The Chant of the Barbie Dolls

I can't honestly describe myself as a biblical person. In any sense of the phrase. However, my trip to Quo Vadis with Piggly Wiggly did leave me looking into the distance with a wistful, rueful, half smile, tinged with sadness, like some sort of iconic Madonna style stare into the middle distance, at the foot of a cross, like in some sort of Da Vinci masterpiece. A look, in short, that would have art critics guessing for hundreds of years as to the nature of that enigmatic, sad smile.

Fortunately, as this is food criticism, I can dispel any myth and cut straight to the chase: Qua Vadis, the recently refurbished restaurant and private club in Soho is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a religiously artistic transcendent experience. The décor on entering the vestibule is pleasantly hotel like, but we were left waiting while an inefficient host dealt repeatedly with queries from other people simply interposing themselves in front of us. Perched at a miniscule bar, we had pre-dinner drinks while our table was prepared. We'd arrived deliberately a little early to have a drink, but we were left wondering why the hostess was at huge pains to encourage a non-member of the "exclusive" bar upstairs to attempt a gate crash as "they weren't that busy anyway", while happily consigning us to the mere "ordinary" bar in the restaurant. Perhaps because he was wearing jeans and trainers, while we'd decided not to make an effort by donning our swanky restaurant gear? I admit I have an instinctive dislike for the idea of exclusive bars and clubs, particularly where the exclusivity is based purely on paying £500 per year, but the idea of one who's exclusivity depended on how busy it was felt like a real let down. Anyhow, the in-restaurant not-exclusive, you-don't-have-to-be-a-member bar, bar staff were on-song at least - the martini was pronounced most satisfactory, and my glass of champagne was well chilled.

Once at table we were impressed by the refurbished décor, the generous leg room and space available at the table, and the substantial wine list. The room was pleasantly buzzing, with an admittedly older crowd, and, on a fairly sultry night, was very well air conditioned without being chilly. Not like that hole L'atelier Joel Rebouchon, with it's tacky black faux lacquered surfaces, miniscule tables with barely room for a cigarette thin flower vase, and obfuscating clamour and noise. The menu augured well: it was going to be very difficult to decide between the seafood and the remaining meatier dishes - in the end we decided to have our cake and eat it, so to speak. We ordered half a dozen oysters, in case we got famished before the starters arrived, and I opted for courgette flowers, and Piggly-Wiggly went for Scottish chanterelles in garlic. I'm not quite sure why they should be identified as "Scottish" - perhaps we were expected to sample the brawny aftertaste of the homely fingers of the kilt-clad fungus foragers or something.

Our wine (a Californian zinfandel, Ridge Geyserville, which we first sampled in New York with an amazing crispy duck, but that's another story) arrived with such alacrity, I mean it was amazingly quick, we suspected that they had staff on standby holding a bottle or everything on the wine list, ready to sprint to the table. Nit-picking aside about the needless frippery on fancy restaurant menus (pan fried - how else can you fry something; diver caught scallops; Scottish chantarelles; succulent morsels etc) the starters and oysters were pretty good. I suspected the oysters may have been pre-shucked, as they seemed to be immersed in brimming puddles of briney delight, which said to me they'd been oozing for quite some time, but nonetheless they can't have been that old as they were pronounced by Piggly Wiggly, the best oysters she'd had quite a while. I objected to this as we'd had some damn good ones in Dublin very recently, but again, I'm nit picking. The courgette flowers were nicely stuffed with feta and deep fried, and had an excellent smoky pepper and tomato salsa. The chanterelles were meaty and tasty, but I felt a over salted and too garlicy. Nonetheless we were left with a pleasant sense of expectation of our main course.

Our waiter had informed us that the rib for 2 came with chips, so we ordered a side of vegetables each, and sat there slaveringly anticipating our meeting with the meet. When it came, just at the point when we were beginning to wonder where it was, it was briefly presented to us on a plank, before being whisked away to be sliced and diced for us. We accepted the waiter's recommendation to err on the medium side, but what arrived was definitely rare. What didn't arrive however, were our chips, or steak knives, both of which we ended up having to ask for, when we managed to get a waiter's attention.

You may have had the great fortune to have visited the Michelin starred Peter Luger's in New York, situated in Brooklyn, just across the Manhattan Bridge - undeniably the greatest steak house experience I've ever had. Very similar cuts of beef cooked and served to an orgasmic, sizzling, perfection. The plates are so hot, it almost demands a health and safety waiver just to get into the place. Looking back on the 3 or 4 times we'd been there, the key thing that comes to mind is how perfectly cooked and HOT the meat was. Not only had Quo Vadis seen fit to leave the beef to rest (ok, that's all very proper) but it was then served on cold plates, resulting in the pre-sliced meat going cold very rapidly, a key pet-peeve of Piggly-Wiggly's, due to some peculiarities of her upbringing. Taken with the missing chips, the missing steak-knives (which arrived when we almost finished) and highly unremarkable sides of broccoli and spinach costing 5.20 and 4.50 respectively.

I mean SERIOUSLY - 5.20 for a small buttery dish of broccoli - Jamie Oliver feeds entire, admittedly entirely fictitious, Sainsbury's families of 5 for less than that, we were left in deep high dudgeon by the time we'd finished. We had to wait so long to be asked if we wanted desert that our ire raised to simply ask for the bill, in a manner as chilly as the plates our food had been served on. At £180 all told, with the temerity of 12.5% services included, we felt our hard earned spondoolicks had been fiendishly purloined. All in all, a deeply underwhelming experience - if we'd thought there was enough there to want to return we probably would have offered our comments, but as it is, we definitely wouldn't be returning, so, their look out! Our dismay perhaps reflects more on the idiot in the Times that gave it "9/10", raising expectation impossibly beyond what they should have been: but nonetheless, cold plates, I ask you?

If I had Keira, I would, Knightly.

I murdered me wife and I danced up on top of her
I pounded her vicious till I made a big slop of her
Her insides and outsides all mixed in together
I souffled her brain: it was light as a feather

I roasted her haunch with with carrots and parsly
Twas tasty enough, and her arse crisped up nicely
I coddled her heart, ah!, as in life, that's the truth,
But her scleroticised arteries broke me front tooth,

Her liver, and kidneys, her spleen and her pancreas
I gave to the nieghbours, they haven't stopped thanking us
"Regards to the wife", "Much obliged" they say cordially,
Whilest washing her down with a '56 Beaujelais.

Her left over remains I wrapped up in bandages
I selected choice cuts for weeks worth of sandwiches
I smoked and I salted her, pickled her sides,
Made a fine pair of brogues with leather tanned from her hides

The moral in question needs no explanation
To murder your wife, study food preservation
To dispose of a body, don't just dig a hole,
Roll up your sleeves, do a nice casserole.

Lines written in dejection on hearing of a threat to the toaster

I

Oh woe to the woman who threatens our toast
For toasting's the thing that we treasure the most
To hellfire and brimstone that woman we sendy
Who champions the cause of the bread that is bendy


II

Let us boast of that fillet of loaf which is grilled
Here's a toast "With sliced, pan let our bellies be filled!"
But let it be roasted, golden brown on both sides
And to Hell with the heel that our toasting way chides.

