Between Xmas and New Year

So what's left in your fruit bowl? Ours has the hopes and aspirations of Xmas past. The bowl was given to A when she worked at the coal face of the NHS. A family were so pleased with one of the GPs that they gave him a family heirloom. The fruit bowl. Said GP did not like same. So the bowl was passed on to A, peacemaker and disposer of bodies!

It sits in pride of place on kitchen table. At the moment it has, post Xmas, 4 bananas, two apples, a papaya and two avocados. A's Mum, a very sweet lady at 90 up but with some short term memory problems, kept asking what the avocados were. Various explanations and gentle promptings produced the same round of questions as to what on earth these things were. Good gracious!

Brendan Barber of the TUC has just been complaining about the enormous buckets of boodle that the captains of industry pay themselves. Nice one Brendan!

However, what about the the grubby little deals that go on all the time, Xmas boxes to the milk persons and newspaper delivery operatives; money paid over in cash to window cleaners. A nod and a wink, a heartfelt thanks, and a handful of cash to the person who sorts out car, central heating, roof, or drains in extremis. I'm sure A, the bounder, never entered the fruit bowl in the register of employees interests or gifts. Only joking! Humbuggery! Great fun, remember you heard it here first.

I can remember one of the few times I successfully pulled the leg of our DoH (he was a saint) when I worked in a London borough as his assistant. We had both taken time out after 6pm to visit the opening of some sheltered housing we had paid for. The developer had provided some cakes and biscuits and fizzy white wine. I drove the DoH so he decided to have a glass. I looked at the bottle and decided that a glass was probably worth 4GBPs; well over the casual hospitality limit in local government terms at the time! I kept a straight face and said that I expected to see it entered in the hospitality book the next day. I never bothered to look.

The other time I brought a belated smile to his lips, poor sod, was when we passed a poster announcing a meeting to be addressed by Tony Cliff. I pointed it out to DoH who had a whistfull look in his eye, being a bit of a firebrand in his yoof. As he perked up I couldn't resist the - I've got all his records line.

Anyway, the domestic godless tip for Avocados. Use horseradish sauce instead of mustard!

Nuestra Bandera de Paz y Amistad

The kitchen has been full of the smell of celery and parsley (perejil- our flag of peace and friendship; with acknowledgment to Karlos)
We are so fortunate. I have so much! So many books as gifts. A and I will need a reading week; but more of that later! A's mum has been telling us the story of her early years in between our Cava and prep for dinner!

Felices fiestas a todo!

One Mouse Per Child

There are some really interesting developments at the moment in the area of microfinance, IT software and equipment.

The Cambridge Ndiyo project ndiyo.org has been working with partners in Bangladesh and I imagine a whole raft of applications will come out of that.One that seems to be working is the putative 'Grameem Internet' built on the back of the GrameenPhone.

Having heard, ad nauseam, about one laptop per child, I much prefer the more realistic and co-operative idea of

one-mouse-per-child

Anyway! I found the story below interesting and a small glow for me at the end of the year if mince pies and mulled wine are not enough; they may not be.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/11/prweb477752.htm

My thanks to John Naughton and the Ndiyo blog for setting me off on this one!

The Green Isle of the Great Deep

An article by George Monbiot this week points out the cruelty and barbarity which we seem to be capable of. I was reminded of the discussion at the beginning of The Green Isle of the Great Deep published, I think, in 1944 by Neil M Gunn. Such horrors were very close then and this was Gunn's response to them. A pdf by his nephew sets this in some context and can be downloaded from www.scotiareview.org/files/downloads/DairmidGunn.pdf.

I read this book as a result of a strange encounter, in the 1970's, in the middle of Sandwood Bay with a man, who claimed to be Sandy McRory and carried a large quantity of home brew in a dried milk tin. We were staying in the bothy, Sandwood Cottage, which had a roof then. The bay provided lots of driftwood and Sandy became a fixture at our evening fires in the bothy and he generously accepted our hospitality, fags and whisky. However, I am grateful to him for the introduction and went on to read and enjoy The Silver Darlings by Gunn.

I hope that humane and active protest against such evils continues. We must not let these beggars get away with it.

On a Lighter Note:- Hairy Pumpkins!

A was gardening the other day. This activity, for those that are not rural or conversant, involves putting nose 6 inches away from soil and doing things. Out of the corner of her ear and through a hedge much depleted in its folliage by the late onset of autumn came a curious sight with following dialogue.

Short sturdy man, hat firmly fixed on head, was scuttling his way along the path that joins church and mill in our pueblo. He was followed by a woman without hat but with stick, hurpelling along, trying to keep up. Man says words to the effect of - Come on you hairy pumpkin; try and keep up!

A was shocked, raised nose from soil, and stretching to her full height was about to view the bounder in full sight, possibly even clear her throat. The patriarchal caravanserai passed and at that point A noticed both figures had hairy little pumpkins in tow. Obviously the fierce, proud and faithful West Suffolk Sugar Beet Hound; not a breed recognised by the Kennel Club but equally not one to be triffelled with. It is a small part of the story of how the Hun was finally defeated. I can say no more.

The image kept us in fits.

Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris

So, then, General Pinochle! Keith's mum said that you have finally bitten the dust!
A came into my room yesterday evening with the news. It is hard to celebrate the death of another human being even when he had such evil to his name. Perhaps it is the fact that I am only too concious existence is but a febrile heartbeat away from oblivion. However, I did go into the kitchen and finding a glass of Spanish red unaccountably in my hand, looked A straight in the eye and without saying anything clinked glasses! It was a small tribute to those who suffered, to those that survived and good old Baltazar who made his life legally and justifiably hell(ish) for a few months.

Gracias a la vida que me he dado tanto.

Politics 2.0

I was interested in this on line petition. An attempt to join the race after the favourite has romped home? I know the interweb and the e-waves are a great way to do nothing! However, we live in hope after having lived in Hackney for over 20 years. You have until Feb. 2007 to make your voices heard and of course the real purpose is to allow the usual suspects to collect your emails and addresses; as if they didn't have them already.

I am also interested in the growth of the number of e-signatures and may, in between mince pies and sherry, try to plot the plot, as it were, over the holiday period.

So click on the link and drive those figures, exponentially!

Enough!

Where the bad boys hang.

Several visits to the car doctors saw me hanging around in town. Reading the paper, having a coffee, lunch, shopping, doing what visitors to a market town do. Some people might regard it as killing time. I've found that it is speed which kills and I prefer life in the slow lane, sorry about that Harry!

You know by now, if you have been paying attention, of my fondness for librarians. I could even agree to the idea of the pay scales starting at six figures. OK being congenitally prudent, in a fiscal sense, that would require politicians, generals and captains of industry volunteering their services and a few other adjustments, but what the hell, librarians and libraries are worth it.

A colleague of mine was forced to use the local library to work on her thesis. Space, family and a large amount of paper caused a retreat to the reference section. She found the experience depressing and saddening. I, on the other hand, reveled in the humanity of it all. If you really want to hang with the bad boys and girls, the library is the place.

At one level it looks calm and orderly and even soporific. There are real people quietly muttering to themselves as they keep warm or soothe some inner turmoil. Gentle wives shepherd wild haired old men as they move from fiction, to maps and newspapers searching desperately for their lost memories. I sit in a line of computers checking email watching the electronic intercourse of the terminally dispossessed. People draw facts, like dust into a vacuum cleaner, from towers of reference books, processing them, methodically, one by one. Frantic fingers scuttle across the pink pages of the FT absorbing share prices. Perhaps they have evolved the ability to do this through their finger tips. Laptop users, obviously training for the 2012 speed typing Olympics, hammer away with the gleam of gold and glory in their mind's eye.

It's warm, it's comfortable, it's civilised and the librarians provide a haven of peace and access to information and communality, a respite from this world of violence and terror.

I suppose seven figures would be extravagant!

The Luck of the Spanish!

I returned from a trip to the square mile of capitalism on Thursday. I had been learning how to be a better moneylender (in the nicest possible way of course) There on my doormat was a letter from Spain with my footprint on it. Imagine my delight to discover that I had been approved "for a lump payout of 615,810 euros". I had won the "euromillones loteria".
Joy was replaced by amazement on two counts. In the first place A is the one in our house who dices with probabilities, we jokingly refer to it as her pension fund. I have never knowingly, when sober, bought a Spanish Lottery ticket. Secondly, despite my Celtic origins I am an underachiever in the luck department. I am not complaining I am fortunate, very fortunate indeed, it is just that I think I have only ever won two things. One was a sherry decanter set with hunters and hounds etched on its pink glass. This went down well in our TT, non hunting household, but as it was one of my few achievements at infants school it was displayed prominantly in our living room. The second prize I am inordinately proud of. Doing the Guardian prize crossword has become a habit and knocking them off and faxing the solutions in is just a part of life. I was really amazed and happy to receive, unexpectedly, a copy of a decent dictionary. This was my reward for cracking a puzzle by the late, much loved by me anyway, Bunthorne. My general lack of confidence niggles away even now that (because Bunthorne was definitely regarded as a bugger among setters in the sloving fraternity) not many people had bothered that week.
But to get back to my win! Luis Alberto, Vice Presidente, for it was he, advised me that my name had been selected from thousands across five continents. All I had to do to claim my prize was to fax my details, including my bank details, to Don Pedro. Don Pedro is the Foreign Operations Manager ( Does he do broken legs and facial reconstruction?) of Vergino Europia Security company, alegedly! He is willing, I am led to believe, to smooth the way to my boodle for a mere 10%. Now let's see that would leave me with 554,229 euros and you can keep the change Don Pedro! I have to admit, replace the car, make a contribution to A's pension fund, start some cul-de-sac Rochdalist madcap enterprize. Nah, I tell you what, in the unlikely event that you are reading this Don Luis and Don Pedro here's what we will do.

I herebye renounce all title and claim to the 554,229 euros in favour of the following:
Amnesty International - 100,000 euros;
Oxfam - 100,000 euros;
Medical Foundation for the care of Victims of Torture -100,000 euros;
Medical Aid for Palistinians - 100,000 euros;
Grameen Bank - 100,000 euros;
fair finance - 50,000 euros;
Suffolk Librarians - 4,000 euros;
Dick Cheney - 229 euros on the strict condition that he has to purchase and wear a bright orange jump suit , a set of ear defenders and lace trimmed black blindfold, handcuffs and shackles, so that he can explore his inner self. It will help fill the time between now and 2008.

