We’re sharing a taste of The Fast 800 Keto recipe book, as seen on Channel 4’s Lose A Stone In 21 days by Dr Clare Bailey who is on tour with her husband Dr Michael Mosely this month
Creamy broccoli, ginger and coriander soup
A light soup with the warming qualities of coconut, ginger and coriander running through it. The recipe makes enough for four but it keeps well in the fridge or freezer.
Serves 4, Prep 5-7 minutes, Cook 15-20 minutes.
Ingredients
1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped, 40g fresh root ginger, roughly chopped (no need to peel)
1 and half tbsp oil
1 head of broccoli, roughly chopped
1x 400ml tin coconut milk
Vegetable stock cube
15g fresh coriander
40g flaked almonds, toasted, to garnish
Cook’s tip:
Add a protein top-up if you like. Fried diced bacon or feta cheese would go well
1. Place the onion, ginger and olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and saute for three or four minutes until softened
2. Add the broccoli, coconut milk, stock cube and 800ml water (simply refill the empty tin twice). Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Remove from the heat, add the coriander and blitz with a stick blender until completely smooth. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and serve, topped with flaked almonds.
Persian love cake
Loosely based on a Persian Love Cake, this enchantingly exotic concoction lives up to its name. not sure I do it justice, but it certainly goes down well, with its tangy, orange-flavoured topping, and rich, nutty base. High in protein and nutrients, it has no added sugar, is low-carb and feels like a real treat… Enjoy
Serves 8, Prep 30 minutes, Cook 30 minutes
Ingredients
100g dried figs, finely chopped
60g coconut oil or butter
Two medium free range eggs
60g shelled pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
Two medium oranges, zested and juiced
100g almonds
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp free-dried raspberries
1 tbsp cider vinegar
For the icing
60g cream cheese
1tsp honey
1tsp lemon zest
Cook’s tip:
This freezes well (so you don’t need to eat it all at once, as Michael is frequently tempted to do). You could use a loaf tin liner if you have one.
1. Preheat the oven to 180C / Fan 160C/ gas 4. Line the base of a 20cm x 10cm loaf tin with parchment paper.
2. Place the figs, coconut oil and eggs in a bowl and blitz with a stick blender for about a minute, until creamy but retaining some texture.
3. Stir in 40g of the pistachios, the orange juice, half the orange zest, the ground almonds, cinnamon, cardamom, bicarbonate of soda, half the dried raspberries and a generous pinch of salt. Mix well, then add the cider vinegar and mix again.
4. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for about 30 minutes until cooked through and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn out of the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.
5. To make the Topping, mix the remaining orange zest with the cream cheese, honey and lemon zest in a small bowl. Spread it on to the cooled cake, then sprinkle the remaining chopped pistachios and dried raspberries on top.
Dom Joly discusses The Conspiracy Tour, based on his latest book, which visits Maidenhead, Farnham, Basingstoke, Winchester & more this month and next…
Q. Hello Dom. Your new tour, The Conspiracy Tour kicks off in February. What can we expect?
“It’s a companion to my latest travel book, The Conspiracy Tourist in which I travelled the globe again looking into the strange world of the Conspiracy Theorist. I will take the audience through a range of some of the wackiest conspiracy theories out there and what I think of them. I am pretty much a sceptic and so, for balance, I will be joined by an eminent conspiracy theorist, Dr Julian Northcote (author of the book COWS! Britain’s Secret Killers). Expect fireworks.”
Q. What sort of conspiracy theories did you look at?
“I took my long-suffering wife to Finland for a holiday to prove that it exists. There is a theory that it doesn’t. I also went on a massive road trip across America popping into Denver International Airport, rumoured to be the assembly point for the Illuminati come the Rapture. I investigated UFOs with a visit to Roswell, New Mexico. I looked into the JFK assassination in Dallas, Texas. I chased Alex Jones, the Info Wars grifter around Austin Texas. I also took a Flat Earther to one of the four corners of the square flat earth- an island called Fogo, off Newfoundland. It didn’t go well…”
“Conspiracies used to be fun… Nowadays they have gone bats*** insane..”
Q. Why the interest in conspiracy theories?
“Conspiracies used to be fun. Did we land on the moon, Bigfoot, Was Paul McCartney cloned? Nowadays they have gone bats*** insane. They have infected the body politic, with the actual President of the United States supporting Q Anon and urging people to inject themselves with bleach. It’s dangerous and being used by a series of grifters to terrify gullible people and fleece them for money. It makes me angry…but it is also often very funny.”
