Cookin'

I've always loved cooking. In fact my first website in the late 1990s (Geocities, anyone?) was given over to recipes that were floating my boat at the time. And it was around that time I wrote a piece for Delicious magazine that combined food & drink, and music. Always a heady mix.

It was also a period when I immersed myself in Saturday morning TV cookery shows. I couldn't get enough of 'em. Having been brought up on The Galloping Gourmet, Floyd and Delia there was, thanks to Oliver, Rhodes et al, a new gang in town. I even invested in all the spin-off books that came out on their coattails not least everything that the enchanting Rachel Allen lent her name to. Add to those all the pre-loved tomes I was snapping up in secondhand bookshops and I'd amassed quite the culinary library - including Len Deighton's fabulous Action Cook Book from 1965. God bless you, Len.

An extract from the foreword: Four hectic years ago Len Deighton began his cookstrips in the London Observer and serious cooking enthusiasts seized upon them without being sure that this was the same man who spoke over Soviet radio, talked with Hollywood lawyers and wrote the sort of spy thrillers that had to be submitted to the War Office before publication. It is.

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Before I sign off, I can't not mention my favourite cookery show theme. It comes from an era when cookery programmes were very proper, very correct. And, for the most part, very dull. Farmhouse Kitchen, made by Yorkshire TV, was stultifyingly dull. It first aired in 1971 and was presented by Dorothy Sleightholme. Suffice it to say she was no Fanny Craddock. But the show's 40 second musical ident was something else altogether. I came to know it from the Loungecore revolution of the mid 90s. Maybe you did too...

Reg Wale - Fruity Flutes

Reg Wale (1906-1998)

Dorothy Sleightholme (1915-1983)

Len Deighton (1929-2026)

Tea time

I can count the number of songs about superheroes from Barnsley written and performed by folk musicians from Barnsley on the fingers of one finger. Likewise such a song being covered by a children's choir also hailing from said South Yorkshire town. Step forward then Kate Rusby, for it is she, and the BYC Junior Choir (4-7 year olds) who sing their hearts out in this fabulous ode to a Yorkshire Tea drinking titan.

Kate Rusby - Big Brave Bill (2016) 

 

Not just a great cover version, check out too the kids' marvellous costumes & actions. And shameless product placement!

Um Bongo

It wasn't till I trawled through my back pages that I discovered the last time I saw Kid Congo was way back in 2010. Yet seeing him again on Saturday night it was like he'd just walked back in the room after, I don't know, making a phone call. OK, maybe he was a bit greyer and, yes, sporting a few more lines around his eyes (perhaps it was a longer than average phone call) but he was still Kid* Congo. And still as urbane as ever. Still as punchy. And just as tight as he ever was. His disciples had turned up in their droves to see one of his all too infrequent UK appearances at Nottingham's legendary Boat Club and they weren't disappointed. Oh, and he was wearing a rather fetching jacket**. Here he is from a few years back over at Seattle's KEXP.

Kid Congo Powers & The Pink Monkey Birds - Live on KEXP (2014)

 

* Maybe that's the thing about Kids; isn't Kid Jensen still a Kid despite his advancing years on whatever Smashie & Nicey classic station he's currently at the helm of? 

** About that jacket - here it is in colour.

Raindrops kept falling on my head

My London based travel companion had been keen to firm up an itinerary for my visit to the capital last week. After a few WhatsApp exchanges we decided that North London would be a fertile manor in which to expend some serious shoe leather. I was keen to get some altitude to enable a few skyline shots. Every time I get off the train down there they've thrown up at least one new mile-high glass & chrome skyscraper since my last sortie; it's always good to document the changing vista. However, long story short, that only works when there's a vista to be had: thick cloud cover and sideways rain meant that visibility on Friday was measured not in miles but feet and inches. The photographs above and below captured what you could see from the Archway Bridge looking towards the city. Need I say more? If you want to see the kind of commanding views this particular vantage point would normally afford, take a look at January's Photo Challenge and scroll down to David Willoughby's amazing pics taken from the exact same spot.

Anyway, did a bit of rain stop my travel companion and I from having, in the words of Nick Heyward, a fantastic day? No, it did not. Twenty thousand steps*, some great stories, a couple of quirky coffee houses (and a crazy lady to boot), we laughed off the inclemency and just got on with our adventure. File under 'always take the weather with you'.  

* Not to be confused with leagues under the sea.

Farmed out

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that when Squeeze recently went into the Radio 2 Piano Lounge to play the tried and tested format - a three song set comprising two originals and a cover - that they should have chosen a Beatle related number; Glenn Tilbrook & Chris Difford have carried the surrogate Lennon & McCartney tag around with them for well over forty years; so when they saddled up to play a Macca penned power pop classic all bets were off. Junior's Farm is a diamond in the rough. At the back end of 1974 McCartney had just recruited Jimmy McCulloch on lead guitar who would go on to play on the Venus & Mars album followed by the mammoth Wings Over America tour and accompanying triple live album. This sounds like it was a contender for V&M but Macca put it out as a single instead. And what a single. If this doesn't get your pulse racing then you're probably dead.

Squeeze - Junior's Farm (2026)