Divorced from logic and unattached to sanity I for a moment wailed internally that this blog post might never happen; that a curse of lethargy would break my resolve to commit a new post every day, for 358.
The Me Manifesto would henceforth have been in tatters.
But then I found my dongle and all was well.
See that’s the one driving influence in retiring from 6 months of inner city living. Not that I have a tendency to lose broadband dongles, but more specifically that the broadband offering here is pathetic. Liverpool, European City of Culture 2008, and we can barely muster residential dial-up capabilities. Being on the 10th floor I was considering satellite broadband, but it kept falling off the radar, ha ha!
So anyway, here I am 10 days shy of moving from the metropolis and finding myself a nice spot by the sea. It’s meant to be this way. I’ve been a coastal dweller for more years than you’ve spent sleeping. So it feels only right to be returning to where it all began.
As always happens when you come to leave a place – which has given me so many incredible memories, thanks in every part to Princess – you find a charity hamper-worth of absolutely not nutritious ‘edibles’. But, being a first degree bargain hunter, I could never even contemplate ditching these delights, that others may call simply ‘detritus’.
And as I survey the landscape of mouth-filling disasters, collectively providing me with 10 ‘meals’ of a type, they provide me with a fitting frame of reference to the 180 days of Liverpool life. Here’s why:
1. Jamie Oliver sauce (to go in a lovely chicken pasta): A short time after moving here, Princess was alerted to a groovy initiative at her place of work that was the epitome of the lazy-tongued one’s ‘Pass It On’ philosophy. Some guys of the firefighting persuasion were teaching slow kids to rustle up a tasty feast on a hob. And thus Mr Oliver himself presented congratulation on achieving such awe-inspiring things. Well done, Fireman Sam, and again, congratulations to Mr Oliver for chucking a few bits in a pan and condensing it into a small jar so I can have a nice chicken pasta dish.
2. Advocaat. While I was living in Liverpool – approximately 4 weeks ago, to be precise – it was Christmas. And at that specific time, I received one of the most unusual gifts I have even witnessed during my time on this fab earth planet. It was, to be specific, an egg decapitator. Feel not pity for the egg, it’s a lot less painful with a clean slice than being smacked around the head with the bottom of a teaspoon, you heartless bastard! Anyway, it has long been an accepted fact that Advocaat contains egg. Segue? I also made a lovely cocktail today with advocaat, Amaretto Disarono, Malibu, pineapple juice and some double cream. It’s called Fleshy Duck or something. You need a few bits of Angostura bitters as well. It’s smashing!
3. Plum jam. I had quite weak knees when I first relocated to Liverpool. This was because I half-walked the South West Coast Path in, um, the south west of England. For charity. I felt quite great about at least attempting it, despite having failed at actually conquering it. Anyway, while my knees were recuperating from the ups and downs of hill walking, ha ha, my mum and dad went to the same kind of place as where my epic charity challenge met its downfall, and bought me some jam. That jam remains unopened, being an uncompetitive contender in a sea of toast topping treats. And probably always will. It has kept me company in Liverpool when fickle skinless, boneless chicken thighs have instead opted for ingestion. By me.
4. Fajitas. Ah, the finest thing to come out of Copacabana. What most people think is that fajitas came from Mexico. But in much the same way as Tequila actually comes from Yates’s Wine Lodge, fajitas are actually a Brazilian creation, as is muff shaving. Well, a short time after moving to Liverpool, I was delighted to discover that Wayne Hemingway and his son were curating a sculpture exhibition at the Tate Gallery, Albert Dock. Hemingway had been called upon to provide a concoction of incredible dance tracks that would be pumped via chunky headphones into the ears of visitors to the exhibition. It was AMAZING! I mostly think art is a load of rubbish, a kind of lifelong course for people who are too lazy-assed to get a proper job. Hemingway gave me an Epiphany. Oh, aye, and one of the tracks that came in my ears thanks to Wayne, was the Brazilian version of Copacabana. It was way better than Barry Manilow’s version. But then, so are most things.
5. DISCO bars. A bit self-explanatory this, what with Liverpool being to discos what Amsterdam is to drugs. There are more discoteques in Liverpool than there are public toilets. I think this is perhaps a tough stance to take on those people who have to wear plastic pants. Because I wouldn’t wish the toilets in most discos on my worst enemy, or dogs, or my least favourite dog, let alone pant-wetters. Why should they suffer because the manifesto for Liverpool states there should be more dance zones than bogs? Insuffrable, this is. A bit like the meat from St John’s Market.
6. Flour. Ha ha ha! You thought…? ME? Noooooooo! Or at least, not in my blog! Ha ha! No, seriously, I’ve never touched drugs. Well I have, but it was as part of an exhibition at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. They were talking about smuggling and all the devices that people try to smuggle drugs in. Like dolls, and bums. Or in packets disguised as flour. Or Coffee Mate. Thankfully, this wasn’t smuggled, but it was in a bag of flour. Because it’s flour. And flour is great for making pancakes. Slightly out of shot is a bottle of maple syrup. And a lemon. And some sugar. But no milk. I must go to the shop tomorrow to get some milk, else the pancakes may not become.
7. Christmas cake. It doesn’t seem like a month since Christmas – and that’s because it isn’t! It’s technically 29 days. If it was March, this would be ok. But then Christmas would have to have been in February and I just can’t see Jesus being down with that. My mum made us a Christmas cake this year. I therefore know she adores Princess because as far as I recall, she has never made a Christmas cake for me and any other girl before. I probably shouldn’t say this, because it’s not awfully nice, but I did prefer it when mum made Christmas cake with Royal icing. The great thing about fondant icing is it doesn’t turn into brick after a week or two. Still, the dentist has always been very good to me and promised that he’ll be able to sort white fillings out for all but my two front teeth.
8. Cheese. Cheese is ace and I think one of my top five foods of all time. Which is surprising, since I didn’t like cheese at all until 1995. Before then I was also reticent about red cabbage, beetroot and liver. Liver is obviously fundamental to the success of this city, since without it it would simply be called Pool. If this was so, Everton would be the only football team here, which would have been fantastic.
9. Gingerbread house. We’ve had so many moments of hilarity when I’ve insinuated that Princess might be carrot-topped. Having not lost my life I can only assume that she is gallant or level-headed enough to take these slights as an excuse for my poor humour. Strawberry blonde is ok, just not carrot. Or ginger. Although I did have a smashing cocktail a while back that had ginger ale in it. She liked that, and didn’t take it as an affront. What I haven’t yet managed to do is put a banana in anything. I think that would be punishable by death.
10. Quiche Lorraine. While I was living in Liverpool I attended a picnic in honour of my mum. It was in Formby. We were sat on a bench overlooking the pinewoods, where red squirrels used to roam before they were slaughetered by pox. While we were devouring some quiche, as we are wont to do at picnics and wakes, I opined that it may have hailed from one of those budget supermarkets. It was a little watery on the surface, not at all like one of the nice ones you get from Waitrose. So I said to mum: “Is this a Lidl quiche?” To which she said: “No, it’s family size.” Not being one to be obviously hard of hearing, I was slightly confused by this reaction. So I said: “Is this Aldi quiche?” To which she said: “No, I have the other half in the car. Would you like some more?” I love mums.