Most Halloween candy prayed over by witches

Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network posted a blog by Kimberly Daniels recently that warns Christians to forgo celebrating Halloween because of its evilness. Daniels specifically calls out candy as a source of soul-molestation:

"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches."

"Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

Personal Halloween Candy Update
A British friend at work brought me back some Halloween candy from a recent business trip to San Diego. I was so excited as you can't get the American stuff over here.

She tried to describe what she'd bought: "I bought some multi-colored pyramid things," she explained.

I was scratching my head over that one, then realized she must be talking about Candy Corn. (Now it's been rechristened Pyramid Things in my family though.)

And then she explained about a toffee thing that had sticks in the bag. Ah, she meant caramels for making caramel apples. She asked me to please take a photo of one after I make them for the kids this weekend.

I am so excited to have actual Halloween candy from America in my home this year. Thanks Reeya!

One of our commenters starts a business

One of our regular commenters has recently started a business. His emails to me on this subject have been interesting and sometimes so amusing that I thought I'd share with you. If you all want to write in with advice or suggestions for him, I'm sure he'd love it.

The Birth of Brer Rabbit Excursions
He writes: I wonder if you would care to be my guest on a scooter excursion (if you can ride a bike you can ride one of these, they have automatic transmissions and the brakes work like a bike - it's like riding a bike but you don't have to pedal). We would ride these cute little scooters from Mile Board 1 at a stately 25 miles an hour up to Raymond at Mile Board 80 with frequent restful stops along the way; we'd travel through delightful Mississippi scenery and enjoy enchanting company.

I wish I could offer this Provence-by-Scooter but the Romans built all the best stuff in Europe and didn't develop anything in the US, and the French have similarly selfishly made their quaint villages mostly in France.

He tries to get a good logo for the business
This is what three months and $1700 got me when I was trying to get my scooter tour concept started. It's all wrong, the rabbits look sorta evil and the landscape is too barren. It was supposed to be Beatrix Potter. I'm gonna find a better artist locally if things work out.


He plans his marketing strategy
My strategy in the US is going to be targeting my advertising to Ivy League University towns and surrounding areas where I know scooter riders are in abundant supply. I have to figure out how to do it the most effective way though. I've been practicing posing as a liberal- easy enough to do with all my reading and study into critical theory and identity politics. I'm probably more versed in liberalism than many people who think they are liberals. I've been working on some talks about the Emerging New South to use when I detect the presence of liberals in a tour group. And, I have found some examples to show them. The New South is real, but you wouldn't know it with all the talk of racism that's constantly stirred up.

He pushes capitalism to its limits
Hey, after several days of intense horse trading, I ended up with 13 new bikes for Brer Rabbit yesterday, I was exhausted! I saved an average of 750 per bike amid cajoling, accusations, counter accusations. I had one company order several bikes, and they doubled their order feeling optimistic and to get the factory volume discount, then I called and canceled the order! hehehe....you should have heard that. They were not happy, and ended up undercutting the low bidder in New Orleans. It was capitalism at its finest. The dealer in Tennessee ended up slamming the phone down in my ear.

Stay tuned for more developments with our enterprising friend!

Re-auditioning for the chorus

I went back to work yesterday after fighting the flu all week. I felt like death but there was worse to come. I had to go into London after work and re-audition for my place in the Philharmonia Chorus. It's a serious business, these auditions. The results are posted on their website so the singer can read about their vocal flaws at any time.

I sang the soprano part of He Shall Feed His Flock from the Messiah. It's a tough thing to sing but I thought I'd be OK. I practiced with my son playing the piano right before I went up to London.

Here's what I sang. Ignore the alto part and start the vid at about 2:40 to hear what I was attempting.



But then when I got to London, there was that scary Chorus Master sitting at a table waiting for me to impress him and when I started to sing, the crap that came out of my throat! I couldn't believe it. My nerves had gotten the better of my vocal chords.

By the time I got to the second part, I was better, and I hit the high notes fine but I didn't do the phrasing correctly so I stopped for a breath before hitting the high note, which is a really amateurish thing to do.

Anyway, they said they'd let me know, and this morning in my Inbox is a note to say I've passed the audition so I am very happy.

I went on their website to see my assessment report, and it's so clinical -- it sounds like a doctor's report:

Generally, this comes across as a good voice, well produced. Tuning settled down and most vowels well placed. Watch 'e' vowel doesn't get too tight.

Wise words from the spa mag

Every time I go to the spa, I read a copy of their in-house magazine that has inspirational articles. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don't. Maybe you will like this one that I read earlier this week (or maybe it will just annoy you):

Imagine...

There is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400.

It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out ALL OF IT, of course!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow."

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE-TENTH OF A SECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have!

Can you name the confederate states in one minute?

This game my daughter sent me is addictive. You have to guess everything within one minute. I froze up and forgot about the Carolinas, north and south, so lost.
Can you name the Confederate states of America in one minute?

Back from the dead

I'm back at work today after a bout of flu but feel like a zombie. I had a suprise when I went out the front door though - my Michaelmas daisies and roses were in bloom. They had been out there all the time, just waiting for me to notice them.

I have to re-audition with the Philharmonia Chorus tonight so am very nervous about that. I will try to ask for goodwill points because I've been sick all week but I'll bet I get too terrified in front of the chorus master to even ask. He can be like Oz, the great and powerful, from the Judy Garland movie sometimes.

Which direction is North in Australia ?

A guy in my group went to Australia on vacation. Another colleague sent this to him:

These were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a great sense of humour (not to mention a low tolerance threshold for cretins!)

Q: Does it ever get windy in  Australia ? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (   UK ).

A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.
 __________________________________________________

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? ( USA )

A:Depends how much you've been drinking.
__________________________________________________

Q:Which direction is North in Australia ? (USA )

A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.
_________________________________________________

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia ? ( UK )
A:Why? Just use your fingers like we do...
__________________________________________________

Q:Can you send me the   Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (   USA )

A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is  
Oh forget it. Sure, the   Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.
 __________________________________________________

Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia ? ( UK )
A: You are a British politician, right?
__________________________________________________

Q:Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? ( Germany )

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers.
Milk is illegal.
__________________________________________________

Q:I have a question about a famous animal in Australia , but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. ( USA )

A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them.

You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.
 __________________________________________________

Q:I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia ? (USA)
 
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.
 __________________________________________________
 
Q:Do you celebrate Christmas in   Australia ? ( France )

A: Only at Christmas.
 __________________________________________________

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? ( USA )

A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first     

The Sum of Man

In autumn,
facing the end of his life,
he moved in with me.
We piled his belongings—
his army-issue boots, knife magazines,
Steely Dan tapes, his grinder, drill press,
sanders, belts and hacksaws—
in a heap all over the living room floor.
For two weeks he walked around the mess.

One night he stood looking down at it all
and said: "The sum total of my existence."
Emptiness in his voice.

Soon after, as if the sum total
needed to be expanded, he began to place
things around in the closets and spaces I'd
cleared for him, and when he'd finished
setting up his workshop in the cellar, he said,
"I should make as many knives as I can,"
and he began to work.

