Firefox. grrrrr.

So I finally downloaded the update Firefox has been telling me to get for yonks and ... I hate it. It's ugly. It is requiring bloody work to get it to do anything. I loathe the messy predictive URL — the older cleaner version was much nicer. (I need to see e i t h e r the URL or the name of the site and, as I cannot control the bloody name some moron has given their site, I vote to ONLY have the URL of the site appear as I type it in. Grrrrrr.)

Thankfully I stumbled across this dude's website where he had typed in instructions to some fancy hidden codes for Firefox. (Firefox - you suck. WHY are these things hidden?)
Sadly, not all of his tips from June work any longer. ARGH.

HOW do I allow Firefox to reload pages without demanding I click allow fifteen bazillion killion times?

Not happy am I.

sitting is so wonderfully wonderful

Fuming Mugabe rattled by hecklers

HARARE — Loud jeers and howls accompanied President Robert Mugabe's address to Zimbabwe's newly convened parliament, leaving ruling party members fuming.
Such uncouth behaviour from the opposition, one Zanu-PF insider said, was uncalled for.
But after gaining control of parliament, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) clearly wanted to make its mark.
The opening of parliament had started with the usual pomp and ceremony.
Mr Mugabe drove to the house in an open Rolls Royce, accompanied by horse-mounted police.
Singing party supporters, bussed in to give the occasion colour, welcomed him as the car drew in.
The elite presidential guard stood to attention for their commander-in-chief.
The most-decorated military generals followed behind him as he inspected the guard, resplendent in their military gear, who promised to salute him till death.
Inside parliament, it was a different story.
Lacking Grace
As Mr Mugabe sauntered into the building, a green stately cloth across his shoulders, his Zanu-PF legislators to the left of the house stood up as a mark of respect for their head of state, their party leader.
Military generals, then judges in their colonial red gowns and pink wigs, followed closely behind.
But what must have staggered Mr Mugabe was that the MDC MPs remained seated.
The president walked assertively past them, but he must have known then that he was in deep trouble.
This had never happened before to the 84-year-old leader.
Perhaps it was an inkling that the usual deference might be lacking that his wife Grace was not in attendance.
Half way through his speech, in which he praised South African President Thabo Mbeki for facilitating dialogue with the MDC and attacked rampant inflation, murmurs of discontent began to surface.
These jeers grew louder, leaving Zanu-PF MPs stunned.
"You killed people, we know that," a yell came from the MDC backbench.
'You are murderers'
In a crowd of more 200 legislators, it was hard to pinpoint the culprit.
"Yes, you are murderers," another echoed, in Shona.
Mr Mugabe then touched on the subject of sanctions.
"Surely sanctions cannot be good for any Zimbabwean and we have abundant evidence of their ravaging impact. We cannot condone such blatant spiteful injury," he said.
But the MDC struck again.
"Zanu-PF is rotting," the legislators chanted for a good three minutes.
As Mr Mugabe raised the issue of the economic crisis, the opposition erupted into another song.
"We are together in the struggle, no amount of beatings and killings will deter us," they sang.
At some point Mr Mugabe raised his head, face shaken, and then proceeded with his speech.
Some minutes later, however, he accidentally knocked down the microphone.
It was certainly not the Zimbabwean octogenarian's usual performance.
He may have raised his fist as he walked out of parliament to diplomats and businessmen monitoring proceedings from the television sets outside parliament.
But his body language told a story of a leader who no longer quite has his grip on power.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2008/08/26 20:11:23 GMT
© BBC MMVIII

The Drink: Brandy Alexander

"He's my Brandy Alexander
Always gets me into trouble
But that's another matterBrandy Alexander"
                            —  by Feist

As it approaches September I find myself eschewing patios for cosy nights on the sofa watching movies wrapped in a big bamboo blanket while sipping tea. This is how I watched Brideshead Revisited, the 1981 British 11-part series starring Jeremy Irons, based on Evelyn Waugh's depiction of emotionally stunted aristocrats and besotted plebeians. It is the perfect harbinger of autumn, due to its misty ambiguity and that the sun shines nowhere in the film, not even during the scenes depicting Morocco or Mexico. 

It's all deep red clarets, tweed jackets and nebulous sexual identities and I watched it partly in preparation of seeing the new film version of the book, starring Emma Thompson. I fear that version will be lacking the book's subtle sexual nebulousness and tantalizing Brandy Alexanders. 

The Brandy Alexander is a brandy/cream/creme de Cocao drink based on the Alexander, itself a gin concoction. The Brandy Alexander was known as an effective panty remover — their word, not mine — in 1920s England, when it was apocryphally created to celebrate Princess Mary's marriage.

