The ghost of Thanksgiving past
Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorites. Nobody ever believed me when I said it, because I seldom went home for the day and spent nearly all of my Turkey Days all by myself. It’s supposed to be a family holiday, after all.
But what’s not to love? You close your eyes and think to yourself actually, come to think of it, I have a pretty sweet deal — that mental exercise is good for the soul, or the id, or whatever meat gizmo drives the self, I do firmly believe — and then you gorge yourself into a coma. I have never missed observing Thanksgiving with all my heart. w00t!
It is also overlaid with a personal meaning — I arrived in Britain permanently on a Thanksgiving Day. I count the holiday as my Brittaversary, rather than the date. Four years, if you can believe it. Stranger in a strange land.
And now, yet another layer of meaning, as we attended the funeral of a neighbor this afternoon, a great and mighty sheep farmer in our little community. It was a sunny and very windy day, and we stood outside with a crowd (our local church is small and he was a popular man) getting blown around like flags. They carried in his coffin draped in a whole woolly fleece.
And then Uncle B had to go up to London and won’t be back until late. So here I am, like a Thanksgiving of yore, full up on my solitary feast and dozing in front of my Tudor fire while the wind howls away outside. A strange day, but on the whole, you know, I have a pretty sweet deal.
November 22, 2012 — 11:00 pm
Comments: 25
It’s…complicated
Okay, Americans — please back me up here. There are three kinds of potato, no? New potatoes, red potatoes and Idaho bakers. (I mean, not counting those blue things that’re supposed to be Quetzalcoatl eggs or something). Amirite?
Well. No. Geez, you would not beLEEEVE the potato drama that goes on here.
It’s not just that they recognize dozens of breeds of potato, they actually sell them in the store that way. Potatoes with names like Lady Christl, Rocket, International Kidney, Pentland Javelin, Duke of York, Charlotte, Piccolo Star, Maris Piper and Maris Peer. Dozens more. Don’t make me go look it up.
Oh, but there’s also the time of year they’re up: first early, second early, maincrop and second cropping (this is special late potato, for Christmas). Which I guess is mostly for people who want to grow their own, but this data intersects variety.
Oh, plus the place they were grown. Kent. Prince Edward Island. People can tell the difference.
People. Not me. Mash them up with butter, salt and pepper and, honestly — what’s the diff? Food is just too damn complicated here.
Don’t even get me started on the twenty varieties of sugar!
November 20, 2012 — 10:59 pm
Comments: 42
Three mints in one!
Finally, a little wholesome red meat (with extra schadenfreude sauce!). You may be aware that the BBC (the EEEEEEVILLLLLL BBC) has had several (three, in fact) very nasty boo-boos lately. I will outline them briefly, and point you to further reading.
Jimmy Savile died a year ago. He had been a BBC presenter for decades. He was also, it turns out, a sexual monster, with a taste for children (and possibly worse things). It was not exactly secret. Six decades, 400 lines of inquiry, 300 potential victims, fourteen police forces. The BBC program Newsnight had an exposé set to run on the scandal last year, which was axed. Instead, they ran a Christmas tribute to Jimmy Savile!
And inside the BBC, who knew? Well, the words “paedophile ring” are being bandied about.
In the middle of this brouhaha, someone stepped forward claiming to have been abused by a very senior Tory; one of Maggie’s staunchest. The BBC was so delighted to push the narrative into this happy territory, they ran the story without any of the proper checks. Turns out, it was demonstrably false. Then the accuser said “my bad” and, libel laws being what they are in the UK, dropped the Beeb nose deep in the shit. This is the issue that’s caused all those resignations lately.
The third is my favorite, though, and you might not have seen it. About six years ago, the BBC assembled a blue ribbon panel of scientific experts — top. men. — who declared the science of Climate Change was so gosh-darned settled, it would be wrong to give equal time to skeptics any more. And so they didn’t (pff! like they ever had).
