Friday 18 October 2013
Thursday 17 October 2013
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
As I mentioned previously, I've wanted to see a recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue since I first started listening to Radio 4. I can remember realising that people actually got to be in the audience for the show and desperately wanting to be part of that. Tonight I was lucky enough to do exactly that.
What could be better than just getting to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue? Well, being there for the first recording of the 60th series was pretty great. But discovering that John Finnemore was
the guest panelist was unexpectedly amazing.
It's not stalking if it's accidental. Definitely.
The recording was at the Playhouse Theatre, Weston-super-Mare. It started at 7:30 and we weren't finished until 10:30 (with a short interval, ideal for sorting out car park faffage). I don't envy the person who has to decide what to cut to get that down to two half-hour shows. Though quite a bit of the time was spent re-recording Jack Dee's lines. Tonight Weston leaned a valuable lesson about the pronunciation of "Danube".
The first show will be broadcast 11th November, listen out for anyone laughing a little more than everyone else and that'll probably be me. It was hilarious. The letter from Queen Victoria to Isambard Kingdom Brunel was my highlight, without a doubt. Though Barry Cryer twerking is something I won't forget in a hurry!
In finishing all I can say is: "Tunnels" Oh. And.... Da-noob
What could be better than just getting to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue? Well, being there for the first recording of the 60th series was pretty great. But discovering that John Finnemore was
the guest panelist was unexpectedly amazing.
It's not stalking if it's accidental. Definitely.
The recording was at the Playhouse Theatre, Weston-super-Mare. It started at 7:30 and we weren't finished until 10:30 (with a short interval, ideal for sorting out car park faffage). I don't envy the person who has to decide what to cut to get that down to two half-hour shows. Though quite a bit of the time was spent re-recording Jack Dee's lines. Tonight Weston leaned a valuable lesson about the pronunciation of "Danube".
The first show will be broadcast 11th November, listen out for anyone laughing a little more than everyone else and that'll probably be me. It was hilarious. The letter from Queen Victoria to Isambard Kingdom Brunel was my highlight, without a doubt. Though Barry Cryer twerking is something I won't forget in a hurry!
In finishing all I can say is: "Tunnels" Oh. And.... Da-noob
 | |
| John Finnemore, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Jack Dee, Jon Naismith, Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer. You'll have to trust me on that. |
Tuesday 15 October 2013
Pandemic
It's a little late in the day for this recommendation but I've only recently caught Pandemic (Part 1/Part 2/Part 3) in the Afternoon Drama.
Each play tells a story in its own right: Part 1 (Present) about the outbreak of a deadly virus; Part 2 (Future) about an investigation into a government cover-up in the wake of the outbreak; and Part 3 (Past) the truth behind the outbreak.
I love intertwined stories but the fact that these really did stand on their own as individual stories was a testament to how good the overall arc was. I'd recommend catching one, or all, if they're still available.
Each play tells a story in its own right: Part 1 (Present) about the outbreak of a deadly virus; Part 2 (Future) about an investigation into a government cover-up in the wake of the outbreak; and Part 3 (Past) the truth behind the outbreak.
I love intertwined stories but the fact that these really did stand on their own as individual stories was a testament to how good the overall arc was. I'd recommend catching one, or all, if they're still available.
Sunday 13 October 2013
Blue & White
Rarely have I swung from love, to hate, to love, to hate, to love with the frequency that I have with my most recent project. But neither have I been so surprised by how well something has blocked!
I'll confess I got a little bored with the edging, though that was mostly because I was anxious to crack on with the middle bit. The next version is likely to be a little more fun because, thanks to the amount of practice runs I did, I was bored of this yarn before I'd even cast on.
And if anyone was wondering a) what the benefits of blocking are; or b) why we were discussing sea slugs in work, I'd ask you to imagine this all bunched up on a circular needle:
For the record, this is now the second time I've been pleasantly surprised by Sirdar Country Style (4 ply this time). Though I tend to refer to almost all acrylic under the catch-all category "Nasty Acrylic", I think this one (with its 30% wool content) might be reclassified as an exception.
I'll confess I got a little bored with the edging, though that was mostly because I was anxious to crack on with the middle bit. The next version is likely to be a little more fun because, thanks to the amount of practice runs I did, I was bored of this yarn before I'd even cast on.