Q. This isn’t your first travel book?
“No, it’s my fifth travel book. Over the last 15 years or so I have travelled to more than 100 countries and written about some pretty strange stuff. I went on a coach trip around North Korea, an assassination vacation across America, skiing in Iran, walking the length of Lebanon, monster hunting in the Congo, joining an illegal crossing of the US/Mexican border…I even spent a night in Swindon. I seem to be attracted to dark destinations.”
Q. You grew up in Lebanon – is this why you like this sort of travel?
“Possibly. I grew up in the middle of a vicious civil war and yet, I had an unusual but wonderful childhood. Lebanon is an exciting, beautiful place and I always try to find the same in other places that maybe have a bad public image. My favourite fact about growing up in Lebanon was that I went to school with Osama Bin Laden for a year. I was six, he was 18 and so we were not friends but I long to get a school photo. The weirdest part is that it was a Quaker school…Quakers being famous for pacifism.”
Q. You first shot to fame in Trigger Happy TV- how did that happen?
“I did my life the wrong way round… most people do silly stuff when they are young and then knuckle down. I did the opposite. I was a diplomat in Prague and a producer for ITN in Parliament. Then, I started making satirical comedy but fell into just trying to be as funny as possible when Channel 4 spotted my stuff and asked me to make Trigger Happy TV. I am immensely proud of it. I put blood sweat and tears into every episode and we sold the show to 80 countries and it opened so many doors for me.”
Q. What were your favourite moments making Trigger Happy TV?
“Often, they were the behind the scenes, private jokes. We used to work next to the office where Tony Blackburn worked and we got his autograph every morning, at exactly the same time for seven months and he never noticed. I also, dressed as a traffic warden, once gave a fire engine a ticket while they were putting out a small fire, only to find that I had lost my cameraman and nobody was filming. My favourite Trigger Happy sketch was probably the large snail crossing the road because only in Britain would the traffic stop and wait so patiently as I crawled across excruciatingly slowly.”
Q. What makes you laugh?
“If I had to sum it up, it would be ‘travel vast distances and make an enormous effort to do something totally pointless’. My favourite sketch of all time was actually in a sequel to Trigger Happy TV called World Shut Your Mouth in which we flew all the way to Northern Canada to ‘frighten an Eskimo’ by sneaking up behind him and crashing a large pair of cymbals together before running away and flying back home in triumph.”
Q. What makes you happy?
“My dogs… all dogs actually… except for little ones. No dog should be smaller than a cat.”
Q. What makes you angry?
“How much time do you have? Jacob Rees Mogg, trains, bigotry, bullies, injustice, poor grammar, Boris Johnson, tax dodgers, people failing upwards, grifters, Covid deniers, bureaucracy, traffic wardens, people who stand up the moment the plane lands, people who say eXpresso, automated customer services, Elon Musk, religious zealots, scammers, Q&As, Swindon…”
Q. What have been the highlights of your career so far?
“Learning to fly a hot air balloon. Getting the BBC to pay for me to visit all Seven Wonders of the World in one trip just to stand in front of each one and say “That… is sh*t…” Making a show called Dom Joly’s Happy Hour for Sky One in which I travelled the world getting drunk with my best friend. The Sky lawyers got nervous and asked me not to say that I was ‘getting drunk’ would I mind saying that I was ‘investigating cultural attitudes towards alcohol’ instead. Surviving for three weeks on The Island with Bear Grylls. I lost three stone and nearly my leg. Getting my Alexa to turn all the lights in my sitting room on when I tell it to.”
Q. What do your family think about your life?
“A strange mix of pride, confusion and disappointment. My wife, Stacey is Canadian and much nicer than me and is often very embarrassed by my behaviour. My daughter, Parker just graduated from Oxford Uni and is now working at the university looking into a cure for Alzheimer’s. My son Jackson has just started at Durham and has exceptional music taste which I like to think that I had a part in. We are a very argumentative family. We once drove across the Canadian Rockies in a motor home. If we had recorded the trip, I am convinced that we would have had the best reality show in history…except for Below Deck.”
Q. What does the future hold?
“Who bloody knows? I am developing a Trigger Happy Movie. I am working on a TV series of The Conspiracy Tourist for the US. I’ve only just really discovered radio and it’s something that I really want to explore further. I also have a list of places I have yet to go to. Algeria is currently top of my list. I am obsessed with the place. My son and I want to go storm chasing in America. I want to walk the Cotswold Way with my dogs.”
Tiffany Redman of Point9 Acupuncture, Henley, has some tips for how we can all get 2024 off to a healthier start
What can we do this January to kick-start our health for 2024? Giving our liver some love after all the festivities is a great start!
In acupuncture, the liver plays a crucial role in regulating emotions, storing blood and ensuring the free flow of energy throughout the body. The liver is known as the Commanding General of the body, having more than 500 functions.
