Coronation Street Weekly Update, December 26 2011

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here

This week a lickle baby was born on Corrie. 

Flaming Nora, it's Christmas!

The weather outside is frightful unseasonably warm

And the fire is glowing delightful not switched on

So since we got no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Let's go to the pub, to the pub, to the pub.

Merry Christmas, Blog Readers!

Coronation Street Weekly Update, December 19 2011

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here

This week the update saw Lloyd leave in a natty hat.

A man for our times

When I was growing up, as a teenager, these are the sort of boys I went to school with and grew up with. They were daft lads, dodgy geezers, nutters, skinheads, radgy gadgees, workie tickets.  At school discos, they only danced with each other, and they only ever jumped up and down at the edge of the dance floor, and they never, ever, danced with a girl.

In the 80s they softened. Some of them even wore eye-liner. And for this, some of them got beaten up.

And I look at the boys on TV now, the soft boys, the crying boys, the wearing their heart on their sleeve boys. The boys who dance with girls. The boys who have girls for friends.Who talk for hours on the phone. The insecure boys who bleed all over Facebook, unafraid to show the world that he's got feelings too. And I think to myself, I wish to myself, if only that sort of boy had been at my school disco.

Follow me on twitter for extra witter at http://www.twitter.com/flaming_nora

Sunderland sunrise

Picture taken this morning, Wednesday 14 December, approx. 8.30am.  Gorgeous.

Coronation Street Weekly Update, December 5 2011

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here

This week in Corrie, I'm getting more than fed up with Saint Stella of the Rovers.

Christmas tree 2011

It's up. It's decorated. It's three weeks till Christmas!

My favourite seat on the Metro

My commute to work and back every day is on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

My favourite seat on the Metro is at the front, by the window. 

My second favourite seat is at the back, by the window. 

See also: my favourite seat on the bus

How to make the perfect nachos

There's not many recipes I've got that I'm willing to share as cast-iron, can't go wrong ones. Regular readers will know I'm not that great a cook so when I come across a recipe that works - and works well - I'm only too happy to share it.  Here's a favourite recipe for making nachos, they come out right every single time.  Actually, they don't come out right. They come out fantastic.

This is a picture of it before it went in the oven today.

Ingredients: Big bag of your favourite tortilla chips, small tin of refried beans, small jar of salsa / taco sauce, about 4oz grated cheese, paprika for dusting, chillis (either fresh or pickled depending on your taste and what you've got in the cupboard).

1. Thinly spread refried beans on each tortilla chip and lay them slightly overlapping on a baking sheet. This bit takes a while to do and it's a job best done between two people otherwise you'll get bored.
2. Put a dollop of salsa / taco sauce on top of each tortilla chip, now smeared with beans.
3. Bung on a decent layer of grated cheese.
4. Give the whole thing a dusting of paprika all over.
5. Put a thin layer of pickled or chopped fresh chillis - depending on how hot you like it, over the top of it all.

Bake in a hot oven, approx, gas mark 7 for about 10-12 minutes until the cheese is nicely browned how you like it.

When it's cooked and out of the oven, just pull the nachos off the baking tray to eat hot. Grab a beer and enjoy.

And here's a picture of it when it's just come out of the oven.

B-Sides and Broken Hearts

With thanks to my friend Diane for recommending it, I've just finished and thoroughly enjoyed reading the first novel of Caryn Rose.

The novel's called B-Sides and Broken Hearts (a rock and roll novel).  It's great, a fun read about the life and times of a girl and her heart and the rock group who lived downstairs. 

And now I've finished reading the book all I want to do is put on some music, really, really loud...

Ten Four, Good buddy

My brother once had a CB radio and if I caught him in a good mood and gave him 50p, he'd let me play on it too.  This was back in the late 70s and very early 80s when yours truly was a teenager and I was well into this new mode of communication. It was different and new and more fun than ringing schoolmates from the phone at the bottom of the stairs by the cold and draughty front door, while my dad yelled through the wall: "How long are you going to be on that thing?  I'm not made of bloody money, you know!"

Anyway, I became a dab hand on the CB and had the lingo down pat. It was all ten four good buddy and er, stuff like that.  I can't remember any of it now apart from my handle being Evil Edna, after the cartoon character.  Anyway, Evil Edna struck up a CB friendship with a young lad going by the handle of Wonderhorse. It was a friendship that developed over the airwaves for weeks. He knew my brother and so one day he told me he'd pop round to see me, we'd meet. We'd meet?  No, actually we never would. But he did pop round. He knocked at the front door and my mam went to anwer. Here's how the conversation went.

Mam: "Hello, son."
Wonderhorse: "I've come to see Evil Edna."
Mam: "Eh?" and then, shouting up the stairs to me, because I was, as always, in my bedroom with my books and LPs.  "There's a Wonderhorse at the door for you!"
Me, shouting down the stairs, mortified and terrified. "I'm not coming down."
Mam: "She's not coming down, son."
Wonderhorse (who I like to imagine was in tears by this point). "Oh. Ok then, tara."
Mam: "Tara, son"

So, if you're reading this and you are Wonderhorse, all I can say is I'm sorry for not coming down. But thanks for popping round.