Sunday, January 01, 2012
Dancing water and baker's cramp
It occurred to us last night that an appropriate first activity for the New Year would be to make the water dance (see September 30th 2010). So up reasonably early to give the thing a go. Using warm water, got it to dance straight off on the tile. Then thought to try without the tile, just on the small paving slab, on which I could sustain a fast vibration which generated a high pitched hum and a small version of the desired action on the water, but not what could be called dancing. Back with the tile and we were in business again with a slow vibration. Counter intuitively, or at least counter my intuition, you get a fast vibration on a soft surface and a slow vibration on a hard surface. Did sprog 1 ever know enough about fluid dynamics to explain what is going on?
It also seems appropriate to have a stock take on the bread baking front, an activity which has been going on for just about a year now, the first bake being on 8th January and the last of the year, the 94th on 30th December. Will I make the ton this year?
The full story can be found at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls but I offer a few more highlights here.
By the end of November I was making white bread which ate well, if not too much like good quality English white bread, of the sort usually available at Cheam before I decided that I was spending too much time on a bicycle for the good of my back. I then switched to brown for the good of my guts and found, like most people who talk about baking bread, that brown is easier than white. That one can make decent brown bread which, as it happens, is much the same as good quality English brown bread. Perhaps best though to lay off the serious wholemeal flour, the sort of stuff made in a ragstone quern by druids in a shed next to a stream in darkest Cornwall; a place where the druidesses dance while the druids quern. The local duke - aka the Prince of Wales - taking a benevolent interest in the proceedings and sometimes, graciously, allowing for a fee the flour to be sold under his 'Duchy Originals' banner.
Most of the year I was using Hovis Super Strong Premium White, in part because it comes in handy 3kg bags but have now moved off that and am using half Sainsbury's Strong White and half some kind of wholemeal or other. Both bready ladies that I have consulted said that it should not really matter what flour one uses; no need to be precious about it.
Tried various things in the course of the year, generally failing to stick to the sensible advice that one should only change one thing at a time. So we made progress by continental drift rather than by scientific method, progress which leaves us in the following position.
Sieve 1lb 4oz of white flour, including half a level tablespoon of salt, into large stainless steel mixing bowl, catching the occasional foreign body. Add 1lb 4oz of brown flour (too coarse to sieve). Add a level tablespoon of rape seed oil. Add a sachet of dried yeast pellets. Use hands to stir it all up. Add 24oz of warm water - roughly half cold tap and half boiling - and blend with hands. Turn out onto formica table and knead for 15 minutes, the detail of the action depending on mood. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with a wooden lid and put in the airing cupboard for around 2 hours first rise. Turn out, knock back and then knead for another 5 minutes. Dough quite damp feeling at this point but workable. Grease two 2lb loaf tins (Linea) with butter. Cut the dough into 2 2lb lumps, roughly shape the lumps into fat sausages and place in tins. Place each tin in a propagating tray (the things used for starting seeds and which come with clear plastic lids) and place the propagating trays in the airing cupboard for around 2 hours second rise, by which time to dough should have risen to smooth round humps, well above the sides of the tins. But not drooping down said sides. Remove and then bake for 20 minutes at 210C in a fan oven. Remove and turn out from tins onto a cooling rack, taking care not to boil the eyeballs when opening the hot oven. It helps to wear spectacles.
Rising in the sun, when available, is rather faster. Greenhouse effect on the lids of the propagating trays and all that.
It also seems appropriate to have a stock take on the bread baking front, an activity which has been going on for just about a year now, the first bake being on 8th January and the last of the year, the 94th on 30th December. Will I make the ton this year?
The full story can be found at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls but I offer a few more highlights here.
By the end of November I was making white bread which ate well, if not too much like good quality English white bread, of the sort usually available at Cheam before I decided that I was spending too much time on a bicycle for the good of my back. I then switched to brown for the good of my guts and found, like most people who talk about baking bread, that brown is easier than white. That one can make decent brown bread which, as it happens, is much the same as good quality English brown bread. Perhaps best though to lay off the serious wholemeal flour, the sort of stuff made in a ragstone quern by druids in a shed next to a stream in darkest Cornwall; a place where the druidesses dance while the druids quern. The local duke - aka the Prince of Wales - taking a benevolent interest in the proceedings and sometimes, graciously, allowing for a fee the flour to be sold under his 'Duchy Originals' banner.