If there’s an imbalance in the liver it can lead to various health issues, emotional changes, digestive problems, menstrual irregularities, insomnia to name a few. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is the organ that governs a woman’s health more than any other organ.
What can you to if the above resonates with you? Book an acupuncture appointment. Alternatively nourish your liver with a good clean diet, think about eating the rainbow and eat your last meal by 7.30pm so the liver can detoxify itself. Studies have shown a link between liver damage and external pollutants such as heavy metals and pesticides.
Even chemicals in your house cleaning products can cause your liver to work extra hard. One way to reduce this exposure is to switch to more natural cleaning products or even make your own. Good Housekeeping offers a great guide: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/cleaning/tips/a24885/make-at-home-cleaners/
Your Skin is your largest organ and at its most vulnerable when wet. From soaps to moisturisers/ oils/ serums/ talc/ bubble bath/ shampoos and conditioners. All of them may contain chemicals which the liver then has to contend with. Switch to natural alternatives such as Tallow, https://www.fiercenature.co.uk/
Learn more or book an appointment for more help at www.point9.org
A welcome return from Marika Hackman sees her release her first album in nearly four years and it promises to be one of the most intriguing releases of 2024. Already.
Marika Hackman likens her creative process to hacking into a block of ice. “It’s about chipping away at whatever that golden thing is in the centre. The more you do it, the more visible and easy to access it becomes.” The problem, Marika says, is if you leave the block for too long it freezes over. The glow gets duller, the fear of finding it intensifies. “Not the most relaxed metaphor for a musician who’s trying to reduce their stress levels, admittedly.”
Such was the case with Big Sigh – the “hardest record” Marika has ever made. As its title suggests, it is a release of sorts – of sadness, of stress and lust, but mostly relief.
At the start of 2020, Marika hurtled into lockdown; stifled and isolated, her musical brain nullified. She had been in a constant cycle of write/record/press/tour for thirteen years, since the age of nineteen, and the eerie silence of stopping was agonising. “I have pretty bad anxiety. It’s usually manageable but having a lack of control for two years during the pandemic was impossible.” Being with friends, swimming, collaborating and touring, everything Marika normally used to distract her mind from spiralling thoughts and feelings had disappeared. She stopped writing songs. The ice got thicker.
As the months progressed, she accrued scraps of melodies but never felt that spectral hit of a fully formed song arriving in her brain. Instead, she recorded and produced Covers – brilliant interpretations of some of her favourite songs. Deep down, however, Marika wondered if she’d ever write again.
Until one evening in 2021, when she struck gold in the most unlikely of places: a toilet.
Restrictions had been lifted, and Marika went to the pub. “I had written a song at home that day and recorded it onto my phone quickly as I had to leave to meet friends. When I was at the pub, I went into the loo to listen back to it and realised it was a cracker. I welled up with this huge relief. I realised I’d done it – I’d put the first crack in the ice.”
That song became Hanging, a track that processes the end of a relationship in a delicate, dissociative daze, until its engulfing ending – a crash of banshee wails and grunge guitars. Not only was it the song that freed Marika’s creative flow, but it’s one that epitomises the album’s opposing themes: the contrast of loud-quiet, the rub of industrial and pastoral, and the innocence of childhood versus the gnarly realities of adulthood.
To achieve these dualities, Marika had to summon a very specific soundscape for each song: she not only played every instrument save for the brass and strings on Big Sigh, but produced it too, along with Sam Petts-Davies [Thom Yorke, Warpaint] and long-term collaborator Charlie Andrew. “I’d always produced on my records, but I’d never backed myself enough to actually say that I had. I liked being a sponge and I saw the first two thirds of my career as a learning experience – I would sit back in a slightly deferential position to allow the dynamic to work. With this album I got to a point where I realised I’d done the learning, I knew what to do.”
Big Sigh is the latest advancement by a musician who has remained inventive with every release. Over the years her enigmatic genre-morphing sound has been compared to “the lovechild of Nico and Joanna Newsom”, Blur and Rid of Me-era PJ Harvey, while the Guardian’s five-star review of 2019’s Any Human Friend praised her “lethally sharp pop hooks”.
On Big Sigh, however, Marika ventures into fresh terrain. There is a constant tug between organic instrumentation and the harsher dynamics of synthetic distortion – like walking into an abandoned industrial wasteland covered in poison ivy. If it’s her haunting soundscapes that first lure you in, it’s her lyrical acrobatics that latch onto your brain – images of gore, yearning and off-kilter romance.
