Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
15. Winston Churchill, writing to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, said Singapore’s defences did not need to be completed for another fifteen to twenty years: “I do not believe there is the slightest chance of war with Japan in our lifetime. Japan is at the other end of the world. She cannot menace our vital security in any way.”
20. Adolf Hitler was released from Landsberg Prison, as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners, having served less than 9 months of a 5 year sentence.
24. Imperial Airways de Havilland DH34 airliner crashes soon after take-off from London’s Croydon Airport killing all eight people aboard; this leads to the first public inquiry into a civil aviation accident ever held in the United Kingdom.
26. Judy Garland made her show business debut, aged 2½, singing “Jingle Bells” at her parents’ theatre in Grand Rapids, MN.
30. American astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.
Being a record of some miscellaneous things and thoughts during the month.
From here on, I don’t guarantee to write something every day, mainly because life is dull and there isn’t always something interesting to record – and I doubt you all want to hear a continual tail of my woes and the weather. However the interesting, curious, strange, and just downright stupid will continue to be noted down. See also the entry for Sunday 17th.
So here are this month’s observations …
Friday 1
What an awful, dull, dismal day. Anyone would think it was November. Oh, wait a minute …
Saturday 2
A really good and positive GP patient group meeting this morning which left me with lots to do and much food for thought.
Sunday 3
We’re surrounded by the Paraffinians! Last night the locals were even returning fire. Why do people have fireworks which do little except sound like artillery fire? Actually why do people have fireworks at all? How can they afford it?
Monday 4
The gardener was here and he filled up the bird feeders. Within minutes there were 7 green parakeets having a party. Meanwhile I spotted a solitary redwing sitting in the ash tree a couple of gardens away.
Tuesday 5
What shall we do today? Oh, I know, let’s have our annual celebration of terrorism.
Wednesday 6
I’m not sure which is the worse example of shooting oneself in the foot: Brexit or another Trump US Presidency. Just never under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. Buckle up guys, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and we may not see you on the other side. 😟😟😟
Thursday 7
I found an odd screw on the study floor. It must be the one I lost out of my ear the other day. It would explain a lot!
Friday 8
Overnight, someone took all my elastic bands out. Very depressed, achy, energy-less and sleepy all day, but somehow I managed to make myself cook dinner. Roll on April.
Saturday 9
I’m completely confused. I have no idea what day it is, and I never have these days. It’s not just that once retired all the days are alike, because it wasn’t always like this. Everything has been thrown asunder by N going to the hospital three times a week – and as one of the days is a Saturday it means that weekends almost don’t exist any more, which throws everything out. This, plus the grey winter weather, is one of the current causes of my depression. It’s enough to drive you insane!
Sunday 10
Oh dear God! It’s bloody Remembrance Day again. Can’t we do away with it? I blogged about my views back in 2015 and 2010 so I won’t bore you all at length again.
Monday 11
Spend some time this morning doing maintenance on the pond, which I’ve been putting off, partly due to the cold and wet, because cleaning the filter and pumps is a wet, dirty job. It was quite pleasant out; dry and not even too cold – although it didn’t help that, as always, I got wet and dirty. Soon sorted with a good scrub up and some clean togs.
Tuesday 12
I seemed to have spent at least half the day trying to sort out and order Christmas presents. I think I almost suceeded, at vast expense, as always.
Wednesday 13
I slept so late this morning that I was woken up by the Rosie Cat coming along to see if I was OK.
Thursday 14
Trying, in vain this morning, to finish the supermarket order but completely stymied because the supermarket website is all over the floor – some bits work; some don’t; and for some it depends on which route you take to what you want. Aaarrrrgggghhhhhh!
Friday 15
What is it that creates “one of those days” when everything conspires, gets in the way, or just destroys itself? There seems no rhyme nor reason, especially when it is happening to both of us at the same time.
Saturday 16
Talk about dereliction of duty. We have an intruder (entire male) cat; he’s a pest and has been around for a long time, although I’m not sure if he’s still the alpha male. Can our three not see it off? Not a chance. Boy and Rosie are each twice his weight and could make mincemeat of him; but none of them work together. No, we do nothing, even when we have him trapped in the kitchen between me one end and Boy Cat guarding the exit through the catdoor. Provost Sergeant would not be impressed.
