words

Word: Varmint

Varmint
1. Vermin. An animal of a noxious or objectionable kind.
  
2. An objectionable or troublesome person; a mischievous boy or child.
3. Knowing, clever, cunning.
Also, 4. A sporting amateur with the knowledge or skill of a professional.


The OED gives the derivation for meanings 1 & 2 as a variant of vermin with excrescent. Although the first recorded use is in 1539 the word is said to be rare before about 1825. There is apparently no obvious connection between the word as used in meanings 1 & 2 and that of meanings 3 & 4, which I find hard to believe.

food+drink

Autumn Rabbit

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We were at Eton College yesterday, and given lunch in the Masters’ Common Room (no not as flash as it sounds; it is normal catering fare, albeit the upper end). The upshot was that we didn’t need a big meal last night, so our planned dinner was delayed to today.
Back on Saturday we went to Norwich to see my aged mother and, as we often do, stopped at Elveden Estate Shop on the way home, which I’ve written about before (see for instance here). And wow, did we get some bargains!
First of all we snaffled a couple of gammon hocks. Yes, they’re cheap (under £4 each), but these were huge and there is a surprising amount of tasty meat on them if you’re prepared to do a bit of work.
Noreen then spotted a couple of ends of sausages. So we got three wild boar and three venison (large) sausages basically at half price because it was the end of the day.
We then grabbed the last pack of wild rabbit. A whole, jointed wild rabbit for about £3 has to be worth having. And this is what we ate tonight.
Add to that we bought a bunch of fresh “rainbow” carrots, three plate-sized field mushrooms, some local apples and some huge vine tomatoes.

Anyway this is really about the rabbit.
And before we go any further, no rabbits aren’t cute and cuddly. They can be a real pest and anyway the rabbit is only Nature’s way of turning grass into fox food.
So I give you a recipe I invented some years ago but haven’t done for a while …
Autumn Rabbit
There isn’t a lot of meat on a wild rabbit so one rabbit will feed two greedy or three normal people.  So adjust the following as needed. Yes you can use farmed rabbit, but it doesn’t have the same game-y flavour.
You will need:
a butchered and jointed wild rabbit
a large onion, roughly chopped
cloves of garlic (to taste)
2 windfall apples, trimmed and roughly chopped
2 good handfuls of fresh wild blackberries
half wine glass of gin or calvados
some fresh sage leaves
olive oil
knob of butter
salt & pepper
This is what you do:
Wash the rabbit and blackberries
Prepare the onion, garlic and apples and put in a large cast iron casserole with some olive oil and the butter.
Sweat/fry this for a few minutes, until the onion is beginning to go translucent.
Now add the rabbit pieces and brown them on both sides.
Throw in the blackberries, gin and sage leaves; season with pepper and a little salt and allow the casserole to come to a boil.
Put the lid on the casserole and transfer to the oven at about 170C (with fan) for about an hour.
You will now have a casserole of purple rabbit which you can serve with roasted rainbow carrots, jacket potatoes and a robust red wine.
It couldn’t be a lot simpler or very much tastier!
Oh yes, and those sausages were cooked on Sunday evening in an Italian-style tomato sauce and served with linguine on a plate-sized, grilled, field mushroom. And wow was that good too!

history, photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph is an interesting piece of ecclesiastical architecture in Saint Augustine, Brookland, Kent.
This looks to be a decorated window on which a Tudor form has been superimposed, apparently as part of a chantry chapel. It is a real challenge to photograph as the sill is above head height, there is a big built-in cupboard in front of it, plus two disused box pews (used for storage of things like cleaning mops!). The only way you can get square-on is to invade one of the (raised) disused box pews. It’s a pity the glass is so dirty as the colours of the trees through the window were lovely and would themselves have made a good shot.

Click the image for larger views in Flickr

Tudor Window
Tudor Window
July 2009; Saint Augustine, Brookland

history, topographical

Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is this year on Monday 9 September.
The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, first performed at the Barthelmy Fair in August 1226, is one of the few ritual rural customs to survive the passage of time and now takes place annually on Wakes Monday.


After collecting the horns from the church at eight o’clock in the morning, the Horn Dancers (six Deer-men, a Fool, Hobby Horse, Bowman and Maid Marian) perform their dance to music provided by a melodian player at locations throughout the village and its surrounding farms and pubs. This involves a walk of about 10 miles (16km). At the end of this long and exhausting day, the horns are returned to the church.
There are more details of the route, schedule and general visitor information on the Abbots Bromley website at www.abbotsbromley.com/horn_dance.

words

Obsolete Words

Earlier in the week I came across a wonderful list of 18 obsolete words, which never should have gone out of style.
They’re all wonderful, but here’s a selection …
Snoutfair: A person with a handsome countenance.
Pussyvan: A flurry, temper.
Wonder-wench: A sweetheart.


Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger.
Tyromancy: Divining by the coagulation of cheese.
Beef-witted: Having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating too much beef.
Resistentialism: The seemingly spiteful behaviour shown by inanimate objects.
Bookwright: A writer of books; an author; a term of slight contempt.

And I think my favourite of all …
With squirrel: Pregnant.
English is such a wonderful language!

current affairs, ramblings

Government and IT

Yesterday’s Independent carried a short article under the headline

Using computer technology ‘could save state £10bn a year’

Yes, you bet it could! Here are extracts from the article:

Civil servants could cut the cost of government by £70bn in seven years just by making more use of computer technology, a think-tank report … claims.
The ambitious claim … is almost 10 times what the Cabinet Office hopes can be achieved.
The report … highlights ways government departments waste money by using too much paper.
Offenders include the Crown Prosecution Service, which prints a million sheets of paper every day, the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, where “two articulated trucks loaded with letters and paper pull in every day”, and the Passport Office, which prints out forms filled in online and posts them back to applicants to sign.

Oh FFS! I know I worked for a large IT company but set in its ways though the Corporation was even we got rid of most paper forms 10 years ago!
So you bet the government could save £10bn a year, but it will happen only if:

  • They learn something about IT and how to manage IT projects
  • They are prepared to listen to advice from suppliers
  • They are prepared to invest some money up front
  • They are prepared to grasp the nettle and tell the civil servants that this is how things will be done — no push-back allowed.

Will all of those happen? … No.
Will any of those happen? … Probably not.
Gawdelpus!

photography

Weekly Photograph

Here’s one from years ago (like 2008) when I went to London Zoo — and yes, for some unknown reason they let me out again!
No story to this, just a pretty picture!

Click the image for larger views on Flickr

Birch Tree
Birch Tree
June 2008, London Zoo

memes, personal

Five Questions, Series 4 #5

So, at last, we get to the final question of series 4 of Five Questions.

Question 5: What is the biggest obstacle that stands in your way right now?
There is only one possible answer to that … ME!
You think I’m joking? Then you’ve not seen the size of me!
What?! You want a more serious answer?! You mean that isn’t good enough?!
Well if you push me then the answer has to be (a) depression and (b) not enough hours in the day to get done what I want to do.
But isn’t that essentially the same for everyone? … There isn’t enough time and we just can’t push ourselves to do more.
– oo OO oo –

OK, that concludes Five Questions, Series 4. I’ll do another series in a few months.
Meantime, I would like questions to answer — ask anything and I will see if I can answer it. No promises though ‘cos you really don’t want to know about my … TMIA!