So! Sorry about that last one Don Luis and Don Pedro.
Hasta la pasta!

HAY TRES COSAS

TRES COSAS ME TIENEN PRESO
DE AMORES EL CORAZON
LA BELLA INES EL JAMON
Y BERENGAS CON QUESO

Baltasar del Alcazar - 1530 -1606

Three things ensnare the heart of this man in love:-
the beautiful Ines, ham and cheese with Aubergine.

Well that says most of it!

Trees 2

I wouldn't want to give the impression that I am heir to a fast failing country or that I go around hugging the woodwork but I do find myself thinking that some of my best friends are trees!

Photographer Watch

A recent trip to the south coast and a visit to A's friends and relations produced a clutch of opportunities to point and snap at the wonder of nature. Perhaps it is because I will never produce wonderful snaps of my own that I take such delight in snapping big boy (and girl) snappers. And boy was this a big one!


A visit to Westonbirt Arboretum, along with half the population of Bristol, Bath and Gloucestershire, gave a rare view of the species homo digitus cameraensis as well as fine autumn colour.

There seemed to be some disagreement about territorial rights; unfortunately the necessary man in the long white coat festooned in sweaters, floppy hats and sunglasses was nowhere to be seen.

Some of us just got a teeny bit over tired and emotional and decided to go for a cup of tea!

I'm sure anthropologist would have field trip in such circumstances. Maybe I should start a flickr photostream.
What is the collective noun for digital snappers?
Light Byte! Hmm.

Not a Merchant Banker

Muhammad Yunus sought an ending
to extortionate lending.
He thought microfinance more appropriate
and became a Nobel Laureate.

So What's a Little Isaiah between Friends?

A lovely picture of Izzy Stone and his wife at the start of a New York Times review of the biography by Myra MacPherson. I was led by a film of his life to Middleton's selection of his Weekly to the Trial of Socrates. It is a journey I am glad I made.

The quote in the title comes from an article of 27 Jan. 1969, vol. 17, no.2 and contrasts the hypocrisy of presidents at the time, swearing the oath on a bible open at Isaiah- quote "Come let us reason together" as they bombed the F... out of various small nations. Particularly apt that Nixon had the book open, allegedly, at the page where the prophet speaks of beating swords into ploughshares.

Hands up anyone who thinks this has a certain resonance today!

Thanks to John Naughton for the link in his blog.

Secretos pequenos de mi pueblo 2

Traveling out of the village the other day I hit a pigeon. Since I normally travel on narrow country roads with a domingero like concern for safety and the wildlife I suppose it was inevitable that the poor bird was not killed outright. I got out of the car prepared to finish it off. The driver behind me had also stopped and gone to the bird and it had disappeared. I assumed he had killed it and put it in the hedgerow where it belonged. I asked if he had finished it off and thanked him. He hesitated and then said that it was dead but that it was now in the boot, for the ferret. He claimed to hoover up a lot of road kill.

I related this to A at the dinner table, the story goes well with Spanish red.

She asked if the ferret man was wearing a pink shower cap with his hair sticking out through the holes! It was only when she speculated that he might have been called Skink that my confusion was resolved.

Which reminds me, we have books about direct eco-action in the swamps of Florida to give away or sell.

Blogging Crease

You know how you fall into conversation on trains. We had said god knows what anyone makes of our discussions. Earwigging on a journey recently I was captured by the idea of the blogging crease and the angle of tilt of the laptop.

We had joined a train south. It was crowded and I had completely failed to establish it was going in the right direction. I wanted to say is this the train to Peterborough. I could only form the words for is this the train to Penzance! Needless to say I remained mute!

Having found seats, I was staring out of the window purposefully and listening to the man next to me. He was bemoaning the fact, to his mobile phone, that he was in the middle of a messy divorce and that he had been made redundant. The man opposite was bemoaning the fact that he had had to take an employee out to lunch who he had made redundant, while discussing another employee who he had not been able to make redundant because he had a sick note. Both were using phones and typing away furiously. There was an unequal sharing of the space of the table between them given they were using similar laptops. Immediately I saw the need for a blogging crease down the middle of the table. Then I realised that would not be enough and that the angle of tilt of the laptop screen would be crucial and that one contestant/traveler would be able to sneak an advantage by tilting their screen forward!
Ah but if trains had men in long white coats festooned with pullovers and sunglasses with floppy white hats they could adjudicate and sell tea and cakes at the same time.

Arturo Perez-Reverte

A day spent opening boxes, sorting possessions and sifting through the detritus of a life.
Some good things though! Books that you definitely want to keep.

And so to the first limerick:-

Arturo Perez-Reverte
Said I love it when you talk dirty.
His wife said Art
Don't be such a fart,
It's late, it's well past ten thirty!

La Vida Es Un Haya

See it on a T-shirt near you.
Life is a Beech!

Chefs' Comma

The National Trust are giving away a free hectare with every bowl.
Only joking!

Shortsighted?

