On The Bone

I don’t like meat on the bone.

This thought occurred to me the other day. Or rather I suddenly became properly conscious of it (it’s not like not liking meat on the bone was suddenly a surprise to me).

Does it make me a wuss? That’s the question that immediately followed the thought. Because, you see, in my mind at least – and maybe in your mind too – there is something ideologically macho about eating meat on the bone. Ripping off a hugely greasy chicken leg and tucking into the thigh Henry VIII style. Chowing down manfully on a dripping spare rib. Shoving your gravy encrusted beard into a Desperate Dan style cow-pie replete with horns sticking up out of the pastry.

But I’ve never liked food like that. I really don’t like finding hard inedible stuff in my food. I don’t even like fish bones, for Heaven’s sake. Something else I had in common with the Queen Mum.

As a child the worst meal of the week for me was on Thursday’s. Because we’d have chops.

And there it would be on my plate. A whacking great bone. Or worse still. A sharp little one with splintery bits sewn amongst the fat.

I’d pick at it daintily with my knife and fork, completely eschewing the idea of picking it up in my fingers and bloodthirstily sucking the flesh off it.

Euw!

Give me a chicken Kiev any day. Or a detached pre-packaged breast (steady!).

And that holds true even today. I went for a chicken curry at a friend’s house years ago and was mortified to find bones in the curry – still attached to the meat. I struggled with the cuisine in Egypt too when I went there for the exact same reason: chicken pizza – with bones on it!

I just don’t like it.

My eldest boy does. Even as a youngling he’d happily gnaw on a bone and tease off every fleck of flesh.

But not me.

I like to think it’s because I’m a little more rarefied. More cultured. But I suspect it’s because I’m a big girl’s blouse. I would never have survived in the Neolithic.

What? Eat that? You mean you’re not going to skin and bone it for me? But it’s still got the face on it! Can’t we just make a stew?

I would starve. I’d be dead within weeks. Man cannot live by wild berries alone.

And the trouble is I’m not particularly keen on berries.

So thank God for pre-prepared food. I am very much a child of the modern age.

The greatest civilizing influence ever was the family butcher.

Which is rather ironic when you think about it.

Anyone care for a chicken nugget?

Every Little Helps My Arse

There should be a comma somewhere in the title but... oh, never mind.

I had every intention of writing a warm, sentimental, cosy-on-up type of blog post today, I really did. Something that would have had you all scooting up on the sofa just that little bit closer to your loved ones. Something that would have had you nuzzling up to each other like mewling kittens of Christmas love.

And then Tesco rained on my parade last night. Not hugely. Not diluvian by any means. But enough to make me feel like Mr Tesco himself was pissing down my neck.

The wife and I do our shopping on-line. Have done for years. Why spend 2 hours dragging the kids around a superstore at the weekend when 40 minutes on the computer can get it all done for you and then one of Mr Tesco's Little Helpers will deliver it all to your door on the day of your choice at a time you specify?

It's a wonder of the modern age.

Not that it is not without it's little foibles and foul-ups. The chief of these being the "substitute game". This is the one where your personal shopper in-store can't find the exact item you have requested and so substitutes if for something similar or approximating or something barely genetically linked.

This happens quite often. Sometimes we keep the substitutes; sometimes not. It all depends on the ability of our personal shopper to think inside the box and not come out with something so leftfield you wonder if he/she has had one half of their brain removed for medical experimentation.

But the point is, if Tesco haven't got what we want they have always done their best to offer us a consolation prize.

Until last night.

The night our Christmas shop was due to be delivered. The night our big Christmas chicken was being delivered ready for the big day tomorrow.

The delivery guys arrives at 8.00pm. He unloads. There is no chicken. There is no chicken at all. Anywhere. We check the print-out of what we have ordered - just in case the error was ours. But no. The chicken is listed. Along with the size we specified.

The print-out informs us it was not available. And no substitute has been provided.

None at all.

Nadda.

Even the delivery guy is amazed that Tesco have done this. Isn't it obvious that this is the main component of our Christmas meal? What if we were old, infirm and housebound? What would we do for our Christmas meal then? Make do with a couple of mouldy old Garibaldis from the back of the cupboard?

Thank you, Mr Tesco. That was really helpful. That has really warmed the Christmas cockles of our hearts.

I know, I know. They'd probably sold out. Had none left in the store. But we'd placed this order days ago. We'd put our dibs on a chicken and, as far as I'm concerned, had reserved one. I mean, we pay £5 on top of the food bill for this service after all.

The delivery guy recommended we ring up and complain. Assured us that Tesco would be taking deliveries tomorrow and more chickens would be in stock.

I'm sure he was right. But Karen and I had lost our faith in Tesco. We just wanted our chicken now - safely there in our fridge where we could see it's cute little parson's nose slowly defrosting. We didn't want to play Christmas chicken with our chicken and leave it until Christmas Eve when Tesco might let us down again. 'Cos plainly Tesco didn't give a fig(gy pudding) whether we had anything to eat on Christmas Day or not.

So Karen nipped out to Asda. They had a chicken. A big one. And they sold it to us.

It is now in our fridge and Christmas is saved.

No thanks to Tesco, though.

Tesco - Christmas or not - you can cock right off.

The Cock Vanishes

It's gone.

I woke up one morning expecting a familiar presence but it had disappeared. It was nowhere to be found, no matter how hard I looked, no matter how hard I strived to recover it... it just wasn't there anymore.

It had gone.

There is an argument that one should just accept this kind of thing. It happens, you know? Happens to everyone sooner or later. Or if not everyone then at least most.

But you get habituated, you get seasoned. You get used to having something there for you when you wake up in the morning. A reassurance that all is normal, all is well with the world. A rousing presence that seems almost as sentient as you are even though it is separate.

I was only aware that one of my neighbours was keeping chickens when the cock started crowing a couple of months ago.

At first, when I heard those first tentative rooster calls, I thought maybe I was imagining it. I don't live in the middle of the countryside after all. I live in a residential area of central Leamington Spa. It used to be farmland a hundred years ago but now it has semis, terraces, garages, corner shops and caravans that have become sculptures in honour of holidays that were never quite realized.

But each day the cock crowing got louder. Almost as if Foghorn Leghorn was finding himself. Finding his strength. Coming out of his shell (ahem). Learning to be a real cock rather than just a nervous chicken. There must have been chickens too I suppose. I mean one doesn't entertain a cock by itself unless one is really sad and lonely. But we never heard the chicks. They were ethereal in comparison to the volumed glory of the cock.

Between 6 and 8 every morning he'd offer his defiance to the sky. Greet the new day. Welcome the world.

I feared for him even then. People do not like to be woken up early in the morning by livestock in middle class residential areas of spa water towns. It didn't bother me and my wife - we have livestock of our own: two little monkeys who are wont to get up early and play in their bedrooms from 6am onwards. We were used to the early starts.

But the other neighbours?

Students. Labourers. Workmen. Dole-ites. Even a halfway house around the far corner of the block.

There was only going to be so much cock these people could take early in the morning.

And then, sometime this week, the mornings fell silent. No crowing. No calling. No cock a-doodle-doing.

I don't know what has happened to Mr Chook Rooster. There is no one I know well enough to ask and enqiry of the whereabouts of a stranger's cock is frowned upon in polite society. I hope Mr Rooster was found a home elsewhere where he can range free and wild in some immense morning wood. I hope his neck was not tugged by over-excited hands or disrupted by some cruel human's harsh chopper so that he came to a sticky end.

The mornings seem colder now. Duller. Adrenalin free. Devoid of natural pleasure.

I wish I could have done more for him but... I just feel so damned impotent.