Monthly archive: February 2007

I have given up eating between 11pm and 7am for Lent.

Last night we went to Body and Soul, the new jazz night that debuted on 6 February at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

Jonathan Paul Hellyer (the man inside the D.E. Experience) was performing a double set and we were very curious to see him perform sans drag and captive audience.

Jill Manly hosted and opened with a couple of songs (the classic On Broadway and Not Gon' Cry from Waiting To Exhale). As massive and warm as a silver-haired Dawn French, with just as much presence on stage.

Then Jonathan came on stage, in a simple pinstripe suit, white shirt (and black man's shoes, rather than the stilettos we had seen on some promotional shoots). God was he nervous, but he managed to pull it off, thanks no doubt to a very warm audience with a good balance of jazz aficionados and die-hard D.E. Experience (his Sunday afternoon drag act) fans.

He opened with The Lady Is A Tramp, followed by The Man With The Child In His Eyes, then went through some Ella and Dinah, and ended the first set with It Had To Be You (with a Bohemian Rhapsody contained within).

It was with the deepest regret that I had to leave before the second set was due to start at 10. I was very tired, and the Cava fizzy wine was making me fall asleep.

But actually all I wanted to do was cram some more food in before 11 o'clock and the ban on food during the night. I stopped at the corner shop on the way home, and as I put my bread and cheese and Jaffa cakes on the till, the cashier's 'And how are you today sir?' alerted me I might be indulging too much these days.

To diminish or destroy the province or effectiveness of; undermine. To sell at a lower price than or to work for lower wages or fees than (a competitor).

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I have given up eating between 11pm and 7am for Lent.

Ah, last night.

Last night we had our first meal sitting at a table at home since we met. The table we liked but was originally not in stock was delivered to us on Saturday and on Sunday we went to buy chairs (only found two folding ones so far).

But let me groan a bit about the Habitat website first.

I can put up with Flash and stuff on a website.

I can understand that they did not want to make the effort to link to their stock flow database to let you know if what you want is in your nearest shop.

I can even share their fear of spam that made them create an online form if you want to contact someone there.

On the plus side, there is a handy button that you can click to be informed when an article gets back in stock. We clicked. We entered our details. And we heard nothing from them. Fortunately Dr B. was walking past Habitat on the way home from church (read: PC World), entered, saw that it was back in stock and ordered it.

Another proof that a malfunctioning website can translate into fewer sales and ultimately bad publicity.

But back to our lovely new shiny black glass dining table, aka 'The Obelisk'. After five years of eating with a tray on my lap, yesterday I came home to a cooked meal (Dr B. had the day off work) of:

• baguette slices with cherry tomatoes, mini mozzarellas and pesto;
• baguette slices with artichoke hearts in olive oil;
• bangers and mash and red wine gravy
• asparagus with hollandaise sauce
• apple pie with creme fraiche.

We then watched The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures that was on our backlog since New Year's day (actually quite OK for children's TV – of course she has a 'sonic lipstic' – and K9 made an appearance but was reportedly stuck plugging a black hole).

By 9 I was propping open my eyes with toothpicks.

By 10 I was in bed watching Battlestar Galactica.

By 10.05 I was sleeping.

So no, I did not eat between 11pm and 7am last night either.

To take (money, for example) for one's own use in violation of a trust.

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I have given up eating between 11pm and 7am for Lent.

It was all going so well, so I thought I'd conduct a trickier experiment, and in the interest of science I downed three cans of Stella at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern yesterday afternoon, then left straight after the D.E. Show and went home via the corner shop: bread, cheese, houmous, a pizza a chocolate bar and a challenge: would I be able to feast on all of that before 11pm?

I put the pizza in the oven and had a few sandwiches while watching the American Idol 12 female finalists (goodness those gals can belt out a tune!) and at the same time assembling the second of the two file cabinets we had earlier come back from Ikea with (needless to say, we had gone there to buy chairs). I had completely forgotten the last time I put together flat-packed furniture when a bit tipsy.

Next thing I knew, it was 3am and I was asleep on the couch, so I slipped into bed.

Technically, my lent resolution remaines unscathed, but it was only because I was at home at 7 and collapsed on the couch by 9. I guess next time I'll have to stay longer after the show and have a bit of a dance. Just for the sake of science, of course…

Machine for tapping the energy of running or falling water (hence a prime mover) by means of a set of paddles or buckets mounted around a wheel.

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I have given up eating between 11pm and 7am for Lent.

So I said I was going to crank things up a notch and I did: last night we went out for yet another round of birthday drinks (many friends of mine have their birthdays in February, which makes May pretty much a shagfest among our parents), then on to a club.

