Cultural learnings of St Johns Wood for make benefit dubious sense of nostalgia

These days we're all told to 'check our privilege' - I must never lose sight of all the advantages in life I get simply from being a white, middle-class male, some of them so covertly advantageous that I won't even consciously be aware of them.

My gut reaction to this is that there's probably a fair amount of truth in the narrative, but it's far from universal and things are not that straightforward or simplistic.

One of the more nuanced downsides of being a person like me can be the lack of any sense of cultural belonging when it comes to food and drink. We'll never properly know or understand the 'homecoming' that others experience. We don't get to 'feel' aloo gobi deep in our bones.

Why does everything have to have a 'quarter' these days?

Whatever claim BoxPark Croydon stakes to being South London's premier nightlife hub, it was always going to have a little local competition in the form of the stuff that was there already.

Croydon may still be short of a genuinely world-class pub, but it doesn't lack restuarants. Indeed the stretch of road south of Croydon Flyover has a concentration of eateries of just about every nationality and the area is now branded officially as the 'Restaurant Quarter'.

Honestly there are so many here, I do wonder if the area can sustain that much food. Especially overpriced, indifferent dining experiences of dubious quality.

Beer Circus used to be round these parts too, a small continental style bar that was one of the first in London to offer genuinely interesting imported beers on draught. It's long gone though, so you'll have to make do with the two Wetherspoons that top and tail the Restaurant Quarter (and the Milan Bar, at the Northern end of the stretch, is up for sale and won't be there much longer.)

Whenever places boast a 'French Quarter', or indeed a Restaurant Quarter, I'm always slightly bemused by the expression. What if it takes up more than 25% of the available space? What if you have French, Italian, Baroque, Chinese and Bohemian Quarters, shouldn't they technically be Quinters or something?

It annoys me.

Anyway, not particularly good restaurants in Croydon. Let's go!

I should Cocoro

Pokémonimania, or whatever the fuck we should call the phenomenon, doesn't really interest me. I wasn't into it the first time around, and I have so much of a 'collector' mindset that if I ever started trying to 'catch em all' I'd literally be unable to stop until I did. And I've got better things to collect, like beers.

What this fad does afford me, however, is a rather tenuous angle with which to introduce a blog. Take that, Pikachu! I'm the one exploiting you!

Anyway, I've never been to Japan, and could be completely and utterly wrong, but my view of Japanese culture is that it's more insanely polarised than Brexit Britain.

On one hand you have a younger generation that is creative, exciting and spontaneous, leading the world in innovation, technology and brightly-lit things, and then behind the scenes there is an older Japan with very conservative values - family-oriented with a stereotypically strong work ethic. Quite the contradiction.

Tiny Tim II - Revenge of the Festive Set Menu

There are lots of annoying things about Christmas, right?

The Godless over-commercialisation, the pubs full of fairweather drinkers, the bandwagon-jumping attempts at seasonal ales made by unimaginatively stuffing a bland, weak, twiggy bitter with nutmeg and cinnamon...

But a greater offence against the senses, possibly than all of these combined, is the shitty £25 Christmas set menu.

You know the one. Three courses. Three options per course. Inoffensive to the point of blandness. Where you have to try really hard not to look like a grumpy old scotal sac in front of co-workers as you wash down dry, overcooked meat with rough-as-fuck house red?

(I know that I had a bit of a whinge on this topic in the very early days of this blog, but it's been four years, so I'm entitled to another one. Consider it an early Christmas present.)

The Sausage Trilogy part III: Katzenjammers

Concluding the BV silly sausage season, I thought it might be an idea to let the professionals take the reins and review a place that specialises in all things sausagey.

Of course, there aren't really all that many sausage-oriented restaurants around, but one bold exception is Katzenjammers, a German bierkeller close to London Bridge station where you can drink authentic Bavarian beers and enjoy a range of traditional sausages from the region.

Located down a fairly steep flight of steps from Southwark street's Hop Exchange - in what may or may not have once been the site of the legendary Becky's Dive Bar - Katzenjammers is owned by the chaps who run the New Wheatsheaf pub next door, and while the basement look and feel is similar to the 'Sheaf, what's on offer is very, very different.

With long wooden benches and continentally-accented bar staff dressed in Lederhosen (they may technically be Eastern European rather than German but it doesn't shatter the illusion) it does capture the bierkeller atmosphere, and you can even order your beer in litre steins.

