Leotard Cohen.

The day after the Italians arrival we planned to take a trip to 'Europe's newest and best' circus – Cirque Surreal.  I don't actually remember ever going to a circus, instead having memories of circuses downloaded into my brain via off-line books.  I certainly recall Mr Ben's visit to the circus, my nebulous memory suggests he may have been a strong man or a clown...I can't quite recall?  They also had various jungle animals parading around and elephants performing degrading acts on the tightrope...

But this Cirque Surreal was an all together different affair.  

As you enter the big top (put up in one of the many car parks in the huge city of 'Trafford Centre) you're led to your seats by a set of  bowler hatted wearing mime artists, after you've left the bar area (I felt like it was 12pm in a 'chill out' tent at Glastonbury – the library ambient music fanning the illusion).

Gone were the 'jungle animals' of course and the clown isn't one of those slightly, untrustworthy characters but a cross between Marcel Marceau and Mr Bean.  I actually found him funny (as did the kids) and felt he kept the show together.  It's seemingly based on a rather vague concept of the nations of the world uniting, but I found this a little misplaced.  In fact it was more akin to the members of the village people leading the dragon on Chinese New Year.  We really wanted  to see the acrobats (the adults hoping for tight spandex keks and suggestive leotards, the kids for humans being lobbed into the roof of the big top with not a safety harness in sight...which is what we all got).

A Ronaldo-a-like 'football juggler' was interesting, at one stage juggling five footballs and balancing, spinning the rest on his nostrils.  He had perfected the cheesy post trick smile almost to the point of post parody.  Still, he was impressive.  

We also saw the 'Chinese' couple (the performers are sourced from all around the world) show off some frankly unbelievable bodily contortions.  The act where the guy turned his partner into a giant human polo mint just had to be seen.  I think she performed a spot of ballet on his forehead at one stage, although perhaps a mixture of bafflement and befuddlement (courtesy of Stella from the circus bar) created an illusion for me.

The 'African Prince' at one stage almost caused a spot of fisticuffs, quite amusing really...I think he 'pretend nutted' a fella in the audience who didn't take too kindly to this.  A barrage of 'swearing words' and a face harsh enough to crack a nut must've been his very own version of circus behaviour.  I personally think he was rudely woken up, as by this stage the 'concept' and silly dancing taunted the eyelids.

However, the ending was pretty spectacular.  In what's best described as a pair of giant, metal hamster wheels, two of the performers (the 'modern city worker' in the village people troupe) spun round inside then outside the cage spinning heart stoppingly around the big top.  They then started using skipping ropes almost slipping up (20 odd metres high) which would've cascaded their bodies directly into the ground below (again unharnessed).

The kids all loved it and I guess most of the adults too.

One of my highlights mind was seeing Sooty's 'dad' Matthew Corbert in the audience.  I can confirm Sue was elsewhere, perhaps over in Selfridge's purchasing handbags or a new brush.

Goodwellies.

So yes...the Italian relatives came over...after picking them up at Manchester Airport on Thursday and seeing they were slightly tired and hungry we rushed back up the M56 (we're literally 12 minutes away) and headed back to our pad.   I'd recently bedded in a new pizza stone, a piece of cookware I'd been after for some time and thought I'd test my 'authentic Italian' pizza's out on them.  Perhaps not entirely wise given the craftsmanship that goes into them in Italy.  But earlier on in the evening I began the preparation.  Jamming my hands into a bowl of grade 'OO' flour, honey, olive oil, salt and yeast I began to manipulate this amorphous, breast like piece of dough.  

After a good ten minutes of bashing and twisting I'm left with this spherical quasi marble dough ball.  This I then place in a larger, oil lined bowl so the yeast can have it's end away inside this tasty fun bag.  Ninety minutes later I see this sub Dr Who character in the bowl where I felt damn sure I'd left the dough.  It's risen out of all proportion and this makes a small tear appear in my left eye duct.

The next small process is precision blissfulness: you enter you hands into this large, softness and the air departs into the heavens, gently caressing your mittens as it does so.  It's probably worth the whole process just for this, never mind the baked dough you'll soon be creating.

After another quick arm wrestle with the dough it's time to flatten and stretch to your liking.  

I always think it best to spread it with both a rolling pin and your hands...and if you've guest over why not try spinning it in the air  (although last time I tried that it ended up in the dirty dish water...still, I rescued it ok).  When it's thin enough so it's almost translucent and has the look of cow hide it's good to go.  It will nearly split when you carry it so be quick – and make sure you add it onto a well floured (or even better, sprinkled with semolina) tray/pizza paddle.

