Redneck comfort food and the letter i is for?

It has been a trialling week so far. I spent much of the bank holiday entertaining my parents, packing my stuff little by little, disassembling flat pack furniture and completing yet more paperwork for my lawyers to progress my move into London.

I called my friend Julez who was having a 'terrible Tuesday' after a large weekend. One of our friends had starred in an amateur dramatic production of Stags & Hens and the post-concert revelry was starting to take its toll. In case you're interested the only thing amateur about the performance was the money that actors and set designers made. West end eat your heart out.

Anyway both of us decided to decamp to Bodeans on the corner of D'Arblay Street and Poland Street (opposite the Phonica record shop). Bodeans is a weird place, a kind of anti foodie ethic. The cooking is pure American redneck - lurid red hot dogs, hickory sauce covered ribs, fries with a pepperika, sugar and salt coating and coca-cola in a proper soda fountain glass.

It is unashamedly a meat eaters paradise artwork around the walls remind you of the animals that go into your hot dog or where your succulent ribs came from.

American collegiate sports play on big screens and people leave you alone to eat this redneck comfort food. Over a hot cup of coffee and jumbo hot dogs we set the world to rights.

On the wider world front, things are pretty weird:
- Saudi Arabia seems to have reached a pre-revolutionary phase (if you don't get what I mean grab a DVD copy of The Battle of Algiers) driving oil prices ever higher. The papers claim that oil has never been that high but they are not making any allowances that inflation would have had on the 1973 oil prices would be in 2004 US dollars...
- On the other hand, the San Jose Mercury News reports that micro-chip sales are up to the highest point since 1990. The more chips sold, the more stuff made, the more trade that is happening, the more life in the economy. Allegedly its all good
- The European elections are upon us and xenophobic isolationists have been given credence by Michael Howard acknowledging the UK Independence Party as a competitive threat to the Conservative Party in the UK
- Top UK festival Glastonbury is headlined by acts designed to appeal to the over 40's including Paul McCartney and Morrisey. What the hell will happen to youthful rebellion when its the crumblies who are kicking up a storm? Whose on next year the Rolling Stones, Status Quo and Aerosmith?
- Apple has embraced another Microsoft industry standard - crap security updates and computer crashing code changes

On a final note I wanted to point you to this great article in the Village Voice that talks about the way Apple's iPod poster campaign has become a lightning rod for the zeitgest of New Yorkers with a marker pen. Here at Carroll Towers our best contributions were - i stands for:

- 'Intellectual property (not mine)'
- inner ear infection (from sharing headphones)
- inconsolable (after being mugged for the tell-tale white ear phones)
- 'I think, therefore I am' (just not when I am listening to music)

Before you all write in, I am the proud owner of a mark one iPod and the 700 or so tracks on it is more than enough to allow me to ignore your protestations.