New Year

A good new year to all our readers!
You know who you are and we know where you live.
Paz y amistad.

So what will the new year bring?
In part, what we want it to and what we are able to work to bring about.

You don't have to switch books on but putting up book shelves is a real bummer.

I know I haven't done my sums but it seems to me that the tree is a really smart, sustainable, carbon sequestration device. More bigger trees now! Preferably giant redwoods, they tend to be around for a while.

The defining sound for me, a non twitcher, for the year was presented in the Late Junction programme last night 30/12/09. It was the sound of:-
the Skylark, Oystercatcher and Dunlin, recorded June 2004 at Yell, Shetland Islands, by Alan Burbidge.

You may disagree. Indeed, you are entitled to, that being the nature of our society.
However, it is a great sound and the whole programme was such a joy. There is not much of that around these days.

The iBoot

So; the good Lady BP and I were discussing important matters over the smoked fish in parsley sauce. We both agree the best bit is when you get to mash up the last of the spuds in the parsley sauce! (Sorry Melissa I couldn't resist it)
In addition to the fact that you can download the podcast of Mr Broon's New Year message
- We're doomed I telt ye. We're all doomed!-
there was the possibility of a good legal punch up between Apple and Nokia with m'learned friends taking refreshers and lots of boodle or whatever!
So herself drops this bomb in with the last of the tatties.

Nokia started off making boots, you know; rubber boots!

BeJaysus, says I; yes, says herself. A quick Google seems to prove the point!
Well now that produces a whole new kettle of herring. (Come on Melissa, keep up, if you don't ring those roll mop out we'll be up to our nostrils in wet fish!)

Along with the wild associations that float through my brain is this idea of the iBoot.
Apple strikes back!

The Blair Rich Project

Groan! Only the Grauniad could come up with such a title. However, a nice little tale to illustrate how you can arrange your tax affairs relatively efficiently, legally of course, and still keep the greedy little people from grubbing through your finances like ferrets in a rabbit hutch.

Given that you may have overindulged recently I would recommend going back to Mr Murphy's analysis to give the old brain a run through. You know those mince pies, chocolates and port will be the death of you.

All irrelevant, of course, if you accept that certain tax documents are matters of public record and should be made available. Oh and while you are at it could we have a league table of who pays what. Thanks Peter, see you on the yacht later no doubt!

Spanish Kings 1

I have been thinking about our time in Spain.
We absorbed a lot, almost by osmosis.
One of the things we noticed was that they gave their kings delicious soubriquets.
So there have been 13 (or 14?) named Alfonso:-
Alfonso I el Católico
Alfonso II el Casto
Alfonso III el Magno
(Ooh,ooh Alfonso Froilaz el Jorobado)
Alfonso IV el Monje
Alfonso V el Noble
Alfonso VI el Bravo
Alfonso VII el Emperador
Alfonso VIII el Noble
Alfonso IX
Alfonso X el Sabio
Alfonso XI el Justiciero
Alfonso XII el Pacificador
Alfonso XIII

So 5 and 8 can slug it out to determine who is the most Noble, 9 and 13 were sufficiently strong or bland not to need a label (how unlike our own dear wing nut.)

My own favourite was 10:- Sabio, wise, got to be good and besides he liked a good tune.

As we plodded through the highways and byways of northern Spain we invented names for the Alfonsos,

So here we go -

Alfonso I el Católico - the eclectic
Alfonso II el Casto - the cunctator
Alfonso III el Magno - the ineluctable
(Ooh,ooh Alfonso Froilaz el Jorobado - the humpheback)
Alfonso IV el Monje - the thelonious
Alfonso V el Noble - the magnanimous
Alfonso VI el Bravo - the assassin
Alfonso VII el Emperador - the penguin
Alfonso VIII el Noble - the unoxidisable
Alfonso IX - the tailor
Alfonso X el Sabio - you done fine kid
Alfonso XI el Justiciero - the ealdorman
Alfonso XII el Pacificador - the dummy
Alfonso XIII - the infellicitous

Christmas

So; here is one to get your head round.
The tree has been decorated; herself takes delight in this and if you look hard you can see Linda the moose, and Gladys the penguin(who I insist is Linux!) All good stuff and if you combine it with 9 lessons and Carole's with a little bit of Fizz you could almost believe the world could be a better place.


Felices Fiestas!

Public Disservice

Roy Mayall purports to be a postie, a blogging postie, who has 'stirred the conscience of the nation'. I offer in evidence M'lud the following editorial from the Grauniad Newspaper.
Dear Granny Smith, reviewed in the link by Norman Crumb, is a slim volume drawn from the blog.

