Try something new ...

I'm turned off by Jamie Oliver being laddish, yet worldly, in those Sainsburys TV adverts. And once Sainsburys puts as much effort into customer service as Tesco, it'll be better for them and for us.

So, I was surprised to find myself responding to Sainsburys Try Something New Today campaign. I don't much like imperatives, including being told to be 'adventurous' this autumn. If my adventures between now and December amount to nothing more than a few additional items in a shopping basket, it will have been a dull few months.

I did, though, find myself buying some cream cheese to stir fry with leeks. They suggest too to "Try cutting pears with gorgonzola cheese". A task surely too difficult with even the most over-ripe of pears and strongest of gorgonzolas?

There's more news about redheads ...

... in the Grauniad.

An earlier Blog (Aug 10th) noted that redheads feel less pain then others. Well, it now seems that redheads are more sensitive to the cold than brunettes. Whether we are more sensitive than blondes or those with no hair at all remains open to question.

This is what Vanessa Collingridge, a red-headed television presenter and author, had to say:

"I am like a reptile because I am so cold-blooded. I have caught hypothermia twice while filming in Scotland - and that was during the summer."

Has she not heard of the Damart ThermalRange?

She then adds:

"Redheads are known for having lower pain thresholds and my midwife even warned me when I was giving birth to my son Archie. I usually need a double dose of anaesthetic when I go to the dentist."

Apparently,

"... the presence of a ginger gene means many redheads need extra doses of anaesthetic during surgery because they suffer pain more acutely."

Zzzzzzzz. Pass the ketamine, will you?

Vauxhall 'Village'

This week's Boyz tells of the ongoing gay commercialisation of Vauxhall.

Split in two by the railway in the 1900s, Vauxhall has never felt much like a 'village'. To date, gay bar/club life in the area has more or less been limited to the weekends. First Sundays then, in recent years, Friday thru Monday mornings. With the opening of Barcode and the sauna Chariots (they call themselves, er, a 'health club') it looks like it's becoming a gay destination 24/7.

Gays, as consumers and gentrifiers, have apparently contributed to urban renaissance. And I'm just waiting for Vauxhall to appear in this list of gay villages around the world.

In 2006, there's going to be the first ever Vauxhall Pride. But how the gays - often fuelled by alcohol and party drugs on such occasions - will negotiate the traffic that rattles around the A203 will be one to watch. A parade, perhaps, from Fire to Crash, pausing outside the RVT only briefly to wait for the man to change from red to green.




For another side of Vauxhall, and a legacy from those who squatted Bonnington Square in the 70s, wander around Harleyford Road Community Garden, as well as Bonnington Square itself and its Pleasure Garden.

David Sedaris ... follow up

Well, the news from my Dad about 'Dress your family ...' :

"What a sad, funny, hilarious, real life story. The scenes he describes are so vivid I could see them in my mind’s eye. Some making me feel very uncomfortable, and others I could so easily relate to. Life as it’s actually lived and touching into a range of emotions."

I'm now reading 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini. I can manage a few pages at a time before finding a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.

Royal Vauxhall Tavern

According to Over Your Head The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is up for auction. This led me do a search on its history. While doing so, I came across this suprisingly up to date entry in Wikipedia - surprising in its up to date-ness on gay Vauxhall. Good one.

While local residents, with support from Lambeth Council, may want one thing for improving the area, Livingstone and Prescott want something else - specifically, this 50 storey tower opposite the Collosseum nightclub





And: "A group of developers ("The Vauxhall Alliance") have had their eyes on Spring Gardens" [the park behind the RVT] "for some time and have come up with a number of proposals for building on the land in return (they say) for making the whole area more attractive, releasing land nearby and so on." Ref.

So, we'll have to wait and see who buys the RVT and their intentions for it. Hopefully, the density of gay venues in this area will make it attractive to continue to run as a gay venue. But then, as the auctioneer's blurb states, it has 'development potential'.