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6 months since my last post. Still no real desire and time to write long rambling posts, but so much has happened since I last posted.
1. I got the job in The Netherlands!
2. Utd won the Champions' League, and in a manner that beggared belief.
3. I moved to the Netherlands in September
4. YV and I went back to Oxford for our wedding anniversary holiday, followed by a great weekend in London catching up with friends. (Hello Sarah!)
5. A certain Obama won
6. I moved into the new house in Leidschendam, just outside The Hague.
I hope I can find time to post more later, but that's a quick update on life for the moment.
I'm just nursing a sprained toe (walked into a box) from the moving, and I am a bit under the weather after having been caught in Sunday's blizzard - moving boxes in and out of the apartment and house, between sweat and ice, is not the best for your health.
I really need to post more.Current Mood:  sick |
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Hmm, this would be tough, seeing that I really do like my food!
Other people seem to have posted answers like "pizza" and "pasta", but I think that's cheating, as you can have such a wide variety of recipes and flavours that it doesn't count.
Hence, my dishes, which do have a sufficient variety of food to live on:
1. Pan-seared beef tenderloin with a foie gras mousse sauce, truffled mashed potatoes (with some little lime jelly cubes) and grilled aubergines and carrots.
2. Pan-seared salmon fillet with a herb crust, cream lemon sauce with caramelised balsamic vinegar, wilted spinach, steamed asparagus with crispy bacon cubes, and chived devilled eggs.
3. Roast chicken with rosemary on a bed of leek, mushroom and red peppers, with a tossed bacon and parma ham salad (mixed lettuce, particularly endive, oak leaf, coral, mesclun).
I suppose the one thing lacking would be a primary carbohydrate source, but what the hell, proper meat & veg is bound to be more nutritious and better tasting than polished rice or flour!
The recommended wine matches (those never tasted before in parantheses):
1. Ch. Leoville-Barton 1985 (Ch. Mouton Rothschild 1945)
2. Cuvee d'Avant, Ch. de Chamboreau, Savennieres, 1995 (DRC, Le Montrachet 1996)
3. Ata Rangi Pinot Noir, 2002 (Romanee-Conti, DRC, 1990)
Other wines I would insist on having:
1. Ch d'Yquem 1986 (Ch d'Yquem 1847 or 1928) - for dessert
2. Krug Grande Cuvee - NV's good enough for me, else 1990 (Krug Clos du Mesnil, 1982) - one always needs a champagne. |
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Stolen from Irix
What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read 'em for school in the first place.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses**
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies***
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
Love in the Time of Cholera*
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses**
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners**
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed*
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything***
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values***
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers |
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Mar. 29th, 2008 @ 02:28 am
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I haven't done this for a long time! I do miss the quizzes....!
Your Thinking is Abstract and Sequential
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You like to do research and collect lots of information.
The more facts you have, the easier it is for you to learn.
You need to figure things out for yourself and consider all possibilities.
You tend to become an expert in the subjects that you study.
It's difficult for you to work with people who know less than you do.
You aren't a very patient teacher, and you don't like convincing people that you're right.
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| » Weird fishes |
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My fish is blind today.
The poor goldfish shares a tank with 3 others, 2 of which are about double the size of this fish. It had already lost an eye earlier, and I wasn't sure if it fell out or if it was eaten.
Yesterday, I came home late, well past the fishes' feeding time, and to my horror the one-eyed fish (which we had dubbed Jack for obvious reasons) had gone completely blind, and where the remaining eye should have been was a bloody hollow socket.
So clearly, one of the two big fish had got hungry.
I had to fish out the blind one (hereafter known as Fishy Wonder), and put it in a smaller tank where food would be more abundant. It can't find the food, which is a big concern, other than by blundering into it. It's struggling very hard for food, but it clearly can't tell where the food is, so it's more by luck than anything that it finds some food.
Let's see how it goes. If it begins to show signs of suffering, or if it's losing weight, I think I'm going to have to ice it.
Sigh. I feel so sorry for it. It must be terrible for the poor bastard. And if it wasn't struggling so hard, I'd have iced it already. As it is, I'm going to give it a chance to live. But I do think that I'm going to have to ice it sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, the two bigger fish have been separated from the last small fish. I fear that the small one may be the next victim.
Jan. 28th, 2008 @ 02:12 am
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| » Locked out |
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Last Wednesday, one of those moments when you think, "Shit, this CAN'T be happening to me", er, happened to me.
It started, I suppose, when I went to the driving range and found that the pocket where I usually keep the gloves had been drenched the week before and was still moist. Funky smells. I decided to wash the gloves that evening, and just before I went to sleep, I hung them out to dry on the back balcony of the apartment, just behind the kitchen.
