Dear Zoo

Happy Birthday!

I've passed my half century, along with my First Ever Best Buddy Beth, Cerys Matthews of 6 Music, and the Open University. Balloons and cake to us all!

Like your typical eight year old fifty year old, I made the excellent decision to take a picnic to the zoo.  I say zoo, I mean the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster which is a friendly and excellent place.  It functions partly as a normal zoo and partly retirement home for animals no longer in the zoo breeding programme. It's one of my favourite places and somewhere all five of us enjoy.

Feeling pretty lazy, I bought a pack of fondant fancies to serve as a mini birthday cake. Feeling hungry, I made spanokopita to take with us on the picnic.

Leeds used to have a place called Salt's Deli, and their spanokopita was to die for. They vanished some years back and I really had a hankering for the lovely spinach and filo pie. As usual, I turned to Felicity Cloake of The Guardian for recipe advice. I roughly followed her recipe here.

I reduced the spinach from 1kg to 750g and would recommend increasing the feta to 350g. Chopping and massaging a tablespoon of salt through the fresh spinach did work, but I had to put it in a colander with heavy weights on to help remove the excess liquid.

It was a pretty easy recipe and I highly endorse it - it was delicious and kept me in lunches for several days. My VEM Kirsty had a taste and went home to cook it herself.

We had a brilliant time at the Wildlife Park. The baboons were busy with new babies, and freaking out about a male mallard that was somehow terribly threatening as he swan serenely around the pond. There were fights over a stick, brawls over getting too close to the babies, sibling jealousy, male posturing and female impatience with all this crap.  Pretty much like the rest of us. Except for the mallard phobia, obviously. That was just weird.

The painted dogs were remarkably laid back in the face of their neighbours' noisy chaos. I'd swear one of them was rolling her eyes, but anthropomorphising is too easy. 

One of my great delights is visiting the polar bears in their 10 acre playground. Polar bears are HUGE. Really, really huge. Not "gosh, that's big" type of beast, more "Holy Geez, look at the the size of him!" It's hard not to want to go in and give them a cuddle, even if they'd eat you - they are gorgeous and hey, a bear's got to eat. You don't get to be the world's largest land carnivore without a heck of an appetite. This is beautifully demonstrated by the sign on the staff entrance to the bear enclosure "Do You Know Where The Bears Are?"

Victor is my favourite. He's a behemoth of a bear - old, wonderful, father of 10,  grandfather of many. He had a lovely swim in his lake and spent a lot of time blowing bubbles because he can.  

I love the capybaras and the maras; if a rabbit and a deer had babies, they'd be maras. For my 40th birthday my Best Woman SJ bought me a hutch and two guinea pigs (Lola and Lotta because they were small and very funny) and it's hard not to see the capybaras as giant free-range guinea pigs, happily bimbling around and dozing in the sun. They *definitely* want a cuddle and a scratch on the back.

Guinea pigs on steroids

We were delighted to see the tiny baby anteater, Licky Minaj, having a cuddle with her mum then having a little wander in the outside world. She's ridiculously cute. Top work crowd-sourcing the name, YWP. No Anty McAntface for you.

Our big surprise of the day was discovering that armadillos go jogging. Watching them trot in opposite direction around their well-worn circuit had us transfixed for ages. Sure, the marmosets were cute, and it was exciting last time when they escaped, but jogging armadillos are adorable.

After our picnic, a visit to the tigers and giraffes, total failure to find the Amur leopards and a pause to admire the black rhino standing to attention, we met with Elvis the Emu. Elvis is under the misapprehension he's an ostrich. No one wants to hurt his feelings, so he lives in the African enclosure and hangs out with the female ostrich who's too polite to say anything. Maybe it's in the name.  We adopted a hen called Elvis from my good friend Lisa recently. She and her lads all refer to Elvis as "he" despite Elvis laying eggs daily.  Emu, ostrich, boy hen... Live your best lives, Elvis.

It was a lovely day spent with my best people. Dinner at Salvo's and home again to indulge in another birthday treat - watching the live-action Peter Pan from 2003, which remains one of my favourite film.

Over coming weeks I've a series of workshops, courses and performances to enjoy as I continue my bid to make this a year I look outwards rather than in. Textile printing, glass work, sewing garments, seeing ballets and shows... 50 has a lot to look forward to.

I'm handsome and I know it

A question of Darcy

Recently, a friend attributed my love of Pride and Prejudice to the appeal of a soaking wet Colin Firth emerging from a lake. Heaven knows in the 20 years since it aired it's remained one of the iconic heart throb moments and caused millions to swoon.

I. Think. Not.

I hate that scene. It's one of my most loathed scenes on telly. More than the time Gordon Ramsay tricked a vegetarian into eating pizza with bacon and boasted about it, more than any appearance by Jeremy Clarkson.  Even more than John Selwyn-Gummer shoving a burger into his little girl's face during the BSE crisis.  Allow me to explain.

