Just sayin’…
March 31, 2013
La Crepe Qui Rit
Probably the most expensive Crepe Suzette ever. It’s clearly a very posh part of the Albert Dock, presumably frequented by media stars and Premiership footballers though I didn’t see any there during our visit but there again it was Easter Saturday so they would have either been getting ready for a football match or away at their villa in San Tropez/Antigua/Isle of Wight (delete as appropriate – do people still go to St Tropez – it’s so yesterday dahling). Out of my league.
Either that or the most expensive typo. If so they must surely have wondered why nobody ever orders the Crepe Suzette.
La Crepe Rit, Albert Dock, Liverpool.
Voila.
Sleigh
Sleigh’s interest in reworking art historical movements, from the renaissance to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, is reflected in her explicit paintings of male nudes, which subvert the art historical tradition of a male gaze directed at a naked female body. In addition to her focus on gender, she painted individuals affectionately and honestly, often including normalising details such as body hair. In this way she implicitly critiqued the idealisation of the human body in art, aiming to combat its objectification. Sleigh’s female gaze still has a powerful impact and the formal qualities of her painting seem poignantly contemporary.
Reproduced without permission from the Tate Liverpool. You have to ask yourself whether Sleigh would have written this herself. I may be wrong but she probably “just painted”.
Pommes de terre a la provencal
I like a spud: baked spud, chips, pommes Lyonaise, mash, shepherd’s pie, pommes Boulangere, gratin, fried, sauteed, steamed, plain boiled, Jersey Royal, King Edward, Maris Piper, Desiree, Charlotte, Pink Fir Apple, Dauphinoise, roast, crisps, salt and vineegar, plain, ready salted, cheese and onion, beef, roast chicken, jacket, skins, Fondant, Gallette,crushed, Rosti, Parisienne, french fries
March 30, 2013
The drill hall
There is something dark about the mask on the wall outside the Drill Hall – especially as dusk is approaching and you can see the light through the eye sockets
March 29, 2013
A fleeting moment in history
A collection of videos, once treasured, now consigned to history. Unwatchable though once unmissable, I found little difficulty in discarding. No wistful last looks back, metaphoric glance over the shoulder. Just cold emotion.
March 28, 2013
floral arrangement in the snow
There’s something WI flower show about this image or maybe even the Chelsea Flower Show. It would be a hugely expensive display to put on at Chelsea because of the cost of creating the artificial snow and stopping it from melting in June, or whenever they hold it. I’m not so bothered about the WI. They could arrange a flower show to suit. Not that I’m a member, obv. It would be quite easy for them to say “lets have another cake competition ladies” and to sling on a frozen flower exhibit/competition at the same time. They must have lots of baking competitions. That and knitting. It’s what they do, how they roll. That and calendars but we won’t go there…
There particular flower pots are better presented frozen and covered in snow because that way you can’t see that they have had the proverbial stuffing knocked out of them by footballing kids (also rugby and cricket – whatever the weather and time of year).
I will leave you with a message of hope. I hope it starts to get a bit warmer, melts this now and lets the flowers start growing again.
Ciao
Ropes
I like a bit of rope. Not the synthetic plasticky stuff you get these days. You know the good old fashioned rope they used to use in the days of sail. Good old fashioned rope is the sort of rope you want to own just to have, just to say you’ve got some in the garage or somewhere. Somewhere safe anyway. I don’t think I’d want to leave it in the shed. If she’d let me I’d probably have it coiled up in the corner of the living room, tidy. It can look very tidy coiled up in a circle on the deck of a ship. The rope in this photo isn’t coiled up nicely I know but there’s a time and place for coiling and obviously this wasn’t one of em. Anyway, like I said, I like rope.
March 27, 2013
K²day: Bells Tolling
17h32-18h45, 27-March-2013
Meant to head out to some writing perch or other today, however circumstance conspired to keep me from doing so. Thus, I am coming to you today via my usual keyboard from the desk in my home office, a cozy cave measuring roughly 12 meters square, surrounded by books and ever mindful of the dangers posed by various flotsam and whatsum that has found its way to the floor and into the corners over the 11+ years that have passed since La Famille Kessel first took up residence at 57BB.