Nope. Still managed to go straight to bed after getting home (a bit earlier than expected because Dr B. was tired).

Well, perhaps the fact that I was a bit grumpy because we did not stay as long as I wanted distracted me and directed me to the bedroom instead of the fridge (which still only has three carrots that I bought one month ago and some vodka anyway).

This grilled goat cheese and walnuts salad has something in common with the great British tradition that is cheese and beans on toast, namely that the title of the recipe is the recipe itself.

It is one of our favourite salads because it requires minimum shopping and can be prepared very quickly but it still has a sort of Ooh factor whenever we eat it.

Serve it on its own for a light yet very nutritious lunch. It goes fantastically well will a nice full-bodied red wine.

Ingredients

• Mixed lettuce leaves
• Goat cheese, 100g per person
• Walnuts
• Oil
• Vinegar
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation

1. Cut the goat cheese horizontally (thin ones make only two slices each)
2. Place cheese slices on an oven tray lined with grease-proof paper
3. Grill cheese until bubbling and golden
4. In the meantime, dress the salad with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
5. Put salad in individual plates
6. Place grilled cheese on top
7. Sprinkle generously with walnut pieces

To take more time than necessary. To move aimlessly or lackadaisically.

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I have given up eating between 11pm and 7am for Lent.

Last night we went out to a pub (The Rose in Vauxhall, a surprise view over the Thames and in particular Tate Britain from the first floor room that was reserved to us).

I was worried that on the way home I was going to give in to the siren song of one of the many corner shops that are open late at night (all night perhaps?). I tell you, it's a minefield.

It is just a five-minute walk but I whizzed past the shops in a cab (a friend dropped me off on his way home) and I brushed my teeth before even wondering if there was anything in the fridge (the answer would have been 'three carrots that I bought one month ago and some vodka').

This is maybe just a little bit too easy. Tonight we are going to crank things up a notch.

1. London Underground's Jubilee Line was originally going to be called Fleet Line after the river Fleet (now subterranean). Plans to go east towards Fleet Street were shelved, and the line's battleship grey colour ('fleet') became silver for the Jubilee after which it was eventually named.
2. Before time zones were invented, most cities relied upon their own local 'sun' time, which changed by approximately one minute for every 12 1/2 miles traveled east or west. Thus, Birmingham was 7½ minutes behind London.
3. The format of The Graham Norton Show (the much-anticipated return to form of Graham Norton's rumoured 4 million pound a year contract with the BBC) is exactly the same as the (far, far cheaper) shows he did five years ago for Channel Four.
4. Smoking alters brain 'like drugs': smokers have higher levels of dopamine translators in areas of the brain related to motivation and reward. The changes may persist for many years and contribute to relapse. I quit smoking four years ago next week and this scares me.
5. Britney Spears published A Mother's Gift in 2001. Her detractors will be pleased to know that this is not a parenthood manual, but a novel she co-wrote with her mother Lynne.
6. You can get your Second Life avatar high on Seclimine, which produces hypnotic motion graphics and audio for about half an hour.
7. A terabyte (=1024GB) of data is enough to store the next 60 years of your life – well, at least everything you read – on and offline, including books, all the music you purchase, eight hours of speech and 10 pictures a day.

A medieval catapult for hurling heavy stones.

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I have given up eating between 11pm and 7am for Lent.

Night 2 of going cold turkey then. I made it through once again quite well. I got up at 1am to go to the loo and afterwards managed to take the first door on the right (back to the bedroom) instead of the second (into the office to check emails/read feeds/search YouTube for the video for that song that was so popular when I was fourteen and that I absolutely must watch now).

I have to say I was particularly tired last night and fell asleep at around 10pm, which of course helped. When I got up this morning my mood kept swinging from a feeling of achievement to one that instead made me say 'bugger – it looks like I will have to relinquish yet another certainty about myself that I have been convinced I would never succeed in changing'.

To make it all worse, I know that I will eventually have to agree with Dr B. that he was right all along, and if you have ever seen his 'That's right; I was' face, you will understand that I'd sooner go hammer thumbtacks under my fingernails.

I had the very same moodswings after I had a few CBT sessions in early 2004. That's Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, not the painful fetish that the acronym can also stand for.

At risk of oversimplifying, CBT consists in analysing your behaviour, finding patterns, and ultimately figuring out that there are several other options apart from the one that is not being too good for us. To do that you have to be very alert to all the triggers in order to see the thunderstorm coming and whip up the umbrella before getting too soaked.

CBT can give impressive results in a very short time, but in more complex cases cannot replace psychotherapy – the long and painful process to acquire that umbrella in the first place.

