Our monthly look at what happened 100 years ago.
On this day, 16 February 1923 …
On this Day in 1923
All posts by Keith
February 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.
February Quiz Questions: General Knowledge
- What relation to you is your great-grandfather’s brother’s grand-daughter? Second cousin once removed
- How many old pennies were there in £1? 240
- Gruyère is a type of what? Cheese
- Patrick McGoohan starred in a 1967 British TV series set in Portmeirion. What was it’s title, and which character did McGoohan play? The Prisoner; Number Six
- Who was the first elected Secretary General of the United Nations? Trygve Lie of Norway; 1946-52
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2022.
Culinary Adventures #94: Rustic Pineapple Danish
Well this wasn’t really an adventure, ‘cos it’s something I’ve known for ages and so dead simple. I don’t usually bother, but we just happened to have a ripe pineapple and a sheet of pastry!
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes
You will need …
- 1 sheet of quality puff pastry
- a whole pineapple (or maybe a half will do!)
- 1 tbsp jam (apricot or any red flavour)
- glacé cherries
- an egg
What I did …
- Trim the pineapple and cut it into 10-15mm rounds, remove the core (I used an apple corer).
- Cut the pastry sheet into 6 equal sized “squares” and lay them on baking parchment on a baking sheet.
- Brush each pastry square with some jam (I actually used the end of a jar of “red” fruit compote).
- Put a pineapple round on each piece of pastry; fold over the corners and edges.
- Put a glacé cherry in the centre of each; and brush with beaten egg.
- Cover loosely with a piece of foil and bake in the oven at 220°C/fan 200°C for about 30 minutes until golden; removing the foil after about 15-20 minutes to finish browning.
- Devour warm or cold, with optional double cream.
Self-Portrait, February
I offer you this for my monthly self-portrait.
[Click the image for a larger view]
Ten Things: February
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.
Dangerous Elements
- Fluorine
- Polonium
- Plutonium
- Arsenic
- Mercury
- Francium
- Beryllium
- Chromium
- Caesium
- Strontium
Quote of the Month
Think for yourself, act for everyone.
ChatGPT writes Haiku
I’ve just had some fun with the ChatGPT OpenAI’s conversational research model. I asked it to write me some haikus on various topics, viz:
1. A parrot and a squirrel?
Bright parrot soars high,
Squirrel chatters on a branch,
Nature’s symphony.
2. Anthony Powell and a gondolier?
Anthony Powell,
In Venice, a gondolier
Glides through canals.
3. Being nude and mental health?
Naked, unclothed soul,
Mental peace found in bare skin,
Healing in nature.
4. Two magpies I saw tweaking a cat’s tail.
Two magpies tease cat,
Twitching its tail with delight,
Nature’s game to play.
5. The owl and the pussycat.
Owl and the pussycat,
Sailing the ocean blue,
Love knows no bounds, they do.
6. The full moon and Noreen, my wife of over 40 years …
Full moon lights the night,
Noreen, my love, shines bright,
Forty years of bliss.
How is this last one just so embarrassing?
I think these are really good, and certainly better than I could do. I’m sure I shall return to this!
February 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.
February Quiz Questions: General Knowledge
- What relation to you is your great-grandfather’s brother’s grand-daughter?
- How many old pennies were there in £1?
- Gruyère is a type of what?
- Patrick McGoohan starred in a 1967 British TV series set in Portmeirion. What was it’s title, and which character did McGoohan play?
- Who was the first elected Secretary General of the United Nations?
