Blog of the day

Cooking with Google. Never be stuck for a recipe again, type a couple of ingredients in and this thingy will search google for recipes. It's pretty good.

The Bluetitch 5;
1/ What is your favourite time of year?
I love Autumn but it represents death and decay really, so cannot be my favourite time. The image of crisp, bright autumnal days, full of colour, rarely happens anyway. The reality is wind rain and endless sogginess. I actually like the onset of winter. I love it when the nights draw in and the nights get chilly, allowing all sorts of cosiness; then there is Christmas and all the lead up to that with the excitement of the kids to look forward too. By February though I am ready to open a vein. Summer is just a pain apart from the couple of weeks you have off to actually relax, rather than become irrititated because it's too chuffin hot. Spring, definitely is my favourite time. Pre spring even, when the first snowdrops appear. Everything, all of a sudden, seems bright, and the world is filled with cheeriness and hope.
2/ What is your favourite meal?
Gawd knows, there are too many to choose from. Since my nipper has started playing football on Sunday morning and I have to stand out in all weathers like a dutiful dad, Mrs Buddha has availed herself of a map and located the kitchen. I have to say coming home, wet and cold and smelling Sunday dinner, not only cooked, but cooked well, by my chuffin Mrs, is unbeatable. There is always the dogs bollocks of apple pies to finish too, plus she makes a load of jelly for the nippers and chocolate cake. She is a marvel. So, Sunday dinner it is. I will have changed my mind in a minute. Fresh anchovies on oil soaked bread in some Spanish caff is a bit special too, if everything else is right.
3/ What is your favourite colour?
Well, it's got be blue, hasn't it.
4/ What is your favourite concert/gig that you have ever been to?
I can't bloody remember half of them. Most of the ones that stand out are small scale things by bands no has ever heard of. The first (of many) times that I saw Martin Stephenson, at the anglers club in Edgbaston, he just about blew my chuffin socks off. Clive Gregson and Christine Collister at the Junction in Harborne were special. The first time I saw the Specials in some student bar I thought finally, I was part of the world again. The sheer virtuosity and brillaince of Ry Cooder at the Odeon in about 1975 sticks in the mind, as do a couple of City Boy gigs at Barbarellas. Joe Jackson at Barbarellas, the night after Cheap Trick, was awesome, no one had heard of him and it was another night, thats all, but within 2 songs everyone had moved from the bar and just stood there, jaws agape. A brilliant 3 piece, I cannot believe they were ever as good again. Rezillos at Barbarellas were good as well. There must be thousands of others. The best though, the one that stands out above all the others, is Richard Hickox conducting a then unknown Bryn Terfel in Brittens War Requiem. I was supposed to be there with some woman but we had enacted our own little war in the afternoon so was on my own, feeling a bit tender and raw. I was within about 15 feet of the podium and to watch the interaction between Hickox and Terfel was something else.
5/ What is your favourite holiday destination
In general the Catalan coast, in particular, Llafranch.