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.
food+drink

Culinary Adventures #115: Cod and Orange

This was a real adventure as it’s not something I’ve tried before and I wasn’t at all sure it would work from a taste point of view. However even though I’m not a huge fan of cod (I find it too bland and boring) I thought it worth trying. As usual this is based on, but doesn’t slavishly follow, a recipe online.

Baked Cod with Orange & Ginger

Serves: 2
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 25 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 good sized cod loins/steaks
  • 3-4cm piece of ginger, peeled & grated
  • 3-4tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • juice & zest of an orange
  • 1-2tsp dried mixed herbs
  • 1tsp cumin powder
  • pinch of salt
  • black pepper
  • orange slices/wedges to garnish (optional)

plated cod with orange

What to do

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (or a bit higher if not using a fan oven).
  2. Pat the cod pieces dry and place in a baking dish, leaving some space between. Season with a very small pinch of salt.
  3. Mix orange juice & zest, shredded ginger, olive oil, herbs, cumin and a few grinds of black pepper in a small bowl. Stir to combine.
  4. Brush the cod generously on both sides with the orange mix.
  5. Cover foil and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
  6. Then remove foil and bake for a further 5-10 minutes until the cod is cooked through and slightly crispy on top.
  7. Serve, garnished with orange slices if desired (I didn’t).

I served it with garlic roast potatoes (I must write them up sometime as they’re one of our favourites, and dead easy) and a fennel slaw.

Conclusion

Well it worked and was edible, the cod was only just overcooked (it had an extra 5 minutes to try to get it crispy), and the combination of flavours worked well together. But it needs work and improvement …

The cod wasn’t really crispy, partly I suspect as it ended up with too much liquor in the baking dish. In part that was probably because I had used a large, very juicy, orange. I should have kept a couple of slices of orange for garnish as there would still have been plenty of juice.

The other thing was that for me the orange and ginger didn’t really come through to the extent I thought they should. Again that may have been down to too much liquor and the orange not adhering enough to the cod. Maybe try reducing the orange juice and using a bit less oil, so it’s stickier?

I do wonder if another time I will try coating the cod in breadcrumbs with orange zest, ginger and herbs and pan frying it. Maybe served with a small amount of sharp (not sweet) orange sauce. Something to try when the supermarket next have good cod on offer!

Nevertheless it was a worthwhile experiment and something different.

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

Here we go with this month’s collection of links to items you’ll wish you’d not missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

First off, wasps … apparently hornets are able to hold their alcohol amazingly well. [££££]

hornet

Birds listen to their songs in a totally different way than we do. [££££}

Scientists have found a surprisingly intact sabre-toothed tiger kitten frozen in Siberian ice, and it’s revealing unknown details about the species.

In 2023 researchers sent a dummy alien signal to Earth, without telling anyone, and it has now been decoded although not understood!

Jupiter is large enough to swallow at least 1000 Earths, and yet it has no surface.

NASA has a large number of satellites studying the sun, and they’re providing some surprising discoveries unrelated to the sun.

Look deeper and you find that comets have sinkholes, which generate jets of material.

In another piece of work from NASA, they’ve discovered two galaxies, looking like bloodshot eyes, which seem to be in the process of merging.

And finally in this section, astronomers have rediscovered a “dandelion-like” supernova first spotted in 12th-century China and Japan. [££££]

dandelion supernova

Health, Medicine

H5N1 bird flu has been detected in pigs, which is a big cause for concern as they are a well-known “mixing vessel”. And a teenager hospitalised in Canada has H5N1 with mutation(s) which may make it more transmissible between people.

It turns out that humans evolved to share beds, and not only with their romantic partner.

Synaesthesia is strange (especially for those of us who don’t have it) but ticker-tape synaesthesia, where real life comes with subtitles, is really bizarre.

Sexuality

Girls, is it that you just don’t like sex, or is it that you don’t like patriarchal sex? [LONG READ]

So how do you like your dirty talk during sex? [££££]

Is using lube really that much of a taboo for straight couples? Seems it is. [££££]

Environment

OK, so let’s change track …

Japan tiny forest

Apparently British cities are taking on the Japanese concept of “tiny forests“.

And in a similar vein, relatively small patches of wildflowers in cities are as good as natural meadows for insect biodiversity.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

An amateur archaeologist has discovered another two stone circles on Dartmoor, and believes they add to the theory of a sacred arc of stone circles.

So who was Gunhild? And was she a victim of medieval ethnic cleansing?

On the other side of the world, a postgraduate student has serendipitously found a lost city in the Mexico jungle.

In Leicester they’ve found an 800-year-old burial pit containing 123 bodies, and it’s a complete mystery.