Most of the year I was using Hovis Super Strong Premium White, in part because it comes in handy 3kg bags but have now moved off that and am using half Sainsbury's Strong White and half some kind of wholemeal or other. Both bready ladies that I have consulted said that it should not really matter what flour one uses; no need to be precious about it.
Tried various things in the course of the year, generally failing to stick to the sensible advice that one should only change one thing at a time. So we made progress by continental drift rather than by scientific method, progress which leaves us in the following position.
Sieve 1lb 4oz of white flour, including half a level tablespoon of salt, into large stainless steel mixing bowl, catching the occasional foreign body. Add 1lb 4oz of brown flour (too coarse to sieve). Add a level tablespoon of rape seed oil. Add a sachet of dried yeast pellets. Use hands to stir it all up. Add 24oz of warm water - roughly half cold tap and half boiling - and blend with hands. Turn out onto formica table and knead for 15 minutes, the detail of the action depending on mood. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with a wooden lid and put in the airing cupboard for around 2 hours first rise. Turn out, knock back and then knead for another 5 minutes. Dough quite damp feeling at this point but workable. Grease two 2lb loaf tins (Linea) with butter. Cut the dough into 2 2lb lumps, roughly shape the lumps into fat sausages and place in tins. Place each tin in a propagating tray (the things used for starting seeds and which come with clear plastic lids) and place the propagating trays in the airing cupboard for around 2 hours second rise, by which time to dough should have risen to smooth round humps, well above the sides of the tins. But not drooping down said sides. Remove and then bake for 20 minutes at 210C in a fan oven. Remove and turn out from tins onto a cooling rack, taking care not to boil the eyeballs when opening the hot oven. It helps to wear spectacles.
Rising in the sun, when available, is rather faster. Greenhouse effect on the lids of the propagating trays and all that.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
100th birthday
I did not mention that during our visit to Leatherhead on 1st February we were able to buy a centenary present for the bread fad from the furniture shop operated by the Queen Elizabeth Foundation (QEF) in Church Street. Now it so happens that we have been using a kitchen table which came from my parents and was probably bought in the early sixties of the last century. Fairly standard fare for the time: 3/8 inch birch ply top, topped with formica and edged with aluminium, beech frame and legs underneath. The top was around 2 feet by 3 feet but came with two folding flaps which, when deployed took the table to around 3 feet by 3 feet. Quite some time ago we decided that the hinges to the folding flaps were host to far too many bugs and removed them. Some time before that the formica had been damaged - quite a feat as the stuff is pretty robust - a lot more so than the stuff used to face up kitchen furniture these days. And the joints to the frame have been getting steadily looser, without my having been moved to do anything about it.
So in the QEF shop we had the luck to come across a very similar item, not quite as grand as our own but probably rather newer and certainly in rather better condition (illustrated). Chipboard top, topped with yellow check formica, a pattern which I understand might be called gingham if it was in an apron. Same sort of frame and legs, but with the variation that the legs are bolted into suitable recesses at each corner of the frame with butterfly nuts and bolts, rather than being mortised and tenoned. Corners reinforced by some special pieces of something which looks a lot harder than beech; maybe something tropical. An early form of flat pack. BH very taken with the thing and at £25 was clearly what we needed to mark the 100th bake.
We were not put off by signs of someone having fallen rather heavily on one corner, damaging the recess holding that leg; this was soon put right with a bit of G-cramped Unibond. Trial erection yesterday showed a further flaw in that not all the legs were of the same length, so it mattered which leg went where. Permuted two legs and all was well and we were able to install the table in time for the 100th bake. A lot more steady than the one it replaced too.
Details of the 100th bake to be found at the usual place, that is to say http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls. And in case you are wondering, the significance of the table is that that is where the bread is kneaded when it is not being air kneaded. Steadiness helpful if not essential.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
A plug for Sidmouth
Entirely by accident we paid a visit to Sidmouth today. Which turned out to be spot on for a lunch time visit on a bright, breezy day. Apart from being a very decent resort, very understanding about older people, I was able to buy the first proper white bread I have had for some time.
And next door to the baker there was a grand old grocer, still complete with fancy mahogany shop furnishings, where I was able to buy some emmenthal cheese which they were quite happy to slice up for me (I had left my knife in the car), thus making up my lunch box. I was also able to buy some bread flour, stone, wheel & water ground in some local mill. The lady of the house warned me that it makes rather heavy bread and was best cut with some regular steel & roller ground flour. Given that my bread is already on the heavy side, certainly compared with the luncheon bread, the next bake promises to be interesting.
