Silver Screen Suppers

For a while now I've been a quiet fan of the Silver Screen Suppers blog, written by a multi-talented friend of mine (let's call her Lya di Putti). The blog is about an ongoing project between her and a friend - collecting and recreating dishes from recipes attributed to movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Age - mixed in with episodes from her own often movie-star-esque life.

At the moment she's in the process of putting together a book of the best recipes (their stash now has over 4,000 so it's a big job) and she periodically asks for volunteers to act as test cooks and give feedback on how the recipes turn out. Since I like to think I'm a helpful sort (plus I secretly want to get into the book) I've tried a few myself over the last year: Veronica Lake's Spiced Beef and Peas, Gary Cooper's Buttermilk Griddle Cakes, Loretta Young's Walnut Loaf (in the picture above), John Wayne's Mustard Steak, Greta Garbo's Swedish Meatballs (oops, just blown my anonymity) and most recently Thelma Todd's Scripture Cake:

I'm not a great cook by any stretch: writing up my less successful attempts - the meatballs for example were a bit of a disaster - took me back to school science reports (an appalling experimental scientist, I was forever having to explain why my results didn't agree with theory). But it's been educational and fun, and there have been some real treats too - I've been thinking for a while that I should take another pop at Gary Cooper's delicious griddle cakes; Loretta's walnut loaf involved some interesting detective work and turned out surprisingly tasty; and Thelma's scripture cake was excellent (as well as being a clever Biblical puzzle to figure out the ingredients).

I've also been fascinated by the sparseness and simplicity of many of the recipes, which (alongside some baffling ingredients - for example, just what is the "spiced beef" in Veronica Lake's recipe?) hint at a time when people were more well-versed in cooking and baking: they already knew what a moderate oven temperature was without having to look it up, and didn't need every step or measurement spelled out in explicit detail.

The recipes themselves don't appear on the blog, so if you're interested in trying some of them then you'll have to either wait for the book, sign up to the Silver Screen Suppers email newsletter (front page of the blog) to get a monthly recipe (complete with video!), or offer to be a test cook. It's definitely worth a go if you fancy a culinary adventure, and you'll also get a mention in the book.

Now, where did I put that measuring cup...?

Walking in the Lake District

Just over a week ago I spent a very enjoyable weekend with my friend Ronan walking in the Lake District. We seem to have ended up doing something similar around this time of year for a while now; this time the plan was to go to the western lakes around Wasdale, spending the first day trying to climb Scafell Pike (the highest peak in England at 978 metres/3209 feet), and the second doing something a bit gentler before coming back.

Since it's a pretty long drive from here to Wasdale even without negotiating windy narrow and unlit roads of the Western Lakes, we set off on the Friday evening in a rented 4x4 (looking completely like tourists) for lodgings in Arnside. The town is on the southern edge of the Lakes, on the estuary of the River Kent (the north-east corner of Morecambe Bay); by the time we arrived it was dark and the estuary was a strange silvery presence alongside our walk to the Albion pub, oddly quiet and slightly magical: trains moving slowly on the distant opposite bank looked like travelling buildings in the darkness.

The next morning we followed twisty roads up and down hills on the way to Wasdale. In spite of the overcast and slightly hazy weather, the mountains of the Western Lakes were an inspiring sight - as was Wastwater, with the steep mountainsides appearing to plunge directly into the lake. Arriving at Wasdale Head, our attempt on Scafell Pike finally began - Ronan had picked out a less direct route to the peak that we hoped would be more scenic, and we set off. Even our gentler ascent involved some committed walking but we quickly climbed up the side of the valley (in my experience it pays to stop and look back from time when going uphill, to remind yourself that you're making progress). In spite of the wind and rain it was a good walk up - the paths are generally well maintained and we were rewarded with a couple of wonderful-looking tarns, which I could imagine swimming in later in the year:

Eventually though we encountered snow and mist (low cloud, really); the visibility dropped and the snow was often loose and slippery so progress was slower, but finally we reached 920m:

Sadly this was as high as we'd get - we couldn't see the obvious route to the peak of Scafell Pike, though on the map we could see it was close. Even so this remains one of my favourite moments of the weekend - stopping by the cairn we seemed to have been transported to an eerily tranquil place (even the wind was silent), devoid of landmarks or people. It was a little bit magical.

