amusements, books, words

May 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.

May Quiz Questions: Literature & Language

  1. What does the word conniption mean? A fit of rage or hysterics
  2. What is regarded as the world’s oldest language which is still spoken? Tamil
  3. Who wrote Songs of Innocence and Visions of the Daughters of Albion? William Blake
  4. Even with a small word list and simple structure it is possible to say almost anything in Basic English. How many words are in the lexicon of Basic English? 850
  5. In which play do the following lines occur?
    “A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
    And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead”
    Shakespeare; Julius Caesar; Act 2, Scene 2

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2022.

current affairs, thoughts

Does the UK need a Monarchy?

The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II and the Coronation of King Charles III has opened debate on whether the UK should have a monarch or an elected president.

This is essentially two questions: do we need a monarchy, and do we want a monarchy? And they are two very different questions. I can’t account for what people think they want – but I can point out some of the arguments.

First of all … Do we need a monarchy? Put simply, no, a monarch as head of state isn’t necessary. Many countries operate quite effectively as republics with an elected President – see France, Germany, Ireland – as head of state. What a country does need is a head of state, who is empowered (within whatever the constitution is) to make final decisions on ministers etc. and to represent the country at the highest level. The buck has to stop somewhere and, for the avoidance of factionalism, that has to reside in a single person be they a president or a monarch.

So should the UK have a monarchy? Well, just because there are more presidential republics in the world than there are monarchies, doesn’t mean they are necessarily better. Let’s look at some of the arguments.

  1. Cost. Monarchs are generally well off; presidents maybe not be so much. But in both cases the state will be paying much of the cost of maintaining the head of state. This will encompass their personal maintenance, the cost of state apartments/palaces, and duties performed as head of state (including transport and security). There are also, of course, state occasions like banquets (usually for other heads of sate) and ceremonial (like regular inaugurations, irregular coronations, opening parliament, state funerals). Whether you have a monarch or a president these costs are going to be much the same. A president will not de facto be cheaper.
    Given sufficient wealth a monarch or president may maintain their own private residence(s), staff, etc.; and this may help constrain the cost to the public purse. Monarchs, likely being wealthier, are perhaps more likely to do this.
    Result: a draw
  2. Appointment. Monarchs are in most cases hereditary, so the succession from one to the next is fairly assured, relatively smooth, relatively infrequent, and relatively low cost. The major cost is just that once in a while state funeral and coronation.
    By contrast presidents have to be elected every few years. Hence there is the cost of the regular elections and regular inaugurations. And the inaugurations may require just as much pomp and pageantry as a coronation. Additionally, past presidents are often paid huge “pensions” for life, and a country could be paying several of these concurrently – as the US currently is.
    Let’s look at this another way. Those regular presidential elections are a recipe for farce, charade, deceit and a completely overwhelming media and political circus. Just think about the US Presidential elections: do we want an unedifying circus, US-style, every four or five years? Because that’s what we would get; we have a track record of picking up bad habits from the US. We already have general elections, local elections, and in many places mayoral elections; aren’t they sufficient circuses?
    Result: win for monarchy
  3. Malfeasance. In general, these days, with constitutional monarchies the monarch doesn’t have their hands on the country’s finances. This is not the case with (a lot of) presidents. In consequence it is much easier for a president to have their hand in the till and to syphon off money etc. into their own pockets. Presidents are much more likely to become newly wealthy at the expense of the country. Another weakness of a republic is that it can afford too easy an inlet for foreign corruption.
    Of course this was not always the case and in times past many monarchs lined their own pockets via all varieties of taxation – but then in those days there was little differentiation between the state’s money and the monarch’s; something which disappeared with the separation of state and monarchy (during the 18th-century in the UK).
    In the UK, the royal family are super-wealthy, and much of that wealth has arisen via their ancestors, and not all acquired honestly. We may decry that, but whether right or wrong by our moral code, such were the “rules” of the day – and good legislation is not retrospective. But not all the royals’ money comes from their ancestors; much comes from business activity – whether that’s things like the Duchy of Cornwall or the late Queen dealing in racehorses.
    So yes, perhaps the royal family should not be so wealthy, but at least these days they have relatively little opportunity to have their hands in the till.
    Result: win for monarchy
  4. Property. Do not run away with the notion that everywhere the UK royals live is theirs. Many (most?) of the properties belong to the state (Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Holyrood House, Kensington Palace), and some belong to the royal dukedoms (eg. Highgrove is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and hence is now under Prince William’s control but not ownership). Only a few properties are actually owned by the royal family per se: eg. Sandringham, Balmoral.
    Result: a draw
  5. Popularity. This is where having a president may be preferable. With an unpopular, inept or corrupt monarch it is almost impossible to get rid of them; although most monarchies are constitutional (or parliamentary) and the head of state can do relatively little damage. On the other hand an unpopular president can be removed at the next election; but in the meantime will often have more power to do untold damage – see events of recent years in the US.
    Result: a draw
  6. Tourism. The British Monarchy is well respected abroad, a profitable brand, and our pageantry is second to none. Which all brings in tourists – and hence money – from around the globe. This is much less likely to happen with a president: for instance, boring motorcades are much more likely than horse-drawn gilded coaches.
    Result: win for monarchy
  7. Partisanship. Most monarchs, and the late Queen was an exemplar of this, are above partisanship. Whereas presidents, almost by definition, will always be partisan. Monarchs are not involved in the day-to-day activity of government; by contrast a president is so often the head of government and has day-to-day control – so there is no-one outside government to try to see the bigger picture and provide impartial advice.
    Monarchs generally offer steady, self-effacing leadership, whereas grubby politicians come and go, they cut deals, and win elections by dividing their country.
    Result: win for monarchy

