A simple desultory Philippic

I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored.
I been John O'Hara'd, McNamara'd.
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I'm blind.
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed.
That's the hand I use, well, never mind!

I been Phil Spectored, resurrected.
I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered.
Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay.
And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce,
And all my wealth won't buy me health,
So I smoke a pint of tea a day.

I knew a man, his brain so small,
He couldn't think of nothin' at all.
He's not the same as you and me.
He doesn't dig poetry.
He's so unhip that When you say Dylan,
he thinks you're talkin' about Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was.
The man ain't got no culture,
But its alright, ma,
Everybody must get stoned.

I been Mick Jaggered, been silver daggered.
Andy Warhol, won't you please come home?
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled,
Been Roy Halee'd and Art Garfunkel'd.
I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone.

Folk Rock
I just lost my harmonica Albert


Thank you Mr Simon


Braised Lamb Shank - Jarrets d'agneau braisés

Recipe from the blog of Eric Gonzales.

English Version (French follows)

For 6 persons

6 lamb shank (350 g each)
2 big onions
3 carrots
1 1/2 garlic head
6 large ripe tomatoes
1/2 l. white wine
2 laurel leaves
3 thyme branches
3 oranges skins
2 cinammon sticks
3 star anise
2 cloves gillyflower
2 teaspoons powder cumin
1 1/2 l. of reduced lamb stock (veal stock is OK too)

Optional: dried prunes, dried grapes, fresh figs

Use a large stewpan that can go in the oven, put it on a stove and color each face of the shanks with olive oil, salt and pepper. Remove the shanks and put the onion, carrot, garlic and tomatoes (cut all in semi-large pieces) for 5 minutes. Pour the white wine and let reduce to a half. Put the shanks back in the pan and pour the lamb stock. Add laurel, thyme, orange skin and the spices.

Cover the pan and put in the oven at 400 F during 2h30. At the end, the knife should go through the skin without effort. Serve with couscous, boulgour, or any other vegetable (I used sweet potato pan-fried with curry).

Version Française

6 jarrets d'agneau du Québec d'environ 350 gr chaque
2 gros oignons
3 carottes
1 1/2 tête d'ail
6 grosses tomates bien mûres
1/2 litre de vin blanc
2 feuilles de laurier
3 branches de thym
3 écorces d'orange
2 bâtons de cannelle, 3 anis étoilé, 2 clous de girofle et 2 cuillères à thé de cumin en poudre
1 1//2 litre de fond d'agneau réduit (du fond de veau fera l'affaire)

Optionnel : pruneaux, raisins de Corinthe, figues fraiches

Faire colorer sur toutes les faces, à l'huile d'olive et dans une cocotte qui va au four, les jarrets d'agneau assaisonnés de sel et poivre. Les retirer puis faire revenir pendant 5 minutes l'oignon, la carotte, l'ail et les tomates, le tout coupé en morceaux. Verser le vin blanc puis faire réduire de moitié, replacer les jarrets dans la cocotte et y verser le fond d'agneau. Ajouter le laurier, thym, écorces d'oranges ainsi que les épices.

Mettez un couvercle et enfourner à 400 pendant environ 2 h 30. En fin de cuisson la pointe d'un couteau doit traverser facilement la chair. Sortir délicatement les jarrets, passer le liquide de cuisson de façon à récupérer uniquement la sauce, la remettre dans la cocotte et faire réduire de moitié afin d'obtenir une sauce un peu plus épaisse puis assaisonner de sel et poivre au goût.

Dresser les jarrets dans un plat puis les arroser de sauce.

Vous pouvez servir ce plat avec par exemple avec du couscous, boulgour, orge perlé ou toutes sortes de légumes selon votre imagination.


The bullet war


I thought I'd kick-start this new blog by talking about one of my favorite topic: presentations.

Powerpoint is everywhere. Everyone uses it. And let's face it, most Powerpoint suck. A lot. Don't get me wrong, it has nothing to do with the guys in Redmond. We are the one screwing up here. We are the one writing those horrible slideshows which are nothing else but a collection of loosely related and poorly summarized ideas that we put on bullets slides. And the more bullets, the happier we are. More bullets mean we're putting plenty of content. More bullets mean we're doing a good job. More bullets mean our presentations are going to be all the more rich and relevant.

Well, reality check for everyone, those very bullets we so dearly love only achieve 2 things: shooting ourselves in the foot and killing our audiences. Bullet points are the worst invention in the history of mankind (well, at least the one that writes presentations) because they encourage intellectual lazyness and provide an easy way out of the hard, but essential goal of any presentation: getting an idea across.

So if you are working on a presentation now, do me (and your audience) a favor: get rid of bullets. Create one slide per idea that you want to express and keep the non-essential stuff out of your presentation (now you know why you have these "notes" in Powerpoint). It's going to be 10 times better for you to have a few powerful slides on which you'll have a lot of things to say, rather than plenty of bullet-filled slides where all you'll do is read the content of the slide (something that surprinsingly any decent audience is capable of doing by themselves).

And if you want to read someone else rant about how bad presentations are, read this post from Seth Godin.