Celebrity – Oh, Noes…

Joe’s gone! Quel dommage

Interesting that Gino was horrified by the telephone call machinations, though, and that he was willing to say so (well, in the boothy thing, whatever it’s called).

AND GEORGE MUST NOT VOLUNTEER TO LEAVE!!! Nooooooooooooooooooo……….. He’s loads of fun!

It’s still Jimmy, Gino or George for me.

And Russell Kane is still very funny indeed in the ITV follow-up thingy *G*

Celebrity — More Exciting Stuff :)

Is anybody else out there watching?

I’m still enjoying it lots *g* I’d like to see Jimmy, Gino or George win (or maybe Joe). I’d be horrified if it was Justin or Kim, and I really have no feelings one way or the other about Sabrina or Stuart. Jimmy is actually my favourite ♥, but I suppose my money’s on Gino.

Kim seems to me to be a bit of a bully, and hard (for me, anyway) to like. Virtually nothing that Justin says or does ever looks sincere to me. All that breathless flopping around on the floor in front of Ant and Dec with a scratched nose after the Bush Tucker Trial yesterday, and all the hysterical wailing when his partner Colin was evicted, at the idea of being parted from him for 7 days? Bleuch!

I hope Joe doesn’t go out after the BTT tonight. He seemed to me to be a bit of a bully too, at first, but I don’t see him that way any more. I reckon he’s a bit of a sweetheart, and I cringe when I think back to the episode during which Kim yelled in his face *shudder*

Ah, well. Time to take the Piglet out for walkies, I think.

The Restaurant — Finally Gripping!

Wow! After several weeks of dragging itself along with all the sparkle of a glass of leftover Diet Coke (complete with wilted lemon and a couple of drowned flies), The Restaurant seems to have taken off!

I forgot to watch it on Thursday, which is a pretty good indication of exactly how gripping it’s been, but I remembered this morning and so Piglet and I sat down together to catch up. Mindful of earlier viewings, Piglet promptly fell asleep. I didn’t, though, and I’m glad I stayed awake.

The poor couple from the Front Room! They’re so keen and friendly, and they work together well as a team, and people do actually enjoy their food (which surely must be a selling point when trying to run a restaurant, despite the very snotty comments that the female judge keeps making about the sort of food they’re serving), but the disaster with the airplane cake was just about the funniest thing I’ve seen on television in years! I was almost crying with laughter at its little drooping snout, that looked like a duck billed platypus beak. At the same time, though, I felt terrible for the poor bloke (Steve, is it?) who had to carry it out, terrified that his customers were going to laugh. Truly gripping stuff, I thought!

Raymond sacked the two women with the Nigerian restaurant, because he felt (correctly, I suppose) that they’d lost their Nigerian theme. I thought, though, that the two blokes from Rags to Riches should have gone. Nathan is just mind-bogglingly rude, both to his customers last week and to his fellow competitors this week. Asked to help one of the other teams to carry out their food at the tea dance, because he had nothing to do while they were snowed under with tables to cover, his response was “I don’t think so! I can’t be arsed!” Um, hello??? IMO *nothing* that they did right afterwards (and admittedly they did have a good evening service) should have saved them from expulsion after that. It was clear that Raymond Blanc hadn’t seen the footage. I wonder what he thinks, now that he has. (Well, assuming that he hadn’t fallen asleep too, of course.)

The two blokes who don’t cook were also very entertaining, and I confess that I was almost as amazed and delighted as they were to discover that the cake they made for the party of 12 was pronounced “delicious” by the two judges! Maybe it’ll inspire them to do a bit more cooking next week.

Anyway… it really was the most exciting thing I’ve seen on the old telly for quite a while–even more exciting than recent episodes of Celebrity–and I’m so glad I didn’t just delete it without watching.

Are you out there, George? What did you think??

Clive James — A Point of View

I love Clive James. He’s witty–sometimes LOL funny–and he has strong opinions in relation to subjects that I find interesting. I like the way he expresses them, and I often share his PsOV.

I listen to BBC Radio podcasts when I’m walking/running/desperately trying to keep up with the Piglet, and at the moment the series A Point of View (Radio 4) is airing a number of recordings from the exalted Clive. I’ve enjoyed them all, and this week it happens to be about cheating in sport.

Football supporters should prolly skip on now… *g*… but I enjoyed it. Click here to listen in.

(It’ll be disappearing soon: I think the BBC only keeps the podcasts up for a week from the date of first broadcast. Or something like that.)

So glad that Piglet won’t be applying to schools for a while yet…

ZOMG… I’m so glad that Piglet, Piss-Piss and I don’t live in New York!

Here’s a fascinating glimpse into the agonies suffered by New York parents attempting to get their 4-year-old children into the city’s best kindergartens. I read a novel about this annual nightmare a few months ago–Admissions. This documentary, though, brings it all to life.

