Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A miscellenany
Further thoughts on the drain cover front, prompted by observing that the one at Cheam crossroads I wait at after coming out of the baker, is cracked in three places, two corners and in-between, this is cast steel or iron that must be of the order of 3 inches by 1 inch in section. Now while cast iron is reasonably brittle and can be broken up with a sledge hammer one might think that it would take a very large blow from a relatively soft tyre to achieve the same effect. But now I am looking I find that quite a high proportion of drain covers are damaged in the same sort of way. Maybe the steel is not what it used to be - this certainly being the case with hand tools and screws - with the exception of saws where the very hard steel holds its bite very well.
On roughly the same occasion, I overhead a Cheam dad talking to his young son about the POA. I decided that this particular abbreviation meant plan of action - oddly not one the consultants that I used to work with had cottoned on to. Presumably POA scores because you have three very simple sounds - pee oh ay - which apart from making one sound like a very up-to-the-minute manager- are slightly easier to say than plan of action - the last word of this last containing two whole syllables.
BH has discovered the right way to deal with ripe runner beans. Rather than cooking them in with the mince - a sort of chile con carne - she boiled them up vigourously in a separate pot, poured the cooking water off and then add the cooked beans to the cooked mince. The result did not have the not particularly pleasant back taste that the boil together approach has.
On the down side, I discovered that it was possible to boil lentils over in our giant stew pan, now nearly a year old. Last time the froth got to within a couple of inches of the top - at which point I happened to stir it. This time no stirring and the froth did indeed make the last couple of inches.
And I have been pondering about the organic-ness of carrots prepared in the giant machine reported on on June 27th. If one starts with perfectly respectable organic carrots are they still organic if one washes them in the frightful inorganic chemicals that are no doubt recommended for use with the giant machine? Clearly something for the soil society - or whatever the relevant regulator of the term 'organic' is called. Google unhelpful for once.
The TLS tells me that one Leah Scragg, a most splendid name, has published a scholarly edition of a play called 'The woman in the moon' by one John Lyly. With a name like that I was hoping that she would come up with some real pseuds corner stuff in her notes. Partly because the review was the usual essay about Lyly rather than a review proper, the pickings were not that good. The best we can do is 'a multifaceted image of the monarch's public and private selves' and '... does not support the proposition tha their author was too wedded to a particular style of coterie drama to respond to rapidly evolving theatrical tastes ...'
More seriously, I read that the nuns and monks of Burma are on the move again. Now while they have been very much in the van of protest and should get recognition for that, I wonder if, in thirty years time, they will be seen as a force for conservatism and reaction in much the same way that the Catholic church is coming to be seen as in Eire. It can't be any more healthy in Burma to have such a large proportion of the population sequestered in celibacy than it was in Eire. The church was fine while it was a focus for Irish national aspirations, but it is not so fine now that they have achieved a good part of their objective by getting the Brits out of most of Ireland.
On roughly the same occasion, I overhead a Cheam dad talking to his young son about the POA. I decided that this particular abbreviation meant plan of action - oddly not one the consultants that I used to work with had cottoned on to. Presumably POA scores because you have three very simple sounds - pee oh ay - which apart from making one sound like a very up-to-the-minute manager- are slightly easier to say than plan of action - the last word of this last containing two whole syllables.
BH has discovered the right way to deal with ripe runner beans. Rather than cooking them in with the mince - a sort of chile con carne - she boiled them up vigourously in a separate pot, poured the cooking water off and then add the cooked beans to the cooked mince. The result did not have the not particularly pleasant back taste that the boil together approach has.
On the down side, I discovered that it was possible to boil lentils over in our giant stew pan, now nearly a year old. Last time the froth got to within a couple of inches of the top - at which point I happened to stir it. This time no stirring and the froth did indeed make the last couple of inches.
And I have been pondering about the organic-ness of carrots prepared in the giant machine reported on on June 27th. If one starts with perfectly respectable organic carrots are they still organic if one washes them in the frightful inorganic chemicals that are no doubt recommended for use with the giant machine? Clearly something for the soil society - or whatever the relevant regulator of the term 'organic' is called. Google unhelpful for once.
The TLS tells me that one Leah Scragg, a most splendid name, has published a scholarly edition of a play called 'The woman in the moon' by one John Lyly. With a name like that I was hoping that she would come up with some real pseuds corner stuff in her notes. Partly because the review was the usual essay about Lyly rather than a review proper, the pickings were not that good. The best we can do is 'a multifaceted image of the monarch's public and private selves' and '... does not support the proposition tha their author was too wedded to a particular style of coterie drama to respond to rapidly evolving theatrical tastes ...'
More seriously, I read that the nuns and monks of Burma are on the move again. Now while they have been very much in the van of protest and should get recognition for that, I wonder if, in thirty years time, they will be seen as a force for conservatism and reaction in much the same way that the Catholic church is coming to be seen as in Eire. It can't be any more healthy in Burma to have such a large proportion of the population sequestered in celibacy than it was in Eire. The church was fine while it was a focus for Irish national aspirations, but it is not so fine now that they have achieved a good part of their objective by getting the Brits out of most of Ireland.
# posted by Jim @ 4:05 AM 
