I went to watch "King's Speech" yesterday afternoon. It's a story of two men who couldn't fit into their aspiring roles, with both of them having the right qualities - dedication to other people - but with wrong 'oral' abilities. Colin Firth's acting as a troubled king with a miserable childhood and a bad stammer was emotional and absorbing. I particularly found the relationship between these two men very interesting. Camera work, particularly during the therapy sessions, was brilliant.
Anyway, I had a good time watching the film, got home, cooked salad supper (as above), and sat down to watch some news on telly. Guess what happened then. A woman, who lives somewhere in London, was due to appear on this news programme because she claims that she knows the true story of "King's Speech". I persevered other gloomy news until the end when at last this woman appeared. I shouldn't have.
She appeared at last and said her father was a BBC sound engineer when King George VI made this famous speech during the World War II to the whole of the British Empire and she is terribly proud that her father is the one who 'cured' the King's stammer! She says that her father had a very tricky job to edit out the stutter from the recordings but managed to do a good job and that no one would have known that the King had a stammer.
It was like throwing a wet blanket over the whole thing. It completely spoilt my evening. Why on earth did she have to come out on the TV at this time when this Oscar nominated film is showing and ruin the maybe-not-so-true but moving story? The power of media :(
Ingredients (for 1 person):
10 cherry tomatoes
half a pack of mixed salad (spinach, watercress, rocket, etc.)
a handful of pine nuts
Parmesan cheese shavings
Preheat the oven to the full whack. Cut the tomatoes into halves, sprinkle some olive oil, salt, and pepper on them. Roast them until the edges of the tomatoes are black (for about 20 minutes). Toast the pine nuts in a small frying pan until nice and brown.
Put the salad on the plate, top with tomatoes, toasted pine nuts, and Parmesan shavings. You could salt and pepper them and drizzle some balsamic vinegar and olive oil :)