Life's A Beach

Mon 30th Nov 09, 3.30am

Had a great birthday - nice presents, a drive in the sunshine, lovely meal at my favourite restaurant, then back home to watch Hull City earn a useful away point to Manchestah "Bags-a-moneh" Citeh.  Unfortunately older doesn't equal wiser and the huge slice of Wor Lass' excellent chocolate cake I scoffed before bed means I'm wide awake at 3am with a wicked sugar rush.  Arse.

Anyways, had to post this great picture -- lifted from the Amber Nectar website -- of Jimmy Bullard's goal celebration mocking last season's on-pitch half time team talk.  Bet that makes it onto Soccer AM next weekend!  Nice way to mock the media's obsession with it and its "significance in Hull's slide in the latter half of last season".   It's great to be able to watch my team from way over here in Nu Zilland, but the terribly biased commentaries provided by British Sky Television are really getting on my nerves, constantly painting us as failures and quoting statistics - the irritating Brummie they had on the Everton match nearly made me reach for the mute button.

Good news that Phil Brown's stock has risen sharply after gazing over the edge of unemployment, though they need to grab points quickly before the nightmare fixtures ahead in December and January ....

Bestcelebration

Sat 28th Nov 09, 3.20pm

Just seen the first pics of the cast for the new A-Team remake, which I'm both excited and trepidacious about.  

Sharlto Copley from District 9 is a great choice for Murdock, and Liam Neeson as Hannibal is very good, but I'm not sure you can top Mr T (suckas).  Dirk Benedict was one of my first heroes -- I still can't bring myself to watch the new Battlestar Galactica with a female Starbuck -- and unless they're careful to get someone to play the role with tongue firmly in cheek then Faceman could turn into a lecherous creep.

Should be in cinemas Summer of 2010.

All-new-A-Team

Fri 27th Nov 09, 7pm

1.  New Zealand tops Denmark as World's Least Corrupt Country

New Zealand has topped a poll rating 180 countries on corruption, scoring an impressive 9.4 out of 10 to knock Denmark off the top spot.  Story here.  (Britain came in 17th by the way)

2.   Few Drivers Do the Right Thing

An AA survey has found that over 90% of kiwi drivers don't leave their details after hitting a parked car.  The survey found that nearly three quarters of kiwis had returned to find their car damaged, yet of the 3,800 drivers surveyed less than 10% of offenders had left a note.

Sun 21st Nov 09, 7pm

With apologies to those of you in touch with their virals, I just had to post these old clips just for Dad.

Sun 21st Nov 09, 6.30pm

I recently had another opportunity to do a spot of culinary testing :-

  Deep fat fryer requiring an oil change?  Check.
  Bowlful of leftover beer batter?   Check.
  Assortment of items from the fridge?   Check.

The Boy (Genius) and I tried our hands at some test battering with mixed results :-

1.   Frozen Moro Bar

Basically the same thing as a Mars Bar.  We had frozen it to keep it firm while cooking, dipped it in batter then dropped it in the fryer for 3 minutes until golden brown.

Result:  The bar was still intact, but half melted so was gooey.  However the crispy batter preserved integrity.  It tasted rather greasy and very sweet -- in fact it made my teeth itch -- but was still a promising start.  8/10.

2.   Ball of Mozzarella

Squeezed a handful of grated mozzarella into a ball, then dipped it in batter and fried it for 2 minutes.

Result:   Delicious!  The cheese had melted and went well with the batter.  9/10.   Tasted even better dipped in tomato sauce.  Not much of an experiment though, as I've eaten deep fried cheese in Italian restaurants before.   Also felt we should have started with savoury and moved on to sweet.

3.   Mushroom

Dipped a raw mushroom into batter then fried for 2 minutes.

Result:  Bleugh!  Was still partly raw inside and had soaked up the taste of the oil.  Should probably have cooked the mushroom in garlic butter beforehand to give it some flavour.   2/10.

4.    Block of Cheddar

Sliced a piece of cheddar off the block, dipped it in batter then fried for 1.5 minutes (oil was getting hot by this time).

Result:  Hadn't been in long enough so the inside of the cheese was still solid, however the melted edges tasted nice with the batter.  Would have worked well if the oil hadn't been so hot.   4/10.

5.   Afghan Biscuit

For those unfamiliar with this antipodean treat it's a chocolate biscuit containing oats, like a hob-nob on steroids.  This particular biscuit was a chocolate-coated Mad Butcher special, which disturbingly lists "beef fat" high in the ingredients list.   Dipped in batter then fried for 1.5 minutes.

Result:   (See below).  Best result of the night - satisfyingly gooey and sticky, the taste of chocolate working well with the batter.  10/10. 

6.   Iceberg Lettuce

The Boy was getting a bit creative now, and rolled up a leaf of lettuce, battered it and dropped it in the fryer.

Result:   I wouldn't go near it, but The Boy had a go.  He reported that it tasted like a spring roll, and not half as bad as it looked.  4/10.

At this point we started feeling a little sick, so left the banana and tin of spam for another day.  

The next day we reported our findings to our boss, Graeme "McScrooge" Shellard.  He suggested we try battering pizza, meat pies and ice cream.  You have to respect the Scots, they really know their way round a deep fat fryer ....

Battered_afghan

Sun 21st Nov 09, 5.45pm

Warning:  Not Suitable For Vegetarians

The barbeque is mandatory in any Kiwi garden.  But what to do when you've mastered the steak and kebab?

I recently saw a BBQ utensil that I couldn't resist testing - a BBQ chicken roaster.  What you do is open a tin of beer (or other canned beverage) then sit an uncooked chicken on top of it in a most unsettingly way, leaving it on the barbie for an hour or so - under a hood of course. 

Apart from feeling like head cook at Abu Graib as I forced the poor chicken onto the roaster, it cooked the "chook" well and tasted much nicer than the pre-cooked chickens from the supermarket, though you couldn't taste the beer.

Chicken_roaster

Sat 21st Nov 09, 6.30pm

... of the Redneck kind.  Explains why so many rednecks report being abducted by aliens!  As seen on Neatorama.

Sat 21st Nov 09, 6.30pm

A classic example of Kiwi ingenuity/madness.  Man needs hedge cutting back, but hedge trimmer doesn't arrive as planned.  What to do?  Why, dangle your ride-on mower from a crane to do it!  Obvious really ...

Kiwi-as-bro

Mon 16th Nov 09, 9.50pm

Sun 15th Nov 09, 10pm

I have been mostly :-

• paying the price for gloating about the nice weather - back to cold winds and rain.
• visiting Dr WhoGivesAShit who told me my back pains were just a muscle strain.  Thanks for that, forking out $40 to be told I'm a Wuss.  I already know that, thanks!
• spending Saturday helping a friend move house - shifting beds, TV, sofa, fridge, etc, up a couple of flights of stairs. At least I've already got some painkillers thanks to Dr WhoGivesAShit.
• working through The Vinter's Luck (did I mention I've met the author?).  Falls into the middle category - not great, not awful, so sticking with it.
• watching the end of Sopranos Series 2 - excellent stuff, loving it.  RIP Jackie Aprille and Big Pussy.  And Christopher's the spit of my buddy Apples.
  
• making really good beer-battered fish with chips.  Very professional, I must say!

Bonfire night over, Dad's and my birthdays up soon then it's Christmas before you know it.  AAARGH!   They're already advertising fecking hampers for next year over here!