At this time of year when we ponder the real meaning of Christmas, obscene profit, we do well to think about the poor devils who accept that the job they do will never command 6 figure bonuses, that they have little or no say in how their work is organised or how it could be done better. They will be downsized, rationalised and used as expendable poor bloody infantry by individuals clawing their way up the greasy pole! But most of them render a valuable public service and manage to do it with a degree of civility or friendliness even that beggars belief!

Sermon over! If you know your postie, milkperson's etc name give them a token of your appreciation.

A slight misunderstanding about fish

I received an email recently from a well known Foodie website, from Melissa the Editor and Community Developer to be exact.
She had by all accounts been trawling the web (I know but I couldn't resit it!) for Arbroath Smokies. Smart girl, you would want a few of those. She came upon my recent post Arbroath Smokies, and wanted to offer me the opportunity to have embeddable widgets in my blog, possibly about my person too! I was promised that links from Melissa's site to my site would help increase my traffic and improve search engine optimisation (SEO). I'm up for a bit of optimisation. However, I live in a small Suffolk village to avoid traffic and if it is a euphemism for 'being regular' then I find a judicious balance of red wine and bioactive yoghurt takes care of my needs in that department. I suppose linking the smoked fishblog to the title of my blog, Buddhist Pizza, she had me down as a bit of a foodie. I may be and my profile offers substantial evidence to that effect.

I would respectfully suggest that was to miss the point of the blog and the blogging. So thanks but no thanks Melissa! Feel free to whack yourself around the chops with the above picture just to prove you are a person rather than a bot!

The cost of living.

Recently I listened to a short story by Lionel Shriver. Exchange Rates was an entry for the BBC National Short Story Competition. It didn't win but then winning isn't everything though(as Linus and Jonathon were wont) losing is nothing.

I know Lionel will forever have Kevin hanging round her neck but she is better than that.
I enjoyed Ordinary Decent Criminals many years ago and the above short story has convinced me she knows a thing or two about families.
Even if we do not admit it, we all see our parents in ourselves. The traits, the ticks and twitches cause a certain amount of discomfort. We recognise the results of shared genetic material, DNA busting out all over. There comes a point though, when you feel that for whatever reason, nature or nurture, your soul has been crimped and curled to a rough approximation of the folks. Not true? Maybe, but it can make you think!

Another thing, makes me think how fast the world is changing.
I was able to listen to all the short stories in my own time and at a speed that included making cups of tea, lashings of tea, and doing other things, courtesy of the iPlayer, downloads, and the generally benevolent wizardry of the Beeb, praise the Lord Reith!

It has made a huge contribution to the quality of my life.

Preparing for winter

The autumn had taught 'em


To hew the yew

A short break in the mountains 2

He had had no pain since yesterday. True, the night had been disturbed but he attributed that to the eating of a substantial quantity of mountain stew and more than his share of rough red wine. The mountaineers had booked a restaurant near the end of the walk. They had enjoyed the meal late in the afternoon. They had lingered in the restaurant and while he had not had a copa, a 'bowlful' of brandy or other spirit, he had gone on sipping the red wine. It was very pleasant to be part of a group relaxing and socialising in another language. The group had sung local songs in a chorus and individually, the women competing with the men in the strength of their voices and, he suspected, in the suggestiveness of the lyrics. The allusions were beyond his command of the language. It was the language of their bodies and eyes and the tone of their voices that convinced him of the acceptable ribaldry of the words. They had been called on to sing and together with the other teacher, an Irishman, had made a brave stab at 'Sweet Molly Malone'. The Irishman couldn't remember the word and she couldn't carry the tune and so he was the only one in there at the end. His light tenor voice a bit of an anticlimax. There was applause for their faltering efforts. It was kindly and undeserved.

That Sunday had been no different from many of the others they had spent in Spain. He had been a little tired, a little anxious about the pain in his chest the day before and as always annoyed by the few drivers on the small country roads all giving him a hard time because of the GB plates.

When he had started into the hairpin he had felt nothing. Then he had become aware that he was losing consciousness. That was when he said "shit". It was as if part of his brain was still awake and part had disengaged from the conscious world. The bit of his brain that was still out there knew it had to bring the car to rest. Why did he put the indicator on? The nearest car must have been twenty kilometres away. He put the car in neutral. Did he put the handbrake on? It was a narrow hairpin, he had to get the car as far off the road as possible. Did he know the hairpin was into the mountain? Would he have run the car off the road if the bend had been the other way?

She called his name, twice. He had started to go red in the face. Panic! What could she do? Was he still alive? Was he still breathing? She tried to raise his head and free his neck from obstructions from her position alongside him in the passenger seat. Still no response. She got out of the car and went round to the driver's door, opening it. She looked round for help. No cars, no people, no houses, there was nothing but the steep mountain road and the mist.