After the highs of course you have to come down! The ascent was tiring but fortunately our overnight accommodation at Rainors Farm (a really nice friendly B&B that also offers yurts - maybe next time - and which I would completely recommend) was very welcoming after all the walking, and an (ahem) "interesting" evening out at a pub in Gosforth rounded the day off nicely.

The next day the weather seemed a little more settled and we wondered briefly about trying for Scafell Pike again, before deciding on something a little less taxing - the mountains aren't going anywhere, and it was debatable whether my sore feet and legs would actually be able to get me there. Instead we walked up to Whin Rigg on the other side of Wasdale, with commanding views of the surrounding countryside out to the coast (including the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant), and beyond. Incidents involving Ronan's lost hat - happily recovered on the way back - and a tin of chicken soup added some light drama (or maybe comic relief?) but nothing we couldn't handle.

It's always a little sad driving back after a great weekend, but a detour through Morecambe took the edge off: nothing like fish chips, a view over the bay, and a chance to spend a bit of quality time with one of the town's most famous sons:

Bring me sunshine, indeed. What a great weekend!

New Year Swimming

Where did January go? It doesn't seem a month since I started the year off with the "Icebreaker Swim" (actually more of a dip) in the frozen-over lake at Manley Mere with two of the friends I met outdoor swimming last year. I'd thought after the OSS December Dip that it would be a lot longer than 3 weeks before I would be a) back in the water outside, and b) in a wetsuit, but in the event it turned out to be an excellent way to start the year. (It also persuaded me that it's time to invest in a pair of swimming gloves.)

Since then I've been swimming in the relative warmth of the pool, and working on my backstroke (which is starting to become a very relaxing stroke now that I can go mostly in a straight line) in between bouts of breast stroke and crawl. A lot of people are already making all kinds of big plans for epic outdoor swims later in the year, and as a result I'm feeling a bit behind already - so far all I'm definite about is an Art of Swimming weekend butterfly course (hopefully in Manchester, and hopefully using the voucher I got after my Scillies write-up got published on the Shaw Method website in December). I'm not so fussed about the smashing-through-the-water aspect of butterfly, but I've always been both fascinated and intrigued by the dolphin-like undulation of the stroke, and I think it would be fun to learn how to do it.

At the moment though outdoor swimming is still some way off in the year. I'm thinking vaguely about a Swimtrek weekend in the Lake District, but I think I'd also like to try some more sea swimming (like the Llandudno swim that I did last June, or maybe Burgh Island in September ... the danger of course is that while I'm still day-dreaming about them, everyone else has actually signed up and there won't be any places left by the time I decide to commit).

In the meantime I'm content to admire Hannah Booth's write up of her Greek Swimtrek holiday (and the accompanying pictures) from last Saturday's Guardian, and - at the other extreme - the amazing feats of people like Jack Bright, who's making a film about winter swimming. For now I'll remember Colin Hill's words from the December Dip, that the foundations for outdoor swimming is laid down by your indoor swimming, and keep on with my lengths while waiting for warmer weather.

December Snow

Last Friday night was another unseasonably heavy snowfall across the country, and on Saturday morning like everyone else I woke up to a bright white landscape. I know this isn't good news for everyone, but I still find a covering of snow to be a little bit magical. I suppose it takes me back to my childhood and memories of school being closed, the normal rules of life are suspended.

Buoyed by this feeling I decided on a whim I'd take my camera and go for a walk up to the park and round the river. These are places that I've been running through the past year, watching with interest how they've changed with the seasons, but heavy snow is something else again in the way it transforms our everyday surroundings. The familiar is rendered strangely unrecognisable: we can become disoriented as regular landmarks are hidden, while at the same time things that usually go unnoticed are suddenly revealed - or some cases not only revealed but transmogrified.

For example, just what is this?

It's a great opportunity to see the world anew, or at least just a little askew - even the familar Warrington landmarks can look refreshed with a silvery dusting:

As with all magic, the snow also has its dangers: travel can become hazardous and the everyday business of life can be disrupted. It's a reminder of how fragile the structures and routines of our lives really are, and of how little control we really have over them (and I'd rather be reminded of that by something gentle and relatively benign, like snow, rather than say by an earthquake). I think it's telling when people try (quite literally) to plough on when the sensible thing to do is just stop for a while. But if you are able to take time out then the world can suddenly seem like a friendlier and more relaxed place.