After that, I turned to go back inside, but found the door wouldn't open.
Now, my kitchen door has a latch at the bottom. This had clearly been dislodged when I closed the door behind me, and as a result had fallen into the hole and locked me out. This had to happen, of course, when YV was away on a business trip. I could see my phone through the kitchen window, but there was no way to reach it....
The lock on the door knob was of course not locked, and I could just about pull the door open enough to see a gap at the top of the door. But this was incredibly narrow, and there was no way it would be able to open large enough for me to squeeze a hand in to open the kitchen window.
Right. Time to assess all my options.
Option #1: Smash the kitchen window (probably with a mop) and let myself in that way. Not very good, because I would have an expensive window to fix, and climbing through broken glass is not good.
Option #2: There's a bathroom window open, but it's about 6 feet off the ground. I could squeeze through it once I remove the grille, but once through there's nothing that I could use to pull myself through, and more importantly, nothing to break my fall goign head-first. I would end up with a broken arm or worse.
Option #3: Looking over the balcony, it's about 20 feet to the ground. I could jump down, go to the guardhouse and get them to call YV's mum who has a spare key. However, it would be a very hard landing, and I would probably break an ankle or a leg. Not good.
Option #4: Scream for help. It's 1am, I'd wake up the entire block, and there's still no guarantee that I would find a guard. Not very palatable, but it's the best option so far.
Option #5: Pull on the door until something gives. As I pull, I try to squeeze a clothes hanger in to pull open the latch - but it's such a small target, and I can't see or control what I'm doing. Bother. But wait a minute, it's easier to create the gap as I'm stretching the latch. So I brace myself, and pull as hard as I can on the doorknob, praying that the doorknob would not give way first.
Fortunately, the latch does give way, along with some part of the bottom of the door. Phew. That was a close one.
Still quivering from the adrenaline of it all, I call YV to tell her of my narrow escape. I still have to fix the back door.
Sep. 4th, 2007 @ 09:09 pm
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| » Weekend birthdays and other thoughts on Snape |
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On the weekend we had a birthday party for YV; her specially-requested menu was:
Starter - Mushroom salad
Main - Chicken and leek pie
Desert - Strawberry cheesecake
As usual, I spiced up the dishes. I got as many types of mushroom as I could find in the supermarket, and threw in crispy bacon and stock to make the flavour more dense, and to top it off, I threw in some black truffle oil.
The chicken pie was a bit harder, for the stew I threw in fennel, celery, carrots, bacon, bay leaves and star anise to make it meatier, and the puff pastry was a nightmare - it kept being too runny and to roll it out properly took me 2 hours as I had to throw it in the freezer to minimise the butter oozing out! I also added goose fat into the dough in order to make it more tasty.
Dessert was a bit chaotic - I intended to make an unbaked cheesecake but instead did a baked one - I looked at the wrong recipe. (D'oh!) However, it turned out perfectly, with my modifications being a little ground hazelnut into the biscuit base, and topped with strawberry coulis.
Wines - ah, 1996 Dom Perignon, 1996 Dom Perignon Rose, 1998 Ch La Tour Blanche were the highlights.
And now to Snape. Random thoughts:
- Snape is an anti-hero, one who does heroic deeds but being a morally ambiguous and unpleasant character. Hence a hero's death is denied to him.
- Sirius is the tragic anti-hero, what happens to him is totally unfair and tragic, and he's got a mean streak in him.
I had a thought - Snape's body is not recovered, and after Harry leaves him, we don't know what happened. Maybe:
Snape has an antidote potion with him (he is the potions master after all), having foreseen that this might happen. Once Harry's left (and he's feigned death), he drinks the potion, and recovers. Fearful that he might be killed on sight by Voldie, he leaves for a nice quiet dungeon somewhere. Now that he's avenged Lily's death, he can get on with life....
I'm sure someone's going to write that story in fanfiction.
Aug. 13th, 2007 @ 03:52 pm
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| » 4 days of fever and counting |
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I've been sick since Tuesday with a fever. I can see the infection site in the throat - between the right tonsil and the throat wall. The area of infection is whitish, and has spread over the last few days from just the gap between the tonsil and the throat over the tonsil and further forward on the thoat wall.
( Details on pharyngitis and pyrexia )
As a result of this annoyingly long-lasting infection, I was forced to miss a nice golf day out today, with great prizes and everything all paid for by the company. I had been practising a lot recently, and I was starting to really get into som good form! Bah.
I've been sleeping virtually all day, as much as possible - up to 14 hours a day. When I'm conscious and not eating or swallowing pills, or watching House DVDs, I've been reading the Harry Potter book once more. I didn't realise I had missed some details such as Voldie killing Grindelwald, and Ted Tonks dying. Oh well. The most nerve-wracking bits were the parts that I skipped through fastest.
