Golden Brown

Today is Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Day here in the US. In a country that’s only a couple of hundred years old and built on immigration I guess you have to come up with some new bank holidays to give everyone a day off, and what this guy did is deserving of one. This holiday was only created 20 years ago today by Ronald Reagan, I’m amazed that it was only 40 years ago black people couldn’t vote here, 45 years ago it was seperate transport, education and so on. Today I think there’s not such a bad chance of one (Barack Obama) becoming the next president, and the next president can’t come soon enough. This current one is an utter tit, and like the Simpsons it just stopped being that funny.

On a little side track, JFK is regarded as some sort of Mandela-esque figure here, with bridges, roads, schools and airports named after him. Can anyone tell me why ? Aside from being a nice guy as far as I can tell he presided over an apartheid US, was nearly in a nuclear war and sent the first Americans to fight in Vietnam.

And going off in another quite random direction, the president (Mr Bush) has created a war, perhaps for his own ends. It looks like the war isn’t going all that well. He creates a new piece of legislation (the cleverly named Patriot Act) which is approved by the Senate to give him emergency powers (which include spying on his own people). He needs to send more soldiers to the war, the Senate opposes this but he invokes this new law. Is it me, or is this the plot to Attack of the Clones ?

Anyway in our house it is also the day of the Golden Globe awards and in the spirit of compromise I’ve decided to let Steph watch something she likes on her own TV in her own house. I’ve never really sat through one of these things but I’ve promised my attention this evening, so a full report tomorrow. We are loaded with snacks and beer so we shall see.

Through a series of coincidences I spent yesterday in a basement in Philadelphia being taught the basics of Pakistani food from an Italian (the lady in question being Steph’s aunt). It was a fantastic day, and a model for how I think I’d like to live. We started with breakfast (a sort of curry omelet with patha bread), then it was 4 hours of frantic cooking interspersed with (proper) tea breaks, TV and bouts of Brain Age on the DS. Everything was made from scratch including those dips you get with your popadoms at curry houses, lamb a la gosht, bindi and really really good rice. The idea that if you’ve spent ages cooking you cant eat anything is a myth. I left there 12 pounds heavier, with a boot full of left overs, spices and copious notes, and I was extrememely happy. We farted those particualry satisfying coriander and radish farts in time to the sounds of the classic rock station the whole way home.