I've just come back from the highly prestigious yet famously unheard of ******* Awards Ceremony (name redacted for security purposes) where nominated Aspects of Life were presented with various titles from numerous categories. You'll all be pleased to hear that last prize for Specificity of Introduction went to this blog. 

Among other AoL winners were Tuesday, which took the Day Least Looked Forward To Award, 17 degrees centigrade, taking the Most Liminal Temperature Award, and also the Soviet standard GOST 7396 C 1 (6 A or 16 A /250 V unearthed)plug socket, awarded first for the Electrical Outlet With The Longest Name.

The one category I was particularly excited to see presented, however, was Overrated Item of the Week. After a little deliberation, it eventually went to Harmony. Bad news for Berfooda. I experienced a brief existential crisis, but soon realised no contracts had ever been signed and I was therefore free to do all I can to stay bang on trend for 2014. 

I present to you, therefore, in desperate and seemingly maverick fervour to please, an underrated triangle of disjuncture that will in no way unite anything, obliterating the value of togetherness with a turbolaser of fracture.

Bolts come from the blue, wars come from both national and international turmoil and dispute, and cymbal crashes come from a number of traceable sources, namely the musical score, the user's role, the motor neurones in the hand etc. Clashes don't just appear from nowhere, so we're going to start with a solid foundation full of bold and easily jarrable elements.The following recipe is to be read aloud in an intrusive and aggressive manner in order to rile as many people around you as possible, setting off the tension that will ultimately explode and put you all back in the game of cool. Deploying a team of untalented and highly reactive workers can act as a catalyst.

3 sticks of celery, chopped finely, all even ALL EVEN I SAID IF I FIND ONE TOO LARGE OR TOO SMALL YOU'VE HAD IT, ALRIGHT? (loom threateningly)

9 baked beans rubbed dry of their sauce AND I WANT THIS DONE PROPERLY. NO BITS OF BEANY TISSUE LEFT SOILING OUR WORK SURFACES DYOU HEAR? (demonstrate genuineness of intentions by screwing up nearby tissue and ramming it into the nearest worker's face)

1 cube of marzipan, PERFECTLY SYMMETRICAL ON PAIN OF DEATH.

1 identically shaped cube of tofu.AND IF ANYONE THINKS IT'S FUNNY TO TALK ABOUT THE HEALTH BENEFITS, YOU CAN FUCK OFF. 

1) NOW MIX THEM ALL TOGETHER, YOU BUNCH OF HALF WITS. 

2) MIX, I SAID MIX!! NOT GENTLY CARESS WITH A SPOON!! 

3) HEAT ON A ROARING FLAME, NO BURNING. 

4) SERVE ON CLEAN PLATTERS. WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED AND BALANCING ON THIS HERE BEACHBALL. (present beachball). ANY SPILLAGES AND YOU'RE FIRED...WITHOUT WAGES.

Ok so that should do us nicely as a battle ground, with any luck your workers will be fed up with their unappreciated effort and shall soon be plotting a revolt. While you're undertaking this process, it is advised to play background music (didn't see that one coming, I bet). The best song for this is Got Your Money by Old Dirty Bastard. He gulps in an irritating fashion, his attitude is sexist and his lyrics are abusive and poorly rhymed (see verse one, lines three and four). He has achieved perfection for this scenario through his frame of imperfection, becoming the ideal man for the job of inciting rage in the kitchen. 

As per euj, by this stage we will all be in need of a bit of a lit hit, just to really set the battle in motion. My first piece of advice would be to always buy he hardback edition, as it can be rapidly transformed into a hefty weapon. The best way to avoid harmony, however, is with a thoroughly disunited army, so don't all buy the same edition of the same book. Think The Whites during the Russian Civil War. No common aims = guaranteed high death toll and widespread confusion. In order to give you some guidance, however, I will provide a brief list of recommended reading just in case you find yourself lacking inspiration, or with a very limited time slot in which to purchase your text/arms. 

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Controversial and relatively heavy at 547 pages. 

Atlas of The World. Best known for its sharp sharp corners containing its wealth of geographical reference. 

Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton. Condemning everyone not like himself and highly suitable for papercutting. 