III


To hellfire and brimstone and see it's done choppy
The heathen who said that our bread should be floppy
Watch it crispen and darken on the hearth sides of hell
So the damned on the hobs can munch toasty as well

I was at the Wolseley of Piccadilly at the weekend enjoying, on the whole, the
grandiose delightful art deco lacquered interior, and the food as well (apart
from a disappointing bouillabaisse and an overly familiar aussie waitress), with
my parents, girlfriend, sister and her fiancée, and my brother in law to be, a
celeb magnate extraordinaire. Shortly after my mother asked him - "well, where
are the celebs?", he pointed out none other than a besuited Dermot Murnaghan
ascending the lofty marble staircase to one of the more secluded dining areas of
the establishment, which used to be, I'm told a car sales showroom. The layers
of metaphor and appropriateness are piling up thick and fast, and I'll explain
why.

First off, the idea that a news reader is a "celebrity", with all of it's modern
connotations of vacuity, lack of talent, and banality, as opposed to, say, a
"thorn in the side of the establishment", or a "beacon of hope for the
oppressed",  or "the scourge of the criminal element", "a crusading champion of
consumer rights", says a lot about journalism and society. Why a news
reader/journalist warrants a secluded, exclusive table in a restaurant
presupposes anyone would be bothered accosting him. To be fair, I might, but it
wouldn't have been to tell him I think he's a lovely boy and would he mind
autographing my large print copy of the Reader's Digest.

In any event, this appearance precipitated an old argument between myself and my
sister about the nature of journalists, and their choice of careers. I
maintain choosing journalism as a career puts one at the heart of a system that's
perpetuating the myth that we do have a free press, and that's responsible for allowing
much of what happens in the world that we don't like, to happen. My sister's argument,
which I have to say I always find weak, is that as I work for a corporate investment
bank I'm in no position to cast aspersions on anyone's choice of career when it comes
to complaining about the state of chassis the world is in. She feels she gets to
say that because she's a teacher and left the moral low ground behind her the day
she quit her job at UPS.

Fair enough you might say, except for 2 critical points: first, journalists,
whatever they are, are just as much a part of the corporate morass as anyone. They
have to simper and smile at their bosses jokes and demands as much as we do.
How anyone in their right mind thinks that makes for valiant, independent
free-thinking fourth estaters hell bent on holding real power to account (never
mind the pathetic bit of authority your boss has for ordering up coffee and
biscuits for special team meetings)is beyond me.

Second, just look at the performance of the US and UK media in the run up to the
Iraq invasion - if that doesn't tell you about the servility of the corporate
media to state power, then I suppose nothing will.

So, in this beautiful, grandly converted restaurant and erstwhile car show room the
idea of Murnaghan as a dodgy, not to be trusted, second hand car dealer, flogging
clapped out lies that travel no further than off the property before collapsing
into a pile of junk and rubble, or at least allowing them through the door,
appeals, at least in the light his performance this morning on BBC Breakfast News
(Mon 23rd April).

At about 08:05, BBC Breakfast News aired what I think was a pre-recorded "interview"
with Tony Blair and Murnaghan. Yet again, Tony Blair, completely unchallenged by
this stalwart of robust independent journalism, passed off three blatant, baseless
allegations in as many minutes. It was said of Nixon that he could "lie out of both
sides of his mouth at the same time". Tony Blair it seems is managing something
similar, only from multiple orifices.

First, Murnaghan suggested that Saddam Hussein had "kept the lid" on sectarian
violence, and that kept Al Qaeda out of Iraq. Blair replied to the latter: "I'm
not so sure that he did".  This claim, which even Dick Cheney and George Bush no
longer try to push (in fact, they try to distance themselves from those original
comments) is now being recycled by Tony Blair, without so much as even the
faintest, meekest protest from our journalist friend. Would Murnaghan have been
going out on a limb to challenge this, when no credible security source has
never supported the notion of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda?

Second, Blair also claimed that Iran was directly responsible for causing the
violence in Iraq. Again, this is the rehashing of an old BBC story which has had
no basis whatsoever in reality - there is no evidence for this - despite the US
army searching desperately for it.

Finally, Blair conflated the idea that Saddam Hussein had killed "hundreds of
thousands" of his own people with the idea of ongoing violence in Iraq, like the
ghost of Saddam was returning to plant roadside explosives and detonate suicide
bombs. Again, this was left completely unchallenged: there is no evidence that
"hundreds of thousands" of people died as a direct result of Saddam's
oppression. Thousands, certainly, according to Amnesty International, may be
even tens of thousands - he was a vicious and brutal dictator after all. I mean
why do you think the US and UK gave him the job of running Iraq in the first place?

On the other hand there is superbly documented, scientific evidence to suggest
that over 655,000 Iraqi's are dead as a direct result of the invasion in 2003,
not to mention the million or so excess deaths from the 10 years of sanctions
from 1991 to 2001. I should have thought that could have been mentioned, but no,
it literally seems that Fawlty Murnaghan wont "mention the war".

All of this Murnaghan was happy to let slide, maybe, and this is quite shocking
to contemplate, because he didn't even know that Blair was engaging in bare
faced, unsubstantiated claims, with no evidence at all to back up his wild
statements. Or maybe he did know, and just preferred to simper his way to the
end of the interview where he could say "thank you VERY much Prime Minister".
After all, he's probably got a mortgage or two, a life-style to maintain, and kids
to privately educate.

And I suppose you have to consider that ordinary plebs, those of us not elevated
to the lofty rarefied stratosphere of BBC News Readers, with all their
sophistication and "nuanced" ability to understand the "subtleties" and
"complexities" of the world, and deal on an equal footing with the wealthy and
the powerful, probably can't even get a table at the Wolseley!

An agnostic is one who hasn't the strength of his or her own lack of conviction.

I sat idly musing on the tube this morning, minding my own business listening to my ipod. Nowadays my old ears aren't great and I have to jack the volume up so high to hear anything over the almighty clattering of the rolling stock, that the incipient permanent ear-drum damage is almost not worth it anymore. Plus the so-called “shuffle” has developed a mind of its own and has decided that damn it, if it has to play the Clash, it will only ever play "Lost in the Supermarket", because it seems that's the only Clash song it likes. I, on the other hand, much as I love the Clash, am getting a bit tired of hearing it as the third, sixth, ninth, twelfth (etc) song every time I turn on that crappy shuffle. You know I don't envy Apple and Steve Jobs their money, I have plenty of my own, it's just, you know, they make such an inferior quality product.

Anyhow, the woman sitting next to me proceeded to have her breakfast. In what I and the other passengers felt was a casual and offhand manner, she proceeded to munch, slurp, scrape and lick her way though: an Actimel, a banana, 2 pots of yoghurt and an orange, which she peeled inside of Sainsbury's plastic carrier bag, presumably for health and safety reasons. There really aren’t many things more irritating than someone else eating a pot of yoghurt – particularly if they un-self consciously lick the pulled-off foil lid, and then do that annoying little scrapey motion at the bottom of the pot, with their idiotic black plastic Sainsbury’s spoons.

I sat there wondering what else she would pull out of her carrier bag: a plate of bacon and eggs? A couple of moist, warmed croissants from underneath her oxter. Maybe a medium rare steak sandwich? If she’d gotten as far as shucking a few oysters, I was sure I'd put some Tabasco sauce in my bag before leaving, so we could have had quite a party. Maybe she was also going to produce a damp sponge and proceed to give herself a bit of a wash down. Who knows?

Then to add insult to injury, not content merely with her luxury breakfast on a 9:05 Jubilee line train to North Greenwich, she then had the temerity to proceed to apply what I'm guessing was a full make up barrage to her physog.

