The Neko and Jaffle Pies report

Y'all. Sorry no photos cos I didn't take my camera.

Neko Case gig = so good that half way through the gig, my hands were already hurting from all the clapping. She's got a mean set of lungs, a great turn of phrase and a good line in banter.

Jaffle pies. No comment on the sigange which had things like "Dingo free zone" at the bottom.

The food? Well, think of a regular pie with very, very thin puff pastry (like that on top of a regular pie) but on both sides. The pie is sealed around the edges due to being cooked in a toasted sandwich/Breville style implement (a jaffle iron in Australian).

The "pie" is round and quite small but not too expensive at £2.20. My first pie turned out to be the best of the two that I tried. The "Outback"; chunky beef in a tasty gravy. Then I had a go at a "Footie"; again chunky beef in a Guiness gravy which wasn't as good as the Outback's gravy. Kate and Anne-Marie both had a "Popeye"; spinach, mushrooms, feta and cheddar cheese. IMO, this was totally not right but Kate seemed to like it. I don't think A-M was so sure either as I ate the unfinished remains of her pie.

My verdict, should I pass by a Jumbucks again I will probably try some of the other varieties but somehow, there was something that felt NQR (Not Quite Right) about these jaffle pies. If someone said to me, "Ed, you have a choice of a free Jumbuck Jaffle Pie and a free West Cornwall Pasty", I'd take the Jaffle Pie...but as I suspected, not as good as Boscastles!

In anticipation of...Neko Case and "Jaffle Pies"(?)

Here's my ticket for Neko Case on Wednesday at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London. I'm looking forward to seeing the sometime New Pornographers singer perform solo. Have a listen to her here. You'll need the Flash plug-in...if your browser doesn't auto load it.

Supports are Montreal's The High Dials and Americana/Alt-Country lady, Catherine Irwin.

The High Dials, quite 8 Miles High-esque. This link has MP3 downloads.

Catherine Irwin. Rootsy "songs about death and dying and dying and death"...also in the band Freakwater, apparently. Listen here. Click the song titles on the right hand side. Needs Flash plugin too.

I am thinking of sampling the wares of Jumbucks on Shepherds Bush Green too. As you may know, I quite like a meat pie in the Australian tradition...however, what the hell is a "jaffle pie"?

"we offer the widest range of gourmet Australian Jaffle pies this side of Jacob’s Creek" ...dingo, strewth, galah, crikey, swagman, barbie. Groan.

I'll report back here about my jaffle pie adventures..I don't anticipate they will be as good as Boscastle pies.

Today's bike ride

Here is a before and after shot of today's ride, an 80km loop from Oxford, west into a strong headwind to Witney and then back. It took us a little under 3 hours.

In the 'before' photo (above) Gerard is on the left, Lucas from Melbourne in the centre and me on the right.

You can't see from the photo but we're a bit damp in the 'after' shot, as it rained during the middle third of the ride.

Thierry Henry to stay a Gunner until 2010

This news from the BBC website embiggened my spirits today.


Also the second and final phase of one of my big websites at work went live today :) I've been working on that sucker for about 18 months!

A hill too far?

In my last entry, I mentioned that my cycling form is pretty good. The reason for that is that I've been training for the Gran Fondo Cymru, on 28 May. This one day bike ride is modelled after the European Gran Fondi (in Italian) or Cyclosportives (in French). The most famous of these being L'Etape du Tour where amateurs get a chance to ride the route of one of the stages of the Tour de France. This type of ride isn't really a race (although you do get an electronic timing chip), they are more of a sporting challenge.

The Gran Fondo Cymru is being held in hilly North Wales, in the Snowdonia National Park. The route profile above shows you that there's some tough climbs (3575m of climbing) along the 173km/108 mile route.

I've been training with Damon and Gerard who are also doing the ride with me. The longest ride so far...165km/100 miles in the Cotswold hills, north of Oxford. I also went out with the Oxford Triathlon club last Sunday with a colleague at work who is an Ironman triathlete.

Anyhow, the Cotswolds while a bit bumpy are not a patch on Snowdonia (named after the highest peak in Wales, Mt Snowdon)...so wish us luck, I think it's gonna be hard!

As the Gran Fondo Cymru site says:
"There is little doubt you will know you have done it and can leave your dancing shoes at home for another occasion."

Above - Me in the Main Race final of the 2004 Cycle Messenger World Championships...I finished 23rd.

Mixed emotions

A list of my favourite things would go something like this:

1. Family and good health
2. Kate
3. Friends
Equal 4th in no particular order:
Sleep
Travel
Cycling
Telemark skiing
Live original music
Good cooking
Original independent music on record
Arsenal FC
World peace and correcting inequality
Photos
Environmental matters
Outdoor activities like bushwalking/hiking

999. John Howard, Morris Dancing, Big Brother

Depending on my life circumstances at the time the equal 4th items move up and down the pecking order.

Tonight I have mixed emotions. To elaborate...Arsenal lost the Champions League final tonight in reasonably unfortunate circumstances....but...I received the new CDs of two of my most favourite of all time, Melbourne musicians; Marcel Borrack and The Killjoys. So even though yesterday I depressingly calculated that the carbon emissions that I'm directly responsible over the last 5 years of world travel, is about 30 tonnes of CO2...I'm reasonably happy because I'm fit and healthy and in PRETTY GOOD cycling form.

R.I.P Grant McLennan

I was very sad to hear that Grant McLennan (in the foreground of this pic) of the legendary Australian band The Go-Betweens died, aged 48 on Saturday 6 May 2006 at his home in Brisbane.

Here's a short article from Melbourne's, The Age newspaper...
...and a longer obit in Brisbane's, Courier-Mail newspaper.

My personal anecdote was meeting him at the Shock Records Christmas party in about 1993 or 1994.* That gig was, I think, the one of the few times that he and Robert Forster had performed a gig together since The Go-Betweens were disbanded in 1989. He was pretty approachable, more so than the more flamboyant Forster. I just made some young rookie small talk about how I'd enjoyed their set or something like that.

I saw them again at the now defunct Continental Café in Melbourne, probably some time in the mid-nineties and before they officially reactivated The Go-Betweens in 2000 and went on to perform many more gigs together (releasing three albums, most recently Oceans Apart in 2005). To my shame, I never went to see them play in London when the opportunities arose in the last few years.

To slightly bastardise the meaning of the lyrics in The Go-Betweens song Part Company:

"Come and have a look, beside me
A fine line of tears, part company."

* Hence I'm sceptical of the claim in the The Go-Betweens Wikipedia entry that (Forster and McLennan)"were inspired to work together after they were invited by fans at French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles to perform at the magazine's 10th anniversary." (in 1996)

Photo from Dey's Flickr photostream and is reproduced under a Creative Commons licence.