The Lazy Cook

Believe it or not (and frankly I sometimes find it hard to believe myself) but some 25 or so years ago I did a course in Indian cooking at a local community school on a Sunday morning.  I still have all my notes but am ashamed to say that I have never kept it up - just too much faff for my "keep it simple" approach.  But the other day I came across a reference to Aloo Tikki which is apparently street food from Northern India.  And I looked at the ingredients and thought "I can do a quick and easy cheat version of that" - so here's how.  Make up a packet of instant mashed potato - use a little extra water so it comes out a bit sloppy.  Put it in a bowl and add about half a tin of Easy Onions, a dessert spoon or so of crushed ginger (comes in a jar from most supermarkets), some garam masala or other spices to taste and some dried parsley. If you've got it, add a chopped up jalapeno chilli and a handful of frozen peas (not essential but adds colour and authenticity - not to mention an extra kick!).  Now add some plain flour and water, bit by bit, and get your hands in and mix up until you get a nice "silly putty" consistency.  Make the mixture up into little "patties" and shallow fry until golden brown.  And there you are.

Generous - or diabolical?

Richard Branson's idea that his staff can take holidays "whenever they want for as long as they want" seems to me to be a sort of flexi-time-max.  I've had my say on flexible working (see 13/2/07) and haven't changed my view and as far as I can see, Branson is relying on his staff seeing (and perhaps more to the point, being able to see) the big picture, and being able to assess whether or not their absence will damage the business. Which of course raises the question of whether in many cases staff would ever dare take time off.  And perhaps that is the thinking behind the whole thing?  Is this actually a clever ruse by Branson?

It's just a photo!

There was a case a while back where a man was accused of being a paedophile for taking a photograph of a young girl in a swimming costume at a swimming baths.  In the event it turned out that she was a relative of his whom he had taken swimming there and he had taken the photograph to show her family, so no action was taken. But it did raise the question - is a photograph of a young girl in a swimming costume potentially child pornography?  The argument is that there may be - probably are - those who would view such a photo for sexual gratification.  So which is the determining factor - the reason it was taken or the use to which it might be put?  A judgment in a recent case in Texas has come down firmly in favour of the first of these.  This is America of course, and so the case was decided on the basis of their First Amendment which protects freedom of expression, but there is no doubt it was a sensible decision as otherwise you are holding the creator of any sort of image responsible in law for whatever illegal use it may be put to, which should clearly only be so if it was created specifically for that purpose.

Once more unto the breach...

So despite our lamentable track record in our recent dealings with the Middle East, here we are again. We're going to carry out air strikes on ISIS, ISIL or whatever we're calling them today.  And does anybody really believe it will end there?  I think the expression is "mission creep" - air strikes in Iraq will lead to air strikes in Syria which will lead to limited troop intervention which will lead to...  I hope I'm wrong but that's what I foresee.  And the tragedy is that at the end of the day, chances are that the problem will still be there - maybe even more acute.  What else could we do?  Our real misfortune is that we're already on the rollercoaster and we can't get off.  We are doomed to follow the path that to a great extent we ourselves have helped to create. What's that saying about chickens coming home to roost?

I need a wee - which way's north?

We've talked before about the Ig Nobel awards (see 2/10/11) and this year the biology prize has been awarded to a team who documented dogs' behaviour when they urinate, and established that when they do so, they tend to align themselves with the earth's magnetic north/south axis.  So if you're lost in the woods, and there's no moss on the trees to help you establish north and south, just watch out for a dog having a pee!

Intractable problem?

Perhaps I'm being thick but I can't see why the idea of "English votes for English laws" would be that difficult to manage in practice - at least the English votes part. We know which MPs represent which constituencies so where's the problem?  I see a far bigger issue being in identifying "English laws".  Suppose for example that Scotland decides to set its corporation tax at 25%, and then the Westminster government proposes to set England and Wales' corporation tax at 23%.  You could argue that this is a decision for England and Wales only, but clearly it will impinge on Scotland - which is still part of the UK, so can they be denied the right to have their say on it?  Of course the problem is that if you turn it round - Scotland proposes to introduce a lower rate of corporation tax than us - we would and could have no say in that decision. This is the West Lothian Question in all its glory, and I have no answer to it, save to say that we should never have agreed to Scotland having a devolved parliament in the first place.  The problem is and always was inherent in that decision.

Aargh!!

Cristiano Ronaldo to come back and play in the Premiership?  Oh, no please - anything but that!

Simple logic

A news item on the local TV the other day said that, according to the police, 95% of cases of sexual harassment on public transport go unreported.  Of course, my immediate reaction was - if they are unreported, how the hell do they know that?