After luncheon we proceeded in a westerly direction and ascended the cliffs to the Connaught Gardens. Just the place for a snooze on a sunny afternoon with plenty of flowers to take in in between times. This included both a thin hot house with a variety of cacti & pitcher plants and a rather squarer tea house with a variety of tea & cakes. Not to mention the bandstand.
Maybe one day we will take a week out in one of the grand looking hotels.
More seriously, maybe one day I will sign up for an NVQ Part I in bakery and learn how they do it. My home efforts, while entirely eatable, good even, are not like the stuff that good English bakers make and are not getting any more like it. Various theories have been advanced - for example, the injection of steam into the dough, the injection of steam into the oven and the use of high powered dough mixers - but these are not theories which I can easily test. Will I be able to find a course which focusses on white bread and which does not spend most of its time on the construction of the fancy bread which to my mind is an excuse for not being able to make simple bread properly? Will the course be full of bored young offenders being re-educated? Or bored housewives?
A casual peek at NESCOT - my most local further education joint, which did a good job on getting me my only and rather lowly IT qualifications and which boasts something called a senior management team headed by a highly paid lady (with portraits on display in the entrance hall) - offers nothing under bakery and just two courses under catering. Both to do with food hygeine. Clearly far more important than food, let alone bakery.
And next door to the baker there was a grand old grocer, still complete with fancy mahogany shop furnishings, where I was able to buy some emmenthal cheese which they were quite happy to slice up for me (I had left my knife in the car), thus making up my lunch box. I was also able to buy some bread flour, stone, wheel & water ground in some local mill. The lady of the house warned me that it makes rather heavy bread and was best cut with some regular steel & roller ground flour. Given that my bread is already on the heavy side, certainly compared with the luncheon bread, the next bake promises to be interesting.
After luncheon we proceeded in a westerly direction and ascended the cliffs to the Connaught Gardens. Just the place for a snooze on a sunny afternoon with plenty of flowers to take in in between times. This included both a thin hot house with a variety of cacti & pitcher plants and a rather squarer tea house with a variety of tea & cakes. Not to mention the bandstand.
Maybe one day we will take a week out in one of the grand looking hotels.
More seriously, maybe one day I will sign up for an NVQ Part I in bakery and learn how they do it. My home efforts, while entirely eatable, good even, are not like the stuff that good English bakers make and are not getting any more like it. Various theories have been advanced - for example, the injection of steam into the dough, the injection of steam into the oven and the use of high powered dough mixers - but these are not theories which I can easily test. Will I be able to find a course which focusses on white bread and which does not spend most of its time on the construction of the fancy bread which to my mind is an excuse for not being able to make simple bread properly? Will the course be full of bored young offenders being re-educated? Or bored housewives?
A casual peek at NESCOT - my most local further education joint, which did a good job on getting me my only and rather lowly IT qualifications and which boasts something called a senior management team headed by a highly paid lady (with portraits on display in the entrance hall) - offers nothing under bakery and just two courses under catering. Both to do with food hygeine. Clearly far more important than food, let alone bakery.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Deviant pies
BH has been making what we call bread pies for many years. Other people might call them bread puddings. Made of white bread, white sugar, water, egg, fat and dried fruit - preferably currants and raisins. A bit of grated lemon rind. Bake in a baking tray of such a size that the finished product is between half and inch and an inch deep. Good gear hot, not so good cold. But a reasonably delicate dish in that varying the bread - say replacing the white bread with healthy bread - or varying the dried fruit - say replacing the raisins by sultanas - is bad and getting the water content wrong is worse. Texture all wrong. Should be damp, risen and light; too much water and the thing is much more stodgy, with the top flat and an even golden brown rather than lumpy, mottled light and dark. But on a good day, a very superior pudding. Far removed from the stuff from bakers, even the baker in Cheam, which usually deserves its boarding school nick-name of rubber pudd.
The day before yesterday there was a brain storm. BH tried out a new recipe which did not involve pre-soaking the bread in water, used brown sugar rather than white sugar and used mixed fruit - that is to say including a fair bit of peel - rather than currants and raisins. A much more chewy article; texture completely different. Stronger flavour. Hot nothing like as good as the traditional version but it did have the merit of being better than cold traditional when cold. Stands better. More like a cake than a pudding.
