Super Tuesday in Epsom

Super Tuesday, they called it in the US. Well it was pretty good over here too, finishing my fishing column just in time for a few pancakes before we drove over to Epsom to see Michael McIntyre at the playhouse.

I love pancake Tuesday. For a great recipe read this. Pancake eating is quite a social arrangement with people leaving the table in relays to prepare the next pancake. George was in charge last night. His style is to flip the pancake while I'm more of a tosser. That's what my friends tell me anyway.

You may have seen McIntyre on TV last year when he appeared Live at the Appollo - the full performance is spread over three clips. If you haven't caught any of his stage performances so far you might try to get a ticket for one of the shows in his new tour. I think he's one the most talented young comedians in the UK - the south's answer to Peter Kay.

His best known routine (featured in the Youtube clips) is where he demonstrates a more efficient way of walking, skipping from A to B with synchronised arms. But it wasn't part of last night's show until he asked for questions from the audience at the end. "Do the skipping" shouted one bloke. So McIntyre obliged and it was only then that I realised his act was unknown to most of those there.

He's southern and talks with a posh accent - not the usual ingredients for gritty live comedy - but his humour is sharply framed from observations of daily life such as rail commuting and motorway driving. They're not just observations of human behaviour either. He puts our unspoken but recognisable thoughts in to words.

He's a genuinely funny man who knows how to work an audience and whose performance is as yet uncluterred by the intrusions of stardom. If he can maintain that common touch he's going to be a big name. Too much TV exposure, of course, can drain the creativity in this kind of work, condemning talent to a future of well-paid panel games such as QI and Have I got News For You.

Perhaps this is the pattern of comedy success - come up the hard way, playing the halls, before enjoying the easier pickings of TV where your talent, in time, begins to go in odd directions (a sure sign when you start doing travel programmes)and you must make way for the next hungry young thing. Either that, or you can be Ken Dodd.

Pancakes and Lent

Four days to go and it's Pancake Tuesday. I love Pancake Tuesday, partly because I love pancakes but mostly because the days are getting brighter and spring really is just around the corner. February has great light because there are very few pollen particles in the air.

While I'm not particularly religious (what does that mean?) I do try to give up something for Lent (Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday). Last year it was gravy. This year I have decided that it will be potatoes and bread, so no chip butties.

No jacket potatoes either. My favourite meal is an oven-cooked jacket potato with butter, grated Cheddar cheese, and tuna with mayonnaise on top. So why don't they do that at the Savoy Grill? And why, if I was eating at the Savoy Grill would I order something other than jacket potato? I suppose it's because you can have jacket potatoes any time.

Also, if it was jacket potatoes every meal time you would soon get fed up of them. So that's why Lent is so useful. To deny yourself something for 40 days makes you appreciate it all the more when the time's up.

Better than sex

But first, before all that denial, there are the pancakes. Here's how to make pancakes. Well why listen to me when Delia is only a click away? [As an afterthought I'm adding this for those who can't be bothered with the Delia stuff: For 10 to 12 pancakes you will need 8 oz (200 gms) of plain flour, two decent eggs and a pint of milk (the same stuff you use for Yorkshire Puddings). Whip the eggs in to the flour in a basin, then pour in the milk gradually to avoid lumps. No need to let it stand. No more effort needed than that.] A non-stick pancake pan is ideal but a frying pan will do otherwise. Put a bit of olive oil in and make sure the pan is hot. Ease the pancake with a spatula or something like that to make sure it's loose then flip it with confidence. Blokes should be good at the flipping bit. Whimps should flip over a clean floor so they can scrape up the bits.

Ignore Delia on the filling. This is what you need:

Some orange quarters
Cointreau
Double cream,
Golden Syrup

First squeeze your orange on to the pancake, then add a bit of Cointreau, next some cream and finally drizzle on some syrup, then fold up your pancake and tuck in. Better than sex. Well as good as. Some may say better with sex but I'm not going there. Save to say that with Lent just around the corner this is a great opportunity to indulge ourselves just a little.