And if anyone was wondering a) what the benefits of blocking are; or b) why we were discussing sea slugs in work, I'd ask you to imagine this all bunched up on a circular needle:
For the record, this is now the second time I've been pleasantly surprised by Sirdar Country Style (4 ply this time). Though I tend to refer to almost all acrylic under the catch-all category "Nasty Acrylic", I think this one (with its 30% wool content) might be reclassified as an exception.
Thursday 10 October 2013
Glaucus atlanticus
For reasons that will become apparent when I (eventually) post photos of my current knitting project, we were discussing sea slugs in work today.
I still can't quite believe this one is real.
I still can't quite believe this one is real.
Monday 7 October 2013
Chain Gang
I didn't follow the 2009 Chain Gang story closely but, by the end, I think it showed everything that is interesting and crazy about the experiment.
If you've not come across it before, the idea is that 4 Extra broadcasts two minutes of a story, then listeners write the storyline (not script) for the next two minutes. This goes on for a dozen episodes, by which point the final story only just about bears any resemblance to the initial starting chapter. The 2009 story jumped around wildly in time and theme but was tied up quite neatly in a live recording at St Pancras station by Robert Shearman.
This year's story seems to be starting out firmly in thriller territory. As much as I appreciated the creative ideas that led to the wilder chapters of the 2009 story, I hope the judges might try to keep things a little tighter this year. A listener-guided story that hangs together as a cohesive whole would be a remarkable thing.
I've not decided yet whether to enter a storyline but I'm a little tempted to use it as a little writing exercise and see if I can write something interesting for the next section in the form of two minutes of script.
Great theory, of course, but in practise I expect I'll just sit back and enjoy the story in all its glorious, unfolding chaos!
If you've not come across it before, the idea is that 4 Extra broadcasts two minutes of a story, then listeners write the storyline (not script) for the next two minutes. This goes on for a dozen episodes, by which point the final story only just about bears any resemblance to the initial starting chapter. The 2009 story jumped around wildly in time and theme but was tied up quite neatly in a live recording at St Pancras station by Robert Shearman.
This year's story seems to be starting out firmly in thriller territory. As much as I appreciated the creative ideas that led to the wilder chapters of the 2009 story, I hope the judges might try to keep things a little tighter this year. A listener-guided story that hangs together as a cohesive whole would be a remarkable thing.
I've not decided yet whether to enter a storyline but I'm a little tempted to use it as a little writing exercise and see if I can write something interesting for the next section in the form of two minutes of script.
Great theory, of course, but in practise I expect I'll just sit back and enjoy the story in all its glorious, unfolding chaos!
Sunday 6 October 2013
I Love it When a Plan B Comes Together
The main reason I posted the rather boring story about my first jumper of the year was so that I could tell the ever-so slightly more interesting story of the second jumper of the year. This story.
Jumper one went down so well that I started plotting jumper two. After all, why spend time thinking of a birthday present when you could spend time knitting it! During my initial searches for jumper one, I'd been really impressed with the look of this pattern (Florestan). Okay, large parts of it are a little over-fussy but the main cables look great. Plus, it was in double knit, which means lots of yarn options. I'm ashamed to say that I've become a little averse to buying pattern since discovering the wealth of free ones on Ravelry but I coughed up and downloaded the pattern.
What a disappointment. It takes a lot for me to write about a pattern in these sorts of negative terms but I couldn't believe I'd paid money for such a sparsely written, badly described pattern. The PDF is 11 pages long, great! Only three of those pages have jumper instructions on. Not so great. Two of those pages only have a single column of instructions. Not great at all. The rest is ten photos and three pages of abbreviations and tips and tricks. I'm a reasonably experienced knitter and I found those two columns hard going. And that was only the sleeves...
In parallel to my pattern searching, cable deliberating and general faffing, I had a decision to make about the yarn. Jumper one had gone down well in Rowan Pure Wool so that was the logical choice. I still had four balls left so that was a chunk of the cost sorted already, all I needed was another 16 or so from Get Knitted. Yes, there'd be a risk about the dye lots but I could do the arms in the old balls and the body in the new ones and it'd look fine. It even gave me a chance to start the arms before my order arrived.
As I'd expected for that sort of quantity, Get Knitted was out of stock but promised to order it in. I wasn't worried, why would I be? And then they said that Rowan was out of stock. That's when I was worried.
