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The Future's Bright The Future's...

A combined public municipal building housing the local council offices, the public library, the registry office and god knows what else, probably a swimming pool and a health spa sponsored by Preparation-H.

My sister in-law recently went down to her local library with her daughter to find that it had been closed down, seemingly without any fore-warning. My sister in-law stated that this must be because ‘only my children and I are ever here.’ This closure of libraries is happening up and down the whole nation and why the media has been all wrapped up in the phone-hacking scandal the future of the library has been discussed behind open but ignored doors. So what could the future be?

One idea put forward by the local government association and the MLA (the museums, libraries and archives council) is that the libraries could shared there space with the council offices, police stations, NHS surgeries, local museums, health spars and sports centres. All based in one large, possibly purpose built, super hub. The centre of community, all things to all people, and no doubt in their minds, the minds of the LGA and the MLA, it would be somewhere that would be full of light and life, clean, well kept and well funded. I would just like to ask where is all the money going to come from to fund these ‘Super centres’? To look and any of Leeds’s council offices or police stations it is easy to see that there is no room in the existing buildings in the centre, even the library is running out of space. So where, pray tell, would these centres be? There is of course another problem with this idea. Exactly how local will these ‘Local’ centres be? My sister in-law for instance lives a good twenty minute drive outside of the city centre, is she really going to frequent this super hub. Thats twenty minutes in clear traffic by the way, a rare thing. SO how local is local? If this idea can save the large city centre libraries what is the hope for the smaller local libraries?

Another idea for these smaller libraries is it trying to get them to remain open through some sort of corporate sponsorship, either by local, national or international businesses. No, it is the wonderful mobile library. The small collection of books that travel just for you to find that they have no books of use or turn up a different times on different days every week. Is this really the answer? Or is it now that the true idea of society, not the big society of the Conservative party but the local community, to step forward?I have a fairly large collection of books and it is people like myself who may just save the idea of the local library. If the libraries are closing what is happening to their stock? Who will inherit those well loved and thumbed books that have a smell that takes me back to my childhood? Well if there is some kind hearted individual with space and an inclination could they not take on the role as the village or small town librarian. Is the future of the small town/village library a small town philanthropist? Is the future a house full of books using library thing as a reference system? (www.librarything.com) Is this what the small public library will look like?

Is this its new front door?

(All be it on its side.)

And I am not saying this should be done for free, surely if the libraries are closing a payment of say £20,000 a year would not be to much to pay someone to keep this facility available? Maybe it could be arranged by appointment as well, like booking a table at a restaurant, well no ones house is that big and the person must be allowed to take time to go to get shopping etc... I am not saying that this idea is perfect but you know what, it might just work.

THAT IS ALL.

And now, as is now the tradition. Todays recipe.

Broad Bean Balls.

Shell about a kilo of broad beans, blanch for about thirty seconds in boiling water and then take off the skins. In a food processor (its the easiest way) blend a good handful of coriander, two chilies (more if you want them hot, less if you want them mild) salt and pepper and the broad beans. add a little flour until the mix if fairly stiff, add some roughly chopped spring onions (about two for some crunch). make the mix into small balls and deep fry for about a minute or until the outside is dark brown then place on some kitchen towel to drain off any excess oil and serve hot with mint yogurt dip, or treat them just like falafel's.

Enjoy, I am off to watch the Sweeney, The Sweeney, ba ba ba ba ba ba baaaaaa
you slag!

Throw Them Out

Last night, after a delightful meal at the local Japanese restaurant and the winning of a pub quiz, I came home switched on the TV and was confronted with the despicable, derisible and disgusting face of Piers Morgan on the American celebrity apprentice. This show, on the BBC at the moment runs the same format a the British celebrity apprentice. The shame that this individual brings upon the nation is massive, how can this man still be allowed to represent Britain on the international stage? In the episode last night (01/08/2011) he started a spying war with the opposite team, after this all went tits up members on both teams and even Donald Trump used the term ‘British’ as an insult but when Morgan used the term ‘Very fat Italian’ towards a member of his team there were shouts that this was a racial slur. Surely if one is a racial slur then the other is as well but no one jumps to the defense of the use of the term ‘British’ and as it is used towards Piers Morgan in a way I can’t blame them but how did the term British become an acceptable insult? It probably because of people just like Morgan and the other celebrity representatives like him. Can’t we take away his and the others citizenship? There is also some speculation that Morgan will be dragged into the current newspaper hacking scandal from his time at the Daily Mirror and surely this can’t be to bad a thing, thats if it does happen, as then we can have a reason to pass him onto another nation. Wanker!

