September - A Month in Review

13 Recommendations 

The Return is coming. I am not looking forward to it.

13 Recipes:

I've not been well, leave me alone.

13 Meals Out:

Did I mention that I've not been well.

13 Random Acts of kindness:

I managed 2 this month. Not doing anything brings out the best in me.

13 Letters:

I'll box them off in one go. It's fine, it's fine.

13 Blogs per month:

9 months done.

13 Family days out:

1 done, 2 booked for October. Not bad.

13 New Foods:

I already have the dread for next month

£13 for Charity per month:

10 donations done, so one a month and this will be challenge completed.

13/30 Autographs:

Challenge Completed!

13 (minimum) Postcrossing:

Challenge Completed! 

13 (minimum) Geocaches:

Give me a break, I left the house today for the first time in a week. (This really is looking like it will be the one to trip me up)

13 @Replies or Retweets from famous people:

Challenge completed!

Trying something new - and this one is disgusting.

I bought this online yesterday. This is going to happen

Cooking from scratch - Rice Pudding

This is more of an excuse than anything really.

I had big plans for the end of this month. I had an operation on the 23rd of this month, and I was going to get so many of these challenges sorted when I was recovering. I had nothing to do but rest, it was the perfect plan.

What I completely underestimated was how long it would take me to recover. I was expecting, at least initially, to be in the worst pain I've ever known (as this was my first operation ever), but to be fair, that didn't really happen. A bit of discomfort, but nothing that was really worse than the pain I was in before the operation. However, I wasn't prepared for just how knackered I was going to be.

It took them hours to get me to come round after the operation. Nothing sinister, the just kept waking me up and asking if I was okay, I'd tell them I was tired and would go back to sleep. (Sadly that isn't as light hearted as it seems because I wasn't aware at the time that while I was sleeping, nobody had let Katie know that I was okay. So she and my parents, hours after I should have been back, were worried sick that something had happened)

And I was basically knackered for days. My big plan of getting back to work on Tuesday turned into Thursday, and I spent most of the time before that sleeping.

Basically, what this is building to is that I didn't make rice pudding. But I bought in the ingredients, so I'll be making it in October. Using this recipe:

Ingredients

• 40g/1½oz butter
• 100g/3½fl oz pudding rice (or Spanish paella rice)
• 75g/2½oz caster sugar
• 1 litre/1¾pints full-fat milk
• 150ml/5fl oz double cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or ½ vanilla pod, split lengthways
• pinch salt
• plenty freshly grated nutmeg

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 140C/285F/Gas 1.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-based casserole dish over a medium heat. Add the rice and stir to coat. Add the sugar, stirring until dissolved. Continue stirring until the rice swells and becomes sticky with sugar.
3. Pour in the milk and keep stirring until no lumps remain. Add the cream and vanilla and bring the mixture to a simmer. Once this is reached, give the mixture a final stir and grate at least a third of a nutmeg over the surface. Bake for 1-1½ hours and cover with foil if the surfaces browns too quickly.
4. Once there is a thin, tarpaulin-like skin on the surface, and the pudding only just wobbles in the centre, it is ready.
5. Serve at room temperature.

Postcrossing - Challenge completed!

Another Challenge completed! I have received 13 (actually 15) postcards from strangers around the world!

Night out - Paul Sinha

Tea time telly watchers might know Paul Sinha as the bloke in an awful suit on The Chase

But in real life he is also a stand up comedian. I've only seen bits of his stuff, but he is a funny bloke and we are going to see him in Liverpool next month.

So if you love comedy, like The Chase or just hate trick or treaters, why not come along?

http://www.laughterhousecomedy.com/events/2013-03-20-slaughter-house-liverpool

Charity Donation - London Marathon for Ndui Ndui School

A few days ago, an old friend of my brothers invited me to a Facebook page (This one) which is detailing his daughters fundraising attempts including her running the London Marathon for Ndui Ndui School. It's the ideal cause to donate to really, because it combines something I would never want to do, with raising money for an excellent cause.

