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Happy birthday, nacbrie!

Has it suddenly skipped to April 1st?

O the weirdness:

Isabella Rossellini transforms into a migrating salmon with nothing more than goggles, a body-stocking and an elaborate paper hat, and waits for a worthy mate to notice her.

Welcome to the quirky world of Seduce Me, the latest series of disarming short films from the 58-year-old actress, model and ex-wife of Martin Scorsese best known for Blue Velvet, Fearless and Death Becomes Her. The films, produced by Robert Redford's Sundance Channel, are written and co-directed by Rossellini, who takes three minutes or less to portray the bizarre seduction rituals of animals around us, with help from paper puppets, foam film sets and often unflattering costumes that never fall short of heroic. The films are described as "the spawn of Green Porno" referring to Rossellini's Webby award-winning previous series of equally outlandish shorts exploring the sexual proclivities of bees, barnacles and other creatures.

Next week, seven of Rossellini's films go on show at the Natural History Museum, as part of a major exhibition called Sexual Nature. The museum decided to host the films because, amusement value aside, they are scientifically accurate: snails jab each other with painful darts before sex and female ducks have versatile vaginas.

I suppose this project is redeemed by the humorous touch she brings to it - it could so very easily become the higher codswallop - though given that she presents herself as someone who prides herself on her knowledge of nature in its infinite variety, I'm a bit beswozzled by the claim that drones know that they will die if they mate with the queen bee. Hmmmm.

Bah frume

We can haz.

This saga has been running for some weeks now, but we now have fixtures fixed and the unit and countertop in place, even if there are further things that have to happen.

I don't suppose anyone remembers the Great Bath Crisis of around this time of year in 2005, involving the replacement of the existing bath with a new one, and several visits from the plumber to get the water to run at more than a feeble trickle.

The new one was white, which did not go with the rest of the fixtures, which were:

A totally 70s dark chocolate brown (I don't think this was ever a great idea, and it was an even worse one in a hard water area where limescale goes with the territory).

At that time we were having enough of an upheaval and flurry of expense not to want to redo the whole thing, but this finally came up as a desideratum round about the New Year (fine cracks in the fabric).

So we now have basic white bathroom appurtenances of modern design and more eco water-use habits, AND a pump for the shower/bath-tap for a more powerful flow.

Plus a cupboard under the sink and a really useful counter-top.

There is some tweakery that needs doing with the cupboard unit, plus decorating, new carpet, and a further cupboard putting in, but we have, with, on the whole, relatively little inconvenience (one day without a functional bathroom sink, apart from the waiting in for deliveries/workmen) a working bathroom.

Culinary

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk with cornmeal.

Today's lunch: plaice fillets, rolled around a stuffing of breadcrumbs with crushed coriander seeds and Bristol Blend peppercorns and salt tossed in melted butter, baked under foil; served with fine green beans roasted with slivers of baby fennel in pumpkin seed oil and splashed with tarragon vinegar before serving, and broccoli steamed with ginger.

This week's loaf: a version of Clement Freud's Mixed Wholemeal Loaf from The Sunday Times Book of Real Bread - 4 parts wholemeal to 1 of strong white and 1 of a mixture, in this instance, of wheatgerm, coarse cornmeal and Waitrose Mixed Seeds, made up with the remains of the buttermilk + yeast, salt, water, etc. I had another go with the Rumertopf Pane loaf pan, though trying to find hints and tips produced a number of contradictory suggestions, including heating the (soaked) pan to a high heat before greasing and adding the proved dough, and putting the knocked-back dough in the greased (soaked) pan and putting it all straight into a cold oven and then turning it on at a high temperature. What I did was thoroughly soak the pan (digging out my very large mixing bowl for the purpose), prove the dough in the floating pan, and (I think this was the most useful idea) line the pan with greaseproof paper first (is this actually the same as baking parchment? anyway, it pretty much worked) and put the risen dough into a cold oven which was then turned on at a high heat (Mark 8) and reduced at intervals.
I am not honestly convinced that all this turns out a nicer loaf than my old pal Superstone Loaf pan.