The Slum by Aluísio Azevedo. Neat little slappy novel about gangs, competition and demise in Brazil. 

And for one final provocative line: you're all rubbish. 

Naïve-Chic

Graduated with a 2:1, got a job offer the next day, a house mortgage AND a pet ferret - SO HAPPY!!!! <3ing life!!!

HAH NOT REALLY - I'm still stagnating in my baggy trousers with no completed degree, no job, no mortgage and definitely no ferret, as I think they are in fact one of the most unappealing and pointless creations of evolution/god, depending on your views on WurldOriginz. 
I have, however, just come back from an interview with myself (which, fingers crossed, went really well!) for the position of Chief Pioneer for my own public project, which is targeted around making the Naïve-Chic movement accessible to all. Unfortunately, I have been denied state funding based upon the opinion that, like 'fetch', it will never happen. I strongly oppose this belief, and see the decision as short-sighted and over traditional, as I believe Naïve-Chic is the appropriately specific piece of justification terminology thousands of lost individuals are searching for. It is highly applicable to all areas of modern day life, spanning from emotions to jewellery, turning everything that may be considered immature or undeveloped into a consciously stylised choice. 
The basic principle relies on the idea that everything you had when you were eight (unless you are still eight, in which case aim more towards the 2009 era, around your fourth birthday) is now what we call in the industry 'nouveau-vintage', permitting you to wear it, do it, or embrace it with the comforting knowledge that your actions are supported and endorsed. This means, for example, that you may interpret all manner of things at face value, grossly missing The Deeper Significance, and not even feel the slightest bit dim as a result. You may also wear felt headbands with your name written on in 3D glaint, carry around some figurines which you call by name, draw hands and feet as just blobs and lines, trust potentially dangerous strangers, and remain convinced that it is actually 'lellow' and not 'yellow', all without even a fraction of shame or self-doubt, cushioned by the knowledge you are adhering to a set of principles outlined in the Handbook .
So, as Chief Pioneer, it is my job to enforce this mentality by thrusting upon the nation all kinds of reassuring morsels that you can deploy any time you need to fight the war on maturity and composure. 

In the Handbook, the third chapter is entitled NaïEAT Chic, and explains all about how to put nutritious and underdeveloped meals in to your system. Twenty pages are dedicated to raw foods and their unrefined status, here is an extract:

2 raw caRrutƧ
1 leMun
oLiVe oiL
a few sPrigƧ of coRiandaR
a grAter thAt maKeƧ littul gratEY bitƧ

gRate the caRutƧ and skWeez a BiT of leMun onto them. pUT suM oLiVE oiL on and suM choped coRiandaR and tiDY uP youR PlaTeƧ arftERwOOdƧ.

The most important thing to remember during this process is to make mistakes. The recipe may seem relatively simple, but there is room for human error; too much olive oil, or catching your nails in the grater. Try and blame other factors than yourself, as this is fast becoming one of the more subtle methods of identifying movement members. 

To use Naïve-Chic logic, the ears are closest to the brain, therefore they must be the fastest way to the brain, therefore music plays a very important role in a successful immersion. Lola by The Kinks is all about misunderstanding and confusion when confronted with a multifaceted situation. Apparently recounting an encounter between the speaker and a transvestite or transgender individual, the speaker is left uncertain as to the exact scenario. Such ideas as the Champagne tasting like Cherry Cola exhibit the childlike palette of the singer, and the fact that he's not dumb but he can't understand why she walk like a woman but talk like a man highlights his failure to comprehend the social situation he finds himself in. 

To read your way to a fashionable and one dimensional interpretation of life, try The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. Intended for a younger readership, I experience no twinges of embarrassment when I say that a sturdy four hours were spent reading Beyond The Deepwoods in one dedicated and unbudging sofaplonk - in fact I see it as an act of defiance and stylishly justified indulgence. At one point, I even misjudged a character, taking him to be a more stereotypical bad guy than he actually was, which was bang on trend and beautifully in line with this season's unstoppable movement. 

