London 10 [Pdf]I have reformatted my London ordeal poem "London 10" to make it appear hypercool. It was still written by me though.
Just tinkering with PHP - the google maps api (created an adventure map!) and the open source phpBB, with which it was relatively easy to create a forum called the 'half-poet' as it is only half way to wherever it is going. All it needs now is poets to write half witty things there.
"i envy everyone not just you"
deluge revisited
that look in your eye
head tracing little circles
like a corkscrewing ash seed
that crooked smile
and behind it the unlaughed laugh
that took so many of us
from the street into the casket of dust
and bookish mould
the huge fusted crumb of paper
towering over your desk
oaky scent of word fusion
i tried to help
when the water pipe broke on your pile
and turned it into dirty dough
but your ownership had run aground
and ruined the cakemix
every night after that you awoke
to the ribbet of frogs
the omelette (an interpretation)
needed:a frying pan : an egg (x2), beaten : teaspoon of butter : chopped spring onion or shallots (optional)
The pan needs to heat over a flame. this flame is the most important ingredient. It should be a medium to large flame - with fingers about 1 1/2 centimetres (3/4 inch) long, blue with little yellow tails. It should remain firm when blown by a wave of the hand, and it's heat should be felt on the face when standing near. But it should not be so large as to lick over the sides of a medium sized pan in a raged way, or to have an angry sound.
The pan should be cool - if it is already warm from previous use the flame will need to be lower and even so it can be difficult to judge how quickly the egg will cook unless you are used to cooking lots of omelettes in a row. For consistent results I try to start with a cool pan every time.
Place the pan on the flame and into the pan put your butter pat. If the flame is hot enough it will melt quickly, but should not start bubbling and smoking for at least 15 seconds after you put it in, during which time you pour on top your chopped spring onion if you are using that. Move the pan so as to cover most of its base with melted butter. Once the butter is spread out like this it should smoke and begin to turn brown; it is at this moment you must add the egg.
A moment to consider the egg: chicken eggs I prefer over duck, but I have never used a goose egg like Delia. We have chickens so our eggs are good - in England there was a lovely blue shelled variety of egg we used to buy. You must love the egg and the bottom from whence it came. Chickens don't lay eggs for fun, as anyone walking past the chicken shed will know by the screams emanating from it at laying time. So I try to do good things with my eggs out of respect.
I add a spoon of water to two eggs and whisk them with a fork. Three eggs make a chunky omelette but I wouldn't go to four unless you have a huge flipper and pan and stomach. Don't whisk them too hard - the texture changes and it makes a foamy omelette. I often find the time it takes the butter to melt is just long enough to get the eggs beaten (although cracking them and beating them in that time is a challenge especially as a bit of shell will always make its way in if you're in a hurry or there's a big blob of red goo that you're fishing around for whilst the butter burns).
Pour the egg into the smoking butter; it will usually wash all the spring onion off to one side, that's ok. The butter and the heat should stop the egg from sticking - if it sticks the flame could be too low, or there mightn't be enough butter. Every pan is different and some always stick some, others never do. A good omelette maker has her favourite pan, it dangles from her wrist on an unbreakable thread.
It does not take long to cook an omelette. It should all be over in about three minutes. Depending on the size of your pan, you may after the first thirty seconds or so still have pools of egg on the surface of your omelette, and these can be cooked by teasing back the edges of the cooked part and allowing the uncooked egg to flow into the space. This creates pleasant folds in the finished product, a la the French method. Don't use your fork to do this if you are using a non stick pan.. a wooden spoon or something will have to do.
Keep the omelette loose in the pan by rocking the pan back and forth - if it is still sticking you will need to take invasive action with a spatula. This probably spells doom for any plans you had of a good flip later on. If the temperature is right, this should not happen much, and your omelette will be ready for the next stage after about two minutes. Too long and your omelette will burn or turn into rubber. If this happens you might as well start again, although it is a shame to waste the eggs. This is why the flame is important - if it is just right your omelette will cook at the right speed.
To flip or to not flip? Each omelette has to be judged on it's merits. If it has nearly cooked through because it is quite thin, then you can just fold it in half, and the residual heat will finish the cooking. If you like sliminess, you can do this to any omelette and cut out the flip. However if you like a bit of action before breakfast, you will want to flip your omelette. This is accomplished by a spatula or by deftness of wrist - it all depends on how well the omelette has cooked. If it is broken up or looks fragile or if your pan is too heavy, you will have to use a spatula. Flipping in the air carries the risk that you will ruin what was otherwise a very nice meal, either by a miss catch where half of your meal gets cut off by the edge of the pan and hits the bench and your leg, of by an incomplete somersault where the omelette lands folded in half or, in the case of an 'overflip' lands, with a spray of uncooked egg, back the same way up. However when achieved successfully it produces a perfectly formed, light, miraculous food event unlike anything else you can grace a plate with.
