Collecting relics. Being a butter expert. Nostalgia for the vegetables of yesteryear.m

It’s another of those days that began dull, gradually improved and was bright and sunny by midday! A person could get used to such a weather pattern!

For those who want to collect stuff that belonged to the rich and famous (a bit like collecting relics of the saints) there is news of stuff on the market. There is the James Bond suit worn by Sean Connery and the axe wielded by Jack Nichilson in The Shining, both up for auction. Where would you display such wonders? A huge axe over fireplace?! And today I have read that a Bentley believed to have been owned by a certain Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has gone for sale at a Doncaster dealership for just under £125,000. 

There you go! Stuff to spend your money on.

I also read that Mr Mountbatten Windsor has accused Thames Valley Police of taking personal items during searches of his home. Goodness! How shocking! If true, maybe the policemen concerned were thinking of possible resale value at future auctions.

I suppose people have always wanted to possess something hat links them to famous people but something you pay vast amounts of money for surely is not the dame as a personalised autograph of someone you admire.

  

Here’s another oddity of the modern world: Specialist butter!?!? According to this article butter is more popular now than ever it has been. People queue up outside a specialist butter shop in Paris apparently. Coincidentally, we have been watching a series of programmes featuring Stanley Tucci travelling around   Italy discovering things about Italian cooking. In one part of Italy - which one ai don’t remember - they use huge amounts of butter for cooking. No olive oil for them. 

I suppose there are people who savour a little slice of butter on its own, able to recognise the vintage, just as there are people who like to ”drink” samples of olive oil to savour its vintage. I must be too much of a Philistine to do that, although I do like to use extra virgin olive oil for cooking.

The article features at one point a South African journalist, Sofia Patel, who describbes herself as a “butter horader” with selarate categories of butter’ cooking butterm eating butter and “ornamental butter”, the stuff thatvis too precious to eat. In the last category is a half pack of Kerrygold from 2019, frozen ever since. “I have it partly as insurance, in case I run out. But also because it’s reassuring – it reminds me of a different time,” she says. She loves her work but her dream job is to run a dairy farm. “Or at least go to Paris, to that shop, and eat all that butter.” 

Now, recently Phil was doing one of his regular research projects into what we should or shouldn’t eat and decided that the very best butter to buy is Kerrygold! What a coincidence!

Since we seem to have moved onto food concerns, here’s something else I found this morning:

“The nutritional value of fruit and vegetables has fallen by up to 50pc because of declining soil quality, according to a new study.

The report, from researchers at Deep Science Ventures, found that humans needed to consume twice the number of vegetables to get the same level of minerals such as potassium, magnesium or copper as would have been present in their food in the 1960s.

The study found that many crops had lost 20pc to 50pc of several key nutrients.

Will Summers, a senior associate at the firm, said: “For 60 years we’ve measured food security in calories and tonnes per hectare.

“On those measures we’ve done remarkably well. But we’ve been quietly hollowing out what’s inside our food.”

The decrease in nutrient and vitamin value is thought to be down to declining soil quality and crops being selectively bred for their ability to grow quickly, rather than there being any focus on their health benefits.”

So much for “five a day”!

Now we can get nostalgic for the vegetables of our childhood too, 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Silly weather. Communication within the NHS. Tourism problems. How to be a qualified influencer. French students.

So we’re almost a whole week into October. We sometimes have several seasons in one day. It’s often a bit dull early in the morning (well, at an hour which is early for a slugabed like me). By midmorning the sun has tried to come out and the very air warms up. So today my washing is out to dry in the garden again). When the sun goes down later in the day, which it inexorably does a little earlier each day, the temperature plummets! So it goes.

This afternoon we are going to have flu vaccinations at our local pharmacy. Even though we have this organised I keep receiving texts from the NHS telling me I have a message from the GP’s surgery. As I have a routine appointment with my GP tomorrow I always open the message, going through all the routine annoying security checks, just in case my GP has some pressing reason to cancel or change my appointment. Every time I have done so the message has been  a reminder to make an appointment for a flu vaccination. Somehow the bits of the NHS do not talk to each other.

