106: A gas leak and perfect eggs
Hello, welcome to Border Crossing issue one hundred and six, I hope you’re well and doing okay in the heat. Slightly cooler today as I finish this. Thank you for continuing to support my writing work.
This issue, what our gas leak taught me about cooking eggs.
This week, Rifa and me bring back our long-running culture pod Refigure for an eighth series, chatting about the arts (of all kinds, in all places) that we’ve encountered recently. First episode drops in a day or two. If you’re interested, search ‘Refigure’ wherever you get podcasts and you’ll find us. Here’s Apple Pod and Spotify links. If you’ve not tried Refigure before, give us a go — it’s chatty and bitesize (usually comes in around 20 minutes) and if you like it, please share. Obviously, we don’t have a marketing department.
Meanwhile, Jim Bob released two new songs on Friday, one from each of his two forthcoming LPs: ‘Scream If You Want To Go Slower’ from Automatic and ‘A Song By Me’ from Stick, which are both out on 22nd August. I played piano on the first one and fuzzy bass guitar on the second one. Both absolute belters.
Right, on we roll. xx
gems
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Sarah Dempster’s chewy, funny Noel Edmonds career explainer for The Guardian, published as the bearded bellend attempts a telly career relaunch from his New Zealand estate. If Dempster wasn’t a famous writer herself, I could imagine this being Richard Osman writing under a pseudonym.
From the ridiculous to the sublime:
2
Vietnamese American author and poet Ocean Vuong has a second novel out, The Emperor Of Gladness and spoke to Tanya Mosley for Fresh Air. (Apple Pod link).
3
4
If you’re in reach of Sussex, UK, the newly permanent Charleston in Lewes gallery has a free exhibition of newly commissioned work by American artist Koak: The Window Set. Billed as her debut ‘institutional’ UK solo show (so I guess she’s had solo shows at smaller British selling galleries before), it’s really, really good. You could see the Vanessa Bell while you’re there, though that’s paid entry.
5
potato gems
• Book now for Potatoes In Practice 2025 on 7th August, at the James Hutton Institute’s farm in Invergowrie (just outside Dundee). This is the UK’s largest field-based potato event.
• German midfielder Florian Wirtz, who’ll light up the Premier League this autumn after signing for Liverpool, has spud history: last year he was relentlessly trolled by German fans after saying on video (with the national squad) that his favourite food was a plain baked potato.
The (short-term) Chris T-T “comeback” kicks off…
…this week at Glastonbury Festival. If you’re going, I’m doing three spots on the Laboratory Stage (Science Futures Arena, Green Fields) including:
Weds 5pm — ‘9 Red Songs’ 20th anniversary set
Thurs 5pm — general “wtf I want” solo set
Sun 5pm — ‘Chris T-T Sings A.A. Milne’ (family friendly) set
I’ll also jump up for a short bit in Robin Ince’s ‘Nine Lessons for the Summer Solstice’ in the ScienceFutures arena, on Thursday evening.
If you’re around, come say hello?
So basically, as of next week, Chris T-T (sort of) exists again for the coming five months, until our big 15th November full-band 100 Club blowout in London, at which point ‘he’ goes back in the attic. There are three festivals — Glastonbury as above, SeptemberSong in Oxfordshire and Frank Turner’s Lost Evenings Festival in Edinburgh.
During this period I’m also up for interviews, radio or online sessions, any shenanigans you think I’ll enjoy. Also, at Glastonbury, if you’re interested in a creativity counselling session, I have two slots still available (see below).
matters arising
Thank you very much for thoughtful, kind comments on my experiment making an audio version of the previous Border Crossing piece on Star Wars: Andor, armed struggle and French revolutionary writer Regis Debray.
Seems worth continuing, whenever there’s a full-length essay. Maybe I’ll dig out some of the best of the older essays and do audio versions of them too.
Responding to the piece, Ben Murray sent me this terrific 2007 essay by Debray on Palestine. Thanks a lot Ben, it’s fascinating to bring the narrative full circle, back to the real-world elephant in the room.