In other news the USA is seeming to come to some sort of agreement about its current debt crisis, although what that agreement will be nobody seems to be to sure. In the UK and in todays press there are call for Britain not to fall into the same kind of clutches as the USA and its most wonderful Tea Party. The Tea Party is calling for ‘no taxation’, this is based in a country with some of the lowest taxes in the world, with no true social welfare system and a large gap between rich and poor. This from a country that used to have to the motto, out of many, one. A country that allows the rich to get richer while having no requirement to look after the little people of their own nation. So the motto of the original Boston Tea Party ‘No Taxation without Representation’ seems to be turned on its head, taxation without representation, thats if you are poor of course. In America the idea of philanthropy is one way in which the rich and super-rich can make meaningful donations towards the state and towards charity.Often at public galas, which can’t but help there public image.

In the UK there is the idea of the BIG SOCIETY, an idea brought about by the governments and David Cameron's blue sky thinker Steve Hilton. A man much lambasted in Charlie Brookers Guardian column on monday (01/08/2011) Is this an attempt to push the American style of public Philanthropy on a small scale? Who really has that much spare time, especially in a year which sees thousands of charities receiving funding cuts from the government and thats not even mentioning the cuts in the arts sector and the cuts in education and the increasing of tuition fees. So how can I, a student, in almost full time employment, home owner and aspiring something or other really give anytime or money to anything. Those with spare time mostly have money and as the rich pay tax, apart from Phillip Green who avoided a massive tax bill by moving his assets into his wife's name (and others like him) why should they become involved as they already put large sums of money into the economy through the aforementioned taxation? One possible answer is to start to hunt down the unpaid and avoided tax bills of the rich, avoidance of tax, even through legitimate loop holes surely is a failing of the state and the systems which nurture them in there younger years. A tax bill of £300 billion or thereabouts and thats not even including the fines. £300 Billion, thats a lot of income into the economy which could be invested in schools, industry and anything else which needs a bit of a fix. Well we shall see what happens in the USA, maybe by the time I publish this it might be well on its way to being decided and as for us in the UK well we will just have to wait and see.

THAT IS ALL.

And now for TODAYS RECIPE.

Lets see, mmmmmmmm, I’m going to go for Baked smoked Haddock.
First prepare a mix of eggs (3) a little dash of cream, a dash of milk salt and pepper, whisk until a smooth well mixed liquid. Boil a few new potatoes until just about cooked, chop and add to a ceramic dish, say about 10 centimetres across and about 5 cm deep. add a few chopped spring onions and some flaked smoked haddock, top up the dish with the egg mixture and sprinkle with paprika and black pepper. Place in the oven at about 180c for roughly 20 mins or until the bake has a quiche like quality. Serve with salad and a nice glass of dry white, maybe a sauvignon blanc, but make it a good one and eat outside in the sun.

See you Later.

They Don't call them hacks for nothing.

As someone who has considered a future in journalism (although my spelling and grammar will need a lot of work) it comes a no surprise to me that the hacking scandal is now spreading to other papers apart from the News of the World. This has now been going on, for what seems like, time immemorial. Will it ever end? How did anyone not think that the NOWT (i understand that this is acceptable) were using underhand tactics is beyond me, it is, sorry was, full of trash, stories that no one would really like to admit to and most of it definitely would not come under the heading of news. It has long been a fact that tabloids as well as the broadsheets would pay rewards for stories, probably bribes for leads and have had a close relationship with the fuzz (or police if you will), all to help with circulation numbers. Toady a man won a settlement to be paid compensation by eight newspapers because of the reports that he was a murderer, a line feed to the papers by the Bristol police, and the number of papers is also expected to increase. This seems to be just another sign of irresponsible reporting by some of the national papers.

