I've been thinking about taking a course in self defense. It's something I've been thinking about for a while, years in fact, but never got around to doing anything about. Why self defence you ask? I've never been in a fight, I've never come close in fact. I've never felt threatened walking down the street or dark alleys. I've never been mugged. But it would be nice to know that if someone jumped me with a knife after my wallet or something, I could take the fucker out. Just because I've been lucky enough never to have been attacked, doesn't mean it's never going to happen. All it would take is one drug hungry mental with a crow bar and that could be the end of me.
So, which style of self defense? Jim 2926 once showed me a couple of effective pressure points that the police use, and I remember discussing it with
Kemp a few years back as he's done a course and said it was worthwhile. But when all is said and done, to my mind the only technique worth using would be the one Jack Bauer uses. If it's good enough for Bauer, it's good enough for me.
So which style is that? Apparantly it is
Krav Maga. Now Bauer's probably got his own moves that he mixes in, spanning the close-combat genres; but it certainly appears that it is one of the base techniques used by CTU. Tony Almeda was in fact a certified Krav Maga instructor (for all the good it did him).
Krav Maga focusses on potential real life situations (such as people attacking you with knives and guns and crow bars) and is focussed on quickly ending the situation (in your favour). And in addition to enabling you to single handedly take down entire terrorist training camps Bauer style, it gives you a really good training work out too.
The problem is, it seems like it is going to be hard to find an instructor in the North of England. The closest I can find is Manchester. There is a place in London that does intensive courses, so maybe one week I'll go down there and try it out. When I do find an instructor, be warned: mess with me and I'll fly at you like an angry buzzard.
Labels: 24, Jack Bauer, Krav Maga, self defense
Friday, December 29, 2006 12:41 PM
Oh my god, I've just made one of the best risottos I've ever made. It was so good, I could have cried tears of
ecstacy. A few weeks back, I read that are molecular friend Heston
Blumenthal likes to combine Liquorice and Asparagus in dishes; they both contain this compound called
asparagine and are therefore
apparantly well suited.
So, my obvious reaction was to try and come up with a recipe for Liquorice and Asparagus risotto.
Now, when you think of liquorice, you probably think of something like the candy
Basset's Liquorice Allsorts (a product which was invented by accident in a sweetshop on
Fargate when a tray of
asorted sweets was knocked onto the floor). However, for culinary purposes, you need to get hold of
liquorice root. It can be easily found in health food shops such as Holland & Barrett.
Now, I've never cooked with the stuff before. Liquorice root is basically a stick, and how the hell do you cook a stick? Well, I decided the best bet would be to simply bung a few broken up sticks of liquorice root into my vegetable stock and let it infuse as the stock bubbled away next to my risotto pan. That's exactly what I did, I just prepared a standard risotto and
ladled in liquorice imbued stock, being careful not to mix any of the actual root into the risotto. To serve, I retrieved a couple of the short risotto sticks from the empty stock pan, partly for decoration, partly to increase the smell of liquorice in the dish, and partly to chew on when the dish was consumed (chewing is
how liquorice root is traditionally eaten).
The results far exceeded my expectations, as you can probably tell from the way I have excitedly made a blog post about the experience.
I guess the next step is to make an asparagus risotto, and then finally work out the best way to combine the two.
Labels: risotto cooking food
Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:18 PM
So, that was Christmas. Over quick weren't it? Well it was for me, most of you lot are still on holiday. I'm back at work, slaving away, earning an honest crust, and most of you are living the life of riley (
literaly in some cases). Well I don't care, really I don't.
Christmas may have flown by far too quick for my liking, but I had a good time when it was here. I ate, I drank, I gave and received presents, basically I did all the usual Christmas related activities. The canapés went down well; I was a bit worried when I was making them that they'd be too rich, but they were just right. I should have taken a photo as proof really. I also made chocolate chillies but decided to leave them at home; they didn't look very appetising as I didn't have time to dip them in melted chocolate. Hopefully they will keep until new year. Or maybe I'll bring them into work.
In non-Christmas related news, I've finally got my new silk filled quilt that I ordered (via my parents) from China. It is fantastic. Most people look at me like I'm some kind of a mental when I say I'm getting a new quilt filled with silk, but that's because most people haven't ever had the luxury of using a silk filled quilt. They are genius. This one is the same 9 tog rating as my old duck down duvet, and yet it is half as light, it feels like the weight of a 4 tog duck down duvet. I can't recommend them highly enough.
Labels: christmas food sleep quilt duvet
Wednesday, December 27, 2006 5:45 PM
Just time for a very quick post to wish you all a happy Christmas. Sorry if you haven't received a card from me, I've just been rushing around like a crazy person this year (literally) and didn't manage to get that many out. Still, it's an improvement on the big fat zero I sent out last year!
