h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We have another gray day. Temperatures in the upper 40's. We had a killing frost 2 nights ago, so I have an abundance of green tomatoes and small peppers to do something with. I'll probably make relish with them.

[z] feeling motivated to do some work,

Glad to hear you're enjoying your job for a change, Marv. Your last job really took it out of you. Are you still thinking about chef school?

We had a hard frost here last night too, Hypatia, but I don't know if it was the first killing frost though. We took out our tomatoes about a month ago when we were doing some landscaping. We didn't mind losing the plants so much, since we are all sensitive to tomatoes (get rashes, etc. - don't ask about the etc. ). We'd already had a light frost that had knocked off some of the annuals.

We have had frosts too, but the cyclamen are proving hardier than I expected and are still flowering.

It has been quite wet today, the garden needs it badly though, in fact we need rather a lot of rain to make up for a very dry summer.

[]

I need eye glasses. That does not excuse me. Anyone who has been offended please remain so. My eyes are not that faulty!

So I've spent my morning avoiding my research again by cooking. There's a pork roast with garlic, lemon and ginger in the crock pot, and I am currently making homemade granola. For anyone interested...

5 cups rolled oats (not instant)
1 c steel cut oats
1/2 c sesame seeds
1/2 c (or more) slivered almonds

3 T cinnamon
1 T ground ginger

(mix all together. spices may be increased or changed as desired.)

bring 2 cups sugar, 2 cups water, and 2 T vanilla to a boil, boil until it reaches soft ball stage (220, I think, but don't quote me on that...I use a candy thermometer). Pour over oat mix, stirring constantly. As soon as possible (don't burn yourself) and using hands, rub mixture together until it forms lumps. Store in airtight container.

Anyway, that's the basic. It's also good with almond extract, or other rolled grains (I like to use spelt) or using pumpkin pie spice. Basically, 4 cups of syrup to 7 cups of dry stuff, and whatever spices you like. This one is a little spicy, because I like to use more ginger. It's good on ice cream, or just plain. It's not the best with milk as cereal.

I have noticed pumpkin pie and apple pie spice -- are these actual spices-in-themselves, or some combination of other pices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger?

I dragged out my old fax machine from 1994 and set it up. It still seems to work.

Honestly, I spend a week getting drunk, attacking my hair with peroxide and going to a gig and a football match, neglecting to read this thread, and there's THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT new posts! Well, balls to reading that lot, I'll wait for the summary in the next thread.

Evenin' all by the way.

I see the football adreneline rush hasn't passed yet....

Lil, pumpkin pie spice is cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc. mixed together. It works.

The game was in the Scottish national stadium, which holds 50,000 people. There were 554 people at the game. Magnificent.

Anyway, if anyone weants more information on what i've been doing while ignoring the lot of you:

*The gig was The beautiful South, supported by an utterly depressing norweigan bloke called MAgnet, at the Newcastle City hall on Wednesday.

*My hair is now peroxide blonde rather than dark brown

*My beard is now absent as the dye didn't work very well with it.

*a little bit of my left eyebrow is now a light brown as I didn't give up trying to dye them soon enough.

*The football match was Queens aprk ( a team of amateurs) against Cowdenbeath (a team of sem-professionals, in the Scottish third Division

*I've found out that Yates's Wine Lodge serves VB Australian lager, Sam Adams Boston Lager, South African Castle Lager (which is crap) and vodka jellies (which are very nice)

Oh, and I did some university work at some point during the wek as well..

Sounds good to me, shame we're 5000 mls apart.
Would you invite me in M if I were at your door?

I must try and get to see Beautiful South.

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Traditionmally, when they bring an album out, thry follow the november tour with an arena tour in April- not sure they will this time, as the album didn't reach the top 10.

Or you could pay over the odds to the "dodgy bloke on the corner" at:

8th. Sheffield City Hall SOLD OUT

9th. Blackburn King Georges Hall SOLD OUT

10th. Wolverhampton Civic Hall

11th. Bridlington Spa SOLD OUT

13th. Manchester Apollo GOING FAST

14th. Manchester Apollo SOLD OUT

15th. Nottingham Royal Gate SOLD OUT

17th. Bournemouth Int'l Centre

18th. Bristol Colston Hall SOLD OUT

20th. Shepherds Bush Empire SOLD OUT

21st. Shepherds Bush Empire SOLD OUT

Oh have they brought a new album out? I haven't heard it? is it any good?

I can't afford to buy CDs at the moment, no do I have the facitilty to acquire copies of them by other means.

New album out- called "Gaze"- rather good, only got to 14 in the charts, features a few surprisingly uptempo songs, none of which I've heard on any radio stations other than radio 2. If you go to http://www.beautifulsouth.co.uk there's a stream of the first single from the album, "Just a few things i ain't", while http://www.paulheaton.com has samples from some of the songs in the download section.

Oh, and I reviewed both the album and the single for h2g2's sister site collective- A2006984A1929611

I meant "gig" not single.

A2006984
A1929611

I would love to acquire it, I really like the beatiful south, but then again, I'm sure I'll acquire a copy.

When I was fifteen I ended up at a Beautiful South after show party in Manchester, meeting all the band and the support act, Shed Seven.