On re-reading, I noticed that there's not much about who killed who. Who killed Tonks, Lupin, Creevey? What happened to the remaining Death Eaters such as Dolohov and MacNair?
A few more questions: does the bit of Voldie's soul in King's Cross ever get out of there? Where did Harry get Fabian Prewett's watch from?
I feel that, after a gap of say 10 years, JKR's going to go, heck, I've had my fun writing other stuff (maybe even Mary Westmacott-like romance novels), so let's get back to telling another story. Maybe the last great dark wizard before Grindelwald? The Goblin rebellion? It's hard to see any possible save-the-world storylines, unless a future Harry has only a supporting role....
God, the nerve going off in my right ear is driving me crazy - agonisingly painful. To be able to sleep, maybe it's time for the pred.
Aug. 5th, 2007 @ 02:56 am
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| » Curiosity |
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I'm just curious. What precisely accounts for the different fart sounds?
( More disgusting deliberations )
Jul. 25th, 2007 @ 01:49 am
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| » More thoughts on the Deathly Hallows |
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More spoilers, so don't click unless you know the consequences....
( Deathly Hallows )
Jul. 23rd, 2007 @ 03:22 am
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| » Finishing the Deathly Hallows |
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Well, it's 6:20pm and I've just finished the Deathly Hallows.
I am pretty good on the guessing key plot points though....
( Spoilers Galore )
Oh my. Where do I begin again?
I will re-read. But first dinner needs to be done.
Jul. 21st, 2007 @ 06:20 pm
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| » 6am, 21st July |
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And I'm off to pick up the new Harry Potter book.
I will be curled up in bed with the new book all day. Ah, bliss. See you tomorrow and we'll know who lives.
Jul. 21st, 2007 @ 06:11 am
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| » One day more! |
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Argh!
Argh!
It's just over 24 hours away now....
Oh, and I'm addicted to facebook at the moment. Especially that traveller IQ game.
Argh!
Will Snape turn out to be good?
Will Harry die?
Will Hermione die? (I don't give a fuck about Ron)
How will Voldie be defeated once and for all?
Jul. 20th, 2007 @ 03:28 am
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| » Posterior Polymorphous Corneal Dystrophy and potential links to Iridocorneal Endothelial Syndrome |
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What a mouthful - PPMD for short. Looks like I should buy meself a textbook on the eye and specifically the cornea.
Sigh. The morning began with a visit to the cornea specialist, a guy called Michael Law. He initial examination took quite a long time, before he said, "You have very interesting eyes." My brother immediately retorted, "That's great coming from my wife, but it's not good coming from the doctor!"
Recap: brother complained of blurred vision in the left eye. I suspected a link to mum's ICE, a rare corneal disease.
Anyway, a corneal surface scan revealed severe corneal thickening round the edges of both eyes, but not symmetrical. Corneal decompensation was noted.
The rest of the diagnosis went as follows:
Left eye:
- sup endoth opacities ++
- very prominent corneal nerves
- some peripheral cornea thickening
- endothelial folds
- cornea guttata ++
Right eye:
- Small sup endoth opacities
- very prominent corneal nerves
- peripheral corneal thickening
- cornea guttata
What does the ++ mean, I wonder? And I presume the abbreviations OD and OS refer to dextral and sinistral.
I spoke to the doc about possible links to mum's disease, as these two are both closely related, and genetic in origin. He said that they were all likely to be related, as they all involve the endothelial layer, and they might just be variations on a common theme. And in any case, what are the odds of having two rare diseases affecting the same subsection of the cornea?!? There's got to be a genetic link.
As far as I can see, ICE is characterised by a movement of cells from the iris to the endothelial layer, which forms a membrane that ends up clogging the trabecular meshwork. In PPMD, something goes wrong with the endothelial layer and the Descemet membrane. (But what exactly? The stuff online isn't clear on this)
Could mum's ICE be misdiagnosed because she only saw the doctor with such advanced symptoms? Can her annoyingly severe glaucoma (which the specialist remarked upon more than once) be due to the fact that the trabecular meshwork was also afflicted with a similar problem as the endothelial layer? An endothelial layer abnormality may well extend to the trabecular meshwork, and fuck it up much more than expected.
So many questions. And because each disorder is rare, there is no good webpage I've found that would allow me to compare the two (including variations) and also explain all the bloody terms....
What's with the enlarged nerves? What does this mean? What does autosomnal dominant mean? What is corneal vesicular?
I need an eye textbook, quick! I've got two patients :-)
After the diagnosis (which the doctor stressed was not final, as many symptoms are shared with other similar disorders, and also because I inferred that not all the classic symptoms are present), we had a quick lunch (2pm) and played golf (teed off 3:55pm as the course was 45 mins away from home). Gerald wore sunglasses because his pupils were dilated by eyedrops. Not that it stopped him playing better than normal.... We finished at 7:55pm, in near total darkness, and having great difficulty in finding the ball, let alone hit it cleanly!