In the aftermath...

There may well be lessons to be learned from the Scottish referendum, but I think some people are seeing things that aren't there.  For starters, there's this theory that the referendum has "energised" or "incentivised" voters and that this enthusiasm will be carried forward to next year's general election.  I think not - you are trying to compare chalk and cheese.  It's one thing to be presented with a yes/no decision which will make an enormous difference to your immediate future, and quite another to have to make a choice between one set of politicians you don't really care that much about, and another set of politicians you don't really care that much about.  I can't see the turn-out at the general election being much different from usual.  The other is that the referendum proves that 16 and 17-year-olds can be trusted with the vote.  Well, does it?  It seems that the 16 and 17-year-olds voted something like 70-30 in favour of independence.  Could you not argue that this shows that they are too naïve and headstrong to be trusted to make important decisions?  Put it this way - would you really want to put your future in the hands of some 16-year-old?

Trust me. I'm a homeopathic doctor...

The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (more commonly referred to as the "health regulator") has approved the creation of a register of qualified homeopaths.  This has been criticized by some as giving "credibility to quackery".  So what's the problem?  Homeopathy (from the Greek - same suffering) is based on the belief that "like cures like" - that is that a small dose of whatever has made you ill will cure you.   Although there has never been any empirical proof of this, it is an idea that goes way, way back and came to particular prominence in the 18th century. What opens it to charges of quackery is that the substances used as a cure (that is, whatever has caused the illness) are diluted and diluted until no molecule of the original substance remains.  So what you are taking is just water - or whatever liquid has been used in the dilution process.  The theory is that the water - or whatever - retains a "memory" of the substance.  So - quackery?  There's plenty of evidence that if someone is taking something which they believe will cure them, they do sometimes recover - do not underestimate the power of the human mind.  The other side of the coin is that if homeopathic remedies are pursued in place of conventional treatment you may be putting your health - life even - at serious risk. Your choice, but you need to understand the pros and cons.

The Lazy Cook

Seems a long time since I've posted anything under this title - perhaps a reflection of how unimaginative I've become lately in my eating habits.  But the other day I was given a bag of king prawns and wondered what on earth can I do with them? So here's a simple tasty idea - it's sort of based on "pigs in blankets".  I got some prosciutto (I reckon parma ham or jamon serrano would have done just as well) and wrapped each prawn in a slice (or more like half a slice to be precise) and then grilled them. I had them with some tagliatelle mixed with a dollop or two of thousand island dressing.  I thought it tasted really nice so I pass it on for what it's worth.

Och - naw!

So the Scots have spoken - and now the fun begins.  It would be nice if we could now turn the page on this particular issue, and talk about something else, but I fear not.  This may be the end (for the time being at least) of the Scottish independence issue, but just the start of an argument about the extent to which all of us should or should not be ruled from Westminster.  One of William the Conqueror's first acts was to centralise power to himself in London, and it's been a bone of contention ever since.  If it brings home to Westminster that there's a country out there beyond the M25, and that they're responsible for it, then perhaps some good will have come out of the Scottish independence circus.

Salt and vinegar?

So now we know why Manchester United were so crap under David Moyes last season - because he stopped them eating chips the night before a match!  It seems this was something of a tradition (they were low-fat chips apparently) and the players didn't take kindly to Moyes banning them.  Poor souls - eh? Didumms den and all that. Presumably chips are now back on the menu?  Mind you, after splurging £120m-odd in the transfer market, can they afford them any more?

Smile for the camera!

I mentioned last December that the car tax disc is to disappear (as from the beginning of next month apparently) and suggested that this was not necessarily a good news story.  Well now I'm even more certain it's not.  In order to try and identify those who haven't paid their tax, number plate recognition cameras are being installed throughout the country, and whilst this may be considered to be reasonable at first sight, the troubling aspect is that they will record not only the tax dodgers but also you and me going about our everyday business, and this information will be stored for an indefinite period.  Which means of course that if they wish to do so, the authorities would be able to construct a pretty comprehensive record of where you have been and when.  And how do you feel about that?

Scotland decides? - a final comment

So we're looking at what might happen if the Scots vote for independence on Thursday.  It's mostly guesswork of course, but my feeling is that as far as Scotland is concerned, there would be an initial "feelgood" bounce which might last a year or two, but that in the longer term the Scottish economy would begin to falter, which almost certainly would lead to the more entrepreneurial Scots moving south, which would hasten the demise of the economy, and so on.  So in the long run I think Scotland will be worse off rather than better.  And for the rest of us?  Well I'm getting on in years and throughout my life I've seen successive Labour governments mess up the economy, leaving it to a Conservative government to sort it out, only for the next Labour government to mess it all up again.  That's pretty simplistic of course - a lot depends on outside factors and there have been exceptions - the first Blair government being the most obvious.  But to the extent that the loss of Scottish MPs would make it more difficult for Labour to get into power here, a "yes" vote in my book would have to be seen as A Good Thing. So that's it - let's see what Thursday brings.  And one final thought - whatever the outcome, I reckon the people who will end up rubbing their hands will be - the lawyers!