The months plowed on through a cold winter.
In the evenings, we'd share supper, some tale
of family, some laughs, perhaps a walk in the snow.
Then he'd nip back down into the cellar's keep
To saw and grind and polish,
creating his beautiful knives
until he grew too weak to work.
But still he'd slip down to stand at his workbench
and touch his woods
and run his hand over his lathe.

One night he came up from the cellar
and stood in the kitchen's warmth
and, shifting his weight
from one foot to the other, said,
"I love my workshop."
Then he went up to bed.

He's gone now.
It's spring. It's been raining for weeks.
I go down to his shop and stand in the dust
of ground steel and shavings of wood.
I think on how he'd speak of his dying, so
easily, offhandedly, as if it were
a coming anniversary or
an appointment with the moon.
I touch his leather apron, folded for all time,
and his glasses set upon his work gloves.
I take up an unfinished knife and test its heft,
and feel as well the heft of my grief for
this man, this brother I loved,
the whole of him so much greater
than the sum of his existence.

"The Sum of Man" by Norah Pollard, from Death & Rapture in the Animal Kingdom. © Antrim House, 2009. Reprinted with permission.

People too stupid to use the Internet

My son showed me this just now to cheer me up. I was in bed all morning with the flu, and the cat, who was supposed to be my nurse, just bit me.

Still suffering

Still down with the flu but thank you all so much for keeping the blog lively with your comments.

I asked God, who has been commenting in the blog this week, to heal me from the flu so I could become a believer. The minute I asked him, he stopped commenting. How cruel is that?

Getting on the wrong side of Google Maps

Give up meat to save the planet

This is on the front page in the Times today. What do you think? I can't imagine giving up meat. I have cut way back on what I eat but I don't know how life would be the same if I couldn't have chicken fajitas. I make them so well too -- adding lime juice and coriander and sizzling the chicken in the skillet just right...

"People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

Had the flu shot last week and guess what?

I had the flu shot last week and now this week I have the flu. Is that irony or what? Why did I bother?

So sorry not to be more active in here this week -- I am reading and loving your comments though.

Except I notice that God is now commenting also. If he wouldn't mind zapping me to take my illness away, that would be very nice -- then maybe I'll convert.

Fed to the lions on the Internet

Aussie coppers are worried about a trend among online scammers to target lonely Christians.

Apparently scammers trawl Christian websites in search of lonely hearts and generous souls to target for romance fraud, with an insidious new religious flavour that appeals to values of faith. Queensland police Fraud Squad chief Detective Inspector Brian Hay said that the scammers were going into Christian chat rooms and a lot of the time when they ask for money and they always invent a religious spin to the scam story.

In just the first six months of this year more than $4.5 million has been sent by Australians to Nigeria. Police revealed two out of three victims of romance fraud are women, who scammers target on social networking pages, dating sites and Christian chat rooms.

Christians are seen as a soft touch because they respond to guilt trips better, coppers think.

from Slashdot.com

Atheist bus signs go to NYC

We had a lot of fun (well, I did anyway) arguing about the atheist bus campaign in England last winter. "There's probably no god," the signs said, so just get on and enjoy your life.

Alert reader Casey Ann in Natchez, Mississippi, has sent me a news flash that atheist bus signs are heading to New York. Thanks, Casey Ann.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Some New Yorkers may want to reconsider exclaiming "Thank God" when arriving at their destination subway station beginning Monday.

A coalition of atheist groups will place ads in New York subway stations next week.

Or at least that's what a coalition of eight atheist organizations are hoping, having purchased a month-long campaign that will place their posters in a dozen busy subway stations throughout Manhattan.

The advertisements ask the question, written simply over an image of a blue sky with wispy white clouds: "A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?"

On October 26, a dozen bustling New York City subway stations will be adorned with the ads as "part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god", according to a statement from the group, the Big Apple Coalition of Reason.

Barn dance and hog roast

My friend Isabel got married last summer in Italy. She took two months off work to travel the world with her new husband. We were all envious of her adventure. Since we didn't have a wedding to attend, Isabel threw a wedding party on Saturday night. She had a barn dance and hog roast.

Here's Isabel and her husband Rob in front of the band last night. Isabel is Isabel King and her husband is Rob Plant so I think she wasn't sure what sort of name combo she wanted as she could have been Isabel King Plant and he could have been Rob Plant King.


I spotted one of the guys from work going back to the buffet table FOUR times for some more of that delicious hog. I discreetly sent my husband up to the table again to get some more for me too. And at the end of the meal came my friend Reeya's homemade cupcakes. I coudldn't get enough of those babies:

Here's Isabel merrily dancing:

Here's Mel and me, delightfully *not* dancing. I wasn't feeling so hot last night so used that as an excuse to be lazy. (We did do a couple of the early easy dances though.)

What was that all about?

I spent hours last summer rehearsing with the chorus to record part of the soundtrack to a BBC show called Merlin. Hours and hours we worked, and traveling to Angel studios for the recording session took me forever since it's so far away from my home in Reading.

But anyway, we did it, and it was fun. But the other day, I saw Merlin on television and saw/heard what we did in real time. All that work for a minute or so of singing during a joust scene. The show wasn't any good either. Such a disappointment.

Then I thought that this must be what life is. You toil and work hard and it's all over in a flash and you think 'What was that all about?'

Your menopause book is out in full view

My kids still amuse me.

My Daughter
The other day, my daughter Katie brought a delicate matter to my attention. She had some male friends in the house, and one of them saw a book on the menopause in full view. She thought she'd alert me to this so I could hide the book. She figured I'd be mortified.

Well, I bought the book Menopause for Dummies a few years ago when I was wondering if I might be in it, but all was well and I wasn't, so I just forgot about it and left it where it was. But don't you think it's cute that she'd think it would be embarrassing for me and that I'd want to make sure none of her friends saw it?

My Son
My son has decided to go a new diet plan while he body builds. This one gives you one Cheat Day where you can eat anything on the planet, while on the other days of the week you restrict your eating.

I called him last night from the Barn Dance we were at to check on him. He informed me he'd just cycled to the nearest Kentucky Fried Chicken and bought a big bucket of 10 pieces of chicken, four orders of fries and beans, and they threw in a gallon bottle of Pepsi for free.

He was just working his way through it when I called. "You can eat anything you want on a Cheat Day," he informed me. "But I'm starting to feel pretty sick. I'm not sure I can get through all this." (Gee, Mikey, I don't think you're supposed to take the 'all you can eat' part of it quite so literally.)

My kids...I have to admit to feeling terrible last night at the barn dance when I saw a bunch of little kids dancing. Where did the time go? My kids are all grown up now, and I am so sad. My son just informed me that we didn't need to carve a pumpkin for Halloween this year, and also he didn't want caramel apples either. I just got a friend at work to bring a bag of caramels back from her business trip to San Diego so I could make them for the kids and now they don't even want them.

Does anyone have a little kid I could adopt for Halloween and possibly Christmas then I would give them back.

White wine worse for your teeth than red

This is particularly annoying for me because I only drink weak girly white wine. Red wine is too much for me, and now I see that being a girly white wine drinker is bad for my teeth.

White wines do more damage to your teeth than reds, a study has found.

Scientists have found whites such as Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio wear away enamel more quickly than red wines such as Merlot and claret.

Researchers say prolonged contact with white wine erodes the protective layer - making teeth more sensitive to cold, hot and sweet food.

