Compare and contrast: University of Durham, Queen’s Campus, Stockton and Klingon Vor’cha class attack cruiser:
Durham, Durham, Duras
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Monthly Archives: June 2006
Kedgeree recipe
As I type, I am in the middle of a VERY SLOW so-called instant messaging conversation with Carolyn. About half an hour ago, I asked her if she’d like a copy of the excellent kedgeree recipe Jen and I found in a magazine a few weeks back. Fifteen minutes later, Carolyn said yes please. I then said I’d try to type it up tomorrow. But Carolyn clearly has her mind on other things tonight (she’s busy counting coins, apparently), so, while I’ve been waiting for her next message, I typed up the recipe and published it here.
You should give it a go: it’s dead easy, and it’s absolutely delicious.
There is nothing like Haldane
A discussion initiated by the Evangelical Environmental Network & Creation Care magazine because transportation is a moral issue.
I thought the Lord had an inordinate fondness for beetles.
Oh ho!
Serendipity Do Dah!
James Garner
How’s this for a pleasing co-incidence? It’s a bit convoluted, but bear with me, it’s worth the wait:
- when I was a kid, I always thought that James Garner from out of The Rockford Files was the spitting image of my dad. I wasn’t alone in this belief: kids I hardly knew would come up to me and say, “Your dad looks like Jim Rockford”. Sometimes they would go so far as to say, “Your dad is Jim Rockford”;
- for the record, my dad’s name is not Jim Rockford, it’s Norman;
- entirely unrealted to the above—or so it would seem—my mum’s favourite film of all time is Oklahoma!
- while I was in totally shattered mode after my big walk last Friday, I turned on the telly, and they were showing The Rockford Files. While I was watching it for old times’ sake, I found myself wondering whatever happened to James Garner. He must be getting on a bit by now, I thought—assuming he is still with us, that is. So I looked him up on the Internet Movie Database;
- the good news is that James Garner is still very much alive, and is still making films, but GET THIS…
- James Garner was born in the city of Norman, Oklahoma!
I lied when I said it would be worth the wait.
No! Man!
My dreams of becoming a tip-top tap-dancer lie shattered: Carolyn has been told that men are not welcome at the tap-dancing classes. I have never been the victim of blatant sexual discrimination before, and it hurts. Would they have been allowed to ban me if I were from a racial minority, do you think, or if I were disabled? Well then! Men are a minority too, you know: only 49% of the adult population.
Actually, I’m rather relieved. But Carolyn is outraged, and has sworn to do something about it.
Watch this space, as they say.
Shagged out
I went for a ten-mile walk yesterday. Jen dropped me off at Blackstone Edge on her way into work, and I walked back to Hebden Bridge along the Pennine Way. I’d forgotten how far it was.
The first half hour was spent in thick fog, the second in heavy drizzle. After that, things picked up a bit. I only saw two other people in the five hours of the walk, and they were together, so they only counted as one really.
Yes, that’s right: it took me five hours, but I was taking loads of photos, I received two phone calls, and I did spend about 40 minutes on top of Stoodley Pike, so call it four hours’ walking (i.e. 2½ miles per hour).
I don’t think I’ll ever do the Pennine Way in full: you’re supposed to do over 20 miles a day for a fortnight, or something stupid like that, and I’m totally shagged out after just ten.
My, it was fun, though.
The green choice
RSPB: Wind farm strikes at eagle stronghold
A key population of Europe’s largest eagle has been significantly reduced by a wind farm.
Only one white-tailed eagle is expected to fledge from the wind farm site on the bird’s former stronghold of Smøla, a set of islands about six miles (ten kilometres) off the north-west Norwegian coast.
Turbine blades have killed nine of the birds in the last ten months including all three chicks that fledged last year.
The number of young has crashed from at least ten each year before the wind farm was built, with numbers outside the wind farm falling as well—there are no breeding pairs within one kilometre of the turbines.
To add insult to death, nobody seems to have worked out that wind powerstations are almost literally pissing in the wind—including the RSPB.
As I have previously stated, I object to these things being referred to as wind farms, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts about referring to them as wind powerstations too: perhaps we should call them wind abattoirs instead.
The short-ball game, apparently
Honestly, why won’t people listen?
Guardian: Eriksson promises the return of the short ball
…”When Crouch is on the pitch we play too many long balls. I can agree to that,” Eriksson said. “Statistically we played 50% long balls and 50% through midfield. Tomorrow I suppose the team will play more short balls.”
We are going absolutely nowhere in this tournament, mark my words.
The odd couple
Stense was in town last Tuesday evening, so I took her out for a meal in the restaurant adjoining one of our favourite pubs. It’s called the The Cowshed Restaurant, but don’t let the name fool you as it fooled me: it’s rather posh. Stense had done herself proud as usual (she scrubs up well), but I felt as if I’d dressed a bit too casually. Well, I did once Stense pointed out that I probably should have worn a tie.
There was a bunch of old dears at the table next to us. One of them seemed rather intrigued by Stense and me. I think she was trying to work out what the relationship was between the fat, scruffy, bearded bloke with the greying hairs around his temples and the rather elegant, attractive young woman with the spectacular haircut.
She probably thought Stense was my probation officer.
Yes man
One of Carolyn‘s more endearing habits is that, every couple of months or so, quite out of the blue, she’ll come up with some totally bonkers scheme which she doesn’t think is bonkers at all. In fact, she’ll invariably describe it as a good idea, then appear genuinely disappointed when I decline her invitation to get involved.
“Why don’t you take up bell-ringing?” she asked me earlier this year.
“What? You’re kidding, right? What am I talking about? Of course you’re not.”
“I think you’d like it.”
“Carolyn, I’m an atheist. Why on earth would I want to go bell-ringing?”
