Eats, laughs and reads...

Sorry for the long radio silence - I've had a nasty cold/ cough thing that's taken about ten days to shift. So, what's the news?

Twitter gets me food!

While I was sick, I was on Twitter a fair bit. I saw a local independent cafe (BearPit Social) tweeting about their juices and joked about them delivering as I was sick in bed. A bit of banter later and they actually send someone over on a bike with a delicious green juice and a vegan salad. I didn't have enough cash for both but they bought them anyway and said I could pay them back. Awesome customer service!  

 The Bear Pit is a massively ill-conceived underpass area surrounded by traffic. It has been the type of place colonised by homeless people where you wouldn't walk after dark, but efforts are being made to bring it back to life. Good on the Bearpit Social Cafe - I wish them well!








New Author - Brandon Sanderson

Also while I was sick, I finished the first book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy 'The Final Empire'. I'm now about 3/4 of the way through the second book called 'The Well of Acension'. The Mistborn trilogy is in the high fantasy genre where quite a few novels are derivative drivel but these ones are pretty good.

They have a nice original premise, they're well written with some interesting (if not quite fully rounded) characters. I think Patrick Rothfuss and Lois McMaster Bujold are much better than Brandon Sanderson. George RR Martin comes second, but Sanderson comes in a respectable third along with authors like Robin Hobb.











Comedy gold

The Bristol Comedy Garden came around again and we had tickets to see Ardal O'Hanlon, Nina Conti and Stewart Francis with MC Craig Campbell. Ardal is best known for his role as Dougal in the brilliant BBC comedy show 'Father Ted' (if you haven't seen it, get hold of a box set and prepare for hours of fun!). His stand up is pretty similar to the endearing, bumbling character he played. Flawlessly confident and skilled, great timing and charm for days. Lovely stuff.

 
Craig Campbell was also a highlight - he's a Candian living in Devon. Very high energy, a bit crude and shouty but obviously good humoured. He was really funny and his rant about how we should value the NHS had the whole tent of several hundred people howling their approval.

Easy food for parties 

We had a really fun blind wine tasting do at a friend's house last night. We tried six carefully chosen wines and guessed at the variety, country, vintage etc. I'm proud that I got three of the varieties right.

Anyway, I got back from work about six and was due there at seven, so what to take for food? My easy-peasy canapes, that's what.

1. Slice a baguette (or French bread) into rounds. Lay on a baking tray and put in the oven for a few minutes. Watch them closely so they get toasted and just golden brown but not too dry.

2. Slather a generous helping of something gooey on them i.e. cream cheese, hummus, chutney, pesto etc.

3. Heap a generous helping of something toothsome on top i.e. salmon on the cream cheese, roasted pepper on the hummus, rare roast beef on the chutney, brie on the pesto.

3. Season and garnish - a little sprinkle of something on top makes all the difference - chives, parsley, a tiny lemon wedge, cracked pepper.

4. Devour! (preferably with little plates or at least nakins as they can be a bit crumby)

These are fine to prepare while early guests are arriving as you can easily give them something to do. I took the toasted bread and the rest of the ingredients with me and assembled at the venue because it was easier than trying to transport the finished product.

So, that's my news. Did you miss me? What have you been up to?

A brilliant South-West day out

We have a small flat so my lovely husband didn't want *stuff* for his birthday. I scouted around the internet for an experience to give him as a birthday present and settled on a Hawk Walk with West of England Falconry. Spoiler alert: it was amazing!

We lucked out with the most gorgeous warm spring day (after a week of grey, drizzly cold weather). We managed to navigate our way out to the the falconry centre located in a ridiculously beautiful Somerset village.

Jay (who runs the place) was friendly, relaxed and obviously knowledgeable.

We admired some of the various birds in their aviaries then got kitted out in falconry gloves and vests with bits of meat in one pocket. There were plastic gloves for the squeamish, but having brought up on a farm, I was comfortable picking up the meat with a bare hand.

We followed Jay and Mogwai the Harris Hawk on a short walk up a pretty woodland track to a field where we took turns to hold out food and have Mogwai swoop in from a tree to our glove.

As you can see, he is such a beautiful bird and such a gentleman (gentlebird?) that I never felt worried about having a bird of prey inches from my face. I even got to stroke his breast feathers. We probably over an hour in the field, enjoying the sunshine, admiring the beautiful rural views, chatting about local history and interacting with Mogwai as he got his lunch and some exercise.

Once back at the falconry centre, we were invited in to met Arthur, the young burrowing owl. Isn't he just the cutest thing?! Evidently he snuggles up on the couch with Jay when he's watching TV. I kind of really want a baby burrowing owl...

We left our car parked in the village and had a short scenic walk up the Bristol-Bath cycle path to an excellent local pub for a well-earned lunch.

It was a brilliant day out and best of all, it was much more reasonably priced than many other falconry experiences (which are also usually in groups).

So, if you're in the area, I recommend you book well ahead and experience an incredible day out!

How to put on a show - updated

Recently I saw Franz Ferdinand in the O2 Academy in Bristol - it was a lesson in how to put on a show. In the last  year or so I've seen Suede, Keane and Depeche Mode (twice) live, but Franz Ferdinand had them all beat hollow for sheer showmanship. So what do you have to do to put on a great show?

1. Look like you're enjoying yourself
Alex Kapranos (lead singer and guitarist) grinned through quite a lot of the gig. In his banter, he picked out some keen audience members and even dedicated a song to a guy who was dancing wildly. The bassist scarcely moved or cracked a smile, but even so the band really seemed to be loving being on stage together and getting to play their music. They put masses of energy into the show in spite of it being a reasonably small venue in a reasonably small city. They didn't look jaded like bands can do when they've been touring too much.

2. Communicate (intelligibly) with the audience
The support act to Franz Ferdinand had a lead singer who mumbled a few awkward comments (including not saying their band name clearly - which is really important to do if you're an unknown band!). Alex was clear and confident, saying just enough to build rapport while keeping the energy of the music going.

3. Re-mix and jam your music
Suede and Keane both played brilliantly live, but every song was exactly the same as their records; same tempo, same structure, not even an extra repeated chorus. Franz Ferdinand and Depeche Mode both mixed up their music to give us something live that we couldn't have just listening to a record at home. The highlight of Franz Ferdinand was a long drum solo with all four band members to end a storming rendition of Outsiders.

4. Think about the visuals
Franz Ferdinand are well known for dressing up. For their Bristol gig they worn matching custom-made black, white and grey outfits. They looked amazing jumping about in front of the mainly monochrome images projected onto the set and screen behind them.


5. Turn an interested bystander into super-fan
Before this gig I was kind of fond of Franz Ferdinand. I had one of their old albums and had listened to their new album a few times but wasn't in love with it.

Somehow, seeing the band perform a whole range of their songs has turned me from feeling vaguely interested into someone who's been playing their music daily and raving about how cool it is. Magic.

In case you're interested, here is the set list with links to most of the videos.

Update: so this happened...