Internet browsers and recruitment

I hate browsers, or more specifically browser specific applications. Two examples have pissed me off today.
firstly, a recruitment/request page wasn't allowing logons in safari, so I tried chrome. Same problem. Emailed the contact, to their credit had a very quick response, which said we've reset your password and you'll need to use IE.
Well fuck that for a joke. So I replied back saying thanks for the response, but I won't be recommending your company in our review.
Just after that I was on our recruitment page, also running a buttfuck useless java based system, which has decided to not let me on. *win* no really, I don't have to shortlist a bollocks load of potential minions by Monday. You just carry on with your abortion based system.
And an update: apparently my account had been marked as inactive, however changing it back to active has made no difference. WTF. Arse scratching monkeys could do a better job.

Cooking with Bruce: Carrot Cake

This is my carrot cake recipe, which is an amalgamation of 3-4 other recipes I've used over the years. It's bloody good.

Carrot Cake - Bruce's Recipe

Cake ingredients

175g soft brown sugar

175ml vegetable oil / sunflower oil

3 eggs lightly beaten

3 medium carrots grated

100gm raisins

grated zest of one orange

175g self-raising flour (gluten free is fine)

1t bicarb of soda

1t vanilla extract

1t ground cinnamon (ideally freshly ground)

1/2t nutmeg (ideally freshly ground)

100gm chopped roasted walnuts

Icing ingredients

75gm butter

150gm cream cheese

350gm (roughly) icing sugar

1/2t vanilla extract

1-2t orange juice (and any zest lying around)

more walnuts to sprinkle

1. Preheat oven to 180C, oil/grease cake tin

2. Mix sugar, oil, eggs, carrots, raisins orange rind

3. Mix in flour, bicarb of soda, spices. Mixture will be runny, stir in walnuts.

4. Pour mixture into cake tin, bake for 45-60 mins until it springs back. Cool slightly, then turn out.

Icing

Mix all (except walnuts), and when cake is cool, spread over cake then sprinkle walnuts over the top.

Whisky Cabal 9: where no bottle is killed

The gap between this, and the previous cabal meeting ( July 2012), conclusively proves we are incapable of organising a piss up anywhere. Sure, we'd made some beerfests and the whisky show, but cabal meetings? pah. useless. oh hang on, we had an unofficial one before xmas.
Due to the (un)seasonal snow, we were one drinker short, thankfully the remaining three were prepared to take some for the team. Go us.

As usual links for purchase go to our favourite lads at Loch Fyne Whisky. We've got to the point where we run bets on how quickly they'll get our order in the post, 6 hours has been the worst, and generally its 1-2 hours. These people understand our need for booze.

You'll notice our usual range for gradings. This is related to one of our number who complains about standardisation, and is at heart, a contrary bugger. Impressively, it's not me.

Harris 12yo Cask 4519 183/260 : Blair Athol : 58.6%

Nose: PVA glue, bourbon, ester-y
Palate: fighting yet smooth, sweet, citrus, fizzy, 80s sweet, oak
Finish: warm, honey, smoke
7-8 /10
Addition of water made it less fighty, but didn't really change the flavour of rating. An interesting dram, quite drinkable, but possibly bottled a little young?

Blair Athol is the mainstay of Bell's, but don't let that put you off.

G & M Mortlach 15yo 43%

Nose: meat (?), sulphur, egg, wet heather
Palate: warm, sherry, light, lemon, lilac sweets
Finish: short
6.5 - 7 /10
We like Mortlach, and the 15yo is a great easy drinking dram. Not very sherried (for a Mortlach), but it's a great introduction to good whisky.

G & M Mortlach 21yo 43%

Nose: sherry, spicy, honey, leather, salt
Palate: chocolate, honey, cinnamon, fruit, cakes
Finish: warm, lingering

8.5-9 /10
Ahhh yes, that's more like it. I repeat this story too often, but the first real whisky i bought was the 21yo Mortlach. I was at the whisky shop in Heathrow and the final call for our flight, Frances was dragging me out, and I was about to buy the 15yo as I'd just tried that, and the guy said for an extra fiver, get the 21yo. He was right. Very very right.
I do like my Mortlach. The two SMWS bottles in my cupboard support that thesis.

Glendronach Cask Strength 54.8%

Nose: sweet sherry, condensed milk, caramel, leather in a sports car (sorry, that was mine), butterscotch, xmas, ginger, lemons
Palate: sultanas, coriander and tandoori, aniseed
Finish: medium-long, very tasty, long warm, apples/sultanas
9/10
Yes, all three of us agreed.
This is a bloody stunning dram. Go forth young 'uns and buy, a bargain at just under £50.

