Alasdair Watson

The week’s book: In Search of Perfection by Heston Blumenthal

“What’s this, Alasdair?” you cry, “A cookbook? Are you changing your ways? Surely if you want to try learning to cook again, you could try something simpler than dishes created by one of the most finicky chefs in the world?”

No. I still can’t cook, and this isn’t a cookbook. It’s a 320 page book that happens to contain 8 recipes and some general tips about making food.

If you saw the BBC series, well, you probably know most of it, but it’s quite nice to have it flip through. If you didn’t, but you’ve heard of Blumenthal and are thinking “why the hell would anyone want his cookbook? Who needs to cook snail porridge, for god’s sake?” I should point out that the recipes are for traditional ordinary dishes. Roast Chicken. Spag Bol. Steak and Salad. The book is about how to produce the absolute best version of them that’s possible. This is a book about farming, about the role of food in society, about the ways in which science and technology are changing the way we do things. It’s entertaining and informative, and is very, very clearly the work of a man of passion.

This week’s music: Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys by Various Artists

Recommended by burge and stu_n among others. Ace. Utterly Ace. I could go on at length about the relationships between chanties, worksongs, folk and blues music, but there’s no point. There’s not a bad track on this, and some of the people you’d expect to be less than exciting are suddenly stellar – I mean, I like U2, but I’ve never enjoyed Bono’s singing like I have on this album. And likewise, suddenly Sting has produced stuff I really enjoy for the first time in years.

And y’know, a lot of it is complete filth, too. Which is always nice.

Highly recommended.

The week’s book: The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson

The Question: Will Bobby Henderson’s ID spoof sustain a whole book?

The Answer: Just about, but it’s a good thing it’s not any longer – the new material is indeed as funny as the site, but it’s essentially just playing on the same theme, rather than anything new. This was a gift, so it’s a little hard to assess if it was worth the money, but honestly, I’ve got enough entertainment out of pastafarianism as a whole to think that Henderson deserves some financial recompense for it. If you like venganza.org, you’ll be entertained by the book.

This week’s music: The Power of Pussy by Bongwater

I got one of the tracks off this from a friend in a compliation CD a year or two back, and loved it, since it sounded like very little else I’d ever heard, so when Emusic recommended them at me, I thought I’d grab an album’s worth. On the strength of it, I’ll be getting more.

I suppose you’d have to call this psychedelia, but I don’t like the term. This is bitter, sleazy, nasty stuff, collaging together spoken word, laid back guitars, samples and more normal singing, as they talk about porn and sexuality and exploitation. You might have heard their classic “Folk Song” before, a long bitter rant about well, almost everything. Like I say, they sound like very little else that I can think of, and they’re fairly clever. This is more than enough recommendation for me.