Futtocks

You must wonder how much work a Fabien Barthez, Oliver Skeete or Charlie Dimmock lookalike is getting week in, week out, these days.

To be honest, I don't have gas, but I'd continue tweaking and monitoring until it looks stable. Then check it every now and then.

You'd need an accurate and responsive thermometer, especially at first (when bringing up to the required temperature). But that's only if it is really crucial for it to be a precise, unwavering heat. Otherwise, your average oven's heat settings would probably be good enough for most purposes.

What to buy the person who has everything but good taste. Enjoy the customer reviews.

Coolish breeze, hot sun here in Waltham Abbey.

Burt Bacharach & Ronald Isley - Here I am

Can be a bit of a lottery, what with the past practice of using reground vinyl. More recent re-pressings tend to be good quality jobs, as the vinyl market has begun to expand again, after the wilderness years.

I don't look for collectables; just music that interests me. Which is, at least, a cheaper version of the hobby. My local second-hand shop always has a rack just for new arrivals, so you hit that first, before browsing the rest of his stock.

From the second-hand shop on Saturday: Jeff Wayne - The War of the Worlds Jimmy Cliff - In Concert Blondie - Plastic Letters Miriam Makeba - In Concert Isley Brothers - Harvest for the World

Had my first listen to 'Malpensa', The Nits' new album last night. Much less acoustic content than their previous two or three releases, with interesting sounds and textures all over the place. The first impression was that there were slightly too many songs in plain vanilla 4/4 though. A complex album that I'm sure will reward repeated listening.

Otters who look like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Playlist from Saturday afternoon (some selected manually, some from shuffle play): Van Morrison - Ringworm Mos Def - Umi Says Swing out Sister - Breakout The Triffids - Holy Water Cold Chisel - Letter to Alan k.d.lang - Don't Smoke in Bed Lambchop - Gone Tomorrow Reckless Fable - Western Vacation Burt Bacharach & Ronald Isley - Alfie Ismael Lo - Without Blame (feat. Marianne Faithfull) Mick Ronson - White Light/White Heat Tommy Bolin - Sweet Burgundy Jackson Browne - The Pretender Bob James - Angela (Theme from 'Taxi') Henk Hofstede - Naar Bed Jeffrey Foskett - Fish! The Leisure Society - The Last Of The Melting Snow Robert Palmer - Sneakin' Sally through the Alley Fleet Foxes - Mykonos Matt Kelly - Dangerous Relations Phish - Ghost Phoenix - If I Feel Better Steve Earle - Satellite Radio Zulu Spear - Chin Up ABC - When Smokey sings Buckwheat Zydeco - Beast of Burden Dion - King of the New York Streets Hugh Masekela - Stimela (The Coal Train) Alison Krauss & Union Station - There is a Reason Alvin 'Youngblood' Hart - Tallacatcha Baby Animals - One Word Buddy Miller - Worry too much The Delfonics - Ready or not, here I come Charles & Eddie - Would I lie to you? En Vogue - Hold on Donald Byrd - Blackbyrd Wayne Toups & Zydecajun - Two Step Mamou Jerry Garcia & David Grisman - Grateful Dawg godspeed you black emperor! - The Dead Flag Blues Greezy Wheels - Clean but unshaven Ernest Ranglin - Three Pope (feat. Monty Alexander) The Leisure Society - Pancake Day Jack McManus - Bang on the Piano Golden Smog - Keys Janis Ian - Tattoo Fun lovin' Criminals - Up on the Hill King's X - The Difference (In the Garden of St Anne's-on-the-Hill) Holger Czukay - Persian Love The Monkees - Circle Sky Jeff Beck - People get ready (feat. Rod Stewart) Liam O'Maonlai & Eddi Reader - Across the Universe (Live) Michael Franti & Spearhead - Oh my God Phantom Limb - Last Chance Saloon Tiny Tim - My Community Maggie Reilly - Moonlight Shadow Robert Ward & the Ohio Untouchables - Your Love Is Real Sparklehorse & Dangermouse - Just War (featuring Gruff Rhys) Roger Chapman - Oh Brother, take me!

Lamont Dozier - The ABC Years & Lost Sessions Earth, Wind & Fire - I am Bakelite Radio - Vol.2 Donald Fagen - The Nightfly

That's the one. Although it's more "barely-simmer-in-the-bag".

Nothing simpler - about 2 minutes' preparation, a few more minutes in the frying pan, then you can leave the slow cooker to do its thing while you get on with your life. I've also done spare ribs in a barbecue marinade by this method, and that really works well too.

Yesterday I cooked a shoulder of lamb in a sort of sous-vide method, which was fab. First I gave the meat a going-over with a skewer, then seasoned and seared it in a frying pan. The meat was then rubbed with smoked paprika and Sainsbury Moroccan spice mix. Then I sealed it in a plastic food bag, sucking out as much air as possible and popped it into water in the slow cooker for about 1 hour on 'full' and 5 hours on 'low'. I finished it in a regular oven for about 30 minutes, roasting it along with various diced root vegetables. While that was cooking, I reduced the lamb juices with some red wine to make a gravy, using the occasional spoonful to baste the meat. The result was rich, tender and delicious.

I thought it might be something like that - it didn't look like any production turntable I'm familiar with. Mine's a bog-standard NAD 533 (effectively a re-badged Planar 2) with a Rega Elys cartridge and running through a Cambridge phono stage. It sounds pretty good for what it is. I was going to upgrade to something better this month, but my new laptop and DAC used up the available funds. Next year...

What make of turntable is that?

I dug around in the snarl of cables last night and found something to hook up my DVD Recorder to the V-DAC. I then played a recoded episode of 'The Transatlantic Sessions'. Very nice.

Movies from an alternate Universe.

Facts you have just found out, but are useless for anything apart from posting on this thread #243: Liverpool FC's masseur is Sylvan Richardson, former guitarist with Simply Red.

Okay; the V-DAC II is a smart-looking, if utilitarian devoce, about the size of a thickish paperback book. Installing was a breeze. I had already installed WASAPI to bypass Windows internal mixer, which makes a big difference to sound quality on its own. First up: Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man. WOW! Stunning sound - voices right there in the room. Then a bit of lo-fi, with an MP3 of the stereo mix of 'River deep, Mountain high'. Improvements were found here too, with more detail revealed from what is only a 128k file. The power chords of Bowie's 'Moonage Daydream' had startling impact and the subterranean bass from Bela Fleck's 'Flight of the Cosmic Hippo' was deep and natural-sounding. This is a definite step up from my previous DAC. Computer audio for reasonable money and zero-fuss installation has come of age. Happy days.

The DAC will mainly be used via the USB input from my laptop (I have about 500 gigabytes of music on an external hard drive), but my DVD recorder has a digital output, so I could use it to enhance my TV/DVD viewing too. My old DAB tuner had a toslink connection - I may dig it out and give that a try, although reception was dodgy last time I used it. My current DAB only has analogue outputs.

Tonight, I will* be listening via a brand new Musical Fidelity V-DAC II, which arrived in the post this morning. It should be an upgrade on my existing DAC**, as it has an asynchronous USB input and upsampling, plus coaxial and optical inputs, so I can hook up other digital sources too. *assuming installation is as simple as it is supposed to be, that is. **already sounding pretty good, but limited to CD-quality bitrates and a single adaptive input.

Blimey, I've only just got Windows 7!