In the mid-13th-century, in what is now Turkey, a kingdom changed hands in exchange for a hat.

siren and centaur

In order to make sense of the world as best they could medieval people had lots of supernatural beliefs: elves and fairies; abductions and the undead.

On which subject, here’s a look at some medieval animal ghost stories.

When you’re a peasant economy and don’t have the resources to feed lots of livestock through the winter, November becomes Blotmonath, the month of animal sacrifice and trying to store the meat.

The British Library currently has an exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. Here’s a review.

Food, Drink

Our drinking water contains many “forever chemicals”, but practically and personally what can we do to ameliorate this?

Wow! Ha ha!

So it’s that time of year, the season of Winter Vagina.

winter vagina

quotes

Monthly Collected Quotes

And so to the penultimate collection of quotes for this year …

Monetisation
By Brian Bilston

The advert said
MONETISE YOUR FOLLOWERS
so he thought
he would respond;

by painting them
in the changing light,
like waterlilies
in a pond.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
[Albert Camus]

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.
[EF Schumacher, Small is Beautiful]

The floor of the House of Commons is little more than a West End theatre.
[DAT Green, Prospect Magazine; 24/10/2024]

Whether a chemical is man-made or natural fells you precisely nothing about how dangerous it is.
[Dr Mark Lorch, Biochemist, University of Hull]

Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.
[JRR Tolkien]

I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things.
[Richard Feynman]

It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.
[Anaïs Nin, (1803-1877)]

If someone has terrible principles, they will at least try to abide by them. If someone has no principles at all, there is no limit to what they’ll do.
[Ian Dunt at https://iandunt.substack.com/p/kemi-badenoch-becomes-tory-leader]

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.
[Turkish Proverb]

I heard someone refer to their kids as “sexually transmitted dependents”. I had to turn away before my soda came out of my nose. I thought they were called “crutch goblins”.
[unknown]

Meet me at midnight in the forest of my dreams. We’ll make a fire and count the stars that shimmer above the trees.
[Christy Ann Martine]

Suspending belief because you don’t have enough information does not make you indecisive. Changing your mind when better information comes to light does not make you a hypocrite. Deferring to expertise on complex topics outside your knowledge base does not make you a sheep.
[unknown]

The internet causes village idiots to form entire villages made up only of village idiots who have no idea they are village idiots.
[Vlad Vexler]

amusements, memes, science

November Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Physical Science

  1. What does a Geiger-Müller Counter measure?  Ionising Radiation
  2. Which British-Italian engineer obtained a patent for radio in London in 1897?  Guglielmo Marconi
  3. What man-made spacecraft is generally recognised as the first to leave the solar system?  Voyager 1
  4. What is the speed of sound in a vacuum?  Zero; sound cannot exist in a vacuum
  5. Who discovered that the earth revolves around the sun?  Nicolaus Copernicus

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.

amusements, memes, science

November Quiz Questions

Each month we’re posing five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As before, they’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as having a bit of fun.

Physical Science

  1. What does a Geiger-Müller Counter measure?
  2. Which British-Italian engineer obtained a patent for radio in London in 1897?
  3. What man-made spacecraft is generally recognised as the first to leave the solar system?
  4. What is the speed of sound in a vacuum?
  5. Who discovered that the earth revolves around the sun?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

history, memes

November 1924

Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.

4. 1924 United States presidential election won by Republican Calvin Coolidge

4. Died. Gabriel Fauré, French composer (b. 1845)

20. Born. Benoit Mandelbrot, Polish-born mathematician (d. 2010)

30. Born. Allan Sherman, American comedy writer, television producer and song parodist (d. 1973)

memes, personal

Unblogged October

Things from this month that I didn’t otherwise write about …

Tuesday 1
What can one say about today except “fucking hell!”? Last night the freezer went on the blink, so I ended up cutting our losses and and ordering a new one at midnight. We just hope enough of the freezer stays frozen until tomorrow – not that there is time to do anything with the new one tomorrow! So I slept badly and had to get up early as the beginning of the month is always busy with admin, of various types, not just ours. It went on all day; every job either had to have something else done beforehand, or caused a follow-on job. I was still at my desk at 8pm – tired, hungry an with a headache – when N arrived home very late from the hospital. Now I have to go and cook tea. Happy bunnies are not us!

Wednesday 2
Well our new freezer did finally arrive, late. So it had to be left cooling down for the afternoon while N and I did a session of talking to patients at the doctors. When we got home we had to heave to and move everything over from the old freezer; it was still playing up but everything had stayed frozen. The new freezer is slightly smaller, so a few oddments had to go – well most will be used as we needed to take out stuff for the next 2-3 days anyway, which will most likely include soup.

