spards

I had a bit more sleep last night, I have to say I was rather surprised by this as it was the first time this year I’d spent a night off the pop, I was further surprised about how this was achieved. Yesterday, you see, was both dull and infuriating, the ‘dull’ caused by work and the fucking public transport commute (involving 2 forms of Underground, the overland and a bus if you please) and the ‘infuriating’ due to the utter lack of business at work and the inexplicable system errors on my spanking new surround-sound-home-cinema-PS3 bundle. I managed to get the PS3 online but sound wasn’t forthcoming in either that or the fucking DVD. After kneeling, crouched, in the midst of a tangle of cables and wires behind the behemoth TV, mournfully talking to myself before using very blue language at volume, I solved all the problems at hand by angrily disconnecting the DVD system and re-connecting it again. If I’d done this in the first instance I’d have spared myself nearly 3 hours of agony. A frustrating but ultimately victorious evening with perfect reasons to imbibe save common sense, which prevailed.

The upshot of this abstinence is that I’ve no inkling of a hangover, this meant the journey I had into work this morning was surprisingly straightforward, despite the multiple changes and modes of transportation. Perhaps it was due to my clear headedness that resulted in my arriving at work bang on 9 after cutting almost 30 minutes off the journey-time. And instead of lurking in various seats on various modes of transport wishing all my fellow commuters would die, I had a sort of love-London and-it’s-people-epiphany that resulted in my feeling a part of the history of the city that I see an enormous amount of these days. It’s one thing to travel from the East End to the South West by my preferred form of transport that is Brutta, and another entirely to watch the world famous landscape of millions floating past with a fucking enormous coffee from the warmth and relative comfort of a rail carriage say.

The die-hard handful of friends and passing illiterates who still read this crap may have noticed I’ve not spoken of my flat situation lately. It’s worth mentioning now as it’s been on the market for exactly a bloody year. According to my solicitors I have a buyer and it’s all going through, but if you can recall the agony of autumn, as I can, I’m trying not to think about it. On the other side of the fence I am fully aware that I’m still paying a mortgage on a place I’ve not been living in since September, which is costly, wasteful and fucking shit. I suppose it’s quite plausible it’s this that’s preventing me from a decent nights sleep though I find this unlikely as it’s not in the forefront of my mind… perhaps it should be. Christ.

Before I go, I invented something last night that’s inexpensive, delicious and piss easy to make. It was so good I’ll mention it here. Get a jacket potato, drizzle a bit of olive oil on it, season and wrap in foil, bake the bastard for a couple of hours, take out of foil and bake naked for last 20 mins so it crisps up. In the meantime fry onion, red cabbage and red pepper in equal measure in a spot of butter until un-soft. Grate some mature cheddar cheese why don’t you, about half the amount of the cooked veg, split the spud in half and scrape the potato from its jacket and mix it with the veg and cheese in a bowl. Season and re-apply the towering mound into the crisp jackets, don’t worry, it’ll all go in if you’re careful, then put back in the oven for another 15 mins to toast the topping. Bit of fresh black pepper on the top and eat it like your life depended on it. I will name it Piqued’s Sensational Spudz. Bon Appetite.