Sunday 17
This is silly, and I fear getting slightly pointless. There’s so little happening, that there’s nothing much worth writing about. The depression doesn’t help, but it’s more than that. The world’s gone to the dogs in a wheelbarrow and trying to make any sense of anything is only going to make the depression worse. So I might take a break; perhaps write sporadically when there’s something worth writing about – or not if there isn’t. After all you don’t all want to hear of nothing but my misery!
Tuesday 19
Awoke this morning to really large chunks of snow falling from the sky. We weren’t expecting this, it wasn’t supposed to get south of Leicester! It didn’t last and had turned to rain within an hour; but it was quite pretty while it was falling. Snow this early in November is I think fairly unusual. But then everything’s fairly unusual at the moment.
Wednesday 20
Blimey it was cold last night; cold like we’re not used to these days. So this morning a very heavy frost; all the roofs were white. It’s the sort of frost that when I was at school we wouldn’t have been allowed to play rugby as the ground was dangerously hard.
Thursday 21
Yes, it’s Beaujolais Nouveau Day – the 3rd Thursday in November – when we get to taste the first fruits of this year’s vendage. I’ve not bought Beaujolais Nouveau for many years, after a few bad years, but as the Wine Society are stocking it this year (which they don’t normally) I figured it would be worth a try. So a box of 6 arrived this morning; and was sampled this evening. It’s clearly nouveau, but not a bad bit of “blackberry juice” for all that: slightly acid and slightly yeasty as one would expect, but with some flavour too. So with luck this year’s vintage may well be reasonable.
Saturday 23
A wild, wet and windy morning. And the first thing I see: a red kite drifting in the wind across from the west. I then went down the garden to check on the pond; there was an almighty scattering of parakeets and squirrels. And there are fallen leaves everywhere!
Monday 25
A relatively calm, although still breezy, and intermittently sunny day, after a very wild, wet and woolly weekend due to Storm Bert. We must have had a deluge last night as there was standing water down by the pond this morning – the cats weren’t impressed; Boy Cat was seen walking past on the railway sleeper edging of the border.
Wednesday 27
Today a number of amusements …
Friday 29
Up betimes this morning to see a glorious deep pink an gold sunrise which was impossible to photograph from here. This was shortly followed by seven green vultures sitting on a branch (well that’s what the parakeets looked like!).
This was a real adventure as it’s not something I’ve tried before and I wasn’t at all sure it would work from a taste point of view. However even though I’m not a huge fan of cod (I find it too bland and boring) I thought it worth trying. As usual this is based on, but doesn’t slavishly follow, a recipe online.
Baked Cod with Orange & Ginger
Serves: 2
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 25 minutes
Ingredients
What to do
I served it with garlic roast potatoes (I must write them up sometime as they’re one of our favourites, and dead easy) and a fennel slaw.
Conclusion
Well it worked and was edible, the cod was only just overcooked (it had an extra 5 minutes to try to get it crispy), and the combination of flavours worked well together. But it needs work and improvement …
The cod wasn’t really crispy, partly I suspect as it ended up with too much liquor in the baking dish. In part that was probably because I had used a large, very juicy, orange. I should have kept a couple of slices of orange for garnish as there would still have been plenty of juice.
The other thing was that for me the orange and ginger didn’t really come through to the extent I thought they should. Again that may have been down to too much liquor and the orange not adhering enough to the cod. Maybe try reducing the orange juice and using a bit less oil, so it’s stickier?
I do wonder if another time I will try coating the cod in breadcrumbs with orange zest, ginger and herbs and pan frying it. Maybe served with a small amount of sharp (not sweet) orange sauce. Something to try when the supermarket next have good cod on offer!
Nevertheless it was a worthwhile experiment and something different.
Here we go with this month’s collection of links to items you’ll wish you’d not missed.
Science, Technology, Natural World
First off, wasps … apparently hornets are able to hold their alcohol amazingly well. [££££]
Birds listen to their songs in a totally different way than we do. [££££}
Scientists have found a surprisingly intact sabre-toothed tiger kitten frozen in Siberian ice, and it’s revealing unknown details about the species.
In 2023 researchers sent a dummy alien signal to Earth, without telling anyone, and it has now been decoded although not understood!