It suddenly occurred to me that London Underground is missing out on a significant marketing and business opportunity. Why not have a dedicated "breakfast carriage". The wide Victoria line tube rolling stock are ideally suited to a buffet bar style unique breakfasting experience. Not to mention the idea of spa and relaxation carriages, special make up application carriages on gimbals that prevent jerking and smearing of lipstick; sleeper carriages for those getting on at the ends of lines with long journeys. What about gym carriages? Get your work out on the way to work. For an appropriate fee you can get to use one or more of the new carriages so you can arrive at work fed, watered, exercised, manicured, made up, suited and booted.

Or you know, you could just get up a bit fucking earlier and do it at home. Just a suggestion.

Glen Byrne deliberately limits himself to 800 words on the awfulness of "Sunshine", in an effort to avoid wasting the entire day describing in minute detail the enormity of it's failure as a motion picture.

First off, let's dispel any illusions: this is not a science fiction film. Witness: the utter lack of techno-babble explanation as to why the "sun is dying", an event in reality scheduled for 4 billion years hence; how, or who invented the device meant to reignite the sun. There is one dubious reference to the fact that "all of Earth's fissile material has been mined" to produce the bomb, attempting to reinforce some sort of ticking clock element - utter nonsense since the creation of hydrogen bombs relies on fissile material only to kick off the fusion reaction; the complete lack of reference as to how there appears to be full gravity on the space craft; the pathetic lack of technical competence from the crew; Cillian Murphy's "physicist" who's expertise can be summed up as the ability to operate a video transmission device and turn a couple of keys on the bomb payload that's meant to reignite the sun. Ironically the video device turns out to be the source of a bitter, rancorous, physically violent tiff between Murphy and Evans. That this is about as substantial a relationship that is developed in the entire film should tell you the intellectual depths we are plumbing here. Finally the idea that you can descend into the heart of the sun in a thin case of metal, anywhere outside the realms ”inner journey" science fiction is the ultimate insult.

To be clear: it’s obviously not a crime for a film to have a science fiction back drop, but not be a sci-fi film. Tarkofsky got away with it in his psycological drama 'Solaris', Douglas Trumbull with his proto-ecological tale in 'Silent Running'; Ridley Scott made a superb horror flick called 'Alien', which just happened to be set in space; and Dan O'Bannon et al made a great low budget comedy, 'Dark Star' (itself a sort of pre-cursor to Alien), which also happened to be science fiction based. All of these films used a science fiction backdrop as the basis for well thought out pieces of cinema. 'Sunshine', what ever it was trying to achieve, ends up falling somewhere between a remake of the execrable 'Event Horizon' and the PG plod fest that was 'Mission to Mars'.

While the acting is competent (but no great shakes) and the special effects have reasonably high production values, this film has nothing better than that to recommend it. The plot is banal, riddled with holes and so derivative of other work as to make you wonder whether there are plagiarism laws for cinema. A director with the creative flair of Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) should know better. The introduction of a lunatic, somewhat sun-burnt, supernatural Freddy Kruger like character (the captain of a former mission to save the sun), who sabotages and slashes at will, via the "let's go visit the previous failed mission for kicks" device (the equivalent of descending into the darkened cellar with a flash light running low on batteries), was the laugh-out-loud-and-not-in-a-good-way point for me.

Even the half-hearted attempt to introduce some sort of meta-physical crazed fascination with the sun and light falls flat, since it isn’t explored and the introduction of the slasher element overtakes this part of the plot anyway.

Then there was clearly an irritating element of re-editing and blurring of the creature to make the film acceptable for a 15-cert, since there is never a clear view of the crispy cretin, which one would expect, at the very least, as a reward for sitting through this rubbish. This kind of last minute editing and the massive marketing campaign (including lots of “making of Sunshine" promos) shows the distributors are rightly worried they wont make their money back.

The ultimate resolution of the film, if you could call it that, becomes entirely predictable from the earliest moment, as Cillian Murphy explains in a video message to his "sis" that it will take 8 minutes for the change in the sun to be noticeable on earth. When all of these idiots eventually get burnt up in the heart of the sun in a mystical fiery explosion of twinkly lights, it's no less than they deserve.

Frankly I'd rather watch Armageddon. I mean the film with Bruce Willis, but even the ultimate destruction of the planet would have been preferable to this utter twattery.

Physicists today strive for a "GUT". Not, as you might think, the outward bulging sign of an overindulgence in the finer things of life, which of course is appropriate for a Piggly Wiggly review, but rather a "Grand Unified Theory", uniting all of the known universal physical forces in a harmony of mathematical precision and concision, commonly known as a "theory of everything". Little do they know that a theory of everything already exists, of my own devising, which I'll share with you now. My theory of everything states that about 90% of everything is rubbish. 90% of books, TV, cinema, theatre, people, events, music and crucially for this review, restaurants, are rubbish (or pretty much thereabouts).

Is this not a depressing statistic I hear you cry, if we are doomed to spend nine tenths of our time in the mire of mediocrity? On the contrary, all the joyous things in life, the things that make, not to wax too philosophical here, life worth living, are about discovering the 10% that's either really good, or even occasionally, where ordinary superlatives breakdown and you find yourself sampling the very top 1% of the finest things there are to enjoy physically and/or intellectually. Or rather, to be more specific, the top 10% of the top 10% of things that you, in particular, might enjoy, wherever your own sick, twisted tastes and fancies deliver you. The mathematically inclined amongst you, or indeed just the slightly wilier, will of course realise that by assuming the truth of my assertion, 90% of theories are also rubbish. Aha, clever, you see? In which percentile my theory of everything lies, is therefore left as an exercise for the reader.

Le Gavroche, just off Park Lane, on the surface, both when you look at it from the outside, and when you descend into the velvety, warm, decorous interior of it's evidently lush and well to do basement dining room, past it's swanky ground floor bar, does not strike one as one of those "90% experiences".

Our 18:30 reservation brought us into a slightly under populated room, but still buzzing nicely, which filled up quickly thereafter anyhow. "People watching" to coin a phrase of the parlance of our times, is greatly facilitated by the relatively open plan design, so I can only deduce that chief amongst the attractions of the space is both being seen, and, to judge by the Hedge Fund Type Expense Account Toffs loudly holding forth at the table next to us, heard. Piggly Wiggly informed me that in Hedge Fund circles Le Gavroche is the local "des-res" (desired reservation) for expense account entertaining, and judging by the smattering of European languages, and evidently post work besuited and booted clientele, I was in no doubt as to the correctness of the reputation. This makes an interesting contrast to some smaller dining spaces, where sitting down to table is about the culinary experience, as opposed to the expense or the expanse of the dining. In retrospect, I think this might not be a particularly foodie-serious atmosphere for a Gastro-Piggly, so be warned.

Service was prompt and fairly unassuming to start with, and we kicked off with a couple of glasses of vintage Taittanger Champagne. I'm moved to wonder at this point about aperitifs. In all their bewildering variety, there can be only one that, for it's purity and refreshment, wins out every time - and that's clearly a glass of champagne. I often see people with Gin and Tonics, beers, pints and all sorts of alcoholic non sequiters clutched in their sweaty digits as they make their way to tables (or have it brought, in the classier joints), but I can never figure out why. Cocktails are for cocktail hour, not an immediate pre-prandial tipple. Indeed, there are chefs who will refuse you a Singapore Sling, A Roaring Twenties or whatever your concoction of choice might be, on the grounds, justifiably, that it interferes with their culinary master plans for you. Observant readers will note the evident restraint I've applied in not using some of the more common and vulgar cocktail monikers to go for the obvious snicker, for which you can thank me later.

