Henrik Lantz

I may have died and gone to heaven. While Norm was out for a driving lesson, he gave me the keys to his flat and pointed me towards the previously mentioned Tesco store, and though it may be hard to believe, it was actually bigger than the one in Loughborough. What’s even harder to believe is that I only spent 17 pounds in there (Compared to 70 during the Christmas break!) - but as I am flying no-frills, I don’t want to end up having to pay for excess. Also, I might have been a bit better at checking sell by-dates this time, and I skipped the chocolates completely.

So what did I end up with?

• Fray Bentos Minced Beef & Onion Pie
• Fray Bentos Steak & Ale Pie
• Wall’s Pork Sausages (Classic)
• Wall’s Pork Sausages (Sage & Onion)
• Smoked Back Bacon Rashers
• Taramasalata (Just for the hell of it)
• 3 x Peperami Noodles
• Lemsip Cold & Flu Blackcurrant
• Walkers Quavers (10 Pack)
• 3 x Cheese Singles (Hard to get in NL)
• Cheshire Cheddar
• Double Gloucester Cheddar
• Red Leicester Cheddar

My friend Norman, whom I am visiting in Manchester, asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to do when I was there, apart from the gig. I said that the only thing I’d really like to do was to stop off at a supermarket to stock up on some English foodstuffs (pretty much all of the stuff I bought over Christmas is gone, I have a steak&ale pie and some pork sausages left) and his response came back, vintage Norm:

There’s a massive Tesco across the road from me flat.
I always get stuff I don’t mean to.
Like the last time I went in was for fabric softener, but I bought a whole chicken.

On Thursday night I am seeing Depeche Mode again, this time in Manchester. The set list is repeating through my MP3-player since about a week and it’s gonna be a great show, I am sure.

(aka GetALife)
The previous post was the first one posted straight from my smartphone. How cool (or sad) is that?

Today was my last appointment at the dentist; or rather at the hygienist. Claudia spent 45 minutes hacking, scraping and generally causing me pain; but overall she seemed like a nice person. The end result is at least that I am now done for this round. My mouth is whole and sparkling clean. Feels nice.

• Sending SMS:es with a full QWERTY keyboard beats T9 any day.
• Using my home WLAN to surf from the phone.
• Checking my Bloglines on the tram on the way home.

A simplish pasta dish for dinner today, again from the same issue of AllerHande.

Pasta with ham, mushrooms and cheese sauce - lunch and dinner
250 g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
30 g finely chopped parsley
100 g cured ham (Campian, Gallia, Serrano, Parma…)
olive oil for frying
pasta in some nice shape (the recipe said to use fresh papardelle, but normal, dried shells worked too.)

Cheese sauce
125 ml creme fraiche
1/2 vegetable/herb stock cube, crushed into powder
75 grams grated strong cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Fry the mushrooms in the oil for about 10 minutes over a low heat (they will shrink considerably as the moisture evaporates) as you prepare the pasta. Mix the ham and parsley into the mushrooms and let warm up for about a minute. Once all done, mix the mushroom into the pasta and get ready to serve. The cheese sauce is very easy - over a low heat, warm up the creme fraiche. Mix in the stock cube and cheese and stir until the cheese is all melted. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put the pasta mix onto a plate and top up with the sauce. Eat it while it’s hot.

Jonathan Ross is hosting the new series of Never Mind the Buzzcocks on BBC. Quite unexpectedly, he did really well.

Yesterday, a friend and colleague asked me, via MSN, for the mobile number of another friend and colleague, so I gave it to her. What makes this story blogworthy is that the number she wanted was that of her boyfriend. Who was in the same flat as her at the time. She just couldn’t be bothered to go downstairs to speak to him. Or shout.

In recent weeks, I’ve noticed something fun - or rather, it was my flatmate that first spotted it. During the studio shots of the BBC News broadcasts, the graphics department of the Beeb display short news headlines below the news anchor as a story is discussed. This isn’t so uncommon - other news channels do the same - but the difference here is that BBC normally stick to two-word headlines, and they are displayed in such a way that they can be seen as name plates. George Alagiah was recently re-named Mars Probe, Darren Jordon just got identified as Labour Donor, but the person I felt most sorry for is Natasha Kaplinsky - her new name is Methadone Death. Hours of amusement.