Ah well. He's not worrying too much. Nothing much you can do about it, but it's not going to stop him from playing golf and having a few beers.
In 2 weeks' time, we're going to Singapore and the doc can then compare and contrast mum and Gerald side by side. As for me, I don't have the problem. I got lucky with the genes this time.
Jun. 30th, 2007 @ 12:59 am
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| » Eyes, Golf and TV |
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My brother's around this weekend - he's got something funny about his left eye, which is worrying enough to be sent to a cornea expert. Basically, he noticed that things were getting a little blurred in his eye, so he went to the optician - who bundled him off to an eye specialist. The specialist did a cornea scan, and found the cornea to be asymmetric - he's not entirely sure what's the problem, but he thought it was keratoconus, which describes a bulging of the cornea like a cone. In any case, it's rare enough to be sent to a cornea specialist.
Now the thing is, my mum's had a series of operations on both eyes, due to a rare condition called ICE - Irido Corneal Endothelial syndome. Notice the cornea bit being referenced? If it is keratoconus, then there are some eerie similarities. Both involve abnormal movement of corneal cells, both are probably genetic in nature, both appear late in life, both are poorly understood. I do worry about the similarities, but we'll find out tomorrow, hopefully.
On to golf. About 2 weeks ago, I played perhaps the best round of golf tee to green in my life. Almost every shot found the fairway, almost every green in regulation, and two birdies to boot. The only downer was that I 3-putted 6 times, and had 39 putts in all.
A week later, I played with my dad, and the magic had gone. Instead of hitting short irons into greens (the longest club I used on any par 4 was a 9-iron), I was chipping out sideways from the trees. It's a long, hard slog when the driver doesn't work. And I was hitting the ball about 100-150 yards off line.... Awful. Funny how the magic can disappear like that.
Alex, thanks for recommending House to me. I am not a fan of most TV series, but I like House because there's a lot of problem-solving (great for the brain) and also because of Hugh Lawrie, who I have always liked watching. Especially as Percy. Come to think of it, that's about as different a role as you could get. I also like the subtle games - like in one episode, the husband's name is Furia. Turns out the lady's suffering from rabies, which is named after the Latin for madness, or...fury.
Finally, I want to say that the last two games that Henman's put me through have really made me remember Wimbledon when I was still in university - he always puts everyone through the emotional rollercoaster. Unfailingly. What a pity he didn't survive this 5 set match as well. Nevermind Tim, thanks for the entertainment, but I do wish you could have won just one Wimbledon, like Goran.
Jun. 29th, 2007 @ 12:44 am
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| » Dinner with Simon at Lafite in KL, chef Kevin Charkas |
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For the last few weeks, Simon, the best man at my wedding and my best mate at Oxford, has been in Malaysia. I met up with him quite a number of times, in between his obligatory meet-the-relatives sessions.
First of all, we went for a Buddha Jumps Over The Wall dinner in the middle of nowhere (actually just outside a small town called Nilai), then I cooked dinner (mushroom soup, roast lamb and apple crumble), and finally I took a day off work and we went for a spa session at a hotel outside KL. Dinner that night was a restaurant called Checkers, which does rustic but immensely satisfying pork ribs, and a week later, when Simon got back from a short trip to Singapore, we had dinner at a restaurant called Lafite at the Shangri-La hotel in KL.
We picked the place because it was one of the best restaurants in KL that I hadn't been to yet, and from the description in the guide, it was supposed to be a place where you'd get French cooking. We expected escargots and tournedos Rossini or steak tartare, but instead we got a great dinner, by a new chef. Totally unexpected, and utterly fantastic. Without hesitation, I would opine that this is the best restaurant in Malaysia.
The restaurant was pretty dark, with brown velvet seats that felt a bit like sitting on a cow, and dark green stripes - very 70s lounge. The music was slightly sleazy lounge music - and I had this feeling that Roger Moore could pop out anytime....( Views of dinner )
I've always enjoyed going for holidays with Simon - you discover some very good places when you least expect it. In 1997, I think it was the scenery of Western Scotland; in 2000 it was The Fat Duck in Bray; in 2004 it was Carlton House in Llanwrytyd Wells in Wales. We have a knack of finding hidden gems - totally by accident!
I can't wait for the next time.
May. 30th, 2007 @ 12:56 am
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| » Dead fish, computers and a nerve |
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My favourite fish - cancer fish, also known as cancer boy - died today. He had been sluggish of late, and yesterday was in serious trouble struggling at the bottom of the tank - so I put him into the "hospital" tank (from which no fish ever returns alive, funnily enough), and died around 6pm today.
