January Blues

January time is nearly over - thank god. I hate January. It's always like this - gloomy and miserable. Everyone is having to recover from the excesses of the winter holiday  - they don't have any money and they aren't up to anything exciting. 

Add to that the Olympics fever is up another notch - its like the count down to Christmas now but with added warnings of worst ever commuting nightmares.  I was sort of hoping to go to David Hockney exhibition  - there would be some colourful antidote to the January blues but it's sold out which means it will be heaving with all those royal academy sorts that make seeing an exhibition rather frustrating. And I don't really want to queue for ages in the cold on the day. 

I'm watching that Danish political drama called Borgen but can't decide if it's any good or if it's the subtitles and foreign language that make it seem that way. Some of the "clever" solutions to political problems seem a  bit too straightforward. Still it fits I. With the general interest in Scandinavian literature and film. And her husband hasn't started an affair yet even though I thought they laid the seeds in the first episode. 

Last year we had snow which seems to help us get through - the brightness and cloaking makes the light different for a while. Perhaps in February we'll have a change.

OMG Something gross happened at the supermarket

In the prologue of this post I am going to fess up to having a mouse problem at home (this makes me feel itchy, repulsed, afraid to venture forth into the kitchen without first switching the lights on for five minutes ahead of going in). The fact that there is, apparently, an epidemic of mouse infestations brings no comfort. My multiple-pronged defence includes poison bate stations (even though the smell of dead rodent can be pungent and they usually end up under the floorboards out of reach), electronic traps that seal and kill once a mouse is trapped, humane traps and a clearly rubbish sonic deterrent. There was an article about this in the Guardian money section last weekend about this very issue.

Anyway. Today I got up early to go to the supermarket before going to Pop's for brunch. Grabbed the shopping bags, stashed them in my bag and headed off. Shopped. Got to the check out. Got one bag out and started packing groceries. Needed the other bag - got it out and unfolded it. This launched a dead mouse out of the folds onto the supermarket floor. Argh gross, I winced. Looked up and caught the eye of an amused bystanding customer. Became extremely embarrassed. Whispered to the checkout man that there was a dead mouse on the floor. He was repulsed but covered it with a plastic bag and dragged it out of the way. I very quickly threw all my remaining stuff into the bag and ran out of the store. I might not be able to go there anymore. I chucked out the mouse bag. And secretly hope that was the only mouse, however unlikely that is. Mortified!

Arrest

At the junction of Green Lanes and the road from Sainsburies, McDonalds and Harringay Shopping Arena a police van has cornered an estate car and the officers are arresting the driver and passengers. Causing a traffic blockage. All the last minute people from a variety of shops are witness. After it all seems to be under control one of the detainees makes a break for it running towards the arena car park (which is raised up above street level). Two of the officers take chase. Dodging between cars at the stop lights. One slips and rolls between two stationery cars. Shit. A few assembled pedestrian witnesses titter. He gets up and follows up to the car park where the first officer has the escapee trapped on the edge of the carpark barrier holding him by the clothes to stop him leaping off into the throng below. Together the officers bend him inhalf over the barrier, head down on one side. Two more vans arrive to transport the prisoners. The one bent over struggles with the detaining officer to bring his head back up. They wait there, straining against one another bodies crossed over the barrier. Sunday drama.

New years day

The street is quiet where normally there would be bustle. It's the universal day of hangover. A hush has descended, no sharp noises, late rising. On the top deck of the bus a crowd of italian crusties are coming home from a rave of some sort - stink of stale beer, sleeping, muddy shoes and trouser bottoms. Some are still drinking. I remember the feeling of coming home in the morning - the excitement of the night died as the first grey glimmer of morning crept in. The stark reality of venue, companions, tiredness rises up to meet you. Travelling home you feel dirty and over-dressed for the daytime. Try not to catch the eye of the ladies going to church. Good times but I don't miss them or the lost day-after. 

Happy 2012.

The Dead Time After Christmas Before New Year

So the family have headed back up the freezing north (Dundee) - sis, her hubby and kids (7 and 9), and dog. Its quiet. Too quiet. No more uproar and hubbub. Other people seem to have hit the shops for the sales. I can't quite bring myself to go shopping again so soon after christmas. Slightly loathe to leave the house, unless its for a walk. When's the soonest you can take down the decorations?



I was cooking for 10 this christmas - turkey, plus all the trimmings. I have Ottenlenghi to thank for the most successful dishes of the day (brussel sprouts that I can actually eat and a carrot dish based on his one for roasted squash and onions).

Yotam Ottolenghi's Brussels sprouts with caramelised garlic and lemon peel recipe
I don't like brussel sprouts at all. However I eat these willingly - its a revelation that they can be enhanced and enlivened with additional flavours and not boiled to oblivion.

