Vicky Ellis

Journalist, writer, podcast fan, lacrosse player, poet.

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Sausage and green lentil stew

Autumn nights closing in + sausages that need to be cooked = spontaneous tasty stew time

I’ve managed that rare thing, made a delicious stew from scratch with absolutely no inspo-recipe-googling. Rare for me, anyway.

It was pretty darn quick, easy and cheap too. (I’d say roughly 45 mins.)

To share the good stew vibes, here is a speedy note on the recipe in all its unpretentious, thrown-together glory!

Ingredients

Eight chunky sausages

Green lentils, around 250g (I threw on half a 500g pack from KTC) 

Half an onion

3-4 garlic cloves

Chilli flakes, a liberal sprinkle

Fennel seeds, a slightly less liberal sprinkle

Ground cumin, ditto

Knorr chicken stock cube (the squidgy ones! Love ’em!)

Water

Olive oil

First I fried the sausages in oil for about 5 minutes on a medium heat, to kickstart the cooking and give them a nice colour, then threw on the chilli flakes, fennel and cumin.

I rinsed the lentils in a sieve under a running tap, draining them, then tipped them on top of the sausages, giving them a good stir occasionally for another few minutes.

The stock cube went on next, stirred into enough boiling water to cover the whole mixture in the pot.

I roughly chopped the garlic and onions, sliding them into the mix, stirring, and put the lid on for about 30-40 minutes. I kept an eye on it, stirring occasionally, reducing the heat to a simmer halfway through, topping up with a bit of water if it looked too dry.

Once it was cooked through, I used a wooden spoon to break the sausages in half because I prefer that look. Seemed a bit more rustic!

A not-so-fancy-serving-suggestion: I’ll probably eat this with some rice or mashed potato tomorrow, or most likely, a chunky bread roll. So lazy...

This recipe is really just for my own record but if you do try it out, follow all the usual guidelines for cooking times and your common sense (or if you have one, your cook’s nose!)

Cooked on Monday 9th October 2017

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Jurassic Park at the Waterloo Vaults - it's RAAARGHingly good

Quiet, all of you. You're approaching the tyrannosaur paddock... How the hell they manage to fit a fully fledged T-Rex into the confines of Waterloo Vaults is a secret reserved for the lucky audiences of Jurassic Park.

(And it's not one of those plastic litter-pickers with a dino head that were all the rage in the Nineties. I remember being terrorised by a boy at a birthday party with one of those as a child, so I was pleased not to have to relive the trauma...)

No, one of the great things about this send-up of Spielberg's blockbuster on stage is the inventive lengths gone to in order to recreate the pioneering animatronics (with not a hint of machinery in sight).

A new one-hour show from theatre makers SuperBolt (epic name, I know), it's playful, funny and endearing in equal measure.

Expect slick timing, characters you can root for, a video game-style battle with a dino and some brilliant performances from the cast of three.

There are a few moments which you suspect are for the hardcore Park fans but even without minute-by-minute knowledge of the film, it's vastly enjoyable.

Loosely cast in the Edinburgh Fringe-worn mould of lovingly parodied classics, like Casablanca: The Gin Joint Cut and the one-man Star Wars show, let's hope this gets a Scottish outing of its own.

Jurassic Park finishes this week at the Vault Festival. Performances on Saturday and Sunday only at 8.30pm, with weekend matinées at 4pm.

For those of you who fancy a quick pre-show JP refresher, here's one of the best lines...

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There's just two months until the chequered flag goes up for hotly anticipated new electric racing series Formula E.

ELN gets the inside track from Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag on why the self-confessed petrol-head is so keen on green cars.

Vicky Ellis reports, edited by ELN. Published by ELN on 2 July 2014.

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Blog: Has much changed since Tony Benn's stint in energy?

The time for mourning is also a time for reflection.

Obituaries of Labour great Tony Benn have been filled with his political dreams and words of piercing wisdom, enough to make me wish I’d known more of him. So where else for me to turn – but to energy?

Energy issues may not have been Benn’s calling card – and his move to head up the power department from industry in Harold Wilson’s Government is described in a recent press report as to a less important department.