Slap on your passata (I add a dash of honey and occasionally if I'm feeling Cornish and controversial a spot of Jam) and then your toppings...best not getting funkadelic here, the more simple the better.  I once tried adding a DVD copy of the Wire as a topping and whilst edible it was nothing like the time I added the Scorsese biography with sun dried tomatoes, razor shaved garlic and 'chased around the garden with flip flops' basil.

Every couple of minutes I'd open the door of the (extremely) hot oven and lift it's bottom up (this I'm told releases the steam from under the base and thus obtaining a crispy base post release from oven.  That pizza stone was the business.  They were perfect and the Italians had the same impressed look that Keith Chegwin has when he pulls a wheelie on his neighbours mobility scooter.

And I was proud, albeit covered in tomatoes and sieved pasta flour.

If you're ever over at mine I'll be sure to make you one.  Since then I've created a new recipe (all secret like Ronald McKentucky Fried Don) and named it the 'Don Draper' - cool, creative and suave and knocking up a female beatnik behind the wife's back.

Smoked Banjo.

We had relatives over from Italy last week – the missus's brother and his 3 daughters.  They've enjoyed coming over a couple of times over the past year or two and always find something to do.

Whether it's in the Greater Manchester area or beyond we have a whole host of wonderful locations right on our eye steps.  Unfortunately they were only here for a couple of days this time, so we couldn't plan for trips further afield.  York's always worth a trip to and with them living in Italy a fine place to discover England's heritage and history.  I'd bet they'd love the ghost walks they do in this tiny city, either that or they'd be scarred to life what with being staunch Catholics...perhaps best not go there.

About the same amount of travel would get us up to the Lake District.  Little more than 90 mins away from Central Manchester, the Lakes are an absolutely stunning pocket of England.  Genuinely  breathtaking scenery and extraordinarily well kept countryside: I much prefer the hilly topography of the lakes to the dull insipid regions of the South & East (and indeed the Cheshire Plain).  

We occasionally stick an oversized dome tent in the motor and take a trip up there for the weekend.  There's plenty of well managed sites up there and we've found a corker just outside Windermere (the lake of which you can see from parts of the site).  Waking up in the fresh air and letting your eyes feast upon such glorious views is really charming and life affirming.  

It all feels a bit like those American films from the 70's and 80's where they head out with their 'buddies' and 'buds' for a spot of fishing and male bonding before being targeted by a local half breed....except I've got my family with me and if I'm lucky I might grab a bottle of local raspberry wine and pretend to be Burt Reynolds when I head off to collect some water for the stove.

I did manage a bit of fishing though.  It was at the local trout farm and it is more akin to pretend fishing.  You'd drop your line in a netted area practically littered with trout.  I somehow managed to get my line caught in the boundary net several times; crossed with other fishing lines and didn't get one bite.  I looked like a bent hammock at the end of the session but purchased some 'pre-dead and gutted' trout from the fishing shop.  A spun yarn later and the whole family is impressed with my manly skills (apart from the the elder daughter in on the act).

We'll no doubt be back up there again this summer.  

I'll watch my copy of Deliverance just before I go.

Panic at the Cisco.

So, the summer might as well have stayed indoors this year.  I haven't really seen him in full, just the odd facsimile of an old friend I shared times with as a kid.  A bit like Mike Yarwood's version of famous people (of the time at least)...almost there, but you forgave any hitches as he seemed like quite a nice fella.  And so with these initial hints that the summer might turn up after all: sending the assistants out rather than the master behind the curtain, not quite what we have been promised.  As with politicians proclaiming we are in their best interests it appears that nature has taken a similar route – a handful of ok'ish days this year rather than full on, unbridled hazy days.  Sporadic weather bursts (the aforementioned hint of a fine summer to come, followed by 5 inch diameter hale stones crunching you in the eye bones) have ever so slightly dented my well being.  I'm convinced it's playing havoc with the environment around us, some melancholic electromagnetic mist sheaving our 'good' synapses in miniature 'bad' sleeping bags.

Even kids who should be out partying their faces off are otherwise engaged in junior introspection or constant waves of yawn fever.  

You see it's these negative ions floating around the world at the moment...or at least in the uk (I can't comment on places such as Serbia, Argentina or South Western Australia).  I have a few friends and close family who also can't seem to step it up a gear this year.  

Perhaps it's a governmental top secret service colluding with the networking giants (Cisco as an example) to pump subduing agents into the Wi-Fi network hence to nullify and quieten down the nation.

Yup, I'm running with that.  I'm starting a task force later this week, sometime...perhaps next week, I'm running an apathetic fever at the moment.  Join me when you're up and fit and full of adzuki beans once again.

Green Digits.

