pumpkinstrokemarrow

It seems that the admiral mentioned on 11th November is busy, with a large oil-filled tanker having gone awol. Now on the supposition that all these pirates come from a town called Eyl from which they draw plenty of aid and comfort, how bad would it have to get before we would resort to the tactics of Germans in occupied countries (for example, France) during the second world war? That is to say you had a country which had surrendered in due form but some of the inhabitants of which did not recognise that surrender and continued to shoot at Germans from behind trees. The Germans then said to the place concerned that they would shoot so many hostages every day that those responsible did not turn themselves in. The Germans meant what they said, which left those responsible in an unpleasant position. I imagine that the results were mixed. I have never seen any respectable person defend the Germans for this sort of thing, but we must have been tempted to do something similar in the rather nasty period immediately before the 1921 truce which preceded the creation of the Irish Free State.

And I don't suppose the Germans bothered, but one can make a collective responsibility argument for this sort of thing. As we may have, while continuing to bomb harmless and undefended civilian targets in Germany right up until the end.

I wonder how the moral cookie on this matter would have crumbled, if the Germans had not been so awful in so many other ways. An example of a what-if proceeding, something I am rather keen on, but which is frowned on by many respectable historians. Only fit for bar room chatter over Newky Brown.

After something of an interval, after the demise of the Brita filtered water/green tea fad, have now settled back to very weak Earl Gray with tap water and without lemon. Perhaps being that much darker, despite being very weak, one does not notice the scum forming either on the tea itself or around the inside rim of the cup, at least not until it is empty and cold with the tea safely drunk.

Saucepan rissoles turned out well. A sort of thick, yellow-gray granular sludge. Very tasty with bubble & squeak and curly cabbage. The sludge having a taste which reminded one of coconut for some reason - no coconut having been anywhere near it. Maybe it was the sage wot dun it. Bubble & squeak was a bit unconventional, being made of potato, carrot and parsnip rather than potato and cabbage, but it went down OK. Helped by the use of sheep dripping rather than lard?

This was followed later on in the day by more lentil soup, this time made with green lentils, carrots, smoked streaky bacon (from Cheam) and onions, more or less the regular gear with only the substitution of green lentils for red by way of variation. Will be finishing it off for supper later today, after which it is possible we will move on.