A couple of elements in this Christmassy dish will come in handy elsewhere. Caramelised garlic makes a lovely condiment to lentils or roast veg, while candied lemon makes a great garnish for creamy desserts or leafy salads. I always pan-fry sprouts – it retains texture and enhances flavour. Serves four.
4 heads garlic, cloves separated and peeled
About 150ml olive oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
50g caster sugar
90ml water
Salt and black pepper
1 medium lemon
600g brussels sprouts
1 red chilli, finely chopped
50g parmesan shavings
20g basil leaves, shredded

I do these two parts the day before christmas:

• Put the garlic in a pan, cover with water and blanch for three minutes. Drain, dry the pan, and pour in two tablespoons of oil. Return the garlic to the pan and fry on high heat for two minutes, stirring, until golden all over. Add the vinegar, a tablespoon of sugar, the water and some salt. Bring to a boil and simmer on medium heat for five minutes, until barely any liquid is left, just the caramelised cloves in a syrup. Set aside.
• Use a vegetable peeler to shave off wide strips of lemon skin; avoid the white pith. Cut the strips into 1mm-2mm thick slices, or julienne, and put in a small pan. Squeeze the lemon into a measuring jug and add water to bring the juice up to 100ml. Pour over the strips of peel, add the remaining sugar and bring to a simmer. Cook for 12-15 minutes, until the syrup is reduced to about a third. Set aside to cool down.

This I do on the day in a wok (i.e. all at once tossing throughout so that all sprouts get charred).

• Trim the bases off the sprouts and cut them top to bottom into halves. Heat four tablespoons of oil in a large, heavy-based pan, add half the sprouts, season and cook on high heat for five minutes, stirring them once or twice, but not too often, so that they char well without breaking up; add extra oil if needed. They will soften but retain some firmness. Transfer to a bowl and repeat with the remaining oil and sprouts.
• Stir the chilli, the garlic and its syrup into the sprouts, and set aside until warmish. 
• Stir in the parmesan, basil and peel (without the syrup), season and add oil if necessary. Serve as it is or at room temperature.

Biggest hit of the day was this:

Yotam Ottolenghi's roast butternut squash carrot and red onion with tahini and za'atar
If you want a vegetarian dish to make an impact on the christmas table, this does the job – it looks great and has really complex flavours. Serves four.

1 large butternut squash (around 1.1kg), cut into 2cm x 6cm wedges (I used carrots instead of squash not wanting to faff around with skinning it - chopped them into mouthful sized pieces but they didn't need peeling - they still have the same fab orange colour)
2 red onions, cut into 3cm wedges
50ml olive oil
Maldon sea salt and black pepper
3½ tbsp tahini paste
1½ tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp water
1 small garlic clove, crushed
30g pine nuts
1 tbsp za'atar (this is a middle-eastern spice mixture made up mostly of sumac with thyme, oregano, marjoram and roasted sesame seeds - I couldn't find any so used the spices separately - largest proportion of sumac, some thyme, oregano and majoram, didn't have any sesame seeds so left them out).
1 tbsp roughly chopped parsley (I replaced this with coriander)

• Heat the oven to to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put the squash and onions in a large bowl, add three tablespoons of oil, a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper, and toss well. Spread, skin down, on a baking sheet and roast for 40 minutes until the vegetables have taken on some colour and are cooked through. Keep an eye on the onions: they may cook faster than the squash, so may need to be removed earlier. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

• Put the tahini in a small bowl with the lemon juice, water, garlic and a quarter-teaspoon of salt. Whisk to the consistency of honey, adding more water or tahini as necessary.

• Pour the remaining oil into a small frying pan on a medium-low heat. Add the pine nuts and half a teaspoon of salt, cook for two minutes, stirring, until the nuts are golden brown, then tip the nuts and oil into a small bowl.

• To serve, spread the vegetables on a platter and drizzle over the sauce. Scatter the pine nuts and oil on top, followed by the za'atar and parsley.

After dinner we had a few games - someone brought a pack of PIT so that the kids could join in. However they didn't - the game was so fast and furious that the dog was growling and they were cowering next door watching TV and trying to ignore the adults. Brilliant game. And I won...

Now that it is over and everyone has gone home it seems extremely quiet in the house. Just me and the mouse that seems to have taken up residence in the living room (there will be traps, and use of wire wool to fill the gaps...)

Calendars for Christmas

I've been on a spurt of calendar making for Christmas presents - Jessops have been offering them for half price. In the last package I received the three I ordered plus one errant one of a woman who loves the outdoors, the rich outdoors - camping (thick sleeping bag), yachting (with the parents, at a guess), below deck, in the choppy sea, mountain biking in the alps, with the golden Labrador on the beach. Who is this dark haired active woman? Will she be waiting in anticipation of the calendar that doesn't come. Or has Jessops printed a second one and posted it to the correct address? I'm saddened that the calendar won't reach it's intended recipient in time for Christmas. It might get there for the new year if I send it back to Jessops this week.

