history, memes

What Happened in 1324?

Here’s our next instalment of things that happened in ..24 years of yore.

Notable Events in 1324

8 January. Death of Marco Polo (below), Italian merchant and explorer (b.1254)

5 March. Birth of David II, King of Scotland (d.1371)

23 March. Pope John XXII excommunicates Ludwig the Bavarian, King of the Germans, for not seeking papal approval during his conflict against his rival Frederick the Fair. Ludwig, in turn, declares the Pope a heretic, because of John’s opposition to the view of Christ’s absolute poverty held by some Franciscans.

3 November. At Kilkenny in Ireland, Petronilla de Meath, the maidservant of Dame Alice Kyteler, becomes the first person in the British Isles to be burned at the stake as a witch. Dame Alice was able to escape and avoid capture.

Unknown Date. Marsilius of Padua writes Defensor pacis (The Defender of Peace), a theological treatise arguing against the power of the clergy and in favour of a secular state.

Unknown Date. William of Ockham, English Franciscan friar and philosopher, is summoned by John XXII to the papal court at Avignon and imprisoned.

food+drink

Culinary Adventures #110: Duck Schnitzel with Orzo Pseudo-Risotto

It’s been too long since I did a Culinary Adventures post. So to put that right this is what I concocted for Friday evening. As always it’s based on ideas culled from recipes I see, and adapted à la mode d’ici.

Duck Schnitzel with Orzo Pseudo-Risotto

Serves: 2
Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 duck breasts
  • 100g orzo
  • 2 handfuls frozen peas
  • 2 large salad onions, or one medium-size onion, chopped
  • enough cloves of garlic, chopped or crushed
  • a yellow, orange or red pepper, chopped
  • zest & juice of a lemon
  • plain flour
  • an egg, beaten
  • about 75g Panko Breadcrumbs (or ordinary breadcrumbs)
  • fresh ground black pepper
  • leaves from half a packet of fresh tarragon (discard the stems) or other fresh herbs of your choice
  • splash white wine or dry sherry (optional)

What to do

  1. Lay out 3 small plates. On the first put the flour, and season it with ground black pepper.
    On the second put the beaten egg.
    On the third the breadcrumbs mixed with the lemon zest.
  2. Put the orzo and peas on to cook together in plenty of boiling water. When done, drain and keep warm.
  3. Sweat the onion, garlic and pepper in some olive oil. As it cooks season with black pepper.
  4. (If desired remove the skin from the duck, and give it to your local fox.) Put the duck breasts between layers of clingfilm and beat them with a steak hammer (or rolling pin) to reduce their thickness.
  5. Coat each duck breast in the seasoned flour, then the egg, and finally the breadcrumbs. Fry in olive oil in another frying pan. Turn regularly and cook until the juices run clear (or a meat thermometer reaches at least 70°C) – but don’t overcook it so it goes dry.
  6. Just before the duck is done, add the tarragon and lemon juice to the onion, followed by the orzo & peas. Mix well and cook until heated through and steaming. If it seems too dry add a splash of white wine or dry sherry. Season with more black pepper.
  7. Serve the duck and “risotto” and enjoy with a glass or two of wine of your choice.

Notes

  1. I was surprised how well the lemon and tarragon came through in the “risotto”; it felt like the right combination. But thyme, sage, or coriander should work well too.
  2. I used Panko breadcrumbs. I’ve never used them before and I wanted to experiment. I think they gave a superior result to making your own breadcrumbs from stale bread – probably because they’re dried.
  3. This could be adapted (as I have) to use any pasta; broken up spaghetti works well.
  4. I’ve also done something similar with other meats, or for a veggie option I guess you could use slices of aubergine.
  5. Also optionally add a tablespoon of tomato paste to the onion mix at the same time as the tarragon and lemon.
amusements, quotes

Monthly Quotes

So once more it is time (where is the year going?) for this month’s selection of quotes.

