personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 44

OMG it’s now week 44 (of 60) of my experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful. But I’m still trying to work out where the last week has gone. I seem to have been running in a blur of circles all week with little to show for it except stress and losing all track of what day it is. Ably assisted the while by having a cold and sinus infection — thankfully it seems now on the wane.

So I have to come up with my five picks for the week. Hmmm …

  1. Pak Choi. Yes that strange cabbage-y oriental veg. I rather like it’s slightly nutty flavour and its crispiness and it is full of vitamin C. As it has been good recently so we’ve eaten it twice this week.


    And I’ve made my own way of cooking it (probably not original): slice the pak choi in half along it’s length and pan fry it in olive oil and flambé it with a slug of whisky or brandy. (I nearly managed to fire the kitchen doing this last night!) Serve when it’s beginning to brown but still fresh and crunchy.

    What I hadn’t realised is that it is very closely related to the common or garden turnip. But don’t eat too much of it as it contains some toxic glucosinolates.

  2. Bastourma. We’ve eaten out twice this week as on both Tuesday and Wednesday we ended up near a favourite restaurant in the early evening. On Tuesday, as we left a meeting about 6pm I asked Noreen what we were about to do. She said “I’m taking you out for dinner”. Well who am I to object? Especially when we were but a few hundred yards from one of our favourite Italian restaurants.

    Then on Wednesday I had another meeting which was scheduled right across evening meal time and which I knew wouldn’t finish until 8pm. So afterwards I met Noreen in our favourite Greek Cypriot restaurant. I just had a quick main course of Bastourma, a smoked spicy beef sausage, with a couple of beers. They weren’t hugely busy, so we had time for a chat with the lady of the house too.

  3. Boarding the Loft. Regular readers may recall we’ve been slowly trying to clear and organise our loft. This week we had James in to lay boarding in the second (of three) areas we’ve cleared. Job well done and lots more usable storage space. Now we just have to clear the final third!
  4. Roast Pork & Apple Sauce. This week’s other treat was a large joint of pork from our trip to the supermarket. Succulent roast pork, with Noreen’s tart apple sauce (just Bramley apple stewed with butter) — and a naughty bit of crackling on the side!
  5. Completed Tax Returns. What a wonderful job for a Sunday: filling in the income tax return! Like most people it’s a job I hate; I remember my father swearing about it every year. But it’s worse now I have three tax returns to do: mine, Noreen’s and my mother’s! But with a decent PC application, last year’s return as a basis and all the data in the file ready it doesn’t take too long. Mine and Noreen’s have been sent in; just my mother’s to finalise during the week. And it is such a pleasant relief when it is over for another year!
words

Word : Callipygian

Callipygian

Having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks.
(In more modern parlance) having a nice bum.

From the Greek καλλίπῡγος, κάλλος beauty + πῡγή buttocks.

The Ancient Roman Statue Venus Callipyge is literally “Venus with the beautiful buttocks”.

Hat-tip: Steve Olle for reminding me of this superb word!

amusements, links

Things What You Might Have Missed …

It’s been a busy week, most of which I seem to have spent in meetings. In addition I’ve been fighting a losing battle against a filthy cold and sinus infection. That’s why there hasn’t been too much activity here. It also means that I’ve built up a little backlog of links to things you might have missed, some of which, in more equable times, I would have written about in detail.

A few weeks back, Ian Visits, went to look at a 600 year old “timber cathedral” near Heathrow Airport. Looks like an old barn on the outside, but just get those timbers on the inside!

Harmonsdworth Great Barn
Meanwhile in Leicester archaeologists have been digging up a car park looking for a king. And lo, verily! They believe they’ve found Richard III, “hunchback” and all!

But who needs a king when you can have a naked lady to ramble over? Northumberlandia, is a public open space landscaped as as naked lady. What better use could there be for old slag heaps?

