BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

I spent most of December '08 housebound with a knee injury. Just limping down to the local provisions shack for a stack of fags, Nurofens and Stella made Scott's trip to the Antarctic seem like a playground snowball fight.

Subsequently, during this bout of exquisite fucking boredom, what did I actually get up to? Well, thru my ibuprofen haze and dodging calls from people at work who didn't know what to do, I learned the Charles Baudelaire poem "Tristesses de La Lune" in French off by heart; I wrote a 1-page A4 pad dissertation entitled Does an interest in online midget porn signify veiled paedophilia?, then scrunched it up and threw it in the bin; I thrashed some fucker 412-198 at online scrabble; I questioned my own sanity; I developed an interest in Johnny Cash; and I made some Rendang curries, which I ate for breakfast, lunch and tea. Here's what you need:

- Some Rendang curry paste. Get it from an authentic shop (though I don't think Sainsburys has managed to distribute a diluted version of this yet?). Alternatively, make your own. You'll have to google for more info on this, I couldn't be arsed to start from scratch. Ooh, how inauthentic! Look, if I can buy a cheap jar of readymade paste from Wing Yip, imported from a country of people who eat it on a regular basis, I'm not gonna waste time hunting down info on what Fucko McGinty's Cooking for Ming Mongs website has to say about sourcing tamarind. I hate people who say You shouldn't buy curry paste, you should make it yourself, it's more authentic! WHY? Why should I waste any more of my precious time doing work for work's sake? The Indonesians know what they're doing, you oafs ((WARNING - DO NOT BUY ANY HIGH STREET SUPERMARKET CHAIN ASIAN CURRY PASTES)). Just tracking down the fucking specialist store with a wounded limb was work enough. Why do you think I do a blog? Cos it's less work than doing a fanzine and it costs sweet F.A to 'publish'. Sorry if I'm more advanced in my commitment to the anarcho-socialist utopia of the 24/7 leisure society than some.

- Vegetable / groundnut oil (DO NOT USE OLIVE OIL - ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU THIS SHOULD BE SHOT)

- Chicken / beef / whatever substitute you usually have if you're a veggie (actually, it might not work with vegetables. Try an aubergine, or Quorn, or something. I only went 'veggie' for a month once to try to impress someone, and missed out on a free doner kebab for this act of blatant fraud)

- A pack of dessicated coconut

- Coconut milk (any brand will do, but it's only 39p in Wing Yip)

- Some birdseye Thai chillies

- Fish sauce

- Rice

Right, some people will tell you that you 'need' other garnishes too. Listen to them instead if you like. I've never been a dictator. You can use coriander to garnish it if you want, but my only source of 'fresh' coriander was Sainsburys, so, naturally, it was all wilted and smelt of its plastic wrapping.

I haven't included info on measurements or serving sizes - use your own judgement, for the love of Buddha.

1) Heat up a frying pan. DON'T stick any oil in yet. Sprinkle a generous helping of dessicated coconut into the pan. Push it around a bit. Buy one of those Thai-style shovel things. It makes you feel the dog's bollocks. When the coconut starts going brown, shake it onto a plate.

2) Cut the meat into square chunks. Or triangles if you like.

3) Stick the oil in a wok and crank the hob right up. Wait til it's spitting and smoking and the kitchen resembles that old Public Information Film about domestic chip pan fires. The hotter the better, basically. I bet the 'make your own paste' brigade freak out at this point and turn the gas down.

4) Chuck in the meat. Don't push it around. Just leave it be. After about, I dunno, seems like 4 minutes to me, turn it over (don't fret about time, there's basically 3 stages - a) raw b) cooked c) charcoal. Try and get it between steps 1 and 2)

5) Chuck in a big dollop of Rendang curry paste and coat the meat. If you've got the heat right, you'll now have an intense coughing fit as the spicy smoke assaults your lungs. Then add some of the coconut milk. A can of coconut milk goes a long way, so buy one of those snap-shut container things so you can store the rest in the fridge or the freezer. Don't put the rest of the can in the fridge, ya quack, or it'll curdle. About a quarter of the can should do for this, unless you want the curry all creamy and runny.

6) Stir the mixture round. Turn the heat down a bit. Chuck in your pre-toasted dessicated coconut. Right, the object is to get it all thick and solid. It's a sour dish. Let it frazzle away and stir it a bit every now and then. Now, it depends how salty-tasting you want it, but I'd recommend some fish sauce at this point. But that's just me.It's ready when it stops looking like gravy and more like a dry, thick stew.

7) When it's done, get the chillies for garnish. Slice them vertically down the middle. If you've got the right sorts like I said (instead of going to some crap veg store in Finsbury Park), you'll see a load of seeds. If you're worried about the heat, rub one against your forehead. If it feels like you've got sunburn 3 minutes later,and this displeases you, ditch the seeds. Chuck the chilli strips over the curry.

8) Serve with rice. If you hate cooking rice, I dunno, make some mash, just to piss off the sons and daughters of authenticity. By the way, if anyone has any foolproof sticky rice theories, please leave a comment, I'm always fucking this bit up. A hippie cycle courier once showed me the perfect way to make sticky rice, allegedly. When he did it, it was perfect. I followed his instructions to the letter, but it still came out substandard.

So there you go, food of the gods. It'll keep the sub-zero temperatures at bay, especially if you eat it all the time. And it's really cheap. If I was more interactively minded, I'd suggest an INTER-BLOG RECIPE meme, but I don't want to be the bloke at the football match who tries to get a chant going and crashes into a wall of silence.

Anyway, roll on 2009. We had a big debate down the pub the other day, about midgets. A lot of young women fret about their looks, and spend a fortune primping and preening themselves - and yet most men would pass them up in a flash, to have a tumble with a midget instead. Well, that was my take on it, anyway. Someone suggested that a man dating a midget might just be trying to flatter his anatomy through the prism of perspective, though I thought that was sizeist bullshit. I mean, how offensive can you get? Did you know, the Sex Pistols once kicked a midget offstage? If I was a midget, I'd make sure they never bloody kicked anything ever again.

Speaking of which, my knee's skip dandy now, following some advice to do a bit of 'physio'. I've been going down the gym! I haven't thrown myself around in a sweat-drenched stupor so much since the last time I saw Blaggers ITA. God, you lot should check out the music down there. Any rumours that Euro Rave died with Sash's career are seriously unfounded. Everyone's become so immersed in grimestep, they've taken their eye off 'uplifting euphoric house'. It hasn't faded away into the mists of time; it's built itself up into a MONSTROUS NUCLEAR STOCKPILE and it's audible down the gym, 24/7. It's a weird MDMA-soaked world of bearded men in tiger costumes, Swiss women dressed up as New York cops, fluffy handcuffs, pink bubbles, red sequinned babydoll dresses and endless songs about love, lost love, forbidden love, impending love...it's one big blissed-out jellyfish of trancey lurve, seeping from the speakers, while the silent news channel flashes up footage of bombs raining down on Gaza.