Playing doctor

I don't normally watch alot of daytime tv. Oh shit, who am I kidding? Since I've been unemployed I've been subsisting on a diet of Homes Under the Hammer and repeats of Come Dine with me. But I don't watch alot of late afternoon tv like Murder She Wrote or Doctors. I'm usually out or surfing the net. We had Doctors on in the background today. I wasn't really paying much attention until it came to the storyline with two sons in the family business who were fighting like cat & dog and their put upon father who was trying to keep the peace. It all sounds unremarkable until I tell you that the family business is clowning and the two sons spent the entire episode in full clown costume and make-up. I found it a bit too forced at first. A comedy storyline shoe-horned in to lighten up the tone. Until it emerged that one of the clowns was called Winky. Poor Winky was the focus of his brother's bitterness because he was sick of his circumstances. Its good to know you can still get comedy mileage from naming someone after a child's euphemism for penis. And by god it worked. Hilarious. Especially the following exchange;

Son - "I want a better life!"
Dad - "So what, you blame Winky...?"

Yes. There's many a problem been caused by Winky.

Curses and chilli and cows, oh my!

I haven't blogged here in so long I could barely remember my password. I thought I'd try starting it again, mainly because I've been inspired by the lovely Victoria Coren's blog. Not that I have an Observer column or a poker habit to talk about...

So what's been occupying my thoughts today?

This morning I thought I was cursed. I managed to knock the shower curtain rail off and struggled to get it back up again but I persevered through wet hands and general cluelessness and finally succeeded. Then I put some toast on to discover that the toaster was only toasting one side of the bread for some bizarre reason. I've no idea what I did to it. These things are supposed to come in threes but I'm still waiting for the final annoyance. So not much weight to the curse theory then. Maybe I'm just a clumsy bugger.

I caught about five minutes of Countryfile this evening and saw a piece about the amount of methane cows produce which damages the environment. We were being encouraged to have one meat free day a week to cut down on emissions. Now as I've already admitted, I only saw a little bit of it and haven't fully understood the subject, but surely we should be having a dairy free day as well then? Presumably as many cows are bred for their milk as for their meat? And to be honest I'm not totally clear on how having a meat free day is going to affect climate change. So that there's less demand for cow products and therefore less livestock will be bred?

And finally I'm thinking of what I can cook this week. I'm toying with the idea of chilli con carne but I haven't made it for 20 years or so. I don't remember it being particularly complicated though. Its not that different from bolognese (which I'm reasonably good at) really apart from chilli powder & kidney beans. I think. The alternative is Thai green chicken curry with lime & coriander rice which I've never ever made before. I did print off a couple of recipes some time ago but god knows what I've done with them.

So now you know. Well its not like I promised radical thinking, thrills & spills, sex and a cliffhanger ending is it?