Counterpoint

Got the email yesterday confirming that I'm in for next year's programme, to be recorded in February in 'central London' - presumably that'll be Broadcasting House again. I now need to start cramming on certain things:

nicknames of symphonies (eg Winter Daydreams)
musicians' curious deaths (eg Lully who lost his life in a conducting accident)
something about recent music (eg names of albums by wimpy rockers such as Elbow)
gilbert & sullivan, I suppose, oh no

Moroccan sands

That's the colour of my living room walls, now, and probably easier to guess what kind of colour it is. No-one guessed that Amazon beat was a kind of blue.

So the living room is bright and airy now. So's the bathroom. The back yard is clean and tidy, ready for some planting next year. And I've thrown out all the black ash. Will this bring a change in my character? How can I continue to be the gloomy Catford hermit? I'll have to skulk in the kitchen.

Talking of skulking, I'm doing so in a sense tonight. I considered going to Charlton to watch the game v Coventry tonight. The prospect of freezing my nuts off while with very little prospect of enjoyment somehow didn't do it for me. And now I see we're a goal down at halftime. Oh, doom.

More bathroom news

Woohoo! Paint on my bathroom walls at last! A first coat of Amazon Beat 4, to be exact. And a big bag of floor tile adhesive on the floor. And a second coat of emulsion in the living room, which is very nearly complete. And the splashback's grouted, which makes a huge difference, and to my eye, it's a good match to the wall colour.

I'm trusting the floor tiles will be a nice contrast, not some horror clash.

Bathroom update

For those who may have thought my silence might mean the bathroom is complete - it isn't. It's tantalisingly close, with mainly painting to be done (and floor tiling) but things slowed down last week due to builder's staff all being off sick, apparently.

Optimistically, I had booked leave today, thinking that there might be some tidying up to do, but it was obvious last Thursday that wouldn't be the case, so I've been in to work.

This is another writtenonthetrain blog, so again I'm going home with uncertainty of what I'll find.

Oh, the anticipation!

Not just a great hairstyle

Farmers market this morning, and a fabulous catch on the Canvey Island fish stall. I felt spoilt for choice with some beautiful mackerel and seabass but topping the lot some fantastic red mullet. I couldn't resist the lovely shiny red fish and bought two of them for about 6 quid. The first one I filleted, and coated the fillets in Basque batter (separate an egg, whisk the white until it's frothy, beat the yolk until it's soft, fold the two together, coat the fillet in seasoned rice flour, then dip in egg) fried and served with lightly cooked savoy cabbage. Lunch. Fantastic.

In the evening I filleted the other one, and simply dipped it in rice flour, served with pardina lentils and psb. It wasn't as good, to be honest. The egg seemed to make the first one much better. The lentils were very tasty though. I'd intended to have them with lunch but my timing went wrong and they weren't ready. The process of cooling and reheating seems to have helped the flavour.

And then finally I looked at Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall's fish book, which is very dismissive of using fillets at all - the red mullet should be used whole, it says.

This post is official displacement activity to avoid thinking about football.

Counterpoint and stereotype

I had a telephone audition today for Counterpoint, the Radio 4 music quiz. Apparently I did very well and other things being equal should be recording in February. The audition was conducted by Paul Bajoria, the producer of this and Brain of Britain and we chatted before it about the experience of Only Connect and about why and when I got interested in Bartok. And then the answer to one of the questions was Bartok.

Meanwhile, I got home tonight to see the end of Eggheads. My, CJ looks different. Turns out it's the winner of Are You an Egghead making his first appearance. I didn't even think about applying for this, thinking that the last thing they'll want is another balding middle-aged white man. Oh look, that's exactly what they've got. His name's Barry.

Rootin' tootin' Luton

In Luton today, training again. What hard work it was! A large group, quiet and attentive, but just too quiet. No response to my neverfailedbefore banter, and precious little contribution to the discussion. Which is always worrying. Are they really taking it in or just going through the motions? Using the Council chamber didn't help, but there was a passivity about the trainees that was really quite weird.

As for Luton itself, and my first visit there, it would be unfair to comment. All we really saw was the Arndale Centre (blerr) and the Art Deco town hall, which is rather lovely. Here's the story from Wikipedia:

The original town hall was destroyed in 1919 during Peace Day celebrations at the end of World War I. Local people including many ex-servicemen were unhappy with unemployment and had been refused the use of a local park to hold celebratory events. They stormed the town hall setting it alight. A replacement building was completed in 1936.

One of the trainees (who didn't look old enough) told me that the rioters broke into a shop and dragged out a piano, and then sang songs as they torched the old town hall. One of the forgotten moments of radical British history, and presumably very worrying at a time when the threat of Bolshevism was taken very seriously. There's a good article about it here.