Jupiter is large enough to swallow at least 1000 Earths, and yet it has no surface.
NASA has a large number of satellites studying the sun, and they’re providing some surprising discoveries unrelated to the sun.
Look deeper and you find that comets have sinkholes, which generate jets of material.
In another piece of work from NASA, they’ve discovered two galaxies, looking like bloodshot eyes, which seem to be in the process of merging.
And finally in this section, astronomers have rediscovered a “dandelion-like” supernova first spotted in 12th-century China and Japan. [££££]
Health, Medicine
H5N1 bird flu has been detected in pigs, which is a big cause for concern as they are a well-known “mixing vessel”. And a teenager hospitalised in Canada has H5N1 with mutation(s) which may make it more transmissible between people.
It turns out that humans evolved to share beds, and not only with their romantic partner.
Synaesthesia is strange (especially for those of us who don’t have it) but ticker-tape synaesthesia, where real life comes with subtitles, is really bizarre.
Sexuality
Girls, is it that you just don’t like sex, or is it that you don’t like patriarchal sex? [LONG READ]
So how do you like your dirty talk during sex? [££££]
Is using lube really that much of a taboo for straight couples? Seems it is. [££££]
Environment
OK, so let’s change track …
Apparently British cities are taking on the Japanese concept of “tiny forests“.
And in a similar vein, relatively small patches of wildflowers in cities are as good as natural meadows for insect biodiversity.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
An amateur archaeologist has discovered another two stone circles on Dartmoor, and believes they add to the theory of a sacred arc of stone circles.
So who was Gunhild? And was she a victim of medieval ethnic cleansing?
On the other side of the world, a postgraduate student has serendipitously found a lost city in the Mexico jungle.
In Leicester they’ve found an 800-year-old burial pit containing 123 bodies, and it’s a complete mystery.
In the mid-13th-century, in what is now Turkey, a kingdom changed hands in exchange for a hat.
In order to make sense of the world as best they could medieval people had lots of supernatural beliefs: elves and fairies; abductions and the undead.
On which subject, here’s a look at some medieval animal ghost stories.
When you’re a peasant economy and don’t have the resources to feed lots of livestock through the winter, November becomes Blotmonath, the month of animal sacrifice and trying to store the meat.
The British Library currently has an exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. Here’s a review.
Food, Drink
Our drinking water contains many “forever chemicals”, but practically and personally what can we do to ameliorate this?
Wow! Ha ha!
So it’s that time of year, the season of Winter Vagina.
And so to the penultimate collection of quotes for this year …
The advert said
MONETISE YOUR FOLLOWERS
so he thought
he would respond;
by painting them
in the changing light,
like waterlilies
in a pond.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
[Albert Camus]
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.
[EF Schumacher, Small is Beautiful]
The floor of the House of Commons is little more than a West End theatre.
[DAT Green, Prospect Magazine; 24/10/2024]
Whether a chemical is man-made or natural fells you precisely nothing about how dangerous it is.
[Dr Mark Lorch, Biochemist, University of Hull]
Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.
[JRR Tolkien]
I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things.
[Richard Feynman]
It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.
[Anaïs Nin, (1803-1877)]
If someone has terrible principles, they will at least try to abide by them. If someone has no principles at all, there is no limit to what they’ll do.
[Ian Dunt at https://iandunt.substack.com/p/kemi-badenoch-becomes-tory-leader]
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.
[Turkish Proverb]
I heard someone refer to their kids as “sexually transmitted dependents”. I had to turn away before my soda came out of my nose. I thought they were called “crutch goblins”.
[unknown]
Meet me at midnight in the forest of my dreams. We’ll make a fire and count the stars that shimmer above the trees.
[Christy Ann Martine]
Suspending belief because you don’t have enough information does not make you indecisive. Changing your mind when better information comes to light does not make you a hypocrite. Deferring to expertise on complex topics outside your knowledge base does not make you a sheep.
[unknown]
The internet causes village idiots to form entire villages made up only of village idiots who have no idea they are village idiots.
[Vlad Vexler]
Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Physical Science
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.
In lieu of scary shots illuminated by a bonfire, this will have to do for my monthly self-portrait. There’s no special significance beyond the fact that I was buggering around with my mobile.
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.
Citrus Fruits