I am now a wandering waif without work or worries. Actually, the wandering bit's not really that accurate as I am currently plonked in the dippy missing slat bit on my bed. I guess that also kills the waif bit, as, slatless or not, I ultimately still do have a bed. Without work is dubious too, because, although I have demonstrated immense propensity for pouring liquid unemployment into my jug of hours and then drinking fully from it with a thirst only 6am wake ups and disobedient children can cause, I have just landed a 3rd cousin of the modern JOB. It is, however, quite far removed from what is usually presumed by those three letters, as I don't actually have any idea what to  expect. Back when I was contemplating my empty jug of hours, I sent a few mumbly application emails round to everything that involved words of some kind, and received a rather flat silence in return. I did, however, get one guy from a publishing house who said yes, gave me his number, and then never picked up. I let this slide as I figured a month of constant fiesta might not be too horrendous anyway, and was practicing how to say 'I am a worthless scrap of sloth' in French, until I discovered the very same Publishy Man Man lives ONE FLOOR ABOVE ME IN THE SAME BUILDING.
This is most likely a terrible thing, as our neighbours have called the police no fewer than three times in the past two months to mercilessly puncture our parties, and some of them have even started refusing to hold open doors for us in the corridor, so I figured it was a lost cause and perhaps even better to lie low, grow a moustache and emigrate as soon as possible. Fortunately, however, I was unable to grow a moustache despite much effort, and lying low became painful for my back after a while, so I returned to normal upright life a few days afterwards. After this revert to verticality, it took no less than 3 hours for me to be hunted down by Publishy Man Man, who had most likely also conducted letter box name stalking. I was in the window blotching ink on to the page (art, man, ART) and three seconds later I find myself agreeing about the terrible weather and promising to pop upstairs on Monday to his office. So that's what I'll be doing now then.
But enough about semi-jobs and more about fully completed triangles.
HANG ON before we properly start I've just noticed that the horrible nail varnish I was forced at gunpoint to apply on my thumb has scratched off and left a very accurate Gall-Peter's Projection map of the world. It's even got a to-scale Madagascar.
So anyway, food.

Due to the fact the only decent pan in our kitchen holds about nine million litres, I have taken to making vast quantities of soup and then burdening others with the task of helping me consume it all. I know Robert gave us soup too, so I'm going to rap mine to avoid repetition.

Get your veg from the market,
Super or basket,
It don't matter to me,
It's plain to see.

First get some ham,
Put it in the pan,
Cut up some bacon,
And turn the flame on.

Add lots of peas,
Do it with ease,
Just tip the packet sideways,
Let them fall free.

Now comes the cooking part,
Let it simmer gently,
Your heart will tell you when it's ready,
As will your mouth, incidentally.

Take it off the heat,
And perform the next feat,
By adding some mint,
Giving it a fresh hint.

Find your food processor,
I have to confess, er,
That mine is a bit broken,
From when I dropped it on the floor.

Whizz it all up bro,
Make it real smooth,
No lumps in sight yo,
We don't want to chew.

Find a suitable container,
Put it all inside,
Complain a bit about the size,
So give half to someone else to eat.

Someone else who is really talented at rapping is Fatal Bazooka. Fous Ta Cagoule is a piece of lyrical genius; 'Savoie-pas' being perhaps one of my favourite word plays eva. Yeah I am aware I am being exclusive and annoying by limiting the audience to Francophones or those competent in the art of google translate. Furthermore, the minty freshness of the soup can be compared to the ice of the Alps, which Fatal advises us all very wisely to protect ourselves against, as overexposure to anything brisk can be highly dangerous. Go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud_-AuBmp6Q to fully understand my subtle sarcasm woven with fine thread of honesty and pomp.

My chilly book of choice is another French one, sorry, but it's just so bloody APPROPRIATE I can't help it. Le Nuit des Temps by Barjavel starts in the North Pole among the nippy snow lands with some explorers who find some pretty cool shit. People put on cagoules quite frequently in the novel too, as they have clearly also listened to the sartorial preachings of Fatal, and at one point they almost find a chamber of temperature absolute zero, oooooh.
And now, here is a list of warm things to aid your endocrine system:

Coffee
Duvets*
Light bulbs that have been on for a while
Fur*
Slightly cooled lava
The inside of your mouth
Agas

*warming

Ok, so I may have just this second finished writing one blog, but I may/may not (definitely have) consumed two entire packets of mentos strawberry and lime sweets and I may/may not (definitely am) experiencing the most innocent of highs, and am therefore unusually motivated to churn out more...(I stopped there, went to bed, and lived in a psychedelic dream world for 8 hours).

