Category Archives: ramblings

personal, ramblings

By way of an apology …

The last week has been just so busy, hence the total lack of postings.

I’ve been putting the quarterly Anthony Powell Society Newsletter together for the printers — although I’m not the Editor, I am the in-house production team, sub-editor etc. etc. As this is the 50th issue — something I never even dreamt of achieving — it is a larger than usual issue, so has taken more time. Why is it that proofreading — proper, detailed proofreading — always takes so long? Anyway the Newsletter should go to the printer over the weekend after a final check-through.

However the bulk of my time during the week has been taken up with writing what has turned into a 40-page report for my GP’s Practice. A couple of weeks ago we, the Patient Participation Group organised by yours truly, helped run their annual patient survey. And of course I stupidly volunteered to key and analyse the data — well I know I have the skills to do it properly. With well over 500 records of data, the keying alone was no small job. Fortunately all the hard work of calculation I had pre-coded into a spreadsheet, so the bottom line numbers dropped out quickly. But then there were over 600 comments to analyse and turn into possible actions. All of that and more has to be written into a formal report, with tables and charts and a list of actions (with some justification). And every time you look at it something else pops up which really should be included. It isn’t finished yet, but it is getting close and should be with the doctors on Monday or Tuesday.

On top of that I have been trying to take it a bit easy, so I really do get rid of this blasted UTI which came back 10 days ago. It seems to have subsided now. But it needs to stay that way.

Next week is shaping up to be busy again too. Just for starters I have a 40-page report to read, and think about!, for a meeting on Wednesday. The only problem is, I have to find it first, amongst the pile of paper on/by my desk! And there are all the other things I need to attend to which have been out aside in the last couple of weeks.

Will I get to watch the rugby this afternoon? No, probably not … As everyone always says: How did I ever find time to work?

food+drink, ramblings

A Load of Old Horse

The UK currently has a problem with horse meat.

Let’s be clear from the outset that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with horse meat per se. Many countries eat horse, just a many countries eat sheep, pig, cow, goat, chicken, rabbit and guinea pig. The immediate problems are that (a) the British have this fetish about not eating horse — despite that many were glad to during WWII — and (b) the horse was being passed off as something it wasn’t, ie. beef.


But let us look deeper, and ask what is the real root cause of the problem — because it is neither of the above.

The problem, my friends, is that the British are bone fucking idle. Josette Public doesn’t cook. Indeed Josette Public probably doesn’t know how to cook fresh food. Instead she relies on buying ready meals. And because she essentially doesn’t care about her food she insists that what she buys is dirt cheap.

So we have some people now preparing ready meals, at knock-down prices. Once you do that, and the meals can be heavily chilled or frozen, they can be shipped across borders so production can happen anywhere. And because most of these meals are essentially made from minced meat, they can contain any old meat off-cut, from anywhere you like, as long as it is cheap. So we quickly establish “meat sans frontières” and a supply chain that spans the globe.

And once the supply chain is thus, it is easy for criminal activity to be perpetrated and for errors to go unnoticed. Unless I am going to do a lot of rigorous testing I have only my supplier’s word that what he ships me is what he says it is — and so on ad infinitum. And am I going to do that testing? No of course not; I can’t afford to as the supermarkets insist on the lowest possible price.

And all because the lady basally doesn’t give a flying wombat — until she does, when she creates a stink not realising she is herself the underlying cause of the stink. She facilitated the whole mess.

If Josette Public bought fresh meat and cooked meals from scratch, she would (have to) take more interest; meat would need to be sourced from closer to home, and the shortened supply chain would make surveillance and quality assurance easier.

In this instance, as in many others, I’m afraid the British are their own worst enemies. And if you want the root cause if that? Once again I blame Harold Wilson.

ramblings

Five Questions, Series 3

OK, so … we’re going to do the “Five Questions” routine again, just like we did a couple of times last year. Just to keep us all on our mental toes, you understand.

However series three is going to be a bit different. It is more in the vein of those daft “back page” interviews with Z-list slebs you see in magazines — only hopefully a bit more interesting; maybe more like those really good off-the-cuff job interview questions.

No, don’t panic! You can take this as seriously or not as you like (well you can all of them, but this one especially so) although the questions should still make you think!


The five questions are:

  1. Please describe yourself in 25 words or less.
  2. What are three things about you that most people either don’t know or wouldn’t expect?
  3. Of the things you’ve done in your life so far, what are you proudest of?
  4. What’s an as yet non-existent thing about which you’ve thought “why hasn’t someone created that yet?”
  5. If you could get everyone who reads this to do one thing, just once, what would you get them to do?


