All that comes with it

A periodic look at stuff I’ve been consuming recently.

Restaurant: Thai Sakon; St. Johns Street, Huddersfield

I’ve developed quite a thing for Thai food recently. Green curry in particular is a favorite. The combination of tongue tingling spiciness and fragrant delicate taste is refreshing respite for my Chicken Rogan Josh battered palate.

Kerry and I took a rare opportunity to go out for a meal last Friday and went to Thai Sakon in Huddersfield; a restaurant that neither of us had been to before, but had heard good things about.

I’m usually someone who cuts serving staff a fair bit of slack. It’s not the most pleasant job in the world and I know that I would be completely awful at it. So as long as I get my food at some point in the evening and there are no obvious signs that my steak hasn’t been used to mop the toilet floor I’m pretty happy.

Saying that though, the service at Thai Sakon was bloody awful. It took a whole hour to get our starters, and a further forty five minutes to get the main course. Kerry was given the wrong side dish, we were given somebody else’s bill at the end of the night, and when we eventually got the right one they had overcharged us.

So all in all you’d think we wouldn’t go back. But the food was bloody marvelous. The crispy noodles were crisp and noodley, the Jungle Curry was nice ‘n’ spicey (good god was it spicy. At one point steam was coming out of my ears a la Daffy Duck), and the vegetarian Pad Thai was… well it didn’t have any meat in it so it can’t have been that nice, but Kerry seemed to enjoy it.

Amidst their numerous apologies the serving staff told us they had never been so busy and they were finding it hard to cope. Due to the sheer quality of the food we’ve decided to allow them the benefit of the doubt and give them another go. If they prove as incompetent next time though we won’t be going back. Which is a shame, because my tastebuds are still tingling with the echo of that magnificent Jungle Curry. Yowsa.

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In July of this year I shall be walking 78 miles in 6 days in aid of the Joseph Salmon Trust, a charity founded by my close friends in memorial to their son Joseph who died aged 3 in April of 2005. Please look here for further details and consider sponsoring me. Thank you.

A periodic look at stuff I’ve been consuming recently.

DVD: The Phil Silvers Show 50th anniversary edition

It is a crime against humanity that you are not able to buy all 143 episodes of Sgt. Bilko on DVD, yet you are able to get every single episode of Top Cat, Hanna Barbera’s Bilko rip off. Where is the justice! Why aren’t people rioting in the streets over this issue? Is there no cure for this apathy that plagues our lands?

Still, the 50th anniversary edition DVD is pretty damn good. You get 18 classic episodes of Sgt. Bilko (yes, we all know it was really called The Phil Silver’s show, but I can’t be bothered to be all pedantic about it) and a pretty generous splattering of special features and documentaries. When I saw it was on offer for just £10 I just couldn’t resist.

I would like to know the name of the BBC 2 executive who made the decision to show programs like Bilko and Laurel & Hardy shorts during school holidays in the late eighties/early nineties. That person shaped my sensibility and taste for classic comedy. God only knows what would have happened if he had chosen to show plays by Chekhov and Brecht, I’d probably be typing this in a beret and cravat.

Phil Silvers was, quite frankly, a comedy god and every single episode of Bilko is as fresh today as it was when it was broadcast. Which is more than can be said of a great many of it’s contemporaries, most of which feel dated and kitschy. You really need to buy this DVD, if only to encourage them to release the other 125 episodes.

You can buy The Phil Silvers Show 50th anniversary edition at Amazon.co.uk for £9.98.

A periodic look at stuff I’ve been consuming recently.

Book: The Last Days of Newgate by Andrew Pepper

It is a common complaint that society is going to the dogs. The newspapers churn out a constant screaming hysteria about paedophiles, asylum seekers and the yobs on our streets. The TV news subtly echo the shrieks given out by their grubby cousins in the print media, the newscasters’ sensationalism all the more potent for its sombre delivery and air of authority. And we consume it all. We worry about bird flu and antisocial behaviour. We worry about Polish people swamping our public services and the mentally ill killing us in our beds. We worry about what they tell us to worry about.

It’s true, the world is a scary and dangerous place. It’s true that there is a lot to worry about out there. But I honestly don’t believe that it’s any more scary or dangerous than it’s always been. There has never been a golden age, no matter what people tell you. People have always done bad things to each other, we are just constantly bombarded with it now, that’s all.

