We interrupt this edition of Newsnight Review* to bring you important news from the Languedocien countryside.
Bong! The figs have ripened!
Bong! I had fresh figs for breakfast with honey!
Bong! The equivalent quantity of figs would have cost me £8.50 from the fruit & veg stall on Chiswick High Road!
Bong! Please write in with your best fig recipes so that I may make the most of nature's bounty!
And now back to Mark Lawson and that dreadful Kermode character.
* Bags be Germaine Greer.
TOTALLY UNRELATED UPDATE: James has a salutary warning about an outfit called BlogBurst. If these people try to flatter you into joining their 'network', do not be fooled. They are going to make you work for free, while they and the Big Meeja rake in the cash. Don't give them the time of day.
AND FINALLY... This is my 400th post! Wheeee! I'm going to celebrate with a nice cup of mint and liquorice tea.
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39 comments:
Just eat them with some lovely cheese. The best way...oooooh! Wonderful. Yum.
Your dissertation sounds excellent. You should post it up in instalments.
Thanks Molly. Mmm, lovely cheese.
Noooooooooo I love the Kermode. Better on radio though, because he does have a face like an annoyed potato.
400 posts! well done!
Can you make fig rolls at home?
also '* Bags be Germaine Greer.'
Can I be Tom Rankin? Or that weird American woman who always wears gloves and has a boy's name.
Whilst looking for recipes, I came across this interestingly-named site. There are all sorts out there, aren't there?
http://www.godhatesfigs.com/
Much more useful is Nigel Slater
Funny, I was just thinking this morning that one of my chief regrets of this millennium is not taking the opportunity to push Kermode down the Playfair Steps in Edinburgh in 2002. What a c***.
Mark Kermode, the most boring man in the universe. Fact.
Gary Rhodes had a recipe for fig rolls (at the same time he was doing restaurant versions of Jaffa cakes and bourbons). Must have it somewhere...
I had a fab fig crumble once... the fruit went all jammy, and kinda bubbled up through the crumble, and burned a bit... oooh yes....
"The equivalent quantity of figs would have cost me £8.50 from the fruit & veg stall on Chiswick High Road"
Is that the one called EAT MORE FRUIT? Love the name but I'm usually hurrying past so ignore the fine advice it offers.
"Or that weird American woman who always wears gloves and has a boy's name."
Lionel Shriver.
I want to be Tom Paulin.
Yes, Nigel Slater's book on fast puddings is good for things figgy.
Congratulations on 400.
I'd like to tie Germaine Greer and Tom Paulin together in a sack and then prod the sack with a meat fork.
I don't think they'll notice the meat fork. Don't you think the simmering hatred between them conceals a mutual passion?
If I put on any more weight, I'm going to turn into Mark Lawson.
whoopin it up in the languedoc.
tea?
geeze; cheezit or you'll sour the natives on visitors!
congrats!
Figs with cheese (something soft and fresh or a mild blue). Also fab with cured ham or baked with a little honey.
Re. Newsnight Review: I would also want to be Tom Paulin. Mark Kermode just brings out my inner chav!
Please post your dissertation in instalments - I have some grey matter badly in need of the exercise!
Sometimes Martha Kearney does Newsnight Review. I like Martha.
It's a well-known fact that Newsnight Review only has 12 viewers. So amazing is it that 6 of them also read your blog, P?
I loathe fruit with meat myself but I know people who enthuse about figs roasted in olive oil and balsamic and served with pork. Sort of posh sweet 'n'sour, I guess.
Hello all, thanks for your suggestions. I have just sampled the green figs (yesterday's were purple) with some nice blue cheese, and it was all very lovely. May try Tim's fig crumble next, as his description of it is bordering on the erotic.
I also present my poorly-conceived Newsnight Review RPG:
- I'm playing as Germaine Greer.
- Realdoc and Marsha are both playing as Tom Paulin (is that allowed?)
- James has to be Kermode as he's the only one who likes him.
- Billy, you get to be Martha Kearney.
- Tim (apparently) just needs to scoff a few more portions of erotic fig crumble, then he can be Mark Lawson.
The aim is to hold forth in as pretentious a manner as possible about Girl With A One-Track Mind's 'book', while avoiding capture, ensackment and pokement with a meat fork by Evil Arabella (or, if you're playing as Kermode, being pushed down the Playfair Steps by a plush gorilla).
