Saturday, July 04, 2015

Important Information For My Adoring Readers And/Or Fans

"Where is your blog?", people sometimes say.  "I used to find out what you were doing by reading your stupid website", say others, tears filling their adoring eyes, "but now I know nothing of your life."  "Why, NWM? Why?", bellow the others.  "WHERE ARE YOU?".

"Listen up, kittycats", I reply, doing some fancy footwork with my tiny monkey feet as Music Sounds Better With You plays inside my monkey brain.   "I've been in Canada for nearly eight years.   I've tried to find things to write about, but it's all so very nice and so very reasonable that nothing ever happens (apart from accidentally insulting Bryan Adams*). But all that is going to change."

Yes. Change is afoot. I am going to tell you all you need to know. And all you need to know is that I (accompanied by a veterinary research histopathologist - who thankfully no longer cuts his own hair), am moving back to EUROPE, possibly Blighty, possibly La France, and that means that there is a HIGH CHANCE that things of interest will start happening again, and therefore a HIGH CHANCE that there may be things to write about again.

Yes. It is true. Come "the fall" (or "autumn", as it will once again be correctly known),  we will be gone from the Canada.  I will not spend much time explaining why we are leaving, other than to say that in my view Canada is a very honourable, large and beautiful place, with values that (on the whole) I deeply admire and respect.   But it does not contain much of what I - sofa-bound lily-livered Londoner that I am - like the best, and what I like the best (apart from my husband) are my friends and family, drizzle, temperate weather, old buildings,  patchy public transport susceptible to minor variations in weather, a 2 hour drive being "a really long way", and Waitrose.

I am very excited.

Pip pip!

NWM


* True story. Will elaborate if anyone is interested.

Monday, February 02, 2015

Britainwatch

What's up, homies. In the second of an occasional series, I try and tell you what's happening in Britain by sitting in Montreal and looking at 1) the British media; 2) Twitter, Facebook, etc.

1. The Weather

Thanks to Russia, temperatures are going to plummet to -11 in scenes not witnessed since last winter. I do not know what everyone is complaining about, as everyone knows there is no place on earth as cold as a British bathroom in early Spring*, so they should be used to it by now.

The following photographs are likely to appear in the next few days:

  • Child tobogganing in inadequate outerwear down Richmond Hill
  • Dog with snow on nose
  • Man with beard looking at frozen water feature/waterfall in a mournful style
  • People skating on a puddle
  • Malnourished snowman (due to deficit of actual snow with which to build anything of any substance)
  • Picture of the only snowplough in England broken down somewhere off the M4. 
There will be 'travel chaos' as 4cm of snow 'hits London and the South East'.

Meanwhile, in Canada, it is -26, 'feels like -38', and the snow is horizontal. 

2. Kale

I know it has been around for years and it is nothing new, but I see from the newspapers that Kale is now ALL THE RAGE in England. (Do not tell me this has been true for the last 3 years, for you will be lying. It was in January 2015 that the Grauniad published "Our 10 Best Kale Recipes" ; the New York Times were down with that shit in 2009.)

Yes. Kale was being chatted about by halfwit hipsters and part-time 'yogis' long before Martha Stewart got her hands on it.  St Yotam of the Ottolenghi had only just worked out how to seed a pomegranate when I first tried it in New York in about 2009.   I had 'organic kale salad with salt cod and buttermilk dressing'. Kale: fibrous, sulphurous, despairing.  Salt cod: raw, like a depressed scallop.  Buttermilk dressing: a squirt of old milk. It was no good to anyone, least of all me. 

A year later, someone I trust said it was very nice when sliced up finely (for the cooks among you, I believe the correct expression is 'chiffonade') with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Apparently the best thing about it was that you could have it hanging around for a long time and it would marinade and become more delicious.  

This was true. I now eat that shit about 3 times a week. It is a salad you can make for lunch on Monday and still eat on Friday, because it doesn't go soggy like stupid lettuce.  We will leave it there, for there is nothing worse than a kale bore (see this post, point 4). It remains for me to wish you  a hearty 'good luck', and to suggest that you avoid the ready-chopped bags of nonsense from Waitrose. If you can't work out what to do with kale on its stalk,  here's a video from  Martha to tell you.  

(I believe the Cauliflower Craze has come your way, thanks to St Yotam of the Ottolenghi amongst others,  but if not - brace yourselves, people: roast cauliflower, cauliflower pancakes, cauliflower mash.)

3. TV Reviews

Broadchurch
Dr Who is gasping a lot and they are all in court, where Jean-Michel Jarre's ex-wife is pretending to be a lawyer. It is not nearly as exciting as the first one.  I think people are trying hard to like it but they don't really.  It has a lady singing at the beginning and end like in the Danish and Swedish crime thrillers.

Wolf Hall (Review 1)
Sex dreams about Mark Rylance.















Wolf Hall (Review 2)
Why can't people just say, "it's fucking incredible" and leave it at that?  If it was America they would be like: "this is awesome" and everyone would be OK with it and enjoy it.  If it was Canada they would say, "this is good" and everyone would just get on with it in a polite way.  But we can't say that, can we. A little dig here and there. It is necessary. 

Wolf Hall (Review 3)
Mark Rylance. Black eyes. Eyebrows. What is in your jerkin? Sex dreams. 

Celebrity Big Brother
Keith Chegwin!

Fortitude
Polar Bears.  Mammoth, adequate snow wear, shagging in a garage. Everyone's a bit confused but think they have to enjoy it because it's set up north.  I think you 'need fortitude' to be able to sit through it !!!!!!