Strange but true.

Here's a funny thing - if you write down the length of all the rivers in the world, how many of the answers would you expect to start with the digit 1?  Well there are 9 possibilities for the first digit, so logic suggests that one ninth of them (about 11%) will start with one.  Would you be surprised to learn that the actual figure is just over 30%?  And even weirder - it doesn't matter how you measure them - in miles, feet, inches, metres or whatever, the result will be the same - about 30% will start with the digit 1.  I don't pretend to understand it, but this is known as Benford's Law, which says that for the majority of comprehensive collections of data the most common first digit will be 1, then 2, then 3 and so on in sequence down to 9 being the least common.  Like I say, I don't understand why, but it works.

My school - my rules.

We haven't had a "teacher knows best" story for some time, but here's a good one. You may have heard that from the start of this school year, all primary schools have to provide a hot cooked meal for Key Stage 1 pupils (up to 7 years old). That's got to be good, yes?  Well not necessarily - a school in Yorkshire has decided that this means that Key Stage 1 children are obliged to have the hot meal provided, or go home for their mid-day meal.  They cannot bring a packed lunch.  Furthermore, the same rule applies to the older children - except of course they don't get their meal free, they have to pay for it - £1.75 at present.  So if you have an older child at this school, and are out at work all day or otherwise cannot have them home for lunch, you have no alternative but to shell out £1.75 for whatever the school chooses to give them.  Power seems to go to some people's heads!

Scotland decides? - continued

Suppose the referendum result is "yes" for independence?  How will I feel?  Well, sad that the union will come to an end, but perhaps far more annoyed that The United Kingdom of which I am a member will break up without me having had any say in the matter.  And suppose it's a close call - 50.5% yes to 49.5% no, for instance.  I am surprised that for such a major constitutional decision there is no "threshold", which means essentially that the views of a very small number of people could decide the issue.  But other than sad and annoyed, I can't say I shall wake up on the day after feeling any different.  My life will not change, whatever the result.  At least, not in the short term. But what about the long term effects?  We'll consider that next time.

Pass me that magazine...

I'm not a Buddhist, but I do have this "they're all God's creatures" attitude to most wildlife, so I will carefully gather up spiders, beetles and such and take them outside and put them in the garden.  But there are two things I will cheerfully splat - flies and wasps.  And yet, I hadn't thought about it, but wasps are the main predators of aphids, and in a world without wasps, greenfly and blackfly would devour all our roses, tomatoes, cabbages and such.  So they have a purpose.  And if there were no flies - well, there's no delicate way of putting this - we would all be up to our eyeballs in shit.  So I'll continue to splat them. but perhaps with more awareness.

Scotland decides?

With just a week to go, I feel I should make some comment on what is the top news story of the moment, so over the next few days I'll be looking at the Scottish Independence Referendum. So, first off - how likely is it that they will vote "yes"? Well, it's certainly a distinct possibility, and the "Yes" campaign seem to have seized the momentum.  But really, isn't that to be expected?  Indeed what I find surprising is that the "No" campaign have held such a healthy lead for so long.  When you think about it, the "No" campaign's pitch has been, and couldn't really have been anything other than - vote "No" to keep things as they are, and that is never going to stir the blood.  The "Yes" campaign is all about charging forward to a (possibly) exciting tomorrow - the "No" is more pipe and slippers and a cup of Ovaltine.  The "No"s should have been on the back foot from day one and the surprise is that they haven't been.  And therein maybe lies the "No"s best hope - I would have expected by this point in the campaign that the "Yes"s would be significantly ahead, and the fact that they aren't must be a concern for them, because experience of elections seems to suggest that as voting day draws nearer, the "status quo" effect comes into play and voters tend to revert to clinging to what they know.  But what does it mean for the rest of us?  More to follow.

Wot - no soldiers for my egg?

The EU have now said that we shouldn't eat toast!  Well, not exactly - it's all about acrylamide (see post dated 22/4/12) which is a substance which has been linked to cancer in rats and mice, and which is created naturally by grilling food - that is, exposing it to a close source of high heat.  Which is of course precisely how you turn bread into toast.  The longer the exposure, the higher the amount of acrylamide.  So the EU's advice (and despite eyecatching headlines, that's all it is) is that you shouldn't cremate your bread - just a nice light brown colour is fine.