Today’s dinner is actually a repeat of something I tried week before last, but I never posted anything about it. It doesn’t look too massive once it’s done, but it uses a lot of pots and pans and it is strangely filling. Again, a recipe from AllerHande 2/2006. (Strangely enough, I picked up the latest copy today and it doesn’t contain nearly as many interesting recipes.)

Pasta with broccoli and salami - dinner + lunch for one
200 g pasta - I use sedanini which is like a smaller kind of penne
150 g broccoli, in small florets
125 g salami, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
juice of 1 lime
strong cheese, grated, for serving
olive oil, for frying

Cook the pasta al dente in a large pot of salted water. In another pot, cook the broccoli for a few minutes, also in plenty of salted water. In a frying pan, heat up the oil and fry off the salami for a couple of minutes. Then add the onion and garlic and fry on a lower heat until it gets translucent. Add the lime juice and half a deciliter of the pasta water, let simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes to reduce. Drain the pasta and broccoli and mix everything together, seasoning with salt and pepper as needed. Serve hot with grated cheese; Parmesan or Grana Padano if you want it, otherwise something mature, less expensive works too (here in Holland, the Geraspte Oude Kaas works nicely).

Grocery store chain Albert Heijn are running a campaign over three weeks where every household is given three Joker stickers per week - these Jokers you can stick on any product in their stores and you instantly get 10% off the current price - even if the product is already discounted. I’ve used up my three Jokers for this week today, and I was reading in AllerHande, their in-store magazine, about the whole things; they’d also interviewed a number of people and asked them what they would use their Jokers for. Most of them said “I eat a lot of bread, so that’s probably what I’ll use it for” or “the kids really love bitterkoekpudding so I’ll use it for that” or “I’ve been a vegetarian for 10 years, so some corn burgers probably".

I mean, hang on for a second. These Jokers give you 10% off anything. Is it really so hard to figure out what products you’ll use them for? The answer is easy: “Whatever is the most expensive in your basket". The “money-concious” Dutch people, however, seem not to have caught on to this fact yet - or perhaps they just don’t know how to do percentages.

(For the record, I used mine for dishwasher tablets and two packs of laundry detergent tablets.)

On Friday night, I was walking through the Red Light District when one of the girls in the rooms on one side of the narrow alley stuck a riding crop under my chin and said “Hey baby, come here, let’s play.” I walked on, but turned to her and said “I don’t think so.” and she instantly responded “Well, I think so!” and shortly afterwards added “Actually, I think we shouldn’t think so much, I think we should just do it!". Now THAT is clever marketing. (If I can over-analyze a bit here, I think it’s nice to see that the girls can also use their brains to “market themselves” in the extremely physical world that is the District.)

So, after Friday’s alcoholic adventures (actually not too adventurous; just a few beers at the Tara, some window shopping in the District and then another bar where there was some karaoke going on) and yesterday’s orgy in doing nothing, I had to kickstart myself again. Thus, I went to the gym to meet with my trainer and re-jig my workout schedule, so I now have two different programmes, one shorter (56 minutes) and one longer (74 minutes). Apart from running through the longer programme, I also did another fitness test - needless to say, I was pretty pooped when I got back home. Next week will be challenging as both my gym buddies, Bart and Andreas, are off to Frankfurt for the week. I hope I have enough willpower to keep it up anyway.

After getting back home, though, I didn’t stop there - I went to the shops and bought all the stuff I need for dinner (and lunch) for the coming week. I’ve now cooked and eaten, plus I’m just going to load up the second load in the washing machine. With that, I think I’ve done my bit for today.

Occasionally, there are days that really shouldn’t count - days that you should be able to fill out a form and claim it back from the higher powers. This could be days when you have really long unproductive meetings, days when you are stuck at airports because your flights are delayed for hours on end and, definitely, days when you’re hung over.