“I don’t know. I just thought it was a good idea, that’s all. You should think about going.”
…and so on.
A couple of years back, Carolyn suggested I dress up as Father Christmas and entertain at children’s parties—and at her children’s party in particular. I declined.
But, when I rejected her latest scheme last month—it was so bonkers, I can’t even remember what it was—I began to feel guilty: Carolyn is very good at the hurt-and-disappointed look. So I decided there and then that, whatever her next bonkers scheme might be, I would agree to it immediately.
Which is why, in a couple of weeks’ time, Carolyn and I are going to a tap dancing lesson ‘with a touch of Salsa’ thrown in for good measure.
Carolyn has very supple joints, and I have natural rhythm. We could be the next Ginger Rogers and Freddie Starr.
I’m just so relieved she didn’t suggest I become a goth.
The long-ball game
I was collared by a soccer fan in the kitchen at work this afternoon. He asked me if I’d seen the England v Trinidad and Tobago match last night. I said I’d caught the last 20 minutes. We agreed that our lads played like a bunch of girls. We then proceeded to have an entire conversation about football.
I must have acquitted myself rather well, as my colleague clearly didn’t twig that I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was talking about. Hell, I even managed to slip in a reference to the Republic of Ireland’s adoption of the long-ball game in a previous tournament. I heard Jackie Charlton mention it on Desert Island Discs.
I’m not entirely sure what the long-ball game is (I suspect the clue’s in the name), but I reckon it’s time our bunch of girls adopted it. If it’s good enough for Big Jack, then it’s good enough for England.
See also: My photos from Tobago on Flickr
In a flap
So what have I been up to over the last week? In a word, recovering.
The thing is, I have this weird phobia. As far as I know, my phobia doesn’t have a name, so why don’t I give it one? I’ll call it flapophobia: I can’t stand animals flapping around in a blind panic near me. I’m talking about moths and birds basically. I don’t like it at all. It scares the shit out of me.
Not that I’m scared of moths and birds, you understand. Far from it, I think moths and birds are really cool. It’s just the flapping I can’t abide. I’m afraid that, in their panic, they might crash into me and get hurt. I think it’s the thought of hurting them that’s really behind my phobia. Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Which is why I had such a terrible shock last Sunday. I got out of bed at the usual time, opened the bedroom door, and heard a crow cawing loudly nearby. Hearing crows cawing is not unusual—we have a pair nesting in one of our chimneys at the moment—but this caw had a very definite echo to it, as if the bird was in a confined space, like our hallway, say.
So I decided to deal with the situation in the best way I knew how: I went and woke Jen and told her that we had a crow in the hallway, explaining that it must have fallen down the chimney. Jen knows all about my phobia, so she sighed and got out of bed, and the two of us tip-toed down the stairs, with me, rather surprisingly, at the front. When I got near the bottom of the stairs, I looked very carefully up and down the hallway. There was no sign of any crow, so I took another step forward, and all hell broke loose:
The crow had been hiding in a dark corner near the bottom of the stairs, and hadn’t heard us coming. Suddenly, there was a terrified, cawing mass of feathers flapping about my head. Well, there was for one second at least, after which I doubled up into a tiny ball, let out a low howl, and barged past poor Jen back up the stairs. I’m not kidding, I’d never had such a fright in my life. My heart was literally pounding in my chest, and my upper body was shaking uncontrollably.
While I was giving it the Tippi Hedren’s upstairs, Jen, with great efficiency, grabbed my fleece jacket from the banister, threw it over the crow, picked the bird up, released it though the patio door, and put the kettle on.
My heart rate returned to normal about two hours later. The shaking stopped about five minutes ago.
Not so grateful now, huh?
BBC: Grateful Dead musician dies at 55
Grateful Dead keyboard player Vince Welnick has died at the age of 55, a statement on his website announced…
Welnick is the fourth keyboard player from the Grateful Dead to have died.
Very Spinal.
Poseidon
There are lots of billboards advertising the remake of The Posidon Adventure at the moment. “From the Director of Troy and The Perfect Storm,” they proudly proclaim.
As far as I’m concerned, these are hardly ringing endorsements: Troy was perfectly competent, but rather naff, whereas I mentally rebranded The Perfect Storm as The Perfect Yawn. Having said that, the original Poseidon Adventure was hardly the greatest film ever made, was it?
If they really want to cite Wolfgang Petersen‘s directorial credentials to advertise his latest film, why on earth don’t they mention his rather fun (if implausible) Air Force One? Better still, they should boast in ridiculously MASSIVE letters, “From the Director of Das Boot“—which, quite frankly, actually is one of the greatest films ever made.
If you’ve never seen Das Boot, do yourself a favour: go and buy yourself the Director’s Cut on DVD right now [Amazon UK|US]. And make sure you watch it in its original German (with subtitles, if, like me, you don’t speak the lingo), rather than the dubbed version. I guarantee you’ll end up rooting for the Germans. The original book is highly recommended too [Amazon UK|US].
I always think it’s funny that I have to watch Das Boot with sub-titles. Sub titles—geddit? It’s a film about a U-Boat, you see.
Suit youself.
See also:
Gazumped
BBC: Geller loses out on Elvis house
Celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller has discovered a house he bought on eBay, formerly owned by Elvis Presley, has been sold to someone else…
“We are absolutely, mind-blown angry. Of course we’re going to sue,” he said.
You’d have thought a self-proclaimed psychic would have seen that coming.
Geller seems to make a habit out of suing people.
Batwomaning for the other side
BBC: Batwoman hero returns as lesbian
Comic book heroine Batwoman is to make a comeback as a “lipstick lesbian” who moonlights as a crime fighter, a DC Comics spokesman has confirmed.