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Look away now, O you of squeamish disposition.
Last Friday, Little Bear spent the afternoonwith her hand up a dead duck’s arse. The current owners of the allotment next to her house finally worked up the courage to admit that although they kept ducks, chickens and geese, they had never actually prepared them to eat before. Since I had some experience (mostly with pheasants), I agreed to give a VERY amateur lesson. Now, my Moominmama always used to make me pluck and draw in the garage, on account of the blood and feathers and interesting smells.
Mistake 1: Now that I have my own house, I can prepare birds in the kitchen – a cardboard box for feathers and newspaper for the yucky bits will ensure that everything remains tidy. WRONG. This is a very foolish thing to assume, and feathers up the nose do not add to your experience. The kitchen will never again be used as a staging ground for this sort of nonsense, by order of Llama.
Mistake 2: A bird that is very nearly grown up is the same as one that is grown up all the way. WRONG. The students of butchery brought two birds – one duck and one chicken. I should note at this point that the duck was a male (sold as a female) called sunshine. He was chosen as the first for the chop because he had a nasty habit of attempting to rape other ducks, the chickens and, on one unsuccessful occasion, a massive goose. As the first instructions were followed – pluck the body first, we discovered a thick and almost unremoveable layer of down under the duck’s feathers. The down that did come off went everywhere, adding to the general chaos and causing a great deal of laugther on all sides.
Success: Things taught when you were little still hold true! A good, sharp pair of secateurs from a garden centre, kept clean for use in the kitchen, are the best thing for cutting through ball and socket joints bar none. Bugger the chopping blade, or blunting a perfectly good chef’s knife – secateurs will be my weapon of choice for all future butchering. Teaching others to find the joints is another story. It really doesn’t help if you tell someone to put their finger there and feel for the joint when they keep laughing.
Mistake 3: Singeing the remaining fluff will be just as easy with chickens as with pheasants. WRONG. Also, if your lighter is only a small flame, you’ll burn yourself more than those stubborn, unsightly hairs.
Success: Not only did the feet and wingtips come off, I remembered to wash and keep the feet for stock! Remembering where the bottom is and cutting carefully around it is also important. Much careful thinking went into where to make this cut on the duck, the chicken was definitely easier.
Mistake 4: Actually, this one is more of an inevitable – This time I will remove the digestive system without breaking it. WRONG. This never works. But do be prepared to laugh long and hard when student A has such big hands that he cannot actually reach inside the chicken.
Success: Having correctly identified liver, lungs and heart, that duck liver pate recipe of my father’s may finally come in handy. A quick rinse and a short lesson in boning and portioning the meat finished the job, and they went away happy. I was pleased to have remembered so much, and very much less daunted about the four duck that have now appeared in my garage, where they will hang for a day or so.
Due to a conversation between little bear and Llama some time ago, during which the phrase “what do you mean, you’ve never seen Krull?” was uttered, a film was placed on the rental list. It appeared today, and we proceeded to watch what was one of the funniest fantasy-by-numbers films I’ve seen in a long time. Krull was a big budget spectacular in the early eighties and its influences are clear. From the Star Wars shot along the length of the flying space-castle to the splendid Dark Crystal cracking of the earth when it lands, the phrase original story is lost behind a single world – Willow.
There were two points to this film that made it thoroughly enjoyable. One was that because it was early on, a lot of what we now see as obvious cliches to the genre were considered perfectly acceptable. Stop-motion spider monsters, comedy wizards, bandits with hearts of gold and a kidnapped princess may be old hat, but they provide the splendid warm feeling that comes with eating ramen noodles straight from the saucepan, or bringing the duvet downstairs and drinking beer in your pajamas on a weekday, or reading old Steve Jackson “choose your own adventure” books, and cheating on them like you did when you were little.
There is also a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 aspect that arises from the B-movie style on an A-movie budget. Hours of pleasure can be had from unnecessary commentary over the top of comfy films – “don’t reach into the lava with you hands! use the boathook!”, “That’s not a glaive, that’s a dead starfish” and so forth.
