Cooking, the Frans LaRoc Way.

I love cooking. I should have been a chef. It's relaxing, fun and you get a real sense of achievement. So, for your enjoyment, I have included a recipe for your enjoyment. I know most of you have heard of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey etc. My hero and inspiration comes from the great Keith Floyd. Enjoy.

STUFFED PEPPERS

4 red peppers, halved

Olive oil

1 bottle of red wine, preferably a litre and preferably Australian.

15g (½ oz) butter

1 courgette, finely diced

110g (4oz) pack lemon and coriander couscous

85g (3oz) sunblush tomatoes, chopped

3tbsp chopped fresh basil leaves

125g (4½ oz) pack mozzarella

Green salad, to serve

Method

    Brush the peppers with a little olive oil. Pour a glass of wine and take several large sips. Place on a baking sheet or roasting tray cut side down and grill under a medium heat for 5 mins. Turn and grill for a further 5 mins or until the peppers are tender but not collapsed. Pour another glass of wine.

Meanwhile, melt der butter in a pan and cook the courgette until golden, at the same time check the wine glass and wefill if necessary.. Add the couscous stuff and cook for 1 min. Add 200ml (7fl oz) boiling water, stir and remove from the heat. Cover and  stand for 5 mins. Whilst waiting, pour yet anuther glass of wine and enjoy.

Stir de tomatoes an basil into the funny liddle round fingys, take a ship of vine and use dis stuff to fill the peppery doodahs. Top each  mozzarella wiv a slice of Australia wed.

Put the stuffed wed thingys under the gwill for 2-3 mins until the booze is at woom temperature and hash melted. 

     Wemove corke from anuther gottle of wed and lay on der floor till woom shtops spinning, like yeah man.

Websites

Now, I’ve never been one to turn down a drink as most of you will know. So when my mate George (Publican) invited me around to his place with the promise of a very decent Australian Merlot, I felt duty bound to oblige.

 After two bottles had slipped down very nicely, George announced that he’d finally lashed out on a new PC and would I give him an opinion. “No problem” says I, and to be fair it was a fairly decent set up with a 26” monitor which was essential as George’s glasses looked like the bottom of two milk bottles. I mean, he certainly weren’t going to be top of the leader boards on Call of Duty, but it was OK.

“My website doesn’t seem to be doing a lot though” he said and I quickly realised what had been the real reason for the invite. “Ok, let’s have a look” I said. George’s fingers didn’t exactly dance over the keyboard; they more or less stumbled, fell over and died. We eventually got the site displayed though, and initially, I thought someone had hit me in the face with a hammer! The home page was bright orange with pea green menus and an image of a beer bottle, or bottel, as the web designer had spelt it.

“That’s……err, different” I offered as I fought the desire to regurgitate the Merlot on to the shag pile. “Who did that for you”. “Young Ryan down the road, he did it in between cramming for his A levels”. He replied. “Only cost me £400”. This time the shag pile got a liberal dousing of red wine. “George” I screamed, “it’s a one page site, people will think their monitor has blown up when it displays, it tells visitors nothing other than the fact you need to go to Specsavers, and young Ryan obviously uses your product as it’s affected his spelling ability.” I paused for breath. “On top of that, it’s not SEO optimised, it’s not constructed correctly and more importantly, it will do more harm for your business than good”

George doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t need to. He sends me six bottles of Merlot a month, free of charge. Why? Well, I got him a totally redesigned website, properly optimised and he can add information about his Guest Beers himself, and all for the princely sum of £9.99 per month.

And what about Ryan, I hear you ask, George persuaded him to hand clean his shag pile carpet which appeared to have a large red wine stain. He managed to do it between visits to the acne clinic. Think I’ll have a drink.

Frans LaRoc

PS Don't make George's mistake, visit www.dp-group.co.uk now.

Supermarkets

If you live in or near a small to medium sized town, have you had a good look around it recently? It's changed. All those little interesting bespoke shops are disappearing only to be replaced with Pound shops and those boring fancy goods shops with I consider to be a contradiction in terms. Our town seems to have replaced these shops with a multitude of Bakery’s. Maybe they're trying to tell us that we're too thin or something. I just can't figure it.

One of the reasons that this is happening is the continued growth and expansion of supermarkets. They are convenient, easy to park at, and you can play dodgems with the trolleys. You can buy a whole range of goods without trampling down the high street calling in at several different shops. We are a captive audience as far as they are concerned. So much so, that sometimes you find you haven't got the bargain you thought you had.