While it is obvious to drinkers that red wines can leave unsightly stains on teeth, the damage caused by white wines is less well known.

Dark days ahead

I was ill yesterday afternoon so left work early to go to bed. How fortuitous was it then that my work was having a team-building exercise of Go Karting all afternoon? Yes, I was SO SORRY to have to miss that.

Have a barn dance/hog roast to go to tonight so have to rest up so I'll be able to attend. It's dark and rainy here today, and the clocks go back tonight so I'll be commuting home in the dark from now on. I really hate that.

AC Grayling wrote about hating the dark today in the Times:

In his chronicle of the Gothic peoples, the 6th-century historian Jordanes tells of a place called Scandza — today’s Scandinavia — where the sun does not shine for 40 days in midwinter, to the grief of the people there. Even then people knew about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which doctors attribute to problems either with the neurotransmitter serotonin or the hormone melatonin, caused by too little exposure to daylight.

For SAD sufferers the time change is bad news, for immediately the approach of winter darkness quickens. Our ancestors devised feasts, with fires and bright lights,to keep the dark at bay. We still celebrate versions of these festivities, from the bonfires and fireworks of Guy Fawkes to Christmas lights and new year partying. The descendants of Jordanes’ Scandza Goths created the festival of the yule log, a giant tree trunk that burnt constantly for 12 days from the winter solstice onwards. The Druids decorated their temples and homes with holly and ivy, and the Romans celebrated the Saturnalia between December 18 and 25. Paradoxically, winter was a time of plenty — the harvest had been stored, the pigs slaughtered — and the austerities of spring, when supplies were used up, were far off.

Both fear of the dark and SAD might be a hangover from our deep evolutionary past, in the form of a hibernating ancestor for which darkness was a hostile terrain. Making light of the dark with fireworks and feast days is a sensible response.

A. C. Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London

What do you call a Scrooge at Halloween?

I just got this message from the local police department (the Thames Valley police). Imagine them printing up signs to tell young people that they aren't participating in sacred Halloween rituals?

The Brits have never really embraced Halloween -- it's something I really miss from America. Every year I try to find something fun for me and the kids to do but it's hard. If only there was the tradition of annual Haunted Houses over here. I love to go to these and get very scared -- even at my advanced age they still scare me.

Here's the notice that the police sent out:

"We currently have a supply of "No Trick or Treat" door leaflets available if you would like some for your neighbourhood watch members please contact Liz Herbert."

Vicar feels like a lemon at funerals

I loved this article in the paper where a vicar complained that he doesn't have anything to do at modern funerals because they often aren't religious. I loved his zippy writing even though he's one of these vicars who doesn't want women or gays in leadership positions in the church.

On a personal note, my kids threaten to play Robbie Williams' hits at my funeral but then I threaten to disinherit them so that changes their minds.

Here's the article:

Father Ed Tomlinson, 35, said hymns and prayers were often replaced by a "poem from Nan" or a "saccharine message from a pop star".

He warned that although secularists may think they have scored a victory over the church, the faithless would now be “popped in the oven with no hope of resurrection”.

“Along with my fellow Christians, I will still have the gorgeous liturgy of the requiem mass to look forward to.

“Whereas the best our secularist friends (and those they dupe) can hope for is a poem from nan combined with a saccharine message from a pop star before being popped in the oven with no hope of resurrection.”

Mr Tomlinson, priest of St Barnabas' Church in Tunbridge Wells, a traditional Anglo Catholic run parish, voiced his thoughts in his personal blog.

“In the last few years it has become painfully obvious that many families I have conducted funerals for have absolutely no desire for any Christian content whatsoever," he said.

“I have then stood at the Crem like a lemon, wondering why on earth I am present at the funeral of somebody led in by the tunes of Tina Turner, summed up in pithy platitudes of sentimental and secular poets and sent into the furnace with ‘I Did it My Way’ blaring out across the speakers!

I hate @so-and-so

I don't mean to offend anyone who does this, but the way people are using Twitter syntax in the Real World is getting annoying to me. At the office, people sent e-mails to each other and write @so-and-so for each thing they want to say. So, for example, if I'm sending an e-mail to some pals and I want to say something to Brenda, I would write: @Brenda -- give me that secret recipe for biscuits.

What's wrong with just writing Brenda? Won't she know that I am referring to her? Why would I need the 'at' (@) sign?

It's especially irritating when there's a long list of things to address to different people in an office email. The email gets completely cluttered with

@Jim
blah blah

@Tim
do this item right now

@Sally
can you action this?

Do these people not know their own names? Does adding the @ sign clarify anything?

Rant over, thanks.

What to do with dead relatives

A sad fallout from the recession:

From CNN: "Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer."

In July, the LA Times reported cremation up 36 percent because of unclaimed bodies there.

The CNN article briefly looks at how devasting this is for the family members who can't afford to deal with a dead relative.

Flash Forward

Have any of you been watching Flash Forward? Here's a description: Loosely based on a science-fiction novel by Robert J. Sawyer, the series began with apocalyptic intimations, cosmological overtones, and some pretty decent explosions, efficiently positing a world in which, on Oct. 6, 2009, a mysterious something abruptly shut off everyone's consciousness for two minutes and change. The immediate consequences of this anomaly are the stuff of a global emergency: crashed planes, drowned swimmers, and (I shudder to presume) overcooked Kobe beef.

My family and I watch this show every week. I decided Joseph Fiennes wasn't right for the part of the main character, an FBI agent who is trying to solve the mystery of what happened. I said to my husband, "He's too slight for the role. It needs someone bigger -- heftier -- like a Gary Cooper type." My husband didn't get what I was saying, but now I've read a TV critic who said the exact same thing. I have sent my husband an email telling him this, and pointing out that I could be a highly paid television critic, so acute is my perception.

Here's what I read:

It was gratuitously cruel of FlashForward to saddle Mark with the further misfortune of being played by Joseph Fiennes.

Called upon to think about Joseph Fiennes, some people may reflect on his brother Ralph, while others might recall Joseph's performance in the title role in Shakespeare in Love. Most people do not think of Joseph Fiennes as an action star, a circumstance that likely owes to the obvious fact that he isn't one.

The man is too light and slight to accomplish the heavy-duty Jack Bauer-type glowering the part asks of him in any convincing fashion. The most natural response to seeing Mark sprint across the screen in slow motion is to feel embarrassment on behalf of the actor.

British people: would you have voted for Chamberlain twice?

One of my very conservative Facebook friends asked me this question today:

Ms. Scanlon: Ask your England neighbors whether they would have voted for Neville Chamberlain twice? Well, Barack Obama is ours, and it does not look good. . . . . . . .

I'm not sure what he means by this but he hates Obama with a passion, and it looks like he thinks he won't be re-elected.

So anybody out there who is a British voter -- would you have voted for Chamberlain twice? I'll put the results up in Facebook later.

Postscript from Tim Trent

I had a great comment from Tim Trent on this issue so will put it here in the post for posterity. Thanks Tim.

Oh dear. What a poor deluded person your friend is. Chamberlain is completely outside the experience of almost everyone reading your blog, so a "safe" example to choose.

Maybe we should set this into perspective. In the UK we are used to black people getting an education and being able to be good leaders. We are, probably, racist to a degree, but we subscribe very well to the concept that all races, all ethnicities, are competent, capable and whole human beings. our racism tends to be personal, not supremacist.