I have a detailed project plan for today, and I'm pleased to say that I'm currently on schedule. I've had my haircut (didn't have to queue at all), bought some dill and a mini muffin tin. That's three items off the list and it ain't even ten o'clock yet. Well done team!
So, yeah, Happy Christmas and a very Happy Festivus.
Labels: christmas
Saturday, December 23, 2006 9:47 AM
This post is a plea. I have been inspired by that beautiful man Sufjan Stevens to put together a compilation of Christmas tunes. Stevens, bless him, has just released a
5 cd boxset of Christmas songs. Now, whilst he should have perhaps edited it down to a 2 or 3 CD boxset, it contains some of the best Christmas music I've heard in a long while. God-damn-it, this guy is a genius. Illinoise was my favourite album of 2005 and now this new release is just steadily burying its way into my psyche and instilling joy in my heart.
Anyway, the thing is, as we're all aware, 97% of all Christmas tunes are just bobbins. Most make me want to literally kill myself which is at odds with the spirit of the season. But there must be a huge number of songs from artists (other than Sufjan Stevens) that are really great. So, I want you to suggest me songs to put in a Alternative Christmas Music Compilation. No holds bared. Anything from 15th century carols to punk, if it is Christmas related and a great tune, I'll have it. I don't care if it's happy or sad or joyful or melancholy, if it's Christmas related, I wannit.
Here's a few tracks I have already got that you need not suggest:
- I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas (Aimee Mann)
- Bizarre Christmas Incident (Ben Folds)
- Seven O'Clock News/Silent Night (Simon and Garfunkel)
- The 2 or 3 CDs worth of decent tracks from Sufjan Steven's Christmas CD Boxset.
- White Christmas (Otis Redding)
- I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (Dean Martin)
- O Holy Night (from that Studio 60 thing I blogged about the other day)
- Fairy Tale of Noo Yoyk (Obviously)
- ??????????
Labels: christmas, music
Sunday, December 17, 2006 8:23 PM
My oh my oh my. Christmas is a busy time of year, ain't it? Fun and indulgent, yes, but also a little tiring on the body and mind. Happily, Christmas this year has provided me with a window to try out a brief flirtation with another brief foody obsession:
Canapés. I've said I'll help Emma and Liv make canapés for their
soirée on Wednesday, I've told my Aunt Pam that I'll make canapés (and quiche) for Christmas in Soham, and I've told Tim I'll make him canapés for the New Year's Eve party he's been told he's having. So be aware of the fact that in a couple of weeks time, when the dust has settled, when the presents have been unwrapped, when the fireworks have lit up the sky ushering in the new year: I will make a post about how to make the perfect canapés. Or, if it all goes disastrously wrong, the mistakes to avoid when preparing canapés.
Speaking of food, I have decided to stop getting an organic veg box delivery from Beanies. There's a few reasons for this:
1) There's a lot of food I just won't countenance that they just keep on delivering. Brussel Sprouts for one. I mean, what the fuck? Seriously. I've tried a number of recipes for cooking sprouts - glazing with honey, skewering with rosemary then flash frying in balsamic vinegar - and yet, they're still Brussel fucking Sprouts and they still just make me think
come on, this is the twenty first century, surely we are a bit beyond sprouts by now?!.
They also deliver a cabbage every week without fail, which although edible is really tremendously boring, especially when you have to single handedly consume a whole one every week. I suppose also the number of avacado they deliver is a little overwhelming. And apples. Christ. Apples. I like the taste, but I can't stand eating apples, and I can't stand the sound of other people eating apples. I'm not sure if the other people in my office have noticed this, but whenever somebody starts to eat an apple, I have to plug my earphones in and put my iPod on full volume. To me, listening to someone eating an apple is like listening to somene dragging their nails down a blackboard. Yes, I know it's my problem, and it makes me a bit weird, but there you go. It's a thing I have, it's something for me to deal with, and I'd like to encourage everyone to eat apples. They do after all, if consumed on a daily basis, keep the doctor away.
2) It has been a good experiment being forced to eat only certain foods for the last year, but it is stopping me from making a lot of the food I would like to try. There's a lot of foody projects I'd like to turn my hand to, but if all I've got to work with is a cabbage, some sprouts, some celery and an onion or two, there's few recipes that are going to light the fire of inspiration inside me. Sure, a tiny part of me will miss "Ready Steady Cook Wednesday" where I scratch my head and figure out not only what the hell that weird looking root vegetable is, but what in the name of Brian Cant's Barnacles I'm supposed to do with it, but ultimatley I'd like more of a say over what I shove down my gullet.
