The last time I was in Glasgow was 1992. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to make a return visit, but this weekend I popped back for a couple of days. It’s a great city and reminds me a little of Dublin. My weekend consisted mainly of art and movies, a delightful combination at any time. This weekend I enjoyed: meringues at The Willow Tea Room; paintings by the Glasgow Boys and discovering one of my favourite painters, Sir John Lavery is a Glasgow Boy; sensory overload at Kelvingrove; veggie haggis for lunch; Submarine and Paddy Considine in leather and a mullet; beautifully shot but dull Japanese film named after a Beatles song; more emperor’s new clothes in GoMA; bedroom pods with walls that change colour; breakdancers on Buchanan street; an animated lizard in a Hawaiian shirt and cowboy hat; seafood pasta at The Mussel Inn; the Glasgow Film Theatre; gin and tonics; DVD buying in Fopp.
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Thursday 17 March 2011
Paddy's Day Blarney
As a nation, the Irish are renowned for their blarney. Ireland has a rich cultural heritage of the written word, going back centuries: From the Book of Kells, to stories from Irish mythology: Brian Boru and the High Kings, stories of the Children of Lir, Cu Chullian and Finn MacCumhain; Samuel Becket, James Joyce and Patrick Pearse; modern writers like Colm Toibin, Joseph O’Connor or poets like Patrick Kavanagh or Thomas Kinsella; and the chick-lit heavyweights of today like Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes.
In celebration of St Patrick’s Day, I’ve been scanning my shelves for books that celebrate Ireland’s rich cultural heritage, from the ridiculous to the sublime. First up, ‘The book of feckin’ Irish Slang that’s great craic for cute hoors and bowsies’ is an education in the finer points of Dublin street slang. Here’s a selection:
Make a hames of / I will in me hole / Having a hooley / Howaya / How’s the craic? / Janey Mack / Jaysus, Mary and Joseph / It’s banjaxed / Yer wan / Wagon / Shenanigans / Ride / Jaysus I was scarlet! / Have a puss on / Nixer / Culchie / Langered / Bollixed / Gobshite / What guff / Go and shite! / Giz a gander / Fierce bad head / Go wan yer good thing / fooster / feck / deadly / I’m only coddin’ yer / that’s brutal / Acting the maggot / Ask me arse.
At the other extreme, the more sublime use of the written word is Irish poetry, two of its finest exponents being W B Yeats and Seamus Heaney. Here are two poems, the first by Yeats, probably one of his most famous.
'He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven' by W B Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with gold and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths,
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
'Digging' by Seamus Heaney
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it
from Death of a Naturalist (1966)
Thursday 10 March 2011
Childhood Nostalgia
On Tuesday I rang in sick from work and spent most of the day in bed. Being ill when you’re an adult is nowhere near as much fun as when you’re a child. My abiding memory of being ill as a child is a bottle of Lucozade with the crinkly, orange wrapper and a damp, slightly grey flannel being applied to my feverish brow. An image that could have come straight out of an episode of Life On Mars. The modern adult equivalent of the Lucozade bottle, for me anyway, is the duvet, a pile of magazines and my iPhone.
In between struggling with a throbbing head and a compulsion to vomit, I spent the day snoozing, reading magazine articles and wallowing in nostalgia. One article, describing people’s food memories of home-made chutney and hand-written cookbooks, reminded me of my own childhood food memories, my Grandma’s cooking in particular. Like her mince and Yorkshire puddings, such legendary puddings that rose to perfection and stood towering in proud peaks, something I’ve never been able to replicate. Or the dried peas steeping overnight, ready to be made into mushy peas. The fish and chips we’d have every Friday without fail from the chip shop that is now a Chinese takeaway. Or the bacon sandwiches, such incredible bacon sandwiches. I can still taste them now, which is ironic considering I'm now vegetarian. The bacon sizzling under a hot grill and the sandwiches dripping with butter, that she kept in a dish by the fire. And the cherished monthly visits from the insurance man when the ‘best cups’ would come out with the Mellow Birds coffee and the Abbey Crunch biscuits, laid out on a plate. Or her freshly baked scones, hot and fluffy from the oven, oozing with melted butter.