Once flipped you only need to 'seal' the other side which takes no more than one minute. Don't leave it sitting in the pan where it will grow heavy and stiff. Release it onto the plate (which must be warmed) and into your life. Eat it at once.
Techy web wander the other day, visited mr transistor and reminisced pulling transistors out of circuit boards as a kid in the garage on the weekends. I still have a box of bits I removed from these boards at the time and looked at them last night, comparing old logos with those in the gallery. Funny how early transistors looked a bit like the luna landers of that era. I have dozens of brown ceramic resistors that I pulled from old equipment - wish now I had left them in place. Perhaps I will wire them into a new electronic creation one day.
I followed Mr Transistor links to the ICT 1301 resurrection project. Lots of my early schoolwork was written on punch cards and holey computer paper; I never thought of those cut rectangles representing trapped information now indecipherable to us without resurrecting the technology, which has already become almost irredeemably obsolete.
Mr Transistor sent me off on another journey to Mikes Electric Stuff and in particular his tesslathon derby pages. I think what it is about these coils that fascinates me and others is that they show electricity in its pure form, unadorned by matter or technology, as a quick and wicked devil of a thing.
The collection "Rhymes for a Mood" is now in the poetry section of the site. It contains a fair mix of stuff from the last one and a half years, fruit of the loom of my inside mind room.
16.9.7
I am not sure what I have done here. So we start to draw lines in the sand and at some point we stand back and try to make sense of it before the sea comes and washes seaweed all over it. I think I am at that point with this web droool.
dad's sansui amplifyer is hissing and crackling. It wants a new capacitor, i think. I liked its sound - like a large black brown wheel turning on tiny crystals. And the speakers are like sneakers on saturn. well there.
I've renamed this page - I am actually not the poet. Its true, the real poet it hidden. He likes me though, I think, at least he lets me put this stuff up. Have I stuffed up?
Childhood games: years ago I was absorbed in 3d point and shoot and made Deepblue rooms and greensteel sewers. Holidays spent geekishly making websites and programming in glorious GWBasic. Later when I spent a few days in a cave trying to capture silence all I could think of were these electronic castles, luminescent in SVGA. Pixelated brain-children of mine they wouldn't let me go, still I am here.
Alex
20.8.7
Shambo, the sacred cow at the Skanda Vale Temple in Wales
Shambo, you were the life.
What price, the cud?
the soft moo?
a piece of you?
Yoked and towed
from family -
a shambles.
Far from the quiet
melody
of the singsong
temple gong
a piece of paper
came for you
a ticket
to the market
smashed your brains out.
John's Story [Pdf]
This is the life story of John (Ivan) Sekoranja, my grandfather. He recorded it on tapes and my mother used them to create this document. It was published privately, and I heard it has been translated into Slovenian and published by the family there as well.
It records his early life in Slovenia and Germany during the war, and his later escape from the Yugoslav communist army into Greece. It then relates his early experiences following immigration to Australia, work on the snowy scheme, and setting up a home and life in Cooma during the sixties.
Alex
29.6.7
(image links to page)I Have just created a page showing some snapshots from fractal explorations I once took, back in the days before time was scarce. It might take a minute to load.
Alex
13.6.7
Yes Yes! There is a baby under the roof and on the floor! Enter Rowan Alexander Watt 12 April 2007 8lb & lovely.
here he is.Rose was fantastic. Quite a marvel. She is at home with him now and I am at work, lucky me :-(.
Spoke on the phone just now. He sounds like garbled electrical whirring and hooting in the background. Just to gaze at him is a new sport. He is very little. Like a pebble or a cotton reel, wrapped in muslin. We love him of course! A little human speck. A magnetic child. Our present to ourselves and the world. He, also, a gift to us from log knows where. A parachuted suprise attack from space.
Alex
1.5.7
Hi - yes the word goes on, and a new baby is almost upon us. Miracle day!
I have had some time to release onto the unsuspecting internet a few folded paper flowers: - notebooks from old rambles - a poem about london which is otherwise now a swimmy memory behind me. I have had to keep my hands off it so as to preserve the feeling of those last few grey-mad moments. It is completely imperfect - thank G-d!
Have a nice day everyone.
a 4.4
Hello new year, hello old face.
Some delecate changes here and there.
Try not to break it - it! The switch
cane making us move, marking the race.
Alex
10.2.7
2005-06 homepage
