Flags - expensive items! Superfoods! Making pasta in the open air!

I wrote recently about my Italian friend’s surprise on returning from a summer spent in Sicily to find bridges over the motorway festooned with flags. Today I read about the amount of money spent on flags for Mr Trump’s recent visit to the UK. Apparently when there is a visit from some foreign dignitary any of that country’s flags to be used during said visit have to be approved by their embassy. Fair enough, I suppose. It turns out that the flags submitted by the UK for approval by the US embassy were rejected because the stripes were the wrong shade of red! So 66 new hand-sewn flags were made at an estimated cost of £52,800!!! 

Wow!!! 

That’s £800 per flag!!

Paid for out of public funds too!

What if it had rained on them? 

The whole flag business seems to me to have got a little out of control but I had no idea they could be so expensive!

I don’t suppose the flags I see hanging from people’s windows or from lamp-posts are hand-sewn super-expensive objects but still, anyone who makes flags must be rubbing their hands together in glee at the moment. 

Now for something about food.

Adrian Chiles wrote in today’s online newspaper about “aztec broccoli”. He claims it’s a new superfood, called “huauzontle” in its native Mexico and “chenopoiuam mnuttalliae is it Latin name. He says a huge panful boils down to small amount, rather the way spinach does, and finishes his article with this invitation: “if you do fancy a try, bring a large van round to mine and I’ll happily give you enough to make at least one dinner.”

I’m often a little suspicious of so-called superfoods. Maybe they should be called ‘superfads’. In some cases their great popularity with the chattering class (the twittering class?) leads to people who have long regarded that food as a staple part of their diet can no longer afford to eat it. However, I keep finding interesting things to do with spinach ( Popeye’s favourite) and with lentils.

And here are some photos of pasta being made and sold in the streets of Bari. On the “via delle orecchiettel, aka Strada Arco Basso, the ladies demonstrate their skill at making “orecchiette” which tourists can buy from them. 

Personally I would be a bit suspicious of eating stuff made on wooden tables outdoors and left to dry in the sun but maybe that’s just me. I feel the same about sweets and fudge and such sold on street markets and displayed in huge open tubs with a scoop so that passers-by-by can serve themselves and pay for the privilege of doing so. 

Anyway, there has, it seems been a bit of a controversy as some of the “nonne”, the grandmothers who make the pasts, are suspected of cheating and purchasing ready made commercially produced orecchiette to sell as their own hand. This is because the demand from tourists has been so great! Victims of their own success.

One of the ‘nonne’, it seems, travels all over the world demonstrating her skill and promoting Italian produce. 

All part of the strangeness of the modern world!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Seasons changing! Poets disappearing! New terminology for a nanny state. Dogs and their entitled owners.

 I walked to Uppermill in the drizzle this morning - damp but not particularly cold. Jokers tell us we have 12 seasons in Manchester:

Winter

fool’s Spring

Second Winter

Spring of Deception

Third Winter

Actual Spring

The Pollening

Summer

Hell

False Autumn

Second Summer

Actual Autumn —- THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW! 

Leonard Cohen sang about the Tower of Song. The best singer/songwriters are poets and deserve their place up there in that tower. What about poets? Their words are themselves a kind of music. Are they welcome in the Tower of Song? If so, the tower should have a couple of new residents: Tony Harrison and Brian Patten who have both just died. The latter was one of the Liverpool Poets who taught us that poetry doesn’t have to follow set rules and can be about almost anything - bits of beauty everywhere!

Here’s an interesting bit of terminology: pregnancy-related crime! It’s in a report from the USA:

“In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.”

In the absence of an actual national database of arrests and prosecutions, the report tells us, the numbers could well be higher. This isn’t solely about abortion, apparently. Drug use / abuse comes into it. In one case, after a woman gave birth the hospital tested her umbilical card for drugs. The tests came back positive for marijuana (the woman had a medical marijuana card - a state-issued identification card  that shows a doctor has recommended the use of marijuana) and she was arrested … for felony child neglect … neglect before the child was born. Of course, I don’t know any details of the woman’s history of drug use or childcare - maybe her story is more complicated - but it all smacks of the state being rather too intrusive. 

It’s also part of what I hear referred to as the ‘fetal personhood movement’, which seeks to give embryos and fetuses the same rights as a child who has already been born. Thus laws intended to protect children can be used against pregnant women. And somehow terms like ‘personhood’ and ‘pregnancy-related crime’ make it all sound legal and impersonal. And more than a little dystopian! 