I, for example, am not at all keen on Nigerians because one broke my nose when he and I were eight years old. That's illogical and also reasonable. But it is not irresponsible. US racism against black folk is shown by the namby pamby terminology "African American", which certainly annoys the bejasus out of my black US friends.

And we also need to look at the politics:

In the UK we have the Conservatives, Labour, and The Liberal Social Club, who may well come to power soon. Mapping this onto the US, The Conservatives are broadly equivalent to the US Democrats. So is the labour Party. And yes, so is the Liberals (I can't remember their real name today, sorry).

What maps onto the Republicans?

Well, not the BNP, though it's tempting to suggest it. The republicans are to the right of Atilla the Hun, after all. I think we have no-one right wing enough to map onto the US Republicans. UKIP is close. They are the "Little Englanders" among us.

The USA did not need shrub in the same way that the UK did not need the Poodle Blair. The UK did not need the policies of Thatcher, but needed the leadership of Thatcher - an awkward paradox in so many ways.

But the USA needs Obama. He was awarded the Nobel Peace prize simply "because he is not Bush", and the world knows that the USA needs Obama. This is because the USA is the most powerful and the most dangerous nation in the world; not the free world, the entire world. And only folk like Obama stand the chance of taming its worst excesses and bring it back to a position where it is respected, not feared.

Chamberlain? I have no idea. But so far I'd vote for Obama twice. The USA is so important globally that I want a vote there anyway!

Converts may choke on raw meat of Catholicism

I am still amazed by the Catholic church changing its rules to nab a bunch of Anglicans who don't like women or gay priests. I was wondering last night how on earth these people could suddenly believe that the Pope is infallible or that the communion wine *actually* becomes the blood of Jesus after a lifetime of thinking it is not so.

I read an interesting column by Libby Purves in the Times today about this. I'm going to post it since American readers won't get to read it otherwise.

The welcoming of Anglican clergy into the Catholic Church highlights the differences, and difficulties, of approach Attack is the best form of defence. On the eve of another damning report on clerical abuse and cover-up in Ireland, that seems to be Pope Benedict’s tactic. His sudden invitation to Anglican defectors will certainly take the spotlight off a continuing child abuse scandal fed, for decades, by the masculine and intimidating structures of authority in the Catholic hierarchy.

Words like “poaching” may seem harsh, but there is more than a whiff of power politics in this move. A “rush to Rome” would resolve Catholicism’s shortage of priests, win back some ancient church buildings annexed at the Reformation, and reduce Anglicanism to an anxious, liberal rump. Result! It is not, after all, so long since Catholics prayed weekly for “the conversion of England”.

But wavering clergy should beware. Apart from anything else, onlookers might accuse them of two opposing faults: an illiberal lack of elasticity over human beings — notably women and gays — yet a woefully pliable attitude to belief. Growing up as a Catholic in Protestant Britain, we were taught the differences between us.

“We” believed in Papal infallibility; “they” didn’t, but reckoned the Queen was head of the Church. We were taught the weird doctrine of transubstantiation — the miraculous change of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood. They regarded Communion as symbolic. However, they could believe in transubstantiation if they wanted, just as they could opt to join us in crediting Mary’s sinless Immaculate Conception and Assumption. To the beady schoolgirl eye, Anglicanism seemed free and easy after the corset of Catholic dogma; they could even choose high or low church, be evangelically dour or all a-tinkle with bells. Catholicism came in just one flavour. And their priests could have family lives, ours couldn’t; Anglican couples could use contraception.

We marched to different drums. So when the General Synod accepted women priests and many Anglicans crossed the floor, we cradle Catholics (however renegade) were baffled: did Papal authority, transubstantiation, tough teachings on divorce and the contraceptive ban not bother them? Their priests breezed across the divide, complete with wives and children — a concession insulting to Catholic clergy who had, with difficulty, accepted celibacy and who were told that this would not change for them.

Under the new dispensation, the only proviso is that married priests can’t be Catholic bishops. Promotion, I suppose, must wait for widowerhood.

But convert clergy may not find life as good as they had hoped, despite being freed from the terror of meeting woman priests and having to bless civil partners rather than excoriate them, Vatican-style, as “intrinsically disordered”. Despite the modified prayer book they will find their style and even pastoral advice gravely restricted; they may flinch at the uncompromising voice of the Vatican after the gentle bleating of Cantuars.

Anglicanism was founded on uneasy compromise, and this has, over centuries, made it kindly and even humble: a mixed salad of a faith. Catholicism is older, darker, strong raw meat. It may choke them.

the Happy Atheist

Q: What makes the best 'case for God' to a skeptic or non-believer, an open-minded seeker, and to a person of faith and Why?

1) The message of scripture?
2) The scientific evidence for an Intelligent Designer?
3) The 'words' that God has 'spoken' - Torah, Jesus, the Qur'an?
4) A compassionate lifestyle?
5) Personal, subjective experience?

-- Karen Armstrong

Susan Jacoby replies (in the Washington Post):

There is no "scientific evidence" of the existence of an intelligent designer. And the fact that there are many Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, and atheists whose lives are models of concern for their fellow humans--and many whose lives are sinkholes of selfishness--suggests that religious belief, or the lack of it, has little to do with our daily decisions on behalf of good, evil, or apathy.

One might as well try to cut one's way through fog with a sword as attempt to engage Karen Armstrong's "case for God" with rational discourse. In the end, her arguments for the divine always boils down to "it's a mystery." She tells atheists that they are wasting their time by "magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life." Only if atheists "translate these doctrines into ritual or ethical action" will they discover "the truth or falsehood of religion."

In other words, even if religion makes no sense to you, just go ahead and act as if you were religious and you'll see what I mean. Or: try it, you'll like it. I could say the same thing about atheism, and my statement would be as meaningless as Armstrong's dictum. What is it about this "religious way of life," anyway, that necessarily differs from the ethical precepts of a nonreligious person?

What there is to learn from the golden rule is no mystery, and one need not believe in any any transcendent power to understand that doing unto others as you would have them do unto you it is a better way of living than "do unto others before they do unto you."

Married priests are fine

That the Catholic Church will bend a little to welcome disaffected Anglicans into the church has been front-page news in England. It's amazing -- what does it mean in practice? That priests can be married now?

Andrew Sullivan says:

The acceptance of non-celibate former Anglican priests in the Catholic church is not new. The priest in the parish where I grew up has a wife. But this streamlining of the process takes it to a new, smoother level. And what it proves is that the Vatican does not believe - who could? - that a married priest cannot serve his flock as well as a celibate one. So the bar on married priests is revealed as a pragmatic one (they were once ubiquitous in the church). Now recall that the celibacy requirement has clearly contributed to the decline of the church in the US and the West and has led indirectly to the sexual abuse problems of screwed up celibates. Why would the Vatican make an exception for Anglicans but not for, you know, Catholics?

Have the decency to be vague

Some of these below are too sugary but I did like this one:

If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

1 * Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.


2 * Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.


3 * Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.


4 * Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.


5 * If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.


6 * If you lend someone £20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.


7 * It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.


8 * Never buy a car you can't push.


9 * Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on..


10 * Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.


11 * Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.


