If you still haven't decided what to do with your crop of quinces this year (and God knows, we've agonised), then help is at hand! K and I are here to tell you how to convert your quinces into "membrillo": a delicious paste, which can be enjoyed with cold meats and cheeses.

K says that you'll need to set aside about an hour for the main work - but I think you'll need a little longer than that, as we got all the way through Joe.My.God's "morning music" playlist, and the first half of the Bugz In The Attic album.

You will need: quinces, caster sugar, cinnamon sticks (optional).

1. First, gather your quinces. You can safely discard the tiny knobbly runty yellow ones; they're neither use nor ornament.

2. As quince-washing is too dreary a task for the likes of you or me to contemplate, why not get a well-meaning visitor or house-guest to "volunteer" for you? They'll feel so much more useful, and you get to do something more interesting in the meantime! Do make sure they give them a good hearty scrub, though: the object of the exercise is to remove the downy furriness from the skins.

3. Chop your quinces coarsely, aiming for around eight chunks per normal-sized quince. You don't need to peel them or core them, but it's as well to remove their seeds as you chop. Don't stress up about removing all the seeds, though - just prise out what you can easily manage.

They look gorgeous, don't they? Go on, have a sniff. But no nibbling just yet, as your raw quince is to all intents and purposes inedible. That's why we're making membrillo!

4. Place your chopped quinces in a pan, cover them with boiling water, place the uncovered pan onto your Aga's simmering plate, and leave the fruit simmering until it softens. In our case, this took around 15 minutes.

5. Drain the softened fruit, and pass it through your mouli. (For the mouli-deprived, a simple sieve will do the job - but expect to use plenty of elbow grease.) A nice smooth purée will emerge on the other side, looking a little bit like apple sauce.

6. Weigh the resultant purée, and add an equivalent weight of caster sugar. K always sets aside a jar of caster sugar mixed with vanilla sticks, in case of spontaneous initiatives like this - but between you and me, the vanilla doesn't really add anything to the flavour.

7. Stir in the sugar, so that it dissolves into the purée. At this point, you may be permitted your first taste of the membrillo-in-the-making. Good, isn't it? Yes, tangy. We thought that.

8. If you really want to - and having tasted it, we decided we didn't - you may also add freshly squeezed lemon juice at this point. But come on, the quinces are bitter enough as they are, surely? Let our cuisine never be over-ornamented.

9. Return the sweetened purée to a clean saucepan. Add a cinnamon stick or two; for our 1.5 kg, we added 4 inches. However, this really isn't mandatory; the cinnamon adds little of substance, although it's nice to know it's there. (A little foretaste of mulled wine, perhaps?)

10. Place the pan back on your simmering plate, and heat the mixture until it thickens and darkens. During the early gloppita-gloppita stages, not much stirring is required - but as the paste solidifies, you need to be stirring constantly in order to avoid sticking and burning. This took us 30 minutes, although the recipes suggested that it would be less.

11. During the final stages of thickening, move the pan over to the boiling plate for a little caramelisation.

12. Remove the cinnamon stick (or sticks) (optional). Turn the mixture out into a lightly buttered dish, and allow to cool and set for around two hours.

13. Your membrillo is now ready for dividing and storing. Cut it into thick slices, wrap them in clingfilm, and store them in an air-tight container. These will keep for anything up to a year.

14. You have just made one hell of a lot of membrillo - more than you could possibly get through in a year. So why not take some of the excess slices, wrap them in grease-proof paper, tie them up with raffia, place them in a basket, and distribute them amongst the needy? Charity begins at home!

The lip-smacking membrillo flavour is particularly well complemented by a mild Spanish cheese such as manchego fresco. It can also be spread on bread, like a jam. Alternatively, we recommend adding some membrillo to some pork chops, for a memorable supper-time treat. Or maybe you have some suggestions of your own? Go on, let your creativity run riot! The only limit is your imagination!

Can't be bloody arsed. So there!

