Gary Writes A Blog

The police force for my home town (Lothian and Borders Police) have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax payers money on one case over the last year. Did they spend this money on fighting serious crime such as rape or murder? (Here’s a clue, the successful prosecution of rape cases is under 2%, the worst in the country).

They have spent the money on investigating the former socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan after he had the cheek to sue Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World “newspaper” in 2006.

Tommy was arrested in the street and questioned for 8 hours while NINE police men raided his house where his wife and 2 year old daughter were alone. Funnily enough the press had been tipped off and got lots of nice pictures to appear in the papers.

It was previously unheard of in Scotland for anyone to be investigated for perjury in a defamation case, but today’s arrest of Tommy’s wife Gail and her father makes it 6 arrests in this case.

At the same time there has been no noticeable moves forward in the investigation into Tommy’s car being bugged while he was a serving, democratically elected MSP. I think I know of a potential suspect…

I don’t agree with Tommy Sheridan’s politics and I have no idea if he lied in court or not, but would Lothian and Borders police act in the same manner if it had been a legal action taken by The Big Issue? Do all cases get the same treatment? I hope that they do…

What do you think?

On Friday night I met up with an old class mate from my first degree here in Sweden. He was across with his girlfriend for a weekend in Stockholm.

It was great to meet up again and spend the night making fun of the absent Panos…

All week I have been looking forward to settling down in front of the TV on Thursday night to watch the Aberdeen v Bayern Munich game. Unfortunately, there was something called Valentines day that had been arranged for the same day. You would have thought that the arrangers of Valentines day would have re-organised when they found it clashed with the big game?

Anyway, instead of watching the game, me and Maria went to a “Hot Wok” restaurant in Fridhemsplan which was ace. I had the “HajTech” which was basically a shark stir-fry.

It’s been a busy couple of days and it started off with a trip to Tekniska Museet (the Museum of Science and Technology) on Saturday.

It’s actually some size of museum, built on five floors and full of scientific nick-nacks. Funny to see some of the computers and phones etc. that we used to own are now museum pieces.

The coolest thing was in the space travel exhibition where you could film yourself with a thermal imaging camera. Here’s me doing my best impression of The Fonz…

I’ve just read this:

“King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died of digestion problems on February 12, 1771 after consuming a meal consisting of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, which was topped off by 14 servings of semla, served with bowls of hot milk. Semla was the king’s favorite dessert. ”

Be careful with those semlor…

In America it was Super Tuesday, in Scotland it was Shrove Tuesday, but in Sweden it was Semlor Tuesday!

These are the same idea as us eating pancakes on the last day before lent, but I think these are even better (though you couldn’t fry one of these up as part of a full Scottish breakfast… or could you…?).

According to Wikipedia, a semla is “consists of a cardamom-spiced wheat bun which has its top cut off and insides scooped out and is then filled with a mix of the scooped-out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. The cut-off top is then put back as a lid and dusted with icing sugar.”

I’ll be eating Semlor for the next week.

Today, we really roughed it by going to Centralbadet in the centre of Stockholm. Very, very nice with the Victorian baths, thermal and bubble baths and roasty-toasty saunas.

Had a cracking lunch afterwards too…

Had loads and loads of double cream left after making the cranachan on Friday, so we decided to make our own ice cream. Here’s how we did it.

Step 1: Gather 4 egg yolks in a big bowl and mix them up…

Step 2: Mix in 3dl of suger…

Step 3: Mix in 400g of fruit… (does this count towards my 5 portions a day?)

Step IV: Give the whole thing a good stir until the fruit is no more…

Step 5: In a new bowl, whip up 500ml of double cream (vispgrädde) until it’s thick enough to throw at a wall and not fall off…

Step 6: Ensure that the mixing tool is properly cleaned…

Step 7: Fold the cream into the fruit/egg mix..

Step 8: Pour it into an old 2litre ice cream box and put in the freezer for at least 24 hours.

Step 9: Serve and enjoy! (and hope you don’t get salmonella from the uncooked eggs).

And there you have it! That’s how you make your own ice-cream at home. It only takes two days, costs twice as much and tastes half as good as the stuff you can buy in the shops!

Seems like it’s a common problem. The question is, what is the best way to poach an egg?

I had a Burn’s Night Supper on Friday and the starter was a poached egg on toast with smoked salmon and a Hollandaise sauce, so I done some research online to make sure I could do 6 perfect poached eggs.

I always found that the vortex method was satisfactory, but it only really works well when you’re cooking with gas and not electricity.

AT LAST, someone has carried out an in-depth and scientific study and found the best way. It’s also very funny. Check it out here.

By the way, the meal went well, we of course had Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and then had Cranachan for dessert!

Nice quote in the comments section of this BBC politics blog…

“I have to confess that I may be veering towards Labour after today’s events.

The SNP have pledged only 1000 police on our streets after 4 years.

Labour managed to get 22,000 out on the streets of London in ONE day.

Now, you have to admit that’s impressive.“