Category Archives: food+drink

beliefs, food+drink, memes, natural history

Listography – Random

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Yet again I’ve not done Kate’s Listography for a few weeks, in part because she has used several weeks of Listography space running a Top 5 Toys for Christmas survey for which I wasn’t eligible (‘cos her rule said “parents only”).

But this week we’re back to normal and I’ll let Kate herself introduce this week’s exam:

This week’s Listography is simple but with a very wide scope — Top 5 Random Things I Like.

Just one word of warning though – random is not ‘I like chocolate’ — that’s just not going to cut it round here. However ‘I like chocolate sauce with my chips’ is getting a bit warmer.

So, in the hope that my choices are whacky enough, here we go …

  1. Wasps. They generally get a bad rap, and I would agree can be annoying. But they are superb creatures and wonderful predators. Without them we’d be knee deep in creepy crawlies.
  2. Plane Crashes. Not because I like seeing people hurt or killed. Of course I don’t and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. No, my interest is forensic and analytical: I like to try to see if I can work out guess what happened and why. Think of it as a giant puzzle game.
  3. Curry with Avocado, Banana and Mayonnaise on the Side. Yep it works really well. Chopped avocado and chopped banana. Mayonnaise instead of yoghurt dressing (although I like that too). It’s a nice combination of flavours and contrasts of hot and cooling.
  4. Latin Liturgy. Despite not being at all religious — indeed I’m anti-religious — I do find that proper Tridentine Latin Mass does something to me. Well it is a spell, isn’t it?!
  5. Deep-fried Haggis. Yep again this works wonderfully well. I first met it 40 years ago when a student: the chip shop nearest the university in York used to sell it. Sausage-sized haggis, thickly battered and deep fried. And bloody good it was too especially on a cold winter’s night after a few pints. Sadly I don’t recall seeing anyone doing it since. And anyone want to try deep fried black pudding — I reckon that would be good too.

So there you are. I’m sure I have more interesting “random likes” than this but they escape me for now. Anyone care to add to the list?

food+drink, memes, music, personal, quotes, science

Ten Things – November

Number 11 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Beaujolais Nouveau (This year’s is supposed to be even better than last year’s which was superb; and it’ll be here in a few days time!)
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Plumbing
  3. Something I Want To Do: Visit Norway & Sweden
  4. A Blog I Like: Cocktail Party Physics
  5. A Book I Like: Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
  6. Some Music I Like: Handel, Messiah
  7. A Food I Like: Pizza
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Sweet Potatoes
  9. A Word I Like: Mendicant
  10. A Quote I Like: The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. [JBS Haldane]
beliefs, food+drink, memes, pleasures, quotes, sexuality

Listography – Top Five Keywords

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As regular readers will know I don’t always do Kate’s weekly Listography — sometimes because I just don’t get time and sometimes because the subject doesn’t fire me with enthusiasm. But this week Kate is asking us something simple: list the top five keyword searches on your weblog (excepting the name of the weblog and keywords like “blogger”). So I can hardly refuse, especially as whenever I see anyone listing the searches used to find their weblogs they’re usually either a scream or completely unbelievable!

Will mine be any different? In a word, No …

At we have pheasant. Yep really. Four times the number of hits of its nearest competitor! Everyone seems to have liked my December 2009 recipe for Pheasant Casserole.

is the quite shocking pussy porn. I guess, guys, you were sadly disappointed to find this, this or this.

is perhaps the equally worrying, and equally disappointing, dumb blonde.

At we have another search for pornography: osho on porn. But this time it is a serious article.

Finally at #5 we go from the sublime(?) to the ridiculous with the search woodpecker feet. Well, yes, I really did write a post about woodpecker feet!

In the words of JBS Haldane:

The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

food+drink, memes, music, personal, quotes, science

Ten Things – October

Number 10 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Tea
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Halloween
  3. Something I Want To Do: Fly on Flightdeck of an Airliner
  4. A Blog I Like: Bad Science
  5. A Book I Like: Nick McCamley; Secret Underground Cities: an Account of Some of Britain’s Subterranean Defence, Factory and Storage Sites in the Second World War
  6. Some Music I Like: Moody Blues, Octave
  7. A Food I Like: Swiss Chard
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Milk
  9. A Word I Like: Persiflage
  10. A Quote I Like: Well, art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce they taste more like prunes than a rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know? [Groucho Marx]
books, food+drink, memes, photography

Listography – Things I did this Summer

I’ve been somewhat lacking in the last few weeks in keeping up with Kate’s Listography. The spirit has been willing but there just haven’t been enough hours in the day. Why? Well see my previous post, and consider that I’ve been working a minimum of 6 hours a day, 7 days a week, for at least 6 weeks on Society/conference business.

But better late than never here’s my response to Kate’s Listography from last week. These are some of the things I did this summer …

Organised and ran an international literary conference. I think I hardly need say more.

