A beautiful day in Borough market.
Beautiful not least because we found two of the food challenges.
Kangaroo (we had meatballs) and Dandelion Wine.

The kangaroo we bought immediately – an easy decision for dinner.
It made the centrepiece of a beautiful pasta dish, and tasted delicious.
Kangaroo meat is like a tastier beef – rich and almost nutty.

Tempting fate a little though, we left the dandelion wine at the market.
A risky move – as it’s not the easiest thing to find in the world – but it gives me another excuse to hop south of the river!

I’m almost half way on 23:eat.

UPDATE
1. Jellied Eels
2. Pig Cheeks
3. Sweet Meats
4. Bubble tea
5. Dried Insects
6. Quails egg
7. Foie Gras
8. Frogs legs
9. Snails
10. Kangaroo
11. Nettle tea
12. Oysters
13. Steak Tartare
14. Dandelion Wine
15. Gazpacho
16. Pea Soup
17. Root beer float
18. Gnocchi
19. Ox Heart
20. Squirrel
21. Spotted Dick
22. Souffle
23. Kumquat

So I’ve got a couple more entries for 23:Eat… and what a mixed bag it was!
First up:

1. Jellied Eels
Oh dear god – these are disgusting.
Disgusting.
The eels themselves taste a little bit like kipper. Most bites are littered with bones.
And then lovingly covered in unsweetened jelly (think pork pie casing)…
Just horrible.
The shop we visited for them was great though – a snapshot of East London past.

UPDATE
1. Jellied Eels
2. Pig Cheeks
3. Sweet Meats
4. Bubble tea
5. Dried Insects
6. Quails egg
7. Foie Gras
8. Frogs legs
9. Snails
10. Kangaroo
11. Nettle tea
12. Oysters
13. Steak Tartare
14. Dandelion Wine
15. Gazpacho
16. Pea Soup
17. Root beer float
18. Gnocchi
19. Ox Heart
20. Squirrel
21. Spotted Dick
22. Souffle
23. Kumquat

So it’s been a little while since I last posted, but I’m ticking them off (albeit the easy ones.)

2. Pig Cheeks
First up and supremely delicious – I had a starter of crispy pig cheeks (with piccalilli and a chive & lambs lettuce salad) at Jamie Oliver’s St Paul’s meat-shack ‘Barbecoa’. A lovely treat from Wist for my birthday. Alas I forgot to take a photograph.

Luckily – someone has already written about them and posted a photo (thanks www.tomeatsjencooks.com)

11. Nettle tea
Next up – Nettle tea.
Sampled in Cornwall – a little like Green Tea.
I don’t think it will be replacing my morning coffee unfortunately.

16. Pea Soup
Slightly off-piste, but nevertheless a tick in the box – I had a beautiful dinner of Pea, Lovage and Rocket Soup whilst in Cornwall. Lovage is apparently the latest ‘cool’ herb. The soup was a delicious summer soup for a wet and windy August holiday.

17. Root beer float
Okay this was pretty gross.
I think it was actually worse than the butterbeer I tasted at the Warner Bros Harry Potter Tour. Sickly sweet icecream on a fizzy artificial-tasting base. Crazy it’s so close to the coke float really – a world apart in taste.

4. Bubble tea
First glance – urgh. First sip – mmm interesting, I like it. Third sip – urgh.
Sucking up a tapioca ball is pretty surprising at first – I quite liked it. Until I had to chew it.
The tea itself tastes a bit like a cold nettle tea… Could’ve ticked off two birds with one stone (or two cups with one tea bag).

6. Quails egg
Scotched – I tell you. Outside the famous Eagle on City Road.
Beautifully cooked, surrounded by a warm meaty base – with picallili dip.
Would recommend!

15. Gazpacho
I loved this. It was like a cucumber and tomato salad. But blended.
I’d definitely have it again. In fact, I did. I had Wist’s.

UPDATE
1. Jellied Eels
2. Pig Cheeks
3. Sweet Meats
4. Bubble tea
5. Dried Insects
6. Quails egg
7. Foie Gras
8. Frogs legs
9. Snails
10. Kangaroo
11. Nettle tea
12. Oysters
13. Steak Tartare
14. Dandelion Wine
15. Gazpacho
16. Pea Soup
17. Root beer float
18. Gnocchi
19. Ox Heart
20. Squirrel
21. Spotted Dick
22. Souffle
23. Kumquat

So Project 22 has finished.
And I’ve decided to start a couple of bits to have fun with between 23 and 24 years old.
Not all about numbers this year, which is nice.

