Buttering Up The Royals

What single thing would most improve the quality of my life, you ask.
Well OK, you don't give a f**k.
I'd be quite worried if you did.
But I'll tell you anyway: a year round supply of Jersey Royal New Potatoes.
They're now at all good food retailers and I shall spend the next few weeks shovelling as many as possible of the little beauties down my voracious yet discerning gob.

Although rather pricey when they first appear, you don't need to spend much on their accompaniment because they're always going to be the star on the plate. They're best with cold meat, even the humble but satisfying corned beef. Or a tin of red salmon - often on 'two for one' offer: who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

Boil them with a little mint and check them after about 20 minutes. Serve them with chopped chives freshly cut from the garden (or parsley, or both) and lashings of butter. Add even more butter at the table. Just a few weeks of this butter binge shouldn't give you a coronary but, if it does, what a way to go.
You can also make awesome potato salads. After chopping the cooked potatoes, toss them in French dressing. Or lemon dressing in my case, because I'm allergic to vinegar. (Remember that if you take me to the chippie after our romantic evening in the snug at the Rod and Mullet). Then add the mayonnaise and chopped chives and parsley. Make several pounds (oh, all right, kilos) at once because it will keep in the fridge for several days. The vinegar or lemon acts as a preservative. You can use chopped spring onions instead of chives if you don't have a significant other with whom you are planning some post-prandial tongue action.

I have to admit that Jersey Royals don't seem to taste quite so good as they used to. But that perception, real or illusory, usually means you're getting old.
In the unlikely event that I found myself in a threesome with David Beckham and Amir Khan I'd probably complain that it wasn't as good as those wanks behind the bike sheds in 1962.

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You have to admire the PR people at Bluewater Shopping Centre. Having got millions of pounds worth of free publicity for their ban on hoodies and baseball caps they now have the audacity to issue another press release saying how much their trade has increased since the ban. And the BBC read this out on the news without comment.
At least James Naughtie on the Today programme had the sense to ask whether the increase in visitors might have something to do with all the publicity they'd generated. The number of people who'd never heard of Bluewater before must surely exceed those who had longed to go there but were terrified of seeing a youth in a baseball cap.

As it happens, I wore a baseball cap this morning because it was raining - a cheeky little number in virginal white. I was most disappointed that the woman in the Co-op didn't press the panic button and have me escorted from the premises. I'd already been working on some designs for my banner - FIGHT THE FASHION FASCISTS, on a Burberry background.
I'll try again tomorrow in a hoodie.

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Referring to Kylie as "that bloody woman", as I did in Peter's comment box, was probably a little insensitive in the present circumstances. It probably came from my reaction to her music. But I do feel that the coverage of her illness is grossly disproportionate. If she'd been killed in a car crash I'd expect that to be number 2 or 3 in the running order on the news, depending on what else was happening. But first item on news bulletins for an early diagnosis of breast cancer?
If Kylie snuffs it, will normal television programmes be suspended and will there be a national Three Minute Silence? We'll soon be having one of those if someone's guinea pig dies.
It's indicative of a trend in society in recent years and it's interesting that Peter makes a comparison with the death of Diana.
We are living in an atomised society in which people can lie dead for weeks in their houses before anyone notices there's a rather unpleasant smell, yet there's a mass outpouring of grief over a celebrity that few of us have met and whose music and career millions of us are indifferent to.
I'd say the world's gone mad, but saying that is another sign of old age.

PS: yesterday's comments on Naked Blog are worth reading for the robust exchange of views on George Galloway. It was only when confronted with the loathing so many on the left feel for him that I discovered how much there was to admire in the doughty old demagogue.