Canalway Cavalcade

The Royal Wedding/May Day public holiday weekend saw London's Little Venice hosting the 2011 Canalway Cavalcade.  Having enjoyed several canal boat family holidays, and always keen to visit any of London's waterways and bridges, I happily headed north in glorious sunshine.  In its oasis of leafy calm, there were oads of gorgeously decorated canal boats moored side by side.  The towpath was lined with interesting little stalls selling a tempting range of food, trinkets and suchlike, music played, Morris men danced, beer was drunk, Punch & Judy performed and, apart from a few unfortunate stall-holders trapped in the shade and a surprisingly biting breeze, a good time appeared to be being had by many.

I discovered Britain's Best Pork Scratchings, couldn't resist a bag of fluffy pink candyfloss, found a solution for sunbathing with shorter hair, and bought a tray of little herb plants.  The first two, with a glass of Pernod, provided me with a really yummy mid-afternoon snack when I got home, which was quickly followed by some authentically sticky baklava.  Balanced diet not - but a lot of fun and perhaps a combination soon to seen on a Heston Blumenthal menu.  Amazingly, ten days on, the herbs are still alive - and even thriving, apart from the basil, which seems to be the local snails' current favourite snack - on my kitchen windowsill; giving me hope that I might be capable of growing something green after all.

It was a downside not to be able to revisit my memories of standing on a canal boat and feeling the floor move beneath my feet - and perhaps the detrimental effects of quite such a large sugar and fat blast on my waistline and teeth.  Dangerously, I've discovered that the pork scratchings are available by post: can't see that I'm going to be able to resist indulging again, although perhaps I'll just partner them with the Pernod next time …

The Ashes Revisited (2010/11)

This week, the documentary film From the Ashes allowed us to revisit England's 1981 Ashes victory.  Last week, however, it was last winter's win that I was reliving.  And in the actual, rather than satellite, presence of one of the main participants: Andrew Strauss, the double Ashes winning captain no less.  Courtesy, it cannot be said too often or with too much gratitude, of Simon "The Cricket Analyst" Hughes, who ran a Twitter competition.  Anyone who considers Twitter to be a complete waste of time might just want to think again.

When Simon announced on Twitter that he'd be running a competition for an evening with Mr Strauss re-enjoying last winter's cricket down under, I assumed that (a) the question would be completely impossible (certainly a characteristic of other competitions that the Analyst has run on Twitter) and (b) the world, his brother, his dog and Geoffrey Boycott's grandmother would enter.  The task was to identify a player on the Cricket Analyst mobile app (iPhone/Android), which some might cynically think was a sales ploy.  Even if it was, the purchase price was insignificant compared to the prestige of the prize.  Anyway, I had already obtained the app for a bargain price at the end of some irrelevant one-day international tournament held on the sub-continent.  I assumed that the player would be someone very obscure.  Actually, it was Brad Hogg and, very helpfully, the app told me so.  I emailed my answer off to Simon, wished him well with sorting through the avalanche of replies and hoped that he, Mr Strauss and the lucky winners would have a very happy evening.  Then I moved on to waste (sorry, invest) time on some other pursuit.

I think that there were two factors in my favour.  One, the competition was running early-afternoon in the middle of the week.  Two, and possibly more significant, entry was to be made by email not Twitter reply; plenty of people didn't seem to have noticed that.  When an email from Simon Hughes dropped in my inbox, I assumed that it was of the polite "sorry, but thanks for your interest" kind.  Amazingly, no, I had won.  I thanked him immediately and profusely and then checked that the prize was two tickets.  Apparently, no, it was only supposed to be one, but he was prepared to make an exception.  More thanks, apologies for seeming cheeky and off to break the news to my best cricket girlfriend.

Joining instructions required us to make our way to The Park Club in west London (a very obscure part of town for me) and to be attired in the ubiquitous "smart casual".  Full of excitement, but still not quite sure what would be happening, we complied, presented ourselves at reception as "guests of Simon Hughes" and found ourselves in a large white marquee, seated right at the front on Table 1.  I found my nerves rising to a level similar to that I'd last felt on 24 November 2010 waiting for the series to begin.  Suddenly, Mr Strauss was on the stage in front of us, sporting a rather severe haircut, which you might have noticed in the publicity photographs of the new trio of England captains taken the following day.

We saw, cheered and clapped lots of footage from the five Test Matches.  Simon Hughes asked our captain lots of decent questions and an occasional rubbish one.  We knew how Mr Strauss had felt getting out to the third ball of the series: we'd all watched and endured it with him - and feared what disaster might follow.  He handled them all with aplomb, humour and honesty.  Time flew by, we got some good insight into how our captain felt about his own performance, those of some of his fellow players, and what he thought of the Australian captain's "new" hair (amongst other things).

Whoever had the very bright idea of serving a supper of curry and rice was a genius; whoever thought that an early-May evening event in a marquee in London did not need heating was not.  It was terrific to relive those memories, and in such special company, but it would have been even more fab if it hadn't been quite so chilly.  (Memories of the MCG on Boxing Day 2006 returned.)  Finally, the video footage reached the marvellous moment when Strauss raised the urn, red and white tickertape fell and I felt almost as excited as I had four months earlier.  There was a raffle for charity.  Someone won a bat: not me, but I felt that I'd been plenty lucky enough just to be there.

A truly lovely evening.  Thanks, once again, to The Cricket Analyst and Twitter - and to Mr Strauss.  Long may you remain our captain; those other two are the heir and spare, and long may they stay that way.

Risotto Primavera

I had intended today's post to be about asparagus, having gained the impression from its presence in the shops and an article about it on BBC Radio 4's Farming Today this morning, that the British asparagus season had begun.  A bit of basic research has revealed that this is a season with dates, rather than simply describing the period when British asparagus is available.  The start date seems to be around 23-24 April, so I'll put the asparagus post on hold for a few more days.  Having re-listened to the radio programme, it turns out that the noise of my shower had drowned out the comment that the recent clement weather had provoked asparagus into appearing early this year.

Although last weekend's more than spring-like weather has (temporarily) departed, parks and gardens are bursting with blossoms and new leaves.  I'm going to stick with both a spring and a food theme today and share my recipe for risotto primavera.  It brings thoughts of spring, mostly from the colours I think, to my mind whenever I cook it.  And, unlike British asparagus, and despite its name, there's nothing seasonal in it, so there is no reason not to eat it throughout the year.  It takes 30-40 minutes to prepare and is a simple, tasty supper for two.