personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 35

Experiment, week 35. Another week in the continuing experiment and at long last it has been a bit different …

Well for a start it’ been weeing down with rain almost all week. Oh, there’s no change there then.

And secondly we had a quick night away in Somerset which has provided four of this week’s five pleasures: (1) Hilary Spurling’s lecture, (2) La Bisalta, (3) the Archangel; all of these you can read a bit more about in my earlier blog post.


La Bisalta

Then (4) people who enjoy and are interested in their job. I was especially struck by the pair who were serving breakfast in the hotel. The young man was a professional bar-tender and had made it his business to learn all he could, including about food, and was interested enough to be helping out on his day off. The young lady was a trained chef. Her boyfriend was obviously the hotel chef and they had agreed not to work in the kitchen together (very sensible!); so she was learning the front of house stuff (she even checked us out!) so she had the skills when they were able to start their own business. Unlike many chefs she was seriously interested in food. They weren’t busy so we had an interesting conversation. They, together with the staff at La Bisalta, were friendly and welcoming. It’s such a refreshing change!

So then to (5) Strawberries and Raspberries. We bought both on this week’s shopping trip because they looked good, were known to be good varieties — which is also a refreshing change — and were English. No need for cream, they were delightful enough all on their own for Saturday breakfast.

amusements, quotes

Quotes : Terry Pratchett

Just for a change I thought that for something different this time around we would have a few choice quotes (from among so many) from Terry Pratchett.

Granny grasped her broomstick purposefully. ‘Million-to-one chances,’ she said, ‘crop up nine times out of ten.’
[Equal Rites]

Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this space, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant- assuming that every creature that could be called ‘human’ is allowed in, and the human race eventually totals a thousand times the numbers of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or — a happy thought — that pets are allowed.
[The Last Hero]

[…] discredited gods and unlicensed thieves, ladies of the night and pedlars in exotic goods, alchemists of the mind and strolling mummers; in short, all the grease on civilization’s axle.
[Equal Rites]

‘Look at the bird.’
It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a birdhouse, and nibbling at a piece of roughly round wood it held in one claw.
‘Must be an old nest they’re repairing,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘Can’t have got that advanced this early in the season.’
‘Looks like some kind of old box to me,’ said Lobsang. He squinted to see better. ‘Is it an old … clock?’ he added.
‘Look at what the bird is nibbling,’ suggested Lu-Tze.
‘Well, it looks like … a crude gearwheel? But why —’
‘Well spotted. That, lad, is a clock cuckoo.’
[Thief of Time]

‘Maybe there are things worth putting up a fight for.’
‘And they are —?’ said Pestilence, looking round.
‘Salad-cream sandwiches. You just can’t beat them. That tang of permitted emulsifiers? Marvellous.’
[Thief of Time]

beliefs, current affairs

Banning Circumcision

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So a German court has found a legality upon which to effectively ban the circumcision of baby boys — but only because it leaves doctors open to prosecution on a fairly general charge of “mistreatment”. That at least is the way I read the BBC News report.

My immediate reaction is that this is about time. In my view, as regular readers will know (see here and here), circumcision of boys is as much an abuse as circumcision of girls. It is forcible removal/mutilation when the “victim” is not able (not of an age) to give consent. And at least some parts of the German media agree.

The judgement is right — all protests to the contrary. The circumcision of young boys just for religious reasons is a personal injury. Muslims and Jews should decide themselves — but not before the age of 14.
[Matthias Ruch, FT Deutschland]

The circumcision of Muslim boys is just as heinous as the archaic custom of the genital mutilation of little girls. It is an instrument of oppression and should be outlawed.
[Die Welt]

Unfortunately because of the niceties of the case the judgement is not open to being tested in a higher court. That’s shame because such a legal precedent should be tested. So German medics are left in limbo: unable to perform the operation (unless, one assumes, as a medical necessity, which is rare) for fear of prosecution but unable to test the validity of the precedent. Highly unsatisfactory.