Best line from the film: “Of course they’re robbers, but don’t worry – I’ll drop back a little and turn them all into pigs.”
As a result of Krull, we have chosen to spend the day watching old fantasy films. Standby for Legend, Conan, Brazil, 13th Warrior, Time Bandits, Gladiator (not fantasy but wanted by the Llama) and Dune. Maybe not all today though 
This is such a minor annoyance that I find myself compelled to rant about it. At 10:40pm, little bear’s very own moominmama is playing with powertools in the kitchen, jigsawing shelves for a home-made cupboard.
Little bear herself? She is fuming at the advertising agency that won the Skoda contract. Skoda has a new chelsea tractor called the “Yeti”. Yeti, or the abominable snowman, is a creature that many of us know to be a mythical hairy ape-man-monster based exclusively in the Himalayas, Nepal, Tibet, that sort of thing.
There is no record of Yeti taking holidays below the snowline in California. The Californians have their own monster – Bigfoot (or Sasquatch) – a large hairy ape/man/monster who lives in California, has dark hair, and stays below the snowline. He also had his own sitcom once, but Harry and the Hendersons trivia can wait for another day.
Who was out of their skull enough to commission a bigfoot advert for a car called a yeti? You may think, dear readers, that this is a small and easily-made mistake, but there has to be a line drawn in the snow somewhere.
Oh yes, and I despise people mixing mythology just so that they can make gas guzzlers look like more of a wholesome family car. Send the buggers to Tibet, that’s what little bear thinks. Then at least the smug little girl could justify not being frightened.
Little wallet is trying to drag her big sister into watching tacky lunchtime soaps. Today is the Gilmore Girls – think of a very slightly more grownup Sabrina the teenage witch. It’s definitely a cut above the usual dross, in a femenine sort of way, and there is humour.
Points for the witty comeback from main character Laurelai at the spa though:
Mother: by the end of this weekend, we want to be completely different people
Lauralai: Yes – I’m hoping to be Ted Nugent
Very occasionally, a film creeps up and hits little bear on the back of the head like a week of hangovers all at once.
Llama’s choice of Telstar for the evening’s viewing was a real cut above the usual dross (no offence llama), although there were some definite questions around why this was a commercial film rather than a tv release. What little bear should have done, and what she would urge you to do, is to read a little about Joe Meeks’ life before watching.
Multiple ’slebs appear in their walk-ons. We spotted Jimmy Carr, Marcus Brigstocke, as well as the more instrumental and developed performances of James Corden and Kevin Spacey. Favourite was Justin Hawkins (for it was he) reprising Screaming Lord Such in his pre-political years. The individuals portrayed led truly amazing lives, creating sounds that led me straight to my warp records collection for a trip. Meeks was creating the sorts of distortion that Richard D James could only dream of, and he was doing it in the sixties in a bedsit with almost no equipment.
I would disagree with those who label it a black comedy. It is a passionate, anarchic tragedy with a healthy degree of bedlam thrown in. Coming as an adaption of a biographical play, we were curious as to how it would make the leap to screen. Con O’Neill, as Meeks, returns to the role he took in the stage production and appears to be attempting to create and destroy everything simultaneously. Most of the film is shot in the splendidly narrow corridors and landings of a London townhouse, and the bannisters regularly block the corner of the shot, creating an energetic chaos. Meeks seems almost agoraphobic, leaving the world of the indoors only through necessity or extreme lonliness.
Plato would have shaken his head a little as he watched our protagonist lavish affection on boys too young to commit to him (see Symposium et al), and completely ignoring those who do love him until it is far too late.
LB had a friend who killed herself with her father’s shotgun. Since the flash-forwards never went quite far enough, and she didn’t know the history, the rather harsh ending gave LB quite a nasty shock. Nothing a cigarrette can’t cure, but this one is going firmly in the tray marked “car-crash” movies.