Also in ‘further reading’ after writing last issue’s essay, I’ve gone back to Jean Genet’s Prisoner Of Love, which I haven’t read for many years. This is one of the most astonishing books I’ve encountered in my life and also, for those wanting to understand more about the current global climate, it’s no less valuable than going back to the writings of, say, Edward Said. Mind you, it’s equally tempting to just stick our heads in a hole and try to survive. So I wouldn’t judge anyone for that right now.
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A gas leak and perfect eggs
Last week we had our annual boiler service.
It’s such a scam to spend thousands on a new boiler, then have it under warranty, except the warranty only remains valid while you have it serviced each year — and that costs more than a hundred quid each time. So after a decade, even if nothing has gone wrong with the boiler, still I’ve spent another grand on it, over and above the original price. Cheeky fuckers.
Anyway, our boiler is fine. But the engineer found a gas leak under our living room floor, from a pipe running to the gas fire, which we haven’t switched on for more than a decade. Those old gas fires are hella pretty in winter, until you clock that they’re fucking up the heat balance in your home, putting condensation in the walls, they cost a bomb, and if you’re especially lucky they’ll either blow up your house or try to poison you in your sleep.
Anyway, he capped the pipe and that fixed the gas leak. But then he realised this had also cut supply to our kitchen hob. For some reason they’re via the same underfloor pipe. Our house is ancient, with many quirks like this. So he enthusiastically upsold me we should have a new pipe laid, from the meter to the cooker. It’s not far. A lot easier than risk trying to locate the joint under the floorboards. Also the old piping is so fragile anyway, it could be a total waste to fix the joint, since another leak may appear whenever.
I was up for it. He measured up and said they’d send a quote. But as soon as he’d left, I realised that just buying a new electric hob would be cheaper, not just in the long run, but probably immediately cheaper than the installation costs of a new gas pipe. Obviously, less reliance on gas is a Good Thing. Electric hobs are much better now than the old days. So we got one.
When it showed up, the installer guys unwrapped it and it was cracked in two. They got nervous at first, but I’d watched them unbox it, so they couldn’t be blamed. Anyway, they’re re-delivering on Tuesday. They did the prep work, so it’ll be quick.
All of which means we’ve had several (busy) days with the air fryer being our only way to cook anything. We don’t own a miquerowavé.
The point of this story is: I have (finally) discovered that you can boil eggs without water in the air fryer — and once you get correct settings for your taste, they come out perfect every time.
If you don’t already do this, here’s a method. Use a relatively low heat. Pre-heat your air fryer to 150. Then plop in your eggs at, say 140 for 11 minutes. Just put them straight in, but try to make sure they’re not touching each-other. You may need a couple of goes to get them how you like, but once you’ve nailed that, it’s always basically the same.
I bet you could even do them for less time, but leave them in the fryer for a couple of minutes after it’s pinged.
I write it all down and then think: this really isn’t helping me give up dairy products. How topsy-turvy to be making an egg butty with vegan mayo.
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get in touch
email: chris@christt.com
Instagram: @cjthorpetracey
always there
Try my other (irregular) newsletter Double Chorus which is what I think about when I think about music.
Listen to Refigure podcast series eight, with me and Rifa, coming this week.
Check out the Border Crossing Press shop.
If you could do with a creativity/life balance reset, check out my Creativity Counselling service?
A quick note on appointments this Summer: I have a few slots available while I’m travelling. If you’d like to book a face-to-face session and you’re near one of these locations, please get in touch —
• late June: GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL (I’m on site from Weds, two slots left)
• mid Sept: MANCHESTER / LAKE DISTRICT (one slot left)
• late Sept: EDINBURGH / LOST EVENINGS FESTIVAL (three slots)
My Pact Coffee discount code is CHRIS-A8UKQG. Sign up for coffee bean delivery, use this code, you get £5 off and I get £5 off a bag.
Thanks again. Look after yourself and your people.
All my love,
Chris
x
I'm glad you didn't discover the gas leak in a scarier way.
My husband David recently converted to boiling eggs in the air fryer, too, and taught me. It's great!