Want me to talk about Australian politics and I'll be all like "lah lah lah lah."

I'm a public servant, people. So, no. I won't do it.

Musical Musings: The Pogues

I have trouble finding words for how much I love Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, the 1985 album by the Pogues. Here is the first track, The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn (my favourite).

Musical musings: Downtown Train by Tom Waits

Hello

Rod Stewart did not write this song. It is not a Rod Stewart song. That is all.

The Wonder of Goat

Food is my compass. It was my first adult hobby (hello sailor!) and cooking for others remains my passion. It's one of the ways I deal with my...Total and Utter Confusion!

I am especially partial to obscure foods, odd cuts of meat and cheeses that stink. King of obscurity has to be goat--just ahead of chicken livers, which I will post about another time. It's a wonderfully flavoursome meat that requires a lot of slow cooking. Alternatively, a pressure cooker works wonders. This recipe looks especially wonderful, but is one I haven't tried; although it really is just a variation on the classic Italian spezzatino.

Goat is also a curry's best friend. I've made it in pressure cooker, using diced pieces on the bone with lots of onion, some garlic and ginger, a good "hot" curry paste from an Indian supermarket and a reasonable amount of salt. After about 45 minutes on high pressure, the meat falls off the bone. Stir in some chopped coriander after the cooking is done, but while it is still nice and hot.

Do try it.

Ambassador Minton's Speech: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut's superb writing, his unbridled anger and his limitless humanity are crystalised in this wonderful novel:

'We are gathered here friends,' he said, 'to honour lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya [one hundred martyrs to democracy], children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. It is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. I am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya died, my own son died.

My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child.

Movie cool stuff

I love this. Partly because Kenneth Brannagh does such a wonderful job of making late-Tudor language speak to a modern audience, but mostly because the words speak to something quite fundamental in the human psyche: you have the chance to be part of something bigger than yourself.

It's probably the means by which revolutions are launched. On the dark side of that equation it's also probably how many young (mostly) men have been led to their deaths in pointless wars. As was the case at Agincourt. Nevertheless, powerful oratory.