To cut an extremely long story short, everywhere that had stock was too expensive (John Lewis). Everywhere that was affordable had to order from Rowan and, when the manufacturer is out of stock, you can be pretty certain that birthday present isn't going to be ready. All this waiting and investigation had eaten up precious weeks and, although I had two Florestan sleeves finished, I was now less than a month from the deadline with no real hope of completeion.
Time for Plan B!
Fortunately, thanks to jumper one, I knew of a quick and great pattern. Thanks to my swatching, I knew of a reasonable-but-ever-so-slightly-felt-prone yarn that was definitely not out of stock. But no one wants the same jumper in two different yarns so it was time to work out a different cable!
With stitch dictionaries strewn everywhere and half-worked charts, I tried several variations. I have never been so conscious of the fact that every day I spent testing was a day I wouldn't have for knitting. In the end I settled on this (heavily modified from a couple of different sources)
I need to work it through again to decipher my own symbology but, in case anyone is curious, it shows right-side rows only, wrong side is worked as you'd expect maintaining the knit/purls of the previous row. Where there's a dot on a cable, purl that stitch rather than knit it. I will try to work out the detail though as I was really pleased with the result.
Obviously the resultant jumper wasn't as nice as the first version simply because the yarn wasn't as good. However, my tension was better and it's hard not to have pride in seeing my own cables come out so well. Thank goodness for out of stock yarn, otherwise I would have been stuck with the disappointing Florestan.
Jumper one went down so well that I started plotting jumper two. After all, why spend time thinking of a birthday present when you could spend time knitting it! During my initial searches for jumper one, I'd been really impressed with the look of this pattern (Florestan). Okay, large parts of it are a little over-fussy but the main cables look great. Plus, it was in double knit, which means lots of yarn options. I'm ashamed to say that I've become a little averse to buying pattern since discovering the wealth of free ones on Ravelry but I coughed up and downloaded the pattern.
What a disappointment. It takes a lot for me to write about a pattern in these sorts of negative terms but I couldn't believe I'd paid money for such a sparsely written, badly described pattern. The PDF is 11 pages long, great! Only three of those pages have jumper instructions on. Not so great. Two of those pages only have a single column of instructions. Not great at all. The rest is ten photos and three pages of abbreviations and tips and tricks. I'm a reasonably experienced knitter and I found those two columns hard going. And that was only the sleeves...
In parallel to my pattern searching, cable deliberating and general faffing, I had a decision to make about the yarn. Jumper one had gone down well in Rowan Pure Wool so that was the logical choice. I still had four balls left so that was a chunk of the cost sorted already, all I needed was another 16 or so from Get Knitted. Yes, there'd be a risk about the dye lots but I could do the arms in the old balls and the body in the new ones and it'd look fine. It even gave me a chance to start the arms before my order arrived.
As I'd expected for that sort of quantity, Get Knitted was out of stock but promised to order it in. I wasn't worried, why would I be? And then they said that Rowan was out of stock. That's when I was worried.
To cut an extremely long story short, everywhere that had stock was too expensive (John Lewis). Everywhere that was affordable had to order from Rowan and, when the manufacturer is out of stock, you can be pretty certain that birthday present isn't going to be ready. All this waiting and investigation had eaten up precious weeks and, although I had two Florestan sleeves finished, I was now less than a month from the deadline with no real hope of completeion.
Time for Plan B!
Fortunately, thanks to jumper one, I knew of a quick and great pattern. Thanks to my swatching, I knew of a reasonable-but-ever-so-slightly-felt-prone yarn that was definitely not out of stock. But no one wants the same jumper in two different yarns so it was time to work out a different cable!
With stitch dictionaries strewn everywhere and half-worked charts, I tried several variations. I have never been so conscious of the fact that every day I spent testing was a day I wouldn't have for knitting. In the end I settled on this (heavily modified from a couple of different sources)
I need to work it through again to decipher my own symbology but, in case anyone is curious, it shows right-side rows only, wrong side is worked as you'd expect maintaining the knit/purls of the previous row. Where there's a dot on a cable, purl that stitch rather than knit it. I will try to work out the detail though as I was really pleased with the result.
Obviously the resultant jumper wasn't as nice as the first version simply because the yarn wasn't as good. However, my tension was better and it's hard not to have pride in seeing my own cables come out so well. Thank goodness for out of stock yarn, otherwise I would have been stuck with the disappointing Florestan.
