Book review: A Year in 120 Recipes by Jack Monroe

You probably know Jack Monroe. She is a single mum whose blog hit the big time. Rather than waffling on about old long dead politicians as some people choose to do on their blogs, she decided to put recipes on hers and it soon became a smash hit. This led to a book A Girl Called Jack
https://chrishallamworldview.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/a-girl-called-jack-book-review/ released earlier this year described as “the best cookery book of all” by my wife. If this seems sexist, in my defence a) I am a rubbish cook and my wife genuinely does all the cooking and b) I do most of the cleaning around the house and all the washing up. Quite badly.

This is the follow-up book to A Girl Called Jack. It is actually a slightly plusher and better presented book than the first (though is also more expensive). Like the first, however, it does contain many easily affordable recipes which are not only nice to eat but can be made easily using any odds and ends which you might realistically have lying around in your kitchen. And Billy Bragg is in here too: she is a bit political.
Recipes include Babab Gosht, Burned Brown Sugar Meringues, Lazarus Pesto and a Peanut Butter Bread.
I may reserve judgement until we have sampled the results. But early evidence suggests the old Jack magic has struck again.

A Year in 120 Recipes
Jack Monroe
Published by Penguin Hardback, £18.99

Bad Education Series 2 DVD review

School-based comedy series have a somewhat hit and miss reputation as anyone who has seen Teachers or the more recent David Walliams/Catherine Tate sitcom Big School will agree. But while not exactly disproving this rule, BBC Three’s relentlessly hip sitcom Bad Education is well worth skipping homework for.
Jack Whitehall returns as Alfie Wickers, the incompetent History teacher at Abbey Grove Comprehensive. Constantly undermined by his desperate attempts to pursue a romantic liaison with fellow teacher Rosie Gulliver (played by the excellent Solemani, star of Him & Her and The Wrong Mans) as well as by the simple fact that he is only slightly older than the pupils he is supposed to be teaching, Alfie faces challenges old and new in this second series (which includes a Christmas Special) first screened last year.
Matthew Horne’s desperately trendy Head is still a fun and the supporting cast who include the brilliant Michelle Gomez as icy deputy Izzy Pickwell remain strong. New developments in this series include a disastrous school charity swimming gala, an unwanted teen pregnancy, the arrival of a popular new American teacher and the incredibly embarrassing prospect for Alfie of a middle aged romance developing between Alfie’s father (Harry Enfield) and new staff member (Samantha Spiro of Grandma’s House).
Released just in time for the current BBC Three run of the show’s third series, this will leave some of us pining of the return of Jack Whitehall’s other (better) sitcom Fresh Meat, currently in limbo since the end of its own third series. But in the meantime, Bad Education is still a welcome distraction.

Bad Education Series 2 DVD review
BBC Worldwide
Starring: Jack Whitehall, Matthew Horne, Sarah Solemani, Harry Enfield, Michelle Gomez, Samantha Spiro

General Election memories 3: 1987

Peterborough, June 11th 1987

The Tories seemed to be doing rather well in 1987. Mrs Thatcher had beaten the unions, the Wets and the Argentines. She now seemed set to do the same for her third Labour electoral opponent, Neil Kinnock just as she had thwarted both Jim Callaghan and Michael Foot before. The economy was enjoying a brief economic boom. Thatcher, apparently invincible but not yet obviously unstable, looked unstoppable. The NHS, crime and homelessness figures were all far worse than they had been, but no one was worrying about this then.

Labour, though much more polished than in 1983, thanks to the red rose symbol and other behind the scenes innovations by the then largely unknown Peter Mandelson, were well on the road to becoming New Labour, this would propel it to a massive victory a decade later. But in 1987, the party still looked vulnerable as did the Alliance led by the “two Davids” Owen and Steel. In Peterborough, Brian Mawhinney seemed safe against his Labour foe Andrew MacKinlay (who would later be MP for Thurrock between 1992 and 2010).

But as Lt. Col. Oliver North frequently said in the Iran-Contra hearings at about this time: “I was not aware” of all these things.

I was ten. I was in my third year (that is, Year 5) of my Junior School. I liked Whizzer and Chips, Buster and Oink! comic (none of these are still going) and books like The Demon Headmaster and The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler. I used to draw and write my own stories, sometimes in cartoon form, on Peterborough Development Corporation paper which my dad would bring home from work. He is retired now and the PDC no longer exists, so I hope my revealing this, doesn’t get him into trouble..

I liked riding my BMX round the park and swimming in the Regional Pool (not the Lido so much, as that was freezing). I could very nearly swim and cycle by 1987, though not simultaneously. I was never fat but disliked sport. I loved history. I was not the film buff I have become but I was already a big Blackadder fan, even though it was often unsuitable for a ten year old. I used to play very slow Atari 800XL computer games and fight with my younger brother (six). My older brother was just finishing his time at Reading University while my sister, just two months off being old enough to vote was then finishing her A levels.

