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From Kevin Marsh
I must say I'm surprised.
As you know, Today has always been a bit "on the edge" with it's racy journalism and creative approach to news. Obviously we've had the odd moment when we've been a bit too creative but that's not what I mean. No, what I have in mind are the great moments of mould-breaking broadcasting some of which, bizarrely, appear on our website under the title of "Blunder Clips" and are paradoxically called there "Some of our least memorable moments".
I don't know who called them that but I'm going to have a word with them because I can't imagine anyone forgetting any of the stuff you can find there nor indeed any of the other priceless ornaments of our history such as our razor sharp analysis of the mooted Franco/German union back in January that took the form of Dave Helmut's oompah band accompanied by Romano Viazzizi on the French accordion playing Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'. Nor Toby the border collie who joined us at the height of pre-war tension back in March to explain all about canine stress . Edgy or what?
So it was emboldened by this rich legacy that we got into the whole wallaby issue this week, kicked off by Andrew Hosken's report from a village to the south-west of Paris which was being mobbed by marsupials.
Listen to the report again...
Of course, whenever you do stories about the exotic clashing with the mundane, the inevitable happens. Write about burnt out Opel Corsas and disused massage parlours in Barnsley and it becomes a national talking point. Speculate on whether the milk should go in first or should it be the tea and you find specials mounted on 91Èȱ¬1 to answer the public hunger for debate. Unsurprisingly, then, few here in the UK were prepared to let it seem the Gauls were alone with their misplaced marsupials and we were swamped by emails reporting wallaby sightings in places as far apart as Leek and Uttoxeter – and some of those sightings were made years ago.
Well, with stuff like this, one thing leads to another and before the week was out the edgy, racy instincts kicked in again and we were broadcasting Australian chef Scott Webster's favourite wallaby recipe. And this is where I was surprised.
Listen to the piece again...
I expected complaints. Lots of them. You do. Sometimes in this risk taking world you just have to go ahead and take it on the chin when it comes. It's not that we don't care what listeners think it's just that since you can't always please everyone you have to accept someone is bound to dislike something that you do especially when it’s as cutting edge as this. But there were none. Well, not many. Not as many as I would have thought, at any rate.
So to extend and enrich your online experience, here are a couple of other ways of cooking wallaby that are currently popular. If you fancy a lighter dish, try stir fried wallaby with Asian greens and nashi pears:
If on the other hand you're looking for something a tad more substantial on these cold winter evenings here's wallaby pie with sheep's yoghurt.
Be aware, though. Wallabies are in fact a protected species which only indigenous Australians (i.e. the ones not descended from convicts and chancers) are allowed to eat… in Australia, anyway. Don't know what the rules are in Earl's Court. Actually, it's not entirely true about the complaints. Sarah whinged and whined noisily about it all before sending everyone on the programme to Coventry. This wasn't about the ethics or otherwise of chewing on the world’s most famous bush kangaroo’s distant cousins ("What's that Skippy ? You don't think a simple deglaze will yield a sauce with the depth of something based around shallots and briskly reduced cider vinegar ?)
No, it was something much more practical.
I don't know if you've ever cleared up after an Australian chef… no, you're right, it's not that likely I know but I imagine that it's bit grim at the best of times what with all that jumbuck meat and billabong and tuckerbag contents. But deboning a wallaby is quite a big job especially in a hurry and the end result was that after the programme the Today kitchen looked like a charnel house. Which is, of course, exactly what it was and exactly how Sarah found it as she snapped on her marigolds. Trooper that she is, Sarah did get on with it though as I say with a lot of effing and blinding, a bit of whining, long steely silences and a refusal to touch a single cappuccino cup ever again.
Kevin
P.S.
None of this has anything to do with Saturday’s world cup rugby fixture. At all.
P.P.S
Huge success of the week, the photo competition.
We only did this because there was something about a photo competition on the radio that appealed to our sense of the absurd. What we didn't reckon with was the hundreds of fantastic entries from which it was pretty difficult to draw up a short list. Nor the compelling way the photographers who were shortlisted were able to talk about their work on air.
Anyway, the top and bottom of it is that nearly a million of you have logged onto the Today website this week to look at the photos and cast your votes.
Next...mime.
(You have a few days left to vote)
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