At the head of the hacking scandal is what i consider to be the lowest of the low papers (apart from the Sunday sport (a newspaper?)). Although I know people who read it I must always ask myself why. This dirt is now spreading to papers such as the Daily Mirror with the most hated figure of Piers Morgan rearing his head. Could this be a witch hunt for some of the most hated men in the mass media? Well if it is i can’t blame them. So why did the NOWT and, supposedly, other papers use such underhand tactics and why O why did the NOWT hack the phones of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy? The answer dear friend is readership. These kind of stories sell the paper, these stories are what you want to read. Aren’t they? Well I can only really answer for myself, in which case the answer is no. I really don’t care about many of these stories that came from the hacking scandal, the only story I care about is the hacking scandal, exposed wonderfully by some pure investigative journalism by the guardian. The stories that came from phone hacking are much the same as the stories that were covered by the recent ‘super injunction’ fiasco. Stories about who is sleeping with who and so on and so forth, then again I suppose this is exactly the kind of place that the gutter press should be in.

So what is the answer? Greater regulation? An independent board much like OFCOM? I don’t think so. These kind of solutions in many ways will challenge the freedom of the press, self regulation then seems to be the way forward, self regulation with an enforced greater transparency. Tell us at least how information was gathered, trawling through bins, interviews, paid informants, whatever, just tell us and tell us that it is legal even if it is a bit underhand.

And now it has been announced that the police, and soon I guess the FBI, are launching a new investigation into the computer hacking that has allegedly been taking place and all to bring us the ground breaking stories of who is sleeping with who. With that kind of in-depth investigative Journalism I am surprised GRAZIA hasn't been frayed into this whole episode.

Just one more thing, it has been announced today (friday the 29/07/2011) that as of next year the BBC will no longer be the main holder of the F1 rights in the UK and that sky will now be showing every race live and the BBC will only have every other race. This I think is a real shame and a little of a strange decision on the part of the F1 rights holder. Why would you change a sport that relies on viewer numbers for the sponsorship etc to a pay channel and whats worse one that has adverts, I mean adverts in the middle of a race how stupid. I hope that this decision gets over turned by FOTA as it seems to me that this is in breech of the concord agreement between the F1 teams and the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone. Wankers!!!!!

THAT IS ALL.

and now, you lucky sods, TODAYS RECIPE.

Hot Spicy Asian Broth.

Create a stock base with chicken bones, half an onion, two mushrooms, salt and pepper a stalk of celery and a hand full of kaffir lime leaves. Bring to the boil and simmer for roughly twenty minutes then add dried chilli flakes, a really large pinch, and simmer for a further five minutes. Pass through muslin and keep the stock. Fry onion and garlic with 3 fresh chilli's, when the onions are caramelised add enough stock for a bowl of soup, and reheat, strain the stock and discard the onion etc and add cooked noodles to the stock ( in a bowl) add some sliced spring onion and a few drops of sesame oil to garnish. To make a mightier soup you could add some nice shredded lemon chicken.

The ???? are coming

First things first i must state that my heart goes out to all in Norway. A tragedy perpetrated by one man with loss to the whole nation and now this one man states he has ties with the British right wing. That this lone crusader has ties with others within Europe seems a real worry but what exactly are these defenders of British and indeed European culture defending? Lets focus on Britain as that is what i know best.

I have always thought that in many ways Britain was much like Japan, a strong cultural identity, a sense of self, they have the samurai we have the red coat, they have an emperor, we have a queen. Both are small island state that exist on the edge of a continent but are in many way separate. Unlike the japanese though Britain and the British have lost there sense of self, our singular culture and it is this that the far right wing are trying to protect. Or are they and have we really lost our sense of self or are we just not willing, in all ways, to open our eyes to what British culture really is?

In Germany Merkel once stated that multi-culturalism wasn't working well maybe thats true but how about plain old simple culturalism? And what exactly is this cultural that these naive, thuggish 'protectors of the west' are claiming to protect?We the people of Britain, English, Scot, welsh and Irish we are all the same aren't we? We all where kilts with bowler hats and eat lava bread don't we? No of course we don't so even at the simplest level we are already a multi-cultural society and does anyone pretend that getting to that was simple. Britain was once as diverse in culture and language as the the whole continent. Once. Now we are more or less unified or are we?

Unlike japan Britain has no single unified ethnic group, we have Saxon, Norman, Pict, Scandinavian, Roman and lord knows what else all blended in a big sperm mixer, but what of the new Britain, the one we inherited from the victorians, what kind of sperm in that mixer?