Anyhow, menu choice is simplified greatly in a restaurant like Le Gavroche, when, like Piggly Wiggly and myself, you have cast off the chains of petty bourgeois morals, and (with the aid of some starvation dieting) have just decided to pork out and go for the degustation menu (7 courses, including 2 deserts, plus a cheese plate). With matching wines you are, as we used to say in our local Cummann, "elected".

Course the first: Poached scallop with a julienne of vegetables and ginger and spicy red pepper. This was revelatory. For an instant I thought we were receiving sushi until I cut into an tasted the scallop, pleasingly plump, a good two or three mouthfuls of sweet meaty juicyness. I still prefer them fried but this was utterly delicious - not overwhelmed by the ginger in any way (although the vegetable medley was a tad salty for one mouthful) and perfectly cooked, with a perfect wine accompaniment.

Course the second: Crayfish tails in a butter sauce with escargots. Again, somewhat revelatory - quite how you decide to pair up snails and tails I don't know but it worked exceedingly well - probably because they met somewhere in the middle of that deliciously light, creamy butter sauce, with a delicious little dollop of garlickly-oily pesto as well.

Course the third: Fillet of John-Dory with garlic crostini and with an aubergine thing on the garlic toast and some sort of very spicy thing as well. To me this was the pinnacle of the evening's enteratainment. Quite how it's possible to create something so spicy, with such crystal clear favlour sa the same time, in particular with something as delicate as fish, and John Dory at that, is beyond me - which is why I'm a consumer, not a creator of fine dining I suppose. The garlic crostini coated with aubergine added a great cruncy contrast to the thin layer of broth 'ponst which the John-dory sat, succulent and again, ferfectly cooked, not one iota of the flavour being lost in the spice and the delicate garlic.

Course the fourth: Foie gras with crispy duck pancake. Now, call me inhumane, but I "lerve" foie gras, so I was eagerly anticipating this course. However, it turned out to be quite disappointing. First and foremost, it was certainly not a great piece of meat, it was not cooked particularly well, and came with a pointless accompaniment of a crispy (i.e. dry) duck pancake, of all things, and a hoi sin sauce, that Piggly Wiggly described as being like an "overcooked duck samosa". In it's own richness, the accompaniment did nothing to improve or compliment the foie gras. In fact, it detracted. Compared to many memorable foie gras starters we've had, this was a dismal failure. For example, in one 3 Star, a superp piece of meat, which was both superior in quality and cooking, came with a nice, simple, sweet, crab crisp; in New York, we had a stunning accompaniment to the biggest chunk of foie gras I've ever had, of sauterne grapes in a light gravy, brilliantly allowing the richness and texture of the foie gras to melt around the mouth; or indeed in just a plain old bog standard French restaurant near Grenoble, where Piggly Wiggly got an eye poppingly enormous tranche de foie gras with a simple crispy salad; or, at another 2 Star establishment, where we had an utterly surprising foie gras, poached in a jar with a cauliflower cream. This was really quite a let down after the trio of superb starters and we were hoping it was just a blip. However…...

Course the fifith: Venison. While perfectly cooked, just rare enough, with excellent accompanying vegtables and sauce, this venison was a touch bland for my taste. While I will admit that I prefer game to be gamey to the point of giving you slight palpitations as to whether you should really be eating something quite as rancid as this, this was merely a texture rather than a flavour - a very nice texture, mind you, but still pretty much flavourless all the same. Unfortunately, not much could redeem this course in my view. Piggly Wiggly was of much the same opinion, although the wine pairing did something to mitigate the failure.

A word on the service at this point - it was pleasant and efficient, however, it was also somewhat less than enthusiastic in terms of explaining the dishes and in particular the wine accompaniment. At other locations, the sommellier delivered such mouth watering descriptions of the wines accompanying the meal, and what it was meant to accentuate, that we were practically grabbing the bottle and swigging it back before he was finished. Here I felt a little short changed in terms of what we were supposed to be looking out for in the wines and the food. In any event, it didn't mar the vening in any way, but it didn't add a great deal either.

Course the fromage: After an appropriate and decent interval, we decided to gird our now considerably porkier loins, for a cheese plate selection. We requested, as is our wont, the stronger variety of cheeses, and received a reasonable selection of good to moderate cheeses with decent wafter thin biscuit selections, along with some celery. All in all satisfying and adequate, and I'm not trying to damn with faint priase here.

Course the sixth: a dark chocolate gateau with a praline nutty cream, only slightly memorable, but tasty all the same - not a favourite with Piggly Wiggly though.

Course the seventh: Upside down tarte tatin. Unfortunately, I'm just not a fan of apple tart, whatever fancy way it's dressed up, so this was a bit of a "miss" for me. PW is a fan though and pronounced it worthy.

Course the petits fours and coffee: my decaf had that percolated to death hint of Bisto gravy grnaules about it, but the petits fours were good, although not remarkable.

Overall - would I say Le Gavroche is well worth it's Two Star Michelin assignation? Deffinitely yes, in particular if you compare it to the overwhelming disappointment of Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin (the only 2 star restaurant in Ireland). However, utlimately, it was quite pricey, even considering the degustation menu, the matching wines and service (aboout 380 GBP in total).

That of course reflects the clientele, undoubtedly the Expense Account Brigade from Hedge Fund Central. However, for value, and quality, it certainly is no where near it's other 2 Star London rivals to which we've paid visits.

Some good things: utterly sublime wine accompaniments, excellent starters (scallop, crayfish with escargots, john-dory); good cheese plate and good wine list as well.

Some not so good things: outside of the degustation menu, nothing sufficiently tempting to take you to A La Carte Land; somewhat unenthusiastic service, the course and wine pairings being a bit under-explained; an inconsistency in the quality of the courses (excellent being directly followed by the merely passable); only okayish deserts in my view (which is a key factor in forming my opinion, generally). Also, for the Gastro-Piggly on the look out for a special occasion restaurant, a more impressive dining space, and potentially less expense account stuffed atmosphere might be had at say a place like Gordon Ramsey at Claridge's, or even the Wolsley, although the food at the latter, while constantly improving in our view, isn't Michelin Starred.

While on the whole Le Gavroche has a very well deserved reputation, with good service and an enticing wine and degustation menu, many of the courses of which, but crucially not all, were superbly executed, and would be a good stop off on the way to giving your boss a heart attack when next he reviews your expense account, for the Piggly Wiggly Epicurean Oddyssey, it's neither sufficiently good value, adventurous enough menu-wise, or foody-centric enough, to entice a second visit.

It's often said that politicians are out of touch with both reality and the great British Public. A massive disconnect to do with voter apathy, a general distrust of politicians (who are, by the almighty wisdom of opinion polls, "lower than estate agents"), disaffected "yoof" and so on. However, it's hardly surprising, because it seems that the great British Public is well out of touch with anything approaching reality, to judge by the reaction to "Casino Royale" on the BBC News (NEWS, I ask you) web site.

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=4773&&edition=1&ttl=20061120122938

I feel privileged indeed that my hard earned spondoolicks are not only funding the BBC to give a forum to it's innumerate and scientifically illiterate journalists to spend their time debunking peer reviewed, expertly authored, epidemiological studies about mortality rates in Iraq, but also to give a forum to the equally inept and cinematically illiterate portion of the disengaged British Public that, taken in by the media hyping blitz krieg of propaganda surrounding Casino Royale, have fallen completely for it and believe that, despite the evidence before their very eyes, the steaming pile of festering crap on cinema screens up and down the land, is something approaching a half way decent piece film.

