Go Faster Stripes

 Lots of sports cars have livery with longitudinal stripes, which we jokingly call "go faster stripes". If I'd been richer and more vain I could have specified a wide white stripe up the middle of the nosecone, bonnet and scuttle of my kit car. On a camper van however similar stripes can make a significant difference to top speed. Commercial vans are limited to 60mph on motorways, camper vans 70mph. If you buy a van and fit it out as a camper you can take it to the vehicles inspectorate and have it re-registered as a camper van rather than a commercial van. One of the criteria that the inspector will assess is whether it looks like a camper van. People have taken to sticking on long stickers with silhouettes of mountains and words like "adventure" as part of getting their van re-registered as a camper. In this case it gives a 10mph increase in top (legal) speed.

Think about how ridiculous the situation is. We can have two (say) Mercedes Sprinters with the same chassis, body, tyres, brakes and suspension. One has some appliances and soft furnishings fitted in the back. The other is delivering some appliances and soft furnishings which are in boxes in the back. One is safe to drive at 70mph, the other only 60mph. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I believe it's to make sure that delivery drivers know their place in society. Tarquin and Jocasta on their way to five nights in St. Ives are allowed to drive faster than the guys bringing groceries in the same van on the same roads in the same direction.

Richard "compulsory high viz" B

Lemon Salmon Linguine

This is my replacement for the lost lemon salmon linguine recipe. It’s all done in a frying pan this time. I’ve cooked it very many times recently while trying to perfect it.

2 salmon fillets

2 oz butter

2oz (50ml) lemon juice

Chopped parsley

Salt & pepper

 

Shallow fry the salmon fillets on medium in a little oil in a heavy pan. Season each face with salt & pepper as you turn them. Cook the prettiest face first and the skin side last.

Set the salmon aside for a short rest.

In the same pan add the butter, when it is half melted add the lemon juice and stir.

Add the parsley and stir.

If it seems appropriate add a couple of spoons of hot pasta water from the linguine you should have just finished boiling.

This lemon sauce is an emulsion, it wont last more than a few seconds in the pan without separating and all the lemon flavour will boil off.

Take the pan off the heat.

Quickly take the skin off the salmon and put it on a bed of linguine (pretty side up), spoon/tip the sauce over the fish.

 

Richard "TV chef" B

Intercom

 I recently went on a track day with a friend of mine. My car has an intercom so you can just about talk to each other (in full face helmets) while you're lapping the circuit. We're both classically English and have politeness and apologising ingrained in our characters. We both issued very rapid and terse apologies over the intercom while we were driving – mid fuck up. My friend missed a gear and forced the car from 3rd to 2nd at about 70 miles an hour instead of 3rd to 4th. As soon as the clutch came up the revs spiked and the rear wheels squirmed. Before the car was even fully under control again I heard "SORRY!" in the intercom.

I entered a hairpin too fast. I didn't spin the car, but the tightest line I could manager took us out over the kerbs and over a section of grass. Before we'd even left the track I had shouted. "TOO FAST. SORRY!"

Richard "My Fault Entirely" B

Fish and Chip-ocrite

 There's a 60s song that you sometimes hear called MacArthur Park. It goes on for a very long time and it doesn't make a lot of sense. The bit it keeps coming back to is about a cake whose icing is melting because it was left out in the rain and the line "I don't think I can take it, because it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have the recipe again"

I've never really thought about it carefully. I assumed it was about romance slowly fading, and I certainly never considered that the song was about a missing cake recipe.

Years ago I used to live with a "vegetarian" who would also eat fish, so we had lots of good fish recipes. One of them was for Lemon Salmon Linguine. It worked like magic, The fish was cooked in the oven with butter and lemon juice and the liquid out of the fish would combine with the other ingredients to turn itself into a delicious, glossy sauce. It was served on a bed of linguine and parsley.

I haven't cooked it in years, I can't remember how it was done, or where the recipe came from, and I have failed to re-create it. I want to cook it again because I have house guests who have asked for fish for tea and I can't.

I'm now re-thinking the song MacArthur Park. Maybe it is about the frustration of losing a recipe.

Richard "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" B

PPE

 I have reached the stage in my life where I have had to buy my own angle grinder. All I have used it for so far is wirebrushing my rusty railings and cutting the heads off rusty bolts in my rusty railings. Pretty much everybody I have mentioned this to has told me a horror story about how dangerous angle grinders are, and the importance of protective gear. My brother nearly lost his big toe to one, a friend of a friend nearly lost his whole foot to one. I was wearing goggles, ear defenders, gloves, a welding jacket and sturdy boots just to cut the head off an M8 bolt.

Long Shower

 I don't know if I'm at the age yet where I can "have a fall" rather than merely "fall over", but I did. I was quite proud of the very urgent prioritisation that I did afterwards. I've been painting the rusty railings around my deck with black Hammerite. Hammerite is sticky, goes off quickly, and is completely indelible. The edge of my deck is about 4 feet above a bank of gravel. To finish the painting I had to gingerly walk on the outside of the railings. For my readers who climb: it's like a V0 slab problem. I fell down onto the gravel while still holding the paint tin and wet paintbrush. I banged my knee hard on the edge of the decking and hurt both ankles when I landed. However during the fall I had got about ¼ pint of Hammerite in my hair, down my face and neck, and all over my clothes.

The adrenaline and the panic allowed me to ignore my injuries, I was most concerned with whether I would ever get the paint off me. I walked to the bathroom, stripped off and got straight in the shower. This was my worst mistake. I should have stripped off outside and then gone to the shower. I put Hammerite on the bathroom floor and the cabinets, but there was none on my feet so that I don't need new carpets. Hurray! I decided to work on my hair first, my reasoning was that if the paint dried It would be impossible to cut or shave off the matted hair, whereas you can probably live quite comfortably for a few weeks with a big black stain down half of your face and neck. The clothes were already ruined and I sacrificed a towel to the project too. About 20 minutes of shampooing, combing and towelling my hair and it was almost back to normal. Next I cleaned the bathroom floor and cabinets as best I could (you can hardly see the damage) and threw away the clothes and towel. By this stage the paint on my face was dry, but I discovered that I could remove most of it with a nail brush and soap. It was quite painful and made me bleed in a few places, but after a couple of days you wouldn't even know that anything had happened.

Richard "My Eyebrows Saved My Eyesight" B