There has been a certain rhythm to my evenings since the New Year which has involved me disappearing down to the basement about 10.00 to bring out the ham. The knife was sharpened and ten minutes or so would be spent taking off sufficient slices for the following days lunch.

The ham was finally done on Sunday and I am now back on cheese sandwiches.

However the finishing of the ham did involve a near catastrophic  stomach meltdown.

I had decided that once there were no more slices to be had I would cut off whatever lumps of meat could be had and the bones would be cooked down for stock.

As I took away the last final pieces of meat I should have realised that the high smell from where the bones were pulling apart was less to of with the fact that this was a high end piece of Spanish cuisine but more do with the bones being a year or so past their use by date.

The bones duly went into a pot to be made into stock and soon the house was filled with the kind of smell that would have been done proud in a Spanish farmhouse sometime in the mid 17th century.

In the meantime a couple of varieties of sausage were cooked in oil along with chopped onions and garlic. A potato was added along with two ladles of the stock. As it all came together a jar of good beans was stirred in.

Once it was done it had the look and smell of something that Sancho Panza would have attacked with gusto.

I suspect that Sancho Panza’s stomach would have been more robust than mine.

I woke up at 3.00 in the morning with the sound of every possible gurgle in my stomach having a go at making as much noise as it could. I lay there for a while convinced that the remains of the ham were going to make every effort to repeat themselves as best they could. It eventually got so bad that I had to go down to the basement to find an orange bucket to put by the bed just in case the remains got their way.

In the event I fell back to sleep although the sour taste of the ham was still on the back of my tongue next morning.

Since then I have been back on cheese and dried bread for my lunch.

It is easy to forget working in Liverpool city centre through the week that it is worth making the effort sometimes to go in at the weekend as well.

Yesterday morning -before doing that I kept myself down to earth with a quick run into Birkenhead market to buy red mullet, monkfish and prawns from Ward’s Fish.

In Liverpool we had coffee in Ziferblat and discovered that whilst 8p a minute might not seem much at all, spread out over a few hours it mounted up.

We then went into the Tate to look at Tracy Emin’s bed. And that was all you could do with it really – just look at it. More interesting were the paintings and prints by William Blake that were on the surroundings walls. These included one print showing the head of a man being swallowed by a fearsome dragon. Pleasingly the face on the head bore a resemblance to Trump and even better all his hair was blown out of shape. Let us hope a similar fate befalls him in the real world soon – that is both out of shape hair and being swallowed by a dragon.

I then had half an hour to slip into The Open Gallery to look at photos and and other items celebrating the idea of the North, Fashion and Identity. I managed to resist the temptation to spend more money I don’t have on two books of photographs on Men and Women. It is possible that part of the attraction was the picture of Anna Friel on the front cover of the book on Women. Thinking about it now I may have to go back.

It was good to be reminded of my only visit to the Hacienda to go see Blancmange who were supported by a band called The Basking Sharks whose prop was a shark fin made out cardboard stuck to the front of the drums. They no doubt went on to great things.

There was just time to pop into Lunya to buy sausages and beans to eat with the remains of the ham tonight.

We had the fish last night. The prawns and monkfish were boiled for a couple of minutes and then refreshed in iced water. We had them with a cold salad of peppers and onion flavoured with oil and vinegar. It was more of a summer dish but I had seen the recipe and wanted to try it.

The red mullet were of a good size so we just had the one which had been filleted.

It took as long to cook as it took for the water for the pasta to boil and the pasta to cook.

Whilst the water was coming to the boil I chopped up three tomatoes and mixed them squashed garlic, a generous slug of olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper.

Whilst the pasta cooked I cooked the fish. Hot oil in a pan then sliding the fillets in skin side down. I flipped them over after a minute and a minute later they were done.

The drained pasta went back into the pan and I stirred in the tomatoes with a handful of torn basil leaves.

The pasta went into a bowl and the fillets of fish laid on top. I had managed to keep the gold red skin intact on one of the fillets and it almost looked too good to eat.

