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:

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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...).

Everything that is wrong with the world can be fixed with the addition of a canal

I'm afraid we didn't get together this week as a result of another terrible temp job (I quit in the end - first time I've ever done that), so here's a big post of photies to make up for it:

I think that qualifies as bruise-coloured...

So there was no get-together last week due to me being completely flattened by a crappy temp job at the SECC (promptly followed by a particularly nasty bout of the flu on Sunday - it's fun being me). To keep you going (till Friday?), here's some photos. I'm deeply in love with the light in this city...

Surpass the Impossible and Kick off with Momentum!

Sorry for there being no post last week - Craig said he was going to do one and then didn't. Boo Craig :(

Anyway, I just started re-watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan, and made myself a motivational poster:
I love Kamina's ridiculous self-belief (and the way its basically just a series of constantly escalating battles, ending with one where they fight the universe itself - because once you've beaten up a planet, where else can you go?). I also love how the buildings all have faces - imagine a city where all the buildings were anthropomorphised, each with it's own personality, and choosing where to live was more like choosing a pet(?) than weighing up the location, amenities etc. That's something Calvino never considered (I think?).

One day I intend to write a book (or a film, or a game, or something...) that mythologises Glasgow - the city coming to life as an enormous sentient creature; buildings growing limbs and consuming their occupants; feral children racing along the tenement rooftops, more fox than child; red Clydeside roaring back to (un)life, the ghosts of all the workers betrayed by Churchill, Thatcher (etc.) streaming onto the streets to reclaim their city. And it would have to be set in winter, when the sun hangs so low and casts that incredible yellow-gold light across the city. The point is, you walk in New York or London, even Edinburgh, and you're walking through all sorts of myths and stories - these are places that get used in films, books, music all the time. But to my mind, Glasgow only really has a few such stories (No Mean City, maybe Lanark, the sickly sweet stories in Belle and Sebastian songs...), despite its incredible potential. That's what the council should be spending its money on - a mythology - not the commonwealth games, or all those horrifically ugly buildings down by the river.

So, um, took a bit of a detour there. What I meant to write about was what we did on Wednesday. Which was:
A butternut squash, tofu and pea curry. Also;
Where's My Cake?
As usual for the first sketch of a song of ours, it's very sketchy. I don't like the sound of Craig's buzzy guitar in the second part, or the way my bassline and his buzzy part there are so repetitive. I also think we've used that initial chord as our initial chord in quite a few songs now. Time for a new chord!

Click to see the curry recipe:
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• 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1tbsp thai red curry paste
• 250g butternut squash
• 225ml vegetable stock
• 200g coconut milk (can)
• 3 kaffir lime leaves, bruised
• 100g frozen peas
• 150g firm tofu, diced
• 1tbsp soy sauce
• juice of 1/2 a lime
• finely chopped red chilli to garnish

1. Heat the oil in a wok, add the curry paste and stir-fry over a low heat for 1 minute.
2. Add the squash, stir-fry until coated with the oil/curry paste.
3. Add the stock, coconut milk and lime leaves. Bring to the boil, and simmer gently for 15 mins until the squash is cooked.
4. Add the peas, tofu, soy sauce and lime juice, simmer for 5 mins until the peas are cooked.
5. Serve in bowls, garnish with the chilli.

Finally, the best game I've played all month: