This year our Ten Things column each month is concentrating on food. Not necessarily the most common or obvious foods, but hopefully ones everyone will recognise.
Fruit
If you’re going to be weird, be confident about it.
Again this year, 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.
Music
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
21. Born. Benny Hill, English comedian and singer (d. 1992)
21. Died. Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary, first Premier of the Soviet Union (b. 1870)
22. Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
26. Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) is renamed Leningrad; it will revert to Saint Petersburg in 1991
| Fri 1 | Another bright sunny day, but what a stinging frost; the roofs almost looked as if it had been snowing lightly. But oh bugger … Why is the heating not working? Error code on the boiler display; low water pressure. Why? Call our heating guy; I adjust it as instructed, but too much so it still won’t work. Luckily he was in the area and dropped by – problem fixed in 2 minutes with the cover off the boiler. Phew! From there the rest of the day was an uphill struggle. |
| Sat 2 | Well there was no real frost last night and this morning is really dull and misty – they’ve taken away the hill which should be about 1km to our SE. Bat at least we have hot radiators and water. |
| Sun 3 | This blasted cold. I’ve had it for about 10 days and I cannot shift it. Snotty nose; bunged sinuses; watery eyes; inflamed ears and Estacion tubes. It fair gives you the willies. |
| Mon 4 | Absolutely wrecked. Had a dreadful night sneezing and snotting with this cold. Much clearer once I got some ibuprofen and decongestant on it. Also better having got the pond guy and window cleaner here and gone. Nothing else to get up early for this week as my Wednesday meeting has been postponed – for once not by me! |
| Tue 5 | I must have had something in excess of 10 hours sleep last night – solid sleep as I woke up only once for a few minutes. As a result all the head bits are somewhat clearer, although not best, and one is still feels very disinclined to do anything – so I didn’t. |
| Wed 6 | Once more it’s finances day, and yes we’re solvent for another month. We also get the government’s geriatrics’ winter fuel payments, as well as well as a miserable £10 each “Christmas bonus” from DWP. While one doesn’t mind having extra cash from the government (we have and still do pay enough in tax) how sensible is it to give this money to people like us who, let’s be honest, really don’t need it. Mind you when our health insurance is going up 20% this year … |
| Thu 7 | Well that was fun – NOT! 22:30 this evening, we have a blocked loo. Very blocked. N and I eventually managed to clear it, after much poking, prodding, hosing, flushing and bailing. It took us an hour. We and the bathroom all ended up soaked (fortunately mainly clean hose water). Much mopping and cleaning, followed by showers all round. And so to bed. Why do these things always happen last thing at night? |
| Fri 8 | Heard today that one of our neighbours had died (at home) over night. Not really a surprise as she was a heavy smoker and had had lung cancer for quite a while. We of course drank her health and memory with our bottle of Rioja this evening – which I feel sure would have upset her Baptist beliefs. |
| Sat 9 | Blimey we must have had quite some rain overnight, as we had standing water – colloquially known as the Great Lakes – down by the pond this morning. And it stayed most of the day, despite the rain easing off by lunchtime, so the water table really is high. N reckons we’re going to have a relatively mild and wet winter. I’m not so sure. |
| Sun 10 | Yet again I have no clue what day it is. By lunchtime Friday my brain was convinced it was Saturday. Yesterday felt like Sunday. And today: well I have no clue. So it’s no real wonder I’ve managed to get almost nothing done; the big tasks just keep being kicked down the road. |
| Mon 11 | We finally managed to get all the Christmas cards written. We do send a lot – because we like to – but because we get our own cards printed as large postcards, and print address labels, the job is much quicker than fiddling about with envelopes, and uses a lot less paper. It is also much cheaper; like 10-15p for a card (postage is obviously the same). |
| Tue 12 | Yesterday the hospital rang and gave N an appointment for this morning! So I with N to the hospital for the start of a round of consultations & procedures for her hereditary condition. Consultant, specialist nurse and an armful of blood tests. More to come after New Year. Some of the blood results back before the end of the day. And she has an online seminar tomorrow morning. But trying to get them to schedule anything else quickly is a Sisyphean task of pushing jelly uphill with a toothpick. |
| Wed 13 | Afternoon spent sorting out and wrapping presents which have to go in the mail. What’s good these days is not just the ability to buy the postage online, and printing it all as an address label, but that the Royal Mail will come and collect anything larger than an ordinary letter which has been paid online – and the collection is free too! So having done the online postage you click the button and pick the day you want the items collected (usually tomorrow). Letters still have to go to the postbox, but as long as you can pack, weigh and pay for items online there’s no longer any need to go to the Post Office. Now that’s what I call service. |
