Pig Sty Avenue

Molly First Steps 27th January 07 IV , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . Molly took her first steps yesterday morning, a few more in the afternoon, and then in the evening, when I had the camera handy, she gave us a virtuoso display of, we think, moves she's been observing on Boogie Beebies . My mother's warned us - everything needs to be battened down now.

Speaking of which...

Dedicated to everyone who has a suffered from, or been involved with, a mental health problem....

You can get it free, here.

Spend them with my old mates, Cheech and Chong.

To the Discovery Museum yesterday, with a group of students. There was an exhibition about the Punk scene in the North East of England. It was a profoundly depressing experience to see the sort of clothes I used to wear, the fanzines I used to read, and the tickets from gigs I went to, behind glass in a museum. It also made me think: I wish I'd done more then - gone to more gigs, seen more things, spoken to more people. When you're living through something, you don't realise history is being made around you. The lesson is: do more.

Ingredients: 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp fenugreek 1/2 tsp ginger 1/2 tbsp turmeric 1/2 tbsp cumin (all ground - fresh is better if you've got them) 6 dried cardamom pods 1 tbsp herbes de provence 20 small button mushrooms 3 small leeks 6 cloves garlic 1 small turnip 1/2 cup lentils 1/2 cup yellow split peas 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 cup coconut milk 2 pts chicken stock fat/juice from a roasted chicken all the bits of meat from a cooked chicken, except the breast (which you had yesterday). Put the olive oil and the spices in a thick saucepan, cover and cook very slowly whilst you prepare the other ingredients (about 20 mins). Add the leeks and garlic, and stir in. Cook for 15 minutes. Add the juicy fatty bit from the bottom of the roast chicken pan. Turn up the heat, add the mushrooms, and herbs; stir. Turn down the gas, put on the lid and cook for another 20 minutes. Add the stock, turn up the heat, add the turnip and pulses. Simmer, stirring once-in-a-way, for two hours. ...

This cheerful wee blighter has turned up in the pond at the allotment. Quacks a lot. We've no idea what kind of duck it is.

Johnny Boy, "The Enforcer", is temporarily in the clear over the cock-up in his "unfit for purpose" Home Office - having deployed the old blame-someone-on-the-floor-below tactic. That whole affair has had the chattering classes demanding to know why criminals weren't safely processed onto databases. Hey presto! When everybody's clearly apprised of the importance of databases, John Hutton steps in with the notion of a cross governmental database , to solve all our problems. He justifies this by pointing to a bereaved family contacted 44 times by his department . That rather suggests that his Department is run and staffed by numpties. It hardly gives an excuse for a giant database.

Indeed . The thing with graffiti is, nobody's try to sell you anything (for once). A room full of wankers in suits in a boardroom in London have taken no part in its creation. It's not to be judged against any SMART targets . It's not the result of a community action programme set up by well intentioned people who've found a cosy niche. The people who do it have only one motivation: the respect of their contemporaries. And best of all, it really pisses some people off.

its part of the game , originally uploaded by smoothdude . It seems that a may have some kind of asthma, which should make me less sympathetic to smokers and cigarette smoke. But life's never that simple. Later this year, it'll be unlawful to smoke in enclosed public places in England. It'll be nice to have a pint in a smoke free pub. But even so, I do find images of people smoking strangely fascinating. There's a very complicated aesthetic going on here, a whole houseful of contradictory cultural, erotic and addictive motifs. My mate Smoothdude took this with his D80, which, on this evidence, appears to have an excellent sensor. One reason for blogging it is to remind myself to get into pubs before the ban and get some photos - it's the end of an era.

2.5kg of seed potatoes arrived on Tuesday. They were put out in the potting shed straightaway and are chitting already. We're going to plant them in black plastic bin bags, in the unheated greenhouse, about five to a bag. As they grow, we'll add more soil. They should be ready to harvest by Easter.

...is in the news again . The bastard.

You can be a vegetarian , originally uploaded by Paula Wirth . I'm re-reading Powell's Music of Time. I'm on for volume 5, which is set around the time that this was published.

Academic activity has resumed .

I harvested this yesterday. Only a handful of plants had enough roots to make it worth keeping them - perhaps because of last year's drought. But I noticed as I was washing the earth off them in a bowl of water that they exuded oil. And they've a wonderful smell. Today I'm going to chop them up, dry the bits in the oven, and keep them for tea. I'm leaving a half dozen in the ground - apparently, they're perennial if you stop them setting seed. Speaking of drought, we're filling loads of barrels with water now, whilst the rain's plentiful.

L1000100-2.jpg , originally uploaded by johnkuo . The European Lottery tonight is for £53,000,000. Buying a ticket naturally leads to an if-money-was-no-object-what-camera-would-I-buy? chain of thought. Maybe it would be a Leica after all. I was sarcastic about this a while back , but the M8 pool on Flickr is definitely improving. The photo above is excellent - he's a great subject but the colour and tone are what you'd want to be getting from a Leica. And this sort of clarity in black and white night photos, too. That pool still has a lot of evidence, however, that thousands of pounds worth of camera in the hands of a numpty will profit him or her none. Mind you, short of a lottery win, I can't see me affording one. I felt I'd pushed the boat out the other day just buying a lens hood for £4.99.

Moving house two days before Xmas. Good excuse not to have extended family members round. After a month of being unwell, a house move, and the festive season, it's splendid to begin to get back to normal. I'm going to have to get several gallons of midnight oil to get back on course with my multifarious academic activities. I've made a start. Anyhow, normal service has now been restored, and I'm sorry for the temporary backsliding.