Los secretos pequenos de mi pueblo 1

Little secrets of my village.
It seems remiss that I should be about to complete my 6th decade and have not yet read Don Quixote. Suffolk Libraries have provided a copy of Edith Grossman's translation so I will tuck into that after finishing off those fabulous banking boys, the Medicis.
I was known, affectionately, as Don Quixote by some friends in Spain. I think I would have quite liked the association with such a figure in a strange way. However, the joke was on me as El de La Mancha did not refer to a kindred spirit of the chivalrous hidalgo but to the original meaning of mancha - stain.
I am a very messy eater!

We have a windmill in our village. (And much else which I hope to reveal in due course.) It is "en obras". The sails are still in (re)construction but I believe there is a motor to supply power for milling from time to time. I wonder what the Don would have made of it.

I also wonder what he would have made of the huge cylindrical bales of hay scattered about the fields, or the bales which are covered in black plastic. I guess he would have seen them as armies of cristianos y moros fighting it out on the meseta of Mid Suffolk.
As deluded as the folk up the road at Mildenhall.

OK I lied I'm not vegetarian

An image captured in March in the garden just below the bird table. The attack was swift, deadly and of course this was the only shot I was able to take through the window before the batteries on the camera gave out. By the time I had changed them the bird was off to the trees to feed its young or partner.

A has fed the birds for years. One of the inevitable consequences of this has been the increase in birds on the table and in the surrounding vegetation. As a vegie she would be mortified by the thought that this only increases the opportunities for top level predators.

I don't have any problem with this.

It also encourages rats.

But that is a story for another time.

The sun also rises

A had not been well for over a week; visits to the doctor and tests gave no definite answer.
We wait in the lower circle of hell, A&E, for several hours before being dispatched to the purgatory of the assessment unit for several hours.
We watched the changeover of the shifts move about the ward like a caravan traveling in camel like fashion. Eventually it appears at the bed next to us. The elderly woman in the bed is confused, weary and probably just wishes to lay her head, finally, in a place where she will be looked after.
The outgoing, ehem, nurse explains that it is not possible to move the woman to a ward until there is a bed free and there will only be a free bed when a patient goes home or goes to..... Wisdom and sensitivity intervene and the nurse moves on to more pressing matters.
I look at A feverish exhausted and at the end of her tether and can't resist whispering that I am glad the nurse left that sentence unfinished. I receive a weak dig in the ribs and we both 'corpse' into fits of giggles. The matronical caravan passes with a collective look of confusion on its face!

After several days, in what A describes as Bedlam, pneumonia is diagnosed and she returns home with enough antibiotics to bring down avian flu at 50 paces!

Boggis

I have been troubled by the name Boggis for some time.
I had grown used to the fact that, in Hackney, small children would walk past me, in the winter especially when I allowed my beard to grow, and mutter
"...it is init, Father Christmas?"
However, when I walked into, one, of our locals in Suffolk and ordered a pint of bitter there was a silence and some sniggering and the telling phrase; -
"it is 'im init?"

'im was Boggis - who, allegedly, had done something to the coastline which was regarded by God, the established church and the planning authorities as unnatural.

I never ventured further. I have a delicate constitution and suffer as you know from extreme paranoia and nervous dyspepsia.

Now, any wavering faith in the name Boggis has been dispelled by the excellent and highly commendable John Boggis QC, I noticed in the Grauniad.

He is reported as dismissing a prosecution for theft brought by DEFRA against a Ms Tree-Hillman for ".. brown chantrelles worth £28"

How so,when the aforemetioned dam was caught yellow handed, as it were?

The case was, according to the Grauniad, dismissed on the grounds of pettiness as Boggis claimed he was there to try muggers and drug dealers not ladies who pick mushrooms!

The article, by Peter Marren, points to other aspects of fungal cropping on an idustrial scale which may cause problems, but it does reassure me that there is good in Boggis!

Amigos, Paz y Amistad

So then Uncle Fidel, been a bit poorly lately.
Well it catches up with us all, believe me. You'll just have to cut down those interminable speeches.

You may not remember but I did say hello 25 years ago.
I still have the poster: -

No los olvidaremos, queridos y entranables amigos.

I will not forget you but I'm not sure how the rest of them will remember.


I have to admit I was, as is frequently the case, under the affluence of incahol.
The best Cuban rum I have ever tasted before or since.
I was wandering around the park in Habana quite happy and mellow and there you were.
In the front seat of a jeep, surrounded by oficionarios and guardespaldas.
As I waved and said hello one of the said guardespaldas picked me up bodily, gently and with no malice, and set me down out of the path of the jeep.

Although I probably only weighed 95 kg at the time and had only reached the height of 1.82m
your man had no difficulty in moving me out of harms way.

I wish you well in recovery. Perhaps you have done evil in your life and you don't have the benefit, like Che, of dying a hero before the hard bit. I do think you have done some good in the world.

Who knows how long it would have taken to defeat apartheid without Cuba's intervention!

No los olvidaremos querido y entranable amigo.

Trees 1

Justus ut palma florebit ; sicut cedrus Libani multiplicabitur.
Psalm 91: 13, 14 for Catholics;
Psalm 92:11-13 for followers of King James;
for we are nothing if not sectarian.

Cedars and just men seem to be in short supply in the area at the moment.

The horror of what is happening is beyond belief but reinforced daily by pictures and reports.
To put a further emphasis on the obscenity I hear the drone of planes daily to and from Mildenhall.

