16 February 2008: Hammered

We went to Nashville and did some music stuff.

No, not that Nashville. The thing about living in the US is that they have lots of places that all have the same name, like Nashville or Columbus or whatever. Indeed, look on a map of Indiana and you'll see that Kokomo is a short drive up the road from Atlanta. Just to the northwest of us lies Galveston, and a short bike ride up US31 lies Miami. So I think that's where the whole "City, State" thing comes from: "Kokomo, Indiana" or "Paradise, Texas" or whatever. It's just a way of letting people know which one of these cities you're talking about. It's possible - though unusual - for a state to have two towns with the same name. So, for example, there are two instances of "Fairview, Indiana": one to the east of Indy near Connersville, and one way down in the south-east corner of the state in a county that appears to be somewhat optimistically named 'Switzerland'.

Of course, everything's bigger in Texas, so they have five Fairviews there.

Anyway, that's beside the point (not that I normally let that stop me). So, we went to Nashville (comma Indiana) because there was an acoustic music shop there - the Weed Patch Music Company. Despite its somewhat understated name (maybe they want to keep expectations low for whatever reason: kind of like the 'Standard Tandoori' on Holloway Road in Islington), it was excellent, excellent, excellent. We walked in to a small, wood-decor shop with a wide variety of instruments on the floors and walls which were mostly made of wood and mostly had strings on them. Up a couple of steps and at the back of the shop were three guys sitting round on stools with acoustic guitars, gently jamming along (one of them clearly being better than the other two, leading while they followed), while the shop worker patiently helped everyone in there with insight and knowledge about all the instruments present, some of which I'd never seen before.

In the middle of the mezzanine were three hammered dulcimers, sitting up on their stands, with hammers out all waiting to be played. Even though we were there specifically to buy a stand for my dulcimer, rather than another actual dulcimer, it was impossible not to try them all out and see how they sounded compared to mine. Most interestingly, one of them bore a striking resemblance to mine - despite the dark wood and the slightly smaller size (although still a 15/14), the designs looked identical. A quick look at the price tag let me know not only that it was indeed made by Master Works down in Oklahoma, but also got a feel for the markup they were putting on it: I paid only a very little markup on mine in Arlington a few years ago because it was a Master Works outlet. The friendly shopkeeper was very complimentary about the Master Works range of dulcimers too, which I found encouraging: I guess I got lucky and got a really good one without knowing much about it.

Anyway, we purchased the stand and headed back north. Stopping in at Broad Ripple in Indianapolis for the best Indian food this side of the Shahi (or indeed the Standard Tandoori), we made it back late in the evening and got our 'music corner' finally set up - almost a year after first saying 'hey, I know what should go in that spot in the living room'. And that's what you see in the photo at the top of this blog: come and visit us, and you too can experience the joy of hammering a dulcimer.

As an aside, we also while travelling had the dubious privilege of driving through a town named "Gnaw Bone, Indiana". Let your imagination run wild with such a name: you won't be far wrong. As we drove through, we did see one sign proclaiming "What Happens in Gnaw Bone Stays in Gnaw Bone", at which point we locked the car doors and sped up slightly, especially when we spotted a couple of locals with a slightly hungry look on their faces.

Maybe I'll suggest it to Rupert Lowe for his next holiday?

Postscript: Kokomo may be the third-fastest dying town in the US, but did you know Clifford the Big Red Dog is from here? Makes my normal Plymouth claim ("Francis Drake, Michael Foot and Trevor Francis") seem utterly pedestrian.

27 January 2009: You Wotte?

McDougal mentions it doesn't seem long ago we were sat in Clapham watching Saints lose the cup final and Claus somehow not get sent off in the first minute, and he asks what is there about the current Saints team that's different and distinctive, what gives us character?

That team from six years ago had two characteristics in particular - Bridge/Marsden combo on the left, either of whom would cross it in for fatboy to head home, which he did that season with astounding regularity (remember watching it more than once in New Zealand at 4am Sunday mornings); secondly Rory Delap's long throws, which were classed as lower-division rubbish but which we now long for. (As we are now lower-division rubbish). The only thing defining the team now is the financial crisis and Rupert the Bear-with-very-little-brain.

Latest is that Leon Crouch was there last Friday offering a deal that would "get rid of our overdraft" and saying "I wanted to put my money where my mouth was" but Lowe/Wilde said "nah, we're doing ok I think, let's appoint Wotte as manager." Story published today in the oh-so-reliable Daily Echo.