I have often commented on the problems of electric bikes and electric scooters in city centres. Well it seems that Rome has an extra one: golf carts! Some enterprising individuals have discovered that there is money to be made from giving tourists a ride round the city in a golf cart. Money to made from people too lazy to walk to the ancient sites, discovering interesting things to look at en route, or too frightened to venture into the public transport system. And other drivers are complaining that the roads are clogged up with these golf carts. The authorities are working out how to get things back under control!

We were talking about tourism-related problems in the Italian conversation class yesterday, specifically about people who don’t really look at paintings in galleries but just stand by a famous work of art and take a self - would be influencers! 

Well, it seems that you can study to be an influencer. I read that Nottingham Trent University has a degree in “content creation”, aka “the influencer degree”! The “three-year course comes with BA (Hons) status and a top-tier price tag of almost £10,000 a year, for which students will learn “hands-on technical production”, “analytics, branding and commercial strategy” and collaboration with brands and “industry partners”. Course leaders are at pains to point out it won’t turn them into overnight social media stars.” However, I’m sure that those who are shelling out a huge £30,000 are hoping to make the money back. The world is crazy! 

In France students, presumably not on “influencer” courses, are continuing to cause chaos, and brandishing reminders of revolutionary times past

Now, here’s a nice cartoon about RAF Fairford.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Doomscrolling and other such activities. Green Party decisions. US - RAF bases?

 As mobile phones have turned into pocket computers and people, such as our own Granddaughter Number Two, read more and more stuff on their phones, it seems we are all more prone to “doomscrolling”. That is, spending an excessive amount of time on digital content. Apparently it’s more prominent among young people, and more specifically among young men and people who actively follow political events. It has been linked to a decline in mental and physical health. Goodness! Reasons for doomscrolling include fear of missing out (maybe a reason why it increased during the covid lockdown), increased anxiety and attempts at gaining control over uncertainty.

One source I looked at suggested that doomscrolling can be compared to an older phenomenon from the 1970s called the mean world syndrome, described as "the belief that the world is a more dangerous place to live in than it actually is as a result of long-term exposure to violence-related content on television". Studies show that seeing upsetting news leads people to seek out more information on the topic, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

Well, i know people who do just that! And the huge number of podcasts available nowadays simply make it all the more possible. 

But in fact I think most of just spend an inordinate amount of time just “scrolling” without the “doom” element. This might explain the number of platitudes that people post on social media. Maybe we are all seeking for things of interest. Or maybe we all want to post things just to appear interesting. Of course, such judgements also apply to those of us who write blogs! 

Anyway I have a collection of new expressions - well, new to me - similar to doomscrolling but maybe less worrying, which apply to the modern world. Here goes:- 

• “Coffee badging” is when employees enter the office building briefly, tapping in with their identity badge, grab a coffee or mingle with colleagues before leaving to work the rest of the day from home.
• “Attention infidelity” is spending more time looking at your phone (doomscrolling?) when out on a date with your partner and not paying them any where near enough attention.
• “Microcheating” os a way of cheating on your partner but not acknowledging it as such: ‘liking’ posts by your partner’s friends, sending flirting Direct Messages to other people, taking a “look” at dating apps, exchanging numbers with someone you meet at a party - but not actually cheating! 
• Resenteeism is when a person turns up to work, not really wanting to be there, physically present, going through the motions but is not mentally or emotionally present.
• Fauxductivity is when you give the appearance of doing something productive at the expense of doing any meaningful work. I suppose displacement activities come into this category - sharpening all your pencils before starting work, doing a sudoku puzzle rather than tidying the kitchen! 

That’s enough of that nonsense.

I read that the Green Party leader has been banned from entering Israel after members of his party voted to define Zionism as racist. And the head of the Jewish Greens says she may well leave the party as a result of that vote. It must be odd to be Jewish and be accused of antisemitism and be denied entry to what is supposed to be your homeland! 

 

Then there is the US Air Force which is reported to have pulled its bombers from RAF Fairford following an investigation into an alleged planned terror attack at the base. Most of us don’t think of the USA having bases here, largely because they are called RAF something or other. And yet there are approximately 11,000 US military personnel are stationed at these bases, along with civilian staff and family members. This presence is part of the broader military cooperation between the US and the UK, which has been ongoing since World War.

