Oxford and Newbury Ocelot 110

No: 110 August 2015

Stornoway

Oxford and Newbury Edition

FREE

Song, seabirds and Towersey Festival p18

Plus....

Mystery

The Mousetrap p14

Roundabout

Newbury Theatre Festival p13

Tadstock

Dry The River headline p31

Brewery Bird

The Great British Beer Festival p33

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#110

AUGUST ISSUE The Roundabout Theatre Festival in Newbury p13

For Starters

04 Michael Bosley 06 The Goat + Our Man in Iraq 08 Art at Cornerstone Arts and Culture

11 Are You Talkin’ To Me? 12 Theatre and Comedy List 13 Roundabout Festival 14 The Mousetrap Music

18 Stornoway 21 The Trembling Bells 22 This is New Music 24 Gig Monkey 26 The Gig List + Billy Boy Arnold 30 The Festival List 31 Tadstock Food and Drink

33 Brewery Bird 34 Dave Stewart Food Blog 36 International Pan of Mystery The Final Bit of the magazine

38 Agony Girl and Twisted Peel

The sounds of summer!

Listen closely. Can’t you hear it?

That is the sound of a million ‘humpfs’ of frustration as we all get stuck behind a slow moving caravan this August.

It is the sound of a million sets of parents telling their children in unison that if they don’t keep it down in the back they’ll turn the car around and go home.

No holiday for them.

It is the sound of a million wasps gathering like an army to attack a million picnics and a million screams as one person in every group bats wildly around their heads to try and keep the pesky beasts away making them look like they are trying out an innovative new swimming stroke on land.

These are the sounds of summer. We love the balmy long days don’t we?

Well, we do. No matter how frustrating things can get. All of our collective memories seem to be one big jumble of burnt BBQ sausages, sand in our sandwiches and rockpooling at the same beach in Devon. That’s summer. And they are the best memories.

So make the most of it and even if you are staying close to home there’s still plenty to see and do. Just check out our packed listings to see everything that is on offer from music to comedy to theatre.

Write into me at jamie@theocelot.co.uk

Jamie Hill

Editor: Jamie Hill - jamie@theocelot.co.uk Sales: Dave Stewart dave@theocelot.co.uk 07872 176999 Telephone: 01793 608840 Publisher: Positive Media Group, Arclight Building, Peatmoor, Swindon SN5 7EX Printers: Thames Colour

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For Starters

Get the Deranged Workout now!

A Nerd’s Last Word

by Michael Bosley There’s a new name in fitness that all sinewy, shiny fitness freaks are talking about!

Now you too can be a self-obsessed temple of shallow objectivity with the Deranged Workout!

Crazier than the Insanity workout and not quite as stupid sounding as Hip Hop Abs, the Deranged Workout will have you so encased in throbbing muscle, that breathing will become a struggle and picking up a puppy without crushing it in your vice-like grip will be a long distant memory!

You’ll be so vascular that canal barges will be able to use your veins as navigable waterways, whilst women will easily overlook your obvious emotional imbalances and occasional, worrying mood swings simply because of how good you’ll suddenly look in a vest and some sweat pants!

Take it from three-time world something-or-other champion Mitch Conwayaway: “I use an expensive, professional training coach, five dieticians and have been training all my life, but without Deranged Workout, I wouldn’t have the physique I have now, or this huge cheque!”

“It’s sad to think that there are thousands of people out there wasting hundreds of pounds of fake tan and tribal tattoos who aren’t able to show them off to their full potential by having a pumped up bod like mine.” *Flexes muscles* For only £23.46 every ¼ month for 36 ½ months,

you’ll receive fifty DVD’s crammed full of bossy platitudes, barely audible over a royalty-free soundtrack of generic techno music.

You owe it to yourself to look as good as society expects you to look!

Take it from our long-time Deranged Workout advocates: Dennis: “I used to be of a distinctly average build because I was spending far too much time on my family and my career to be able to find time to work out. Now my wife has left me I have so many endlessly lonely hours to hone myself into an Adonis and doing sit ups until I vomit! Thanks Deranged Workout!”

Keith: “I was a bit overweight and unhappy with my appearance. A small minority of nasty people would comment on how much of a fat f**k I was and deliberating on who may have eaten all the pies – invariably coming to the conclusion that it was me. Rather than question how unhappy and insecure these despicable people must have been for feeling the need to pass comment on my appearance, I succumbed to the pressure to conform and am now so chiselled and beautiful with the help of Deranged Workout that I find other fat people utterly repugnant and now perpetuate the cruel circle of judgement onto other overweight people. I’m just paying it forward!”

So what are you waiting for?

Be one of the beautiful people today with Deranged Workout!

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For Starters A motel right in the thick of it Off The Grid with Luke Coleman Our Man in Iraq We’ve turned our spare room into a kind of Air B’n’B for visiting journalists, providing a decent bed, a bathroom, internet and aircon for the princely sum of $25 per night. With that, guests also get fresh towels and bedding (I know you’d expect nothing less, but it is quite fun playing the Sybil Fawlty, making sure there’s a sweet on the pillow).

We’ve had three come through our doors so far; Sara a friend of a friend whom I met in Amman whilst on evacuation; Carolina, a glamourous Spaniard who reports for Columbian TV - she popped the fuse using a hair drier and had to run over the road

to get a blow dry before work one morning; and Pilar, another Spanish TV reporter with whom I made a trip down to the frontline at Sinjar.

I was curious as to how I’d react to my first time in the action, and although there were quite a few sniper shots cracking off around us, it

was generally quiet. I got some good audio, and was able to knock out a story on how the disparate Kurdish factions are uniting against the common enemy.

I’m planning on going back again this week, as the MoLuke Motel is closed for Eid.

A travesty of trolls tell it like it isn’t A monthly rant by The Ocelot’s resident Grumpy Gruff The Goat. This month he once again tackles the ‘troll’ We seem to be living in the age of the troll.

It’s become very apparent that in this fast-paced era we’re living in the internet has given a powerful voice to one section of society that we’ve been happily ignoring since the dark ages - the idiot.

We’ve given ‘idiots’ a voice. And they’re being heard.

They are called ‘trolls’.

When Henry V told his troops to go ‘once more unto the breach’ - you didn’t get an anonymous heckler suddenly shouting ‘I did a turd on your mum’s lawn last night!’ or something even more sick and abusive.

Nope. If that person had shouted that out during that kingly hour, those medieval soldiers would have probably had him or her (but most likely a him) hung, drawn and quartered with his (or her) head on a spike in front of the Tower of London as a warning to others.

Nowadays though, these trolls are everywhere. Hiding behind their anonymous accounts hurling more abuse at anyone who speaks out about anything just for the hell of it. The thrill of it. The thrill of causing someone else pain.

They’re good like that.

The law is slowly catching up with the more abusive trolls actually getting arrested after sending torrents of abuse usually towards any woman who happens to be campaigning for a postage stamp commemorating the suffragettes. And they try to outdo each other like a group

of bonobo apes trying to chuck as much faeces as they can at the any passer-by. I don’t know what the collective noun for a troll is but it should be a ‘travesty’ of trolls.