Again, like series one and two, I think they’re going to be deceptively tricky. I certainly don’t know in advance exactly how I’m going to answer them all, though I have a few ideas. (It’s called preparation!)

Anyway I’ll answer them one at a time over the coming weeks. The first in about a week’s time. (Well thinking doesn’t come cheap or easy, you know!)

And as I’ve said before, if anyone has any more good questions, then please send them to me. I’d like to continue to do this two or three times a year so good, but potentially fun, questions are needed.

Watch this space!

personal, ramblings

What Does Your Personal Hell Look Like?

I was prompted a few days ago to think about what really would constitute a living Hell for me. No forget all this fire and brimstone stuff of the (supposed) afterlife. We are quite good enough at creating Hell here in this life.

But on the basis that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, how much would we actually agree on what would constitute Hell here on Earth? Brave New World and 1984 would be a damn good start!

Well this is the start, at least, on what mine would look like.

There is no wine, beer or gin. The only liquids available would be Pernod, absinthe, pastis and … errr … water.

The only foods available are jellied eels, tripe, sweet potato, pumpkin and egg custard.

Everyone is perpetually rude, selfish and unable to speak English. (Nothing new there, then.)

All officials are little Hitler control freaks and over-officious bullies. And then there are the managers!

Basically nothing is allowed; everything is banned, so whatever you do you’re breaking some law or another.

Cigarette smoke clings everywhere.

There are no antibiotics, analgesics or deodorants.

It is cold. So cold I have to wear clothes all the time — because there is no central heating and no sunshine. And all the clothes I have to wear are made of plastic, rubber or nylon.

There are no cats, no birds, no gardens, no trees and no seaside. The sky is never blue. Maggots abound.

I have to travel everywhere by underground or by bus.

All women look like low-class tarts and wear a thick plastic skin of make-up.
All men are shaven headed thugs or greasy oiks — which is about how they behave.
There are children everywhere, screaming. Their batteries cannot be removed and they never run out of charge. They all have lice.

There is no internet nor any cameras — except for CCTV everywhere.

All TV is an endless cycle of inane soap operas and game shows interspersed every 5 minutes with ever more inane adverts.

There are no books and the only music is Mozart.

I’m forced to be homosexual, religious, play golf and put in the army.

I’m sure there’s more … Aarrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!

Why is it much of this sounds so horribly familiar?

ramblings

Make up Your Mind!

Have you ever noticed how we always get, even through “official” sources, lots of variation in the stories covered by the media?

Yesterday’s horrific helicopter crash in Vauxhall was a case in point.

Everyone agrees that the chopper hit the crane on a tall building under construction. But no-one could (initially) agree where the wreckage landed:

  • In the road below the crane
  • In Wandsworth Road, 150m away
  • From an aerial view (via I suspect Google Maps) that site looked more like 300m even in a straight line
  • But the crash site was indeed in Wandsworth Road, not where first shown but more like 4-500m away from the crane

And then there was the workman (or was it two men?) who should have been in the crane at the time of the crash. Because he wasn’t in the crane he had a lucky escape. But why was he not in the crane?

  • He was late to work because of being held up taking his daughter to school
  • He wasn’t allowed into the crane because of the fog (aka low cloud) obscuring visibility so there could be no crane activity
  • And this morning apparently it was two men who both overslept

FFS guys, get it right. If you don’t know, don’t make it up! — say you don’t know.

But of course Joe Public thinks admitting to not knowing is a sign of weakness, so they guess. Whereas in fact admitting not knowing is a sign of strength and maturity.

Let’s just hope none of these people have to be witnesses in court!

ramblings

At Last!

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This morning sees an unusual juxtaposition …

It is January.

There is snow remaining on the ground (just).

It is cold; the mercury is below freezing.

There is a really hard frost on everything.

There are even roses with frost on them.

The air is still and there is steam rising vertically from everyone’s boiler vents.

I shall be wearing a sweater.

No, it isn’t Siberia … it’s WINTER. In England. At last!

And this is how it should be.

personal, ramblings

Weirday

What is it that makes birthdays so strange? Today seems to have been one of the odder ones, but for no very obvious reason.

