Am-ish (and BBQ ranting)
2006-06-17, 9:57 p.m.
How to Build a Summer HouseFirst survey the space where the summer house is to go:
Go out shopping for a bit whilst BF and Chum turn garden into lumber yard
Once ground has been surveyed with special tripod thingy and measury stick, build base at opposite end of garden and carry it about
Put all the bits together
Get dopey mate to climb into prickly trees to fix roof on
Get changed and get photo taken looking oddly pregnant infront of nearly finished summer house
and go to barbecue
A brief hiatus, dear readers, while I bitch about something. The British Barbecue. Why the fucking hell do we bother. Suse invited me over to her house IN PERSON, so there was no way I was going to be able to wriggle out of it. When she'd gone home, BF and Chum gave me the third degree as it was pretty obvious that I didnt want to go and they were both really looking forward to it. So, here's my take on the great British Barbecue and why they suck.
a) we just dont have the weather. Generally speaking we get a couple of really nice warm weeks in mid summer, but there's no barbecues being held then as everyone's on holiday. Nope, its that first reasonably sunny day of late spring. Guys! Its fucking freezing by 6 o clock!
b)People who NEVER entertain - and certainly not on a large scale - suddely feel compelled to invite 30 of their closest mates (and their kids) round to their postage stamp sized garden and then to cook for them all.
c) The person who generally NEVER cooks (the man)and who can barely be trusted to sit the right way on the toilet, will be in charge of the "Barbie" (Gah. I cringe just saying it). Said apparatus will be no more than 2 square feet (if THAT) of cooking space, on the wobbly bit of patio, next to the fence. Man-who-usually-does-fuck-all will tip ten ton of briquettes (?) into the pan, attempt to light them WITH A SINGLE MATCH and then squirt liberal amounts of some noxious flammable liquid over them to such a degree that when he lights the next match, everything goes "Whhhhhoooooommmmmp". A giant fireball launches skyward and wipes out a sizeable chunk of ozone layer (and next doors fence).
d) two seconds after this, he will pronounce the barbecue "Ready" and will begin loading it with enough raw meat to make even a pride of lions think "maybe we should hide some of this up a tree for later".
e) The food will be fucking dreadful. 99% of it will be from Asd@s "Summer BBQ" range. ie it will be maroon, having been marinated in food colouring 'a special blend of spices and authentic woodsmoke flavouring (Wha?!)' and it will be cuts of meat which require careful cooking by a person who has, say, cooked BEFORE! NB The 1% of the food that IS edible, will be the thing that I brought, in a Tupperware dish, which gets left til the end as its not from Asd@ so nobody knows what it is. The flames on the BBQ will be three feet high. Every drip of fat will send globulous meteor showers over garden, guests and green plastic patio sets (yeh, yeh, we've got one, get over it). The food will be black on the outside within seconds. Sadly, it will still be raw in the middle - and sometimes, still frozen. A Barbecued Chicken leg should have NO similarities to a Baked Alaska, as far as Im aware.
f) the barbecuing goon will attempt to cook ALL the food at once ("to give people a choice"). Should one be foolhardy enough to request something to eat....Aaargh. Imagine going to a dinner party where the host brings out the main course and its....sausages, chops, some ribs, some steak, chicken legs, burgers, a tiny bit of limp salad and a teaspoonful of watery coleslaw. Oh, and a jacket potato. On a paper plate. You have to eat it stood up, with a plastic knife and fork. You'd be off down the street quicker than you could say "stop at the kebab shop on the way home, love"
g) some time later the barbecuing goon will move all the uneaten food (and there'll be A LOT) onto a higher rack to dry it out keep it warm. Once it gets dark, I will sneak over to the now-glowing embers with an accomplice (usually someone else who's been gaily crowing "no thanks, not just yet, not really very hungry. had a big lunch." for a couple of hours), and one of us will divest the tupperware box of its contents. It will be some kind of proper BBQ food - some nice king prawn kebabs, steeped in garlic and ginger, or a couple batted chicken breasts, glazed with honey and soy. Or maybe a couple of bananas, with a big wedge of Cadburys Dairy Milk crammed into a slit in their skins. There'll be plenty to go around, but sadly, everyone else is stuffed with lamb Dalesteaks and wont have any room.
h) add to these some of the following: warm beer, wasps, Sarah Lee Blackcurrant cheesecake left on a table next to the grill for four hours, nowhere to sit, Sounds of Ibiza CD playing on a stereo with shot speakers. Oh joy of joys.
BBQ anyone?
next morning, mask windows and start spraying (wearing professional decorators uniform of overalls and yellow bikini)!
Fix roofing felt and trim. Get covered in little grainy bits from the roofing felt. Insert swear words of choice.
Glaze. Hold glazing nails in mouth for authentic moronic look (and black tongue!)
photograph BF looking like a twat
......annnnnnd relaxxxxxx
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