We were going out for an after-work beer on Friday night, but for various reasons only one of my colleagues joined me. I don’t know about you, but if I go out with a group, I normally stay out for a beer or two and then the group dissolves when people want to move on to the next bar and you sneak home. When there’s just the two of you, though, things tend to go on for a bit longer; so I was home some time around 1.00 on Saturday morning; needless to say - not quite sober.

In any case; Saturday I woke up fairly early anyway (I normally do after drinking) and decided that my bedroom wasn’t the place to be (for some reason), so I brought my pillows and duvet upstairs to the living room, turned on the BBC breakfast show and dozed on and off. I probably moved from the sofa perhaps three or four times yesterday; going to the bathroom, getting some food, etc. Some time between the cooking programmes and the rugby, I was starting to feel a little bit better, so from around midday I can’t blame the hangover anymore; after then it was just sheer tiredness that kept me there. I napped on and off throughout the day and sometime by midnight I went downstairs to get some proper sleep again.

In summary, I did absolutely zip yesterday. So. Where do I send the form?

• The scroll/cruise control button on the keyboard
• The sideways scroll function of the nav wheel on the mouse
• The volume dial on the keyboard.

(For those interested, it’s a Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3000 Laser.)

My friend and ex-colleague Norman came over to Munich to see me when I was there, and went to the Depeche Mode concert with me (as Freddie couldn’t come along). He was so taken by it that he immediately, on his return to Manchester, placed a bid on an eBay auction for a bunch of tickets for the gig there at the end of the month. Being his usual kind self, he’s holding a ticket for me, so I’m going to shoot off to see him (and “the Mode") in a couple of weeks’ time. (Strangely enough, even though I’ve lived in the UK (on and off) for three years, I’ve never been to Manchester. About time now.)

• Freestate - Depeche Mode.
• Över gränsen - Lars Winnerbäck (again).
• Wichita Lineman - Johnny Cash

At long last, I got word today that our new work mobile phones have been delivered. It seems like all the paperwork is finally in order, so the next time I am at our corporate head office (on Tuesday), I should be able to pick up my brand new Nokia Communicator 9500, complete with GPRS/UMTS subscription. I feel a little apprehensive about making the switch back from Sony Ericsson to Nokia again, but if you compare the T610 I currently have to the Communicator… I am willing to give it a try…!

For the second day in a row, I’ve cooked Italian food for dinner. Well, OK, yesterday I did Spaghetti Bolognese based on a Swedish recipe, and tonight I made homemade Calzone pizzas; so I am not sure to what extent you want to call that “Italian food". As Bart and I had been to the gym after work yesterday and he was giving me a ride home, I suggested that he come in for dinner, and he was only too happy to oblige. Somehow, there was still enough Bolognaise sauce left to bring in for lunch today. As for the pizza… I always make four of them so that I have a few around. That makes it a total of four days this week that I have brought lunch with me to the office. Are you impressed? I’m impressed.

I went to the dentist again today to fix my two cavities I mentioned the other day. It was in an awkward place; I had to lie down with my head at a strange angle, and my jaw hurts from keeping my mouth open for so long. My teeth are fine, though, and that’s I guess the main goal.

Heading off to bed now, and even though I started a fresh new book last night (Robert Jordan’s Crossroads of Twilight), it’s gonna have to wait as I received the latest copy of Layers Magazine, the world’s second most interesting magazine, in the mail today. Layers is about all the Adobe applications and, although Photoshop is my main interest here, I like to keep tabs on the other products in the Creative Suite as well. Who knows when you might need any of the other?

(I said the second most interesting magazine; the most interesting one is of course Photoshop User Magazine that you get as a NAPP member.)

• Rocketboom - daily (weekdays only) news style podcast with information about… well, anything. Somewhere between 3-5 minutes per episode, and ALWAYS interesting. (watch online)
• Photoshop TV - weekly (Mondays) podcast from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals about Photoshop. Tips, trick, news, tutorials. Around 30 minutes per episode with Scott Kelby (the biggest selling IT author two years running), Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski. (watch online)
• Photoshop Killer Tips - daily (weekdays only) bite-sized tips-only podcast for Photoshop. Averaging just over a minute per episode, Matt Kloskowski delivers a snappy tip every day.