I love Colin Firth. I think he's marvellous - very talented, extremely attractive and charming. I've seen Fever Pitch more times than I can remember and pretty much every film he's made since. Although singing in Mamma Mia wasn't one of his better moments...

In no way whatsoever is Colin Firth responsible for that dreadful scene. It's entirely the fault of Andrew Davies, the ferociously successful TV writer.  He wanted to sex up the dry and proper Mr Darcy for modern audiences so he had him partially disrobe and plunge into the water, emerging all tousled and hunky.

That's attractive and all, if it weren't for the fact that I know Fitzwilliam Darcy. I know him pretty well; I've spent countless hours with him.  I read P&P at least twice a year. What he looks like is pretty fluid and the nuances of his motivation I'm happy to let others play with, but at his heart I know him. I know his faults and his strength and I love him for them.

Mr Darcy is a very proper young man. He, like another of Jane Austen's heroes Mr Knightly, believes in honour, dignity, duty and being a gentleman. He is proper in the old-fashioned sense. Darcy is intensely private and reserved - rather shy really, retreating into stiffness when confronted with the unfamiliar.

His reversal in behaviour comes when Elizabeth forces him to recognise that his sense of self-worth has lead him to behave with arrogance, valuing his consequence above all else. It's awful realising you're in the wrong. He is hurt and but once his temper cools he realises the truth in her accusation. So when he sees her in the grounds of Pemberley he wants to prove her wrong, to be welcoming. Gracious even. "Look how wrong you were about me, I am a true gentleman" which progresses into "I realised you were right, so I've fixed it."

That meeting is both awkward and touching - both characters discomfited, neither quite knowing what to do, and aware of a change in themselves they can't yet let the other know of.  I love it. It's perfectly written just as it is.

Darcy wouldn't plunge himself into a lake on his way home unless her were actually aflame. Even then he'd be more likely to take the offending jacket off and throw it to the ground. He's not the impulsive, physical type. Andrew Davies wanted to make him more appealing to a modern viewer by showing a relaxed, unguarded man indulging in a relief from a stuffy day. In a different character I'd have liked it - hell, as a human, heterosexual woman I like it, but I absolutely loathe that he did that to Darcy. Davies rewrote him to sex it up a bit, and that re-write became the image of Mr Darcy in popular culture.  Andrew Davies deserves a slap with a kipper.

Incidentally, Matthew Macfadyen's Darcy works well for me - again, there's a modern slant as you see more vulnerability, but it's emotionally and psychologically consistent with the Darcy Jane Austen wrote. Nice work, Deborah Moggach (except for the ghastly scene added for American audiences that I've done my best to blot from memory.) It helps that Matthew Macfadyen is utterly lovely.

I know my fixation with some of my literary heroes can make me a cussed thing - I refuse to watch Life of Pi because the book in my head is so perfect. (This drives Luke crazy. ) I am happy with my images from the author's words and don't want them supplanted by someone else's vision.
I wouldn't watch To Kill A Mockingbird until I was in my 30s because Gregory Peck plainly isn't Atticus Finch. Gregory Peck is about as handsome, authoritative and charming as a man can be, and an absolute idol. Atticus is older, thin, with fading eyesight, thinning hair and a tendency to stoop, and he can't play ballgames like the other kids' dads. He isn't a fine figure of a man but he's a very fine man indeed.

Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe, Laura Ingalls, Scout and Atticus, Charlotte and Wilbur, Lizzie Bennett and Darcy, Elinor Dashwood, Dorothea Brooke, The Grand Sophy and so many others have been amongst my dearest and most cherished friends for years. I want to share them with the world, buy copies for my friends' children, revisit them regularly.

I don't need to shove them in a lake to see their appeal.

Too much to say

I'm sorry for the gap in posts. Sometimes I can't blog because I don't have the words or the positivity to tell you stuff. Other times, life seems too full to step back and write about.
This past few months has had so many things in it I wanted to tell you about that I hadn't time to compose my thoughts about one before the next occurred.

I'm fine, my family is fine and we've had a lovely summer. We've seen some examples of the best and worst impulses of people, been to wonderful places, read/baked/pickled/cooked/made/tried all sorts of things and spent time with family and friends.

I hope to be able to talk to you about it all over the next few weeks.

In the mean time, here's a photo of a cathedral in Bruges in the late evening sun and a giraffe from Ghent's graffiti street:

Ballet Weekend!

It's my favourite weekend of the year!

I abandoned my children and Mark with nary a backward glance and high-tailed it to London on Friday for the start of my glorious weekend away. I had everything ready for the perfect train journey as you can see -

Coffee, crochet (using my lovely new hook from Marion) and earphones so I could listen to my Radio 4 podcasts.  It was a nice way to relax.

After dropping my bags at the hotel I went straight to the TKTS booth at Leicester Square to see what was available. I was utterly delighted to get a ticket to Women On The Verge, starring the fabulous Tamsin Greig and one of the heroes of my teen years, Haydn Gwynne.  She played Alex in Drop the Dead Donkey, and was all the things I wished I were. So double YAY getting tickets for that.