I don't know Katie really, I met a few times when she was very young. My main memory is one time on a works night out ten pin bowling, John brought Katie and her brother along, and she was the only one of the 3 that remembered to get her own shoes back before going home. Classic.

Anyway, like the page and why not give her a bit of money too? You are nice like that.

Adding the JustGiving link, because I am a forgetful idiot - http://www.justgiving.com/katie16b

A good deed that I don't really remember

Because I am an idiot....

I'm going to post this on Facebook so my friend Hazel can fill in the details, but basically if you click on this link https://communityfund.lloydsbank.com/voting/cf_org_vote_profile.asp?cfr=98A08A
And vote for the scout and guide group to get some money from the bank to help repair damage from a fire.

A good cause, I'm sure you will agree. So vote, you handsome swines!

Recommendation - Getting Katie involved!

Well, I finally managed to get Katie slightly interested in the challenges.

Apart from enjoying the general idea of it, especially the family time parts, I'm pretty sure she just thinks of it as a bit of a stupid boy project. Which is kinda is.

She doesn't even read this blog, so I can say anything I like about her. I'm not stupid though, because I know her sister reads it and would definitely tell her. Hello dear!

Anyway, she has recommended that I watch The Returned with her. Partly because she knows I don't want to, and partly because it means I'd need to buy her the DVD to do so. She is an evil genius, but frankly she would need to be.

So I have bought it, and shall be watching it quite soon I imagine.

If you haven't heard of it, and missed it's weird Frenchness on Channel 4 earlier this year, you can buy your own copy here: - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Returned-Series-1-DVD/dp/B00D90UW42/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380568731&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Returned

Post Crossing - Sent items update

Well, ByPost seems to be an excellent app - http://13challengesfor2013.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/postcrossing-with-new-twist.html

Of the 10 Postcards mentioned in that original post, 5 of them have already arrived. 2 to Germany, 2 to Russia and 1 to USA in an impressive 17 days (which includes the time to print the postcard)

5 postcards are still outstanding, to Japan, China, USA and Russia (x2), but I'm confident they could arrive any day now. Well worth £1 a postcard, if you fancy giving Postcrossing a try.

Random act of Kindness.... helping a stranger complain

Not much of an interesting story on this one, but it all counts.

Someone got an official charger from apple and basically, it caused a fire. They took the charger to the shop to complain, and they were told they would be charged for a replacement because the wires were showing. As the wires were showing, they were at fault. Incredible logic.

People were giving all kinds of helpful advice like 'you should kick off' or 'they are only £1 to replace on ebay', but I found the e-mail address of the CEO of Apple UK and told her to complain to the boss.

It's a very successful tactic that I have used several times. If I am unhappy with customer service, I complain. If I'm unhappy with how the complaint it dealt with, I go straight to the CEO. And I advise you to do the same, it really gets things done.

This is an excellent website for finding contact details - http://www.ceoemail.com/

Daniel Kitson. Tim Key. Tree

I've gone on about Kitson enough. Here is a proper review

When Daniel Kitson gave the Latitude Festival audience a tantalising glimpse of his new show this summer it was still very much a sapling. Two months later and Tree has put on branches and leaves, emerging into the gloom of a drizzly autumnal Manchester night as a mighty oak.

Although not quite the anticipated sell out – the Royal Exchange was pockmarked by a surprising number of empty seats - this new piece from the man regarded as Britain’s leading comic storyteller has commanded considerable excitement.

You do not have to be Kenneth Tynan to spot the immediate parallels with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: two men, a tree and a long conversation about not very much which seems to touch on just about everything.  Alan Partridge sidekick Tim Key plays Vladimir to Kitson’s Estragon and the two spend the 90 minutes on stage probing and testing each other with great skill.