12 * The second mouse gets the cheese.


13 * When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.


14 * Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.


15 * You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.


16 * Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.


Be yourself.... Everyone else is already taken

You Stink: Odorprints Revealed

This is interesting -- from LiveScience.com:

Each person has a signature body odor — the chemical counterpart to fingerprints — and scientists are tracking down those odiferous arches, loops, and whorls in the "human odorprint" for purposes ranging from disease diagnosis to crime prevention, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News.

Police long have used trained dogs to sniff out these uniquely personal scents in pursuing criminals, the article points out. Scientists now are trying to decipher the chemistry of human odor to develop technology that can detect and classify smells.

They have identified odors in human breath and skin associated with diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. Now researchers are trying to detect the "smell of deception," or chemical changes that occur with heightened stress that may help screen and identify, for example, terrorists planning to blow up an airplane and criminals intending to rob a bank.

It's not easy. Each person's odorprint is a complex mixture impacted by multiple environmental factors, including diet and overpowering cosmetics. However, a study last year found that your underlying odorprint doesn't go away even if you change your diet, just as gloves might mask but not destroy your fingerprints.

Who overheard the stoopidest conversation?

My daughter has been a bit down-in-the-mouth lately so I took her to the spa today. We floated blissfully in the Dead Sea flotation tank as I had booked the earliest appointment in the day so we were all by ourselves. We were so relaxed afterwards that we were read magazines and vegged out. By the time we went to the sauna and steam room, the spa was full of people talking loudly to each other.

Katie and I compared notes at intervals on what we'd overheard. I thought I had won the competition for hearing the most inane conversation when I heard a woman ask her friend how the weather was on her vacation. The friend answered, "On Monday morning it was sunny but by the afternoon it was overcast. But we still went to the pool. On Tuesday, it was still a bit cloudy...." and on she went for each day of her holiday. I can imagine her friend was sorry she asked but then she continued: "I got bitten by insects, here...here...here..(showing her friend)...and my husband was bitten too."

Argh. I left the room after that. I went into the sauna to hear ski resorts being discussed. Boring. In the steam room, two friends were discussing teachers at their kids' schools in minute detail. Of course the teachers were complete dullards who didn't appreciate the brilliance of their children.

Katie and I went to sit by the pool with some hot chocolate. The man next to us started reading a right-wing columnist's article to his wife and got madder and madder as he read. That amused me. It took him 30 minutes to read the actual article too. I noticed how long he took, never turning the page. You and I could have read it in 5 minutes. I wondered what kind of job he has if he's that slow.

Finally we had to go home. In the changing room, women began to fuss with their hair, setting up conditioners, heat gels and hair straighteners on the cabinet. Well, I had to at least blast my hair with a blow dryer but where was I going to go when they had little makeshift salons set up?

"You certainly buy everything they try to sell you at the hairdressers," a woman observed as her friend got out bottles and bottles of crap. But there she was with tons of junk too. Really, they can't just drive home and do their elaborate hairstyling there?

Katie heard the friend say, "I had to bring this conditioner with me as I use it at home."

I think Katie might have won the competition for the stoopidest thing overheard today.

Trying to find which store sells this mirror

Trying to find which store sells this mirror....

Atheists in Iraq

I thought this article was interesting, and that you might like to read it:

"Although their number remains insignificant and most of them hid their identity, the fact that some people are leaving Islam and becoming atheists is a troubling news in conservative Iraq.

“I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when my son told me that his colleague at college told him that his father had become an atheist,” Sheik Abdul-Rassoul al Rabia’a, a religion teacher at Baghdad University, told IslamOnline.net.

Not only did the father abandon his Muslim faith, he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.

“I suggested to my son bringing his friend home and talked with him that despite his father’s thinking, he should continue to follow his Muslim heart and never deny his God,” al-Rabia’a said.

Linking that to the non-stop violence plaguing the country since the 2003 US invasion, some Iraqis are becoming atheists.

Most of them have had personal incidents involving either themselves or close relatives.

“Iraq is a land without God or any other kind of major protective superior form,” claims one atheist who declined to be named fearing reprisal."

...
Continue reading
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1254573498385&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout

Celebrating Lisa's birthday

I am just about to go to dreamland, thinking about the lovely evening I had tonight when our book club celebrated member Lisa's birthday. Here Lisa is making a wish and blowing out the candles on the cake Martina made for her:


My friend Manju cooked up a Caribbean feast. Her family is from Trinidad so the dishes she made were very exotic to me. Look at all the food she made. And every bite was so good.

We had such a fun night. I do love my book club. We didn't even mention the two books we were supposed to have read for the meeting. I think we should just give up and become a social club sometimes....

I need to find some of the Caribbean recipes Manju made and post for you soon. But it's late, and I ate too much so am signing off for tonight.

The things I see in the woods

I take walks in the woods near the office during lunchtime, and I see such interesting things. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a trio of old-fashioned Italian ladies searching for mushrooms under trees.

Today, there were soldiers in combat uniforms carrying M16s in the woods. I waved timidly, and they waved back.


I wish they would come out to my area of Reading and walk around like that. That would instantly lower the crime rate.

On another subject, I had a flu shot this morning. I used this as an excuse not to go to the gym at lunch but just walk in the woods. My arm is sore now. Wonder if I can use that an excuse to not work too hard this afternoon?

The proper recipe for Butternut Squash Curry

I got an email saying I should put specific ingredients up when I talk about a recipe instead of 'throw this in' or 'blob in some milk' -- but I didn't have the recipe with me when I did the post yesterday about butternut squash curry. I found it today so am putting it below.

I have to go have a flu shot in a few minutes. Hope it doesn't hurt too much. At least that'll wake me up, I guess. (Monday mornings are hard.)

Butternut Squash Curry

1 onion, chopped
1-2 teaspoon canola oil
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon coriander
1 teaspoon cinnamon
10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and drained
2 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cubed
curry powder, salt and pepper for sprinkling over squash
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can light coconut milk
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped for garnish
basmati rice or brown rice, for serving

Place cubed butternut squash on a foil lined baking sheet, sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.

Sprinkle generously with curry powder, salt and pepper, and roast at 350 for 35-45 minutes, or until tender. You still want them to hold their shape when added to the curry, and not be mush :>. While squash cooks, heat 1-2 tsp of canola oil over medium heat.

Add onions and a little bit of salt, and sauté 2-3 minutes, or until they begin to soften.

Next, add the curry powder, cumin, corriander and cinnamon, and stir to coat the onions evenly with spices.

Add tomatoes with their juices, and the chickpeas, stir to combine.

Next, add the spinach, stirring to coat with cooking liquid.

When all the spinach is added to the pan, cover and simmer until just wilted, about 3 minutes.

Add coconut milk and gently stir to combine.

Finally, add the roasted butternut squash to the liquid, and stir to coat.

Top with fresh chopped cilantro (optional) and serve over basmati rice (I like brown basmati).

The Private Torment of Mrs Tolstoy

Doris Lessing had an interesting article in the Times last weekend about Tolstoy's wife and how hard her life with him was. Here's an excerpt:

It makes me laugh to read my diary. What a lot of contradictions — as though I were the unhappiest of women! But who could be happier? Could any marriage be more happy and harmonious than ours? When I am alone in my room I sometimes laugh for joy and cross myself and pray to God for many, many more years of happiness. I always write my diary when we quarrel ...”