A deviation of a rather different sort resulted from the fish man from Hastings at Cheam having surplus herrings, of which he gifted me three. Not something that we have eaten for a very long time. Two of them came with large (relative to the size of the fish that is) creamy white roes which BH will have for breakfast. The other one had a rather different looking organ where the roe might otherwise have been. Smaller, yellow rather than cream with a quite different texture. Not sure what this was or whether it was edible so we discarded it. Cleaned and split the fish. Grilled skin side up for 2 or 3 minutes and flesh side up for 7 or 8 minutes. Good, delicate flavour. A bit fiddly and a bit small so better as a supper dish rather than as a dinner dish.
We shall have another go should occasion arise. And maybe we will give sprats another go - something else which we have not eaten for a good while.
While exploring these culinary matters, have also been thinking about retail price maintenance, the abolition of which in 1964 was one of the big things that Edward Heath achieved in his time at the top. An abolition which excluded books and such like, covered by something called the net book agreement, until much more recently. Thinking prompted by increasing irritation that there is no longer anything like a set price for a book. Like with insurance, prices vary a good deal and one has to shop around if one cares about one's pennies. So, for example, I see a review of a book priced at £30 and find that it is £20 at Amazon. Or the DT advertises a special offer for its readers at the bargain basement price of £35 when the same thing is to be had from Amazon at £30. Or possibly to be had from one of the remainder stores for £5: I have made at least two purchases of this sort in the last year or so. While I might be getting the book cheaper than I might otherwise be, I find all the variation a bit irritating. I am much more comfortable with the idea - quite probably unrealistic - that goods and services have a proper price which is what people will charge one - and that one does not have to bother about it. One just trusts people to charge the proper price.
Mr G. digs up all kinds of material about this. The OECD published a lengthy and learned review of the whole subject in 1997. The Columbia Journal of European Law offers a much more recent 'RESALE PRICE MAINTENANCE IN E.U. COMPETITION LAW: THOUGHTS IN RELATION TO THE VERTICAL RESTRAINTS REVIEW PROCEDURE'. Which seems to suggest that we in Europe might well follow the US in applying the rule of reason. Whatever that might mean.
It seems likely that small booksellers have been badly hurt by the big boys in all this. I am not sure that I am that too bothered. If I know what I want I am happy to use the efficient Amazon and if I don't know what I want I go to a big book shop like Foyles for a browse and a graze, it not being proper to browse in one place and graze in another. Small book shops not much good for browsing except for fiction, travel and cooking, which only account for a small proportion of my consumption.
So I think I have burbled myself into deciding that abolition of the net book agreement is a good thing, despite my irritations. The same price at Foyles and Amazon is not fair on Foyles and is unlikely to deliver the best result for the consumer.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Virginia Water
Yesterday to Virginia Water for the first time for quite a while. So long in fact, that they have built a shiny new car park since we were last there. There is still a caravan behind the car park and although it too looks a bit shiny new, I think I saw a sign saying that it did bacon rolls so it hasn't been rolled over by the veggies. Maybe they sells pies too.
Virginia Water a fine place with lots of good trees. We saw some of them, including some big beeches and some big sweet chestnuts - probably getting near their passover dates so it was good to see some newer planting. There was also a handsome house on the far shore, a house which brought to mind a wood engraving we used go have on the wall, to the point that I thought that maybe the house on the far shore was the original, the artist having lived not too far away at one point. Back home I turn the thing up to find that it is about as completely different as it could be be while still being a house on the far shore. Funny thing memory. Must get back soon to see more of the trees.
On the way home, having decided to have a steak night, we stopped at the deli in the station parade, probably http://www.winecircle.co.uk/, who sold us a holy mother camembert and a couple of slices of apple strudel. Both excellent, the cheese improved by our happening to have some white bread - don't believe in brown bread with soft cheese. White bread was one of those frozen dough bake in the back of the shop jobs from our local Costcutter. Not much flavour but quite eatable when fresh and entirely suitable as a vehicle for a camembert.
The meal had started with a couple of sirloin steaks from the butcher next to the Costcutter and for once they were spot on. Neither too fresh nor too cooked. Served with newish potatoes and runner beans. We continue to be puzzled as to why the runner beans we have been buying quite a lot of over the last month or so don't have strings in them. The beans I grew nearly always did.