I hope this description is not too far off the mark. That's how I understood it and it worked for me.

Anyways. As I told my Cognitive Behavioural Therapist at the time, right after a particularly cathartic moment:

Damn. I used to wallow in the conviction that things could not be changed and bask in the very despair that was ruining me. Now I cannot do it any longer. I cannot seem to fool myself. It does not work any more. YOU HAVE BROKEN IT!

He was very well aware that I was in fact very pleased with the breakthrough (it turned out in fact to be a watershed moment that cast light onto myself and allowed me to move further), and he joined me with a broad and pleased smile.

I have just realised that I cannot remember the last time I purposelessly switched on the TV just to have something playing in the background.

I usually only ever turn it on to set the PVR for a specific programme I want to record, knowing fully well that nine times out of ten it will be deleted, unwatched, to make room on the bursting PVR's 240GB hard drive. Or to stream music from the computer in the other room. Or to play one of the most basic games (Bejeweled [sic] 2) on one of the most advanced consoles (Dr B.'s Xbox 360).

And yet, my weekly TV consumption is pretty bulky anyway:

• Battlestar Galactica, Rome, Desperate Housewives and Veronica Mars – on my mobile during my work commute;
• Lost – and from this week, Heroes – streamed from the computer to the telly via the Xbox so that I can watch them with Dr B.;
• Ugly Betty, although the novelty factor has long worn off and I spent the last two episodes skipping through to watch only the bits with Betty's camp nephew, a strikingly accurate representation of me age eleven;
• Project Catwalk, recorded and stripped of all ads and recaps, then watched at 1.5 speed to reduce it to 20-25 minutes (by the way, we saw Wayne at DTPM the other week – sans his trademark 11-inch heels);
• Lazy Town, skipping straight to the silly aerobics dance during the last two and a half minutes of each episode;
• 10 Years Younger, but only the first five minutes (ooh, look, she's wrinkly and haggard, she is 39 but looks 70) and the skipping to the last segment (she's been poked, ironed, preened, with new goofy dentures in, and she now looks 19!);
• The News in 2 minutes from the BBC News website;
• trashy TV bits and bobs from around the world (most recently focusing on Eurovision Song Contest national finals) on YouTube.

I have got to be a traditional broadcaster's worst nightmare.

To divide (a region or territory) into small, often hostile units.

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Yesterday I was thinking about what I could give up for Lent.

I considered an option, then talked about a Plan B in case the first option was not feasible, and I might have been particularly unclear about what I was going to do.

I fear it might have been my subconscious trying to sabotage my attempt. My subconscious would do anything for a cheese sandwich after midnight.

Later during the day, an email from Dr B. sussed my gutless lack of commitment out by pointing out that

It states what you've considered for your plan A and what your plan B actually is but nowhere does it state what your plan A actually is.

Now it is decided, and I can reveal that I am sticking to yesterday's Plan A: no food or drink between 11pm and 7am.

The first night was easy, as it was not a typical midweek night, but a special occasion as a friend of mine who missed my birthday took us out for dinner at Sardo. Food so good that I ate uncharacteristically slowly. Generous and kind friends, providing very interesting conversation. One last glass of limoncello at our hosts before heading home.

Once back in the flat, I undressed, brushed my teeth and by midnight I was in bed, where I slept until 6.

I saw it as an achievement. Dr B. reminded me it could all be down to the alcohol that was consumed last night.

I really, really hate having to say this, but when I learnt a couple of weeks ago that the fragile coalition in power in Italy had finally agreed on a draft law giving unmarried couples some rights (they have none now), not for one split second did I believe that it would stand a chance to be approved once it reached discussion in the full Parliament.

Yesterday the Italian prime minister resigned upon some disagreements in foreign policy. Allegiances will now be broken and made, party groupings will be reshuffled, someone (perhaps even the resigning PM himself) will be appointed to form a new government, and they will start another pointless tour on the roundabout, for the fifty-nth time since Italy became a republic in 1948.

This is no way to rule a modern country. I am today overcome with sadness when I think of all the people I know in Italy who struggle to go on, their voices unheard, their bare necessities denied.

• Italy one step closer to civil partnerships
• Italian crisis talks as PM quits
• Italian Government Falls – Gay Unions Bill Appears Dead

To approve, encourage, and support (an action, a plan of action, a person); urge and help on.

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Italy is a country of hypocrites.

I lived there for over twenty years, was close to most of the local clergy (my brother is a priest), people around me got baptised, confirmed, married in a church, buried with a funeral, and not once have I met anyone who was giving something up for Lent.

It was only when I moved to the UK that I was introduced to the concept of renouncing something that gives you pleasure (but that at the same time has a slightly negative connotation) during the forty days before Easter.

