Banana Waffles.

Beware of what you wish for

In China they take their proverbs seriously!

'Nuff said.

Image from UK Comedy program - The IT Crowd - the best, funniest, most hilarious program ever! I may need to sit down and watch a LOT of this today to cancel out my bad mood. For a poetic explanation of why I am so ratty see here http://poetry4fun.blog.co.uk/2009/05/25/evil-s-source-succour-6171886/

A gazillion years ago when I was a student and still very serious about my poems I dug deep into my shallow resources of self confidence and sent a selection of them to a poetry publisher.

I don't think I even got a reply, but that wasn't a problem as I hadn't expected one. The sheer enormity of even submitting had been trauma enough. I just sent them and stopped thinking about it and never did anything so reckless again.

Well until decades later I was persuaded to have a go at writing for children's anthologies and sent six out and got one acceptance, which was then published. But that was more an experiment than a heartfelt sending out of creations ripped from my angst-ridden soul

But today I saw an article by Robert McCrum about a resurgence in the popularity of British Poetry in the Guardian online entitled 'Seldom has scansion been quite so sexy' and the whole embarrassing episode came flooding back.

Because he was the editor I sent my dire offerings to and his Bloodaxe Books was the publishing house!

I think I'm suffering from Poet's Traumatic Stress Disorder - with flashbacks and everything!

But if Robert ever read the poems I sent him, he might have suffered from it more than me, so I shall grit my teeth and be brave in adversity as always Maybe counter it with some BBC - Best of British Comedy - which I can listen to on BBC Radio 7 online, thank goodness. For some reason I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue seems appropriate!

Have withdrawn from MS TwitterWorld contest and so removed the link.

The Tweeterwall website crashed 2 nights running due to 'unforeseen demand' and last night lost me over 60 votes!!!

At the peak of my rise I was at position 7 - and I am very happy with that achievement.

Thank you so much for all your support - it has meant a great deal to me.

I suspect it was all my many supporters rushing to vote for me that collapsed the system for them, so it is only kind for me to withdraw at this stage.

Just having all the blog and forum friends I have - makes me the greatest winner of all - and sharing my thoughts with you is all the prize I require

If only I had been pretty what a real Miss World I would have made - I can spout saccharine for years if necessary

But honestly - it was fun while it lasted & just went to show that a little determination and a few loyal pals can make quite a difference to things when applied in a focussed way.

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just like running around with sparklers in each orifice & setting off bangers! - Salvador Divalhi

It is wisdom to accept all that the world is and to simply paint it as insanely as possible~ Salvador Dali-Lama

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just like having millions of Indian people living on me ~ Salvador Delhi

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just like pretending to be a mumsy tv chef ~ Salvador Delia

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just need to repeat the same actions every 24hours ~ Salvador Daily

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just like being smothered with Indian spiced lentils ~ Salvador Daaly

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just enjoy lying on the table with a bunch of flowers on me ~ Salvador Doily

I'm not mad, not mad I tell you! I just like shoving a balled up pair of socks down my shorts and running until I collapse exhausted ~ Salvador Daley-Thompson

In the hope of boosting my credibility as a poet (as advised by someone 'in the know') I have entered this competition on Twitter :

THE MS TWITTERWORLD CONTEST

I tried sock puppetting but it doesn't work over there drattit! So I am hoping to encourage my followers on Blog.co.uk to zoom over to Twitter and VOTE FOR ME - banana_the_poet - my avatar is the same as I use on here.

I don't think you need to join Twitter to vote but incase you do, if you aren't already a Twitterer it is easy to join - here's the link http://Twitter.com

UPDATE:24th May 2009:
Have withdrawn from contest and so removed the link.
The Tweeterwall website crashed 2 nights running due to 'unforeseen demand' and last night lost me over 60 votes!!!
At the peak of my rise I was at position 7 - and I am very happy with that achievement.

Thank you so much for all your support - it has meant a great deal to me.

I suspect it was all my many supporters rushing to vote for me that collapsed the system for them, so it is only kind for me to withdraw at this stage.

