Basic alcohol; trash; couscous

Was disturbed when shopping at MK’s nice new mega-Sainsburys the other week to note that the ‘Sainsbury's Basics’ range now includes wine. Although I never buy food or drink from this range, I had been dimly aware that the range did include some alcohol, but had assumed this was confined to plastic bottles of cider, meths etc. However, no – Sainsbury's Basics ‘White Table Wine’ is on offer, and damn good value, no doubt. Presumably the next step (Sainsbury's Even More Basic?) will be bottles simply labelled ‘Wine’, containing liquid of indeterminate colour.

Impressed at myself for having been for three early-morning bike rides this past week, inspired by Ray’s recently having taken up cycling in some sort of exercise pact made with his friend Dave. I gather the goal is to take part in a 100-mile cycle ride some time next year. Being a bloke, he has acquired various pieces of kit and gadgetry already, including, apparently, a pair of padded cycling shorts, which I hope never to see. I have also only recently learned the acronym MAMIL (Middle Aged Man In Lycra).

Spent the first weekend in August at my parents’ house, where we gamely attempted to have a barbecue on the Saturday evening, and Hannah even determinedly lay on some damp grass in an attempt to bring on summer. The rain did at least hold off, though set in again in force the following day leading to an irritable (on my part) drive back to Reading.

Spent Saturday evening at Ali's 60th birthday party, though a number of us had failed to realise in advance that it was actually her 60th. Ali had requested that I take along a bowl of the giant couscous and harissa dish I made the last time I hosted Book Group, which I obligingly did, though not 100% sure how it went down with the bulk of the guests. Met some nice new people.

Currently slumming it, in terms of reading matter, with another Sandra Brown novel, Exclusive. Have read four or so of Brown’s previous novels, also during phases of slumming it, though I forget now how I came across them originally. This one proves to be written to a similar formula to the others, containing plenty of melodrama, sex and lots of interactions between chiselled loner hero and the heroine, who in Brown’s novels is generally an outwardly spunky career woman but inwardly vulnerable and a bit messed up, and let’s face it, really in need of a bloke. It’s proving pretty enjoyable so far, though I wait to discover whether the President of the US really did murder the bastard newborn son of his unfaithful manic depressive wife, which would lend support to Senator Cletus Armbruster’s theory that the President also, eighteen years previously, disposed of the newborn babe of a piece of trailer trash who went berserk when he refused to marry her.

Vaguely amused at a tendency of Brown’s to stress that her leading characters are only attracted to members of the opposite sex. Of Barrie Travis, the heroine of Exclusive, Brown writes “Nor had she taken the other path. Her sexual appetite was whetted only by men.” It’s inoffensive enough on the surface, but I have the distinct feeling this is not the first of her books I’ve read something similar in. Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure that Stieg Larsson, the author of the Millennium Trilogy, whom one would imagine would be an open-minded, liberal kinda guy, also takes pains to assure his readers that Mikael Blomkvist is 100% hetero, though I don’t have a copy of the trilogy to hand in order to try and find the quote. I'm sure it's there somewhere though.