One thing that isn't typically German is the lack of table service - you order from the bar, and about half the customers seem to just be in there for a few beers.

Better beerfests and Big bears in Battersea

Following my comments the other day about Batemans brewery making some great strides forward, I should probably conserve some of the same breath to mention last weeks Battersea Beer Festival, another once sickly patient showing great signs of life and strength.

Because it was the closest one to where I grew up, Battersea was one of the first beer festivals I ever attended, and consequently became one of the first I got a bit disillusioned with.

OK, a lot disillusioned with. And probably with due cause.

Set in a small space within the Battersea Arts Centre, it would often fill to capacity, meaning a lengthy queue outside. And when you got inside there would only be a few beers on, mostly bland, boring, mainstream stuff that you could drink in greater comfort in a pub just down the road anyway.

Sometimes you wouldn't even get in - turned away after 45 minutes standing outside in the cold, because they'd run out of beer. I remember one occasion when they let people in for free because the only beers on were Young's Ordinary and Winter Warmer or something. It really wasn't much of a festival.

And so some years I wouldn't bother with Battersea at all.

This is all going back a few years, mind. I don't know if CAMRA's National Executive put them on special measures or something, but, last week's fest suggested that Battersea have completely turned things around.

MSG, Marinara and the magical fish

Way back in the long-long agos, when I were a wee sapling child and Feargal Sharkey was just launching his solo career, there was quite a lot of tooing and froing in the media about Monosodium Glutamate. MSG. Angel Dust.

These days it's all about Aspartame and how it makes Diet Coke actually more fattening than drinking melted butter because scientists on the internet proved it or something, but back in the late 1970s and early 80s the controversial food additive was MSG.

Worse than Heroin and Thalidomide, MSG was going to give us all cancer and turn us into Communists by the year 2000.

Thank fuck it's not around any more.

Although, in reality, it is. Probably more than ever, in fact. They just stopped calling it MSG and people stopped caring so much. People can be like that at times.

If you look closely at the ingredients, you can see that it turns up in loads of packaged savoury foods, from cheese and onion crisps to chicken wings to pizza to ready-made Marinara sauce. It's just called E621, or 'flavour enhancer'. these days 'Hydrolysed vegetable protein' is, I gather, almost identical too.

As rebranding exercises go, I think they can chalk it up as a success story. Bastards.

The Ultimate Roast Chicken Sandwich

People don't seem to have roast chicken as much as they did when I was a child.

I've no idea why. It's just one of those things that has changed over time. Back in the 1980s people would always be roasting chickens like there was no tomorrow.

Yep, that's a roast chicken alright

'Hey Ben, why don't you come over for dinner, my mum's doing roast chicken then we'll play on the Commodore 64.'

'I'm just going to finish driving my Ford Capri around whilst listening to Saxon, then I'm going to cook a roast chicken'

'That's right, kids, it's roast chicken again. Should be ready after Metal Mickey. Have a can of Quatro in the mean time.'

...and so on.

(Your memories may vary slightly, obviously.)

Spaghetti Louse

I’ve been to Brecon twice in my life, and I’ve been to the Brecon Tandoori twice in my life too.

Because it’s a fantastic restaurant that lures people back to Brecon time after time with its irresistible food? Because it’s so good no trip to the Brecon Beacons would be complete without sampling their delicious curries?

Well, no. It was because it was the only place in town where we could get a bite to eat after about 8 PM. That's small towns for you.

The first time - I think was 13 - was on a camping trip to West Wales with my father and my brother. On the way back we stayed overnight at the Gremlin hotel in Brecon and ate at the Brecon Tandoori.

It was nothing special, and we didn’t particularly feel like eating there again. Ever. 

The following year (or quite possibly later the same year – it was a long time ago) we returned to the area to climb Pen y Fan, staying once again in the Gremlin, where we hoped to catch a glimpse of their famed Billiard Room ghost. 

Fajita of Contentment

Stop the world, I want to get the fuck off!

Actually, that would result in floating indefinitely through space, but the infinite-voidy stuff would probably be quite peaceful once you got used to it.

Sorta like El Chico's. I'll explain presently.

In a couple of days I shall be 36. That means I'm closer to 50 than to 20! What the aged fuck?!?