The braver ones are not always anonymous though but these keyboard warriors still like to be as offensive and abusive as possible as their remit is to hurt and shock as many people as possible so that they can walk around knowing they’ve upset someone. They’re good like that.

The other day a lady I knew posted a restaurant recommendation to a friend and someone else they knew on the periphery of their social circle decided to use the most offensive words he knew to put down that recommendation. It was like he got out the thesaurus especially to shock and offend and to put down the poor lady who was only telling someone where she had a nice meal once.

If I was a troll I’d say bring back the heads on spikes era. That’ll learn ‘em! But I’m not so I’ll just call them idiots instead. Idiots!

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For Starters

Cornerstone Announces New Exhibition Dionne Freeman Inside Out 14th July – 16th August Reactive Space residency- 21st July16th August Dionne Freeman is a freelance artist from Oxford; her practice focuses on the constant evolvement of mark making and the exploration of surfaces and space.

Inside Out is the result of a longterm residency with Cornerstone Arts Centre in Didcot where Dionne observed and recorded the different spaces, their functions and how landscapes both interior and exterior get intertwined. The residency has culminated in a series of works created in response to the landscapes that surround us;

Oxfordshire landscapes, City views, people, interiors, including responses to spaces within Cornerstone’s landscape. Movement, traces, memories and structures are remerging themes within the work.

The work explores the need to make connections with the recognisableusing traces, fragments of places and spaces to rearrange these and formulate the familiar. Inside Out runs 14 July – 16 August.

The residency has also taken the form of a floor to ceiling interactive drawing in Cornerstone’s Chalk space. Reactive Space focuses on the constant evolvement of mark making, the exploration of surfaces and space resulting in a continuous

drawing of the spaces within cornerstone. Incorporating the fabric and landscape of the building itself with suggestions of its surrounding; where memories and traces are associated with recognisable shapes and sounds interpreting an all-encompassing layered vision. At allocated times the audience will be invited to incorporate their own interpretations and responses into the drawing.

The gallery is free to visit and open 10am - 6pm Tuesdays to Saturdays and 11am - 4pm on Sundays.

To find out more call Box Office on 01235 515144 or go online to www.cornerstone-arts.org

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No more heroes!

Film

Neil Gaiman’s 90s Sandman saga is set to be made into a film with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It’s not set at the beach.

Are You Talkin’ To Me? A Film column by Jamie Hill For some time now Hollywood has been raiding the comic book and graphic novel cookie jar for inspiration.

Superheroes abound on the big screen. We seem to be awash with latex and capes.

At some point this bubble will burst as audiences decide enough’s enough with all these heroic antics and want a bit of different fare.

Personally, I’m a big superhero fan so I’m in geek heaven at every Marvel or DC announcement but even I can see that there’s simply too many now.

So does this mean they should stop looking at the comic book medium for inspiration?

Of course not! The medium still offers a wealth of inspired stories that have got nothing to do with spandex and long may it continue.

Here are several film projects that are in the works right now that have nothing to do with those pesky hero types.

Chew Chew, an Image comic, is the story of Detective Tony Chu, who polices a world where poultry has been made illegal after a devastating bird flu epidemic.

Now, it’s been picked up for the big screen treatment, in animated form, with The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun lined up to star as Chu - a ‘chibopath,’ which means he can get a psychic reading from anything he eats, enabling him to work out how it died. David Tennant joined the cast recently, in a role that was originally being lined up for the late, great Robin Williams.

Sandman From the mind of the genius that is Neil Gaiman, Sandman was once deemed unfilmable but it’s now in the

development stage thanks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt (from Third Rock from the Sun!) The DC/Vertigo series sees Gaiman explore the world of dreams. He includes Dream, Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair and Delirium as characters as well as a whole host of crazy cameos (including William Shakespeare). This is definitely one project that I’m very excited about.

Constantine You probably know this one seeing as there was recently a short-lived but very good TV series and a previous film starring Keanu Reeves.

New Line Cinema recently announced that a new film about DC Vertigo’s renegade Liverpudian magician, originally created by Alan Moore, was in the works.

Lucifer Another DC Vertigo comic announced at the same time as Constantine by New Line. The comic followed the antics of Lucifer after turning his back on the underworld.

Interesting existential stuff.

Preacher As well as being developed into a TV show by Seth Rogen, this one was also in the crop of recent announcements by New Line for the cinema treatment. It follows the often very shocking and funny story of a priest who is touched by God. Expect werewolves, fallen angels and psychotic immortal gunmen.

Personally, I’d like to see them make films out of ‘Maus’ - a groundbreaking story about the holocaust, ‘Transmetropolitan’ - the Warren Ellis story of outlaw future journalist Spider Jerusalem, and ‘Y-The Last Man’ which follows the last man on earth in a world of women after a virus wipes out all males.

But you can’t have everything.

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Theatre List Tuesday July 21 to Sunday August 2 THEATRE - Much Ado About Nothing 7:30pm Old Schools Quadrangle, Bodleian Library, Oxford Saturday July 25 to Saturday August 1 THEATRE - Snow White and Rose Red 7pm Said Business School, Park End St, Oxford Friday July 31 to Saturday August 8 ARTS AND CULTURE - #Generation Z 7pm Corn Exchange, Market Place, Newbury Saturday August 1 THEATRE - 24 Hour Plays 7:30pm Corn Exchange, Newbury THEATRE - Raising Agents 7:45pm The Players Theatre, Thame Sunday August 2 FAMILY EVENTS - Funday Sundays: Puppets Go Wild 11am Pegasus, Magdalen Road, Oxford

in association with Wychwood Brewery www.wychwood.co.uk Monday August 3 FAMILY EVENTS - Pongo’s Party with Justin Fletcher 11.30am Corn Exchange, Market Place, Newbury Tuesday August 4 FAMILY EVENTS - I’ll Keep Waiting On The Pavement For The Ice Cream Van To Come 11am Market Place, Newbury Tuesday August 4 to Saturday August 8 THEATRE: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels 7:30 pm - New Theatre, Oxford Thursday August 6 FAMILY EVENTS - Pied Piper 11am Corn Exchange, Market Place, Newbury

Mon August 17 to Sat August 22 THEATRE: The Mousetrap 7:30 pm - Oxford Playhouse Mon August 24 to Fri August 28 DANCE: NCDC Dance Week New Greenham Arts, Newbury Tues August 25 to Sat August 29 FAMILY EVENTS: Room on the Broom Oxford Playhouse, Beaumont Street, Oxford Wednesday August 26 THEATRICAL SCREENING: RSC Live: Othello 7pm - Corn Exchange, Newbury Thurs August 27 to Sat August 29 THEATRE: Into The Woods 7.30pm - Pegasus Theatre, Oxford

Friday August 7 FAMILY EVENTS - The Three Billy Goats Gruff 11am Corn Exchange, Newbury

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in Oxford

The critically acclaimed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels comes to the New Theatre Oxford from Tuesday August 4 to Saturday August 8.

This comes after it opened in the West End in March to rave reviews and packed houses. It’s based on the legendary 1988 film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin.

The show stars Michael Praed (the original Robin of Sherwood) as Lawrence, Noel Sullivan as Freddy, Carley Stenson as Christine and Mark Benton as Andre. They are joined by Geraldine Fitzgerald as Muriel.

