All - Hallows - Bugger off.

It’s that time of year again.

No I’m not talking Christmas – though in adland that seems to be all we’re thinking about right now.

I’m thinking in rest-of-the-world terms – it’s Halloween.

A time of year where the simple pasty can be transformed into a prickly, petrifiying pastry.  Where a biscuit is a ghastly groaning ghoulish ghost, and everything else is the kind of colour that you’re convinced it can only give you stomach ulcers, and will probably taste of them too.

Another American tradition hauled over the pond for marketing directors to get on board with, to overhaul their brands with, to spin their otherwise respectable products into tacky, gimmicky, tasteless rubbish.   

I’ve forever had an issue with this time of year – the falsity of it, the way that grown men and women paint their faces and use this as a mask to hide behind whilst they drink and cause the kind of havoc that only their alter-ego can provide.

The way that children are dressed up and sent to beg round stranger’s houses, whilst their parents begrudgingly trudge behind them, making sure this genuinely dangerous activity doesn’t get out of hand.

The idea of carving a pumpkin makes me want to carve my bloody wrists.

If you were to wear a mask at any other point in the year of this standard, you would be assumed a burglar, a bank robber – no matter what, somebody up to no good.

So this year, as my annual rant comes to a close, I declare, that this Halloween, I will not be seen.  I will not answer my door to the call of the begging children.  I will be locked inside, safely, watching horror films.

Actually maybe I will answer the door… 

I’ve ordered takeaway.

"I-had-a-gnaw-us" (Red Velvet Recipe)

The title of this post was thought up by the wonderful @agiraffeatelisa, on receipt of her specially made dinosaur red velvet cake.

The TMW agency 'Battersea bake off' was on Monday - a baking competition (competition being a loosely fitting word, it was a bake sale without judgement) in aid of Battersea dogs and cats home, to make sure those critters keep warm and vaccinated against disease in the winter months to come.

Preperation began on Sunday... I was in the North of the country, about 200 miles from my office, so the logical thing to do would be to build a cake that is sturdy and easy to transport... So I didn't.
I'd wanted to make red velvet cakes for a really long time, Nigella had made them on her programme and I like to consider myself as her unknown daughter/best friend, so this made perfect sense to try on this occasion.

Unless you can drive, don't do it.  We tried three separate shops before we found buttermilk, and the home baking section in most supermarkets is abysmal. But, if you know where to find buttermilk (we located ours in a big Tescos - the biggest one we'd ever seen. It was terrifying.) and you don't fear that too many bright colours in food will cancer you, give it a go.  The dinosaur cake moulds can be found on Amazon, or from a Lakeland store if there's one near you, but you will probably need something to help loosen the mixture from the moulds, we used Dr Oetkers Cake release spray - I can't recommend this enough. Only one limb was lost, as you can see below. They were pretty damn tasty, and looked great too.

Below are some of the catcakes we iced for the bake sale. The dinosaurs were special and didn't make it to the stall. All done with the same recipe for both icing and cake mixture though, they seemed to go down very well! Also ignore the fact that one of them has craisins for eyes, my mother did that, she's a bloody liability.  They arrived safely, and all in one piece, and I believe there was well over a hundred quid raised for the dogs and cats of Battersea. Purrfect.

Recipe - Courtesy of Nigella Lawson

If you want to make this as one big cake then know that the amounts below make enough batter for 2 x 25cm / 10 inch cake tins filled not too deep, and enough icing to squidge them together and decorate the top.

Ingredients 

for the cupcakes

• 250 grams plain flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (sifted)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 100 grams soft unsalted butter
• 200 grams caster sugar
• 1 heaped tablespoon christmas-red paste food colouring
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 175 ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

for the buttery cream-cheese frosting

• 500 grams icing sugar
• 125 grams cream cheese
• 125 grams soft unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
• chocolate sprinkles for decoration
• red sugar for decoration

Method

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3/325°F, and line 2 muffin tins with paper cases.
2. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft, pale mixture beat in the food colouring - yes all of it - and the vanilla.
4. Into this vividly coloured mixture, still beating, add 1 spoonful of the dried ingredients, then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients. 
5. Finally beat in the buttermilk and the vinegar and divide this extraordinary batter between the 24 cases.  Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes by which time the redcurrant-sorbet-coloured batter will have morphed into a more sombre, but still juicily tinted, sponge - more maroon acrylic than red velvet, to be honest.
6. Leave them to cool on a wire rack and do not ice with the frosting till absolutely cold.

For the buttery cream-cheese frosting:

1. Put the icing sugar into a processor and whizz to remove lumps.
2. Add the cream cheese and butter and process to mix.  Pour in the cider vinegar (or lemon juice) and process again to make a smooth icing.
3. Ice each cupcake, using a teaspoon or small spatula.
4. Decorate with chocolate sprinkles and red sugar, or as desired.

Make ahead note:

The cupcakes can be baked 2 days ahead and stored, un-iced, layered with baking parchment in airtight containers.  The frosting can be made 1 day ahead:  cover with clingfilm and refrigerate; remove from fridge 1-2 hours before needed to allow to come to room temperature then beat briefly before using.  Best iced and eaten on same day but iced cupcakes can be kept in fridge in airtight container for up to 1 day.  Bring to room temperature before serving. 