I think you can probably guess why he was called cancer fish. The tumour appeared in late 2005, so it's been 1.5 years. At first it was just a bunch of white scales, then it erupted into a white bump, which enlarged over the years into a cauliflower-surfaced mass that even encroached onto the dorsal fin. At death, it was about 20% of the fish's mass.
He's had a great life. He was bought to be fish food - but the big fish died instead. So the fish food lived in the tank for 3 years - cancer fish being amongst their number - and I reckon he's had a great life. Never hungry, never predated, and lived for so long with a humongous tumour.
In other news, I've finally plumped down the money for a new computer. It's based on an Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, and the most important thing was to get a graphics card that supported DirectX 10 (8800GTS). Add 4Gb of DDR-800 RAM, a whopping 500W of power and I think I'm onto something that should satisfy my gaming needs for quite some time....
For the medically astute, I had a little problem the other night. I found that my right leg was very uncomfortable - felt warm, numb and irritable at the same time. I tried to massage it, but it didn't go away. This was annoying, as it was way past my normal bedtime, so I got up and did some walking and stretching to see if it would get better. Nope, nothing worked. So I stopped to think. Ok, it's on the outside of the leg. It's the leg I normally sleep on (foetal position). I have a history of back trouble, caused by mild scoliosis.
Shit. It's what my dad has, isn't it? Sciatica?
Pop diclofenac, swallow the multi-vitamins (got to buy the b-complex sometime soon), and within 30 mins, the discomfort has gone down. Get to sleep (sleeping carefully on my left side).
Next day, the doctor confirms my diagnosis. I get mobic (diclofenac gives me gastric trouble - I took milk and a few biscuits to avoid that) and neurobion, which I note is not much different from b-complex vitamins.
Now, I'm a bit worried, because I'm starting to show signs of old age. Fuck, I wasn't supposed to get old. And these back problems will never go away, I think.
Back to the back exercises. I will do them every day from now on. Stretch, twist, leap and twirl. The good thing is that golf will help, as I've got a nice swing that doesn't stress the back (as long as I retain good back muscle strength).
But I hate having to worry about back pain and now, sciatica. In addition, my second metatarsal (right foot) still hurts after I sprained it 2 months ago. I wonder if it's broken.
Apr. 26th, 2007 @ 01:28 am
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| » Turning 31 |
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Friday was my birthday, and I decided to spend the day having a lot of fun. First up, take the day off work. With YV. She arranges the afternoon and the dinner (I woke up at lunchtime!) - was pleasantly surprised to find that the afternoon programme involved a fair bit of pain - ie a good 2-hour massage session.
One thing about massages - what do you do about the underwear situation? This place provides disposable, er, g-strings, which really doesn't leave much to the imagination.
After a fantastic massage session, we walked out, floating on air. I swear, they must put some sort of opiates in the oils.... A quick tea later, we go home to shower and get ready for dinner.
Surprise - the place that YV booked, called The Mango Tree, and where we had an early dinner date, had closed down and had been replaced by Cafe Citron. Although the decor is exactly the same (down to the toilets), the food was definitely poorer. I did have a foie gras, but the dish, whilst tasting alright, didn't gel together in a way that I would have expected for the price. All the ingredients were correct, but they just didn't talk to one another - the harmony was missing.
During dinner, I'm seized by an inexplicable desire to play the piano. So on the spur of the moment, we decide to drop in on YV's parents to play the piano after rushing back to pack a few clothes. Fantastic. OK, I'm a bit drunk, but I don't think it hurt my playing :-)
Today was all about birthday parties. I only finished deciding on the menu in the morning - starter of steamed scallops and duck breast slices with an orange sauce and caramelised balsamic, with a main of roast lamb with orange marmalade glaze.
I meant to wake up early and look for fresh duck, but I only managed to wake at noon (10 hours sleep!). No duck, so off to the supermarket for the rest of the ingredients. Still no duck, and no fresh scallops either. I did find some endive, so decided to use that as the veg for the starter (steamed).
Finally got the scallops at a different place, and also found some smoked duck breast - heavenly! More like prosciutto (ham) than duck breast, really.
YV also picked up the cake (fruit pavlova) and then came the cooking. Frying duck breast in gooase fat and butter is truly heavenly - what a smell! And I was careful to ensure that the middle remained juicy - more ham-like than cooked. The lamb was carefully roasted to medium (basted with orange marmalade, rosemary, thyme and garlic, and also overlaid with bacon strips for more flavour), and the caramelised fennel and onion (which were underneath the lamb when roasting) was the basis of the sauce. The accompanying couscous - in chicken stock, and butter instead of plain salted water - and with added raisins, sun-dried tomatoes, canned pineapples, a splash of orange juice, a little orange rind, shallots and garlic, and a little lamb roasting juices - was perfect. Very popular.