I meant Tom Paulin not Tom Rankin...obviously, although a weird mutant Tom Paulin/Ian Rankin hybrid may be quite attractive proposition.
Yay, I'm Martha!
Realdoc, would the hybrid have a scottish or northern irish accent?
Hey look at me, I'm Mark Kermode!
"Death of narrative cinema... not as good as The Exorcist... you're wrong and I'm right.. ".
Hmm, it's not a massive stretch to be honest, I agree with him on all the above points.
I'm not having a quiff though, that's just silly.
Oi! Don't think you can leave me out. I'll be that annoying American woman, Bonnie Greer.
"Those who argue that cyberspace offers liberation from real-world capitalist, sexist, racist monolithic cultures should take a look at 'Girl with a One-Track Mind'. At first glance, this frank sex-diary seems to break many taboos and claim territory rarely explored by women. But in the end, it's just another neo-colonial, trivial wank blog. It purports to give women a voice but is really just something for white western men to fumble to at their PCs, distracting their attention from the issues that really matter in the world viz my new book."
cello that's a bit too convincing. Do you have big, dangly earrings that jingle as well?
"Oi think that the whole blog is an elaborate allegory for American imperialism and if you don't agree Germaine I'll see yu outside, jimmy."
"Oi didn't like it at all. I thought it was really baahd" (N.B this response assumes that all other members of the panel loved the book. If not, the appropriate response is: "Oi really liked it. I thought it was hugely antertainin')"
And, yes, cello your Bonnie Greer does sound uncannily realistic. Is there something we should know?
Marsha, are you being Julie Bristol? (from the R2 or R4 spoof that wasn't The Now Show but I can't remember the name).
[remembers Tom Tortoise from Adam & Joe's Toy Review, penny drops, hangs head]
No-one mention Lady In The Water or James' head will explode. (MK's review on R5 was very... caustic.)
"just another neo-colonial, trivial wank blog" - is there a catalog of these? is it the blogging that's neocolonial, or the wanking, or both? ('trivial' goes without saying. it's a blog). it makes me long for the day when we can have post-imperialist wank blogs. liberation here we come :}
This is the best comments thread ever.
No it's bloody not! I wanna be PAUL MORLEY.
Lies face down on the floor and hammers it with his little fists while muttering "I was in an ABC video, y'know".
Camera pulls back to reveal Review panel contemplating this piece of performance art. Mark Lawson licks his lips, wetly.
Kermode: Well, it's not as good as The Exorcist, but then, nothing is.
G. Greer: Ha!
Paulin: It's.... anodyne...
G. Greer: Ha!
B. Greer: Speaking as a woman of color existing in the metaphorical shadow of 9/11...
Eshun: Damn, I'm cute.
Lawson: (sighs) Bring back Tony Parsons.
G. Greer: Ha!
etc etc etc...
The sack is ready, the fork is gleaming....
Happy 400th post, and well done on the dissertation! It looks rather more interesting than mine. I have seen a recipe for fig ice-cream, but I can't remember the details: I'm no culinary help, I'm afraid...
As I'm late as always, I'll say it now: your dissertation seems to be really interesting.
Oh, and 400 posts, wow!
What a dull comment, Fox. I bet you didn't know any of the names, except Germaine Greer.
Hmm, I sense another absurdist prank. Hurrah!
The Fox probably hasn't missed much, Noidus. Although I'm reliably informed that Kermode is the only film critic who acknowledges the popularity of Bollywood movies, and for that he should be praised.
Lorna: what's yours on? (That's like a sort of academic version of Father Dougal saying 'how old are you?' to Bishop Brennan.)
sprinkle with a little brandy (not much) and then gratin with a lot of creme fraiche, topped with brown sugar.
Right, that's Tom Paulin.
Now for the figs - with ham.
"The sack is ready, the fork is gleaming...."
I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but that quite excited me.
DAMN YOU TIM! I wanted to be Morley! To wax lyrically and eternally about the metaphysical realities presented by the Human League and Joy Division, sounding (and indeed looking) like the industrial constructs in which they themselves were constructed, travelling through glacial cities, reflecting their own ambivalence through the sheen of technology in a protrayal of the retro-futurism of a society trapped in perpetual revivalism.
Nice work Del! Now you and Tim can fight over which of you invented the Smiths.
Wow. 400! Congratulations (somewhat belatedly).
Thank god, someone else who finds that git Kermode obnoxious.
Thank you.
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