On Monday the Internet rocked with the release of the first real trailer for World War Z, a tent-pole Summer 2013 sci-fi flick starring Brad Pitt. Having only clocked a scant awareness of the film, due most likely to having my “Blockbuster” RAM filled with the likes of Star Trek: Into Darkness and Iron Man 3“, I clicked through and soon found myself staring agape at some remarkable CGI.
Zombies. Again. And this time tuned up to the absolute nth degree of their power to stimulate the apocalypic imagination. Dozens, hundreds, thousand, millions, TENS OF MILLIONS of zombies! Zombies jumping from rooftops, zombies rolling over buses, zombies grasping helicopter undercarriages, zombies crawling over zombies with the intent and will to make more zombies. And these zombies aren’t your typical everyday run-of-the-mill zombies, aching through every shuffling footstep at roughly the rate of a speeding turtle. Oh no, these zombies have got game!
So being as much a sucker for a well-produced trailer as anyone, I finished my first run-through and immediately fired that puppy up for a second look. Zombies. YES!
Faithful readers already know that I have something of a jones for The Walking Dead (the serious comic book, not the comical TV series), and I have certainly enjoyed many a zombie film over the years, beginning (probably) with George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and moving through more recent ghoulish quality offerings such as 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and 2009’s utterly terrific Zombieland. Yup, I suppose it can be said that I draw significant entertainment from all-things-undead, a satisfaction that could be rooted in a deep fascination I have with Judgement Day scenarios or that perhaps ties to some penchant I have to always root for the underdog against forces deemed insurmountable (been a Chicago Cubs fan since birth, yes I have). This World War Z thing managed to scotch right by me, though, until the trailer hit the other day. And finding myself delighted and excited by it all, I began binging (googling, whatever) and instantly learned that I have a huge zombie-culture blind spot! World War Z is based on Max Brooks’s best-selling book? And that best-selling book was preceded by The Zombie Survival Guide, yet another best-selling book by Brooks (and the likely title of a WWZ sequel that is already in development)? How can I know about such zombie coolness as Colson Whitehead’s Zone One and the Jane Austen (yes, THAT Jane Austen)/Seth Grahame-Smith collaboration Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and yet be completely brain-dead on World War Z?
“Zombies on ice..that’s nice.”
Milk milk glorious milk
Five milk bottles in the fridge door,
Five milk bottles in the fridge door,
And if one milk bottle was consumed with cereal for breakfast
There’d be four milk bottles in the fridge door.
Four milk bottles in the fridge door,
Four milk bottles in the fridge door,
And if one milk bottle was drunk at lunchtime with some cheese sandwiches
There’d be three milk bottles in the fridge door.
Three milk bottles in the fridge door,
Three milk bottles in the fridge door,
And if one milk bottle was used to make milkshakes for the kids (banana)
There’d be two milk bottles in the fridge door.
Two milk bottles in the fridge door,
Two milk bottles in the fridge door,
And if one milk bottle was used for culinary purposes (misc, unspecified)
There’d be one milk bottle in the fridge door.
One milk bottle in the fridge door,
One milk bottle in the fridge door,
And if one milk bottle was used by anyone for any purposes other than to add to my cup of tea then someone had better look out cos
There’d be no milk bottles in the fridge door.
The end – you can pick your own tune if you like but I have set it to the obvious one.
Man holds down polycarbonate sheeting on roof rack using hand whilst driving
I’ve seen people hold onto their hats when it was windy. The other day I was driving behind a car that had a big length of polycarbonate sheeting on the roof rack. The sheeting was only held down on the roof rack by a could of thin elastic straps so he had his hand out of the window and was holding it down so that it didn’t flap as he drove along. I thought about whipping out the camera to take a picture. Not because I wanted to nab him – just because the vision was so surreal. I decided not to because had I done so I would have been as guilty as him in driving unsafely! Just shut your eyes and picture the scene!
nibbles at the intercontinental hotel park lane
This was a slightly surreal weekend. We went down 1st Class on the train to London and were staying at the Intercontinental Park Lane. That day the standard class carriages on the train were packed with members of the Unite Union going to a huge rally in Park Lane – protesting at government job cuts.
