(Third time's the charm...)
I am now being recognized in the street.
Having your own website rocks.
Long story short: went to Nottingham a week last Saturday to meet up with an oul' pal and buy lots of books (oh, so many books). Had a great day. Exorcised a few demons. Coming to that soon.
In Sainsbury's the next day, and an assistant jumps on me out of nowhere and tells me she saw me in Notts. A complete stranger. She'd been there with a bus party from Telford, and had spied me as I walked from shop to shop. A good memory for faces meant that she'd remembered seeing me in the store, too.
This happens to me all the time, but usually it's the other way around. I see the same faces all over the place. But I never stop strangers in the street and say, "I've seen you here and there..." Not often, anyway.
You see, I rather like not being in prison...
ADVENT COLANDER
By Matthew Craig
Three weeks until Christmas. Oh, my.
I have avoided having to learn how to prepare and cook sprouts (I have volunteered to do the Christmas Dinner) by discovering the joys of the Fridge Freezer.
Frozen Sprouts. Frozen Parsnips. Frozen Roast Potatoes. Easy.
It's just this dirty great hunk of meat that I have to get my head around.
That sounded so wrong when I read it out loud.
I've decided to cook Corn-Fed Chicken for the Christmas Din-Din. Might have to change that idea, closer to the time. Wonder if I can do veggie grills, and pass them off as chicken?
This is, of course, all part of my Rapid Reeducation in the Arts of Not Ringing Fucking Dominoes.
To date, I have learnt how to cook chicken curry, cherry cake (yum), Stoo, sausages, bacon, burgers, lamb, spaghetti bolognase (from scratch, mark you), chocolate rice crispy cakes (that look like catsick), and Bakewell Tart (ready-mix from Jane Asher's range). All after years as the King of Cooking Pasta, Tuna, and Eggs.
Just call me the semi-Naked Chef (because the bacon fat spits, and my Boys don't need the burning).
Jamie was surprised to discover that, sooner or later, People Stopped Giving a Shit...
I've been pretty proud of my culinary achievements, even if I do say so myself. Not that I want to slight the sainted Mother and her cookery, but chops and boiled spud does tend to get a bit boring after twenty-six years.
For their part, the Mammy and the Daddy aren't complaining. Well, maybe about the size of the dinner. They're too big, it seems.
Ungrateful wretches.
The long and the short of it is, that I have a long way to go as regards cooking from scratch, but I can at least make do without Dominoes from now on.
It says here.
In addition to the annual Whole Animal with Chips fest that our Christmas dinner usually ends up becoming, I have to do the Obligatory Fruit Cake.
The Mammy cooks Fruit Cake for people she hasn't even spoken to for ages, every year without fail. It's a curious tradition.
And she cooks these cakes for us, too.
A couple of years back, I plucked up the courage to tell her that I wasn't particularly fond of fruit cake. In fact, I told her that I frigging hated fruit cake. She didn't speak to me for a week.
This year, of course, the Spirit of Vengeance is tooting in my direction.
The last time I cooked anything like this from scratch, I was 10 and it was fruit scones. And they were nasty.
Scratch that. I made flapjacks in secondary school. After an hour in the oven, they came out runny.
Jamie Oliver, I think your job is safe.
So, when I was in Nottingham on that Saturday, I stopped off in a cheap bookshop, looking for comics and the like. Sure enough, there were a few Star Wars books, and some miscellaneous fiction. I picked up some bargains, and made my way to the till.
You know that feeling, when you wish you'd said something wittier, or cleverer, in a given situation, and you think of it two minutes after the situation has passed?
A cute goth girl in the queue ahead of me bought �100 worth of porn.
Two minutes after I left the store, I realised that I had missed a Golden Opportunity.
This is Vixen. She's Enslaved By Beauty, apparently...
(link may be naughty in nature...be careful how you apply linkage...)
Actually, there was a bit of a Sexy Vibe in the air on Saturday. Maybe I've just been locked up in front of this screen too long, but it felt good to get away from the house for the day.
I even stopped off in Leicester on the way home. First time since The Unpleasantness. To be honest, I thought it would be harder. I'd been worried that I might bump into someone I know. Fortunately for my ego, I didn't. Unfortunately for my bank balance, I did bump into my favourite cheap bookstore.
� �
CHA-CHING!
It's probably better that I didn't have more money. Last time I was in that particular bookshop, I pulled a muscle in my back carrying the books back to my flat.
This weekend, I'm going up to see friends in Lancashire. I'll be coming back via Manchester. There are many comic shops in Manchester. Many, many comic shops.
My bank manager is either very understanding, or very medicated.
Christmas has been an odd experience in the last couple of years. Two years ago, I came down with the worst case of the 'flu I've ever had. Actual achy, chesty 'flu. And I came down with this on Christmas Day. The three of us were out like lights for a week. It was so bad that the Daddy didn't even shave. The first time in forty years that he'd gone more than a day without a shave. He looked like Albert Steptoe.
Craigy and Son, Xmas 1999.
Last year, of course, I was pining for the Trollop. And look how that turned out.
So this year will have a lot to live up to.
I've made three attempts to write this piece, now. It's taken a week, but I keep coming back to the central theme: Christmas.
It means more when you're a child, I suppose. Or when you're a parent. I have friends who have recently become parents (a story for another day...) , and of course I have the Nephews and the Niece. In these families, Christmas celebrations are all about the children, and are geared towards making them happy. By buying them dirty great piles of stuff. The lucky tykes.
But, you know, I don't understand why that should be. Okay, I accept that for many people, because of their religious beliefs, Christmas is a special time of year. But, Baby Jesus aside, Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebration for everybody, isn't it? Maybe that's why so many people crack up at Christmas: the unrelenting pressure of trying to be upbeat, even when all you want to do is scream.
Fortunately, I never feel like that at Christmas.
Of course, I do feel like I should try to make a Special Effort this year. It's been a Difficult one. It'd be nice to have just a day away from the stress of the Unpleasantness and its after-effects, and everything else that's messed with my skull. A day to say, "thank goodness that's out of the way," if nothing else.
Of course, there is a cloud to every silver lining. My folks had a Lamb Stoo that I cooked (with a little help) tonight. They said that they'd happily have it for Christmas Dinner.
Looks like it's All Down To Me, then.
Oh, Shit.
Matthew Craig, Mercifully Fully Clothed, Early December 2001.
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