Needless to say both the Jewish and Muslim communities are up in arms. At least the German Muslim leader who is quoted in the BBC report is being sensible: I do not want my people to (have to) go abroad and/or to backstreet surgeons to have this done; I would prefer it done under proper medical supervision. The Rabbis quoted seem to be able to say nothing except wail “we’ve always done it this way” and “it’s our right”. Hmmph.

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, appears to be of the opinion that circumcision is a part of freedom to practice religion. I disagree, and not because I am areligious. In my book no religion (no person) should be able to mutilate someone who is unable to freely give informed consent. If any religion chopped off the left hand, fingers or nose of every baby boy (or girl) this would soon be outlawed, as it would if the children were permanently tattooed at a few days old with a cross in the middle of their forehead. After all the Baptists were established (as antipaedobaptists) precisely because they were opposed to infant baptism when the child was unable to give consent.

But where does one draw the line? Should parents be prohibited from cutting a child’s fingernails or hair on the grounds that this is abuse? Probably not as these regrow; foreskins don’t, just as female genitals don’t regrow nor scarification scars heal fully. That seems, at least on the face of it, to be a sensible test and place to draw the line.

Medical necessity excepted, of course, which is legally testable if necessary.

While I don’t like the way this has been done, I think the German decision is the right one.

words

Mulligatawny on the Veranda

As regular readers will know I love words. Almost any words. But I’m always especially attracted to those words which English has acquired from Indian mostly during the British Raj.

What I had never realised is that in the 1870s two men, Arthur Burnell and Colonel Henry Yule, documented all those words of Asian origin which English had acquired. Sadly Burnell died before the 14 years project was completed, but since its publication Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive has never been out of print.

And now there’s to be a new edition of the 1000 page work; it is being prepared for the OUP by Dr Kate Teltscher of Roehampton University.

The BBC News item about this lists over 50 well known words we acquired from India and includes these wonderful lines from Tom Stoppard’s play Indian Ink:

Flora: While having tiffin on the veranda of my bungalow I spilled kedgeree on my dungarees and had to go to the gymkhana in my pyjamas looking like a coolie.

Nirad: I was buying chutney in the bazaar when a thug who had escaped from the chokey ran amok and killed a box-wallah for his loot, creating a hullabaloo and landing himself in the mulligatawny.

[And even then amok is Mandalay!]

OK, the lines are a bit contrived but they do go to show just how big an influence the Raj had on our culture. And it’s not just words and foods (like chilli, curry, piccalilli, mulligatawny and IPA) but as this list of words used in the BBC News item shows it pervades our whole culture.

atoll
avatar
bandanna
bangle
bazaar
Blighty
bungalow
cashmere
catamaran
char
cheroot
cheetah
chintz
chit
chokey
chutney
cot
cummerbund
curry
pyjamas		 dinghy
doolally
dungarees
guru
gymkhana
hullabaloo
jodhpur
jungle
juggernaut
jute
khaki
kedgeree
loot
nirvana
pariah
pashmina
polo
pukka
pundit
purdah		 sari
shampoo
shawl
swastika
teak
thug
toddy
typhoon
veranda
yoga
calico
chilli
coolie
dam
gingham
mulligatawny
tiffin
wallah

Sure there were many things wrong with the British Raj, but isn’t that just the most superb set of words?! To whet your appetite even further here are a handful of the original Hobson-Jobson definitions:

Kedgeree: A dish of seasoned rice. “A mess of rice, cooked with butter and dal and flavoured with a little spice and shred onion”.

Shampoo: To “knead and press the muscles with the view of relieving fatigue”.

Pyjamas: A “pair of loose drawers or trousers, tied round the waist”.

Gymkhana: “It is applied to a place of public resort at a station, where the needful facilities for athletics and games of sorts are provided”.

Veranda: “An open pillared gallery round a house”.

Isn’t it also interesting how the meanings have changed over the years. Notice that there is no mention of fish or eggs in kedgeree, and shampoo has nothing specific to to with hair!

I feel some book-buying coming on.

personal, ramblings

Five Questions #2

OK, so here’s my answer to the second of the five questions I promised I would answer.

Yet again it isn’t going to be an easy or comfortable answer. Not an easy answer for me to formulate. And as you’ll see it’s not a comfortable answer for any of us; I’m as guilty as anyone. So …

Question 2. If you had the opportunity to get one message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?