Thursday 3
Dear God, the cost of postage is just unreal – and it goes up again on Monday. Today I had to send two tote bags to USA; the package is just big enough that it has to go small packet, and it weighs just over 400gm – so it isn’t large, just annoyingly over size. This cost £15.80 in postage. How on Earth can Royal Mail justify this? By contrast sending a book, also a small packet but just over 500gm withing the UK was just over £3, which still feels too much, but is at least reasonable.

Friday 4
N’s birthday, and I gave her a special present – we went to get our Covid boosters and our flu jabs. But then I cooked a couple of very nice, decent size steaks for dinner – with a brandy, garlic & cream sauce, chips and a fennel slaw – followed by peaches in brandy; plus the obligatory bottle of champagne and a liqueur.

Saturday 5
Absolutely floored. I expect the flu jab to knock me down for 24 hours, but this year it’s also set off an attack of my vertigo/labyrinthitis – which always takes most of a week to resolve. Very unstable on my feet; spent the day in bed; just about OK if I lie flat and still.

Sunday 6
Still flattened, but a bit better.

Monday 7
Now only half flattened, but still struggling with vertical hold and brain fog. Had to cancel my diabetes check-up this morning, and will have to reschedule it. Sadly I also had to cancel lunch later in the week with friends visiting from Japan; really annoying but I’m far from sure my head will be able to travel into central London. That’s the trouble with this vertigo, once it arrives it takes a week to properly resolve.

Tuesday 8
Massive thunderstorms predicted for today, but they didn’t happen. There was some rain, and there was stygian gloom in late afternoon: some of the darkest cloud cover I think I’ve ever seen.

Wednesday 9
Great fun this morning. 06:30 awoke to blue flashing lights. Car wedged(?) diagonally across the road 100m away by a parked white van (I was later told the car had hit the van and done a lot of damage). Police car behind it (nearer us) and further away a fire truck, so it had been going on for a while. No ambulance. Copper and 2-3 firemen wandering about with no sense of urgency. So no clue what had happened. N said later that at 08:30 they were taking the car away. Then about 11:15 there’s a parking attendant putting a ticket on a car which is parked across the boundary between us and next door; whether because he’s parked on the hump, or because the front is encroaching over next door’s dropped kerb we may never know.

Thursday 10
We have some Virginia Creeper rooted at the bottom of our garden – not that we ever see it on our side. It rambles all along the fences at the back of us (the other side of the overgrown alley, and up the far side of next door’s fence – that’s over 30m in length. It’s currently absolutely gorgeous in its autumn red leaves. How can anyone ever want to remove it?

Friday 11
Last evening I rescued a small fruit fly from my apple juice – it was clearly alive, but not very good at doggy-paddle. I lifted it carefully, from below, onto my finger and encouraged it to walk onto a tissue to dry off. It was about 3mm long and clearly black and yellow striped. It sat on the tissue cleaning its legs, its wings, its head and its antennae for several minutes. It was quite an amazing performance to watch, especially as it was previously trying to drown. Then, suddenly – poof! – it was gone. It’s odd how you can feel attached to such a tiny creature in such a short time; I hope it survived for a normal fly lifespan; at least I gave it another chance.

Saturday 12
Why is household paperwork and admin so tedious and time-consuming? I have a routine of doing the not-immediately-urgent paperwork at a weekend, but not having done any last week, today it took me all afternoon rather than the usual hour or less. It wasn’t even interesting or exciting.

Sunday 13
A busy but interesting Sunday. (1) Unloading the last 2 weeks photos from the trail camera there were a number of occasions where Boy Cat was either carefully watching, or actually trailing, the fox as much as to say “I’m just keeping an eye on you to make sure you behave properly in my garden”. (2) I picked our apples. Not a huge crop from our 2 small trees: 20 or so from the Pinova, many small but a couple of a nice size for eating. And just one from the Falstaff which is a good size to eat. (3) We spent an hour or so choosing the photo for this years Christmas card, and getting them on order. Postcards as usual because they make writing cards so much easier: no envelope hassles and no worrying about which card to send Aunt Ethel; plus they’re ridiculously cheap from VistaPrint.

Monday 14
Mmmm. Those apples I picked yesterday are really lovely: crisp, juicy and slightly tart. Much better than anything you buy in the supermarket, and known to be organic too.

Tuesday 15
I actually managed to get done today pretty much everything I needed to. N heroically covered a session talking to patients at the doctors for me after one of the other volunteers dropped out last night. She then had to hot-foot it to the hospital. Meanwhile I sorted out all sorts of other tedious jobs, including taking my keyboard apart to clean it, and starting the grocery order. Why do I always end up falling asleep over the grocery order?

