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.
history, links, medical, science, topographical

Monthly Links

This month’s collection of links to items you didn’t know you’d missed, and probably didn’t want to.

Science, Technology, Natural World

The universe is stealing our time! The days are getting shorter as Earth spins faster.

In an incredible feat of computing, the AI system Deep Mind has worked out the structure 200 million proteins in all the species whose genome has been sequenced.

Who first thought up the concept of zero? It seems the origins are somewhat elusive, but it looks like it may be in Sumatra. [£££]

Apparently the US regulators are imminently to certify the first small nuclear reactors. Now if they’ll just use the molten salt reactors then it will solve the problem of further high risk waste.

In more watery news a rare coloured sea slug has been found in UK waters for the first time.

The other side of the world, an incredible new jellyfish has been found off the coast of Papua New Guinea

Back on dry land, a group of scientists is planning to resurrect the extinct Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine). Hmmm … good luck with that one!

So how are large migratory moths able to fly in incredibly straight lines for miles? Scientists are trying to find out.

Health, Medicine

There are times when I struggle to believe what scientists and medics can achieve, and this is one of them … they’ve managed to change blood type of donor kidney – if this stands up then it will be a major breakthrough in transplant surgery.

There’s an outbreak of the previously unknown “tomato flu” in India. Except that it isn’t; it’s actually viral hand, foot & mouth disease which not uncommon amongst children across the globe. (Hand, foot & moth disease is NOT related to foot & mouth in cattle etc.)

Sexuality

Something else what always amazes me is the breadth of Benjamin Franklin’s interests. For instance, who know he extolled the benefits of banging MILFs?

One far-sighted mother (in Australia) got help to give her autistic sone some confidence – she booked him a session with a sex worker! Now tell me again why sex work shouldn’t be legal.

Environment

Hedges. Britain excels at them, with a greater length of hedge than roads. And farmers are coming to realise they provide vital habitat and corridors for wildlife. [LONG READ]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

A short item from History Today on the way our expletives change over the centuries. [£££]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Researchers have been retrieving DNA from ancient teeth and estimated that the “cold sore” herpes virus (HSV-1) is a recent evolution.

It is being suggested that the reason many medieval monks has a high parasite load was because they were using their own excrement as fertiliser.

The first of our two articles this month from Going Medieval‘s, looks at sexual assault in the medieval world. [LONG READ]

And our second of Going Medieval‘s articles is all about rocking chicks what brew beer. [LONG READ]

Only 350 years after it sank in the Bahamas, the wreck of the cargo of treasure aboaud the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas is being discovered and recovered.

Bills of Mortality, basically early equivalents of death certificates, often in church registers, are an invaluable resource. A London Inheritance blog takes a look at what they can tell is abut early modern life in London. [LONG READ]

Guédelon Castle

They said it is impossible to rebuild Notre Dame, using medieval carpentry and building skills … but France’s medieval carpenters are doing it!

London

A potted history of the London Taxicab.

A review of a book on origins of the more curious and interesting of London’s pub names.

Food, Drink

It seems there are some (natural) products which are able to interfere with your body’s ability to use the nutrients you consume – known as antinutrients.

books, food+drink, history

Book Review: What’s in a London Pub Name

James Potts & Sam Cullen
What’s in a London Pub Name
Capital History; 2022

Greater London has thousands of pubs – so many that probably no-one had counted them; and in any event the list would change daily. In 136 pages the authors of this slim volume describe the origins of over 650 of the more unusual or interesting pub names in Greater London – all the way from “Aces & Eights” (Tufnell Park) to the “Zetland Arms” (South Kensington). As one can imagine, at an average of about 5 pubs and a photograph per page, the descriptions are not very detailed. This is a shame, as there is undoubtedly more to be told about most of these names, and many others.

The sheer variety of names is astonishing, from the ubiquitous “Red Lion” to the eccentric “Queen’s Head and Artichoke”. Even so, as the authors admit, the list is far from comprehensive. They’ve set out to document those names with an interesting story and consequently have omitted many of the more obvious, like the “Queen Victoria”.