Just having all the blog friends I have - makes me the greatest winner of all - and sharing my thoughts with you is all the prize I require

If only I had been pretty what a real Miss World I would have made - I can spout saccharine for years if necessary

But honestly - it was fun while it lasted & just went to show that a little determination and a few loyal pals can make quite a difference to things when applied in a focussed way.

I had a dream.

I always dream, and they are usually multi-coloured doozies with a cast of thousands a seriously unbalanced storyline and regularly involve the sort of horrific scenes I would not repeat except when in the mood to upset my very squeamish husband LOL

I have three classes of dreams:

Good ones often with 'adult themes'.

Adventure ones with peril and excitement but for some reason not scary to me.

Bad ones I sit up, heart pounding, mouth dry, and check for intruders, then go get a drink of water and watch cable to take the fear away

Last night's dream was in a class of its own.

It actually had a guest star!!! LOL The hilarious and talented Mr William Shatner! In my dream! I was honoured.

I was
"Oh I have always loved your work. How come you are on television all the time? Would you like a cup of herb tea? Coffee? Chinese Tea, Indian Tea?"

I knew it was a dream because I remembered to offer a beverage - in real life I always get so happy that I have visitors I talk for hours before noticing their tongues hanging out and the shrunken head appearance denoting onset of serious dehydration.

He had turned up to oversee the resurfacing of our local beach ( I know but it was a dream ) It had gone horribly wrong, there weren't enough pebbles and so they had glued them onto black binbags to try to eke them out, but the plastic was showing through and the beach was ruined.

But hey, who cares? William Shatner in my living room, chilling out, while I made him 5 minute chocolate cake (see recipe earlier on this blog)

So, for some reason we get round to talking about poetry and acting. I re-enact a scene from a film - extremely badly and we both fall about laughing, he reads me a poem he has writtten and just happens to have with him and I am suitably impressed.

It then occurs to me that he would be interested in my silly poetry blog. So I go over to the computer to try and get it onscreen for him to read while I finish making the chocolate cake.

William (by now I'm calling him Bill because he said to, what a nice man! ) takes over at the mouse and manages to fill the screen with nothing but Smurfs!!

I leave him to it - if it is not to be, it's not to be.

When the cake is done and we are eating and drinking chinese jasmine tea with it, I ask him - if he deliberately failed to find my blog because he was worried my poetry would be cringingly awful and then he would be embarrassed and it might spoil our idyllic afternoon?

He doesn't answer, finishes the tea and cake and after a hug he leaves to go and collect the beach resurfacing men and take them back to the US.

I then go to my computer, log on to my poetry blog and find that it has been transformed!!

Instead of my poems onscreen as usual, each one has been replaced by a video of a member of the original Star Trek tv show reading and enacting the poem. Except for one which is for some reason Bill Cosby

The best is that many of them are being read by William Shatner who is wearing a toothbrush-like wig in luminous black and a false moustache

I turn around and he is behind me laughing. He had deliberately steered me off my blog until the transformation was complete in order to make sure the surprise was not spoiled!

My silly poetry was going to be a tv series and everyone was going to live happily ever after.

I actually really and truly did wake up laughing this morning

It is at times like this I wish I had a therapist and a great talent for art to show you how sweet dream Bill looked in his funny wig and moustache

I made footwear from banana skins.

I call them slippers.

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well..

>Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT ! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).
Now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

Got this recipe from Marie Elena on the Writers Digest Poetry Asides comments section. Have tested it but using deff coffee (1tablespoon instead of 2) and self raising flour and home crafted chocolate chips which were made by bashing up some left over easter egg chocolate. It turned out very well and enough for two greedy people or four dainty ones. Yum.

Didn't mention this on my previous post about cooking roast chicken.

Whenever I cook a roast chicken I remove the bondage supplied by the supermarket or supplier and leave the legs loose. I always cook in a lidded roaster so there is no danger of the legs drying out and it ensures that the chicken is cooked all the way through and lovely and moist.

If you leave the chicken bound up there is a danger that the meat in the folds may not cook properly, and you may need to leave the bird in the oven so long to ensure there is no pink meat - by which time the breasts have dried out.

So better to let it all hang out in my opinion and let the heat hit the bird even in its secret little places.