I brought the leftovers from yesterday’s lentil casserole for lunch today, it was still really nice - that recipe is definitely a keeper. For some reason the lady that looks after our coffee and vending machines seemed very surprised when I was heating my food in the microwave next to the candy machine she was stocking. “You cooked it yourself?", to which I answered that I had. “You cook?” she answered. For the record, this is the first time she’s ever spoken to me - do I really give the impression that I live on takeaways?!

Anyhoo, for tonight’s dinner (and tomorrow’s lunch) I tried my hand at another Allerhande recipe. (This month’s edition was fabulous; I think I have another two or even three recipes lined up for later this week!) This time I even got to use my wok for the second time (if you don’t count storing bank statements in it as “using it", in which case I’ve used it constantly since I bought it).

Pasta with cauliflower and parsley - makes 1 big dinner and 1 large lunch box
1 tin anchovies in oil (I believe they are 55 g or so?)
olive oil for frying
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cauliflower, in small bouquets
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 dl water
200 g pasta shells
1 large handful of chopped parsley
Grana Padano cheese for sprinkling

Drain the oil from the anchovies into the wok and add the olive oil. Cut the anchovies themselves into smallish bits and let them dissolve in the oil. Add the chopped garlic and let it fry along for a few minutes. Add in the cauliflower, stir and let it warm up in 2-3 minutes, then add the thyme and water; cover and let it boil/steam for 15-20 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked - add more water if needed. At the same time, cook the pasta al dente in a separate pot. When the cauliflower is done, stir in the pasta and parsley, season with salt and pepper and you’re done. Serve in a bowl with the cheese on top, drizzle on some olive oil if you like.

I was toying with the idea of adding some halved green pimiento olives into the mix, but abandoned the idea at the last minute. I THINK it was a good idea, I will make my mind up during lunch tomorrow. It’s quite a hearty dish, slightly salty in its own right - I don’t think it needs it.

I went to the dentist this afternoon. My dentist is a very nice man, extremely light hands and very good at talking you through what he’s doing. I was his last patient of the day, so he invited me to stay behind to wait for my X-rays to come out. It appears I have two cavities in teeth next to each other in the right half of the upper jaw. Luckily, he just got a cancellation as I was in the chair, so I can go back on Thursday and have it all sorted in one go. (Last time I went there, it took me - to the day - a year to finish off everything, so this time it’ll be a lot quicker.)

Then I need to see his dental hygienist to clean off some plack later on this month, and that is NOT something I am looking forward to, that’s for sure. Plack removal must be the most painful thing a person can do (although I hear teeth whitening isn’t too comfortable either). My father, who is always a very special man, normally falls asleep when they clean his teeth. (But then, this is the man who, when he was in hospital after a small myocardial infarction two weeks ago, not only followed the endoscopy procedure live on a TV monitor ("It was really interesting!") but also watched a recording of it later. He claims he’s healthy - judging by this story, though, I believe he is still a very sick man.)

• Freefall
• Foxtrot
• Dilbert

My favourite snooker commentator is Eurosport’s Kim Hartman; he’s always got something interesting to say - and if he doesn’t, he’ll speak anyway and what comes out then is most of the time even funnier. Some of his quotes can be found here (Swedish only, of course).

Here’s an interesting twist; it appears that he has a hidden career on the side of his snooker. Check out Daytime Kim vs. Nighttime Kim…

Double helping of recipes today; first a lovely omelette for brunch, then a hearty casserole for dinner.

Leek pie - serves 2 (or one hungry)
350 g leek, cleaned and cut into smallish pieces
olive oil for frying
3 eggs
50 ml milk
75 g mature cheese, grated
optionally potatoes to serve

Mix the egg, milk and half the cheese in a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste. Fry the leek in olive oil for a few minutes while stirring, then pour over the egg mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top and let set over a low heat, under a lid, for 10-15 minutes. Cut into pieces and serve with small fried potatoes.

