14/09/2007 by Andrew Smith.

Okay, so I nicked this from Nigella… do I look like a domestic goddess?!

• Put powdery stuff in a plastic sandwich bag. I used semolina (really!), sesame seeds and garam masala… mostly because I mis-remembered Nigella’s stuff!
• Little squid. From the supermarket (got mine frozen in Waitrose).
• Push out the little tentacle-y bit (ie, the squid itself). Thomas enjoyed helping with this! (You can use these bits as well, but Jess didn’t fancy it)
• Slide the outside bit into strips (ie, to make rings). Drop them in the bag and shake (Thomas and I called it “tickling the bag”)
• Deep-fry the individual coated rings in very hot oil (we used sunflower) until they’re golden (no more than a couple of minutes.  Squid is only NOT tough if its cooked very quickly or very slowly - that’s the science bit!)
• Serve over a mixed salad (we like the beetroot ones) with a balsamic/lemon/olive oil dressing.

All done inside half an hour, utterly delicious and good for you, to boot!

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14/09/2007 by Andrew Smith.

Our elder son, Thomas, is a few months past his fourth birthday, when we gave him a bicycle. He loves his bike and almost every evening when I get home, he asks whether we can go for a ride. When there’s a suitable gap between my walking through the door and his bedtime (maybe half the time), I say yes and we got out for anything between 15 minutes and half an hour. We talk about what he’s done at school, which of his friends he played with that day, what we might do at the weekend, and sometimes I ask him to be really still and silent so we can listen to the birds that are just starting to roost for the night.

When we started doing this, we usually went to the same place (one of the two local playgrounds) but recently I’ve started taking him off on different routes around our neighbourhood. We always start off in a particular direction, playing a game of Pooh-sticks at the bridge over the stream that runs alongside the cycle-track, but I try to go in a circle rather than reach a point where we have to turn round and retrace our steps. At first this was just for some variety for me, but I realised how important it will become for him, over the next few years, as he starts going out around the local streets on his own and playing unsupervised with his friends. He can be the boy who knows all the short-cuts, and feel the confidence of knowing how familiar the area is to him.

Of course, it’s also hugely important to me; particularly since his baby brother George came along, I’ve tried to make special times to spend time just with Thomas. We’ve gone to the beach, to the zoo, camping and, our favourite, to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Thomas particularly likes to see the dinosaurs (of course) but I’m trying to introduce him to the assorted mammals, birds, insects, minerals and comprise the rest of the museum; we’ve even gone round the corner to the Science Museum on one occasion, although he could do with being a year or two older to really appreciate that.

So, “Daddy, can we go for a bike ride?” have become eight of my favourite words. If anyone asks you the same question, make sure you answer “Yes”.

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08/09/2007 by Andrew Smith.

At my jazz quintet’s last rehearsal, I screwed up my courage and did something I hadn’t tried for about 20 years… going straight from my jazzbox (Ibanez AF105FNT) into my amp (… ’80s solid-state Marshall 1×12″ combo!) without any intervening pedals… not even my required volume pedal!

While I did it for speed, I hoped to be wowed by the purity of the sound compared to my extensively modelled selection of sounds out of my Digitech GNX3 all-singing all-dancing pedal board. In fact, it was… good enough. I realised that I could get away with most of the songs in our set (mostly “lounge jazz” sometimes veering into MOR) without changing guitars (I normally use my Variax to do some songs on a “strat” or a “335″).

We’ve got a gig this afternoon, and I don’t think I’ve got the guts to follow through and do the gig direct. The main reason is the much tighter, clearer bass response I seem to be able to get from a modelled 15″ cab going straight into the Marshall’s power stage. Maybe I just need to spend some more time on tweaking the EQ on the amp… but not before this afternoon…

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