HERE COMES THE BIKINI WHALE!

(musical accompaniment: surely you can guess...)

We didn't do much this week, but there's some changes to The Gaze:

The Gaze (v2)

• Added staticy synth part to the intro and middle.
• Re-recorded bass part (still not sure it's right).
• Softened kick drum attack.
• Changed 'face' to 'lips'.
  

The lyrics are still creepy, but they are going to change (Craig: "they're creepy, but bad creepy..." Which was kind of the point - they're meant to make you uncomfortable. The male gaze is not a positive force in the world. More importantly though, they're also pretty clunky, so; change is coming). Other than that I think this one's pretty much finished.

For food we made a parsnip sage and walnut risotto. It was nice. We followed it with a remarkable happy accident of a cake, which will be known from now on as Burnt Cake. I had done a batch of fairy cakes, but completely forgot to take them out the oven until at least an hour after I should have done. Bizarrely they actually tasted pretty good. Slightly dry, but otherwise completely un-complain-about-able, and with a nice kind of crust. I think I'm going to do it again, this time with some kind of spice(s), whenceforth they will be known as Spiced Burnt Cakes. It's going to be great...

Click to see the recipes:

More...
Risotto

• 2 parsnips
• some sage
• some walnuts
• 2 persons' worth of arborio rice
• 1/2 onion
• 300ml(?) stock

1. Sauté(?) the parsnips and onion in a frying pan.
2. Add the sage, walnuts and rice, together with enough stock to cover the rice. Cook for about 20 mins, adding more stock as needed.
3. Eat it.

Burnt Cakes

• 175g self-raising flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g margarine
• 3 eggs
• 1tsp vanilla

1. Put everything in a bowl, mix until blended.
2. Divide into 12 fairy cake cases.
3. Bake for at least 1 hour (probably more) at 160C. They should be brown (not black) when you take them out the oven.
   

Owen Hatherley recently did another tour of Glasgow, written up here. I love this kind of thing. Also, it got me to take a wander across to the People's Palace, which was most worth it (as you can kind of see from my pictures).

Honestly, do you really have to put cameras everywhere?

This weekend's Ludum Dare by the way, and I'll be taking part. You can follow my progress (or lack of it) here. I already inspired a motivational poster, which is more than I managed in the past two competitions.

Not from my people's palace trip, but this house is actually getting built! I would love to live in something like that. I don't care about all the stairs...

This building is insane. It was a carpet factory! (hmm, I do believe I have exceeded my exclamation quota for the week) It's as if it belongs to an alternate universe where factories were designed as, um, palaces (a quick google suggests most people think this is actually the People's Palace, not the building across from it. You can see why...).