Good luck

to all those of you flying to M'era Luna from the UK. I hope this situation doesn't screw up your festival. :o(

FUCK YEAH!

Ticket for Springsteen on the 12th of November at Wembley Arena, baby!!!!
*dances*
I assume this is with the Seeger Sessions Band

Anime

As I'm currently catching up on Studio Ghibli, I watched My Neighbour Totoro last night and am suitably disturbed, especially by the catbus. *boggle* Those crazy Japanese...

Cool to see the sootballs which also appeared in Spirited Away.

Doing some online "research" last night, I discovered that Miyazaki had been involved in the animated series of Heidi (loosely based on the children's book by Johanna Spyri) which explains the similarities in drawing and character style. Was this shown in the UK or US as well? My German speaking friends will most likely remember this (mid-late 70s, with various reruns later, it's bound to be on one of the more obscure cable channels atm).
Various of those endless animated series from my childhood (Biene Maja, Sindbad) were done by the same studio (Nippon Animation) but apparently not with Miyazaki, although the drawing style is very similar. I therefore assume this is a studio thing which later influenced his personal style.

Princess Mononoke should be next, hopefully, but you can never be sure which one lovefilm will deliver.

Tonight, Matthew, I'll be cooking British

Ya, RLY.
In an effort to reduce my potato and onion mountain, I was looking for something suitable. As I was browsing my little Tesco's out the back, some Finest traditional pork sausages caught my eye and it was decided:

Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy



( Bigger photo )

Very basic: Shallow fried the bangers in the pan, took them out, sauteed the onions in the remaining fat/juices until almost soft, dusted with flour and cooked the mix for a while, added water and reduced down to a nice consistency (no artifical gravy for me!), mashed the potatoes with some cream, grated mature cheddar and chopped coriander, arranged everything on a plate, took a photo and finished it all off. :o)

I now return you to my usual programming. ;o)