El Chico's

Another sobering thought is that a few days ago I lost another grandparent - that's three dead in the space of 18 months - and as that generation rapidly disappears from my life I feel not only a sense of enforced having-to-grow-up, but also of rapid, irreversible, tragic change.

Fortunately in this ever-changing world, there are some things that pretty much stay the same. And sometimes you just need familiar creature comforts like that.

I can cling to the fact that the denouement of the new Scooby-Doo movie will probably involve a janitor or sheriff revealed inside an apparition costume. I can enjoy listening to Queen and the Beatles knowing that I know their entire catalogue and there won't be any unpleasant surprises from here on in.

It's a hot comfortable bath of reassurance.

And on Thursday I'll be going to the Tower of London to witness the Ceremony of the Keys - and while this is a new experience for me, I take comfort from the fact that I'll be witnessing something that has been exactly the same, every single night, for about literally hundreds of years.

I think the last time they changed the format for the ceremony was round about the last time El Chico's  changed their menu!

Ah, the old ones are the oldest...

Huzzah for the Hussar!

'There's nothing new under the sun', goes the appropriately old phrase, and it oh-so-often rings true. Except when it doesn't, obviously.

But, for grumpy, prematurely-old fogeys such as I, it frequently seems like that which is new is no fucking good, and that which is any fucking good is stuff with which I am already familiar.

Music these days? Shit. TV these days? Shit. Films these days? Shit with Ben Shitting Affleck acting all shit.

OK, so I'm exaggerating just a tad. Some stuff which is technically new, though not necessarily widely promoted, is actually pretty good. Look hard enough and you'll find decent music and films and everything else made very recently indeed. And some things - like beer - are probably better and more exciting now than they've ever been. New beers are good, they're fucking, shitting good!

But my point is that, if you often struggle to see the merit in the latest stuff and are baffled by the faddishness around it, there is another path to tread which is a bit more interesting than just sticking with what you know and never expanding your horizons...

Second chance saloons

I like to think of myself as a fair and reasonable man, and not the sort of person to deny folks a second chance. Sometimes even a third chance.

Hell, sometimes I'm so soft I give fourth, fifth and sixth chances to shit that I ought to have emotionally written off years ago.

I'm probably the only person who still harbours hope that Sir Jimmy might actually be innocent and it's all been a terrible mistake.

And I might even go and see the new Bond film, even though the last one, Quantity of Suckedcocks, or whatever it was called, was a tragic waste of celluloid and there hasn't been a proper James Bond since Roger Moore.

'Go on Ben, give it another go', my persistent inner voice will say, 'everyone deserves a second chance, right?'

And so, in that spirit of generosity I decided to try eating a Wetherspoons burger the other day.

I hadn't had one for ages because they're so fucking awful and I'm terribly fussy about my burgers, but it had been over two years since I described them (in the very first BV post, in fact) as 'tasteless, gristly and lipid-lumped', so maybe things had improved.

Could this have been my big break?

It's been a surreal few days, what with losing my Grandma, and then starting a new job today - the day after leaving the previous one! And going back for a meeting at the place I just left on my first day!

Our family seem to have suffered rather a lot of bereavements over the past year, and coupled with the stresses of job insecurity for much of that time, it's been a bit of a rough ride. But, hey, I can cope with pretty much anything, me.

Anyway, in preparation for leaving my old job I had to allocate several hours to 'digital tidy-up', sorting out anything I wanted to copy off my work laptop before I had to give it back.

For some, this task is inconvenient and tiresome, but I actually find it quite cathartic, not just because of the whole 'putting stuff in order' therapy, but also because I'm constantly finding little bits and bobs that I forgot about. Humourous jpgs, revealing and salacious emails, 'To Do' lists of stuff that never got done, that sort of thing.

All flights grounded...

The exercise also turned up a little gem about which I'd completely forgotten - a copy of a foodie article I'd written for Maxjet's in-flight magazine in 2007, just weeks, or possibly even days before they went bust.

The funny thing is, I actually got paid for the piece, but was never sent a proof (or indeed a final copy) and to this date I've no idea if this issue of the magazine ever made it onto a flight. I suspect it didn't.

I'd rather have not had the money but got the article into the skies though - and if Maxjet had survived, there would have been a series of these fuckers, which might possibly have propelled me to minor stardom, but alas this was not to be.