My main goal for Friday was to find the perfect red leather handbag. Remember back in July when the house was broken into and my bag taken? I put the insurance money on one side so I could buy a suitable lovely replacement in London while the sales were on.

I don't know about you, but I find it hard to buy things like that online.  I'm a tactile soul; I need to feel things like cloth or leather before I can decide whether I want them.  Quite a few things that looked lovely when I saw them online weren't nice to the touch when I found them in the shop. And if I'm only going to have one handbag, it ought to be a decent one.

So, having done some research I had a list of shop names and addresses and a sensible route covering all of them so I could make my choice.  First up - Regent Street.

I had no luck along most of it - the Liberty sale was down to dregs and most places just didn't have anything I loved.  I got a nice 2 course lunch in a little French cafe and went in search of a shop called & Other Stories. It's the more stylish part of the H&M chain, apparently, and has several branches in Scandinavia and the Benelux, bur only one in the UK. They'd had some nice bags and ankle boots on their website, so seemed worth a look.

The boots were quite narrow fitting, so I didn't get the rather dashing pair I'd being eyeing up online. However, a petite satchel-type bag - originally £95, listed at £45 on the website - was down to £28 in the shop.  The leather was soft and supple, the shoulder strap a good length and I thought it would be great for when I don't need a massive bag full of stuff.  It's this one here. At 70% off, it would have been rude not to buy it, surely?

This first purchase made, I met my Very Excellent Mate Laura for a coffee.  Laura and I used to see the ballet together - especially when Bon was living in Saudi - and we've known each other more than 10 years.  However, her job, finishing her PhD and having a baby (now a toddler, the gorgeous Sylvie) meant we hadn't met up in about 3 years.  It was so lovely to spend time together. She's such a fab person.

When we parted I stepped up the bag hunt.  I detoured briefly to buy some clothes for Luke - damn those kids and their growing! - but otherwise blasted through the accessories section of every department store and boutique like a guided missile.  My penultimate stop was that home-from-home for the white middle class English woman, John Lewis.

Oh boy. They had MASSES of bags in the sale.  Masses.  And loads of them were red.  Red is the best colour for bags, by the way, because it goes with all the usual base colours - black, navy and brown.  It is also my favourite colour. The lad in John Lewis laughed as he saw me, complete in my red woollen coat, stacking 15 red handbags in front of the mirror to try them all on.  "I'm sensing a theme..."

I thought I'd found a PERFECT mix of everything I wanted, until I realised it was by Mulberry and was £849 in the sale.  Perhaps not.

Eventually I whittled it down to 2 - a leather crocodile print satchel by Osprey and a soft, less formal bag by Donna Karan.  The Osprey bag was utterly gorgeous but rather impractical - not very capacious, not shoulder strap (and I like the option of one) and quite formal.  The DKNY bag had fab curved pockets, super soft leather, a removable shoulder strap and was much more 'me.' But ohhh that crocodile print was pretty.

I went to House of Fraser to browse there and have a think.  I happened upon a pair of zebra print Vans for £16, and snaffled them immediately.  My scruffy, comfy shoes are nearly falling apart so I had an excuse to buy the Vans.

A cuppa and a coin toss later (always helpful when you want to find out which outcome you were hoping for) I knew it had to be the DKNY.  Formal and fancy is nice for weekends away, but this will be the bag on my arm most days for the next few years.

Isn't it nice?

I dropped off my shopping and went to the theatre, where Tamsin made me laugh and Haydn made me cry. I loved the production - bright, vibrant and thoroughly good fun. However, the theatre's Circle levels have very steep sloping ceilings, so the back 2 or 3 rows can't see the upper level of the stage.  Some action does take place there, leaving those of us at the back sliding down in our seats, cricking our necks in an attempt to see. On the off chance you are likely to go, I wouldn't sit further back than G, H at the most.  Luckily I was able to move forward into an empty seat after a bit.

Yes, I DID stay behind to get autographs and photos and no, I'm not going to show you.  I took them for the amusement of Bon and my Very Excellent Mate Alison, who was so amused by the Matthew Mcfadden picture last year.  Suffice to say they are hopeless pictures but I was delighted to meet such ace women. I have the heart of a groupie and I'm not ashamed of that.

On Saturday morning I opted out of the torrential rain and stayed inside with a book. Once Bon arrived we headed to the shops and cafes in a cold wind but thankfully no further precipitation.  I shopped a bit, I bought coffee beans to get me through the (mostly) dry January we're having for  (mostly) pecuniary reasons but the main activity of the day was talking. And talking. And some more.  I was hoarse when we paused to get ready for the ballet. (Although in fairness I was rather hoarse to start with - my throat is still ropey).

Matthew Bourne made us laugh and cry, again.  Was this the 4th time I'd seen Edward Scissorhands or the 5th? Not sure, but it was still magical. We had a marvellous time.

