For Feanor

And your collection of food in books. 

He opened it and then poured equal quantities of brandy and champagne into three large glasses.
....
The kitchen ... was stone-flagged and at one end a positive battery of charcoal fires glowed and winked under the bubbling pots.  The walls were covered with a great variety of copper pots, kettles, platters, coffee pots, huge serving dishes, and soup tureens.  They all glowed with a pinky-red gleam in the fire-light, glinting and winking like tiger beetles.
....
The first course that Demetrios-Mustapha set before us was a fine, clear soup, sequined with tiny golden bubbles of fat, with finger-nail size croutons floating like crisp little rafts on an amber sea ... Demetrios-Mustapha filled our glasses with more of the pale, musky wine and placed before us a platter of minute baby fish, each one fried a golden brown.  Slices of yellow green lemons in a large dish and a brimming sauce-boat of some exotic sace unknown to me accompanied it.
....
Demetrios-Mustapha removed our empty plates, poured a red wine out for us, dark as the heart of a dragon, and then placed before us a dish in which lay snipe, the heads twisted round so that their long beaks could skewer themselves and their empty eye-sockets look at us accusingly.  They were plump and brown with cooking, each having its own little square of toast.  They were surrounded by thin wafers of fried potatoes like drifts of autumn leaves, pale greeny-white candles of asparagus and small peas.
....
"You do like wild boar, I hope?"
I said that it was one of my favourite meats, which was true, but could I have a very small helping, please?
"But of course you shall," she said, leaning over the great brown, gravy-glistening haunch and starting to cut thick, pink slabs of it.  She placed three of these on a plate - obviously under the impression that this was, by anyone's standard, a small portion - and then proceeded to surround them with accoutrements.  There were piles of the lovely little golden mushrooms, chanterelles, with their delicate, almost winy flavour; tiny marrows stuffed with sour cream and capers; potatoes baked in their skins neatly split and anointed with butter; carrots, red as a frosty winter sun and great tree trunks of white leeks, poached in cream.
....
During the pause, the Countess smoked on a long thin cheroot and ate salted peanuts ... she called for the next course, and Demetrios-Mustapha produced two mercifully small omeletes, crisp brown on the outside and liquid and succulent on the inside, stuffed with tiny pink shrimps.
....
The meringues were large and white and brittle as coral and stuffed to overflowing with cream.
....
"Mustapha, bring the boy his owl and bring me some coffee and some of those nice Turkish delights up in the lounge."
....
I dismounted, went behind an olive tree and was deliciously and flamboyantly sick.

- Gerald Durrell (Birds, Beast and Relatives)


*   *   *    *   *    *   *   *   *    *   *    *

I find it astonishing and distressing just how many avid readers have never even heard of Durrell. I wish I could make his books - particularly the Corfu trilogy - mandatory reading for schoolkids at least.

*   *   *    *   *    *   *   *   *    *   *    * 

I've always wanted a stone-flagged kitchen, with great big fires and hanging pots. I should move to rural Europe, methinks.

Of cricket and madness

The full article here.

"There was a moment as he struck it that you thought he'd messed it up; but he hadn't, and then all you could do was bang on tables and throw water on yourself."

 - Hassan Cheema (Cricinfo blogs)

"This is how it works
You peer inside yourself,
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took;

And then you take that love you made
and stick it into some...
someone else's heart,
Pumping someone else's blood;

And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed,
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again"

- Regina Spektor, On the Radio

A reversal

2008:
1-6, 3-6, 0-6.

2009:
6-1,7-6,6-3.

**************************************************
A wish fulfilled

"I don't have yearly wish-lists, but if I did, I'd want Federer to win the French and Roddick to win at least one more Major (preferably this year)."

**************************************************
One of my friend often accuses me of being just a Federer fan. Untrue. I appreciate other players. I admire Roddick's attempts to reinvent himself, I admire Nadal's almost-insurmountable will not to accept that he could be facing defeat, and Safin - well, every sport needs a character.

And I love a good contest, which is why I was a little sad that Federer lost Wimbledon, but not heart-broken. Because Nadal deserved that victory, and somebody needed to bring Federer down a peg (I mean, blazers with crests? Seriously?), and the game needed a rivalry.

But there's a special joy in seeing Federer win. Not because of him as a person, but because of what he's returned to the game. Delicacy, artistry, and a one-handed backhand - all in an era which seemed to be destined to be ruled by big-serving power-baseliners.

And besides that, for reminding future players that you don't have to be slamming serves down to hit a high percentage of aces - just accuracy. And that you don't need to scream and grunt while hitting winners - just timing and placement. And that whatever people may insinuate and the media may speculate, if you believe enough and hope enough, you can still succeed. And that you can win and still be a nice guy, to the extent that even your rivals want you to win the one tournament you haven't.

**************************************************
Some Facts

I don't get bothered too much about the whole 'greatest' debate. There are so many differences in the eras of every sport, and tennis is no different. The whole pro vs amateur problem of the early days, the differences in surfaces and racquets and balls. Pointless. One of the greatest is enough.

But just two stats -
1. This was the 20th straight Major that Federer's made the semi-finals of. The next best is 10 straight. And.....he's not done yet.

