Splish splash, coming for your cish cash.

I bought a Basement Jaxx album the other day (Kish Kash). I bought it on the strength of one song, without even a single downloaded track. Money well spent if you ask me, it’s excellent. Especially the title track, which has Siouxie Sioux on guest vocals. I’m not really a Dizzee Rascal fan, but track 4, Lucky Star, is also very good. I heartily recommend it.

A sucker for a new gadget, I bought one of those new vibrating mach 3s. It does actually work; it was a lot closer than the non-vibrating one and a nice green colour as well.

A few years ago, about 4 I think, I used to run the seti screensaver. It analyses data gathered from space in an attempt to find life in other parts of the universe. After several upgrades and a couple of major crashes, I lost the program and forgot all about it. I remembered again today, so I downloaded it. As you read this my puter may well be looking for intelligent life in the vast wilderness of space outside our solar system.

RIP

Brian Clough.

I saw him at Maine road in the 80s. He said some very nice things about City fans, he was honest about football and he spoke his mind. He should have been England manager; we may well have won something. The best thing I can say about him is that I wish he’d managed City.

He will be missed !

We're all just perfect strangers.

I got an email off Adam, and I don’t know him from, well Adam. He told me that I’m a Googlewack ! That is, bluetealeaf is a Googlewack; if you type Bovril palindromes in a Google search box you get one result, this blog. I get the distinct impression Adam wanted me to be elated, I’m underwhelmed.

Crimes against the palate #2.

Butter beans.

They’re a fucking disgrace.

I’m not one of those people who blames his parents for an intense dislike of certain food. My mum made me eat sprouts till I gagged, but I love the little green fuckers now. No, I hate Butter beans because they taste vile, and their texture is akin to a piece of ancient rug, powdery yet sticky.

I was given the little yellow bastards to eat from an early age, and I hated them from my first taste. I used to dread meals that they were involved in. My mum tried the tactic of hiding them in my mash; this just meant that I wouldn’t eat those either because they might just taste of the dreaded beans. In the end she gave up, usually putting one Butter bean on the side of my plate “just in case you change your mind”.

Fortunately Tracy hates them as well, so they are banned from our house. They have the distinction of being the only vegetable I don’t like, and because I am very unlikely to eat them at any time in the future, they will stay on that very small list forever. Lonely yellow packets of shite.

Next in this critically acclaimed series – Pickled Walnuts, Christmas delicacy or wrinkled vinegary cunts.

Baby you can drive my car.

So, I was stood having a piss, Palace had just got a corner and I thought it would be a good time to go. We won 2:1 but it was very hard work. Watching was even harder; if we play like that for the rest of the season we’re going down. Anyway, stood having a piss, I was chuckling to myself because I knew when the final whistle went, I could phone Tracy and she would come and pick me up. She passed her driving test this week, first time too. These are the things that make a man happy. Well done petal !

The Wooden Spoon.

I was born in Ashton under Lyne, which makes me a Lancastrian. Strange thought it may seem, I have never lived in Lancashire, I spend the first twenty-nine years of my life living in Cheshire, then moved to Cumbria. The thing is I really like Lancashire people; I like the bluntness and deeply ingrained sarcasm. Whenever people say, “I don’t suffer fools gladly” I think of Lancashire people. So, still on a bit of a food theme, I want to tell you about probably the best fish and chips in the world.

Years ago, in Ashton, before the “new” council offices were built, there was an old row of shops. In the middle of this row was a chippy called the Wooden Spoon. It consisted of a take out at the front and a café at the back, it was always packed out, and although I don’t remember the food I do remember it being knocked down to make way for the concrete monstrosity that is the council offices. Fortunately the café re-opened in the new bus station, and this is the one I remember. If you weren’t from Ashton you would never have found it, tucked away in a dingy corner of a piss-stinking bus station, it wasn’t really conducive to eating a nice meal. Once you got past the location and the queue you were in for a real treat.

You sat in a little booth designed for four people, it wasn’t the Ritz but it was kept spotlessly clean. The waitresses were friendly and old enough to know how to do their job properly. Throughout my experiences in the Wooden Spoon I never once looked at the menu. I had Cod, chips and mushy peas with bread and butter and a pot of tea.

The Cod was fresh; it was creamy and melted in the mouth. The batter was light and crispy and not awash with grease. Both the fish and the chips were cooked in beef dripping, which in my opinion is the only way to cook them, consequently the chips were fat, golden brown and cooked to perfection. With proper mushy peas and fresh bread and butter, this is one of my all-time favourite meals.

They knocked it down when the new bus station was built, and the owners couldn’t afford the price of the new place that was offered to them. It closed for good and the batter recipe was lost forever.

We have spent years trying to find fish and chips as nice as the wooden spoon. So far we have failed, although we have found a few that come close, none have bettered it.

Crimes against the palate #1.

Dandelion and Burdock.

When I was a kid we used to have a “pop man”. This hairy geezer would drive around the estate like a fucking maniac delivering fizzy-pop to anyone who wanted it. Along with Dandelion and Burdock the pop man would deliver all kinds of foul and noxious substances designed to slake your thirst, but were so full of sugar they actually made you more thirsty.

For a start Dandelion and Burdock has never seen either a Dandelion or a fucking Burdock, and I seriously doubt any of the people the pop man delivered to would know a Burdock if it slapped them around the fucking face. It tasted like the smell of a belch, and had the colour of putrid dishwater. I’m sure it’s made from Starling vomit and the liquefied contents of a tramp’s shoe. This disgraceful substance is seen as the British version of coke; well for once the Americans have got it right. However vile Coke might be, it’s infinitely more tasty than the brown shite that purports to be a soft drink. It could be used as a chemical weapon, or even better – make it the staple diet of criminals, the re-offence rate will drop through the floor. I’m sure that scientists will eventually discover that it’s a cure for some strange tropical disease, but until then it should be banned, and the pop man should be hauled in front of the international criminal court.

Next in this award winning series – Butter beans, food or pale yellow pellets of filth ?

Knows not where he’s going to,

Tom Waits is touring the UK !

He hasn't been here since 1987, so if I don't see him this year he will probably have retired before he's due to come back. I can't find dates or venues, so if anyone hears anything let me know.