I Don't Get It

I can see why it's meant to be humourous as "suicide" rhymes with "right side" but I suppose I must be slow on the uptake for this one.

Another Handsome Specimen

I couldn't find any pictures of him hard but I'm sure he's a grower.

Nigella's Chewy Macaroons

I've been busy baking (among other things) this weekend. These are not what you'd usually think of as macaroons - not the chewy coconutty type or the French variety which is spelt "macaron". Nigella Lawson's version (which can be found in her book "Feast") is somewhere in-between which is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside but doesn't have coconut in it.

Nigella's original recipe is as follows:

- 200g ground almonds
- 200g caster sugar
- 2 egg whites (from large eggs)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)
- 2 tablesppons rose water (optional)

The method is simplicity itself. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Mix all the ingredients together except for the rose water. If mixing by hand proves tedious, use an electric mixer.

Wet hands with rose water and form balls of the almond mixture approximately the size of a walnut. Place on a lined baking tray and press down slightly. Space well as the macaroons will rise. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. The finished product will look quite pale (unlike in the picture where they are nice and golden brown) but the outside will be crispy and the inside quite chewy.

The first time I made these, I had problems because being the smartarse that I am, decided to substitute the rose water with Amaretto and instead of wetting my hands with it, poured it into the almond mixture. This was a mistake. The dough became too wet and I had to add an extra 200g ground almonds to salvage the dough. Even then it was still quite wet, the texture being similar to seasoned minced meat and it was necessary to actually wet my fingers before the dough could be handled to any degree.

My modified recipe is as follows:

- 200g ground almonds
- 150g to 200g icing sugar (depending on how sweet you like your macaroons)
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon mixed spice (use the Dutch blend if available, if not then any sweet mixed spice will do)
- 1 egg white from a large egg

Mix all the ingredients together and it should form a very easy to handle dough. Shape as above or if you wish, you can make smaller macaroons by forming balls of about the diameter of a 10p coin. Flatten slightly after placing on a lined baking tray. Alternatively, you can place the dough in some clingfilm and then roll it out into a cylindrical shape. Put the dought roll in the fridge to stiffen (about 1 to 2 hours in the fridge will suffice). Once stiffened, unwrap clingfilm and cut into transverse sections.

Depending on whether you want a more chewy macaroon, cut into half inch widths. If you want a more crunchy (but nevertheless with a bit of a chewy centre) cut into quarter inch widths. For more chewy macaroons, bake the thicker dough bits in an oven set at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 to 12 minutes. For more crispy macaroons, bake the smaller dough bits in an oven set at 180 degrees Celsius for 10 to 12 minutes by which time they will be nice and golden brown like the ones in the picture above. If you bake the smaller dough bits in a hotter oven, they will turn quite brown.

I spent most of Saturday experimenting with different types/quantities of sugar, methods and baking temperatures and finally managed to come up with a stable recipe which should be reproduceable next time I try to make the macaroons again.

Becks & Sons

I previously posted an entry featuring John Terry and his two children.

With the end of the Spanish Primera Liga season for 2007 and Real Madrid winning the league title for this year, it's likewise time the football players to show off their children to the media.

It's amazing how quickly time flies and Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz are all such big boys now. While I don't particularly share Posh & Becks' taste in children's names, you can certainly see that they adore their dad and even have the same haircut as he does.

I can't imagine Posh actually looking after the boys herself. To quote a line I heard off a sitcom - she looks like a stick with boobies and quite possibly plastic boobies as well. I am reliably informed by my girl friends (they are girls who are my friends, not girls whom I shag - sorry I don't do girls) that when women lose weight, they lose it all over and this means that their boobies become smaller as well. Posh is as thin as a person can be without being anorexic but she's still got a very full bosom which suggests to my girl friends that they're plastic. So, Becks is a tit man then?

The Difference Between Straight & Gay

How straight boys do it - chest to chest:



How gay boys do it - crotch to crotch:



So what exactly is the relationship between Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor?

Practice Makes Perfect?

I wonder where she got that from. Shocking isn't it? Not only is she licking on one, but she's got another one in her hand. As they say, good girls go to heaven and naughty girls go everywhere. Looks like this girl will be going places.....

Nick "Bendy" Beyeler

Is there no position this man can't do?

More about Nick here.