Tony Award winning director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell said “I am thrilled that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will be taking to the road in the UK. I have no doubt that every city we visit will take this hilarious show to their hearts and will laugh and enjoy this musical as much as a

quarter of a million people who have already seen it so far have done”.

Prepare to be transported to the luxurious lap of the French Riviera where the decadent world of sophisticated conman Lawrence Jameson is set to come crashing down with the arrival of larger-than-life Freddy Benson – a conman of an entirely different order.

Soon realising the town ain’t big enough for the both of them, the two find themselves going head to head in the con of their lives, pulling out all of the stops in a bid for the affections of millionaire soap heiress Christine Colgate. Little do they know what they’ve let themselves in for.

Tickets can be purchased from the New Theatre box office on George Street, by ringing 0844 871 3020 or by visiting www.atgtickets.com/oxford

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Theatre

The Corn Exchange Newbury in a roundabout way...

For a limited time only, a pop-up festival is coming to the Corn Exchange in Newbury. Five days, four plays, one state-of-the-art 168 seat amphitheatre. Showcasing a repertory of work from the country’s hottest writers, The Roundabout Festival is unmissable. With a bear pit atmosphere, Roundabout is the most dynamic, most innovative, most essential new theatre in the country and is brought to Newbury by acclaimed touring theatre company Paines Plough. For times and ticket prices visit the website at www.cornexchangenew.com - Here’s the rundown of what’s on...

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 9 – SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12 THE HUMAN EAR An intriguing tale of loss, renewal and knowing who to trust from Fringe First Award winner Alexandra Wood.

A man turns up at Lucy’s door claiming to be the brother she hasn’t seen in 10 years. But why has he come? Is it really him? And what happens when there’s another knock at the door?

Forced to confront the messy inner workings of sibling love with its petty resentments, casual cruelty, profound betrayals and implicit understanding, can the bond between brother and sister be rebuilt?

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 10 EVERY BRILLIANT THING A unique interactive play about depression...

You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy.

So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for.

1. Ice Cream 2. Kung Fu Movies 3. Burning Things 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose 5. Construction cranes 6. Me A new play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love, involving members of the audience.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 9 – FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 11 LIVE & LYRICAL Share your talent in front of a live audience.

The Corn Exchange is providing a platform for local performers to share their talents in front of an audience, over a drink. Instrumentalists, singers, covers artists, singer songwriters, comedians and spoken word performers are all welcome Performers are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so book now!

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12 LUNGS What will be the first to destruct - the planet or their relationship? “I could fly to New York and back every day for seven years and still not leave a carbon footprint as big as if I have a child. Ten thousand tonnes of CO2.

That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.” A couple are deciding their future.

Thirty-something, educated and thoughtful, they want to have a child for the right reasons. But in a time of overpopulation, erratic weather and political unrest, what exactly are the right reasons?

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12 AND SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 13 OUR TEACHER’S A TROLL An outrageously funny play for young people. Two terrible twins with a talent for turmoil rule their school until the arrival of a new head teacher with green scaly skin, sharp gnarly fangs, and a long spiky tail…

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Theatre

Murder and mystery at Oxford Playhouse with The Mousetrap

The Mousetrap is famous around the world for being the longest running show in the history of British theatre. Don’t miss this legendary West End show at Oxford Playhouse for one week only.

Dubbed the ‘cleverest murder mystery of British theatre’ the whodunnit is so secret that the audience has to be sworn to secrecy before every performance.

The scene is set when a group of people gathered in a country house and cut off by the snow discover, to their horror, that there is a murderer in their midst. Who can it be? One by one the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts until, at the last nerve-shredding moment, the identity and the motive are finally revealed.

In her own inimitable style, Dame Agatha Christie creates an atmosphere of shuddering suspense and a brilliantly intricate plot where murder lurks around every corner.

The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has by far the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 25,000th performance taking place on 18 November 2012.

The play began life as a short radio play broadcast

on May 30 1947 called Three Blind Mice in honour of Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. The play had its origins in the real-life case of the death of a boy, Dennis O’Neill, who died while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.

It is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play, but Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London. The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.

In the United Kingdom, only one production of the play in addition to the West End production can be performed annually, and under the contract terms of the play, no film adaptation can be produced until the West End production has been closed for at least six months.

The play had to be renamed at the insistence of Emile Littler who had produced a play called Three Blind Mice in the West End before the Second World War. You can catch it at Oxford Playhouse from Monday August 17 to Saturday August 22 and you can book a ticket at www.oxfordplayhouse.com Not to be missed.

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Stornoway Stornoway get in the rhythm for Towersey Festival this month

Stornoway play Towersey Festival ... at long last!

Towersey Festival is nearly upon us and it’s looking good with Joan Armatrading, Bellowhead, Show of Hands and Oxford’s own Stornoway. The festival takes place from Friday August 28 to Monday August 31 at Thame Showground in Oxfordshire. You can get the full line-up at www.towerseyfestival.com - Anyway with all this in mind we managed to catch with Brian Briggs from Stornoway for a catch-up.

Since debuting in 2010 with the 100,000 selling Beachcomber’s Windowsill, Oxford’s Stornoway - Brian Briggs, Jonathan Ouin, Oli Steadman and Rob Steadman have continued to garner increasing praise for their inventive acoustic folk pop. Following the release of 2013’s Tales From Terra Firma, and it’s six track mini-LP/EP counterpart, You Don’t Know Anything, the quartet return with Bonxie (out now). The album features the sounds of around 20 different species of bird. Principle songwriter, guitarist and Doctor of Ornithology Brian Briggs tells us more.

The album’s title comes from a seabird, the great skua (Stercorarius skua), aka bonxie. Can you tell us a bit more about them?

They’re aggressive birds who feed by forcing other birds to give up their food. They’re kind of… parasites.

There’s a lot of interesting sounds on the album ...

Mostly British wildlife. On the first song, Between The Saltmarsh And The Sea, there’s a bit of foghorn there, and some Dark Bellied Brent Geese, who live in a saltmarsh habitat and spend their winters around Britain – I get a lot of them around here. The song is a metaphor for human relationships, and is told from the perspective of the saltmarsh and the sea tides as they come in and out.

Man On Wire features a New York soundscape, and is loosely based on Phillipe Petit, Lost Youth begins with a

Red Grouse, which makes this hiccuppy noise and there’s a blizzard at the beginning of Heart of The Great Alone, which is about Scott of the Antarctic. There’s also waves.

How did you get all that audio? Were you out there with a mic?

I don’t mean to disappoint but I didn’t record the bird sounds. It’s a real skill, something people devote their lives to, they’re very professional. I love birdsong. It’s a bit of an inspiration. The only sound we recorded was New York.

I would have had to have spent two year or more trying to get good recordings of those birds, so I get them from Xeno-Canto, which is used by a lot of bird recordists, who upload their recordings.

Why use these ‘found sounds’?

The idea of it was to immerse the listener in a landscape, and bring a bit of the outdoors in - and that can also be heard in our lyrics. We wanted people to feel like they were outdoors. Nature and the outdoors form a big part of the settings of our songs.

Bonxie (out now) was preceded by the track, Get Low, which has a pretty impressive video...