2. For all the talk about how he's lost his touch and he's on the decline, his record in the Majors since the start of 2008 (arguably his worst period in six years) reads like this - SF, RU, RU, W, RU, W. In comparison, Nadal (who has been the most dominant player in that time) has this record - SF, W, W, SF, W, R16. Nobody else even comes close.

People should get some perspective.

Bonus Stat:
Majors won, as a percentage of Majors taken part in -
Federer - 35% (14/40)
Nadal - 30% (6/20)
Sampras - 24.6% (14/57)

**************************************************
Not-so-perfect Destiny

Still, I bet he's wishing it had been Nadal on the other end, netting that last ball into the net.

Ah well, maybe it will still happen on Centre Court.

There is still Hope

I've come to the conclusion that bloggers are pack animals.

It is a truth (which should be) universally acknowledged that bloggers need other bloggers. Not just so that there is somebody to read their own witterings and tell them how utterly and stupendously brilliant they are (which is always appreciated, of course), because you don't have to bloggers to do that, just readers.

No, bloggers need other bloggers to blog. As sounding boards. As empathy boards. As triggers for subconscious posts. As guides for things they didn't know existed. As benchmarks for the levels of literary/comic/sarcastic brilliance possible. As markers for what already exists out there, and what else they could write about.

I've realised I used to blog more (and better) when there the other bloggers I read also blogged frequently. Heck, that's why I began blogging - because I liked what others were posting, and wanted to add to the fun and craziness. I see my posts from 18 months back, and they're prolific and diverse and (compared to recent posts) experimental. And that's because there was such a strong peer group then. Anki, BM/OTP, Baby and Puppy, CS, Falsie, Flaffy, KM, Ph, Pri, Punkster, Reno, Roswitha, Scout, Space, Szer, The Bride, TR, Wiseling....everyone was blogging a lot, and blogging about diverse things*. Now - well, now KM and The Bride are still going strong, but Space has episodes, Falsie's still in Etudes mode, Szer's going pictorial-only, Pri's going on and on about some cheesy soap-opera where people pretend to be able to sing, and everybody else...well (TR's excused because of the sprog). And yes, there are other blogs one reads and interacts with it now, but these were the first ones I did, and they left their mark.

But.

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining and all.

And so returns a place of...well, not hope, but of - Withering sarcasm. Nautanki. And heart-achingly personal outbursts. The kinds that make you squirm at being exposed to so much, so intimately, but which you can't stop reading, because it reminds you of who you were/are/could have been, and because you cannot cease to be amazed at the fortitude it must take to be able to declare it all publicly.

But most of all, a blog that's brilliant.

And so, without further ado, the event you have all been waiting for, the spectacle to end all spectacles, the one thing that was missing from your lives even though you did not know it, featuring the return of the Queen of Melodrama, the Empress of Confessions, the girl who put the 'ingapo' in Singapore, the Blogger Most Extraordinare....

Scout!
Is.
Back!


Cue total dhinchaak band-baaja music. No, seriously, we love cheesy.

Go give her your love.


PS. AndIswearifyoutrollherI'llcomethumpyousomerealgood.

"They feel debased by this confrontation. Meat from the store in cardboard trays wrapped in plastic, meat with tidy price stickers and labels, that meat is food, is flank steak, chuck roast, ground round. None of it is labeled, "Cut from the shoulder of a large dead animal in a snowy field at night". There is nothing to remind them that the hide was pulled away from the flesh while it was still warm, and the steam rose into the night to the greedy waiting stars. They do not want to remember that they are predators. Carnivores. They'd rather eat the flabby muscles of an animal raised hock-deep in its own shit, castrated and injected and inspected, a smack in the head to fell it, a large white room to chill it, humming machines to cut it into neat slices. De-animalized meat."

- Megan Lindholm* (Cloven Hooves)



* If you're even remotely into SF&F, you have got to read all the books she's written as Robin Hobb.

For whoever's lived on both sides of the pond

"I think the biggest difference between England and America is that England has history, and America has geography. In England, you can find whatever you need as long as you're willing to go back far enough, or go and find out when it happened. In America, you can find whatever you need just as long as you're prepared to drive far enough".

- Neil Gaiman (interview at the back of American Gods)

"Real life is regularly running out of money, and then food. Real life is having no proper heating. Real life is physical. Give me books instead: give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book; I'd give anything for that".

- Scarlett Thomas (The End of Mr. Y*)


* A little too-overblown mish-mash of language, philosophy, and the concept of existence in a style that perhaps most closely resembles Poe's more fantastical works. The arguments and counter-arguments, and the various works by other authors that it prompts one to? Great stuff. The actual plot? Ehhh.

The more things change.....


Via Akshay, who while blogging about some unreported - and quirky - facets of the world around us, also takes some wonderful snaps (such as this, this, and this).

To do

"I'm just trying to find
a decent melody,
A song that I can sing
in my own company."

- U2 (Stuck in a Moment)

Thursday Torment: Food, other people's

She's besotted with one city, and unfortunately also takes lovely pictures of the food you get in it. Why unfortunate? Because she's hogging it all by herself, and all we can do is drool. No fair.