Where is Masefield's Quninquireme now.
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine?
I doubt its cargo would contain ivory, apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

It does not make a difference if a child's life is cut short by what comes out of a Katyusha or an F16 or if it just dies of starvation and terror. It is still a smaller, meaner and more terrible world when that happens.

Somebody makes these weapons, sells them and uses them!

Banana Straits and Level Seas

OK! Jokes about bananas aside, there was a recent story in the Grauniad to suggest that EC regulation may not be all bad.

It seems clear to me, when sober anyway, that the way to a calm sea and a prosperous voyage is to start at sea level.

The bloody Belgians and nasty Netherlanders could not agree.

Inspire (www.ec-gis.org/inspire/), a European directive, seeks to end the situation in which neighbouring countries cannot make plans to deal with common issues because their national geographical databases do not line up. These differences can be as basic as the height of sea level. For example, notes Dr Max Craglia of the European commission's joint research centre in Ispra, Italy, there is a two-metre difference between Belgium and the Netherlands in the official height of low tide - essential data for flood prevention.

Michael Cross, Thursday July 27, 2006, makes the point that, of course, the perfidious Brits are trying to kill this at birth!

Obviously what the Brits want is a measure of compromise and the bloody Belgians have to drop the height of low tide by 1 metre and the nasty Netherlanders have to raise their sights and sea level by 1 metre; or make that 39.37 inches if you would.

I see the Commissioner for Sea Level in the distance festooned by white pullovers, hats and wrap around sun glasses, crying -
"Over"!

Is it time for tea already?

Newbeginings

Took some time out from work in Bristol recently to look at this garden. A gap in the planting seemed to indicate where some selfless soul gave his life in a runaway vehicle to save others. Gazing at the modest sign that records this I became aware that it was also the bedroom of those who did not have a home to go to. People still sleep rough!

So the boxes have been delivered, life moves on, shelves are being put up. The first communalist activity in the village we participate in is a garage sale. My wish is to open the garage and offer the contents for 5 GBP, if and only if they take the lot, including the picture frame, car rack and strange bits of plastic left by the one careful previous owner! A on the other hand goes out and mingles, and in the spirit of community acquires more books. This is a blow. To my certain and accountable knowledge (we have been paying the bills for 4 years) the aforementioned garage contains at least 33 boxes stuffed full of, you guessed it, books.

Please see my previous posts on the value of libraries and librarians.

Still you can't get too upset when you have a home to worry about.

Listening to the prom.

"Soave si il vento"
So what is that all about eh? Buggered if I know, but it is the kind of tune that would make an archbishop kick a hole in a stained glass window as someone once said.

Regarding the Archbishopric, had a nice one in the FT, Cinephile: -
Archiepiscopal dress (4)

Clue; I believe it is also referred to as a Desmond in some universities.

A weakness, crosswords, but it is reassuring to find we can still do them after all that heavy lifting.

Ladies Night on the A14

A few weeks ago A was making the trek along the A14 from Cambridge. Rather than the usual grind in evening traffic she found herself driving along a relatively uncluttered road. A few miles further on she realised that most of the cars she passed or that passed her were driven by women. Perhaps this was Ladies Night on the A14. She shared this particular piece of whimsy with me when she arrived home.

I pointed out that probably Great Britain were playing an innings in the world cup of football and most of the male population would be glued to a TV. I can be a real spoilsport sometimes.

In Praise of Librarians

It is a great joy to use the library.
A friend suggested 'We need to talk about Kevin' by Lionel Shriver. I ordered it from the library over the interweb and eventually a message came through the e-waves to tell me it was ready. I read it and on the strength of that experience ordered two books Lionel Shriver had recommended;
'Harbor' by Lorraine Adams and
'Tortilla Curtain' by T C Boyle.
These were delivered in the same fashion and a wet Whit weekend was spent very pleasantly with my nose in books. A part of the pleasure taken in these books is that I don't have to acquire them with serious cash money, look after them, except when they are in my charge, store them, fret about them, lend them to others and forget who I have given them to. I just have to get them back to the kind folk who lend them with the additional treat at the back of my mind that they will be enjoyed, if that is the right word, by others long after I have gone to the great recycling bin in the sky!

All this and heaven too as my mother said on many occasions.

I have a modest proposal to make. Why don't we take the money we currently spend on Weapons of Mass Destruction and spend it on other useful things such as libraries and of course librarians? I would add a note of special pleading for the Stakanovites in Suffolk County Libraries they deserve an extra bob or two.
When my local library was housed in a 4m x 3m cupboard in historic Lavenham, tourists would wander in and say, without fail:- 'Books! Is this some kind of library?' despite the big sign on the door saying - 'Some kind of Library' but then we have all been there.
I never once heard the reply 'Yeah. Really subversive isn't it.' But you knew they were thinking it.

Bucolic Plague 3

Arty Artichoke and Busy Bee

The Wink-a-choo Bird

We have been here in the foothills of the Suffolk Alps for nearly four years. When we first arrived it was a real contrast to life in Lower Clapton. One sound seem to greet us every day. It was the song of a bird which neither of us recognised. I must admit being a townie I only knew that birds came in two varieties, big ones - probably pigeons, and little ones - probably spadgers.