Frans therefore has a prediction for you. Within the next 10/15 years, all those little independent shops will disappear. Supermarkets will expand and expand so that you have most of your needs without going anywhere else. Bespoke goods can be pre-ordered from their on-line catalogue so that you can pick up your purchases next time your in town. Sure, this will suite most people, but what about those independent shopkeepers? If they can't entice customers to their shops, they’re finished.

Not necessarily. There have been several surveys carried out over the last eighteen months, which shows that people are spending more and more online. In fact, internet sales now outstrip any other sales and this includes the construction industry. All in all this is good news for the independent. Another door has opened, another opportunity has presented itself. All they need is a simple web site which is Search Engine Optimised. Clean, cheap, efficient. Lower overheads means greater margins. A well designed web site gives the independent another crack of the whip. “But what about the cost?” I hear them cry, and they're right, you have to speculate to accumulate. You don't have to pay a fortune for a site, www.rentawebuk.com will rent you a website from as little as £9.99 per month. Have a look. It may be just the thing you're looking for. (We were going to call it International Rescue but apparently someone’s already done that).

Frans LaRoc

The Future

As all you Star Trek fans, or trekkers/trekkies to give us our official title know, this franchise has, over the years shown us the future which we have all now adopted. I am talking, of course (Mainly) of computers. Star trek was the first show that showed us proper computers, laptops and even the iPad. Universal translators are used by troops abroad in Afghanistan, communicators (Mobile phones) have touched everyone's life for over 20 years. Laser weapons, communication earpieces (Bluetooth), voice commands such as those used in motor vehicles are used on a daily basis. The only thing that we haven't been any good at yet is the teleportation of organic material such as a human being.

This problem, as well as warp speed is, believe me, being worked on as you read this. With warp speed, I can image that something along these lines of propulsion will indeed materialise (Pun intended), but teleportation? I'm sorry, but I just cannot see how a machine can reduce a living body to sub atomic particles in one location, transport it through the ether and reassemble it perfectly in another location, hundreds, even thousands of miles away. To illustrate this, lets look at the potential problems.

1. Halfway through the teleporting process, the receiving machine breaks down. Where the hell do you go? All your bits are hanging around somewhere, but where? Now imagine that someone is, at the same time, beaming their favourite  poodle to the same broken down transporter. We've now got all it's bits floating around. Who's to say they aren't intermingling with your bits. By the time the AA have repaired the busted transporter (After first towing it to the nearest garage), your atoms have now become one with the poodle. So, when you eventually get to your destination, you have more than a passing resemblance to Russell Brand. Not good.

2. Again, half way through beaming across continents, you lose the signal (Think mobile phones). That would be fun. Will the destination location receive an automated message saying “Sorry, I can't come to the transportation pad at the moment, but please leave a message and Ill get back to you as soon as I land. Oh, and by the way, please make sure there are no dogs wondering about when I get there.

3. Have you seen the film The Fly? Enough said.

The potential for a cock up is immense. It is for this reason that I don't think we will see this technology in my life time. Besides which, the only people who will understand and therefore be able to operate this high tech food mixer will be adolescent zit covered school leavers. 

Beam me up Spotty!

Grumpy Old Man

I must be getting old! In fact, events over the last couple of years have confirmed that I am officially a “Grumpy Old Man”. Whereas I used to have the patience of a Saint, I now have problems holding back in situations which, when I was younger, would not have bothered me. 

Take, for instance, the situation that most of us drivers have been in, where we are trolling down the road in our family hatchback and some Hoody/OAP/Punk Rocker or one of those bloody buggy drivers decide to cross the road right in front of you even after looking you straight in the eye as if to say “Right pal, it’s up to you to stop in time”. I get fed up with standing Mrs LaRoc’s car on its eyelashes as my foot, along with the brake pedal disappears through the bulkhead. When I was younger I would take it in my stride, happily waving to the offender as he avoids meeting his maker by centimetres. Now, I pull up and let loose with a verbal torrent that would make Gordon Ramsay blush

.

It is a sign of the times, I admit, that age does this to a person. I have now turned this to my advantage and made it my new hobby. I like nothing better than walking into well-known computer stores and having a bit of fun with the first spotty oik who approaches me like an exocet whilst one foot is still outside. “Can I help you at all?” is the opening gambit from said oik. It is at this stage that my wife squeezes my hand to the point of cutting off circulation and gives me the “daggers” look. 