4. The Archers

Everyone is shrieking about how it has been dumbed down and is like a soap  opera with its improbable storylines and drama. I do not know what they are complaining about. It is better than ever, and my dream storyline -  in which Helen, Kate and Tom all fuck off out of it to New Zealand to open an organic yoga farm with Kenton's daughter -  is actually looking viable. Fingers crossed! 

That is all for now, adoring readers and/or fans!

NWM



* This was said by some fella in a newspaper last week but I can't remember who - Times I think, writing about Fortitude

Sunday, March 30, 2014

In England

We got back last night. In England it seemed to be all  daffodils and spring rain and walks in Richmond Park and lunches by the sea. In Montreal it is still snowing and it is quite clear that spring will never come.

We travelled about a bit in England. Here is where we went.

Brighton

We go into the Royal Pavilion and I see enough from the entrance hall, before we've even bought our tickets, to go: JESUS.

A cheerful stranger on his way out hears me and says,  I know darling, isn't it fab, it's like a massive gay cathedral, just WAIT until you see the dining room. You will DIE. (I did not die, but we did shriek.)

Brighton, Pt 2

We saw Steve Coogan in a window.





























Tesco, Ware

I am buying a sandwich (no good can come of a shop-bought felafel wrap) and two men behind me haul their baskets up. One basket is full of Mr Kipling's Lemon Slices; the second is full of Tesco Chocolate Chip Cookies; the third, three bottles of wine and family-sized packets of Ready Salted crisps. I say, I must congratulate you, those are the finest baskets I have ever seen. One of the men says, you know, I got sick of those fad diets, they weren't working for me, so I invented my own.

Cambridge

I met Dave Shelton - known to me as internet friend and illustrator of the fine pictures you see in this masthead, known to everyone else as (award-winning, although he would never tell you that himself) author of the very brilliant A Boy And A Bear In A Boat - in person for the first time. It was everything we could have wished for and more. We talked of cashmere private jets and drank pints of beer.

Cambridge Pt 2

We stayed in a B&B run by two people who could not be less cut out to be B&B owners: very posh and very shy, although I liked them because they left you alone and once (according to Trip Advisor) 'accommodated a parrot in a room'.

They had a thing I have never seen before: a Pifco Boiled Egg maker that I think I broke by piercing the egg too enthusiastically.  It sort of frothed up and frondy bits stuck out of my egg. Has anyone else ever seen one of these? I am intrigued. I think it was made around 1973.

Hastings

We stayed in a B&B with a parrot on a pouffe, hand-written signs on everything and little pots of jam on the table in the morning labelled (as if written with the left hand) :

BLACK
BERRYJAM

and

STRAW
   BERRY
 JAM

and

RASP
BERRY
JAM

We had to choose our breakfast the night before. I would like a kipper but I won't, I said to the owner, they are delicious but there are other people here and they may not like the smell of fish in the morning.

The poached eggs I had instead were a chimera of poached and fried eggs, and the bacon was salty. Nice bacon, I said, expecting them to say, yes, it's from the local butcher, it is organic, locally sourced, home-cured and made from a pig called Rosie.  We changed to Tesco smoked, they said. And then the man in charge appeared: just a tiddler, he said, laying down before me the biggest kipper I have ever seen, splashing about in butter.  If you can't eat it all I'll give it to my two seagulls, said the lady.

Pett

We went with our two dear friends to eat delicious pulled pork from the back of a caravan. It rained and 10 Dutch teenagers rushed in; the caravan rocked; we admired each others' shoes. It stopped raining and we went for a mini walk on the beach. This was what it looked like. I promise I haven't done anything to these photographs: if anything, the sea glowed more than it does here:



Behind us apocalyptic clouds gathered, but strangely did not gather over the bit of Sussex that Paul McCartney lives in.  I don't know if the McCartney Microclimate officially exists, but if it doesn't, it should. Here is a photograph of it : this is what it truly looked like - no trickery or fancery.



Lewes

Despite apparently having the most terrifying bonfire night celebrations of anywhere on earth, Lewes - where more dear friends live - seems like an excellent place to live. It has proportionately more shops selling Recycled Overpriced French Tat than any other town in the UK. It also has very high quality cakes, which is reason enough to visit.



We ate a lot of cake that holiday, and saw a lot of friends. It was very nice. Nicer than the snowplough that just drove past and the thought of work in the morning, but I have the memory of cake, and that should see me through.

Pip pip!

NWM

*I told this story to Monkeymother who said, they must have been buying things for church. I am not sure what religion it is  but it is definitely one I would like to join.




Monday, February 24, 2014

Today (extract from email)

"...had to wait for cab in dread coffee shop
no cash so had to pay for coffee with card
minimum 5 bucks
so bought a 'biscotti'
fucking biscotti looked like a lobster would look like if it was a biscuit
wasn't going to eat it was going to give it to someone tomorrow
but couldn't even wrap it up so massive and frondy with stuff on it
so said give it to someone else
taxi finally turns up
i get in taxi spill coffee all over it
get to airport
flight delayed."

Saturday, February 15, 2014

I watch news of the floods in Britain with a Canadian friend

"With that flooding the French can just row in ... there are no trees in England, just hedgehogs, and that's why there's the flooding. And you haven't got guns. Which makes it even easier for them. Now's their chance."

"Are all the hedgehogs in little rowing boats?"

"Yes."


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