Marc Gicquel's Tennis Injury

No, reports of tennis elbow wouldn't make it to my blog.

French tennis player Marc Gicquel was balled in the nuts during his match against Benjamin Becker during the Gerry Webber Open in Halle. The ball in question was travelling at a speed of 208 km/h when it made contact with the Gicquel family jewels. I can only imagine the pain......

However, he managed over come the pain and to continue the match after receiving treatment and won it 6-2, 7-6(5).

Perhaps Tim Henman should take a fast ball to his nuts and that might improve his game. He can't be playing any worse than he is now.

Purely as an afterthought, I can't imagine that the tournament doctors get to fondle players' nuts in open court in more or less full view of the public (save for the silly towel which doesn't really hide anything) very often. Truly the dream job of many a gay man!

Come Hither

He's not quite as close to perfection as Woody and the others who have previously appeared in my blog but as my friend PS says, you wouldn't kick him out of bed. He's probably the sort you'd want to keep in bed too. It looks like he's got the same thing in mind. Inviting isn't he?

This Is Too Easy

Sausage Delight? This one's just asking for a pun to be made.

I bet he can offer more than just sausage delights - all round boy on boy delights is more likely the case!

Woody - Another Near Perfect Specimen Of Manhood

More pictures of him can be found here.

Jail Bird - Literally

There was some drama over the weekend about Paris Hilton being "released" into home custody and then being produced in Court, followed by a reluctant return to prison. Apparently prison authorities allowed her to leave prison for home confinement on unspecified medical grounds - the full report from CNN can be found here.

That's as stupid a reason as any and the judge obviously thought so as well and ordered that she be sent back to prison, where she belongs.

Madame Tussauds' have obviously capitalised on this and have exhibited a waxed-likeness of Paris Hilton in prison stripes or should it be prison orange instead?

Which Ones Shall I Buy?

Choice is not necessarily a good thing. I've been wanting to buy one of these for some time now but didn't manage to find anything suitable in the shops except a pair made by Puma but they weren't in the right shade of blue. I did some looking on the internet and finally managed to narrow it down to these 4 choices. An internet review of the brands suggested that Fallen were the best, followed by Osiris and then Adio but all of these are reputable and I suspect that at the end of the day, it will simply be a matter of personal preference. At the moment, I'm inclined to go with the ones with the white shoelaces. I think the contrasting laces make the shoes nicer.

Another Strange Dream - Back To Basic(s)

I don't know whether it's true about what's said in relation to going to sleep after having big meals but I had a big meal last night and I had a strange dream, possibly a nightmare.

In my dream I was back at basic training but like my dream about being back in boarding school, I was my current age, rather than when I was 18. It seemed like a comparably less stressful experience than it was the first time around and we even had our own fridges in the barracks which was unheard of previously. During falling in time, we were even joking with the lady drill sergeant who had a good sense of humour.

At that point, the struggle between my subconscious and conscious minds began to surface as I began to realise that I had only about 10 days to go to my Run Out Date and being back in basic training was pointless, particularly since subsequently-discovered my skin sensitivities rifle oil precluded me from any combat activities, which would have included basic training.

The red mist was about to descend again I was about to get in touch with my solicitors to start judicial review proceedings against the Minstry of Defence (which would most certainly mean my appointment as a reserve Staff Judge Advocate would be revoked in a tit for tat move by the MOD in the typically petty way in which the Civil Service operates). I didn't care really but that never happened as my conscious mind won out and I woke up.

I don't know why I had this dream and whether it was anything to do with my having a large meal but even if that was the reason, why did I dream of me being back in basic training instead of the other more commonly recurring nightmares which I have involving my teeth falling out or being back in school and facing my A Level maths exam which I wasn't at all prepared for.

If anyone knows a good therapist who specialises in dreams, let me know. I think I need some help to understand my subconscious mind.

Football Round-Up

The word "football" is so ambiguous. To Americans, it refers to the gridiron variety. To the Australians, depending on which part of Australia you come from, it could refer to AFL or NRL or possibly both. To most British people, this refers to what the rest of the world often refers to as soccer but even in England, there are other types of football, such as rugby football but the word "football" is usually used in connection with Association Football.

