WHOOOOSSSSsssssshhhhhh....

...that was the sound of January flying past. Where the hell did it go?? This will remind me not to leave the time machine in neutral when I park it.

Well, I did the promised digging, and have found out a bit more about deer cocaine, which regularly crops up in my search-engine tracker as something which Google users keep plugging into searches and getting hits on this website. Apparently it is this: a liquid substance which releases a strongly odorous chemical into the air, and which one can paint onto a handy tree stump or other ground-based protuberance out in the woods. The scent can be picked up by deer from quite a distance away, who are then irresistibly compelled to locate the source of the stink and then proceed to lick it as if it were the ambrosial nectar itself. They just can't leave the stuff alone.

Now I personally have a couple of ethical problems with deer hunting, or at least deer hunting as it's portrayed in Hollywood movies (and I don't mean the ones with Christopher Walken playing Russian Roulette in a Vietnamese POW camp). I have no issue with eating meat per se. We have evolved as an omnivorous species, and whilst I have considerable respect for those of us who have opted not to eat meat and have the strength of will to stick to their principles, I feel no guilt about it provided that the animal concerned has (a) led a reasonably normal life, if farmed (i.e. no battery hens/eggs), (b) suffered as little as possible in the process, and (c) doesn't go to waste. I don't know how many deer hunters actually eat the deer afterwards.

But let's lay ethics aside for a moment, if you will. What this product is basically doing is doping the hell out of the deer, so that the hunter can saunter up nonchalantly and deliver the coup de grace with minimal effort.

It's bloody cheating, that's what it is.

What sport is there (assuming those concerned are hunting for sport) in shooting a deer which is staggering about in small circles and mooing in a slightly perplexed way because it's completely off its head and thinks it's a beautiful forest flower? What would hunter-gatherers of millennia past think, those skilled trackers who honed their talents over many years, to think like their quarry, to move upon them with ghostly stealth? Well, okay, they'd probably think, "Cunning bastards, that'd save us a day of sweaty running about in the forest, top idea fellas," but that's not the point. It's cheating. I am at least nominally English and, by God, there's nothing I detest worse than cheating. (Apart from pigeons, of course. And moths. And those bloody ringtone adverts.)

Imagine, if you will, the majestic spectacle of a leopard stalking an impala, crouching low in the long grass, eyes fixed upon its prey; then imagine the leopard standing up and whispering, "Oi, over here, mate," and offering it a giant spliff, before biting the antelope's head off once it's nice and woozy and has started talking to trees. You'd call the leopard a cheating bastard, wouldn't you. I know I would.

I'm in a bit of an ethical quandary. The office canteen has recently seen fit to replace its two beloved all-singing-all-dancing coffee/tea/hot chocolate machines with a single brand new enormous shiny one. It's three times the size, doesn't do hot chocolate, gives off ferocious gouts of steam at unexpected moments (usually when you're sticking your hand into its innards to grab the cup), and takes twice as long to make anything as the old ones did, resulting in enormous queues of toe-tapping punters waiting for their cuppas.

But that is not the source of my wrath. To add insult to injury, the management types have kitted out this caffeine-dispensing behemoth with only Fairtrade coffee and tea.

Now I think Fairtrade is a brilliant idea, and one which is frankly long overdue. I cheerfully fork out extra cash to buy Fairtrade products every time I go grocery shopping. My problem is that now we can only buy Fairtrade products, and the price increase which they've slapped on is about 230%. That means I now have to pay almost a pound if I want a cup of machine-brewed coffee. A sodding pound. I find it hard to believe that most of that price rise is going to the coffee farmers; the canteen must be making a bloody fortune. It's the lack of choice I object to, as well. Not everybody who works here can afford to spend that kind of money on hot drinks every day, and now there are no non-Fairtrade coffee machines. And I can't get a hot chocolate for love, money or bent pins.

So what do I do? Do I boycott the coffee machine on principle (as many employees are doing) and bring in my own jar? Or do I pay up, secure in the knowledge that the farmers are making a little extra cash off it, but also that the canteen is shamelessly fleecing me? It's questions like this that make me wish I'd done that philosophy module at university. Now, what would Thomas Aquinas do?

So I'm driving the children back from the shops the other day, with Sarah insisting loudly that I needed to put on her favourite tape, Inane Rhymes For Soothing Precocious Toddlers or something to that effect. It's got all your childhood Top 20 on it - such classics as "Five Little Speckled Frogs", "Wind The Bobbin Up" and "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush" - as well as such less well-known numbers as "I'm A Spaceman", "Dingle Dangle Scarecrow" and "The Ballad Of Twitchy The Hangman".

Okay, I made the last one up.

Anyway, I begin actually listening to the lyrics, right as "A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go" starts up. It's quite an old nursery rhyme, actually, dating back to at least the early 17th century. For those of you unfamiliar with it, I transcribe it here in full:

A frog he would a-wooing go
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
A frog he would a-wooing go
Whether his father would let him or no
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

Now, who on earth Anthony Rowley is, I have no idea, and neither (apparently) does anyone on the internet. Maybe he's the one telling the story. Maybe he's just a passing naturalist who happens to specialise in amphibian mating habits. We'll never know. But anyway. The frog is clearly a rebellious sort, and is up for a good time despite his dad's natural paternal desire to see him stay home and do his homework. Fair enough, really.