Always one to embrace all things British enthusiastically, I have been thinking for the last couple of days about what I could give up this Lent to help me shift the focus away from gratification of the body in order to reach a higher level of spiritual awareness. Or, failing that, lose a bit of weight.

Dr B. emailed me his plan yesterday:

Tomorrow I'm giving up all food from the vending machines at work, in particularly revels and muffins. Instead I shall be having fruit based snacks only from the shop. (If I'm working late and the shop has shut then I will allow myself ALTU's from the vending machine)

I have considered a few options and am very tempted to go with the hardest: no food and drink between 11pm and 7am, from today to Easter.

Eating during the night is possibly the single worst habit I have (since giving up smoking four years ago), and it is tightly linked with irregular sleep (i.e. not for very long, and most often not in bed), difficulty in maintaining oral hygiene after each of the half dozen nightly snacks, and morning sluggishness.

A vicious pattern has established itself whereby I cannot seem to fall asleep if I have not eaten in the previous twenty minutes. Or perhaps I wrongly believe that I will not be able to sleep on an emtpy stomach, which probably puts me in a state that does not facilitate sleep anyway.

During the day I need to eat little but frequently to avoid feeling weak.

At night I should not be needing as much energy, and I should allow the body to slow down and rest.

Stitch 'n' bitch, originally uploaded by bitful.

Six gay men meeting on Shrove Tuesday to knit together.

Delicious drop scones (which I suppose are the homosexual equivalent of pancakes) with apple slivers and cream are passed around.

And just when you though the evening could not be any gayer, our host puts on the Stock Aitken & Waterman Greatest Hits triple CD he got when he interviewed Pete Waterman.

I love my people.

Any of a series of projections on a shaft that fit into slots on a corresponding shaft, enabling both to rotate together. The groove or slot for such a projection.

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In June 2005 we went to Sitges with a few friends. Our flight was very early in the morning, so we spent the night before at one of our travelling companions in West London and shared a cab to Heathrow.

He kindly gave up his bed for us to sleep in. That is when we discovered the lightest, cosiest, fluffiest duvet on earth. We called it The Cloud, commented on it the morning after and mentioned it every now and then to him.

He very generously bought us the exact same duvet and gave it to us on my birthday last week, as a housewarming/Christmas/birthday present for both Dr B. and myself. It is an expensive duvet.

The Cloud is slightly larger than our current bed linen, so we went out and bought a new duvet cover, washed it, speeded up the drying process artificially because we could not wait, slipped it on the duvet, got ready for bed and went to sleep like kids the night before Christmas.

Once in bed, we realised that the tiny ridges of the cover's intricate woven pattern rubbed uncomfortably on our bare bodies every time we turned.

I hardly noticed it, and quickly fell asleep. Dr B.'s first words this morning were something like 'We are getting additional – softer – sheets'.

I may not sleep many hours per night, but when I do I am blessed with the deepest, soundest slumber I can think of.

A rope, chain, or similar restraint for holding an animal in place, allowing a short radius in which it can move about. A similar ropelike restraint used as a safety measure, especially for young children and astronauts.

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When I lived in Paris I went out with an Icelandic man for five years. He introduced me to a large group of expats, and it is through them that I became familiar with the concept of the saumaklúbbur.

It literally means 'sewing club', but of course it has been at least thirty years since there were any needles involved. It used to indicate a group of women getting together to spend the afternoon doing creative manual and decorative activities. These days the tradition is still very much alive but it involves little more than gallons of very strong coffee and a weekly good chat with friends. It is still called saumaklúbbur though.

When it recently became known that I could knit, some friends asked me to teach them. Arrangements were made, wool and needles were bought (or, in my case, kindly given to me by Dr B.'s mother as she heard of the initiative), and a name was cleverly found for our little weekly get-together: Stitch 'n' Bitch.

We met last week and again tomorrow night. The idea is to give people enough confidence to achieve our usual level of bitching while skilfully knitting the evening away.

You don't have to be a gay man to stitch and bitch, but I must say it looks like we have a natural flair for both.

A person regarded as stupid or clumsy.

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This is one of our favourite recipes. We call it 'Nigella beans' or simply 'Nigella', because we first saw it on one of Nigella Lawson's cooking TV shows.

I think we originally saw it made with asparagus, but tried replacing it with French beans (cheaper and easier to find) and it works just as well.

Ingredients

• French beans
• Parma ham
• Balsamic vinegar

Preparation

1. Steam the French beans and let them cool.
2. Pour a generous amount of balsamic vinegar over them and stir to coat them well.
3. Wrap eight to twelve bean stalks, depending on size, in a slice of Parma ham.
4. Serve two to three bundles per person and drizzle with more balsamic vinegar.