To kick-off, as it were we need to go back in time to an entry which I posted last month headed "EPL Whispers". It turns out to have been rather clairvoyant as it seems that both Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher have exactly the same thoughts:

Speaking of Steven Gerrard, here's a nice one of him and Frank Lampard who has already featured in my blog, both of whom are in the doggy position. I feel my cock getting hard already.....

Wesley Cornett - Pro Sui Vir Fatur

Jewel In The Palace

My mum's taken to watching a Korean television drama recently. It's English title is "Jewel In The Palace" but the Korean translation is "Dae Jang-geum" or in Chinese, "Da Chang Jin" which is rather more appropriate as my mum's watching the version which has been dubbed in Mandarin.

More about the plot can be found here but the reason why the drama interests me is because of the very handsome male lead, played by Korean actor Ji Jin Hee who plays the part of an officer in the imperial guard, Min Jeong Ho who is the lead actress' love interest.

He looks very dishy in traditional Korean dress:

In more contemporary clothing:

As you can tell, I don't much care for the drama itself but it has entertainment value, not least of which is a very handsome leading man.

Mason Wyler - Another Almost Perfect Specimen Of Manhood

I originally intended to put a simple caption here - "Vir Ipsa Loquitur" but realised is bad grammar. Instead I think the better translation might be "pro sui vir fatur". As I said in a previous post, my Latin is very rusty and I stand corrected as to the most appropriate translation of "the man speaks for himself".

Jamie Oliver's Alliterative Brownies

This recipe appeared most recently in a little booklet which Jamie very kindly put together for Red Nose Day this year called "Jamie's Little Book Of Big Treats". It's published under the name "Bloomin' Brilliant Brownies" which why it's easier to refer to them as "Alliterative Brownies" but in so doing, they're no longer an alliteration.

You will be relieved to know that the object of this post is not to explore the curious irony of how how putting a label on something destroys it's original meaning but to post arguably one of the best chocolate brownie recipes I've eaten in my short-ish life and I've eaten many, believe me.

I first made them sometime towards the end of March and they turned out to be better than I hoped but I made them a second time with a change in the recipe and cooking time but they didn't turn out. This time around, I resorted to what I did the first time around and it worked.

I'm now sufficiently satisfied that result of this recipe is reproduceable without any disappointment. I've deviated from Jamie's original recipe so perhaps the renaming is justified although somewhat ironic.

As Jamie was kind enough to publish his recipe in aid of Red Nose Day, please do your bit whenever you use this recipe. You don't have necessarily have to make a donation but at least try to do something nice for someone, even if it means giving them what you baked from this recipe. I won't know whether you do or don't - it's a matter for your conscience.

Enough of my drivel, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients
250g butter
250g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa, if not higher)
100g dark chocolate, very roughly chopped (min 70% cocoa, if not higher)
360g caster sugar (use proportionately less if the cocoa content of the chocolate is less than 7o%)
80g cocoa
80g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon amaretto (optional)
50g walnuts (optional; quantity flexible )
75g dried sour cherries (optional; quantity flexible)
1 teaspoon mixed spice for sweets (optional)

Method
Pre-heat oven to 180 Celsius. Double line a 25cm x 15cm cake tin with greaseproof paper.

In a bain-marie, melt 250g of the dark chocolate and butter together and once done, leave to cool. It need not be at room temperature for the next step. In a mixing bowl, thorougly mix caster sugar and eggs - best to use an electric mixer.

Sift cocoa, flour and baking powder together. Add some mixed spice if you like.

Once thoroughly mixed, drizzle the melted chocolate mixture into the egg and sugar mixture while the mixer is still going.

When all the chocolate has been added, stir in flour mixture until there are no more lumps. Add in the remaining 100g of roughly chopped dark chocolate, nuts and cherries and stir to distribute evenly in the batter.

Pour out into the lined baking tin and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not use the skewer test as it will hopelessly fail. At the end of the baking time, a crust will have formed at the top of the cake but it will still be wobbly.

DO NOT PANIC. This is how it's meant to be. The reason being is that the chocolate pieces have all melted, making the cake wobbly.

Leave to cool in the tin. The cake will fall in the meantime. Again, do not panic, this is to be expected because of the liquid chocolate will shrink in volume once it solidifies. Once cooled, wrap the brownie, tin and all in a large plastic bag and place in the freezer overnight. The brownie can keep very many months in this state but I assure you that once you've tasted it, there won't be much left to keep around for many days, much less many months.

