All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph is of Lydd Church in Kent. It is a large church — it not know as “the cathedral of the marshes” for nothing. (That’s the Romney Marsh, by the way.) There has been a church on this site for 1000 years or more — there is a piece of Saxon wall in the NW corner of the nave which has only relatively recently been recognised as such. This is a panoramic joiner image of the south side of the church taken in August 2007.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Lydd Church, Southern Aspect
Lydd Church, Southern Aspect
August 2007

food+drink, ramblings, topographical

British Asparagus Festival

The British Asparagus Festival in the Vale of Evesham kicks off on Tuesday 23 April and runs until 21 June.

The official start of the UK’s eight-week asparagus season launches with the Great British Asparagus Run. This celebrates the first-cut round of asparagus with all the pomp and ceremony you’d expect on Saint George’s Day. The Run traditionally begins at the National Trust’s only pub — the Vale of Evesham’s Fleece Inn. Following a morning of festivities, the newly-harvested spears are escorted by a fleet of Morgan Cars to destinations such as Parliament and Buckingham Palace.

Following the Run, Worcestershire goes asparagus crazy throughout May and June. Scores of pubs and restaurants serve asparagus-themed menus whilst shops sell an array of asparagus products ranging from sausages, jam, ice cream and even soap. Visitors to the county can hop on an Asparabus for a tour of the local growers to learn more about the venerated vegetable as well as enjoy cookery demonstrations and tastings.

Find out more on the British Asparagus Festival website at .

As I love asparagus and will only buy British, I might even have to go myself! Let’s hope it isn’t too badly affected by the last year’s awful weather.

medical, ramblings

National Stop Snoring Week

22 to 26 April is National Stop Snoring Week. This is one of the few medical awareness weeks which I am going to mention, because snoring is usually ignored but can actually be life threatening.

National Stop Snoring Week is the annual event, sponsored by the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association, promoting general awareness that nobody need suffer as a result of snoring: it is a condition that can be treated.


And indeed snoring is a condition which should be treated as it is often a symptom of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea, a condition where the airways collapse during sleep preventing breathing. If untreated, sleep apnoea not only destroys restful sleep (and thus quality of life/ability to function) but can lead to heart disease and strokes. Luckily it is easily and successfully treated in 90% of diagnosed cases.

Of course snoring may have other causes and other effects. If nothing else it often disrupts the sleep of family members. And contrary to popular belief snoring is not something which affects only middle-aged and elderly men; anyone can be a snorer.

More information on National Stop Snoring Week at www.britishsnoring.co.uk/national_stop_snoring_week.php.

Transparency: Yes, I suffer from Obstructive Sleep Apnoea which is now well controlled.

arts, ramblings, words

National Stationery Week

Monday 22 to Sunday 28 April is National Stationery Week. Yes, that’s “stationery” with an “e” as in “envelope”.

The aim of National Stationery Week is to get people writing. It is a celebration of the written word and all things stationery. The idea is to get more people putting pen to paper and writing by hand more often, especially children. Oh and to get them spelling stationery correctly with an “e”!


Some would have us believe that, in this digital age, letter writing and writing by hand is dead in the water and no longer matters. But in truth technology has merely distracted us from the joy and importance of writing, it hasn’t replaced it — we still have to write note, postcards, posters and exam papers; and many still enjoy writing letters and even novels by hand. Indeed there remains something special about receiving a handwritten letter or card.


There’s a whole website devoted to National Stationery Week at nationalstationeryweek.com including a page which focuses on children and schools.

food+drink, ramblings

Great British Beef Week

Great British Beef Week runs from 21 to 27 April.

Great British Beef Week is an annual celebration of the British Beef industry. Timed to coincide with St George’s Day each year, it is supported both at a local level, with regional events, and nationally with the backing of the nation’s biggest supermarket retailers.

This year, Ladies in Beef is joining forces with the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, a charity which helps farming families in financial difficulty. Its work is funded by public donations, fundraising events and initiatives and support from businesses and community groups.

More information at www.rabi.org.uk and www.ladiesinbeef.org.uk.

words

Word: Ebonics

Ebonics

African-American English, especially when considered as a distinct language or dialect with linguistic features related to or derived from those of certain West African languages, rather than as a non-standard variety of English.
What linguists far more often term African American Vernacular English, and that was originally used with strong connotations of the African origin of this language.