Longrow - Rundlets and Kilderkins 51.7% 11yo

Nose: salty, bacon, smoke, reminded me of the 16yo Lagavulin
Palate: honey, salt, warm, peaty
Finish: long, salt, long standing tingle
8.5 - 9.25 /10

Don't ask about the .25, just don't.
This is year 2 of the R & K range, last year was the Springbank (also favourably reviewed here). The advantage of the smaller casks is that the whisky matures quicker as more liquid is exposed to the oak, and so picks up flavour quicker. Very very nice whisky, island-like without being overpowering.

Arran 53.9% Cask 1968 21 / 263
dist: 11/12/96  bot: 1/10/12

Nose: sweet tea, sherry, dessert wine, nutmeg, spices
Palate: aniseed sherry, wow
Finish: very very long, warm, happiness
9/10

The Arran distillery has become a bit of a favourite, there was a concern they were bottling a little young - but they are definitely hitting the sweet spot now. This was an utter corker. And yes, all three of us agreed. Twice in one evening.

Cask Strength and Carry On: Benriach 22 / 296 16yo 55.2%
Dist: 1996 bot: July 2012
Nose: sherry, salt, xmas cake, lemon/lime,
Palate: chilli, aniseed
Finish: long, spicy, fiery

7-7.5 /10
This from great lads at the Cask Strength blog who are aiming to work their way through the alphabet (C, for Cutty Sark, has just been released).
We liked this, but it suffered a bit following two blinders, it seemed a little vigorous to me - maybe it needed a few more years in the cask? Wouldn't turn down more of it tho'...

Talisker Storm 45.8%

Nose: salt, bacon, smoke
Palate: sweet, prawn cocktail, raspberry
Finish: short, peppery
6,7,8 /10
This divided our group, we'd all been looking forward to trying it. Especially me, after my recent conversion to Talisker at the Whisky Show (admittedly their 25 and 30yo expressions).
I gave it the 6, as I found it one-dimensional. It's good for what it is, but it lacked anything after the initial flavour hit.
I'll still try more Talisker, as those old ones were winners.

Port Charlotte PC10 59.8% 

Nose: phenol, salt, smoke (but only a little)
Palate: sweet, Fuck, huge, salt, honey, tangy, citrus, pepper
Finish: long, salt, pepper

9.5 - 10 /10
Yeah, they've done it again. It's a stunner. Absolute belter. We kept this as the last whisky as we knew it would cut through anything else we'd had. And it did. Bloody hell it's good. And scary. No links as it had pretty much sold out before release (make me an offer if you really want a bottle...)

B

Cooking with Bruce: salmon with honey lime chilli glaze & white bean salsa

Righto, this isn't one of mine. This comes from the lovely kiddiwinks at Cuisine, and it's damn good.

Barbecued side of salmon with honey lime chilli glaze & white bean salsa

We had it the other night, and it's full of tangy mexican goodness, chilli, lime, salsa, hell I felt like diving over fences or setting up a cartel.

One probable reason why it's so good, is that it's Al Brown's. Go Al. 

Recipe here.

B

Like Jesus

in the spirit of the suffering of jesus at easter, our household has embraced the season. rather than risk tetanus, we've got for a more modern approach. food poisoning. brilliant. 

my immune system took the pragmatic approach and collapsed early, so i'm now fine. S's took on the bacteria, fought a valiant rear-guard action, and has now succumbed.

this has, needless to say, cut severely into chocolate, beer, wine, whisky, and hot x-bun consumption. 

coming soon: another cabal review.

b

Wind farms, activists and illness

In so many ways, win.
The greatest cause of wind farm related illness (stress, sleeplessness etc etc), is apparently activists playing on peoples fears - not the windfarms themselves.

Brilliant. Read summary here.

me

Cooking with Bruce: Red kidney bean daal

I found this one in an Aussie vege food magazine, but I've edited things a bit. Mainly as I see no reason at all to buy raw lentils and kidney beans, and cook the bastards for days on end to make them (slightly) softer. So buy them precooked. It just makes sense.

One thing that kinda pisses me off about being [mostly] vegetarian is the expectation that you love lentils. In general, I hate lentils. They're boring, generally poorly cooked, and have only been interesting here (note the Rush t-shirt!):


Red Kidney bean daal
packet/tin red kidney beans 250-300gm (ish)
packet/tin lentils 250-300gm (ish)
1T chilli flakes
1T coriander powder
thumb size grated fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 stick of cinnamon
10 cloves
1t cardamon
250gm [ish] of chopped tomato
50-60gm unsalted butter
75ml cream

Drain and rinse beans, add chilli, coriander, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and tomato and slow cook over a low heat for an hour (I guess...). If it gets dry, add water. stir occasionally. Add cream and butter and cook for 10-15mins stirring occasionally, remove the cinnamon stick. Serve over rice, naan, or other stuff.

btw: for the girls-blouses out there, I'd suggest pulling the chilli down (this probably applies to most of England too, given what I've had described as 'hot', pah!).