Ok, I'll admit, I'm not a Bond fan. Pretty much I never have been. For example, I used to think Roger Moore was the best Bond, but when I was a kid he was making a lot more of them, and Moonraker did approximate a Sci-Fi film, which is something I've always been a fan of, albeit a tackily cheap one, even for the '80's. More latterly I feel Connery was obviously the best, but that's just because he was a better actor, nothing else. And let's face it, once they got beyond the gadgets with the evident demise of Q, nothing of any interest or surprise ever happens or happened in a James Bond film. Ever. Name one twist, one unexpected plot device, one surprise, one "well I didn't see that coming", or one "that's new" that you've ever gasped when you've seen one. Apart from the gadgets (gondolas turning into speed boats and so on)? You see? Nothing.

"Hahaa" you might say, "that's the point - it's a cinematic convention - we expect a teaser introduction, a flirtation with Moneypenny, an assignment from M, a foreign location, lots of gadgets from Q, much mayhem, lot's of explosions, a few fist fights, a few stop overs for shags with lovely ladies, a secret base detonating, and a comedy shag at the end with a receiver being turned off on indignant MI6 officials, while Bond plus A.N Other model get it on upside down in the torpedo tube of a submersible of some description. The enjoyment comes from seeing what kinds of things happen along the way, we enjoy the familiarity and the easy charm of Bond demolishing villains and causing devastation as he goes, and the cool manner of his dispassionate dispatching of his enemies. We enjoy the cool calm sophistication of this ice-cold killer (the champagne, the caviar, foie gras, the martinis, the sharp suits, all the easy expectation of a public school boy for the finer things in life). He's like a sort of good guy Hannibal Lecter - except we are never repelled by his brutality, only charmed as he dispenses his Arnie Schwarzenegger like witticisms over the corpses of his always-asking-for-it victims with all the subtlety of a bullet in the face ('shocking', 'he lost his head', 'stick around' and so forth)".

Well you might say that, if you had a brain. Mostly you'd probably say "go and see the new James Bond film - it's brilliant - now, the weather".

I had the misfortune to see this utter dross because of a simple moment of weakness last Sunday. My girlfriend had been slavering for weeks about Daniel Craig in the role, and I thought "it can't possible be worse that all the other ones", and I'd been reasonably impressed by Daniel Craig in "Enduring Love", plus it had received a thumbs-up from a previously impeccable source, so I thought, why not?

The plot, if you can call it that? Below par even for Bond - in the post 9-11 world a banker to the world's "terrorists" gambles their money on the stock market, by shorting airline stock, and plans his own airline terror stunt. Bond foils his plans and forces Le Chiffre, a "mathematical genius and gambler" to set up a high stakes, make or break poker game to win back the money he lost in his failed stock market gamble. So far so hum-drum. Apart from the utterly ludicrous plot inconsistencies. First, this is supposed to be Bond's very first mission as a "double-oh agent". Post 9-11? Right. And why would a methodical genius decide that gambling his stake away was a clever use of the money? And why would MI6 and the CIA wait until after a poker game to want to take this guy down/out or whatever they do, when they could just pick him up there and then? Even suspending disbelief, this is stretching it.

So the action? Well, the initial chase through an African building site is bland enough, with Daniel Craig being stunt doubled in about 2 out of every 3 shots; one or two reasonable free running stunts, for some bizarre reason. Now, I thought I had already missed that fad a couple of years ago, but it seems to be making a resurgence (in Cason Royale and in Breaking and Entering - at least in the trailers for it). I expect in a few years the noughties it will be looked on like all those 80's films where you had to have leg warmers and a montage scene in order to have any sort of street credibility. Much is seemingly being made of the fact that the action sequences show that "Bond can bleed", and "he gets hurt", and the action has a "more gritty feel". Hmmmm. Maybe, but that doesn't meant that they are any good as action sequences - any Jackie Chan film, ANY one of them, contains better and more interesting choreographed fight sequences than anything in Casino Royale, and you almost never seen any blood in them. There is, for example, and excellent fight scene in "Gross Point Blank" between John Cusack and a "spook" assassin in the corridor of a school, which for pace, action, direction, style and "grittyness" far outstrips anything in this film. And even the Bourne identity, and the Bourne Supremacy, even though they were woeful had good gritty fight scenes. Yes there's blood, yes there's pain, but none of it is interesting. And as for the much vaunted "showering fully clothed comforting Vesper scene after a traumatic murder" baloney: even my girlfriend, who had enjoyed the soft porn Daniel Craig moments, was laughing (not the intended response I feel).

The one welcome departure from the norm was the standard Bond torture sequence - yet another chance for girly soft porn as Craig gets stripped to his proverbials, and has a nasty series of heavy rope lashes applied to his undercarriage, exposed in a hollowed out chair. "I never understood the need for all those elaborate torture methods" opines Mikkelsen, as Le Chiffre, the subtly disfigured villain, referring to the "Take Mr. Bond away and give him plenty of time to escape" standard scene from the early Bond films. Indeed. If all he wanted was Bond's password he could have tried something infinitely easier - just phone him up on his mobile and try a little social engineering - tell him that it was the MI6 IT desk phoning to perform some routine account maintenance. Or just guess. "Aston Martin", "Bentley", "Shamrock Rovers", or perhaps the name of his current squeeze even, "Vesper" would be good starting guesses. What a funny name - that's a real selling point for film. NOT.

The central action of the film, the supposedly "brilliantly tense" poker game, is nothing of the sort. Not only is the action interrupted several times for idiotic digressions (I was hoping against hope that poison or the terrorists would kill Bond and ease my suffering), but the game itself is intentionally cryptic so that you know the results only when the director wants you to. Plus, whatever action there was (if you can call cards being turned over and a dealer calling hands "action") was supplemented by irritating asides from Giancarlo Giannini, as Mathis, to Vesper Lynd, the supposedly "extremely bright" treasury agent love interest, sent to keep an eye on Bond, unfortunately though without, it seems, even the most rudimentary briefing in counting the face value of casino chips, or how the game of poker is played. Mathis, the "helpful" local MI6 contact, leant close on half a dozen occasions to growl: "14 million in the pot", "28 million in the pot", "all-in means he has to play all his money", "Bond needs and ace to win" and so on. Basically it was like watching one of those all night celebrity poker matches complete with annoying commentary. Just when you thought Hollywood couldn't get any more condescending.

By the time the baddie is all too easily dispatched (without even a mano-a-mano, and not even by Bond's own hand), the girl saved, James' nads re-confirmed in working order after his torture ordeal, and a few nice shots of Venice are in the can, you're left wondering how long it will take for the love interest to turn on James and bring this pain in the balls film to an end. The answer is "longer than most people can stand". By the end of this drivel most of the audience I saw this with were talking amongst themselves, much to the chagrin of one man who asked some people angrily to stop talking, presumably as he was trying to sleep. The introduction of a "twist" in the end, to herald the return of the Bond status quo is as heavy handed as it is unnecessary, and personally, I couldn't get out of the cinema quick enough.

Despite what that prostitute Jonathan Ross may tell you (he gets privileged access to the set and interviews with the celebs - in return he's really sold out his credibility by having too many Hollywood friends that he can't piss off by giving bad reviews to their films - like Russell Crowe and now the cast, crew and director of James Bond films - I mean what's wrong with the Barry Normal model - send a reporter to do the onsite location reporting, keep a distance from the makers of the film, and keep your integrity for your film reviews), this drivel is not worth letting some one PAY YOU to watch, never mind shelling out 10 quid to go and see it.