Leaving the carnal days of her 20s behind, this album is less a photo-real documentation of the moment, but more like an artist peering through a gap in a door to reassess her former life. Except for No Caffeine, however, which thrusts its listener into the eye of the storm. A To Do list sung as if in the foetal position, it rattles off the preventative tools Marika has learned to try and stop a panic attack. “Occupy your mind / Don’t stay home / Talk to all your friends, but don’t look at your phone / Scream into a bag / Try to turn your brain off.”
On Big Sigh, not only is Marika recounting her experience of anxiety, but reckoning with it. She first encountered an acute level of fear at the age of 17 when her appendix burst – a near fatal incident made worse by contracting sepsis in hospital. “It was a big body shock. I was just a kid, and then after that I had subsequent quick traumas, which I didn’t deal with. It was then I had my first panic attack and I’ve been anxious ever since.”
That confrontation with death altered Marika profoundly – it became the genesis of her musical career. Not only did she start making music soon after the incident, but it gave her one of her greatest thematic traits: a wry, disturbing preoccupation with bodily expulsions – blood, sick and beyond. These are all the physical elements of being alive that make her feel out of control, the ones she so desperately avoids in real life, but in her music confronts corporeality with brutal, deadpan humour.
Perhaps at the core of that block of ice is less of a mystical golden orb, and more of a human blob, a beating heart, a weary brain. In her never-ending pursuit of untangling her internal universe and exploring complex melodies, she has made her most honest and brave album yet.
“This album took a long time to make. It was not easy, and by the time I got to the end of it I was quiet. I wanted to be away from it and let it sit in its own space. Now the dust has settled and I’ve got to re-enter the world of Big Sigh, and I’m excited.”
Stepping into a new world, moving forward, chipping away. Breathe in, breathe out. Big sigh.
The New Year is always a great time to consider making positive changes. Here are suggestions from Wokingham-based Plastic Free Home when it comes to living more sustainably in 2024 and beyond…
1. Shop smarter Aim to only buy and consume what you need, to help reduce your footprint and the amount of waste you produce. Support local and independent businesses wherever possible and explore how you might rely less on big supermarkets and major retailers. Is there a zero waste shop or business, butchers, greengrocers, bakery and so on near you? Aim to buy sustainably sourced, ethically produced, high quality and long-lasting products. Think – where has the product come from, who made it, under what conditions and where? What from? How is it packaged? And how can it be disposed of, reused or recycled afterwards?
2. Lightbulb moment Energy is responsible for around a quarter of our emissions. If you haven’t already, switch to a renewable energy supplier, or at least a green tariff with one of the larger ‘big six’ energy companies. From insulating your home and avoiding endless devices and gadgets to using central heating sensibly and washing your clothes on a cooler setting and drying them on a line, consider ways to reduce your use of energy at home. And the old classic – turn off lights, appliances and devices and don’t leave things on standby where avoidable.
3. Staycationing Taking one medium to long-haul flight generates more emissions than an average person in many countries produces in a whole year. In recent years we’ve all been reminded of just how much the UK has to offer – get out there and explore it more before venturing further afield. Even cutting two annual overseas holidays down to one can make a big difference.| |
4. Plan ahead We live in a fast-moving and convenience-led world, which has resulted in us becoming lazier and far more wasteful. Plan ahead when going out – carry a refillable drinks bottle, take a packed lunch or picnic, and if you can’t live without caffeine, a reusable coffee cup too. The same goes for a reusable bag – you never know when you might need one. If you are buying on the go, consider the less packaged and more eco-friendly options. Planning ahead is also a good idea when doing your weekly shop. Make a shopping list and stick to it, to avoid unnecessary impulse buys. And when buying gifts all year round, share lists with family, friends and colleagues or find out what the recipient(s) really like or need to avoid giving something they won’t enjoy or make use of.
5. Not so fast fashion The fashion industry is responsible for around 10% of global emissions and globally just 12% of the material used for clothing ends up being recycled. Buy far fewer clothes and aim for organic or naturally derived textiles (e.g. 100% cotton) and clothes that are responsibly sourced and made. If the company offers a closed loop option, allowing you to return items for recycling when you no longer want them – even better.
6. Waste not, want not Nowadays, very little should end up in ‘the bin’. Be sure that you are disposing of, recycling and reusing everything you use correctly, from kerbside, food and garden waste collections to supermarket recycling points and local TerraCycle schemes. And if you can donate, pass on or sell something, do.
7. Nurture nature Nature was there for all of us when we needed it most during pandemic times. Now it’s our turn to be there for it. Plant trees, wildflowers and pollinator friendly plants, add bird, insect and animal feeders and create habitats, litter pick locally, support a wildlife charity. Don’t pave over a large area of your garden and avoid artificial grass. There are many ways to show you care.