3) I have a great green grocers down the road, and I miss my Saturday morning stroll there. I miss standing there surrounded by a wide variety of colourful fruit and veg, thinking
I'll have some of this. And this. And I don't know what this is, but I'm having it because I think I might like it.
So. There you go. Veg box experiment over. If you don't live alone, it is probably a bit worthwhile. But if you do live alone and eat out at least once a week, then you will never ever get to decide for yourself what to cook for yourself. And I find that a bit stifling.
Labels: christmas, cooking, food
7:40 PM
I was watching the Christmas episode of Studio 60 the other day and it closed with a really nice rendition of o Holy Night, performed by a brass ensemble of displaced New Orleans musicians. The folk at
NBC have kindly made the track available for free download. The only small tiny downside is that they've "augmented" it with some synth strings for some stupid reason. But you know what, it's still a really nice tune that makes me want to dust off my trombone and get
the band back together.
Labels: brass, christmas, jazz, music, tv
Thursday, December 14, 2006 10:20 PM
I am in a bad mood this morning. It is a beautiful day, a perfect crisp sunny winter's morning, but I'm in a really bad mood. Last night I had just drifted off to sleep when I was woken up by a phone call from work. I don't like getting phone calls at home from work, especially at 11:30pm on a Friday night when I'm already beyond tired. There was a problem, a problem that apparently couldn't wait until the morning. I grunted out a response that was rightly interpreted as: "
To be honest, I don't give any kind of a fuck. I am going back to bed. If you are really lucky, I will take a look at this problem at some point on Saturday. Good day sir... I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!".
It is now Saturday and I've had to log on and start to investigate this alleged problem and my god is this not how I wanted to spend this weekend. I am supposed to chilling out, pottering around the house, making vegetable stock, making pizza dough, doing a food shop. Instead I'm chasing windmills at work. Crap.
Anyway, seeing as I'm in an ugly mood, I want to talk to you all about Norwegian Goats Cheese. Nick, you can stop reading at this point, this post isn't for you and you won't like it. Someone at work yesterday expressed an interest in purchasing and eating some Norwegian Goats Cheese. I obliged by pointing them in the direction of a shop where I remember Nick buying Norwegian Goats cheese one time a number of years back.
Attached to this information was a stern warning...
Personally, I'd steer well clear of that stuff. It ain't right. I like Goats Cheese, but in my opinion, Norwegian Goats Cheese (Geitost) is seven kinds of evil. The very smell of it upsets me not only on a physical level, but at an emotional level. On the one occasion I dared to taste it, I was struck with a visceral despair from which I felt I would never escape, as if the cheese was possessed not only by an unpleasant taste, but was imbued with the crushed souls of a thousand dead Norse warriors.And the fact that it looks like http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article584095.ece">plastic explosives should serve as a further warning!I think this warning should be out there on the internet for all to read. They say it is an acquired taste, and I understand how if you've grown up on the stuff you might love it, but I see nothing in the taste that dictates that the rest of us need to acquire it. I mean, it's brown forfucksake, BROWN! BROWN CHEESE! That shit ain't right.
Sorry for the rant. My next post will probably be more positive. Perhaps it will be a review of the new Bond film
Labels: cheese, norewgian goats cheese, work
Saturday, December 09, 2006 11:43 AM
I've had the Steptoe & Son theme music going through my head all day. It is my brain making fun of the fact that my body is absolutely ravaged from doing that 10k yesterday.
Suprisingly, I didn't win. I know, I'm as shocked as you are! In fact, 610 runners finished ahead of me out of a field of 1200, and amongst those 610 runners was a bloke pushing a wheelchair and two blokes dressed as a camel. Even so, my time of 52:36 was a lot faster than I was expecting, so I was dead chuffed. The others I was running with did really well too. All in all it was a really good morning. And I got a free Christmas Pudding out of it!
Full Results HerePhotos HereRace Report HereLabels: 10k, Percy Pud, Running, Sheffield
Monday, December 04, 2006 7:50 PM
Tomorrow morning I am doing a 10k run, the
Percy Pud, so named because instead of getting a medal for finishing, you get a Christmas pudding. I started training on Monday, and have done three 5-15 minute runs over the course of Monday to Wednesday. Then I went and got drunk the following three evenings. But you know, I've not had much in the way of a hangover at all, which tells me that I'm in prime physical condition, and therefore am probably going to win.
I'm really looking forward to it actually. I've a feeling that it will be a good atmosphere, and there's a relatively big crowd from work taking part which will be cool. Plus, the route around Damflask reservoir that the course takes is one of my favourite routes to run.
I've no idea what time I'll do it in. Sixty minutes or under and I'll be happy (that's enough to win, right?); over that and, well, at least I'll have a free Christmas pudding to scoff!
Saturday, December 02, 2006 4:43 PM
