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 #100: Summer Pudding

This Summer Pudding is definitely worthy of being post number 100.

As usual I hacked up someone else’s recipe as I went along; in this case a recipe by Sophie Grigson for the BBC at https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/summerpudding_90295.

Sorry no picture because we ate it! But it was just as good, and just a yummy as the one in Sophie Grigson’s recipe (below). Indeed it came out far better than I had expected.

Ingredients

  • 400g punnet Strawberries
  • 225g punnet Raspberries
  • 200g punnet Blackberries
  • 150g punnet Blueberries
  • 160g Granulated Sugar
  • ½ wine glass very sticky blackberry liqueur
  • Loaf White Bread
  • Sunflower oil or Butter for greasing

What to do …

  1. Wash the fruit. Hull the strawberries and halve any large ones
  2. Put all the fruit in a pan with the sugar and liqueur.
  3. Simmer very gently for about 5 minutes to get the juices running, then turn up the heat and cook for another 2 minutes. Take off the heat and allow to cool a bit.
  4. Meanwhile, grease a large pudding basin.
  5. Cut the bread into 1cm slices and remove the crusts.
  6. Cut a piece of bread to fit the bottom of the basin. Then cut pieces (rectangles, triangles) to fit the sides of the basin without any gaps. Remember to cut a piece to make the lid.
  7. Carefully strain the juice from the fruit; be careful not to mash the fruit.
  8. Starting at the bottom, dip one side of each piece of bread in the fruit juice and put in the basin, juice side out. Continue until you’ve done all the pieces of bread. If there are now gaps (the bread may shrink slightly) fill them with more slivers of juiced bread.
  9. Now tip the fruit into the basin.
  10. Dip the lid in the juice, and pour the remaining juice in with the fruit.
  11. Put on the lid.
  12. On top of the lid place a plate or saucer which fits closely, and weight it down with 1-2kg weights (or use tins of soup, beans, etc.).
  13. Leave to fully cool, then put in the fridge overnight.
  14. The next day, remove the weights and the plate/saucer. Run a thin blade around the edges, then invert the basin onto a shallow serving plate.
  15. Cut into thick slices and serve with double cream.

Notes

  • You can use any summer fruit. Blackcurrants are especially good and in my view preferable to blueberries; redcurrants and white currants work well. You could also use sliced peaches, nectarines or apricots.
  • So you don’t have blackberry liqueur? Use Cassis, which is more traditional anyway.
  • Don’t worry if the fruit doesn’t come to the top of the bread case – as mine didn’t because I used too large a bowl. Just turn the sides over and cut the lid down to fit the remaining space.
amusements, topographical

June 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.

June Quiz Questions: World Geography

  1. Until 1930, what was the Turkish city of Istanbul called? Constantinople
  2. What country has the most islands in the world? Sweden, with 267,570.
  3. What is the largest desert in the world? Antarctica
  4. What country is located between France and Spain? Andorra
  5. What is the smallest country in the world by area? Vatican City at 0.49 sq km

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2022.

photography, pleasures, ramblings

Roses (2)

Having written a couple of days ago about our roses, they were the ones in the back garden. What I omitted was the wow display in the front.

Like the back, our front garden is allowed a certain degree of licence. Amongst the understorey there are some Apothecary’s Rose. Officially it is Rosa gallica officinalis. It’s a very old rose – Peter Beales says it dates to before 1200 – with large, semi-double, fuchsia-coloured flowers and a pure Old Rose scent; very free-flowering, creating a mass of colour. It mostly just grows as a mass of single stems, which creep and sucker their way around.

Apothecary’s Rose (Rosa gallica officinalis) from our garden

We were given a couple of off-shoots many, many years ago, and it is now rampant around the front garden. It is currently a mass of saucer-sized, shocking fuchsia-pink blooms. Sadly it has only a short season and will pretty much be over by the end of the month, but it is stunning for a few weeks.

memes, science

Ten Things: June

This year our Ten Things column each month is concentrating on science and scientists.

Where a group is described as “great” or “important” this is not intended to imply these necessarily the greatest or most important, but only that they are up there amongst the top flight.

Important Chemistry Discoveries

  1. DNA
  2. X-ray Crystallography
  3. Oxygen
  4. Plastics
  5. Glass
  6. Vulcanisation of rubber
  7. Distillation
  8. Graphene
  9. Periodic Table
  10. Chemical Bonding
photography, pleasures, ramblings

Roses

Where there’s an image, you can click it for a bigger view.