Tony Hersch of Newbury Astronomy Society shares with us what to expect in the skies in January
This month spectacular Ursa Major (the “saucepan” or “plough” shape) stands vertically above the horizon in the North.
Follow an imaginary line joining the two stars at the end of the saucepan shape downwards and the next brightest star is Polaris, the pole star. This variable star (it changes its brightness over a period of four days) is about 433 light years away, is visible all year round and its position in the sky is such that it always points towards magnetic north and is a useful marker if you’re lost at night!
Near the highest point above your head is another bright star called Capella, the fourth brightest star in our northern hemisphere after Sirius, Arcturus and Vega and part of a constellation called Auriga. It’s only about 43 light years away and is one of the strongest sources of x rays in the night sky. Although it appears to be a single star to the naked eye, Capella is actually a quadruple star system organized in two binary pairs.
Keep a look out for meteors during the first 12 days of January when the Moon is only a crescent, because the Quadrantid meteor shower that started late in December continues. Look in the direction of Ursa Major about half way up the sky after midnight and you might see a meteor every few minutes. The peak happens around January 3rd. Regarding planets, Venus is bright this month in the mornings and can be seen just above and to the left of the crescent Moon at about 7am on January 8th. Saturn is shining in the evening sky. An easy time to spot it will be around 5pm on January 14th when it will be just to the right of a beautiful thin crescent Moon and well worth a look if it’s clear.
Topic of the month: Red Dwarfs
We tend to think we can see millions of stars in a dark clear night sky but in fact, unaided, even people with exceptional vision can only see at most 10,000 stars in a perfectly dark sky. There are many, many more stars we can’t see without a telescope. In fact of the 60 nearest stars to Earth, 50 are too dim for the unaided eye. These are red dwarf stars, the most common type of star in the universe, which glow a dull red and far less brightly than bigger stars. Red dwarf stars form just like other stars out of a molecular cloud of dust and gas. Gravity pulls the swirling gas and dust together, and it begins to rotate. The material clumps in the centre, and when it reaches a critical temperature, fusion begins. However red dwarfs have very low mass compared to brighter stars. As a result, they have relatively low gravity crushing material down, a low nuclear fusion rate, and hence, a low temperature and so they emit relatively little light. Even the largest red dwarfs have only about 10% of the Sun’s luminosity. Their low rate of nuclear fusion means they use up their fuel much slower than brighter stars and some are thought to have existed since the beginning of time, 13.8 billion years ago, far longer than other brighter stars. Because of their longevity and constant heat output astronomers are interested in the many planets which can orbit red dwarfs because these planets will have had constant conditions for far longer than Earth. If these planets have the right conditions for life to have evolved, like liquid water, they might be more likely to support life simply because of the duration of the constant conditions.
NewburyAstro welcomes everyone to their monthly astronomy meeting and beginners meeting (£2 for adults, free for under 18s) and also to star gazing and other events. See newburyastro.org.uk for details. Questions to [email protected]
Now’s the time to take up skateboarding, with the sport set to soar at the Olympics later this year & the Design Museum ramping up the excitement…
Skateboarding, in case you didn’t get the memo, is cool. British-Japanese star Sky Brown, the youngest professional skateboarder in the world, is set to star for Great Britain at the Paris Olympics this summer. And the hot ticket in town is the Skateboard exhibition at the Design Museum in Kensington featuring the UK’s newest skate ramp inside the exhibition gallery.
As well as admiring the 100+ rare and unique boards from the 1950s to the present day on display (with a free go on the halfpipe if you’re up to it), on 20th January you can book in to enjoy a skate photography workshop with Bucks skateboard star Leo Sharp (@sharphoto). Growing up in the concrete jungle of Milton Keynes, Leo’s skate photographs have been published in international titles including Thrasher, Transworld, Skateboarder, and more. Sharp has also worked as a lecturer in photography at Falmouth University and exhibited in a number of exhibitions.
“It’s the best part of my week!”
Harrison Neave, nine
Skateboarding developed in the US in the 1950s as surf culture was taking off. It was then part of the underground, alternative culture of the 1980s, going hand-in-hand with the values of freedom, rebellion and thrill seeking. The sport continued to develop and became more widely accessible at the start of the 21st century, proving a huge hit among young people. If you look carefully you’ll find a like-minded tribe of skaters and scooters of all ages at a park tucked away near you.
Amersham Skatepark, at King George’s Field, was upgraded in 2020 to a concrete plaza course. Its higher level leads down to the lower level via a set of stairs with rail and a pair of “hubbas” either side. On the lower level is a hip, pair of ledges, rail and a manual pad, following on from these obstacles is a half-width spine and a quarter-pipe ramp to get you moving back up the other end.