It's sad and scary all at the same time to think about it, but there's no denying: the whole thing could just all come tumbling down at any moment. The fact that the major creditor on the stadium is Barclays doesn't help.

Plan is to take nephew Matt to his first league game on Easter Monday - Saints v Palace. At this rate it'll be an empty stadium, hateful chants against the chairman and a Saints team (made up of people little older than Matt probably) being thrashed 5-0 by the Palace reserves. Matt last weekend went to see Salisbury narrowly lose to Stevenage, and frankly he might do as well to assign his loyalties to the Spire Boys.

Won't be too long before Saints go flying past them on the way down to oblivion.

23 January 2009: Jan

Jan Poortvliet resigned as Saints boss tonight.

Saints are currently second-bottom of the Championship, having sold all the expensive players (except for Skacel, in whom nobody seems interested), having lost crowd numbers hand-over-fist and having a Chairman who owns less than 6% of the shares. And now they've lost their manager.

No surprise in some ways - he was seen by the fans as a puppet of Chairman Rupert, with Rupes even being rumoured to be picking the teams and attempting to take training. Whatever the truth of those rumours, it's been clear even all the way from Indiana that the players aren't as fit as they should be, nor is there any evidence of patterns of play. You can rely a little on the skill of your best players, but Surman alone isn't going to keep you up and Kelvin Davis can only perform so many brilliant saves in a match. Last season's manager-in-an-impossible-position, Nigel Pearson, managed to do a great deal better partly by having a pattern to the play, a sense of tactics. The word is that there's been little in the way of tactics or even formations the entire season.

There was a "big meeting" on Wednesday when Rupes went down to Staplewood and had a "clear the air" meeting with Jan, the coaches and the players, and afterwards Jan said "oh, ok, we're in a real fight, let's show some passion."

Now he resigned, and seems to be blaming the crowd anger that was displayed towards the end of last week's game. Erm, ok, so why not resign then? Or on Wednesday? Or...

Well, the rumours are that there's more to this than meets the eye. Not sure exactly what, but Leon Crouch (second-largest single shareholder and main anti-Rupert person) was seen hanging around St Mary's today (which is apparently highly unusual), and the rumour of heading into administration during the first week of February refuses to go away. There was some kind of unofficial shareholder meeting tonight I understand, and the Saintsweb forum folks are trying to organise an anti-Rupert march. I haven't fully perused the various discussion threads out there in webland yet tonight - we've been too busy introducing Delia's Sticky Toffee Pudding to some nice Indiana folks - but there's something more going on here than a sudden, random resignation.

One thing is interesting: Rupert has seen ten managers leave when he's been in charge (I think: Souness, Jones, Hoddle, Gray, Strachan, Wigley, Sturrock, 'Arry, then in his second tenure Pearson and now Poortvliet) and none have been "sacked". Whether it's "personal leave", resignations, contracts expiring and not being renewed or just the good old "mutual consent", Rupert has never officially admitted he sacked anyone. (Although Wigley and Sturrock I have no doubt would have words to say about that, were they not bound to non-disclosure agreements). And today he kept that record up. Amazing how he does that.

Of course, in any other business, it would imply everyone leaves because Rupert is a difficult person to work with. Anyway - we'll see what comes up (or in the case of the league table, goes down) and who knows what might happen.

I hear Dick Cheney needs a new job.

15 January 2008: Cold

Driving to work today (as it's too cold, snowy and icy to cycle), the car told me it was two degrees outside.

As I drove, it changed its mind and told me it was actually minus five. By the time I got to work (about a five minute drive, depending on traffic lights), the car was getting depressed and told me it was minus six. Then I realised it was talking Farenheit, not Celcius. So we were actually talking minus 21 degrees Celcius.

Rick just came into the office and said the temperature was dropping and it's now eleven below. Farenheit. So that'll be minus twenty-four degrees Celcius then.

Weird thing is, the air is so dry and the sun is out, so it doesn't feel that cold unless the wind gets up. Until you're out there more than a couple of minutes...

Weirder thing (maybe) is this: today marks one year, exactly, since we emigrated. If I'd have known we were heading to -24 country, I might have opted to stay in the British January storms.

Postscript: Forecast for tonight is currently -16F. That's -27C. We're rapidly getting towards the point where F and C cross over each other and F numbers start getting bigger than C numbers again.

13 January 2009: Fat

Nick wisely asks whether lard would not have been a healthier option than shortening. The answer is "probably, but sometimes it depends what we have in the cupboard" and sadly there was no lard in sight, and we haven't yet made it ourselves.

