Christmas giving. Contrasting weather. Bits of pedantic and consumerist nonsense.,

This morning I spotted a Christmas tree with parcels beneath it. Getting closer, I could see that these parcels were items of clothing, wrapped in plastic bags to protect them from the weather, second hand items, aka “pre-loved”, being donated to the needy. A good idea! 

This week such donations have hardly needed protection from the weather here. We’ve mostly had sunshine. Today is forecast to reach 23° - not bad for mid-November. It will be a shock to the system to get back to cold weather tomorrow. Granddaughter Number Two tells me that snow is forecast early in the coming week for York where she is studying. One part of her loves the picturesque quality snowy scenes. Another part of her relished cold weather as she likes to curl up in a duvet to read. But, more importantly, another part of her doesn’t want to have to trudge half an hour across campus to lectures and seminars.

Weather-wise and eating-wise (despite some of our favourite restaurants being closed) this week has been good. Chess-wise, less so. But you can’t have everything. 

Grandson Number One, earning a good salary at the age of 19, and having very few outgoings beyond paying a token contribution to the family home, recently asked me to admire the watch he had acquired: close on £200 pounds worth of timepiece. This seems a bit excessive to me but he really hankers after something even more expensive. And anyway, I was under the impression that young people didn’t bother to wear watches but preferred to look at their phones. 

I thought of this when I read today that a gold pocket watch presented to the captain of a steamship which rescued more than 700 passengers from the Titanic has sold for a record-breaking £1.56m. The sum – the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia – was paid by a private collector in the US, said auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son of Devizes, Wiltshire. The previous record was set in April, when another gold pocket watch, recovered from the body of the richest man on the ship, John Jacob Astor, sold for £1.175m.

I have commented on more than one occasion on the fact that collecting expensive memorabilia has taken over from collecting religious relics, saints bones and bits of the true cross and so on. 

Now for a bit of pedantic nonsense, posted by a friend: 

“Proper Shepherd’s Pie. Americans tend to call cottage pie, shepherd’s pie. A proper Shepherd’s pie is made with lamb. If ground beef is the protein, it is a cottage pie.”

I suppose it’s logical that “real” shepherd’s pie should be made with lamb rather than beef.

And here’s a new word, new to me anyway: lalochezia - the emotional relief gained from using abusive or profane language. Perfectly understandable, in my opinion. I have long felt that nowadays people swear too much. Swearing should be reserved for occasions when you really need to vent some emotion or other. According to something I read recently, people from the north of England are more likely to swear than those from the south. It was some judge ruling on somebody’s use of abusive language in the workplace. The accused, he said, was less likely to have has real malicious intent as swearing was second-nature to northerners. There you go: a bit of North-South divide stereotyping!

Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone!