There and Back Again*

Flann O’Brien tells, in The Third Policeman, how a road differs depending on whether you are coming or going.  When you are coming along it, the road can be inviting, enticingly undulating, gently pulling you towards your destination.  When you are going down the same road, it can be dreary, achingly hilly, frowningly forbidding.  In O’Brien’s novel, it is the road itself that changes, not the traveller, but we don’t need to stretch the metaphor quite that far.

I was, however, planning to stretch it in another direction.  My yesterday was a ‘going’ day.  Today has been a ‘coming’ one. 

The metaphor has, of course, just nearly snapped, because days don’t run in opposite directions.   Only nearly, though, not completely.   My whole life recently has been a-coming, not a-going.

*Quiz question: locate this fictional unfinished tale.

A Study Suggests

There are a lot of academic Studies out there, aren’t there?  Or putting it another way, there is a lot of academic Studies out there, isn’t there?  I’m sure someone has published a learned Study on the subject of The Collective Singular in Modern English. 

In fact I’d be amazed if they/he/she haven’t/hasn’t.  My own Study suggests that the academic study industry, in its broadest encompassment, is set to outweigh all other industries put together.  Nary a day goes by without at least two catching the media’s attention.  And they (the reported ones, that is) seem, mostly, to fall into one of two categories: statements of the bleeding obvious, and pure gibberish. 

The latest to catch my eye is the one suggesting that, in various life choices, we tend to favour the option located on our dominant side.  That is to say, right for right-handed people, left for lefties.  As an instance of this, the authors state that we’re more likely to vote for a candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot paper if we are right-handed, and vice versa.

Now, this is an American study, and America is a democracy (let’s assume) in which the right not to vote is constitutionally, albeit not explicitly, enshrined.  So it’s possible that these authors have never seen an actual ballot paper.  To be fair, I’m not particularly familiar with the details of the American electoral system, except that it involves things called chads, which may be hanging; but I reckon it’s safe to assume that candidates are, as here in Britain, listed from top to bottom rather than left to right.  Er, was this the best example they could think up?

No.  They also suggest that, at an interview, you should sit to the interviewer's right, or left, in order to make the best impression.  Now again, have they ever attended an interview at which they were given the choice of where to sit?  And at which they knew in advance whether the interviewer was right- or left-handed?  And have they considered that, whilst this technique might just improve your chances of getting the job, it might also put you off it?

Gubbish.  Gobbledegook.  Anyone got any other examples of this sort of pseudo-scientific codswallop?

Country Ways

Not strictly true: Z doesn’t really live in the country in the extreme rural sense, it just feels like it, as those of you who’ve visited her will vouchsafe (and be able to confirm at her next blogfest on 16 July).

But I had a small initiation.  As you know, one qualifying feature of ‘country’ is lack of mains drainage.  Modern septic tanks take care of this with minimal maintenance and, when it all runs (ha!) according to design, rare problems.  It just so happened that my visit coincided with not one but two.  (I firmly deny any complicity…)

Roses, who lives next door, had noticed a bit of a pong, which she’d very easily traced to the feed to her tank.  Well, two of the five senses were quite enough.  So Z’s trusty BMWF (as she calls him) was summoned to the rescue.   BMWF has, I learned, been an energetic tower of strength (if you can have one of those) around the Zedary for more years than there are.  He rapidly ascertained that R’s tank flowed into Z’s, so the latter had to be investigated as the fount (?) of the effluence.  This proved to be untrue, but fortuitous.

Because it turns out there were in fact two separate, quite unconnected, blockages, one for each (entirely unconnected) tank.  This proves how easy it is to build a course of action on a false assumption – as Kingsley Amis memorably epitomised it, the ‘inverted pyramid of piss’.

Of course, once this had been established, the rest was easy.  Just scoop the water and sludge out of Z’s pit, so as to find the outlet pipe; dispose of the sludge; rod the outlet once found; all will then be well.