I don't want no peas!

I can still remember my son (about 4 years old at the time I would think) proclaiming that at the dinner table. And I remember trying to convince him that what he was saying was the opposite of what he meant ("Here's the world with peas - here's the world with no peas.  Which do you want - which don't you want?).  Not sure I got through to him, but what about this business of the double negative?  It seemed so clear to me at the time - and for that matter still does - but many other languages use double negatives as a matter of course (Spanish: No dijo nada = I didn't say nothing) and indeed it was common in Middle English (I ne saugh nawiht = I didn't see nothing).  So perhaps it's just a matter of logic rather than grammar - and indeed, as I've said more than once, provided what you say is understood, that's really all that matters.  And there's no doubt that my son made his wishes clear! 

Yah, boo, sucks!

Sad to see the arguments for and against Scottish independence degenerating into party political sniping in Westminster.  It is of course the duty of Her Majesty's Opposition to hold the Government to account and to offer alternatives to their policies, but here the coalition and the opposition are agreed on their approach to the independence debate - the official stance of both is to support the Better Together (i.e."No") campaign. So to see people trying to score cheap political points is depressing. There's more a stake here than your personal futures, folks!

What's that in old money?

Have you ever wondered, as I have, why in the Fahrenheit scale, the freezing point of water is 32°? Funny number, as is 212° for boiling point.  How did he come up with that?  And it appears that the scale was not originally based on the various states of water at all and these numbers were simply later calculations.  He based his scale on the freezing point of brine (mixture of water and salt) which he set at 0° and the temperature of the healthy human body, which he set at 96°.  Why 96? Because it's a multiple of 12 - we're so used today to working in 10s but in fact 12 is a far more useful base to work in because 12 is equally divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas 10 is equally divisible by only 2 and 5.  Those of an age will remember that the pre-decimal shilling was made up of 12 pence and very useful it was for dividing pocket money between multiple children.  And on this 0-96 scale the freezing point of water came out as 32 and the boiling point 212 - and there you are.

R.I.P.

Joan Rivers - funny, funny lady.

Amps x Volts = Watts... so what?

Once again I've that feeling that I'm missing something.  If you have an electrical appliance that performs a task then it will take a specific amount of electricity to achieve that.  A more powerful appliance will do the job quicker, and a less powerful one will take longer but the amount of electricity used will stay the same. So what is the point in the EU's latest regulation restricting the size of motor allowed in vacuum cleaners?  And it appears that this sort of restriction will in due course apply to hairdryers, toasters, kettles and such.  As far as I can see, all it means is it will take longer to vacuum your house, dry your hair, make your toast and boil your kettle but the power consumption will remain the same.  Where's the sense in that?

New Tricks

Those of you who watched the original - are you still watching it?  What do you think?  I expressed my disappointment a couple of years ago (8/9/12) about the way it was going and I haven't changed my opinion.  I am still watching it and don't get me wrong, it's good, but it's a bit like going to some seaside place you enjoyed as a child.  It's still the seaside, the pier's still there and the amusement arcades you remembered and the sands are as inviting as ever, but somehow most of the magic has gone.  Anybody else feel the same?

Ha ha.

Knock knock
- Who's there?
The Gestapo
- The Gestapo who?
(Screams) VE VILL ASK THE QVESTIONS!

One way traffic.

Can't get my head round the Government's apparent approach to the problem of Brits going to Iraq or Syria and then potentially coming back here to carry out atrocities. It seems the plan is to try and prevent them going by confiscating their passports. But surely this is the wrong way round?  Why stop them going?  If they're that sort of person with that sort of mindset, we're well rid of them.  What we should be doing is stopping them coming back in.  Seems simple to me.

Big brother?

Very difficult to understand what's going on in this case of the parents who took their child from a hospital here in the UK and went with him to Spain to try to get treatment for him which was unavailable under the NHS.  It seems to be generally agreed that, whatever the wisdom of what they did, they broke no law by taking him from the hospital, nor by taking him out of the country and yet somehow a European arrest warrant was issued, and indeed the parents have now been arrested and are it seems in custody - in handcuffs, no less!.  This really calls into question the right of the state to override parental decisions.  It seems that the hospital were considering trying to get an order which would have banned the parents from entering the hospital to see their son - all because they were in disagreement about his treatment.  And whether they were right or wrong, that strikes me as a shocking thing to do - or even contemplate doing.  It may be there are things we are not being told, but on the face of it, this is a deeply disturbing business.