The bird song consisted of a trill followed by a phrase which sounded for all the world like 'Wink-a-choo'. Enquiries of more experienced twitchers and country persons drew a blank.

It took some time, determination and a good pair of bins to determine that the wink-a-choo bird was the common chaffinch. Birds with a Suffolk accent?

Jill's Day

An early start for a journey to a crematorium in London. It is a celebration of the life of a friend who died of cancer after 59 years. Great sadness but in the large group of family, FSC and friends very young children play unconcerned with loss and grief. I am smiling at the thought that Jill would have loved seeing them and choking back the thought that she will never do so again. I asked A what her fondest memory of Jill was. She remembered Jill arriving with her son and the twins for an impromptu picnic on the lawn.

Bucolic Plague 2

Farmer Broon has been preparing the fields for the herd. Posts have been driven in and pastures dressed. When we arrived some years ago the herd was grazing. We spotted a very large bull. It was impressive, with huge shoulders, but perhaps rather too thick round the middle and rear, reminded me a bit of John 'two cormorants' Prescott. That was not the reason we called him John the Bull. It was probably the faded English quality of doing one's duty that he dragged around with him servicing the cows.
Two years later and half a ton of not so prime hamburger gone, replaced by a younger, more active, and who knows if you are a cow, a more attractive proposition. This beast had the look of a Spanish fighting bull so, of course, we called him Pedro! He pranced about very full of himself pursuing the cows but would then stop with a pathetic look. One of the older cows with a huge udder got fed up with this and showed him what to do. She mounted him and gave him what for with her udder!
I have never been to a bull fight. I'm not interested in making a sport out of cruelty to animals. That aside one of the things that I have thought about it is the basic unfairness of it all. Even if the poor beast gets his retaliation in first and tramples all over the matador or spins him a few times on its horns it still gets taken off and slaughtered!
If the English had invented bull fighting, and they have done worse, at the point where the fellow in the funny hat and tight trousers lies bleeding on the sand a man in a long white coat festooned with caps, sunglasses and white pullovers would come out and cry "Over!"
The crowd would clap politely and rise for tea and the bull would be led off to live the rest of his life in green pastures, stuffing his strut, with a small herd.

Alice Yazzie

One of the really joyful things in this world is the weaving of the Dine.
I recently had a birthday and this reminded me of a present I received for a past birthday when we visited the American South West.
It was a print by Alice Yazzie showing some pots and a rug thrown on a table. There was only a partial view of the rug and I wanted to reconstruct an image of the whole which is what this shows. It is possible to locate where a rug was woven if it is of a particular style. It could be Wide Ruins or Crystal who knows.
Tony Hillerman's books fascinated us so much when we read them that we traveled to New Mexico and Arizona just to see the country. We only got the tourist view of the Dine but that did not matter as we had absorbed so much from Tony's books. I had forgotten about that time and our understanding of it. One of the key elements in life in such an environment is balance. The whole of the culture and practice of it is to maintain a balance. Difficult enough to do at the best of times but when you live in an area where there is no water and all water for you and your stock has to be hauled in 80 gallon drums in the back of a pick up truck you get to appreciate balance!

Bucolic Plague 1

The A 14 has received an early morning bashing from both of us this past week.
My partner has offered an observation which caught my imagination.
We assume that nature is every bit the early bird.
The cock crows at some ungodly hour.
The lark ascends into the dawn chorus, coughing and spitting,
with the start of bird flu.
But I am assured that this is not the case with all beasts.

Pigs are fond of a lie in.

Beside the A14 the serried ranks of little tin homes for pigs
are undisturbed by any activity at the relatively late hour of 8 or 9 o'clock!
Occasionally a pig lies outside in glorious repose. How different from myself.
I make no assumptions about others but if I crawled home from the boozer at some indeterminate hour I know my limbs would be spread in some fantastical contortion as I collapsed on the doorstep. The pins and needles and the lack of circulation would leave me moving like Quasimodo for a good hour or two.
Your pig, however, is a late but a tidy sleeper and despite not making it back into the old homestead sleeps in perfect symmetry; legs together, trotters pointing in the same direction.

Diversions on the A 14, 1

This is nothing to do with me.
I offer it as an example of what people are driven to!

Eddie Stobart, Debach, Bartrams, Neil Bomford = 1
Norbert Dantressangle = 2
Murphy, Canute, Joda =3
James Irlam = 4
Prestons of Potto = 5

All are cancelled by Bernard Mathews but only if it has

Bootiful Family Food

on the side.

Max score by my racing demon 99.

You should have heard the noise when BM hove into sight.
It was the sound of many turkeys being twizzled!

Blair's Children

Article in the Grauniad 4/3/06 by Rose George about theft from libraries:-

... £150m worth of books are filched from local libraries every year.

Saddest part of the article for me was the report from Hackney :-

"We think a lot of it is that people feel excluded," says John Holland, Hackney Libraries' operations manager. When McCree, a full-time librarian, caught up with one lad who'd nicked a book and asked him why, the boy said, "because I can't afford to join".

I see this as a small expression of the tragedy of the commons.
Thatcher's children were told that there is no such thing as society. The order of those days was grab what you can and run.