A perch on which domestic fowl or other birds rest or sleep.

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1. My Nabaztag/tag is not the only one that developed a floppy ear syndrome. It is now more and more likely that my wi-fi bunny will go back to the burrow whence it came, and it is very sad to see an innovative idea that is developed with style but not very much substance to sustain it.
2. Iceland shall not host the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, purely on grounds of the chances of the rock ballad they selected a couple of hours ago to represent the country this year winning in Helsinki in may being next to none. Well, the only entry I liked (a bit) in tonight's Eurovision Song Contest 2007 Icelandic national final was Þú Tryllir Mig, a carbon copy of Páll Óskar's performance in the 1997 ESC contest: club track, sung sitting down surrounded by dancers, mentions kampavín (=champagne).
3. Outlook 2002 runs on Vista, but email account passwords are not saved after you close the application. Microsoft is not planning any hotfixes, as Outlook 2002 is not supported any more. It's either a forced update to Outlook 2007 (I would, if the update was more than just a lick of paint), or going against my productivity rules (launch Outlook only once every half hour, deal with email, close it) and leaving Outlook on all the time.
4. Jeyo Mobile Extender (extension that I use to sync my your mobile with Outlook) released version 2.5 to work with Windows Vista, but it does not work with outlook 2002 (see above). I guess I'm back to patiently hand-copying all of Dr B.'s text messages (I keep them all and preserve them to show the grandchildren one day).
5. Camcorder piracy is not the huge threat to the cinema industry that they obviously want us to believe.
6. Lookout (indexing search for Outlook) is not available any more, and all links to the Lookout website go to the Windows Desktop Home Page, which sort of makes sense as the new indexing search that comes with Windows Vista works very well in sniffing out email content as well. I just wish I could access it quickly from within Outlook itself.
7. The mobile version of Google maps works really well and gives me one more reason to believe my mobile data connection rocks. If only I had known the other night, when I went to see a friend who leaves nearby (turn right, then second right) and got lost (turned right, then first right, found myself in middle of dodgy estate).

Last Sunday I turned forty years old.

I had a very hard time trying to understand why everyone around me saw this as a milestone. I agree that it's a round number, but that's about it for me, it still does not feel like the big fat scary four-oh.

Dr B. wanted me to do something big and extravagant to mark my fortieth, like a trip abroad with a few mates. Or a weekend away in a large house in the middle of nowhere with all my friends.

Instead, I felt like giving myself the possibility to see everyone I know, and so I set up a few meeting points throughout the weekend.

On Saturday night about 15 people gathered round me at Barcode in Vauxhall, South London (which is slowly becoming our local pub). They got me cards, presents and perhaps too many gin and tonics.

On Sunday I had friends round to the flat. It was the first time that I did not prepare most of the party food myself, relying instead on Tesco's party range. Could this be a sign that I am getting old? I had no idea Tesco sold such ready-made delicacies (at a price though); you should have heard my not so manly squeals of delight as I piled the shopping cart high with Tikka kebabs and breaded prawns.

I think about 25 people came round, with more cards, and presents, and so much booze! I will never forget the feeling of all that love and attention to myself around me, as the doorbell kept ringing, and far away friends were calling and texting me from Italy, Germany, France, the USA, Iceland…

At 5 we left the flat to go to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern where we got to see the Kandi Kane show (D.E. Experience had cancelled at lunchtime) and had a bit of a dance.

At 10 I got back to the flat with a couple of friends for strong coffee, showers and changing into clean clothes and we went off to DTPM, where a friend of ours had put us on the guest list. More friends joined me there and I felt grateful that I need so little to have a good time. A good tune, some friendly faces and knowing that I have taken Monday off work is all I need sometimes.

The club closed at 5 (or was that 6?) in the morning, and we went to Orange for more fun. Never for a minute did I stop to think that I was in a very crowded large club on a Monday morning, and that outside people were already on their way to work!

We stayed until noon or so, then walked a friend home and hung out at her place for a while. I would not really call it a chill-out party, as I quickly fell asleep on the couch while Dr B. watched a movie with our friend, and two other people were cuddling in our guest's bed.

The highlight of the day was most certainly going home in the afternoon and stuffing my face with leftover party food, forcing myself to stay awake so that I could have a good night's sleep.

And the following day I was back at work as if I'd had a relaxing long weekend in the countryside instead of the mad weekend out I organised to prove that I can still party like the younger generations.

A small shore bird (Crocethia alba) related to the sandpipers, having predominantly gray and white plumage.

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