When the government turns the sky top off for that one week in May we get each year, I'm going to make up with my garden.  It's not so much that I've been treating her badly, more (like her human counterparts) I haven't quite shown her quite enough love.  I managed to cut her hair last week (remember last week when the sky, bizarrely, turned blue?) and gave her bikini line/hedges a nice trim.  Unfortunately, her herb area has become a somewhat 'trampy'.  Flourishing though it is, fashion dictates a certain way of wearing your herb sections down below.  I personally love the 70's look, she unfortunately doesn't (top 'fash' mag Gardeners World telling her how to run her life, how to manage her shaded area's, who to allow in to her life etc).

So I'll set aside a weekend to really get my hands dirty and spruce her up something special.

I've already procured some fancy plants to insert on her beds: a fine photinia to crown the north eastern section; a couple of native Mediterranean studs to fizz her up a little (I'm talking Kiwi, Olive and Bay Trees here).  I'd had these in mind over the past months as a surprise and I'd plant them at night whilst she slept, so in the morning as the squirrels bounced across her brows she would awaken to several new bed fellows.

I've realised it takes years and persistent tinkering and nurturing to really make a beauty, but usually  you're paid back in kind with the fruits of your labour.  

I'm nearly there with her: not quite the finished masterpiece as yet, but give it time and she'll be the bell of the ball.  I have to pull out a few herbal jewellery items and sparkle up it's aforementioned bed (the Oregano is breeding like a CGI rabbit) but I hope to send to her for auditions on 'Living TV 2's Britain's Next Top Garden' come June this year.

Will by your self.

I've recently attended an evening with Will Self at Waterstone's impressive (size and interior architectural design wise at least) Deansgate store.  I've secretly harboured a desire to attend a book signing for many years but never quite got round to it.  Perhaps it was fear...what if Armistead Maupin singled me out and asked where I'd purchased my nifty slacks from?  Or if Ian Rankin asked me how I would deal with feral street kids?  Or, god forbid, Des Lynam superciliously looked down on my attempts at growing a suave tache?

Fortunately a friend asked me along as a sidekick, so I bounced off a text from a satellite orb stating 'count me in'.

I've always liked a perusal in this large Waterstones on Deansgate, the seemingly endless rooms and floors and rainforest worth of reading material (some good some not so good, but then that's down to personal taste).  The floors creak in parts just like proper book shops should.  Despite the emergence of wi-fi flat tops and book headed but cyber hearted members of the public ruminating over ebooks, the physical book remains stronger than ever.  It simply cannot be replaced by anything from silicon valley, Sau Paulo or Steve Jobs at is most bonkers.  You lose a virtual 'iPaperback' on the 42 bus after a one cherry beer too many you've lost a substantial amount of money.  Drop it in the bath and not only will you destroy the machine instantly (and the latest Murakami prose) you'll also undoubtedly kill your legs off.

Nope...the books here to stay for some time yet, unless of course we have a tree drought or in fact starve our lungs of oxygen during our 'tw*ting' of the planet.

Will came in like a middleweight boxer minutes before an important bout (a good approach to most things in life).  Perhaps slightly apprehensive, nervous almost of giving public speeches (even though Will is a media savvy guy).  He soon launched into a a good 30 minutes reading of his latest book entitled 'Butt'.  His accents crossed continents with the ease of Judith Chalmers rifling through a tourist pamphlet.  Wonderful to listen to (and look at – not at all like the stick thin, ominous chap he comes across as on the telly screens) he's a natual orator.

Following the reading he hosted a 'Q & A' for some time, fielding questions about his work, his views and George Bush (interesting tale about the man...can't say it would make you love Mr Bush Jr any more).

He seemed to have grips on the Mancunian history and geography (he's been up here a few times and appears to genuinely like the city) and is extremely generous in his answers – all round top bloke.

I never got a question in...perhaps it was because it was my first 'book signing/reading' and I wanted to test the water (I didn't even bring a book for him to sign at the end (my friend brought along around 25 novels).

Next time however I'll have a couple in my bag for the man.  

A Bird in the hand is worth two in the Rooibos.

I kicked caffeine out of my house and home a couple of weeks back.  It simply got too much for me in the end.  I'd become addicted to increasingly stronger and stronger coffee (espresso's especially).

It started a few years back with the 'junior coffee' that is Nescafe Mellow Birds (which my mum still drinks and loves to this day...) - an exceptionally mild high, akin to a warm twix bar and a run downstairs to answer a cold call.  From here I progressed onto the larger granules (Mellow Birds appear to be mere dust gatherings from a coffee factory to me) then onto, what I considered sophisticated at the time, Douwe Egberts.  An exaggerated heaped teaspoon of this stuff (dark blend) then I'd feel like Zippy at a Klaxons gig.  I then veered my Java'd  up liberal brain palette towards the Fair Trade numbers (like café direct).  My daily cup of highs felt oh so pleased with themselves now.  

