I've got 20 mins spare while changing planes at Schiphol. I've also got a long list of exciting things. Things I would love to do, but know I will mostly never get round to. One small task is to get some new business cards. Imagine my delight to see a machine offering cards for a euro. Even if they're terrible this has to be a good deal as a stop-gap. Gotta love the Dutch taste for value. It's matched only by my own taste for actually doing stuff off the confounded list.
I spent 10 of the mins typing in my details and choosing the simplest possible design, trying to minimise the likely hideousness. Then I hand over my precious euro!
"Thanks for your order" shouts the screen in bright Dutch orange. "Ready in just 20 mins". Oh well, I think. It was too much to hope for, and get ready to find my plane. "Now printing" shouts the screen. "Card 1 of 100". Wow, I thought to myself, "1 euro buys 100 cards?" Just then card-number-one appeared from a small slot at the bottom of the machine, followed swiftly by card-number-two. The cards come thick and fast, filling the slot. I take the first wad and run for my plane. As I look back the cards are spilling out onto the floor, with no option to cancel the printing. I'm half expecting a few visits to my site from Dutch people who can't understand how someone could waste 50 whole euro cents. So now you know...
Just bought McGee's On Food and Cooking - it's the physics and chemistry of cooking, without a single recipie. Tell me the facts, and leave me to create!
Mulled wine and mince pies round ours tomorrow from 7pm. If you know where that is you're welcome!
I've been playing with these combinations recently:
1. A sausage and bean soup, made by boiling a tin of black eye beans then adding 3 roasted sausages with crushed cumin seeds, finished with some mint before serving
2. A lamb casserole with root vegetables, and crushed cardamom and caraway. Again, some torn mint at the end
Both warming yet fresh
Another observation from the air, where I have been getting my most fluid
thinking done lately:
The pyrenees look very appealing from here. Sure, in December some are snow
capped, but many are still covered in rolling green. Conjures images for
me of nutty mountain region sheep's cheese, and beautiful grilled lamb,
maybe accompanied by some simple roast potatoes or rice bartered with
passing traders.
Such a dream deserves a trip to understand the likely richer reality. A
trip that could also take in the richness of southern France and northern
Spain, with a glorious mountainous interlude.
I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum last Sunday.
First stop was the van Gogh and Expressionism exhibition. I was surprised that the vast majority of expressionists featured were German. I'd be interested in whether this is because Van Gogh made a bigger splash with this group than the French (despite spending a few years of his career in Paris), or had more to do with the availability of paintings?
The collection is arranged chronologically. This makes great sense given the very clear evolution in Van Gogh's style over the ten years that he was painting. The museum's collection is vast, and illustrates this point well, yet precious little is written about it. What inspired Vaan Gogh to make these changes in his style?
Both these questions seem pretty fundamental, yet were not really answered in the text about the galleries. I enjoyed looking at the paintings hugely, but Van Gogh is a character that sparks curiosity. The visit left me wanting much more explanation and analysis than the curators provided.
Smooth and crunchy, in texture and flavour
I finally got round to seeing this film yesterday. It is highly recommended. Much has been written about the excellent performances of the cast. However, for me the interest came from lingering on a pivitol moment in British history. I was abroad for the whole period of Princess Diana's funeral, but it was clear from afar that the public mood was extraordinary. I remember watching the reports on TV with a sense that this was rather more than a typical news story, then picking through the remanins of the moarning when I arrived in Kensington as a fresh-faced student a few months later.
For the first time in living memory there was a very public outpouring of grief accompanied, from many, by clear rejection of quiet conteplative British ways and even of the value of the royal family. Of course, a minority have questioned these things for decades, but at that point the numebr of desentors seemed much closer to critical mass than ever before.
The mood in those few weeks never boiled over into something more permanent, but I am sure its effect as a signal is still felt. Government and royal machines could not fail to recognise the unexpected nature of the public reaction, and are sure to have calculated the lessons into their subsequent actions.
Well, it has got better. At least there is a full set of listings on it now, but what took so long? And why does it still lack any form of personalisation. Surely I should be able to build a diary or wishlist, share them with friends, find people with similar interests, find events these people are interested in. Surely this would increase the number of page impressions (just look how many views per session MySpace gets), and surely it would create other mmonetisation opportunities too.
Time out is such a great paper publication. I'd love an opportunity to shape their site.
I have been wondering where the Christmas carols were coming from earlier this evening. They wafted in the skylight from somewhere nearby. Maybe an office, maybe the hospital round the corner. Definitely live, definitely from a sizable choir, and definitely very close. Such a pleasant interruption to an otherwise hectic evening.