Completed and released my photo book – a month earlier than planned. I don’t expect it to make me tons of money. I did it because I wanted to; it was fun; it was for me.

Wrote an academic paper and submitted it for publication. Not because I had to for work or anything, but just for the sheer hell of it!

Drank afternoon tea with an Earl. Yes, a real Earl. No names, no telling. Just a pleasant cup of tea and a chat, tête-a-tete, while he signed some books.

Ate too much fish and chips – several times. Well who wouldn’t?

Glamorous? No. Mostly damned hard work!

food+drink, memes, personal, quotes

Ten Things – September

Number 9 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Photography
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Take any more exams
  3. Something I Want To Do: Get Rid of my Depression
  4. A Blog I Like: The Loom
  5. A Book I Like: Florence Greenberg, Jewish Cookery
  6. Some Music I Like: Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly
  7. A Food I Like: Chips
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Marron Glacé
  9. A Word I Like: Verisimilitude
  10. A Quote I Like: Pro bono publico, nil bloody panico. [Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles]
food+drink, memes, personal, sexuality

Listography – Guilty Pleasures

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I haven’t done Kate’s Listography for the last couple of weeks — one has to have a break sometimes! One of the weeks I missed was because the subject (kid’s films) does nothing for me at all: I don’t have kids and I don’t do films. The other I just never got round to doing. So I’ve come back in this week on a really difficult topic: guilty pleasures.

What makes this the more difficult is to interpret what the topic means. Kate’s definition of a guilty pleasure is something that you shouldn’t really like but you actually do. But that isn’t quite my understanding, which is more like something you like (regardless of whether you should or not) but which you don’t normally talk about in public (for whatever reason).

So my five choices are going to be a mix of the two. Here goes …

Fried Food. Bad. Hideously bad. Both in calories and cholesterol. Just what is it about fried food that make it so good, and means it’s comfort food? There’s nothing quite like good fish & chips, or sausages, or full English breakfast. Then again there’s … chips! I do try to resist. Honestly, I do! But I usually fail. It’s no wonder I’m the size I am!

Dr Alice Roberts. Well if all you girlies are going to drool over a half-baked men like Tom Jones and Andrew Marr, then I can have a girlie. A real, sexy and frighteningly bright one at that: Dr Alice Roberts. Formerly of Time Team and latterly of Coast. As I say, not just sexy and frighteningly bright, she’s a talented artist, a medic, teaches anatomy and is no mean anthropologist and archaeologist. There seems to be nothing this girl can’t do! Geek girls are definitely sexy.

Plane Crashes. Yeah, ghoulish. Well no, not really. I would never wish a plane to crash nor for anyone to be involved. But they do. And I take a forensic interest (albeit from my armchair) in why they crash; what happened. I do the same with train crashes and other disasters like the demise of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan. I like working out what happened and why.

My PA. [NSFW warning] No idea what I’m talking about? See here for an explanation. And no you don’t get a picture — not publicly anyway.

Onanism. This is squarely in the “we all do it but guiltily we never talk about it” category. Why don’t we talk about it? Why is it such a taboo? It’s normal, natural and healthy. We all do it, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, relationship status etc. So where’s the problem?

So what would you own up to?

amusements, food+drink, memes, people, pleasures

Listography – Inventions

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This week’s Listography is all about inventions. Specifically Inventions I Wish Were Real. Kate seems to think it’s easy. Huh?! No, I found this quite hard actually. But here are my five choices:

A Self-Cleaning House. Yep this was Kate’s first choice and I’ll go along with her on this. In fact I’d suggest that everything should be self-cleaning. Nothing (including us!) should be allowed on the market unless proven to be fully and properly self-cleaning. Instant improvement in just about everything.

An Off-Switch for Kids. I’ll go along with Kate’s second choice too. There has to be some way of silencing the plethora of screaming, whinging brats which infest everywhere. And while we’re at it let’s have an off-switch for the screaming and shouting parents too.

Zero Calorie Yummy Food. I like my food. I eat too much of it. So I get fat, very fat. We need a way to remove the calories from food without removing any of the texture, flavour, appearance and overall attractiveness of the food. Instant diet. What’s not to like?

Money Tree. Sorry, Kate, you can’t have the only one — I demand one as well. Why shouldn’t money grow on trees. Not just anyone’s trees. My trees. A guaranteed lottery win every week. Now that would change everything! Easy. Deliver me three today. Thank you.

Magic Carpets. Finally I want a magic carpet. Well better have several so I’m never without when they need servicing. Everyone should have a magic carpet. I’m not greedy. I don’t ask for teleportation. But a magic carpet that can transport you from anywhere here to anywhere there in no more than an hour. And without all the cost, effort and hassle of airports, check-in, buying tickets, hours on a plane or in a car or coach. Just be there in under and hour. You still get some fun from the travel with a fairly minimal investment of time.

And I haven’t even got round to thinking about instantly refreshing sleep, elastic walls to houses, the pause knob for time and non-puking cats.

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