But it’s often gone hand in hand with some central issues he held close, from the coal miners’ strikes – which he backed – to his keenness for nationalisation.

Rifling back through the records of his statements in the House of Commons while Energy Secretary (electronically, I hasten to add) I’m struck by how much has changed since his early time in parliament.

Not least, the assumption that we could have enough energy to power the country within a few years.

Asked in June 1975 about this, Mr Benn replied: “Great Britain is expected to be largely self-sufficient in energy by 1980.”

In nuclear, too, the UK’s role is very different: we no longer export technology to others but are a key market for other nations like Japan and France, something which would have horrified the MP Renee Short in January 1967.

Did the honourable gentleman know of “considerable competition” from America, she enquired, or great concern that “our lead in this field is being whittled away”?

And of course there’s the ginormous leaps in renewable energy we’ve had which doesn’t even feature in a list he gave to parliament of the country’s power make up: coal (24–67%), oil (13–55%), nuclear, (18-28%), gas, (0–13%).

But as my scrolling goes on, I find it incredible – even wryly amusing – how much stays the same.

MPs clamouring for more caps on subsidies – could nuclear reactors “be charged against the operating costs of those stations instead of to the Exchequer”, asks one. How familiar is that?

And today’s energy efficiency push has a Seventies precursor: Tony Benn’s Conservation Campaign, Save It. Meant to “progressively change attitudes and habits” to using energy, it cost £3.2m.

That’s not to mention coal still stumping up to 40% of our energy in 2014.

As for the future, we can’t know what the British socialist icon would have made of Labour’s energy price freeze – if they win the next election.

I do suspect one thing would have pleased the man who said “ideas are more powerful than guns”.

He also reportedly said that “Change from below, demands from the populace to end unacceptable injustice, has played a far larger part in shaping British democracy than most lawyers, historians or statesmen have ever cared to admit.”

Whether that’s people taking energy back into their own hands in the community, or switching energy supplier, he’s probably right. Rest In Peace, Tony Benn.

Originally published by Energy Live News on 17 March 2014.

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Blog: David Cameron is styling Britain as a frackers' paradise

Decorous as ever, David Cameron’s been at it this week, waving his Y-fronts in the general direction of big wads of shale gas cash.

Oh, how things change in a few brief months.

Last summer at the height of the Balcombe village tea party, our esteemed Prime Minister wouldn’t have been seen dead near a fracking site.

But on Monday, the UK’s leader toured a potential shale gas well, a day after news broke French oil major Total is ready to plunge millions into the East Midlands in the hope of a good frack.

And yesterday afternoon in front of MPs, just before he said it was “realistic” for his Government to claim it’s the greenest ever, he made a decent stab at aligning himself with the frackers, suggesting a minority of people are “religiously opposed” to shale gas, declaring this “irrational”.

Even a tacky “Welcome to Las Vegas”-style sign plonked in the English Channel would have been a subtler come on to the biggest frackers in the planet.

But it won’t be an easy chat up. Britain a fracker’s paradise? Environmental activists have been a thorn in the side of the country’s first shale gas prospectors Cuadrilla. They’ll be a pain in the butt for any future drillers.

Meanwhile we have the run up to the general election and though as diplomatic as ever when probed on the Coalition tensions yesterday, true blue (or is it green?) Tory Cameron said his Lib Dem government colleagues are “a bit more gung ho” about a decarbonisation target.

All of which adds to the impression that for energy politicking, it’s going to be a fascinating, frack-tious year.

Originally published by Energy Live News on 15 January 2014.

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World Cup winners, a Russian-Ukraine stand-off and shale gas "sweet spots" - Vicky Ellis rounds up June's top energy news stories.

Script by Vicky Ellis, edited by ELN. Published by ELN on 3 July 2014. 

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Blog: Is Granite City's oil wealth just skin deep?

Soaring through the sky hundreds of feet overhead, seagulls look tiny, sparrow-like – but don’t be fooled. Those cawing birds are bloody huge.

And apparently they’re a major pest in Aberdeen, oil and gas capital of the nation.

Entering a dingy hotel room in the greyest city in the British Isles (it’s not called Granite City for nothing), an unusual note pasted to the sliding window caught my eye.

