California to be precise. 48 hours to go…

I saw some Taunton photos on Flickr today and went to the blog of the photographer, she’s an American considering moving to Taunton or thereabouts with her family and is in need of some restaurant recommendations. They’re currently staying in Holford. Here’s my list of possibilities and observations:

Food options are tricky though. I’m not sure how long you’ve been in the country but (pull)there just isn’t the same culture of dining out like in the States(/pull). It’s almost always for a special occasion / celebration with prices to match. This changes the bigger the city, so the nearest gastronomical hub would be Bristol. It’s quite common to get “take away” meals from the Chinese restaurant or Indian, or, obviously, fish and chips (my favourite: on Kingston Rd, by Gladstone st.) though. For a good, cheap(ish) meals your best bets are pubs and the prices’ll be higher and portions smaller that stateside…

I forget the name of the one in Bishop’s Lydeard, not far from holford, but it has a skittle alley and does fine food. There’s only 2 pubs there and I think only one of them does food, The Bell?
The Blue Ball (at Triscombe Quarry, your side of the Quantocks)
Porlock: Lorna Doone Pub, nearish minehead specialises in seafood i think…
Taunton: You can’t go wrong with either of the Weatherspoons pubs: The Perkin Warbeck and the Coal Orchard. They often have special deals and their food’s not half bad at all. They also have well enforced no-smoking sections.
There are a few chain restaurants at the Hankridge development (where the multiplex cinema is)
The Merry Monk in Monkton Heathfield’s also good….
Plenty of Indian / Chinese restaurants down East Reach and for takeaways, near the train station on Station Rd..
The Swan in Kingston St. Mary’s just changed management and they’re out to impress with their food apparently…
Ooh, there’s a Mexican restaurant just off St. James’ street called The Old Gringo or somesuch. Which, though the food bears little resemblence to US or even Mexican ideas of what Mexican food is, is very nice but a bit on the pricey side.

Any other food places to recommend? Brazz has been done… And I’m not sure how 4 yr old friendly Henry’s is…

Also, what’s the difference between nondenominational and CofE schools. I can’t think of many in rural somerset except there’s maybe more singing involved in religious schools and prayers can be boring.

More or less packed and ready for the off… Comment away if you fancy any anglo goods being brought back your way in time for xmas/new year…

Also in the middle of making mashed potatoes for Victor & Jana’s belated Thanksgiving feast… Looking forward to going home for a bit, shall be taking it easy and posting bloggery nonsense very sparsely. Hopefully photos aplenty over at Flickr though.

Here’s the first official link to recently more or less finished amourfou.com.mx. Still a few minor glitches to iron out here and there, but overall I’m pretty chuffed wit how it’s looking.

Here’s me dad’s photo of some sheep up the road from where I’m headed, bit too early for snow prob’ly:

Yesterday I went round Amour Fou (soon at amourfou.com.mx) and jammed a bit with carlos. I played the mini guitar and Carlos was on the 10 stringed instrument thingy and singing. Here’s the mp3 of us. I’m basically playing 3 chords and he’s doing all the work. But it sounds well good if you ask me…

For reasons I may go into another time in more depth, today I had to go, in person, to some government offices downtown to prove that the bloke who owes 3 years of road taxes or somesuch doesn’t live here anymore. There was threats from bailiffs involved and this was the third warning apparently… Anyroad, Long story short, I sorted it out and went to McDonalds as I felt I’d earned it. And I’m glad I did because I took this here photo. I’m fairly near certain you don’t get a molcajete full of green chiles coming as standard in other McParts of the world…

You’ll either like this. Or you won’t. Probably the latter… Use the comments to enter into the debate

Bullfighting photos with a Flash interface. Won’t work for everyone…
List of links to the photos.
Cute Overload . com to redress the balance…

My first bullfight for the record. Still analysing my feelings on whether to go again… It’s a tricky one. I really enjoyed it on the one hand and feel there’s tons to learn about the long history and culture of the bullfight, on the other hand it does have many barbaric moments. But as a carnivore it would be hypocritical to condemn it. Before yesterday I’d never seen an animal die. Let alone 6 huge beasts in a row at extremely close quarters…

On a lighter note, “Olé” is pronounced differently in Mexico. In Spain it’s oh-LAY whereas here it’s OH-lay.