The skatepark at Aston Clinton, HP22 5HL, consists of metal-framed composite ramps and concrete ramps on a concrete base. At either end of the course is a flat bank and a quarter pipe that flank a driveway with rail and an adjoining spine. There are also some rails and benches scattered around the edges.
Aylesbury Vale skatepark, HP20 1DH, had an upgrade in 2015, with the old metal ramps replaced with a concrete skatepark. It now has a stair set with handrail, grind wall and boxes, tombstone jump ramp, “wally bar” and a selection of banks and quarter-pipe ramps.
There’s also Chesham Skateparkin Lowndes Park, HP5 2JE, and Holmers Farm Skatepark, HP12 4PE, a plaza-style concrete skatepark with ramps and ledges across different levels, and with low quarter pipes at each end.
Marlow Skatepark, SL7 2AE, is a concrete park featuring various flat banks and quarter pipes with spine, ledges and a rail.
Princes Risborough Skatepark within King George V Park, HP27 9EP, features two sections of tarmac, a mini-ramp with a roll-in ramp attached at a 90degree angle at one end.
Chalfont St Peter Skatepark, which is always open, can be found on the grounds of the Chalfont St Peter community centre. It is made up of a metal half-pipe with a set of small metal ramps off to the side with a tarmac base. The ramps comprise of a low kicker/bank at each end with a funbox in between.
Thanks to a group of enthusiastic local parents, The Chalfonts Activity Park Project is on a mission to improve the free-to-use outdoor sports facilities. David Rollins of the group has said that their objective is to collaborate with the community and local authority to build a modern wheeled sports activity park for people of all ages to enjoy, on their bikes, skates, skateboards and scooters. He points out that he’s in his forties and loves skateboarding along with many friends his age and above.But it’s not just about a skatepark. If there is enough interest and funding, they’d like to see it include other features to become something the whole community can enjoy. To find out more about the project please visit chalfontactivity.com
A great example of a honeypot for skaters is Thame Skatepark, OX9 3RN, which recently had a £250,000 renovation and is suitable for all abilities. The park is free to use and is open all year round. One enthusiastic user is Harrison Neave, nine, who says: “I love coming here on my scooter at the weekend – it’s the best part of my week! What I love most is that I get to hang out with some older boys & girls who are doing really cool tricks.”
We’re sharing a taste of inspiration from The Skint Cook, by Jamie Oliver’s Cookbook Challenge TV series finalist Ian Bursnall, out on 18th January
Five spice duck legs with a sesame salad & crispy seaweed
Ingredients:
• Two duck legs
• 1 tsp five spice powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp pepper
• 150g red cabbage, shredded
• 4 large spring onions, sliced
• 120g beansprouts
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp honey
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• 1/2 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• Crispy “seaweed” – also featured in the book
Such a nice dish – you have the crispy duck skin and tender meat. The sesame salad cuts through the fattiness of the duck so perfectly, contrasting flavour at the highest level. I love it. Adding the crispy seaweed gives it a restaurant vibe!
Method:
Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/gas mark 4.
Take your duck legs and prick them all over with a cocktail stick. This helps to release the fat and get a crispy skin. Now mix together the five spice powder and half a teaspoon each of the salt and pepper. Rub this all over the duck legs, top and bottom. Now place them into an ovenproof dish and cook in the oven for half an hour. Check and baste them from time to time. The skin should be nice and crisp when done.
Meanwhile, put your cabbage and spring onions into a bowl and set aside. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, then add the beansprouts. Bring back to the boil, then drain and cool under cold running water for 30 seconds. Drain and add to the cabbage mixture and mix well.
“Adding the crispy seaweed gives it a restaurant vibe!”
Ian Bursnall
In a separate bowl, add all the other ingredients, minus the sesame seeds and crispy seaweed. Give them a good mix to emulsify. Set aside.
Put a frying pan over a low heat, add the sesame seeds and toast for a minute or two. Tip the toasted seeds into the dressing, give it a mix, then pour over the salad veg. Stir well to coat.
When the duck is ready, spoon the salad onto the middle of two plates. Take the duck out of the oven and shred the meat off the bone. Place on top of the salad and sprinkle over the crispy “seaweed”. Enjoy.
A Blackberry fool & ginger biscuit topping
Ingredients:
• 250ml double cream
• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g cream cheese
• 100g Greek yogurt
• 200g fresh blackberries
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• Four crunchy ginger biscuits (I use Ginger Nuts)
The cream cheese gives this such a silky smooth feeling. Ginger biscuits add texture to the top. Spot on.
Method:
Take the cream cheese out of the fridge 30 minutes in advance to let it soften.