Just read some Tweets on Twitter (which is where they are found so not surprisingly that's where I read 'em) about cooking.
Now I have to admit that I am entirely unsympathetic with people who have no excuse of disabilities such as dyslexia or other possible real conditions that could hinder them who proclaim that they are 'unable to cook'.

Anyone who is capable of reading and following simple instructions is capable of producing culinary masterpieces. As with every other skill, a bit of practice improves that capability and after a few months anyone can have progressed from nervously boiling their first egg to turning out a very respectable moussaka or other combination type dish.

Here are my tips for becoming a person who produces food that people will enjoy eating.

1. Learn the flavours of herbs and spices and work out what goes with what.

An easy first primer on herbs that go well with roast chicken.

Roast Chicken for beginners -
If you want a traditional British Roast Chicken flavour - the trad herbs to use are Sage (this is a strong herb so you don't need huge amounts unless you absolutley adore the flavour), parsley,rosemary,thyme - remember the folk song scarborough fair? That's how trad these herbs are. Chuck some onion into the mix and you have a great tasting roast chicken.

You can leave out any of these (except the sage) and still get a great tasting trad chicken - if you leave out the sage it will still taste great but not like traditional British roast chicken flavour.

What you actually do with the herbs is throw a few inside the cavity of the bird as the very easiest thing to add flavour, and sprinkle a few over the chicken before sticking the whole thing in the oven to roast at 200C for about an hour and a half (check if it is cooked by sticking something sharp into the fattest part of the chicken and seeing if the juice that comes out is clear - clear means cooked - pink means more time in the oven) - If you cook the chicken in a lidded roasting tin with a few onions around it you will get lots of liquid at the bottom, which you can then use to make gravy - the chicken will still crisp up at the top and your oven won't need cleaning - just the roasting tin

If you want meditterranean flavour - just use lots of oregano (instead of the scarborough fair herbs) and put a couple of cut lemons in the bottom with the onions and some unpeeled garlic.

If you want a greek flavour use the med herbs AND sprinkle some cinammon on the bird before cooking - you can be heavy handed with the cinammon - it won't spoil the result.

For a French roast chicken - use tarragon and garlic and onion and when you use the juice to make the gravy add a splash of red wine to it.

If you only have one person to cook for you can steam chicken with the same herbs and make gravy to go over it using a chicken stock cube (I recommend Maggi or Kallo for gravy that tastes like you made it from scratch) and a few of the herbs thrown in - and serve with boiled/mashed potatoes and steamed veg (which you can do in the steamer at the same time as the chicken).

You can also stew chicken with the same mix of herbs and put carrots, potatoes, onions in the stew and have a one-pot meal. Use less cinammon in this method - or even a cinammon stick - it works better with 'wet' recipes. Stewing is the easiest way to cook of all, it just requires you to boil food in water and herbs and/or stock until it smells like something edible

Oh how sad.

Peter Andre and Katie Price are splitting up.

What a dreadful shame.

Katie Price aka Jordan, one of life's lessons in that everyone can help their looks, but that maybe they shouldn't meddle too far.

I have a relative who paints. They are lovely paintings at some point in creative process, at one point they are beautiful poignant and delightful, but that point is never where the artist chooses to stop. Unfortunately the lovely work of art gets more paint ladled on, a perfect line gets blurred, a gentle misty quality becomes harsh and garish and by the time the artist finally stops the struggle, the work is a disappointment. Some are more disappointing than others.

Strangely there seem to be people who have the same urge to tinker with their physical appearance and submit to the plastic surgeon's knife. For some it is a great idea, but there are those who like my relative don't know when to stop. For some it is better they don't even start.

I have no idea what I am trying to say here.

I have been unsettled by the revelation of Gordon Brown's make-up routine. No wonder the poor man always seems so grumpy. Personally I hate wearing the stuff, it is gloopy, cloggy, and makes my face feel all hot and weird. It must be awful to have to plaster layers of the stuff on. He doesn't even have the dubiously fun part of make-up which is to kiss as many people as you can to see how much of the awful muck you can rub off on them.

Lipstick was always my favourite for that. Why anyone would invent lipstick that stayed on is beyond me? It's like inventing ink that won't come out of the pen.

