Category: Miscellaneous

Here is the ingredients list from a carton of Crystal Eggnog:

Milk, nonfat milk, nonfat milk solids, cream, high fructose corn syrup, egg yolks, sugar, corn syrup, nutmeg, natural and artificial flavour, disodium phosphate, annatto extract (colour), mono and diglycerides, turmeric (colour), whey, stabiliser (guar gum, carrageenan).

Imagine a drink with a consistency and flavour halfway between cream and custard. Add a hint of nutmeg and you’re just about there. If you drink it in America it’ll be chock full of horrible high fructose corn syrup rather than glucose, which is slightly more expensive and much better for you.

All hail the spirit of free enterprise!

I used to think that Absinthe was a pretty deadly drink – Baudelaire (and other artistically inclined Frenchies) destroyed themselves with it for years until the French authorities banned it. But I can’t help thinking that Baudelaire’s decline would have been much faster had he become hooked on everclear. Banned in the UK and several US states, it’s a very highly potent grain alcohol, similar to vodka but much, much stronger. The average bottle of Everclear is 95% proof.

Last night we had drinks with a couple Courtney recently became friends with. As we all know, drinks with me is rarely just a quick little snifter and home early to bed. We hit it pretty heavy. After a good number of empty beer bottles had been racked up our host nipped to the kitchen and rummaged in the freezer. “Have you ever had this?” he asked, holding up a bottle of Absolut. “Yes, of course” I replied. “No, this,” he said, holding up what was in his other hand, a bottle of Everclear.

I was sensible, or so I thought, and took only a couple of sips. It burnt like the first time I drank whisky. It felt like it was taking the enamel off my teeth and bleaching my guts, but other than that I manifested no ill effects. Not immediately, anyway.

I woke up at one this afternoon with a distinctly non-beer hangover. At about four I ate some granola and threw it back up. I slept awhile and then I had an omelette. It just about stayed down. It’s now twelve in the morning and I still feel like a pig shat in my head. Normally my hangovers recede midway through the afternoon and leave in their place an intense craving for fry-ups and pizzas. Not so this one; it has cruelly robbed me of my appetite.

Having undergone this important research, I feel it is my duty to warn you, dear readers, of the dangers of this noxious drink. Even if someone has a gun to your head, decline. A bullet would be less painful.

Of course, after I’d drunk my two sips my host told me what he uses it for when he’s not springing it on unsuspecting guests.

“Yeah, it’s really good for cleaning things.”

Actually, I think we do have Everclear in the UK, but not by that name. We call it methylated spirit. Excuse me, I have an overwhelming urge to retch.

Working in a coffee shop isn’t too bad. I get to eat and drink almost anything there for free. In the run up to Christmas we’ve been serving eggnog lattes. These are alright, but nowhere near as good as what I invented today.

The Festive Vanilla Nogshake

You will need:
3 big scoops or 0.6lbs or 270g of ice cream
1 cup or 240 ml of eggnog
50ml or a double shot of brandy

Throw ingredients into blender and pulse for 20-30 seconds; slightly longer than a normal milkshake because eggnog is so darned thick. Pour into a pint glass and top with whipped cream and a sprinkling of nutmeg, if you so desire. Suck through a straw until you can suck no more.

Make sure you have a friend on hand to help you finish it off. It’s very, very rich.

Variations: Chocolate ice cream gives and even richer flavour. Mint Choc Chip ice cream is wrong.

Dave has a weblog. It’s here. I’d have noted this phenomenon earlier, had I been paying attention to anything at all in the last couple of weeks/months.

Dave is remarkably likeable. Even I like him.

So what have I learnt from this 4000+ mile excursion across the USA? A multitude of things, to be sure, but one in particular keeps begging for attention, and now we’re settled I’ve had time to reflect on it properly.

Regional stereotypes in Europe and the UK are disproved by the people you meet often as they are reaffirmed. There’s the man from Edinburgh who can’t stand whisky and the Man Utd. fan who doesn’t live in Surrey. In America I’ve found this not to be the case; people conform to the stereotypes more often than not. While England is a small cameo piece, delicately and minutely detailed, America is painted in bold colours and broad strokes on a wide canvas.