This was the first election I was aware of. I was not hugely impressed by any of the parties and had not yet developed any feelings of loyalty towards them. I found Mrs. Thatcher’s affected way of speaking rather grating, as indeed my mother did and still does. But Neil Kinnock seemed boring when he appeared on Wogan. The Alliance roused no strong feelings within me either. I understood bar charts well enough from my Scottish Maths books to see that the Tories were going to win.

My third year teacher Mrs. Field (not her actual name) organised a mock election.The Tory candidate, a bright promising girl, was something of a favourite. As in all subsequent elections, I became emotionally involved but didn’t make a speech or do anything that involved work. Speeches were made by anyone, not just the three main candidates. I think the Tories would have won the mock election anyway but Mrs. Field was hardly an impartial arbitrator. Generally everyone made meaningless speeches e.g. “The Conservatives will build lots of houses” or “Look up “liberal” in the dictionary and it means…” or “Labour will make the schools better”. If someone spoke up for Labour though Mrs. Field would sometimes interject with something like: “but how will Labour pay for all this? With higher taxes!” Taxes sounded evil to our childish ears then. Even though, in retrospect, they might have got us a proper classroom rather than the mobile one we were then sat in.

These interjections prompted a few people to defect from Labour to Tory, ultimately pushing them into third place. The Labour candidate was a decent boy and a friend. I regret to say for the first and only time I VOTED CONSERVATIVE MYSELF.

Yes, I know it wasn’t a real election and I admitted it at the time before I did it. My family weren’t impressed, but knew I was only a child. In time, I would be the only one of us to become a Labour Party member. But in 1987 I probably just wanted to back a winner.
But I’m not proud of myself.

The Tories won a 100 seat majority nationwide and the first plans for the Community Charge were announced soon afterwards. John Major won Mawhinney’s neighbouring seat of Huntington for a third time too. He won his first position in Cabinet straight after the election, became Foreign Secretary and Chancellor in 1989 and finally Prime Minister just three years later in 1990.
The Tories won in the class Mock Election comfortably too, the Tory candidate later becoming an actress. Mrs. Field died about twenty years ago and most people involved, now like me, fast approaching forty, have probably forgotten about the school election completely.
But by the next election in 1992, I would be fifteen. Still not old enough to vote but by then firmly in the Labour camp.

2017 update: I no longer regret not voting for the Labour candidate. I’d not seen him in years and he recently put a horrendously racist joke on Facebook. I de-friended him.

 

 

Have you just been born?

Then look no further! If you’ve only just been born, make sure you read and absorb the following key points…

1. When things cease to be within your range of vision, do not assume they have disappeared forever.
Sometimes, of course, they will have genuinely disappeared, but more often than not, they will just be behind you or somewhere else. It is tricky. Old people get similarly confused if you use the mouse to move the screen down while they are on the computer. Just because you cannot see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there!

2. You are not actually the universe. Things around you are not necessarily part of you and cannot be controlled directly by you. Try to get a measure of which bits are you (e.g. your arms and legs) and which bits are not (everyone else, your cot, the window). You will soon learn that while you can control your arms by thinking in a certain way, you cannot control when the sun rises or the passage of a nearby car. You are not the whole universe. Some people never fully understand this (for example, George Galloway MP) but it is better to get a handle on this early on.

3. Try to develop a sense of humour. There is your mum. Hang on – where’s she gone now? Oh look! There she is! If babies ran the Edinburgh Festival, BBC3’s schedules would be full of this sort of thing. However, it won’t pass muster in the real world. You might get a Golden Rose of Montreux for it though.

4. Older brothers and sisters will inevitably be initially better than you at everything namely walking, running, reading and doing sums. Do not be disheartened! In due course, you will eventually catch up and ideally overtake them. If you are really lucky they might end up failing in life completely, making you look even better by comparison.

5. A lesson for later in life: This is important. If you see an odd looking potato on your plate, be warned! It could be a parsnip. In due course, you will probably find that these are actually quite nice too. Just don’t expect them to taste the same, that’s all or you’ll be in for a shock.

6. Kitchen rolls and toilet rolls are not the same either! Technically, they can be used in the same way but some people will look down on you if you do. I actually only realised this when I was 26.

7. Finally: don’t expect to remember all this. Be sure to bookmark this page and re-read it in 2020, as most people forget nearly everything that happens to them in their first few years of life. Treat this period like a long drunken night out: even if you forget it yourself, lots of people will be happy to post pictures of you on Facebook during this time and will embarrass you with stories of your behaviour for years afterwards.