The internets have been restored to the new nest. As far as the llama is concerned, that means that the house is now inhabitable. Little bear was quite satisfied some days ago, when she completed the “library”, and found that there was not enough room for all of her books. Due to a recent discovery, the library is made up of old Ikea furniture (@25 years old, and well travelled, in fact) which has been evenly stained with a nice eco-stain/varnish. Walnut varnish on old pine makes a lovely cherry/rosewood colour and sets off the books splendidly. As well as designing some slightly different shelves, L.B. has also been attempting to restore an old rattan table base. Several meditative hours have been spent cutting old leather bindings, painting boiled linseed oil into parched wood and soaking bark strips to re-bind the split pieces together. Might even do some gardening soon…
Little bear cooked her second dinner for guests in the new nest last night. After a bit of thinking, she decided to try Jaime’s marinade method for her Chicken Cacciatore.
Results were appreciated by the new neighbours, who thought that such cooking could not come from a Brit
On moving into the new nest, Llama’s father noticed an extra dish on the house. Turns out that it’s one of the original Ionica microwave receiving dishes, from the first trial. Bear and Llama are now likely to do the majority of their surfing via the Kiln Hill microwave tower!
How pleasantly surprised was little bear, to discover that an old friend was alive and well and was still the Devil’s Kitchen. In the tradition of acronymic appellation, he will now be DK (and his lovely wife should be Mrs DK?) – I might have to get back up to speed with Libertarianism…
Little Bear seems to bring out the worst in Iceboy, and vice-versa. Since, however, the worst in this case is sarcasm and occasional sharp wordplay, neither of them mind too much. An example follows:
LB (responding to question): We’ve known each other for the best part of ten years.
IB (sharply): EIGHT. Eight years.
LB: I think those eight WERE the best part.
Iceboy thinks that Little Bear is a forgetful old woman because she is three years older. But I digress…
Planning an adventure is a very individual thing. Goatboy likes to double- or triple-book himself with less pleasurable events, and then spend the day beforehand frantically trying to work out if he can do all three. His specialty is therefore railway timetables. Iceboy likes to suggest something and then forget about it for a month until someone else has organised it. Little Bear likes to buy maps. This trip was particularly exciting because it allowed the purchase of three new OS Explorer maps and the National Cycle Route 4+5 map.
There is little in this world quite so pleasurable as playing with new maps. LB can spend hours tracing out the routes she will take, the places she has been and, most importantly, any places that she can legitimately write on the map to mark important items, such as extra pubs. It is woth noting that plotting routes on maps allows the mind to wander freely away from necessary planning segments such as physical training.
Three Men in a Boat pays particular attention to good pubs along the Thames, and a good many of them are still there today. Now there was something of a difference in understanding between bear and Iceboy – IB was planning a swift, powerful 95 mile run from the Thames Barrier to north of Woodstock. LB on the other hand had now re-read 3MIAB and was dreaming of lazy wandering between fine old thick-beamed pubs, preferably with local real ale and ruddy cheeked landlords. In her eyes, they would be starting from Putney Bridge in the West, so as not to have to go through the city centre, and would meander with the water until too tired or drunk to go further, at which point they would find somewhere to stay.
Iceboy was keen to economise, and suggested that if we didn’t camp, we should use a youth hostel. Goatboy intimated that none of us would wish to carry a tent, so LB found a youth hostel. There is, in fact, only one youth hostel along the entire route. It is situated in the lovely village of Streatley-on-Thames and affords beds and breakfasts to the financially challeneged traveller. Unfortunately, it is also around 70 miles away from the proposed start point in Putney. Since IB is at the height of fitness, and GB and LB were unwilling to contemplate the idea that they no longer are, all agreed that this would be a fine place to sleep, and would give us an easier second day.
If you are reading this as part of an exam, please now go back through the text, underlining the three major errors in judgement that would lead to chaos and Fubar.
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Other Bears
TV_Film_Games
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