23:Eat
No chef, I’ve never tried the foods/drinks on the below list.
And this year – I aim to eat and drink all of them.
(not at the same time.)

1. Jellied Eels
2. Pig Cheeks
3. Sweet Meats
4. Bubble tea
5. Dried Insects
6. Quails egg
7. Foie Gras
8. Frogs legs
9. Snails
10. Kangaroo
11. Nettle tea
12. Oysters
13. Steak Tartare
14. Dandelion Wine
15. Gazpacho
16. Pea Soup
17. Root beer float
18. Gnocchi
19. Ox Heart
20. Squirrel
21. Spotted Dick
22. Souffle
23. Kumquat

2. Ad Ramble
A little while ago, Andy H and I were talking about how we both explored London’s ad agencies before we got places on the Publicis grad scheme.
I think it would be a nice idea to organise a walking tour of a bunch of agencies for prospective and first year grads, with a stop, look and listen-to-a-talk at each one.
This year – I want to organise an Ad Ramble.

3. Take more photos
Russell Davies did a thing a little while ago where he took a photo every day for a couple of years.
It’s not possible for me to do that. Because I’ll forget. Almost every other day.
But I do want to take more photos. And all being well, at the end of the year, I’ll choose 23 photos to summarise my year.
Fingers crossed it’s not 23 photos of my desk at work.

4. Take a first-aid course
I’ve never done one.
And I’d quite like to.

I think that’s quite enough to be getting on with.
In a years time – I’ll most likely be uploading 16 blurry photos and writing about how, whilst I may not have taken that first aid course, I have learnt an awful lot from watching the E.R omnibus.

AJ. x

So – I’m now 23 and Project 22 has finished.
And it was mostly a success!

22 Gigs – Completed
22 Books – Completed
22 New London Pubs – Completed

The 22 brands didn’t get finished – it was forgotten about until two or three weeks before the end of the project. And I spend all of my working day talking about brands – it was a poor choice last year!

The 22 albums also didn’t get bought. I bought 4. But I’ve been using Spotify – it’s changed the way I listen to music. So I’ve summarised the music I’ve been listening to this year instead.

22 Gigs

1. Ryan Adams
2. Kings of Leon
3. Goldfish
4. Scott Matthews
5. Willy Mason
6. Nizlopi
7. Hanson
8. Duke Special
9. Andy Oliveri
10. The Great Last
11. Jake Morley
12. Rich Robinson
13. Andy Oliveri
14. Willy Mason
15. The Staves
16. Scott Matthews
17. Duke Special
18. Ryan Adams
19. Alabama Shakes
20. Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra
21. POB
22. Lunar Festival

Now to Project 23…

It’s beautiful.
What I love about the Fender brand – is that it’s built on providing for real hard working musicians.
And so half of their communications show battered instruments.
And you know what – they look better than the new ones.
Half of me wants to knock my bass around just to get it looking like the old beauties.
Yet again – it’s a brand that’s built around providing great products, not providing fluff and nonsense.
J.Wilshire’s ‘Make things people want > Make people want things’ strikes again.

The final gig.
And a complete punt.

With little time left before the end of the project, and with only one gig to go – I went rogue and bought two tickets to the Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra. Blind.
You know it’s going to be a strange one when you’re buying tickets because of the venue, rather than the band.

Nevertheless – I sat back on my pew and listened to the support, Dan Michaelson.

Wow the guy has a low voice. So low that it’s pretty damn hard to figure out if there is a tune at all.
The guitar work was basic and the songs uncomplicated – nothing too eye opening – but his dry stage talk was his saving grace. He won round the audience with his sarcastic drawl before exiting sharpish stage left.

Returning from the bar, I see the stage is now populated with 20+ musicians. The orchestra has arrived.
As has Johnny Parry.
Johnny Parry looks like a cross between Tim Minchin and Jack Sparrow – falling somewhere in Duke Special territory, but without the eye makeup or dreads.

The room is half empty – I quickly do the maths and check that there are more people in the audience than on stage. There are. Just.

The strings start up and they sound wonderful in the chapel.
The bands sound is huge – awesome in a church.
The arrangement was tight, the drummer superb and the opera singers impressive.
Arthouse films play on the projector behind the band and Johnny Parry sings in a TomWaitsEsque drawl.