However, news reaches us from Salisbury that nephew Matt, continuing his tradition of taking things a little more literally than the rest of us, has started occasionally having a new side dish for school dinners. As our correspondent puts it:

"Matt has 'fat wedges' at school which are obviously potato but he thought they were literally wedges of fat. Yurg. Has Jamie Oliver done nothing to raise the health level of school dinners?"

Frankly it makes the deep fried bacon thing seem a good idea.

12 January 2009: Pasty

Despite the stomach, throat, nose and head bug that has been recycling around us for a couple of weeks, Gloria declared that Saturday would be Pasty Day.

And who would dare to disagree with such as fine suggestion?

The problem is that Ivor Dewdney's don't deliver to Kokomo, not even the "pasties by post". And Jungle Jim's insist on offering "pasties" in their frozen section that comprise such ingredients as cheese and chicken. So, as with the clotted cream and as will soon be with sausages (if we can find anyone selling belly pork), our 'Pasty Day' options were narrowed to:

1. Move back to England
2. Make it ourselves.

And as England is every bit as frozen as Indiana at the moment, option two was selected.

Dead simple really: the secret (such as there is one) is that the pasty must be sealed, aside from a slit in the top, due to the fact that in effect it's a little pressure cooker in there, as all the ingredients when they go on are raw. So, one of those rare cooking occasions where you don't brown the beef first.

And on the controversial aspects, I'll hereby state for the record the following choices were made:
1. Side crimp.
2. Shortcrust pastry.
3. No turnip/swede.

And I don't care if your long lost auntie did it different, that's the way it's going to be.

Ingredients: Chuck steak, which we ran through the coarse mincer rather than chopping by hand, some fairly finely-cubed potatoes, some onion and then salt and pepper to season. Pastry was made with a combination of margarine and shortening (if you're in the UK and wondering what 'shortening' is, think 'Trex' or that solid block of Crisp'N'Dry you can sometimes get.)

Roll out the pasty in about a eight or nine inch round and stick the mixture over half the circle. We layered it a bit - onion/potato, seasoning, then meat, more seasoning, then rest of potato - but frankly I think you could just mix it all up:




Wet the bottom edge with a small amount of water so that it'll stick when you crimp. Fold the top half over and gently crimp the two sides together so they're sealed. Place them on a baking tray that's either nicely greased or has that handy baking parchment stuff on it. Put a little milk on the top to help it brown, and cut a small slit in there to prevent too much pressure build-up.




Stick them in the oven for a bit. The instructions we followed were a little complex, you can probably just get away with 45-50 mins or so (depending on size) in a medium-hot oven.




When they come out, allow them to stand for a bit because they'll be a little on the warm side. This is the most difficult part because the smell by this stage is fantastic.



Finally, put it on your plate and eat it. Technically a pasty is not a fruit or vegetable and so cannot contribute much to your 'five a day', so make a nice smoothie to have with it, and then you can feel all righteous about what you're doing.

Bleddy marvleous.

6 January 2008: Scrubs

Season 8 of Scrubs began on ABC tonight.

Watched two back-to-back episodes. Laughed only when Neil Flynn (Janitor) was on screen, although it was a surprise when he was fired by that one out of Friends.

Kind of sad, because it looks the same, the funny sounds between scenes are the same, the actors are the same. But it's rather like Asterix after Goscinny died: same characters, but kind of like they all had amnesia about how they used to be. Even Doctor Cox isn't funny any more. Ted the lawyer remains worth the money, but really... the story progression isn't there, the character progression is soap-ish, even if you view it as a series of stand-alone sketches it fails because they're flat-out not funny. (Hint: end of second episode - shot of rooftop toilet would have been nice touch).

Hold on, I hear you say.

(Go on, say it.)

You continue: isn't that the case with almost everything called 'comedy' on TV these days?

Yes. But the problem is this: Scrubs used to be better. It used to be really, really good - funny and poignant all at the same time, and instantly able to switch from one to the other. It used to have episodes like that one where it began with the statistic "one in three patients entering the hospital die", followed three patients through and at the end, they all died. (OK, it was good when they did it in the show). Or the TCW one. Or that one with Jill Tracy singing "Waiting for my real life to begin" at the end. Or the one where Jordan's brother dies. Or... well, you get the point.

So, this will be the final season. And, sorry to say, it's probably already gone on too long. Just give the Janitor a load more screen time, ok?

Postscript: Was that really an out-take they showed during the closing credits? Wow. Taking the best ideas out of Rush Hour III, huh?