Sadly though I came away with one (or maybe it is actually two) criticisms. There are too many new names: for example the ubiquitous Wetherspoons “Moon” names (historic, not!) creep in, although thankfully the “Frog and …” names don’t get a mention. Against, or maybe because of, this the authors’ stated omission of many more common or obvious names does mean there is too little on the historic origins of pub names, which are often rooted in heraldry or other medieval/early modern symbolism or celebrity: are all the “Queen Victoria” pubs really named for our 19th-century monarch? Something more comprehensive would, for me at least, have been more satisfying.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting and well produced little paperback, but I have my doubts as to how long the spine will last with even moderate use. It is eminently suited to being dipped into – although you’ll find (as I did) you can read it from cover to cover! At £9.99 from Amazon (other suppliers available), it would make a great stocking filler for the London, or pub, aficionado.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

amusements, history

August Quiz Answers

OK, so here are the answers to this month’s quiz questions. All should be able to be easily verified online.

August Quiz Questions: British History

  1. When was the London underground first opened? January 1863
  2. Which 20th century British Prime Minister nearly died in a pandemic? And when? David Lloyd George; September 1918
  3. In 1896 Britain fought a war with Zanzibar. How long did it last? Between 38 and 45 minutes, depending on who you believe
  4. How many times did Julius Caesar invade Britain? Twice, in 55 and 54 BC
  5. Which monarch was convicted of treason and beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587? Mary Queen of Scots

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2021.

quotes

Monthly Quotes

Where is this year going to? Yet again we’ve got to my monthly collection of quotes at record speed.

When fish swim in water, though they keep swimming, there is no end to the Water. When birds fly in the sky, though they keep flying, there is no end to the sky. At the same time, fish and birds have never left the water or the sky … If a bird leaves the sky it will die at once, and if a fish leaves the water it will die at once. So we can understand that the water is life and that the sky is life. Birds are life and fish are life. It may be that life is birds and life is fish. And beyond this there may still be further progress. The existence of practice and experience, the existence of a lifetime and a life, are like this.
[Eihei Dogen (c.1200-1253), Genjo Koan]

Never fear that: if he be so resolved,
I can o’ersway him; for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray’d with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils and men with flatterers;
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work;
For I can give his humour the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol.
[Shakespeare; Julius Caesar; Act 2, Scene 1]

Thirty years ago, this would have been totally nuts to propose. It’s still kind of nuts, but it’s like borderline insanity.
[Daniel Carney, quoted at https://www.sciencenews.org/article/windchime-experiment-dark-matter-wind-gravity-physics]

It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent – lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It’s as simple as that.
[Tove Jansson]

The fact is all the finest white wine in the world is made in the Côte de Beaune and all of it is made from Chardonnay. Accordingly, anyone who likes white wine and says they do not like Chardonnay is, I’m afraid, an idiot.
[Charlie Boston; Understanding European Wines]

Retsina is considered to be the traditional wine of Greece. It has its origins in ancient times when the pots in which the wine was matured (“amphoras”) were sealed with pine resin. Nowadays, resin from the Aleppo pine is added to the must during fermentation to produce the distinctive resinated style. It is very much an acquired taste which, in my opinion, is not worth acquiring.
[Charlie Boston; Understanding European Wines]

Wine makes daily life easy, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.
[Benjamin Franklin]

In victory, you deserve Champagne. In defeat you need it.
[Napoleon Bonaparte]

He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long.
[Martin Luther]

There will be no more talk of antiseptics, unless and until tinned Herrings begin to frolic in their brine.
[Jean-Henri Fabre, More Hunting Wasps, 1915]

In the first UK coronavirus lockdown … one of the first commodities to be panic-bought from the supermarket shelves was toilet roll. Nobody really knows why toilet roll was so coveted. I for one could live without toilet roll, but not without pasta and wine.
[Seirian Sumner; Endless Forms, The Secret World of Wasps; she’s spent many years doing research in the jungles]

I want you to believe that the universe is a vast, random, uncaring place, in which our species … has absolutely no significance … I want you to believe that the only response is to make our own beauty & meaning and to share it while we can.
[Katie Mack, @AstroKatie; Disorientation at https://sciences.ncsu.edu/news/disorientation-a-science-poem-by-katie-mack/]

I am alone here in my own mind. There is no map and there is no road.
[Anne Sexton]

memes, words

Ten Things: August

This year our Ten Things each month are words with particular endings. Clearly this won’t be all the words with the nominated ending, but a selection of the more interesting and/or unusual.

Ten Words ending with -ea

  1. panacea
  2. apnoea
  3. bougainvillea
  4. amenorrhea
  5. counterplea
  6. miscellanea
  7. diarrhoea
  8. chickpea
  9. archaea
  10. thiourea

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to write a story in at most three sentences using all these words correctly. Post your attempt in the comments before the end of the month and there’s an e-drink for anyone who I consider succeeds.

food+drink

Culinary Adventure #90: Drunken Nectarines

So for a change here’s a pudding – and another eminently adaptable one. It’s based on a Diana Henry recipe from last week’s Waitrose Weekend paper: Peaches baked with Marsala & Rosemary.

