So, as the Argyle pantomime continues to fail to come to a conclusion (some deal may or may not have been agreed with existing creditors covering the value of mortgages on the stadium or something), Saints continue to stutter towards a possible auto-promotion place in League One, the Braves split their first two games of the baseball season against the Nationals, nephew Matt prepares for a couple of years at some new Groovey school in Salisbury and Hannah continues to sleep twelve hours at night and generally be very nice to us during the day, and the cold season appears to begin to give way to the tornado season here in Indiana, it's time for a couple of updates.
Firstly on the sausage front, an interesting visit to Louisiana where some step-family-in-laws have a small butcher/grocery shop. In fact Denise, the sister of my wife's step-mum (following this?!), was sufficiently fascinated by my previously-blogged sausages that she had us bring some stuff down with us so we could make them with her in her shop. Not giving away the magic Upton's recipe, of course, but we did make a few for personal consumption using the commercial equipment (and by the way, may I say how pleasurable it was to not spend forty minutes trying to stuff sausagemeat into the top of a Kitchen Aid mixer attachment, but instead just load it in a real mincer and have it fly into the skins in no time at all) and Denise looked thoughtful as we twisted them before saying 'I bet I could sell those'. Just three packets of four were put together for sale, marked as 'Market Special' and placed in the meat section. Two were sold before we left the shop, with the third being sold later in the day. Feedback from the sales was positive - and this was a pretty mild Lincolnshire recipe without too much sage. So who knows, maybe there's a demand for fresh-made quality bangers down in Louisiana. If nothing else it was worth it to see Denise get so excited.
Later in the day I showed her the YouTube video Simon from Upton's made about making sausages. She watched it three times and we spent the rest of the evening trying to locate an industrial-size sausage stuffer as featured in the video.
Secondly, I promised a word on the 'Doctor Who Movie' starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, watched last week after many years, and very interesting in a few particular regards. Most interesting was watching it in light of the new series. At the time it came out it was so different to what we thought Dr Who was that it wasn't really the same thing. But now... it wasn't too far-fetched at all. No real fun aliens of course, and it was a bit Hollywood what with the motorbike chase and the Big Fight At The End and all that. Still, it wasn't completely out of place (aside from that whole The-Doctor-is-half-human thing that doesn't fit at all) and was worth watching.
Also interesting to see the different character of the eighth doctor too. In fact it was Gloria (who doesn't really do Doctor Who) pointed it out most clearly with her statement: "This Doctor is just ignorant. David Tennant was never ignorant, he always knew exactly what was going on." And maybe that was the problem. Not enough of a character for us, the audience, to get hold of. Was he a hero? Or a victim? Or were we supposed to root for him to get together with the female lead? I understand that they've developed his character with the various BBC audio stories he's done - and indeed is still doing - but still, that was the reason I think I couldn't really enjoy it. It was ok, and in light of the new series it was actually pretty good, but the story was weak and the Doctor's character was, well, missing for the most part.
Presumably there'll be some kind of 'Doctor reunion' thing in a couple of years time when the show turns fifty years old, and McGann and the rest will be wheeled out then, but... you know what? The more I think about it, the more I think Russell T. Davies missed a trick by not having McGann's doctor in there as a cameo in 'The End Of Time'. Think about it, that bit at the end of the first episode where Rassilon is chairing that meeting of the Time Lords and they discuss that 'The Doctor is still out there' and 'he still possesses The Moment' and all that stuff. They're talking about McGann's Doctor at that moment. If they'd have done some kind of magic-crystal-ball thing to see where he was, it's Paul McGann we'd have had to see. Minor cameo, fitting with in with the story, could have developed the character just slightly and seen what became of him. And I think they definitely missed a trick there.
But what do I know? I just make sausages.
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