Wines! How could I forget! 1997 Bollinger, 2000 Kirwan, 1997 Lafaurie-Peyraguey. I am reminded again why Lafaurie remains one of my favourite sweet wines of all time - only Yquem is in a different class.
A very good birthday party - I do enjoy the parties as I never need to skimp on the ingredients. The best will do!
I wonder whether Adolf enjoyed his birthdays in quite the same manner....
In other news, I found out where "Who's your daddy" comes from....it's a pretty good song too :-)
Apr. 22nd, 2007 @ 03:18 am
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| » The best football performance - ever! |
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I can honestly say that I have never, ever seen a better football team performance than Utd's 7-1 annihilation of Roma.
Roma's apparently the second best team in Italy, and they boast several World Cup winners. They didn't look like it - I can't say they played poorly, more that they were overwhelmed by the best team performance of all time.
Normally, when a team wins by a large amount, a few things tend to have happened during the match: the opponents have one or more men sent off, a few dodgy penalties and free-kicks were given that resulted in goals, some goals will be scrambled affairs, some goals will be lucky deflected-off-the-goalie's-backside sort of affairs, and most of all, many of the goals will be from set-pieces.
Well, all 7 goals came in open play, and it seemed that each goal tried to be better than the last. At least 5 of the 7 would deserve to win any goal of the month award, and if anything, the ref was biased towards Roma (presumably out of sympathy). Even Roma's consolation goal was a thing of beauty - and probably resulted in the most subdued celebrations ever.
The only thing that spoilt it was stupid Valencia getting beaten at home. Idiots.
I tried to remember other great team performances - for Utd, I thought of 9-0 vs Ipswich, 8-1 vs Forest, 6-1 vs Arse, 4-0 vs Porto, 6-2 vs Newcastle - other than the 6-1 thrashing of Arse, none came close to beating a top team in such comprehensive fashion.
It simply was, then, the single greatest performance in Utd's history. Certainly the best football performance I have ever seen. Of course, none of this will matter unless they win some trophies, but the game will live long in the memory, up there with the mother of all comebacks, when Utd overcame a 3-0 deficit at halftime to beat a very competent Spurs team 5-3. This was The Beautiful Game.
Apr. 13th, 2007 @ 02:23 am
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| » Recharge the batteries |
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I'm going to keep this short, as it's 4am, and I've only just finished cleaning up after a major terroris...er, make that Attack Of The Huge Ugly Inefficient Unfriendly Government Monopoly That Makes Loads Of Money From The Fact That They Are A Monopoly (And They Employ Cunts Too).
On Thursday I came home to a totally dark apartment, and a notice of disconnection from the aforementioned government monopoly. That would explain why I felt I hadn't been seeing any electricity bills recently, then. I don't know, but normally I'd expect a call first before anything happened.
YV and I immediately decamp to YV's parents' place. Argh. The next day, I pay the bills over the internet, and we are assured that the power will come back on that day. But they can't see that I've paid, so I fax over the receipt. We call again, and they say that when we get back the power will be back on. The moment we ask whether they can guarantee that, the bitch hangs up on us. We call back. No one picks up the phone. I use my mobile. This time it's picked up. I repeat the question - and the fucking cunt hangs up again.
That's Malaysian customer service for you. I hate living in a third world country.
Naturally, 6pm on Friday finds the apartment dark.
So that's a weekend in the dark. I spend the weeking bonding with the in-laws, and perfecting "Don't Know Why" on the piano.
Every day sees us go back to the apartment, with a fresh load of ice for the fridge, fresh batteries for the battery-operated air pump (for the fish), and a lot of mopping up (melting ice is unsurprisingly enough, wet).
A farewell party for a good friend had to be shifted to another friend's apartment. (I cooked parma ham rolls with asparagus, gorgonzola, arugula, parmesan and balsamic reduction; roast beef with a mushroom, red wine and mustard sauce; mango in liquer tokay from Rutherglen) As a result, I puke on the way back from the party - if it was in my place, I'd not have to wolf down all the unfinished wine so quickly, and the drive home would not have triggered off the nausea. (Incidentally, the next morning finds me sans hangover and as hungry as a horse, presumably due to the fact that I had a calorie-free dinner - hey, it's one way to avoid putting on weight....)
Finally, the power comes back on on Monday. One fish died due to the lack of air when the filters stopped working, and I've had to throw out a lot of food. Granted, most of the time I didn't know what the hell it was that I was throwing out (ever noticed that after a few days in the freezer, all meats look alike?), but it was still a waste of good food.
