pumpkinstrokemarrow

On the way out we had a good demonstration of how easy it is to be irritated by things, quite unnecessarily. Coming out of car park, all nice and relaxed after our stroll in the gardens, clutching our duly endorsed parking ticket for a disabled person. Neither of the two cars in front of us at the barrier controlled exit had bothered to get their parking tickets endorsed before returning to their cars. One of them sent the plump wife out to grapple with the ticket machine. She had not got a clue. Maybe spent 5 minutes faffing about with the thing before she finally got a ticket. Meanwhile a queue of maybe 5 cars has built up behind us. BH and FIL getting a bit irritated. The car behind getting irritated to the point of honking occasionally. Irritation being a bit infectious I am starting to get irritated. All for what? Because we were waiting for five minutes at an exit? So we were going to lose out on 5 minutes couch potato time back home? In the words of the spritely Puck, 'Lord, what fools these mortals be!'.

Many years ago I observed the same sort of phenomenon among people getting off cruise liners. Again, they ought to have been all nice and relaxed after their holiday at sea, all ready to cooperate with our survey. Conducted by very touchy feely ladies of middle years. A very important survey trying to find out how much people spent when they were on holiday. A not inconsiderable item in the balance of payments of the day. But no. I remember these people being really bad tempered about being asked to spend 5 of their valuable minutes on this very important survey, as they left their cruise to catch their trains.

Another phenomenon is the amount of air waves and ink spent on the subject of cruelty to and extinction of whales. I agree that killing whales for meat is a rather unpleasant business. These are large and relatively intelligent animals being killed in a rather unpleasant way, on the whole for no very good reason. But the numbers involved are relatively small. Maybe a few thousand each year. And whales seem to get rather more air waves and ink that the very much larger number of cows, pigs, sheep and goats killed each year around the globe. Maybe as many as a billion. Presumably part of what conservationists called the charismatic mega fauna thing. Which includes getting all dewy eyed about the tigers who spend their lives eating ungulates, although to be fair I understand that tigers generally manage a fairly quick kill, biting through the necks of their prey from above. Only resorting to the rather more unpleasant hamstringing as a last resort.

I wonder what the carbon balance of removing all the whales from the planet would be? The whales would stop spraying a lot of carbon into the sky. It would free up a lot of nutritious plankton which we could eat without getting hot and bothered about cruelty to animals. Giant squids would stop being harassed by sperm whales. Seals would not be eaten by killer whales. Perhaps I should post a question on the Greenpeace website - people of whom I rather disapprove for their disregard of safety at sea.

Today, smoked cod with boiled rice and curly kale. Can't remember when I last ate this last. Something that the Irish are said to be rather fond of with mash and boiled bacon. Quite cheap with a good whack for two for less than £1. But not clear where it came from: FIL thought that it was something sown in the spring for consumption in the autumn. So clearly not from anywhere near here. But tasted good. Rather wet and chewy stuff but with quite a good flavour. Good palette balance with the bland rice and the smoky cod. Just a hint of blueberry.