miscelleny

Seeing as I am currently doing very little that deserves bloggage (a bit of writing, a bit of photo taking, a bit of looking for temporary work (aka a bit of work)) I thought I’d just link to one or two articles I’ve seen….

Today, someone with even more time on his hands than me asks What is the Daily Express for?

The ten things most likely to be on The Daily Express front page

I read an article in the NY times about six months ago about no-knead bread. I tried it and it works like a charm. Home made bread that’s got that chewy texture of rustic bread and a great crispy crust. I’ve made four so far and they all looked pretty much like this….

The recipe…

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting ¼ teaspoon instant yeast 1¼ teaspoons salt Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

BBC- Doctor Who – Radiophonatron

You too can create your own Dr Who theme mashup thanks to a fun Radiophonics workshop sampler page. Literally seconds of fun.

When I arrived back here, one of the things I was looking forward to was the late night selection on Radio 3. In the past that would have been Late Junction (World and New music) on Monday to Thursday 10:15 to midnight, Mixing It (New music and weird stuff) and Andy Kershaw on Sundays at the same time.

I didn’t expect to have to hunt for them. It turns out Andy is now on Monday nights and Late Junction is on Tuesday to Thursday, but both at 11:15 to 1am. Not ideal if you have to get up the next morning. Mixing it has disappeared. It took a little digging to find out what happened to it. The BBC controler just let it go quietly, the presenters weren’t allowed to say anything other than ‘that’s it, goodbye.’

Following a lot of emails, they have decided to resurrect the show on resonance FM on Wednesday nights… yay!

In the meantime I’ll keep listening to wfmu for continual audio surprises

This week and next it’s the Bradford Film Festival which means that there are good films to see nearly every day. It also means there are strange, intriguing, unsettling and sometimes downright awful films to see as well (like the Armenian short film To die is to live which was basically a montage of performance art with a thrash metal soundtrack and lots of very loud breaking glass… for eight minutes). But aside from that, so far it’s been good.

On Saturday, while Liz was away visiting friends I went to see From Russia With Love. If, like me the only Bond films you’ve seen in the cinema have been Roger Moore and onwards (Moonraker was my first I think), then you’ve missed a treat. For me, all films are better on the big screen, and it’s a real treat to be able to see classics of old up there (last year, for example, they had The Ipcress File which was great). The second Bond film is much closer in tone to the latest, and the train compartment fight, between Robert Shaw’s blonde killer and Bond is just as ferocious as anything Daniel Craig got up to.

On Monday we went to see Pandora’s Box , a restored print of the 1929 silent German classic. I believe that everyone should try and see a silent film on the big screen. We had a specially commissioned score and a pianist with great endurance (it’s over two hours long) and the film itself is nihilistic psychodrama gold. After a few minute the fact that the actors aren’t speaking is irrelevant, you’re following the story and the characters. It’s only afterwards you think that this was the way your (great) grandparents devoured film.

Other films: The Lives of Others: Riveting Oscar winner about a Stasi eavesdropper who gets involved in those he has under surveillance.

Catch a Fire: worthy South African crime drama with redemption at its core.

The Caiman: Italian satire from Nani Moretti about a B-movie director who ends up making a satire about Berlusconi.

Pitbull: Downbeat Polish hit, imagine an episode of the Bill in which everyone downs vodka every couple of minutes.

Now we’re off to have a Bradford curry for lunch, then see Twelve Angry Men followed by Regarding Buenos Aires

I do seem to be causing an unnatural amount of “not with me looking like this” moments…

Ciao auntie Lizzie!!!!
Originally uploaded by Moonyabbit.

Today is Amy’s fifth birthday, she’s having a disco party at ‘Rough and Tumbles’ Auntie Lizzie wishes she could be there to join in the dancing….

So… all together… you know the tune…

Cumpleaños feliz, Cumpleaños feliz, Cumpleaños a Amy, Cumpleaños feliz.

XX

ps Hope you like your present :)

That’s rolling on the floor, laughing…. because we’ve been looking at Pimp my snack you all should too…. honest….