America's big problem

This is the food consumed and the price paid in one week by an average family in:

Sicily - $260.11

United States of America - $341.98

Chad - $1.23

There is a kind of double shock that comes from contemplating these pictures. Obviously it is shocking that the African family does not have very much food to eat. But then neither does the American family! And it cost them 300 times as much money. In fact it's difficult to see in such small pictures but the Americans don't appear to have any food at all! Or is that two apples I can just about make out?

Michael Pollan's 7 Rules for Eating

Dancing 2008

This guy seems to know how to have a good time...

Cats Who Eat Runner Bean Plants

Google has rarely let me down. A few weeks ago I used it to successfully diagnose a neurological condition in a friend which was of such rarity that the senior neurological consultant in Nottingham had only seen it twice before in his career. And I am not a doctor.

Google is silent however on the matter of cats who eat runner bean leaves. Either Ernest (pictured) is unique in this respect or nobody else has thought to document this remarkable phenomenon. I'm therefore committing this information to the blogosphere, partly as a service to other bewildered cat-owners (you are not alone) and partly to see how quick Google is to pick it up.

Every year I grow runner beans in some pots in the back yard and every year the young plants are systematically murdered by our supposedly carnivorous friend. At first I suspected slugs or some exotic pest of the insect tribe but Ernest is now exposed as a secret vegetarian.

He doesn't just nibble the leaves round the edges - he is quite capable of taking nine or a dozen whole, fully formed, leaves at a sitting and polishing off the lot. I have never seen him take an interest in any other plant in the garden.

I am now seeking an exceptionally fast growing variety of runner bean which, if it can raise its main leaves to 24" off the ground (Ernest's height at a full stretch) in a single day, may stand a chance of survival and a fruitful life.

Higoi

I remember when Higoi first opened my thoughts ran as follows: A classy Japanese restaurant in the heart of Studentland? - I give them a month, tops. Tonight, twenty years later, I decided to go back and find out why they are still there.

The Japanese are masters of miniturisation and in the compact Higoi we were served a multitude of tiny dishes by a very small waitress. We went for the Kaiseki set meal at £27/head which seemed to cover a fair ammount of ground from the a-la-carte. The menu is somewhat cryptic, offering dishes such as "steamed food", "simmered food" and even "vinegar food." At our asking the waitress did attempt to elaborate, but sadly all the Japanese I learnt by watching Shogun could not help me.

The food is beautiful to look at, as you would expect. It's more interesting than the standard conveyor-belt, shopping-mall sushi that has become ubiquitous. But it's just too damn small. I saw a television programme recently which attempted to explain how to live to 100 years old. Apparently the Japanese have a tradition that one should "eat until you are 80% full" which accounts for their extraordinary longevity. Anyone who ate at the Higoi every night would probably live to 200, or perhaps it would just seem like it.

The vegetable tempura with the main course was probably the highlight, though the main dish itself was a thumbnail-sized piece of salmon. Dessert was fresh fruit and ice-cream, vanilla ice-cream. I mean, they could at least have gone for green-tea flavour or something a little bit different, but no...

£27/head was shockingly bad value for money. I am at a loss to explain their success.

Alan Silitoe at the Broadway

After Lawrence I suppose Alan Silitoe must be Nottingham's most famous writer so it was pretty much obligatory to go and see him in conversation at The Broadway followed by the film of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. At 80 he cut a sprightly and dapper figure full of good humour and interesting anecdotes.

The story of how Saturday Night and Sunday Morning came to be written was startlingly at variance with the image in my own mind. I had Silitoe scribbling by candlelight in a back-to-back Radford terrace after a hard days grind at his lathe. The truth is that he received a handsome pension from the air-force at the age of 21 and retired to Majorca to write among the orange groves.

It must be twenty years since I last saw the film and what struck me on this occasion is that I never previously noticed what a superb piece of cinema it actually is.

Polish Sourdough - 1.1

I followed the recipe exactly this time and it was a complete failure - not even a hint of sourness. For 1.2 I am going to feed and warm the little beastie until it goes off. And if that doesn't work I'll make it with milk and leave it on a radiator until the whole place stinks. I've also bought some rye flour to try, though I suspect that will only affect the texture and consistency.

Polish Sourdough - 1.0

My first attempt at sourdough was borderline success. The consistency and crust was good but somehow it lacked the real bite and bitterness of the bread that I remember. There are a couple of things I think I may have done wrong.

My starter sprang into life with such vigour that I decided not to feed it or refrigerate it and when the time came to use it, it had developed a hard crust on top and apparently ceased to ferment. I could not understand the logic behind the feeding regime described in the recipe, so I decided to change it. A mistake evidently, recipes are sacred things.

On to version 1.1...

How to lose at online poker

Like everyone else it seems, I have been swept up by the online poker boom. As a graduate of mathematics and psychology I'm suprised that it took me so long to get involved. I've got to the point now where I can pretty reliably get into the money on a $10 PartyPoker single table sit & go.



Last night I was playing just before bed time in a tournament which was going pretty well for me. We reached the bubble with me the overwhelming chip-leader and I was sitting back and watching the unseemly scramble for third place. Every now and again I would step in to crush someone's hopes with a brutal all-in just to show them who was boss but mainly I was just watching. I was pretty confident that little short of an earthquake would prevent me getting in the money.

Then there was an earthquake. I've never experienced anything quite like it. I was on the top floor of our 3-story house and could barely stand as we shook from side to side. There was a horrible crashing sound of what sounded like the chimney collapsing (actually just debris falling down inside it) and I ran downstairs and out into the street. My neighbours were congregating in the street in various states of undress and distress. We shared our stories and I embraced a trembling girl from the student house next door.

Then I went back to my game. I arrived just in time to see the big blind send me to the rail in fourth.