(suggested by Chris, the cheeky mare)

If we're to emphasise the "to me" part of the equation, then the Civil Partnership legislation has had, and will have, a much greater personal impact upon my life. This can be summed up in three decidedly unromantic words: no inheritance tax. Which sounds base and craven, but it does make a serious impact on the way we view our long-term futures.

However, although this was our primary reason for forming a civil partnership, I have been slightly suprised to discover that, over 21 years into our relationship, being civil-partnered does feel different. Not massively different, but subtly yet significantly different.

Firstly, there has been a slight re-alignment of intra-family relationships: a coming together of the two groups, and an increased level of recognition for our status as partners. I feel just that little bit more bedded down within the family structures, and that's an agreeable, secure feeling.

Secondly, having a legally recognised status means never, ever, flinching even for a split second, no matter what the situation, in declaring our partnered status, and in referring to each other as partners. It's the final shedding of the few remaining flakes of the underground/alternative sub-culture. From twilight to daylight, and all that.

As for the age discrimination legislation, it's certainly true that ageism has long been rampant in the world of IT. On the other hand, we mainframe COBOL dinosaurs do tend to be of a certain age in the first place, so I can't see myself being affected for the remainder of my time in the industry.

Would I ever have the nerve to launch a challenge under the new Act, though? Such cases must be difficult to prove, and I also worry about specious challenges from crafty chancers, playing the game for their own ends. I once witnessed a former colleague doing this in an analagous context, several years ago: playing on people's fears of being seen to be discriminatory, and greeting his eventual victory with a suspiciously gleeful triumphalism. On the other hand, it's irrational and intellectually dangerous to extrapolate a whole position from one incident, just because the incident happened closest to where you were.

All of this ties in neatly with the French comedy which we watched last night on DVD: Le Placard (The Closet), in which a mild-mannered accountant, when faced with redundancy, gets his job back by pretending to be gay, and hence the victim of homophobic discrimination. It wasn't a deep film - quite the opposite, in fact - but it neatly satirised the new-found caution of those who once would have abused their power. And if that abuse of power is occasionally - very occasionally - to be exercised in the opposite direction, then maybe this is a small price to pay for redressing an altogether larger and more wounding iniquity.

(An edited version of this review originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)

With a third placing in The X Factor and a surprise Number One album already under their belts, Middlesbrough brothers Carl and Andy Pemberton are now headlining their first major tour. This is a crucial, make-or-break time for the duo, who must be all too aware of the ever-growing string of reality TV casualties around them. From all the talent shows of the last few years, only three acts – Will Young, Girls Aloud and Lemar – have gone on to sustain long-term careers. The odds are stacked against them, and the stakes are high.

Judging by the opening medley – an embarrassingly clod-hopping lurch through The Boys Are Back In Town, My Generation and All Right Now – it seemed that all our worst suspicions were to be confirmed. This was bargain basement, lowest common denominator stuff, as emphasised by lead singer Andy’s clumsy over-eagerness, and his constant grandstanding to the crowd. Matters weren’t improved by the self-composed I’ll Be Your Desire, which merely demonstrated that no-one outside Eurovision should ever rhyme “desire” with “fire” and “higher”. A potentially decent rendition of U2’s One was massacred by a wholly unnecessary 1980s jazz sax solo.

However, all this changed with an “unplugged” She’s Always A Woman, which Carl and Andy dedicated to their parents in the audience. Suddenly, the evening clicked into place, as the brothers abandoned the cheesy covers and turned to the music they loved. Andy calmed down, Carl’s already strong voice moved up a notch, and a real sense of emotion was generated. The warm and tender harmonies of Bryan Adams’ Heaven were a highlight, and a funky Slow Train Coming showed that not all the up-tempo material need be a disaster.

Towards the end, signs of increasing maturity and assurance emerged. Billy Joel’s lengthy, complex Scenes From An Italian Restaurant was a bold risk which worked, and Carl demonstrated his guitar prowess with some fine bluesy licks on Bon Jovi’s Bed Of Roses. Perhaps these showed the way ahead – into adult contemporary soft-rock, appealing to the albums market rather than the singles charts.