A 1960s Playboy article referenced the drink as the root cause for many pregnancies in the 20s' swinging decade, its effect on women's defenses the reason it was called a "girlie" drink. Nothing, the article said, in that labeling references a questioning of the drinker's masculinity. 

However there is a very interesting scene in the nebulousness that is the original Brideshead Revisited when Anthony (Antoine) Blanche, the only man with a clear sexual identity, offers two Brandy Alexanders to the protagonist Charles Ryder.

"I expect you prefer sherry but my dear Charles you are not going to have sherry. You are going to try this delicious concoction instead," he says.

Charles, interestingly, turns down the cocktails after one sip (it must be noted he will seemingly drink everything else). 

Anthony then proceeds to quickly drink all four of them in quick succession before they head off to lunch. [The floor is now open for debate and discussion about this scene and intended meaning. See clip below.]

tsk. reporters.

The Drink: Porch Crawler

Porch Crawler experiment

An invitation to an impromptu mid-week BBQ led to hunt for BBQ-worthy drink, which led to a plethora recipes for something called a Porch Crawler or Porch Climber. The drink seems to smack of Canadiana (what with requiring Canadian Club and Molson Canadian beer) and came with internet testimonies along the lines of  "This one works every time! Whohoooooo! !!!!!!! !!!! "

I thought the hosts would appreciate the enthusiasm the drink engendered.

The Research:
I wondered why it was called a Porch Crawler/Climber and if this was yet another East Coast phrase I didn't get. Colleagues pondered if it made you want to climb porches (which we've all experienced, surely, some time in university). Also if it was the kind of drink made by people when they'd invite the whole building to their apartment (i.e. encouraging porch climbing).

We also thought it might be probably the drink made crawling the only possible means of transport.

The only person I encountered who had actually heard of this drink concept was Jim, a sage from The Beer Store, who kindly told me he could not sell me just 10 bottles of Molson Canadian "but you can keep those other two for when you decide you really like the drink." [Not gonna happen Jim.]

"Yeah, a porch crawler. It's from your university days. You fill a big tub with whatever you've got on hand."

been there. done that. will again. x2

The Materialist: Fave kitchen find

lunch

This is a photo of my lunch for Wednesday. Yes, I know, the salmon is overcooked. I was distracted by the potatoes and my lovely new lunch container.

So we're back to the phobia I have of bad plastic stuff leeching into my food. As you may now have guessed, this fear is more about the plastic container altering the taste of my food or my containers being forever scarred by some tomato sauce (you might get the impression I am some kind of gourmand or neat freak when it is a wonder if I eat twice a day and if I EVER dust).

Moving past that admission, I give you frigoverre by Bormioli Rocco, my favourite find of the year. These Italian-made glass food dishes with plastic lids (tried glass lids, they shatter by the way) which go from oven to freezer to microwave. Again, not the lids, as I discovered after not fully reading the label. The lids do go in the freezer, fridge, dishwasher, just not oven (duh) or microwave (oops).

What is truly splendid about these dishes is they are somehow gorgeous. How, you ask, can a glorified tupperware dish be? Well, they are. I served food out of these during an impromptu dinner party without shame (again, I am not the hostess-with-the-mostess but ... ) and received compliments on them.

Further, they aren't weird sizes and seem to fit just what you have and the lids, even after being inadvertantly microwaved, seal every time. Take that, oh disposable grocery-store-plastic offerings.

I've found them for sale at container stores, J.D. Adams, Domus, Zellers, The Bay, Kitchen Stuff Plus and various cookery places ranging in price from $3.90 to $6 but I find the prices on line a bit higher, depending on the size. If you find them, buy them. They are that good.

Bwahahahahahahahahahhahahaha

Chaps,

I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don't know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i'm assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it's only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't have happened.

I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn't going to happen anymore, so I'm really hoping it wasn't you that fucked up my review on saturday.

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."

It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best".

Well, you fucking don't.
This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.
1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply 'food'. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the 'a'. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, 'nosh' means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.

2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don't you read the copy?

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you've been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is.

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i've got a review to write this morning and i really don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i'm going to have another weekend ruined for me.

I've been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before - i have never asked it of anyone i have written for - but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.

And, just out of interest, I'd like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.

Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles

from the guardian.co.uk


I've been both precious Lord Fauntleroy writer and pissed Irish plasterer. Seems the subs sucks most when I'm writing and the writers are atrocious queens when I am subbing. I, of course, am beyond reproach always.