small ritual

party in the cathedral

for the second year gloucester 'fresh expression' feig held an event/party in gloucester cathedral the night before greenbelt. i couldn't make it last year because of work commitments, but the word was so good i was determined to go this year. plus i knew that the cathedral [one of my favourites] would be beautiful. and indeed the event was gorgeous. there will be movies of the labyrinth too, but i'm now at greenbelt and can't get the time/bandwidth.

this is my idea of how church should be - a party in a beautiful building. certainly it's how cathedrals should be used. these are places where one is normally a tourist among the crowds, or consciously on one's best behaviour. so to wander, wine in hand, through illuminated cloisters and arches with laughing friends and running children is heavenly.

see also here and here for more of this notion.

fruit drop

Fruit drop
Originally uploaded by my dog sighs.

check out this street art project using fruit - from the ever-inventive my dog sighs and his friends.

credit crunch cooking?

these squirrel meat recipes come from a late 1940s cookbook belonging to my mother [though she hasn't tried these on us!]. squirrels aside it's actually a very good and comprehensive guide to traditional british cuisine before foreign influences started to come in post-war [elizabeth david, terence conran etc]. george orwell and his wife get an acknowledgement alongside Department of Food and Eating for Victory bods [all very 1984/1948].

as we enter a new age of austerity maybe we can learn from the last. squirrels are plentiful and have no food miles.

party on top of the gherkin

tonight i was at a drinks party in the 40/30 restaurant on top of the gherkin [check out the flythrough on their website]. the top of the building is a glass dome with probably the best views of central london right now. my photos here.

the interior was designed by one of my work colleagues at tp bennett. we take clients there to impress them, but i've never been included on these trips yet so i jumped at the chance to go.

celebs

had my [highly favourable] annual review over lunch in the jerwood space cafe which is just round the corner from the office. ross kemp and ewan mcgregor were there [though not together]. i always thought of the jerwood as a gallery, but i see it's got rehearsal spaces.

mushy peas

i find myself explaining mushy peas as a result of this photograph

i have to record this

i didn't see or think about mushy peas for many years [even in northern chip shops you were more likely to get frozen peas in the 80s and 90s]. and now they're resurrected, courtesy of trendy pie shops and the fashion for traditional english food. the restaurant at tate modern serves fish, chips and mushy peas - we took our russian clients there and persuaded them to have it - it's strange having to explain how to eat something you've grown up with. how to eat fish in batter without eating the skin or any bones, for instance [don't just cut slices like a sausage!].

when i was small we lived next door to a chip shop in cleethorpes. i remember sometimes getting threepenceworth of chips [old money not decimal] for supper, as a treat. makes me sound victorian ;)

buy one get one tree

innocent drinks are running a tree-planting promotion on their large cartons - each carton has a unique code, go to their website and enter the code, and a tree is planted in a carbon-offsetting scheme by carbon clear. farmers are paid for tree survival and growth over ten years, rather than just seedlings planted, to give incentives for long-term benefits.

i'm suspicious of carbon-offsetting projects [lowering consumption is the only sure way] but this one came free with the drink, so why not.