I can't help thinking Gordon Brown would be happier with lipstick. Is it just me or does he have a fleeting resemblance to Dame Edna Everage?

OK this is turning into a bad week

To cut a long story short,

we bought a powerboat in the UK to bring to Greece with us,
we bought a brand new boat that had some teething problems from a builder who turned out to be less reliable than we had been led to believe.
we then stupidly trusted in the consumer protection laws and UK legal system to put that right.
we ended up not only with a boat we had to pay for to fix (the builder went bust just as we got to the point where he would have had to compensate us etc) but also with a legal bill as well.
we have now fixed the boat up and not surprisingly it does not fill us with joy every time we look at it.

We now NEED to sell it to pay legal fees and due to the economic situation (exchange rates, devaluation of pound, etc etc) we also need some money to tide us over a rough patch.

So if anyone knows anyone looking for a stable and (now we have sorted out the problems with it) reliable and sturdy little powerboat (twin engine, cuddy) suitable for fishing, water-skiing,and leisure activities, plus trailer and all safety equipment, fish finder/plotter and radio and has the equivalent of 20,000 euros (about 18,000 pounds) ONO let me know.

It is currently in Greece but could be delivered at around another 2000 euros cost.

This collection reminded me of the Terry Pratchett character Death. Here we have a sweet little chubby cherub who is 'Death'.

Here we have a slightly blurry pic of half of the collection of large Timers which definitely called to mind the Life Timers in Pratchett's Death books.

Here we have the sole reason we visited the Louvre. Our son was not with us on the trip and he insisted we search the Louvre to find Napoleon's Piano which he insisted was there as he had learned all about it when listening to the Goons!!!

You can probably tell we are not art for art's sake people

You can see more photos from the Louvre by following the "Next Page" link below.

A painting in the Louvre that made me wonder if it might have been the original inspiration for 'Where's Wally?" We looked but we couldn't find him.

View from the cafe in the Louvre where we ate very expensive soup.

I fell in love with this dressing table and chair - it was once Marie Antionette's. Unfortunately I couldn't get it under my jumper and had to leave it where it was.

Photos taken on a short break to Paris last year.

I moderate because I have had a LOT of spam comments on my poetry blog ( I get up to 6,000 visitors a day on busy times of the year) and so I naturally moderate on all my blogs as a result.

Spam is not just annoying. If it comes with a link - the link can lead people to malicious sites with virus loads that infect a visitor's computer as soon as the destination page uploads to their screen.

Spam is also a method for Black Hat SEO techniques. By using keywords and links spammers make use of the preferential status given to personal blogs by search engines such as Google and can skew search engine results to the extent that good websites are forced down in the search results allowing malicious websites to rise in the ranks.

I doesn't take many such personal blog spams to achieve their aims.

So there are extremely good reasons to moderate. SEO is a multi-million dollar/pound industry and personal blogs are a very popular tool in the Black Hat (bad) search engine optimiser's armoury.

I choose not to be part of those dirty tricks.

It is also a fact that even if a blogger removes links etc AFTER noticing them on their blog - it is too late as the search engines will already have cached the links and weighted the benefit in the favour of the SEO'd website and the damage to the search engine ranking system will already have been done.

Phil Woolas, the Home Office Minister, claimed for items of women's clothing, tampons and nappies. The parliamentary rules only allow expenses which are "exclusively" for MPs' own use so it is not clear these items were justified.

Is it just me who has now got an image of this guy wearing a dress and nappies?

(That's if it was just a dress and not something weird like lingerie. I just thought - what if he got the idea from reading my Valentine poem "Valentine's Boob"? Oh the potential guilt )

I don't even want to guess what he did with the tampons.

UK Police have been asked to investigate regarding the government expenses debacle

NOT the fiddling and fraud though

They are to investigate to see if a crime has been committed in getting the information about the fiddles and frauds

Words fail me.

Things that happened thanks to the internet.

I joined a comedy group many years ago - which led to me entering a stand-up competition. I didn't win but it focussed me on comedy writing. I also met a poet who encouraged me to start writing poetry and submit them to a publisher. I did and one got published.

