RIP Floyd

craner

Beast of Burden
I notice she's tries to get the cameras to cut at about 8.50 of Part 4, and they ignore her. This is pretty bad.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I tell you what, I'm sitting here, after a slap-up pub lunch, having ingested a lovely beef roast, cheese and biscuits, a pint of ale, 3 glasses of Pinot Noir, about 7 fags, and half way through a bottle of Cali Petit Verdot, and it's 6pm on Sunday afternoon, and this programme is very sobering. Holy shit.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Roll on Part 5. When I said I'd watched the whole thing, I was clearly lying, mistaking clips and heresay for exprience. I am gripped though, and saddened and shocked. This guy is like my dad.
 

nochexxx

harco pronting
reminds me of playing the exchanges online and recieving messages relayed back to me from mates closer to the spectacle.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
This is a real weird combination of anguish and hedonism --- but that's not uncommon. When I was at my worst, drinking every night down the Italian bar winter '05, enjoying myself a lot and meeting loads of great people and pissing all my wages away on dinner and booze and fags and good conversation, my life was a wreck, and sober I had constant stomach cramps because of terror and self-loathing. Would hate to be like that at 65 though. This is giving me chills.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
KF: "But you're sharp, and I'm a prick..."

KA: "Ha ha ha ha.......Uh, no you're not."

Daughter: stony silence.

Oh God...
 

craner

Beast of Burden
KA: "For a while, he seemed to rally, but something was clearly wrong."

Um, yes, he's dying of cancer.

To be fair, though, I don't think KA knew this.
 

nochexxx

harco pronting
This is a real weird combination of anguish and hedonism --- but that's not uncommon. When I was at my worst, drinking every night down the Italian bar winter '05, enjoying myself a lot and meeting loads of great people and pissing all my wages away on dinner and booze and fags and good conversation, my life was a wreck, and sober I had constant stomach cramps because of terror and self-loathing. Would hate to be like that at 65 though. This is giving me chills.

rather that than a life time of sobriety.

if you haven't all ready, watch the shawn ryder doc. perhaps not straight after though.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Oh gosh, Poppy seems quite wonderful. How do you deal with this shaming cunt of a father? And on camera? She is being very dignified, and she does have the sexy secretary look down pat.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Ok, watched the whole thing.

Someone I loved, I feel less respect for.

Someone I hated, I have a lot more respect for.

I think you can work out which is which.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
randomly, a Manchester real ale magazine [web] carries a curious little anecdote from the writer meeting Keith in a inner Stockport pub a few years ago. worth quoting the piece in full methinks

It was sad, but not altogether surprising, to hear of the death of TV chef and noted bon viveur Keith Floyd. A couple of years ago, I had a chance meeting with Keith in the surprising surroundings of the Olde Vic pub in Edgeley. This was the finishing point of an Edgeley Stagger, I had certainly enjoyed a few drinks over the course of the evening and so, by the looks of it, had Keith.

His presence there was explained by the fact that the owner of the pub (who is not the same person as the licensee) was acting as his driver and general minder during a tour of his one-man show Floyd Uncorked: the life of a Bon Viveur, following Keith’s latest and, it would turn out, last drink-driving conviction. They had called in to the Olde Vic on the way between a show in Keswick and the minder’s home in Stoke.
Keith was 63 at the time, and it has to be said he didn’t look a well-preserved 63, with his trademark floppy forelock reduced to a few strands, but no doubt he could still scrub up well for a public appearance. Predictably, he expressed his concerns about the future of the pub trade following the smoking ban (which turned out to be entirely justified), and, perhaps more surprisingly, said that he felt the gastro-pub trend had gone too far and was now ruining the character of many pubs. I can well understand why he thought that, as he was always a strong believer in authenticity and a critic of pretension.

Sadly, on the Keith Allen TV programme which aired on Monday (14/9/09), the night of his death, he seemed a frail shadow of his former self, and aged well beyond his 65 years, although his mind was clearly still as sharp as ever. It can’t be said that in his last days he was a great advertisement for a bibulous lifestyle, but he lived life to the full – he was married and divorced four times – and given the chance to live his life again I doubt whether he would have it any other way. Apparently, although he had recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer, his most recent medical gave his liver a clean bill of health.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
My 2 favourite celeb chefs in one clip! Loveliness.