The last days of Newgate by Andrew Pepper is a historical novel set in 1829’s. It follows Pyke, a member of the Bow Street Runners (a prototypical police force) and his efforts to solve a grizzly murder and clear his own name. While I’m well aware it’s a work of fiction and as such can’t be taken as a true representation of reality, it certainly paints a bleak and bloody picture of regency Britain.

This is not the prim and proper England of Jane Austin’s Mr Darcy. This is a filthy, dangerous, poverty stricken slum of an England. A place where there is crime on every street and death round every corner. The fogs are grey and the morals even greyer. It is, in short, not a very nice place to live.

The plot races through the book so fast it almost falls out of your hands. Pyke is commissioned by a loathsome aristocrat to investigate robberies at his brother’s bank. Things quickly escalate out of all control, with murder, politics, and religious tensions all churning together into a complicated and intriguing brew. The majority of the action takes place on the grim back streets of London, but we also get a look at Belfast and a fascinating account of life inside Newgate prison. I can’t attest to the accuracy of the history it presents, but it certainly seems very authentic to me.

Pyke battles his way through the proceedings by exploiting his loved ones and brutally killing every second person he comes across. He is the very definition of anti-hero. Normally I am not attracted to amoral protagonists, preferring my heroes to be a little cleaner cut, but for some reason I really took to Pyke, and will certainly attempt to follow him on any subsequent adventures.

In fact the only negative thing I can find to say about the book is that the author unfortunately felt the need to include the obligatory love interest. Why can’t we ever have a good old rip-roaring story without getting soppy girls involved? To be fair though it doesn’t get in the way too much, and the subject of the subplot is an interesting character in her own right.

You can find The Last Days of Newgate by Andrew Pepper on Amazon for £3.49. Bargain.

A fortnightly look at what sort of stuff I’ve been consuming recently

Website: Poisson Rouge

There are many things that Amy has inherited from me. Blue eyes, fair hair, a hearty appreciation of the simple fart joke. One trait I have passed to her is a tendency to spend too much time messing around on the computer. At an age where I was just coming to terms with the on/off button of the TV, Amy is an accomplished IT technician. She’s mastered the intricacies of both the mouse and the macbook’s touchpad, she understands the concept of hyperlinks, and she recognizes the majority of the buttons on iTunes. She is, in fact, more computer literate than around 30% of the people I work with.

There are a number of websites Amy enjoys. The TV tie ins such as Cbeebies, Nick Jr, and Playhouse Disney. Then the more hip web 2.0 sites such as friend’s and family’s flickr accounts. But by far her favorite website is Poisson Rouge.

The outstanding feature of Poisson Rouge (or Red Fish for any fellow francophonicphobes out there) is it’s simplicity. There are no unfriendly menus, no instructions to follow, and most importantly no need to be able to read to use it. The numerous games are varied, intuitive, and elegant; but above all the site is a great deal of fun.

Amy will quite happily sit in front of this website for hours if we let her, racing snails, painting fingernails, and doing jigsaws. It’s educational too, but not in a crass ramming it down your throat type of way. It subtly teaches hand eye co-ordiantion, problem solving, letter and number familiarization, and logical thinking. It’s great, and deserves to be on the bookmarks list of any parent of a pre-schooler.

www.poissonrouge.com

A (so far) regular look at what sort of stuff I’ve been consuming this week.

Podcast: Adam and Joe

I’m not the biggest fan of podcasts.  I tend to find even the most popular ones a little too amateur for my tastes.  I appreciate the irony of this, and am well aware that my own lacklustre podcasting efforts have been far from professional. But when it comes down to it I’d rather be listening to Radio 4  than some married couple trying to be funny in their basement.  However since I won my iPod (I did win it, I did) I’ve been re-experimenting with the genre and I have stumbled across a jem. 

It would of course be a little unfair to classify the Adam and Joe podcast as amateur. Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish are both professional comedians and their podcast is made up from clips from their XFM radio show.  Saying this however the podcast does have a wonderful ramshackle quality to it; Adam and Joe are childhood friends and this shows through in their free flowing easy delivery and banter.

The pair were cult TV comedy gods during the late nineties with The Adam and Joe Show (you can find clips on YouTube). While they haven’t exactly disappeared off the radar (both were in Hot Fuzz for example), it’s been a little more difficult to get a regular dose of them of late. The XFM podcasts unfortunately seem to have dried up towards the end of 2006, but they are currently are doing a showcase for new UK music for Coca-cola. The XFM stuff is just sparkling and the coca-cola is pretty nifty too. Take a look.

• Adam and Joe XFM podcasts
• Adam and Joe Coca-cola