Poor Man About Town

I was driving home last night - the roads were packed out with traffic. I saw one of those Foxton's BMW minis - the sort that is dressed in sports-car livery. I realised that each of these wagons has a name. Being stuck in traffic, I decided to try and give the Foxton's BMW Mini a new name - flights of fancy produced The Hoxton Dickhead; The Realty Strangler; The Turbo Turd &c. I saw a twelve year old male driving said vehicle - I thought "if he is trying to pull with that, he might as well be driving a milk float!" Oh well, at least Foxton's seem to be restoring the good name of other estate agents.

Labels: cars, Estate Agents, Lifestyle

Having to return to short of money circumstances, I am returning to a student diet. The diet would be very boring and bland - so I would try to jazz things up a bit by exploring cheapo foods from around the world. I would make lentil and veg curries and complement them with home made chapati - baked from a pan bought from my local Indian store. The flour was cheap and the chapati was easy to make.

I would get a bit fed up with Indian food and diverted my attention to Mexican. I would go to my local library to check out recipes that would be within my crappy credit rating. I checked out Mexican food on various occasions, some of the recipes looked impossible as the ingredients were not available - such as chipotle chilis, maiza harina. There was one recipe that attracted my attention - Mexican Tortillas - for this , you needed Maiza Harina. Did not have that, so I bought some corn meal - the corn meal would not turn into a dough. It got binned. Resorted to Maize meal, that was a close resemblance - this went the same way as the corn meal.

I gave this some further thought - I bought some corn meal again and after a few experiments - I found the only way of making decent tortillas this side of the Atlantic. It goes like this - soak the Maize meal in water, I prefer corn, for around twenty four hours - this softens the meal. Drain off the water, as much you can - the technique is a little panning for gold - edging the water out, leaving the meal in bowl. Start adding gradually adding chapati flour, kneading as you go along - when the dough starts to become elastic and pliant, stop adding more flour and knead the meal with flour. Leave it to stand for around 15 minutes - let it brew; then knead again, you may need to add more flour at this stage as the dough can get rather sticky. Make little dough balls and then flatten them out into tortillas with a rolling pin. Put them to bake on the chapati pan - let them puff out, turn over to cook the other side and lo, you have an approximation of a Mexican tortilla.

I've had tortillas in Mexico, nothing like the above - but at least you have a flat bread made with corn or maize.

Come to think of it, authentic Mexican food really does my guts in - it's powerful and very pungent. The nearest culinary style I can think of is southern Indian food - this cookery is very powerful and takes no prisoners, but prepare yourself for a remarkable meal

Labels: cookery, Food, mexican, tortilllas

Because of impoverishment, I am going back to my student days diet - lentils, curries, potatoes, carrots, peas, pepper sauce, cheap meat (no more chicken - although very cheap, I will not touch it on moral grounds). I feel as if I living in World War Two Britain!

Labels: diet, impecunity, poverty

Being skint has led to a vast improvement in my dog-end collection. Rather than throwing the cigarette ends away, I have now resorted to collecting them. When I run out of "hard cash", I am sure they will come in handy.

Labels: dog ends, poverty, smoking

Being in quite impecunious circumstances, I am having difficulty in managing my finances. There is yet more month at the end of my pay. Bad news came from the council demanding its full Council Tax - it seems that calculations are to blame. I have got into arrears and the Council is demanding its full-whack.

I phoned the Council, a Nigerian accent did not so much greet me but admonished me for getting myself into this shit. I had some discussion with the voice - she told me that I had around £200 "hard cash" - she kept on using "hard cash". She offered to set up a direct debit for me there and then. I had lost track of the number of council tax payments I had made. I told her that I would come back to her. The gruff voice responded well begrudged affirmation - this felt like a threat - if I did not cough up the money I would be dragged off to some privatised calabouse in Downtown Lagos until I come to my senses and pay the council the money owed to it.

Labels: Council Tax, impecunity, poverty

I was coming down the Edgeware Road tonight and this tow-away vehicle cut accross my path, on its back was a brand spanking new Mercedes - the one with indicator lights on its wing mirrors. Its car alarm was squeaking out protests of indignity at having being towed off to the car pound, likewise its indicator lights. It made my day, some rich fuck would be put through some inconvenience. Being quite skint makes room for such consolations.

