Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Grand Prix of Singing

The Eurovision Song Contest is tonight. My North American and Australian readers might be saying, "The what?" to that announcement. That was certainly my reaction when I first heard people in Munich talking about the Grand Prix. I assumed they were talking about car racing at first, as that's the name by which I knew Formula 1. But with all the talk of costumes, voting and oh yeah, singing; I realised it couldn't quite be Michael Schumacher they were talking about.

If you are that interested in it, you can read about it in my first link. If you're not that interested, just a few quick facts for you to take to your next trivia quiz. ABBA won Eurovision contest in 1974, which basically paved their way to fame. 1988 was the year Celine Dion won the contest (performing for Switzerland, not Canada). And Riverdance, the Irish dance show sensation, started as a 7 minute filler during the 1994 Eurovision. Funny that the filler became more famous than the act that won.

This will be my first time watching it with the BBC coverage, and only my 2nd or 3rd time over all. Apparently half the reason my British friends watch the show is simply for the dry witty comments from Terry Wogan, so that is something to look forward to. Everyone in Munich always complained, "It just wasn't the same" without Terry covering it. So tonight is my chance to see if it's even close to worth the cheesy hype it's given.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Turning British or just Odd

First of all, an apology for the lack of posts for so long. We were away for a few weeks and I've fallen out of the habit. Hopefully this will be the start of a revival.

So, the idea of this blog is that we are the colonials infiltrating the Brits. However, I think the Brits are infiltrating me. I found myself watching coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show last night. Okay, I admit it, I watched an hour of it on Monday too, that's how bad it's getting. My interest in gardening is normally limited to vegetables, but for some reason, I was attracted to watch a show about show gardens. Not really anything much I can take back to my own Garden of Weeden; these are pretty fancy and expensive gardens. Rightly or wrongly, I felt like an old woman watching the show.

Speaking of weeds, I decided to put some of those weeds to good use and make nettle soup. Surprisingly, there wasn't as many nettles as I thought on the plot - the couch grass much be beating it. But I got enough to make the soup. It was a lovely green colour and the taste was alright too. But the texture was yuck. Even pureed, it still felt like I was eating a bowl of chewy grass. I'm pretty sure I let it wilt enough, so I don't know how it could have been a smoother texture. And rightly or wrongly, I felt like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall eating the soup.