We’ve never been ones for making much of birthdays in my family, so I always expect them to be much like any other day. The trouble starts when other people think birthdays are special days. Which is very nice but not what I expect. Maybe I’m just getting old but it seems that these days everyone is much more wanting to make something of birthdays; I’m sure this wasn’t so when I was young. Maybe it’s just because we’re now much more open about things.

In the past I’ve managed to avoid some of this, especially in the last few years I was working when I had a policy of taking the day off work. But now that things like Facebook tell the world when your birthday is, there isn’t much hiding. And yes, in many ways that is nice but I’m still not used to it.

But although a quiet day, this has been one of the odder birthdays.

It started with an alarm clock and the usual unwillingness to engage vertical hold. Oh and I need to do a pee sample for the doctors to check I really have gotten rid of the bladder infection.

Then off to do the weekly supermarket run. Well this is better than it could be as (a) it is always quiet at 9am on a Friday and (b) I get to have breakfast in the café. This morning, being a special day, I indulged in a full English breakfast rather than the usual bacon roll.

Just as we were leaving the supermarket (luckily after we’d paid!) the fire alarms went off and the store was evacuated. Frankly it could have burnt down as it was nearly 10 minutes before a solitary fire engine arrived.

Home about 1040 to news that one of my parents’ closest friends had died. Not unexpected as he was in his late 80s and had been ill for some time. Fortunately, when I rang, my mother already knew, so I didn’t have to break the news to her.

… And a short doze in front of my PC …

A scratch lunch of the remains of last night’s stuffed peppers with bread & butter — not bad cold, but better hot. This was followed by teh grand opening presents. Oooo goodie! … Another bottle of gin! Plus an early music CD and some books from my wanted list. And what!? No-one gave me chocolates. Which is probably as well.

While away the afternoon doing this and that — ie. nothing — followed by a shower and shave. So exciting I could hardly stand afterwards.

Then to cook my birthday dinner. A massive quantity of seafood (prawns, mussels, scallops and sprats) and linguine in a tomato, lemon and chilli sauce. Dead easy and though I say it myself it was bloody good — better than many restaurants. Devoured with a rather nice bottle of Roger Brun Réserve Grand Cru Champagne (from Nick Dobson Wines).

Dinner was rapidly followed by a long phone call with my closest aunt — mostly about family things and our researches into our ancestry.

So now to switch off and read for the rest of the evening.

And I still don’t know why it is that birthdays are quite such strange days!

food+drink, ramblings

Lunnun Adventure

Yesterday Noreen and I ventured into central London to have lunch with our friend Patric.

Lunch with Patric is always most enjoyable. As one of the country’s most senior Heralds he mixes with everyone from the Queen down. Not that you would ever know; he’s a perfectly ordinary guy, albeit one who went to Oxford and trained as a barrister. He’s just as happy meeting in the pub, a café or a small Italian restaurant as he would be at the Ritz or a gentleman’s club. Meet him in the street and you’d pass him off as just another eccentric Englishman in an overcoat and a flat cap!

And so it was that Patric introduced us to a small Italian restaurant in Shepherd Market on the southern edge of Mayfair. Da Corradi is tucked away in the alley which runs from Shepherd Market into Curzon Street. It is friendly, unpretentious and small; the ground floor eating area is not spacious and only about 20 covers, but there is a larger area downstairs.

Da Corradi
The food was excellent, generous and not at all expensive. Between us for starters we had minestrone, insalata tricolore and antipasto (which was enormous!). Then for main courses we all had pasta: spaghetti with meatballs in tomato sauce, cabonara and fusilli with salmon. Again the pasta helpings were so generous we passed on pudding. That with a bottle of house wine (a perfectly acceptable Pinot Grigio), some soft drinks and tea amounted to only just over £90 including service. Extremely good value especially for that area.

What’s even better is that they are open from early to late, so you can get full English breakfast right through to a meal after the theatre. They also have a sandwich bar. We shall be going back!

We arrived at the restaurant about 1230, had a leisurely lunch and left about 3pm. This was good because Patric is always interesting to talk to and usually has some unconsidered trifle or tale of genealogical whimsy with which to amuse. Amongst other things we were discussing the correct original recipe for Buck’s Fizz, which Patric has unearthed via a serendipitous route. It is also interesting to see his professional approach to genealogical research and where (and why) he is prepared to accept connections “on the balance of probabilities” rather than needing to have “100% detailed forensic certainty”.