By comparison, my mother has always been a somewhat reluctant cook. Despite her fascination for programmes on the Good Food channel - The Barefoot Contessa being a particular favourite – my mother is a functional rather than an inspired cook. My childhood memories are of baked cheese pudding on a Saturday night in front of the telly, waiting for The Generation Game to start. Or the shop-bought battenburg cake that I wasn’t that keen on, preferring to peel away at the marzipan coating to get at the pink and yellow sponge squares underneath. Frozen, re-constituted, re-heated, freeze-dried, processed food that defined everybody’s memories of food for anyone who grew up in the seventies. Findus Crispy Pancakes, Arctic Roll, Angel Delight, Dream Topping, Heinz Sandwich Spread, tinned chopped ham and pork with pickle or salad cream on white bread, Smash with baked beans and sausages, Heinz vegetable or oxtail soup. That's what I ate as a child. I tried Angel Delight a while ago, to see if it was how I remembered. It tasted just like 1976.
Usually, the first thing I look at in the magazines I buy is the recipe section. On this occasion, I flicked through the recipe pages looking, without much enthusiasm, at the recipes for ‘lazy lunches’ and ‘simple suppers’. Forgive me if I sound too much like ‘a Northerner’ but I’ve always been a little bemused by the use of the word ‘supper’. When I was a child, supper meant cream crackers and a piece of cheese or a couple of Digestives on a plate before you went to bed. Not a bunch of rocket on a crab salad with a mango salsa dressing. Let’s keep it simple, people. It’s breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. You know where you are then…
In between struggling with a throbbing head and a compulsion to vomit, I spent the day snoozing, reading magazine articles and wallowing in nostalgia. One article, describing people’s food memories of home-made chutney and hand-written cookbooks, reminded me of my own childhood food memories, my Grandma’s cooking in particular. Like her mince and Yorkshire puddings, such legendary puddings that rose to perfection and stood towering in proud peaks, something I’ve never been able to replicate. Or the dried peas steeping overnight, ready to be made into mushy peas. The fish and chips we’d have every Friday without fail from the chip shop that is now a Chinese takeaway. Or the bacon sandwiches, such incredible bacon sandwiches. I can still taste them now, which is ironic considering I'm now vegetarian. The bacon sizzling under a hot grill and the sandwiches dripping with butter, that she kept in a dish by the fire. And the cherished monthly visits from the insurance man when the ‘best cups’ would come out with the Mellow Birds coffee and the Abbey Crunch biscuits, laid out on a plate. Or her freshly baked scones, hot and fluffy from the oven, oozing with melted butter.
By comparison, my mother has always been a somewhat reluctant cook. Despite her fascination for programmes on the Good Food channel - The Barefoot Contessa being a particular favourite – my mother is a functional rather than an inspired cook. My childhood memories are of baked cheese pudding on a Saturday night in front of the telly, waiting for The Generation Game to start. Or the shop-bought battenburg cake that I wasn’t that keen on, preferring to peel away at the marzipan coating to get at the pink and yellow sponge squares underneath. Frozen, re-constituted, re-heated, freeze-dried, processed food that defined everybody’s memories of food for anyone who grew up in the seventies. Findus Crispy Pancakes, Arctic Roll, Angel Delight, Dream Topping, Heinz Sandwich Spread, tinned chopped ham and pork with pickle or salad cream on white bread, Smash with baked beans and sausages, Heinz vegetable or oxtail soup. That's what I ate as a child. I tried Angel Delight a while ago, to see if it was how I remembered. It tasted just like 1976.
Usually, the first thing I look at in the magazines I buy is the recipe section. On this occasion, I flicked through the recipe pages looking, without much enthusiasm, at the recipes for ‘lazy lunches’ and ‘simple suppers’. Forgive me if I sound too much like ‘a Northerner’ but I’ve always been a little bemused by the use of the word ‘supper’. When I was a child, supper meant cream crackers and a piece of cheese or a couple of Digestives on a plate before you went to bed. Not a bunch of rocket on a crab salad with a mango salsa dressing. Let’s keep it simple, people. It’s breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. You know where you are then…
Thursday 3 March 2011
Bhaji Trousers
This week I’ve been working in Edinburgh. The team Christmas dinner finally took place, delayed from December due to the bad weather. We also exchanged our Secret Santa gifts. My Secret Santa bought me slasher DVD’s: Switchblade Romance, The Baader-Meinhof Complex and Audition. My Secret Santa is also my DVD-pusher – we’re both film nuts and our conversation frequently veers off the subject of budgets and strategy documents into films and TV. I blame him for my addiction to Mad Men and Dexter.
The Secret Santa and I went for a curry while we were in Edinburgh. Curiously, the next day I was reading Craig Potter’s Twitter page, when I saw he’d been tweeting #currysongs, which gave me quite a chuckle. Girlfriend In A Korma anyone? Or how about Tikka To Ride? Poppadum Preach, Korma Police, Bhaji Trousers, Raita Here Raita Now, Brothers In Naans, It’s Bhuna Hard Day’s Night, Tears On My Pilau. I love it!
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