It's pretty obvious from the "pedigree" of director Martin Campbell (which includes such visionary and groundbreaking films as "Vertical Limit", "The Mask of Zorro", and a pile of second rate TV) that this was never going to be anything approaching a good film - merely a hodge podge of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", plus "Casino Royale", and 100 million dollars down the drain.

If I'd been kicked in the balls and had 10 quid robbed from me, I'd have had only a marginally worse time.

Orwell probably hasn't stopped revolving in his grave since he was put there, what with the obscene mis-use of language that he described, growing increasingly out of control. John Reid, the Home Secretary, is, according to the Today program, delivering a speech later on today in which he will, apparently without irony, utter the line (and I'm paraphrasing) "there is no compromise with extremists". Hmmm. That strikes me as a somewhat extreme position in and of itself, particularly for a politician, one, who by definition, has all the integrity of a weasel in an egg factory.

Incidentally, you might ask how the seers and soothsayers at the Today program know what he's going to say later today. They get copies of such speeches, or at least the bits that Downing Street Managers want trumpeted, and the BBC obligingly goes and blasts it in my ear at 8am in the morning. Presumably their logic goes something like this (you can imagine John Humphreys or James Naughtie saying this if you want): "we get advance notice of things important politicians are going to say. We report on them. Later on in the day, the politicians say it and there is reaction. If we waited till the morning after, what they said wouldn't be news, we'd just be reporting reactions, so we have to report in advance". Or in other words: "we're happy to reiterate and trumpet whatever nonsense the people who appoint our bosses want to flap their lips about, under the guise of news, completely unchallenged. It's our job to be spokespeople for spokespeople".

The Chief of the Metropolitan police, someone you might expect to always weigh in heavily on the side of blandness in public statements, in a recent press conference about the alleged foiling of an alleged terror plot said the alleged perpetrators would have allegedly caused, and I quote, "unimaginable" devastation. Wow. Unimaginable devastation. I wonder what that would be like: say 500 people on the 10 planes, that's 5,000 people killed, and maybe throw in another 500 if these planes were downed over populated areas. 5,500 people killed. Whoops. I just imagined it didn't I, not so unimaginable after all. I can only conclude that to be a member of the police force one must have ones organs of imagination surgically removed (to use an Andrew Marr phase), in boot camp or Police Academy, or wherever it is that they go to be trained.

Anyhow, in times like these it's refreshing to go to a restaurant, particularly one in the Square Mile, and not have to sigh in resignation at abstruse descriptions and patent nonsense on the menu, but an encouraging menu maketh not a great gastro-experience. Getting access to Rhodes 24 in Tower 42 is a bit like going for a job interview. On a plane. You have to "check in" at reception, get a little green security "boarding pass", put you bag, brollies, books, and assorted paraphernalia through a security scanner, exchange pleasantries with 2 security guards, and then, leaving the glass fish bowl of the foyer behind, navigate your way through shiny corridors to the "B" lift banks for take off to the 24th floor (Rhodes on the 24th floor, see?).

First impressions are important. Boulet in New York, a 2 Michelin Star affair, had a softly lit entrance hall filled waist high at the sides with boxes of apples when we visited - an utterly wonderful aroma, redolent of Autumn and the country side, which just transported you as soon as you walked in the enormous arched wooden door - we instantly forgot we were in Downtown New York. The first thing you get inside Rhodes 24 is the stark acrid tang of cigarette smoke as you tumble into the bar, choc full of beshirted city types. The best views out at the Gherkin are, unfortunately, from the bar, so we gazed longingly out at it (one of my favourite buildings in London, it's like an enormous space ship when lit up at night) as we were whisked away to our table. Comfy seats, but we were posted beside some sort of lectern that the staff seemed to like congregating around, with bottles of expensive water, dripping condensation. The décor was passable, but I'm not sure I got the theme, if there was one. Somewhat typical for a dining room in an office block, but certainly nothing stunning.

We started with a very nice gin and tonic and house champagne which was pleasingly light. From the menu (see, back to my original point) much tempted, and the starkness, relatively speaking of the descriptions, augured really well in my view. Fish featuring heavily, we were in a more hungry mood and both opted for the scallops to start. An amuse guele of a cauliflower soup was, rather cruelly I thought, labelled "cup a soup but in a good way" by Piggly Wiggly. I know exactly what she meant, as the cream gave way to some sort of base stock, but I rather liked it.
Thereafter, 3 rather small but moderately tasty scallops (no roe: someone please tell me where does all the row go, because that's where I want to be), cooked to our taste (a little bit of jelly in the middle), but bizarrely, with salt added after being cooked (I could see the flakes). I can only conclude that the scallops were considered a bit bland, and so needed some salt - I agree that they were a tad bland, but was shocked that they would salt them none the less. The most puzzling thing, however, was the piped, sticky mash potatoes with a mushroom gravy as an accompaniment - ok in and of themselves, but did absolutely nothing for the scallops. What's wrong with a few crunchy bits of salad I say?

Anyhow, the Sommelier was quite helpful - our mains, which I'll come to - were meaty, so rather than compromise on the red, we got 2 glasses of a fascinating Riesling (Pewsley Vale, Californian) with a taste somewhere between boot polish, petrol, and old leather, and it tasted great to boot (haha) with the scallops. A bit of a revelation really. For our mains, I was sorely tempted by the fish, (seabass and monkfish amongst the choices) and ended up sorry I didn't go for it. Instead I opted for the oxtail and kidney suet pudding with beef gravy and parsley carrots, and PigglyWiggly went for veal loin with a macaroni cheese accompaniment. The suet pudding was good - my benchmark was the same dish in the Stags Head, Heston Blumenthal's gastro pub next door to the Fat Duck. While Rhodes' suet pudding was perfect (you could imagine the fluffy pud with some nice custard and a few sultanas) it was a very thick walled vessel for the oxtail and kidney. The beef gravy was an absolute necessity, as otherwise it would have been a major stodge fest. At the Stags Head, the casing was much thinner and the filling much more gravyish with lots more kidney. However, the kidneys weren't to the fore in Rhodes, but that's because they did have a slightly gamey tang (which I love). A very close call, but Rhodes shaded Blumenthal on the suet pud front, but I wouldn't go for either again to be honest. The parsley carrots were nice - but pretty much anything with that much butter is going to tickle your fancy. Cooked just the way I like them though, just a tad al dente. And the Seghegio Zinfandel (2004), a Californian effort, which was the Sommeliers recommendation was absolutely perfect with it - cut right through the deliciously gooey suet layers, with a nice berry flavour.

The veal, on the other hand, was a major let down - tough, unrepentant meat, with not much flavour at all, atop some wilted, defeated looking spinach. From my taste, I just couldn't imagine eating the rest of it. The mac and cheese was delightful, but I couldn't see how it would do anything for the veal. In fact, it didn't matter, because nothing was going to save the veal. Poor PigglyWiggly was devastated.

Service throughout was about adequate, but we were left looking at empty plates for what seemed a long time in between courses, but as mentioned previously the Sommelier guided us very well with his choices.

Normally, I would spend a long time rhapsodising on the dessert - however, the trades description act may apply here - I ordered a raspberry bakewell and got a plain old raspberry tartlet. All of the raspberry syrup, cream and peanut brittle ice-cream accompaniments in the world could not make up for my disappointment. Some tasteless decaf and a few petits fours later (the warm Dundee cake being a real winner), we were leaving, pausing only in the now cleared out bar (just because it's on the 24th floor doesn't mean the city types hang around - it's just like any other bar in the city in that respect) to take in the view. The bill came to 184 quid including a 12.5% service automatically added, which given the location, the clientele, the view and the fact that we had quite a bit of booze, isn't a bad price.

