This is Domino our new mouser and insect catcher. Regular readers will know that we got Domino from the post lady because 'Alan the cat' our other rodent control assistant, decided to go walk about. There are always official smallholding residents and non-official smallholding residents on a farm. I don't like using poisons, so we employ a Jack Russell terrier and Domino to tell help us encourage the lads with the long tails to go elsewhere. Domino also seems to be a dab hand at paw swatting insects.
Here's a list of cat songs that I have found for your enjoyment.
1. Cat Scratch Fever - Ted Nugent. I actually once saw the great guitar hero at Manchester Apollo.
2. Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat.
3. Cool For Cats - The Squeeze.
4. Stray Cat Strut - The Stray Cats.
5. What's New Pussy Cat - Tom Jones.
6. Look What The Cat Dragged In - Poison.
7. Love Cats - The Cure.
8. Mean Eyed Cat - Johnny Cash.
Seeing that I seem to be having a sixties early seventies music theme on here this week. I will leave you with a video from that great English group: The Kinks. Here's Phenomenal Cat. I only discovered this track this week.
Here's a recipe we have ate more times than we have had hot dinners. Sirloin is on offer today (Bank Holiday Monday, Ireland) so we thought we would make the following.
Before.
After.
CAJUN POT ROAST.
This is a recipe from Louisiana in North America. The place that's full of swamps, Alligators, great food and great music.
What You Do And What You Need:
One an a half tsp of salt. 1 tsp of mustard. Tsp of Paprika. Half a tsp of Thyme. Half a ground RED pepper or Capsicum if you're posh. Half a tsp of black pepper.
Get a joint of topside beef or Sirloin if it's on offer! One tbsp of vegetable oil. Two onions cut into wedges. Two Celery stalks. One GREEN pepper. One tin of tomatoes. One bay leaf. One garlic clove - chopped.
Mix everything together into a paste (except the veg) and rub two and half tsp's of it over the meat in a casserole dish. Brown the meat - add the onions, pepper, toms... Cover it with a. lid and put it in the oven and cook it for a few hours until it's really tender.
About four hours cooking time in total.
Hope you enjoy it and let me know if you like it. That's a Creedence Clearwater Revival, song: Bad Moon Rising, to play along with your meal. You probably know it from the soundtrack of that fantastic British film: American Werewolf In London. Must do a blog post about it some time! Don't forget to wash it down with some home brew.
There's a little West Cork town famous for its blues, the: Bantry Blues. They are a Gaelic football club. On Saturday night (last night) I ventured out to Bantry to see Eric Bell, the legendary guitarist and founder of Irelands' greatest rock group: Thin Lizzy.
I had seen Thin Lizzy in 1981 in Manchester, but alas, not with Eric Bell. In 1986 I saw Gary Moore at Milton Keynes Bowl, along with Magnum, Mamas Boys, Jethro Tull and Marillion. Last night I finally got to see the legend that is Eric Bell.
How many times had the kids and me and the wife travelled over the tunnel road from Glengarriff to Kerry, singing 'Whiskey in the Jar'?
It was one of my rare nights going out for a drink last night, and me and the missus walked through the door at nine o'clock, half an hour before we should of done. Well, we had been brought up to be punctual in England, hadn't we? Anyway we walked up the stairs and walked into a bar with a wooden dance floor and a small stage. We purchased a couple of drinks and noticed the great man (Eric Bell) setting up and tuning and doing the old:
"One two, One two."
Mr Bell was deadly serious and he tuned his two guitars and his fuzz box and all the other P.A equipment for at least half an hour. I know - I timed it. We realised we were watching a professional. The room filled up a bit more and the drummer talked to us about Neil Peart, Neil Young and working with the legend that is Eric Bell.
Something passed ten. The Eric Bell band came on stage. They played lots of blues, the Shadows and Rory Gallagher and of course, 'Whiskey In the Jar'. I was in my rock and roll heaven. The blues reminded me of the guitar duel in the fantastic film: Crossroads. Wasn't it Steve Vai who played the devil playing guitarist? Coincidentally my old friend Pat, who regular leaves comments on here, is going to see Steve Vai tonight in Warsaw. Small world eh?
Pat always says the small venues are best. I couldn't agree more. If you're ever in West Cork check out: The Mariner and it's down stairs restaurant: The Brick Oven. It's a great venue, and the natives are really friendly and it was FREE to get in You never know you may see a legend like Eric Bell. There is a great video of him and the late, great Gary Moore playing 'Whiskey in the Jar in Dublin. Check him out on You Tube or better still go and see him and the band!
Here's the guitar duel from Crossroads featuring Steve Vai.