I think much of this has to do with the way America communicates with itself. TV and film, especially, have formed as well as informed the public consciousness, and more than anywhere else. Hollywood has its ready stereotypes of each state: the elderly Kentucky gentlewoman, the crunchy Californian, the Texan Cowboys fan, and astonishingly, these people exist in real life as if formed by the silver screen. In many ways they have been. In America more than anywhere else I’ve been, the TV is a mirror. This is not to say American TV is realistic, because it’s not. American program making conforms to none of the conventions of documentary realism; it’s pure fantasy which seeps out of the tube and takes hold of American reality.

How is this possible? I think mostly because of the sheer distances involved. Outside the major cities there are large patches of isolation, and isolation breeds differences, in some cases huge differences. The TV negates some of this distance, brings a far larger circle of acquaintances into the living room than would normally come visiting. Imagine, for example, the culture clash that would occur between a Bostonian banker and a Texas farmhand.

In the UK we have a centuries old class system, antagonisms and alliances which define us as part of the same lump of people. Whether we love or hate another group we are inextricably bound to them. America does not have this socio-historical mesh; instead it has a powerful national myth. It’s there in the endlessly repeated fluttering stars and stripes, and it’s there in Hollywood movies and on TV. Its message is “We are all Americans.” So what if you’re a Boston office worker and wear $800 designer Italian shoes? So what if you’re a Texas rancher with a ten-gallon hat and work-roughened hands? So what if you can’t agree on politics, sports, or religion? There is always one thing you can agree on. You are an American, and so is he. The myth, the stars and stripes, and all that go with it are a mental cement to unite the people of these diverse and remote states.

If Europe were ever to unite to the same extent a huge amount of time and money would need to be expended in creating a unifying myth strong enough to convince Sicilian olive-growers, Dusseldorf brewers, London bankers, Cork farmers, Parisian chefs and Marbellan hotel managers that they are all citizens of the same country. It would need to be strong enough to conquer the smaller national myths and also to conquer a history of rivalry, squabbling, feuds and wars. Before I saw America I would have said it wasn’t possible to brew a myth that strong. Now I’m not so sure.

In vino veritas? In Courtney’s case, I hope not. This is one of the many results (the others being four full stomachs and an atmosphere of bonhomie) of our friend Amy’s drunken dinner party last week.

My green card interview happens later today in Buffalo. Tomorrow the road trip begins.

Update: The Green Card interview, even though they kept us waiting three quarters of an hour, was a breeze. The officer “slam dunked” us through (his words, not mine). I am now a permanent resident of the USA, just like Kelvin.

I’m checking out a new photo sharing service offered by flickr.com. Big Chill pictures are here, stored at full-size, and in full resolution, in case anyone wants proper prints.

OK, the iBook arrived this morning. It’s slimline, sleek, stylish and fun. Blogging resumes tomorrow!

Courtney’s laptop died just before we went to the UK. We’re back, but the computer hasn’t been resurrected. I’ll be blogging again in full force (and some style) when our lovely new Mac iBook arrives in a couple of days!

The other night Courtney and I were photographing her cat, Skunk, in the hope of capturing an image worthy of mycathatesyou.com. We think we’ve achieved it. All we need now is a caption.

Use the comments system to leave your caption. I’ll give you… um… until we return to the US. That’s two weeks. Get captioning!

Listen to this, then check out Nagl’s site, where I stole the link from.

It’s nice to see Ben Folds has been keeping busy.

Even if you were for the war in Iraq, you have to admit this is definitely very shoddy behaviour. Next time someone tells me that they refuse to see Fahrenheit 9/11 because it wouldn’t be showing support for the troops (and someone I know did use this incoherent argument) I’m going to tell them about this:

Discontent in the ranks [of the US military] has also been stoked by reports that life insurance sales agents have been using compulsory financial planning sessions with raw recruits to sell them expensive policies.

An investigation by the New York Times found that many of the soldiers who signed policies had no idea what they had bought, believing that signing the documents was obligatory and that they were agreeing only to put aside savings. In fact, they had agreed to pay inflated monthly premiums for less coverage and benefits than the standard package offered by the army.

Source: The Guardian

The NYT article is here (and requires you to register with the site). Apparently the scam has been commonplace since Vietnam, but has naturally had a recent surge.

