Katie Butcher

I’ve been looking around quite a few places to buy the accessories for our new bathroom (BHS, Debenhams, House of Fraser), but not had much luck. I didn’t like anything in House of Fraser; the things I liked in Debenhams they had on a display board but not on the shelf, and a mirror which I did buy from there for £10, Nigel said it seemed a bit cheap and badly-made when we took it out of the packaging. The one time I made it to BHS before it shut (it shuts at 5:30 so I rarely manage to make it there after work) it had some quite nice stuff, but nothing I felt compelled to buy, and then I’ve not had chance to go back there again.

Yesterday morning I went to Marks and Spencer at the Owlcotes Centre, determined to come back with everything we needed. I did get everything, but it cost nearly £200 – eeek! But it is very nice stuff – and since so much has been spent on the actual bathroom (yes I know – thank you Nigel), I think it’d be daft to not to get nice accessories. Okay – maybe £30 for a toilet brush is a little excessive and certainly more than I’d normally ever consider spending on something like a toilet brush, but I was in the mood for splashing out and getting what I wanted.

• Chrome plated brass toilet roll holder – £19.50
• Glass shelf – £45
• Ceramic and chrome plated brass toilet brush – £29.50
• Mirror – £40
• Luxury washable bath mat (really fluffy so clogged up the drain on the washing machine – great!) – £12
• Marble soap dispenser pot – £15
• Marble tumbler – £8
• Pot pourri vase – £6
• Orange and nectarine pot pourri – £3
• Light fitting – £11 from Wickes

Grand total – £189 ouch!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on this day 250 years ago in Salzburg, Austria. Although he had only a short life (he died aged just 35) he wrote an astonishing amount of music and was undoubtedly a musical genius. Whether or not he was the greatest composer is a matter I feel is more open for debate. There have been many ‘great’ composers, and they have all been great in their own way, and therefore cannot really be fairly compared.

A selection of some other ‘great’ composers:

Chopin was a brilliant pianist and wrote wonderful piano music, but didn’t write much else other than piano music. A lot of his music is technically demanding (so I can’t play much of it) and big hands are a definite advantage when playing Chopin.

Franz Schubert was another great composer who managed to write a vast amount of music even though he died at just 31 and suffered terribly with syphilis from aged 25.

Beethoven wrote some of his most highly rated works after he’d completely lost his hearing. His 5th and 9th symphonies and pieces such as ‘Moonlight’ piano sonata are probably amongst the most recognised pieces of ‘classical’ music.

Tchaikovsky’s most well-known music is probably his ballet music. His music can be gloriously over the top; not in a bad way. Tchaikovsky struggled with his homosexuality (it was unaccepted in those days) and attempted suicide two weeks after getting married.

Haydn lived about the same time as Mozart and the two were friends. Their style can be quite similar as they were composing around the same time. Haydn isn’t as well known as Mozart though and he once said of Mozart “[Mozart] is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.”

Wagner is highly regarded, but I’m personally not a fan. I don’t really like playing Wagner – I find his music can be a bit dull and his opera’s are long (so I’ve heard) so I wouldn’t want to play violin for one of them.

The most well known English composer is probably Elgar. I think he is one of my favourite composer’s to play at Leeds Symphony Orchestra. I love the richness of his music, and there are never any boring bits. A lot of us have a picture of Elgar in our wallets as he’s pictured on £20 notes.

My second favourite composer is Handel who was born the same year as JS Bach. I’m especially fond of his choral works, in particular ‘Messiah’ and ‘Zadok the Priest’.

My personal greatest composer is JS Bach, but really that just means he’s my favourite. To me, nobody has written music more beautiful than music that JS Bach has written. If there was no music other than Bach’s music I would not be bothered. A Bach fact: he had 20 children!

I’ve not put any recipes up for ages. Here’s an easy midweek meal; it’s ready in around half and hour.

This recipe makes a bit too much for Nigel and I, so we save some to have as a warmed up snack the next day; it would serve 4. If you put a teaspoon of chilli powder in it, it’s reasonably fiery, 1/2 a teaspoon would probably be nicely zingy if you prefer things milder.

• knob of butter
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 4 medium carrots, sliced
• up to 1 tsp chilli powder (depends how much you like your chilli)
• 450g sausages, sliced
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1/2 pt milk
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 1 small size can of baked beans (or 1/2 of a full-size can)
• 100g frozen peas
• jacket potatoes to serve*

1. Melt the butter in a non-stick saucepan and fry onion, carrots and chilli powder for 5 minutes
2. Add sausages, cover and cook for 15 minutes
3. Add flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring
4. Gradually add milk, heat, stirring continuously, until sauce thickens, boils and is smotth. Cook for a minute
5. Stir in Worcestershire sauce, tomato purée, baked beans and peas.
6. Cook for 5 minutes. Serve with jacket potatoes.