So in my estimation, a monarchy wins 4-0. But as always YMMV.

Sources

memes, science

Ten Things: May

This year our Ten Things column each month is concentrating on science and scientists.

Where a group is described as “great” or “important” this is not intended to imply these necessarily the greatest or most important, but only that they are up there amongst the top flight.

Surprising Facts

  1. There are more trees on Earth than stars in galaxy
  2. Once there were 2½ billion T. rex on Earth – but not all at the same time
  3. Vanilla flavouring can be made from plastic
  4. We’ve no idea what most of the universe looks like
  5. An individual blood cell does a complete circuit of the body in under one minute
  6. Only hummingbirds can fly backwards
  7. If you removed all empty space from the atoms in your body the residue would be the size of a sugar cube
  8. Eiffel Tower is up to 15cm taller in summer
  9. Humans are one of the few species with no baculum
  10. Your spit contains your entire genetic blueprint
food+drink

Culinary Adventures #99: Coronation Terrine

So yesterday was Coronation Day. So we had to make something special, which turned out to be a variation on our Ennismore Terrine but called Coronation Terrine. It went like this …

Ingredients

  • 200g pack mixed Game Pieces
  • 400g Pork Mince
  • 400g pack good Sausages
  • 200g pack Duck Stir-Fry Strips
  • 8 rashers Smoked Back Bacon (or 12 rashers Streaky Bacon)
  • 400g Chicken Livers
  • 1 packet Stuffing Mix
  • 2 Leeks (or 2 medium-large Onions, or 4 Banana Shallots)
  • 6 (or more) cloves Garlic
  • ½ pack frozen Spinach (or fresh if preferred)
  • 200g Mushrooms
  • ½ wine glass Whiskey
  • 1 bunch fresh Sage
  • Black Pepper
  • 2 pinches salt (optional as the bacon may provide enough)
  • 2 tbsp Tomato Paste (optional)
  • 2 tbsp Garlic Paste (optional)
  • 1 tbsp Worcester Sauce
  • 2 tsp ground spices (choose some combination of ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, cumin)
  • Butter
Terrine ready for the oven
Terrine ready for the oven

