winter

After what looked like a return to summer a couple of weeks ago, the weather has finally turned to winter. There are threats of an extremely cold winter this year - but the chances are pretty low. More likely the fuel companies are encouraging a panic, via the media, in order for them to justify whacking up gas and electricity price yet again.

We stuck our car in for a service. Its something I'm always nervous to do - for two reasons. The first, fear of a massive bill, the second, the staff in the service station making me feel like a salted slug for knowing fuck all about the insides of a car.

It ended up pretty badly. The bill came to over £1400 and the garage were particularly arsey about a couple of items of work we declined to have done. One of those jobs was the window - it had been blocked off for some time with a wooden block - would have cost over £200 to put right. I said we didn't need it fixed that badly so the fuckers put the window back without the block. The window dropped into the door and we were driving about London with a plastic bag selotaped over where the window used to be.

We've got it sorted now. But just before that my bike died too. So I was without a car or a bike for about a week. I ended up buying a new Giant for about £150. Its worth £180.

Me and S have been trying to broaden our horizons recently. We tried our hands at Thai green curry the other day. A trip to the Chinese supermarket for ingredients - and we found a jar of Hot Shito.

There was no shito in our curry - it was fantastic, and now I'm a convert to Thai cuisine.

We also had to buy a new cooker as our old one caught fire after the grill was left on too long. I won't lay the blame on anyone for this incident. So it was a relief to be the recipients of a brand new double oven cooker on Saturday.

I cooked pasties last night. I am from Devon don;t you know, so I believe pasties are in my blood. After research on several websites I settled on shortcrust pastry, with a filling of lamb, potatoes, swede and onion. The Swede was labelled "loose Swede" - made me laugh anyway.

The pasties were fantastic, although I didn't take a picture.

American pasties Cornish pasties extreme pasty fan

S has supplied me with a basil plant for adding to my lunch at work.

You've been warned

We went to see The Fall last week in Islington with a couple of friends. MES wasn't particularly keen to interact with the audience - the only thing I heard him say was something sarcastic about the venue selling Carling. It's called Carling Academy Islngton and had Carling logos all over the walls.

MES passed out after about 5 songs and the band carried on without him. Still, they were excellent.