Hello Old Thing, Hello New Thing: 30

Sir Charles Thompson: Mister Boogie (Columbia, 1961)
I don't think that Thompson really was a Sir, but if he wasn't he should have been, if only for his services to making the world a slightly warmer and happier place. Until I heard this I'm pretty sure I was completely unaware of proto-lounge-core boogie-woogie, but now I have I feel like my life has changed for the better. In my dreams this is the music that plays when I walk into pubs. Everywhere you look, people are smoking and smiling and drinking champagne from walloping great saucers. What a world that would be...


Late Of The Pier: Space And The Woods (Parlophone, 2008)
BISH, BOSH, BISH, BOSH, WOO-HOO! ectetc. I played this for the first time yesterday and I couldn't quite believe how many great late 70s moments there were in it. I'm not a huge fan of that sort of thing really, but this has been done very well. What's more interesting is they appear to be from Castle Donnington, which makes them nearly neighbours of Silvana. Nearly, I said...

1970s Christmas Clementines

When we were young, Christmas always used to include a trip to our Grandad’s restaurant La Gondola. It was very chic in its day (it’s terrible now and was on Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares not long ago) and my parents would have Campari at the bar, my brothers would ask Roy McFarland, Kevin Hector, Archie Gemmell and other Derby County footballers for their autographs and I would wait impatiently for the sweet trolley to be rolled in. I always picked rumbaba or the oranges in caramel. I’ve not had caramelised oranges since I was twelve but then Cousin Tilly served them up at the annual Fitzpatrick family party a couple of weeks ago. She followed a recipe from the lovely Silver Spoon cookery book and hers were indeed text book – sweet and golden and identical to the ones off the trolley. So I had a go at making some myself and burnt the caramel into a delicious dark syrup. Yes, loads of sugar but at least no added fat, unlike the tiramisu Mum served alongside them.

Serves 6
12 firm clementines
300g granulated sugar
glass of water
small glass of brandy

Cut the peel and pith from the clementines with a small sharp knife. Strip away the pith and shred the peel from about half of the clementines.

Place the sugar in a pan and set it over a high heat. Let it bubble and melt, it’ll quickly turn to dark caramel. Don’t stir but swirl the pan a bit until all the sugar is dark and molten. Turn off the heat and leave for a couple of minutes.

Stir in the water, brandy and shredded peel and simmer very gently for 1 hour until the peel has candied.

Poach the clementines in the pan of syrup, four at a time for a couple of minutes then transfer to a large serving bowl. Pour over the hot syrup and peel and leave to cool. Set aside for at least a couple of hours or overnight before eating. I love the bitterness combined with the orange but if you find it too much, you can stir in some more white sugar.

Let's Be Having You

Derby County's return to the Premiership is looking like a bit of a disaster. We've got seven injured players and are bottom of the league and losing with scores such as 4-0 and 6-0. And I think we have Arsenal to look forward to soon.
Come on Derby, where are you?

1997

I've always been a bit of an archivist, always trying to capture and document a moment in time. Maybe it's because my parents came to England from Italy before I was born with no heirlooms and took very few photgraphs as we all grew up and perhaps I'm trying to make up for it. So, our house is stuffed with scrapbooks and photo albums of pictures of my dinner and people I met only once along with notes on days out, tickets and programmes. It's lucky then that I, the archivist who loves to log everything, happened to marry a nostaligist who loves nothing more than to pull out an album or two from the collection and reminisce about the good old days.

Ten years ago, I started the Polaroid dairies. I took one photo every day and stuck it in a small album with the date and a note. I never missed a day and over the course of the year ended up with eight albums. At the beginning of the second album is a picture of Robert so the diaries also chart out first year together when we lived at my old flat. I have a similar photo album charting the first few months of Fabio's life, how much he weighed, how much milk he drank etc. I'm glad for these things more and more as time passes and I guess that blogging is just a continuation of the same.


