Pumpkin Publog

SMALL HANDS NO EXCUSE

SMALL HANDS NO EXCUSE

(Cheers to Nick Dastoor for this story). The Mini Fillet Burger is even more mini than the word mini would suggest as ads have been pulled for this micro-burger. Apparent the chicken is a fillet by virtue of it being the meat between the bones on a chicken wing. The advertising standards authority are also to be commended for their ability to spot the difference between different types of lettuce in an advert.

That said though, kudos to KFC for suggesting that it was not out of proportion and the person shown holding it probably just had small hands. No kudos to KFC for being owned by a company with the stupid name of Yum Brands. Unless the Yum (also owners of Taco Bell & Pizza Hut) is ironic.

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

In discussing the ridiculous paid for NUS card with “added value”

In discussing the ridiculous paid for NUS card with “added value” at a conference I compared it to Pepsi Max. A retort saying that NUS Extra is nothing like Pepsi Max got wondering. What is Pepsi Max for? Really.

Think about it. We already have Diet Pepsi. Pepsi Max is different in what way? Taste perhaps (not a test I have done recently) and, er, its attitude. A marketing construct surely, a soft drink cannot have an attitude. It can have an ad campaign and its clear that Pepsi don’t really advertise Diet Pepsi any more. But they still make it. If I remember rightly Diet Pepsi was always the tastiest diet drink. But is not extreme sports enough.

People have suggested that Pepsi Max has more caffeine in it. There is nothing on the cans to suggest this. Which brings us now to the best brand dilution yet: Pepsi Max with a hint of Lemon & Lime. Which is like Diet Coke with a hint of Lemon and Diet Coke with a hint of Lime being pissed out of a snowboarder whilst he executes some dazzlingly pointless aerial stunt. Ie, nothing anyone would want to drink. Right?

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

I used to go to school with a girl called Saffron

I used to go to school with a girl called Saffron, whose family was not from the sub-Indian continent. This is apros of absolutely nothing, except that I went to the worst Indian restaurant I have ever been to in my life the other day, and it was also called Saffron. I do not want to link the idea of my childhood friend Saffron with rubbishness, and yet if she had been the owner proprietor it might have made some sense. Let’s get listin’:

1) The reason we went to Saffron was the service in Chillies (my Crouch End usual) was sluggish. Well we had waited for a minute to be seated so to show them we went to the new looking joint over the road. It appears they had spent of the budget on a nicely backlit sign. Nevertheless we were made to feel welcome by the offer of “free popadoms” when we entered. Only when three popadoms turned up did we think that the first of many cultural misunderstandings had occurred. 3 popadoms were indeed on the bill.

2) Starters: My father fancied the curried chicken livers. I wanted aloo chat. Unfortunately neither were available. A suitable replacement for curried chicken livers, it was suggested, was the entirely dissimilar prawn puri. Even more surprising, considering the lack of aloo (potatoes!) was that they did indeed have chicken chat available.

3) Drinks: I ordered a 660ml Sunny Beaches. They did not have, however the 660ml Cobra was a fine replacement. Except what was actually brought to my table was a small glass of beer and a 330ml bottle. It is possible that the first beer had been decanted from another 330ml bottle of Cobra ? except it tasted different.

4) King Prawn Biryani seemed to lack any of the crustacean monarchs and seemed happy to make a meal of the more lowly subjects of said dominion.

5) Near the end of the meal a member of waiting staff engaged my father in conversation regarding his disability. My father had a larengectomy a few years ago due to cancer of the throat. He can still be a bit shy in public, but will answer basic friendly questions. What we were not expecting was a query about his voice vibrator turning into a five minute parable of woe regarding the poor state of our waiting staffs sinuses (complete with hacking noises). Especially when I was eating a dansak.

On the bright side neither of us got food poisoning. And at least it made me think upon my old friend Saffron again. Which is a good thing: unlike this particularly lousy Crouch End Curry House.

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

You can tell there is a lot of subsidy going into FACT in Liverpool.

You can tell there is a lot of subsidy going into FACT in Liverpool. A multi-purpose art gallery, cinema and media centre it is a Scouse ICA in a barn. The building is so open, airy and large that you do slowly start thinking about wasted space. Not least with the Sarah Kent curated “Critics Favourite” exhibition which finally allows me to completely disregard her writing in Time Out. That said the Vito Acconci exhibition in April may be worth a special visit (it looks like an expanded version of the exhibition me and Tim saw in New York last year).

The very airiness of the building did make me wonder about the prevailing trend in galleries. Its does seem that white, plain and uncluttered is the preferred option: and you can see the argument for the surroundings not interfering with the art experience. However since the surrounds always will, why is white any more preferable to any other backing? And why high ceiling, big rooms and enormous unthreatening entrance foyers?

I liked FACT a lot, and happily spent the lions share of the day bouncing from gallery, to cinema, to cafe with free wi-fi. The cinemas were some of the nicest I have seen in Britain and are a triumph for the Picturehouse chain, (as much as that chain threatens to annoy me: arthouse gatekeepers are still gatekeepers). But without subsidy places like FACT could not exist, and I am not sure providing huge atriums is the best spend for our artsy money.