Sofia Tolstoy wrote the above in 1868, after six years of marriage. Many of her later diary entries also seem to have been written after quarrels.

This collection of Sofia’s diary entries is witness not only to her thoughts, but also to public events and to Lev Tolstoy’s work — in the period covered by the collection he wrote War and Peace, Anna Karenina and many other books. At the same time we see the hard work of Sofia: she is an involved mother, though there are nursemaids and all kinds of help. She copies, and copies again, her husband’s work.

“... Why am I not happy? Is it my fault? I know all the reasons for my spiritual suffering: firstly it grieves me that my children are not as happy as I would wish. And then I am actually very lonely. My husband is not my friend: he has been my passionate lover at times, especially as he grows older, but all my life I have felt lonely with him. He doesn’t go for walks with me, he prefers to ponder in solitude over his writing. He has never taken any interest in my children, for he finds this difficult and dull.”

Sofia longs for new landscapes, intellectual development, art, contact with people: “To each his fate. Mine was to be the auxiliary to my husband . . .”

She hasn't had a kitchen for months

Martina, a book club friend and Mel's Thursday-night bridge partner, came over for dinner last night. We're going to a birthday dinner on Monday night, and Martina wanted to bake some cakes. (Martina has the Austrian baking gene -- her Christmas cookies are eagerly awaited each December.) Her house renovations have been going on for months, and she doesn't have an oven to bake in.

Here's Martina discussing bridge strategy with Mel while her cakes cool behind her.


I tried out a new recipe on Martina, Butternut Squash Curry. My friend Derry told me about it.



You cut open a couple of butternut squashes and roast them in the oven -- put salt, pepper and curry powder on them first. While that's cooking, chop an onion, fry it a little in oil then throw in Indian spices -- garam masala, cumin, curry powder, cinnamon -- whatever you have that's got an Indian edge to it. Coat the onions in that. Then put in a can of chopped tomatoes and chickpeas (garbanzo beans to Americans). Mix that all up. Add some frozen spinach (thawed first, of course).

Then add the squash, chopped into chunks. I added more spices at this point. Then add a can of coconut milk and cook some more. Umm, is this delicious.

Spoon over some basmatic rice and add fresh coriander leaves on top.

Just typing this up has made me want to heat up the leftovers for lunch, so see you later.

Britain -- the worst place in Europe?

England is a bad place to live? Haven't I been saying that for years??

"Britain is the worst place in Europe to live despite offering the biggest salaries, a study reveals today.

High incomes in the UK are cancelled out by long working hours, poor annual leave, rising food and fuel bills and a lack of sunshine.

Researchers weighed up official data for ten countries, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Poland.

It found Britons enjoy the highest after-tax household income of £35,730-a-year, more than £10,000 above the European average.

But most of it goes on keeping a 'roof over our heads, food on the table and our homes warm', according to the uswitch.com European Quality of Life Index.

After comparing 17 quality of life measures, the study ranked Britain at the bottom with Ireland second from last. The best quality of life can be found in France and Spain.

Britons can expect to work three years longer - retiring at 62 years and 6 months - than the French, and die two years younger at 78.9.

Workers here get the least annual leave in Europe, with 28 days a year, compared with 41 in Spain. We also have to contend with a higher cost of living, paying more for fuel, food and transport."

We win the Quiz Night

Our table won the Quiz Night last night at Lord Wandsworth school in Hampshire -- everyone at our table has kids there, except for us.

Here's our trophy. I've already had a note on Facebook pointing out that the actual trophy is small but I made it look huge in this pic. But perception is everything....


As usual, my main contribution to the quiz consisted of making sure I drank most of the wine on the table. I did get a question or two right but then I messed up by insisting a painting was by Degas when it was by Renoir (they just showed a bit of a painting so hard to tell who did the whole thing).

We were at the bottom for part of the night so when we emerged triumphant, we were all thrilled. I made everyone do a victory dance afterwards. Here's our winning table:

Drinking gives you the same benefits as yoga

Savasana
Position of total relaxation.


Balasana
Position that brings the sensation of peace and calm.


Setu Bandha Sarvangasana
This position calms the brain and heals tired legs.

What New York Times is saying about the UK

From an editorial in the New York Times today:

"But Britain has hit its reality moment. The Brits are ahead of us when it comes to public indebtedness and national irresponsibility. Spending has been out of control for longer and in a more sustained way.

But in that country, the climate of opinion has turned. There, voters are ready for a politician willing to face reality. And George Osborne, who would become the chancellor of the Exchequer in the likely event that his Conservative Party wins the next election, has aggressively seized the moment."

The Tories ready to face reality? I don't know about that.

Aldershot Autumn Tree

I went swimming at the Aldershot Military Garrison during lunch. They open the pool up to civilians sometimes to make extra cash. I usually go with a bunch of guys from work but they were all doing something else so I went by myself.

On the way back, I stopped at a light and noticed this beautiful orange-leaved tree. The sun was shining, Dvorak was playing on the radio, and everything seemed fine in the world.

But then I made a wrong turn and got lost. I have some sort of genetic deficiency that I can't find my way from A to B without getting lost. Really, I have to debate which way to turn out of my house most mornings because I can't remember.

Don't ever ask me for directions! I'll give you an answer just so I can appear knowledgable but if you follow them, you will be lost forever.

Without God

You know how friends assume you think just like they do? It's natural -- I make this mistake a lot. Somehow the world is a cozier place if everyone thinks just like you do -- but it just doesn't happen.

I have a friend who can't imagine that I don't hold views similar to hers so she sends me things like this (below). I did tell her one time that I was not Republican and didn't believe in God but I think she must have thought I was kidding. I got this from her today:

Bad events are more powerful than good ones

I was looking up a citation for a commenter on this blog who wanted more information about one of my posts. While researching the question, I found another interesting study to post:

The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes.

Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and salience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found.
Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Halloween Book Burning

I'm going to hate to miss this event in North Carolina!


Burning Perversions of God's Word

Oct. 31, 2009
7pm - Until

Great Preaching and Singing

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, etc.
These are perversions of God's Word, the King James Bible. We will also be burning Satan's music such as country , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham Rick Warren Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.

We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.

I'm a cat, and I can sleep where I want

I liked these pics illustrating "I'm a cat, and I can sleep where I want." Then a woman who adopted one of our foster cats sent me this one, which proves the adage:


Here are the original pics I was sent:

Why Americans are getting chubbier

In 1977, Americans reported eating about 186 calories outside of mealtimes. By 1994, that had rocketed to 346 calories. It’s likely even higher now. That difference alone is enough to explain the changes in our national waistline. And it won’t go away if we begin cooking dinners but still are purchasing 20-ounce bottles of Coke at the office.

from Andrew Sullivan's website

Why do Brits drive on the wrong side of the road?

I've just had a question from a reader. Can any of you native Brits help out? I have no idea why you drive the way you do. Thanks.

"Elizabeth, my daughter wants to know...why do Brits drive on the other side of the road? Seriously, what started it?

Notice, I didn't say "wrong" side of the road. I figure the rest of us drive on the "right" side and Brits drive on the "correct" side. How's that for being PC?!"

I am not receivin' that!