This is what the CND page has to say about it:

The United States military has had a continuous presence in the UK since the Second World War. Located throughout Britain, US military bases have contributed to illegal and immoral drone strikes, the transportation of weapons for military operations overseas, mass surveillance and the globally destabilising missile defence system. And now it looks like US nuclear weapons will even be based here.

And here is a link to a map showing the various bases spread around the country.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A little light relief. Remembering Cable Street. Disturbances here and there in the here and now.

 In our increasingly violent and dangerous world, we need some things to cheer us up. (Having said that, I am aware that we live in a very peaceful bit of the Uk, if we discount occasionally noisy traffic.) So here are some strangely amusing wildlife pictures.

And here is a cartoon in praise of books and quietly critical of our society.

On this day, 4 October 1936, Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists planned to march through a predominantly Jewish section of East London, instead the Battle of Cable Street occured. The fascists were met by over 100,000 local residents and workers who – insistent that 'They shall not pass!' – fought both the blackshirts and the police protecting them, forcing the march to be abandoned. 

And we’re still fighting fascism today,

In France the lycée students are still causing chaos.

“France to keep up to 500 schools closed on Monday

The education minister says 400- 500 high schools will remain partially or fully shut following a week where riot police clashed with high school students as protests on classroom conditions have spread nationwide.

Lessons will be “totally or partly suspended” given the unrest, says Education Minister Edouard Geffray.

He said 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” since the start of the movement.

At least 5,000 people, mainly teenagers, have been arrested while dozens of people, including students and teachers, have been injured. Unions are calling on teachers to strike.”

Meanwhile, in Spain ten of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Madrid ⁠and other Spanish cities as they step up demands for action to tackle ⁠a mounting housing crisis ⁠after government measures were struck down by the opposition.”

It seems the Europe is just revolting!

We had a lot of trouble with wildfires earlier in the summer. Today I read this:

“The government quietly scrapped plans to prepare the countryside in England for wildfires, it has been revealed. This was despite new data showing fire crews do not have the proper protective gear to tackle them.”

And the firemen, much praised, had inadequate protective gear apparently. Here’s a link to an article about it.

We’ve been revising our Portuguese. Or rather, we have been trying once again to acquire some mastery of that language, listening to CDs and podcasts and the like. I must have said many times that I can read the language, helped by my knowledge of other Latin based languages, and I can work put how to express ideas and make enquiries, but listening to the spoken language still remains hard. We’ll keep on trying. 

Now, all the various language programmes tell us that Brazilian Portuguese is easier to understand. But according to this article Brazilians in Portugal are discriminated against because of their language. This is “glottophobia”. I am rather surprised as I had always admired the Portuguese for their skills in English, for example, a consequence of their watching foreign films in the original  version, rather than dubbed into the local language, as happens in Spain and Italy. Life is full of surprises.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

Blue sky days. Oktoberfest and tapas - holiday food nostalgia. And spam communication.

It’s fine blue sky day today, a good day to be out and about. Also a good day to hang the washing outside to dry.

It’s October and consequently lots of places are advertising their Oktoberfest. According to something I read, “The original Oktoberfest was held in Munich in 1810 to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, later King Ludwig I, and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. It involved a horse race and a five-day party; the latter was such a hit it has been repeated every year since – except during wars and pandemics – and now lasts more than two weeks. Despite the name, Oktoberfest mostly takes place in September (19 September to 4 October this year).”

And now in cities all over the UK enterprising people are organising similar events, with lots of beer and German style food, kn much the same way that pubs and restaurants serve “tapas”.

I’be never been to the Oktoberfest in Bavaria. Nor have I been to an Oktoberfest in the UK. I have been to restaurants her serving “tapas” and I know they don’t really resemble what is served in Sam Sebastian or Santiago de Compostela, where a vast array os small tasty items are displayed on the counter and you select one of two to accompany your glass of wine. Usually the tasty items are speared on toothpicks and when you leave they count up the toothpicks and charge you accordingly. Or at least that’s what used to happen. It’s a while since I spent an evening going round the bars of the old quarter of those cities. Nowadays they might well just clock everything up on a tablet.

