Bumpf

Pancakes From First Principles

Yesterday was Shrove or Pancake Tuesday and, partially because I wanted to and partially to shock She I decided to take responsibility for the pancakes.  Everyone on the radio over the last few days has been rattling on about how easy it is to make pancakes so I reckoned I'd avoid the the pre-prepared mix and make pancakes from first principles.

I found the first pancake recipe on the 'net that looked like it would deliver the right product.  Delia Smith provided the manual courtesy of the Beeb website.  Armed with instructions, I assembled the various parts - for those of you that don't know - those parts are eggs, plain flour, salt, water, milk and butter. 

Assembling the mix wasn't too difficult at all. I was hindered a little by not being able to sieve the flour particularly finely leading to small clumps in the bottom - nothing show-stopping but I'm sort of particular, too many hours in the chemistry labs in Uni, I think.  The real trick was getting the mix evenly on to the pan.  I made the mix in the afternoon and tried cooking two or three then to get the knack.

When She arrived home she was really quite surprised. I don't really like to cook at the best of times so for me to make a mix and cook pancakes was very out of character.   So how were they?  The practice session in the morning appeared to work.  Each pancake was reasonably thin and they tasted okay and most importantly  She was impressed.  Even though they weren't as thin as I would have liked, apparently they were very respectable  indeed.

I might just try this cooking lark again.... just don't hold your breath.

So what's new?

It's been busy. I finished up my last contract a little over a week ago. It was a little strange - I'd been there for nearly 2 years which is quite some time for a contract role but it was fun. They were a great bunch of people to work with and I'm a little sad to be moving on.

The weekend of my last week there, me and She headed to Rome for a well needed break. There was loads of walking, plenty of sightseeing, way too much eating and some really good sleeping. I don't think we've ever been so depressed to be coming back from holidays.

There's been movement on the next contract so I'll be back commuting fairly soon. There's flying to be paid for and, if I don't get a positive reponse from the insurance assessors, there will also be mini's repairs to pay for to :-(

Temorarily Unsure of Position.

This is the second time today I've posted using this title.

She was at a kitchen design showroom looking at - wait for it - kitchens for our latest project.  Plans in hand she met with one of the designers to cost a layout for the new space.  Apparently, he was quite impressed with the amount of light in our design.  I did that and not by accident either.  That was my design.

Apparently I'm a creative sort - family, friend and strangers told me so.  I just don't relate to the idea that I am.  I know have an eye for design, a reasonable turn of phrase and I'm handy with a camera but I don't see myself as being a creative person.  I certainly don't relate to the creative types I knew in school*.   Looking some of them up now via the internet I don't think I'd relate to them now either - even the ones I'd have called close friends.  They're all "meejah" types - all not-quite-as-glam-as-we'd-secretly-hoped-we would be_but-we-love-what-we-do. As people I'm sure there as good as any of us but I can't connect with them.  I'm not sure I'd want to either.

Y'see, they're the ones that I and many of us consider to be the creative types - the photographers, the journalists, the DJs, the TV producers.  The distance between me and them is that they all seem very art for arts sake - "Gawd, that's so pedestrian, it doesn't really get at the essence of  the subject matter  in the wider context of the nouveau-digitally-social- networked society that's prevalent in the world at large, y'know".  What about art and creativity for people's sake?   Y'know, art to make people smile.  The vociferous creative types are a bit too Alpha dog for those of us that might have a modicum of populist talent but are too afraid to expose ourselves.

There are many personal shortcomings that I allow to get in the way of mining my own seams of creativity, but there's no doubt that a shortage of role models doesn't help. 

Tip for those of you thinking for mining for your own personal gold - don't look up people from your past that you once thought were better than you.

*I was a Physicist in University, didn't know any creative types there but I did know truly gifted people there.

New Possibility

This arrived in my inbox this afternoon:

"Thank you for your recent application for the role of Business Writer with [Company].