Wednesday 16
Did anything happen today? What day even is it? I’m totally lost. Still at least the council came and took the old freezer away. And N’s flowers arrived.Click the image for a larger viewvase of green & white flowers

Thursday 17
Well much to my surprise I not only had nothing much scheduled for today, and I got the afternoon off to do … nothing much except read – which is rare! Our Christmas cards arrived, and look lovely – but you’ll have to wait upon the day to see them. On the downside I had a panic attack about what’s happening at the weekend which necessitated a change of plans – I never understand why these things happen; it’s a real bummer!

Friday 18
A lovely foggy start to the day, and the first real fog of this autumn; although not really thick, just enough to block out the top end of the road. I always liked the fog as a kid, despite growing up in the 1950s with the tail end of London’s pea-soupers and not being able to see more than a couple of meters in front of your face. There was always an air of mystery with the fog (even better if there was fresh snow as well), partly down to the restricted vision, and partly the muffled sound.

Saturday 19
Yet again I missed the literary society AGM. I was intending to go, but everything recently has just turned out too difficult: I still have occasional remnants of the vertigo; the depression isn’t any better and triggers the odd panic attack; transport is a pain with the tube here off at weekends plus major roadworks everywhere; and then N isn’t always great when she gets back from hospital.

Sunday 20
A wet and windy day, so nothing doing outside. Instead we used the last of our apples plus a few strawberries and a dribble of peach liqueur to make an huge crumble – enough for breakfasts for most of the week – which turned out very tasty with cream. Managed to slice my thumb peeling the apples – idiot! Cooked some stuffed chicken thighs (with a drizzle of curry jus) in pastry for evening meal – not the greatest success ever, but very tasty and has potential.

Monday 21
Feeding the pond goldfish today I was struck that although it’s clearly autumn (but not yet that cold) they’re still feeding voraciously – and blimey are they getting big and chubby; seriously substantial fish considering they were tiny tiddlers 2 years ago. It’s said that for tropical fish (I don’t know how true this is of carp) that they can survive on 1% of their bodyweight of food a day, and with 3% they’ll grow rapidly.

Tuesday 22
Why do cut thumbs always spring a leak 24 hours (or more) after the event, when you think they’ve scabbed over OK?

Wednesday 23
Comes upon this day, the gardener. Amongst other things he gave the lawn it’s last cut of the year and top dressed it with home-made compost. It looks a mess at the moment, but if the weather stays mild the grass will soon grow through.

Thursday 24
Had a friendly annual diabetes check-up this morning with one of the Practice Nurses – the one I usually see and get on well with. As usual she knows she doesn’t have to read the riot act at me – unlike some of her colleagues – as I know what I ought to be doing and if I haven’t it’s because for whatever reason I can’t. Taking blood the nurse managed to spring a leak around the needle, so I lost a teaspoon more blood than planned – it’s all good fun! She had a young student nurse with her, who got some hands on practice. I also managed to get a message in, really aimed at the student, about not bullying patients but ensuring they have the information and letting them make their own decisions – with some quiet nudges, which is generally more effective. I also managed to make an appointment with the Practice’s physio, to see if I can get some exercises for my back.

Friday 25
Comes the window cleaner. Quick and efficient as always. And he offered that next time he comes he’ll get a ladder up and check some of the guttering.

Saturday 26
We seem to have very few sparrows around; I’ve hardly seen any in the last couple of years. But today, looking across the road, there were sparrows going everywhere – too many to count!

Sunday 27
So the clocks have gone back, and we’re now on GMT again. I wish we could stay on GMT; continually meddling with the clocks is a pain, and totally unnecessary. Unlike in wartime when every useful scrap of daylight mattered, it isn’t needed now and just causes confusion etc. Anyway GMT is our heritage, so as the country is a theme park we need to keep, and show off, our heritage!

Monday 28
Waking up: “Oh it must be 9 o’clock. What?! No, it’s only 8 o’clock.” Stupid brain hasn’t adjusted to the clock change.

Tuesday 29
Up betimes, only to find my morning meeting being moved to Thursday. So I spent half the morning trying to fix up one of our laptops to replace N’s desktop PC – I failed and gave up. Why is Windows so obtuse and obscure? It’s vaguely friendly for the dumb user, but totally byzantine if you know what you need to do under the bonnet: either you can’t or you have to guess the magic incantation. Gah!

Wednesday 30
One of those days where you get stuck in trying to prepare for unpredictable meetings and everything conspires to stop you – so you end up unreasonably knackered.

Thursday 31
After some unexpected preparatory work by a colleague we had a long, detailed and very forthright meeting this morning makes me hopeful that things might start to happen.

I’ll leave you with some suitably Halloween frosty-looking fir cones I perpetrated a few weeks ago!3 white photoshopped fir cones