“For your personal safety and in order to prevent wild birds from entering this room, Please do not open this window beyond 10cm”.

Bang on cue, crazed screeching began, seemingly just metres from the windowsill. I hurriedly stepped back from the glass.

It was an odd way to start ELN’s latest jaunt around the country, which saw a camerawoman and me tail Energy Minister Michael Fallon (He Who Holds One Thousand Briefs) every step of the journey quite by chance from Aberdeen via Manchester to Blackpool, then London.

Aberdeen is an odd mixture of polished wealth and dog-eared dilapidation. Our hotel was a case in point.

The taxi driver, a Celtic fan, told us frankly it was a “s***hole” and just like Fawlty Towers. He wouldn’t want his worst enemy to stay there a night – but he added that it’s what you make of it. Oh, and it had a pool.

As we drove through grotty, low buildings to the hotel’s back entrance, we spied some mattresses propped against a wall. “They’re your beds for the night,” joked the cabbie.

Rooms around £200 a night are common in Aberdeen, even for one like this – nothing more than an overnight stop for burly rig workers, carryall bags slung over their shoulder, takeaway pizzas in hand.

Leaving the outskirts of Aberdeen for the high street and harbour, things spruce up. There’s a bustling new shopping centre at Union Square, with cafes and cool restaurant chains like Las Iguanas, the roads are full of Range Rovers.

I think the pilot’s dry words in a soft Scotch burr, just as we touched down in Scotland, nail this two-sided town: “If you’ve not booked our limo service then you’ll find taxis in arrivals.”

Of course there’s no limo service – oil execs have their own Bentleys anyway.

This is the wealth which is meant to percolate from the top to the bottom – but another taxi driver complained about inflated hotel prices, informing us of Bank of Scotland stats showing Aberdeen has the highest average disposable income in the UK.

That’s the kind of cash which Michael Fallon believes will bring wealth back to the streets of Blackpool.

Rundown resort, haunt of dodgy stag weekends and seagulls fat on fish’n’chips, the Lancashire town needs the sort of elbow grease and polish my Grandpa (an adopted Lancashireman himself) once doled out to my brown school shoes.

Some are eyeing up shale gas as untapped liquid gold, able to solve the chronic problem of a north-south wealth divide.

They hope it will bring the seaside town back to its former glory, not just a one-off stop for Strictly Come Dancing.

There’s potential for millions of pounds to pour in the Bowland Shale’s direction. And yet – would fracking just be a quick fix, creating an Aberdeen-style veneer of prosperity?

Money will always jingle in the pockets of suit trousers.

But despite the raft of environmental opposition, the Government seems convinced shale gas could kick-start regeneration.

If it does, Blackpool would be one more seaside town where it isn’t just the seagulls getting fat.

Originally published by Energy Live News on 2 May 2014.

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Mars bars, hefty fines for energy suppliers, fracking under peoples' homes and is our energy too cheap? Vicky Ellis rounds up the top energy stories in May.

Script by Vicky Ellis, edited by ELN.

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Blog: Where's the Big Yellow storage for gas when you need it?

I have to admit – however reluctantly – that I’m a bit of a hoarder.

My other half will crow with delight when he reads my blog today because I furiously deny this is the case 99% of the time.

Though I really do hate clutter, it’s often harder to chuck away non-essentials than you think.

But there are some things that are unquestionably good to keep in the cupboard. Baked beans or dried spaghetti, say, or warm woolly jumpers.

When winter swung around last year, the knitted cardigan I nearly ditched in the heat of our brief British heatwave was my new best friend.

Likewise for energy, it just seems logical to keep a bit of gas tucked away for a freezing cold, rainy day.

It’s a sensible idea that seems to have escaped the British Government.

Last September, Energy Minister Michael Fallon decided it was unnecessary to make suppliers keep a certain amount of gas in the UK over peak times of demand, i.e. winter, just in case.

(Just like I keep “emergency chocolate” stashed in my car’s glove compartment. You never know when you’ll need it!)

His reason? “The costs outweigh the benefits in all cases.”

This appears to be based on one possible outcome of several models run by analysts at Redpoint. One scenario found forcing suppliers to save some gas in the tank could put consumer bills up because the move would need subsidy. This was heavily emphasised by the Business and Energy Minister.