What to do …

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4.
  2. Thaw the spinach (if frozen) or wilt it if fresh.
  3. Make up the stuffing mix with hot water.
  4. Finely slice the leeks and the garlic and fry in 1-2 tbsp butter until translucent.
  5. Finely chop the sage and mushrooms.
  6. Fry the chicken livers in a tbsp butter for a couple of minutes (don’t fully cook them); allow to cool and chop roughly.
  7. Finely chop the game pieces, duck and bacon.
  8. Skin the sausages.
  9. Mix all the above (including any pan juices) together with the whiskey, a good grind of black pepper (and then some more), the spices, salt (if using), Worcs Sauce, tomato and garlic puree.
  10. Transfer the mix to a greased terrine, loaf tin, cake tin or a large casserole, and cover tightly with foil.
  11. Bake in the oven in a bain marie for 1½-2 hours until a meat thermometer reads 70°C or a knife comes out hot.
  12. Press the terrine and allow to cool; refrigerate, still weighted, overnight.
Terrine fresh from the oven
Terrine fresh from the oven, before being pressed

The result was slightly wetter and more friable than I would have liked, probably partly as I used some not fully thawed frozen spinach and frozen mushrooms with the end of a bottle of whiskey which was probably nearer a large wineglass full. It could also have done with pressing under heavier weights. On the other hand it was very palatable and very garlicky.

A wedge of terrine on a plate
A wedge of terrine waiting to meet a mouth

Oh, and the ingredients were, naturally, themed for the Coronation:

  • For England: game, sausage
  • For Scotland: whisky
  • For Wales: leeks
  • For Ireland: bacon
  • For the British Empire: the spices

Now what stunt do I pull off for Culinary Adventures #100?

amusements, books, words

May Quiz Questions

Again this year we’re beginning each month with five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. They’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers, so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as have a bit of fun.

May Quiz Questions: Literature & Language

  1. What does the word conniption mean?
  2. What is regarded as the world’s oldest language which is still spoken?
  3. Who wrote Songs of Innocence and Visions of the Daughters of Albion?
  4. Even with a small word list and simple structure it is possible to say almost anything in Basic English. How many words are in the lexicon of Basic English?
  5. In which play do the following lines occur?
    “A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
    And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead”

