bigmouth bikes again

went on a bike ride today, details at the link above. To be honest most of The Smiths references escaped me. I recall a song about cemetery gates, possibly an iron bridge may have been mentioned. I've never heard the Strangeways Here We Come album either. But I do enjoy cycling around manchester, and I can appreciate the social benefits of providing activities for young people in Salford.

Tribute band The Smyths were there, but for me the top special guest was the one and only Frank Sidebottom visible in photo above, on the right wearing a purple shirt

Musically the highlight was a performance by the Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra. The eycatching percussion instrument at the back of the hall appeared to have been made from a pair of old bicycles, joined by a combination of crude welds and tape. It sounded considerably better than it looked. Two other members of the band were playing rather orthodox instruments: bass guitar and drum kit. The fourth member of the band took vocal duties. The resultant sound was a surprisingly business-like wall of sound. Put me in mind of Nurse With Wound - which is a compliment.

The statistics: Distance = 15.3 miles, maximum speed = 21.1 mph, moving average = 8.5 mph and time moving = 1h 48m 24s

Climbing again

Went to the Manchester Climbing Centre with MC last night. It was fun, despite my lack of success in getting up anything in the last half of the evening. I think it was the extra weight of the cup of tea

tattoos

The theme of tattooed knuckles has been going round my head for a few years. What would be the best eight-letter sequence to display? Or a pair of four-letter words? Plenty of examples at Knuckle Tattoos
Get your own knuckles at the knuckle tattoo gun.

Vegan cheescake

I had two recipes, but the first (from the Real Food Daily cookbook)required white miso, and since I couldn't find any I found another recipe on the Internet. I ended up combining the two recipes in an apt and original way. Read on for the full story, with pictures.

The RFD cookbook had a fancy-schmancy wheat-free crust made with barley flour and stuff. Probably would have been delicious but I couldn't be arsed, what with the time it was going to take to make the cheesecake itself. I didn't want to spend all day in the kitchen so I smashed up 20 hobnobs and fried the bits with 3 tsp of margarine, and spread that in my pie tin. Mmm, fried biscuits. They're unhealthy-licious.

The filling was made in two parts - first was 1 cup of maple syrup, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 3 dessertspoons of sunflower oil and a lemon. The zest of the lemon was put in the liquid, then I peeled the lemon and removed the pips and some of the tough bits and blended it all up with my hand blender. Then I whisked in one tsp of baking powder and half a cup of arrowroot powder.

For the second part I used one 225g tub of Tofutti "Better Than Cream Cheese", one packet of silken tofu (approx 14oz) and half a packet of normal (firm) tofu (125g). I blended these up a bit, then I added the liquid< from the previous paragraph and blended some more. By this time it looks pretty gooey and tastes sweet, and the work is almost done. Pour the gooey liquid over the crust and bake at about 180 deg C for an hour (check to make sure the top doesn't burn) then take out. It should be a bit runny in the centre but firmed up at the sides. Then leave to cool for four hours

As a topping the RFD have a raspberry puree to make. Or get a tin of black cherry pie filling from the supermarket and pour on the top. I went with option two.

I could eat a really large amount of this.

Quick!

Google Analytics says that 83% of visitors to this site stay less than
10 seconds. Can I say a brief hello? No - they've gone

My footprint

Apparently, if everyone lived like me, we'd need 2.6 planets http://www.myfootprint.org/ My fuel consumption estimates were very rough though

Hygiene

For ages I couldn't spell hygiene. But that isn't the point right now. I want to share with you my world-improving idea. Everyone worries about germs nowadays, especially when using public toilets, which is why they have taps which operate by waving your hand under them, and hand dryers (previously covered in this blog)
But door handles? Well, someone has an idea which I don't really rate. My idea is to have two handles and a note advising customers who have washed their hands thoroughly to use the top handle (ideally white) and others to use the lower handle (a dark colour). Probably wouldn't work. Non-washers are no worse off than if there was only one handle, but have everything to gain by using the "clean" handle. Would anyone use the "dirty" handle? If no-one uses it, would it be cleaner than the clean handle? Which handle would you use?