Except that it wasn’t.  I’m tired now, so I can’t go into the details of how BMWF eventually discovered that R’s problem was easily solved whereas Z’s requires a whole new run of outlet pipe to be laid.  I’m dwelling on my small country life initiation, which consisted of disposing of many gallons of sludge, in a wheelbarrow, down a couple of rabbit holes across the field.  Right, that’s enough dwelling on that.

The sole reason for this post, actually, is to report that, when told this story, Z’s friend apparently remarked “sort of Watershit Down, then?”

Instruments of Tortuous Delight

I seem to be being drawn towards musical participations of various sorts, some more likely than others.  I’m not the musician I once was, due to lack of practice, in turn due to a combination of physical difficulty (my right arm doesn’t strum very well any more, and certainly can’t fingerpick), distraction (so much else going on in my life), and indolence.  I have five guitars – I had a picture of them all, but can’t find it and certainly lack the energy to recreate it – only two of which (the acoustic and, inevitably, my beloved Telecaster) I ever pick up nowadays.  Shame, really.

So I’ve gathered together all the other musical instruments I possess (with one exception, a mouth organ which I suspect is lurking inside one of the guitar cases).  Here they are.

Half of them, as you’ll see, are percussion.   The others are my old school recorder (which I can still tootle a bit); a mandolin that belonged to Viv, who never played it  (it needs restoration, really – the lack of tuning pegs, which doesn’t really show in the picture, makes it, erm, untunable); a duck, given to me as a birthday present by my brother: it took me ages to realise that you had to put your fingers on some holes and blow into its backside, whereupon it would emit up to, ooh, at least a pentatonic scale; and some little bells, which fall on the boundary but which I’ll count as not percussion, because you can do things with them other than shake and bang.  (I realise I’m on, ah, shaky ground here, categorically.)

I love percussion.  I have a great sense of rhythm, which sometimes even makes its way down the ever-lengthening neural pathways to my hands and feet.  I could have been a drummer, if I’d had the energy. 

My best ever percussion instrument was a Fiat 850 van we used to hire when Bessie, our Transit, was on one of her frequent rest cures.  But that’s another story. 

Brains

There was a supposedly interesting programme on BBC4 about how the human brain works, which I almost watched, until the irritating presenter, the pseudo-psychedelic graphics and the usual portentous music turned me, and the TV, off.

But it reminded me of a little story from about forty years ago, which I will now tell you.  I’d issue one of those ‘this might bother you’ alerts if I could remember what they were called.  But anyway, here goes.

One of the many things I learned when I lived in Italy was an appreciation of all sorts of offal.  Brain (pigs or calves) was one of these.  [Treat it like sweetbreads or very tender calves’ liver, a dusting of well-seasoned flour and flashed in hot butter, delicately delicious.]

So one day it was decided that the local butcher would be put on the spot.  I can’t remember exactly how the question was posed, but he rose to the challenge.  It turned out that he had a pig’s head in the back room, which he’d be happy to split open for us.  (This must have been in the days when butchers bought in whole carcasses and did the business on the premises.)  The head was duly fetched out, carefully split open, carefully, with a gently wielded cleaver, and – I can picture it to this day – the brains drawn out and presented, on the palm of his hand, for our inspection.

“Hmm,” I remember saying.  “Not much, is there?”

The butcher gave me one of those smiles that say ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for years’.

“If ‘e ’ad any more, it’d be ‘im eatin’ uz.”

My front door

I’d never have expected to find myself in sympathy with that security company (you know the one) whose sub-contractors inadvertently painted all their doors in Middlesbrough red and then allowed asylum seekers to live behind them.

It’s common for communities to have covenants about this sort of thing, which have to be obeyed.  As far as I can tell, the company in question weren’t conforming to any such rules, but merely got hold of a few cheap tins of paint and decided to put it to good use.  Perfectly reasonable, I’d say -  how were they to guess that a shitstorm of sanctimoniousness would burst over their heads for this breach of a newly-minted set of retrospectively made-up correctitude?

No, I have no problem with any of that.  Nor, given the way things are, do I have a problem with the meeja’s handling of the story.  I expect nothing else from them.  They need targets, and will be indiscriminate in selecting them, especially on a slow local news day.  The Mudroch press don’t care much where they point their paint-guns, as long as they splatter something.