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

amusements, memes, personal

Unblogged April

Sat 1 It’s literary society subs time, so I spent half the day wrangling renewal payments. But why is it that to do job A, you first have to do H, and to finish that do T, and that means also first doing Q. By which time you’ve lost the thread of where you’d got to with A. It does my head, even when I’m running at full power, which is like never!
Sun 2 Isn’t it great when you have a good day! I think I managed everything I set out to do, barring a couple of odd jobs. And wedged in a couple of things I’d not planned to do. With luck that’ll have freed me up some time tomorrow.
Mon 3 A lovely sunny day which encouraged me to have a short while in the garden; mostly to feed the fish and fettle their filter. The hellebore now has about half a dozen flowers on it; there are little clumps of celandines and violets popping up and flowering everywhere; and a lot of things are beginning to wake up.celandines
Tue 4 It isn’t full moon for another two days – it looks so full this evening that I’m surprised we have to wait that long. But then I’m not a connoisseur of celestial moons, full or otherwise. Calliope on the other hand …
Wed 5 Had a phone call this afternoon from one of our GP’s patient group members who doesn’t do online (by his own admission he’s not bright, severely dyslexic and over 80 – so why should he). I mail him our monthly newsletter and he calls me occasionally to keep in touch. He’s a lovely guy who always remains cheerful, but once you get him on the phone you can be there all day. Today I needed to be patient and listen as he obviously needed to talk. He’s been unwell and in and out of hospital over the month or so; and fighting with the District Nurses (lack of) organisation. Against that he had nothing but praise for the hospital medical staff and our GPs.
Thu 6 It’s a long time since I facilitated (and took part in) a project definition workshop/kick-off meeting. But with a big project on the horizon for the literary society I got everyone to agree this was necessary. Having done the homework we achieved a lot in just over an hour. Now we need another meeting to properly define the requirements.
Fri 7 ‘Tis the day when for some totally inexplicable reason the western world celebrates the murder 2000-ish years ago of a little known Galilean prophet by a paranoid, fascist Roman Provincial authority. Beats the living daylights out of my brain. Still we get a holiday out of it.
Sat 8 An afternoon spent in the kitchen resulted in a large Pork Pie with proper hot water pastry; a mixed fruit galette (use up some fruit from the freezer!); and then for dinner pan-friend hot smoked scallops, with pan-fried asparagus and mushrooms, baguette, and champagne.pork pie slice
Sun 9 Another lovely sunny day, before several days of predicted biblical rain. So we spent half an hour in the garden, much of it just sitting, when we were joined by the Rosie cat (the other two were sleeping hard on our bed!). It was surprisingly quiet apart from the occasional passing metal bird.rosie catrosie cat
Mon 10 Well that was a British Standard Bank Holiday: peeing with rain and windy, but with a bit of sun too late in the day to do any good.
Tue 11 You never know what you’ve got until you look. Somehow we’d built up a surfeit of tomatoes. Rather than let them go to waste we decided to make tomato soup. Having cooked down the tomatoes etc. it needed sieving to get the skins out. This turned out to be a tedious job, which would be better done with a centrifuge – which we don’t have. Do we really not have such an attachment for the (hardly ever used) food processor? Well there’s this centrifugal juicer. Will it work? Yes, sort of. It wasn’t brilliant or ideal, but better than the alternative slog. So we found a use for something we didn’t know we had, because we decided to excavate the back of the cupboard in desperation.
Wed 12 Went for my annual diabetic eye screening this afternoon – the appointment which got screwed up a couple of weeks ago. Yet again I got away with not having to have my eyes dilated, which is a definite result: less invasive for me, saves time for the tester, and saves the NHS the cost of the drug. But in terms of Covid, people really have given up; of the about 40 people I saw while waiting (patients & staff; majority over 60) I think at most five were wearing masks. Afterwards I sat outside at the bus stop (sans mask, avec fresh air & drizzle) while my minicab arrived, whereupon I masked up again.
Thu 13 Why is it that people who use Apple machines never seem to know how to make them work properly with things like Zoom? But then why can’t a large percentage of the population not get to grips with any computing? Answer: because they’re frightened of it. Many years ago (like late 80s/early 90s) at work (remember large IT company) one big location actually ran courses for IT illiterates (viz non-techies like secretaries & admin people) called “Computing for the Terrified”. Given the ubiquity of computing now, at least 50% of the whole population could do with that training.
Fri 14 Yes, they’re extremely annoying, but I can’t properly function without them these days.
Sat 15 Well I suppose it happened, but today has been a completely nothing day, despite a literary society online talk.
Sun 16 The gardener decided not to come today. Which is a pity because it was a nice day. At last the pond fish are out and feeding eagerly. And there are all sorts wild flowers springing up in the lawn – which means it won’t be cut until July; treat it like a hayfield.