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Marco fucking rocks, by the way. Hard aesthete bastard.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
A thing I started writing about 2 years ago but never finished. I'll bung it here anyway, for a laugh. This was notes for a first draft, written half-drunk, so excuse the mess. Just want to clear it out of the archives.

The Fragile Psyche of Gordon Ramsay


"Fuck me."


A few weeks ago, in his Telegraph column, Max Hastings veered from his War remit to discuss the Gordon Ramsay phenomenon. "...." [I was going to quote the article here, but now I can't find it, or remember what the quote was. I think Max was damning Gordon for lowering the standards of English etiquette by saying "fuck" a lot on TV, as if that was the sum of all he did.]

Max, Max, so many mistakes!

Let me first relate personal experience of Max Hastings who I, to an extent, admire. Just over a year ago I attended a Harpercollins publishing junket and was placed on the same table as Sir Max. We were being entertained by the ... Hotel, perched on the edge of Kensington. The food, incredibly, was awful. For example, the first course involved pine nuts, parma ham and apricots, in a twisty, stewy combination that sat, like a lump of sewage, in the middle of a square white plate. For all I know, this is gastronomically and aesthtically justified - but I sensed immediately that it was a hideous concoction and proved, in mouth and gut, to be. And it got worse: bland chicken etc.. Each course, however, Max guzzled and got seconds. Oblivious to taste, when a WH Smith rep from lower Essex was hiding hideous scraps in her napkin because she was disgusted by the food but embarrased to show it. This was due, I think, to his rapid booze consumption: the wine was average but he excelled me glass for glass, and I was, shall we say, enjoying it. Also, he wasn't very interested in eating because he was too busy talking at the pretty, blonde, and bored publishing strumpet sat next to him. Delivering wisdom and knowledge, which is legitimate, but with indulgance and arrogance, and that disappointed me. After the last course, the liqour cabinet came out; everybody refused, tucking into espressos or milky coffees, except Max and I. Brilliant brandy, what can I say? Actually, I adored him that night. I can't say I behaved any better, and looking back, it was all slightly slovenly, nearly sleazy.

This to say, fuck off, Max. Gordon Ramsay is a better man that you or I, not sordid and self-indulgent in any way.

[This is where I defended Gordon in more detail, but I didn't get around to it. He' a great teacher. This whole piece was going to be about my admiration for him in the UK Kitchen Nightmares series.]

And there's Gordon's nemisis, and it will always shadow him, show him up. His relationship with Marco Pierre White is part of Gordon's story, or Legend, certainly a defining factor of his character, amongst other Male Beasts who tortured and twisted him into what he now is.


Catch MPW in the kitchen, then: he ties a PLO bandana across his head Rambo style. "In the kitchen," he says, "you have to rule, be a leader and a warrior. You have to be like this." So he strikes the pose. His eyes: hunched, hooded, full of hard determination and hate. Friends and colleagues become subjects to be terrorised until deserts leave the hot, horrible kitchen. Gordon apes this in his own arena, but what we see on TV is the bullied boy becoming the bully, his tantrums tinny, his threats thin and risible. The little blonde Banshee. Check out MPW in action, though: it's visious, and visionary. Actually terrfifying, elemental. Jesus Christ, man! It's just food!


Everything Gordon does, his kitchens, his TV shows, Ramsay Holdings, his rivalries, and marriage, reduces to the question: am I worth a fucking fuck? Or, to put it another way: do I deserve to live? He gets the affirmative answer by transcending his obvious limitations: first with football, where he failed, next with gastronomy, in which he succeeded wildly. His life is clearly an unending nightmare. He takes it out on public sub-chefs, but teaches them too.


This is not part of MPW's mental make-up, however. He's comvinced he's a hero, or, at least, a depressed and inspired anti-hero. But there's no self-doubt, no fragility. Everything he does is self-affirmation, about power and perfection. He is loudly (and quietly) in complete control. Gordon tries very hard to keep control: to control things, his kitchens, his "victims", his psyche. MPW, meanwhile, remains, without effort, massive and indomintable: a veritable obelisk, a menhir. Gordon, still the blonde boy, with all the projected aggresion attempting to disguise it, is always, as ever, in every situation, even romping and raping America, just fragile. Hard to pin down. Hard to find. Hard to love. Hard not to love. Easily despised. Inevitbaley honoured with...a strange sort of loyalty, a brittle loyalty.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
You think I'm wrong? Read the body language:

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craner

Beast of Burden
Genius

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