The pub next door to us doesn’t serve “tapas” as such but you can order “small plates” which is effectively the same thing as when you order stuff off a “tapas” menu in a central Manchester restaurant, for example.

I was going to comment on how the British like to recreate something they enjoyed on holiday - Spanish tapas, the Italian gelateria, the German Oktoberfest - but it’s not really so unusually British. How many Irish pubs have you come across in Spain and Portugal? In Figueira da Foz in Portugal we discovered a very British pub, of the old fashioned kind, called The Fogg. Then there are “hamburgueserías” serving American-style hamburgers just abput everywhere, if you want something more than the stuff served by the ubiquitous MacDonalds. 

It’s quite odd how many people go away on holiday, often to strange and exotic places, and don’t want to eat the strange and exotic food eaten by the locals. Of course, what you should do is try the local food and maybe seek out a recipe so that you can replicate at home something you enjoyed while away. Or you can just make note of the ingredients and hope that what you produce in similar to the original. I have done this with interesting ways of serving fish. And I now have my own version of Portuguese “ovos totos”. 

I’ve just had-yet another phone call from an unknown number, one of those calls where honeyed tones tell me: “we have a part-time job opportunity for you”. Really? Was I looking for a job? Of course not. I”m fortunate enough to have an adequate pension. This happens crom time to time!but it could be worse, accotsing to this cartoon by Madeline Horwath on the birthday greetings that nobody wants:-

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Friday morning awards. Student protests,. And a bit of art appreciation.

 This morning i got up ridiculously early, considerably earlier than the time that my alarm usually rings. I was even sufficiently disciplined only to snooze my alarm once and then dragged my reluctant body from bed. By 8.15 I was on a bus headed for the smallest grandchildren’s school, where one of them was about to receive a certificate of some kind. The later bus would not have got me to the school on time.

The school has a weekly “awards assembly” where they celebrate children’s birthdays and where class teachers award certificates for good work good behaviour and kindness, intended no doubt to reinforce such behaviour and encourage it in those who do not behave so of their own accord.

I was greeted on the bus by a small girl, Grandson Number Two’s small friend and Thursday bus travel companion. They regularly head for the baxk of the bus where they kneel on the seat and cause havoc as they comment loudly on the cars which follow the bus - angry cars, happy cats, grumpy cars, impatient cars, an amazing bit of imaginative play. This morning, little Alice was simply exclaiming excitedly as the rattly bus went over speed bumps.

Our small boy received  his teacher’s learning award for “showing a fantastic love of learning during our microhabitat hunt. You were curious, enthusiastic and excited to explore the world around you, asking thoughtful questions and sharing your own ideas. Well done!”

This is the child who can be a reluctant reader and gets grumpy if bored but who displays a veritable encyclopaedic knowledge of things science- and bug’n’beetles-related. He also has artistic flare. If school consisted soleybof science and craft, he would be delighted!

Coincidentally his small friend Alice also recieved an award for always being emthusiastic, helpful, kind and cheerful! Her mother was delighted, as much for her small daughter’s award as for the fact that the small friends both won certificates!

In France, much older pupils have been protesting about overloaded tiemetables, overcrowded classes, insufficient teachers and … unbearable temperatures during the heatwaves. That last grievance is perhaps a bit unreasonable but so it goes. In what seems like classic French fashion, riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests. Some 3,000 lycée students have been detained since the start of the increasingly violent protests. They have a kind of tradition of such student protests in France. I remember May 1968!

Now, this is an art installation in Farnham in Surrey. Its official title is “A Hand’s Turn”. 

The cones, which measure up to 8ft tall, and are intended to symbolise “the enduring role of hands in craft for thousands of years”. However it is also referred to as the “Madonna bra sxulptures”.

It’s had to be moved to a shadier location as the cones heat up in the sun and children have burned their hands on them apparently. One of the artists who created the installation is pleased with its new location and commented, “They are intended to be played with, hugged and even the unintended percussive ability they provide is great fun.

“What a special place Farnham is for its commitment to craft and community. Farnham didn’t give up on the cones, so neither will I”.

There you go!.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!