Saturday 5 October 2013
AudioGO
When Red & Blue returned to the Afternoon Drama slot in August, I googled the series to find out more. I'd heard and loved the first episode of the first series via Play of the Week but I'd thought it was a one-off rather than the first of a series. I was determined to track down more information. What I found was much more than that, I found:
I've no idea how it took me so long to stumble upon a website dedicated to selling BBC dramas, comedies, audiobooks and just about every other variety of download that you can imagine. I'm surprised and a little ashamed of my own ignorance of such a fantastic site.
I quickly lost hours in searching for interesting dramas and comedies and working out exactly which episodes of McLevy and Pilgrim I'd missed. The range is fantastic and I can't imagine that any radio fan would be stuck for choice. Downloading is straight forward and it was easy to get copies onto both my laptop and PC. There's some sort of points system going on but it's not very well explained and that really is the most negative thing I can say about AudioGO.
In case you're interested, my purchases so far have been:
Oh, and did I mention? It's all at affordable price. What's not to love!
 |
| http://www.audiogo.com/uk/ |
I quickly lost hours in searching for interesting dramas and comedies and working out exactly which episodes of McLevy and Pilgrim I'd missed. The range is fantastic and I can't imagine that any radio fan would be stuck for choice. Downloading is straight forward and it was easy to get copies onto both my laptop and PC. There's some sort of points system going on but it's not very well explained and that really is the most negative thing I can say about AudioGO.
In case you're interested, my purchases so far have been:
- Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Glastonbury Special
Genius, can't think that I've ever heard it repeated on 4Extra - Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Geht Zum Fussballweltmeisterschaft Weg!
I'll confess to copying that title, as above - Red & Blue Series 1
Very good, though the first episode remains the best in my opinion - Avoid London, Area Closed, Turn On Radio
An Mike Walker Afternoon Drama set around the 7/7 bombings. - Coalition
Interesting premise of a politian under pressure of blackmail - Brief Lives Series 3
Very welcome background listening ahead of the recent series, if only they had some of the earlier series - Pilgrim Series 2
And suddenly series three made much more sense - And miscellaneous McLevy
Excellent, as always
Oh, and did I mention? It's all at affordable price. What's not to love!
Friday 4 October 2013
High Standards
I don't knit many jumpers. That much yarn is expensive and I think I was put off by too many enthusiastic but technically flawed attempts as a beginner. Even now, when I class myself as a reasonably experienced knitter, I just don't seem to be able to get it right. Or at least that has been the case up until this year.
I'm now beginning to think that I'm incapable of knitting good jumpers for me.
Last year I had a commission and, to quote a wise but untraceable Raveler:
Machine washable and nice yarn presented an immediate problem. In a defeat for my budget criteria, nice yarn won out on the grounds that "if it's not nice then I won't wear it and it won't need washing in the first place."
Finding the pattern was tricky at first because I had some strong ideas about what I wanted to make. I quickly but reluctantly abandoned these in favour of what the recipient wanted and I'm very glad I did. The pattern chosen was a DROPS design, and therefore doesn't have a nice evocative name but rather goes by the sadly utilitarian 85-6. I'll admit to being initially uninspired but it turned out to be an unexpectedly good pattern choice.
The next problem was the yarn weights of the pattern. It's written for two different yarns held together throughout, an aran weight and a sport weight. I really, truly, desperately tried to match this with something that was available in the UK, was machine washable and didn't break the bank. I failed, repeatedly. Fortunately, I tested alternatives and found that two strands of doubleknit held together was a fantastic match! And, with the popularity of doubleknit in the UK, there was no shortage of white/cream yarn to choose from.
So, from there, I swatched like I've never swatched before! Hoping I might still save a little money, I tried a couple of budget yarns that still had some wool content but nothing worked as well Rowan Pure Wool DK. It was squishy, warm, soft and - best of all - superwash! Unfortunately, it also comes with the price tag you'd expect from Rowan.
Enter Get Knitted, yarn shop beyond compare! Their price was unbeaten anywhere, plus they're (almost) my local. I drove up to look at the yarn but found they had one solitary ball on the shelf. Fortunately, the lovely staff ordered it in for me and gave me the wonderful 10% Ravelry Group discount. It's not an exaggeration to say that, without Get Knitted, I never would have made this jumper. Thanks to their generous discount, low price and free shipping, even the amazing Rowan yarn fell into my "extravagant but affordable" price bracket.