Britain was once the largest muslim empire the world has ever seen, that is the largest number of muslims under one flag and that flag was the union jack. So surely that religion is part of our culture and should be celebrated. We once shared our empire with hindu, buddhist, muslim, taoist, coptic christian, catholic, pagan, black, white, african, indian, chinese and all kinds of race, religion and creed. This is our culture, in this country we should consider ourselves people of the world. All these religions, cultures have influenced our land. Curry is as british as fish and chips and that fish is probably influenced by jewish food stuffs. What could be better than if we just worked a little harder at accepting what Britain is rather than what a few right wing idiots tell us it should be. What they tell us is stupid and what makes these 'lone wolfs' act is even more stupid. A fear of people? A fear of difference?

After all difference is what makes a country whole, working to overcome the differences and celebrating those differences make all of us stronger.

So whatever those lone idiots might claim the are defending the only thing they are really proving is their own stupidity, their own closed mindlessness and this doesn't only go for groups like the BNP and the EDL but also the groups from the other corners of Britain's diverse culture, accept what we are and what we have, sure the world isn't perfect but why don't we attempt to make this glorious Albion as close to perfect as we can.

THAT IS ALL.

The geisha photo is with kind permission of itsumo japan. a great blog about japan and its culture, which i like. find it at itsumojapan.blogspot.com

And now for TODAYS RECIPE.

Slow Cooked Lamb

preheat the oven to about 180ish in a large deep roasting dish place a good sized lamb leg, 3 onions peeled and quarter, 5 carrots roughly chopped, 3 sicks of celery roughly chopped, 5 large potatoes quartered, two lamb stock cubes (or a pint of home made lamb stock if you have it) and two bottles of a nice white wine, dry is best. place in the oven for at least two hours if not two and a half, a nice long cook. serve at the table, the lamb should fall off of the bone and the veg should be soft, provide plenty of fresh bread to dip in the sauce. Enjoy.

Once again of you like this post or any of the others please like on Facebook and repost on your wall, thats on facebook or twitter (using the buttons below) this will help me increase my readership.

Look out for my podcast coming soon.

Six men in a bus.

06:57 02/07/2011.

Possibly my last will and testament.

So the adventure starts, 15 minutes late but starts all the same. A mini bus full of testosterone and aftershave heading to the border. When I first thought about doing the three peaks, Ben Nevis, snowdon and scarfell pike, I thought it would be a laugh. Now I am not so sure. (my god someone is wearing JOOP!) well I am all set, got my adventure boots (booty boos) my adventure hat, my adventure trousers, adventure shirt and last but not least my adventure tie. Can't climb a mountain without a tie I'm sure that's some kind of law. Let's see how long people last before the talk turns to porn shall we.

08:43

well we just stopped for breakfast at one little shitty motorway service thing, overpriced coffee and all that jazz. Brought my own so don't have to eat that crap. Attempted to sleep for a bit in the van but just ended up listening to slackbladder goes forth. The conversation did turn to porn in the services, something about Kate Middleton having a cumcup butt, think I can see how that works. Second shift.

13:23

well just got back on the road after a pub lunch of fish and chips on the shore of loch lomand, with the added extra of two pint of the finest. We picked up the last member of our gang so now the fellowship is complete. There is far to much sports talk on this trip and we have to get to the bottom of Nevis by the time the boxing starts even if it means starting another walk in the dark and on the night of a new moon as well. So far sleep has been far from easy and I think it will continue to be. My brothers feet are a wee bit stinky already and he's only been driving. They will all have the pleasure of my smell joys tonight and me with no door eaters, tut tut.

15:16

we have reached 'The Ben' and now it is time to start to get ready for the charge up the mountain. Now I start to thing why the fuck do we do this to ourselves, why does man( that's the male men) feel the need to prove themselves? Guess we are back to the whole penis thing that I mentioned not so long ago. The thing is that I count myself amongst these people and I am looking forward to it. Why am I? Guess it's because I need to see what my braking point is and to see if I can go past it. Next year, at the moment, I intend to either walk but more than likely ride to Marrakech and this could be counted as my tester, could it?

21:08

we started at 15:55 and got back down about twenty thirty minutes ago. Two and a half hours to the top, two hours twenty back down, mainly my fault I must say. My knee is now strapped up and I have had a few painkillers. Was this a good idea? Should I be a captain Oates and go outside for some time so I don't slow the others down? Or should I try and get some kip on this five hour drive, take some more painkillers, use some deep heat and grit my teeth and get on with it? Well my family motto is 'Why the hell not' so I guess that answers that, doesn't it? By the way I have been told that the most attractive women on the mountain was either wearing a pink top or was a blonde, who knows.
23:20

been made to listen to the boxing.