Skeptics, naturally, asked, “…and these experts are…?” Then the BBC spent several years and hundreds of thousands of pounds (successfully!) fighting a Freedom of Information action in court. To avoid revealing the names of their ultra-qualified, ever-so-impressive scientific team.
Then a blogger named Maurizio Morabito (blog: Omnologos) dug around and found the entire guest list online. Just sitting there. (Aside: I am convinced absolutely everything is online somewhere. Keep digging!).
Yup. It was exactly what you think. Greenpeace. Media people. Church of England types (!). Warmenist hacks, the lot. Oh, this one is fun. This is going to leave a mark.
Good blogs to follow on this: Omnologos, Bishop Hill, Autonomous Mind, Biased BBC, Tall Bloke. Good articles: Delingpole, Melanie Phillips, the Spectator.
Oh, and the kitten got better.
November 14, 2012 — 11:56 pm
Comments: 29
This is what happens when you put Greens in charge
Okay, so Brighton and Hove Town Council are thinking of scrapping ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ in official paperwork. The reason? It’s complicated.
No, no…the reason isn’t complicated. Gender is complicated. We’ve moved beyond straight, gay and transgender into a category called genderqueer. No, really — that’s a thing. It’s apparently gender’s Undecided column.
I suspect the ordinance unlikely to go through, even in Brighton (the South coast’s gay capital; it’s always been a little…queer in Brighton). But it’s been proposed (yes, by a Green party councilor). Oh, and tax forms have already scrapped Mr, Mrs and Miss in favor of the gender-neutral Mx.
Here’s the thing. I just really don’t want to think about your issues any more. Do whatever you like, and as long as you aren’t hurting anybody, I’m okay with it. But please stop demanding that I think about your genitals and your sex life so much, okay?
All of you. Not just the extra bent people — the straight people, too. I don’t want mental pictures of ANYbody else’s stuff any more, okay? Just. Ew. Deal with it yourselves.
The picture? Generic picture of Brighton Pier. I was laughing about this the other day – have you noticed no online news story is ever published without a picture, even if they have to rustle up something stupid? Like, “Fox Steals Picnic Basket” runs with a picture of a fox and the caption “file photo of a fox.” Oh, hey. Good to know.
But in this case? You’ll thank me for not picking one from the ‘genderqueer’ images search.
Okay. Here. Tomorrow. Six sharp. Round 41 of the Dead Pool. Be here or be genderqueer! Unless you already are, in which case…bummer, Mx.
October 25, 2012 — 11:05 pm
Comments: 22
Post-apocalyptic British government to be run from secret tunnel complex under Medieval castle
Really. There’s a network of rooms and tunnels 150 feet under Dover Castle — WWII era, from the look of it — that was dusted off to be used as a seat of regional government in the event of a nuclear war.
They’re opening it up for tours for the two weeks marking the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We won’t be going. Dover is a fur piece up the coast from us, but it’s still impossibly cool.
Ian Fleming was from Kent, which probably explains why I sometimes feel like I’ve fallen through a trapdoor into a Bond villain’s secret lair.
Enjoy the debates tonight. As usual, they start about 2am my time, so I’ll catch them in the replay in the morning. To be honest, watching these things in real time makes me nervous as a cat, anyway. Drop by and give me some good news to wake up to, hm?
October 16, 2012 — 9:27 pm
Comments: 16
Moo, boo…what’s the diff?
Phew! I thought there wouldn’t be a post tonight…stupid blog’s been down for an hour.
These things? They’re usually painted to look vaguely like cows. Really lumpy, ugly-ass cows. They’re in Milton Keynes, North of London, and they’re made of cement and fiberglass and…I dunno…bits of junk and FAIL.
A vandal did this to them. A wonderful, magical vandal.
The locals liked the paint job so much, they’re going to leave it this way. At least through Hallowe’en.
October 15, 2012 — 11:33 pm
Comments: 13
WOW! That’s a lot of plaster nipples…
Okay, last one from that last country fair. Most of the fêtes and fairs we go to have an organ-playing automaton or two, but this thing was in a class by itself. This is the 115 Key Verbeek Centenerary Organ, though I gather from YouTube chatter the naked figures are perhaps new…?