If I knew I wasn't moving out of the apartment anytime soon, I'd call over this guy I know who tweaks the electricity meter for you (half-price electricity, yay!) But payback time is 6-8 months, and I might not be in this place that long....
Sigh. And I still don't know where the bills are.
Incidentally, LCD Soundsystem's new album is, well, I hesitate to describe it as such, but, well, ok, what the hell - electric.
Mar. 27th, 2007 @ 04:04 am
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| » Landscapes and Sleeplessness |
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Can't resist personality tests...
Ok, the picture below seems to be missing my lake....there's a path that should wind around the edge of the lake and off behind the trees on the right.
What surprised me was that if you asked me what sort of mountain scene I would draw, I would probably have thought of the Lake District. But actually, I seem to have channeled the spirit of Jackson Hole or some other Rocky Mountain scene - totally flat lake and forest, then the mountains just erupt out of nowhere - no low hills in the foreground, just mountains rising at 45 deg out of the ground. No preparation to say "mountains coming" - they just, well, appear.
What does your drawing say about YOU?
You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.
In other news, today had a session on scenario planning - sounds like a great job - I'm sure I could thrive there, as it's very intellectual and conceptual. Quite, well, dare I say it - natural. I think I do this sort of thing a lot - breaking down songs to answer the question "so what is it that I really like about this song?" (Answer : a great bass line - or hook - and a rhythm that matches it)
I must get in touch with the guy and see if there are any jobs there.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting a job in Europe - probably The Hague - wish me luck! I love expat pay....
Mar. 22nd, 2007 @ 02:09 am
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| » George the Gecko |
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House geckos are a common sight in tropical houses - most of them being grey to beige, with rubbery-leathery skin, and a tendency to do two things - eat insect pests (good) and shit everywhere (not good).
I often find them rummaging about in my rubbish bin at night - clearly they're not above scavenging leftovers - and when startled, they either leap onto you (presumably thinking you're a weird kind of tree), or worse still, drop their tails. Eww.
Lately, I've noticed a rather large, dark brown specimen in my kitchen. He's been there (I shall assume it is a male...) for a few weeks now, and is less frightened of people than the normal grey geckos. I caught him snacking on leftover chicken in the rubbish bin, and instead of scurrying away into an invisible crack somewhere, just retreated to a corner, and stayed there.
I have named him George. I will try to teach him to come out by feeding him - dunno how feasible that will turn out to be, but as he's big and dark brown, I reckon it's worth a shot to adopt another pet!
So that's a new addition to the menagerie - already have 5 goldfish, 1 cichlid, 1 gourami and a terrapin, so it's turning into a bit of a zoo....
YV, on the other hand, is terrified by geckos (she'll run screaming if a startled gecko leaps off the rubbish bin or the kitchen table), so she's not been quite enthusiastic about me adopting George as a pet... :-)
Mar. 15th, 2007 @ 02:28 pm
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| » Piano Madness |
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Last Thursday, YV and I were in the bookshop when we wandered into the music section. We found loads of piano books - and I started looking for books which contained two of my favourite songs - Don't Know Why, and Just The Way You Are. No book had both songs, so I picked two which had the most good songs - like Superman, A Thousand Miles, etc.
YV wanted Candle In The Wind, so that was a third book.
The next day, we arrive at the Subang house with piano books, and play from dinner to midnight. The next day, we play from noon to 6pm. And the same on Sunday. We take turns to play - and I end up focusing on two songs.
Don't Know Why is really difficult to play - lots of little trills and jazzy-ish embellishments. But I think I'm about 70% there now. A Thousand Miles is also difficult, but with more "classical" note progressions, it's a bit easier to figure out.
Funny, it's so much fun to play the piano - a satisfaction in getting it correct, in learning something new, and just, well, making music. It's a joy that I haven't experienced for many years - somewhere in the order of 18 years, I think. I'm glad I can finally relieve all that pent-up desire! Or madness, I suppose. YV's mum is a bit sick of Don't Know Why now, methinks.
One more thing to note - my fingers hurt now. I think I need a few days' break!
Mar. 13th, 2007 @ 02:05 am
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| » Nerve pain |
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It's been a traumatic day.
First, after lunch, the car dies on us. The battery didn't even last two years, which is pretty annoying. That ruled out going to meet a friend for afternoon coffee - which I was looking forward to, as I wanted to get some info on potential next jobs.
So we call a guy to come and help us - he jumpstarts the car, then we arrange with him to come back tomorrow with a new battery (at 9am!). Once we get back to the apartment, yep, the car doesn't start up again. Completely buggered.
The next thing that happened was Yv's handbag strap snapping. Time to buy her a new bag....