The term is a conflation of “ebony” and “phonics” and , according to the OED, was first used by Prof. RL Williams in January 1973.


Examples, as quoted by the Urban Dictionary, are:

Ebonics: “Yo G, you frontin me?”
English: “Excuse me, my peer, are you attempting to influence me to engage in a violent action with you?”

Ebonics: “You gots to git those Benjamins so you cin git dat bling-bling fo yo ride.”
English: “You need to get money so that you can get expensive accessories for your car.”

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photo is from the shorty holiday we had in Rye in September 2010 with our friend Katy and her kids.

I found a lot of very flat stones on the beach at Rye Harbour which I assume are due to them coming from thin beds of sedimentary rocks in the cliffs further along the coast, although some was clearly brick or concrete. I was interested by the variety of colours and textures.

Stone Pile
Stone Pile
Rye, September 2010
It’s also surprising what can be pressed into service as a backcloth. I had to use something other than the scruffy patio table at our rental house, and a black t-shirt (complete with white cat’s hairs), although not ideal, did the job.

links

You may have missed …

Our irregular round-up of links to interesting (well to me, anyway) items you may have missed. In no special order …

First up an oldish item from Physicist Sean Carroll on what is science, what is not science, how we can tell, and how we examine he world about us.

“Bring us a shrubbery”. Researchers have found that the greener (plant-wise) an area the lower the crime rate.

Now here’s a puzzle. How does Polynesian DNA mysteriously show up in a Brazilian tribe on the wrong side of South America? Even the researchers find their conclusions unsatisfactory.

OK, so does penis size really matter? Men always think it does. Women tell us it doesn’t. Turns out both are right — just.

Your time machine should be delivered this week. So ready for your trip back to Tudor times researchers have written the Good Pub Guide for the 16th century.

Sheep. Real sheep. Artificial sheep. On roundabouts!? Well why not?

There are a lot more cat species than we usually realise. Here’s a list of the six most endangered feline species. They could easily have made that a list of a dozen.

Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum is the British Museum’s latest blockbuster exhibition which is getting rave reviews. I’m hoping to get to it this week.

Travelling on business? Finding you’re lonely in your hotel? Why not hire a goldfish?

Dig a hole almost anywhere in central London and you’ll find something historically interesting. There’s a huge construction site at Bank where the archaeologists are recovering literally thousands of pieces of Roman London from building timbers to shoes.

Finally one for the ladies. A French researcher has come to the conclusion that girls may as well throw away their bras because they don’t actually do any good, regardless of the size or shape of what you put in them. Maybe that’d be good for use men too? ☺

food+drink

Pasta with Chorizo

Another rather super past recipe I did for this evening’s dinner. I thought it would work well, having had something of the sort in a restaurant long ago, but I was surprised how good my version really was.

Like most of my recipes it is quick and easy and almost infinitely variable; indeed it is really only a variation on the pasta with prawns and pasta with bacon I’ve done before — but this is definitely more restaurant-y.

Pasta with Chorizo

Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients (for 2 as a main course)
200g fresh linguine (or pasta of your choice)
200g uncooked chorizo (I had bought this as a pack of 4 sausages)
medium onion
dozen-ish cherry tomatoes (I actually had the end of some leftover onion & baby plum tomato salad plus about half a small tub of smoked cherry tomatoes)
as much garlic as you like
juice of a lemon
generous handful of fresh parsley
salt, pepper, olive oil and parmesan
(You can add sliced mushrooms, olives, etc. if you wish but this really doesn’t need it.)

Method
Cook the pasta; you want the pasta ready before you cook the rest of the ingredients (you don’t want to be waiting on the pasta and overcooking the chorizo).
While the pasta cooks, finely chop the onion, garlic and parsley; cut the chorizo into 3-5mm slices.
When the pasta is done, or almost so, sauté the onion, garlic, tomatoes and chorizo in a little olive oil. You need to cook the chorizo and get the onion translucent which will take about 5 minutes.
Add the lemon juice and season with a small amount of salt and pepper. Stir.
Now add the pasta and mix everything together to get the chorizo distributed and the pasta coated in sauce.
Add the parsley and mix, cooking for another a minute or so.
Serve with parmesan and a robust red wine.

I was surprised how well the chorizo and lemon worked; I had thought it would but it was even better than I expected with the lemon counteracting the fattiness of the chorizo. The tomatoes, which had only just disintegrated, made a lovely light sauce — just enough to coat the pasta and no more.