02:29 03/07/2011

just arriving a scarfell pike, my god the road is rather ropy, sheep asleep in the middle of the road and blind corners and what's even worse a dodgy driver. Let's see if we get to the base shall we?

02:55

well we are about to set off, knee not to bad but this climb is pretty much straight up and then straight down.

07:49

just call me two peaks bob, for I am a broken man. The challenge is over for me. My knee isI so painful I could hardly walk down but still. Made a fairly good time, well the boys are still on track to complete the challenge and I guess I could go to the pub. This road is awful so will write later and give a full overview of this silly idea.

i think i should end it there, much more dramatic, might make you think i had fallen off of a cliff.

well this is a little late but better late than never. this whole enterprise was fun no matter what the pain and i plan to try again next year and to do the yorkshire three peaks in september.

no recipe today as this is not a rant but an insight into an experience, i did get to the pub by the way.

please if you enjoy or even just read any of these post could you post the link on your Facebook page and give me a thumbs up. Thanks all.

There they go again

So it has been a while hasn't it. I have been away and now I am back and something has got my goat. First let's look at a video

Is there anything you notice? Well they all have an accent and they are all men and there lies the problem.

This well known establishment has the most sexist policy I have ever heard of. It has long been a agreed fact within the world of catering that a mans position is behind the bar or on the front desk and the ladies are on the floor serving tables. This might seem sexist but it most defiantly has a practical side more heavy lifting is involved in bar work not to mention the shifting of barrels and women generally have a nicer temperament to wait on tables apart from that god knows why it is always a male maitre'd in all the movies. These distinctions are all blurred in the modern world of catering. Or so I thought......

This wonder of deco design and italian style is akin to one of Berlusconi's bangs bangs parties. The current Italian prime minister is well known for his attitude to the fairer sex. I didn't think that this extended to the whole nation but guess I should have known better.

it seems that inside this restaurant male chauvinism is alive and well. Two friends of mine have worked in this location, both attractive females and both fully capable at any job a restaurant might throw at you. One of my friends was told she was to ugly to work there, well not told to her face she overheard two of the managers talking loudly in italian a language that she happens to be close to fluent in. The other lady, after working seventy hour weeks at a well known hotel chain, got told that she was too short to work on reception, could only run food to table (to be seen but not heard) and at most could only possibly handle working a maximum of a twenty five hour week, this was of course because she was of the lesser, weaker, stupider sex.

How can it be that in this modern world a place such as this exists? How can this happen? Well it seems that the world of catering is the forgotten profession. No private health care and no options for pensions, fifteen hour shifts with one break, sexist managers and staff, low wages, breaking the law at many levels and what worse? The fact that this industry is glamorised by the media but is not investigated for approaches such as this, or the employment of chefs from abroad so wages can be lower, that's rather close to slave labour for my liking. I am not saying that all restaurants and establishments are run in this way it just seems that a lot have this hidden behind the scenes and I haven't even mentioned the bullying that chefs seem to get away with to the extent that it is accepted on tv and seen as entertainment.

So what can we do? Well first of just don't go to this restaurant, support independents that are on the small scale, in the Leeds area think reliance, rivers meet in ls26 or just anywhere that seems to be nice, the food is not that good at bibi's anyway, last time I ate there the steak tartar tasted like fish. THAT IS ALL.

And now for a new feature that I am going to call TODAY'S RECIPE catchy eh, and as a treat today you will get two.

Broad bean anti- pasti

Shell and cook the beans in boiling salted water for five minutes then rinse with cold water and peel.
Chop a good handful of basil, a large handful, and crush and chop 3 cloves of garlic. Mix the beans, basil and garlic in a bowl with olive oil, just enough to cover the beans, add three drops of Tabasco ( or more if you like it spicy) salt and pepper to taste and a tiny splash of either cider or White wine vinegar. Stir all in together and put in the fridge to chill. Works well as a cold accompaniment to chicken or warm summer salads, great with cheese and on a ploughmans.

Quick tomato salsa.

Quarter as many tomatoes as you wish ( cherry or small vine tomatoes are best) finely chop shallots or sweet red onions, mix in a bowl with a good glug of olive oil and a good glug of White wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, but the salt is important it will draw the liquid out of the tomatoes and provide more flavour. Leave this mix to sit in the fridge for a while. Just add tobacco to make it spicy.