Although your application for the above full-time role was unsuccessful, we have another opportunity coming up that you may be interested in.

Over the coming months we are looking to build our team of freelance contractors significantly, with the view to forming an arrangement where [Company] supplies the briefs and handles all proofing, editing, client liaison and administration aspects of the job. This means you can get on with doing what you do best – writing"

I believe the correct response to this is, to use the association football vernacular: SCORE!*

It's still only a seedling possibility but it is one that suits me just fine.  With a little little luck and careful nurturing it should grow into something wonderful.

* For someone who has no interest in soccer, why I felt the need to say that is beyond me,  It just seemed to fit at the time.

Sorry to the Seven

I say "sorry" to the seven daily visitors, on average, that read this blog.  I haven' t been updating and, to be truthful,  I haven't even been making a decent effort to update this blog.  This inertia even extended to Clear Of Cloud - you should see the state of that one.

So, to news in brief.  I have a job.  My current employers have renewed my contract.  They did so the day before my last day.  I'm glad.  Obviously revenue is good for Me Ltd. and though the work doesn't really inspire I really enjoy working with the people I work with.  Those of you with fun jobs to offer- any time now would be a good time to call.

I've not been doing much flying lately but with a flight test looming that's going to have to change.  I haven't bought an aeroplane yet but there's a definite plan in place!  That plan is more secure now that I have a contract.

Apart from that, I've nothing else to report. Yawn.

Contracting Joys

There's still no sign of a new job with less than two weeks to run but I'm confident that it won't be a huge issue.  Apart from that, today's the day I see the final state of the books and get some idea if this has been a worthwhile way to work.

I'm still undecided as to whether I want to stay contracting or go back to being an employee. Both have their advantages and to be honest, I think the decision will come down to the role that presents itself.  I'll probably keep the company running for a bit as it may be a useful legal entity.

Well, back to the grind to earn the lask couple of weeks' revenue.

Just Ad Music.

Those of you that know the non-digital me know that I love ads.  To be honest I don't know why I haven't posted before on this topic.  What's prompting me now is pure ad-miration for the music selectors.  I don't know where they find the tracks but on scene at the moment are three advertisements where the music makes it. 

These are three of my favourites at the moment, in no particular order.

Paula Flynn's cover of Bowie's "Let's Dance" for Ballygowan

Regina Spektor's "Hotel Song" for  Vodafone

Oh Laura's track on Saab's new biofuel campaign

I love my back

It's beginning to feel vaguely normal and I've missed that so.

Being a desk driver I don't get much exercise.  Add bad posture to my sedentary lifestyle and you've got a recipe for last weekend's agony.  What started as a twinge on Friday morning ended up being full on I really-don't-feel-like-using-my-lungs pain by the evening. I thought a night sleep would do the trick but on Saturday morning it was just as bad - not even snoozing on the floor helped.

I had booked an appointment for a physio today to help untie the the progressively increasing knots in my back but there was no way I was going to last from Saturday until today, Tuesday.  Out with the Golden Pages and I found a physio working on Saturday. When I called they were fully booked though they said they have a client who cancels regularly; I was assured that if he cancelled, they'd call.  Chance'd be a fine thing.

And Chance was such a fine thing- the other guy cancelled and I got a call.  I haven't been so relieved in a long time.

When the phsyio, Andrew,  got to work on my back, the extent of the knotting became apparent.  Applying pressure on the afflicted area, there was no flexibility at all, to the extent that the pressure applied moved the muscles at the top of my back and the bottom of my back but the area under-hand was rigid.

By the time he'd finished, pushing, twisting and clicking my muscles the rest of me had gone into shock - or so it seemed.  I had been so tensed up that the relatively sudden release left me woozy and light headed and, quite frankly, very sore.

Basically, I spent the rest of the weekend doing nothing because I couldn't.  Only by Sunday night was I in anyway okay.  I'm still not great but I' ve got another session on Thursday, so I expect some improvement.