We have created a generation who believe they can't afford the commons.
Are they Blair's children?

Sex will get you in the end

The English believe they are a great civilising nation. Having brought tea, cricket and queuing to the masses they declined into post empiricism! Markets in Spain are great places for life, culture and developing tools for conviviality. In the north of Spain we learned the art of civilised queuing the hard way.

Arriving at a stall one asked who was the last in the queue and were told by that person. In turn when the next customer came along and asked it was your duty to indicate your lowly status. I was arrogant enough to believe I had the hang of this and a sufficient smattering of Spanish to pass for a native of Cantabria. One day I sauntered up to the vegetable stall and seeing a gaggle of senoras in front of me called out who is last. There was a pause which stretched into a silence. If there had been a thermometer on this silence it would by this point have been heading south, fast.
Eventually, an ever so polite voice announced that she was the last. The titter that followed this declaration was unencumbered by any muffle.

Yeah, yeah I thought. Is it cos I is Brit? So you don't find many Cantabrians that are 1.8 metres with red hair and the sartorial awareness of a dead camel, what a surprise, just trying to be friendly and fit in!

The dialogue I had just had slowly replayed in my mind, in Spanish, with a slightly heightened awareness.

I had approached a stall where there was an exclusively female queue and asked in my best Spanish who was the last, el ultimo (mixed or masculine) and been firmly and frostily told by the lady in question that she was the last, la ultima (feminine!).

I knew sex would get me in the end.

Spanish Roulette

Spring is unfolding here in the foothills of the Suffolk Alps. We lived in the Cantabrian Cordillera for a time in a town at the entrance to a magical valley where there were more cows than people. This photo of peppers reminded me of a game we used to play when we came down from the mountains to hit the bright lights of Santander or Bilbao.

Going to a bar, our favourite had barrels for tables and wooden floors with sawdust, we would order our poison, beer or tinto, and a portion of Pimentos de Padron. The game was to eat the peppers, which were brought to you hot from the frying pan, one each in turn. They were delightful, in the hands of a good cook the sugars developed in the peppers without being reduced to a mush. This still left something to bite into.

In turn we took a pepper by the stalk, bit off most of it, looked each other in the eye, and savoured the flavour. Most of them were sweet, dulce, but you could always be sure that during the course of this roulette you would hit one that was fiery hot, fuerte! After this they were all fuerte and beer or tinto needed to be applied to the affected part.

Time of the Butterfly

A trip to Barcelona last year was a real joy. It got us through a hard winter and now the weather is relenting a little I am looking forward to the spring and summer.

I now know what I would take to a desert island for my one luxury. I would take the Sagrada Familia.

Our Time Will Come

Article in The Grauniad 24/3/06 by Banksy about the cleanup of Melbourne street art prior to the games. He suggests that a similar process will be visited on London.

The precedent set by Melbourne does not bode well for London in the build-up to the 2012 Olympics.

I greatly enjoyed Banksy's book of the same name. A family member received it as a present and was generous or compassionate enough to share it with me over Christmas. I must confess to being ambivalent about the question of graffiti. It is great to see it and it is, sometimes, truly wonderful. If it was my wall that it was painted on I might not feel so inspired.

Seen on the side of Old College Edinburgh in the 70's;

Ken- Ken More

probably written by Gordon Brown after a few pints.

I've never seen this one in the wild but it adorns our fridge courtesy of magnetic poetry!

Read the truth, write it on a wall!

So, a legend in its own lunchtime, might leave it for the landlord who owns the fridge!

Bacon Bagel

I had a sneaking respect for Uncle Arthur. In WW2 he volunteered for the RAF Regiment and spent most of the war guarding buildings in London.
It was part of the myth that he did this so that he could be there if a bank suffered a direct hit.

My mother was a good Catholic and enforced 'the rules' like a Salford Taliban.
There was no meat on a Friday. Visiting Arthur after work one Friday I noticed that he was not eating his tea though sat at the table when we came in.
He was tired and hungry and could take no more.
"Olive! What's happened to my tea?"
"I'll just put it in the oven so it doesn't get cold."
A curious six year old, I drifted into the kitchen to see his wife, Olive, wink as a big plate of cabbage and bacon went in the oven.

I have been asked why I enjoy a bacon bagel so much, as I do from time to time. Its partly because it reminds me of Arthur and Olive. It also tastes much better on a Friday!

Should we only Fear Country Music 2?

I rang the free phone number of the car company who produced the ad with the viral tune.
A very pleasant and helpful young woman answered almost right away and suggested that I should ring the marketing department on their (payphone) number.
I did this. Another very helpful young woman swiftly gave me the number (again payphone) of the customer care line as, she suggested, that would be the answer to all my problems.
I rang this number and obtained a very clear response from a phone menu system which gave me a bewildering number of options. I decided that my care needs might most appropriately be satisfied by general enquiries. I selected this and, yes you have guessed right, I was greeted by a voice telling me my enquiry was valued but they were awfully busy at the moment and would I mind waiting while they got round to me. In the meantime they played me some nice music, not, thankfully, the tune which has been infesting my brain.

I decided another tack should be taken. Why not try t'internet. I googled away and within a few seconds had pages on message boards assuring me that the offending melody was by a certain Mr Mendelssohn, A Song Without Words. Of course I will need to check this for myself but I can feel the clouds lifting at the prospect of eventual peace.