Here’s the original recipe (click the image for a readable view):

Of course, as you’d expect, I immediately had to adapt it:

I used:
5 nectarines
2 good handfuls of homegrown blackberries
about 250ml liquor: roughly 50/50 Muscatel and Amaretto
½tsp almond essence
3tbsp sugar
4 sprigs rosemary

And I did:
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Nectarines halved and put in small oven-proof glass dish.
Add the liquor and almond essence.
Then blackberries, making sure to fiddle as many as possible in the gaps.
Sprinkle with sugar and tuck in the rosemary.
Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes; baste once about half-time and remove the foil.
Nectarines decanted and allowed to cool.
Juices reduced by about 30% and added to the nectarines.

Here’s the result, straight from the oven:

We ate about half (still slightly warm) with cantuccini – dipped in the liquor. This was extremely excellent. The blackberries worked exceptionally well (I wasn’t sure they would) especially with the liquor. I’d been tempted to use 100% Amaretto, but I think this would have been over-kill. And it doesn’t need cream (or any such) as an accompaniment.

What would I do differently?
– Well I want to try it without the blackberries.
– think I’d not bother with the rosemary.
– I’d not bother covering with foil.
– I’d bake for 30 minutes rather than 40 (it was slightly over-done).
– I’d use half the amount of liquor and reduce it a bit more.

But definitely another success!

food+drink

Culinary Adventures #89

Well here’s another variant on my infinitely adaptable Stuffed Peppers recipe. Ok that linked recipe uses haggis, but I often use whatever meat is available, especially the end of the chicken or the like.

However this weekend I did an (almost) veggie version using nuts instead of meat. Essentially the method is the same: a packet of stuffing mix, some onion, garlic, mushrooms and soft tomatoes; a beaten egg, a good dash of Worcs. Sauce (leave this out if you want totally veggie), some tomato paste and a good grind(!) of black pepper.

Then instead of meat I used about 200g mixed nuts (anything except peanuts and cashews). You’ll want to whizz the nuts in the food processor – but not too much: you want some ground down but still with some chunky (grain-sized) bits for texture and crunch.

Mix it all together and stuff four large-ish peppers – I halve them down the middle as I find “boats” cook quicker. Cover with foil and give it about an hour in a hot oven. Remove the foil, sprinkle with grated cheese and return to the over for another 15 minutes.

Delicious hot (with a sauce of your choosing, if desired) or cold with HP Sauce or similar.

Four halved peppers make a hearty main course for four.

And you can easily make this vegan by leaving out (or substituting) the egg and the cheese.

amusements, history

August Quiz Questions

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.

August Quiz Questions: British History

  1. When was the London underground first opened?
  2. Which 20th century British Prime Minister nearly died in a pandemic? And when?
  3. In 1896 Britain fought a war with Zanzibar. How long did it last?
  4. How many times did Julius Caesar invade Britain?
  5. Which monarch was convicted of treason and beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587?

Answers will be posted in 3 weeks time.