Incidentally, should you ever be in the vicinity of Sadler's Wells, I recommend The Gate vegetarian restaurant which is next to the traffic lights.  We've been for the last 3 years and found it delicious. As a pair of pescetarians, it's nice to have a whole menu to choose from. (The aubergine with the horseradish sauce is my favourite)

On Sunday we were up and out early to meet my ace sister in law Elif. We met at Trafalgar Square, where there was an impromptu memorial to the victims of the attacks in Paris.

A security guard said there would be a demonstration that evening, with the French flag projected against the building.

 Mark's brother Drew is a good natured but pretty vague soul.  He did have the sense to marry an ace woman, however. in addition, he works at the National Gallery, which is ideal for visiting culture-vulture sisters-in-law wanting to cadge free exhibition tickets. Drew had sorted us out with free passes to the Rembrandt exhibition, bless him. I don't think he's a fan himself - when Elif asked him what Rembrandt was like he apparently told her "paints brown pictures."

Daft sod.

I was blown away by the paintings we saw. The difference between the reproductions I'd seen in books and the real paintings was incredible - like the difference between a pressed flower and a fresh one.  They seemed to pop right out of the painting - a 3d trompe d-oeil. Elif's favourite was a tiny sketch of Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac, and Bon loved the technique of the Alexander the Great painting, but my favourite was the first self-portrait in the exhibition, from around 1650. He looked as if he was someone I'd know, and want to talk about things with. 

I think we were united in our lack of admiration for the Jewish Bride. The blurb talked about the loving and intimate caress. All I saw was a woman with a slightly pursed mouth trying to move her bloke's hand, saying "Will you take your hand of my tit, damn it? The portrait painter's here!" The portraits and the guild painting were more my taste.

After lunch at the gallery Elif went to work, Bon and I wandered around and browsed in the shops. I really value the time to chat; I wish we lived closer together. She headed off for her train, I seemed to have misplaced a good hour or so and Waterstones, and the weekend was winding down gently.

Before the train home I joined those gathered at Trafalgar Square to show solidarity with Paris and all those facing violent attacks. I'd never seen so many French people gathered anywhere outside France before. The memorial had grown in size during the day and, as I watched, ever more people came to place their pencils and pens in the circle of candles. The atmosphere was thoughtful and reflective. It was a moving experience.

I'll confess to feeling a little bothered by the focus on the events in Paris. They were undoubtedly dreadful and a real threat to a world I know and understand.  But in the same few days 2,000 bodies were found in Nigeria. As if Boko Haram felt they hadn't been vicious enough, they then did the single most twisted thing I've ever heard of: they strapped a bomb to a 10 year old girl, sent her into a busy market and detonated it from afar. 

They turned a child into a bomb.

I agree Nous Sommes Tous Charlie. But surely we are all Nigeria too.

When pedestrian is anything but

Friday was one of those remarkable days when exploring the city on foot pays dividends. I walked 6km around the city centre and an area of Leeds I don't know at all - Armley.

Armley for me meant two things - the Victorian gaol that glowers down at the big roundabout and Mike's Carpets, the former Methodist church that's been a cheap carpet shop for about 30 years.  I knew nothing more about it than that. No longer needing a cut price roll end of carpet for a bedsit, nor knowing anyone at the prison I'd had no reason to visit it.

As part of my radio homework for my mentor, I needed to get out to an area I didn't know or feel at home in, and find someone to interview on a more news-y story. I thought of a couple if possible things to investigate further and off I set.

First I had a couple of things to do in the city centre itself. It was a beautiful sunny day and walking about was a pleasure. I chatted to a few of the market traders I like - Joe and Liam, my two favourite fishmongers, Sue at the wonderful B&M Fabric stall - and got some of the market gossip. It's a hotbed of friendships and rivalries, and always interesting.

I met Liam when getting an interview about the affect of the market car park closure on local trade the other week and liked him immediately. He's so passionate and enthusiastic about what he does... pretty much my favourite things. He'd worked for a big fishmonger on the corner, struck out on his own with a weekly oyster bar, and planned for months his perfect fishmonger's stall.
It is a thing of beauty. Big mirrors at the side of his shop create the illusion it's much bigger than it is. Standing near the carefully arrange display you see beautiful fish and shellfish stretching out to infinity between the reflections. The tiles are a glossy black rectangles laid like bricks - it's very 1930s chic. The giant refrigerator units behind the stall are covered in chalkboard, with all the fish and shellfish listed. It's classy, it's attractive and it makes me want to sip champagne and eat oysters. I settled for some samphire to go with the evening's mackerel.

After a bit more pottering in town, I took the bus to Armley Town Street. I had it in mind to visit the Pay As You Feel Cafe on the corner of Chapel Street - even bag an interview if I could.

It's a fabulous idea - taking waste food from supermarkets, restaurants, and the Leeds Market and making meals from it. Slightly wrinkled peppers are still delicious when roasted, and being beyond a sell-by date doesn't stop an apple tasting great in a pie. The Cafe takes makes its dishes from the donated, discarded food and just asks people to donate whatever they feel like. It's a beautiful concept.