(Another scenario found an obligation to set gas aside would be far more beneficial).

As Centrica‘s Sam Laidlaw said this week the UK will soon rely on 70% imported gas, it seems Mr Fallon has chosen a high risk strategy.

Surely having more gas in storage on our green and pleasant isle would mean less risk of running out, making volatile gas prices less likely.

That’s critical for many industrial energy users. Last March, gas supply jitters because of low gas levels in storage coupled with a pipeline to the UK closing unexpectedly saw prices spike to around £1.50 per therm. That’s compared with around 60-65 pence before the pipe outage.

The ginormous rise forced more than one large industrial to shut up shop until prices came down – something they and we as an economy can ill afford.

With Russian-Ukraine tensions rearing their ugly head again, UK ministers’ folly has been brought into the open once more.

Where’s the Big Yellow depot for gas when you need one?

Originally published by Energy Live News on 7 March 2014.

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The home of cricket is about to get a new energy efficient stand – from solar panels on the rooftop and electric hobs in the kitchen. Vicky Ellis reports for ELN. 

Script by Vicky Ellis, edited by ELN.

Published by Energy Live News on 28 April 2014. 

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Blog: Will our AAA credit rating loss push up energy prices?

Triple A. No we’re not talking about a dodgy grease-haired boy band, the lesser-known cousin of that butch WWE wrestler or those annoyingly small batteries which you never have enough of to replace the ones in your telly remote.

No, triple A or AAA is the top notch credit rating which the UK has, as of last week, lost. Well that was careless, wasn’t it?

Chancellor George Osborne pinned his economic strategy – and reputation – on keeping it. Now we’ve been knocked down a peg to AA1 by ratings agency Moody’s, what does it mean for the energy crowd?

Given that analysts say the market has known the downgrading was on its way for quite some time, even three or four months ago, the million pound (deficit) answer isn’t too clear.

Economists expect it to affect the value of the British pound. If our currency is worth less than others, in particular the US dollar which is used to trade oil, will this have a knock-on effect on power prices?

Dr Monica Giulietti, energy professor at Warwick Business School who has had her eye on the energy industry for at least 16 years, tells me it could well have this “indirect” impact. But that’s only on top other factors like increasing demand for oil from developing countries as well as western nations’ taxes to fund renewable energy.

A weaker pound will affect fuel costs more than our power prices, Dr Giulietti believes, because oil is mostly used for transportation. As for how much oil prices could go up for Brits, who knows, but she thinks the effect is “not going to be substantial”.

Should we all breathe a sigh of relief then? Not just yet, as there could be another effect on the sector. If the pound is down, then this could spell the start of higher interest rates, making it harder for companies to attract funds or the Government to borrow money for energy projects.

So that’s great for business then – and just at a time when we need to be spending plenty on ageing energy infrastructure! As chicken-wrestler and lime green leotard-sporting Borat might say… NOT.

Post-recession, it seems Britain isn’t out of the woods yet – and unfortunately for us, we can’t take out any anger on AA1 (or George Osborne and co, for that matter) in the wrestling ring.

Originally published by Energy Live News on 28 Feb 2013.

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Blog: Cut back on cuppa? Not as hellish as it sounds

For members of the British public, an instruction to cut back on cups of tea is like being told not to breathe.

Having a cuppa is what we do first thing in the morning, as soon as we get to work, for a mid-morning break, a lunch-time slurp, an afternoon slump fixer and, finally, an evening put-your-feet-up ‘Ahhh’.

It’s a daily ritual we are loathe to part with. Cutting back on a brew sounds reckless, dangerous, downright stupid and even stupider to advise us to do.

But that’s exactly what the country’s largest independent energy supplier First Utility has done, to the outraged headlines of several newspapers yesterday afternoon.

How dare a supplier tell us what to do, chunters the subtext of their stories, when they have shamelessly put up their energy prices! It is THEIR executives who should be sharing the showers, getting to bed early and going without a caffeine fix to lower energy bills.

Yes, First Utility’s energy tips might sound daft, deliberately titillating and ever so slightly patronising.