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
Unblogged January
| Sun 1 | The dawning of the new year celebrated with the usual bottle of Champagne and too little sleep. And later with a very nice, large, piece of roast beef and a bottle of Brouilly. |
| Mon 2 | One of my Christmas presents was a bottle of our local Ealing Gin. It’s a hand-crafted, small batch, London Dry Gin, distilled in the Borough of Ealing. As a London Gin it is juniper led, although the other botanicals come through well, but not too strongly. The lovely bottle design is inspired by the iconic Art Deco buildings (especially the Hoover Building) scattered across the borough. This could well become another favourite. |
| Tue 3 | For the first time in ages we had a crow in the garden. They often sit right at the top of the silver birch, riding the wind apparently just for the fun of it. But we don’t normally see them down on the lawn, as this one was today – I suspect they feel it’s too enclosed to get airborne easily in any direction. Anyway this one spent some minutes obviously hunting out little treats, probably buried by the squirrels. |
| Wed 4 | So, another deadly exciting day on which nothing happened. The most notable thing was that I slept well from about 01:00 to 09:00, with a short awakeness at 04:00. This meant that I was at least half awake when I got up. Result! |
| Thu 5 | Spent a joyous afternoon at the dentist. I got a small filling, but N got a whole new crown – in one visit. This used not to be possible, but our dentist now has some very whizzy tools. First they can scan your mouth in 3D to get the shape for the crown – no longer do we have to suffer impressions. Secondly they have a fancy machine which will cut the crown from a ceramic blank using the aforementioned scans; this takes about 10 minutes (plus a few minutes setup). As the machine is in the waiting area, I was able to watch N’s new crown being created; it was very impressive. |
| Fri 6 | So there we have it. Another pay day. And another month where the current account might just manage to survive intact. Supermarket prices seem to have gone through the roof; I’d say that the estimate of annual food inflation running at 13.3% in December is a gross under estimate; it certainly feels more like 30% than 13% – I can certainly point at things where it is definitely over 50% in the last year. |
| Sat 7 | Culinary experiment for dessert this evening which didn’t quite work (at least for me). Fresh pineapple cut into small pieces, with a good handful of broken walnuts and the same amount of chopped candied peel, tossed with a couple of tots of Malibu. Dress with some flaked dark chocolate at the last minute. It was OK, but not superb. I think it would work better with flaked almonds and Amaretto (or Amandine) in place of walnuts & Malibu; add a little colour by way of 3-4 chopped glace cherries or quartered strawberries; and serve with some double cream. While pineapple and Malibu (coconut) works well, the Amaretto would be sweeter and fuller flavoured. And the red colour would (psychologically) enhance the flavour as well. |
| Sun 8 | Despite the grey, wet, miserable day we undertook the first salad of the year: pan-fried duck, with a mixed salad and hot steamed potatoes. Washed down with a bottle of 2019 Tavel rosé. Eaten a bit late while watching Digging for Britain. |
| Mon 9 | How is it that every hospital in this country looks alike inside: dingy, grubby, ill-used; poorly signed, poorly lit and poorly ventilated – although at least now the price of energy has rocketed they’re no longer so over-heated. All the waiting areas are plastered with strange, dog-eared prohibitions & posters Blu-Taked to the walls, not even straight; and they have a miscellaneous assortment of chairs which have seen better days. I had an appointment at Ealing Hospital this morning and I have to say it is one of the worst examples of the genre I’ve seen; Hillington is little better. At least Hammersmith and St Mary’s do try with their waiting areas. It all comes down to three things: underfunding, no-one looking, and no-one being empowered to do anything. |
| Tue 10 | What’s happening? What day is it? Feeling really “Meh!”, despite lots of sleep. Down and miserable. This awful grey, wet, cold weather doesn’t help. What’s to be done – except hibernate? |
| Wed 11 | A beautiful bright sunny, blue sky morning to complete my 72nd circuit of our local star. Just a shame it had clouded over by lunchtime and the start of my 73rd circuit. Completed by a bottle of champagne with dinner. |