As it is run mostly by volunteers and on a shoe-string, it is closed some days its opening hours say it will be open. The nature of the enterprise, I guess, but very frustrating when I arrived to find a closed door and no information. I'd asked ahead of time on Facebook and Twitter whether they would be open as usual but got no reply until the following evening. Ah well.

I had also read of a study by Professor David Dunstan of Queen Mary University of London, saying the best way to get rid of snails was to remove them to wasteland about 20m away. With the RHS publishing a recent survey that 20% of gardeners admit to throwing snails over the fence to their neighbours' gardens, I thought I might be able to visit the Armley allotments and get some comments.

That didn't work out either.  No one was working on the allotments at the time, despite the glorious day.

Hmm, my bid to find some audio for Andrew wasn't going very well.

I went to the library/one stop shop to browse the notices and posters in the hope of finding something newsworthy. I got advice from a lady there for a good cafe to visit for lunch and headed that way. I really enjoyed my stroll along the main street - I hadn't realised what a huge Eastern European community lived in Armley. Many overheard conversations were in what I assume to be Polish, as they were between the shoppers and staff in the many Polish shops. It felt wonderfully multicultural. Browsing the food shelves was brilliant -I picked up some packet foods to try with the kids - chocolate drink, toffee pudding - and promised myself I'd bring my Very Excellent Mate Rach's 8 year old daughter Delilah for a poke around the shops. She's teaching herself Polish and is very keen.

The recommended cafe looked packed so I walked along to the lovely Nurture Cafe run for St George's Crypt.  The Crypt is a Leeds charity for the homeless and has been doing great work for many years. The cafe is part of that - it provides cheap and delicious food at a small profit - my sandwich was wonderful - and also feeds homeless people with a St George's Crypt voucher a free hot meal.

I love those vouchers and have bought them in the past. They are £5 for a book of 5. Each one entitles the bearer to a hot bath or shower at the Crypt and a hot meal in one of their 3 cafes. Rather than giving small change to someone asking in the street, you can give them the voucher and know they can get a proper dinner. I think it's such a smart way of helping people.

I had a quick chat with the women at the cafe about how it works, but they were too busy for a quick interview when it wouldn't be going on air to promote the Crypt's work. I don't blame them at all, but I couldn't spent 3 more hours in Armley just to pop back for a 2 minute chat. I'll save it for another day.

I did chat to a lovely bloke in one of the Polish shops about how the communities integrated, but he was too shy to speak into a microphone. He had very positive things to say, though.  This encouraged me as 2 octogenarian ladies I got talking to in the cafe had been vociferous in their anger and distrust of "foreigners taking over the place," and I had felt rather discouraged.

Still, I had no audio so I needed to get on with things.

Exploring some side streets I cam upon an unusual sight - what appeared to be a building site with a series of wedding marquees across half of the plot. I investigated further and met the very passionate Mr Khatana.  He was leader of the mosque that was now walls and rubble.  In order to have space for men and women to worship separately, they needed to expand. They were removing the roof and building a second storey on the existing building. However, this meant they had no mosque for 3 months.

Not a man to let such things get in his way, Mr Khatana ordered a several whopping great wedding marquees be erected to make a temporary mosque. It had interconnecting rooms, heaters, carpeted floors, a small study and a chandelier. The sides were drawn back on this hot sunny day, but could be laced up tight and were weather-proof for rainy days. A porta-cabin to the side housed toilets.  I loved it - such invention in the face of an obstacle, and such huge pride and enthusiasm from Mr Khatana for his mosque.  I had the grand tour, got my interview and was pressed very earnestly to come back and see the newly finished mosque later in the summer.

Woohoo! Audio! And a very pleasant experience as well.  I may not be happy with rules saying men and women must be segregated, but heck, what business is it of mine how the good folk of the mosque wish to worship? I love their spirit. Enthusiasm is one of my favourite things in people. I can't help but get swept along with their positivity. Mr Khatana had even pressed his phone number upon me so I could ring and find out when the new mosque was ready and have a tour then too.

Waiting for a bus back into town, I saw a bloke waiting in a car that had a UKIP poster on the window.  I asked if I could chat to him about the changes he's seen in Armley and how he felt about them.

Terry was a man with a lot of anger and frustration. He lived all his life in Armley, except for military service posted in Germany where he met and married his German wife. He learnt German, she learnt English. It was expected of her to adopt the culture of her new country.  Terry, as a white working class bloke, was in the majority, knew this place was his place.

Now, at age 63, he feels ousted from his home. He doesn't recognise the religion, traditions, language or food of many people who share Armley with him. Where many see the changing population of Leeds as bringing richness, depth and value to the city, Terry sees strangeness and feels alienation.

He said to me "I've become more of a racist." That shocked me, hearing him acknowledge and name it; I've only ever heard people say "I'm not racist but..."
He told me Friday was a no-go area where we were standing because of (Mr. Khatana's) mosque. That "them muslims" just abandon their cars all over the place when going to the mosque and that Terry "paid road tax."  I asked him if better parking facilities would sort out his concerns - not pointing out that the mosque attendees presumably paid their road tax too - and he said yes, parking would help but look at all the foreign shops and foreign people spending money there! It's bound to be benefit money they're spending. Look at this ghetto!