Thankfully I have been saved from having to stay true to my glucose-induced productivity by none other than Sir Robert Booth, who has managed to rustled up this little number, without actually rustling anything at all. Not even any dry leaves:

Before you get excited, this isn’t Polly.

This is Rob Booth, educated at the too-much-spare-time and nothing-else-to-spend-his-money-on academy of culinary arts and the Iknowmorethanyou Postgraduate School of Taste. Welcome to my first ever guest blog post. Drink it in.

My initial blog concept was thus: my spiced sweet potato and orange soup, Boards of Canada’s track ‘Aquarius’ and Anthony Burgess’ famous novella ‘A Clockwork Orange’ were to be clubbed together in an attempt to enjoy some Gregson style success. In case it isn’t apparent the underlying theme of this combination is the colour orange. I had grand intentions of waxing lyrical on ideas of perception and synaesthesia, as well as documenting that particular frequency of light’s relevance to my lifelong struggle with disability¹. Unfortunately, Polly has already done Burgess’ book on this blog, and not knowing any other worthy books featuring the word ‘orange’ in the title I was left at somewhat of an impasse. Abandon the idea? Go home to mother weeping for what could have been? No, instead, I’ve lazily chosen to carry over 66% per cent of the aforementioned motif and then, having arbitrarily chosen a text, offer a limp and tenuous segue in order to stimulate some semblance of thematic coagulation, in the meantime abandoning all designs on a meditation on the colour orange, exchanging it with this frankly unnecessary meta-ramble. It is a shame my career in blogging must start on such a contrite note but I offer you, in order of edibility;

1.     Spiced sweet potato and orange soup.

2.     ‘Aquarius’ by Boards of Canada.

3.     Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.

Spiced sweet potato and orange soup.

I’m a big fan of soups. In fact, for someone who still possesses the ability to masticate effectively, obsessively so. They’re cheap, quick, tasty, vegetarian and I like the fact my hand blender looks like the hypothetical appendage of a hypothetical Robot Wars entrant designed by Sir Jonathan Ive. Orange and sweet potato season is drawing to a close and this soup is seasonally schizoid in it’s taste and appearance; at once indelibly a thick, hibernal root vegetable soup with a hint of warming spice, yet it’s vivid hue and sweetness make very much a soup for a still sunny spring evening. It’s nice ‘n’ veggie. It’s also vegan if you lose the dairy. This comes out pretty spicy so cut down on the capsaicin if that’s not your bag.  Here’s the recipe, if you’re a stickler for quantitative exactitude prepare to be disappointed. Just taste it as you go along;

Serves two as a main meal with lots o’ good bread

·      1 knob of butter

·      A glug of olive oil

·      An onion.

·      Two smallish carrots, or one big boy.

·      1 LARGE free-range sweet potato or two small-ish ones.

·      A ½ thumb of fresh ginger

·      A teaspoon of good chilli flakes

·      Half a vegetable stock cube

·      A teaspoon of paprika

·      A pinch of cayenne pepper.

·      150ml-ish of orange juice.

·      Cream to finish. And a couple of coriander leaves if you are so inclined.

Chop the onion and carrot roughly and the ginger in to little chunks. Peel and dice the sweet potato evenly. Get the pan lubricated by heating the butter and olive oil with chilli flakes, add the onion, fry for two minutes then get the ginger and carrot in for 8  minutes or so on a gentle heat until softening slightly. When soft chuck in the sweet potato and paprika and cayenne pepper, mix it up for a bit then cover with water, with a supplementary inch or so. Add the stock cube when the water comes to a boil then simmer somewhere between gently and violently for 15 minutes or until the sweet potato becomes tender. Taste, season accordingly with salt and pepper then stir in the orange juice and continue to simmer for a couple of minutes. Taste again (use a clean spoon if you’re sharing, please). If it meet yours specifications take it off the heat and blend to the consistency of your liking, I like mine velveteen. Reheat, bowl up, stir through some cream and add a coriander leaf or two if you’re serving it to someone with aesthetic sensibilities.