* The jacket potatoes are quickest 10 minutes in the microwave and then stick them in the oven until the sausage and bean mixture is ready to crisp up the skins.

I enjoyed ‘Housewife Down’ by Alison Penton Harper more than I though I would. It was one of the 5 finalists in the Richard and Judy ‘How to get Published’ competition, but from the cover I expected it to be a bit of a shallow girly story. However, I found that it was better than most of the so-called ‘chick-lit’ books I’ve read (not that I’ve read many though).
The story follows Helen, a down-trodden house wife who’s miserable husband dies in a freak accident. His death gives her a push to pick up pieces and get her life back and the story follows her as she tries to do so.
This was an easy-to-read novel, sometimes funny and on occasion, sad. I wouldn’t want to read novel’s like this too often, but it was nice as a relaxing read whilst in Spain over Christmas.

Last.fm is a music engine based on a massive collection of Music Profiles. Each music profile belongs to one person, and describes their taste in music. Last.fm uses these music profiles to make personalized recommendations, match you up with people who like similar music, and generate custom radio stations for each person.

Sign-up, download the radio player, and get listening. If you don’t like what you hear, then skip it, but if you love what you hear then tell the player and build a profile of the music you like. See what music I’ve been listening to here.

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin is a re-telling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ from the perspective of Dr. Jekyll’s maid, Mary Reilly.

When I first started reading this novel I thought it was going to be really good; the first chapter was so compelling, but the novel went downhill from the second chapter onwards. Not all that much actually seemed to happen, it was so slow-moving filled with detailed descriptions of Mary’s work as a maid interspersed with short snippets of conversation between her and Dr. Jekyll; I’d been expecting a little more Gothic suspense.

As most people are familiar with the Jekyll and Hyde story, the main mystery for Mary – what ‘Master’ is doing for so long shut in the laboratory – isn’t a mystery to the reader at all. Since I know a bit of the story, but not all the details of it, I think it would have been better if I’d read the Robert Louis Stevenson novel first. When I was reading the book I didn’t know if things that happened to Mary could be related back to the original novel or not, and that sort of annoyed me. I wanted to know which bits were Robert Louis Stevensons and what bits were Valerie Martin.

I was extra confused by the ‘Afterword’ which is like an author’s note explaining that the story had come from diaries found in Berkshire. That explanation gives the impression that Mary Reilly was a real person… but surely she’s not because the whole book is based on a fictional classic novel? I was baffled by that.

I think this one can go in the charity bag.

Apparently this book was made into a bad film staring Julia Roberts and John Malkovich. I’ve never seen it though.

Somebody actually used the contact form on my site to get in touch with me – wow, that’s the first time anyone has done that! How exciting! It was another Katie Butcher who lives in New York. This site ranks no. 1 on Google for the search term ‘katie butcher’ so I’m not suprised the someone searching their name ‘katie butcher’ found it. But it was nice of New York Katie Butcher to say hi – I’ve never had any contact with anyone with the same name as me although I know there are a few of us (but not loads, like, say ‘Nigel Smith’s’).

Nigel upgraded to Wordpress 2.0 without me realising which broke a few things on my site. Images, comments, categories had disappeared, but should all be fixed now. Hopefully not too many people noticed. I don’t think it was broken much more than 24 hours.

I’ve decided I really, really, dislike the ‘Sugababes’. I’ve never ever really liked them since they emerged, but their latest release they keep playing on the radio – ‘Ugly’, just grates me every time it’s on. The girl who sings the first verse is so flat; I don’t know how they can release such an appalling sound. It’s pain to my ears. People who like/buy Sugababes music can only be completely tone deaf (rather like Sugababes themselves methinks).

While I was washing-up the ‘Sports Phone-in’ came on Real Radio. I’m not interested in listening to that, but my hands were wet so I couldn’t be bothered to re-tune to another station. Of course, the ‘Sports Phone-In’ isn’t actually a sport’s phone-in, it’s a ‘Lets be really boring and drone on about football phone-in’.

They were talking about an issue that I’d not really paid much attention to earlier in the day; ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ have launched a campaign against footballers spitting. The people on the radio show were moaning saying that footballers are always being picked on and blamed for being bad roll-models. Well Duh! Swearing, fighting etc. etc. I wonder why? Then someone piped up ‘What are they meant to do if they can’t spit?’. Erm… here’s a novel idea… SWALLOW IT!

I don’t believe there is any need for spitting what so ever. It IS disgusting and it DOES spread germs.

Are these footballers incapable of swallowing their own saliva? Did I miss something? I’m sure it won’t kill them.

As an aside. Perhaps I’m odd, but when I exercise, my mouth dries out and I get thirsty. No excess saliva for me, no way. Either I’m weird, or is it perhaps that these football players don’t actually try right hard?