Thursday, December 13, 2007
Kidneys again
Lunch was the remains of the beef - guess what - boiled up with what remained of the stock, some more pearl barley and some fresh cabbage. Not as thick as the last one but clarity compensated (seems to take a direct object in US speak so no need for a for in this context) by volume of meat. Suprising how small pillars of meat hold their shape in this context. Maybe 2mm by 2mm by 10mm. Some cut with and some cut across the grain.
Dinner was kidneys again. Rather pale brown out of the shop rather than the deep (deeper than arterial blood) red-brown-purple I associate with fresh kidneys. Maybe it is just the blood draining out of them the longer they sit in the tin - the gallon tins this sort of thing seems to arrive from the wholesaler in. Compensation in this case extra carraway seeds and the result entirely acceptable if a bit paler than usual. The tomatoes in the sauce were a bit wintry too - all pale and crunchy with a hard yellow core - not like the sort of thing one can buy from a hot country - like France or Spain - in the summer - at all. Or FIL's greenhouse. Another factor in the pallidity.
Earlier in the day I had been accosted by a cycling lady, all tooled up in Lycra, the black and white of which went well with her grey hair, who thought I ought to join in some cycle round the nature trail thing they do for starting out cyclists in Nonsuch Park. Children welcome. I tried to explain that I preferred to cycle on roads and was rewarded with a leaflet about safe cycling on the road. With helpful hints on how far away from the kerb one should be. Oddly, I did not spot anything about helmets - which most cycling adults around here seem to wear. I suppose I should. But all a bit odd since our combined cycling years were probably in excess of a hundred.
She did have one on me though. The route to Cheam is vaguely East, but twists and turns a good bit. So on a winter morning one has significant stretches in the teeth of a low winter sun which makes one more or less blind. Only remedy seemed to be to hold one's hand up to block the sun. But she carried sun glasses along with her spare tube and tyre levers. On the same topic I remember a rather grim drive South from Fort William one early January morning. Brilliant morning for a bit of hill walking and there were plenty of walkers out - but far too brilliant to drive against. Lucky we did not come unstuck somewhere.
And lastly some signs that smoking might be relaxing a bit. Two items, people are starting to light up discretely, after dark, on railway platforms, and nobody is fussing. One of the villains in question was a smarly dressed young woman - and did not appear to be a hoodie at all. To be fair she stubbed out very smartly on seeing a railway official in the distance. The other was a cigar shop in Wardour Street where, horror of horrors, people were sitting down and smoking inside. Was the owner just taking a flier for Christmas or had he really got hold of some loophole?
And I wonder what happened to the two conspicuous villains - one had a strip joint in Soho (and was legally advised on the matter by our late lamented leader's consort) and believed that he could get people to stop smoking before any council inspector got far enough into the building to catch anyone in flagrente - necessary it seems to secure conviction. The other had a perfectly regular, if large, pub in Blackpool. The council did get around to fining him £500 or so plus costs in October or so - which he could probably cope with if it did not escalate - but we never heard whether he persisted. Perhaps the powers had a quiet word with him and he saw the error of his ways.
On the other hand, I am told by an informant from TB that the Irish government has neatly escaped any opprobium it might have incurred by officious enforcement by dumping enforcement on the fire regulations people. They, of course, can have a fine time with all those leantos with dodgy electrics and naked flames.
Dinner was kidneys again. Rather pale brown out of the shop rather than the deep (deeper than arterial blood) red-brown-purple I associate with fresh kidneys. Maybe it is just the blood draining out of them the longer they sit in the tin - the gallon tins this sort of thing seems to arrive from the wholesaler in. Compensation in this case extra carraway seeds and the result entirely acceptable if a bit paler than usual. The tomatoes in the sauce were a bit wintry too - all pale and crunchy with a hard yellow core - not like the sort of thing one can buy from a hot country - like France or Spain - in the summer - at all. Or FIL's greenhouse. Another factor in the pallidity.
Earlier in the day I had been accosted by a cycling lady, all tooled up in Lycra, the black and white of which went well with her grey hair, who thought I ought to join in some cycle round the nature trail thing they do for starting out cyclists in Nonsuch Park. Children welcome. I tried to explain that I preferred to cycle on roads and was rewarded with a leaflet about safe cycling on the road. With helpful hints on how far away from the kerb one should be. Oddly, I did not spot anything about helmets - which most cycling adults around here seem to wear. I suppose I should. But all a bit odd since our combined cycling years were probably in excess of a hundred.
She did have one on me though. The route to Cheam is vaguely East, but twists and turns a good bit. So on a winter morning one has significant stretches in the teeth of a low winter sun which makes one more or less blind. Only remedy seemed to be to hold one's hand up to block the sun. But she carried sun glasses along with her spare tube and tyre levers. On the same topic I remember a rather grim drive South from Fort William one early January morning. Brilliant morning for a bit of hill walking and there were plenty of walkers out - but far too brilliant to drive against. Lucky we did not come unstuck somewhere.
And lastly some signs that smoking might be relaxing a bit. Two items, people are starting to light up discretely, after dark, on railway platforms, and nobody is fussing. One of the villains in question was a smarly dressed young woman - and did not appear to be a hoodie at all. To be fair she stubbed out very smartly on seeing a railway official in the distance. The other was a cigar shop in Wardour Street where, horror of horrors, people were sitting down and smoking inside. Was the owner just taking a flier for Christmas or had he really got hold of some loophole?
And I wonder what happened to the two conspicuous villains - one had a strip joint in Soho (and was legally advised on the matter by our late lamented leader's consort) and believed that he could get people to stop smoking before any council inspector got far enough into the building to catch anyone in flagrente - necessary it seems to secure conviction. The other had a perfectly regular, if large, pub in Blackpool. The council did get around to fining him £500 or so plus costs in October or so - which he could probably cope with if it did not escalate - but we never heard whether he persisted. Perhaps the powers had a quiet word with him and he saw the error of his ways.
On the other hand, I am told by an informant from TB that the Irish government has neatly escaped any opprobium it might have incurred by officious enforcement by dumping enforcement on the fire regulations people. They, of course, can have a fine time with all those leantos with dodgy electrics and naked flames.
# posted by Jim @ 7:39 AM 