Compared to some other 1 starred restaurants we've been to (March, Peter Lugers, Alto, the Spotted Pig, all in New York admittedly) this was well below par. We definitely wont be going back, and my advice would be take your 180 quid and go somewhere else where yuo pay the same or in some cases less. For example: Morgan M, La Trompette, St. John's, The Wolsley (which is more spectacular really in an of itself, even though it doesn't have a view), Bibendum, or have a nice lunch at Clarigdes and go for a ride on the London Eye afterwards. If you want food and a view that is.

Craptonite.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the English really. I mean: to see all those St George Cross flags being desultorily taken down from the pubs and the council block windows, the Dunkirk spirit of the fans, as, noble in defeat, they take their baldy skin-heads out of the sunshine back in the dank recesses of the end of what was the English summer, as they heartily buoy their spirits by joking and laughing, and in general keeping up their upper lips stiff, and all.

I'm not sure that any people of the face of the earth have quite as many apt phrases and idioms to describe nobility in defeat as the English. I wonder what that means.

Nobody yet seems to have noticed that the thickly necked, potato-headded centre forward that ruined all their chances happens to be of Irish extraction. A subtle ploy? Revenge for Skibbereen perhaps, and 900 years of oppression, as England bow (not quite the right word, attempt a bow, stumble forward and bust their lip on the edge of the pavement more like) out of the quarter finals of a major tournament, again, on penalties. Was it planned all along, was it the result of years of Irish genetic selection, a fifth column of scouser strikers, waiting to, er, strike by not eh, striking? Far be it from me to start and internet based conspiracy theory.

Ironically, it is to another Irishman that I think the English need to turn in order to take this tragedy, and use it as a vehicle to take on board the lessons of Germany ought-six, and move forward to a brighter and better footballing future.

"But who Glen?", I hear you ask, "surely you must be aware that Steve McLaren has already taken over the reins as England manager, and that that decision is final, we can't just get a different manager in now - he must be given a chance".

Indeed, that hadn't escaped my notice.

"But, surely you're not suggesting Joe Kinnear (technically not an Irishman really, but a former Ireland international) should get the job instead, replace McLaren before he even starts?"

Nope, that that either.

"You can't be thinking of ex-Leeds hard-men Johnny Giles an Eammon Dunphy can you?"

Not them either, as it happens.

"Who? Please tell us, who can lift England from this Slough of Despond and rekindle our hopes for future footballing success?".

Who? I'll tell you who. Terry Wogan that's who!

"Eh, Tel-boy? Ehm, well, you know, we like him on the radio and all, but what's he got to do with football? Oh and in the Eurovision too...."

And that's exactly my point. What England needs is Terry Wogan commentating on every England football match whenever and wherever they play. You see my thesis is that you English just take football too seriously. What you need it that little lilting, wry, ironic Irish brogue of Terry Wogan, gleefully commenting your opposition out of existence - and if you win, sure that's a nice little earner for the boys in the team - and why not, sure don't they deserve it for running around like lunatics for 90 minutes - and if not - well you can have a good old laugh along with Tel-boy about what a dreadful funny spectacle the whole thing is anyway, and you never took it seriously in the first place, and "shur, will you look at them big brazillian eejits, don't they look like big ould Fifes bananas in blue shorts there ,running about like mad things. Sure if that's what you have to wear to win, we'd much rather have those nice fetching England white shirts, now wouldn't we....?". Or - "well, the poor old Portugese, didn't they lose their empire and their national identity - a trip to the semis will do them the power of good, and sure we can go there any time we feel like it - shur will you look at them anyway, the big portugese eejits, don't they look like a pile of little schoolboys in their big ould winey coloured shirts, running around like mad things. Reminds me of the old alma mater unifrom, St Concepta's school for young Limerick offenders, that I went to. Sure if that's what you have to wear to win etc etc".

We could even turn it over the the great telephone voting public of Europe and the world to decide who actually wins - just by the sheer volume of people that seem to phone in to these things in Britain (Big Brother and the like: apparrently more people voted in the evictions than voted in the last general election) you're bound to win (eventually).

Of course I may have my own, selfish reasons for suggesting that. Given Ireland's track record in the vile tacky schmaltz that is the Eurovision, we'd be bound to end up, at long last, winning the world cup. Now that's what I call revenge for Skibbereen.

But far be it from me to start any internet based conspiracy theories.....

It's funny cos it's true…...

The other day we took in hand
Some minor house repairs
With phase tester and a circuit plan
We headed up the stairs.

The awful lighting fixtures
In the bedroom, landing, hall
Were the targets of our strictures
Electrical and all.

We set about dismantling
The shoddy chandaliers
With dicely cantilevering
On our best new dining chairs.

And oh the sense of pride in doing
Such a worthy job
Rewiring and rescrewing
Every dodgey knob.

But then when we descended
And turned the breakers on
Our repairs haven't ended,
But begun with this song……..

Ohhhhhhh…….
Them zones them zones them, 'leccy zones
Them zones them zones them, 'leccy zones
Them zones them zones them, 'leccy zones
Now fear the circuit boards…..

Cos the bedroom's connected to the..
Bathroom
The bathroom connected to the..
Landing
The landing's connected to the..
Entrance hall
Now fear them circuit boards…..

Jon Stewart appeared to be genuniely apologetic to a Wall Street Journal analyst last night, rather unecessarily I felt, for not understanding why oil companiesare making so much profit with oil at $70/barrell.

The real answer is that, pretty much, many oil companies with access to substantial land based oil resources are probably producing oil for about $10 or $15 a barrel or so, I would guess. When I worked in the oil industry about 5 or 6 years ago, when oilwas trading at about $10-20/barrel and oil executives were gloomily reporting thatthe world of "$10 oil is here to stay", we aimed to get the cost of producing a barrelof oil down to between $7 and $12 per barrel.

Of course from field to field, country to country, tax regime to tax regime, whetheryou are producing on land or at sea, there are plenty of other varaible costs that take chunks of profit out of the barrel - for example many regimes will take a massive chunk of oil as it's produced at the well head. E.g.Saudi Arabia takes most of the oil produced there in taxes, whereas if you can produce hydrocarbons off the cost of Ireland, the government takes almost no tax from that to make it ecomonically viable. But these additional costs were ones that were already being dealt with before oil pricestrebled!

Regarding Bush's address to the US Renewables Fuels Association, and this whole bru-ha-haabout how shockingly high gasoline prices are, not only are the measures Bush announced to combat high gas prices nonsense, it's mostly his fault they are so high!

First, suggesting that the use of ethanol can put some slack back in the oil/gasoline markets. About 10% of all US corn went to make ethanol in 2004/2005 according to the USDA(http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf). Ethanol makes up a very small
percentage of US fuel supplies, and the Federal govenment provides subsidies of up to 50c per gallon to produce ethanol (http://www.distill.com/berg/). There's also a protection tarriff on imported ethanol of about 60c per gallon. Lifting that tarrif would be a good way to get cheap ethanol into the country and create some slack, but then all those enormous agri-companies that produce the corn that produces the (subsidised) ethnaol would miss out wouldn't they? Oooh, which special interest will I serve today - oil, agri-business or petrochemical?

In addition, many studies have shown that it costs more energy to create a gallon of ethanol than can be extracted from it (see http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm and references therein). Admittedly there are some studies, most recently one published in "Science", so reputable, that show the opposite, but the point is it seems controversial at least.