So even though I don't know if the snow will cause problems travelling back tomorrow to spend Christmas with my family, I'm feeling quite relaxed - I hardly dare say chilled in fact - about it. And even if all other modes of transport are disrupted, I know now that I might still have options...

Merry Christmas!

OSS December Dip: Plum Pudding Plunge

About a week ago I travelled down to Parliament Hill Lido in London to take part in the Outdoor Swimming Society's 2010 December Dip (aka "the plum pudding plunge"), an annual fund-raising event for the OSS. It's pretty simple: a bunch of people line up at the edge of the pool, jump in and swim, with the aim of completing two widths of the lido before getting out again as fast as possible. Brrr!

The Dip was preceded by pep talks from Kate Rew (the OSS founder) and two great guest speakers - Jessica Hynes (actress, writer and comedian best known to me for her work on the insanely brilliant Spaced - my favourite ever TV sitcom) and Colin Hill (distance swimmer and founder of the Great Swim series of events). Jessica spoke about her enthusiasm for the Outdoor Swimming Society's mission to promote having fun of all kinds in water outdoors (the society is very egalitarian: all you have to do to call yourself a member is to like being in water outdoors, although by signing up for free on their website you also receive a regular email newsletter); Colin talked about the psychology of longer outdoor swims, and suggested ways that indoor pool swimming over the winter could help prepare (a point that outdoor swimmers don't always seem to concede).

After the talks came the actual plunge. I'd swum outdoors in London almost exactly a year earlier, but that was in the heated pool at the Oasis - this time the water was an icy 0.1C (32.2F), and with patches of snow around the poolside to add atmosphere. All through the previous week I'd become increasingly aware of the cold, until even washing my hands in cold water had made me think nervously about the event; but as the air temperature felt relatively mild on the day I didn't really feel worried until the last few minutes before when everyone lined up by the water (and I tried not to think of the risks I'd read about cold water immersion - hopefully this wouldn't be the last thing I ever did...).

Everyone had their own method of entering the water, but after my experiences swimming the Scillies my preferred technique is simply to jump straight in (one useful bit of advice is to breathe out as you enter the water so that you naturally take an in-breath when you surface) and then swim like mad. The cold water made it difficult to breath normally and impaired my swimming ability (while also making my hands and feet feel literally as if they were encased in blocks of ice) so I was glad to complete my two widths and jump back out again.

Afterwards it took a while to get warmed up again but to help there was hot chocolate, mince pies, ginger wine and a very congenial atmosphere. I talked to a few people about where they'd come from and the kind of swimming they did, which was good as I don't really talk to many other swimmers - I think that outdoor swimming does tend to be a bit more social than pool swimming. I'm not sure that I had an immediate endorphin rush but I did feel extremely mellow and relaxed for the rest of the day, and that's good enough for me.

There are reports of the event online from Sky News (which has video footage, although you can't see me in it) and the BBC. In hindsight I can't say that I had a particularly definite reason for doing the dip, except that it seemed like a good way to round off 2010 as a year of outdoor swimming. I'm continuing to swim indoors (I rarely stop these days), but now I'm also looking forward to more outdoor dips in 2011.

Happy festive swimming!

Delia Derbyshire

Last summer I threw out a lot of my old cassette tapes as part of a big clear out, but amongst those that I kept was a recording of "Blue Veils and Golden Sands" - a BBC 4 radio play broadcast in 2002 about Delia Derbyshire, considered by many to be "the unsung heroine of British electronic music" due to her work at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s. She's probably most famous for producing the original arrangement of the Doctor Who theme music.

I kept the tape aside to listen to, before promptly forgetting all about it. In the meantime references to Delia kept popping up, most memorably in an article by Warren Ellis called "The Pops and Crackles of Vinyl Poltergeists" in Wired UK. In it Ellis talks about "hauntology" - a contemporary musical phenomenon which frequently references the often eerie 70's and 80's electronica produced by the Radiophonic Workshop. (As he suggests, tracks on Belbury Poly's relatively recent album "From An Ancient Star" sound like they could have accompanied "The Tomorrow People" or "Blakes 7", thirty years or so earlier.)

