Master Chef on Ice

I sat down a couple of nights ago to enjoy another excellent Master Chef offering, only to be confronted with 'curling'.

This 'curling' had been scheduled for most of the evening so that the nation could watch the final death throws (or slides in this case) of our beloved curling team. It is probably one of the most boring sports to watch, in fact so much so that even the players appear bored. This was reinforced by a player reaching for an object with all the characteristics of a mobile phone, while sliding back to the curling start line in his ridiculous plimsole's, with a gait not out of place in the 'Ministry of Funny Walks'. I guess a text message was unsurprisingly more interesting than the Olympic curling semi final.

When I watch the Winter Olympics I feel very detached from the sports as I have either not heard of, or not experienced a lot of them. They can make for exciting viewing at times, but are mostly monotonous. Cross country skiing and shooting being a case in point. Why not have cross country skiing and paintball instead, much better viewing? I would happily watch that with a glass of Gluhwein.

Visited some friends near Basingstoke last weekend, and drank an awful lot of wine. It was good the see the host pouring out a remarkable Rioja into an ample decanter well before consumption. It tasted divine, especially with the marinated fillet of beef. We all got slightly carried away and drank far too much wine, including a delicious white Burgundy, We were very much worse for wear the next day and this prompted me to have a break from all things alcoholic this week. Back on the job this weekend and looking forward to it.

Is it Safe?

I look forward to my early evenings immensely at the moment mainly for one brief thirty minute offering, 'Master Chef Goes Large'.

I know, you are probably thinking that I am a sad individual, but despite not being a fan of the current quality and diversity of terrestrial TV, this series has really captured my imagination and improved the impenetrable winter evenings. It makes the old style Grossman effort look dated and frankly amateur.

Recently one of the six contestants produced a mouth watering rich pudding, which would probably rival Anthony Worrall Thompson's recent 'sweet pie' (containing five Snickers bars) on the body disrespect scale. My first reaction was 'which wine would be best with this pudding ?'I am a great fan of dessert wines, ever since my father introduced me to Muscat de Rivesaltes in France at a very young age when our family was still acting out the yet to be released 'National Lampoon's European Vacation' (I guess that makes me 'Rusty'). In my 'moderately' more mature years I have also discovered Vino Santo, while in Italy, which is a lovely dark sweet wine good with biscotti (dunked).

This Italian sweet talk has made me think of my dentist appointment next week. Never an enjoyable experience. We have problems finding dentists in the country, whereas the Italians have a plethora of dentists, it just happens that alot of them are 'fake' unqualified dentists, as many as 15,000 out of 50,000. But at least you can get treatment in Italy for a pudding and sweet wine fetish, fake or not. Even in the relatively charlatan free dentist arena in this country, whenever I finally settle into the 'musical' dentist's chair my palms become damp as I think of the film 'Marathon Man', and the eternal question drill bearing Laurence Olivier asks Dustin Hoffman... 'Is it safe?'

The streets of Brighton

I spent this weekend in Brighton. Quite a drive, but great to arrive and be greeted by the open arms of the sea.

I have always liked Brighton because its cool and exciting, unlike alot of coastal towns. Sometimes its a bit too cool. I remembered that the pavements were none too clean, but this has been partly resolved by big black smelly ugly bins placed slap bang infront of the beautiful Regency facades. Despite these carbuncles the pavements are covered with dog turd and are 'sticky', so while making my way down to the sea front it struck me that skills like hop scotch and Twister still have applications later in life. Recently a nano coating has been pioneered that claims to repel all dirt and water and has been hailed as the new solution for effortlessly clean bathrooms. I think the streets of Brighton should be paved with nano particles, a much better use for the innovation.

The West Pier looked like a shadow of its former self after the recent fires and subsequent collapse but it still paints an eerie picture against the inclement sea. Glancing back from the beach to the sea front, Brighton still has a very elegant grandiose feel with places like Brunswick Square furnished with immaculately painted pilasters in beautiful Regency proportions. The state of the paintwork is impressive when you consider the ravages of the sea air.

I needed to buy some wine for a meal at a friends house and chanced upon an off license. I found an interesting looking white called La Chasse du Pape, which went down extremely well with a fish pie. I am a sucker for bottles under eight pounds that have a crest stamped into the glasswork. I still find myself buying on esthetics more than content, but hey, I was in Brighton were image certainly does count.

WIMPS and Brands

Like most men I am occasionally forced to forage out in the wild for food and wine. It was Saturday and decided to make take a journey through the local 'mall' (I hate this word, but chose to use it as an insult to shopping centres) to my shop of choice. Oh dear, what a mistake that was.

I entered the shopping centre at a brisk pace, only to be confronted with a wall of people. I manoeuvred myself into the 'fast lane' but kept being held up by people slowing down for no apparent reason. I was going nowhere fast. I then realised that these slower people were engaged in the act of texting while walking, and were clearly not yet fully adjusted to this challenging form of modern day multitasking. This reminded me of an article I read on the invisible mystery glue of the universe. The scientists think that this is made up of WIMPS, or 'weakly interacting massive particles'. Less invisible here I feel.

I eventually reached the shop and went to search for some wine. The usual variety of New World wines were on display quietly showing off their cool, minimalist branded labels, luring the naive shopper to buy them. I had heard that the French cheaper wine market is suffering from lack of 'branding', as the French tend to display the place, not the grape in bold on the front label, and do not add spin and uber cool logos. As a result of this the French are going to change, and take on the New World market with designer branding for their cheaper wines. If this stops some French wine makers going out of business that is a good thing, but I don't like the sound of flashy labels, I love the idea of discovering the understated. Perhaps the best solution is to educate the public to be more discerning, and to go for content not looks.

So with some New Zealand wine I left the shop, my pace slackening as my phone lit up with a text message....