#oneaday 129: Hendo’s magic

I want to share with you today a little-known (to those living outside of South Yorkshire) culinary delight known as Henderson’s Relish. Here’s a rather lovely picture of it that was drawn by Kid Acne :

Image courtesy of A.P.G. Gallery (I used to live behind it back when it was called Archipelago Gallery, but it doesn’t mean I can nick their images so please click and go and buy yourself something nice from their website).

Henderson’s Relish – or Hendo’s, as it is called by those in the know is a wonderful condiment that can be used to make pretty much any food taste even better than it already does, from Cheese on Toast to Chips, from Baked Beans to Pies (all the main food groups there, kids). I remember being surprised when I moved all of those long 40 miles up the M1 to Leeds to find that this magical elixir of life was nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is in Sheffield. They have it in pubs in Shezza with salt and pepper to just put on your dinner. Alas, this was not so in the Knightsbridge of the North. This very sauce led to a whole debate in my office the other day about the benefits of regional food, from Parmos to Oatcakes to Pontefract Cakes to…

…Anyway, I digress. As I said, you can add it to anything and everything, the possibilities are, as they say, endless.

And now they’re even more endless than they were before, with this weird and wonderful list giving us 48 unique uses for Hendo’s, courtesy of The Wookie.

#oneaday 126: Leeds Digital Festival 2011

Last night I went to a get together upstairs in The Midnight Bell, a rather lovely watering hole in Leeds to meet up with some fellow digital enthusiasts for a catch up on #LDF2011. The idea was to talk about ideas for the next Leeds Digital Festival which is going to be held in Novemeber at a load of different venues throughout Leeds.

What I liked most about the event was the idea that this festival isn’t about being better than Manchester, or Birmingham, or London. It’s not about this agency or that agency. It’s about celebrating the digital community in Leeds. It’s an opportunity to show everyone in Leeds what digital means to us and to share ideas and inspiration with each other. There’s no money or funding available for this year’s festival so it’s going to be a proper DIY job and so it’s only going to be as good as our ideas are… So the more ideas and action, the better.

The meeting was really inspiring and the fact that it’s open to everyone to get involved is ace. The next meeting is upstairs at the Midnight Bell on Thursday 16th June at 6pm. If you live/work in Leeds and you’re passionate about digital, come along and join us.

#oneaday 117: Vote YES to AV

I’ve voted in the elections already, because I’m special (needs) and did it by postal vote.

I voted YES to AV. I won’t rant on for ages about why, but basically more choice is better than less choice and a fairer representation as to what went on in the polls is better than an unfair one.

Plus, when I opened my ballot paper, there were just three choices on there. Red, yellow and blue (except in black and white). Basically, I don’t particularly agree with everything each of them does, but I do prefer two parties over the other one. So I would’ve much rather been able to give a bit of my vote to each and ensure the one I like least comes off that way. I think I’m a split of two of the main colours really, but would never even dream of voting for the third, so this system seems perfect for those who aren’t black and white about their politics.

I clearly don’t pretend to know too much about politics but I do know that I felt shafted when the yellows shacked up with the blues in the last match. Some people took a gamble to really take the chance to embrace change and stuck their neck out to vote yellow when they’d traditionally done otherwise.

Please don’t let a bad experience with your last chance for change put you off.

Make a difference. Go to the polls.

Vote Yes to the alternative vote.

* Ian makes a better point, go and read his post about why you should vote Yes to the Alternative Vote.

#oneaday 114: Adventures-on-sea

Today the chap and I took a jaunt to the glorious Yorkshire coast to visit the illustrious seaside town of Bridlington. Now, I can last remember visiting here on a daytrip with my family a good 20 years ago, so it was nice to visit and find it still bustling and busy, basking in the unseasonal Spring sunshine.

We took a stroll around the little harbour, marvelled at the sympathetic and rather lovely regeneration of the South Shore, pondered the fact that Yorkshire is home to some of the most beautiful and wild coastlines in the world, ate our picnic whilst looking at the sea and then headed to the North Shore where we got to the good stuff.

You know what I’m talking about. The arcades.

photo credit Gary Balding, Flickr

Now, a while ago, we’d taken a similar trip to Filey, just up the coast from Bridlington. On this day, in the lustrous August Leeds sunshine, we’d headed of in the throes of youth without coats. When we got to Filey it was tipping it down with rain. Sideways rain, thanks to the gale force winds rolling in off the North Sea. So we took refuge in one of the brightly lit amusingly named amusement arcades. Deep within the Vegas-like murky depths of Funtime/Pleasureland/Goodtimesville (delete as applicable), we came across the best amusements game I’ve ever played. We spent a good hour (and the best part of a tenner in 2ps) playing this machine, then as the rain subsided, we bid our farewells to it and left the machine blinking and whirring in the gloom, never expecting to see it again.

But behold! When we entered the Bridlington Forum, a veritable rabbit warren of tumbling two pence pieces, flashing lights and scruffy children, we stumbled across The Machine.

I felt like Tom Hanks in Big, when he rediscovers the fortune telling machine on the pier at the end.

There, in all its glory was Namco’s Pac Man Ball. A two-metre high effigy of addictive fun. Like Bubble Bobble or Peggle crossed with a 2p machine. It’s built to be played by two people as well, although it’s not a two player game. Basically, you fire 2p coins into it and they drop down the back wall, pinball-style, hitting or dropping through multiplier buttons as they go. Depending on which you hit, you get bubbles pushed into a screen and these add up to give you free coins that the machine fires in for you, giving you more chance of toppling the 2ps and winning.