Go see Szerelem's latest Turkish culinary orgasmoscope*.

Only if you want to suffer, that is. And then go inflict it on your friends/family/colleagues/random people passing your computer - after all, why should you keep the pain to yourself?


* orgasmascope? orgasmathon?

"People need anything made of rubber here. People need anything made of plastic. People need Tupperware boxes and Ziploc bags and coated rubber bands for hair, Brooklyn Bridge cable kind of hair. People need Rubbermaid dish drainers - the metal kind, coated with rubber, and the rubber trays that go underneath them - so that the wooden counters on which dishes drain down don't stay perpetually humid and rot. They need solid Rubbermaid garbage cans, with snap-on lids to keep rats away. People need things to stack, conserve, preserve, classify, label, repair. People need things to make the things they already have, last; to repair them and organize them, for two-thirds of the population of Cuba was middle class and has devolved. If a Rubbermaid store opened in Cuba, people would be lined up around the block six lines deep. People need ties for plants. People need tomato stakes. People need gaskets. They need gaskets very badly. They need the thick gaskets that go around refrigerator doors and insulated gaskets for oven doors, and they need the rubber rings for espresso pots and canning jars. People need coated wire that bends. People need golf tees to pound into worn screw holes so that they can insert screws again, and the springs and the tiny screws that go inside locks and door handles and window locks so that the rain doesn't come in more than it already does. People need sheets of expanded metal to repair the seats of broken outdoor furniture so they can sit and play dominoes and wait for things to change, and they need Rust-Oleum so that the outdoor furniture doesn't rust through again. People need Thompson's Water Seal. People need burner parts for gas stoves, and new burners for electric stoves, so that they don't have to cook over fires in their own backyards and cut down more trees and make their asthma worse than it already is. People need asthma medicine. Cuba has the highest rate of asthma in the world, from the dust and the mold and the humidity, which they can't get rid of or escape from, for lack of parts".

- Isadora Tattlin (Cuba Diaries*)



* Quietly painful. One of those books that justify sometimes just buying a randomly picked-up book. And the violent critical reviews on Amazon...whooo. Some people just can't look beyond their own romantic notions, and hate anybody who dares puncture through and show them a glimpse of reality. These are the same people who probably still wear Che t-shirts. Doof-asses.

"(We're all miracles. Know why? Because) as humans, every day we go about our business, and all that time we know... we all know ... that the things we love, the people we love, at any time can all be taken away. We live knowing that and we keep going anyway."

- Little Children

"Only in silence, the word;
only in dark, the light;
only in dying, life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky."*

- Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizard of Earthsea)


* I've always loved the imagery of this quote. I still have a t-shirt somewhere, with this painted on. Yes, yes, you can say it - one is a SF&F geek.

Quip du Jour

It was a literal case of the sheets hitting the fans.
- Andrew Miller (Cricinfo)*


* Referring to corrugated iron rooftops flying off and hurting spectators during the Eng/SL Test in Kandy.

At the risk of being repetitive

...go read this blog!

One was trawling through the archives, and discovered gems like this brilliant spoof of the Pink song, and this Bollywood actor spoof, and even wordplay! Oh, not to mention this, this, and this.

This is what blogging should be about - experimenting with form and medium. Really exploring the fringes of creativity. Not that people shouldn't write about their lives, or form groups, or whatever else - but this, right here, is an example of how blogging can be really pushed to new levels.

Whoever you are, kudos. You could have been a Python. And please don't stop.

Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye, toh kya hain?
- Saahir Ludhiyanvi (Pyaasa)

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."
- Douglas Adams (Life, the Universe, and Everything)


.....except that one would push it ahead by a couple of hours, because after all, one can nap on Sundays after a lovely lunch...

but there's something about 6pm on Sundays, when everything seems so quiet, and everyone is at home recouping from the weekend and realising they have another week to look forward to, to curse at.

When you look out of the window and see nary a person around. And even the blare of the TV that you switch on to make friends with, fails to intrude on the growing silence in your mind. And the lassitude that fills you grows into a deepening stillness, like the deep dankness of a boarded up well.

and one can feel quite, quite...

"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall;
Some days must be dark and dreary."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (The Rainy Day)

.............
Way too often do we mock the simple in favour of the contrived, the exotic, the manipulative. But way too often do I turn to the simplicity of these words, ignore any accusations of their being trite, and accept the simple logic and wisdom in them. One of my few mottos.

"In the railway ticket offices they ask the price of a fare: sturdy old women, headscarved and slippered and so alike, superficially, that it is easy to discount them. The office barks and reply, and they consider the cost in disbelief. Then they consult together, return and ask: "Just for one ticket?".
Bark.
They sit down, weary-faced, wondering about other means of transport. Next they enquire about concessions.
Bark.
You long to help them. But their pride, or your sense of it, prevents this. You know that the West has won the Cold War, that its values appear to have prevailed. The old are more easily hurt now, because their world is slipping away, all that they fought for. The war veterans seem to wear their medals with a last-ditch defiance. So I let the old women trail away. I never did help one of them.
This is a passage of shame."

- Colin Thubron, In Siberia