And finally, when I was showering, I felt a very sharp pain when I was stretching round to soap my back. It's on the left side, about heart high towards the back (dorsal bit), and hurts particularly when I draw my arms laterally backwards (a rowing action). Moving the arm around doesn't trigger it off in any reliable manner, which makes me think (along with the fact that it's such a sharp, almost electric-like pain) that it's a nerve thingy.
Come to think of it, I've had a few shooting pains towards my left arm in the last few weeks. Hmmm....
Time to see the doctor tomorrow then. It's really painful, and I can't drive properly as a result. Now how could I have injured it - er, one thing I've been doing the last few weeks is getting a fair bit of exercise with weights. Maybe I've overdone the upper back exercises - and the twisting ones....
When I turned 30, I remember saying at dinner that this was the decade when the aches and pains really start turning up. Yep, looks like they really are now....
In other news, I will be away Feb 15th-22nd for Chinese New Year. This year it's Penang, and next year it'll be Kuching. I love the cookies - completely unhealthy, of course...!
I also mucked about on the piano today and found the notes to Don't Know Why. Gorgeous song. I also found the notes to several more songs - Back For Good by Take That, all the Savage Garden songs, and one song I particularly like, Hallelujah - written by Leonard Cohen, but I love the Rufus Wainwright version most.
Feb. 12th, 2007 @ 02:33 am
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| » Harry Potter last book out July 21st! |
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Straight from www.jkrowling.com
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on Saturday 21st July at 00:01 British Summer Time.
*gets drunk*
Feb. 2nd, 2007 @ 03:57 pm
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| » Ill |
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I've sort of been down with a throat infection since mid-December; never really went away, despite courses of antibiotics.
First was cloxacillin, then erythryomycin and finally an amoxicillin / clavunalic acid combination (which is pretty potent, since as I understand the clavunalic acid inhibits the primary bacterial adaptation to deactivating amoxicillin and similiar penicillin derivatives).
They all didn't really work - I still had a pretty nasty raw pit of bacterial infection just behind the glottis. No tonsilitis. But swallowing had been quite difficult.
Finally, doctor prescribes me amoxicillin/clavunalic acid and prednisolone combination. Which does work very well - can't see the infection anymore.
Googling prednisolone reveals quite a number of side-effects, so I've resolved to take it only as long as I can see the infection at the back of the throat. As I can't see the pit of bacteria anymore, I reckon this is the end of it for the time being.
Which makes me wonder - is a combination of a strong antibiotic and a corticosteroid always a killer combination? This is the first time I've had the combination. And does the corticosteroid's effectiveness with the amoxicillin/clavunalic acid combination mean that the antibiotic wasn't really effective? Why is it suddenly so effective?
Lots of questions, and the doctors never have time to explain :-)
On another note, I used to wonder why it was when I fell ill I'd get lots of diarrhoea. I now realise that it's likely to have been the antibiotic's fault. So that's one thing that gives me diarrhoea (in addition to capsaicin). So far I haven't found any food intolerances, although I note that if YV gets a minor upset stomach, I will get diarrhoea. So I'm pretty sure that I'm a very sensitive soul :-)
Jan. 3rd, 2007 @ 05:26 am
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| » Annual things |
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So a tornado hit London today. What's always annoyed me about the media in the UK is that they insist on referring to a tornado in Britain as a "mini-tornado". WTF? A tornado is a tornado is a tornado. A mini-tornado... *despair* The good thing is that the bbc have stopped using "mini"....
OK, I think I may have done this last year. Anyway, all the friends are doing it, so why not?
Go to your Calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2006 (not including memes of course). Post the first line/sentence of it in your journal, and that's your "Year in Review".
January: Got your attention, eh? No, seriously. Fucking dogs.
February: Funny, I haven't been in the mood to update this journal recently.
March: I'm going to buy a new PC with the luvly bonus money (yay!) - now, what specs do I need for a real kick-ass system that won't be obsolete in the next 3-4 years?
April: I never knew two things:
1. How difficult it is to figure out where the fish went
2. How difficult it is to figure out colours for the house
May: Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to taste an absolute legendary wine - actually, two legendary wines.
June: Mum had surgery on Thursday.
July: What do you expect with an Argentinian referee?
August: It's another time to play : what to get the fiance for a birthday present?
September: Oh bugger. The Croc hunter is dead.
October: Tomorrow I'm getting married (officially at a dingy govt office). Fuck I'm not getting enough sleep as there are too many arrangements to be made for Saturday's church + dinner party!
November: Well, here we go! Part 1 of the honeymoon photos.
December: So a tornado hit London today.
Not bad, I suppose....
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 01:18 am
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| » Richard Dawkins |
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I am currently reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, and he's articulating precisely what I've always felt about religion.
Damn, he's good. And so right.
Nov. 30th, 2006 @ 05:18 am
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