Mon 17 It’s beginning to feel like Spring is here. Our small ornamental crab apple has been in flower for a week. The Ballerina crab apple is suddenly full of bright pink flowers. The young eating apples are just beginning to look like flowering. Suddenly today the silver birch catkins are beginning to open. The buds on the oak tree are just beginning to break. In the last two days we’ve had a couple of queen wasps find their way into the study, and out the fanlight again. We need a lot more of this!
Tue 18 So today I finally got to go to audiology at the local hospital for a hearing test – well I’ve had my current hearing aids for 5 years and I think my hearing has deteriorated further in that time. But there’s no test as there’s too much wax in my ears. So soften the wax and go back in two weeks to have my ears vacuum cleaned; and then a test, we hope. It’s so seldom easy, and it’s a continual round of appointments. Yep, it’s called getting old!
Wed 19 At last! The gardener cometh. Having been given some instruction as to what we want doing (or rather not doing) he spent a few hours tidying up, eating our lunch and cake, and having a good moan about the state of the world.
Thu 20 Not just a good day, an excellent day. Lovely and sunny morning and early afternoon, but with a chilly northerly wind. Just after lunch, the first Holly Blue; and then the first Brimstone Butterfly ♀ which latter was fluttering around the Alder Buckthorn, despite it not yet being in leaf. So far so good, but then a first for me: a Hairy Footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes) ♀ (all black) feeding on the newly opened lilac. Also a queen wasp or two around, quite a few small (probably solitary) bees, and lots of flies of various types. Which all bodes well for having the apples pollinated.
Fri 21 Squirrels! Not one, not two, but four squirrels in the garden at lunchtime. No wonder the peanuts get emptied so fast from the bird feeders. But I like seeing them, and their acrobatics – as do the cats!
Sat 22 Australian comedian Barry Humphries has died at the age of 89. The creator of the uncomfortable charicatures Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson he was extremely knowledgeable about literature and art, especially dadaism. He was an expert on the artist Charles Conder, an interest he shared with author Anthony Powell, whose work he also enjoyed. On several occasions we tried to get him to talk to the literary society, but he was elusive, especially as he always seemed to be touring.
Sun 23 Today yet another stupid foot race through the streets of London. I wonder how many runners it’s managed to kill this year? [As at 26/04: only one that I’ve seen mentioned.]
Mon 24 Flame red and yellow tulips!bright red and yellow parrot tulips
Tue 25 The gardener cometh, so nothing much got done. Just having him here is so disruptive; somehow one can never settle to doing anything which requires concentration. Which is quite mad really, because the Rosie Cat does any supervising required.
Wed 26 I really must pot on some seedlings that are growing on the study windowsill. A few small chilli seedlings don’t seem to be growing much, but the lemons (from pips) and coleus are growing well. And the endive is going to need harvesting as a small portion of micro-greens. No sign of my lottery mix cacti yet though.
Thu 27 A day of buggering around doing odd jobs, which is just as well as I slept badly. N’s study chair has finally given up after 30+ years, and mine (much younger) is aiming to join it, so spent some time looking for replacements. And a phone call with my GP to follow up on the vascular appointment of over a month ago; we agreed on conservative management – ie. do nothing for now.
Fri 28 Well, no, today was actually Friday. At least that’s what they’re trying to convince me.
Sat 29 So we had to bite the bullet and order new office chairs for both of us – but they’re horribly expensive. To make up for it we also ordered a large bouquet of flowers for next week. Well it’s only money!
Sun 30 I was awake just before 04:00. Coming from outside there were 3 or 4 barks. Clearly not dog but fox. By the time I’d exited my warm bed and looked out the window there was, naturally, no sign of anything. However here’s a trail camera image from about 3 hours later of one of our local foxes investigating about 5 metres from the back door.fox width=
personal, photography

World Pinhole Photography Day

Today, the last Sunday in April, is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I wrote briefly about pinhole photography with this month’s self-portrait. But, of course, I had to have a go on the day itself – especially having made my own pinhole.

Unfortunately the results were less enthralling than I’d hoped, especially as I ran out of steam after bout half an hour. That, though is part of pinhole photography and also a penalty for making your own, imperfectly engineered, pinhole. Anyway here are the two best shots (slightly enhanced for exposure in post-processing).

[Click the images for larger views]

Pinhole self-portrait
Pinhole Self-portrait
[Home-made pinhole; 30 second exposure; ISO 200]
Impressionist pinhole apple blossom
Impressionist Pinhole Apple Blossom
[Home-made pinhole; 10 second exposure; ISO 200]

I rather like this impressionist apple blossom.

While these are not top class pinhole photos, when I make up my mind I will probably submit one of these two images to the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day Gallery.