The Directors Chair

I have been a huge fan of pavlova ever since I was a little chap. I used to break bits off from the base before it was served in the hopes no-one would notice my cravings. Now I’m older and can use an oven I thought I would try my hand at making one myself. I’m no chef, I can barely use the oven, but by heck I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

For this recipe you will need:

- 4 egg whites
- 225g caster sugar
- 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tsp cornflour
450ml double or whipping cream
- fruit for topping (your choice)

I started by taking four egg whites (that was a struggle, my first one nearly took the yolk with it) and whisking them in a bowl. (You can save the yolks for a scrummy omlette later). Whisk the eggs until they are stiff, you should be able to turn the bowl upside down and they shouldn’t move.

Next whisk in half the sugar at a lower speed on your whisk then slowly add the rest until the mixture is stiff and glossy.

Then add the vinegar and cornflour and fold in with a metal spoon until incorporated.

Prepare a baking sheet by drawing in pencil a circle about 10 inches / 25 cm round, place this on your baking sheet pencil side down and spoon the mixture onto the sheet, trying to keep within the circle (the mixture will expand when cooking) and with raised edges.

Bake at gas mark 2 / 300F/160C for one and a half – two hours until the outside is dry and crisp and the centre is cooked. It should be a pale straw colour. Loosen the pavlova from the baking sheet and when cool transfer to a serving plate.

Whip the cream until thick and pile into the middle of the pavlova, spreading and swirling. Top with your favourite fruit and chill until ready to be served.

Delicious!

For a while now I’ve been trying to come up with ways to get more women to join my local ladies football team. Whilst searching the internet I found something that might not get more girls into the game, but will certainly raise awareness of the women’s game.

Nice. If you’re interested in joining a Women’s Football Team then why not check out Pershore Town Ladies?

I had aleays heard the rumours around the classroom that the music teacher pinged girls bra straps. I always put it down to just people being nasty, he always had that sort of mean streak when people spoke out against the lesson. Now this is old news but I’ve been out of the local area for long enough for it to be new to me.

A former music teacher who persuaded girls to perform sex acts over the internet has been jailed for two years and eight months.

Luton Crown Court heard Graham Conridge, 59, admitted posing as a teenage boy to contact 261 girls aged 11 to 15 through MSN and chatrooms.

He kept records of what the girls were prepared to do, the court heard.

The full story after the jump.

Source: BBC News

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I’ve just read the most hilarious thing in the world.

Only THREE people queued up to buy the “deckchair”, Newcastle United’s new away strip.

Check out the video on the BBC site here.

Two months ago Newcastle United fans were queuing down the street to buy the famous black and white shirts.

But only three people were waiting outside the shop at St James’ Park as the latest away strip went on sale.

Source: BBC Football

Yesterday afternoon Kaye and I were sitting on the sofa, as you do. From the sofa we can look out our large window onto the little town of Pershore, although really all we see are a line of other houses and some greenery. But then, up in the clouds, Kaye spots a message.

All we could see was an ‘F’ written into the side of the cloud. Obviously missing from the “uck off” we saw earlier. Below is an enhanced image that makes the F a bit clearer.

Anthony Spinner, a television producer whose credits include Baretta and Babes in Toyland, is suing ABC and Touchtone Television with the claim that he created the tv show Lost 32 years ago. Spinner says that he wrote a television pilot for the network in 1977 titled Lost, which contains many ideas and characters that Spinner claims were later used for the hit television series Lost.

Spinner was paid $30,000 to write a TV pilot, but the network passed on the show in 1977, 1991 and 1994. Spinner is suing for damages and a cut of royalties, profits among other things. You might be wondering why Spinner waited five years to sue. Well, apparently he tried to file a lawsuit a few years back but it was dismissed for procedural reasons.

A list comparing the two shows has been leaked to TMZ which accounts for a lot of similar storylines and characters. His show featured a airplane headed to Los Angeles which crashes into a tropical jungle-like island, and tells the story of the survivors through the use of flashback sequences to their regular lives, pre-crash. The castaways included:

• Doctor (Jack?) who was the humanitarian voice of the group,
• Trailblazer (Locke?) who challenges the group to accept that they are stick on the island,
• Strategic military man (Sayid?),
• Stubborn and reluctant semi-her (Sawyer?) who challenges the leadership and has a dark father-son past,
• Drug addicted survivor (Charlie?),
• Physically fit young woman who can perform many of the same tasks as the men (Kate?),
• An ethnic minority character (Sayid?) that has to deal with the racial slurs from another survivor (Sawyer?),
• Lone survivor of a scientific expedition (Roussau?) is found with gunpowder, secure shelter, and a relationship with others who were on the island before them (The Others)
• Female lead with criminal past (Kate?)

The show also involved a love triangle like Jack/Kate/Sawyer, the discovery of a cold weather animal in the warm tropical jungle (a saber tooth tiger instead of a Polar Bear), and a raft built that is destroyed by the natives.

And of course, there is always the possibility that the two shows stumbled onto a lot of the same ideas. Most of the characters are regular archetypes. Concepts like love triangles and natives on the island aren’t exactly original, and could have easily come from taking the idea to their logical conclusions. That said, the concept, complete with character-based flashbacks, is awfully similar. Who knows if these claims are accurate, but the producer seems a little bit more credible than the usual crazy crackpot.

It should be noted that some people believe this is just viral marketing for the show, especially considering that the teleplay was written in 1977.

Source: /film

Since my ruptured achilles tendon injury I’ve been told that I can’t play football again (at least for a year or so). That really destroyed me, I was looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, but every cloud has a silver lining and I’m please to announce that I am taking on the mantle of Manager for the new team in the Worcester & District League division four, Hornets Sports.