Pahrump, Nevada is where one of Sita’s aunts set up shop a couple of years ago. It’s basically a weird martian landscape with scattered casinos, incongruous golf courses and enormous industrially air-conditioned houses with gardens full of gravel and cacti (see photo). Anyroad, this article on a new law they just passed banning foreign flags does not bode well for its political future. Reminds me of when the kids in my Spanish class in California told me off for having flags from Spain, Chile, Mexico and the UK but not the stars and stripes. They’re only flags for christ’s sake…

Meanwhile, in Wales… Dragon Sausages must contain dragon meat. Normal sausages don’t have to be called Mechanically Recovered Offal and Rusk Bangers. Yet.

Just to another part of the city (near Plaza Bonita) but after a hastily put together excel spreadsheet of cost-benefit analysis decided against it… taking into account cancelling/recontracting services, removal vans, deposits, and the all important 4 extra flights of stairs it would have resulted in a grand saving of 30 bucks a month. Also there was no area for a BBQ, it would have been nice to have a bath though. Especially with waterjets. Oh the luxury. I would have needed to figure out how to waterproof the laptop though.

Anyway, deciding not to move, this month at least, is a HUGE weight off my mind. I’ve only got one more week in the big city before the US, UK jaunt kicks in which pretty much puts me out of action for a few weeks and after all the fun with plumbers, cleaners and fridge repairers in the last week I’ve learnt not to go making plans that involve short periods of time and heavy reliance on the Mexican service industry.

Today I’m working on some translation and shall also be hitting the travel agents trying to find hotels for Mum and Dad’s visit in Feb. We’ll all be flying into Cancun and from there on in it’s unbounded adventure.

Also working on Amour Fou’s website. I’ll not link to it cos I don’t want it indexed by search engines yet. But if you fancy a look (there’s only 20 dvds in the catalog for now, (Allen – Almodovar) it’s presently at agaveweb.com/amourfou with the blog at agaveweb.com/amourfoublog . I think the design stage is almost over, but the uploading of 500 odd dvd descriptions has barely begun…

Tonight, fiesta round Meghan’s. Tomorrow was going to be josé’s house warming but the Mexican Electricity Board had other ideas, so that’s off, Sunday… Bulls? Hope so because it’s been a while since I went out with me camara. Apologies in advance to vegan/vegetarian readers. And Morrissey…

Spanish Word/Phrase of the week:
“Me sale mas caro el caldo que las albondigas” roughly: The sauce is costing me more than the meatballs.
To use when you’re being shafted by service charges and such like. Eg when you’re sending a 5 peso keyring to California and the postage costs you 70 bucks.

(c) Mariola Zepeda 2006

(c) Mariola Zepeda 2006

For a fine set of pix from last night, check out Mariola Zepeda’s Flickr photos

He referred to the Smiths obliquely as a ghost who is always nearby but still gave it some welly with songs like Panic and Girlfriend in a coma. The crowd, myself included, couldn’t help but join in more with those songs rather than his relatively sedate solo stuff. He made the odd stab at Spanish with some, frankly, baffling dialogues seemingly influenced by his recent move to Italy. “Is there a Julia in the audience?” which is something to do with the police in Italian. (pull)Fair play to him for shouting “Tapatios” to the crowd though, we liked that.(/pull) And there was the requisite booing when he mentioned that tomorrow he’d be playing in Mexico City. Sita especially appreciated the changes of shirt with an average of 4 songs to each ripping off of silk shirtery…

Interesting backing band too, shaven-headed 25/40 yr old men forced to wear some bizarre dungaree outfit. They had the songs down pat.

Overall a fantastic concert and it was definitely worth arriving early to get to the rows where you could see every passionate expression. Even if it meant watching Eurovision clips from the 60s, New York Dolls footage and a Bjork/Kate Bush percussionist/keyboardist act named Kristeen Young.

The setlist via a source I will soon track down:

William
In the future when all’s well
Don’t make fun of daddy’s voice
Panic
Dear god please help
I’ve changed my plea to guilty
First of the gang to die
Disappointed
You have killed me
Ganglord
Let me kiss you
Everyday is like sunday
Girlfriend in a coma
I just want to see the boy happy
Life is a pigsty
Please please please
How soon is now?
Far off places
Irish blood English heart

Sorry about the sparse posting, been spending quality time with young Sita… Service as normal Thurs/Friday

Follow Sita’s little plane.