No, my problem is that nobody seems to have gone to any lengths at all to identify, name, shame or prosecute the sub-human wazzocks who kicked the whole thing off.  Imagine the thought-process (if that’s not over-glorifying it): we hate immigrants; red doors identify immigrants; so let’s terrorise red-door-dwellers.  That seems to be taken for granted.

For so long as those mentalities – thuggery and blind-eye connivance with thuggery – exist, never mind persist, in this land, goodness and decency are, I worry, doomed.

My front door is painted white, by the way.

Well did you evah?

A cynical churl writes:

Swell?  Huh.  No sex, illicit or otherwise; hardly any flirtation; no falling over; only one small red wine spillage on the carpet; no appallingly tasteless music, not even background sort; no dancing; no drunken insults...  All you did was eat brilliant food, drink about a bottle of wine each (on average), and sit around having funny, stimulating conversations about everything from speed bumps in the Avenue to the lesser-known works of Terence Rattigan; and it was all over by 11.30 , a mere six hours' worth ...   Call that a swell party?

A gratified host replies:

Yes.

A drink is still a drink. Innit?

In preparation for tomorrow's Neighbourhood Watch party, to give our livers a head start, Z and I are having an alcohol-free day, or at least part of one.  It's possible that the very last droplet of wine last night was consumed after midnight, and we might be forced to have a small glass of sauv blanc with the halibut steaks and boulangere potatoes later on.  But in the meantime we're enjoying a new cocktail:


Crush some juniper berries and infuse them in a small quantity of tonic water.  Add a few drops of angostura bitters, stir well and strain over ice and a slice of lime.  Top up with tonic to desired level.
This is called a Ginless Wonder.

Party Time!

No, don’t get too excited, it’s a local Neighbourhood Watch party, not a blog- or birthday- one. 

I haven’t had a party here for over three years, the last one being my 70^th in July 2012, which a couple of my blog-chums attended.  My house is, I’m told, the right size and shape, and also, in the words of my friend and neighbour (and fellow-co-ordinator of the Watch) Nigel ‘has a good feel for a party’.  I’m not sure quite what he means by that, but I’m happy to go along with it .  I always think a party is made, not by the location or even the food and drink, but by the people.  I must know some pretty good party people on that basis, because in twenty-seven years here I can’t remember a single bad one.  (Party, that is; person neither, actually.)

Anyhow, taking no chances, the following notice, suitably framed and embellished, will greet attendees as they arrive.

NUNC  EST BIBENDUM,

NUNC  PEDE LIBERO

PULSANDA TELLUS

If a quotation from Horace in the original Latin doesn’t get ‘em going, nothing will.*

* Look it up if you need to.  Oh all right, the loose translation from my Oxford quotations book is: ‘Now for drinks, now for some dancing with a good beat.’  Old Horace was clearly on the right track.

Here’s a useful thing

I used that blog title, or something like it, several years ago for a post about my pineapple slicer, which is a marvellous piece of technological design that exactly conforms to the cliché ‘fit for purpose’.  Or ‘does what it says on the tin’, or box in this case.  A box which says ‘pineapple slicer’ and contains a device that slices pineapples is a good box.

This morning’s discovery didn’t come in a box, and didn’t have an obvious purpose, though I didn’t know that at the time of its discovery.  I have a drawer in the table beside me which I think of as my ‘useful stuff’ drawer.  It’s full of stuff, some of which I use.  To be more precise (or rather, less imprecise), there is an assortment of pens; two or three old notebooks (kept because they possibly contain information that might prove useful at some point – indeed, one of them did just yesterday, reminding me of the HTML needed to embed a link in a blog comment…); a refill for my Cross pen; a device for fixing studs to golf shoes; a calculator; several pairs of defunct spectacles; a bumper sticker for Fender amps; a magnifying glass (4” diameter); much else.