Anyhoo, it was big and loud. And, however it is they program these things these days they’re still making them. While we stood there, this one played Somebody That I Used to Know.
My dad had a fascination with pipe organs and music boxes. I remember him sitting at the kitchen table with an X-Acto slicing little rectangular holes in a player piano roll to make it play that creepy old hymn, How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours. Is it any wonder I grew up to be a serial killer?
Wait…I didn’t say that out loud, did I?
Turn up, turn up, turn up — tomorrow, 6pm WBT. Dead Pool Round Thirty Eight. Don’t miss your chance for prize dick!
September 27, 2012 — 10:26 pm
Comments: 4
And then there’s this guy
Portable blacksmith. From the same country show as the billhooks guy. He’s got his forge and his anvil and his bench and he’s making stuff on the spot. Says he got the idea for a portable smitherie 17 years ago, and it’s been a success from the beginning. He doesn’t exactly roam from town to town doing ever’body’s smithin’; he mostly does shows like this.
Hard to see how he makes a living. He sold us a huge pair of oversized iron fireplace tongs with the bendy bit in the middle and the twisty bits on either end for, like, £18.
Andy Williams will not be down for breakfast, which means little, little takes the dick. You know what that means! Yeah, it means I really, really need to get some dick in the mail. But it also means — see you here Friday for the next round!
September 26, 2012 — 9:15 pm
Comments: 19
The geeks shall inherit the earth
Down in this blessed district of Jollye Olde, we’ve been grievously short of rain lately. (No, really…this is either the sunniest and second driest, or the driest and second sunniest, corner of Britain. I never remember which). But we’re making up for it now. Three days of wild, mad rain. Stuck inside for now, so here’s a picture from happier times — i.e. two weeks ago.
One of my favorite parts of the local country shows are the collectors who gather along the edges. I suspect they neither pay to be there nor are paid to be there, but they turn up in funky little tents and trailers to camp out for a few days, commune with their fellow geeks and show off their passion.
Like the guy with dozens of ancient wrenches (spanners to you Limeys) from all over the world, neatly tacked to pegboards. Or the one with the fifty or so antique gas cans (petrol cans to you Brits).
Or this guy with all the billhooks (billhooks to you persons of Anglo Saxon ancestry). Billhooks are a sort of general purpose woodworking tool, still very much in use by thatchers, farmers, coppicers, hurdle makers, charcoal burners, hedgelayers and, under some conditions, soldiers.
Though you can’t read the labels, the designs reflect various professions but also — more interesting to me — different regions. So a Yorkshire billhook is different from a Folkstone billhook. Yorkshire is a big district, but Folkstone is just a small town. That its billhook should be different from Tenderden’s — another small town not far away from it — is, I guess, what makes these things interesting to collect.
But the charm of this one? He was showing off a billhook collection, yes, but this ain’t it. This is a display case full of tiny, lovingly handmade models off various billhook designs.
You can draw a straight line from this brain to the brain that built the difference engine.
September 25, 2012 — 9:55 pm
Comments: 16
Uketacular
So, Saturday we went to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. They played the Albert Hall Friday night, so they could be forgiven for being less than enthusiastic in the auditorium of the community college in Rye.
But they weren’t. They put in an awesome performance. We were such a small audience, we did our best to hoot and stamp and sing when asked (something Brits do with more alacrity than you might think). I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a concert so much.
They did everything from Handel to Lady Gaga, and they did it with a straight face and an amazing degree of musicality. If you think about it, eight ukes probably equals three or four actual musical instruments, so it all works out.
Worth a trawl through YouTube, though I didn’t find any clips that I thought adequately captured the spirit of the thing. Much better if you catch them in person. They’ll be in the US again for a bit next month, but they tour more or less constantly (and have done for twenty seven years, apparently. Before uke was cool. Wait…it’s cool now, right?).
September 24, 2012 — 8:35 pm
Comments: 22