I walked round the garden this afternoon and it is absolutely awash with roses. I’ve never seen such a profuse display.

Our Lady Hillingdon, once it took off 20 years ago, is always prolific and provides flush after flush of apricot coloured roses from May until Christmas &ndash’ There are usually a couple of blooms out in Christmas Day.

The Buff Beauty did nothing for many years until we moved it under the birch tree, since when it’s gone berserk. It’s now 3-4 metres up the tree and hanging over providing swags of pale creamy yellow flowers.

One swag of Buff Beauty; about 1.5-2m long
A trio of Buff Beauty

There are dog rose suckers growing from the Buff Beauty too. They’re smothered in flowers – small, single pale pink roses – right to the top of the birch tree (higher than the house) and as much sideways. There are great weeping branches of it over our neighbour’s garden!

Dog Rose

The old roses down near the pond are also going well rambling up the trees. One is the pink Anne Boleyn; another slow starter.

Anne Boleyn

And the two climbers rambling up the supports where the apple tree was taken out are also doing well after a couple of poor years. Lots of pink-blushed white roses. One is Albrighton Rambler (see Unblogged May); although this is a newly developed rose it is of the old Bourbon style but sadly not very scented.

Albrighton Rambler
Albrighton Rambler, which fades to off-white very quickly in the warmth

There’s a standard rose down by the pond which is a hoot. For a standard it is vigorous with branches extending a good 2-3m (because we let it when it went native, rather than bother trying to prune it). It is clearly grafted at standard height (so about 1.5m) but the graft has thrown off at least two different colours of tightly double roses – some a dark purply-pink, others almost white. Heaven knows what’s been done to it, but it’s very “Alice in Wonderland”.

There are a few other roses yet to come. The small Maiden’s Blush is now out and it’s being nurtured from being neglected in a pot for some years; if the other roses are anything to go by it’ll take off in a couple of years. And there’s a pink rose also down under the birch tree which is usually also prolific. That was sold as a patio rose (so miniature) but is another that has grown naturally into a 1.5m round bush. Once it starts it usually just flowers non-stop through to the autumn – although it had an off year last year, maybe as it got cut back too hard away from the path.

If you walk down past the birch tree to the pond, especially on a nice sunny day like today, the garden is just a heady haze of rose scent, and a visual haze of roses. I have never seen them so abundant.

Moral. If you want great displays of roses, leave them alone. Don’t prune them into silly little bushes, but let them climb and ramble – after all that’s what roses do naturally.

amusements, topographical

June Quiz Questions

Again this year we’re beginning each month with five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. They’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers, so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as have a bit of fun.

June Quiz Questions: World Geography

  1. Until 1930, what was the Turkish city of Istanbul called?
  2. What country has the most islands in the world?
  3. What is the largest desert in the world?
  4. What country is located between France and Spain?
  5. What is the smallest country in the world by area?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

memes, personal

Unblogged May

Where there’s an image, you can click it for a bigger view.