Christmas time on the tube

Platform announcer at Victoria station wishes us a very merry Christmas in a rasta drawl - five deep in the platform due to delays he thanks us for being chill and extremely patient.

At Highbury and Islington the announcer sounds exactly how Leonard Cohen would sound if he had the job. A deep almost inaudible hum of a voice next train in six minutes, stand behind the yellow line...

White Coach and Horses



So clearly the latest must-have vehicle for arriving to your wedding (judging by those parked outside Platins Photographers in Green Lanes, Harringay) has moved on from the white stretch Hummer to white carriages drawn by two white horses with ostrich plumage on their heads driven by two coachmen in top hats and Victorian caped coats. Last week there was a replica of Cinderella's glass pumpkin coach. This week's was a carriage with a white leather hood. The ladies emerge from the photographers into the December chill night wearing acres of diaphonous nylon silk - sleeveless with flounces, frills and bows - white for the bride and red or bright pink for the bridesmaids (usually groups of four or six adult ones and any number of toddling ones) and towering strappy diamonte-encrusted sandals. Not a coat between them - just the pancake makeup and hairpieces to protect them from the cold. The men of these parties look decidedly bland by comparison in ordinary black lounge suits. Not even  a frilled shirt or cummerbund. The carriages attract large groups of onlookers photographing, talking to the coachmen and stroking the horses.

I wonder if the vehicle hire company also provide the black horse-drawn hearses for traditional funerals.

Known

A familiar voice - deep female - said excuse me as she passed me on the escalator. A woman with brown hair and an expensive sheepskin coat walked down past me. It was Amanada Donohoe. We got on the tube - she was in the next door carriage, visible through the glass partitions. She sat slightly sideways with her hand partially obscuring her face and nobody noticed her.

Stories

The girl says to her Spanish boyfriend, She's quite selective about her novels. She won't read anything trashy or stuff that isn't her sort of story.

What's her kind of story I wonder. I'm not sure I have a kind of story. I'll read all sorts of things. My mother liked stories about lives (fictional diaries and letters, stories of coming through struggles and families). I have her collection of women-authored novels. Many with the dark green spines of Virago Press. I like detective novels - started young when Pops used to read me Josephine Tey novels standing on a chair beside the bunk bed (surprisingly he would fall asleep mid-sentence quite often and have to be coaxed awake and prompted as to where he trailed off. We didn't like Agatha Christie to read though, preferred it on the screen. I'm currently reading Scandinavian crime fiction. I'll read almost anything else though - historic, prehistoric, things my mother would like, thriller, modern, contemporary, American, sci-fi, translations, graphic. Don't generally do chick lit or Mills and Boon.  I like getting recommendations but don't always agree that I like them. Good writing or a gripping read is the key. I've only stopped in the middle of two novels - American Psycho and The Dirty Havana Trilogy. Too violent, and too much sex with sour milk, respectively. I did manage to finish On The Road though, which I found excruciatingly boring. What kind is your story?

How come?

Hair generally seems to grow downwards (unless very short or unruly) - head hair being the main example except for cow licked or particularly thickly stranded, leg hair, arm hair, eyebrows (apart from the wild unruly variety sported by occasional older gentlemen), even the unmentionable pubes. So standing squashed between two tall hairy men on the tube this afternoon  I was surprised to realise that chest hair (based on my unscientific survey of two white middle-aged males) grows upwards. Why is this? And how come I've only just noticed this now? I'm normally quite observant!

Tomb of the lost craftsman

Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum. Absolutely impossible to get in without buying a ticket in advance (I rolled up late one Saturday expecting to be able to get in and couldn't) - so we had friday evening after work tickets. The covered atrium's lighting was low and gave a calming atmosphere good for reverence - excellence on the eyes after a day in harsh strip lighting.

The exhibition had Grayson Perry's pots and other ceramic work displayed with objects from the British Museum that inspired/influenced him. I had not been aware of his work in other media and forms than the large pots. Weird and wonderful objects both modern and ancient - a good earring hanging off a dried earlobe, flag made by a ghanian tribe featuring two White men decapitated by two tribesmen, oil jar in the shape of men's genitals amongst an eclectic mix of other things.

Afterwards we had a drink in the restaurant high up near the roof of the atrium. Coming down later watched mice race round the floor near the cafe area.

Movember

(Moustache growing month for men's health awareness particularly prostate cancer)
There is quite a bit of this going on at work. Started off with those shadows appearing on colleagues faces. The stage where it looks more like slovenliness than any purposeful endeavour. This lasts longer than you'd think. Then when the five o'clock shadow has developed into something more whiskery the sculpting can begin. This year there is a much greater focus on the dropped handlebar variety than a mere bit of top lip hair. Now, three weeks in they are starting to really thicken up. Channelling the 1970s. Proper big dark long haired moustaches. No pencil lines, no stubbly affairs. Rather ageing on the whole, but worthy.