I have the nicest friends, always trying to help me out with advice and support. I was whining to a friend the other week about a mean note my aunt sent me, and she said:

"Negative comments may be your personal "Achiles heel." They are certainly mine. Acknowledge that and and refuse to accept negative statements toward you. A few years ago, I overheard a beautiful (big) african american woman given a compliment.

Her response was "GIRL, I AM RECEIVIN' THAT! You do the same thing with people who give you compliments and encouragement. On the other side of that coin, when you perceive comments to be negative or snide, just say, "(Whoever/Asshole) I am NOT receivin' that!"

Great advice, isn't it? The next time someone says something cruel to me, I am going to say:

I AM NOT RECEIVIN' THAT!

Fragments of conversations

I always hear juicy bits of conversation when I'm out walking at lunchtime. Today I passed by two guys with local accents (English but not at all posh or educated). One was saying:

"So I got the hotel room. It was Premier Inn, and I paid for it myself. And I paid for the parking then..."

I wonder what happened next? The Premier Inn is a cheap-ass British hotel chain so if he's proud of paying for the room himself he must not have much money and also I think a woman must be involved. You don't hear many people saying they 'paid for the room' for themselves only.

His attitude wasn't very happy so what transpired next must not have been pleasant.

Trying to send a thank you note

I was writing a quick thank you note to the friends who gave us a lovely day in Cardiff on Sunday when I got befuddled by their address. I can't imagine how any letter is going to get to this strange address. Nowhere does it say Cardiff or Wales even -- we'll see if the postman knows where to deliver it. Here is the address -- can you make head or tail of it?

Pentwyn
Ystradowen
COWBRIDGE
S. Glam.

Gratuitious recipe - black beans and lime rice

A college friend sent me this recipe for black beans and lime rice. I want to make it soon so am posting it so I'll have easy access to the recipe. Blogs make great places for storing recipes and photos or other information that you need later. I dunno, maybe one of you would like to try this recipe so this post would be more like a public service than me simply using it as an online recipe box.

Lime Rice

3/4 cup water
1/2 cup rice
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
6 sprigs cilantro (CORIANDER I Know)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tbs olive oil

Bring water, rice, lime juice, cilantro, and salt to a boil. Reduce heat to low, then cover and cook 20 minutes. Remove cilantro before serving. Serves 2. (I added the oil and upped the lime juice and left the cilantro in when I ate it)

Cuban Black Beans

1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
6 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
dash of cumin (KG - I used more. about a tablespoon)
4-5 bay leaves
3 15oz cans black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar


Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil, and then simmer until it thickens and flavors blend (about 30 minutes). Season with salt and pepper, remove bay leaves, and serve. Excellent over rice. Serves 6.
--------------------

Stressful childhood takes years off of life

Stressful childhood experiences, such as verbal and physical abuse, can take years off an individual's life, a new study finds.

In a survey of more than 17,000 adults, researchers found that individuals who had been exposed to six or more so-called adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) before the age of 18 were twice as likely to die prematurely as kids who hadn't suffered those experiences.

The results, which will be published in the November issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, come on the heels of a recent study linking childhood spanking with lower IQs.

"Our hope is that, as a result of this research, child maltreatment and exposure to childhood traumatic stress in its various forms will be more widely recognized as a public health problem," said study researcher David Brown, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "It is important to understand that consequences to childhood trauma can extend over an individual's life."

Croeso Cynnes Cymreig

We drove to Wales yesterday to see our friends Ann Ager and Ian Frayling, and see Bryn Terfel sing in the Verdi Requiem. The minute you cross the bridge into Wales, Welsh is everywhere, on signs, road markings and any other driver information.

Croeson Cynnes Cymreig, signs say. That means a 'warm Welsh welcome.' And they are very nice there. When we arrived at our friends house in drizzling rain, they had a hot pot of tea and muffins ready for us in minutes.

Ann is a research scientist, and Ian is a consultant pathologist so they have very busy schedules. That's why we had to have a meeting to plan our next social events (Cologne for the Christmas markets and Rigoletto at the Welsh National Opera next spring).

Here is Mel with his Blackberry, there's my daily planner open, and Ian and Ann each with a laptop, trying to find dates that we can do things on. (Ann was getting the opera details on hers, and Ian was trying to find hotels in Cologne.)



After the planning was over, we settled down to a nice 'Welsh Bellini.' Ann made it with Prosecco and Campari.

Then we went into Cardiff for a late lunch and to see Bryn Terfel in the Requiem.

I had a starter of salt beef hash on a bed of lentils -- it was very tasty. They compressed beef and potatoes into a little circular shape and put on lentils. Then I had pork loin with cracklings over red cabbage with a sauce of Granny Smith apples.

We ordered four desserts and ate parts of each other's so we didn't miss anything. The oddest dessert was a rhubarb cheese cake. I guess it's an acquired taste.

After dinner we waddled over to the theatre walking past Cardiff Bay.

The Requiem was beautiful as you would expect with Bryn Terfel being in it.

After a lovely day, we got in the car and drove back to the bowels of Reading.

A Great Week for Women in Science

Just four years ago, Larry Summers—then the president of Harvard—suggested that women were innately inferior to men at science. Three Nobel prizes for women scientists this week should be a nail in Summers’ theory’s coffin. “In the late 1960s, there were essentially no women on the science faculties of places like Harvard, Cal Tech and MIT (where I now work as a professor of molecular biology),” Nancy Hopkins, a molecular biologist at MIT, writes.

“Things began to change dramatically in the early 1970s, thanks to affirmative action measures taken under Richard Nixon. Those included the “Shultz regs” (George Shultz was Nixon's Secretary of Labor), which required universities to hire women onto their faculties or risk losing their federal funding. The Nobel Prizes in medicine this week are the end result of those laws.”

Eliz again: I was visiting my friend Ann in Wales this weekend. She's a research scientist. She says she's usually the only woman speaking or presenting papers at conferences, and when they go out to dinner later, it'll just be a big table of men and her. She hopes this will improve in the next generation.

Engage!

Is this not the cutest invite you've ever seen? (Well, one of them anyway.) This is what my god-daughter is sending out this week:

I'm going to her wedding next March, and I can barely wait.

Smoking is good bonding

Michael Skapinker, a non-smoker, touts a benefit of smoking at the office:

"Companies spend money on activities such as Outward Bound adventures and cookery classes, hoping to encourage bonding between different departments. Smokers already cross those boundaries. Look at any group congregating for a cigarette: you will see senior executives and security guards, marketing and IT support. Does smoking produce business benefits? “There’s no doubt in my mind that it inspires cross departmental collaboration,” one FT commercial manager (and smoker) told me. “You get to know people who you otherwise wouldn’t, and get a feel for what they do. If you’ve half a spark of creativity about you you’ll doubtless stumble across an idea you hadn’t thought of before. It also allows for the ‘off the record’ conversations between departments that grease the wheels of business. I’d be pretty lost without them."

Eliz again: I don't really agree with this. When I look outside at the smoking areas at our office, most of the people I see are the cleaning staff.

No Second Troy

We are still going on National Poetry Day over on my Facebook page. People keep sending in links to great poetry, and I'm enjoying reading them. Here's a beautiful one by Yeats:

WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Verdi Requiem

It's been so hectic at work this week -- thank goodness it's Friday. We are going to Cardiff this weekend to visit friends and see Bryn Terfel sing in the Verdi Requiem.