If you haven’t heard of bugmenot.com, now might be the time to try it out. Go there, type in the address of the site you want to view (but can’t be bothered to register with) hit return, and the bugmenot database will provide you with a username and password valid for that site. No need to give away your email address and other personal details. I love it.

It’s a bright summer day and as I sit by the front window of the apartment reading "The Art of Dramatic Writing" I can hear a distant trumpeter practising the opening bars of the Godfather theme. I wonder what music played at Marlon Brando’s funeral?

As you can see from this picture, the camping trip was no washout. A little thunder, a lot of insect bites, a spot of walking, plenty of good company and verdant countryside. On Saturday we ate lunch on a rocky outcrop overlooking the simply-named Lake #4. Left to right: Amie, Laura, me. Behind the camera: Courtney.

I have decided the Adirondacks are NY’s Lake District. Many of their attributes compare favourably, save the names. Lakes #1-6 are no match for the likes of Derwent Water, Grasmere and Windermere. Can you imagine Wordsworth writing a poem titled "Lines Left on a Tree Stump Overlooking Lake #4," or "For The Spot Where The Hermitage Stood on Island #6, Lake #2?"

There is no prize for identifying the Wordsworth poem I culled the title for this post from, but have a go anyway. Now I have email to do. I feel as if haven’t emailed anyone for a couple of weeks.

I passed the driving test, by the way. The instructor said I had a "touch of the cowboy" to me, and I wasn’t even wearing the hat.

A couple of friends and Courtney and I are heading off into the Adirondack mountains tomorrow. Here’s the weather forecast for the area. We’re going have lots of fun this weekend. I must remember to pack my waterproof everything.

Oh, and I’ve got my utterly redundant US driving test tomorrow too. If I fail I’ll probably die of shame before I get soaked to the skin and frazzled by lightning.

I’d sworn off these things, but… well… it’s Eddie.

Which Eddie Izzard line are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I just saw this article on boingboing, the directory of wonderful things. I must admit that if next time I enter the US I am treated with the same unmannerly way as last time, I’ll be tempted to take similar action myself.

Of course, Mr. Miller was simply going through the metal detector. I’d like to know what he’d do when confronted by US immigration.

How squeamish is this Yahoo News report of the story? “Pants area,” indeed. What’s wrong with “groin?” And what was the “expletive” in the man’s bag?

More animal oddity at the Eastman House. There are similar horses dotted around Rochester, including one with a buffalo mane. This is the best of the bunch.

George Monbiot delivers a perceptive and persuasive article in the Guardian about a "scruffy comedian from Michigan." I think I’d like to borrow his words – because they’re more eloquent and better researched than my own – to illuminate my response to Fahrenheit 9/11.

Using my own words once more; the best account I’ve ever read (if you know of better, please let me know) of the dirty business of fighting in wars and the propaganda machine that reports those wars back to the public is George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. In early editions of the book, chapters five and ten are analyses of the European press coverage of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 (in later editions these chapters become appendices). Orwell checked through issues of newspapers from the far left, the far right, and all those in between to discover how their versions tallied with his personal experience of fighting against the fascists as a volunteer. He discovered that almost all reports, from the communists to the fascists, and on the very far right, the Daily Mail, were complete fabrication. Interestingly, in a footnote he remarks:

I should like to make an exception of the Manchester Guardian. In connection with this book I have had to go through the files of a good many English papers. Of our larger papers, the Manchester Guardian is the only one that leaves me with an increased respect for its honesty.

On the whole, I think the editorial stance of the Guardian today bears favourable comparison, although I did notice some inconsistencies in the reporting of the first few weeks of the most recent Iraq war.

I was mildly surprised to hear that Ray Bradbury, author of classic sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451 was furiously displeased with Michael Moore’s hijacking of his title. I’d have thought that Bradbury’s politics would have been broadly similar to those of Moore’s. The full interview is on the website of Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter, but I can’t find any complete translations, only heavily editorialised presentations of carefully selected snippets. If anyone comes across an entire translation, please let me know, as I’d be interested to read it. Certainly, Moore’s appropriation of the title is somewhat clumsy, but does this qualify him as a "horrible human?"

As I was looking for information on Spike Lee’s new movie, She Hate Me (the wonderful Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things has a role) I was unfortunate enough to read the imdb review. I have a love/hate relationships with the imdb reviews. They’re like car crashes – awful, but you can’t stop looking. This particular review is glib and generalised, but not a huge offender – until the final sentence.