I’m really excited about [that]. We did it with imprinted geese – when they hatch the first thing they see is a human so they’ll follow you. We went to an airfield and were travelling at 40mph with these geese flying next to us –

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you could almost reach out and touch a goose as it was flying. It’s quite striking, that one. Get Low [is] one of the more poppier moments from the album. It was a co-write with Jon and it’s proved popular when we play it live.

The album is produced by Gil Norton, which is the first time you’ve worked with a producer, isn’t it?

Kind of ... though that’s not strictly true as we did oneand-a-half songs with a producer on the first album, but they took the role of an engineer more than a producer.

This time, we firstly wanted someone who had strong ideas on the tracks and on structure. We’d got quite used to doing things our way. That’d been good fun. But this time we wanted a step up from our comfort zones and having Gil there made us question our decisions, see things from a fresh perspective. The result is a more simpler, fresher sound, and we wanted to do something less dense, less layered. It’s still poppy … but it in an outdoorsy way. Gil is most famous for rock, but he had done a lot of things we liked, like Ed Harcourt and he’d worked with [the band] James and a few vaguely folk pop bands we like. His name popped up, he’d just done a rock album and he wanted to do something more folk, and we liked the idea of someone who could give more oomph to our record. [Because of his interests] we had less time to spend on strings and brass, so we had to fight to still make sure they were still included, as they were important to us, but it was a useful collision.

You had so many tracks left over after recording Tales From Terra Firma, you released the six-track mini-album/EP You Don’t Know Anything soon after. Did the Bonxie sessions result in another surplus of songs ... ?

We only recorded an album’s worth of tracks, we did all the narrowing down before we went in to do the record.

Last time, we recorded everything, which is why we had stuff left over. This time we were aware of the money spent on the studio, were every minute costs you money. We didn’t want to dwell on every moment so we did a lot of homework in advance, so it was definitely a faster process.

It took a year-and-a-half, which is pretty quick for us. We have got one or two tracks spare, and one of those will hopefully come out with the album – it just has a slightly different atmosphere to the rest – but there’s not enough for another EP. You Don’t Know Anything featured songs influenced by such other acts as Flaming Lips, Ray Charles, The Specials, Tom Waits, Beck, Teenage Fanclub, Gorillaz and Juluka; did you have any other bands in mind when working on Bonxie?

There’s a lot of musical influences between the four of us, such a range of music we listen to. Arrangement-wise, we have different bands in mind … we always have different artists in the corners of our mind. Heart of The Great Alone is quite a big sound, and we had Bjork in mind, with the synths but also the sweep of sound; Love Song Of The Beta Male we had a Phil Spector sound in mind; we thought about McAlmont and Butler for Man On Wire, the high strings, that grand pop sound. We work on each song as an

Stornoway

individual thing and reference the bands we love.

Where are you all based nowadays?

I’m in an Oxford band, but I live in South Wales [laughs]. I moved here to write this album. I wanted to go somewhere a bit wild and I quite like it. Jon’s still in Oxford, Oli’s between Oxford and London and Rob is currently in New York. He’s out there but tosand-fros, and will obviously be back for the shows.

After first playing there in the autumn of ’09,you returned to Oxford’s iconic Sheldonian Theatre back in November for two shows (3 & 13 Nov 2014) – how was the experience?

That was very exciting for us. We’d been there five years previously featuring the Oxford Millennium Orchestra, who we collaborated with on a bunch of songs. We did the scoring for orchestra … it was so exciting. And the building, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and has this painted ceiling! A real treat and playing to our longest serving fans … it was a great atmosphere. A thrill.

You’re following your spring tour with an appearance at Towersey Festival – a bit of a homecoming!

Yes. It’s our only Oxford show over the summer and the first time we’ve played the festival. It’s a bit of a legendary festival, so we’re really excited to get to play it at long last. We’re on the same night as Bellowhead, who are, of course, another ‘local act’.

We’ve played with them in the past and they are great. I’ve never been to Towersey before but I’ve heard about it many times. Hopefully, I’ll take the whole family as we have a couple of toddlers and we hear the festival is really family-friendly. We should have local fans coming and we’ll get some friends down too I’m sure – it’ll be great.

What do you have planned for Towersey?

We’ll be [playing] with a couple of extra musicians, a bit of brass, bit of strings. My brother comes out with us, and also plays keyboards, so we get our money’s worth out of him. There’ll be 6-7 of us at Towersey hopefully. The birdsong ... we’re going to be playing the field recordings to the audiences, the weirder sounds. They’ll be linking some of the songs and we’ll use them as walk-on music.

How have the new songs been going down so far?

Josephine has these close harmonies and sounds like a sea shanty thing – that’s been going down well live.

Overall, the record’s pop, but in disguise. The songs seem to quite quickly connect with people. * Stornoway appear at Towersey Festival on Saturday 29 August with Bellowhead. Other acts appearing include Joan Armatrading, Keston Cobblers’ Club, The Travelling Band, Show Of Hands, John Smith and Treacherous Orchestra. Tickets £135 (adult), £110 (conc), £96 (Youth), £55 (child; under 5s free). Adult Day Tickets from £30. www.towerseyfestival.com

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Live Music Trembling Bells come to The Cellar

Can you hear the Bells at The Cellar?

By Jessica McDonald Psychedelic rock group the Trembling Bells will be performing at The Cellar, Frewin Court, Oxford on Thursday August 6, after releasing their highly anticipated fifth album - The Sovereign Self.

The band consists of Lavinia Blackwell, Mike Hastings, Alasdair C Mitchell, Alex Neilson and Simon Shaw, all playing a range of instruments, as well as providing backing vocals for Blackwell (lead vocalist).

The Trembling Bells were formed in 2008, united by shared views and imagination on the Glasgow scene, as well as an interest in the Incredible String Band. Recently the band toured with ISB co-founder Mike Heron, playing the psych-folk hits from ISB’s songbook.

Influenced by psychedelia and early 70s progressive rock, the band’s music carries a sense of tension and is heavily emotional, to the point where Blackwell commented, “I find it physically and emotionally draining to sing these songs, because they are quite intense you have to put so much into them.”

Their almost nostalgic style leads the listener to believe they are from a different time - a band from decades before rather than in the much more electronic-pop based world of today.

The Sovereign Self is the first album since the release of The Marble Downs in 2012, and features a series of twenty portraits painted by Blackwell on the cover, ranging from Emily Dickinson to Lauren Bacall in a gallery of genius. The album itself is named after a line from the late television auteur Dennis Potter, another influence for their music.

Location is another key aspect to their songs, and Neilson calls for a romanticisation of places in Britain within music, the same way artists used country music and the blues to highlight the beauty of America. From his own thought, Neilson pointed out, “Scotland and Yorkshire, as well as Sussex and Cornwall have a strong allure for me, so this is a way to eulogise and elevate these places that have a very personal significance for me into the realm of myth and mystery.”

Their five critically acclaimed LPs over the six years they have been active, in addition to numerous side projects, show that the Trembling Bells are still going strong.

Their album, ‘The Sovereign Self’, will be released on June 29, and you can stream their latest single, ‘Killing Time in London Fields’ from August 3.