Steak helped down with the Gevrey-Chambertin mentioned on August 13th. A limited edition of 7,660 bottles from Vougeraie back in 2006. So another puzzle is where the 7,660 comes from. Label entirely in French. But it was a fine wine, worth the extra dosh. The adjective which comes to mind is clear. A very clear taste, reminding one of the note of a small bell or that of a cut glass. No hints of raspberries for us.
Off this morning to harvest some of the Horton Lane hazel nuts. I was able to pick 7.5lbs in about an hour off of just one clump of bushes in the hedgerow. Mostly green rather than brown. The nuts seem to be of more than one variety and to vary a great deal in size, up to around half an inch in diameter. We have learned that the shell grows before the nut, that is to say that one can have a full size nut shell, some of them getting of for perhaps an inch long and more than half an inch across, with a very small nut embedded in a hard white stuff filling the rest of the shell. Hard white stuff not looking very edible; we did not try it anyway. Most of them now spread out on an old sheet in the garage to dry; natural drying producing a much nicer nut than the kiln drying practised by commercial growers.
Probably be better to wait a bit before picking any more, seeming to remember picking them brown as a child. Take a chance on someone or something else having a go.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Unidoom reprised
Woke up this morning to a brain wave, visibility possibly enhanced by their present rarity. On 26th February, à propos of the death of university life as we know it, I touched on the need to have some algorithm for allocating public money to those universities who do not live off their private incomes, endowment or otherwise, which is to say virtually all of them.
First part of the wheeze was to have ten year settlements. This would take some of the pressure of continually having to explain how one's work profited UK PLC off of hard working academics. It would also slow down the ebbs and flows of funding fashions.
Second part of the wheeze was that the annual grant for a university for the coming ten years would be A plus N1 times B plus N2 times C, where A, B and C are positive numbers, N1 is the number of students completing their courses in the previous ten years and N2 is the number of students admitted in the previous ten years weighted for their A level achievement. Answer in millions of euros.
The idea is that a university gets more as the quality of the applicants they accept rises. If a university can take on great swathes of people with fancy qualifications it must be good and so deserve the wedge. Payment by results sort of thing. Promotes merit but does not promote class. No extra points for taking on specials.
I can now spend the morning thinking of the catch with this splendid wheeze before submitting it to Cameron's Citizen Suggestion Box. Fame and reward for good suggestions.
PS: good bread bake yesterday. I think I really am getting the hang of things. See http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Brighton troughs
Started off at the Palm Court chipper in the middle of the eastern pier, last visited on or about New Year's Eve (see http://www.brightonpier.co.uk/palm-court-restaurant). Pretty good gear, with the only complaint being that my cod was slightly fishy. We were sufficiently charged up by our lunch that we managed to get a touch of sunburn afterwards while dozing on a sheltered bench and I was reduced to covering my face and hands with the Florentine scarf which I had thought necessary to shelter me from the sea breezes.
Tried the bar at our hotel later, which turned out to have nothing in common with the grandeur of the hotel at large. An entirely banal hotel bar, the sort of place I usually avoided when travelling for work. We paid about double what we would have paid at TB.
The following day in the tea room in the Royal Pavilion, following my own efforts of May 13th, took pear tree water (http://www.peartreewell.co.uk/) with fresh sweet scones, the sort with dried fruit in them (no citrus peel please). Fresh out of the oven they were and good for bought, although not quite as good as my own. Very slightly sticky, and in any case I prefer cheese to fruit: they had the cheese sort, but looking at them, not very clear what sort of cheese had gone into them so passed. In any event, presumably they mix up enough dough for a day or two at a time then bake the scones in small batches. Entirely manageable in a small & not too busy kitchen such as this one was.
Later on, having had a light lunch, went for a rather grander fish supper than that from the 'Palm Court' at a place called Arch 139 (see http://www.arch139.com/, operated by an outfit variously known at Beach Hospitality Ltd and Coastal Hospitality Ltd), an establishment listed for us in a foody bit of the DT. Very good it was too. For me, higher grade fish cakes followed by a grilled lobster with sautéed potatoes (something I have never managed to cook myself in a satisfactory way) and green beans, washed down with a touch of Sancerre. The service was sufficiently sensitive that I was able to vary the cheese, fruit & veg. and biscuits to bread and cheese although I stopped short of trying to get them to give me just one sort of cheese rather than a medley and they could not resist adding some grapes by way way of token fruit & veg.. Bring back the cheese board from which you were able to select what you wanted! That said, the four cheeses they gave me were all pretty good. 8 out of 10 for the beach flavoured DT; quite impressed that a small place like this had one at all.