| Thu 12 | We’ve had so much rain recently that we’ve had standing water in the garden again today. Lake Constance manifests down near the pond, and this despite the ground level having been raised 2-3 inches over the last few years. It drains away fairly quickly once the rain stops, so it’s obviously groundwater flowing off down hill (to the south). We suspect there’s an old field ditch across the garden which was filled in with rubble when the houses were built, so there is still water flow (I can find it by dowsing) which is now impeded. It’s no danger as the water is only ever an inch deep, and anyway the house is actually 2-3 feet higher. |
| Fri 13 | Three green parrakeets queueing up for food. |
| Sat 14 | Awoke convinced that it was Sunday and to the realisation it must have been peeing with rain again all night because Lake Constance has returned to the garden, and much increased in size. It doesn’t though stop the squirrels running about. One does zoomies round the lawn, dashing to and fro, and in circles, at supersonic speed. Heaven knows what it’s on! |
| Sun 15 | My it was bitter outside today. I went out to unload the pictures from the trail camera, and change the batteries. This took well under 5 minutes, and I was frozen – though I admit I was wearing only a t-shirt and slobbing legs which is usually OK. It took a good 30 minutes and a sweater to thaw me out. And they reckon it’s going to get markedly colder in the next few days. |
| Mon 16 | While N went halfway round London this morning for a haircut, I managed to kill off all the bits of work which I had expected to take all day. The result was that I spent the afternoon buggering around to little effect. |
| Tue 17 | Really good Zoom meeting of the doctors’ patient group this morning, with a few more faces that usual. We had the Office Manager deputising for the Practice Manager; she was very helpful as well as being incredibly patient with one ranty member. But dear God, writing the minutes takes longer than the meeting – not only do you waste time reformatting the document but you have to think carefully about how to word things! |
| Wed 18 | Yet another interesting Anthony Powell Society talk this evening on Powell’s last novel The Fisher King. Good that these talks are now a regular feature and getting 40-50 attendees every time, mostly from Society members. And I enjoy hosting them. |
| Thu 19 | Today happened, I think. There doesn’t seem a lot more to say about it. It’s still cold, with a very heavy frost last night, so we both slept late in our warm bed. |
| Fri 20 | A light dinner of vegetable crumble, followed by apricots in Amaretto. Nice bottle of Rioja with the former. With the latter we opened a bottle of Chambord Black Raspberry liqueur N was given for Christmas. And wow! It was out of this world! Not heavy and syrupy, but light and about the strength of sherry. Just sweet enough; lots of raspberry flavour, with chocolate, vanilla, and just a hint of almond. One of those things which has to be savoured in small doses – or over ice cream. |
| Sat 21 | Spring must be on the way, if yet still distant. I noticed the catkins on the silver birch are just beginning to grow. They’re still small, but definitely on the move. |
| Sun 22 | We’ve now had a week of very heavy frosts. Every morning the roofs, and even the road surface, have been covered in white. At least this morning is bright and sunny – and lovely and warm in the sun. And … Oooo … the Boy Cat so nearly got that squirrel. |
| Mon 23 | Oh bugger. Woke up at 03:00 with vertigo/labyrinthitis (again). Definitely very unstable by 08:00 so had to cancel the dentist – fortunately only to sort the crown I’ve lost (again). By mid-morning everything was literally spinning; not just waving about a bit. Spent the day under the duvet. |
| Tue 24 | Feeling a bit more stable; reasonably OK if I keep still. But feeling smacked on the head. It’s a bit like when you were spun round at children’s party games, just that it doesn’t clear in a couple of minutes. |
| Wed 25 | Gorgeous golden crescent moon lying on it’s back in the evening sky yesterday. Then before dawn the freezing fog descended – outside and in the head. It lasted all day too. Really dismal. |
| Thu 26 | Still feeling smacked on the head from the vertigo, although so, so much better. Still failing to get anything useful done though, and so much to catch up on. I could do with whatever our squirrels are on: we still have one that does zoomies round the lawn, for no apparent reason, while the others go sedately about their foraging. |