Andy and Carl are delightfully unaffected, genuine lads, unashamedly grateful for their success, with solid singing talent and bags of charm. As their proud parents embraced each other during Desperado and the crowd rose to their feet around them, only the most hardened of rock snobs could remain unmoved, and fail to wish them continuing success.

Maybe this is a skewed observation, based on my own atypical experience - but since when did British office workers start feeling obliged to add "Regards" to the end of all their work-related e-mails? This seems to have happened quite suddenly, and I'm not entirely sure why, or how.

It can get a little wearing at times. Nowadays, if I don't append "Regards" to every single message, no matter how brief - or "Best/Kind regards", if the recipient has actually done something substantive for me - then I feel like the rudest person alive.

Even during a mad panic emergency, with urgent e-mails constantly bouncing back and forth, you'll still find that nobody quite likes to be the first person to drop the word. If you were regarding them ten minutes ago, but you're not regarding them now, then this implies some sort of deterioration in your relationship. Better to keep up the regards, rather than plough on regardless.

Inevitably, an increasing number of people are getting around the issue by adding "Regards" to their signature files - which only increases the utter vacuity of the exercise. Automated felicitations are worse than none at all, surely?

My working theory is that this all originates from working with people in mainland Europe, who have always tended to a greater formality in their e-mails. As this threatens to place the terseness of the Brits in an unflattering light, so we have adapted our language in order not to appear rude to Johnny Foreigner.

In some ways, this is a good thing. Terseness can be read as indifference, whereas politeness may be taken to indicate respect - and if we all feel respected by each other, then we're more inclined to collaborate and co-operate.

But, really. All this mutual regarding is starting to get silly. Couldn't we adopt an unwritten convention whereby, after say a couple of dozen "regards", the individuals concerned could agree to drop them? This could be taken as indicative not of a lack of respect, but of a shift in the relationship towards a more relaxed, friendly level, similar to the way that the French might shift from vous to tu, or the Germans from Sie to Du.

Should we? Dare we? May we?

Kind regards,
Mike

(updated with a link to the gig review)

Right then. I won't detain you here, because it's a lengthy piece, but my Stylus review of Jon Savage's extraordinary Queer Noises compilation is now up. Even if you normally skip my music stuff (and I know that many do), I hope you still find something of interest in it.

In terms of subject matter and indeed writing style, the Stylus piece is more or less the diametric opposite of the Journey South concert review (you know, them off X Factor) which appears in today's edition of t'local paper. What could have been a blistering hatchet job (the opening "classic rock" medley was an unmitigated disaster, mostly viewed from between the cracks in my fingers) turned halfway through into an altogether more affectionate piece (once they abandoned the Cowell-imposed cheese and tackled the songs that they loved and grew up with, the whole show turned itself around).

Or maybe this had more to do with the fact that Nurse Alan and I were seated next to Journey's South's Mam and Dad, whose effusively joyful and frequently tearful pride in their sons' achievements could have melted the hearts of even the most withering of rock snobs. (Mind you, Journey South's Mam nearly had my eye out with her Big Clapping, as her outstretched arms swung ever further backwards. Watch it missus, I'm wearing glasses!) A nice family, aware that it could all end in a flash, so making the most of every minute while it lasts. And I'm not about to sneer at that.

(suggested by Alan)

10 years ago:

Ah, the joys of overnight emergency cover. It is now 3:48 in the morning, and my brain is just starting to fuzz over. Even we night owls have our limits. So let's knock this one off, as a means of keeping my mental faculties ticking over.

October 1996. Living in the same house in Nottingham that we're in now. Working for the council, supporting an absolute pile-of-bollox mainframe system which processed bus pass applications for school children. The job basically involved de-bolloxing the hideous cludge of spaghetti code that my predecessors had left for me, before swanning off to sexy jobs in the private sector. Hideously difficult, but strangely stimulating in a masochistic sort of way.