Ignoring my blue fingers, I look this….err, Lad straight in the eye and in my best geeky voice I ask, “Could you possibly show me some high end computer systems”? Right now, this lad’s face has lit up like Chernobyl, as his fingers start to work out his commission. Anyway, long story short, we head over to the PC’s and he starts his sales pitch. It’s usually half way through this that his supervisor comes along and interrupts, “Everything all right here Sir?” “Yes fine” I usually answer, “Now bugger off!” I guarantee that this will bring the largest of grins to the young sales assistant’s face and that he will instantly go into Super Helpful Mode.

The trouble is, very few of these sales assistants know what they are talking about. Take the following conversation held with the same assistant.

“So, how big is the hard drive?”

“This one’s 1000 megahertz”

“You mean Gigabite”

“No, 1000 megahertz”

“Ok” I say, smelling blood, “Is it Sata?”

“No, it’s a Toshiba”.

At this stage, it’s very hard not to leave a pool of the amber liquid on his nice clean floor as I bite my lip and try not to laugh.

“This one comes complete with a web package so that you can build your own website. And it’s free”.

“Oh, right” says I. “What software does it provide for this?”

“Err…I think it’s Excel” he replies. I am now howling like a coyote with tears streaming down my face. This poor lad is now looking at me like I’m in the middle of an epileptic fit. “And”, he continues “It provides free SEO for your website when you’ve built it”

Life is so unfair at times, but as it was he who brought it up, “What’s that stand for then? I asked, bracing myself.

“Separate Ethernet Output”

Result, one middle aged adult male screaming, crying and bent over double confirming to the sales assistant that I was indeed having a heart attack. By this time, Mrs LaRoc had run over and was dragging me towards the car park whilst conversing with the assistant in his native language, “Numbnuts, even I know it stands for Search Engine Optimisation” she hisses.

The trouble is, this new hobby does take its toll in the underwear department, but believe me, it is highly satisfying and well worth the extra cost. I now plan to extend this hobby in to the Doctors surgery. Coming soon, stay tuned.

Bloody Buggies

So,the Government are still pushing for GPS speed limits in the UK. For those of you who haven’t heard about this, I’ll highlight the salient points.

All new vehicles in the future are to be equipped with technology that is linked to the GPS network. Briefly, this means that when you drive along any road, the GPS, in association with mapping software, knows exactly where you are and so automatically reduces your speed to within the speed limit. This is supposed to reduce accidents caused by speed. Nice to think that our Parliamentarians are looking after us in our twilight years, how thoughtful. What could be better, there you are waffling down the road in your Ford Escort Estate at a steady 50 mph, when all of a sudden you enter a 30 mph zone. The next thing you know you’re peeling yourself off your windscreen as the very same satellite that used to have its lasers pointing at Russia in the Cold war, sends a signal to your car, thereby applying the brakes. How very useful. All they need to do now is get the bloody car to steer itself and all us drivers become passengers. Even better, in there foresight, the Government have stated that there is a switch that will turn the system off so that you can make your own decisions. How good is that?

Just what exactly is going on in these people’s brains? Is it just me, or will it cause more problems than it solves. If you are one of those people who have just had a frontal lobotomy and thinks this is practical thinking at its best, let me run a few things past you. For one thing, if you’re going to fit an override switch, how many people are going to switch it on? Imagine if you had a similar system on your latest AMD computer, if the switch is off, the PC runs at full speed, but to be safe, if you switch it on, the computer runs at half speed. Personally, mine would be welded and superglued (with full counter measures) in the off position as I suspect yours would. No, I know what you’re going to say, but think about it, at the precise time you need a bit of speed to avoid a dangerous situation; you have to go hunting for the bloody OFF switch. By the time you remember where it is, you’ve run over a family of ducks and parallel parked the car in the branches of an elderly oak tree. Road rage will escalate as some people use the system and some don’t, traffic will, more or less, come to a standstill due to sudden deceleration and farmers vehicles blocking the roads trying to encourage cars from oak trees.

I’m not joking; there will be more accidents than ever before. But there’s a more sinister reason for the Government promoting this cock-eyed proposal, Big Brother! Think about it, they will be able to log every journey you make, even when you’ve turned the machine off. Then they will charge you a toll based on your journey time and route, thus adding to their coffers. My God! This gets worse; this will then push all vehicles down rural roads resulting in the extinction of all wildlife and all villagers over the age of 60. Our villages will become rally cross stages with extra points for hitting someone in a wheelchair, nooooooooo.

I’m sorry , it’s not for me, I want to be able to decide what I want to hit and when I want to hit it. You’ll not find me driving alongside country fields; I’ll be driving across them in my dirty great 4 x 4. Anyway, speed doesn’t kill, suddenly becoming stationary, that’s the killer.