While on the subject of nudity (nothing unusual there then!) I note that Stephen Gough, the “Naked Rambler” has been jailed again by the prudish Scots judiciary. From reading the Telegraph report the guy clearly isn’t mad, but he is certainly misguided and pig-headed — especially given that this has not only kept him (wrongly in my view) in jail but also cost him his family. Clearly he doesn’t see it that way and I suspect there’s nothing that’s going to change him. It needs a certain level of flexibility and common sense by “the authorities” in Scotland to release him from jail, put him in the back of a police van and deposit him a free man somewhere in England where he appears to be less likely to be re-arrested. It’s crazy that no-one (on either side) is prepared to budge enough to resolve something which is a huge waste of money and resource.

While talking of wasting money, the TUC has this week dubbed Britain’s railways “a gigantic scam” with passengers being fleeced, and public money wasted, to line the pockets of shareholders. And for once I have to say I agree with them. Railways, like the utilities, should never have been privatised.

How on earth does one write a bridge from the unions and railways to cats? Because next up, yes we have pussies. Guess what? Researchers this week have discovered that we humans can catch toxoplasmosis from cats. Who knew? Well I did; and what’s more I’ve known for 30 years! Duh!

I’m not even going to try the next link. I doubt I can do it without descending into the bowels of indecency. For next we have two weblog items from sex educator (and sex “a lot of other things”) Maggie Mayhem, who I enjoy reading because she’s not afraid to call a spade as shit shovel and tell things like they are, albeit often somewhat amusingly. First off she’s written an absolutely scathing attack on the elements of (mostly American) society who believe in “Biblical Anti-Feminism” — basically keep the girls uneducated and trained only to praise their men and God, and bear their children. Read it and weep … read the links she provides and you’ll likely become suicidal, if not homicidal.

Secondly Maggie Mayhem has written about how she has rebelled against the current fashion for females to remove body hair. Sing praises for some common sense!

After which you’ll need your daily dose of mind-boggling. Here’s an old article which describes a one line program (above), written in IBM’s APL language, which runs Conway’s Game of Life. What’s even more scary is that I used to be able to write and maintain this stuff. No wonder I’m out of my brain!

For your second sorry third, including the Biblical anti-feminists, mind-boggle of the day … have you ever wondered how long you’d need to lie outside with your mouth open before some bird shit dropped in it? Well wonder no longer, because What If? from XKCD will tell you. It’ll also tell you something weird about the fuel consumption of your car.


Finally in this edition we go from the totally mad to the … totally mad. Did you know that the world’s longest recorded parsnip is 18 feet 5 inches (5.607 metres) from stem to tip? Yep, it’s all part of the National Giant Vegetable Championships. Or perhaps you’d prefer a 3.76kg spud with your roast? There’s nowt so queer as gardeners!

photography

Gallery : Beauty

1 Comment

So the theme for Tara’s Gallery this week is simple … Beauty.

Simple huh?

So what is thing called “beauty”? Is it merely something cultural; an attribute based on whatever is the current common consensus? Or is there some “universal beauty” which transcends time and place? It seems (see here and that it’s actually a mix of the two. But it’s also interesting that aside from the biological markers of health and fertility, there’s no definition of beauty that isn’t considered ugly in another place or another time.

Which means I can choose anything the hell I like! So what shall we have?

Some pretty flowers?

Hollyhock Orchid

Apothecary's Rose Cabbage
(Yeah OK, so a cabbage isn’t a flower, but you get the point!)

An attractive blonde?

Buxom Blonde
Or some pussy porn?

The Sleep of the Just Sunday Morning Lay-in
But then again we could have a crane!

Crane (2)
I know, I’ll let you choose …

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 43

OK, so it’s another week down in the experiment: week 43 done and 17 to go. Here are my five picks of the week.