Without his voice, the sound was incredible – a delicious blend of Elbow and Mercury Rev.

But with the voice – it just didn’t click with me. If I’m honest – the songs need a little work too.
Have it my way and the orchestra would break away from Johnny.
Find a new leader.
Revolt.
Rise up.
Be free.
Take up with a new singer songwriter – and earn a few bob.

Going back through my journal and my blog, I seem to have had split objectives on my 22nd birthday last year..

In my notepad, I’d written see 22 gigs, visit 22 new pubs, buy 22 new albums and read 22 books.
On here, I appear to have written see 22 gigs, visit 22 new pubs, buy 22 new albums and write about 22 brands I like.
Obviously the thought of 22 books scared me enough to change the objective at the point between copying from my journal to the blog. However – with only one book left to read – I’ve just realised I haven’t started talking about brands.
So here’s my starter for ten. Or twenty two.

1) Ginger Joe – I only got to know this brand in December last week, and it’s disgustingly hard to find the product in the shops. But the branding is excellent – with a flaming ginger moustache on every bottle and a solid block font that helps it stand out on the supermarket shelf. They do some fairly me-too stuff on facebook (tache-yourself etc..) but the product is great, and the product branding suits it perfectly. If only it could sort out its goddamn distribution!

2) Heinz – Ah the great British institution. Obviously it’s a brand I’ve grown up with over many years, so there’s too much to say about it… But AMV are doing some hearty work  – especially their ‘magic beans’ fairytale TVC that’s on at the moment.

3) Tommy Hilfiger – I’m not a big designer clothes buyer. In fact, I’m more likely to buy clothes from a charity shop than from New Bond Street. But I quite like TH’s product, and I really like the american vintage college outfitter vibe they manage to communicate through their photography. Nice.

4) Jaffa Cakes – It’s nice to write about a brand I’ve worked on. However – I have to say there were very few things I managed to get out of the door that I was proud of whilst I was on it. The late, great 90s advertising is no more – but built the brand to what it is today. It’s a great product, and the mischievousness that people know it for is something I’d like to see return.

So after a long time comin’, Lunar weekend finally arrived.
Unfortunately so did the rain.

Clicking the heels of borrowed boots and looking a bit like a toddler that had been dressed by an overprotective mother, we headed to Lunar. The festival was hidden away in the Umberslade Farm Park – with only half moon signs to guide you to the site.
Once there, the (lax but very friendly) security wrapped our wrist bands on and we headed to the beer tent for a pint of Purity…

Over the weekend – we saw a number of nice bands and a number of not-so-nice bands and got thoroughly drenched – but it was bloody brilliant all the same…

Nice
– Scott Matthews – As ever, was incredible. Backed only with a drummer, but on home soil, he really took the house down. For once, I didn’t miss City Headache. And he played all the hits. Was fantastic.

– Fionn Regan – I haven’t seen Fionn for a long while, but really didn’t need to worry. He was great as ever – an Irish Bob Dylan, with a mean talent for guitar and a distinctive voice. The songs were fantastic, but as we approached the encore, disappointment dawned as I realised he hadn’t played my favourite track (The Underwood Typewriter.) After an encore of Be Good or Be Gone, I started to leave – elated but with a tinge of sadness. Next thing I know – a (drunk) organiser walks up on stage and asks him to encore for a second time. And he plays it! Fantastic.

– Michael Chapman – Really great, older guy. Fond of a swear word, but fantastic acoustic player with a gravelly but great voice.

– Goodnight Lenin – The band that pulled the most people all weekend I think.. After the rains increased, people started to leave! They were really tight, comfortable and charismatic.

– Boat to Row – Much tighter than when I saw them at the small beer festival a little while ago. With violinist in tow, they played well and despite some dodgy banter, were well received.

– Ashley Hutchings and Blair Dunlop – Father and son duo. Father being ex-Fairport Convention. Son being shoved into limelight by ex-Fairport Convention father. Actually a very nice set from the two of them – but the poetry felt a little bit pretentious.

– Jim Moray – Thought he was interesting – very traditional folk but brought the crowd along with him. Including two uber fans. They loved him. Peg n’ awl.

– Duotone – I thought the whole loop-pedal thing was over now, but clearly some people are still going for it! They produced some great layers and despite a couple of timing issues, were really quite impressive.

Not so nice
– Hannah Peel – I just didn’t get it.
– Rapunzel and Sedayne – Tone deaf wizard and wife.