I have ranted on more than one occasion about dog-owners who like to decorate trees and bushes with little bags of dog poo! ‘Entitled dog owners’, as columnist Arwa Mahdawi refers to them, “expecting some sort of poop fairy to magically clean up after them”.  Here’s a possible solution from Italy: 

“Starting next year, the northern Italian city of Bolzano will charge tourists with dogs in tow a small daily tax of €1.50 (£1.30). Local owners are also being asked to cough up an annual tax of €100 (£87) a dog to help cover the cost of street-cleaning. Bolzano, by the way, has form when it comes to keeping pet owners on a tight leash. Last year it made DNA tests for dogs compulsory so that any abandoned excrement could be tested, and its owner then tracked down and fined.”

It’s an idea! However, it might be necessary to go back to having a dog licence in order to enforce such a requirement. And there are already enough people getting hot under the collar at the prospect of ID cards being (re-)introduced to the UK, let alone reintroducing dog licences!

While on the subject of dogs, I read yesterday about outdoor swimming pools and lidos allowing dog owners to bring their dogs for a swim and splash-about in said pools. My first reaction when I saw the headline was one of horror but it turns out the plan was to do so on the last day of such places being open before closing down for the end of summer. After that the pools would be drained and cleaned. So my feeling of revulsion at swimming in a pool where dogs had been bathing was unjustified. 

My apologies, dog-owners! I recognise that you love your pets but I don’t want to share seats on buses or restaurants with them and I certainly don’t want to swim with them!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Local birdlife. Mr Trump and prizes and guns. Drinking in Manchester.

The other day I saw swifts or swallows - I wasn’t close enough to see clearly and, besides, I’m not sure I’d know the difference - massed on a telephone wire. Were they waiting to migrate to wherever they go for the winter?

Then I frightened a pheasant and caused it to fly up onto someone’s roof.

Today it was the turn of the heron, in the ford near one of the millponds, an unusual place to see him. 

As I approached for a closer photo he took off, demonstrating his huge wingspan for me. 

Right, that’s the bird-spotting done for today.

Here’s a Ben Jennings cartoon about Mr Trump and his claims to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

The progress towards peace in Gaza still seems to take staggering steps forward, only to be knocked backwards by one or other party disagreeing with details or simply not being fully involved in discussions. 

Maybe Mr Trump should turn his attention inwards in the USA and do something about guns. Here’s a report of a shooting in a Mormon church in Michigan. Of course, we’ll never find out what the shooter had against the Mormons as he was shot dead by the police.

Here’s a little item about Manchester city centre pubs, not necessarily the cheapest places to go drinking but often picturesque:- 

 “Manchester is packed full of some of the oldest pubs in the UK, and whilst there’s nothing we love more than a pint, a Guinness is even better. Luckily for us, there are plenty of amazing Irish pubs offering the black stuff, and one is The Shamrock in Ancoats – which has been officially given a new name.

As work now begins on a  £1.8 million refurbishment of The Shamrock, it will now be called ‘The Spinners Rest‘, after owners Joseph Holt invited locals to make the choice. The name was selected through a public vote and pays tribute to the mill workers who once lived and worked in the area.”

I wonder how long people will continue to call it The Shamrock though.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Coffee. Crowds at sports events. The loss of restraint. Can you support Reform and not be racist?

As I drank my second cup of breakfast coffee this morning I skimmed an article where columnist Emma Beddington bemoaned the fact that people pay £6.50 for a cup of coffee, something my Italian friend also finds incomprehensible. Indeed British coffee culture is a mystery to her and she misses being able to order an espresso for a probable maximum €2 and drink it standing at the bar. The columnist declared her desire to return to instant coffee as she can’t stand the snobbery around the different types of coffee people prefer (what level/method of roasting and which country of origin, which hints of ‘interesting flavour’ they discern) and even the complication of the coffee machine she has in her kitchen.

For a while we had a complicated coffee machine. I think we gave it away in the end and reverted to our Italian style coffee maker, the sort that apparently almost every Italian household uses. Although how long that will be the case if Starbucks manage to invade Italy. (We have several sizes of this useful but simple device.)

We’ve not travelled as much in the last year as we usually do but when we have I have noticed that in airports such as Oporto there has been a creeping invasion by chains such as Costa and Caffe Nero, with the usual range of oddly flavoured coffee. Personally I don’t want my coffee to be flavoured (adulterated) with caramel, vanilla, fruits flavours or anything else. 

But, sorry Emma Beddington, I couldn’t go back to instant coffee. I’ve become a coffee snob. 

I’ve never been a fan of golf. It’s often seemed like an unnecessarily complicated way of going for a walk with a load of equipment you need to carry around - or have someone else carry around for you. But whenever I have seen news reports of golf tournaments they have always seemed very polite affairs, with spectators standing politely, rather in awe of the skill of the professional at getting that little ball to go where they choose to send it. Like tennis it has always seemed like a ‘refined’ kind if sporting activity - and one where you probably need enough money to pay for the equipment and the membership of the clubs where the sport is played. I think of Wimbledon and in my head I hear the umpire calling out “Quiet please” as the first serve of a match is played. And the crowd goes silent!