A couple of months ago the tape turned up again as part of another clear up, and this time I finally listened to it one Sunday afternoon. It focuses mainly on Delia's time with the BBC and her interest in "abstract sound" (in part perhaps inspired by the air raid sirens she heard as a child during the war), before she became disillusioned with the direction of electronic music in the mid-70's. This is cross-cut with episodes from her later life in the 1990's when a new generation of musicians (including Peter Kember, AKA Sonic Boom, played by himself here) rekindled her enthusiasm to return to music.

Given its 30 minute running time it's evitable that the play had to leave out a lot of detail about Delia's life and many of the projects that she was involved in, especially those outside of the BBC. However the dramatisation of how she put together the Doctor Who theme is fascinating - in an era before synthesisers, the process of creating these "electronic" sounds was simultaneously highly organic, extremely primitive and labour-intensive. Very ordinary sounds (for example plucking a guitar string or striking a metal lampshade) would be transformed by esoteric analogue equipment to produce other-worldly effects which were then spliced and looped on sections of tape.

To me the original Doctor Who theme still sounds incredible: haunting and slightly disturbing, like the universe that the Doctor himself inhabits. You can listen to it on the BBC website ("Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer"), alongside a number of other audio clips of Delia's work, including a couple from "Blue Veils and Golden Sands", produced for a documentary about the Tuareg people of the Sahara (the demo clip in particular gives some insight into how sounds would be transformed). Many more audio clips (including "Music of Spheres", which features a symphony of sirens) can be found - along with much more information on Delia's life and career (both of which sadly ended when she died in 2001) - at www.delia-derbyshire.org.

It looks like the play has been repeated on BBC 7 quite a few times over the last couple of years, but unfortunately it's not currently available on the iPlayer. It's definitely worth a listen if you have an interest at all in the history of electronic music, or are just a fan of the old Doctor Who theme, and want to learn more about the work of this amazing pioneer.

The Truth About Leaves on the Line

As frequent travellers will be only too painfully aware, one of the staples of British rail journeys are the intercom announcements by train managers explaining why the service you're on is now delayed, redirected, terminated, side-lined, or whatever. These explanations can vary wildly from the sensibly mundane through to the slightly surreal ("bovine incursion"* is one of my favourites), to the almost completely cryptic.

For me the most recent example of the latter occurred during my last trip back from Oxford: the train manager haltingly explained that the driver had been forced to use the train's one-shot sand dispenser to come to a stop at a signal, as a result of which we were no longer able to run at full line speed and there would be a further delay when we did finally make it to the next station. I'd considered myself a fairly regular rail traveller and I thought I'd heard everything, but this was new to me. "One-shot sand dispenser?" What was that all about? It sounded technical, mysterious and possibly a bit dangerous, and the next day I did a bit of poking on the internet to try and learn more.

Stumbling across an enlightening article from the Independent revealed the shocking truth: trains really do have single-use sand dispensers that provide emergency braking assistance when there's reduced traction between the wheels and the rail. These slippery rail conditions can be caused by moist fallen leaf debris on the track - the infamous "leaves on the line" - and it's become a more common problem now because today's trains use disc brakes. These are generally superior to the previous block brakes - but unlike block brakes, they aren't as effective in "removing leaf mould and other debris".

It was a bit of an eye-opener. I'd found the idea that fallen leaves could be a hazard for several hundred tonnes of passenger train a bit laughable, and the phrases "leaves on the line" and "the wrong kind of snow" just sounded like nonsense excuses for poor service. It's odd but salutary to find out after all these years that it was a real issue after all, although it's also indicative of how poor train operators are at explaining these problems - or maybe of how little the travelling public expect to be told the truth.

So aside from the specifics, I'm sure that buried somewhere (maybe under more fallen leaves?) there's also a wider lesson about trust and communication, which could perhaps be applied to other situations where technical problems have to be explained to a lay audience. It might be worth thinking about next time you're (say) stranded at Stafford station due to leaves on the line.

* Cows on the line to you and me.