But in fact, most are just practical common sense. (Apart from the shower one – trying to squeeze two bodies into a cubicle shower is a nightmare. Trust me, I’ve tried it.)

We’re a wasteful bunch, the Brits – and if a game of monopoly and a caffeine detox can save us a few bob, why not?

Originally published by Energy Live News on 4 January 2014.

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Blog: Cameron cuts red tape for pit ponies - finally!

Scrapping is such a strong, manly word – it’s a doing man’s word, a militaristically orderly word.

So no wonder it rolled off David Cameron’s tongue so smoothly on Monday morning, as he refreshed his campaign to ditch cumbersome red tape.

The environmental rule book, he declared, will be slimmed down by some 80,000 pages to a mere 20,000-odd – it’s the government equivalent of going on weightwatchers.

New slim line regulations will be better for entrepreneurs or small businesses choking under the weight and cost of some “ridiculous” regulation.

That cut of 80,000 sounds ruthlessly clinical, even heroic. Take a closer look at what that big number means and it’s a slightly different story.

There is a good chunk of legislation going purely because it is now “redundant”, either because it’s covered in new laws or is so outdated it’s not worth looking at.

A case in point? Several rules are for redundancy payments to mineworkers in the late 70s and 80s. Another rule headed for the bin means the Government loses control over coal pit ponies.

Mmm, that will be sorely missed.

Take these into account and the red tape purge sounds more like a spring clean: Dave and his civil servants finally getting the feather duster out to clear away the cobwebs.

But some are worried the spring clean is actually quite sinister: several trade bodies fear there could be a “scaling back” of environmental ambition.

What they desperately fear is Dave in a coal-dusted pinny, wielding a meat cleaver. That’s a sight no-one wants to face.

Originally published by Energy Live News on 29 Jan 2014.

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Blog: Keen pianist Ed Balls suffers broken record syndrome

Everyone likes a good hobby. Including those who you might expect to have little free time – even politicians!

Speaker John Bercow favours a game of tennis, Treasury man Danny Alexander enjoys fishing and “sports of all kinds” while Tory MP Bernard Jenkins is apparently a nudist.

As for Ed Balls – if you didn’t know he was a keen amateur pianist, it’s likely you do now after his private passion was maliciously mocked by George Osborne yesterday.

It was a post-Autumn Statement face off that didn’t show Labour’s Shadow Chancellor as a true virtuoso.

In a ranging, unstructured speech full of rhetorical questions and few answers, Balls used the phrase “energy bills” like a pop hook, returning to it as inanely as One Direction – not that he’d pass muster as a member.

He didn’t get no satisfaction from the one-note performance either. As soon as he sat down, Osborne was ready with a jibe: “The Honourable Gentleman had to miss his Grade 3 piano exam to be here today. I think he should have gone ahead with the chopsticks rendition.”

Osborne virtually trumpeted the inevitable put-down: “He needs a lot more time to practice.”

How Ed Balls failed to score any points in the Commons soiree, I don’t know. He could have plucked the heartstrings with some serious statistics on fuel poverty, or blown over his Tory counterpart with a clever jazz solo of Green Deal disaster and strike price woes.

Instead, he just sounded like a broken record.

Originally published by Energy Live News on 6 December 2013.

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Blog: To be or not to be - energy's always the question

There’s often so much focus these days on the threat of climate change that no one pauses to consider the possibility of any other potentially world-destroying natural phenomena. Such as an LA-sized meteor crashing into Earth and eradicating every single life form on the planet.

Not so the writer of a play I went to see this week (sometimes I moonlight as a reviewer for Whatsonstage.com), a new “apocalyptic comedy” called Top Story which follows just such a scenario with scientists predicting humans have a week left before crashdown – and extinction.

Funnily enough for a journalist, I found myself watching the 24 hour news cycle being sent up with an Emily Maitless-style presenter charting the blow-by-blow events as various doomed correspondents give her the latest.

Often in drama whether it’s film, theatre or television, we’re asked to suspend our disbelief, ignore plot holes or practical issues which might make the action impossible.

In Top Story’s case, it was that in the last week before meteor death was predicted, everyone still had enough power to continue using their mobile phones and tellies, TV news crews continued to beam pictures around the world and so on.