Freeze note:

Un-iced cupcakes can be frozen, layered with baking parchment, in airtight containers for up to 2 months.  Defrost for 3-4 hours on a wire rack at room temperature.  Frosting can be frozen separately in airtight container for up to 3 months; defrost overnight in fridge then bring to room temperature and beat briefly before use.

3am: Wonder, Paranoia and the Restless Night

This exhibition came as a bit of a surprise - Featured in the Guardian's Guide this weekend, it seemed of interest to my darker side.
The surprising bit is, I found myself choosing to go to Hull.
The Ferens gallery found itself plonked in the centre of a dingy city, surrounded by unpleasant looking commercial complexes. It was an interesting breeze through an, on first appearances, dull city that actually on further adventures turned into a little goldmine of brilliant finds.

The exhibition itself was small, but the variety of exhibits was brilliant.  From installation to film and photography, a particular favourite of mine came in the images seen above.  Mythical creatures, or the stuff of nightmares, made real in Danny Treacy's series of photographs, named Them.
I won't go into too much detail about each of the artists' work, but each piece unnerved in it's own way, from a video narration of a man's experiences of late night homosexuality, to sculptural representations of the monsters we build of ourselves.
I would recommend this highly, especially because it's free, and it might just save your life on a rainy day in Hull.

Also because if you look hard enough you'll find this:

Which is the most terrifying thing there, and it wasn't even part of the exhibition.  It was on the children's art wall, and probably says more about our society than anything I've ever seen.

Mixed up.

This writer sometimes draws,
and sometimes you will find this here.
Here's an example:

Papa bear.  He's a colourful character.

IFTTT

The last post on this blog may have seemed a bit odd, and out of my regular style.
(Just photographs? HASHTAGS?!)
This is because I've been farting around on a bit of a great website lately.

I'll let the website explain itself, it's quite good at doing that:

So what it does for me, is if I put a picture on my Instagram with #blog in the caption, it'll post it straight up here for me.
Handy for me.
More regular for you.

But it also does a whole number of other things.  It uses pre-written coding by some genius' in the world that upload it to the site, to create 'recipes'... bits of coding it dumps into two separate active accounts you have in places on the internet, to link them and make them work together.
This works on a load of different levels, from something as simple as linking your Twitter and your Facebook so that they change profile picture at the same time, to sending a text to somebody of your choosing whenever you're detected as being in the local shop.  I know.  Brilliant right?

If this helps you in life, you can find it at IFTTT.com
The coding is all editable as well, so if you have some sort of trigger/result situation you want to make, it's quite a good bit of groundwork for you to build on.  I know that one of my many bosses uses it as a basis for his 'Internet of things' coding.

Internet of things post to follow.  One day.

In trying to resist my love for cake, I've found it's all I think about... #blog

via Instagram http://ift.tt/1omgT7F

Why can't I buy you?!

Graphic novels are great.
But they've led me to hate Kindle because the one that I want to buy, can only be bought on Kindle.
I hate you Kindle.
If somebody can get me a physical copy of this, I will love them forever.  I might even download it and get it printed myself.  I need this for my collection, it's beautiful.

Artwork for the 'Artificio Conceal' graphic novel, by Ayoub Qanir and Patryk Hardziej.

My new favourite film.

I'm not much of a film buff,

but last night on the app Yplan, a friend and I found tickets to the BFI film festival in London.

The film we went to see was called Monsters: The dark continent, and as it's the sequel to a film I already think is quietly brilliant, we thought we'd give it a bash.

The reason I loved the first film so much was for it's beauty - it combined a powerful story of two very complex characters, with a journey across a ruined, unimaginably beautiful landscape. Again, not usually that into films, but this was so unexpectedly jaw-dropping, on such a low budget, that it's stuck with me since I first saw it and I've watched it a million times since.  (Not actually a million, but a lot.)

I'd put the trailer on, but it doesn't do the film justice, just watch it... here's the poster.

The sequel, which I saw yesterday, is the same situation - alien creatures have come down in the crash of a space probe, they're everywhere, but this time we find ourselves in the Middle East, where alongside the war on terror, the American army find themselves up against a whole new kind of monster.  We follow the story of a group of new recruits, and all the emotional and physical toll this takes. It's the most gripping, gritty, thrilling, realistic account of how people would respond in those times.  This time I will put on the trailer, even though it still doesn't do it justice.  

Watch these films, and I promise you won't regret it.  Well, you might.  But I won't regret you watching it, because I want people to talk to about it. 

This time it's personal.

So a lot has happened since my last posts...
I have a job in advertising, as a copywriter,
and since this has happened I've realised I'm writing because I'm a writer... Not for the love of writing.
But I love writing.
So this will now become my outlet for my own personal musings and thoughts,
projects and little visits I make in life.

I love making, I love doing.  So here I will try and document, as best I can, most of what I see.  And do.

To catch up on my progress since I was posting here as a student,
check out brookandlloydblog.wordpress.com.
It's a joint blog I occasionally contribute to, that was set up with my creative partner.

Of course, if you don't care about such things, just keep an eye out on here and I'll keep posting my words and pictures.

Like this.  I made this.