Introducing... me, and my funny little blog.

I’d like to start this blog saying something clever and informed about Bacchus, or Epicurus, because I’ve got a feeling that they were two boys who knew how to enjoy themselves. Unfortunately that’s all I know about them, so my classical referencing serves only to illustrate my ignorance. Ah well, I am a simple man. My pleasures are many and varied, but those I think I’ll focus on are the rather odd trinity of sport, music and food.

Sport has always been a love, caught from my Dad and cultivated throughout my life. I’ve played with no discernable success, football being my soul-mate but I’ve had mucky little trysts with badminton, tennis, cricket, rugby, athletics and snooker. I’ve enjoyed them all whilst excelling at none. Where I have succeeded, if you’ll allow me to blow my own drum (mixing metaphors is another pastime), is in supporting. I am a first rate fan. I can talk semi-knowledgeably about all of the above sports, as well as cycling, motor-sport, squash, most Olympic disciplines, funny stop-start yank sports, darts and my grandmother’s favourite – lawn bowls. I buy the papers only for the back pages, listen to sports radio by habit and have my favourite pundits. I’m an inveterate recycler of opinion and fact, talking to friends and family for hours about tactics and personnel, as happy as a sports-hungry pig rolling in the muck of other’s achievements.

Music came along slightly later, crashing into my life with Nirvana, grunge, scruffy clothes and a guitar for my 14th birthday. My tastes slowly expanded to encompass reggae, jazz, funk, blues, folk, drum&bass, soul, country and hip-hop. I love anything that makes me dance, relax or, for the lack of a better phrase, has some sort of emotional resonance. I don’t believe you can say why you like something, the impulse of pleasure being so unconscious as to escape description. I just know that when I hear a tight funk rhythm, haunting folk ballad, skanking reggae beat or soaring jazz solo something moves within me. A sense of agreement, a feeling of correctness. Live music is the dream, but I like music to soundtrack as much of my life as possible – the ipod changed my life as suddenly everything I owned was available at any given moment. Why wouldn’t I want to be walking down the street listening to a Scottish sea shanty? How did I survive before I could? My own musical abilities somewhat mirror my sporting prowess. I’m an enthusiastic amateur. To play with people, round a camp-fire, in a school band or with friends is something that never loses its appeal. It’s an indescribable feeling when you’re creating music with others – an extra-sensory perception of connectedness. At whatever standard, when you play something well, as a group, there’s an elation that I’m not sure you can find in many other ways. To play to an audience, and earn their appreciation, is truly something else.

And food. My decision to include this in the blog is almost certainly creditable to my recent obsession with Nigel Slater. I love how he writes – his latest, ‘The Kitchen Diaries’, has been my bedtime reading for over a month now. His prose is possibly the most sensuous I’ve ever encountered – food erotica of the highest order. I’m a competent cook – I started young at home, contributing to my Mum’s dinner parties and trying to impress with my culinary mastery. I worked in a crappy Italian restaurant for a while, calling myself a chef when really it was cooking by very limited numbers. Subsequently I’ve mastered the roast dinner and various other staples, not quite intuitive yet but always trying to learn. Food, for me, is the most primeval of passions – a physical necessity taken to all possible extremes.