Meenzer

I'm sure it'd be tons better with the real deal, but I just used lamb stock cubes aye. Didn't put in as many as the good people at Oxo want you to ("1 cube to 190ml of water" gets a bit daft when you're making up 2.4 litres of the stuff), I think I used 7 or so and that was fine. You want to taste the veg as well as the stock/salt after all...

Churchill was such a working class man eh, in fact obesity is exclusive to working class scum. Get off your high horse man, I was talking about the show not real life. TV people go out of their way to cast what they see as certain "types" that tick their boxes, otherwise things like this would never happen...

First thing that sprang to mind when you said "mince" was this, but then I assume your mince is beef/pork which wouldn't work as well. Still worth bookmarking anyway because it's full of win, as I believe all the young nerds are saying: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/461642/keema-with-peas

All ties in nicely with the working-class comedy thread really

I suppose there's Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps...

Aye, the American one's definitely better at underscoring the lifestyle change thing, plus you get plenty of fatty tactical voting in the eliminations. Brits are just too nice/gormless sometimes.

Follow @vivmondo on Twitter if you don't already - that's where I nicked it from

Individual teams and one voted off a week now, so that's five weeks if they go from 8 players to 3 for the finale, say. Plus they'll probably do something sneaky like bring one of the eliminated contestants back, I think they've done that before.

At least the one lass was "angel slices, lush, I get them at home"

"I just felt deflated". Aye, you wish.

Oo, adverts. Time to get some biscuits.

They both are, surely! Can't stand Bob, the whiny fucker, though his tantrums can be amusing. As for Jillian... ahh, Jillian. Possibly my ideal woman. She'd be great company on a low-calorie cocktail bender, except you know fine well she'd drink you, me and everyone else under the table.

Haha, definitely. We're watching the American series too, Tuesday nights on one of the Living channels (LivingIt, I think). What you lose in British common-ness, you gain in sheer flab.

Chilly out today, so thought I'd make this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/scotchbroth_8116 Absolute doddle and the results are lurrrrrvely. I chucked in a parsnip for a bit of sweetness and used savoy cabbage instead of kale (because a Tesco Express in Lewisham is going to have kale). You can use any kind of "soup mix" thing for the dried ingredients, doesn't have to be exactly as prescribed. Feels a bit daft recommending a recipe where the method is basically "put some stuff in a pot; wait", but there you go.

The Black Door at the Biscuit Factory. ( just over the railway from the Tanners) Excellent. Is that where Barn Again (or its successor) is/was? Loved that place when it was up by the ground, though I realise that's going back a bit now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/2...e-geordie-shore MTV buffs up Jersey Shore for UK as Geordie Shore Network to make British version of hit US format in Newcastle It is the most popular show US music cable network MTV has ever had. Now the broadcaster is bringing its hit reality show Jersey Shore, in which eight impeccably groomed twentysomethings share a beach house on New Jersey's Atlantic coast, to the UK. The twist is that it will be based in Newcastle and renamed ... Geordie Shore. MTV said it chose to base the series in the north-east because its residents know how to have a good time come rain or shine. "Jersey Shore is set in the summer and it is always summer in the north-east," said Kerry Taylor, the director of television for MTV Networks UK and Ireland. "No one wears a coat and Geordie girls are always out in their miniskirts." The original US incarnation, which began in 2009, quickly became a cultural phenomenon and returned for its third series with 8.4 million viewers earlier this month. But it was not to everyone's tastes – one Guardian writer described it as making "Big Brother look like Dostoyevsky" – and it caused controversy after it was accused of stereotyping Italian-Americans. The UK version of the show will be made by Liverpool-based Lime Pictures, producer of another teen reality show, The Only Way Is Essex, which was a hit for digital channel ITV2 last year, and Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. Taylor said it would be "loosely based on the American show". "The things we are taking away is the great cast – memorable characters who are funny and brash but at the same time warm and get on with each other," she added. Fiona O'Sullivan, the head of factual at Lime Pictures, added: "We've already found some perfect characters to bring Geordie Shore to life and can't wait to get filming on what we believe will become the next big, must-watch, reality show." Geordie Shore will air on MTV in the UK in late spring or early summer.

I'm getting the word... nonce. Zsa Zsa Gabor will be dead, Portugal will have been bailed out by the EU and at least one Nordic country will be sending a heavy metal band to Eurovision.

in the banner you daft bugger.

I've always seen Palermo and Catania as akin to the breakaway factions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia myself.

Solomon Burke - Nashville

http://www.sweet-david.com/ I swear you must be on commission from that place. just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience. Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks. I'm glad you've either bookmarked the URL or committed it to memory, though. You never know when it might come in "handy" one night. I doubt it sweetie. You're obviously quite a bit of an expert yourself, with lots of experience. I'm flattered. Just for that, I'll PM you some links for when you get bored of David and his "special friends".

http://www.sweet-david.com/ I swear you must be on commission from that place. just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience. Nowt to do with me darling, I'll leave that sort of experience to the freaks. I'm glad you've either bookmarked the URL or committed it to memory, though. You never know when it might come in "handy" one night.

http://www.sweet-david.com/ I swear you must be on commission from that place. just showing you a website you might enjoy with some like minded souls dear I'll pass, but thank you for sharing your life experience.

Omm nom nom, natural egg product