The concept: a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. b. Using only the first page, pick an image. c. Copy and paste the html into your blog or Flickr stream (the easiest way is to copy the URLs and then head over to the fd’s flickr toys link above and use the mosaic maker).
The Questions & Answers: 1. What makes you laugh? Cats 2. What makes you cry? Animal suffering 3. Who is the one person you trust the most in the world? My Mother 4. Who broke your heart? Jill (no, not you Mistress Weekes; long before that!) 5. Where was your first kiss? I really don’t remember 6. What body part do you love most (your body)? My mind 7. What body part do you love least (your body)? My fat 8. What candy fits your personality? Coffee creme chocolate 9. What color would you paint your room if you could pick any color? Magnolia 10. A word that makes you laugh? Merkin 11. What emotion do you express most often? Depression 12. Who inspires you? The Dalai Lama
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys. for the Flickr My Meme group.
Gulp! For some unknown reason, lunchtime conversation turn to how long we’ve been married. Yes it’s a long time: 29 years come early September! And Noreen commented that we must be close to the tipping point where we’ve been married for longer than we haven’t. I said I thought we should both have passed that point — having done a quick order of magnitude guestimate in my head. And so it turns out on doing a proper calculation using a spreadsheet. Noreen (being slightly the younger) passed the tipping point in the middle of August 2007. Whereas I didn’t get there until 5 May this year. That, plus the prospect of our 30th wedding anniversary in September 2009 and that I am rapidly approaching 60, suddenly seems quite scary. Oh and I passed the tipping point with my employer back in December 2002! Eeekkkkk!!!!!!!
Over the years I’ve made this on numerous occasions and did so again yesterday for the first time for quite a while. Some of the result has just been eaten for lunch.
You will need: 2lb (1kg) Minced Beef ½lb (250gm) Bacon or Ham scraps, roughly chopped (optional) 1 pint (550ml) Breadcrumbs 2 medium Onions, finely chopped Lots of Garlic, roughly chopped Large bunch fresh herbs (optional; use whatever is available and you like) Cooked Spinach (optional) 15-20 Olives, roughly chopped (optional) 2 Eggs 1 tbsp Olive Oil 2 tbsp Tomato Puree (optional) 1 tbsp Garlic Puree (optional) 1 tsp Dried Chilli Flakes (optional) 2-3 soft Tomatoes A slug of Brandy, Whisky or Calvados (optional) Salt & Pepper
What you do:
Butter a large, preferably cast iron, casserole (use one with a good lid, or make a lid from foil).
Blend together the eggs, olive oil, tomato puree, garlic puree, tomatoes and alcohol.
Mix all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl; use your hands, it’s much the easiest way.
Tip the mixture into the casserole, press it down well and put on the lid.
Cook near the bottom of a pre-heated oven at about 200C for 30-45 minutes. It’s done when the meat loaf is bubbling well and a knife stuck in the centre comes out hot.
Leave to cool with the lid on; then refrigerate. If you can put weights on the top to press the resultant paté then so much the better.
Eat with crusty bread & butter and a glass of wine or beer.
Notes:
Essentially you can throw into this more or less anything you like and have to hand.
Bacon, ham or other cooked meats will add to the flavour and variety. Chopped chicken livers added also work well.
If you can get good, low fat content, minced beef then this works well in a low fat version. Alternatively you can make a high-fat version by adding some fat belly pork to the mix.
Spinach, similar leaves or bunches of fresh herbs add a different dimension (you can even make a layer of spinach in the middle if you like).
Don’t overdo the alcohol otherwise the resulting paté is too wet.
Don’t over cook this, although it must be cooked through properly. Apart from that it is generally fairly forgiving and you can vary the ingredients and quantities to suit your tastes. Don’t be afraid to experiment with it.
The first in an occasional series bringing you unusual and interesting words.
Glaive. A polearm consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole.
One of those fearsome pieces of medieval weaponry along with things like pikes and halberds. The word is sometimes (wrongly) used to refer to a broadsword. Glaives also appear in a number of video games and animated adventure films.
Playing with Mosaics, originally uploaded by kcm76.