Just one message? How big can that message be? Well anyway here’s something like what I think I would say.

Stop fucking up the planet. Rebalance and restructure everything (see my previous thoughts). Treat the planet and it’s inhabitants, collectively and individually, as you would wish it to treat you — gently, with kindness, respect and consideration.

In a way it is what the Dalai Lama would call compassion. Compassion: the sensitive and sustainable treatment of the planet and all its inhabitants, from the human species, through animals and plants to the oceans, the air we breathe and the rocks beneath our feet.

It doesn’t say you can’t dig coal, but to do it sensitively without despoiling the whole landscape.

It doesn’t say you can’t chop down a tree, but to do it sustainably: plant a replacement tree.

It doesn’t mean you can never eat meat again, just eat less of it and grow food sustainably with grazing animals on more marginal land and arable using the best land.

It doesn’t say you can’t catch fish, but again do it so that you don’t rape the seas until there are no viable fish remaining.

And it doesn’t say you can’t smelt iron, but you should do as much as you can to reduce the concomitant pollution.

Just think about what you’re doing and the long-term implications.

Do as you would be done by.

That’s all. But it is so hard!

photography

Gallery : Food

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The theme of Tara’s Gallery this week is Food.

Well now that is something close to my heart. But oh dear! Much as I love food, I love it to eat it and very rarely take photographs of it. But of course I have found a few photos of cake. I especially like this if only for its amusement value.

Mad Hatter's Teaparty
Click the image for larger view

I spotted this Mad Hatter’s Tea Party cake in the window of an Oxford bakery a couple of years ago. Not surprising really as Lewis Carroll (the pen-name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898) was a Mathematics Fellow of Christ Church College, Oxford which is where he wrote the Alice books in the 1860s. He was also a highly accomplished, and highly respected, early portrait photographer whose sitters included Julia Margaret Cameron, Michael Faraday and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Isn’t the cake brilliant?! I love quirky things like this.

arts, pleasures, ramblings, topographical

Fast Break in Somerset

We’ve just come back from a flying overnight visit to Frome in Somerset.

The trip was to attend a lecture (put on by the Frome Society for Local Study as part of the Frome Festival) by biographer Hilary Spurling on Anthony Powell and his house The Chantry, which is just outside Frome.

Hilary, who knew the Powell well, is currently working on his official biography and her lecture delved around in some of her preliminary thoughts about Powell’s relationship with the early 19th century house he occupied for the second half of his life. That was a relationship, she suggested, which was one factor in making Powell’s magnum opus A Dance to the Music of Time the novel it is; without the country solitude Powell would likely not have been able to write Dance in the way he did. This made for a hugely interesting lecture, although as Hilary commented these were early thoughts and she had been reluctant to expose them to public view so early in her writing process. (This also explains why there will not be a text made available.) If they are a sample of the depth and perceptiveness of her finished biography it will be just brilliant.

Following the lecture Noreen and I went, with Anthony Powell Society Chairman Paul Nutley, to La Bisalta, Frome’s most superb Italian restaurant for a delicious late dinner. This is a small family-run restaurant in a converted house on the edge of the town centre — and actually a restaurant Powell knew but under its previous owners. Despite arriving, unannounced, after 9pm we were warmly welcomed and magnificently fed and watered; so magnificently that none of us could manage a pudding! I had a really delicious hot Antipasto Caldo, which came to the table literally sizzling on the plate, followed by a wonderfully rich Tagliolini with porcini mushrooms in a cream sauce, washed down with some well-chilled Peroni. Paul and Noreen both had duck breast as a main course, which they reported to be equally excellent. We staggered off to our respective dormitories not much before 11.30! ★★★★★