| Fri 27 | These cats really do have the right idea. Boy Cat has been in this state effectively all day. To the extent that late this afternoon I had to ask N if he’d actually surfaced enough to have had breakfast! Mind you, he pretty quickly woke up when he smelled his Friday night fish supper cooking.PS. That’s 6kg of cat! |
| Sat 28 | At last I’m beginning to feel like I might be getting rid of the dregs of this vertigo/labyrinthitis. Definitely feeling better as the day wears on: struggling until lunchtime and then improving through to bedtime. Good food helps. This evening: pork steaks in olive ciabatta followed by strawberries & cream. Washed down with a very pleasant 2016 Wine Society Claret and after a drop of Chambord Black Raspberry liqueur. |
| Sun 29 | OK so we didn’t put the lights out until almost 01:00 last night – which is not unusual. I quickly descended into deep sleep, and awoke shortly after 05:00 for no more than 15 minutes. And the next thing I know? It’s gone 11:00. I must be reverting to being a teenager! (I wish!) |
| Mon 30 | What a lovely sunny day to lift the spirits. So I finally got round to doing a job I’ve been putting off for two weeks. Then I celebrated by cutting my hair. Such decadence! |
| Tue 31 | Hi, ho! It’s off to the dentist to see about the crown I lost 10 days ago. And no, I don’t have the crown; I wasn’t aware of losing it! Gulp! Anyway young lady dentist says I get a new ceramic crown, not gold. (She also say, any more trouble with this tooth and we take it out.) Three advantages for the ceramic crown: (a) they can make them on the premises, so quicker, (b) they can bond the crown on, rather than just glue it on, and (c) its cheaper – because not gold. An hour later the prep work is done and my mouth scanned; as I leave the tooth fairy is designing the crown on her CAD/CAM system. I return in two days to have the result of the incantations fitted. |
Culinary Adventures #93: Beanie-Med Chicken
I made this one up from scratch at the weekend by putting a few different Mediterranean-ish ideas together. And it worked – very well. Here it is with a few minor adjustments.
You will need …
- 1 Chicken (I had a 1½kg corn-fed whole bird)
- 1 tin Borlotti Beans (drained), or an equivalent quantity of pre-cooked beans
- 2 tbsp Tomato Paste
- Zest & juice of a Lemon
- Cloves of garlic (as many as you like), finely chopped
- 10 Olives (stoned and halved)
- 4 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 glass White Wine
- Freshly ground black pepper
This is what you do …
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan.
- Spatchcock the chicken: with sharp, heavy scissors cut down each side of the spine and remove it; open out the bird, lay it inside down and press on it to flatten it. (Do not discard the spine – see below.)
- Mix together everything except the chicken, the wine, and half the oil. Season well with black pepper.
- Spread this mix evenly over the base of a roasting dish just large enough to take the flattened bird (a tight fit is good), and add the wine.
- Lay the chicken, skin side up, on the bean mix. Drizzle over the reserved oil, more black pepper, and optionally some more lemon juice.
- Cover with foil and roast in the oven for 1-1½ hours (depending on the size of the bird) until the juices run clear. If it looks to be getting too dry add another half glass of wine. Remove the foil for the last 20 minutes or so to colour up the bird.
- Serve chicken and beans with jacket or roast potatoes and veg of your choice.
Notes
- Spatchcocked chicken tends to cook a little faster than a whole bird, so watch the timing.
- This should work equally well with chicken portions, thighs, breast fillets, or spatchcocked poussins.
- If you feel one tin of beans is a bit thin (it was an OK amount as a side dish for two of us, with a bit left over), double up the bean mix and use some of it to spread on top of the chicken, in place of the optional lemon juice.
- Tuck the chicken spine in the side of the roaster, or use it to make chicken stock.
- Don’t have Borlotti Beans? Cannellini Beans or Butter Beans would be fine; in fact I debated whether to use Butter Beans.
- For the veg you really want something which isn’t going to fight the chicken & beans for flavour; so maybe not sprouts or kale. We had steamed cauliflower and baby rainbow carrots. Fennel should also work well; or a mix of Mediterranean roast veg; or a simple salad.
- Serve with a light, fragrant white wine.
- Any leftovers will make a salad, risotto or soup, depending on how much was left!