Her mind came back into focus, subconsciously tackling the mundane things first. She leaned over and put the handbrake on the car. She turned the engine off. Then she lifted his face calling his name. She struck his face, gently, and called his name again. He stirred, he was breathing, his head moved and his eyes flickered. How long had he been unconscious. It seemed like an age. It could have happened so fast. Her mind had no way to measure the the time from when she heard him swear to the point she was convinced he was breathing again.

He had slipped from consciousness. His brain was still active. He was aware he was dreaming but little else. The contents of the dream were beyond him. He was aware of a large lake to his left. The surface boiling and billowing, which was strange as there was no storm or bad weather in his dream. Somewhere in his brain he translated the lake as the sea of mist surrounding the car. That small rationality gave him some comfort. His awareness subsided and he relaxed with his dreams beside the lake. There was light over the lake, the sun looked as if it were rising. The fact that it was rising in the west disturbed him. She was calling his name. He was irritated, the sunrise was so beautiful and he would miss it. She called his name again and consciousness came flooding back almost painfully. Awareness rushed through him as the dreams that he would never remember ebbed away. His tongue was heavy but the words came out breaking like a wave.

"I do love you"

He rested confused as she questioned him. Was he in pain? Was he able to breath easily? Was he all right? The familiar words reassured him. In a few moments he was strong enough to get out of the driver's seat. Holding on to her and the car he moved round to the passenger side. His mind cleared, he became more aware of his body, he had lost control of his bladder. This troubled him more than realising that he had been unconscious. He drank some water and they decided to go back over the pass to the nearest houses to get help.

The houses they had passed on the way turned out to be farm buildings by the side of the road. There was no one around. They went on. He felt very weak but they agreed that they would get closer to help if they drove on. By the time they reached Cervera again he was still weak there was no pain, he was still conscious and alert. They decided to head for 'home'.

It exhausted him to get to the apartment on the second floor. He stripped off his clothes and had a hot shower to warm himself. She kept the bathroom door open as she made some camomile tea. Her ears were tuned to the noises in the bathroom for any sudden changes, any loud noises. He rested in a chair and drank the tea. About an hour after getting back to the flat he felt strong enough to go out.

The doctor in the emergency room at the small health centre checked him out. He was poked and prodded by the doctor and a nurse connected him up to various machines. The doctor asked questions in very simple Spanish as if he were dealing with a slightly backward child. He understood most of the questions and was able to explain the events. They had looked up the unfamiliar words in the dictionary before coming to the emergency room. Where he stumbled over the tense of a verb or forgot the technical term she supplied the correct Spanish, glad to be able to contribute in some way. The doctor was a mountaineer and made some comment about the factory group being "locos" or crazy. The doctor only seemed to be concerned about his blood pressure. Everything else was working, and as far as they could tell he had not had a stroke or a heart attack. His blood sugar was low but he had eaten very little at breakfast and nothing during the day.

He was given pills and eventually his blood pressure came down to something like normal. He was released and told to come back early in the week to have his blood pressure checked.

They went out into the cold night, the rain had stopped and the cloud cleared. There was a good moon and it cast its light into the valley that had become their home. They looked up to the horseshoe of mountains that surrounded them and offered protection. He felt very uncertain, very scared. He reached for her hand.

A short break in the mountains 1

That Sunday they stopped at noon in Cervera, parking in the square where the market was held during the week. They walked under the buildings that stood out on columns over the pavement. That feature was common in this part of Spain. It offered shelter from the sun in summer and the snow in winter.


It was December but there was no snow in the valleys. It would be another mild winter and in their town the snow would rarely fall more than thirty centimetres in a night. The storks would return by the feast of St Blas, in February, and start building their nests laboriously, twig by twig.

He wanted a coffee and she wanted to go to the toilet. He ordered a black coffee as he had slept very badly, normally he would have had it with milk but today he needed something stronger.
Yesterday they had been out walking with the mountaineers from the factory where she taught English. It had been a long day, walking for over six hours at heights of around fifteen hundred metres. The group had started off early in the morning when the temperature was below freezing. Dawn came up far off over the high plains of central Spain. The group paused almost in silence waiting for the sun. The day began with a few muttered expressions of appreciation and the inevitable wrangling about which far off landmark was silhouetted on the horizon against the dawn sky. Despite the warmth which the sunlight seemed to bring to the mountain there was a chill wind which cut through their clothing.


The pain began in his chest as soon as the ground started to rise steeply. It continued for an hour until they crested the ridge. He had noted a tightness before, never very bad and never for long. This time traveling fast in the cold early morning there was no chance to adjust his speed, slack off to the point where the pain disappeared. He told her that the pain was bad and they dropped to the back of the group. Once they had gained the ridge the pace eased and the pain leaked away, he followed the group with relief. They discussed it briefly. He said he must go to the doctor next week she said very little.