Continuining (now and again) with my thoughts about television from many moons a go, whilst trying to stick with an allotment/smallholding theme. Today I would like to talk about 'I Didn't Know You Cared'. The late , great, Peter Tinniswood (born in Liverpool, grew up in Sale) penned this classic 1980 northern sit com. Uncle Mort was played by the sadly, late Robin Bailey.
Uncle Mort was the head of a downbeat northern family who only seemed happy unless they where unhappy. Uncle Mort used to rent a vegetable allotment and he even had his own 'Lancashire and Yorkshire' railway carriage for a shed complete with its own flagpole. Probably the most memorable catchphrase came from Uncle Stavely, who used to carry his best friends ashes around with him in a cardboard box was:
"I heard that! Pardon."
Peter Tinniswood is my humour writer hero. He was also mad on cricket and penned: Tales From A Long Room. Is there anything more noble or English than the sound of a ball hitting willow? I leave you with a You Tube video of Uncle Mort's Ideal Woman. Absolute classic.
Japs. My Winter onions finally planted in a bath. There are holes drilled in the bottom and a few stones thrown in for drainage. Nothing warms the cockles of my heart, more than when I see my 'Japs' growing through the snow, that's if we get any? I always thought a bath was for keeping the coal in!
That's Fido my trusted Jack Russell and tripe hound. She's stood on top a pile of old corrugated sheets that I recently acquired Behind the dog is a Fuchsia hedge. This seems to be native to Ireland. Yet in fact it really comes from Chile. Perhaps the Spanish brought it with the potato? More likely it came in the last Ice Age.
Made the compost heap today. The posts and the six inch nails are brand new. The corrugated sheets aren't! You can see the silage bales in the background. Only until end of March/April and the bales will be gone. That means that the cattle are in almost 6 months of the year. At least they provide us with lots of compost and weeds!
Continuing with my great British television theme. Today I would like to talk about the 'Village Idiot'. The fantastic Monty Python team made us laugh and think outside of the box. I loved Monty Python's Flying Circus. Some of the sketches made me fall about laughing and some of them went straight over my head.
My Python favourite joke/sketch is:
A man walks into a shop and says to the shop keeper:
"I'd like to buy a wasp please"
Shopkeeper:
"Sorry sir, we don't sell wasps."
Customer:
"Yes you do you have got one in the window!"
Absolute genius.
I have been looking up the role of the village idiot on Google and good old Wikipedia- the free encyclopaedia
Apparently the village idiot was considered an acceptable social role, a unique individual who was dependent yet contributed to the social fabric of his community. You don't hear of any lady village idiots do you? Any road. The role of the'village savant or 'village genius' is often tied to the concept of pre-industrial anti-intellectualism The court jester is another character in English folklore who was both a subject of picture and derision.
In the following sketch. We see the 'village idiot' from a completely different perspective Thanks to the person who uploaded the Monty Python sketch to You Tube. I don't think we will ever see the likes of the Pythons again on television, do you?
That's a photograph of the book that set me on the way to getting an allotment and eventually living on a smallholding. It's the original 'Self Sufficiency' by John Seymour. The man who inspired millions to become self reliant and to get back to the land. I call the book my 'smallholding bible'. I also have the NEW complete book of self sufficiency which is a fantastic book and the diagrams are superb.
How ever in the new version I don't see the first chapter: What is it? Why do it? JS asks the question what does self supporting mean? Should we be like Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe got his inspiration from the Scottish explorer: Alexander Selkirk). JS says that he lived in African and Indian villages and he saw an high degree of self sufficiency in both, and also a very high degree of happiness and true contentment. In one Indian village there's a man who goes into the countryside and cuts down a pipal tree. He uses it to make a plough to sell to his neighbour in return for rice or wheat...There is a miller, a dhobi (washerman), a tonga-wallah (driver of a hackney cart), carpenter, blacksmith, potter and a weaver. If somebody wants to build a house, The neighbours help you. Except at harvest time, nobody works very hard.
The Indians have 2 useful words: pukha and kutcha. Pukha means to have a civilized finish on it. Kutcha means rough - made in the village without outside help. The man who has learnt to read, and been to town, comes back and wants a pukha house-one that makes use of cement and glass, mill sawn timber and other materials that aren't made in the village. His old kutcha house is no longer good enough for him. He also decides that he wants white sugar instead of gorr, tea instead of buttermilk, white flour instead of wholemeal. He - and eventually his whole village with him -are forced into a money economy, crops are grown for sale and not for use, the village becomes part of the great world-wide system of trade, finance...
Makes you think doesn't it? Have we all become slaves to oil and the global system of trade and finance?
Any road. Another one of my hobbies is looking back at great television programmes from the past. Staying (kind of) with a agrarian theme. Here's Parsley the Lion. Remember when quarter to six was a special time just before the BBC six O'clock news?
Thanks to the kind person who uploaded it to You Tube.