Nice one Felix, old son. I might even borrow the disk from the Library.

Now, what was that tune on the customer care line?!

The Laws of Nature

The New Scientist Feedback section, 25 Feb. 2006, has a reference to the problem of disappearing teaspoons, including the half-life of teaspoon populations and theory by Adams, D et al about the eventual destination of the 'lost spoons'. The "odd sock phenomenon" was mentioned and the possibility of a link between the two based on the quantum equivalence of socks and spoons.

I was reminded of a Jules Feiffer cartoon, in the Observer I think.
A woman puts a load of clothes in the washing machine. After taking out the clean washing she finds that a sock is missing.
Life!
The process of washing clothes is repeated and the number of socks decreases by one between the start and the end, yet again.

The woman, obviously a science graduate, tries a wash where the number of socks is reduced to just one.

At the end of the washing cycle the machine is opened and the washing taken out.
The single sock is missing. In addition there is a soggy piece of paper bearing the following message,

"Quit f***ing with the laws of nature and give the machine more socks!"

The Sceptical Chymist

Thirty five years ago I first taught science in a secondary modern school in Salford.
I did the experiment of burning a candle in a bell jar. In fact we all did. The rule of the day was Nuffield Science and that meant the kids getting stuck in - fingers and hair burnt, trousers and skirts soaked!

After we had performed the experiment and cleaned up we discussed what our conclusion should be. Although damned by the 11 plus the kids were not stupid and realised that something had been used up as the candle burned out and the water level in the bell jar rose.

At that point I was able to pull the rabbit out of the hat and explain that oxygen, roughly a fifth of the air we breathe, had been consumed by the candle....... de daaan!

Terry Burke, a dear friend and head of department, took me on one
side and asked me what I thought had happened in the experiment. (He often hovered at the back of the class or in the prep. room to make sure I got out alive. ) I repeated my explanation. Terry suggested that I consider the chemistry. For each molecule of oxygen burnt from the air one molecule of carbon dioxide was produced. So one molecule of gas reacts with a vaporised solid to produce one molecule of gas............. oops! Terry said that it was probably the case that the carbon dioxide, more soluble than oxygen, was immediately dissolved in the water.

I think you would have liked Terry, he always new the right questions to ask.

Keep asking the right questions!

Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done
How to Achieve Stress Free Productivity
David Allen
2001

Issued by Library 9/2/06

Opened 17/2/06 Closed

Date due back 2/3/06

Returned 4/3/06

Hmmm!

Stone Curry:- food without nourishment?

We delivered rations and a bed for a mendicant doctor on call in Hackney over 20 years ago.
The deal was we would provide food and your man would provide the wine. In those days one bottle between three of us! He did not want to upset the good ladies who would call him out as they knew he was available!

It became a challenge on the days that we cooked. He was not averse to a bit of the vegetarian and so we provided from a range of books. I am not now, nor was I ever macrobiotic but I did enjoy Arturo and others. Our interest in the subcontinent would have been considered positively subversive today.

One of the more enjoyable sources was by Jack Santa Maria.
His work provided great food and some parabolic tales.

My favourite was The Merchant's Tale about Stone Curry.

It has been an inspiration to me ever since.

Three holy men turn up in a village, sit in the centre and place the sacred pouch with the curry stones in front of them. When asked what they are doing they reply that they are able to make the best curry in the whole world - all they need is the stones in their pouch and a cauldron of boiling water. Everyone wants a free lunch so the villagers comply. After a while one of the holy men samples the brew and with little short of rapture on his face pronounces it the best curry in the world- apart from just a little salt! This is provided. The sampling is repeated and the pronouncement is now the curry requires some onion and a little garlic. Well of course you know what happens. The villagers provide the ingredients one by one and the holy men (consultants ) provide the curry!

I saw this as a quirky tale. But the more I think about it the more it inspires me to believe people can do things for themselves.

Should we only fear Country Music?

I spent 2 years of my life at university in digs with the Catholic Chaplain. One day he confronted me and asked if I suffered from tunes in the head. I knew immediately what he was talking about and confessed on the spot. I suppose I had been whistling monotonously, but tunefully in those days, a piece of some damn tune which had infested my brain. I have been a martyr to the condition ever since.

Recently I have been aware of a tune played on the piano. It is associated with a TV advertisement for a foreign car. Aren't they all? It is heart stoppingly beautiful. The tune that is not the car.

I may have heard it before but I cannot place it in the Great Order of Things. I am now going around tunelessly whistling the music.

I am greeted by derisive howls of
"They are playing your tune dear!"
from the sofa every time the ad appears. This is driving me to distraction.

Was the tune created for or targeted at men of a certain age and social background?
Is it a crude attempt at seduction?
I suspect it is something far more sinister. How did they know it would infest my brain?
I now think my only salvation is to ring the free phone number of the company that makes the car and beg them to tell me what it is.

Why do I need to know? I just do. Until I know what it is the thing will go round and round in my head and I will get no peace.

A famous blues musician who had lived a hard life was asked on his deathbed if there was anything he feared - "Only Country Music" he replied.

I might have agreed with him, once!

Make me one with everything