So on to knitting. With two strands of doubleknit, you're more or less working with chunky. It's pleasingly fast. The elasticity of the yarn meant it took me some time to get my tension and I will confess that the back came out a rather different length than the front but I was on a time limit (belated Christmas) and there was no time for ripping back.
The pattern is brief, to the point and mainly great. There were only a couple of sections where I had to read things over a few times to check I had understood it correctly. That said, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone making their first ever jumper because I think it does assume some knowledge of a normal jumper construction.
I only made two modifications (other than the extra long arms that had been requested).
I'd really recommend this pattern for anyone looking for a quick but really good jumper. There's a bit of shaping to the body which worked wonderfully, the cable is unusual but not overly complex and it turned out to be everything it needed to be. Most importantly, it was appreciated.
I'm now beginning to think that I'm incapable of knitting good jumpers for me.
Last year I had a commission and, to quote a wise but untraceable Raveler:
"Knitting is like sex. If I like you and you appreciate it, it is free. Other than that, you can’t pay me enough. "Fortunately, this was the fun and appreciated sort of commission. Unfortunately, the requirements were a little tight. It had to be an aran/cable jumper. White or cream. Machine washable. Warm. Nice yarn. Long arms. Add to that my own requirement (somewhere this side of £100) and hopefully you'll see the challenge.
Machine washable and nice yarn presented an immediate problem. In a defeat for my budget criteria, nice yarn won out on the grounds that "if it's not nice then I won't wear it and it won't need washing in the first place."
Finding the pattern was tricky at first because I had some strong ideas about what I wanted to make. I quickly but reluctantly abandoned these in favour of what the recipient wanted and I'm very glad I did. The pattern chosen was a DROPS design, and therefore doesn't have a nice evocative name but rather goes by the sadly utilitarian 85-6. I'll admit to being initially uninspired but it turned out to be an unexpectedly good pattern choice.
The next problem was the yarn weights of the pattern. It's written for two different yarns held together throughout, an aran weight and a sport weight. I really, truly, desperately tried to match this with something that was available in the UK, was machine washable and didn't break the bank. I failed, repeatedly. Fortunately, I tested alternatives and found that two strands of doubleknit held together was a fantastic match! And, with the popularity of doubleknit in the UK, there was no shortage of white/cream yarn to choose from.
So, from there, I swatched like I've never swatched before! Hoping I might still save a little money, I tried a couple of budget yarns that still had some wool content but nothing worked as well Rowan Pure Wool DK. It was squishy, warm, soft and - best of all - superwash! Unfortunately, it also comes with the price tag you'd expect from Rowan.
Enter Get Knitted, yarn shop beyond compare! Their price was unbeaten anywhere, plus they're (almost) my local. I drove up to look at the yarn but found they had one solitary ball on the shelf. Fortunately, the lovely staff ordered it in for me and gave me the wonderful 10% Ravelry Group discount. It's not an exaggeration to say that, without Get Knitted, I never would have made this jumper. Thanks to their generous discount, low price and free shipping, even the amazing Rowan yarn fell into my "extravagant but affordable" price bracket.
So on to knitting. With two strands of doubleknit, you're more or less working with chunky. It's pleasingly fast. The elasticity of the yarn meant it took me some time to get my tension and I will confess that the back came out a rather different length than the front but I was on a time limit (belated Christmas) and there was no time for ripping back.
The pattern is brief, to the point and mainly great. There were only a couple of sections where I had to read things over a few times to check I had understood it correctly. That said, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone making their first ever jumper because I think it does assume some knowledge of a normal jumper construction.
I only made two modifications (other than the extra long arms that had been requested).
- The first is at the start of the front. There's an unusual and striking cable pattern through the front but the pattern starts with 4×2 rib and then cuts straight to the cable pattern in a really jarring way. I didn't get a photo of it but I just couldn't live with it. To hell with time constraints, I ripped back and adjusted the middle section of the rib so that it flowed into the cable. I can probably post a chart if anyone is interested.
- The second modification was the sleeve caps. Perhaps my tension as unusual (I don't think so) but, as written, I don't know how the sleeve caps would have fitted without some hefty (and very unmanly) gathering. Instead, I gradually decreased the sleeve caps down until they matched the size of the armholes more closely. I'm so glad I did because the result worked wonderfully.