Add the double cream to a large bowl with the icing sugar and vanilla. Whip together until the cream starts to stiffen (soft peak stage), but don’t over-whip it. Now add the cream cheese and whisk until combined, then add the yogurt and fold it through. Set aside.
Place the blackberries in a separate bowl, putting a few aside to decorate. Sprinkle the caster sugar over the blackberries, then mush them up a bit with a fork, leaving some chunky.
Now spoon some of the mushed berries into the bottom of four clear glass ramekins or wine glasses, then spoon some cream mixture on top. Repeat three or so times, ending with a layer of the cream mixture.
Take your biscuits, put them into a food bag and smash into crumbs with a rolling pin, but leave them quite chunky. Decorate the desserts with the reserved blackberries, then sprinkle each dessert with the biscuit crumbs and serve.
You could make these ahead and chill in the fridge, then add the biscuit crumbs just before serving. I might try this again adding a splash of balsamic vinegar to the blackberries before mushing them up.
The Skint Cook: Over 80 easy, tasty recipes that won’t break the bankby Ian Bursnall (HQ, HarperCollins). Image credit Martin Poole.
Comedian & TV star Miles Jupp, 44, talks about how surviving a brain tumour led to his On I Bang UK tour which includes Norden Farm in Maidenhead on 12th January, Oxford Playhouse on 16th, Newbury Corn Exchange on 24th and Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud on 4th March
Since Miles’ last tour finished at The London Palladium in 2017, he’s been in The Full Monty on Disney Plus, The Durrells and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? on ITV, as well as a heap of episodes of Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and Have I Got News For You. He’s made an award-winning radio series and he’s published a novel.
Yet one sunny day in the middle of all this, he suddenly suffered a brain seizure. This led to the discovery of a tumour the size of a cherry tomato, and a rather pressing need to undergo major neurosurgery. Obviously, one doesn’t wish to make a big deal of it, but the experience has left him with a story to tell and a few things that he’d like to share with the room. So that’s exactly what he’s doing in his new show On I Bang – a tale about surprise, fear, luck, love and qualified medical practitioners…
Hi Miles, you are looking very well. “My skull probably has a groove in it, but it’s at the back, I can’t see it. I feel quite quite jolly.
Q. This major life event in 2021 forms the basis of your new show On I Bang. Without any spoilers what happened? “Well, the big spoiler is I survived. I had a brain seizure, which was actually quite lucky. It meant I was taken to hospital where they ran tests. So having the seizure was an element of fortune because it’s like a big helpful sign that something is up. And that something was a brain tumour the size of a cherry tomato, which had to be removed.”
Q. What were you doing when it happened? “I was filming the ITV series Trigger Point. I’d just finished my scene. Ludicrously my character, a radio host, is speaking and then a bomb goes off roughly when it felt like a bomb had gone off in my own head. Luckily I was in a work environment which meant there was a medic on the set so they wrestled me into the appropriate position. It was only a day’s work, but taking that job might have saved my life.”
Q. Was it completely unexpected? “The tumour was there but I was totally unaware of it. They can’t date it. It’s not like trees or fossils. The swelling of the tumour causes the pressure. And it’s the pressure that eventually caused the seizure. It could have happened at any time, but until about five minutes before, there was nothing. I just started feeling very dizzy very quickly and there was some flashing of lights. I remember falling forward and then some people holding me down and then it’s just like a series of moments of consciousness. Next time I was in an ambulance and then I was in A&E at West Middlesex Hospital.”
Q. Has it changed your outlook on life? “It’s very good for putting things in perspective. Not that I don’t moan about all the pathetic things other people moan about as well. But after a while, you can go, oh, I’ve got the freedom to moan about it. You just think about things in a different way.”
Q. It must have been very worrying for your family? “I could be lying in a hospital bed plugged into stuff and actually feeling fine, whereas from their point of view it’s ‘oh no, he’s lying in a hospital bed with lots of stuff plugged into him.’ And they got the call from the programme’s line producer to say I was on my way to hospital. So that’s quite as a shocking thing to get when you are on the bus. The luxury for me was you go, ‘well, all I can do is trust these people.’ In a way it’s sort of freeing. It’s all the unknowns that are stressful. Even dealing with being lucky is stressful. Because you think why? Why me?’
Q. You had surgery after three weeks to remove the tumour… “It was accessible, but not totally straightforward. I found being in hospital, very uplifting, actually, partly because you’re just surrounded by people that are very caring. There must have been about five other people on that ward all in the same boat. So you don’t feel alone in that sense. It is scary. And I’ve not experienced a thing like that. I can’t pretend that it isn’t.”