It was hard to suppress my scepticism – I think the energy world is turning me nerdy. Did all the roving teams have a super-powerful solar panel stuck on the roof of their support trucks? Or the TV studio have its own mini biomass boiler, tucked away in the back room for an emergency? Unlikely.

Would families sitting at home in front of the box still be able to cook dinner, charge their smartphone, watch the news coverage without disrupted electricity? Again, I thought unlikely.

As much as I’m sure power plant engineers would continue to hold their posts in the event of a future world disaster, it’s all too easy to imagine they might not be able to for whatever reason. Or for that matter, anyone else crucial to the power network, from the traders buying energy or gas for our CCGT plants, or the crews of ships carrying that gas, to wind turbine or transmission line repairmen.

Imagine what would happen if one link, just one, in the chain from power source to electricity socket were to break down.

It is frightening in many ways: hospitals losing electricity for vital equipment, street lamps cut out on motorways and in control towers directing planes to land; trains and tubes suddenly grounded to a halt, telecoms failing on calls to fire brigades and the police.

Think of all the little things too which could be spoiled: the birthday cake in the oven sinking, the last tie-breaking penalty kick missed on TV, the long overdue catch up phone call cut off: not life or death moments, but important in life all the same.

I would be fascinated to see a realistic portrayal of what it might be like if we suddenly lost power on the stage or screen. But perhaps what strikes me most on reflection, is how lucky we are to have so many people working diligently to keep those moments in life ticking over, 24/7.

As for Top Story, I wouldn’t have minded a meteor strike taking me out halfway through…

Originally published by Energy Live News on 10 June 2013.  

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Review: About Miss Julie at King's Head Theatre ***

The knives are out - quite literally - in this languid but pacy adaptation of Strindberg's 1888 play Miss Julie. They dangle around a naked light bulb in the sparse 'downstairs' kitchen, scene of an afterparty not normally shared with the servants.  But it's a dangerously flirtatious afterparty for two - Julie and her father's butler John.

Originally published on Whatsonstage.com on 7 July 2014.

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Review: An Awfully Big Performance at Chickenshed ***

With a glint in many an eye, a standing ovation rounds off the 40th anniversary showcase of North London theatre Chickenshed.

An Awfully Big Performance is just that - a rotating cast of nearly 700 sees 460-ish people on stage for a vibrant, technicoloured showcase of its best shows from the last four decades.

It's been a fruitful journey for the pioneering company which began life in a real chicken shed in a field but now has a home in its own purpose-built, accessible theatre.

A recently adopted motto, Theatre that changes lives, means alongside professionals and theatre students, anyone can take part in crafting the show, with an age range of 7 to 70+ and actors with mental health problems or disability - but Chickenshed doesn't use those sorts of labels. Once you're on stage, you're just a performer.

That couldn't be clearer from the word go. Thrilling splashes of song and dance are Chickenshed's forte, on display in giant choreographed dance ensembles - from the bold, folky wedding dancers whirling in red skirts, to Cirque into Freefall, an apocalyptic vision of today's industrial workforce.

Freefall's comment on slave labour is powerful, dancers scrambling over each other to claim a place to hang on a portable metal frame that swings around the stage.

It's typical of the strong messages Chickenshed shares with its audience, from issues of race to equal opportunities for all, summed up in the finale, a touching song, "We Need Each Other", with the huge ensemble gathered - and it's incredible to see so many performers all looking out for one other.

Original music and the live band give the right touch of finger-clicking pace or strings-led melancholy to proceedings.

There's enjoyable stuff from the youngsters in full 1920s regalia for Making Great Movies, with promising vocals from the soloists and an imagination-boosting snippet of their popular show for young kids, Tales from the Shed, with a puppet leaping over glowing hoops in the darkness.

I wasn't convinced of the need for the first half's artfully beamed words of praise for Chickenshed from world famous British thesps like Alan Bennett and Trevor Nunn on boards decorating the stage - but only because the performances spoke for themselves. Chickenshed is a genuinely life-affirming gift to hundreds of people from audience to performer - here's hoping there are more like it in another 40 years' time.

Originally published by Whatsonstage.com on 25 March 2014.