Football crowds sing and shout in support of their teams but somehow we expect golf and tennis crowds to be more restrained. So what has been going on at the Ryder Cup in New York this week? Spectators shouting abuse at the UK team, presumably because they were defeating the USA team, which they eventually did. Rory McIlroy says his wife was struck by a flying beer bottle! “I don’t think we should ever accept that in golf,” said McIlroy. “I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week. Golf has the ability to unite people. Golf teaches you very good life lessons. It teaches you etiquette. It teaches you how to play by the rules. It teaches you how to respect people. Sometimes this week we didn’t see that.”

Quite so! 

Maybe it’s indicative of the odd state the modern world has got into. Not only are people quick to criticise, and abuse, on social media but there seems a greater willingness to get into actual verbal and physical abuse in real life situations. 

Have we lost our British politeness and restraint?

I keep hearing reports of people afraid to walk through the streets in some big city areas. Is that because of a kind of licence to be rude and aggressive! I’m glad we live in a quieter place!

Despite Reform UK having few MPs there is a growing fear that they could not only win more seats but even become powerful in parliament, some say even become the leaders. Even Rachel Reeves seems quite understanding about people being persuaded to support Reform UK. And she believes that you do ‘t have to be a racist to support Reform’s racist ideas and policies. Here’s the report of an interview with broadcaster Nicolo Ferrari:

“Reeves says people can support racist policy without being racist, in reference to PM's comment about Reform UK

Ferrari asks about what Keir Starmer said yesterday about Reform UK’s plan to end indefinite leave to remain being racist.

Q: Does supporting that policy make someone racist?

No, says Reeves.

Q: So you can support a racist policy but not be racist.

Reeves says it is a racist policy.

Q: But how can you support a racist policy and not be racist?

Reeves says people support Reform UK for all sorts of reasons.

Ferrari says he does not see how you can support a racist policy and not be racist.

Reeves says she is not sure lots of people do support this policy. She says:

I think there are lots of people who back Reform would be horrified by the thought that people who came to this country legally, are working and contributing, will be deported from this country. And we had to call out Reform for their policies. And this is a racist policy, and it’s a bad for our country, and we need to call that out.”

It’s time to provide an acceptable alternative.

To finish off, here is a Tom Gould cartoon about banning books: 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Music festivals. Music misused. Music misreported. And selling gold and other valuable.

Yesterday they held the annual Party in the Park at the cricket and bowling club up the road from our house. Party in the Park is a kind of music festival, organised I think by the Wake Up Delph Committee, with a bunch of tribute bands. This year they had a Dolly Parton, among other acts. Gates opened at 3.00pm but already at 9.00am there was music playing loudly as they erected stands and got themselves sorted. I have no idea where the Party Goers parked; there were parking restrictions in force already first thing in the morning.

In the afternoon, as I pruned rose bushes, cut back ferns and pulled up pampas grass (I think that’s what it is) that has been spreading like wildfire in our front garden, wits and wags on their way to the Party, laden with folding chairs, made jokes about offering to help! Offers that were never fulfilled! 

When we went out for a walk round the village later, the music was going strong. An almost friend (one of those people you stop and talk to casually on a regular basis while out and about but never find out what their names are) was out tending her flower beds. She told us she had been about to give up and go indoors but she was enjoying the music and so invented further gardening excuses to remain outdoors.

Fortunately for the Party People the rain held off until late into the evening! I’m not sure whether they managed the closing fireworks before or after the rain arrived but the rain certainly arrived with a vengeance.

On the subject of music, I hear that Labi Siffre has issued a cease and desist order on Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) for using his anti-apartheid song (Something inside) So Strong at the recent “unite the kingdom” rally in central London. “Anybody who knows me and knows my work since 1970 will know the joke of them using the work of a positive atheist, homosexual black artist as apparently representative of their movement,” 80 year old Labi Siffre said in an interview with the Guardian.

Robinson is not the first to misuse songs at political event. Trump has tried to make use of Bruce Springsteen and Theresa May is still remembered for ‘dancing’ onto the stage at her party conference to Abba’s Dancing Queen! 

And apparently the Daily Mail has been saying the Fleetwood Mac plan to reunite to play at J K Rowling’s sixtieth birthday party. That would be rather difficult, not to say impossible.

Yesterday a flier was pushed through our letter box, inviting us to take our gold and silver to a local community centre and possibly sell it. Strange!

I am also intrigued by advertisements on the television for Vinted, I think it is, an organisation to which you can send your various valuable knickknacks, in return for which they will send you money. In one of these advertisements a smiling woman sits in a room cluttered with expensive-looking ornaments and suchlike stuff.

Who are these people who have been hoarding gold and silver and watches and ornaments of value? 

We have clearly missed that boat! Our clutter is not of great value! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!