Sounds like: “Uncle Fucka”

I ‘learned’ Obla-dee-obla-daa by The Beatles’ at the weekend. And a sterling work of musicianship it was. In my learning journey, I have noticed how the verse sounds remarkably similar to the Uncle Fucka song, as popularised by the South Park movie, ‘South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut’. McCartney must be proud.

I’ve also learned that there is an alternative pronounciation of capo. Having always assumed this to be a one way street, straight up cap-oh, I was slightly disorientated to hear my guitar tutor offer an alternative pronounciation: cape-oh. I’m not sure it actually matters all that much. Tomorrow, I think we’re progressing to Wonderwall. I’m quite looking forward to it.

In other news, I recieved Richard Swift Collection: Volume One in the post today. It’s the first CD I’ve bought since the Jens CD – which has been almost never off my playlist, pushing Mr Lekman right to the top of my last.fm profile. Incidentally, I’m also pleased to report that a sudden recent gush of playing has pushed Radiohead into third place, overtaking ABBA who only really feature that prominently because I kept playing SOS, and forgetting to flick shuffle on before leaving it running.

I’ve decided that what I play doesn’t actually reflect what I like all that much very well. Which is a bit of a paradox, really. This guy has written a lot about the difference between Last.fm and Pandora, which I played about at the weekend for the first time, having deferred doing so assuming that they were more or less the same.

It makes for a good read – I had a similar idea of writing something down that compared all these music-comparision-suggest-something-you’ll-love services, throwing Amazon’s releational-purchasing “people who bought this, also bought that” into the bag too.

I’m generally coming around to the conclusion that it’s not very relevant for a computer to recommend something you’ll die for to listen to again. With a few exceptions, most people who know me can’t recommend me something I’ll fall head over heals in love with, so the chances of having some automated process that can is reaching the near impossible. I got thinking about how I’d got into Jens – who I now rate right up there with some of my favourite artists – and it really was a chance happening across an MP3 blog over Christmas. Jens’ closest match via Pandora is Belle and Sebastian, who although I like, I’m hardly their biggest fan, and it’s not like they’re unchartered land in my musical world.

As Steve Krause pointed out, there’s obviously a need for a mix of both the social upping of Last.fm, and the genetic musical matching of Pandora. However, for true new music discovery, I’m finding that it’s ultimately a matter of hard graft and exposure to more musical avenues. And by that I mean catching more MP3 blogs, podcasts and the like in addition to my usual diet. Something that filters out the noise would be great though…

Can anyone play guitar?: part two

So I finally managed to enrol onto the second run of 10 week guitar courses that I failed to get on to the first time. Tomorrow is week 4 (and 5 – it’s a double lesson to make up for a missing lesson due to the tutor being ill) and I reckon I’m doing ok. I’m safely hammering out the chord changes to Mull Of Kintyre, and I’ve got the reverse pentatonic scale in LinkWray’s Rumble down to a tee. This week, we’ve been promised Yellow and Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz.

I’ve been so impressed, that I thought that I’d get myself a little treat. It’s a cracking little box, and adds the necessary meat n. warmth as required.

Vegetable chilli

I’ve been cooking a lot of asian food recently, largely to the amount of flavour I could get out of essentially just veg. So I thought I’d try a few subtle twists on a vegetable chilli. They’re twists in the sense that I’ve never used them in this kind of recipe before. I think it turned out well.

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
smallish chunk of ginger, finely chopped
6-7 medium-sized mushrooms, roughly chopped
can of kidney beans
can of chick peas
can of plum tomatos
1 green pepper, roughly sliced
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tsp of tomato puree
handful of oregano
sprinkle of pepper
generous splash of soy sauce
few drops of tabasco to taste
juice of one lime

In a stock pot or large saucepan, cook the onion in a small amount of oil, until browned. Add the chilli, garlic, ginger, oregano and mushrooms and cook unto the mushrooms have softened. To the mixture add the chopped carrots, green pepper, kidney beans, chick peas, tomato and tomato puree, with the soy sauce and enough tabasco to taste. Season with pepper, and ensure there is enough liquid to cook for 20-25 minutes. About half way through, incorporate the juice of one lime. The chilli is cooked when the carrot has softened and the sauce has thickened. Serve with rice, or cous cous, or whatever you’d normally have a chilli with.

Eggy bread breakfast sandwich

I made this yesterday morning. It’s the perfect hangover material without being too bad (or at least not as bad as a fry up).

Ingredients
2 eggs per person
2 slices of bread per person
haloumi cheese
sliced ham
splash of milk
tomato ketchup
ground white pepper

For the eggy bread:
Beat the eggs with the milk, and add a generous sprinkling of pepper (just like for making scrambled eggs). Soak each side of a piece of bread, and cook on a lightly greased griddle pan turning every now and again until both sides are browned. If making lots then make sure they stay warm, while cooking the others.

For the filling:
Slice up enough haloumi cheese to comfortably fill each sandwich, and cook on the griddle until nicely browned. Add the cooked cheese with a slice of ham to each sandwich, and a smudge of ketchup (or brown sauce) if you’re that way inclined.