For more information on the band visit: www.tremblingbells.com

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This is New Music

Discovering the acts of tomorrow with our new music specialist Mark Muggeridge

This is... Clean Cut Kid Liverpool based four­piece Clean Cut Kid have given us a quirky indie­pop gem in the form of their debut track, Vitamin C. Strong vocals and solid songwriting draw the listener in whilst looped effects and overloaded amps spark our imagination on this distortion­ pedal driven rock inspired instant classic. Equally titillating is the accompanying video clip which stars actor JD Kelleher who delivers a virtuoso performance that Christopher Walken would be proud of. Clean Cut Kid’s music might be inspired by 80’s acts like Prefab Sprout and Fleetwood

Mac but Mike & Evelyn Halls, Saul Godman and Ross Higginson have brought those influences into the now with transatlantic verve.

I wonder if I can’t also hear the influence of Liverpool itself in their warehouse produced sounds reminding me as they did of fellow scousers, Wave Machines? Vitamin C is out on the band’s own Babe Magnet Records but bigger things beckon for this quartet so grab the 7” version of what is bound to become a collectors edition classic.

Key Tracks: 20 Years from Now, Vitamin C cleancutkid.co.uk

This is... Luke Potter This ambitious young songwriter has been steadily growing his monster sized fanbase for several years now. He first came to our attention in 2011 but with his current single, Do You Love Me (Yet) he’s set to break through to mainstream pop audiences. Luke’s standout vocals and highly commercial style is going to appeal to audiences on radio around the world and we might be about to see and hear this very thing happen; over the next few month Luke intends to drop a number of singles online with the

help of the Hard Rock organisation.

If they have the heartthrob appeal of Do You Love Me then you can expect his already sizable audience to grow and space to be made on teen bedroom walls everywhere as fans ready for their next hero decide they #LoveLukePotter. He’s already been name checked with global smash­hit artists such as Savage Garden’s Darren Hayes so the UK could have its next big break­out pop star. Key Tracks: Do You Love Me (Yet) & There it Goes Again lukepottermusic.com

This is... Misty Miller I featured Misty Miller here a couple of years ago; since then this feisty star has grown her style into a fun­ loving, danger filled kind of rock that will appeal to fans of Icona Pop and Joan Jett alike. It’s no surprise that her celeb fans include Jake Bugg, Kate Nash and Charli XCX as she crosses authentic songwriting with a raw sound and her rowdy girl­gang pop­punk image. Radio 1 got on­board with her current single Happy, which was out late last month, in a big way and 6 Music chipped in too with a few spins. Word is that Misty can cut it on the live scene too and that her show is an atom bomb of fearless attitude. She’s been out on the road with acts like Jamie T and Fat White Family, Television and Eels wowing their tough to please audiences.

A recent show at London’s taste­ making Notting Hill Arts Club saw fans posting joyously of drowning in a sweat of enthusiasm - so the live show’s one to see then! Happy is out now and Misty is on the road until September. Key Tracks: Happy and Best Friend MistyMiller.com

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Groovers on Manouevres

Dave Franklin is our man about town when it comes to the music scene. This month he looks at White Lilac.

Three quarters of White Lilac have always had problems with looking directly at the camera.

Welcome to the dream world of White Lilac

By Dave Franklin White Lilac has come a long way in a short space of time, not least musically. With Faye Rogers’s early solo work now a distant yet charming memory, the band that formed in that chapter of the story now help her head down a more mesmerizing path.

I’m guessing that the moment you realise that the sound you have imagined in your head for so long is now achievable with the people that you have around you, must be the moment when anything seems possible.

First single, Night Visions, was a brilliant statement of intent and immediately disassociated the new band from Faye’s earlier work and saw them take up camp in a cinematic indie soundscape of mist and shadows, as much a modern, ambient gothic film score as a song in the mainstream sense.

And yet as if to prove that they hadn’t put all of their musical eggs into one basket, what followed was even

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more heart achingly beautiful.

Working with a sound palette that roams between Joy Division’s angular melancholy and Cocteau Twins dreamscapes, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower shows that even within those parameters they find plenty of room to create a truly unique sound.

A homage to Audrey Hepburn seems the perfect subject matter for the band, both lyrically and musically and the gradual phasing in of Faye’s saxophone is perfect here to create a sonorous Parisian vibe.

Strings sweep, vocals swoon, beats act as occasional punctuation marks and guitar lines merely provide a bed for delicate atmospherics to lie down on.

If there is one band around today making a truly unique sound then it is White Lilac, the fact that it happens to be one of the most emotive and evocative you have ever heard is an added bonus. fb/WhiteLilacMusic

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Gig Monkey Gig Monkey, AKA Ed Dyer, is a primate on a mission to discover as much quality original music as possible. Send your reviews to ed@secretchordrecords.com

Gig Monkey at the Swindon Shuffle 2015 SN Dubstation shuffling along

The Kings of The Castle Okay, we know it’s not Oxford or Newbury! But Swindon’s on your doorstep. Give it a chance!

Whilst I shuffled all over the place at this year’s event, and bore witness to some fantastic performances (shout outs to Phil Dean, All Ears Avow, 2 Sick Monkeys, Super Squarecloud and Aural Candy in particular, and especially Cursor Major, who were unreal) something rather special happened at one session in particular. So I thought I would spend this year’s review focusing on it as it could signify that important changes in the local music scene are ahead.

It is no secret that Swindon’s music scene has its ups and downs, and in recent years had been experiencing a dearth of young bands on the scene, which was something

of a worry. Therefore, I am very pleased to be able to report that, based on the evidence of events at The Castle on Saturday July 18 2015 - a date to go down in history - the drought appears to be over and things are starting to take an exciting upward turn.

Openers Westways are a fairly new Swindon band of teenagers playing a punky brand of indie pop that has a few rough edges that should soon get polished off. They even dealt with a lost guitarist, drafting in a substitute for the first song - hardly noticed too. A cracking high energy start to the show, and a band with the basics in place who could develop into something great.

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Gig Monkey Sahara Heights played with reckless abandon

As much as this is a review of a bright new dawn to Swindon music, anything that it can do, so can Oxford, as following up were the quite brilliant Balloon Ascents, who are mature beyond their years and exude the kind of professionalism that most bands I have met have yet to achieve. The music was more atmospheric and low key than Westways, a slick indie-pop, smart and melancholic with clever beats and sweet little grooves, sparkling melodies and some delightful acoustic soul. The delivery was as smart as the sounds, and they seemed so at home on stage and with their music you would be forgiven for thinking they were 10 year circuit veterans.

Mightily impressive stuff from a band I cannot wait to see progress.

Indie music can be a pretty dour thing sometimes, so it is refreshing to see a young band like Sahara Heights have so much bloody fun. They blasted into their set with a gusto I rarely see these days, throwing themselves around with reckless abandon and generally having as good a time as they could. Their upbeat music is underpinned by seriously impressive bass grooves that thunder along, giving the songs a life and dynamism I haven’t seen in such a young band. In short, these guys were here to party, and they had the tunes to do it.