| Thu 14 | Bastard! Started sneezing, sneezing, sneezing late last evening and couldn’t stop. Wet runny nose too. Couldn’t breathe so ended up with a sore throat and didn’t sleep well. Got up at 03:30 for 30 minutes to do a Covid test (result: negative). This morning it’s clear that I have this <expletive deleted> cold back. At least I assume it’s a cold as I’m not especially feverish and I tested negative for Covid (using two different makes of LFT). |
| Fri 15 | Situation normal: Yesterday I was convinced it was Saturday (I blame the cold). Today I have no idea what day it is, but this evening erring towards Saturday again. WTF is happening to my brain? |
| Sat 16 | I learn that I’m not the only one with this strange time dilation in the brain. Today we had a good social call for the literary society. One of the members admitted to having tried to join the call yesterday (Friday), quite believing that it was Saturday. Basically it seems this is what retirement does to you! |
| Sun 17 | We always have our Sunday lunch in the evening, and very often not the traditional roast. This evening: steak & chips. And senior cat did OK too with a three course meal. The cats had fresh cooked cod for tea (their weekly-ish treat); junior cat is so stuffed he’s incapable. Senior cat being more sensible paces herself: so she had room for a few morsels of our steak, followed by a small amount of cream for pudding. It’s all right when the cat gets a three course meal! |
| Mon 18 | Attended an interesting online talk about the entomology collections of the National Museum of Scotland, given by a young and very enthusiastic curator. Lots not just about the collections, but why they’re useful and important – especially for tracking things like climate change and biodiversity. |
| Tue 19 | Good to see S&Z (wasn’t expecting to see Z) who dropped in for a quick coffee and cake this morning. S on the way back from a physio checkup following her hip replacement. Seasonal gifts duly exchanged. Z much professionally occupied by the volcanic eruption in Iceland. |
| Wed 20 | A few days ago I was moved to write to my three “girl” cousins (sisters; two older than me) on my mother’s side. I also wrote to my three half-aunts (on my father’s side). What a pleasant surprise this morning to get a call from the eldest of the cousins, who I’ve not spoken to in hundreds of years (although we’ve always kept in touch). A lovely 45 minute phone call. |
| Thu 21 | Spent all afternoon sorting out and wrapping presents. Totally knackering. |
| Fri 22 | Butcher the Dinosaur Day. Christmas supermarket delivery – slightly early against all our expectations. It included a decent medium-sized turkey and a nice looking piece of porchetta. A happy half hour spent butchering the dinosaur – crown for Christmas day and the rest in the freezer. Porchetta for Sunday and cold cuts. |
| Sat 23 | If the NHS want me for a health check, why do they need to send me three text messages and a letter in three days. I’ve not yet had a chance to respond to the first text. This is just bullying and harassment, which I won’t take from anyone. They got a very snotty email. Ball back in their court. Of course nothing will happen now until New Year. |
| Sun 24 | Well I got there! I’m not sure N has though. And I cooked dinner: a very nice piece of Porchetta – and plenty for cold cuts over the next few days. |
| Mon 25 | Warm, wet and windy. Just as well we didn’t want to do anything other than get up late, open presents and eat. But OMG wasn’t TV dire! |
| Tue 26 | Boxing Day. The highlight was the first of this year’s Royal Institution Lectures, this time about Artificial Intelligence. Did I learn anything? No. Should I have done? Probably also No. But I’m not sure how much it would have meant to 12-ish year-olds; as so often there were a lot of long, complex, words and concepts which weren’t explained. |
| Wed 27 | What is the weather coming to? Another wet, windy and dreary day on which to continue eating Christmas left-overs: cold meat and sort of bubble-and-squeak. |
| Thu 28 | Oh the joy of those dull days between Christmas and New Year! Turkey, Pork, Leek & Mushroom Pie. And there’s enough for lunch tomorrow. |
| Fri 29 | I hate printers, especially laser printers. The new one has now decided that it doesn’t want to play anymore. Not sure I can fix it. So as I need a workhorse printer (for many reasons) I have to throw money at the problem and buy another new one – for delivery tomorrow And I’ll go back to HP (at least their toner is cheaper). |
| Sat 30 | So there I was, sitting in the kitchen putting together individual bowls of salad for our evening meal. And I thought “Blimey it’s really quiet; what’s wrong?” Until it dawned on me “You silly bugger of course it’s quiet, you’re not wearing your hearing aids!” Duh! |
| Sun 31 | And so ends another year, much as it began: grey, miserable and wet. Here’s hoping 2024 is better for everyone. Have a happy, prosperous and healthy New Year! |
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.