I dug the polaroid diaries out this morning and on this very day 10 years ago, Ian and Jo moved into the flat they'd just bought in our block. Ian is from Derby and Jo Gordon is a famous knitwear designer now (she was clearly brilliant even then). We moved to East Dulwich and soon after, they moved to a big house in the road I covet in Dulwich Village.


Anyway, it was an interesting year 1997 and my diaries have recorded a lot. I didn't drive, I look 2 stone lighter and 15 years younger, I spent a lot of time in pubs, in clubs and on care-free holidays (Paris, Carribbean & Australia in one year!) and had a lot more money to fritter on massages and lipstick than I do now. Princess Diana died and Tony Blair became Prime Mininster and Robet and I met. What do you remember of 1997?

Where's Your Spirit?

What's your favourite drink? I don't want to know about wine or beer, I want to talk Malibu, Vodka and Blue Bols. Mine is classic white label Jim Beam - the World's Finest Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Bells Whisky is my dad's spirit and it was what was in the cupboard when I wanted to sneak a teenage drink so it became my choice through familiarity and I do still love it. Then my eldest brother, Nick, opened this bar in Derby called The Dial (it's been knocked down now and he lives in Australia) and as soon as I turned 18 I got a weekend job there. My favourite and most interesting regular always came in alone and ordered 2 glasses of Jim Beam and drank them both by alternating a sip out of each and then he'd order another pair. Sometimes he'd order four which he lined up in a row at the bar. Eventually we became friends and I'd have a pair with him after work but after I left town we gradually lost touch. Anyway, it's been my drink now, for 20 years and eight months. What's yours?

Hold On A Minute!

What's going on here? This exact time yesterday we were stood by a massive gorge - that's it on the right - in the Sierra Nevada mountains just south of Granada. It was so hot we had to get out of the car and eat an ice-cream under a tree. Now all I can hear is wind and rain and Silvana's gone to Wembley to watch Derby...

The Derby Ram

The Derby Ram is an English folk song written in 1867 by Llewellynn Jewitt about a fine ram he encountered on a trip to market - there are quite a few versions of it.

The ram is the emblem of the City of Derby and Derby County FC whose mascot is Rammie the Ram!

Download these, they're brilliant! (the first is very short) (and, and! I paid 79p for each of them...)

The Derby Ram I

The Derby Ram II

Come On The Rams!

Derby won their most important match in years last night. According to my sister, who was at Pride Park with the rest of the Derby-based Francos, it was the most exciting match she'd ever, ever seen but that's penalty shoot-outs for you. Next and last stop, play-off final at Wembley.

Anyone know how to get tickets?

Old People Are Cool

Gangstarr: Jazz Thing (Movie mix) (CBS, 1990)
Last Friday we went to Derby. That night Silvana's dad took me across the road to the Royal British Legion club to see the jazz band, Jazz Vibrations (great name). He was as excited about it as I was. They only play once a month and I've only seen them once before, but they are wonderful for a number of reasons. For one, there's not a member under 65 - old people in bands are about the coolest thing I can think of because they've got no aspirations other than to play the music they love. They're not trying to be pop stars or famous or blow anyone's minds, they just want to play. For another, the guy on vibes has clearly been playing the instrument for about 50 years and he is now so in tune with it he's hunched over it like it's a part of him. So we stood at the bar and sank very cheap drinks and smiled at each other not caring what the songs were called or what anyone was doing because it was all good. When the frontman guy put down his sax and picked up his clarinet Silvana's dad's smile got even bigger. 36 hours before I'd been in a cool restaurant in New York, but this was so much cooler. Old guys playing their hearts out - respect is due.

Footnote: The Gangstarr track is taken from the original UK CD single release. Spike Lee's sleevenotes - written on July 13, 1990 - give props to "Duke, Coltrane, Monk, Diz, Mingus..." etcetc. But he also makes room for Biz Markie, Queen Latifah and "Hammer". It's easily forgotten that, for a short time only, MC Hammer wasn't the cheesy joke character he became, but a serious hip hop voice. History is a funny beast, no?