Labels: cars, schardenfreude, the rich

I was listening to Nick Ferrari on LBC today. Gosh, his show's content is fast becoming a veritable cornucopia of audio shit. Gone are the days of extremely entertaining right-wing belicose only to be replaced by fucking baby talk. There was an item on his show about how women have been made lonely by virtue of having to looking their squawking shitting soft machine all day long. He interviewed a woman an American woman by the name of 'Carter-Ann' (What kind of stupid name is that?). The parents may have named her 'BeerCanMan-Pugh'. We were regaled with a litany of American-accented moaning about how her husband does his own thing and how she feels lumbered with having to look after baby. Oh well, we are living in a post-femenist age where the feminist baby of female emancipation was tipped out with the bath water. There is no way my-ex would have accepted anything that had been lumbered on her; but we are of a different generation - gosh, being old-fashioned can bring along a delicious sense of irony at times.

I digress, Nick Ferrari's show has become real shit - check this out, he is now having to advertise goods and services as if they were topics under discussion. It is at this point that I tell the radio to "fuck off" and switch channels to Radio 4 and listen to the Today programme.

Another point is when Nick goes on holiday, we have Kelvin McKenzie of The Sun fame. He's about as wooden and entertaining as a coffin lid. His shows are uunlistenable. His delivery is like that of a dinner lady plonking stale mashed potato on your plate. He gets told to "Fuck off" before he barely speaks.

Labels: bullshit, Kelvin McKenzie, LBC, Nick Ferrari, Radio

I see that the chickens are finally come home to roost in this property boom bullshit where houses, flats and homes were transformed into property; no longer an abode or an habitation, a place where one could relax - no, property is a means of generating wealth and feeding greed. Home is where the heart is, so the saying goes - but in this bullshit there are now no homes and many people have been made homeless in all of this shit. It is even worse, because in reading today's Metro, people are now having to keep up with their mortgage repayments and rent by credit card. This is worrying, there is a limit to credit card and the interest charged is extortionate. I, for one, have been paying my council tax through it (I am also going through a skint time). The fall of Northern Rock speaks volumes, yet house prices and rents remain grossly inflated. Shelter is a basic human need and should be a right. Market forces have determined that we should pay through the arse for this. Yet it does not make economic sense - people can only afford so much out of their salaries and wages towards the rent or mortgage - they have other needs to attend to such food and fuel; costs such as travelling to work, council tax, water bills etc, etc, etc. It is as if greedy property developers and those in the housing market have ignored these basic economic details in their unregulated greedy pursuits. Someone is going to pay for this fucking mess that these greedy bastards have made and it won't be property developers, estate agents or greedy landlords; oh no, it will be the taxpayer.

On a lighter but related note, I found a couple of videos on Youtube

Labels: "greedy property developers", homeless, homes for sale, landlords housing, property

This dutch clip says it all about mobile phones - the dutch commentary is interesting in that I can understand most of what is being said. It's hilarious



It's sad to note that with the advent of reality television and lifestyle programmes, there is not much room for comedy in the UK, we are fast becoming a sad bunch, literally.

Labels: comedy, mobile phones, Television

If these buggers aren't barging around in their SUV's of four by fours, they're on fucking bikes!. Seen today, twelve year old parent was riding this bike on a busy in tow of a plastic box on wheels, the contents of which were two of her sprogs. Big fat lorries and buses zoom up and down that road. New Model Parent could not give a shit about the possible dangers of using such a contraption. If they aren't on the road, they are cycling on the pavement with a sprog in tow riding another bike - the belief being they have a legitimate right to mount the pavement. This woman, complete with cycling helmet, came at me pel-mel on her bike telling me to get the fuck out of the way. It was on a pavement. I did not move so she and her sprog behind her had to circumnavigate me. It is illegal to mount the pavement on a bicycle and I'm not going to make any allowance for illegality. The solution to this problem is clearly evident - keep these buggers and their offspring off bikes.

Labels: bicycles, cyclists, M and S, middle class, modern, Parenting

It's not just modern parenting - it's silly parenting. The M & S people are fast becoming parents. Twelve year olds who have spawned the next generation. On the other side of the class spectrum is the chav - fag puffing, half a dozen babies and yelling. The M & S people don't smoke, oh no, they don't have half a dozen babies, they have two, usually. Their attitude to what they consider good parenting is laissez-faire - ie let their little brats run amok. I was having lunch in a shopping mall today - that was a big mistake but all my favourite eateries have been invaded by New Model Parents and their sprogs. The eating part of the mall was quite busy and there were parents with their children, but these parents and their children were normal people - they got on with what they wanted to do - eat. There was, however, a group of new model parents with half a dozen brats. The brats were running riot around the restaurant area, the first I knew of it was a kick in the back of my shins, this horrid little specimin was trying to get by without so much as an excuse me.

I had this flight of fancy:

These little shits, it seems, were given carte blanche to do what the fuck they liked, any injury incurred thereof would be blamed on the nearest adult at time of injury. So if wee brat slammed his head against a corner of a table, the nearest adult would be blamed.

Labels: behaviour, brats, M and S, middle class, Parenting