We were all going to the same destination except they were in the park and were were in a luxury 5 star hotel gazing down at them in the park.
Let them eat cake (olives) I shouted before ducking so that they couldn’t see who said it. I didn’t really:) I’m not that kind of guy.
We went out for an Indian meal with our friends Graham and Carol and then on to see Paul Merton at the Strand Theatre (I think it was the Strand – it was certainly on the Strand).
A good time was had by all. The photo is of the posh nibbles in the cocktail bar of the Intercontinental. V nice though at that price you would expect them to be.
Ciao
March 26, 2013
Backchat satnav style
I often find myself talking to the satnav. If it tells me to turn right I say “OK then” etc. If I go the wrong way it doesn’t bat an eyelid. It just calmly tells me how to get back on the right track.
This doesn’t seem like human nature to me. Lots of people are more likely to say “Oh for goodness sake you’ve gone the wrong way. You’re going to have to go back to that junction” raising their eyebrows contemptuously.
You could have this reaction with varying degrees of contempt, or contempt that grows with each wrong turn – “bloody hell you’ve gone and done it again, you absolute moron”.
You should also be able to have conversations with your satnav. The technology is nearly there. It would be someone to chat to when on a long journey. “How far is it ‘til the next junction? Do you think we have time for a pitstop at the next services” etc etc
Remember I’m the ideas man – now sort it.
K²day: A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens
17h04-17h51, 23-March-2013
** Scribbled down over the weekend and only now revealed to the Internet’s great light **
No new material here for more than a week, but who is out there to complain? Or is that an utterly shameless attempt to garner some comments? Wow, compelling stuff!
No idea, really, who first said it — it could’ve even been me — but one mark of a truly great coffee house is that from the moment you walk in you feel as though they have been waiting for you. Back at Black Market Café today, dropping in just as Talking Heads’s Psycho Killer began shimmying through the speakers.
Just learned what a “cowboy cookie” is and I can honestly say I am better for it. Oatmeal, pecans, chocolate chips, and coconut. Life doesn’t suck.
In 8 days I will put 47 in my rearview mirror. For writing’s sake I truly wish I could express some angst, hesitation or — heck! — just some need to contemplate over moving up a click, as anything would be a markedly more interesting than the indifference I feel towards my personal mark in time. I did manage, though, to parlay the imminent arrival of 31-March into a blue-sky discussion over what to do two years hence for my 50th (the spending of our 2015 Winter Holiday in New York with My Missus and The Boy…and anyone else who wants to float in/out while we are there), so it isn’t a total non-thing.
From “Psycho Killer” to Life During Wartime to Once in a Lifetime to Swamp to Burning Down the House to This Must be the Place (Naive Melody) to And She Was to Road to Nowhere to Wild Wild Life to (Nothing but) Flowers…chronological mixes are fine, but any Talking Heads fan worth his salt would rise up in loud protest over the absolute lack of anything from <More Songs About Buildings and Food! Imagine me at this very moment pouncing up from my chair, stepping onto the table — rattling the mugs, glasses and silverware but good in the process — and launching into Take Me to the River (and, yes, I am aware that the tune is an Al Green classic and not a Heads original…feh)! OK, got the image? Hold onto it and cherish it, because it didn’t happen. Never would. Can’t. That flavor of mad courage maintains a lonely existence in the deepest and darkest corners of my cerebrum.
My Missus has finished her art and gardening magazines and a dog chose just now to do his business on the street in front of BMC, framed perfectly in the plate glass window for my benefit and that of all of my fellow patrons. So, time to go. Ah, Paris.