The other day, I needed a rubber (that’s an eraser, for any Transatlantic readers) to facilitate my new passion for Sudoku, instilled in me by the awesome Z.  She can do it all in her head, but as a novice I need to write the candidate numbers in the cells, so a rubber is essential.  Eventually, I found one, which I’ve been using to varying effect, but it was a bit of a delve.  So this morning I decided that drawer needed a good seeing-to.

It still does, because one if the very first things I uncovered was this:

I inherited this curious little object from a distant relative-by-marriage about twenty years ago when his wife died and the family home in Narberth was cleared out.  Ivor was a taciturn Welshman whom I hardly knew but liked, perhaps, better than those closer to him.  When I was first introduced to him, in 1988, by his niece (later my wife), who had obviously had previous relationships, he was politely non-committal, but I later learned that his considered opinion consisted of a sniff and the words ‘Not bad.  Better than the last one, anyway’, which I took as unconditional approval. 

I knew that he repaired watches, whether as a hobby or a profession I never learnt.  So I’d always assumed that this tiny magnifying glass was a tool of that trade, though I couldn’t work out how it would be used in practice.  I stuck the picture on Facebook this morning, and was advised by my several expert friends there that it is, in fact, to quote Mike, ‘an inch glass, for a material worker to count the number of threads per inch in woven material’.  It should contain an insert in the base for calibration purposes, which is obviously long lost. 

So I’ve learnt something not very useful, but nonetheless fascinating, today.  Not, as you might suppose, the original purpose of this piece of early 20^th century fit-for-purpose technology; but that people were expected to use it as the tool of their living.  Not all day long, I don’t suppose; but still.  I can’t imagine that.  Or perhaps I can, but I’m not straying into that territory this evening.

And the drawer, of course, remains un-decluttered and full of useful stuff.

Of Red Cabbages and Things

It has been proven impossible to cook braised red cabbage for less than sixteen people.  D. Smith’s recipe calls for 2lb of cabbage, 1lb of apples and 1 lb of onions.  She claims this serves four.  Even allowing for cooking reduction, that’s going on a pound per head.  Even without any other dishes, that’s a big eat, and you wouldn’t want a plateful of nothing else, would you?|

As it turned out, it served the three of us on Saturday, twelve or so on Sunday (not everyone chose it from the vegetable selection on the table), and there was still some left over. And, I understand, over again.  It’s a shame, because it’s a brilliant dish.  Trouble is, you can’t buy less than a kilo of red cabbage, and if you use a quarter of one, to serve three, all you can do with the rest is pickle it.  Which is fine, but not necessarily a job for the morning of a great big, great family post-Christmas/New Year lunch.

I know, it can be frozen.  But making too much of something and then freezing the remainder is all very well, but you don’t want it forced on you, do you?  Especially when your freezer is already crammed full.

In other things:

I saw a sign on my way to Norfolk, outside a café, which actually said ‘NO ARTICS’, but which I read as ‘NO ANTICS’, which momentarily put me off.  And coming back into Reading, one of those sanctimoniously patronising homilies they display when there’s no real traffic information asked ‘ARE YOU VISIBLE ENOUGH?’  You have to think about that, don’t you?

And, I’ve had my first try at Sudoku.  Or three tries, to be honest, all at the same puzzle, all ending in failure.  I’m good at deductive logic but bad at spatial connections, which means that, in this case, the latter frustrates the former.  So I’m going to persevere, in order to improve the latter.   I’ve gathered together the essential ingredients – a pencil and a rubber.  Oh, and a functioning brain.  One thing I’ve learnt (or re-learnt) recently is that one must keep on learning.

 

Christmas Card Audit 2015

I was going to blog about my post-it stickers, which read ‘claret’, ‘crisp horse beans’ and ‘eels’, but this is much more interesting, isn’t it?  Isn’t it?

Executive Summary:

Note: An audit was not carried out for 2014, for reasons of indolence.  Comparisons are therefore with the 2013 figures.

The most significant trends this year have been:

·         The Animals and Birds count has recovered encouragingly.  Indeed, I have thought it worthwhile to give a full breakdown of this category.  Robins remain consistent at 1.

·         Cute Children have, thankfully, been eliminated.