It’s massively addictive, easy to play and loads of fun.

This time we hit the maximum multiplier of 50 free coins. We celebrated, then proceeded to feed these all back into the machine, before leaving, triumphant in our discovery and just a little bit disbelieving that we would ever find Pac Man Ball ever again.

#oneaday 113: curiouser and curiouser…

Today I thought I’d share with you the events of 5 years ago, almost to the day. I’m not sure if anyone else remembers this happening or if it even broke the surface of news for most people (Ian, Kat and Ash might remember), but I was obsessed by it for ages. I don’t even remember the real outcome of all of this, I just remember I used to have four days a week off to investigate stuff like this and go around Leeds, sleuthing.

Anyway, here’s my full account of it, taken from one of my old blogs from 14th April 2006…

I swear, you couldn’t make it up. Events of the last few days have been as follows:

“A man has been arrested in connection with the discovery of a 300-year-old ledger, bound in human skin, found on the Headrow. The book, written mainly in French is thought to be an account of a murder trial, bound in the killer’s skin”

“Police in Leeds are hunting three men who carried out an armed robbery at a jewellers on a city centre street packed with weekend shoppers. West Yorkshire Police said the men ran along Albion Street and turned into an alleyway before heading towards the Headrow.”

“A man vanished in the early hours of Sunday morning. Detectives said they believed Mr Turns would have passed four people as he ran from Call Lane towards the river. Police divers have completed an underwater search of the River Aire and began a surface search on Wednesday”

The Map

So yes, I may have too much time on my hands, or just spending thirteen hours reading local news whilst at work is getting to me a bit. Overactive imagination? Moi? This is amazing. What makes it better is that I actually walked past all of this stuff happening in town. Is it just me who thinks it’s brilliant that the most trashy mystery hollywood-esque plot seems to have descended upon Leeds as it’s unlikely backdrop? I’m turning this into my personal sleuthing mission.

You can keep your stupid clichéd metaphors, Dan Brown – I’ve got The Yorkshire Code.

It’s like the Davinci Code, but less rubbish.

#oneaday 112: Reasons to be cheerful

I haven’t done a ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ post for a while, so I decided to do one to cheer myself up as I’m feeling full of man flu.

Reasons to be cheerful.

1. Cups of tea

Makes absolutely everything seem okay. And when you’re ill, other people make them for you. Score.

2. La familia

It was my nephew’s 1st birthday on Sunday, and on Saturday I went to visit him, my god daughter and her brother. We sat in the garden and played in the paddling pool, soaking up the sun and eating ice lollies. Good family times.

3. Spending an entire week with le chap

This might not seem like a big event, but as my beloved spends the working week down in London and I work up in glorious Yorkshire, we only normally get a couple of days a week together. So it’s been nice to have both booked those three days off in between the bank holiday so we get to spend a bit of QT together. Going to plan some nice days out, maybe go to the coast and watch a few bands together. Hurrah! Benrik would be proud of us.

#oneaday 101: where you from mate?

This video got posted on Twitter earlier today, I’d totally forgot it even existed. Get your ears round this mates!

I actually really like it. It makes me want to go out in LEEEEEEDS.

Credit to Slap ‘n’ Tickle ft. Witty and Nastee Boi…

#oneaday 69 (Heyoooo): Love thy neighbour

I’m watching Love Thy Neighbour, where people compete to win a cottage in the rural North Yorkshire Village of Grassington. The main premise of it is that people pimp themselves out to a set of bigoted stick-in-the-muds [EDIT: not everyone, might I add! I don't want to generalise...] and then everyone votes for who they want to stay. Most sentences start “I don’t like to judge, BUT…” which makes me want to scream. But it got me thinking, if I could choose my neighbours, who would they be?

Ideally, I’d love for all of my friends to live round the corner from each other, like at Uni. I’d also like my family to be a bit closer, although they’re not that far away at the moment (about an hour away). I honestly don’t know. As someone who has moved house around 15 times (lost count), I’ve always looked forward to meeting and getting on with my new neighbours. This rarely happens as I think people just don’t talk to each other that much anymore, which is a real shame. I always make an effort to go round and say hello, invite neighbours to parties and stuff but it never seems to go down too well. There were a couple of neighbours that I had who were brilliant, for example the chaps next door when I lived at 109 in Sheffield were great, and everyone on the street I grew up on was lovely.

I’d ideally like to live somewhere where neighbours became friends, rather than just people you nod at in the corridor. I’m going to make more effort to make this happen.

#oneaday 32: the illustrated day off

Following on from yesterday’s #oneaday post about my day off, here are the photos I took of my day off’s adventures. I’ve never been into my photography and none of this is meant to be particularly aesthetically pleasing, I just thought it made a nice change from words (as much as I do love them).

 

Like I said, I went charity shop shopping to Poverty Warehouse:

My first post of the 2011 one a day project

MMXI. It sounds like a shortened version of Mexborough, the town where I was born, co-incidentally. Which must make 2011 My Year, or something.

This is my first post of the one a day project, where myself and a gang of other literally inclined (that phrase looks wrong but does actually make sense, trust me) are attempting to post one blog every day in 2011. The project was started by Pete and I heard about it through my friend Ian, who successfully completed one a day last year and who subsequently inspired me to get involved. This year, we’re blogging for charity, so if you’re feeling kind, visit our justgiving page and donate to support Cancer Research UK.