K had just left paid employment in order to start up his own company, and was working out of a shoebox with paper-thin walls. Exciting, pioneering times.

Making regular visits down to Trade, the legendary Sunday morning hardcore techno club in still-ungentrified Clerkenwell. Posting on the uk-motss mailing list, an e-mail discussion group for GLBT types (but mostly G), where I had acquired the nickname "Nice Mike". Card-carrying urban queer conformist, with my Ben Shermans, 501s, biker boots and petrol blue zip-fronted padded nylon bomber jacket (oh, we all had them).

Records confirm that my Tune Of The Week was "You're Gorgeous" by Baby Bird.

20 years ago:

Had just started working for the council as a junior programmer. Slightly fazed to discover that there were no actual computer terminals on our desks, just pencils and "coding sheets", upon which we scribbled our COBOL source code, to be typed in by the data entry clerks. Actually getting computer access meant booking slots on a little sheet of paper. Jolly exciting when we got it, as well. A relaxed team, with a manager who secretly watched the horse racing on a little portable telly in his office.

Renting a rather poky little flat with K, just off Sherwood Rise. Despite the pokiness, we had tarted the place up with lashings of lacquered black ash furniture from Habitat, and named it the Matt Black Dreamhome, after an article in The Face magazine.

Big tune in the clubs: "Love Can't Turn Around" by Farley Jackmaster Funk. We were very quick off the marks with our Chicago house music in Nottingham. Favourite home listening: Anita Baker's Rapture. (Wonder whether it still holds up today?)

30 years ago:

Back at boarding school in Cambridge, for the start of the main O-level year, although I had already taken a couple early. Puberty in full flow, hormones running riot, and really bad acne breaking out all over my face (it took another four or five years to clear up). Still in love with the boy in the year below, with ardour undimmed after the long summer break. Father on the brink of announcing his impending marriage to my stepmother - wedding conducted on a weekday in term time - none of their respective offspring invited.

Sharing a study with two classmates during the day, but still sleeping in the dormitories. Enjoying the relative freedom and privacy, away from the junior common room. Leisure time, as at all boarding schools, revolved around brewing instant coffee, making toast, and playing albums. Just discovering punk - a musical paradigm shift which was to piss off my prog-loving study mates severely. Most played record, by miles and miles: the Live At The Marquee EP from Eddie & The Hot Rods. (At least we could all agree on that one.)

40 years ago:

Six months away from starting school, I am already learning to read, somehow managing to do this with the minimum of assistance. (How do children DO this?) I can still remember a rather doomed reading lesson with my mother, which I don't think was ever repeated.

(Patiently) "Now Michael, what does this say?"

"They're in a tent!" (Feeling a bit foolish for saying this as it can't be correct, but it was my best guess.)

(Noticeably less patiently) "No darling, try again."

The caption, below a picture of two children in a tent said "We are here". How silly, I thought to myself. How is any child supposed to work that one out?

Instead, I bombarded everyone in sight with constant "What does that say?" questionings. Advertising billboards were major source material: "Go to work on an egg" (copy written by Salman Rushdie Fay Weldon, no less), "Beanz Meanz Heinz" (3/10 for spelling, see me after class), and "Heinz Souperday Heinz" (a bad pun for canned tomato soup, advertised by a little boy of my age in a tomato-red woollen jersey with buttons on the shoulders; my grandmother knitted me a copy, and I was thrilled).

I can still remember My First Book: Kitty And Rover. I particularly remember getting stuck on one page for several days:

It is a pretty ball.

Not knowing that the "e" was pronounced like "i", as in "bin", I was completely baffled. What sort of word was "pretty" (rhymes with "Betty") anyway? My best guess was that it was a paté ball - a pleasingly surreal idea, if a little far-fetched, but we had recently been staying with my grandparents in Dorset, who packed us paté sandwiches for our picnics. My grandparents being quite posh, paté was pronounced "petty". I didn't know any different.