·         I have retained the category ‘Santas/Reindeer’, although there is only one card depicting a sleigh being pulled by reindeer, and Santa is not visible in this.  Indeed, there are no Santas at all!  What does this mean?  There are, however, several free-range reindeer, which are included in Animals’Birds.

·         Glued-on glitter is everywhere. 

The full figures (2013’s, where applicable, in brackets):

Snow/Snowmen/Snowflakes:               2 (6)

Santas/Reindeer:                                  1 (4)

Animals/Birds:                                     13 (4)

of which

Robins:                                     1 (1)

Free-range reindeer:                 4

Baby deer:                               3

Horses:                                     1

Dogs:                                       1

Ducks:                                     1

Owls:                                       1

Hedgehogs:                              1         

Landscapes:                                         4 (7)

Boats:                                                  1 (0)*

Nativities/Wise Men/Angels:                6 (4)

Christmas trees/Baubles:                      6 (5)

Comical:                                              2 (1)

Puddings:                                             0 (0)

Cute Children                                      0 (4)

Totally Abstract:                                  3 (0)

*To be fair, an RNLI card.

Special categories:

Homemade/designed:                          4 (4)

Cards with glued-on glitter:                  12 (3)

Ecards:                                                 0 (1)

Wonderfully weird:                             0 (3)

The Card of the Year award this year goes to my niece Georgie for a bauble card constructed from old buttons.  I haven’t illustrated it because it only really works in 3-D. 

Head-, Hands- and Heart-first

They say changing residence, changing relationship and changing occupation are three of the most stressful events one can undertake in one’s life, and should be kept apart, entered into with caution, etcetera etcetera.  We say: how do they know?  Have they tried it?  Where’s the experimental evidence?

So, in the interests of science, 2016 is going to be the year in which I’m going to put this theory to the test by doing all three.  It’s not going to be a very meaningful experiment, mind you, because we already know the outcome and will not permit anything to get in its way.

A Happy and Adventurous New Year to you all.

 

 

The best service I've ever had*

11.30 last night: noticed that the cistern in the downstairs loo was overflowing.  The overflow pipe was leaking, which is how I spotted it.  Took emergency precautions and went to bed.
9.00 a.m.: called Homecare.  They answered after one ring.  Booked an 'all day' callout (i.e. by 6.00 p.m.) for today.
9.05: Matt the plumber phoned.  He'll be with me in 10 minutes.
9.10: Matt rings the doorbell.
9.40: Matt leaves.  Problem fixed.


* Now now, keep it clean...

Don’t Do Don’t

I was toying with doing one of those reviews of the year, but Facebook has beaten me to it, by selecting pictures I wisely posted there – a moth (or butterfly; there was a heated debate); a snail traversing a hose; a frog; some dead tomatoes; a book; some orioning (that’s too good a typo to correct, innit); a spider's web; did I mention a book?

So instead, as a lesson and a resolution, I’ll just stick with the post title.  To put it another way, ‘do do do’.  (As Frank Sinatra almost said.)

Happy Festives everybody.

The Blog of Proverbs

I dug out my Bible and had a look, and some of them are almost comprehensible, and may even be wise.  I rather liked 26: 16, ‘The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason’, though please don’t ask me to explain why.  (Something to do with Z’s policy of short bursts of efficiency enabling long stretches of laziness, maybe?)

But few if any biblical proverbs, at least from the Book of them, have made it through to everyday usage, so I’m going to deconstruct a couple of non-biblical ones that have.  They have two things in common: in deference to the season, they’re both culinary; and, as metaphors, they’re both crap.

Firstly: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”  This is used to justify harming, or sometimes killing, other humans in the interests of a greater objective.  In other words, the end justifies the means.  But whereas most of us will agree on what an omelette is, and that it’s a good thing, the argument from the particular to the general never works.  If I said, for example, “You can’t construct smartphones without starving people in China”, I doubt I’d get much support.  (Except from smartphone makers who starve people in China, of course.)  And eggs aren’t human beings.