As the area was full of well-maintained terraced houses with tidy gardens, I did query what he meant exactly - it wasn't a graffiti covered dump, it looked nice here. He admitted that yes, it did look nice, but it was a ghetto in the sense that only muslims lived here now, and East Europeans had taken over the other bit.

"We've lost our voice. We use to have free speech but now all that's racist, or homophobic, or religion-phobic." He wanted the borders closed, and an agreement that people who came here did so with the intention of taking part in what he thought of as "our" culture, and spoke "our" language.

I've lived a sheltered little white, liberal life. I haven't had my home feel less mine, and I like people. I moved about a bit when I was young and I settled permanently in Leeds when I was 22. I feel the city is more mine each year, as I get to know it and its people better.
Terry had the opposite experience. He had a home, he felt it belonged to him and people like him. It altered over the years and he didn't alter with it. Now he's stuck in a mindset of distrust and resentment - wanting things to be as they were, finding petty reasons like parking or shop signs to hang his frustration on.  He can't get the home of his childhood back and he can't accept Armley as it  is now.

Views like Terry's disgust me when I see them in the paper, or hear them shouted by politicians aiming to stir up division for their own ambition. But I didn't dislike Terry. He was friendly and open towards me. I suspect if he were my neighbour he'd be the kind to loan me tools and put my bin out if I was away.

No, I'm saddened by the way our political discourse failed us so blokes like Terry can't find a way back. The two voices shout "close the borders" and "don't be a racist."  How does that help? We aren't going to - and shouldn't - close our borders. Heck, if we did, what about Terry's wife?  And yelling "Don't be racist," only vilifies people rather than engaging with them.
I think Terry'd be far happier if he really knew his new neighbours.  I expect if he actually met Mr Khatana in neutral circumstances they would get on - they both have a lot of pride in what they do and enjoy a good natter.

I'm glad I spent the day on foot in Armley. I learnt a lot more than I expected to.

A Snack For Europe

Ah,  the Eurovision Song Contest. Possibly the most confirmedly bonkers night in the TV schedules.  Masses of countries, many of which aren't even in Europe, competing to be chosen through arcane rules and cronyism as winners of a Song For Europe. Sometimes a pop song, sometimes an easy listening song, occasionally something truly demented. Scandinavian Death Metal band Lordi, I'm looking at you, lads.

When I first moved to the UK I was 16. I sat in the lounge of my Auntie Doh's house, utterly mystified by the relish with which she anticipated an over-long evening of crimes against music and taste. I was appalled. But sort of fascinated.

Within 4 years I loved it - sitting in Mark's student digs while housemate Dave wielded the Mop Of Shame. He was sitting in an armchair a mop's reach from the cheap second hand telly, mopping the screen whenever we wanted to banish a contestant. Many, many beers were consumed.

We never manage to pick winners, Mark and I. We tend to favour the madder-than-a-box-of-frogs entries, the crazy showboaters with a sense of fun.  France and Germany take turns being mentalists most years although Iceland does its share.

Anyway, because I had Very Important Work to do which demanded some truly momentous procrastination, I decided this year to make snack food from as many of the finalist countries as I could manage in 5 hours. You know, for fun.

I am clearly batty.  I know NOTHING about the cuisine of most of the finalists. Azerbaijiani and Armenian snacks are not amongst my repertoire. It was one of those "Google is my best friend" moments.

So here we go - our Snack For Europe menu:

First up, Ukraine. Their song was Tick Tock, which required a man flollop about in a giant hamster wheel for no discernible purpose. The item I cooked was Deruny: a grated potato and onion cake. I followed the recipe except I didn't peel the potatoes. I think a lot of the goodness is in the skin.

Next, Cheesecake from Belarus. Regrettably not the delicious dessert but instead a really awful song about wanting to be some girl's 'cheesecake.'  It included the line "I'm not Patrick Swayze and you're no Jennifer Grey." I think that much was obvious to us all, Mr Belarus.

Then Azerbaijian - Lass in a red dress accompanied by a woman on a trapeze. Or, in our house, a fresh cheese made from yogurt and dill. It's called Shuyudlu Suzme and I confess I reduced the raw garlic by two thirds. I quite liked it, especially spread on the potato cakes, but the others weren't sure.

One of my own highlights of the evening came next - Iceland. As I mentioned, they are often good fun (or off their heads mental. Which amounts to the same thing) and they didn't disappoint. This year they sent a bunch who had raided The Wiggles' wardrobes. In fairness, they sang better than The Wiggles; more akin to Imagination Movers, I think. Bright and daft and entirely fitting to children's TV. It was called No Prejudice and had the line "Perhaps you're thinner, Or someone who likes his dinner..."
I laughed and I nominate them for a guest appearance on Sesame Street.

Musically, quite a lull now. Norway fielded a bloke wearing Morten Harket's leather wrist straps from the mid 80s, but he was too husky for them and looked like they were cutting off the circulation to his hands while he sang a tedious dirge.
Romania sang something louder and with a faster tempo but all I can recall is a circular keyboard the male of the pair pretended (badly) to play (probably also badly).