Room 1

Noreen and I were staying in the Archangel. According to Paul, who knows Frome well, this was until a few years ago a very scruffy back-street pub. But it has now been heavily refurbished as a small, contemporary hotel, bar and restaurant. The style is a fusion of the old rustic (stripped stone walls) with the contemporary (stainless steel, dark woodwork, bare pipework, strange-shaped sinks and sumptuous sofas which it is impossible to climb out of). Our room (above) was a strange fusion of Goth with dark purple paintwork and soft furnishings, mostly bare (old) plaster walls, and a huge photographic mural of Fra Angelico’s Angel of the Annunciation. The bathroom was the size of most people’s sitting room with a steel bath the size of the Titanic! The bed was heavenly soft, especially after what had been a tiring day. Breakfast was excellent, everyone was extremely friendly and although not cheap it wasn’t unreasonably expensive either at £125 for a double room including breakfast. The owners deserve to make a success of what has clearly been a huge investment. ★★★★★

The return train journey from London Paddington to Westbury was painless and on time despite getting drowned by a torrential rain-shower boarding the train on the return journey. Paul kindly conveyed us to and from the station. ★★★★★ again.

We were away from home for just 27 hours, but it felt more as if we had been gone the best part of a week! An all-round super trip despite not having any real time to explore Frome itself.

amusements, words

BRenglish

Continuing our occasional series on the now prevalent appalling use of the English language.

In the last couple of days we’ve taken the train on a journey down to Somerset and back (more of which anon) and have been subjected to the vagaries of the English language as perpetrated by train company staff (I was going to say BR, but of course it no longer exists!).

There is the now ubiquitous Train Manager (I think they mean Guard or Ticket Inspector) speak:

We will be arriving into [station]

Our next station stop is [station].

And there is Buffet Steward-ese:

We will be serving teas, coffees and hot chocolates, hot and cold snacks, … and an on-board chef.

But yesterday I heard for the first time a new one from a Train Manager:

If you require any further information please ask from myself [name].

Maybe we need to get Jamie Oliver to sort out Train Company English rather than School Dinners?

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 34

Experiment, week 34. Another week, another selection in my continuing experiment in documenting five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful this week.

  1. Fast Internet. We had our internet upgraded this week from the about 4meg we used to get from Be to about 70meg via an FTTC feed from BT. (For reasons I won’t go into here our phones are tied to BT, so BT turned out to be the best overall option.) Surprisingly at the end of this we should not be paying more over a year for all our telecomms than before. BT have (so far) done what they said they would and done it pretty efficiently, whereas Be have been all over the floor getting my account closed down.

  2. Rubbish going to the Tip. One day earlier in the week our friend Tom took two car loads of toot — largely outpourings from the loft — to our local tip (above) for us. And they reckon to recycle over 95% of everything they take in; and they take everything. We’ve a lot more to go, but it’s a another big dent in the job!
  3. Boursin in Salad. I can’t remember which evening it was that we had smoked chicken salad, which is always good. But as I was preparing it I remembered we had half a Boursin (cream cheese with garlic & herbs) in the fridge which had been open a couple of days. So I added this to the salad. It was messy to break up and it softened with the vinegar and olive oil dressing; it was quite rich, but my did it taste good!
  4. Cherries. Thanks to Noreen’s shopping exploits I’ve had several lots of cherries this week. Yum!
  5. Germs that Go Away when Told. Last night at bedtime I was feeling decidedly “Meh”, depressed and cold-y with a cracking headache. I don’t want this so I dropped myself into an almost self-hypnotic state of invincibility and told the “germs” (or whatever they were) to bugger off before morning. This doesn’t always work for me, but this time it did. Much to my astonishment and delight.
links

You may have missed …

More diversions into the weird world of things you may have missed — with the exception of what may or may not be Higgs’s bloody boring boson!

First off, here’s something really unexpected and absolutely excellent: an early printed book that contains rare evidence of medieval spectacles!

Apparently Wordsworth was right: daffodils do cheer us up! Which is more than his verse does! 🙁

But then again I think I could have saved a lot of money and told the researchers that two glasses of wine a day improves quality of life for middle-aged.

While still on colours, here’s an interesting piece of how we gave colours names which is allied to how we see them and what it did to our brains. And don’t miss part two.

Here’s a different type of seeing: some amazingly detailed weather records from the Lake District in the first half of the 19th century by John Fletcher Miller.

And finally … so you thought you/your man had an amazingly weird appendage? Not compared with the Echidna!