How to make real Japanese Raamen

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-wa0umYJVGg

How to make Raamen - while a grey poodle watches you.

Oh and one other thing...

HAPPY NEW YEAR to anyone who might ever visit this little space of the cyber universe. Have a good one and 2009 will probably have something good, just for you.......all the bestness to all ye wenches and chaps.

Scouse girls and pjyamas in public

After going back home for a week (to my native land of Liverpool...) I was surprised to see that a hot fashion movement prevailent when I had my first ever job in a little newsagent's nine years ago has come back with a vengeance.

For a reason that is lost on me, girls from Liverpool (please let me know if this happens in other places, but as far as I can see, they are on their own on this one...) currently think they look EXCELLENT when they walk around in public in their pjyamas.

I really wish I'd taken some photos for those who don't believe that this really is a widespread thing.

Not only that, but as if this strange viewpoint wasn't hard to grasp enough, the ultimate accessory for pjyamas is a large coat or jacket and a PAIR OF UGG BOOTS!!!

This reminds me of the time when blokes used to (and some still do...) think that tucking their traksuit bottoms into their white sports socks made them look really good. (Again, I wish I has a photo, but I PROMISE that this is true.)

What's going on in Liverpool? Surely a law banning the Ugg boots/pjyama combination on the streets should be put out there. What are neighbourhood watch doing about this? Where are snipers when you need them?

I don't mean to be rude about these lovely people, but... SKANKS!!!

PS) Jennifer Ellison, everyone's favourite Nobel prize-winning brainbox who completely deserves her fame, was today spotted wearing slippers in the street! I applaud her - she is clearly doing her damn best to boost the image of her fellow Liverpudlians for the purposes of tourism.

Link here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1103045/Cinderella-panto-star-Jennifer-Ellison-appears-slippers--shes-wearing-street.html

Mikhail Beketov

Was upset, though not too surprised to read this story today...

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AG6BZ20081118

I REALLY hope Beketov recovers, though it's unlikely that anyone will be punished for leaving him for dead.

Obama's CIA Briefing

I just read the funniest thing about Barack Obama's CIA briefing a couple of weeks ago following his election win.

He made it to the HQ to be briefed on all things most important to national security as well as past events.

The article featured comments from a presidential aide called Lucas Whiteman, who told the press about Obama's first CIA meeting.

From the article: "It has emerged that Mr Obama spent most of the afternoon ignoring larger issues of the day such as Russian interventions in the Caucasus and Iranian Nuclear expansion in favour of finding out what actually really happened to President John F Kennedy."

He went straight for the file marked "Dallas 1963" as well as the ones on Roswell, Marilyn Monroe, Watergate etc... Hahaha!

It continues: "Obama was one of the most vocal [presidents] about it. All afternoon all we could hear through the door were things like ‘Well I’ll be darned…’, and ‘Oh God, that’s good…’ and ‘Well I’ll be a son of a ….’. The only one he didn’t read was the one marked ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ as he said he ‘pretty much knew all about that one already."

Hahhaha!!! Sounds like he's very much an average human being, then.

Conspiracy theorists will no doubt believe that the following files also exist:

"US Moon landings - filmed in Hollywood",
"9/11 - How we actually pulled it off",
"President Bush - constructed in labs using sticky back plastic and tissue paper",
"Arnold Schwarzenegger - battered his way to the top!"
"Roswell - We lied!"
"Oil - yep, it's valuable!"
"Weapons of mass destruction - we keep them in Nevada!"

I'd just like to say that I went to see Jeffrey Lewis last night and I can't remember when I last went to see someone as good as that. I shall be reveiwing it shortly....(not here I think...)

'One Day In The LifeOf Ivan Denisovich (Shukhov)' Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Whenever I see books/TV shows/news stories from places I visited on my travels, I find I'm a lot more interested in them because I've been to the country/walked around it's streets/tried its food/met some locals, etc...

I stumbled across 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich', by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and assuming it was based on a real account (as the intro really lauded its importance as a true picture of gulag camps) I started reading it, finishing it a few days later.

Then, I realised it's fictitious, and I wondered why I thought it was autobiographical in the first place. Probably because Solzhenitsyn's writing style is so detailled and candid, nothing is too mundane, too insignificant for the reader to be spared.

It also reminded me of Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London', as, though Orwell is a free man, poverty restricts his choices throughout the novel. The restrictions resemble those of Shukhov (the protagonist) in 'Down and Out...', specifically the when Orwell has to go into 'the spike' to get a sheltered sleep.

Some great quotes/bits of writing from this novel...

'"How do you make that out?" Shukov answeed in surprise. "The old folk say the sun is highest at dinner time."
"Maybe it was, in their day!" the captain snapped back.
"Since then, it's been decreed that the sun is highest at one o'clock."
"Who decreed that?"
"The Soviet government."
The captain took off with the handbarrow, but Shukov wasn't going to argue anyway. As if the sun would obey their decrees!'

'Some people have nothing better to do run races in stadiums of their own free will. Silly devils should try running for their lives bent double after a day's work. In this cold with wet mittens and worn-out boots.'

'The mess was its usual self-frosty air steaming in from the door, men at the tables packed as tight as seeds in a sunflower, men wandering between tables, men trying to barge their way through with full trays.'

'The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favours, it always wants more tomorrow.'

'Because, Alyosha, prayers are like petitions-either they don't get through at all, or else it's "complaint rejected".'


'He himself took the lump of sausage-and popped it into his mouth. Get the teeth into it. Chew, chew chew! Lovely meaty smell! Meat juice, the real thing. Down it went, into his belly.
End of sausage.'