Delusions of grandeur...

Followed the Larkin-themed night at the theatre with a drink in one of his old haunts (and subject of a poem) - Hull's Royal Station Hotel. I really like the place. Mainly because it has ridiculous delusions of grandeur and is frequented by shabby, equally deluded, clientele. A great place to people watch.

Much of today I was in a daze. Which was great given that I was lecturing and young people were staring at me waiting for 'the answer'. The crash has left me in pain and thoroughly exhausted. At lunch I headed across town to lunch with M. Although, when I got there, she was in a meeting so we were unable to sit together (I'm rude but not that rude). A sandwich arrived at M's table which she had ordered for me. M indicated I should take it, which I did and then, bearing in mind that I needed to dash back across town, quickly cleared the plate. It was only at the end of the day that I was informed that only half of the sandwich was mine to eat. Oops.

Avoiding the underclass...

I learned, last night, with thanks to some participants in a writing workshop working under pressure, against the clock and in a room lit with flourescent tubes, the difference between the working class and those that feel they're above it. It is their consumption of meat. Frozen, pre-packaged meat is the preserve of the former, the freshly hacked and often rare-cooked parts of animals - including their innards - belong to the latter. So that's that sorted. All very tidy. Compartmentalised. The have fresh meat and the have-nots. It'll do for me. They didn't mention tinned meat. The Campbell's Meatballs et al. I don't want to use the word underclass. Does this meat - if that stuff contained within actually contains any - of the canned variety belong to the great ignored?

My working class credentials. I was born in a council house. Next door but one to a public baths. Dad was a signwriter, mum worked in a variety of shops and rose to the dizzy ranks of off-licence management, where she ensured that folk with a drink habit got their regular fix. There was always a tin of corned beef in the house. When I became a discerning young chap I would often request a can of Heinz beans & sausages to be placed on the weekly shopping list. I started going to rugby league. I once had a shell suit. I worked in the building trade. Then I became a ponce. Went back into education. Until I devoured them two nights ago we had a can of hot dogs in the cupboard. I once ate steak in The Goring. I'm a mess.

Cauliflowers of romance...

Still plagued with strange behaviour from the takeaways we keep turning to for deliveries of copious quantities of food. Last night, 30 minutes after our excessive, stomach-bursting order was placed, the phone rings. "We have a problem with the Cauliflower Bhaji you have ordered." "Really?" "Yes. We don't have any cauliflower." "Ok, I'll order something else. What are the options?" "The options? (pause) We have found the cauliflower now." 30 seconds pass, at most, then there is a knock at the door. It is our food. The takeaway in question is at least a five minute drive away. "That was quick. They just phoned me about the cauliflower," I mumble as I hand over the cash. The driver looked at me as if I was insane. Which I'm beginning to think I am.

Extrawurst...

There is currently a German Market in Hull city centre, part of the city's festive entertainment. I have heard a few people complaining, saying silly things like, "Why are they here? Is there a Hull market in Germany?" This suggests that Hull's markets are exportable. The all-year-round market that takes place twice a week not a million miles from our house is a notorious outlet for counterfeit goods and, on Sundays, is more of a car boot sale than a place to head for fresh foodstuffs. Germany would not want it. Last night, at around 6pm, as we were killing some time before heading to the cinema, myself and son Sam wandered around the visiting German Market. We were, aside from the German stallholders, the only people there. Which was a little strange but rather typical. I say hurrah for Extrawurst, Fleischwurst and juicy old Bierwursts. But, it would appear, I'm in the minority.

Order, order...

Our takeaway traumas took another turn earlier this week, when we decided to continue with our flamboyant lifestyle and get some pizzas. I spurned fancy telephone and internet ordering, preferring instead to walk to the second closest pizza 'n' kebab emporium (we boycotted the closest - the Quangoesque-named Hull Pizza - when it took them over two hours (two hours!) once to deliver an order that I'd originally gone in to collect but that they suggested bringing to our house 'very soon'). Anyway, this week I ordered a Mexican which, the menu on the wall pointed out, is that famous Mexican sauce Bolognaise topped with cheese and jalapeno peppers. The jalapenos are the important ingredient because, without them, you end up with the Italian. Which is precisely what happened. Do I not look and sound like a Mexican? Is it even worth me using words caciquismo if this is how things end up? I didn't phone to complain or take it back. I just ate my Italian and complained after every mouthful.

Customer service...

Today we decided to live in the fast lane a little and throw caution to the wind by spending money we can, as povery-stricken scribes, barely afford. Yet it's nice to have a little treat now and then, if only to remind yourself that life is not just about bills, bills and more bills (no, it's about bailiffs and CCJs too - Finance Ed.). So we ordered a nice little Indian takeaway. Nothing too extravagant, just a curry each and a couple of chapatis. But just, we thought, enough to take the pain away. Yet despite the simple order, they got it wrong. Not massively. But just enough to spoil the occasion. Once I realised what was missing I phoned them to ask for it to be sent. 45 minutes later it had still not arrived. "How long does it take?" I chuntered. "We're busy," started the reply. What kind of excuse is that? Don't they want to be busy? And are they only busy because they keep f*cking it up? We will purchase our food elsewhere in future, should we ever scrape the funds together again.