By the time SN Dubstation squeezed onto the stage the room was packed to capacity and filled with a fervour and anticipation rarely witnessed at Swindon gigs. The environment by this point was stifling. I reckon the amount of other peoples sweat I breathed in could be measured by the pint, which was a pretty paltry amount it turned out, as when the band blasted into their set the room went crazy. When I say crazy, I mean completely Arkham Asylum crazy with people skanking on the furniture and flinging themselves around in the

crush as best they could. The levels of atmospheric perspiration went off the scale, breathing became hard, surfaces slippery and every movement was a massive effort in the crushing humidity and humanity, yet the room couldn’t have been happier and there was no way anyone was going to be stopped from moving to the music by something as trifling as the conditions.

All of this however, was nothing compared to what was going on up on the stage where somehow all eight musicians in the band had squeezed onto the tiny space.

You really couldn’t swing a gerbil, let alone a cat, but, carried away by the electric atmosphere and with a burning desire to party hard the band skanked, danced and moved as if they were at Wembley, the keyboards bouncing around like a Citroen 2CV on a farm track and the bass guitar and trombone threatening to take somebody’s teeth out. Somehow they got through unscathed, barring some soaked clothing that would probably be best thrown away. They were possibly a few stone lighter collectively but managed to play out of their skins at the same time.

The sound engineer had by some miracle managed to get it all sounding gloriously huge in trying circumstances, and this combination of performance and sound, allied to the exuberance of the bands material and the willingness of the audience to join in created a musical perfect storm that ensured this will be one of those nights that gets talked about in reverent tones for years to come.

I was there witnessing something truly special happen, a new dawn. If you weren’t, the Shuffle returns next year to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The organisers have got a host of huge ideas up their sleeves, so don’t make the same mistake again.

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Gig List

Friday July 31 to Sunday August 2 Cornerstone 7th Annual Beer & Music Festival Cornerstone Arts Centre, 25 Station Road, Didcot Saturday August 1 Fused 9pm - Fat Lil’s, Corn Street, Witney Cornered and Luxury 7pm - O2 Academy, Cowley Road, Oxford Tuesday August 4 Hollywood Ending 7pm - O2 Academy, Cowley Road, Oxford

in association with Wychwood Brewery www.wychwood.co.uk Thursday August 6 Jay Electronica 7pm - O2 Academy, Cowley Road, Oxford

Saturday August 15 Shepherd’s Pie 8pm - Fat Lil’s, 64A Corn St, Witney

Friday August 7 Freefall 9pm - Fat Lil’s, Corn Street, Witney

Thursday August 20 Steve Harris – British Lion 7pm - O2 Academy, Cowley Road, Oxford

Saturday August 8 New music Competition 7:30 pm - Corn Exchange, Market Place, Newbury

Saturday August 29 Layla Tutt + Pipeline + Crime 8.20pm - The Wheatsheaf, High Street, Oxford

Thursday August 13 Debbie Bond 8pm - Fat Lil’s, Corn Street, Witney

Sunday August 30 Monthly Blues Jam 3pm - Fat Lil’s, 64A Corn St, Witney

Billy Boy Arnold at Arlington Arts Centre

Billy Boy Arnold

Arlington Arts Centre at Mary Hare School in Newbury has got a little treat in store for you next month in the form of Billy Boy Arnold.

William “Billy Boy” Arnold, who was born in1935, is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.

Born in Chicago, he began playing harmonica as a child, and in 1948 received informal lessons from his near neighbour John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, shortly before the latter’s death. Arnold made his recording debut in 1952 with “Hello Stranger” on the small Cool label, the record company giving him the nickname “Billy Boy”.

In the early 1950s, he joined forces with street musician Bo Diddley and played harmonica on the March 2, 1955 recording of the Bo Diddley song “I’m a Man” released by

Checker Records.

Arnold signed a solo recording contract with VeeJay Records, recording the originals of “I Wish You Would” and “I Ain’t Got You”. Both were later covered

by The Yardbirds. “I Wish You Would” was also recorded by David Bowie on his 1973 album Pin Ups and by Sweet on their 1982 album, Identity Crisis.

Anyway from the early Nineties to now he’s had a bit of resurgence and in 2014 was even nominated for a Blues Music Award in the ‘Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year’ category.

You can catch him in Newbury on Thursday September 3 when teams up with The Animals and Friends. Definitely not one to miss.

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Festival List Friday July 31 to Saturday August 8 #Generation Z Corn Exchange, Market Place, Newbury

Fri August 21 to Sun August 23 Rewind Festival Temple Islands Meadow, Henley

Thursday August 6 to Sunday August 9 Fieldview Festival Seagry, near Chippenham

Saturday August 22 Avebury Rocks Avebury

Wilderness Festival Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire

Fri August 28 to Sun August 30 Big Feastival Alex James’ Farm, Kingham, The Cotswolds including Paloma Faith

Friday August 7 to Sunday August 9 Follyfest Faringdon, Oxfordshire Saturday August 8 Pewsey Music Festival Coopers Field, Pewsey, Wiltshire Thurs August 13 to Sat August 15 Cropredy Festival Cropredy, Oxfordshire Fri August 14 to Sun August 16 White Horse Folk Festival Grove near Wantage

Saturday August 29 Tadstock Kencot Hill Farm, GL7 3QY including Dry The River Sun August 30 to Mon August 31 Devizes International Street Festival Devizes

Reading Festival Richfield Avenue, Reading Marlborough Beer Festival Marlborough Rugby Club, The Common including music from The Lurkers + The Chaos Brothers + Mule + Mick O’Toole Fri August 28 to Mon August 31 Towersey Festival Thame Showground, Oxfordshire including Bellowhead + Joan Armatrading + Show of Hands + Stornoway

The Chaos Brothers will be joining The Boys from County Hell

I Said Yes... to hayfever

Heddstock 2015 Heddstock is a new family music festival set in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside in Heddington, near Calne.

It’s a non profit making event raising money for the Heddington Amenites Committee.

The event organisers are headed up by Tony Green & Dave Young both original members of local band The Boys From County Hell.

It takes place on Saturday September 26 from 2pm to 10:30pm.

Tickets cost £8 in advance, £5 for under-12s and Under 5’s go for free.

The line-up includes Nuttyness - The UK’s top Madness tribute, SN

Dubstation - an amazing dub reggae band, Creme De Chevre - experts in crazy mash-ups, Case Hardin - Americana/ country played at its highest standard, The Chaos Brothers - on their 30th anniversary tour, Josie & the The Outlaw – the best female fronted rockabilly act around and The Boys From County Hell - who are reforming the original line-up for a special show.

There will be loads of food and drink including a VW camper that turns into a cocktail bar.

Get tickets from www.seetickets.com and visit fb/heddstock for more info.

I Said Yes to Pewsey Critically acclaimed folk pop band I Said Yes have joined this year’s Pewsey Music Festival in Coopers Field, Pewsey, which takes place on Saturday August 8.

The act, who have already supported Stornoway and Florence and the Machine has been championed by Xfm and The Guardian.

The headliner this year is the ever popular Jon Amor but they’ve got a plethora of other

confirmed quality acts including reggae band The Erin Bardwell Collective, alt rock band Invisible Vegas, guitar geniuses The Showhawk Duo, country rock n roll band The August List as well as Fragile - a Yes tribute.

Tickets are available via the website and the festival’s Facebook page at £10 in advance and £15 on the day.