After having had the overnight cold treatment, remove the brownie from the freezer and lift the brownie out of the tin. If you've lined it properly, it will lift out quite easily. Strip away all the greaseproof paper and using a large, sharp knife, cut into as small or large pieces as you like. These can now be stored in the freezer or in the refrigerator. They taste delicious cold or warmed up briefly in the microwave. The reason for storing it overnight in the freezer is that it's much easier to cut after having had a night in the freezer. If you try it cut it after it's cooled down, it will be very gooey and messy.

Jamie suggests that the brownies be accompanied by creme fraiche and orange zest but if you can't be arsed, a quantity of ice-cream will do. If you really can't be arsed, just eat them out of the freezer. They are a good way to get your daily chocolate fix.

If you want to go OTT with this, you can make a ganache and spread it over the top of the brownie before cutting it up and then have it with chocolate ice-cream. Much as I like chocolate, I think that's going too far. It's nice enough without.

Yet Another (Mostly) Inexplicable Dream

I had an erotic dream last night.

Nothing peculiar about that, you must be thinking. This was strange, and perhaps disturbing but make up your own mind.

In my dream I was in a hotel room with 2 single beds. I happened to be sharing the room with my boss from London, M. This was a very unusual situation for the following reasons:

1. I never travel with him. If I do, it's usually with at least 1 other person but this time, it was just the two of us on the trip; and

2. Whenever we travel for work, we always go "single" whenever we travel and we'd only be sharing if there weren't enough rooms to go around; and

3. It couldn't have been that there weren't enough rooms at the hotel as the trips are planned sufficiently far ahead to avoid this sort of situation, at least the trips which involve M.

In my dream, I was just about waking up and in my half-asleep state, I noticed M, dressed only in his shirt standing in front of the television (which hadn't been switched on) wanking himself furiously while mumbling something. I couldn't really make out what he was mumbling but it sounded like "Alan Greenspan". Suddenly, he stopped wanking and then grabbed a copy of the FT and exclaimed loudly "Alan Greenspan" and then continued wanking.

This was disturbing as it seemed that M was getting aroused thinking of Alan Greenspan. But it was the morning and I'm always woken up by my erection so I put my disgust aside and got out of bed and went to stand in front of M.

At this point, I ought to mention that I usually sleep in the nude whenever I travel (unless its winter) and I stood in front of M, naked and having a hardon. He didn't seem to mind. I took hold of his cock and started wanking him. He seemed to like it and even adjusted my hand so that I gripped his cock in a way that he liked.

I looked at the cock in my hand - nice shape and length, nice set of balls too. After I wanked him for a while, I decided that I needed a taste of his cock and I got on my knees and started sucking him off. He seemed to like what I was doing and after a few minutes, he made me stand up and we kissed. We kissed for a while and this time round, it was his turn to suck me.

For a (happily) married man with 2 children, he was very good at sucking cock. All that was going through my mind when he was sucking me off was, apart from how good it felt, whether this encounter was going to be a one-off or whether we'd be doing this on a regular basis. The fact I might be having an affair with a married mind had not crossed my sex-crazed mind at the time.

He continued sucking me till I was close and continued sucking me while I came, swallowing as much of my cum as he could.

The dream ended there and I don't know what happened next. If anything. That was the point when I woke up and would no doubt have had a wet dream but for the fact that I wank regularly enough for this not to happen any more.

The dream's bothered me all day and I've been wondering why M featured in my dream, especially in an erotic one. It's not that he's unattractive. For a 40-something year old, he's got very cute, boyish looks and while he may be a bit tubby, to put it in the words of my friend, C, I wouldn't kick him out of bed.

I've had erotic thoughts about other boys at work but never about M. We don't work together on a daily basis and I've never thought about him in that sort of way. I don't know why my subconscious mind picked him over the so many other boys at work whom I've had sexual daydreams of. However, the dream was horny enough for me to need to wank myself in the toilet at work as I relived the dream in my head.

I'm guessing that the reason for the erotic dream is partly to do with the fact that I've not been out "hunting" lately. It's probably been more than a month, if not longer since the last time but that's not to say that I've not otherwise been satisfied. Perhaps it's my subconscious mind telling me that I should resume "hunting" activities this week. Not such a bad idea seeing as it's nude night this Friday at Club One Seven.......