A few Andie Airfix album sleeves

in no particular order

The Airfix Lounge is REALLY happening!

GOSH! The Airfix Lounge really IS happening!

Even though I’ve seen the Brighton Fringe brochure,

 

Metallica have put it on their facebook page

and Andie has given 2 interviews already, it seemed a bit distant.

Now it feels VERY real!

Posters! Flyers! EEK!!

Now all we need is bums on seats!

Ricky vs the WI part 2.

OK, OK, OK!

So, not only have I forgotten how to count, I’d forgotten that I had made the second entry in the WI Book of Biscuits already but totally didn’t bother to post up the entry thereby screwing up the validity of this project and possibly throwing the entire universe into a reverse polarity vortex paradox type thingy.

It’s possibly because I’ve been working my ARSE off on the Airfix Lounge and, thus, everything else has been slightly sidelined. I must have spent a pleasurable hour or so baking and then gone into a sugar induced coma.

These are classic, bland, easy and, in fact, deeply dull. Oh, I remember rolling them out too thin so the oven was too hot and the cooking time much reduced. I think the mix was rather wet too. Rolling out wasn’t easy. I though biscuits were a piece of piss. hey ho.

Now, the icing was fun. I ended up making my own as the tubes of coloured stuff I had lurking in the depths of my cake box – Yes, I have a cake box, dear reader, where I hide my secret cake-related purchases from my beloved, a place full of Lakeland receipts, spatulas and special ingredients – proved to be too old and too thick and, frankly, unmanageable. Probably fine if you’re 5 and making a mess is more important than trying to design typography.

The final result.

Hey, I know I’ve lived with the world’s greatest graphic designer for over 30 years and some of it should have rubbed off, but I was having an off day and got distracted by Doctors. Gotta love Mrs Tembe.

Gipsy Crisps!

The third recipe from the WI book of Biscuits. Gipsy Crisps. Cornflakes? You want me to put cornflakes in a biscuit? Do they have to be Kellogg’s? Hard luck, Morrison’s was on the way home. How crushed do you want them? Roughly, so still almost cornflake-shaped, or crushed to a powder, in which case why not use cornmeal? There’s an Idea – I’ll report back on that one. So, here is the picture of the year. I give you – crushed cornflakes!

I’m beyond excited at how thrilling that image is. I can imagine you, dear reader, all a-flutter seeing such beauty.

So, they make up pretty well, none of my usual biscuity disasters, and even cooked for the proscribed amount of time at the correct temperature! A first when it comes to all thing biscuit and my oven.

They look like non-ginger gingernuts when they come out.

 

They taste like the best cornflake flavoured biscuit you’ve ever had! They have some serious crunch and are very moorish. It’s like a more civilised way of stealing dry cornflakes out of the packet whilst watching Jeremy Kyle. Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course.

 

Eat cake, drink tea and learn to make bunting FOR CHARITY: #epicwin

Reblogged from What's new, Brighton?:

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Bizarrely, if you don’t think bright red fake plastic noses (this year, with legs and pointy teeth) are the ‘it’ accessory for spring, BUT still want to raise money for Red Nose Day, don’t despair...

...Sew in Brighton have a fun way to raise money.

No, really, it’s actually fun. And I don’t mean sitting in a bath of baked beans fun, or running 12 miles blisteringly fun, I mean actually FUN.

Read more… 272 more words

That's where I teach folks!

OOPS!

This is what happens when you forget you’ve got coconut meringues drying out in the oven and you whack the temperature up to bake bread…

ahem

The Airfix Lounge

This is VERY exciting.

This year, as part of the Brighton Fringe, Andie is putting on a ‘show’!

A free 3 week exhibition of his work and 8 or 9 ticketed talks about his work and the people he’s worked with.

We’ve got the venue sorted – @Create in New England House – not far from here and in a building oozing creativity. We’ve got the dates sorted and the titles and themes of the talks. We had started to write press releases until I put my oar in! So far we’ve had 3 meetings that have ended up being all about the press release! Poor Andie has re-written it about 7 times now! Hopefully it will now be a little lighter than it was originally!