The "pretty" issue having been cleared up - I must have given in and asked someone - I raced through to the end of Kitty And Rover without further complication. On reaching the last page, I was ecstatic - I can still remember racing down the staircase and shouting "I CAN READ! I CAN READ!" to old Mrs. Barthorpe who was doing the cleaning in the hall, and I can still remember her smiling gummily back at me. (Dental care amongst the domestic classes still had some distance to travel.)

Phew. The end of the post, and also the end of my emergency overnight support - it's now 5:21, and I think I've reached the jibbering, delirious stage. Can you tell?

God knows how this is going to read in the morning. Well, no matter.

(suggested by Cliff)

Well, I suppose it is - simply because needing something is a more powerful urge than wanting something, right?

Let's have a real life for-instance. As of right now, I want a beer, but I need a night off the booze. So, clearly, it would be better to deny myself the beer. (Whether I do or I don't is quite another matter, obviously.)

Then again, let's imagine that it was a Friday night instead of a Monday night. On a Friday night, as we all know, sobriety ceases to be a relevant consideration - meaning that I could crack on and enjoy the beer, without fretting about petty matters such as my long-term physical well-being. This is clearly the superior situation.

So, if I might be permitted to upgrade the original premise: it's better to have and don't need, than need and don't have.

This philosophy lark's a doddle, innit?

As promised a month ago, I have somehow managed to post to this blog at least once per day for the whole of September, thus averting the self-imposed sanction of renaming this site "Clapped Out Has Been". Phew-wee, and yay me.

I also dimly recall promising that if successful, then I would post an inaugural vidcast. Well, a promise is a promise. Bear with me while I source the equipment, and all will be revealed. From the neck up, at least.

I now find myself wondering how many more days I can continue to post, without taking a break. Hmm, there's a sweepstake in there somewhere. What do you reckon?

Last update: Wednesday afternoon. Updates will be sparser from now on, but I'll append anything important to the end of this post if needs be.

For those that know him: my good pal and colleague JP arrived safely in Hong Kong on Saturday, and will remain in hospital there for at least the next couple of weeks, under close observation. His partner Big J is there with him, as is DT from our company. Here's the address of the hospital.

To our considerable amusement, JP has made it into one of the Hangzhou newspapers (*), who somehow managed to "pap" him at the airport, being lifted onto the air ambulance in a stretcher. The accompanying article is, shall we say, something of a work of speculative fiction. As well as giving JP the wrong surname, it claims that he is a 29 year old (he'll love that!) tourist, who was on a sightseeing bus at the time of the accident (he was knocked over on the street while leaving the office), and that he had a three hour operation (there was none) in the wrong hospital (he was transferred to another one almost immediately).

dB from the Hangzhou office, who has been giving me daily phone updates for the duration, and who has generally been doing a magnificent job all round (as have a whole host of volunteers from the office, who have been maintaining a constant 24 hour vigil at JP's bedside), has more to say on the events of the past week on his own blog.

(*) It's a 1mb PDF and the photo's a bit grim, so caveat clickor.

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Monday afternoon: JP is no longer fully sedated (a precautionary measure while the swelling near his brain was at its worst), and is reported to be in his best condition since the accident took place last Tuesday. He is becoming a lot more alert and observant, the swelling is going down, his neck brace has been removed, and - although obliged to remain horizontal at all times - he is able to move around a lot more. Meanwhile, dB has posted a translation of the Chinese newspaper article on his own blog.

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Tuesday afternoon: JP's condition has continued to improve, and he is now able to take medicine orally. He is sitting up in bed, but is not expected to be able to get out of bed for another two weeks.

Scans have shown that the swelling caused by the bruising to his brain is now subsiding. The doctors have said that his neck is now OK (there were some dislocations) and that his shoulder fracture does not require them to immobilise the shoulder.

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Wednesday afternoon: JP has had his first proper meal since the accident - fish and chips - and is going to start receiving physiotherapy. From here on in, he is basically going to be spending most of the next couple of weeks sitting up in bed and watching TV - so here endeth the daily updates.