Still cold. Plane crash. Some thoughts about coffee. And a rather weak joke.

Winter’s back again. Well, it never really went away; it just got a bit less severe. A friend of mine is trying hard not to leave her house at the moment as she really suffers from arthritis and the cold just makes it worse. This makes it hard to arrange to meet her for lunch. 

Anyway, this morning we woke to a heavy frost. There’s blue sky and sunshine though. It’s one of those odd days when you stand in the sunshine and feel the real warmth of that sun and then move into a shaded place and the temperature drops by a good 5 degrees. Somit goes. 

The cold weather over in Washington hampered rescue work in last night’s plane and helicopter crash. So far hey have recovered some 30 bodies. Nobody seems to know yet how it happened.

Since we have cold weather, here is a possible explanation of the expression ‘brass monkey weather’

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Some people believe that the phrase comes from nautical slang and refers to a brass plate or tray that was used to hold cannonballs on a ship’s deck. When temperatures dropped below freezing, the metal would contract and cause the balls to fall off – hence the expression “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”

 

That sounds plausible to me.

I read that the UK is apparently the instant coffee capital,of the world with a whopping 54% of us choosing to drink it over traditional coffee, compared with a measly 39% in the rest of the world. It’s a long time since I had instant coffee in my kitchen cupboard. As a student long ago in France I discovered that the French had superior Instant coffee and over the years I have become something of a coffee snob. There was a time when I used to grind my own coffee beans but nowadays, with a range of different ground coffees available, it seems a rather pretentious waste of time. It was rather fun though to see the friends who liked to turn the handle of the manual coffee grinder. Like my Italian friend I find myself deploring the difficulty of finding good coffee amid the range of oddly flavoured coffees available. 

Here’s a photo Kyle McLachlan as Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks enjoying a “damn fine cup of coffee”.

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And here’s joke to finish off with:

 

Most people have heard of Karl Marx but few know of his sister Onya, an Olympic runner. Her name is mentioned at the start of every race.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!