Anyway, the brochure for the Brighton Fringe is now out so get your seats booked for Andie Airfix at The Airfix Lounge! I promise it will be worth it!

Ricky vs the WI!

Have you seen the film Julia/Julia? Where a blogger tries to make all the recipes in a recipe book in 365 days? Well, this is my version. Except it’s about biscuits and it’ll happen as and when.

I was given ‘The WI Book of Biscuits’ years ago as a birthday present. I have happily been avoiding it and making cakes since then. I can knock up a decent sponge, regularly make bread and have even managed the odd macaroon. The only biscuits I excel at are gingernuts and oat crunchies! (there’s a gag hiding in there somewhere) Everything else in the biscuit department just isn’t, well, biscuity! Too damp, too small, too burnt. I seem to have a biscuit blockage which I am determined to unblock – what a horrible metaphor!

So, Recipe number one. (Oh BOLLOCKS! It’s got desiccated coconut in it!)

Coconut Kisses – I’ve already gone off the idea!

I can’t bear desiccated coconut. It does things to my palette that shouldn’t happen. It is distinctly wrong. Anyway, I must give it a go

Well, as usual I end up with a dough that is far too wet due to having no idea what ‘a little milk’ is, so am unable to roll it out and use a cutter, so I make little balls and flatten them with my fingers. I dollop some of the coconut mix on top and pop into the oven.

I’m pretty sure they are NOT supposed to look like this!

After ten minutes they’ve gone brown – not golden brown but brown. Check recipe, yes it does say 25-30 mins at 180. I end up cooking mine for 20 mins at 140! and they look like this…

Rubbish pic but you get the idea. I have to say they taste rather nice.

There was rather a lot of the topping left which I’ve just popped into the cooling oven in the hope that I’ll get some little coconutty meringues. We’ll see.

I think the WI may have won this round!

And so to the V&A…

And so to the V&A… to see ‘The Cult Of Beauty’, an exhibition about the aesthetic movement, something I actually know a little about due to having friends who are dealers in aesthetic ceramics and silver and also enthusiasts. Amazing what you pick up when you’re not listening.

Alors. I love the V&A. I’m a massive fan. I can’t think of a nicer place to meet a pal on a warm spring day than the V&A, take in a great exhibition, then maybe chill in the fabulous garden.

But I always forget them. You know the ones. The Ladies. Who lunch. Who’ve caught a train from somewhere starting with ‘upper’ or ‘little’ and ending in ‘unbery’ or ‘ittington’. The ones who are probably friends of the V&A and have met Sir Roy Strong on a number of occasions, who take lunch at Daphne’s and stay with friends who have a ‘hise’ in ‘Chelseh’.
For once the timed tickets helped us out and we got to overtake about 20 of them but still ran into another 40. All utterly charming and polite, but wilful and ruthless at the same time. They say ‘Excuse me’ but what they mean is ‘If you want to live you’d better get out of my way, motherfucker’ and they say ‘Thank you’ with all the warmth of an angry rattlesnake.
Don’t even think about reading the notice by a painting when there’s one lurking, who, with just one withering glance, will have you cowering in submission until she has passed,  or try and look closely at a painting whilst one of them is explaining, just-ever-so-slightly-too-loudly, to one of her friends what the artist was trying to convey. Usually something they’ve picked up at one of those late night talks given by the likes of Sir Roy, and often utterly misquoted. Someone got her Whistlers mixed up and I had to leg it and stifle my mirth. I’m no know-all but, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve picked a few things up on the way!
(James, American, painted his mum. Rex, English, painted walls.)

Anyroadupaslike. Back to the exhibition. I loved it. Lots of pictures I’ve only seen in books, beautifully presented. I know some people have had issues with the lighting, including my friend Tim who fell over a repro bench, but that’s party because he’s blind in anything that isn’t full sun or an arc lamp. I thought the lighting was very evocative of the period as were the wall coverings and set the art of really well, though there were a couple of pieces that were really badly lit. Reminder to the V&A. Oil paintings are reflective! DON’T downlight them! Glare on a Whistler is very upsetting!

My Scar

The Pope’s got one of these!