Alice

Interviewing olympic volunteers next candidate was called Alice - out of all those waiting he picked out a woman with bright blond hair and guessed her to be the one. And it was. I have known one Alice and she too had bright blond hair (long, straight) and pink national health glasses, often worn with a patch over her lazy eye. Maybe we have to thank Lewis Carroll for this stereotype.

Remember Remember




Tottenham folks love fireworks - especially displays set off in their backyards (or occassionally front gardens, and even more occassionally across the street aimed at the buses going past) - all around the pop, crack and fizz of fireworks whizzzing into the sky through the misty drizzle. The supermarket was doing a brisk trade on their fireworks counter when I was in there at 4pm today. I've been leaning out the window craning my neck 180 degrees. I haven't been to an organised event in a while. Last time I couldn't get anywhere near, wasn't able to see round the corner of a building, and then got caught up in a crush trying to get away again afterwards.

Parents

Fat bottomed man in white chinos and a navy linen double vented jacket pushes the buggy while his bedraggled wife walks alongside. He is out of practice driving the buggy and gets caught on all obstacles along the the path - wheels trapped on a plastic bottle, jammed against the curb, tangled in a plastic bag. He looks uncomfortable and the buggy is unwieldy in his control. "He's off," he says proudly examining his son, "oh...no he isn't," he says defeated. Parents with a screamingly tired baby refusing to sleep perhaps.

Ceramics class - 1st half term




Testing - rolling the damp clay in ball clay and then forming it by pressing out from the inside until the surface cracks. I'm trying to stretch it until it breaks through all the clay - to the point of destruction but not quite. Still trying to figure out how to use it. Also testing a technique of putting a thin strip of porcelain onto a stoneware body - the difference in shrinkage makes the porcelain crack in firing because it shrinks more than the stoneware. And a second wavy urn in black clay. Trying to get some pink on it but not too much - but would have liked a bit more than this. Black clay body is quite dramatic and strangely dry to work with.

Outside

Out of the office window in the near distance there are two men setting up scaffolding on the top of a building with a green dome topped by an elaborate weather vane. Scaffolding poles stick up all around it. The man below passes planks up to the man at the top - who almost looks to be walking on air.  Highlighted in sparkling sunshine against a dark grey sky that is showering. Behind our office there is probably a rainbow. 

4 Exhibitions

Tate Modern
Tacita Dean - Turbine Hall - film



Billed as a love letter to film - proper film as opposed to digital - clear, strong colours, unpixilated, able to be superimposed and sliced together. Large screen, space for people to lie down in front of it, which they did. Gathered people staring up at it - huge vertical screen. Darkened around to enable it to be seen better.

Gerhard Richter - retrospective
Crowded exhibition. I don't know why but I was amazed that he did both super-realistic paintings from photos and very abstract. Really like the 70s paint swatch painting (it reminded me of my old bathroom at my parent's house - Dad and I spent an afternoon papering it with paint swatches - it made for a very colourful two walls - great for staring at during a long soak). Also the huge canvases with thick layers which were pulled across the canvas - textured, colour contasting between layers.

Tate Britain
Barry Flanagan
Very quiet. Early Flanagan (pre-hare sculptures) - lots of use of formless material (canvas, sand, rope) - large columns made of canvas filled with sand to give them structure, sticks tied together - sticks and coloured fabric. Liked the colour of rope and sand against the parquet floor. Defying physics - canvas help up against the wall like a painting using sticks. Carving in stone that follows the seams in the rock - imagery that evokes the stylised pictues used by early humans.

Apocalypse - John Martin
While Barry Flanagan was empty and therefore easy to look properly, Apocalypse was packed. The underground poster was quite striking and made me want to see the exhibition. Poplular pictures, very commercial artist - he often painting several versions of the same picture and then made an etching for further sales. This exhibition showed multiples of the same image together. He cottoned on to an idea of slightly off-centre composition based in a circular or spiral shape, backgrounds were pale, foregrounds dark. Lots of drama. But the composition was all too similar and in the end I found it too commercial. Would have preferred to see only a couple rather than several rooms full. The quantity didn't increase the drama, instead making it seem repetative and formulaic.

Announcer

Tube train said 6 mins. Lady on station was muttering into her tannoy  but don't be sad there might be one sooner. Got on the walkie talkie to HQ who said one was coming in 2. 2 minutes ladies and gentlemen, don't know where it will be going though, might be high barnet, might be edgware, might be Majorca. I held onto that thought - what joy if Majorca lay at the end of the northern line. Could do with some sand, sea and sangria.