Things Science Can’t Fully Explain
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
[Søren Kierkegaard]
| Wed 1 | Whatever it was, I have no recollection of it. |
| Thu 2 | So that storm. What happened to it? Yes there was quite a bit of wind, and some rain; and it wasn’t very warm. But nothing like what we were promised. But then London was in the eye of the storm for most of the daylight hours, which is possibly deceptive. |
| Fri 3 | N’s new laptop was delivered today. That’s me occupied for the next week setting it up. |
| Sat 4 | Blasted fireworks. Cats very unimpressed. Yes I know it’s Guy Fawkes weekend but … the people very close to me (I didn’t bother working out exactly who) spend half an hour early in the evening letting off a continual round of very loud cannons, with lots of quieter popping in the background. We could easily have been in a war zone, with mortar fire being returned by snipers. These things aren’t cheap; considering everyone is supposed to be struggling I don’t know where they get the money to send up in smoke. |
| Sun 5 | Well much to my surprise, Guy Fawkes Night turned out to be relatively quiet with only a handful of short, somewhat muted salvos. |
| Mon 6 | Phew! We’re solvent again this month despite almost hitting the credit limit on our main credit card – but then if you will go buying expensive PCs, not to mention all sorts of stuff in advance of Christmas! Although the money for the PCs has been siphoned from a savings account (one which still pays pathetic interest). |
| Tue 7 | My new PC turned up today. But they can’t supply the screen I wanted (ETA is January!!) or my second choice. So a refund in order and I’ll buy the second choice from Amazon, saving all of 3p! |
| Wed 8 | God what a miserable, dark, wet day. Anyone would think it was November. |
| Thu 9 | It’s the story of my life at the moment … a large chunk of the day spent putting my new PC together and starting to install everything. Why, oh why, do Windows updates take so bloody long? And they don’t tell you what they’re doing but half the time just leave you with a blank screen for it seems like hours – so you think the whole thing is broken. At least put a little message there, and change it every 5 minutes. It drives me mad. |
| Fri 10 | Another bloody miserable November day. It really is doing my head in this year. |
| Sat 11 | And so we come to the awfulness of Remembrance weekend. As regulars here will know, I’m with Evelyn Waugh who described it in the 1930s as “a disgusting idea of artificial reverence and sentimentality”. I find it sickening. |
| Sun 12 | There’s more noise here tonight, for Diwali, than there was last weekend for Guy Fawkes. The infidel are clearly burning off the money they tell us they don’t have. |
| Mon 13 | After four weeks of buggering around with PCs and laptops I finally got my new PC installed yesterday, and pretty much working OK today, although still a few wrinkles to iron out. At last I can see some clear desk space, and I’m not working on top of two keyboards, two mice and a rats nest of cabling. I also picked the last of this year’s chillies – another 30! – and got most of the plants (some this year’s which weren’t great, and the very old ones which are now past it) off the study windowsill: the cats and I can now see daylight and birds! |
| Tue 14 | A day spent trying to catch up on the stuff I’ve ignored for the last few weeks. And still having to fettle options and settings on half of the computer software. |
| Wed 15 | Main meal number four from Sunday’s duck: roast on Sunday; cold with bubble & squeak on Monday; duck-herd’s pie on Tuesday; and today I cooked the carcass for stock and made duck, leek & lentil soup. Not my best ever soup, but a good feed nonetheless. Why do I always find soup so difficult; I’m missing a trick somewhere. |
| Thu 16 | Most of the afternoon spent writing and scheduling regular blog posts for next year. Will I be around to see them all? |
| Fri 17 | Well this is scary. I’ve now finished writing my scheduled in advance blog posts for next year – all except for 4, which I can do next week and need a bit more hand-crafting. |
