"WHEN CHOOSING BETWEEN TWO EVILS, I ALWAYS LIKE TO TRY THE ONE I'VE NEVER TRIED BEFORE" Mae West

READING:

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is the first novel Xiaolu Guo has written in English (her earlier book,Village of Stone, was written in Mandarin and then translated) and it has been long-listed for the Orange Prize this year, and is a wonderfully endearing, beautifully written and very funny tale of love, identity and language. It is based on the diary in English which she kept when she came to Britain for the first time in 2002.

Zhuang Xiao Qiao, the narrator, is a young Chinese woman who calls herself Z because non-Chinese cannot pronounce her name.
An only child, her parents have sent her to London for a year to learn to study English so that she can return to China and head up international business for their shoe factory. She soon discovers that the English she has already learned before coming to Britain is totally inadequate. Not long after her arrival in the city she meets a man and embarks on a relationship with him; he is twenty years her senior, a wannabe sculptor who earns his living as a delivery man in his old white van. Z falls in love, moves into his house in Hackney, and learns about sex, love and the English language. She eats in greasy spoon cafes, visits markets, goes to the cinema frequently tries to read newspapers and Virgina Woolf, and goes to a Soho live-sex peep show.

Every chapter begins with a dictionary entry for a particular word as Z slowly learns the intricacies of English, and muses on meaning and how differently things are interpreted in China. At the start of the book Z writes in her very minimalist quirky English which slowly becomes more fluent and sophisticated as her language skills improve. It is interesting to see our mother tongue from the point of view of someone who has to learn it from scratch, Z is bemused by some aspects of our grammar:
"Gosh, verbs is just crazy. Verb has verbs, verb-ed and verb-ing. And verbs has three types of mood too: indicative, imperative, subjunctive. Why so moody?"
"People say 'I'm going to go to the cinema...' Why are there two go for one sentence? Why not enough to say one go to go?"
There is a description of her attempt to read and understand the instruction leaflet that comes with a box of condoms which hysterically funny, and it made me laugh aloud so much that my DH woke up to ask what on earth I was reading.

She takes a month long rail trip round various European cities in Holland, Portugal, Germany, France and Italy, countries of which she knew absolutely nothing before leaving China and her observations on the people and places, just like her observations on London and Londoners made me realise how very differently we are seen when looked at by outsiders.

Back in Hackney she comes to realise that her lover is not going to commit to a future with her, and that eventually they will part.

Rating: 4*

RANTING:

I’ve just made a quick trip to the local high street to buy some fresh bread, fruit and veggies. Between the baker and the greengrocers I was accosted no less than three times by chuggers, all on behalf of the same charity. I began to feel really irritated by them, and quite antagonistic towards the charity they were working for. Its not as if they were rude or anything, they were incredibly perky and in-your-face smiley, but by saying “no” or “not now thanks” I was made to feel as if I was a mean-spirited child killer who wouldn’t give food to a starving man.

I do support charities, charities I know something about and really want to help; but being stopped over and over again by some out-of-work actor wearing a bright tee-shirt with a charity logo is not going to make me part with money. Crouch End Broadway must be one of their favourite target areas in North London because the street is awash with them week in and week out; I presume it gets some results or they wouldn’t be there.

Sometimes people are too busy to have to keep stopping, and they just don’t want to be hassled. Their behaviour today reminded me of a trip to Jerusalem some years ago. My DH and I took the kids to the Mount of Olives and from the moment we stepped out of the car we were surrounded by small Palestinian boys tugging at our clothes and wheedling “I guide you”, “I show you”, “Where you from?” “You American?”, “give me dollar please”, and finally realising we were from Britain “You want see Robert Maxwell grave?”…that was the final straw, I lost my temper and told them to b*gger off….Robert Maxwell’s grave, as if!

RECIPE:

For supper this evening we had sausage and mash with courgettes and gem squash; a very ordinary English supper meal, but I decided that tonight I would make the mash a little different using a Japanese ingredient, Wasabi, to which I have become quite addicted. Wasabi is the root of a plant which belongs to the cabbage family, and it is sometimes known in the west as Japanese Horseradish. In fact it tastes more like a hot English mustard than horseradish. In oriental grocers you can buy the fresh root which requires grating, or you can buy it in powder form which is made up into paste using water. Alternatively, and this is what I usually do, you can buy it as a ready made paste in a tube.

This mashed potato is absolutely delicious, not only with the humble sausage, but with many other fish or meat dishes.

WASABI MASHED POTATO

1kg peeled potatoes cut into equal sized chunks (use a floury potato such as Maris Piper)
150ml half-fat creme fraiche or single cream
3-4 teaspoons wasabi paste
Salt and pepper

Place the potatoes in cold salted water and boil until just soft enough to mash in the usual way. When mashed, add the wasabi paste and creme fraiche and blend in with a wooden spoon. Season to taste.

You can adjust the amount of wasabi and creme fraiche depending on whether you like your mash to be creamier or spicier.

LETS HOPE THE WEEK ENDS ON A BETTER NOTE than it began, I seem to have been out of sorts the whole time, have rowed with my elderly mother (her fault not mine), horribly hurt and offended a dear friend (my fault not hers), and have generally made a mess of things. TGIF.