  1. Wedding Anniversary. As I mentioned, yesterday was our wedding anniversary. I worked it out; a mere 33 years! I make that pearl (30) and leather (3), so we invested in some fancy dog-collars shackles. 😉 But … Eeeekkkkk! We’ve been married much longer than we weren’t. And every year we look at each other and say “How did we do it?”. And we still don’t know! But it’s a good week for it; we have several friends with wedding anniversaries this week.
  2. Summer Weather. This week has been another of glorious late summer weather: clear blue skies, hot sunshine, warm nights — just like summer should be — but also quite humid. It seems the first week of September is so often good weather, which is one reason we often used to go on holiday in early September. All of which has meant we’ve enjoyed several days of …
  3. Eating in the Garden. Well at least on the terrace, aka patio.

  4. Plums. Our next door neighbours have a small Victoria Plum tree. Like all fruit trees It hasn’t been prolific this year (we’ve had no apples worth eating), but earlier in the week they gave us a couple of pounds of delicious ripe plums; just right for eating.
  5. Duck and Blackberry. See my recipe from yesterday!
personal, thoughts

Five Questions, Series 2 #2

So what shall we do on an extra hot September Sunday afternoon when I’ve got a large part of a sinus infection? And when nothing from the neck up is working properly? (No change there then!)

Oh, I know, I’ll tax my brain with answering Question 2 from my Five Questions, Series 2. So …

Question 2. If you had to diagnosis yourself with any mental illness which would it be?

Well that should be easy: all of them! But maybe we should look at the options.

Depression. Yep, definitely got that one.
Intelligence. Yep, got that as well.
Schizophrenia. Nope, not even by the farthest stretch of the imagination.
Autism. Nope, though I’m sure many of my former colleagues thought I had.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Nope, no more than anyone else.
Stupidity. Yep, very definitely have that.
Optimism. No; dunno what this is.
Quadrophenia. I guess this must be where each of your schizophrenic personalities is itself schizophrenic. Aarrrgggghhhhh!!!!! So no, don’t have that. Anyway The Who never were my favourite band, I didn’t like the album, and I wasn’t a mod.
Realism. Sadly yes, all to much of it.
Drug Dependency. Yeah, got lots of those. Can’t get off the anti-depressants without withdrawal symptoms (must try again!); like a moderate drink (like every day); and of course there’s always food.
Honesty. Yep, got that one; definitely out of order in today’s world!
Bipolar Disorder. Nope, I’m never manic enough. More like I have Monopolar Disorder.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. No, thanks.
Eating Disorders. Yep, I eat too much, which may be an addiction.
Münchhausen syndrome. I have no clue how you fly a triplane — Oh, sorry; wrong German … See, my life isn’t nearly colourful enough!

Which I think means I just suffer from an extra giant dose of totally insane stupidity!

food+drink

Recipe : Ruddy Duck

Today is our umpty-nth Wedding Anniversary and rather than go out to eat — we seem to be eating out quite a lot recently anyway — we decided to do something a bit special for dinner this evening. Fillet steak had been suggested, perhaps as Tournedos Rossini. But steak somehow seems so ordinary these days. We were going to the supermarket anyway this morning.

Then very late last night I had a vision. The vision involved a duck. In typical male fashion I thought “duck breasts”. And then I wondered “what can I put with duck breasts?” We neither of us like culinary clichés like duck & orange or duck & cherry, if only because restaurants always serve it too sweet.

And then I though “gooseberries”. I’ve done mackerel & gooseberry before, so I know the acid of the fruit works well with something fatty. Hmmm, yes, that would work. Well of course we have the end of some port too. OK so, Duck with Gooseberry and Port. Yes, that would work well. Bet we can’t get any fresh gooseberries!

[Interlude for sleep]

So this morning off we trot to Waitrose. Before I commit us to duck I wander off and look at the fresh fruit. Yep, as predicted, no gooseberries — well it is a bit late for them. I returned to Noreen who looked quizzical; I had to explain my plot. “Ah yes”, she says, “that sounds good. I’ll see if there are any frozen gooseberries”. She returns empty handed saying all they have is frozen “forest fruits”. Hmph! Then she says “Rhubarb”. I say “Hmmm, not sure about that”. This needs to be tart but I’m not sure rhubarb is the right sort of acid. “Or blackberries?” Yes that’s a much better idea; we’re sure to have a few in the garden and anyway there are some in the freezer. And we know rabbit and blackberry works well.