Lentil casserole with hot sausages - serves 4 (or two hungry + 1 lunch)
olive oil for frying
125 g bacon, cubed
1 onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
150 ml red wine
400 g tinned tomatoes (peeled, but whole if available)
1 1/2 tbsp mixed Italian spices (dried is fine)
12 spicy pork sausages (Catalan style)
250 g chestnut mushrooms (cut larger ones in half)
400 g tinned lentils (let drain in a sieve or colander)

First of all, use a LARGE frying pan, alright? Heat some oil in it and fry off the bacon for about five minutes. Add the onion and leek and let soften for 2-3 minutes, then add in the wine and let reduce over medium heat for about 10 minutes. At this point, your kitchen will smell wonderful, and it’ll only get better from here. Add in the tomatoes, the spices, the sausages and the mushrooms (I SAID to use a large pan!); cover and let simmer over a low heat for around 20 minutes. Then, stir in the lentils and let heat up and simmer for 3 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve immediately with a nice, warm baguette on the side. Beer works nicely with this.

(Both recipes from AllerHande 2/2006.)

I woke up from odd dreams about SMS:es (don’t ask) and sat myself down by my computer and wrote a new SMS feature for Fallfrukt, a site that Freddie and I run. After that I went upstairs and sat on the sofa for a while, watching two episodes of ‘Allo ‘Allo, when Andreas got in touch and asked if it wasn’t time to go to the gym. Sure enough, after about two hours we came back home and prepared dinner (see next post); Andreas even brought some cake for dessert, and now I have no other plans than to watch a silly BBC gameshow and then go to bed.

Check out this video clip of The Simpsons title sequence (Windows Media, high quality), reproduced using real actors. According to reliable sources (well, The Sun), this is an “authorized” version, and will be run on Sky to promo the new series opening there later this month. Scarily accurate.

I have just witnessed the UK qualifier to the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens later on this spring. Now, in Sweden the qualifying system is extremely complex; there are FOUR heats with EIGHT songs in each. FIVE of those will be sung a SECOND time, and after this TWO of them will go straight through to the national final, another TWO going to a SECONDARY final. Out of those EIGHT songs, another TWO will be pushed through to the national final. ONE of the, in total TEN, songs will be allowed through to the INTERNATIONAL qualifying heat (as Sweden didn’t score to heavily last year) and then, hopefully, make it to the international final in Athens. (Still with me?)

In the UK, it’s a bit simpler. There is a grand total of six songs, each sung once. It’s a fairly straight televote (there are some regions involved), and as the UK is one of the largest contributors to the EBU, their participation in the Eurovision final is guaranteed (in spite of last year’s 22nd place and the zero points (must be pronounced in French for extra effect) scored by Jemini two years ago). The whole show takes one hour, and then the results are presented in another 20 minute show, later on in the evening. The only complexity is that the SMS/mobile vote does not give 2-4-6-8-12 scores, but rather one point per percent of the total vote. They have also added a celebrity panel (consisting of coreographer Bruno Tonioli, Top Of The Pops presenter Fearne Cotton, chat show host Jonathan Ross and… celebrity daughter Kelly Osbourne) who have been invited to parttake in some friendly banter with Sir Terry and Miss Kaplinsky and give people their views of the songs in fine Pop Idols style.

The songs this year, in order of appearance:

