  Fortunately, I was wearing my slippers. The courier winced and said "good luck".

I wandered all the way down the street in my pyjamas, trying to find a place to get over the back wall; nothing.  I tried to climb up the wall so I could get into the back garden and break a window; nope.  I called my housemates and asked them to come home and let me in; "fuck off" x2.  I went upstairs and asked the lady who lived there to a) give me some clothes and b) DO SOMETHING helpful, as I was sick of people looking at me like I was crazy.

She gave me some of her boyfriend's absolutely horrible trousers and a weird, tiny jumper, and we went downstairs with the tools she had to hand - a kitchen knife and a ruler - to see what we could do.  Eventually, we managed to prise open the front window without much difficulty, and I could get in.  "That probably needs to be sorted, it's easy to break in" I thought, and called the landlord to add some locks to all of the windows, making a mental note to attach a set of keys to, I dunno, a genital piercing or something so I'd never forget them.

He didn't.  Two weeks later, we were burgled.  Happy days.

Oh dear blog, it has been such a long time since I wrote on you.  I feel so ashamed.  So very much has happened while we've been apart and, while my feelings for you are still strong, I can't help but think that something has changed.  I swear to you that things will be different from now.  I'm going to make a real effort.

Well, here's a run down:

Bike Gang is still going strong but none of us are cycling that much now.  With me, at least, it's a combination of a) thick snow and 2) the all-important meeting of a flat tyre and a lazy owner.  I can't speak for the rest of them.

Kitchen and writing still continue apace.  I've finally been paid so I can afford to pay rent and eat food other than peanuts stolen from the beer plates in the restaurant.  There's also an idea for something bubbling around my head at the moment which I think is going to turn out really well, writing-wise, and I have two shifts at a dead swanky restaurant here next week (one at 8am on Monday morning, after what promises to be a liver-punishing weekend in Stockholm).  Apart from that, just pitching my ass off and generally enjoying being "between jobs".  *scratches self idly, flips channel*

The island is still awesome, perhaps best summed up by a night a couple of weeks ago when I'd been drinking enormously in an Australian bar in town.  I had to go on a date at noon the next day so wanted to sober up a little, and thought that I'd leave at 2, come back, drink plenty of water and get eight hours' sleep before throwing some snow on my face and shouting "hoo haah!" and hitting town fresh as a daisy.  Sadly, as the cab dropped me off near the kebab shop at the bottom of my road, the guys in the shop waved at me, quoted my order directly and started to make it without being prompted (I didn't need a lot of persuading tbh) and two Swedes in the queue offered me amyl nitrate (I declined).  I ended up asleep on the sofa, again, at 6am, hands covered in garlic mayo and a snus in my mouth. I don't know whether or not I made a very good impression in the sushi bar the next day.  God bless this little island.

You want a recipe? I haven't been cooking at home much recently.  Here's one for failsafe hollandaise sauce:

• 3 egg yolks
• Water
• 2 tablespoons or so of butter
• Half a teaspoon of mustard
• 1 tsp white wine vinegar
• Some salt and maybe some cayenne pepper if you're feeling saucy

Beat the yolks and add a tablespoon of water.  Heat some more water in a saucepan and put a bowl on top of it, not touching the surface, to heat up (this is a double boiler).  Melt the butter in the microwave.  Add the yolks to the heating bowl and whisk them.  Now add the butter, a trickle at a time, until it emulsifies (goes a different colour), goes nice and frothy and creamy and increases in volume.  Finally thin it with a little of the vinegar and add the mustard and seasoning to taste.  Serve on, I dunno, eggs or something.

Muscally, the "getting old" trend continues in that I bought the last Amy Winehouse album and am actually rather enjoying it.

More after the weekend.  Film festival party tonight, it should be fun.

It's pollock, apparently.

This is nice.  Happy New Year by the way.  It's been an amazing month, so much has happened.  Anyway back to the recipes.

FISH AND LENTILS

Serves a couple or three

• 1 mug lentils (green)
• 2 mugs water
• 1 mushroom stock cube
• 1 block frozen firm, white fish fillets; I used "sej" which means something else in English
• 1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
• 1 onion, peeled and finely diced
• Half a bulb of fennel, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp frozen parsley
• 1 tbsp breadcrumbs and some olive oil and black pepper

Put the lentils, stock cube, parsley, fennel, onion, carrot, and water in a pot.  Stick a lid on it and put it in the oven at 150deg for two hours.  Get a dish.  Oil the fish, put it in the dish, sprinkle it with breadcrumbs and pepper.  Put this in the oven and turn it up to 200.  Eat forty minutes later, when it's all cooked.

I booked a ticket to Budapest today, whooo