1. autumn leaves, 2. week 31/52. 28 days; 4 weeks; 1 month., 3. The Mood O Meter, Independent Subarus, Victor Idaho, AKA Gallagher’s, AKA Sue’s Roos, 4. green veined white 5. red cabbage, 6. Tomb plate, Standish, 7. summerishere, 8. Looking landwards across Slapton Ley 9. Bloom, 10. Red Arrows Lowestoft 08, 11. The Drunken Ducks, 12. Untitled
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
I was just playing with the Mosaic Maker tool at Big Huge Labs and created this from the most recent 12 of my Flickr favourites. Thought it was worth keeping. It’s a super sample of some of the brilliant photography on Flickr: follow the links to each one; they’re well worth it.
OK so here, a bit late, is this week’s Friday Five …
1. Name one movie you wish everybody could watch.
None of them. I dislike movies and wouldn’t cry if they sunk without trace. Doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t watch them, just don’t expect me to or to share your enthusiasm.
2. Name two books you wish everybody could read.
Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time. Well it’s one novel in 12 volumes, so I’ll count it as one. Read it if only as a social history of England from 1914 to 1970. Oh come on, you expected me to say that, didn’t you?
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (by which I mean the two works Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass). Read them and think about the logical conundrums presented; now apply them and change the way you look at the world!
3. Name three goals you wish everybody could achieve.
True inner peace and happiness.
Reconciliation and friendship with their parents.
To always treat others as you would like to be treated yourself (it’s part of what the Dalai Lama calls “compassion”).
4. Name four people you wish everybody could know. I am going to assume the people don’t have to be alive now, but could come from any era. So I’ll nominate:
Richard Feynman; for his logic, his insights, his humour and his determination to overcome obstacles.
Galileo Galilei; a profound scientist who wasn’t afraid of standing up and being counted.
Leonardo da Vinci; another way out mind as well as a superb artist.
The present Dalai Lama; for his profound thinking, his happiness and his compassion.
That was hard! Four people I wish I knew would be easy, but to translate that into something for everyone is much, much harder.
5. Name five places you wish everybody could visit.
Rural England
Japan
A nudist community; to see just how it isn’t like everyone seems to think it is and to experience the freedom of life without clothes.
A small town in medieval England (or Europe at least) to see just what life really was like 600+ years ago and how far we have come.
Their special place. I believe we all have at least one place which is special and energises us (just as we have people who do this for us). It may be a town somewhere, or a country, or just a building (I know Stonehenge does it for some people, though not for me). Finding it is a whole different matter though.
The “Feedback” column this week’s New Scientist contains this item …
Thanks to Terence Dunmore for alerting us to a report in the 11 June issue of Professional Engineering about the UK’s new Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (WEEE regulations). It warns readers: “If you are a producer of WEEE, you must make sure it is disposed of in an environmentally sound manner, including the treatment, reuse, recovery and recycling of components where appropriate.” Dunmore is puzzled. “Isn’t the local sewage department already doing just that?” he asks.
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.
EAGLE-EYED readers have pointed us to an intriguing offer. The US website for Japanese electronics giant Denon is inviting consumers to pay $499 for what appears to be a 1.5-metre network cable of the type that usually costs only a few dollars. So what’s so special about Denon’s AK-DL1 patch cord?
According to Denon’s website it has “woven jacketing to reduce vibration” and the cable structure is “designed to thoroughly eliminate adverse effects from vibration”. In addition, “signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer”. Plus, the AK-DL1 is made from “high purity copper” which “will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction”.
As puzzled as our readers, we emailed Denon via the website to ask for an explanation of what causes vibration in a network cable, what the adverse effects are, why signal directional markings optimise signal transfer, and how high-purity copper wire brings out the nuances of a digital signal.
Within minutes an email winged back that failed to answer any of our questions. Although the AK-DL1 may look like an ordinary ethernet cable, it told us, “the similarities end there… the cable is designed in such a way that vibration is all but eliminated so that sound being passed is as pure as possible… That being said, this cable is not going to provide you with much of a difference unless used with top of the line equipment across the board.”
Denon helpfully gives some examples of such equipment, including a DVD player that costs $3800 and an amplifier costing $7000. So all we have to do to check Denon’s claims for the $500 cable is pay $10,800 for something to plug it into. Isn’t that nice?
Shortly after this exchange with Denon, we came across an item on the BoingBoing gadget site at www.cablereviews.notlong.com. It quotes “brilliant” reviews of the Denon cable from what BoingBoing describes as “perhaps the best Amazon [reader] reviews page of all time”. Our favourite is this: “A caution to people buying these: if you do not follow the ‘directional markings’ on the cables, your music will play backwards.”
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