• Play Your Game, sung by Goran Kay. Passed by completely unnoticed. Kay is an unknown and the song is nothing special. Could possibly make it as a club hit, it’s slightly loungey in it’s character.
• Whisper To Me, sung by Kym Marsh. The arrangement was slightly lame, but the execution is very competent and sophisticated. Kym Marsh is a former winner of talent show Popstars. This one has got to win.
• Teenage Life, sung by Daz Sampson. Jonathan Ross’ comment was pretty accurate; “A 40-year-old man in stonewash denim - which we all know is now only sold in Russia - rapping, whilst under-age girls in school uniforms dance around in the background. It is all so terribly wrong - it has to win.” I hope he’s wrong about the last bit, because it was really embarassing.
• All About You, sung by City Chix. A Scottish girl duo that look like a rock band, for some reason singing a ballad. This track is half Heart and half Clannad. Some of the singing was off key, so I don’t think it’ll make it to Athens, but given a proper studio production it’s going to sell a lot of records.
• Hand On My Heart, sung by Four Story. A very soulful and harmonic boyband, will appeal to the R Kelly vote. I personally think that this is too complex for Eurovision, and isn’t the world really tired of this kind of music? As Bruno Tonioli put it, “Boyband fatigue. This is like Valium in musical form.".
• It’s A Beautiful Thing, sung by Anthony Costa. A fairly promising song, very uptempo and positive. Not too unlike Las Vegas, Sweden’s entry from 2005, but a bit simpler. Anthony is a member of successful boyband Blue and can probably get a few votes because of this. The only real competition for Kym Marsh, but I doubt it’s strong enough.

Update 1 - the mind is made up.
Apparently I was dead wrong. Teenage Life, the rap entry with the dancing school girls, is the UK winner, by a fairly long way before It’s A Beautiful Thing, a large gap down to All About You, then Whisper To Me, another large gap down to Hand On My Heart and finally Play Your Game. I am truly worried about the state of things.

(And yes, Natasha Kaplinsky is stunningly beautiful. But surely the dress she was wearing in the second portion was very wrong for the occasion? It looked more like a bedroom number to me.)

Update 2 - the dress.
Click here for a picture of her in the dress.

I cooked dinner for my flatmate and myself tonight, a recipe I picked up from AllerHande, Albert Heijn’s customer magazine. When I told him what I was cooking he first suggested that he should go to the shops and get us something else, but finally resigned to try. And for the record - he asked for a second helping after having finished his first one…!

Gnocchi with Brussels sprouts - serves 2

• 250 g Brussels sprouts
• 250 g gnocchi
• olive oil, for frying
• 125 g bacon, cubed
• 1 onion, diced coarsely
• Grana Padano cheese for serving

Clean the sprouts and cut the bigger ones in half. Boil them in just enough salted water to cover for about 10 minutes and let them drain thoroughly in a colander. Prepare the gnocchi according to the instructions on the package (unless you’re ambitious enough to make them from scratch - in which case you probably don’t need my help anyway. ) - be aware that gnocchis become very sticky if left to cool for too long, so some timing is required. Fry the cubed bacon in some oil to crisp it up, add the onions after a few minutes. When the onions are soft and slightly translucent, mix in the sprouts and gnocchi and let them fry along for a couple of minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with the flaked cheese. Unexpectedly nice.

(Oh, and just to make a point; don’t spend money on pancetta cubetti and proper Parmiggiano Reggiano for this dish. If you follow this recipe you’re going to land somewhere around €1.40 per serving - no need for overkill.)

• Hello - Evanescence.
• Över gränsen - Lars Winnerbäck.
• Number 1 - Goldfrapp.

If you’re a Depeche Mode fan (like me), you just have to check this out. In collaboration with Electronic Arts, the guys have released a version of their forthcoming single, Suffer Well, in Simlish - the language used by the characters in the Sims games. The song, and an accompanying video, will be included in the add-on pack “Open for Business” and is (in its original version) the third single from the album Playing the Angel. Very bizarre, but quite fun.

• The Blue Ball Machine - turn on the sound for the full experience.
• The Falling Sand Game - change the namekuji to “vanish” and play with the elements.
• Hapland - see if YOU can figure this one out. It took me an hour and a half.

• A plastic Depeche Mode beer mug.
• Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.
• A big bottle of Soda Stream Coca Cola Light syrup.

When I was back home in Stockholm last weekend, I was going through an old box of stuff. At the very top of the box was my old high school yearbook as well as the photo catalogues from the last two years. After I’d carried the box down to the basement, it dawned on me that I hadn’t even opened the covers of either, I’d just simply put them back in and closed the box.

It makes me think of one of the few Depeche Mode songs not written by Martin L. Gore; “Place it in your memory / Leave it in your past / But don’t forget”. ("In your Memory", Alan Wilder, 1984.)