Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Monday, 11 January 2021
Lockdown Reading: Take 8.
I got the COVID jab on Saturday. You’ll get offered it soon enough. I said I’d update with the books I’d read, but I hadn’t finished any in the 4 days between those posts. As it stands, though, we’re still in lockdown and I still have books to read. Hence, I’ll review them when social distancing rules change.
Ideally, this lockdown should last at least a month to see any benefit, but we know that greedy bastard in No.10 is going to lift it too early (again) and blame us when the R rate rises. It shouldn’t have come down to this, where the NHS is trying to race to vaccinate as many people, fight anti-vax ideology AND deal with a surge in COVID cases due to lax rules on social distancing. We’re told the worst is yet to come.
So, let’s do the sensible thing and stay in, and read.
Sunday, 10 January 2021
Lockdown Reading: Take 7. Review
On Wednesday, I said I’d update when either the lockdown system changed or I got offered the vaccine. Not long after that, I got offered the vaccine.
VACCINATED. Vaccines are safe. #Covid19UK pic.twitter.com/rEt30puSaG
— Matt Tuckey (@matthewtuckey) January 9, 2021
I work in the public sector, and there’s a certain number of doses that must be used up, so they were keen not to waste any, before you accuse me of being ‘too young,’ etc. The process was quick, organised and clean. Also, it’s very depressing how many anti-vaxxers I know. I wish people would just read the facts. The BBC has a good video. Here’s another explanation from Scripps research.
I did not finish any books.
Wednesday, 6 January 2021
Lockdown Reading: Take 7.
The depressingly predictable scenario has unfolded; that which has meant the lockdown rules had been relaxed, COVID-19 had spread, people hadn’t taken it seriously, the R-rate rose, the death rate rose and the number of infections sky-rocketed. Bumbling, mop-haired bigot and proxy PM Johnson has belatedly (and for some reason reluctantly) announced another lockdown.
I still have some books to read. Again, I’ll review when either the lockdown rules change or I get offered the vaccine.
Tuesday, 5 January 2021
Monday, 4 January 2021
Lockdown Reading: Take 6. Review.
Well, that lasted all of 4 days. As mentioned on New Year’s Eve, I would review this reading project when the tier system changes again. And it has. England is back in full lockdown.
I did actually manage to finish one book. Brando: A Life in our Times, by Richard Schickel is a large-page biography of the man who may have been the greatest actor to live.
Marlon Brando may be well known as The Godfather Vito Corleone, but he had made a name long before that on stage and in in movies like On the Waterfront. The book describes how his one-line roles in plays as a youngster piqued the interests of critics, feeling he outshined all of his adult contemporaries. I battled through the tedium of this to when he subsequently made his way into film, via small roles in small productions.
I was a big movie nut in my teens, and watched the likes of On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, but a lot of his film back-catalogue is decidedly obscure. It wasn’t until The Godfather in 1972, where he was humiliatingly forced to do a screen test, that he made any landmark movies. Hence, a lot of the book lulls in mediocrity, but picks up in the closing pages. Sadly, a lot of his key movies are overlooked. Apocalypse Now, perhaps claiming to be the best war film ever made, is briefly mentioned- and described as ‘muddled’ (how?!). The Godfather is discussed somewhat, but Schickel refers to a ‘wedding’ intercut with the murders of the other 4 families’ bosses. (The film, in this scene, actually showed the baptism of Connie Corleone’s daughter.)
To be fair, Schickel understands acting, and his knowledge of performing arts feeds in well. But Brando himself had key roles, widely interspersed by a lot of drivel. It was also later in life that he faced traumas like his son killing his sister’s (Marlon’s daughter’s) boyfriend, serving 5 years.
A life is what it is, and Brando’s most interesting parts are sadly the most traumatic, and it will require your patience to get to them.
I found it for a fiver in Oxfam many moons ago. For some reason I held off reading it.
Saturday, 2 January 2021
Lamb, Spinach and Potato Curry
I made a long-overdue return to the Hairy Dieters cookbook this week, from BBC’s Hairy Bikers, this time to try out their low-cal version of saag gohst, a mild lamb curry. Found in the ‘Fakeaways’ section of their book, this may have been low-fat, but it can’t be done if you’re low on time.
Before I even started cooking, I dropped into 2 different shops looking for lamb steaks. Perhaps the break between Christmas and New Year wasn’t the best time to be trawling supermarkets looking for food, especially not when a big chunk of our imported food was stuck in a lorry park in Kent. So, I didn’t want chops. Nor did I want minted lamb. Nor mince. Nor liver. Nor… Eventually mum to the rescue (again). She got some steaks from our local butchers.
I made my own adjustments to the recipe. I already had a pot of madras paste, so the ‘mild curry paste’ wasn’t needed. I didn’t weigh the lamb. The recipe asked for 600g, which might have been what I had. I managed to fit it all into one pan (which I later had to transfer to a larger cooking pot).
I had other problems with the recipe- you’re asked to brown the meat and put it on a plate while you use the frying pan for the next step… but the next step takes AGES. So I eventually cling-filmed the meat.
The curry sauce we’re asked to liquidise with a stick blender while it’s in the pan, which resulted in curry going everywhere. The cooking pot was more protective at this point.
I had a sealed can of (dangerously out-of-date) new potatoes, so I didn’t bother using fresh marie-pipers as requested. They were as fresh as ever.
After the spinach was added, the pot was filled to the brim, which I then ovened to cook through.
LSPC took me exactly 4 hours to cook. Obviously, a lot of that time was spent waiting for timers, either for the hob or for the oven, but there was a lot of messing in between. Whether someone without memory difficulties would take that long... well, it took fellow food blogger Flatten Your Curves a lot less than that.
But the end result was very nice. I wouldn’t say it was a favourite, but it was tasty, not overly spicy, and I very rarely have lamb, so it make a change from a million chicken and minced-beef meals. Plus, there’s enough for a few servings.
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