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

Corporate Social Responsibility.

Corporate Social Responsibility. Don’t you just love the sound of a phrase that is instantly abbreviated into meaninglessness as CSR. What does it mean? It means that those of us who run bars are socially responsible for making sure that the punters do not get pissed off their tits every night. So we push for shooters, premium strength lager and happy hours. Sorry: we don’t do those things. Not any more.

Three years ago I was told that there was no market for cooking lager any more. The session drinker is chasing stronger and stronger beer. The acceptable face of cooking lager is now Carling, an unpleasant lager that is still over 4% abv.

Now I have been told that actually cooking lager is making a resurgence. Why? CSR of course. It seems that venues want to be able to serve a session lager that the Friday night lads will knock back without causing trouble. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to the daftest marketing idea since Chris bought something to Freakytrigger that we are not allowed to talk about. Can I introduce you to Carling 2 O.

Carling 2 O (the two probably being a subscript) is pretty much what its name suggests. Watered down Carling. The 2 O is a reference to its strength 2.0% abv. This is mooted as the solution to binge drink Britain. To which I riposte BOLLOCKS! This is the sop for CSR that pubs have been crying out for. Have a Carling 2 O pump and sell none. BUT you are offering an alternative which should stop alcohol abuse. The fact it tastes like lager flavoured water and has a stupid name won’t put off the wife-beater drinkers. CSR and Carling 2 O: a match made in cynical marketing heaven.

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • 1 Comment

Don’t order the risotto.

This is a mantra I must take up full time. I have eaten three risottos out in restaurants in the last month, and been disappointed by all of them. My weekend savoury rice pudding experiment was at Branca, an Italian restaurant in Oxford. A smoked haddock & parsley omelette with a poached egg appealed: I was counting on getting a posh twist on kedgeree. Instead I got a gloppy load of Arborio rice, with tasteless green flecks and fish whose smoking provenance went as far as a packet of Rothmans. Maybe my home-made risottos are wrong, maybe I tank too much gutsy wine in, and have more bits to excite. But the only good part of this risotto was the egg seeping into the rice. And if I want eggy rice, I know plenty of Chinese restaurants that do it a damn sight cheaper. So note to self, don’t order the risotto.

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

Giant Drinks

Giant Drinks

I’m a sucker for giant size drinks. They make me feel like I’m in the pub version of Mr.Greedy.* At an gimmicky Austrian restaurant in West London last year I enjoyed myself with one-litre steins, in Tampere I had the opportunity to go a litre better with a monstrous two-litre tube of beer. I passed it up, being the only drinker, but appreciated the visuals. The tube comes with a tap at the bottom, and sits solidly on your table, soaring a metre or more up. Attached to the top of this skyscraper of booze is a tube of iced water which pushes down into the beer, keeping it cold.

My sources tell me that these contraptions have been seen in Britain, in Hogshead pub. But the bar in Finland seemed half-filled with English drinkers and it was certainly new to them. They all wanted one, and they were all in front of me at the bar, turning my one minute wait for an ordinary beer into five minutes of frustrated technological awe.

*OK, my life is not too far away from this anyway.

Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

New Kitkat Bar

New Kitkat Bar

Released on 7th March. It’s full of mango and passionfruit and I’m not sure what to make of it. The taste is confusing. It reminds me of the first time I watched the Crying Game and said, “phoar, wouldn’t mind a go on that” only to discover that all wasn’t as it seemed.

It’s a limited edition in a pink wrapper.

Mike in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

Look at Steve M’s big ‘shroom.

Look at Steve M’s big ‘shroom.

In a new Publog feature called “We nicked this idea off of that’s life” why don’t people e-mial us pictures of big and malformed vegetables. Go on, it’ll be fun.

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments

A moment of rare drunken self reflection

A moment of rare drunken self reflection hit me at half past ten last night, and I mused about parallel universes. There I was just cracking on to the second bottle of port and puffing at a cigar in the Smoking Room of the National Liberal Club, thumbing through Hansard after an immense club grill and cheeseboard. It was the feeling that
a) this type of thing was not meant for the likes of me
b) and this is where the compromises start.

Would it be great to be a member of a “club”. It always sounded great in Wodehouse, but what I saw last night (stately rooms notwithstanding) was miles away from the fun and frivolity of the Drones. Instead we had old fogeys, and worse still, young fogeys in small numbers patronising a very big bar. The food was okay, and reasonably priced, and you could not knock the surroundings. But the only real thing a club has going for it is the exclusivity, and my presence there was not questioned for one second. But to be recomended to the committee, to pay my ’200, to feel nurtured – well its within these walls that politicians get insulated from a real world they should be doing something about. Not for me.

Then the moment passed and we got back tot he conversation about pubs in new towns (a good fifteen page discussion on which can be found in the 1951 Hansard).

Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments