| Lack of Pie Error |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|12:44 pm] |
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Went to our favourite local pub, The Windmill last night for the first time in a few weeks. Was shocked to discover that they no longer serve lovely Pieminister Pies which have long been favourites, replacing what used to be a choice of 9 exciting pies (2 or 3 of which would be vegetarian depending on whether the "special" was veggie or not) with instead a measly 4 options, only one of which was veggie, from another outfit known as "Tom's Pies" (haven't been able to find a website to link to). I was sadly disappointed - the Tom's pie pastry was not nearly as good, and the filling not so interesting (it was mushroom and spinach - alright as far as it goes but only so-so). Unrelated to the replacement pie supplier, the gravy was also less nice and the food served on cold plates such that my food got down to room temperature before I was half way through. It looks like our favourite local will be less favourite from now on, at least as far as when we are in the mood for pie. |
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| Assisted Suicide |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|11:53 am] |
Is there a moral difference between the action of "assisting a suicide" by - directly administering a fatal action on a person with their consent
- indirectly enabling them to perform a fatal action themselves by obtaining required equipment or substances and placing them within reach, or placing the person in a position such that they can perform a fatal action themselves
- indirectly enabling them to have a fatal action administered to them by helping them to get to a country/clinic where such actions are legal
?
Without drawing a conclusion on the rights and wrongs of this issue, I am struggling to see a moral difference between 2 and 3 at least, and there's not much in it to differentiate 1 either. I can't see how you could have a coherent law which said that 2 is illegal but 3 is not. If 2 is legal why would 1 not be? |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|07:10 am] |
Finally saw Fight Club the other day. Didn't realise till just now when I looked up the link that it's actually taken 10 years to get around to it. I very much enjoyed it. (P didn't, as I expect he'll blog about at some point). Somehow over the last 10 years I've never been in a situation where anyone discusses the plot in my presence so I hadn't been exposed to any spoilers. To be honest, I hadn't even been aware that there was much of a plot to spoil - I'd been under the impression that it was going to be a couple of hours worth of mindless violence with little story justification, so I was pleasantly surprised. ( cut for spoilers in case there's anyone else out there who still hasn't seen it - if you haven't then I do recommend it )
Good film, anyway. |
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| Aren't I good? |
[May. 20th, 2009|12:28 pm] |
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This week I have already been swimming twice and to yoga once. I am intending to go to yoga for a second time and swimming for a third time before the week is out. I find this strange and disturbing. |
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| Private Schools Feel the Pinch |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|01:31 pm] |
Private Schools and State Schools are both in trouble suffering from two sides of the same coin - that due to the economic situation, more parents are availing themselves of their right to a free state education for their children rather than paying for a private one.
Having the private schools reduce their capacity and the state schools build extra classrooms is a foolish way to deal with this. Surely the state sector should make an arrangement to buy the spare capacity of the private sector, at a rate which is no greater than the state sector would incur were it to provide this capacity themselves. Places at private schools are then available as part of the state system, to be allocated to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds who can most benefit from them. |
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| Petition |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|12:43 pm] |
Please everyone sign and publicise this petition expressing support for Margaret Haywood, the nurse who has been struck off for whistleblowing. See this guardian article for more details on the case.
Thanks. |
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| Birthday! |
[Apr. 13th, 2009|11:03 am] |
So yesterday at the parentage I was suddenly and unexpectedly given a thirtieth birthday present! Keen readers may have noted that the birthday in question was several years ago so this was really very unexpected but truely lovely.
On the 30th birthdays of my elder and younger sisters I had teamed up with the non-birthday-having sister to create, in one case a "this is your life" book and in the other a comprehensive "dictionary of [name]" book and yesterday it was my turn! I was given a wonderful board game all about my life with a board made out of photos of me and with questions about my life and interests. We all played it in the afternoon (I won, but only just - Phil was very close behind and so was my elder sister). I absolutely love it but suspect that I may not often be able to persuade people to play it with me.
I understand that loads of friends contributed pictures and factoids so I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped my lovely sisters create this wonderful thing. |
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| Life |
[Mar. 14th, 2009|09:31 am] |
Life is just insanely busy at the moment. At work, the telethon started 2 weeks ago which means long hours and very little rest. Did, however, manage a nice birthday last weekend. nice croissanty breakfast followed by lots of prezzies and phonecalls to many friends&family. Lunch at the Tobacco Factory followed by Culture in the form of Julius Caesar then dinner with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) maxandfamily.
One of my prezzies was a Breadmaker which I've been having fun with but also making a few mistakes with. Have also being getting Organised about many of the things which Need Doing - neither the back nor the front garden are any longer a hideous tangle of weeds. Just over a week ago someone pushed a leaflet through our door offering gardening services at a reduced rate if engaged before the end of march. I swiftly appointed them to get rid of all weeds and plant out the front with a large number of thyme plants which will eventually be a thyme lawn, and lay the back garden out with new turf (which we then were told needs watering daily for the next 2 weeks which we are a bit annoyed about as the next 2 weeks are insanely busy anyway without having to do anything extra and if we'd known we would have asked for the work to be done towards the end of the month instead). We've also managed to get around to appointing someone to sort out the roof, and work will start on 2nd April, and also booked ourselved a little holiday in London wherein we hope to absorb much culture and see many many friends (put 17th/18th/19th April in your diaries now if you're London Based and would like to see us). |
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| Pancake Day |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|10:02 pm] |
What sort of insane irrational multinational supermarket corporation thinks that sugar is a reasonable ingredient in shake-and-cook pancake mix? The ingredients of pancakes are flour, egg, milk & water plus some fat if you wish. The beauty of them is that the same mix can be used for an entire meal with savoury fillings forming a first course and sweet fillings forming the pudding - or so I thought - unfortunately I was disabused of my assumption when I dug into my pancake with cheese and found it unpleasantly sweet. I had to have the rest of my pancakes with maple syrup or chocolate sauce, a real hardship.
I know I know I should have just made them from scratch but I didn't get home from work till nearly 9pm and I thought a shortcut wouldn't be too wrong of me. I'll know better next time. |
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| Recommended Eatery |
[Feb. 18th, 2009|06:18 pm] |
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Quick trip to London to visit my opposite number at another University and decide whether we want to buy a Thing that they have bought. I decided to travel up the night before to catch up with my sisters and we met up at a random lebanese restaurant in soho which turned out to be very nice so I thought I'd mention it here in case any of you ever need a decent place to eat less than 2 minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road tube station - it's called Kaslik and is located in Greek Street. The food was excellent and generous. The moutabal/babaganoush was fantastic, the felafel were perfect. The batata hara were not the best I've ever tasted and neither was the mouhamara but they were still jolly nice and everything else was splendid but I just can't remember all the names of everything we ordered. The atmosphere was lovely and the service was great. Do give it a try. |
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| Just to mention... |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|10:03 am] |
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I'm aware that a few of my lovely friends and relatives who aren't LJ members will occassionally drop by and read my irregular and incoherent musings here. If you aren't an LJ member, you may not be aware that quite a lot of my posts are friends-only-locked which is sometimes why you don't see many entries for a long time (sometimes it's cos there aren't any of course). Anyway, if you'd like to be kept up to date with stuff that I might only want to discuss with known acquaintances rather than the world in general, create an LJ account and post a comment here telling me who you are (I've set this entry to "screen comments" so your details will be private to me only and not published for the world to see) |
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| ...and now the haggises come home to roost... |
[Jan. 23rd, 2009|08:51 pm] |
This Christmas, a number of members of my family and circle of friends (that number being precicely 25) received Do-It-Yourself Haggis Kits for Christmas. With Burns' Night being on Sunday, many of these kits have now been opened, and I have so far had two slightly panicked "what do I do if..." phone calls from aspiring haggis chefs.
The Haggis Helpline is Open For Business so please do call if you're having problems
... but in the interests of efficiency, I shall start to compose a FAQ here so that other chefs can benefit from all the answers - do let me know if you can think of any further questions which I should answer here for general erudition.- Be Careful with preparing the haggis skin. It needs to be soaked in hand-hot (c.40*C) water for 40 minutes or so - not water that was hand hot 20 minutes ago but is now room temperature - you will need to top it up with more hot water from the kettle if it starts feeling warm rather than hot.