The documentary follows 3 sets of parents. One family is applying excusively to private schools, and the other two are hoping to get their wee bratlings into Hunter College Elementary School, the highly regarded NY public school (in the American sense, i.e. state school) that caters for academically gifted children. With 25 applicants for every place, though, the competition to get in is fierce.

One of those two families is only applying to Hunter–that’s where the Dad went–and the other (a single mother in a low income job) is hedging her bets by also applying for scholarships at academically high-powered NY private schools.

I’m only half way through so far, so I don’t know how it all pans out. My guess, though, is that the exclusively private parents will get the school of their choice–they’re wealthy, successful and personable, and their little boy is very engaging–and that one of the other two will get into Hunter. If my guess is right then I hope the unsuccessful one gets a scholarship somewhere else.

(Update: Ooh! I was wrong on every front. Interesting stuff!)

Fortunately, Piglet won’t be going down this road for some years yet. And, of course, she still has to master navigation. Still, though; she’s only 53.5 weeks old, and she does have Piss-Piss as a tutor.

Here’s a link to episode 1 (of 6–one hour in all, on the ever-excellent YouTube). Enjoy

Yippeeeeee!!!

I have a job! The trial thingy went well, though what a lot there is to learn! Was disappointed not to be sworn at by the chef, but there’s still time and I’m sure it’ll come *g* First I need some new comfy shoes, though. Uniform is all black, so I’ll even have to learn to look trendy and smart, which can’t be bad. The kitchen smells were lovely…

I also have a new car! I’ll post more about the process of acquiring it–thank God I only have to do it once in a blue moon–but Mango Terrier achieved a perfect score in the terrier stakes, providing me with tons of useful information and encouraging me to snap at the dealers’ heels (and even to land the occasional small bite).

Eternal thanks to Mango Terrier ♥ ♥ ♥

Anyway, it’s a Skoda Fabia Estate (old model) with a 1.9 TDI engine. Very responsive, and tres comfy since it even has heated seats–whoohooo! It’s 3 years old and has 48k miles on the clock, but I’m reliably informed that that’s okay with this sort of engine.

One careful lady owner has owned it, and so it’s beautiful to look at and unmarked. It has a full and immaculate service history etc. Poor thing, to be coming to somebody as chaotic with cars as me… Piglet’s crate now lives in the boot, rather than on the back seat, and since she can no longer stick a paw through the bars and poke me in the back she’s reading more, which is also a good thing. I hope eventually to train her to navigate, while she waits to be old enough to apply for a driving licence.

Here’s one just like it that I made earlier.

The New Piglet Wagon

Russell Kane — Very Funny!

I’m so addicted to I’m a Celebrity that I had to watch the ITV2 follow-up last night, because the main thing had been ousted by the football. Grrrrr….

Anyway, there’s a bloke called Russell Kane doing witty little commentaries on the action, and he’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in years! I don’t really watch comedy on TV, so I prolly miss a lot of funny stuff, but I reckon Russell’s worth seeking out. I’ve not laughed so hard in years as I did just now watching his review of y/day’s show *g* Tragically, I can’t find it on YouTube. It’s still available on the ITV net-viewer thingy, though. Heh…

Fantastic foody treat on YouTube

Browsing around on YouTube earlier I came across a series from the 1970s where Marco Pierre White, at the height of his Harveys days, cooks for Albert Roux (then of Le Gavroche), Nico Ladenis (Simply Nico), Pierre Koffman (La Tante Claire) and Raymond Blanc (Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons).

There’s a whole episode devoted to each of the chef he cooks for, and each episode is divided on YT into three parts. In each one Marco explains how he chose the menu, cooks it and then eats it over conversation with the guest at the end.

Gordon Ramsay was working at Harveys at the time, and it’s great fun to see him cooking away–quietly–in the background. That can’t have been easy *g*

Wow, that was great! I wish the Roux Brothers’ series was there too. Still, I think I have it squirreled away somewhere on a dusty video… (Edited to add: Ooooh! It *is* there!)

Here’s one eppy to get you started. Enjoy!

Another blast from the past — heart skips a wee beat!

Here’s another. I insisted on singing this for the choir audition in the 2nd year at school, in place of the insipid thing the music teacher suggested, and failed to get into the choir. Ah, well… I was the only girl in the whole year who actually *wanted* to be in the choir, I think, but such is life. Or such was life, anyway, at my most peculiar school…

This recording is a little odd, but I like the arrangement *g*

Nana’s done one too, of course. It’s a little deadly, but WTF… I defo prefer the little girl’s rendition, except for Nana’s lovely resolving bit. (What is it with Nana and her endings???)

Sigh… a blast from the extremely distant past :)

Another of my favourite tunes. At this stage in the game I’m not sure which version I heard as a child, but there’s a good chance that it was this one as my aunt was a Nana M. fanatic.

I confess that I like her too, as I inherited a pile of 33s and listened to one of them repeatedly as I read my favourite book of all time, about 30 years ago, so she’s rather stuck in my head… *g*

The ending on that version is dreadful, though, and I’m sure I’d have remembered that, so just in case it was Rolf Harris… *g*