amusements, personal

Unblogged July

Fri 1 Monthly admin day again, and no sooner to clear one set of papers off the desk than two more arrive. Finally got to see some desk about teatime.
Sat 2 In the garden mid-afternoon, and a noise overhead. Looking up there’s a red kite and a gull, quite low, and I’m not sure who was escorting which off the premises. The kite was surprisingly bigger than the gull; absolutely majestic.
Sun 3 I seem to have spent all day writing my Chairman’s monthly update for the doctors’ patient group members – there was a never-ending list of healthcare items this month.
Mon 4 Following last week’s diabetes check-up, doctor and nurse not happy. Increase statins. No alcohol for a week. Hrmph!
Tue 5 I’m writing yet again. Today I’m working on a presentation about the places Anthony Powell lived, which I’ll probably end up giving later in the year.
Wed 6 Blimey. What a day. I’ve lost count of how many members of the government have resigned today – but it is far more than there should be members of the government to start with, which says a lot about our rotten to the core system.
Thu 7 It’s no wonder my PC refused to start this morning, and needed a helpdesk call. Johnson resigning is enough to frighten even inanimate objects, especially as his successor will likely be even more dangerous.
Fri 8 One of the three pupae collected from the garden a couple of weeks ago has hatched into a large “house fly”. Not sure how you get something that size from a small pupa. fly
Sat 9 The day for a haircut. Now really short again. So much more comfortable in this heat. And it’s due to get hotter.
Sun 10 What a good thing there’s nothing pressing to do today. Awake at 04:00 and 07:30. Next I know it’s 11:30! What happened there?
Mon 11 Part of what happened there was that I’d put my back out. Hopefully I’ve managed to settle it down and it is now just muscular. If not I shall have to find me a new osteopath.
Tue 12 It’s coming to something when the experts can’t even vaguely agree. Tonight’s weather: BBC says 1-2% chance of rain at any time tonight; Met Office say 40-50% chance of rain in the 2 hours around midnight. We had a few heavy spots just before 20:00.
Wed 13 This morning, a pile of feathers in the bedroom doorway. Just feathers; oh and a foot. No sign of a bird. No sign of a corpse. Has it been hidden or eaten? Guess we’ll find out when it starts smelling.
Thu 14 I was wondering why my morning fasting blood sugar levels had suddenly dropped about 10 days ago. Looks like it might be the hot weather. Who would have guessed this is a thing?
Fri 15 Another good insect day, after yesterday’s butterflies (which I blogged about). Today a Jersey Tiger Moth. Yes, they’ve spread from Jersey to the south coast (I first saw one in Lyme Regis about 20 years ago) and are gradually moving north. I’ve seen one here most years for the last 6 or 8. They’re absolutely stunning; and quite large. jersey tiger moth
Sat 16 Having bemoaned the lack of the usual butterflies this year, today saw a beautiful red admiral feeding on the buddleia. It was, of course, camera shy.
Sun 17 Saw the Lebanese guy next door this evening – first time in ages, so had a good long chat about everything from the eldest’s career aspirations to his plans to extend the house. His wife and 3 boys are in Lebanon for the summer.
Mon 18 Scorching day! Walking down the garden this evening we disturbed four, yes four, Jersey Tiger moths (red wing morph) in the woodland glade. All flying together; absolutely stunning! There’s something they obviously like here.
Tue 19 In more insect news … this morning an Oak Bush Cricket in the bathroom. Unfortunately N put it outside before I could catch it and work out exactly which species.
Wed 20 A pleasantly cooler day with a refreshing breeze. The last 2 days have been unbearable, but we did have some heavy rain late last evening (not enough though) and it cooled a lot overnight. But still warm enough for a Peacock butterfly on the buddleia at lunchtime.
Thu 21 Annual trip to the optician resulted in new glasses for me: £800 after the 20% discount! N escaped the rape of the credit card. We were there all morning chatting to the young lady dispenser.
Fri 22 I don’t understand supermarket deliveries. You book a 1 hour slot. Often they arrive during the slot; occasionally they’re late; but not infrequently they’re early – like an hour early, as this morning – and catch you on the hop.
Sat 23 Small but successful AP Soc. pub meet over Zoom. While it would be nicer to have real meets, using Zoom does allow those outside London, and especially outside UK, to participate – which is good.
Sun 24 Picked the first crop of runner beans. They’re quite early as they’re last year’s plants which I’ve over-wintered, so got a head start. They were very tasty (cooked & cold) in salad. runner beans
Mon 25 Two afternoons spent making zero progress on my family history: chasing Austens in Kent. Yes, that’s Jane Austen’s family. There are Austens everywhere; all the men seem to be called John, George or William; and they’re everything from baronets & surgeons to AgLabs. Can’t find a link to JA, but that’s hardly surprising given their proliferation.
Tue 26 A day of pushing jelly uphill through treacle with a toothpick. Everything took forever, not helped by being decidedly sleep short.
Wed 27 Sorry guys, I ducked this evening’s meeting. I just couldn’t face the endless waffle, especially knowing who was chairing it.
Thu 28 Oh God! More unnecessary, costly and over-hyped circus acts. Commonwealth Games. Gah!
Fri 29 It happens every week! By the time we get to Friday afternoon I’m firmly convinced it’s Saturday. And I cannot work out why. Guess I’m just going soft in the head.
Sat 30 Uncomfortably warm & sticky to go with a day of depression, anxiety and inability. No wonder I think it’s Sunday.
Sun 31 runner beansToday is the day we put out the wasp traps for the first of this year’s Big Wasp Survey slots. Two traps containing 200ml of lager, at different points of the garden, for 7 days.

As always it’ll be interesting to see what we catch, although I doubt we have any of the specific target species here; more likely to get the commoner ones in early September.

I can’t believe this is the sixth year of Big Wasp Survey!