Incidentally, it only hit me at 7:12pm that our friends were arriving from 7:30 and I hadn't got any bread for all these dips. A somewhat frantic recipe search brought me Armenia's entry: lavash, an unleavened flatbread cooked in the frying pan (because I don't have a tandoor). It was so quick and delicious I'll make it in future. Flour, salt and water can make wonderful things. Sadly, Armenia's song was utterly dire and so forgettable I could barely recall it even while their lounge lizard bloke was still singing it.

From this

To loads of this in under 15 minutes

Little Montenegro at least had the courage of its convictions and submitted a song in its native language. Bloke singing about something or other  - probably love or loss but it could have been about Torville and Dean - while a woman on roller blades dressed as an ice skater swooped around him. The floor lighting effects were cool - lighting up where she skated like Fantasia's Waltz of the Flowers - but the song was not.

 Poland decided to have some buxom woman in an undone peasant blouse "churning butter" and "washing clothes" into the camera while similarly clad women sang about shaking what their mama gave them,
 I'd say she was doing it suggestively, but that implies far more subtlety than the the 'here are my knockers, let this Pole rub your pole" soft porn approach she was taking. It was like a Benny Hill sketch from the 70s. Three of the six fellas watching it in my living room gave it top marks. The other 3 are related to me, so through being decent feminist types, prudes or just wisely knowing which side their bread is buttered, they roundly condemned it. Good lads. Miss B liked their skirts bought thought they should do their tops up.
I rather regretted buying Polish crisps and pretzels. because, y'know, ewww.

Greece was the family favourite, hummus. Ah, hummus. We can never make enough of it. Then, because it goes so nicely with hummus, I made baba ganoush. 

I know, I know,  I was going off piste a little but it's my party and I'll dip if I want to.

Incidentally, Greece's song was a boy band with a trampolinist behind them. No one is sure why.

Then came Austria - bearded drag queen singing a Bond theme was their musical entry; no food from me as it's either meat based or a complicated dessert. No time to spare for Sachertorte and the like, it's a procrastination too far. 

Germany - big cheer form the sofa as Z is studying German and is off there in October while his pal Tom got them in the sweepstake. Blonde lass with a quiff, accordion. I rather liked it, but I was a minority. Again, bad wine and too many sausage based foodstuffs so I skipped over them. Germany seems no place for a wine-drinking pescatarian.

Sweden - tipped as the favourite, this was a lovely ginger and cardamom cake from my Nordic Bakery book.  I mean, it was a dull ballad thing in true Eurovision tradition. A millions of ABBA fans cried out in anguish and were suddenly silenced. Or it could have been terror.

I just likened Euroviosion to the Death Star, didn't I. Hmm, does that make Terry Wogan Grand Moff Tarkin? Is Graham Norton a camp Vader leprechaun? Disturbing images...

Back to the food. 

Some chèvre flew the flag for France, except I forgot to put it out on the table so I had a lovely goat's cheese omelette for lunch the next day. Win!

In retaliation, a pack of lunatic Frenchmen capered about singing of their earnest desire to grow a moustache. Full points for insanity, null points for musicality.

Russia - pfft. Can't be bothered investigating recipes from Russia. Not in the current political climate.  They sent a poor pair conjoined twins - the first case recorded of twins being joined at the ponytail. Very odd. 

Italy - yay! Salad! I did a quick caprese salad of mozzarella, baby plum tomatoes and home grown basil with olive oil. It was a nice accompaniment to all the dips and flatbreads. 

I enjoyed the Italian entry's commitment to white leather, metal embellishments and over the top 80s styling. Just demented.

No dishes for the next lot - Slovenia (jazz-flute woman); Finland (indie pop boy band, I rather liked it. I was slightly embarrassed by this fact); Spain (Good lord, someone we actually knew! Ruth from the only series of X Factor we ever watched. Still rubbish); Switzerland (he whistles! he has a bloke on banjo! His lyrics are a bit sex-pest!); Hungary (cripes. Song about being a victim of child sex abuse. That was unexpected.)

Malta was a challenge. All the recipes I found on assorted Maltese or ex-pat websites were recipes I associate with different countries. I realise this is true of many countries - food doesn't respect political borders - but I had still hoped to find at least one thing I didn't already associate with somewhere else, even if I didn't actually cook it.

In the end I made "Black Olive Pate" which was really tapenade. Looks sludgy because it's made from black and grey and green things whizzed together, but as an olive-loving soul I enjoyed it very much.

Denmark flew the flag with a 2 minute blue cheese spread - just Danish Blue let down with some soured cream until more spreadable. In retrospect I'd have made it thinner still and dipped veg or crisps in it.  Truly AWFUL song called Cliche Love Song. It wanted to be Axis of Awesome's How to Write a Love Song but wasn't.

Then things got better. THE NETHERLANDS! Yay! An actually tuneful country song performed by  a competent duo without howling, whistling nor grandstanding.  It came as a relief after the previous noise. 