The Trial of Tony Blair (A Competition)

I started watching this last night but unfortunately nodded off after about 8 minutes. But anyway, I did think that lovely Derby boy Robert Lindsay was very very good. I have tried to think of 10 famous people from Derby but it's been a struggle. There's a couple I am not 100% sure about and one I absolutely made up. Can you guess who is definitely not from Derby? There will be a special prize for the winner and anyone who can come up with any good names for my list.

Famous Derbeians
Alan Bates
Florence Nightingale
Robert Lindsay
Joseph Wright
Michael Parkinson
Geoff Hoon
Kelli from Liberty X
Candy Flip
Simon Groom from Blue Peter
Tim Brooke-Taylor

Records That Make Me Feel Good: Christmas special

Shirley Bassey: Something (United Artists, 1970)

I was out shopping in Derby the other day just looking for a few last minute bits and pieces. Naturally, I didn't find anything as all the shops are full of rubbish. Perhaps you've noticed. Anyway, I was about to give up and head for home when I passed Oxfam. I tried to resist the urge to run straight in, but, like a junkie jonesing for a fix, I was powerless.

Of course, I soon remembered that almost everything in Oxfam is rubbish too. But then, having tired of Mel & Kim 12"'s and Your Hundred Favourite Tunes LPs, I found this little beauty. It cost me 49p.

How can, um, something so perfect be so cheap?

Aunty Anna’s potato pizza

We arrived in Derby about midday to find it thick with fog and the trees still heavily coated in frost. There was a fire on in every room and within 15 minutes, we were scraping the bottom of our bowls of mum’s delicious leek and potato soup. At that point in came my sister Angela holding aloft a huge slab of Aunty Anna’s pizza that she’d watched her make and then waited for it to come out of the oven so she could bring it back still warm. This is how Angela said Aunty Anna made it. She rolled out a giant rectangle of pizza dough then scattered one half with grated Pecorino. On top of the cheese she spread potatoes mashed with onion and parsley then lay ham on top of the potato. She folded over the other half of the dough and tucked in the edges like a calzone. Then she lifted the whole thing into a hot oiled tray and drizzled the top with even more olive oil. It tasted like Italy.

Far from the Madding Crowd

A few months ago we got a parcel in the post for someone we'd never heard of but with our address on. In the end we opened it and it was huge batch of Daily Mail classic dvds. Someone had obviously carefully collected the free vouchers and sent them off. I felt bad but Robert said they'd just phone up and get them sent again. Anyway, I just watched Far from The Madding Crowd and it's now my favourite film of all time. It's especially more better than the astonishingly awful new version of The Wicker Man that Robert made me watch the other night. This has all you could want from a film, Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, beautiful scenery, a dashing villain, death, heartbreak and a happy ending. It also stars Alan Bates, who was from Derby you know.

Records That Make Me Feel Good: 4 and 5

Two wonderful tracks this afternoon and both of them from new albums rather than some dusty piece of crap I bought for a dollar in some out of town nightmare in Des Moines or Derby (though there's lots more of those coming, BTW).

Alan Randall: Work Song (Licorice Soul, 2006).

I can't tell you anymore about the incredible - and sadly dead - Randall than you can read here, but this track is a brilliant piece of early 70s funk as orchestrated by a man more famous for having a massive gap between his teeth and being good at George Formby impressions.

Much, much more of this on the Working Man's Soul album, 12 tracks of the sort of social club funk that, I know only too well, just doesn't exist anymore.


Trans Am 4,738 Regrets (Thrill Jockey, 2007)

I saw Trans Am support to Tortoise at the Astoria in about 1994 (or something) and they were bloody great. To be honest, I'd not thought about them much since, but then their new album arrived in the post today and - who'd have thunk it - it's really good! This track in particular - instrumental, of course - has that New Order-ish sort of melancholic bite that staring out the windows into the middle distance was invented for.

More details about the very marvellous Trans Am here.