Kitson is up the eponymous tree for the duration whilst Key paces anxiously and with not a little menace below as he prepares for his picnic date with the elusive Sarah. Whilst in many ways the entire show is a slow build-up to a single – and very funny - punchline, the joy of the performance comes in the carefully paced journey towards it. It is a loving and playful exploration of language and the way we use it to temper the absurdities and mini-dramas of our lives. Humour and poetry is readily gleaned from the everyday: chatting up girls on crowded buses, dog shit in the autumn leaves, pain-in-the arse neighbours. In the spirit of Beckett there are much bigger questions, too - about beginnings and endings; trust and belief; commitment and delusion, which continue to turn over pleasingly in the mind as you make your way home.

Kitson, a 2002 Perrier winner, has built a reputation as the JD Salinger of modern comedy – largely due to the fact that his only major TV appearance was in Phoenix Nights (which he later denounced) and because he doesn’t give newspaper interviews. Critics, whom he doesn’t furnish with review tickets, love him nonetheless. Fellow comedians, such as Stewart Lee, regard him as the leader of the pack. He clearly takes his art seriously and his audience treats him with similar reverence. Tree is a perfectly-formed piece of writing and a beautifully realised performance by two outstanding artists. Well worth enduring a spot of neck ache for.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/reviews/comedy-review-daniel-kitson-tree-royal-exchange-theatre-manchester-8811767.html

Cooking a Chili from scratch

I'll warn you now. My chili is not photogenic.

From the first picture to the last, it looks deeply unpleasant however it did smell nice (if you like chili) and tasted nice (if you chili) but I don't, so why would you take my word for it?

It's also worth noting that I had promised to cook this for tea without checking the recipe. I assumed we had everything in that I didn't but I was missing a few items. Like beef stock. And red wine. And half of the spices. And I only had one tin of tomatoes. And no chocolate!

But did I let that put me off? Nah, I wasn't the one eating it, so I felt now was a good time to experiment, have a bit of fun with it and see what happened.

I started by cooking the onions, mushrooms and peppers in a frying pan

When they had been cooking for 10 minutes, I stuck them on a plate and replaced them with a block of cow bits

I poked at this with a stick for a while until it fell apart and went from an unpleasant pick colour to an unpleasant grey colour

Then I put the veg back in, and added some spices

Then I wandered off and had something nicer to eat. Probably crisps of something. Then I came back to this:

I think we can agree it's looking as dry as arseholes. Lack of stock you see!! I was tempted to run it under the tap for a bit, but then I had an idea. Baked Beans! That is certainly something I'd heard people put it in chili. So I put some in, with the kidney beans

Then my mind turned to presentation. We have all seen cooking programs on telly and it's fairly safe to say, the first bite is taken with the eyes. So I googled to see what the professionals do, added my own twist and voilà

Nailed it.

It's fairly safe to say that this wasn't a 100% success. Katie ate it and claimed to enjoy it, but it was at the end of a 12 hour shift without a dinner break, so that must be taken into account. She also politely said that she probably wouldn't have added baked beans herself.

I guess I'm just a cooking maverick that refuses to follow your so called recipes. Unless I'm eating it too.

Postcrossing - with a new twist

I've not received any postcards in a few months, so to give it a little push to the finishing line, I decided to send another 6 postcards this morning. But I did it in a slightly different way.

A few months ago I used an iPhone app to send Ethan a birthday card from his favourite Christmas present from last year, a little cuddly mouse (that has since sadly gone missing, RIP Mousey). I did it, it arrived nicely and pretty much forgot about it until a few days ago when they sent me an e-mail reminding me that I had some credits left on my account. I looked into it a bit more, and found out that you can send postcards internationally as well.

In my opinion, this makes it the perfect partner for Postcrossing. It costs £1 per postcard, which might sound a lot, but the price of an international stamp is 88p, so this is a much cheaper option. Plus, you can use any picture you like from your phone and (my favourite part), you can do the who process without getting out of bed.

So this morning, I requested 6 new addresses (after getting Russia 3 times in a row, I changed my settings so I can only send to each country one at a time).

Some bloody big distances in there, so will be interesting to see how long they take to arrive. 

And if you have read about Postcrossing from me before and thought it was a good idea, but just couldn't be arsed with all the faff, now is your chance to give it a go!!