‘Aquarius’ by Boards of Canada

Consume this soup whilst listening to this curious nugget from Boards of Canada’s ambient canon. From that seminal album what they did 15 years ago. The link between this song and orange being the persistent utilisation of a vocal sample saying that most unrhymable word. It’s also quite useful if you’re learning to count. Turn it on. Eat soup and let the oscillating approximation of melody aid your sensory experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg-iKP0zI9Q

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.

Roland  Barthes’ appreciation of orange and all orange fruit is well documented in literary circles. Throughout his lecturing career he would dedicate the last hour of allocated contact time before Christmas to a workshop style lecture, in which he’d instruct his students on the best way to convert a tangerine and some oil in a to a lo-fi scented candle. This choice has nothing to do with the fact this is the last book I read credible enough to boast about having done so on the internet to nobody. Starting as a meditation on the spatial and temporal implications of photography and spiralling delicately in to a delicate eulogy to his deceased Mother. Thus it would be very disrespectful to spill soup on it. So don’t.

¹ Colour blindness.

Imagine a spongy, hot waterbottled, soft, queensized hug of a bed. Then put yourself inside it; clean pyjamas, pleasantly full stomach, no alarms set. Isn't that great? Isn't that TOO great? Are you not now actually quite stuffy, a little too warm, prodded gently by the desire to turn the light on and get a glass of water? There is around a 74% chance you might be. So get up, reshuffle your heavy feather duvet, open a window, go to the loo, and climb back in, this time on your left hand side, slightly crushing your shoulder. It's a bit chillier, it's a bit less natural, but the minor loss of sensation in your arm furthers it reassuringly from nirvana and you are finally able to slot in that sleep daggerboard (I'm thinking Pico here) and sail away until morning.
Now you have this scene in your head, replace all beds with blogs and all yous with mes and the essential message becomes: I HAVE BORED MYSELF. Whilst I still enjoy eating, listening, and reading to a significant extent, I have lost a fair fraction of my desire to team them all together, so I'm going to give refreshing stuff a go for a minimum of one week.
Despite this, I am still a fan of combos, and as one continues to sleep in the same bed frame, even after rejigglin' yo shit, I am going to continue to blab in the same idea frame. I, therefore, present you with the following three things, randomly generated from Wikipedia search, in the hope of teaming them up in a glorious unison that will make very little sense.
Ok, so rather unfortunately, the first page we have been blessed with is a song production company, so it's not really shifting stuff around that much so far, but we can work with this. It's 'Providers' by two collaborative Danish hip hop artists - quite pleasantly relevant as I have myself just returned from Denmark where you will be pleased to know the currency resembles metal Jammy Dodgers. Providers, as a name, can also be seen to subtly hint at the fact they provide.
Even more unfortunately, the second page to be offered up is Hallands Nyheter - a Swedish newspaper with a readership of around 31,600. I have either been cursed to never progress, or some kind of internet man hiding in my computer is condemning me to eternal music and literature comparison. Having said that, I have been a bit lucky with the Scandinavian link, which is a nice easy starting point. There is a RLB* that joins Copenhagen to Malmö, just as I shall join Providers with Hallands Nyheter, and there is loads of engineeringy information I could give you about this, but frankly I don't want to. This publication focuses particularly on agricultural and rural issues and went through a financially tough time during its initial years, causing it to be frequently reinvested with changing ownership. As a result, the paper is a collaborative effort between multiple unions and individuals, just as Providers is a joint effort enterprise. Now how's that for boring and tenuous?
Let's just hope number three can put the hilarity back in similarity (copyrighted that one). Okaaaay so Yakshagana Bells it is. Well, it's not looking too bad actually, as they are played in pairs COLLABORATIVELY.They are attached to the fingers and struck together in order to keep tempo for singers, bringing a harmony and togetherness also demonstrated by the Danish music production group, and the Swedish publication team. Furthermore, all three elements operate on a basis of social cohesion - Providers supports musicians and their careers, Hallands Nyheter maintains the influence of the agricultural world in modern society, and Yakshagana Bells uphold a reliable rhythm for performers. Oh woah I just pulled out the biggest curviest eyelash ever, damnit that would look so nice if it was still on my eye.

*Rather Large Bridge