✒ I saw the new Bond film, Skyfall, at the weekend, and enjoyed it mightily. But there were one or two puzzles that I can mention without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it. Heineken paid a fortune for product placement, and you do see a couple of Heineken cases during the car chase. But when Bond is drinking it, he has his fingers over the name on the label, and is clearly a boozy wreck. Does Heineken want to send the message, "the lager for drunken sots"?
There were no Americans at all, and there was no scene in America, but lots in China. Has Hollywood finally decided that's where the big money is? Oh, and I think I've spotted the baddie for Bond film 24, and I'd be interested to know if you suspect him (or her) too.
✒We went to a charity ball – or, more accurately, a charity dance – this week, and it was great fun. Wise charities offer loads of free booze at the beginning, so when the auction comes round people are prepared to pay ludicrous sums for stuff they wouldn't buy at half the price if they saw it in a shop while sober.
The theme was the 60s, but realising that most of us threw away all our 60s clothes in disgust in the early 70s, you could go in black tie instead. I compromised, in a beat-up dinner jacket with a silly bow tie. But some people had gone to a lot of trouble. Do you know what a bunch of lawyers, teachers, human resources staff and business execs look like when they're in long black wigs, beads, headbands and weird glasses? Like a convention of beat poets.
✒The BBC's Alistair Cooke archive was launched this week, and it's well worth seeking out online. You can listen to hundreds of Letters from America, and see many of the original scripts, all bashed out on his ancient typewriter (for some reason the letter "w" hardly worked, or " orked") with the little pauses all indicated, so that you can almost hear him speaking the words as you read them.
Cooke was a Guardian correspondent up to 1972, when he started work on his great America series for the BBC. He wrote beautifully crafted prose for this paper, though it did tend to arrive a little on the tardy side. He loved boxing and golf, and his reports on the top matches would come in to the Guardian's Cross Street offices, in Manchester, eagerly awaited, but 24 hours after every other paper.
He rarely came back to Britain, though once he found himself in the Midland Hotel, Manchester. Cooke disliked being on his own, so he phoned the then northern editor, Brian Redhead, and suggested a drink. Brian was also a frequent broadcaster and not a man to hide his light under a bushel, or under anything at all.
As they sat in the hotel bar, an excited waiter came over flourishing a menu. "My wife would never forgive me if she knew I had the most famous voice in British radio in my bar, and I hadn't got his autograph!" he said. At which Brian took the menu, signed it, and handed it back. Cooke was far too gentlemanly to protest.
✒It always strikes me, as I wade through the recipe pages of the papers, or acquire a new, gorgeously photographed book by a celebrity chef, that I really can't be bothered with all that stuff. I don't want to go to the Korean supermarket to buy freshly rotted kimchi. I won't ask my butcher to butterfly an ox tongue, or find a fishmonger who will personally fillet four dozen anchovies. I don't have a freezer full of veal stock.
What I would like is a book of simple, tasty recipes that anyone could prepare in 10 minutes, but would feed a whole hungry family or one student pressed for time between finishing an essay and going to a party. I thought I would mention one or two dishes that might fit that bill. Take my mother's stove chicken. Every size is approximate and depends on how many you're cooking for.
Stove chicken pie Cut up some bacon and fry gently with chopped onion. Put to one side. Slice chicken breasts and brown in the leftover fat. Put everything in a pan with plenty of sliced potatoes, a few carrots, mushrooms and peas if you fancy. Add a can of chicken soup. Simmer the lot until the potatoes and carrots are tender. For added scrumminess, put some readymade puff pastry over the lot and shove it in the oven till the pastry browns.
Preparation time 15 minutes tops Cooking time Half an hour
Deliciousness Extreme
✒Your daft labels keep on coming; thanks. Many seem to have been dictated by demented lawyers, terrified that very stupid people might do themselves a mischief and so have a case. Mary Barton found two: a Marmite and toast rack gift set, marked "WARNING: not to be sold to persons under the age of 18." She also bought a steam iron which also has a stern admonition: "Do not iron clothes while wearing them."
Peter Bunton sent some cardboard packaging. It has little icons to demonstrate the "appropriate personal protective equipment to be worn while using this product". The pictures show a mouth mask, ear defenders, goggles and heavy duty gloves. The product is a rubber door wedge.
Simon Hoggart's new book, House of Fun – 20 Glorious Years in Parliament, is available in stores and from the Guardian Bookshop at £9.99, a £5 reduction. Simon will be talking about the book, sketchwriting and the past 20 years in politics at Kings Place, London, on Wednesday 21 November. Details at www.kingsplace.co.uk.
