Family life, funnily enough
We have put some more pictues of the kids up for November, including a bunch taken yesterday in Union Square on what was a balmy Thanksgiving Day.
Click on the picture below to see them if you’re already logged into the albums part of the site, or click on the picture and look for the teeny ‘login’ in the top right hand corner, which will give you access to all the kids’ albums. If you need a username & password, email us.
I’ve lived here a fair time now and one thing has been consistent since I’ve been here; the protrayal in commercials of the vast majority of men as dumb, pizza-chomping, pickup truck-driving, overweight, conservatively-dressed dolts. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not an accurate relfection of reality – how could it be?
Which got me thinking, why do advertisers do it? Admittedly this happens mainly on the major networks, which I rarely watch these days and when you’re in the proverbial 18-25 ‘demographic’ you probably don’t care much what advertisers think about you – I know I didn’t at the time.
But I’m not so naive to believe that they do it solely because it works; if every business only did what worked then there would not be so much need for competition that there apparently is. I think it comes down to the inherent conservatism of the US advertising industry (and presumably the people that hire them). It’s very much a business of bandwagon jumping, where one original idea is rapidly copied by all and sundry for fear of missing out on something, thus diluting everybody’s opportunity in the process. It’s certainly hard to understand how men could be motivated into buying a product after being protrayed as being too dumb to use it.
Still after so long, you’d think that one idea had run its course? Maybe the fact that I so rarely watch the things perhaps proves that it has? Too many questions, I know.
Anyway, a recent, but rare example of the press picking up on the same trend: Fatherhood activists protest TV ad mocking Internet-challenged dad
The notion of supporters sponsoring (i.e. paying for) football players kits is, a bit like testimonial seasons awared for loyal services, is a somewhat quaint (or nauseating, depending on your point of view) throw-back to the old days of football. That is, about 12 years ago. And in Fulham’s case about 8 years ago, when the players still allegedly had to wash their own kit.
But now many Premiership players get paid more in a week than many people do annually, it looks anachronistic to ask fans to sponsor their kits, which the club also plasters with a sponsor’s logo to help spread the cost, let alone sells replicas of it to further diversify their revenue-generating opportunity.
Still, that didn’t stop me stumping up 17 quid recently to be one of a group of people who have frequented (and in the early days helped foot the bill for) a website called The Fulham Independent and sponsoring Europe’s greatest goalkeeper’s kit. Given he gets paid 40,000 pounds a week and is likely to be sold in the January transfer window, it wasn’t the best investment I’ve ever made (450 quid a season, or 1.13% of his weekly wages). But it got the website and its supporters some recognition.
I’m NYCk in the list below (yes, they spelled it wrong, not getting the NYC reference, but there you go):
If you’ve ever been here before today you will notice quite a change from this post onwards. I’ve shifted the site from using Movable Type as the front-end blogging tool to using WordPress. I did so partly because of the shift in MT’s business model and partly because I never got my head around all the proprietary tagging it uses. WordPress is more standards compliant and is easier to use, I’ve found.
The style sheet comes from Ian Main, who submitted it as part of the WordPress styles competition, and pretty good it is too.
What has not changed is the photo albums at the back end. They are still the same and there’s links to them grouped under ‘Albums’ on the right hand side. Or here.
One day I’ll learn about graphics and do a better banner for the top, but that’ll do for now.
I hope you like it.
So despite being laid low with one of the two-week colds that keep coming back for more, I went to see Muse last night at Webster Hall, a tacky nightclub that has been putting on gigs for the past few years, returning its former role to supplement their income from ‘Girls Nights Out’ and the like.
Muse arenÂ’t like any other band that I like, in that they have what can only be called prog-prock tendencies. But they manage to keep their songs short (note to support band The Zutons: long Cream-esque jams for your last song have a tendency to make you forget the highlights earlier in the gig) and have more of a presence on stage than three blokes from Devon should be really able to muster. It struck me last night that they’re sort of a cross between Radiohead and Rage Against The Machine, though less political than either. The songs are more abstract, you know, apocalypse, death, that sort of thing.
Once you have played a guitar a few times yourself, you are forever saddled with the inability to never stop wondering, ‘hmm’ how did he do that?’ when seeing bands. This is heightened with Muse, who can all play a bit, to say the least. What sounded like sequencers on record turn out to be things they play on the guitar and bass, though in a couple of songs an arpeggiator of some sort was going in the background, but that’s OK.
One of the benefits of being a Brit in Manhattan is that you get to see these British bands that are huge in the UK and normally play arena shows playing in small venues like Webster Hall. Plus, it’s pretty sweet being able to walk back from the gig and be back inside my apartment in less than 10 minutes.
The former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock (the one before the one before Blair) was often lambasted for his verbosity and ultimately for his political judgment. But it was hard to deny his skills as an orator, often unscripted and unprompted.
On the eve of Labour’s crushing defeat in the 1983 general election – he became the party leader shortly after – he said the following: “If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old.”
If you add to that, the attributes of being gay (and having the temerity to want to get married), being poor, requiring an abortion, being a non-believer and a few other fairly obvious characteristics, then that’s kind of how it feels right here, right now. We’ll be alright, but that’s not really the point – is it?
As a disenfranchised taxpayer I have to remain merely a very interested observer, and living In New York, we are not exposed to some of the unbelievable stuff going on in states like Florida and Ohio.
But with all the craziness going on, it’s perhaps not surprising that MoveOn has felt it necessary to develop an election protection card [PDF] to give people advice about what to do if you’re democratic rights are being ‘interfered with,’ as it were.
All of which makes me wonder, how did we get to this point in this country (rhetorical question)? Anyway, here’s hoping its a smooth ride and is decided by counting votes, rather than which side has the best legal team and the judges on their side.
We’ve been extremely lax in posting pictures of the kids over the past couple of months, but we’ve put a few up in the October folder. As usual you’ll have to log in to see them so if you need a password etc, email us.
As it’s been a while since we posted new pictures, you’ll notice quite a few changes in both of them. Unfortunately we didn’t get time to take any of them in their Halloween get-up today before we had to change them out of them. but one was a priest and the other the devil. We’ll leave you to work out which one was which.
So this week’s cooking effort – well last Saturday’s, but I’ve been away for a few days – was a Torta Milanese. Presumably even those of us with no Italian skills can work out what that means? But a feature if it is the inclusion of sliced boiled eggs atop what it is already a fairly substantial pie. The recipe is in the extended part of this entry – click ‘more’ to see it.
It’s the second time I’ve made it, and this time I decided to do the roasted peppers myself. But it adds about 20 minutes to the process and is really not worth the bother – better off buying a jar of the things from the supermarket.
This was one of those recipes that was better tasting the day after – but is very nice piping hot nonetheless – and in fact could be eaten stone cold if need be.
Maybe I’ll have to venture beyond the safety of my pie haven into something more adventurous this Saturday, we’ll see.
Continue reading “Torta Milanese”