- If the skin has been warmed and soaked enough it will stretch as you pull it open - if it doesn't seem to be stretching, soak it some more - unwary chefs can accidentally split their skins (in a non-hilarious sense)
- If you do split your skin don't panic - you can either use a boil-in-the-bag bag instead if you can get one from your local supermarket or kitchenware stockist, or if all else fails wrap it in tin foil and bake it instead (though boiling is the most authentic.
- Yes it's a big bowl of ingredients but when compressed it will take up less volume - and you don't have to get every last spoonful into the skin. How much you manage to fit in will depend on how much you managed to stretch the skin - but it's OK to keep some back so long as you are sure there are no air pockets inside the skin, make sure you have enough slack in the skin to seal it properly when you boil it.
- Pricking the haggis before boiling should not be necessary if you have correctly expelled all air from within, and could result in a soggy haggis due to water seeping in during the boiling. Not recommended.
Good Luck everyone, and let me know how you do. Those of you who haven't been honoured with a kit, I'm sorry that I couldn't make one for everyone but please have a very happy Burns Night anyway... |
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| Re-Swearing to Boldly Split Infinitives |
[Jan. 22nd, 2009|07:10 am] |
So, apparently Obama's legal team decided that because there was some words incorrect the first time around, there would be potential for Mad People to claim that Obama wasn't really president. This is because he promised to execute the office of President of the United States faithfully rather than to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States. So far, so mad. So instead of ignoring the Mad People, they decided to do it again using the right magic words this time.
However, in a stunning lack of obsessiveness, the repeat-event did NOT include him placing a hand on a bible. Now, don't you think that anyone insane enough to allege that the wrong word order would make him not really president, would also be insane enough to claim that the lack of a bible would have the same effect? |
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| Kidderminster |
[Jan. 17th, 2009|11:03 am] |
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Is anyone out there familiar with the locale of Kidderminster at all? I have a relative who is considering moving into the vicinity but none of the family know anything about the place so it would be nice if anyone knows anyone who has some local knowledge. |
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| Happy New Year |
[Jan. 2nd, 2009|10:31 am] |
Hullo. Its been a while since I've had time to post. Didja miss me?
2008 has been a busy year. 2009 has, so far, been characterised by not getting dressed till mid afternoon and not being expected to achieve anything at all. So, so far I prefer 2009 if only I could be sure it would stay like this. I don't seem to have made any New Years Resolutions last year so I can't do an audit of how I did over the past year. Had a good christmas generally - although it started off with being poorly and I had what should have been my last day of work before xmas off sick instead. I was mostly better by the Monday, by which time we were ensconsed at the In-laws where we stayed until Boxing Day. Didn't manage to do any religiousness - on the way to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve I started feeling really poorly so went to bed early instead, but it didn't turn into any kind of actual illness fortunately. Possibly a surfeit of cream eclairs at the afternoon party we'd been to? Brief visit home on Boxing Day before trucking up to my half of the family for the subsequent few days, then home again. P has now developed the bug which I had before xmas and didn't feel well enough to travel, so we skipped New Years celebrations and went to bed early. God I feel old.
New years resolutions for 2009 - hmm, not sure. Possibly something to do with buckling down and actually getting ON with all the stuff that needs doing (roof needs refelting, garden STILL needs getting under control, bathroom still not quite finished...). Not concrete enough to be resolutions though. I'll have a think. |
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| Jolly good show, what? |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|08:03 am] |
well, that's alright then. God Bless America.
Incidentally, when reading the text of Barack Obama's speech, I cried real tears of joy. However, when later I listened to the speech as spoken I didn't find it nearly so moving. Was this because (a) it was the second time as I'd read the text before so it didn't have the impact (b) it sounded better in my head as I was putting the tone and emphasis of the phrases on the bits that meant most to me (c) I was distracted by the cheers and shouts of the crowds in audio which put a different mood on the same words. |
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