Rumsfeld out and a Democrat majority in the House of Representatives. Still doesn’t fill me with hope for a brighter future but it’s a step in the right direction. Here’s Steven Colbert’s take on it.

First off the good news. If you like insanely paced, utterly unbelievable, adolescent male wish-fulfillment films, Crank (2006) will be right up your street. I was feeling slightly sleepy, but it picked me right up. Jason Statham’s heart will explode if his BPM goes below 150 and spends 87 sex, violence, drugs and jumping around-filled minutes trying to kill the baddies before he expires… Excellent stuff. Snappy dialogue too… He’s goes to a hospital to get some Ephedrine, “I’m looking for something beginning with E”… “England?” asks the chemist. Fine editing and SFX. Never a dull moment… 4 Lulus.

Next up The Killers- Sam’s Town (2006)… not so good. As every review will tell you it’s a change in direction from their excellent debut album. I went right off the actual band after reading an interview in Q with the vocalist who came off like an immensely irritating git. Still I’ve never let my feelings about the members of a band change my opinion about the music. However this album is not my cup of tea at all. According to most reviews, they’ve rediscovered Bruce Springsteen as an influence, and that’s definitely apparent. not being a fan of the Boss won’t help you here, but worse still they appear to have rediscovered Meat Loaf too. And that’s unpardonable. 1.5 Lulus

No sos vos, soy yo (2004) was the only option at the cinema on Sunday night. A film about a fairly nasty break-up and the aftermath on one very sensitive young man. It was very tenderly observed and, though predictable, a nice little film. Even though I’m not sure about the redemptive powers of dog owning… Always nice to hear argentine spanish in the cinema though. 3.5 Lulus

They weren’t there again today. Sod it. I’m going to organise my own club, that can be my new year’s resolution. I’ll be 32 next year and if that’s not the age when one should settle down and start thinking about organised Scrabble, when is the right time?

Got my guitar back from “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” workshop downtown. It’s sounding fine again. I bought a high E string in San Juan de Dios and promptly broke it after trying to tune the guitar too high. They gave me another and threw in a polishing for nowt. Took a couple of photos of the shop, which looks the part. I’d not trust them with one of my more expensive guitars, mind…

 

A year ago or so one of the “machine heads” on me guitar fell off, so i’ve been tuning the other strings to that one since I can’t tune it at all. So it’s gradually been getting lower as the months go by, so that when I sing Shakira songs they sound more like Tom Waits. No more! I went to the city center with my guitar over my shoulder like some scruffy gringo mariachi and left it at a tiny little guitar workshop overnight. It’ll cost me 120 pesos (7 quid) but tomorrow should be back to normal as long as I can find the shop again… Actually I should find it cos I have their card “43 years of experience” apparently, and the geezer there didn’t look a day under 97. They’re listed on the card as El Bueno, Salvador, el Malo, Jose and El Feo, Juan… Hope it’s Salvador who does the magic. Even though he looked at my geetar and said ah they don’t make them like this any more, which i’m not conviced of. I got it 7 yrs ago in Seville for 80 quid… Any requests for more YouTube busking?

Also “rented” a bunch of DVDs… Crank (apparently the first 30 minutes is good), Ong-Bak in “El Nuevo Dragon” (chop soggy nonsense from Thailand), The Corpse Bride (this time not dubbed into Spanish, hopefully), Mi Vida sin mi (My life without me?, no idea what it’s all about), Cronica de una Fuga (Uruguayan director, Cannes film winner), Sra. Venganza (from the director of the excellent korean film, Oldboy), and Children of Men (I couldn’t wait for it to come out in the cinemas any longer). So this week I shall be mostly vegging out in front of the telly awaiting young sita’s arrival…

Couldn’t agree more with this bloke (woman?)’s article on corporations trying to be your friend. Travel Money indeed…

Almost as bad as my US bank, Washington Mutual, or WaMu as they now insist on being called… Christ

And a 15 piece Mariachi band has just struck up a rousing rendition of god knows what in front of the house opposite me. I love this country! And there goes song #2, “¡ay, ha, jaiii!”. Seriously, where else does this kind of nonsense happen?

And they’re still playing… I had time to go up on the roof, film a quick 90 secs, upload it to YouTube and post it here… this is costing someone big bucks… pesos grandes even. Maybe they’re getting off-peak rates…