Although it will open after Roger Moore’s more publicized documentary, attacking the President, make time to enjoy this treasure!

Would this be Roger Moore, the man who admits “I might not be as good an actor as Sean Connery Lawrence Olivier, but I’m taller,” or Roger Moore, the political satirist and documentary maker? I love his no-nonsense interviews: “I’m aiming directly at your groin, so speak now or forever hold your peace” (20 Junkopia points awarded to the first person – Courtney excepted – who can name the movie this quote comes from).

As Dave asked so nicely in the comments, yes, Courtney and I (and a couple of friends) saw Michael “Roger” Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and came away feeling pumped up and pissed off. It’s a documentary that aims for emotional response rather than intellectual engagement, as does all of Moore’s work (Michael’s and Roger’s too, I guess). I can’t imagine the same style being used in a European political documentary. We didn’t stay til the end of the credits, but I hope there was a bibliography on display. Even if there isn’t, Moore lists all his facts and sources on his website.

Of course, I didn’t go into the movie waiting to be convinced. I already knew that Bush is a lying, cheating liability, whose malign influence has damaged both the US and the rest of the world. He needs to be removed from office before he does further harm. But Bush isn’t the problem: he’s just the biggest symptom. There’s a lot in the USA that needs to change. Sure, tackle one issue at a time. Get rid of Dubya, but once that’s done there’s still a lot more work to do.

I don’t agree with all of Michael Moore’s politics and methods, but Fahrenheit 9/11 is important because it’s a high-profile movie which has galvanised and unified the American left. In the face of at flood of spin and obfuscation that is American political journalism this particular movie stands firm.

And I just realised my closing metaphor makes quite a good pun on the documentarist’s name.

Terror hit the formal gardens of the ex-residence of the ex-captain of industry, ex-founder of Kodak and general ex-eccentric, George Eastman this afternoon. Terrorist spores, which it is suspected had been launched from Northern Korea and lain dormant for several weeks, grew at a blistering pace into lumbering tentacled carnivo-plants. Hundreds of them hurled themselves at the walls of the Eastman House, an American institution, in an attempt to spread fear and panic in the run-up to the Presidential election. Courageous locals armed with pitchforks and weedwhackers attempted to stem the tide of vegetable viciousness, but to no avail. Many were pulled from the clashes covered in sap. At the moment it is not clear how many lives have been lost, but the final number is widely expected to be higher than the redundancies announced by Kodak earlier this year.

In the light of these events, President Bush has declared a "war on nature" which will commence with the burning and felling of dark wood trees all around the country. Responding to claims that his surname suggests he was in some way involved with the plant life insurgency, the President said "I am in no way, and never have been a vegetable, nor have I ever had relations with a vegetable. I ain’t got no magic beans, neither."

Courtney and I finally visited the Eastman House today. It’s very good. Cameras from all eras including one that looked like a cannon and some lovely Leicas; a world travel themed photograph exhibit with some great snaps by Robert Doisneau and Martin Parr in particular; the formal gardens, which are currently in full bloom; and the house, a good quantity of which is preserved almost exactly as it was when George Eastman was alive. I swear the man was slightly eccentric. Anyone who regards this as suitable decor for a conservatory is a couple of banana trees short of a plantation.

And we rounded it all off with a screening of The Ghost and Mrs Muir, a Joseph Mankiewicz melodrama with a stirring soundtrack from Bernard Hermann, in which the ghost of an old sea captain (Rex Harrison) dictates a book of memoirs called "Blood and Swash" to a young widow (Gene Tierney). Marvellous.

The pictures of the Hopf family Independence Day turkey-fry are now online. I’ve given them their own gallery in the photos section. Click here to have a look at the scariest method of cooking a large bird I’ve ever seen.

Before we cooked the bird I convinced Courtney’s sister Maggie that the turkey wasn’t fully defrosted and that because hot oil and water don’t mix there was a good chance the turkey fryer would launch it, like a ball of flame, at the house. I’m proud to report she was genuinely worried that her home was minutes away from burning down.

Of course, deep fried turkey wasn’t the only bizarre food consumed this July 4th. Kelvin had some kind of multicoloured bagel monstrosity – for breakfast, no less.