In fact lunch was sufficiently good and protracted that we ended up not doing anything else while in town other than a preprandial walk round Shepherd Market. Nevertheless my camera spotted a couple of oddities. The first was in Shepherd Market itself …

Nude Gold
… and yes, it really is a jeweller’s!

The other was seen on the Marylebone Road.

Thai Hmmm
One wonders what other services they offer?

Altogether an enjoyable, if short, day.

beliefs, ramblings

Four Agreements

A few weeks ago, quite by chance, I came across The Four Agreements.

What are they? Well that depends on who you are and how you view them.

According to Everyday Wisdom they are based on ancient Toltec (an archaeological Mesoamerican culture) wisdom and

offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives and our work into a new experience of effectiveness, balance and self supporting behaviour.

Everything we do is based on agreements we have made. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, what everyone else is, how to act, what is possible and what is impossible. What we have agreed to believe creates what we experience. When these agreements come from fear obstacles develop keeping us from realizing our greatest potential.

According to others they are four principles to practice in order to create love and happiness in your life or for stress management and personal growth.

Yeah OK, that’s what they all say!

What is clear is that they are based on the thinking of Mexican shaman and new age spiritualist Don Miguel Ángel Ruiz and they seem to be the cornerstones of whatever wacknut religious beliefs he holds. They have made him lots of money as he sells “self-help” books about thee agreements by the million.

All of which leaves me feeling very sceptical and mis-trusting.

However when you read the four agreements they do make a lot of sense and they aren’t too far apart from my own personal modus vivendi (see here and here).

Now I don’t propose that anyone goes out and lines Ruiz’s pocket with more money by buying his books. It should be enough to lay out the four agreements and leave you to think about them. They are:

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.

What’s so special about them? Actually very little. They are pretty much what most belief systems boil down to if you analyse them deeply enough. They can also be pretty damn difficult to adhere to! Not making assumptions is especially hard — the whole of western culture is based upon everyone making assumptions.

Not taking things personally is hard too. I know, from recent experience, that it is all too easy to get upset when someone close reacts emotionally apparently as a result of something you did. But you have to be able to stand back and realise that their emotions are their problem to deal with, not yours, and come from within them. They are not your emotions; you cannot control the other person’s emotions, nor are you responsible for them. Yes that can be hard.

But none of that means the four agreements aren’t worthwhile. Indeed if everyone could just strive towards them society would be a whole bunch better. And you don’t need to believe in some peculiar religious practice to make sense of them; they fit atheists just as well (maybe better?) than they do believers — atheists have no overlying dogma to contend with.

ramblings, science

The Strangeness of Days

The more I think about it, the more puzzling time becomes. Not just from a scientific point of view — and who knows that’s bad enough! — but from an experiential view.

There are two things which especially puzzle me; confuse me, even; despite that I think we all experience them.

The first is the way in which time is not linear.

OK, we know that time works only in one direction: it marches inexorably forward. As far as we know there is no way in which time can run in reverse; physicists tell us this doesn’t accord with the laws of nature they know about, hence our continuing quest for time machines.

But we all know from experience that time is not linear. There are days when one gets up and follows one’s normal routine — some combination of coffee, shower, shave, hair-do, feed the cat etc. — only to fine one is 15 minutes late leaving for work/school. The next day you’ll do exactly the same and be ready 15 minutes early. Some days the afternoon disappears without you realising; other days it drags and you seem to be checking the clock every few minutes wondering how many hours have passed.

Scientists tell us this is impossible; that time is perfectly linear. Yet we all experience it. And no-one so far can explain it satisfactorily.


The second puzzle, which may be related to the first, is the nature of days. Again no-one to my knowledge has ever satisfactorily explained this.

How is it that on Thursday, I was convinced it was Friday? Yesterday (Friday) morning I thought it was Saturday. And by yesterday evening I thought it was Thursday again. Worse, yesterday evening (what time I was existing in Thursday) Noreen was convinced it was Saturday. And today? Well I have no clue; my head is just too full of cold germs to be sure of anything beyond it’s dark, it’s raining and I’d rather be huddling under the duvet.

Now I can understand how it may be possible to explain the way in which time passes faster as one grows older. The theory is that as one ages there is less new to take in; the brain measures time in notable experiences; hence as there are fewer, time seems to pass faster.

But that doesn’t explain the non-linearity of time at either the level of minutes and hours or at the level of days. I’ve been pondering this for years, and still have no idea what’s going on here. Is it just that all our brains are faulty, or is there some underlying system of local time-warps? Has anyone got any clues?