Mon 1 Mayday – or more traditionally the pagan Sabbat Beltane – a Pagan holiday, which is strongly associated with fertility and the beginning of summer. Beltane is a Celtic word, meaning “the fires of Bel” – probably the Celtic sun god, Belenus. The Celts used to light two bonfires because they believed it would purify them and increase their fertility; they would pass cattle between the two fires, believing it would purify the cattle, and ensure the fertility of the herd. This has now been replaced by more mundane fun like dancing round Maypoles and by Morris Men.
Tue 2 Once more the gardener cometh, and we get nothing done. Mind this was not helped by the fact that we both seem to have slept badly; and it’s already being one of those weeks. But looking at the Alder Buckthorn, which is only just beginning to show leaves, there were quite a few tiny yellow steeples: Brimstone butterfly eggs. Let’s hope the leaves open before the eggs hatch, so we have a chance of more butterflies next year.
Wed 3 Squirrels. We appear to have three baby squirrels; about half grown. They were seen this evening running around in the trees like 5-year-olds on speed. At one point all three were running full speed, nose-to-tail, along a long branch of the oak tree, just as if they were a train.
Thu 4 So I get to have new hearing aids – because yes, my hearing has deteriorated in the last 5 years. That’s not surprising: my mother had hearing aids at about my age and was stone deaf when she died at 99, and her next sister was the same; my father’s kid sister had hearing aids in her 40s! The audiologist and I opted for ones which are moulded to the shape of the ear, so I had to have impressions taken. That’s not as bad as it sounds, and definitely much much less unpleasant than dental impressions. But why does it take 6 weeks to make them? That seems crazy. I can only think its poor supplier management.
Fri 5 Today was the day we were supposed to be building our new office chairs: as expected they’d arrived flat-packed. But we didn’t. So we consoled ourselves making Coronation Terrine [which I did blog about later].
Sat 6 Coronation of King Charles III. Very wet. Flypast by only Red Arrows, disappointing. You have to feel for all the military in heavy full dress uniform, and bearskins for the guardsmen, in the pouring rain. I remember talking to the then Richmond Herald after the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, when he’d been on one of the barges in the pageant on the Thames in the pouring rain – he said it took days get get his tabard dry; and marvelling that he hadn’t caught his death of cold.
Sun 7 It started out a dull bank holiday weekend, but yay … The sun came out after lunch! The first dog rose is out – well it’s a sucker from a cultivated rose which scrambles madly up and round the silver birch tree – small single flowers in pretty pale pink with rich yellow anthers. The hawthorn is in full flower. And we knackered ourselves putting our new office chairs together.
Mon 8 Oh what a surprise! It’s bank holiday and it’s been peeing with rain almost all day. At least one of our baby squirrels (it’s about half grown) is getting more secure: this evening it came tripping along the fence and over onto the bird feeder up near the house for a good feed of peanuts. I’ve not seen more than one at a time in the last couple of days, so I know not how many we still have.
Tue 9 “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Back to Work We Go.” Well actually we never really stopped.
Wed 10 They obviously know something we don’t … About 19:00 there began a massive noise of crows. Many crows. They were flying over, going roughly East-West. I stopped and counted. They just kept coming, and I quickly got to 35. But I reckon there were at least 50; we must have had every crow for a 20 mile radius! Now they used to hold a parliament in the nearby Lombardy Poplars (though I never saw more than a couple of dozen) – but those three trees were felled a couple of years ago. An hour later there were still a few odd crows flying around (mostly going away) and calling. Boy do they make a racket en masse. And they all sound subtly different.
Thu 11 Dear God! Some neighbour has let the jackals out again. Someone not far up the road has an obviously small, very yippy canine – I think it is only one dog. When let out it does nothing but bark and yip; what at, who knows. Obviously a badly trained animal belonging to a badly trained human. Gah!
Fri 12 Guys if you’re going to turn up early with the supermarket delivery (as you did today), it would help if you texted or called to warn us, so we’re ready. Otherwise you could be kept waiting for us for 5 or 10 minutes – thus screwing your schedule.
Sat 13 It just shows how things are changing. Had a notice today that we have a couple of ISAs which mature soon. Currently they’re paying only about 1%. But roll them over for a fixed rate 2-year term and you get 4.5%. That’s a no-brainer as it’s more than most of the comparison websites are quoting as the best available rates.
Sun 14 It was lovely and sunny in the middle of the day. Going down the garden to look at the pond and all the goldfish were resting on the surface in a patch of sun. And who should blame them! We followed their example for a while, accompanied by the Rosie cat.
Mon 15 Accompanied N this afternoon to see her nephrology consultant. Another really nice guy, who listens, explains, is humane, and personable. Another that the NHS could do with many more of. And spent a nice half hour sitting in the sun, on a bench on a small area of green with wildflowers in the grass and the holly and elder in flower – spoilt only by a view of the arse-side of a 1970s brutal-ish piece of concrete architecture. hospital rearholly flowers
Tue 16 Wandering round the garden after lunch to discover the first of the rambler roses has its first bloom. It’s Albrighton Rambler; a Bourbon alike which was bred by David Austin in 2013. The flowers are fully double, medium sized and pale blush pink – although sadly it doesn’t seem to be scented. pink rambler rose
