I think that's Hungarian for 'rearing stallions'

It's not often the rural laptop gets out and remembers to blog about it afterwards (is that a sign of a good or a bad night out?!). But in London recently during the final - and expensive (£300 an hour for a colourist, ahem) - throes of our film Living with the Tudors I managed a couple of how shall we say, diverse, cultural experiences:

I liked the shortswearing Hungarian Agaskodo Teliverek so much at their Resonance FM fundraiser so much, I bought their CD. If "sounding something like a cross between Captain Beefheart, Public Enemy & Venetian Snares" sounds good you you can find the duo online here.


Asparagus, the opera, an art performance I went to with Jet, was altogether weirder. A packed venue of art vermin, men in bad costume, music (good) by (I think) Les georges leningrad - but I didn't get it. I met Jonathan Griffin afterwards, reviewing it for Frieze (poor guy) who confirmed my suspicions that it might be a reenactment of some kind but also seemed bemused. Looking for online links to offer you I fail to find anything, if it wasn't for this picture I took I'd begin to doubt my own sanity.

This is Easter food

Mercifully far from M&S and their attempted monopoly on Easter edibles, we plough a different furrow up here:
1.
A pudding which should possibly be illegal , that's how calorific and delicious it is, is Sussex Pond Pudding , so rich I have only made it once before, for my appreciative friends Ben & Freddie. It's nuts-sounding - a ye olde steamed lump with a whole lemon in the middle - a WHOLE LEMON!
My recipe is Elizabeth David's but Waitrose has a good one online too here though it recommends clotted cream to serve - I mean, are they trying to get sued?!
2.
To offset such indulgence, I prepare a double bento box of vegan Japanese food one evening:
In the middle is some slices of carrot pickled in nuka - an ancient Japanese pickling technique mixing rice bran and salt, garlic and seaweed. Like a good bread culture, this mixture lives indefinately as long as you stir it daily. This resulted in a recent holiday in France for the nuka, as our absence from home for 5 days would have meant certain death...

Mr Potter's legacy

'Miss Potter' the movie is enjoying a seemingly limitless run in local cinemas here - when we saw it the soundtrack was barely audible under the locals screeching 'That's NEVER the real Hill Top!" and "I've never seen it as sunny as that!". I wonder if 'Brokeback Mountain' had the same popularity in Alberta, Canada or 'Cape Fear' thereabouts....

Whilst the locals are numbly relishing the image of a de- touristified Lake District populated by actual farmers and reasonably priced property , we find ourselves on the receiving end of a solicitors letter from none other than the company of one Mr Heelis, aka Mr Beatrix Potter. Yes, incredibly, the firm has endured as one of the major legal players locally, and a narky neighbour of ours has commissioned them to wrangle over a boundary issue with us.
Mr Potter's man meets us near the disputed boundary, and brusquely sets out his stall - no, his clients don't own this track, but yes, they'd rather we didn't obstruct it; no, his clents can't technically stop us from parking there but yes, they'd rather we didn't, etc etc.

Isn't it heart-warming to know that the great authoress' legacy is not restricted to chubby rabbits?