Love, B

Cooking with Bruce: Cupcakes

I know, it's all a bit trendy. Sorry.
I was wandering into town yesterday and came up with, hey I've got spare pomegranate seeds (as you do) and some limes. Those would work well together.

As usual, these measurements are guesses..but you can use gluten free flour and they taste good.

60gm unsalted butter
2/3c caster sugar
egg (beaten)
2/3c flour  [gluten free, eg rice, is fine]
1t bicarb of soda
75ml (ish) sour cream
pomegranate seeds
zest of lime

Cream B + S; add egg and smack it around until fluffy, add everything else. Put into either paper cases or greased muffin tin, cook for 20 mins at 180C.

B

Mea Maxima Culpa - the movie, and a rant

I’ve spent a portion of my Saturday watching a documentary on catholic priest child abuse. There's a dearth of good docos in Loughborough, the local cineplex catering for the masses, so rather than wait for curzon on demand, I wandered along to Mea Maxima Culpa.

A harrowing exploration of the systematic abuse of deaf children at a Catholic school for the deaf in Milwaukee, specifically by Fr. Murphy.
It was a legal challenge relating to this abuse by Fr. Murphy that led to the uncovering of the Irish child abuse scandals, and realization that the church had known of them for a long period of time. Interestingly a line in the movie suggested the church has documents of abuse stretching back to the 4th century. Their response to allegations appeared rooted in an older age, hide, deny, attack, and never admit. Although the church refused to offer their viewpoint to the documentary, it is unlikely to directly contradict evidence from a former (bishop??) who  at least was concerned by the impact on the victims - something rare by the evidence presented. Sadly he was undone in the eyes of the church by his admission of homosexuality, even though his was a relationship with an adult with no suggestion of impropriety.

No-one in the holy see came out of this looking good, and if even half of what was alleged to be known is true, then Pope JP and Bene appear highly complicit in the coverup.

Here's the trailer:


But it got me thinking. I'm not saying atheism is the correct choice for everyone, but one thing it does do is encourage criticism, whereas organised religion places certain individuals in positions of absolute power. And that seems wrong to me. No one is infallible, failure is the one constant in humans. But a continued mantra of priests are better than lay members offered an opportunity to abuse on a grand scale.
There was some effort at redemption by the group, but I was struck at how it appeared a self help/anonymous group. An argument was advanced that the litigants (remember this was America) were trying to reclaim the church for the people, an interesting humanist perspective.
Complicating matters is the legal position of Vatican city and its position as a state -an invention by Mussolini for support of his fascist party. Fascinating stuff.

So what should they do? Well transparency would be nice, but is unlikely to happen. A truth and reconciliation commission?? Could be a start. Indict pope bene - couldn't hurt. It would be nice to wake people up to the realization that papal infallibility is as real as political integrity.

One glaring point not explored was the stupidity of not enforcing the separation of church and state. I don't want to go all socialist on you, but separating the two helps critical thought. Which is why I am completely against faith based schools and academies. How can you teach critical thought if you are having to teach it with the understanding that Jesus was conceived by a virgin birth, or that Mohammed was the last prophet of god. Ridiculous.
It’s very hard to teach evolution if your default answer is ‘god did it’. For one thing, it prevents a full understanding of the complex issues of DNA change and subsequent inheritance.

I’m not against Michael Gove’s restructuring of the education system here, some of the monkeys I’ve had to deal with certainly argue that it needs it (no more so than in NZ tho’). But allowing academy’s to be faith based schools seems will produce a herd of non-critical, blind, and indoctrinated faith fodder. How, and I ask this in all seriousness, can a faith school of actively teach an intelligent and rational critique of another denomination - given they’re historically so loving and caring.

Aside from my rant, the movie was excellent. Go see it.

B

6 nation week 2

Pah. Stupid pointless exercise picking anything.

Wales look crap, and they've lost their captain for this week. Ireland looked better than expected with B O'D, and England looked quite good. And that really hurts saying.

So this week, pointless as it may be.

Scotland v Italy : Should be close this one. I'd like to back Scotland, but given Italy's effort last week? A draw would be good, but in a fit of stupidity, Scotland by 5.

Wales v France : France should have this. But again, could be very very close. France by 3.

England v Ireland : England by 12. I don't think Ireland can deliver again.