I had an idea about an online business and together with my husband we learned how to 'do' websites and now (although it is in dire need of another re-vamp) it is 9 years on and still hanging on in there being useful for people.

I found the holiday online that changed my life by introducing us to Ithaca and then Kefalonia.

We found the wonderful Theti Haritou an ethical kind and brilliant property agent (I know it doesn't sound like the description of a property agent - but this person is one in a gazillion) who found us exactly the right place for us to rent and where we have been living happily for nearly two years now. Theti is a hugely efficient and professional person who listened to what our 'dream list' was for a property, considered the sort of people we were and then matched us up to the perfect place. She then helped us with all the legalities etc and is someone we are proud to be able to now call a friend. How many estate agents can you say that about?

Things that didn't happen that might have done if the internet had existed sooner.

I am a singer/songwriter as well as a poet. As a teenager I had next to no self-confidence and was convinced I was fat and ugly. I will post some old photos once I have scanned them. Looking back I realise I was actually on the beautiful side of attractive!!! NOW I am fat and ugly - and old

I knew I was a sensational singer, but because I was certain I was well below standard in the looks department I had no ability to push myself forward. I didn't mix with any musicians in school, and was an isolated teenager writing my songs in my head and singing them alone in my bedroom. I won a school eisteddfod singing unaccompanied (didn't know any musicians remember) and my Dad kindly let me sing in his night club a couple of times, but that was the full extent of my performance opportunities.

As a 'brain box' in school I jumped through the expected hoops and embarked on a long series of wrong turns as I struggled to find my way in a world where I never seemed to fit.

One of the hilarious missed opportunities (and there were many due to me being naive, bad at gauging situations and being isolated from like-minded individuals) was when I had the idea for (what I considered ) a brilliant song called Hogwash - which I just knew would be perfect for Elton John. I sent it (I think it was just the lyrics at that point) to him and forgot all about it. Not all that long afterwards I received a beautifully headed letter from Rocket Records asking me for a demo-tape.

I had no way to produce such a thing. I knew no musicians and couldn't play an instrument myself. In any case I convinced myself this was a 'form letter' and they probably sent these out to everyone

These days I would have had access to many people, probably have had a group of musicians egging me on and I would have known exactly the value of such a letter. But 30 years ago without the internet to bring isolated creative people together - crash and burn. I like to think that my songs would have been enjoyed by many people if they had ever had the chance to get out there.

I just wish I'd kept that letter - the logo was really pretty and I would have liked to have been able to show it to my son.

Is it just me or did anyone else think "Oh here we go." On seeing the Daily Mail headline Public may have to avoid gatherings if swine flu spreads, expert warns, as UK awaits human-to-human test result

This lovely panic inducing article is in the same online edition of the Mail where you can also find an article that correctly states that the pandemic is actually less threatening than the flu we get every year. But as that article has statistics in it to prove its point, instead of just sound-bitey quotes from 'Experts' it probably won't have the same impact.

At the same time hubby informed me he had read an article stating the government has been stockpiling Tamiflu and plans to roll it out en masse to the population.

Seems like a good idea? Well, he then had a look on Wikipedia's info on Tamiflu. If it is to be believed - Tamiflu has been implicated in significantly raising the incidence of mental health issues in children and teenagers, and when administered to children and teenagers who already have mental health issues, significantly raises their suicide risk. So possibly more dangerous than the flu they are trying to avoid then? One hopes this side-effect is not something the government are actually keen on as it might help them reduce the numbers of pesky anti-social yobboes.

But the expert heralding the new dawn of banned social gatherings - in his 'advice' will open the doors to banning all protests, and any kind of coming together of people in large groups.

I wonder if this wouldn't be seen as a wonderful opportunity for the government to call a state of emergency, and cancel any plans of a general election for the forseeable future as an emergency measure. They can then close the borders - "for health reasons" - thus keeping all those tax profitable high earners from skipping the country and bingo - one totalitarian state.

I really hope I am being over dramatic in this. I hope it is just my imagination running wild. But given what a complete hash the government have made of things they still do not look like people who are worried about losing their grip on power to me. Maybe that is because they aren't. It would explain why Gordon Brown keeps smiling despite himself inappropriately. Maybe he is having some "I know something you don't moments"?