READING:

I have been sifting through my bedroom bookshelves, which mostly have paperbacks, and have become horribly clogged up and muddled -originally I had the books in alphabetic order by author. Anyway, I have come across some old favourites and have started reading them again. One of these was a book I was bowled over by when I first read it.
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is a truly extraordinary and brilliant book. Not an easy read, because of the way Hoban has modified the English language, (it helps to read it aloud). When I first read the book in my early twenties, I had no knowledge of the legend of St Eustace, nor of the Green Man mythology, both of which feature in this book. You don't have to know about them to make sense of the story, but it helps.

It is set somewhere in southern England far into the future, when modern life as we would recognise it has vanished following what was presumably some nuclear apocalypse which had occured long before the book even begins. The narrator is Riddley Walker, a twelve year old boy describes life in what is a peasant society living a medeiaval existance. All previous knowledge has been lost, even the events which changed the world have become a faint folk memory.

At the start of the book three important th.ings happen to Riddley. On his naming day (the day he turns twelve) he kills a wild boar, he sees the leader in a pack of dogs is watching him - ever since the nuclear holocaust, dogs have been the sworn enemies of man,- and three days later his father is killed in an accident, leaving Riddley to inherit his father's role in the community.

The book is haunting, unsettling and terrible, but there are instances of humour and the natural spirit of mankind bubbles up all the time.

Re-reading the book I was struck by the fact that it was written in 1980 - many years before text-messaging (SMS) had been invented, yet much of the language Russel Hoban has invented is incredibly like txt talk. I think this might make the book more accessible to young people today who are used to communicating using this type of language.

RANTING:

That is what HMQ said in her speech opening the 2006/07 parliamentary session three days ago. Of course, she didn't write the speech herself, it was written for her by government apparatchiks with input from all the Departments of State. One of the biggest of these departments -if not THE biggest - is the Home Office, the department which is responsible for our police, our prisons, and our justice system.

So they want victims to be at the centre of the criminal justice system do they? Oh yeah? Well in that case, why, in the very same week, did the Home Office decide not to defend the case being brought by a group of drug addicted criminals? A group who were forced to go "cold turkey" when they were imprisoned, and who alleged that their human rights were violated as they did not give consent, and that their negligent treatment amounted to assault.

Withdrawal from using drugs, especially 'hard' ones like 'crack' or heroin, is frequently believed to be more difficult than it actually can be. Whilst quick withdrawal from certain drugs (alcohol, barbiturates and tranquillisers) can be dangerous, withdrawal from heroin may be comparable to a nasty bout of flu. Undesirable, but hardly life threatening. (The real difficulty for most addicts, is not coming off the drugs, it is staying off them). It seems extraordinary that this group was thought to have substantial grounds for making their claim.
The Home Office were supine in failing to defend the case with the utmost vigour, and deciding to make an out-of-court settlement. An out-of-court settlement which will give 197 prisoners a payment of £3500+ each. An out-of-court settlement which comes straight out of the taxpayers' pockets.
These people are in prison because they were found guilty of having committed crimes, what settlement are the victims of their crimes getting?

This whole business is an outrageous nonsense, it beggars belief.
I will have to go and have a lie-down, my blood is boiling.

RECIPE:

The nearest I've ever got to Sweden is IKEA in Wembley, but there is a dish from Sweden that I like very much. It goes by the unlikely name of Jansson's Temptation. I first tasted it at a restaurant called Anna's Place in north London many years ago, and eventually I tried making it myself. Basically it is a potato, onion and anchovy gratin, bathed in cream and baked until meltingly soft and unctuous. The name comes from a Swedish opera singer, at the end of the 19th century who liked cooking up a little something for supper after the opera, something with which he could tempt ladies of the chorus, and this was his signature dish. He was called Pelle Janzon, but eventually changed his name to Jansson as he became more successful (I'm not too sure whether his success was as a singer, or as a lothario). It seems to be a dish that the whole of Sweden eats at Christmas time, but I think it is great on a cold winter evening when you want to eat comfort food, but something a little different.

JANSSON’S TEMPTATION

Serves 4

6 medium sized potatoes
2 medium onions
3 tablespoons butter
15 anchovy fillets (approx 2 tins)
75ml single cream
75ml double cream
2-3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs

Pre-heat oven to 200°C

Butter a gratin dish generously, using half the butter.

Peel the onions, cut in half and then slice very, very thinly. Melt one tablespoon of butter in a frying pan and gently sauté the onion slices for a few minutes.
Drain the anchovy fillets, rinse and pat dry, then cut each one in half length-wise.
Mix the two creams together in a saucepan over gentle heat, do not let it boil.
Peel and grate the potatoes. You should work quickly now as the potato will discolour quite rapidly.

Put a layer of grated potato in the gratin dish, cover with a layer of the sliced onion, then place a lattice of anchovy over the onion; repeat the layers of potatoes, onion and anchovy, ending with a layer of potatoes. Smooth the top layer, and press down firmly with the palm of your hand.

Pour the warm cream over the potatoes. Sprinkle the dry breadcrumbs over the top and dot with the remaining butter.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Serve with a green salad and a cold beer.