I'll have to get all my domestic chores done quickly tomorrow before we leave but I'm going into Reading early to get a pair of shoes (my daughter stole the black ones I wear to work), get my eyebrows done if there's time and meet a friend for a quick coffee.

Once I get the mundane finished (laundry, cleaning cat litter, etc.), I can enjoy the sublime (extract of Verdi Requiem below):

Lord Byron on religion

Byron wrote this to his friend and clergyman Francis Hodgson:

"God would have made His will known without books, considering how very few could read them when Jesus of Nazareth lived, had it been His pleasure to ratify any peculiar mode of worship. As to your immortality, if people are to live, why die? And our carcases, which are to rise again, are they worth raising? I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better pair of legs that I have moved on these two-and twenty years, or I shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into Paradise."

National Poetry Day in England

It's National Poetry Day in England, and some people think this is the best poem ever written, by Thomas Gray.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Eliz: that's just part of it above. Other friends of mine have strong opinions on poetry. Here's my friend Martin from Facebook:

One? Get lost. Depends on mood. Here’s some. Sorry for the length.

England, oh my England. And indeed Cambridge, my alma mater ; punting along the Cam to Grantchester. Shame Jeffrey Archer spoilt it by living there. Scum.

http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blbrookeoldvicarage.htm

Of course, that Edwardian idyll, if it ever existed – and it certainly didn’t for the lower classess, ended in this, brought to the surface of my mind by visiting the IWM (N) in Manchester recently:

http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/280.html
http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html
This is probably my ‘favourite’:
http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

Not a ‘great’ poem, the next one, but hey, it’s about football, and Lowry’s great = picture, and it’s about the times when Northern industry was viable. (Another recent Manc-visiting effect on my recollections).

http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.thelowry.com/GalleryInformation/poem2.html

That all started to go very wrong in the mid 80s. I quoted this one recently on FB. It’s powerful, and perfectly evocative of that era. And the football ‘terrace trouble’ times, of which I saw plenty. It also contains obscenities aplenty, so don’t click on it if you’re easily offended:

http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;plagiarist.com/poetry/5618/

I like nonsense, of course:
http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html

The bleak cynic in me has to put this in:
http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar2.htm

But to finish, clichéd by repetition, but still a thing of lasting beauty, because I’m a softie really, and still, more than ever, believe in love.
http://www.facebook.com/l/74234;www.artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha3.htm"

Anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire

It was on this day in 1871 that fires broke out in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the Great Chicago Fire began. It had been a dry summer and early fall in the upper Midwest. October was warm, but a cold front coming in from the west brought a strong wind.

The town of Peshtigo, in Wisconsin, and the towns of Holland, Manistee, and Port Huron, in Michigan, were burnt to the ground. Somewhere between 1,200 and 2,500 people died in Peshtigo alone, making it the deadliest fire in American history. For a week afterward, large sections of forest burned in Wisconsin and Michigan. To this day, no one is sure what caused the fire, and besides conditions being right for a fire, it is a total coincidence that the Chicago Fire happened on the same day.

In Chicago, they know where it started — eyewitnesses saw a fire in the barn of a couple named Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. But still no one is sure exactly what started the fire. In a newspaper article, the fire got blamed on the family cow, who supposedly knocked over an oil lamp, which set straw on fire. But 40 years later, a police reporter admitted that he had made up the story about the cow. Either way, the fire raged from the night of October 8, which was a Sunday, until Tuesday morning, when it began to rain. By that time, 300 people had died, and 90,000 of Chicago's 500,000 citizens were homeless.

Miracles can happen if faith strong enough?

I liked this letter to the editor in the Times:

"A little superstition is as unsupportable as claims of supernatural healing...Surely there is empirical evidence for supernatural claims or there is not. Norman Price hit the mark when he stated, 'If people's faith is strong enough, miracles can happen.'

Interpreted, this would suggest that if people are irrational enough then irrational events can be experienced."

Eliz again: I've had friends tell me that the Holy Ghost entered them at such-and-such a point in their lives, and there's no way I can deny that happened to them so this seems to me a good explanation.

Mushrooming in the woods

I went for a quick walk in the woods near Nokia during my lunch break. It's very autumnal here now -- the rains have started, leaves are falling -- it's quite damp outside.

I was surprised to see a trio of Italian ladies with old-fashioned baskets searching for mushrooms around tree trunks. You normally only see men from work running out there, so I was delighted to see something completely different.

On my way back to the office, I caught up with them and asked them about the contents of their baskets. They had a huge mushroom that looked like a giant sponge -- so big they had to split it up between their baskets. "You can only find these for a short time in the woods," they said then proceeded to tell me how they would be cooking it later.

They were so charming -- what a delightful experience for me and such a break from my usual totally corporate day.

From the BBC website:

Few activities bring out the latent hunter-gatherer more than foraging for wild mushrooms. After the autumn rains and evening chills, dozens of types of wild fungus can be found pushing their way through the leaf-strewn forest floors. In hot pursuit are certain to be fungi-philes and hopeful gourmets, carrying woven baskets and great expectations of a bountiful harvest.

Although many Britons still consider foraging for mushrooms an oddly Continental pursuit, a growing number seem to be embracing the idea of fungi foraging.



If you feel like mushrooming today, go get some then try this recipe:

150g/5oz fresh shiitake mushrooms
150g/5oz fresh oyster mushrooms
100g/4oz chanterelles
6tbsp olive oil
1 small garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
salt
freshly ground black pepper
juice of 1 lemon
300g/11oz small, dried fusilli
150g/5oz smoked ham, cut into small strips
3 tbsp double cream (if you eat the dish warm)
2 tbsp truffle oil and/or truffle

Method
1. Clean the shiitake, oyster and chanterelle mushrooms and cut away the tough part of the stalk of the shiitake mushrooms. Cut the oyster and shiitake mushrooms into fine strips or use them whole if they are small.
2. Heat 4 tbsp of the oil and fry the oyster and shiitake mushrooms. Add the chanterelles after a few minutes and continue to fry for another few minutes. Add the garlic, parsley, salt and pepper. Fry for another few minutes then add lemon juice. Mix well and set aside.
3. Cook the pasta for 8-9 minutes or until slightly softer than al dente. Drain and mix in a bowl with the ham and the mushroom mixture. Add the cream if you are eating the dish warm. Sprinkle with the truffle oil before serving. Slices of truffle added to this dish make it very, very special.

Tea party etiquette question

I went to a tea party with some women from work yesterday. We went to a nice hotel in the country. We thought there would be 11 women but one dropped out due to a migraine. Sandwiches and cakes were laid out on a buffet table (pic above). At the end of the tea, I wanted to take home some leftover cakes to my family. Being American, I always ask for a Doggy Bag, much to the embarrassment of my English friends as this is not done over here.

We got a bill for 11 people, but there were only 10 of us. The manager said he had put out enough food for the 11 women he expected to show up. We got out of paying for the invisible person but when I asked for my Doggy Bag, the manager said we couldn't take food away because he'd put out enough food for 11 people, and we'd only paid for 10.

Don't you think the manager was being a bit anal in this situation?