Pasta Joke...

It was my birthday recently and the Missus bought me a place at an evening course where you learn to cook fresh pasta, various sauces and a lasagne from scratch. The course was at a place called La Cucina Caldezi, which is a restaurant with a cookery school attached in London's Marylebone.

The course was fab and since attending I've made my own ravioli, my own tagliatelle and a lasagne from scratch. These may sound like minor triumphs but the results of doing something quite simple well are both very tasty and incredibly satisfying. I will never purchase shop-bought fresh pasta again because compared to the stuff you can cook yourself using flour and an egg it just doesn't compare.

I've always liked and enjoyed cooking but I've started adding more recipes to my basic repetoire since we got the kitchen done and last night I added freshly made cookies to my ever-growing list. Unfortunately I added a chocolate button onto the middle of each one I made and when they were cooked they resembled breasts.

On the plus side my breast cookies tasted very nice and my new love for baking may have a theme. I could try a cake that looks like an arse next...

Power Of The Press...

My journalistic career – as it is sometimes laughingly called – has reached a new low. And this is even lower than being forced to interview two former soap stars by one particularly pushy PR for interviews that were never going to appear anywhere. Ever. It was just to make the ex-soapies feel more wanted. And important. And I was the fall guy. A sort of fluffer for damaged egos.

Today I have been invited to attend a party at London lapdancing bar Spearmint Rhino.

But in order to get in and get free champagne I first have to stand outside and form an interested crowd with other professional liggers as various F-List celebrities enter the building. Then after they've entered I can go in, neck free booze and interview the said F-List celebrities.

It's the lowest point in a career that has had many lows. And to make matters worse I'm not even invited for my journalistic prowess. Part of my reason for being invited is to be part of a crowd. And I have to be an interested part of the crowd too. I probably won't be going...

The Missus also just phoned. She’s been invited to attend an event as well. Hers is a swish polo party with the stupidly rich and the properly famous. The difference in events sums up our marriage. I've traded up and she's traded down.

At times I recall I once thought about a career in teaching. I could have been a teacher doing something useful. It must be better than this...

The Washer: Part I...

It is Friday night and me and the Missus are heading out for a meal. I go to the loo then wash my hands (some politically correct nonsense about hygiene) and as I turn the tap off I feel something give and the tap starts to leak.

I share this news with the Missus and after the usual barage of 'You idiot', 'You're so heavy-handed', 'You always break things' and 'I told you to sort that out ages ago' we form a plan of action to phone the plumber the following morning.

Then I formulate another plan and borrow a line from Peep Show.
'I can fix it. It's probably only the washer. I mean, how hard can plumbing be? It's just Lego... with water.'

My wife's face drops and it is at least ten minutes before she smiles. And this is only after she punches me several times.

But I'm still going to fix it myself...

Tinseltown In The Rain...

If scientists ever harness the ability to turn intellectual concepts into physical products then they don't need to invent something new for the concept of 'awfulness'. Because while they'll probably have some malevolent green yuk for 'jealousy' and some harsh black granite for 'hatred' the only thing they need to produce to represent 'awfulness' is Andrea Corr singing the Blue Nile song Tinseltown In The Rain.

Now I'm sure Andrea Corr is lovely. I even liked The Corrs before they got famous. And I mean really famous. I still have fond memories of sitting in a Surbiton pub in 1997 or 1998 and first seeing the video for This Is The Right Time on VH1 and thinking 'That's jolly. I like that. I'll buy the album.' And I did. And it was jolly and sweet and beautifully sung and well produced and the instrumentation was very slick.

But Andrea now taking one of my favourite songs and doing a cover version of it has ruined that memory. It's like finding out the drama teacher you always loved and respected at school was not in fact giving you a concentration exercise when he put his hands down the front of your trousers during your 'special' lessons.

For those not in the know Tinseltown In The Rain is an Eighties electro piano and guitar ballad-cum-cry-of-pain for a lost love and for me it's evocative of a certain period and certain feelings. Everyone has such songs. But sung by Corr it now has all the visceral emotion removed and is sacharine in the extreme.

It's like she's taken on the role of Hamlet and forgotten about the tragic indecisiveness, the Oedipal relationship with the mother, the faltering desire for revenge on the stepfather and the passion for Ophelia and just gone 'Tell you what. I'll play it for laughs.'

But it's hard to hate a Corr. They're all so lovely and beautiful and talented and wholesome. It would be like taking a Bramley apple to a nightclub populated by Premiership footballers and letting them rape it one by disgusting one while the drunken punters formed a circle and clapped encouragement.

So I'll just express my disappointment via a sob. And go listen to the Blue Nile original. I will feel better then...

Bach In The Old Routine...

I've recently turned 42 and the Missus treated me to two tickets to go and see a performance of St John's Passion by Bach at Guildford Cathedral. As she'd payed for the tickets I thought it was politic to also take her so off we trolled to our first classical music concert.

And it wonderful. The setting was fab as the interior of Guildford Cathedral is much prettier than the somewhat pedestrian looking exterior and the acoustics were very good. And despite the fact the score was in German, and despite the fact we sat near two little brats who kept talking throughout the first half, and despite the fact neither of us are religious (I tried it and lost interest and the Missus is a long-time atheist), we both fancy having a dabble with some more live Bach and other stuff.

I think we'll probably look for something a bit more user-friendly next time: the Missus likes the Russians and ballet and I like the modern minimalists like Arvo Part, John Tavener, Steve Reich and John Adams. But the initial seed has now been planted and sitting in a big space with nothing to do but listen to music is a lovely way to spend a few hours.

Obviously, fucking is much better but at my time of life I need a breather every now and then.

The Apprentice: Episode 1 Spoiler...

The new series of The Apprentice kicks off with Lord Sugar warning the 16 new candidates not to treat him lightly or under-estimate his wily ways and bulging business brain.

'Don't fink you can play me,' warns the vertically challenged mogul, whose company is behind such hits as the E3 Email Superphone. 'I'm harder to play than a keyboard made of ice, a keyboard made of ice that has been situated in a very hot desert, a keyboard made of ice that has been situated in a very hot desert so that it has now melted into the sand and its watery parts are now sinking deep into the ground.'

In a surprise move Karren Brady is now joined by former Liverpool and Newcastle legend Peter Beardsley to shadow the contestants on their opening task, which is to utilise their own bodies to fashion a public convenience. The girls refuse the task point blank as they think it's degrading to allow members of the public to urinate all over them.

Chlamydia, the project leader for the ladies team on the opening task, also think it's an insult to business wimmin. Peter Beardsley agrees.

The men's team has no such problem. And no such scruples. Or any scruples.

Their team leader, former City trader Rory-Connery Spasticus, soon has all his troops lined up on the pavement with their heads at waist height ready to accept outpourings from the flaccid cocks of businessmen with bladders full from lunchtime drinking sessions.

Sadly the human urinals can't stop talking about themselves or their superb performances in previous jobs long enough to serve what should be their primary function.

Back in the boardroom, neither team has generated any income and an apoplectic Sugar spits several vital organs out on the boardroom table during a fierce tirade. Peter Beardsley is fired when Sugar mistakes him for the ugly progeny of banker types and inbred royaly.

I will not be watching episode two.