And so, I've reprinted the article below in all it's glory - hopefully not violating copyright legislation in the process - for all to see.

I've not edited it, and there are some concessions to contractual obligation in the copy, but overall I think it's a decent piece and one that Maxjet passengers would have enjoyed, if only they'd ever got to read it...

Krishna versus Krishna

A few weeks ago, when talking about a few of my favourite restaurants, I mentioned in passing that Tooting was pretty much the place in London to go for authentic South Indian food. No, you wouldn't have gleaned that impression from watching Citizen Smith, but it's true nonetheless.

And having dangled that carrot bhaji in front of your noses for a while, it's probably about time I backed up this assertion with a couple of reviews; As it happens I've eaten in a couple of the area's South Indian restaurants recently with a view to comparing the twain, so here goes!

Beware of the Goddess

If you're not used to South Indian food, it can come as quite a surprise, being substantially different from the more common Tandoori cuisine, which is of North Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin.

And indeed British.

See, pretty much all 'foreign' food in this country has inevitably been Anglicised over the past few decades. However, I suspect that most of the stuff on the menus of the Vijaya Krishna and Radha Krishna Bhavan in Tooting has a more credible ethnic provenance than, say, the Chicken Tikka Masalas and King Prawn Baltis you'll find in your average Tandoori house.

One thing you'll notice is that there are relatively few meat and chicken dishes on the menu, and plenty of fish and vegetarian options, as is typical of the diet in Goa and Kerala. And while the majority of North Indian restaurants seem to be Muslim-owned and run, both these places have a distinctly Hindu flavour, specifically a dedication to Krishna (though the Radha Krishna Bhavan actually has a huge statue of the Goddess Kali in the corner, watching over all who eat there!)

But this head-to-head contest is strictly Krishna vs Krishna with no interference from other God(ess)s permitted, and there can, of course, be only one winner...

BV London Pub of the Year - part two

Visiting lots of pubs and drinking pint after pint of beer can be gruelling work.

Why, oh why did I ever come up with the idea of the Ben Viveur London Pub of the Year? I must have been mad. Or just very, very thirsty.

Oh well, mustn't grumble. Here's the first batch of contenders (apart from the Craft Beer Company, which started this whole silly business, obviously)...

Broody Spaniards

So it was all too easy in the end.

Anyone expecting a closely-fought Euro 2012 final was disappointed as Spain romped to another Championship in record-breaking fashion. (Oh, and anybody Italian. They were probably disappointed too, obviously).

Pavement cafes: not just for the French!

If you're gripped by Espanomania, you could do a lot worse than head to Borough market where Cafe Brood turns a little corner of the thoroughfare into a veritiable Paella fiesta that's sure to sate your hunger for all things Spanish.

I can bang on for days about why I love the market and it's pubs and restaurants, but it really does seem like the one place in London where you really can enjoy any food or drink you'd ever want. Albeit sometimes at a price.

For the full, elongated Spanish Tapas experience, there's the classy (and fairly pricey) Brindisa restaurant on the corner of Southwark street, but this is quite simply street food at it's best. A less-sung hero, like Iker Casillas, that is quietly but widely acknowledged as being damn good at what they do.

Blog-o-nese

Spaghetti Bolognese is boring.

It's the most boring type of pasta, coupled with the most boring type of pasta sauce. 

Boring, boring, boring. Fuck off.

Actually, don't. Because I've been having a lot of thoughts on this subject lately. Sort of.

Unchained eateries - a treble-mega review

One of my faithful readers - as opposed to an unfaithful one, presumably - recently noted that I’ve been reviewing a fair few chain restaurants lately.

While she didn’t quite stray into ‘criticise the critic’ territory, I detected a hint of ‘you can do better and I’m ever-so-slightly disappointed’ in her general tone, as if she thought somebody as interesting and eccentric as I should be looking beyond the boring, everyday chains.

In my defence, there is a method to the blandness, if you will: I aim for most of my reviews to be relevant to a pretty wide audience, and a broader range of readers will be able to experience Café Rouge or Haché by simply locating their nearest branch, rather than having to trek somewhere a long way away.

But I do take the point that independent restaurants are generally – though not always – superior, and so today I give you three of my favourite independent, one-of-a-kind restaurants. My 'chain reaction', as it were.

(OK, I'll stop making the sort of bad pun that has to be followed by 'if you will' or 'as it were' now. I can't believe I did it in consecutive paragraphs. What the fuck was I thinking?)

