Sunday, September 20, 2009

Day 189: At least we're not Portsmouth...

Today's soundtrack: Grateful Dead - Live/Dead

Up early this morning, as The Hunter wanted to go a-hunting, and today's bread needed to be baked in time for lunchtime's BLT. So I was out of my pit by around half six, ready for the day's travails, which amounted to - well, not much, actually.

Mrs W was out all morning at the gym, attending her first Pilates class. Not quite sure what this involves - standing up straight and breathing properly, I think - but she came back flushed and happy around lunchtime.

I think it's the gym she's going to.

Pedro was out all morning down the banks, happily any successful kills today remaining down the banks with him today.

And I stayed in, a-blogging and a-surfing for the most part, waiting for the bread to bake.

Lunchtime, of course, and everyone is back waiting to be fed. For the grown ups, it was a couple of hotly-anticipated BLTs, on the freshest, squidgiest white bread imaginable. This might just have to be my 'condemned man's meal', I think. Oh, and pizza as well. For the critter, it was cat food. In his little head, 'cat food' obviously included BLT as well, but we soon put the mockers on that notion - although not before he'd tried to climb onto our plates in his excitement.

We caught up with 'professional' Masterchef over lunch. I've already blogged about my addiction to this series of competitions, and this version is proving no different. The conceit this time round is that the competition involves 'professional' chefs who are already working in proper restaurants, rather than gifted amateurs or celebrities. You'd expect the quality of the cooking, the ability to work to a timescale and the techniques involved to be far superior to the amateur chefs - and they are, but only to a degree. What is slightly surprising is that the gap is far smaller than I would have expected. All four of today's quarter finalists cocked up to a greater or lesser extent, which was strangely comforting. Roll on next week's programmes!

Lazy day continued, sitting with one eye on the football scores whilst immersing myself in this month's copy of Word. Good reading as always, with a decent set of articles about David Bowie, including one written by Charles Shaar Murray, who is probably my favourite music journalist. At least until Son No 2 starts getting published!

One consequence of this year's European adventures is the slim chance of Everton playing at three o'clock on a Saturday. It still feels wrong not to be playing at the proper time, particularly when other games are on, but that's 'progress' I suppose. The hapless Portsmouth lost again - six games, six defeats. No doubt that will change next weekend - when we are the opponents...

Come the evening, I kept out of the way whilst Mrs W was wrapped up in the Strictly X Factor medley, before surfacing for curry, wine and crappy film. I had another go at producing my own chapatis, again with some real success. Masterchef? I've shit 'em!

The Grateful Dead were one of those bands that were always around while I was growing up, but were not a band that I ever consciously heard. Read about rather than listened to, they - apparently - epitomised the West Coast Haight-Ashbury scene of the sixties. I say apparently because I don't think I ever heard a note of Grateful Dead music until a couple of years ago, when I thought it was a gap in my musical knowledge that I ought to close. So I went out and invested in a couple of CDs - Workingman's Dead and today's selection, Live/Dead.

And for the most part I remain unmoved. Even now, I would struggle to name a Dead song other than Dark Star, and would struggle even more to sing, or hum, even a few bars of their stuff. I think you had to be there, if you were to become a 'Deadhead'.

Anyway, make your own mind up. This is 'St Stephen' performed on something called 'Playboy After Dark' (oo-er missus) in 1969.

3 comments:

Stu M said...

Don't rub it in Paul....

Paul Waring said...

Haha you just *know* which game is going to signal the end of your bad run though, don't you...?

Stu M said...

I can only hope! PFC have cow's arse and banjo interface issues when it come to goal scoring at the moment and a defence so generous it makes Santa Claus look like a tight old git.