It’s a large responsibility, the Hornets brand of football is well known and established in the Sunday league football leagues but a new challenge should be a lot of fun. I prepared a statement which I’m happy to share with you now.

Many of you know me as the loud mouthed goalkeeper. I hope now to become the loud mouthed manager.

When I first moved to Worcester and put that post on the Droitwich Football forum offering my services, I never expected to get what I did. When Richy contacted me and invited me down for that first training session I was petrified, having not been involved in eleven a side competition since before University I feared I just wouldn’t fit in. I was wrong.

The Hornets welcomed me and I not only found a club that I had fun playing with, but I also felt at home here. Not two years later and I’m called up about playing as part of the Legends team. I was humbled, I’d not been with the club that long yet I was already being classed as a Legend. It was in this game that I suffered a potentially career ending injury so when I heard of the chance to take up the managerial reigns of Hornets Sports, I jumped at the chance. Here was an opportunity for me to give something back to the club and remained involved with all the great people who make the club what it is and not sit at home licking my wounds.

Whilst I’m new to this game I thrive off a challenge. I know this club is special, it means a lot, you can feel it in the air when we get together and I hope to continue the tradition that the Hornets have set, the standards and morals they have through into this new breed of team. There’s going to be a steep learning curve, not only for me, but for the team and I’m looking forward to facing this journey together.

So far its been a pretty crazy summer for the footballing world. Christano Ronaldo has secured his “dream” move to Real Madrid for £80 million. Eighty MILLION pounds. Michael Owen has signed on for Manchester United. Wait, what? Gareth Barry signed for Man City who are rumoured to be offering John Terry £300,000 PER WEEK and Samuel E’to £250,000 PER WEEK.

The government thinks we’re in a CREDIT CRUNCH, a depression, yet millions upon millions of pounds are being spent in football. Yet my club, Arsenal, remain adamant that their youth policy will see them win trophies.

I’m hoping Wenger will open his chequebook to at least one big name summer signing, he needs to just so he can keep the faith with the Arsenal fans because if he doesn’t, big spending clubs may be able to walk all over the Gunners next season.

However I have to questionwhat goes through a footballers mind. Sure the money they are about to be paid is a great incentive for any player however why do people want to go to Real Madrid? They are rubbish in Europe, were kicked out early in the Champions League in an embarrasing defeat to Liverpool. Why do people want to go to AC Milan? No Italian club has been in the Champions League final for an age. In fact looking at the Champions League English teams have dominated for years now, why don’t people want to come to England to play?

Since Liverpool lost a chunk of their money Rafa Benitez seems to have changed his tune.

“The market is now crazy. It is all money, money, money now,” he said.

“We had to pay big money. But we were signing a good player, an England player (Glen Johnson), and that is very positive.”

I’m sure if Rafa had the cash he’d be spending it.

I’m not 100% sure where I’m going with this other than the ridiculous amounts of money being splashed about and how I’m worried if my team doesn’t spend we may be washed out of the Premier League. The old adage “you’ve got to spend money to make money” may come into play. If Arsenal want Champions League football next season they have to spend to play with the big boys.

Having said that, I don’t worry about clubs like Man City who are spending so much trying to lure big names to the club, as I reckon there are going to be too many personalities in the club for any of them to be successful. That way, perhaps next season all the players will be available to other clubs at a discount.

Finally. HAHA! Newcastle are relegated and have to play in a shocking yellow strip next season. Bwhahaha!

Last night I completed one of my life goals. There are certain acts that I’ve always wanted to see and I’m quite happy that I’ve seen most of the acts I’ve always wanted to live. From a young age I wanted to see Bottom Live, I was worried by the time I was old enough they’d have stopped but thankfully not. I have seen Wheatus many a time, each time is an honor. I have seen Steve Coogan, Bill Bailey, Lee Evans, the Foo Fighters play Wembley Stadium and now I’ve seen the greatest rock band of all time. Spinal Tap.

From the first time I ever saw the film ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ I was hooked. The music was amazing and the act, seminal. I became a fan of everything Tap related. I began to look into the men under the wigs and was introduced to the amazing ability of Christopher Guest. His sense of humour, his creativity is really on my level and I fell in love with his other works such as Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman and of course A Mighty Wind.

In was in said film that we meet ‘The Folksmen’, a folk band trio played by the same group of actors as Spinal Tap and also the support act for the live show at Wembley! How exciting. At the end of A Mighty Wind Mark Shrubb (Harry Shearer) decides he wants to play folk music for the rest of his life and he wants to spend that as a woman. As I sat in the foyer at Wembley Arena I wondered how accurate they would play these characters and if Shrubb would appear in drag. They didn’t disapoint.

As I hoped he was a woman and my admiration grew even more. To continue something like that six years after the movie was released is just great. The Folksmens set was short but was a great and fun way to kick off the show. They opened with Wanderin’ and then A Mighty Wind. They also played Loco Man, a calypso song about a man who does nothing except relax on a beach, Blood On The Coal and Old Joes Place. They were told to leave the stage as Marta Shrubb was explaining the history behind the song Skeletons of Quinto.

As we waited for Tap to take the stage we saw a clip of St. Hubbins and Small backstage playing Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360. Strangley next we got to watch The Majesty of Rock video before another small wait. I noticed some wynches go up to the rafters from the stage making me think that the band would come from the roof, they didn’t. But they came on stage and opened with Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You, Tonight. Such a classic and amazing opener that really pumped up the crowd, as if they needed pumping.

The set was full of all the classics you’d expect from Tap, Sex Fam, Gimme Some Money, Hell Hole, Stonehenge, Cash on Delivery (my favourite)