Came down a notch or two for lunch the day after at the Wetherspoons at Brighton Marina, a new build affair with lots of old style chunky woodwork inside. Some with gothic styling. The usual good value.
Took our pre-supper drink in a very proper public house in Western Road. More or less original layout, plenty of interesting clientele and plenty of real beer, if obscure of brand. Luvvies strutting their stuff for free upstairs. I took my first half pint of beer - said to be rather wind inducing for persons in my condition - since before the deluge. Very nice it was too.
And then for supper to the Regency Restaurant, on the corner of Regency Square, an interesting establishment of café format doing bacon & egg sandwiches in the morning and fish flavoured meals later (http://www.theregencyrestaurant.co.uk/). Whitebait good but I suspect that my dover sole had been cooked from frozen, possibly even reheated in a microwave. Not bad and not dear but not the greatest thing in dover soles and I would probably have done better to stick with cod. But BH was well pleased with her mussels. Tiramisu good. Sancerre two thirds the price of that of the grander establishment of the previous evening.
Closed the session with a couple of toasted tea cakes in a retro tea shop (with a teddy bear theme) in Shoreham. Very good they were too, sufficiently so that I was moved to take a takeaway rock cake away in case I felt hungry later.
Tried the bar at our hotel later, which turned out to have nothing in common with the grandeur of the hotel at large. An entirely banal hotel bar, the sort of place I usually avoided when travelling for work. We paid about double what we would have paid at TB.
The following day in the tea room in the Royal Pavilion, following my own efforts of May 13th, took pear tree water (http://www.peartreewell.co.uk/) with fresh sweet scones, the sort with dried fruit in them (no citrus peel please). Fresh out of the oven they were and good for bought, although not quite as good as my own. Very slightly sticky, and in any case I prefer cheese to fruit: they had the cheese sort, but looking at them, not very clear what sort of cheese had gone into them so passed. In any event, presumably they mix up enough dough for a day or two at a time then bake the scones in small batches. Entirely manageable in a small & not too busy kitchen such as this one was.
Later on, having had a light lunch, went for a rather grander fish supper than that from the 'Palm Court' at a place called Arch 139 (see http://www.arch139.com/, operated by an outfit variously known at Beach Hospitality Ltd and Coastal Hospitality Ltd), an establishment listed for us in a foody bit of the DT. Very good it was too. For me, higher grade fish cakes followed by a grilled lobster with sautéed potatoes (something I have never managed to cook myself in a satisfactory way) and green beans, washed down with a touch of Sancerre. The service was sufficiently sensitive that I was able to vary the cheese, fruit & veg. and biscuits to bread and cheese although I stopped short of trying to get them to give me just one sort of cheese rather than a medley and they could not resist adding some grapes by way way of token fruit & veg.. Bring back the cheese board from which you were able to select what you wanted! That said, the four cheeses they gave me were all pretty good. 8 out of 10 for the beach flavoured DT; quite impressed that a small place like this had one at all.
Came down a notch or two for lunch the day after at the Wetherspoons at Brighton Marina, a new build affair with lots of old style chunky woodwork inside. Some with gothic styling. The usual good value.
Took our pre-supper drink in a very proper public house in Western Road. More or less original layout, plenty of interesting clientele and plenty of real beer, if obscure of brand. Luvvies strutting their stuff for free upstairs. I took my first half pint of beer - said to be rather wind inducing for persons in my condition - since before the deluge. Very nice it was too.
And then for supper to the Regency Restaurant, on the corner of Regency Square, an interesting establishment of café format doing bacon & egg sandwiches in the morning and fish flavoured meals later (http://www.theregencyrestaurant.co.uk/). Whitebait good but I suspect that my dover sole had been cooked from frozen, possibly even reheated in a microwave. Not bad and not dear but not the greatest thing in dover soles and I would probably have done better to stick with cod. But BH was well pleased with her mussels. Tiramisu good. Sancerre two thirds the price of that of the grander establishment of the previous evening.
Closed the session with a couple of toasted tea cakes in a retro tea shop (with a teddy bear theme) in Shoreham. Very good they were too, sufficiently so that I was moved to take a takeaway rock cake away in case I felt hungry later.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Fresh picked from the Guardian
Having had a very successful bake yesterday afternoon, a surprise since both rising operations were mistimed, lingered over the breakfast bread and butter with yesterday's Guardian. From where I recycle a selection of faits divers (see http://www.faitsdivers.org/ for a rather more gruesome selection).