When she emerged from the gloom at the back of the cafe she perched on a stool and had a coffee with milk. they made the small talk they had become used to. Exiles in a foreign language, their words together the only easy communication. They talked about the day, the English preoccupation with the weather, and commented about the early morning trade in the bar. It was too early for any serious business, the people in the bar were fortifying themselves with a coffee or brandy after mass or before getting the bread for lunch. He settled up using the familiar phrase for this kind of transaction, watching the man behind the bar trying to place them. Out of season tourists, he would have known about them if they were local.

"Shall we go?"

They walked about the small town in the weak sunlight, moving from the the shaded pavements to the narrow streets outside the centre. Wherever they stopped on these trips there was always something to see, stone houses large and small, a family coat of arms carved on the house walls, buildings with functions known and unknown. In the smaller villages there were cobbled streets where old men and women walked, raised above the mud and animal muck on the platform soles of their wooden clogs. In the larger towns there was always "Todo por la patria" (all for the fatherland), the letters cut out above the Civil Guard building. Somewhere in their recent past this had been commuted to "Todo por la pasta" (all for the money), a slang expression, said with the rubbing together of the thumb and forefinger, a suitable sign of corruption. Spain had its fair share of corruption and other difficulties. The government was reaching the end of its spell in power and it had been tainted with more than the whiff of corruption and nepotism. The recent exposure of the bizarre lifestyle of the head of the Civil Guard, who was now on the run, gave it all the feel of a bad comic opera.

They had slipped into a genuine interest in the country as they had acquired their knowledge of the language and culture. they enjoyed living in Spain, in a small town. It was a great contrast to their previous life in London. At times they felt isolated and they knew they would never be part of the community. There was peace, though, and great beauty in the mountains.



They went back to the car. The weather was changing and they were heading for Piedrasluengas, a porto or pass. A detour took them up a valley to look at a possible walk to the source of the river Pisuerga, one of the rivers that flows south out of the mountains only to be gathered in by the Duero to irrigate the vines all the way into Portugal. The weather was closing in fast. they got back to the car glad there was an excuse to play tourists, driving about the area in the little red car with the GB plates.

By the time they had reached the puerto and the appointed stopping place the mist was swirling. The enjoyment of the countryside would have to be left to another day. Appreciation was confined to the steepness of the contours on the map and an image drawn from them of what the view might have been. It was getting late to consider lunch even by Spanish standards. It would be almost four o'clock before they reached Potes and they would have to spend some time parking and sniffing out the best value restaurant. They had sunk into the gloom of the late afternoon each contemplating the deteriorating weather and the prospect of missing their Sunday lunch, a meal which had become an institution for them, usually a small treat.

They were heading downhill. The road lost height quickly in a series of small hairpins, not very spectacular and no great effort to drive. One good turn followed by another. She felt the brakes go on for the corner, but there was no release to enable the car to drive through the turn. Instead the braks continued to bite. He put the indicator on and drew the car to a halt at the apex of the bend. Just before this he had said "shit". the car was at rest off the road, with the engine idling, out of gear. She thought it might be a puncture or something wrong with the car. It wasn't the car that had packed up. She turned to look at him and his head lolled on his chest.

Arbroath Smokies

It is strange how the fates conspire to bring about ideas in your correspondent's noodle.
I enjoy fish, smoked fish and other marine delicacies. I did so at the weekend to celebrate the birthday of herself. A good time was had by all!

I then started to watch 5 nights with Brenda, the troubled times of a small monarch! All good clean fun and, as an aficionado of the haddock, I marveled at the arrogance of it all, long since forgotten.

I was pulled up short by a reference to the Declaration of Arbroath, again long since forgotten.
Open Democracy had this from an article by Canon Kenyon Wright in the Our Kingdom section.

...Lord President Cooper, arguably the greatest Scots lawyer of the last century stated “the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of parliament is a distinctively English principle, which has no counterpart in Scots constitutional law”

That golden thread which runs through our history goes back even further – to the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Its stirring call to freedom is often quoted, but for me the most important part of it, which puts it so far ahead of its time, is the clear declaration that even the great Robert the Bruce is “King, not only by right of succession according to our laws and customs, but also with the due consent of us all” and goes on to warn him that should he betray that trust “we would instantly strive to expel him as our enemy and the betrayer of his own rights and ours, and we would choose another king to rule over us who would be equal to the task of our defence”

A Commissioner at the Kirk’s General Assembly in 1989 summed it up more succinctly – “They said to Robert, you might be the King, but ye dae as ye’re telt, or ye’re on the burroo”

I love that bit .... "dae as ye’re telt, or ye’re on the burroo"...

So in that bit of 'England' north of the border Brenda's writ runs only in so far as she daes as she is telt. Otherwise it's the burroo; or possibly a slap in the face with an Arbroath Smokie!