For tickets and info visit www.pewseymusicfestival.org

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Festivals Newbury’s Dry The River mostly turn away from Russell Brand

Tadstock 2015 Tadstock Saturday August 29 Kencot Hill Farm, GL7 3QY www.tadstock.co.uk Set in the heart of the picturesque Cotswolds and uniquely powered by solar energy, Tadstock will take place on Saturday August 29.

Headlining this year’s festivities on the main “Earth Stage” - (built out of the materials its name suggests) are critically acclaimed, British folk-rock band Dry The River.

Having spent the year touring across America they will be performing songs from their debut and latest album “Alarms In The Heart”.

The band will be supported by a strong local line-up, with Ukey Dukes, King Soloman and Julia Harris, Awfully Nice, Grand Wa Zoo and Gigi St Philips all confirmed to play.

When the live music stops, the after hours party and fun begins with various DJ’s turning sets in the woods.

Away from the main-stage, Tadstockers will have the chance to sample locally sourced food and produce, with ‘Shabbanackle’ and ‘Ciderwagon’ on hand to keep the hunger and thirst at bay.

Children’s entertainment comes courtesy of Junkfish and the grounds will play host to various forms of alternative entertainment including music production workshops, yoga, break dancing and graffiti.

What’s more, the whole festival is powered by

renewable energy!

Born in 2005 as a space for local family and friends to commune, Tadstock has quietly grown to embrace a wider community of creative people who gather to share a love for great music, art and entertainment.

Since partnering with Cheltenham based charity, CCP, who exist to improve the lives of children, young people, families and vulnerable adults; and their music driven initiative, Studio340, Tadstock plays an important part in the transformation of young lives from within the local and surrounding area. Whilst the festival welcomes friends, families and music lovers from all walks of life, Tadstock gives young people supported by CCP the opportunity to showcase their musical talent and expand their knowledge and experience in a safe, inspirational and encouraging environment.

Free car parking and camping with shower facilities are offered across the weekend to all ticket holders and with stunning views of the Oxfordshire countryside on your tent step, there is no doubt you’ll be coming back, next year.

A pre-launch event and BBQ will be held at The Frog and Fiddle in Cheltenham on Sunday August 9.

For further information and to buy tickets online visit www.tadstock.co.uk.

Tickets are priced at £25 per adult and between £510 for children aged 6-15.

Kids under 5 go free and family rates are available as well.

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Brewery Bird

The Biggest Pub In The World!

Or the smallest people in the world! You decide!

The Beer Column by Brewery Bird Back in 1975 when Brewery Bird was just a fledgling, a beery event was taking place in Covent Garden which was the forerunner to what we know today as the Great British Beer Festival.

40,000 people came to that four-day event, consuming around 150,000 pints of real ale – although the beer choice would have been a lot different to the staggering variety we see today. Just 141 breweries were producing ale in 1975, compared to the 1285 listed as brewing commercially this year!

A bit of history The first proper GBBF was held in 1977 at Alexandra Palace (records are sadly lacking as to how many actually attended, but we can assume at least as many as in 1975, probably more). The years that followed saw it move to locations in Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton and in 1991 back to London, this time at the Docklands Arena. And London is where it has remained since, held either Olympia or Earl’s Court; both locations able to hold the 65,000 + strong crowd of drinkers who attend over the 4.5 days.

A Lot Of Going On, Going On… There’s a lot more to the GBBF than just necking beer – although this does feature heavily. Tuesday morning features the much revered Champion Beer of Britain (CBOB) judging, where industry experts are asked to ‘blind taste’ a number of beers in a variety of categories with the aim of establishing category winners and from there, the overall Champion Beer.

Tuesday afternoon is known as the ‘trade session’, reserved strictly for media and those working in the

brewing and licensed industry. It’s a time to make new acquaintances, establish professional links and hopefully ‘do a bit of business’ over a beer or two.

At 5pm, the world’s biggest pub finally opens its doors to thousands of thirst punters. And my, are they thirsty! In 2006, GBBF set a record attendance when over 66,000 people came to the festival – over 350,000 pints of beer were consumed over the 5 days, equating to a pint of beer being consumed EVERY second!!

Aside from beer there’s a variety of food stands, live music most sessions, tombola and ‘pub games’ and even tutored tasting sessions (ticketed).

Everyone is welcome Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually have to sport a beard, beer belly or dodgy dress sense to enjoy this spectacle of beer. In fact, you don’t have to know anything about beer at all! There are plenty of people there to help you choose the right beers for you, from GBBF staff to brewers; and if beer doesn’t float your boat then there’s a multitude of ciders, perries and even foreign beers which might.

Tips to Enjoy The Day • Make sure you drink plenty of water as well as beer…. and remember to eat!

• Third pint glasses are also available, which are ideal for sampling lots of different beer •Try something new – don’t just stick you your usual bitter, or porter. You might surprise yourself!

GBBF Dates for 2015 are Tuesday August 11 to Saturday August 15 and you can find out more information from the website at gbbf.org.uk

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Food and Drink

Salade niçoise

By Ocelot Food Columnist Dave Stewart There are probably as many variations of this recipe as there are baguettes in France, but after years of trial and error, this is the version I’ve found to be the tastiest. The basil is the key- it just elevates everything. The type of fish is of course entirely optional – though tuna (canned, jarred or fresh) are the most common, this salad works equally well with some pan fried mackerel, salmon or a scattering of anchovies. For a vegetarian version just leave the fish out altogether, it’ll still taste good.

First of all, you need to make the dressing. This is a simple ‘French’ dressing made with 1 small finely crushed garlic clove, 3 tsp salt, 3 tsp caster sugar, 4 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 tsp ground white pepper, 8 tbsp white wine vinegar, 12 tbsp walnut oil, 12 tbsp groundnut oil – simply combine those ingredients in an old jam jar, screw on the lid and shake well until emulsified. Taste – it should be strong in flavour, tangy, garlicy and mustardy. You’ll probably only need about 2/3rds of the dressing you just made, but any leftovers will keep in the fridge for a good couple of weeks – and will pair perfectly with any sort of salad or sandwich filling.

Now, you just need to prepare and assemble your ingredients. First, blanch 200g trimmed green beans, cut them in half, and leave them to cool. Using the same hot water, now boil 1 egg and 3-4 baby potatoes (the

smallest you can find, and boil them unpeeled and whole as they always taste so much better) per diner. Once cooked and cooled, slice the potatoes and egg. Now, toss 250g or so of cooked tuna (I used the jarred albacore kind, it works a treat here) in a bowl with a little of the dressing you made, and leave to sit whilst you finish everything else. Slice 1 raw green pepper into small strips, and rinse and de-stone 125g Moroccan-style dry black olives. Wash 300g ripe cherry tomatoes, halving a few of the larger ones but leaving most whole. Finally, wash and very roughly chop 1 small head mini cos lettuce (100g or so), and roughly the same amount of a baby leaf mixed salad (some combo of red chard, spinach, lamb’s lettuce etc) and a small pack of basil (28g), pull off the basil from any large stalks, but keep the leaves whole for the salad. nicon Here’s where it differs from a normal salad, you want this to be very loose and deconstructed (not pre-mixed in a salad bowl) so don’t even assemble it until just before eating. You also want to go easy on the dressing initially – your diners can always add more to taste. To assemble the nicoise salad– add a layer of the lettuce, baby leaves and basil, add a little dressing, then add a layer of the veg - green beans, green pepper, olives, tomatoes, potatoes- dress this layer lightly, then top the salad with the egg slices and tuna. Dress again, and serve.