What Cameron says…and what he means

Here are some extracts from David Cameron’s party conference speech. The true meanings are underneath…

I am so proud to stand here today as Prime Minister of four nations in one United Kingdom.
Phew! That Scottish vote was a bit of a close one eh?

(We want) a Britain that everyone is proud to call home is a Britain where hard work is really rewarded.
Basically, if you can’t get a job or are not earning enough, it’s your fault not ours.

There’s no reward without effort; no wealth without work; no success without sacrifice…and we credit the British people with knowing these things too.
We won’t be able to deliver on most of the promises in this speech until 2018. The deficit’s still bloody huge you know.

You know – when Britain is getting back to work, it can only mean one thing…the Conservatives are back in Government.
Please forget all about the massive unemployment under Thatcher and Major. That won’t happen again. Probably.

And look at the results: 800,000 fewer people on the main out-of-work benefits.
Er…yes. A lot of them stopped being sick at the same time! Nothing to do with IDS cutting everything. Honest.

(Labour) have opposed every change to welfare we’ve made – and I expect they’ll oppose this too.
Because they disagree with them.

They sit there pontificating about poverty – yet they’re the ones who left a generation to rot on welfare.
They have a far better record on reducing poverty than we have though (Note: DON’T MENTION THIS)

Under Labour, unemployment rose.
It was actually much lower on average under Blair than it ever was under Thatcher, Major or (so far) me. (Note: DON’T READ ALOUD).

Those exclusive zero hours contracts that left people unable to build decent lives for themselves – we will scrap them.
Whoops! Not sure why we didn’t do this before really. We’ve only been in power since 2010.

So this Party doesn’t do the politics of envy and class warfare…
Apart from this bit…

Tristram Hunt, their Shadow Education Secretary – like me – had one of the best educations money can buy. But guess what? He won’t allow it for your children. He went to an independent school that wasn’t set up by a local authority…
…but no, he doesn’t want charities and parents to set up schools for your children.
What a horrendous public school toff eh? But er, yes. We Tories hate all that class envy stuff. Ahem.

We are going to balance the books by 2018, and start putting aside money for the future. To do it we’ll need to find £25 billion worth of savings in the first two years of the next Parliament.
Yes. We said it would be cleared by this year. That didn’t happen. Whoops!

We need tax cuts for hardworking people.
Again, not the lazy ones!

No income tax if you are on Minimum Wage.
Yes. That same minimum wage that we fiercely opposed in the first place.

(Labour) were the people who left Britain with the biggest peacetime deficit in history who gave us the deepest recession since the war…
Hmmm. Actually a world recession. Which would have probably been a depression if we’d been in power. Phew! Thank God we weren’t eh?

We know Labour’s real problem on education.
Please forget about Michael Gove. He’s gone now.

Our young people must know this is a country where if you put in, you will get out.
If not, you can just GET OUT!

I want a country where young people aren’t endlessly thinking: ‘what can I say in 140 characters?’ but ‘what does my character say about me?’
I had to have this joke explained to me.

That’s why I’m so proud of National Citizen Service.
Sounds a bit like National Service doesn’t it? That’s the closest you’re going to get to us reintroducing that I’m afraid.

From Labour last week, we heard the same old rubbish about the Conservatives and the NHS. Spreading complete and utter lies.
Such as that we might suddenly try to massively restructure it without warning. Like we did after the last election? That sort of thing.

The next Conservative Government will protect the NHS budget and continue to invest more.
Please try to forget Thatcher technically did the same and yet still managed to wreck it.

Because we know this truth…you can only have a strong NHS if you have a strong economy.
We haven’t really had both since Tony Blair was in (Note: DON’T SAY THIS BIT)

…and let’s hear it for… our crime-busting Home Secretary, Theresa May.
I’m not worried about her anymore. Boris is the real threat.

I’m the first Prime Minister to veto a Treaty…the first Prime Minister to cut the European budget…
Bet you thought that was Maggie eh? See. I may not have won any General Elections yet but I’m still better than she was.

And now – they want to give prisoners the vote. I’m sorry, I just don’t agree.
Sorry Andy Coulson. Perhaps I’ll buy you a meal when you get out eh? I’m sure I can fix you up with something somewhere.

If you vote UKIP – that’s really a vote for Labour.
Please. Nobody else defect. Seriously now.

Here’s a thought…on 7th May you could go to bed with Nigel Farage, and wake up with Ed Miliband.
A little joke for the homophobes there! Hope that makes up for the gay marriage thing. Sorry about that.

We’re at a moment where all the hard work is finally paying of…and the light is coming up after some long dark days.
The power companies can do what they jolly well like.

(Let’s not be) falling back into the shadows when we could be striding into the sun.
Hopefully with the backing of The Sun! Right Rupert?