Another measure Bush announced, suspending deliveries into the US Strategic Petroleum reserves, is also nonsensical. This has no impact because such tiny amounts are involved in adding to the now almost full Strategic Reserves (700 million barrels as at August 2005 relative to it's maximum capacity of 727 million barrels, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve).

To put it in perspective, the US consumed 20.03 million barrels of oil PER DAY in 2003 (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html) and imported 10 million barrels of oil in the week ending 21 April 06 (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_w.htm).

Bush blames increased demand for oil from China and India for pushing oil prices higher. Very unfair on India, which consumes about one thirtieth of the oil per capita that the US does (at 2003 figures, see http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.htmland http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html).

Of course probably the main reason that oil prices are being sustained at their current high, (apart from refining capacity limitations), which Bush conspicuously ignored, and dare not speak it's name in the mainstream media, is the geopolitical uncertainty that his Administration has created i.e. uncertainty about interruptions to oil supply from countries like, oh I dunno, Iran and Iraq and possibly even Venezuela.

And as for Iraq, the oil ministry recently produced a report detailing the catastrophic neglect of Iraq's oil infrastructure, mainly due to one war and invasion, years of US and UK imposed sanctions, and, most recently, one illegal invasion (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4944814.stm).

Vanderbilt Hall, the great advertising annex of Grand Central Terminal plays host to such auspicious occasions as New York's Tartan Week (promoting Scottish Tourism), the World Women's Squash Finals, Bride of the Year and many others. None is more pretigious however, than the bazaar of the bizarre that constitutes it's Christmas Fair.

Passing though late last December, of an evening on the way home from work, I happened to note a large burly security guard, standing to post, guarding the rhubarb of sundry assorted paper weights, novelty ties, music boxes, geodes, scarves, string puppets, glove puppets, puppet puppets and you get the picture.

So anyway, I was wandering through and threw a friendly jerk of the head at this security guy, and noticed that his badges of office indicated he worked for, and I kid you not, Troy Security.

So I approached.

"How come you guys are still in business after that fiasco with the wooden horse then?", I inquired. He denied all knowledge while looking over the top of my head and not acknowldgeing me. "You know", I insisted in a pally, conspiratorial fashion. "Not a very good advert for your firm is it? I mean getting duped by a large wooden horse right outside the gates? Seems a bit obvious?". At that point he cricked the considerable bulk of his neck to his shoulder radio: "Control, we have a bogey in sector alpha-phi", and the next thing I know I'm spending 3 months in Guantanamo.

When I got out, I decided to look into the investigative findings of the "Troy Wodden Horse Commission", an enormous tome produced by the Senate Protected Un-Trojan Activities Comission, or SPUTaC, as it's known. Let me tell you the findings both shocked and shocked me. It was a trip through the looking glass into a murky world of myth, half myth (which is 150% myth if your counting), butterscotch rum flavour rippling, and the murky shadowy underworld of intelligence services and counter intelligence.

Well it turns out that the whole debacle resulted from a failure of the inter-operability of the intelligence agencies that handled security inside and outside of the Gates. The intelligence services and military where withall of one of the most ruthless and brutal empires the world had ever seen was simply taken aback at the sheer simplicity and callousness of the whole hide-in-the-belly-of-the-beast-and-pop-out-later idea.

Ands there was I thinking all along it as because they'd swiped Helen's behind out from under the greeks before there king could pork her. Yet again my overly simplistic world view has failed me miserably.

I'm currently working on a number of TV projects, that I'm quite excited about. I think you will be too:

First there's my series about a private detective that lives in a mobile home near the beach in LA. Generally he gets roughed up once per episode, has a lot of shady friends in the past that he can't refuse a favour to, that generally wind up causing him a lot of hassle. Many of these cases relate to dairy products and cheese related incidents. It's going to be called the Roquefort Files.

Then there's my new hard hitting gritty New York crime drama, about the crack squad of elite New York detectives who solve the nastiest and the grimmest of the 5 borough's brutal large vehicular related crimes. That's going to be called Law & Order: SUV.

Following on the insatiable public appetite for hospital programs, I'm working on an idea set in the Accident and Emergency room of a major hospital in Leeds, in the UK. In this one we see the complicated and inevitable sequence of events that lead up to each and every accident, getting involved in the lives of the people, and of course the lives of the A&E department staff. In particular, we'll be focussing on the sequence of events that go into each and every accident. That's going to be called "Causality".

Also, there's a new series which is a remake of an old one. Starring Edward Woodward, it's about a lone knight in a gritty modern urban setting, who, if you're lucky, you may be able to get a hold of to resolve some problem you have. He usually does this by making extremely articulate speeches at key moments in the show. The working title for this one is "The Eloquiser".

On a lighter note, going for the comdic angle, I have an idea for a laid back, relaxed sitcom set in the A&E department of a major hospital where the only thing anyone does is sit around and consume hearty beverages while disparaging patients and colleages. That's going to be called "Casual Tea".

Move over reality TV, the new wave is approaching.

The thing I could never figure out about Fourier series was: what are they Fourier than?

How low can you go?


Dear Mr Rugman,
Re your report of March 27th on Chavez in Venezuala: http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=2046
The overall impression this report carefully crafts is of a slightly crazy,
paranoid President tending towards dictatorship, bent on keeping power by
rearming and ingratiating himself to the population by giving handouts to,
for example cooperatives that are 'haemorraging money'.
I would contrast your report with that of Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain.
Their wonderful documentary shows a courageous Chavez returned to power by
sheer popular demand after 48 hours of a coup attempt. Who knows for sure
if the US was behind this coup, but it was clearly welcomed by them, as the
clips of the Whitehouse spokesmen at the time show. 'Chavez: Insdie the
Coup' is particularly interesting from a media point of view because it
shows both the extradordinary level of control of the media by Chavez
opponents and also the freedom that they have to do that. There is a clip,
for example, of a serious looking commentator who rasies the question 'Is
the President mad ?'. In addition they show what is actually happening on
the ground during the coup. This documentary constitutes a real life
experiment in how a business dominated media mis-reports reality to push the
population in a certain direction. Thankfully, this coup attempt failed,
despite the massive media propaganda.
So not only is Chavez not paranaoid, but he has every right to consider how
he should defend himself in the future! Let alone the general context of US
intervention in Latin America.
You protray him as making kind of limp gags. But his offer of cheap oil to
poor comunities in the US (which has been taken up by some) is, if you wish
to evaluate in those narrow terms, a stroke of PR genious.
What I see in Chavez is a courageous man doing a great job for his people in
the face of significant pressure from elite interests at home and abroad.
What I see in your report is an attepmt to throw dirt, an attepmt to smear
this man. It's true that in your report you do allow Chavez supporters to
speak, but the tone of the narrator is deeply condecending and patronising,
a constant tone of sneering running through it as if saying 'Just look at
this guy, why should we believe anyhting he would say ?'. I read this
report as the compliant mainstream media taking it's cues from the powers
that be to assist softening up the publics view of Chavez in preperation for
the day when the US eventually gets around to attacking him. Paranoid ? Might I remind you of tre recent similar case of media passivity in the face
of irrational build up to war in Iraq ?. Not to mention, I repeat, the very
well documented US interventions in Latin America. You provide none of
thisfactual context that would show Chavez's concerns about US agression to
be perfectly reasonable.
Sometimes I wonder whether journalists like yourself are just, as Dylan
wrties 'only a pawn in their game', or rather active manipulators. I think
though a better anthem for you all would be the chant of the Barbie dolls in
'Toy Story': 'How low can you go ? How low can you go ?' as you limbo your
way downwards, towards ever lower journalistic standards.
yours,
Robert Byrne.
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