Boxed lunch...

I've been watching Design For Life, in which Philippe Starck does for design what Suralansugar does for business (ie, assembles a large group of idiots and whittles his way through them to find the ultimate idiot whilst promoting himself, some of his products and is given the opportunity to espouse his philosophy of life, the universe and everything). In episode 1, Philippe was keen to stress that he was "opening a zip on myself". More alarmingly, he went on to invite people to approach this zip and "take out what you want." The programme joins the canon of nonsense that states the bleedin' obvious. In this case, that everything we see around us is the result of design. No shit, Sherlock. Yet I have been influenced by the show enough to think about the packaging design of the lunch I ate today. A Tiger Tiger Cup Noodle, no less. Rather than one load of packaging, Tiger Tiger presented my noodles in two containers - one, a box, the kind of which noodles could be eaten from. To my surprise, within that box was a more traditional noodle pot. Madness. Environmentally friendly it ain't. Nice noodles, mind.

Hull lotta eatin' goin' on...

Peak of leisure options in this neck of the woods. Today we took in the Global Food Festival, Big Bus Day and the Hull Maritime Weekender. Pretty average turnout at all three pretty average events so I'm bracing myself for claims from destination management organisation VHEY that billions of tourists were attracted to the city and trillions of pounds were spent over the weekend.
Big Bus Day? Well, the buses were big but there weren't many of them. It was free so I guess you get what you pay for. The local bus company's brass band did sound rather good, although watching grown men blow into big tubes is a strange activity.

Not sure if anyone in Hull should be eating right now - the Director of Public Health here has just told us all off for eating too much and not moving enough - whether it's global or not, and never mind that little grubby Antony Worrall Thompson might have prepared it for you. Lots of people, not a lot of evidence that anyone was buying anything. I ate something Turkish and M's vegetarian requirements were catered for by African & Caribbean Cuisine experts Island Delights. I was given a free shoulder bag stuffed full of leaflets about healthy eating. We purchased an expensive bar of chocolate. We licked our lips and downed our nosh without any thought about NHS Hull's top-down approach to diet. But we did walk off the food by heading over to the Marina.

When we got to the Maritime Weekender three men, one of whom was, I think, Shanty Jack, were singing a song about Nine Times A Night - a vulgar little sea shanty about bedroom performance. The audience of old folk, who were sat across the road from a pub but refusing to nurse any alcoholic beverages, the message from NHS Hull regarding binge drinking no doubt weighing heavily on their collective conscience, didn't react in any way to the song. Further up the Marina-side, the Kingstown Radio roadshow had an audience of absolutely zero. The bulk of those that were at this event were old. Very old. They wore slacks and cardigans and sturdy boots. They looked as if they had been forced to attend and that, in the short time that they had been there, that they had had all of their personal property stolen and their King Charles Spaniels had been raped. They suggest that this event, now in its 20th year, will die out with them. Shame.

Next week it is the Freedom Festival, a rather strange mish-mash of an event paid for with public money. Peter Andre is performing. It is free to watch him. He can f**k off.

Eurgh...

Now, I love my food. But I'm afraid I would have to draw the line at eating the contents of this can:Sausage, yes. In Lard. No. Thank. You. This unhealthy mix is available in my new favourite bargain basement retail outlet - B&M Bargains. When M saw the tin she thought this product was manufactured by Wrestlers, rather than hot dog specialists Westlers. I like the thought of a load of retired wrestlers placing sausages in lard. Although I don't like the innuendo.

Fast food...

I dunno what it's like round at yours but we can barely afford to buy food to eat these days, never mind throwing it away. We're not alone, are we? Maybe we are.

Anyway, Gordon Brown, no doubt tucking into the fat cat G8 buffet right now, has done what a lot of politicians have done before him and no doubt will continue to do after him - blaming individuals when, quite patently, it's not my fault, your fault nor A N Other's fault. If [some] people are throwing food away at the rate of £8-worth a week, could it, perhaps, be because some of them have been persuaded to buy shit they don't actually need? Did I persuade them? Did you? Did I encourage gluttonous behaviour? Did I create the conditions that made people so careless about what they buy and fail to consume? Did I encourage and promote the growth of grain-based biofuels without any thought about the repercussions? Did you? Yet still I'm being urged to cut down on food waste. And so are you.

Via The Guardian, I have read today that "In the developing world, up to 40% of food harvested can be lost before it is consumed due to inadequate processing, storage and transport." (The Grauniad is quoting a Cabinet Office report). Now, I don't process, store nor transport food so don't hold me to task for that one. Is that one your fault? How much does that equate to a week? A month? A year? In a lifetime?