A politician … is a man who thinks of the next election; while a statesman thinks of the next generation.
[James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888)]

He knows nothing; he thinks he knows everything – that clearly points to a political career.
[George Bernard Shaw]

We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. Some of us need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.
[Desmond Tutu]

As a thinking, breathing, acting human you constantly generate a three-dimensional ripple of information from the moment you are born … It is the evidence of your existence, radiating from you into the universe. In some small way (infinitesimal, perhaps, but never zero), the heat of your body, the gravitational pull of your mass, the electromagnetism of your thoughts, and everything else you do touch all of reality around you … Everything in the universe that is touched by your ripple could potentially be aware of you. So, for instance, if you are 40 years old, extra-terrestrial beings on a planet that is 40 light years away from us would just now be entering the ever-expanding, spherical information-ripple of your existence … You don’t need to look far out into space to experience this kind of universal connection. As a ripple of information, you are entangled with everything closer to home as well: your immediate surroundings, your neighbourhood, your planet. Whatever happens to Earth and its inhabitants, you are a part of it.
[Corey S Powell at https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/p/you-are-a-ripple-of-information]

His head was an hourglass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time.
[Mark Twain]

I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us, and part of us remains. Go anywhere in the station when it is quiet and just listen. After a while, you will hear the echoes of all our conversations, every thought and word we’ve exchanged. Long after we have gone, our voices will linger in these walls.
[unknown]

You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.
[Yogi Berra]

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.
[Pablo Casals]

More people have poor taste than good taste. They come to their opinions quickly and without any thought, like a small child. That’s why there’s fast food. And moronic reality television shows. And people who follow Paris Hilton. More people will enjoy crack than Proust’s novels. Ergo, just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s inherently good or worthwhile. Too many people just love bad shit because they don’t know any better.
[HyperSexual Girl; Love & Lust]

“All right, class, have we all remembered to bring a potato?”
About three quarters of them held up a potato. I sighed and lifted the shopping bag I’d spent my own money on for this inevitability.
“All right, come get one if you forgot. You too Jason, that’s a carrot.”
“Aw Miss mum said it would be fine.”
“You can’t install Linux on a carrot, Jason, the beta-carotene causes row faults in the DRAM.”
I held up my own potato, showing the genesculpt needles embedded firmly in its flesh. “Now, last week we compiled our VHDL to mRNA, this week we are going to implant it and then incubate our veggies until next week.”
[Christopher Biggs; https://aus.social/@Unixbigot/112628440884924735]

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is
here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
[Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy]

amusements, arts, memes

June Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Art

  1. What year did Vincent Van Gogh die?  1890
  2. What Renaissance artist is buried in Rome’s Pantheon?  Raphael
  3. Who painted the famous artwork Guernica?  Picasso
  4. Who painted the famous artwork The Birth of Venus?  Botticelli
  5. Which US artist died in a car crash in August 1956, aged 44?  Jackson Pollock

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.

environment, science

Asian Hornets (Redux)

There’s more news on the Yellow-legged Asian Hornet which is attempting to get established in the UK.

A BBC news story earlier this week reported that DNA testing had shown that the hornets had definitely survived a UK winter for the first time. Subsequently Defra blogged that “Whilst this is the first evidence of Asian hornets overwintering in the UK, it is not considered to be strong evidence of an established population”.

Asian hornet ID chart

Hmmm. Well. Maybe. That sounds like a fairly technical position by Defra, and almost looks like hiding their head under their blanket. Having overwintered once they can easily do it again – and by that time they will have spread and there will be many more overwintering queens. It’ll take only one missed nest not destroyed in time and another mild winter. So it feels to me that they’re here to stay.

amusements, arts, memes

June Quiz Questions

Each month we’re posing five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As before, they’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as having a bit of fun.

Art

  1. What year did Vincent Van Gogh die?
  2. What Renaissance artist is buried in Rome’s Pantheon?
  3. Who painted the famous artwork Guernica?
  4. Who painted the famous artwork The Birth of Venus?
  5. Which US artist died in a car crash in August 1956, aged 44?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

history, memes

June 1924

Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.

3. Died. Franz Kafka, Austrian author (b. 1883)

5. Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean, which goes to his father in Sweden

8. George Mallory and Andrew Irvine are last seen “going strong for the top” of Mount Everest by teammate Noel Odell at 12:50pm; the two mountaineers are never seen alive again

12. Born. George HW Bush, 41st President of the United States (d. 2018)