Wed 17 The pond man cometh; finally, after a couple of rearrangements. Everything cleaned over and fettled for the summer, and a load of new plants installed. Blimey he works quickly; all done in little over an hour! He says no-one’s water lilies are moving much yet (not enough sun); and he’s seen hardly any frogspawn this year, presumably due to two very cold snaps and a dry February.
Thu 18 Fairly big delivery from the Somerset Smokery (https://www.brownandforrest.co.uk/) today. Not cheap; but worth the quality. It all comes well chilled; vacuum packed; on overnight delivery; and with decent Use By dates. And it can all be frozen, so there’s a nice piece of traditionally smoked haddock in the freezer and we enjoyed another for tea tonight. Waiting in the wings there’s kippers, smoked duck breasts and a whole smoked chicken. There’ll be some good food over the next couple of weeks.
Fri 19 Eating dinner this evening and to the NE there was a picture book rainbow. No rain here, nor any sun, but both must have been nearby. Although only a small segment (maybe 30&deg.) was visible, it really was picture book: bright colours, wide, and all 7 colours discernible. It’s a long time since I’ve seen such an impressive performance. Impossible to photograph.
Sat 20 Nice surprise at the end of this morning’s PPG meeting – in person for the first time in over 3 years. A friend at the meeting, who had returned just this morning from the Bahamas, not only offered us a lift home, but gave us a small Bahamian Rum Cake. Devoured this evening with strawberries and ice-cream. Yummy! rum cake
Sun 21 Eating dinner about 20:15 (yes, late as usual) glad to see one of our foxes in the garden. I knew from the trail camera they were visiting in evening daylight. But this is I think a new one – certainly not one I’ve seen before this week on the camera. It’s quite distinctive with a circular dark mark (slightly paler centre) on its left flank. It looks very unnatural, so I’ve no idea how it may have occurred.
Mon 22 Canaan wineWho knew that the Israelis made good wine? Well of course you would if you’ve read the Bible! But today? Yes, they still make good wine. This evening we tried a bottle of Canaan, which was an odd bottle I picked up in Waitrose some while ago. And very drinkable it was too; with the slight sweetness of hock but not quite as aromatic. It went well with smoked chicken (see above). Will I try it again? At £15 a bottle, maybe. Give me 25% off then more likely.
Tue 23 Oh joy! Trip to the dentist for check-ups and hygienist. Hygienist was good, sensible and quick; which is refreshing. Saw the head man for the check-up and he’s not happy. No fillings etc. needed. But he doesn’t like the crown his young lady colleague did for me earlier in the year and insists it is redone – at their expense; again! While it’s nice not to have the cost, I did represent to him I didn’t feel this was fair given that the crown has already been replaced free of charge once. But no, he insists; he sees it as all being part of a service industry to get these things right! At the end of the day that’s between him and his young lady colleague; but I can’t think she’s going to be too happy. So another trip to the dentist in 8 weeks time.
Wed 24 Last evening there was some delightful sunset, with a widely dispersed gorgeously peachy-pink contrail running west-east. Sadly it didn’t last long. But it was followed a while later in the western sky with a lovely crescent moon and Venus shining bright at about 5 o’clock to the moon. It was great to have a super clear sky for once. pink contrail
Thu 25 It was one of those days. The gardener didn’t come – he has a “cold”; told him to test for Covid. Shed loads to do, and it just keeps coming, so not everything got done; including preparation for the talk I’m giving on Saturday afternoon. And the NHS send me a bowel cancer screening test – joy! So I ended up miserable and depressed.
Fri 26 Is it Thursday? Is it Saturday? No I’m led to believe it’s Friday. Really? But then the continuation of yesterday’s depression doesn’t help, so much so that Noreen was out for lunch and I just couldn’t make myself get out of my chair and fix myself lunch. And that is pretty much an all-time low for me.
Sat 27 This evening I finally gave my talk to the literary society: a very quick run through of all the places our hero had lived during his long life. There’s quite a bit we don’t know in detail, mainly following his father’s and then his own peripatetic life in the army. But even without that there’s a lot to cover. It seemed to go well, although it was 10 minutes longer than I’d planned. Good Q&A afterwards.
Sun 28 As usual on a Sunday, I unloaded this week’s images from the trail camera. They provided a small amusement. One evening earlier in the week Noreen had put out a bunch of pretty life-expired grapes. We know the squirrels like grapes, but would they get them? Well no, they didn’t. Who knew that foxes liked grapes too? One of our foxes was caught on camera trotting off with the whole bunch of grapes in it’s mouth!
Mon 29 The third bank holiday Monday this month; and it was a lovely sunny day, although still unenticingly windy. We need more of these. But not if they’re going to be days like this when everything conspires against one. I spent a chunk of the day interrogating Googler Maps to work out a tour round London – and swearing about the Byzantine one-way systems. Then the day culminated in Noreen’s PC resolutely refusing to talk to the printer: it could see it, but not print to it. An hour of trying to fiddle the software ended with having to do an uninstall and reinstall. And after such a day, what to do but console oneself with well stuffed smoked salmon sandwiches and extra strong G&T.
Tue 30 If anything happened, I didn’t notice.
Wed 31 I’ll leave you this month with a photograph of a ear of grass from the garden I photographed.ear of grass