The real solution, of course, would be to radically rethink our behaviour. I'd be happy to eat bread and rice, if that's what it took to feed the additional 2.5bn mouths that will be open and waiting for a nosh over the next 50 years. Would you? Would Gordon Brown? Don't tell me its my fault. It isn't. But, and here's the rub, that doesn't mean I don't care. How's about you? What shall we do?

Scone free...

John Prescott suffered from bulemia? That takes the big, chocolate-coated sugary calorific biscuit, that does. He's had some of the symptoms with none of the vomiting, from the look of him. Poor John. Someone was telling me about John when he went to an event at a Hull school last year and they'd laid on hot buttered scones as refreshment. John ate one, commented on how great they were and then ate another three as people stared on gobsmacked at his impressive intake. Then, scones scoffed, it was time to depart - as he left the school he swung by the kitchen. Everyone thought he was going to congratulate the kitchen staff for their fine baking but no, he came trotting out seconds later with a carrier bag full of scones. "To eat on the train!" he shouted as he squeezed out the school doors. What a guy. A fine ambassador for Hull and its many chubby folk.

Listening: Portishead - Three, The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement

More jalapeños...

Today's highlight was an outing to get some Mexican food. A table for six and lots of burritos flying around. Splendid. This weekend there's been further progress on the boxes front and various odds and sods stored haphazardly in the garage. Yes, a garage. Don't get the wrong idea - the garage is almost as big as, if not bigger than, the property we're now living in. We're using the garage as a sort of glorified dustbin while our other glorified dustbin, the car, remains parked on the wrong side of the up-and-over door.

Did some work on one of two new plays. Had to - there's a meeting looming and still not much of a plot. Or there wasn't. Now there is. Sort of. I also headed off and bought a new domain name relating to this play with a bit of a plot's title. Which, given it's a working title and a script is still an abstract notion, may well prove to be a fiver wasted. This purchase was prompted by the stumbled across knowledge that On A Shout's .co.uk and .com versions were parked back in December. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. But I like my working title, which is four words long. And the .co.uk of it now belongs to me. My vanity knows no bounds.

I am watching Mark Lawson Talks To... on the frankly superb and lifestyle-changing BBC iPlayer. I've been aware of Lawson's many ticks for quite some time but this show's two static cameras approach (no shot-reverse shot noddy shenanigans here, it's all very commendably anti-fake magic of TV) to recording the interview seems to exacerbate Lawson's twitchiness and blinking. And what is it with his left hand? Why does he keep curling up his fingers and staring at his finger ends? Wouldn't it be better if he went and bought himself some nail clippers and shed whatever it is that's bothering him/me/possibly you?

Reading: Norma Farnes - Spike: An Intimate Memoir

TV dinners...

11.20 BBC Four on BBC Two: Ready Meals Documentary examining why ready-prepared meals have become increasingly popular.


It's a forty minute programme. As I'm really, really busy I have much more important things to do than waste my time watching telly. Such as popping a ready-prepared meal in the microwave.

Dressed to impress...

Last night we went to the recently revamped Raj Pavilion (a Tandoori restaurant), which, having more than trebled in size, is now one of Hull's largest eateries and is proving very popular. Having not thought it through, my attire for the evening perfectly matched that of the staff, which was, frankly, rather disturbing and a tad embarrassing - I kept feeling as if I should be taking orders or something. And despite my coincidental efforts to blend in with my surroundings they didn't even offer me a staff discount. Food was plentiful and lovely. Mmmmm.

Watching: World Professional Darts Championship / Louis Theroux: Behind Bars. Reading: Tony Hannan - Being Eddie Waring.

Food glorious food...

Time was when, round here, all you could eat was a piece of stinking haddock. Yet all that changed on Thursday, with the inaugural Hull Global Food Fest, a gathering of marquees and restaurateurs and chefs. Now, for three days, you can buy olives and waffles and all manner of salami and sniff and sample stuff cooked on the main stage. It is, despite this whole venture being repeated in other cities in the country in an effort to make every place a facsimile of everywhere else, a very good event and the combination of hot weather and the chance to mutter abuse at James Martin has certainly brought out the crowds. Naturally, this wouldn't be a blog post from me if I didn't express a couple of caveats. The event is being broadcast on Hull's oft-lambasted big screen. Which would be fine if the actual main stage goings on were not happening immediately beneath the big screen, thus rendering such an exercise utterly pointless. Now food and hygiene go hand in hand and I can see a reason for the council wanting the streets around and about the Global Food Fest to be clean enough to eat off. But it struck me as a trifle odd that, when the biggest gathering of folk to have hit the city centre since Christmas was strolling up and down, purchasing jerk chicken and Ostrich meat, a street-sweeping truck arrived to force everyone out of the way.