Words: Ben Smoke
This year marks 20 years since comic, author, and broadcaster Robin Ince started The Book Club — a variety based comedy night that combined music, comedy and science. Around the same time Ince, along with fellow comic Josie Long, started Utter Shambles one of the first UK comedy podcasts.
The following year, using the Shambles ethos and teaming up with producer Trent Burton, Ince created a number of shows including an improvised Killer Crab musical at the first ever Latitude Festival. The Book Club would morph into the ground breaking science variety show Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People in 2008, with the creation of the science magazine app The Incomplete Map of the Cosmic Genome coming in 2013.
In 2016 the Cosmic Shambles Network was created — a place where all of the various shows, podcasts, apps, documentaries and “other shenanigans” could call home.
This year, almost ten years on, the Network is going from strength to strength. For the first time they took over a whole area of one of their spiritual homes, Latitude Festival, to create a space of magic and curiosity.
Buried deep in the woods, surrounded by planets dangling from trees, pop ups from iconic museums like Margate’s ‘Crab Museum’, astronomers tracking the skies and so much more the ‘Apollo Stage’ played host to a whole weekend of incredible talks, film screenings and more. It was a magical place where science, art, and culture came tumbling together, woven expertly into one another by Ince’s infectious curiosity. I went along to find out more…
Festival Food review
Each week our Food and Drink Editor Max Halley takes you to lunch with him but this week, we dive into the culinary offerings of Latitude festival with Senior Editor Ben Smoke.
Words and photos: Ben Smoke
Latitude prides itself on being a foodie festival. In the centre of the arena there is row upon row of cuisine from every corner of this planet. My ethos to festival eating has always been, ‘if I must’ but in the spirit of curiosity, I decided to try and eat like a normal person for the duration of the festival. Here’s how it went…
Friday:
Vegan Chicken Nugget Chow Mein
Don’t want to start this whole thing off with a bad vibe but does placing four vegan chicken nuggets atop a barely seasoned or flavoured bundle of non-egg egg noodles and lobbing some coriander atop maketh a chicken nugget chow mein? I’m not sure. What I do know is that it reminded me of when we would visit my Mum’s family in Norwich and I would get chow mein from the Chinese buffet stand at the food hall at the top of the Castle Mall, imaginatively named because it was a mall that was built near a castle. Make of that what I will I guess.
2.5/5 (would have been lower but I was hungry and even celery tastes good when you’ve got hank on)
Loaded pulled pork hash browns
I have a rule that I can break my vegetarianism if I’m on assignment and someone else is paying and my god, I am so glad I did. Any worries I had about the cumbersome nature of the hash browns making this uneatable melted away as I ploughed through heaps of pulled pork and picked off bits of delicious golden fried potato — the force and fervour of my fork creating a perfectly balanced mixture of flavours and textures on the end of the wooden spokes. The pork, tender and lean, was perhaps a little on the dry side and could have done with being soaked in sauce, rather than it being added after but otherwise, this completed me in more ways than one.
4/5 (would have been 4.5/5 but the sauce situation let it down)
Bacon Rasher Crisps
Going to be honest with you, the [redacted] pints, frozen margs and other assorted goods I’d had by the point I bought these on the way back to the tent late at night meant I forgot to take a picture at the time or write any real notes beyond the words “I ascended” which tells you everything you need to know about the experience.
5/5
Saturday:
Grilled Cheese with onion chutney
Dry mouthed, slightly nauseous and with the dull ache behind my eye that reminded me of the poor decisions I’d made just hours previously I decided breakfast needed to be a grilled cheese. For a relatively simple dish a grilled cheese is pretty easy to fuck up (BELIEVE ME) but this one hit the spot. Molten cheese, sweet onion chutney with hints of citrus, a crispy, slightly charred exterior. My hangover cured, once again, by the godly combination of carbs and mountains of cheese.
4.5/5
Halloumi burger and chips
A classic of the genre, Harissa mayo added a nice bit of heat to the occasion. Halloumi, perfectly cooked, complimented by the choice of leaf (an Italian salad vibe). Everyone and their dog seems to be insistent on adding tomatoes, which I consider to be the devil’s fruit, to everything they can so I cannot mark them down for doing so but perhaps the brioche bun was a little much. Didn’t get a picture of the place because it started pissing it down as I got the burger and no offence but I’m not committed enough to this bit to get pneumonia.
Oh also there were chips and they were nice and presalted but a little anaemic.
4/5
Chargrilled Vegetable Burrito
There are countless times when a burrito is the correct answer to a question, but after three pints and one vodka slushie it is especially true. Perfect mix of all the key tenets of a burrito, with just enough spice to remind me I’m alive. I could have made no better choice at this juncture in my life.
4.5/5
Sunday:
Double Egg Bap
Not to over-egg it but this roll made me a better man. Not because it was good. As two almost cold fried eggs shoved into a dry brioche bun, barely tipped back into the realm of the edible by the application of unhealthy levels of BBQ sauce it was far and away the worst thing I consumed all weekend but, as I sat masticating the monstrosity, I took a moment to look around and remember that there is immeasurable pain and suffering in this world. I gazed up at the blue sky, desperately chewing, and remembered all the times I’d been hurt or let down and I realised there was no way this “egg roll” could ever come close to that. That no matter how awful this moment was, there were infinitely worst ones being had through space and time, so at least that wasn’t me. In many ways, I’m forever indebted to this attempt at food for finally teaching me some perspective.
Still gave it 1/5 though.
The observant among you will note that this email does not contain our usual Ralph Recommends section! Fear not! Keep an eye on your inboxes because tomorrow lunchtime we’ll be bringing you a bumper edition with previews and picks from this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Fun!