Monthly Roundup, December 2022 & Some Year End Stats

97 (2023 year) miles, 1 (47) pubs, 0 (51) Rail Runs, 0 (35) commutes, 1 (12) fish and chips, 0 (11) kebabs.

The severe drop off in mileage following the ridiculous 100 mile run at the end of August correlates strongly with my deteriorating mental wellbeing and ballooning midsection. If I were assigning causation I would confidently assert that the 2nd one ➔ the 1st ➔ the 3rd (although the 1st feeds the 2nd, as well).

It was fucking cold for a couple of weeks this month. The snow that blanketed the area on the 11th continued to make the pavements in West Brom impassable for another week and a half but things were clear enough by the 15th for us to grab a meal out at a Viet Namese place before attending a carol recital at St Martin’s in the Bull Ring. The lighting was wrong for us to see the main attraction (the Burne-Jones windows) but it is still a lovely house (one of Chatwin‘s glories).

The house still has aspects of a construction site and we have yet to install the skirting boards, finish painting, or hang pictures but we managed to put up some Christmas shit. Other end-of-year trads we managed to fit in included drinking heavily (the eggnog Christmas morning and the beefy bloodies during the week along with Manhattans until the vermouth ran out), playing the Flagpole Christmas Albums (all Athens and Atlanta acts and highly recommended if only for Santa’s Out of Rehab), eating homemade biscotti di Prato dunked in Vin Santo as well as the recently memorialised sweet potato pie, and champagne with A Charlie Brown Christmas — I’ve seen this every year (that I’ve had a tele) since it was first broadcast in 1965…”lights, please.”

There are resolutions. I only stand by the ones made public (my reading goals, essentially).

There are also well wishes for many people out there most of whom read my notes here; I also hope for doom and sorrow to befall a substantial cadre of folk, some of whom read these musings. There’s little I can do to bring about any of it, but do know that if you belong to either group that I have you in my thoughts…and crosshairs.

Happy New Year.

2023 Death Pool

Some time during 2022, the Stanhope Death Pool disappeared. At the time, I had one kill with the passing of June Brown. I subsequently also picked up Jerry Lee Lewis, making it my most productive year, yet. Shane McGowan may not make it to the end of the year, either.

There’s another group of ghouls with simpler rules to their Pool. You get 12 picks, points calculated as 100 – age at exit, bonus points for your one “Spite Pick” and for your chose 18-to-29-year-old celeb. I had Pete Davidson last year but he’ll be 30 before year’s end if he makes it. DJTJ is my chosen spite pick although I could happily have gone with paedo Matt Gaetz.

Here is the list as I submitted it to the admin of Elon Musk’s Favourite Celebrity Death Pool:

Funeral home name: West Brom Coffin Factory

1 Matt Gaetz, MEMBER of Congress
2 David Crosby, multiple liver transplant receiver
3 Shane McGowan, won’t see another one
4 Lil Nas X, (24 this year, so the youf vote, innit)
5 Pete Davidson, my other 18-29 except he’s screwing me with a birthday before end of year
6 Mel Brooks, meshuggana
7 Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize laureate
8 Linda Ronstadt, troubador
9 Sharon Osborne, nuttier than Ozzy
10 Jello Biafra, live Kennedy
11 Brian Wilson, surf musician
12 Donald Trump Jr (spite), famous cokehead

Sweet Potato Pie recipe

The sweet potato pie I have developed since moving here has gone over a treat with Jackie’s coworkers. Here’ ‘s the recipe, since I promised it to them.

Start with the pastry. I do it by hand, lately, but it is essentially what I have in my Black Book in the kitchen.

Mix together: 80 g ground almonds, 60 g rice flour (go to Chinatown for this), 40 g strong bread flour, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. I briefly had a food processor and it worked well to mix in 70 g solid coconut oil, 15 g butter, and 3 tablespoons of water with ice cubes floating around it, but nowadays I use a pair of butter knives to cut the butter and oil into the flour mixture as quickly as possible. Once the fats and dry mix forms sunflower-seed-sized pellets I quickly mix in the cold water and, after plunging my hands into the ice bath to cool them* then drying them with a towel, the dough is quickly pressed into a 9 inch pie pan and baked at 200°C for 5 minutes then left to cool. Usually, any holes/spaces or thin regions in the crust will fill in as the leavening in the dough rises.

(*My hands are generally too warm for making pastry. You may not need the unpleasant ice water step.)

The filling is modified from a pumpkin pie recipe but finding sweet potatoes is easier than pie pumpkins on this side of the Atlantic. It is essentially a set custard but it is easier than that sounds.