I'd really recommend this pattern for anyone looking for a quick but really good jumper. There's a bit of shaping to the body which worked wonderfully, the cable is unusual but not overly complex and it turned out to be everything it needed to be. Most importantly, it was appreciated.
Thursday 3 October 2013
2013: The Year of Booze
A couple of years ago, my sister gave me the fantastic gift of a homebrew kit. Delicious cider soon followed. I got a bit out of practice last year but the warm summer seemed the perfect incitement to cider.
In June I made an elderflower cider kit. I'm a strong opponent of fruit flavoured cider (cherry 'cider' is not cider!) but the result is deliciously appley with a subtle extra taste of elderflower. For the first time ever, I actually had enough bottles for the whole batch and I ended up with more than 40 bottles in the cupboard.
In July, I experimented with elderflower champagne. Finding the elderflowers proved to be the biggest hurdle. Burnham was bare so I snuck round to my parents and thieved some from the back field, suffering retribution in the form of extreme hayfever. Although I followed the recipe, the champagne fermented out entirely so I primed the bottles as I normally would for cider.
The result was interesting. At first I wasn't impressed, probably because I subconsciously was expecting something more like the sweetness of elderflower cordial. But, once it was refrigerated and reasonably sparkling, it turned out to be refreshing and delicious. And, most importantly, non-explosive!
Now it's autumn and time to think about sloe gin. Ignoring the nonsense about waiting for the first frost, I headed out to my secret sloe locations and ran out of boxes before I ran out of sloes. I was raised to ignore quantities when it comes to sloe gin so the recipe is simply: fill a jar with sloes; fill the gaps with sugar; fill the gaps with gin. Wait.
This put me in the infusing mood so, when my mum offered me a reasonably large quantity of plums going spare from her tree, the obvious solution seemed to be alcohol-related. Gin? Vodka? How could I consider anything beyond the fabulously rhyming plum rum! Fortunately, I'm not the only one to attempt plum rum and this blog has a fascinating recipe (plums, rum and tasty spices!).
Due to a miscalculation, I bought a bit too much rum for the recipe. Now spare rum isn't really a problem but I also had a kilner jar spare and spare rum + spare kilner jar = a challenge. Fortunately, this blog gave me the solution (while also helping me use up a spare orange in the process). So now I have a jar of 44 cordial in the cupboard too!
In June I made an elderflower cider kit. I'm a strong opponent of fruit flavoured cider (cherry 'cider' is not cider!) but the result is deliciously appley with a subtle extra taste of elderflower. For the first time ever, I actually had enough bottles for the whole batch and I ended up with more than 40 bottles in the cupboard.
In July, I experimented with elderflower champagne. Finding the elderflowers proved to be the biggest hurdle. Burnham was bare so I snuck round to my parents and thieved some from the back field, suffering retribution in the form of extreme hayfever. Although I followed the recipe, the champagne fermented out entirely so I primed the bottles as I normally would for cider.
The result was interesting. At first I wasn't impressed, probably because I subconsciously was expecting something more like the sweetness of elderflower cordial. But, once it was refrigerated and reasonably sparkling, it turned out to be refreshing and delicious. And, most importantly, non-explosive!
Now it's autumn and time to think about sloe gin. Ignoring the nonsense about waiting for the first frost, I headed out to my secret sloe locations and ran out of boxes before I ran out of sloes. I was raised to ignore quantities when it comes to sloe gin so the recipe is simply: fill a jar with sloes; fill the gaps with sugar; fill the gaps with gin. Wait.
This put me in the infusing mood so, when my mum offered me a reasonably large quantity of plums going spare from her tree, the obvious solution seemed to be alcohol-related. Gin? Vodka? How could I consider anything beyond the fabulously rhyming plum rum! Fortunately, I'm not the only one to attempt plum rum and this blog has a fascinating recipe (plums, rum and tasty spices!).
Due to a miscalculation, I bought a bit too much rum for the recipe. Now spare rum isn't really a problem but I also had a kilner jar spare and spare rum + spare kilner jar = a challenge. Fortunately, this blog gave me the solution (while also helping me use up a spare orange in the process). So now I have a jar of 44 cordial in the cupboard too!
