Hoaring himself around

A new year, a new decade, a new dawn, some new potatoes (with roast chicken and peas, I think) and a new blog to share with you both. My chum John Hoare will be spilling his guts and speaking his branes at Transistorized. Expect porn, scatology and trenchant analyses of near-forgotten Thames sitcoms. While we're here, John's other half, Tanya Jones, runs a splendid blog called Gypsy Creams, which highlights embarrassing and baffling adverts from 1960s and 1970s women's magazines. While the rampant sexism of many of the ads is unintentionally funny, my favourites are the hideous recipes made with the ingredients of what was then regarded as progress - frozen crap, canned vomit, desiccated piss in a sachet, etc. Now, I love mash, and I love corned beef (especially in a crusty roll with pickle - a favourite from the EMI canteen at Hayes when I was researching my first book), but you'd need to drug me and hog-tie me to make me go anywhere near corned beef Alaska.