February 2008 Archives

Kirsty was recently approached by a company called Donald Russell. They claimed that if she didn't find their steaks to be the best she'd ever tasted then they would offer a full refund. Flash frozen meat, apparently.

It was a bit of a dubious proposition. The steak was excellent quality and brilliant for frozen beef. Did it reach the standards of the cote be boeuf we'd eaten at the 2006 Wine and Food Festival in Alsace (Foire aux Vins)? Er, no. Not in the slightest. Money back, please.

In a mind-boggling role reversal, the wee hours of Saturday morning (00.00-10.40) saw me lining up for a pair of day tickets to see Chiwetel Ejifor and Ewan McGregor in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse. All night queuing in -2 degrees of Celsius does give a deep insight into the (frozen) underbelly of London society.

Had there been access to a microphone, my motivational speech to the crowd would have been something like:

Friends: we may not have the lives hinted at in the latest aspirational junk TV. Friends: we may never win the Nobel Prize For Literature, but, and it is a big but. We can [pause] and we will exercise our right to line up for hours, freezing our arses to oblivion in order to obtain the very good theatre tickets that are our birthright!

Our time has come, brothers and sisters. [pause, voice starts to quiver with emotion] I believe!

There is definitely no way that the flash frozen flesh of Donald Russell was the best steak we'd ever eaten. Nevertheless, I did somehow feel guilty about our plan to return it. Too much of a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe? Could this be the subconscious motivation for slow freezing myself on the early hours of Saturday morning?

There are some things that we're better off not knowing.

The Turkey Police

K and I babysat for Cait and Mackay on Saturday night. Both Nora (4) and James (nearly 2) were in great form. James revelled, watching "Boo-ger" (C-Beebies' 'In the night garden') while Nora quickly finished her dinner. This was in an attempt to avoid the Turkey Police, about whose existence she had only just learned that evening.

Goldfrapp

We got tickets to see Goldfrapp. Hurragh! Their new single is one of the most interesting songs I've heard for ages. If you haven't bumped into it yet then have a listen. The video is quite beautiful too.

Is it my imagination or have the Pentagon already decided on the guilt of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al before their trial. Judging from the press conference then this may be the case: the Venn diagram of justice and revenge being a curious thing, don’t you know.

Few would disagree that 9/11 was a horrific act of mass murder. My worry is that we are all being wound up into a ‘frenzy of fear’ ('axis of evil' is soo 2002). Turning a blind eye to questionable legal issues is becoming an expression of patriotism within the alliance. Taking confessions collected during water-boarding as reliable evidence seems highly questionable.

Does anyone remember the classic interview programme ‘Face to face’? In it, the interviewer was rarely seen. The screen was filled with a big close-up of the person being interrogated and the whole thing resembled more of a psychiatric assessment than a talkshow.

If water-boarding is such a valid method of interrogation then why hasn’t it been used in an entertainment format? There are any number of reality TV ‘celebrities’ that I would suddenly find interesting if interviewed in this way. The fact that they would admit to doing anything from shoplifting to, say, involvement with the Gunpowder Plot could only add to the fun.

This talkshow idea seems like a go-er. Now...what for a name? 'Celeberration', perhaps? And for the inquisitors? Such a job calls for experience in key areas like foreign policy. Political naivety, no matter how well intentioned, cannot result in beneficial outcomes for the viewing public.

Friends, the solution is clear.