Wednesday 2 October 2013
A Lifetime Ambition
Okay, not a lifetime but certainly over twenty years worth of ambition:
When I got an e-mail from the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue mailing list on Thursday, I did a true double-take as I realised that Clue would be coming to Weston. Followed quickly by an e-mail out to my family to share the excitement.
My initial plan was to be on the phone as the line opened at 10:00am but, fortunately, I decided to drive over and get tickets in person. Thanks to road closures for a marathon, I was a little later than I'd planned but I was still surprised by the length of the queue when I got there.
I was even more surprised when the theatre man told us that they were expecting seats to go so quickly that, although they'd do their best, some people in the queue probably wouldn't get tickets. It was a tense wait and, once the doors opened, all the successful early birds had to suffer our envious glares as they left clutching tickets.
My technologically-clued-in section of the queue were exploiting smart phones to their full potential. One man was ringing the box office, I alternated the phone and website, while another updated us on his wife's progress at home (we cheered every time she reported that the website timed out). The theatre staff kindly updated us on the number of tickets they'd sold and, very slowly, it became clear that we were probably going to be lucky.
Some grumpy queuers seemed to feel that everything was taking too long, my section quietly expressed the opinion that it was a very un-Radio-4 attitude and they should be ejected from the queue. We also plotted to cut the phone lines, let a dog into the manager's office to attack the electrics and further jam the phone lines every time we saw the kiosk staff come to the end of a call.
Fortunately, in the end we didn't have to resort to dirty tricks and I'm now the proud owner of tickets to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue! Perhaps the best thing I overheard while waiting was "I'm looking forward to finding out what gender Samantha is." I think someone's going to be disappointed...
When I got an e-mail from the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue mailing list on Thursday, I did a true double-take as I realised that Clue would be coming to Weston. Followed quickly by an e-mail out to my family to share the excitement.
My initial plan was to be on the phone as the line opened at 10:00am but, fortunately, I decided to drive over and get tickets in person. Thanks to road closures for a marathon, I was a little later than I'd planned but I was still surprised by the length of the queue when I got there.
 |
| 09:36 |
My technologically-clued-in section of the queue were exploiting smart phones to their full potential. One man was ringing the box office, I alternated the phone and website, while another updated us on his wife's progress at home (we cheered every time she reported that the website timed out). The theatre staff kindly updated us on the number of tickets they'd sold and, very slowly, it became clear that we were probably going to be lucky.
Some grumpy queuers seemed to feel that everything was taking too long, my section quietly expressed the opinion that it was a very un-Radio-4 attitude and they should be ejected from the queue. We also plotted to cut the phone lines, let a dog into the manager's office to attack the electrics and further jam the phone lines every time we saw the kiosk staff come to the end of a call.
Fortunately, in the end we didn't have to resort to dirty tricks and I'm now the proud owner of tickets to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue! Perhaps the best thing I overheard while waiting was "I'm looking forward to finding out what gender Samantha is." I think someone's going to be disappointed...
Tuesday 1 October 2013
Three Men In A Boat
When I was younger, I asked my mum what her favourite book was. I don't know what I expected the answer to be but "Three Men in a Boat" was a little perplexing. I'd never heard of it and I couldn't for the life of me imagine how a story about three men in a boat could possibly be as interesting as books about dragons and spaceships and adventures.
I'm sorry to say that I never made the effort to find out. So, when I saw that there was a Radio 4 Classic Serial version coming along, I knew I had to listen. Even more so when I found out that it starred Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and Julian Rhind-Tutt <insert swoon>.
I truly laughed out loud when listening and I'd recommend giving it a go if you're similarly ignorant. Now I have to know how much of that is down to the dramatisation and how much to the original material. I may not have had the sense to take my mum's recommendation when I was little but Three Men in a Boat is definitely on my reading list now.
I'm sorry to say that I never made the effort to find out. So, when I saw that there was a Radio 4 Classic Serial version coming along, I knew I had to listen. Even more so when I found out that it starred Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and Julian Rhind-Tutt <insert swoon>.
I truly laughed out loud when listening and I'd recommend giving it a go if you're similarly ignorant. Now I have to know how much of that is down to the dramatisation and how much to the original material. I may not have had the sense to take my mum's recommendation when I was little but Three Men in a Boat is definitely on my reading list now.
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