As a result I give you …

Ruddy Duck
or Duck with Blackberry and Port

Preparation time: 20 minutes (including salad & potatoes)
Cooking Time: 20 minutes


For two of us I used:

  • 2 duck breasts
  • 4 ping-pong ball sized scallions (or equivalent in other onion)
  • 2 handfuls of blackberries
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • generous wine glass of port
  • olive oil, sea salt, pepper

And this is what I did:

  1. Trim the onions; chop the green parts of the scallions fine and quarter the bulbs.
  2. Slice or crush the garlic, and rinse the blackberries.
  3. Slash the skin of each duck breast 3 or 4 times and rub in freshly ground pepper and sea salt.
  4. Heat some olive oil in a good pan and fry the onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes until beginning to go translucent.
  5. Add the duck breasts and fry skin side down for 3-4 minutes so they get slightly browned.
  6. Turn the duck breats and add the blackberries; give them 2-3 minutes before adding the port.
  7. Cook for about 10-15 minutes (depending how well done you like your duck), turning the duck occasionally. I put a lid on the pan the keep the steam and flavours and speed the cooking a little.
  8. By this time the sauce should be reducing and beginning to get sticky; it will be a deep maroon colour (hence Ruddy Duck).
  9. When the duck is done, remove from the pan and slice thickly before serving with the pan juices.

I accompanied this with steamed new potatoes and a simple tomato, onion & rocket salad. But a lovely fresh vegetable like pak choi would work well too.

Enjoy a bottle of good robust red wine with it.

And yes, it was very good. Though I say it myself equally as good as one would get in most restaurants, and at least £10 a head less than even the cheapest would charge you.

amusements

DID – NOT!

Quite some time ago I came across the idea of an antitheses to Desert Island Discs.

For those not in the know, DID is a long running (it started in 1942!) weekly BBC Radio programme in which a public figure (the castaway on the eponymous island) chooses the eight pieces of music they would want to have with them. They are also allowed one book (in addition to The Bible and The Works of Shakespeare) and one luxury.


In the version I have in mind one chooses the music etc. one would least like to have. So here are my choices:

Least Favourite Records

  1. Middle of the Road, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep
  2. Helen Kane, I taut I taw a Puddy Tat. Genuine torment of my childhood.
  3. Anything Country & Western
  4. Beatles, Blackbird, from the White Album. This always makes me depressed, which is the last thing I’ll need.
  5. Paul McCartney, Mull of Kintyre
  6. Vivaldi, Four Seasons
  7. Pachelbel, Canon in D major
  8. And finally it is a toss up between opera and Mozart. On balance I think I’d hate to have anything operatic (Gilbert & Sullivan excepted).

Least Favourite Book
I’d probably choose Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses which I am totally unable to read. I’d also not be too keen an anything by Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontës, Thomas Hardy (you can blame school for that collection).

Least Favourite Luxury
Golf clubs or Scuba diving gear — I cannot imagine ever wanting to do either, although I suppose the golf clubs could be useful for building a shelter or clubbing meat to death.

Anyone else fancy joining in? If so post your choices on your blog and leave a comment so we can all enjoy them. 🙂

words

Word : Postillion

Postilion, postillion

  1. A guide or forerunner.
  2. One who rides a post-horse, a post-boy; a swift messenger.


    Post chaise with postillion

  3. One who rides the near horse of the leaders when four or more are used in a carriage or post-chaise; especially one who rides the near horse when one pair only is used and there is no driver on the box.
  4. Supplementary floats to prevent fishing line from sinking.
  5. (verb) To insert and manipulate a finger in the anus of a sexual partner as a means of sexual excitement.