So off he set with his opera hat
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
So off he set with his opera hat
And on the way he met with a rat
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

Now the young frog has picked up his best mate Rat to go out for a night of debauchery on the town. Anthony Rowley says "Heigh-ho" in a clear world-weary acknowledgement of the degeneracy of 17th-century youth.

They came to the door of Mousey's hall
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
They came to the door of Mousey's hall
And there they did both knock and call
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

So now Frog and Rat have pitched up at Frog's girlfriend's place, I assume after they've already hit several of the local bars, as they're knocking and calling loudly in the street and therefore, presumably, distinctly inebriated. By now, Frog is undoubtedly shouting, "But I really love you," through the door, as drunken boyfriends generally do at such delicate romantic moments.

But while they were all merry-making
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
But while they were all merry-making
A cat and her kittens came tumbling in
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

Frog, Rat and Mousey are just getting down to the second bag of smack, and just possibly some serious hot three-in-a-bed cross-species lovin', when suddenly the door is smashed in by Cat (Mousey's dealer) and her boys. Doesn't look too good for the home team...

The cat she seized the rat by the crown
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
The cat she seized the rat by the crown
The kittens, they pulled the little mouse down
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

Mousey goes down in a hail of bullets. Rat gets dragged off to the back room and killed in some unspecified, but doubtless inventive and horrible way. Nobody messes with the Cat, homeboy.

The frog escaped and was crossing a brook
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
The frog escaped and was crossing a brook
When a lily-white duck came and gobbled him up
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

Frog, having seen his best mate and his girlfriend mercilessly slaughtered, legs it through the woods, and is nearly home and dry when Duck (one of the Cat's cronies) steps out from behind a tree and garrottes him, then eats his liver with some Heinz's baked beans and a fruity Sancerre. Mr. Rowley bemoans the lack of originality within the criminal fraternity these days.

So that was the end of one, two, and three
Heigh-ho! says Rowley
So that was the end of one, two, and three
The rat and the mouse and the little froggy
With a roly-poly, gammon and spinach
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley

All our protagonists are dead. The murderous Cat celebrates down the local sleaze bar with Duck and the "Kittens". Rowley sighs meaningfully as he muses on the transience of life.

It's unbelievable what they teach kids these days. (Next week - a gritty, hard-hitting exposé of the real story behind "Little Red Riding Hood".)

How to make a simple (yet very tasty) peppercorn sauce for steak, with minimum fuss and basic ingredients which most people will probably already have in the kitchen...

You will need (to serve 2):

• half an ounce of butter
• half a small onion, diced
• half a tablespoon black or mixed peppercorns (you can take these straight out of your pepper mill, unless you happen to have fresh peppercorns handy, which most people don't)
• one vegetable stock cube
• 60ml red wine or sherry
• 120ml boiling water
• 4 tablespoons of fresh cream (this is optional, but makes the sauce beautifully smooth, so I recommend using it if you have it)

Put the peppercorns in a plastic freezer bag or ziplock bag, and give them a good smacking with a hammer or other heavy household implement; the objective is to crack them into nice big coarse grains, not to reduce them to powder. Crumble the stock cube and dissolve in the boiling water. Melt the butter in a small saucepan (pop in a teaspoon of olive oil as well to reduce burning). Drop in the onions and sauté for about 3 minutes. Add in the crushed peppercorns and the red wine. Cook the mixture over a high heat for about another 3 minutes, or until it's reduced most of the liquid. Now add the stock liquid, and simmer for about 5 minutes to thicken the sauce. This is a good time to start cooking your steaks; you can reduce the heat on the sauce a bit if you like your steaks well done. Once the steaks are ready, add the cream to the sauce and stir it in for about 20 seconds, then pop the steaks on the plate and pour over you lovely creamy peppercorn sauce.

Simple and delicious. Enjoy.

Welcome back, and a happy and prosperous 2006 to you. I hope you had an enjoyable Christmas full of shiny unwrappables, and a relaxing New Year full of interestingly-coloured drinks in very small glasses.

It's become a sort of Daily Linguini tradition for me to promise to post some photos following a family holiday and then not to post any, but this time I'm going to promise to post some photos and then actually post some photos. Honest, guv. So you will all be able to stop calling me a useless gadabout (for I know that is what you call me, my spies are everywhere) and admire the gorgeousness of my offspring in a suitably reverent manner. As soon as I get the pictures online, I mean.

Now I must stop typing and start bouncing around for a bit, which I've been doing for most of this morning; it probably has something to do with not having had anything in the kitchen cupboards last night, and subsequently eating 25 Lotus biscuits for my dinner because I couldn't be arsed going to the chippy. That's what I call a sugar rush.

UPDATE: Pictures! Admire at will.


David finds me tremendously amusing


Sarah finds a new way to entertain herself while Christmas shopping


Howdy, pardner


Look how charming we are


David finds a comfy uncle to sleep on