“I find there’s a sort of romance about touring”
Miles Jupp
Q. So On I Bang is all about this event – before, during and after? “This is the show. It’s a story told in a stand-up style. I promise you there are lots of jokes. It’s not me moaning about unsatisfactory customer experience or something I’ve noticed about luggage. Hopefully it’s a pure piece of storytelling, with a beginning, a middle and an end. I got a letter from a guy who saw a work in progress gig and he’s been through the same thing. He was saying people around him were worried but it was very cathartic for him.”
Q. How did the show come about? “I started writing it down, not in a comedic way, but I thought it would be useful to have a record of it. Then I thought, I haven’t done a stand-up tour for six years. And I went to see Blur at Wembley and I just thought it’s great being in a crowd, isn’t it? I just thought I like this thing of a crowd enjoying a thing together so much. And I thought, yes, I should turn that thing into a show and do it, which is a kind of an odd genesis, really. And I like going to theatres.”
Q. You started out as a stand-up but many people will know you as an actor. You’ve done so much, from Balamory and Harry Potter to Rev and The Thick Of It…“I think filming my part in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix took 20 minutes. My costume fitting took longer. I’m a sucker for a straight offer without an audition. There’s a difference between working hard and working a lot. And I think if you’re creating the work yourself, that counts as working hard, if you’re just accepting the work that you’re given that’s not the same. Working on my own has its pleasures in terms of control and being able to fix something quickly, or make adjustments. But I really like the bit when you’re making something in a team, the rehearsals are the best bits.”
Q. With acting you don’t know what’s next… “I got a nice part in a thing in Antwerp and then a week later I did one audition for Disney+’s The Full Monty on a Friday, got the part on the Tuesday, the next Friday I had a costume fitting, then started filming on the following Monday for six months.”
Q. You’ve got some high ranking roles coming up. The Duke of Rochester in the series Belgravia and Emperor of Austria in Ridley Scott’s movie Napoleon… “It could be cut to nothing but I did get to ride a horse in Napoleon. I had to go to a riding school and I thought, this is quite fun, quite therapeutic. But then when we started filming a stunt rider did absolutely everything!”
Q. You clearly enjoy performing, but stand-up seems to be your first love. “I like walking out onto a stage somewhere. I think the best view of a theatre is nearly always from the stage. I find there’s a sort of romance about touring. I remember with my show Fibber in the Heat appearing in Swindon on a Monday night. I turned up and there was 170 people there. I don’t know Swindon, I didn’t know anyone in Swindon. And I remember thinking, that’s great that 170 people have come here to watch this thing. I just love touring for that. So I really look forward to walking onstage again and telling a story. And hopefully, you know, we’ll have fun.”
Local charity Inside Out has been celebrating 10 years of improving the wellbeing of children
When a group of children declared a day spent at an equestrian centre to be the ‘best ever’, Inside Out knew they were on to something.
Over the last decade the charity has been responding to the growing children’s mental health crisis by helping schools tackle challenges posed by mental health problems, exam stress and anxiety.
Launched in November 2013 with a Magical Day Out of mindfulness, nature and horses based around the 5 Keys to Happiness for just 10 children from Thameside Primary School, Caversham, it has since supported more than 5,000 children across 20 schools in Reading and Oxfordshire.
Children gain a ‘toolkit’ of fun and practical life skills and strategies they can use in everyday life to reduce stress, find focus, increase confidence and resilience to feel better, learn better and flourish. The impact of their work has been significant, with schools seeing an improvement in children’s mental wellbeing, a development in essential social and emotional skills, and increased engagement.
The initial spark for Inside Out came when Founder and CEO, Stephanie Weissman, became convinced, from personal experience, of a well-proven concept – happiness fuels success, not the other way around. The charity’s underlying belief that ‘happy children learn better’ has never changed. Their 5 Keys to Happiness evidence-based framework has made it easy for busy teachers to promote positive mental wellbeing and has been the foundation for all their work.
When the pandemic hit, free weekly Wellbeing Guides full of simple, fun wellbeing boosts were created and used at home and in school to support children, some of whom were experiencing trauma.
The overwhelmingly positive response to these Guides galvanised the charity to accelerate the completion of a free, digitised ‘Activity Library’ and ‘Wellbeing Programme’. Schools now use these to work towards the charity’s coveted Inside Out Award, which helps them build a whole-school culture to wellbeing.
Inside Out marked their 10-year anniversary with a new ‘Wellbeing Ambassadors’ pilot, putting children at the centre of leading peer-to-peer support and promoting conversations about mental health and positive wellbeing.
Stephanie added: “We are extremely proud to reach this milestone. The best predictor of an adult’s life satisfaction is their emotional health as a child. We look to the future with an unwavering commitment to inspire children to develop ways to look after their mental wellbeing, so they have the best chance to reach their full potential.”
