catfunt: the site they should have silenced

Corrado or Egidio

My father-in-law (aka "Pop") has started bearing a remarkable likeness to Corrado Soprano (aka Uncle Junior) but carrying a few extra pounds. I guess he doesn't have Uncle Junior's worries. One of the many things I like about The Sopranos is the names of all the characters, naturally Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero is my favourite.

Note: You'll notice from this picture that I am drinking Diet Coke. Friends will vouch that this isn't a frequent occurence but simply because I was driving soon after lunch.

The fruit bowl of Hackney

Here's another picture of our allotment. We were given the keys to it on 10 June and later that week planted tomato, cucumber, courgette and runner bean plants but weren't holding our much hope as it was quite late to start. Surprisingly the things featured in this carefully posed image were all grown from seed - spring onions, rocket and cos lettuce from organic seed endorsed by Alan Titchmarsh. The choice of plants from seed on our plot is totally dictated by what was on special in the Sommerfield in Blackpool and had been reduced to 8p and 9p where my sister bought them for us. Cheers Susy!

Note: In this image you don't see the rampant bindweed and another perennial weed I don't know the name of, the discarded rubbish including the sewing machine table and the huge electricity pylon that overshadows the plot and is perhaps responsible for the two-headed lettuces and spinach. On the upside it's very handy for the dog track.

God's gardener

Here's a picture of the sunflowers that my mum planted ("Just scatter them on the ground, that's what God does," she said) at our allotment. They all grew up in a clump so I had to spread them out a bit. I also supplemented them with a pot that I'd grown at home but I think it's all turned out very well. The poppies she also planted never appeared.

Note: It's not that I'm very tall - the sunflowers are very short dwarf varieties - which is why we're looking down on them in the picture. The reason my wife is small in the picture is that she's far away, she's not that small in real life.

The Carnival

How the Notting Hill Carnival has changed from the days we all remember and love from the 80s (and 70s for some of our older readers). It rained a lot, we stood under the Westway still getting wet, drinking Red Stripe, hearing Aswad (I think), getting pushed around by a bunch of young boys while they went through our pockets at high speed looking for money. I said "Get away from me, batty boy" and he pulled his hands out of my trouser pocket real quick. Anyway my wife says she's never been a fan except for the year she was at a friend's house in the middle of the Carnival so she could sit and watch from the balcony and pop out every now and then rather than "spending the whole day wandering around with a bunch of other scared white people". Now I think it's only white people who go there.

Sometimes Credited As Christopher Collins

My friend Chris is on IMDB. I don't know why this comes as such a revelation to me as he's been a film producer all the time I've known him (which is 15 years now). Anyway the latest film he's worked on has been getting great reviews. He's still too mean to pay 35 dollars to have his picture added to his listing though.

This week's special offers at Lidl

This is what I have my eye on. I bet my friend Steve will have his head turned by the 'Titanium Look' watches though.

Thierry Henry, Thierry Henry

We went to see Arsenal play Middlesbrough this afternoon. If the Arse didn't lose they'd equal Forest's record of 42 league games unbeaten. They played pretty badly overall with moments of brilliance which would explain how they managed to go from 3-1 down to 5-3 up and Thierry Henry is godlike.

I heard a few years ago through a friend of a friend who had played table football with Thierry Henry (or Le Baby-Foot as they call it in France) that Henry mutters the 'Thierry Henry, Thierry Henry' chant under his breath as he spins the rods attached to the little plastic football players. I like that.

Watching the V festival on telly...

The big thing about Jamie Cullum is that he is Elton John with hair and the face of a Big Brother contestant. In a blindfold (and a bottle of wine) test they sound just the same.

Satellite dishy

Lidl, everyone's favourite supermarket, is doing a satellite dish, STB, mounting bracket, satellite finder from Thursday. The box is pre-programed for Astra, Astra II, Eutelsat, Hotbird, Türksat, Hellasat, Sirius and Hispasat. The box is 49.99UKP and the dish is 14.99UKP.

Here's a handy FAQ on setting up your satellite to receive European TV.

Blogging is all over...

That's all folks! Blogging has reached that prescient moment whan your taxi driver is tipping you to buy tulips (and lots of them) just before the whole house of cards collapses in a pile ... of cards. Today I came across the blog of a project manager: "A Day in the Life of a Project Manager: A Business Performance Blog". The introductory blurb reads like the back of a Mills and Boon romance:
"Follow one Project Manager as he tackles the daily challenges of establishing a performance management practice critical to his company's success. Guided by years of experience and driven by a committment to making a difference, he is able to detail specific methods and provide helpful solutions that will enhance your project management efforts on-the-job."

You can also read the riveting tales of a CRM manager.