Of course during these times I'd also insert the odd cup of tea into the mix.  Strong with a rumour of milk squirted into it's dark canyon and I'd be happy.  Vegan Electro person Moby has a nice range of tea's you can grab from one or two cafés in Manchester which I'd often sip whilst an AAC file was downsharing into my ears.

Not so long ago, some Italian friends of ours gave us a Bialetti stove top coffee machine as a gift.

This is where the addiction took on a more pronounced edge.  The ceremony itself got my visceral synapses flicking like a rained on, half hearted neon sign on the outskirts of a city.  A normal morning would see me orally receiving 4 shots of the stuff, often with a dash of the cow juice, occasionally with a small gift of hazelnut syrup (I became friends with that stuff when I stayed in San Francisco in the US states of American USA).

However, during the past couple of months I noticed that my ticker was seemingly independent of any form of rhythm during one or two periods in the day.  It was though it had been aurally studying free form jazz via the Braindance movement...mashed up drill and bass narrated by Christopher Walken.  I think at this stage it was time to knock this trip on the head...so I gave up caffeine.

The first week or so felt like I'd been left out on top of a Ferris wheel during mid winter in Glasgow (I know this because I once was left out on top of a Ferris wheel mid winder in Glasgow...).  I'd have aches, shivers a general unwell being permeating my limbs and various sacks.  But, eventually I began to feel better than ever – the palpitations have somewhat subsided and I'm no longer wearing the junior smack head costume so noticeable in my full on caffeine addiction.

I'm looking around for herbal coffee's (which allow you the coffee making ceremonys via the stove top Bialetti et al) but they're hard to come by at the moment.  I'll take a trip this week to somewhere like Chorlton...I'm sure I'll find such beverage there. 

In the meantime I've discovered Rooibos (speaked proper it leaves your mouth as 'Roy-Bos' which translates as 'Red Bush')  - a naturally caffeine free tea from South Africa.  It is actually rather nice (you have to experiment with a couple of brands mind) and since I've been 'using' this tea I've had some pretty vivid dreams (some quite frankly, are a few shades darker than blue).  It's beneficial properties must be snaking their way into my mind bits.  

Fantastic.

Marked Squirrel

Over the past year or two, for some unknown reason, I've become mildly obsessed with encouraging birds into my back garden (and I'm not alluding to the Sheila and Mandy from 'Oh My Cod' chippie in Bournemouth during that unfortunate incident...).  I'd purchased the necessary starter paraphernalia, a selection of fine nuts and precision seeds and set them up in safe yet viewable location.

It took a while but soon enough out came the chaffs; the tits; sparrows; red robin Gibbs; feral pigeons; starlings; the  Geeks; sportos, motorheads,  dweebs, dorks, sluts, buttheads...I adored them all.  The highlight was a woody, woody woodpecker....fascinating creatures.

I swear I also saw the ghost of Rod Hull and Emu straddling the branch of my Doyenne De Comerce Pear Tree, although this viewing was, admittedly, after my mother in law had laced my Rooibos tea with PCP, LSD and an old Texas Instruments LCD for a laugh. 

However, of late we've had an influx of Machiavellian 'urban street squirrels' playing havoc with the natural eco system of our back yard.  Initially these pesky little things were held in high esteem within the extended family: often a display of their antics (involving Shaolin aerobics upon fences and around silver birch trees) was a cause of much mirth and balsamic gaiety.  It was remarked that watching this display was not unlike an episode of 'Jim: The Bergerac' crossed with a manga version of Channel 4's 'Skins'.

The 'fun' soon enough twitched it's ominous eye, flipped onto all fours and became 'unfun'.

They've part destroyed my bird feeding equipment (squirrel safe according to quite frankly false disclaimers) and mouth pocketed a large supply of the food intended for my British Birds. 

And so this week I read about Captain Mark E Smiths from the band 'the Falls' admittance of Squirrel Murder somewhere in the Greater Manchester conurbation.  Sadly, belying my own pacifistic outlook, I'm coming round to the fact that this route may be the way forward in order to save the bird party back stage, lawn left.  Perhaps there's an old British recipe for cooking  squirrels in a garlic and walnut roux?  Or maybe I'll search the world wide wap for a humane squirrel trap and let them out in some other region.  As it happens, I've seen reports today, via the television system, that there are prominent squirrel culls happening up and down the country and that the not so aerobic carcasses are now being offered as deluxe game.

I'll keep you posted.