First, picking up on the bestitis of yesterday, I see that someone is moaning because X% of schools have been rated satisfactory by the Royal Commission for Scoring in Schools (RCSS) for two years running. Entirely unsatisfactory that all these schools are not headed for the excellent category. (Overlooking here the logical difficulty that it is quite difficult for everybody to excel). We used to have something of the same sort when completing annual reports towards the end of my time in the civil service. It was not enough to be satisfactory there either, one always had to be developing, working on one's strengths and weaknesses. Dreary stuff.
I then read the rather depressing news that the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan and united in their desire to carry on being allowed to use cluster bombs, weapons which are particularly nasty in that they often result in lots of small unexploded bombs lying around to blow up the innocent unwary for years to come. The Peoples' Princess was on the case years ago. I also learn a singularly silly abbreviation, CCW, which apparently stands for certain conventional weapons. Or perhaps that was a misprint.
Then there is the spectacle of ageing baby boomers getting into a stir about the awful state of care for the elderly. Having worried about their wealth and mortgages for forty years, they are now into worrying about the care for their elderly parents. They are even starting to worry about what care they might expect on their own account in a few years time. I know the feeling: having done something to my leg a couple of years ago, a something which meant that getting dressed was a bit of a problem for a few days or so, I suddenly glimpsed a future containing a care worker (from the former council estate down the road, naturally) putting my trousers on for me. Not a pretty sight at all. In fact, rather scary; so scary that the leg got better smartish.
The good news is that someone is making plans to end global poverty. Plans to which an entire page (including picture) is devoted. About the same as that devoted to various aspects of housing politics and finance.
For light relief I turn to the jobs page. For £80,000 or so a year I could be chief of childrens' health, care and crimimal justice services in West Dumbartonshire. Or for another £80,000 or so a year I could be Assistant Director (Changing Relationships) for something called the Health Foundation. Failing that I could do casual work with people with learning difficulties for £10 an hour. Or I could work more or less full time for Lambeth Mencap, for free. All of which looks reasonable to me; the differentials are proportionate. Nothing like those which attracted the justified ire of Jonathan Freedland (see http://www.jonathanfreedland.com/) in other sectors in the body of the same issue.
First, picking up on the bestitis of yesterday, I see that someone is moaning because X% of schools have been rated satisfactory by the Royal Commission for Scoring in Schools (RCSS) for two years running. Entirely unsatisfactory that all these schools are not headed for the excellent category. (Overlooking here the logical difficulty that it is quite difficult for everybody to excel). We used to have something of the same sort when completing annual reports towards the end of my time in the civil service. It was not enough to be satisfactory there either, one always had to be developing, working on one's strengths and weaknesses. Dreary stuff.
I then read the rather depressing news that the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan and united in their desire to carry on being allowed to use cluster bombs, weapons which are particularly nasty in that they often result in lots of small unexploded bombs lying around to blow up the innocent unwary for years to come. The Peoples' Princess was on the case years ago. I also learn a singularly silly abbreviation, CCW, which apparently stands for certain conventional weapons. Or perhaps that was a misprint.
Then there is the spectacle of ageing baby boomers getting into a stir about the awful state of care for the elderly. Having worried about their wealth and mortgages for forty years, they are now into worrying about the care for their elderly parents. They are even starting to worry about what care they might expect on their own account in a few years time. I know the feeling: having done something to my leg a couple of years ago, a something which meant that getting dressed was a bit of a problem for a few days or so, I suddenly glimpsed a future containing a care worker (from the former council estate down the road, naturally) putting my trousers on for me. Not a pretty sight at all. In fact, rather scary; so scary that the leg got better smartish.
The good news is that someone is making plans to end global poverty. Plans to which an entire page (including picture) is devoted. About the same as that devoted to various aspects of housing politics and finance.
For light relief I turn to the jobs page. For £80,000 or so a year I could be chief of childrens' health, care and crimimal justice services in West Dumbartonshire. Or for another £80,000 or so a year I could be Assistant Director (Changing Relationships) for something called the Health Foundation. Failing that I could do casual work with people with learning difficulties for £10 an hour. Or I could work more or less full time for Lambeth Mencap, for free. All of which looks reasonable to me; the differentials are proportionate. Nothing like those which attracted the justified ire of Jonathan Freedland (see http://www.jonathanfreedland.com/) in other sectors in the body of the same issue.