| Sat 18 | An interesting, and successful day. A good and useful doctors’ patient group meeting in the morning, thanks in part to a new member rattling some cages. And a good pasta, beef & tomato dish in the evening, washed down with a decent bottle of red, and followed by Christmas pudding (yes, really!) cream and Armagnac. |
| Sun 19 | Up betimes. But why? I feel sure something must have happened today, but it surely passed me by. A singularly dull day. And so to bed. |
| Mon 20 | Had a fit of the medicals today. First N to her consultant at Hillingdon Hospital – successful in that we’re getting things scheduled and can go back to consultations at Hammersmith Hospital (much nicer than Hillingdon). Then late this afternoon to Pinner to get the wax vacuumed out of my ears – a definite result, even if it did hurt the wallet. |
| Tue 21 | Reaping the rewards of getting somewhat dehydrated on Saturday and yesterday. Woke up with sinus aching all round my face; and feeling completely lethargic. |
| Wed 22 | Comes the gardener for the first time in weeks to do some tidying up. He lifted one of the (dozen or more) Jerusalem Artichoke plants; result half a bucket of the best looking, and enormous, tubers I’ve ever seen. As I’ve been saying, when I was a kid we grew artichokes in a small piece of poor soil and got a reasonable crop; these have been in good soil and well watered so no real wonder they’ve done well. That good selection is no more than a third of what we pulled today. |
| Thu 23 | Head down all day doing website updates for the literary society; isn’t revising and updating web pages so incredibly tedious! Not helped later on by a fight with Windows which was insisting on using Bing when I tell it to use Google. Gah! |
| Fri 24 | I just don’t know how to pull myself up and out of this depression. I’m really struggling to do anything at present. I know it is partly the winter. But over the years nothing I’ve tried seems to have done any good. Are the antidepressants helping? I don’t know but dare not try coming off them. Talking therapy (CBT, counselling, hypnotherapy) doesn’t work on me – partly because my brain is too active. SAD light therapy has been tried at least twice to no effect – might have to try it again, in desperation. Be active? How when the depression won’t let me? I’m still convinced there’s a magic switch somewhere in my head, but I’m buggered if I can find it. Oh, and now my brain thinks it’s Saturday. |
| Sat 25 | Another super literary society talk, which I hosted. One day we will get the videos online! |
| Sun 26 | I finally finished updating that one web page for the literary society site. It’s only taken me 5 years! |
| Mon 27 | 27 is an interesting number. US President number 27 was William Howard Taft (1857-1930), president 1909-1913 27 is the cube of 3 (ie. 3x3x3) and it has a number of other mathematical curiosities Element 27 is Cobalt whose compounds make blue pigments and give blue colours to glass etc. There are 27 bones in the human hand There are 27 books in the New Testament There are 27 Nakṣatra or lunar mansions in Hindu astrology |
| Tue 28 | Well that makes life easier. We rescheduled our dental checkups which were due tomorrow. Not only has our usual transport cried off (unwell) but I have a nasty wheezy little cough (not obviously Covid; negative test) which the dentists won’t want taken to them. So I ended up having a fairly quiet day for once. |
| Wed 29 | A lovely bright sunny morning; a dull grey afternoon; dark before teatime; and not very warm. We’re promised much colder weather over the next few days, although the Weather People don’t really seem to know how far south it’ll get. But there’s a large Shepherd’s Pie in the oven (enough for today and tomorrow) so that’ll warm things up a bit. And I feel artichoke soup on the horizon for the weekend. |
| Thu 30 | Another bright sunny morning but with a really stiff frost – the first of this winter, I think – which was really nice to see. |
Well then … Here we go with another collection of links to items you didn’t know you didn’t want to miss.