Secondly: “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”  In other words, “trust me and don’t interfere.” Now broth, or stock as I tend to call it (in Italian, it’s ‘brodo’) is very easy to make, as any cook kno.  You bung your ingredients (e.g. chicken carcass, vegetables, etc.) into a pan, add water, bring to the boil and immediately reduce to a near-simmer, and then leave it alone for hours.  The key to not spoiling it is not to touch it.  It doesn’t matter how many cooks don’t touch the broth.  If they do, then by definition they’re not cooks.

“Too many cooks spoil the omelette”, now that I could go along with.  But it doesn’t work very well as a proverb, does it?  Or as a metaphor.

Velcro

Isn’t it wonderful stuff?  It was invented as a by-product of the early space missions, supposedly, along with non-stick frying pans and computers that sometimes work …  And Principia is without doubt going to yield comparable benefits, in healthcare, metallurgy, nutrition and other areas that will probably slip in through the side door unnoticed and unpredicted, just like Velcro did back then.

And it’s also yielded a rather splendid metaphor.  Each of the two sides of a Velcro connection exists in its own right – they’re different and self-contained.  Yet they are incomplete until they join together and seal the gap.  A bit like two humans.  Z and me, in this case.

Dead giveaway?

Business minister Nick Boles is quoted, in connection with the Spurts Direct sweatshop scandal, as saying "In general, I don't often welcome an investigation by the Guardian newspaper, but ..."


Why not, exactly?

Words on Words on Words

We were talking, as we seem to, about language.  Zee wondered why hair is singular, though there are lots of them.  This isn’t the case in other languages, like French, where they quite cheerfully say ‘I washed my cheveux’.  If you say that in English, it sounds a bit risqué.  I pointed out that there is a number of these sorts of confusion.

On my way back here through the drizzle and tyre spray, I reflected that I used to wonder whether I was the only one who did that.  Now I know I’m not.  There are at least two of us.  And there is a pair.

The Book Wot I Wrote

That’s ‘Dave Anthony’s Moods: This Obscure Group’, just in case you were wondering.  Also just in case you’re still wondering, here’s the back cover blurb:

In the summer of 1965, Dave Anthony’s Moods, an eight-piece band from the musical cauldron of Bournemouth, were confidently poised to take over the world of jazzy, brassy, bluesy, popular music and rule supreme. 

No such luck.  Four years later, they were a backing group for a second-rate Italian pop singer and the band fell painfully apart. Nobody but a few dedicated fans remembers them today.

This is the story of how that fiery ambition arose and how it developed and mutated - and how it descended in fits and starts into final failure. Dam is Tim Large's account of an amazing journey of peaks and troughs, hilarity and boredom, triumph and occasional tragedy, all seen through his inspired, time-distorted prism. He saw it all, from before the beginning until after the very end.

This is his version and he's sticking to it.

Anyway, it’s now written, published and available!  An ideal stocking filler, except that even if you order it today, you’re unlikely to get it for Christmas, for reasons I shall now explain.

It’s available on Amazon (just search for ‘Dave Anthony’s Moods’ and you’ll find it), but they print self-published books to order rather than laying in a stock, so there’s a lead time.  As I write, I’ve no idea exactly how long this is (they say ‘a few days’, but only experience will tell).  So if you do order it from them, you’re a pioneer at this point in time.

Alternatively, you can order from the publisher, YouCaxton, who have done a brilliant job for me.  Here’s the web page they created for me: http://www.youcaxton.co.uk/dave-anthonys-moodstim-large/  I suspect the lead time will be a bit longer than Amazon’s, though.  And the cost is the same.

Finally, I have a small stock myself, which I’m happy in principle to let you into.  It’ll be cheaper, because I don’t have to pay the retailers’ mark-up, but I can’t handle significant mailings, so this is really mainly for local custom.  If you’d like to explore this option further, please do contact me directly.

I’m new to this game, so it’s all experimental at the moment.  Of course, I fully expect it to go viral and the proceeds to enable me to retire – oh, no, I’ve already done that, haven’t I?  Seriously, it’s been a labour of love, and I just want to share it.