Thursday, January 29, 2009
Still bangalored
Broadband went awol again some time in the middle of the day. Required the services of the helpful people from Bangalore to poke it into life again this morning. Slightly differant routine with slightly differant operative. This time it is the local engineers who are promised to ring me back within 48 hours. We will see. And for the moment we have a service.
Pleased to see in yesterday's DT that someone in authority is questioning the eco-wisdom of all these compulsory eco-collections. The someone has the temerity to suggest that all this collection might be burning a bigger hole in the omega 3 layer up above than just chucking the stuff into a landfill site. Even more heretically, he suggests that the answer might be to incinerate the stuff and generate some electricity. Are those busy ladies from New Labour going to get onto the case and issue a whole new lot of regulations?
Bit of a puzzle to me why we don't just pay the Russians to bury the stuff in Siberia somewhere. They have pots of space and, now the globe is warming, we could send giant killer waste container ships there direct through the now mostly open north east passage. Eco-costs of getting the stuff there would be very modest. Plus it would be a tactful way of giving the starving global ship owners a bung, now that the global slowdown has indeed reduced them to starvation, or at least penury.
Yesterday, amongst other events, saw a visit to Teddington to see how the weir and sluices looked after all the recent rain. River seemed very high but otherwise unspectacular, barring a couple of ducks that we do not see in Epsom. But, for the first time in our twenty years in Epsom, we did make it into the inside of the church of St Alban, a very large ecclesiastical folly from the the second half of the 19th century. (Although nowhere near as large as the red brick one in Liverpool). This one built, it seems, to accommodate all those people sucked into Teddington by the new railway station who did not fit into the rather more modest church of St Mary (very firmly locked yesterday, despite being of some interest itself, in a more modest way). Sadly the folly ran out of rich old ladies and they only got around to building the eastern half. Perhaps they hoped that some more would come along, as they blocked off the half completed nave in a very crude and temporary looking way. Nevertheless, rather impressive if one stands at the bottom of the block and look towards the altar. Now, having been made redundant by the parsons, used for various events, art shows and toddlers, and looks as if it struggles to make ends meet. Heating bills must be humungous.
And someone with a digital camera could easily improve on the pictures turned up by Mr G.; the place is really rather impressive, despite being a folly. I would post FIL's effort but wary of knocking my broadband out again.
Most important, the urge to eat pearl barley has surfaced again. Firstly, soaked about four ounces of pearl barley during the day, bringing to the boil once. Then added some chopped cooked chicken and some chopped cooked green (but not curly) cabbage. Stir, heat through and eat. Excellent stuff which did one portion for supper and another for breakfast. Simple, homely fare which I am sure the food descriptions consultant at Waitrose could work wonders with. Secondly, turned the remains of Sunday's giant roast chicken (remaindered by Mr S.) into stock. The onion skins turned it much more brown than usual. Strain, add six ounces of pearl barley while still warm. Leave to soak. Bring to boil, simmer for half an hour. Add some chopped cooked chicken. Add about half a slivered white cabbage. Simmer for five minutes and you have enough soup for two for supper and breakfast.
Pleased to see in yesterday's DT that someone in authority is questioning the eco-wisdom of all these compulsory eco-collections. The someone has the temerity to suggest that all this collection might be burning a bigger hole in the omega 3 layer up above than just chucking the stuff into a landfill site. Even more heretically, he suggests that the answer might be to incinerate the stuff and generate some electricity. Are those busy ladies from New Labour going to get onto the case and issue a whole new lot of regulations?
Bit of a puzzle to me why we don't just pay the Russians to bury the stuff in Siberia somewhere. They have pots of space and, now the globe is warming, we could send giant killer waste container ships there direct through the now mostly open north east passage. Eco-costs of getting the stuff there would be very modest. Plus it would be a tactful way of giving the starving global ship owners a bung, now that the global slowdown has indeed reduced them to starvation, or at least penury.
Yesterday, amongst other events, saw a visit to Teddington to see how the weir and sluices looked after all the recent rain. River seemed very high but otherwise unspectacular, barring a couple of ducks that we do not see in Epsom. But, for the first time in our twenty years in Epsom, we did make it into the inside of the church of St Alban, a very large ecclesiastical folly from the the second half of the 19th century. (Although nowhere near as large as the red brick one in Liverpool). This one built, it seems, to accommodate all those people sucked into Teddington by the new railway station who did not fit into the rather more modest church of St Mary (very firmly locked yesterday, despite being of some interest itself, in a more modest way). Sadly the folly ran out of rich old ladies and they only got around to building the eastern half. Perhaps they hoped that some more would come along, as they blocked off the half completed nave in a very crude and temporary looking way. Nevertheless, rather impressive if one stands at the bottom of the block and look towards the altar. Now, having been made redundant by the parsons, used for various events, art shows and toddlers, and looks as if it struggles to make ends meet. Heating bills must be humungous.
And someone with a digital camera could easily improve on the pictures turned up by Mr G.; the place is really rather impressive, despite being a folly. I would post FIL's effort but wary of knocking my broadband out again.
Most important, the urge to eat pearl barley has surfaced again. Firstly, soaked about four ounces of pearl barley during the day, bringing to the boil once. Then added some chopped cooked chicken and some chopped cooked green (but not curly) cabbage. Stir, heat through and eat. Excellent stuff which did one portion for supper and another for breakfast. Simple, homely fare which I am sure the food descriptions consultant at Waitrose could work wonders with. Secondly, turned the remains of Sunday's giant roast chicken (remaindered by Mr S.) into stock. The onion skins turned it much more brown than usual. Strain, add six ounces of pearl barley while still warm. Leave to soak. Bring to boil, simmer for half an hour. Add some chopped cooked chicken. Add about half a slivered white cabbage. Simmer for five minutes and you have enough soup for two for supper and breakfast.
# posted by Jim @ 1:20 AM 