What I could really do with is a swim but for a city the size of Dublin there's a shameful shortage of public swimming facilities.   That's a rant for another day though.

Land of Snobs and Scumbags

I’m sitting here in the porch watching the large Gucci sunglasses and Gant outdoor coats walk up the Strand Line. They’re making their way against the wind, no doubt to the friends’ Mercedes bejewel holiday house for a latte and some pastries from the local bakery.  I sound resentful, but I’m not, it’s a very pleasant and civilised way to spend a weekend – I might even be a little envious.  However, I cannot help be struck by the contrast in a small seaside town.  Y’see blended evenly among the BMW brigade are the Souped-up Scumbags.

I arrived downstairs Sunday morning to find more or less all of the cars on our street had been vandalised.  Each car had their windscreen wipers, bent, broken or completely wrenched off.  Quite honestly, I went spare.  I went spare for lots of reasons; it’s a long way back to Dublin with no wipers in changeable weather conditions, it’s an inconvenience to find wipers for an old Skoda; I know they’re not expensive, but still.  Mostly though, I went spare because some Scumbags thought this was funny – for all of about fifteen minutes.  Great.  Mad craic, eh.  Laughing your way down the road tugging and twisting wipers off.  You’ll excuse me if I don’t see the levity.  I’d perhaps be amused if, the same length of time you thought that was funny, that someone engaged you with an ash-plant.  Or perhaps took a blow-torch to your car and emblazoned something like, “moron”, “imbecile” or “inconsiderate git”

But hey, sure, what can you do.  I’d like to say live and let live, but while it works for the BMW brigade, the Souped-up Scumbags seem to have difficulty grasping such a complex concept.

Back at the Ranch

I travelled West this weekend. The good She had gone down the day before had the socialising started before my arrival. I caught up with Her and the girls in the Rosin Dubh.  It has been some time since we were all out together like that and the craic was good.  Some times I’m apprehensive about moving West, but evenings like that stoke the draw.

Driving back to the new house that night, there were some right lunatics on the road.  My Dad is right; really, one of the scariest things you can do in this life is drive a car.  Back at the ranch, the fruits of all of H’s labour’s were visible – because now we had light in the house.  It had taken far too many phone calls but H was recently able to get power reconnected to the house.  And the house looked so much better.  She and S had spent the day cleaning and tidying up and the place was the better for it.

We had an airbed this time.  The last time we stayed overnight we had sleeping bags on a thinly carpeted concrete floor – this time it was nearly better than the bed at home.  Whoulda thunk, eh

Morning is a completely different experience down there.  Light streams into the house, and the only sound are the birds and the occasional passing tractor.  It’s a world away from city living.  I can’t wait to see how the work we have planned for the house turns out.  The site gets great light but the house doesn’t make the most of it.  A large part of our plans are based on changing the layout so that we can bask in the maximum amount of light.

It was a busy morning.  H went into town to walk the prom and do some shopping while I met up with some guys into vintage aeroplanes.  What a start to the weekend.  Out in the country-side, covered in oil, working on aeroplanes. Great.  We’d planned to meet up with a builder we have in mind to do the work on the new house so I couldn’t hang around too long.  I finished up the bit that I was doing and set off to meet up with H and the builder.

We met up at the appointed location and Renee led us down a boreen to his current job.  I was impressed with his carpentry and, as ususal, with his general building knowledge.  It’s important to us that who ever we get to do the work is completely au fait with energy  efficient building and Rene clearly is.  I reckon we’ ll be using his services so now we really need to focus on the plans.

We left Renee to with a recommendation for café in Gort.  The exact name fails me but I think it was something like the Gallery or Art café.  Reasonable coffee, lovely bruschetta.   It’s a long narrow premesis with old style tables and chails, like you’d find in your grandparents house. It had a traditional, cosy feel but the abstract photographic art on the exposed-stone walls, added a just the right ammount of contemporary.  Check it out if you’re ever in Gort – it’s on the square just before you exit for Galway.