You might have to travel further to check them out, but these are places worth going out of your way for. Even if that means going to Tooting.

I’m talking Curry. I’m talking Pizza. And I’m talking Kebabs. Three of the major food groups.

And if you happen to live locally to one of these undiscovered gems, you're in for a big fat bastard of a treat. I guarantee it.

Munch, Lunch and Cousin-fucking

Never averse to a spot of culture, I took the opportunity this lunchtime to pop out and visit Sotheby’s with the wife to view Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’.

The horror! The despair! It's probably an appropriate picture for Cov City fans at the moment, given our current dire predicament.

Scream your heart out

One of about four versions of the same painting produced by Munch, which are very rarely displayed publicly, this was a unique opportunity to see something famous and important before it sells next week for £50 million, though the airport-style security and queues weren’t as unbearable as I’d envisaged.

Now, whilst I appreciate art in almost all its myriad forms, I’m not one to buy into this idea that one particular work is necessarily magnitudes better than any other work, and the groupthink that supports and creates this mythology always baffles me a bit.

I’ve seen the Mona Lisa, and Rodin’s The Thinker, and felt that while they were alright, they weren’t worthy of the fuss made about them. It's all art. Yeah, it's quite good but is it really worth millions of pounds? I've seen stuff by local artists that they can't sell for 50 quid which I'd put on a par.

This pastel edition of the Scream, likewise is sort of OK,  though far brighter in colour than I expected, and with almost a camp theatricality about the screaming figure rather than the haunting terror for which the image – or, more likely, peoples mental idea of the image – is known.

And I don’t really see why it merits metal detectors, crowd barriers, a team of dedicated staff and its own room in the gallery. But then, what do I know?

In the next room were various Picassos, Chagalls and indeed several other works by Munch, and many of these were, to my eye, more interesting than the open-mouthed one, though singularly glossed over by most of the visitors, some of whom even walked straight out after their five minutes looking at the Scream.

Getting down and dirty

Just up the road, but a world apart from Sotheby’s is MEATliquor, a relatively recent addition to London’s burger scene though with a lustrous heritage in the form of the travelling Meatwagon van. Some of the artwork on the walls here is actually more interesting and challenging than the Scream, if I’m honest.

MEATliquor art

There’s bears and horned monsters and bare breasts and everything.

But, more importantly, what’s the food like? How does it compare to, say, Haché or Byron?

Well, it’s good. Very good. In a baaaaaaad sort of way.

You see, whereas the excellent Haché chain is a deliberate attempt at taking the burger into new stratospheres of upmarketness, MEATliquor is your no-nonsense, all-American working class hero and proud of it.

It’s a Ford Mustang that can’t corner properly. It's a speakeasy hoedown. It’s a vote for George W. Bush. It’s one of those provocatively-knotted-at-the-front tops that comely (and, sometimes not-so-comely) American ladies sometimes wear.

You get the idea.

Certainly the look and feel is the most authentically American I’ve ever seen in London, and with food served on greaseproof paper on plastic trays, and kitchen roll provided on every table instead of cutlery, it feels only a couple of guilty steps away from fucking your cousin over the bonnet of a rusting Buick behind the drive-thru.

Dimly lit, even at lunchtime!

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes something that feels a bit dirty is good.

For some people, the edgy atmos and décor would make MEATliquor an instant no-go area. It is dimly lit, alterno-rock plays loudly at all times, and the toilet facilities are badged ‘frocks’ and ‘cocks’.

This was lunchtime but it’s easy to imagine what it would be like at night – even dimmer, even louder and chock-full of people looking for a cheap and dirty good time. On a Friday or Saturday evening there are apparently 90 minute queues to get in, and you can’t book in advance.

But if you can live with these things – which are all arguably part of the experience – you’ll be rewarded with some damn good food that might surprise you.

The vibe and attitude might be a world apart from the Sotheby’s and Armani’s in the upmarket streets outside, as if a little bit of a bad neighbourhood has been built in the wrong place, but as burger joints go, it has quality, seeping from every pore. Or maybe that’s just the juice from the burgers?

White Trash at its finest

We kicked off with the fried pickles – long, slender slivers of gherkin in a light, seasoned batter with a chunky blue cheese dip. The sort of thing you normally have to fly across the Atlantic to eat. Perfectly cooked and still cool and tangy and sweet in the middle, it makes for a strange reverse cheese’n’pickle experience.