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Food and Drink

Tomato And Basil Tart With Mara Seaweed Seasoning

By Ocelot Food Columnist Dave Stewart The secret ingredient sounds crazy, but it really works!

A very simple puff-pastry tart that’s bursting with great flavours of ripe tomato, basil, sharp tangy goat’s cheese and that all important mystery ingredient - the Mara Dulse seaweed!

It’s used here as a seasoning, so you don’t really taste the seaweed as a vegetable in its own right, but it works in the background and adds a real depth of umami

flavour that takes this tart from the realm of so-so to the utterly unctuous.

If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you could of course make your own puff pastry, but the store bought ones are so good now I’m the first to admit I just can’t tell the difference (not the case with shortcrust though...!). The tart can be served warm or cold, and goes great with some buttered, skin-on boiled baby potatoes and a tangy coleslaw, or some crusty bread and a green salad.

Ingredients to serve Six 1 tbsp (heaped) of Mara dulse Seaweed flakes - 700 g perfectly ripe Tomatoes (any kind, any colour - I used a mixture of plum and cherry), sliced - 1 small bunch of Basil Leaves (about 30g or so - use a bit of the stalk too) - 2 peeled Garlic cloves - 100 g Goat’s Cheese or any other sharp, soft cheese. Boursin would also work. - 1 packet Puff Pastry Extra Virgin Olive Oil , to drizzle Step 1 First of all, Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl, toss the tomato slices with the seaweed flakes, and leave them to rest for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, bash the garlic, basil and a generous pinch of salt and black pepper in a pestle and mortar. Once it’s a green paste, mix it into the soft cheese.

Step 2 Roll out the pastry to a large rectangle, about 30x 20cm, and lay this carefully on a baking sheet large enough to house it. Then, with a spatula, spread the cheese evenly all over, leaving a small border of pastry at the sides. Roll up/tuck in these sides just a little, to provide a ‘frame’ for the tomatoes.

Step 3 Scatter the tomatoes and a little of their juices evenly all over the top (you’ll probably have quite a lot of juices, but don’t use them all as this could make the base go soggy, but do save the juices) and drizzle with extra black pepper and olive oil. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the tomatoes have shriveled and charred a little, and the pastry is golden.

Step 4 Leave the tart to cool for 10 minutes, then slice up into squares. Just before serving you can add a few more of the juices if you wish, else mix them with a little olive oil and serve some crusty bread on the side.

And eat!

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International Pan of Mystery Jackfruit

What a little beauty of a fruit this is. It’s sweet-butrobust, fibrous flesh is as intriguing as it is useful to the adventurous cook.

Native to India, the fruit is used commonly these days all over southern Asia, whether partnering fluffy, steamed idlis in sweet-and-sour-esque sauces or perfuming desserts, pancakes or ice creams.

It also gets the freeze-dried treatment, which renders it into a sort of ‘crisp’, where it takes its savoury place alongside that other popular Keralan snack, banana chips (today’s top tip – if you ever need to impress an Indian ‘auntie’, buy her some banana chips and consider your job done!).

As with a lot of exotic fruit, decent specimens are hard

to come by in the UK – but the tinned variety (in both sweet syrups and savoury brines) are easy to find in Asian stores.

Whereas usually I’d be joining you in scoffing at such a compromise, the tinned, briney jackfruit segments are an unbelievably useful ingredient – the slightly unripe, fibrous chunks stand up well to stir frying with all sorts of powerful flavours, which they gleefully suck up like a sponge.

And, after a few minutes cooking and ‘breaking up’ with a trusty wooden spoon, you’ll be left with something that, quite astonishingly, has both the look and texture of pulled pork, a delicious filling ready to stuff all manner of dumplings, tacos, baked potatoes and crusty breads.

International Beer Day - August 7

Louis Max Pouilly Fuissé

A day to celebrate beer. Most of us are thankful for beer every day. We don’t need a day to celebrate it.

In fact having a day to celebrate beer actually might have a negative effect as what are we supposed to do for the other 364 days in a year celebrate shandy?

Okay for once we thought we would raid the fine wine section of the supermarket just to see what the fuss is about.

In our quest to quench our palate on the reasurringly expensive we came across this lovely little number in Sainsbury’s going for about £19.99.

As a big Macon and Chablis fan I’m not completely ignorant of a good burgundy and this wine doesn’t disappoint with a refreshing crispy dryness that makes you want to drink more and more. There were hints of oak plus a sweetness that lies just out of your reach.

Wine is like meat. If you go cheap you get cheap but the more it costs the better it is.

Anyway, National Hangover Day swiftly follows on Saturday August 8. We recommend more beer.

Hair of the dog?

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Agony Girl Eight year old Annabel has been answering your questions for four years now. But she’s still a bit mad. We ask her the questions and these are her honest answers.

Dear Annabel, I’m not very good at making friends. I find that when I meet new people I become tongue-tied and unable to make myself look interesting. This shyness is really becoming a problem and is holding me back in life. What can I do about it?

Michelle, Newbury When you see that person coming to talk to you, you’ve got to think what to do and spit out the words that you need to.

You could practice talking to yourself in the mirror. You’ve just got to make sure you don’t argue with yourself though.

Dear Annabel, The other day I tested this by trying to think of a colour that didn’t already exist, I came up with combinations of colours but I could not come up with an entirely original colour. This made me think that we are restricted to what we know to some degree, no matter how open minded we may think ourselves to be. Is it possible to have an entirely original thought? And can you come up with an original colour?

Darren, Salisbury Purple! And people can have original thoughts. I’m thinking of lots of tropical fish in the coral. Fish swimming around in the ocean and then a big shark is coming and all the fishies swim away and hide. When the shark swims out of the coral reef all the fishies come out of their places and swim around again. There. That’s original.

Dear Annabel, My boyfriend isn’t very sensitive and keeps saying things about me that really upset. He even told me the other day that we weren’t even a couple despite the fact that I’ve been standing outside his bedroom window every night for the past six months and that I follow him everywhere

Annabel urm.. being Annabel

he goes and that he’s married with four children.

How can I get him to respect me and treat me as his girlfriend? He’s got a rather tasty looking bunny that I could boil. Maybe that will help. Please advise, Glenn, Stratton Just dump him. Leave the bunny though. Find someone that’s a superhero and then fly around!

Dear Annabel, Have you ever read the Da Vinci Code? If not, why not? And what books do you read instead?

Dan, Headington Never heard of it. I read Splat The Cat and ones about fairies. I believe in fairies.

Dear Annabel, I like doggies. Do you?

Steve, Witney Any doggie that sees me always sniffs me. Poppy tries to ride my leg but I’m always like ‘Poppy! No!’ and I’m always running away. I don’t like it. But then when she’s more rested I play fetch with her but she won’t stop playing fetch and keeps coming back again and again. And then she tries to ride my leg again.

Twisted Peel (twistedpeel.thecomicstrip.org )

By Peter Roy

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