Cook a fairly large sweet potato or enough smaller ones to yield two US cups mashed (about 475 mL). You can bake them but I find it easier to peel them, cut them into billiard ball sized chunks, then steam them. Set them aside to cool once a spoon cuts through easily.

Meanwhile, leave 80 g butter out in a mixing bowl for a few hours to soften. Mix with the sugar (1/2 cup or 120 mL) until creamy then beat in two large eggs until fluffy. Add 3/4 cup (175 mL) evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed milk), the sweet potatoes, 1 teaspoon of vanilla (or more, I usually guess), 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Stir until uniform and pour into the pie crust. It will be very full so it would be prudent to line the bottom of your oven, just in case….

Bake for 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 450°F (235°C) then turn the oven down to 350°F (175°C) and continue baking for at least another 35 minutes. If a knife stuck in the centre comes out clean, it is finished (but may need another 5 minutes if not).

Allow it to cool for a while. It will collapse a little, which is normal. You can top it with whipped or clotted cream or ice cream if you serve it warm but we almost always have the first slices room temperature and the rest refrigerated over the course of the next two or three days…it would probably be inadvisable to eat on day 4 but we don’t have the restraint to test that.

Sir Henry Newbolt, Bilston

Pub #2519:

First official day of the University closure, I was picking up DIY stuff at the B&Q in Bilston and stopped for some breakfast on my way back to the tram at the Henry Newbolt. The kids running the gaff are top notch for a ‘Spoons and this was the most pleasant part of the first day of Hanukkah until I got home for the work on the walls (plastering ahead of getting plastered). Looking forward to day 2.

2023 Resolutions Part 1

By the end of the year, I intend to finish Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, and The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

I’ve started all three on multiple occasions, each, and never read to the end of any (but, never less than half, either).

“And Lo, for the Earth was empty of Form, and void. And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep. And We said: ‘Look at that fucker Dance.’”

F&C at the Black Horse, Northfield

I’ve been here once before but not for food. The house is beautiful and close enough to work to dash out for lunch…or so you would reckon before you wait 10 minutes at the not-very-busy bar to order then another 15 for the fish and chips on special. The staff are rude (to be expected as it is a Wetherspoons) and inexplicably up their own asses (don’t they realise they work at a Wetherspoons?).

The fish and chips were outstanding, the wait notwithstanding. The peas were not the mushy ones ordered. So, two out of three for accuracy.

Bacchus Bar Brum: Lab Xmas Do 2022

I reviewed the Bacchus — which is still beautiful — back just before the bars all closed in March 2020. At that moment in time, the University and all the pubs in the land were about to shut down for the next several months (this one being the next to last pub in the before times) and the bar itself was a ghost town. In contrast, this time the place was even more full than the rightmost pisser in the gents. Fortunately, the leftmost one was wearing protection. Wear your Wellies!

Tipping Point

There are two bars but with the house over capacity they opted to only run one of them…the one that is harder to get to. The wait was ridiculous but at least they didn’t have tableside drinks service for the large group at the meal so that we couldn’t overindulge … it must be nice to be that secure in your financial state in these uncertain times (and, still, someone is going to blame this blog post — read by a couple of dozen people worldwide — as the root cause of pubs shutting down across the UK).

The servers at the dinner were incapable of delivering or retrieving more than one plate or bowl at a time resulting in the first-served finishing their courses before the last ones received them. I haven’t worked in a professional kitchen since 1995 but this level of incompetence still tears at my very soul. (Jackie is even worse and can barely restrain herself from entering the kitchen to take over.)

Despite all this, the bland meal and egregious service was made up for by the splendid company. I really should have made the effort to sit with the NMR people or the molecular biologists but we all seemed to compartmentalise more than any of us should. Perhaps I don’t have exclusive rights to social anxiety — a claim which only Jackie, amongst all my familiars, believes — but the chat that I could make out (I’m also becoming quite deaf) was better than convivial.

About 2/3 of the group left for karaoke afterwards. As anyone who knows me will attest, I don’t hold my own dignity precious but it saddens me no end to see those I admire relinquish their own so readily. I joined an alternative group (led by the professor who owns Jimi‘s birth momma) which headed off to the Christmas Market for beers, mulled wine, and Brummie-watching in the cold. With the rail strikes next week, this may be the last time I see most of them in 2022 so we shared our Christmas well wishes there.

And, Merry Christmas to you all.

Lads, the sign that says “Wet Floor” is a caution, not an instruction