Kunt stite

I bought one of these in Lidl this evening which I will fly next time I'm at the seaside. I notice that on the website they're listed for 2.99UKP whereas in the Hackney branch they're retailing at 3.99UKP. I like to think the eastern european staff have teamed up with the locals to scam the German management.

My new drink

My new drink is VAT 19 Trinidad Rum with a dandelion & burdock mixer and lots of ice. It would be nice to have made it with the slightly classy Canadian d&b but I'm using a very large bottle of Tesco's own brand. Having worked my way through the Rum and Coke variants I actually prefer the Rum and d&b (as the afficionados call it). I think the sticky sweet d&b flavour compliments the rum whereas the Coke gets overpowered by it. Maybe I should buy a better rum (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) than Vat 19.

This week at Lidl

This week's special offers at Lidl are complete shit. I don't care that the newspapers are full of wank non-news stories and toss about the Edinburgh Festival just because it's the summer and no one can really be arsed to do any work, Lidl's meant to be for people who can't get away from it all and who look forward to the twice weekly specials. Lidl buyers, you should be ashamed.

Doggy style

We finally went dog racing at Walthamstow greyhound stadium. It's not as easy as it looks dog racing - they're fast and none of us even came close to beating any of the them ;-)

Seriously though folks, in the Stowaway Grill they do a 17UKP three-course dinner (drinks and bets extra) where you sit in banked seating and watch the dogs through a huge glass window. They have betting-maids who come round between races with wireless PDAs to encourage you to make irresponsible bets. You can also sit outside or shuffle around with a pint of lager in hand trackside which looks like the best fun. There are various free admission nights in the summer and the stadium is very beautiful so go along.

I won nothing, Nancy won big (19UKP) predicting the first three dogs in one particular race. The problem with ddogs for a form better like myself is that they're dogs. So you watch the dogs go in the traps and choose the one who's really crying like a bitch* - they don't like it in there so they'll be out like a shot being the logic. So your dog comes flying out wayahead of the field but then goes interminably wide on the first bend because they're going really really fast and all the other dogs come through on the inside. What they need are little 'monkey jockies' riding on their backs reining them in in these type of situations. It would also mean they could do longer races as the monkey jockey could hold them back until the final straight. At the moment if the dogs ran any further they'd have little doggie heart attacks as they run flat out from the start.

* Some of the dogs are actually bitches and some of them have bollocks.

Les Yeux Sans Visage: plot spoiler

Watched the excellent Les Yeux Sans Visage last night. Made in 1959 around the same time as Psycho and Peeping Tom it deals with a girl who lost her face in a car accident caused (supposedly) by her surgeon father's wreckless driving. It mixes twisted Sirk style drama (the surgeon father's attempts at full face transplants onto his daughter) with Silence of the Lambs (the kidnapping and removal of the girls' skin) with the voyeuristic sadism of Peeping Tom (it's all about looking and being seen). The reason we wanted to watch it is that it was on at the Tate as part of the Tuymans film season (I'm not sure why) but anyway we missed it there and our excellent video shop on Hackney's wankerish fashionable Broadway market has it. The man in the shop even said: 'Excellent choice' to which I replied 'I bet you say that to all the customers.' He said 'Oh no' and glanced over at a young couple who were perusing the new Hollywood releases section. Anyway, we are now customers for life and Yol has cancelled her Movie Mail subscription even though they just sent us 'Goodbye Lenin'.

Cartier-Bresson is dead

The Guardian has the obituary, the tribute and the news report and a load of other stuff dug out of the archive. I always found Cartier-Bresson's work whimsical and overly stylised which I know are fairly meaningless criticisms in today's photography where everyone's work looks like it's taken from the pages of a fashion magazine. I remember as a teenage photographer-wannabe that I read everything-photography I could get my hands on and he was seen as being the ultimate photographer. I preferred William Klein and Robert Frank. I've just come across the bizarre Robert Frank Colouring Book, line drawings of his photos that made up the book, The Americans.

I'm such a lazy fucker/sarah kent/ann and paul

I'm such a lazy fucker if for no other reason than trying to squeeze what should probably be three distinct entries on my neglected blog all into one. The pic is from last week's Time Out magazine and the reason it's here is that Sarah Kent likes Ann Course and Paul Clark's work at the Whitechapel Open and I like Ann Course and Paul Clark (it's at the end of the review if you're a slow reader, Steve). Part two of my 3-in-1 entry was to have been about the time Sarah Kent told me I couldn't write art reviews for her as she was only looking for female writers. I was too taken aback to come up with some witty reposte so there was a long silence on the phone. And now I've forgotten what part 3 was to have been. It's the early signs of my age...