We listened to Holly Golightly.

1984 and I was a student in Leamington spa dutifully buying the NME back in a time when it was good. One week there was a review for a new album by a band called The Replacements. I hadn’t heard of them but my eye was caught by the fact that that Pete Buck from REM played the guitar solo on the first song.

Over the course of the previous year I had become REM’s biggest fan as a result of which I was obliged to spend the money I did not have on every bit of music they touched or had any connection with. I should say there was a fair bit of there music but I will come on to that in a minute.

So I went down to one of the two records in Leamington Spa between which I split my ever expanding overdraft and rather to my surprise they had the album so of course I bought it.

The album was called Let It Be and depending on how you count them it was the second or third album they had released but the first readily available in the UK. The first song, I Will Dare, did all of the things you would hope that an opening song with a Pete Buck solo might do but the rest of the record was something else; ragged punk, Kiss covers, strange songs involving answering machines, boners, androgeny and a bruised and battered glory in the romance and possible redemption to be had in loud music made with guitars played too loud. They drank quite a lot as well. I was hooked.

Over the few years around 1984 The Replacements joined a small group of bands that depending on what night of the week it might be are the best there have been – REM, The Go- Betweens and Husker Du.

The Replacements never made a single stand out perfect album but over the next few records there were songs that have stuck with me over the course of the last 32 years. Like any music they slip in and out of favour and sometimes I might find I haven’t listened to them for years but then they will slip through on a shuffle play somewhere or I will read something and I will dig out the albums and on they go again.

For Christmas I was given a book about them, Trouble Boys by Bob Mehr. I played the records as I read the book (although not as loudly as I would have liked) and so The Replacements have been back in my life for the last month or so.

By the time I got to the end of the book I was almost in tears over the story of this “great little band” who had an insatiable appetite for self-destruction and unerring ability to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory but somehow never managed to compromise on who and what they were.

I regret not seeing them live but then they were a bit hit or miss and I might have got them on a missing night.

Best song – probably Alex Chilton.  Any song that is going to name check Big Star (that other great band that never quite made it) can not be anything else but good.

I never travel far, without a little Big Star.

I should perhaps note that my appreciation of Big Star started at or around the same time, helped along by the cover of Kangaroo by This Mortal Coil and then seeing The Bangles play September Gurls and have Susannah Hoff threaten to go back with anyone in the audience that had any Big Star records – I did but she didn’t hear me.

Just over 2 years ago I was sent on a Ham Carving Masterclass at Lunya in Liverpool.

There were just over ten of us on the course. We sat on a series of tables surrounding the master ham carver who was to give us the lesson. We were shown a slide show of happy black footed pigs guzzling on acorns and we spent time holding a very sharp knife and trying to get to grips with the art of cutting very fine strips, always with some fat, so that the fat melts on the tongue sweetening the salty punch of the meat. In between times there was salt water beer to be drunk.

Over the course of the evening I sort of got the hang of it and I came away with a small pack of suitably thin slices of ham.

I am not sure what the master ham carver would make of the rather hacked about leg that is now lurking in the basement.

It came as a gift just over a year ago and even as it went into the basement it was noted that the best before date was almost upon us.

There were people over for New Year’s Eve and that seemed like a good excuse to rescue it from the basement to see how it had matured. By then the use by date was many months past but that appeared to have little or no impact which given as they are supposed to mature over time is only right.

We had a good few slices from it on New Years Eve and since then it has provided a couple of piled platefuls for another two parties. But most days it has done sturdy work in providing the filling for my lunchtime sandwiches.

After 31 days I am almost getting to the end of it. Every evening I bring it out of the basement to carve myself a small plateful of slices. Now I am having to bend the knife around awkward angles to get anything like a decent slice.

By the the weekend it will be done and I will have to spend time scrapping out the last few nuggets of deep ruby red meat for a good bean stew with sausages.

In the meantime I have been calming the nerves by listening to Willie Nelson.