The Netherlands won our Eurovision Food Competition too, as the new dish of the night with top marks from Mark and Russell. It was Bruine Bonen Salade (brown bean salad). The beans were tossed in a dressing of minced red onion, mustard, red wine vinegar, oil, parsley and tarragon. I took down the tarragon amount by half and would have reduced it still further for my own taste as I don't like aniseed, so I bumped up the flat parsley.  I love flat parsley.

The kids, obviously, voted "crisps" as the winner. I'm ignoring them.

The final two songs were something forgettable from San Marino - a place I couldn't even start to find on a map - and the UK's entry with the cringingly awful title Children Of The Universe. It was like watching a less energetic Shakira.  I'd decided that should we require food from Britain we could open the pack of custard creams. The kids were too busy eating crisps to care.

All in all, it was a great night. Mates, chatting, bad music to disparage, funny things to applaud, masses of new things to try.
The final score, the one that would count the most the next morning, was this:

Number of garlic cloves used to prepare the food: 9

I apologise to anyone who came into contact with us on Sunday.

Shout. Shout. Let it all out...

Hello webby mates!

Today I have rage. Big, futile, amorphous anger. I feel like this -

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... only more so and with sound effects.
I love the world, it's a thrilling exciting place with many amazing people and places worth knowing. But sometimes the sheer assholery of the place makes me want to go about hitting it things with sticks.* Or grab the world by the face and squish its cheeks, yelling "You forgot the first rule of living: Don't be a dick."

*Props to Google's doodle for today, its 15th birthday, for having a pinata mini game so I can whack stuff with a virtual stick and not get into trouble

First there were the news stories about Asda, Tesco, Amazon etc selling 'mental patient' Hallowe'en costumes. Way to reinforce old and vile stereotypes that people with mental health problems are dangerous psychotic nutters, guys. Thanks.. Those of us stuck in the daily struggle with depression and other debilitating  mental health problems were hoping attitudes had changed enough that such images just wouldn't cut it any more. Apparently not.
I didn't even get mad about that one. I just felt resigned.

Then there were a few demented climate change deniers wheeled out to disagree with the IPCC report that paints a grim and scary future for us. Seriously, dudes. The scientific community is pretty much united. It's happening, we caused it, let's (wo)man up and start working together to fix it.

But something that really got under my skin was such a silly, commonplace thing that I can't believe how mad I got. And I got really, really mad.

Last night I watched the last episode of Music that Made the Movies on BBC4. I watch a LOT of film. I love films. But I kept thinking "I've not seen that one yet" about most of the movies Neil Brand chose to discuss. And I'd not seen them for the same reason - they felt rather blokey to me and didn't appeal at all. So I started thinking about it; where were the women in this series? Where were non-white musicians?  There was a photo of woman - Bebe Barron -  who made electronic music for Forbidden Planet as part of a partnership, but that was it. The interviewees were all men. As were the directors of the films chosen.

Then I thought about the previous episode. We had clips of Shirley Bassey and Adele singing Bond songs illustrating the use of popular songs in films. There was a short piece with the woman who secures song rights for Quentin Tarrantino, but in a "we couldn't get Quentin so he's the woman who gets the music Quentin picks." The other interviewees were Martin Scorsese, Lalo Schifrin, Richard Sherman, David Arnold, and discussion of Ennio Morricone and John Barry. Each in possession of a Y chromosome.

And the first episode - the golden age of Hollywood. Yep. Lots more white blokes. Talented, without a doubt, but still... no women? anywhere?

I'm not going to get in to a fruitless "why didn't he feature X or Y" rant. However, in case you think there are no women who made music that would fit in this series of films, I offer you the pioneering Delia Derbyshire for his Electronic episode (he'd used examples from TV in a previous episode so it's not like that was the problem) and (Oscar winning) Anne Dudley for the pop music episode. (For non-white composers, this article from 2007 has plenty to say.)

The fact that there are SO few women in film composing is a reason to feature those that we have. They are the role models, the trail blazers.

Why did I get so damned mad? It's just a TV show. Not one that is going to be seen by many, realistically, because it's on the lovely and under-appreciated BBC4. And lighten up, woman, jeez.

I got so damned mad because this is what TV is like. And film. And comedy shows. And news panels. And video games. Not only do we accept this, we don't even notice. One woman out of 5 performers is pretty common on shows like QI, but all-male-participants episodes are also a common sight. All-female comedy or news panels are as common as hens' teeth. An astonishing number films fail the Bechdel test, for heaven's sake, and that was set up as a joke about how few women are in films.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE blokes. My dad and brother are blokes. My partner is, and 2 of my children will grow up to be. But for only 48% of the population, men do hog most of the room, don't you think?

So, I have rage.
Rage that plenty of people in product development and selection of national brands think it's fine for mental health to be equated with murderous psychopath.
Rage that those with vested interests still rail against then compelling evidence that our climate is being damaged by our actions.
And rage that our culture says women don't seem to exist at all.