Only in America... and Welbeck street

There are a few other options available (Philly cheesesteaks, chicken burgers and ‘rabbit food’)  but we were here for the beef and tried two different burgers from their selection, the Dead Hippy – a double cheeseburger with a mustardy special sauce – and a classic cheese and bacon.

Unlike certain other burger places, the policy here is to serve medium-rare and this is a good thing. The meat is charred nicely on the outside but very juicy and pink in the middle, which is just as it should be.

Both burgers were messy, in a good way, like ripped denim shorts on trailer park totty. With the Dead Hippy in particular it was hard to tell sometimes where the patty ended and the cheese/mustard/bun began, but that’s all part of the attraction for me. In it's own way this, too, is Expressionist art.

Being an English gentleman, a part of me would have preferred to eat the mess from a big, sensible English plate, with an English knife and fork and an air of civilised refinement, but I fought back these emotions, took a big gulp of beer and got down and dirty, Yank-style.

Prepare to get messy. Very messy.

The bun is soft and bready but doesn’t completely fall apart, and the burgers included more slices of gherkinpickle and some token salad, which all adds up to a faceful of tasty brilliance.

We also had the fries – standard, stringy variety but lots of them – and onion rings. These were big bastards and, like the pickles, the batter was awesome, but you’ll be reaching for the kitchen roll soon enough.

Given that the burgers probably aren’t as lean as those in most other ‘premium’ burger places, it’s certainly not a place to go for a healthy meal. They might be slightly too greasy for my palette (especially when you’re having fried stuff with them) but that’s a pifflingly insignificant criticism really.

Drink!

There’s only a small selection of bottled beers available, but the Flying Dog Old Scratch is exactly the sort of beer you want with a big, badass burger. Frosted glasses are a nice touch too.

Drinking. Better than screaming.

It being lunchtime, I didn’t venture into the mixology world, but they have a good reputation for strong, no-nonsense cocktails (£6-8 each).                 

We finished up with a Goose Island root beer float, which is about as American as it gets without actually sticking flags onto a pickup truck.

A meal for two will cost £40-50, or more if you do lots of drinking, obviously. For the West End this isn’t bad, and it’s extremely satisfying food that will leave you uncomfortably full for hours if you’re not careful!

So, is it the best burger in London? Well, it’s a bit different from other places and certainly scores high on authenticity factor if you’re pining for a trashy, transatlantic dive, but I probably wouldn’t want to come here every single day and somebody like me probably has to be in a certain mood to fully enjoy MEATliquor.

The meat is probably on a par with Hache and Byron’s Big D (which is only available at certain times of the year) and a bit better than a standard Byron burger.

Slightly less expensive than these places too, although if you go around comparing the prices to McDonalds or Burger King you’ll be totally missing the point. Fucking pointmisser.

I guess the conclusion is that each of these three has something that they do better than their brethren (beer choice in Byron, brioche bun in Hache, fried pickles and unique atmosphere here) and they are all streets ahead of any other burger I’ve yet tried. I’d find it very hard to eat in, say, Gourmet Burger Kitchen these days, let alone order a burger in Wetherspoons.

So, rather than try to conclude definitively which is the best place to go for burgers in London, I shall just be glad that there are now some really good places to go for burgers in London!

Where to find it...

Meat Liquor

76 Welbeck Street

London

W1G 0AY (map)

********* 

The Scream is on display at Sotheby’s until tomorrow, April 18 (admission free)

Why the Internet is Bad and Seafood Risotto is Good

I’ve been playing a stupid-but-addictive Facebook game lately – Solitaire Blitz, which is basically a form of Patience, against the clock, with a bizarre nautical theme.

I logged on at the weekend, hoping to beat my highscore and accrue some more treasure… Oh dear - my score, my treasure, indeed my entire Solitaire Blitz history, had been erased!

Everything was reset to zero, as if I’d never played the game before. Everything.

Damn you, PopCap, if that is your real name!

And it’s not like this is the first time something of this shitty nature has happened on Facebook either - around Christmas time I decided I wanted to play Super Snowman, surely the most amusing drag’n’drop Flash application ever devised.

I’d played it the previous Christmas and the Christmas before that. It was cool.

But...