Science, Technology, Natural World
In the latest of the grand space projects, NASA has retrieved a couple of hundred grams of an asteroid and dropped it back to Earth.
Now we’re coming down to the top of a 22,000-foot volcano where Earth’s highest-dwelling vertebrates have been found
Japan has a new island thanks to an underwater volcanic eruption.
Still on the fiery nature of Earth, there’s been a swarm of earthquakes happening in Iceland, which likely precedes a volcanic eruption.
Still on earthquakes, a researcher, at the Vatican Library, has found a 500-year-old Hebrew note which reveals an unknown earthquake swarm in Italy.
Now to the natural world …
Serotine bats (above) have surprised scientists by being the first known mammal to have procreative sex without penetration.
Staying with rodents … experiments suggest that rats may have the power of imagination.
In the Amazon there’s a somewhat horrifying parasitic wasp (below) with a huge head, and it is just one of over 100 newly discovered species.
This is somewhat bizarre … it seems that starfish are just a large, flattened head, with no body. [££££]
Health, Medicine
Scientists seem to have worked out why some people get headaches from drinking red wine.
And now we have three items for the female population …
In the first, OB/GYN Dr Jen Gunter tries to once and for all explode the myth of menstrual synchronization.
Dr Gunter then looks at the sense in poking garlic up your vagina.
Finally academic sex researcher Dr Kate Lister tests oral probiotics for vaginal health. [££££]
Sexuality
And now on to actual sexuality … in which Dr Emily Nagoski looks at some approaches to sex for the disabled.
Expert sex therapists suggest the usual 20 ways to revive your flagging libido.
Environment
On the interaction between wild pigs and golf courses.
Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics
Why is there this assumption British voters become more Conservative with age – and is it true?
Let’s obscure the players’ genders and then see how men’s and women’s soccer compare.
Art, Literature, Language, Music
Archaeological finds are revealing that art is much older than our species. [LONG READ] [££££]
There’s a boom in people taking up life drawing.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
Near China’s “Terracotta Army” archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a 2000-year-old sheep-drawn chariot.
Moving west, a large number of clay stamps used to seal Roman documents (above) have been discovered in Turkey.
Meanwhile off the coast of Sardinia divers have discovered around 50,000 Roman coins.
A cartographer has created a London Underground style map of Britain’s Roman Roads.
Excavations around Sutton Hoo in Suffolk continue to turn up suprises. One latest find is the remains of what might be an early 7th-century temple.
Coming gradually up to date … A hoard of medieval pennies dating from the reign of King Stephen has been found in Norfolk.
In Germany they’ve found a centuries old grave containing a skeleton with four prosthetic fingers.
Dr Eleanor Janega takes reveals the real story behind the killing of Joan of Arc.
Forensic research proves that the Ancient Ram Inn in Wotton-under-Edge (above) is old, but not as old as is made out. [LONG READ]
London
Here’s a look at the life of Wenceslaus Hollar who is best known for his panoramic views of 17th-century London (below).
Food, Drink
The convoluted story of the sandwich called Gua Bao. [LONG READ]
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
Mathematician Kit Yates looks at whether the time has come to stop changing the clocks twice a year.
Cheese-rolling, straw bears and weird rituals: one man has made it his life’s work to record the whole of British folklore, and he now has a massive collection.
There’s a collection of walks around the UK’s strange and sacred sites.
Returning to sex researcher Dr Kate Lister, she’s written about growing out her pubic hair for the first time in 20 years. [££££]
Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!
And finally, in a surprise revelation it has been discovered that a supposed Yeti hair actually belonged to a horse.
