pumpkinstrokemarrow

First irritation, is the huge amount of coverage that one erring school master (kidnapping school girl) and one erring politician (shouting at policeman) generate. In the first case, I imagine that all the coverage and subsequent shemozzle will do far more damage than the kidnapping, so called, ever did in the first place. The second case just seems silly. It is a nature of the game that politicians are a bit highly strung, they are going to blow off from time to time. Are we gaining that much by paying so much attention to one such blowing off? Is the man's ability to control his tongue, or rather lack of it, all that relevant to his business of whipping? Who cares, apart from the press? I dare the policeman concerned has heard far worse in the badlands of Peckham. But were his copious & contemporaneous notes made in the interests of providing himself with a bit of cover in the event of trouble or in the interests of a having a bit of fun at some else's expense, of whipping up the press?

Second irritation arises from the packaging industry. In their efforts to preserve the sterile state of their products, the packagers have produced packages which are hard to open without introducing a whole lot of insterility of one's own. First example is band aids. These are now so sticky and so cunningly wrapped up that it is impossible to get one on one's bleeding finger - one cannot usually call on help at these times - without getting on's grubby & bloody fingers all over the things. Second example is Sainbury's full strength (vegan friendly) peanut butter, with the containing jar being sealed by a circular foil like disc glued to the top edge of the jar. Once again, the glue is so strong that one cannot get the foil off without a great deal of fiddling about, quite likely to result in fragments of fingered foil reaching the pristine surface of the peanut butter.

The packagers of dried fruit and vegetables are just as bad, with ever more cunning openings to the packets which I can rarely get open and emptied without some of the emptying being on the floor. And trodden in raisins are neither a pretty sight nor particularly savory to clear up.

But there is better news on the pulses front. Spring cleaning a kitchen cupboard prompted me to use up a few ounces of green lentils and a few ounces of orange lentils. All helps to keep the dead flies under control  (see September 21st). Boil the green lentils for ten minutes, lid off, remove red scum and then strain the red water off. What unpleasant chemicals does one get rid off with this boiling lid off business? Why do green lentils generate red waste water? After these wonders, add fresh water, the orange lentils and three stalks of celery, sliced thin crosswise. Bring to the boil and take off the heat. Some time later, bring to the boil again and simmer gently for a couple of hours. For the last quarter of an hour add 2 cubic inches of Portuguese bacon (see 27th September) chopped fine and two or three cooked potatoes chopped coarse. Adjust the water content as you go, as necessary. Serve with brown bread without butter. My first venture into the world of mixed pulse soup for a very long time - and very good it was too.

I close with a report on the LRB picked up on a recent passage through Waterloo, a picking up which involved my first unaided use of the self-check out machines at Smiths, which now I have got used to them are rather better than their queues.

Unusually dull issue, for a magazine which I usually enjoy after having left it alone for a while, as I had done on this occasion. Apart from the usual slew of intriguing small ads, there were just two items of interest in the 40 or so pages. One was a piece about being incarcerated in rather insalubrious circumstances for a day or so in New York as a result of being picked on for some elderly non-payment of speeding fine in the margins of being picked up for turning right when one should not have, or some such. A bit depressing that in the land of the free they find it necessary to be so heavy handed. Puts one off going there. The other was a review of a book about a son of Queen Victoria, whom everybody had thought was hopeless. But this turned out to be a good thing. He did not meddle in affairs, but he liked dressing up, waving at crowds and spending time with his various lady friends. He was unusually untouched for somebody of his time and class by snobbism, racism or antisemitism. And a lot more people turned out for his funeral than for that of his mother. Constitutional monarchy rules!