What's new is old again ...

I'm not sure why I do it, but I seem to have a habit of covering my electronic widgets in covers that are decidedly antique looking.

My Kindle Fire has the look of an old, leather-bound book, and my iPhone has a cover that looks like an old British telephone box - really old ... it has the "Press Button A" and "Press Button B" graphic too, which disappeared in the early 1970s I think.

I often wonder about the psychology of this.  Am I embarrassed to have the technology?  Do I prefer the look of older items?  The answer to both is a definite "no" but it's still an odd way to go about things.  I was trying to think of anything else I've done this with, and the only thing I could think of was that my small DVD collection is in a wicker basket - does that count?  I love contemporary images - well most of them, but I could say that for some more traditional things too.  I guess I'm kind of in the middle when it comes to artistic preferences.  Same goes with the decor of our house.  I find it hard to pin down and label the style ... not too contemporary, not too traditional, doesn't fit into "French Country" or "Shabby Chic" or any other style format.

Life in the middle lane?  I guess that's me.  On the one hand it sounds pretty boring, but I figure it means that I have a wide range of interests and styles.  Hey, gotta put a good spin on it!

Now that's the way to make an exit -

It is the last journey you will ever make - so why opt for a plain wooden coffin when you could meet your maker in a giant chilli pepper?

This story was in the Daily Mail and I loved it.  The chili pepper is the work of Ghanaian craftsman Paa Joe.   Fantasy coffins - sometimes known as proverbial coffins - have become a tradition in Ghana, where many people believe in an afterlife and regard deceased ancestors as more powerful than the living.  The shape of the caskets often reflect the individual's profession or links to certain clans.  Initially a form of art designed simply to glorify the dead, a number of the coffins which have flowed from this tradition are now regarded as masterpieces on the international stage - with Paa Joe gaining worldwide recognition in the niche field.

Paa Joe's efforts have helped to inspire Nottingham-based Crazy Coffins, which has been supplying caskets shaped like everything from football boots to bottle openers for a quarter of a century.  Crazy Coffins, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, said demand for ever more outlandish designs is growing all the time. 

I absolutely love the idea of these coffins but I can't imagine what shape I'd have made if I had the choice.  I've always thought that too much money is spent on funerals (and don't get me started on weddings ...) - especially coffins - but if you ARE going to blow vast amounts of cash, then at least you should entertain your guests along the way.  It must be like trying to decide what tattoo to get.  If I'd gotten a tattoo at age 18 or so, I'd probably be very embarrassed about it by now because my tastes then are completely different to my tastes now, and of course what was the Big Thing last century (yes, I'm that old) is the butt of jokes now.  A cell-phone shaped coffin may look good in the family photo album today but seriously, don't we all cringe a little when we look back at relatives and friends who got married in the 1970s and 80s, who thought they looked wonderful on their special day. Yes, they did, and that's what's important, but you can't help but smile now.

So ... a fish, a skateboard or a viking longboat?  What would be your choice?

For more on this story - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337381/Sharks-chillies-Just-wacky-coffins-available-wishing-make-final-journey-style.html

The first time is the worst ...

... when making pasta.  Did I not make myself clear?

I'm not a food blogger, or for that matter, a very good cook, but I've always wanted to try my hand at making pasta.  I trawled the internet and found that it was a fairly easy process, but takes a little practice to get it just right.

I used 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour (although I gather that unbleached flour or adding a little semolina is better), and just one egg plus a little kosher salt.  I mixed, I kneaded, I rested (both the pasta and I), then got my other ingredients together.  I figured that since I was making my inaugural bowl of pasta, I should keep the toppings simple and honest.  Thanks to Trader Joes, I had some baby heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, summer squash and olives.  Add to that some extra virgin olive oil and garlic, and I was ready to try my pasta.

Rolling it out was easy.  I took my time to cut very thin slices - as instructed - and wafted them through the leftover flour.  When I cooked them for a minute or two, I was a little disappointed to see that my supposedly thin cut "spaghetti" looked more like overfed witchetty grubs (an Australian delicacy).  Still, I'd made it lovingly by hand, I couldn't do anything else but eat it.  It tasted okay definitely pasta-esque, if a little al dente.  Not quite so Molte Benne as I'd hoped, but I can see it was a fairly decent first attempt.  Next time, I I'll definitely have to cut the slices thinner - those food bloggers really do know what they're talking about!

Seems I also need to read up on food photography and lighting.  If only work didn't get in the way so much ...

The Shopping List

It was one of those evenings when I find my husband in the kitchen, opening and closing the cupboards and heaving big sighs.  "Did you buy more popcorn?" he asks hopefully.  No, I hadn't realized that we'd run out, since I don't eat it.  When he took the last packet, why didn't he put it on the shopping list, so I'd know to buy more?  You know, the usual loving conversations between husband and wife...

Next day, I'm looking at the list on the side of the fridge and find this - "Get me popcorn ... wench!"  I can just feel the love!  Of course, now I wish I'd written the list a little neater, since I'm showing the world what I need to buy next time I'm at the store. Looking at the list, I think I can feel a baking session coming on - I guess that's were the wax paper and parchment paper come in.  Last week I made a carrot cake and in desperation, ended up using plain 8.5 x 11 paper to line the cake tin.  It works perfectly well, but I suppose I should buy something a little more cake-friendly.

Thanks, Mr B, you'll have your guilty pleasure soon.

The Humble Lentil

New "Fascinating Fact" (for me, anyway) is that the obelisk in St Peter's Square in Rome was transported from Egypt in a ship filled with lentils to prevent any damage to the red granite structure.  What an ingenious idea, and such a simple solution to a difficult problem.  I may be a little late coming to this story, but I had to find out more.

The obelisk is 82 feet tall and weighs 320 tons - which is really a lot of lentil support.  It was originally made in Egypt and transported to Rome in 37AD by the Emporer Caligula.  He then had it placed in the Circus of Nero which was in the same general area as the future St Peter's Basilica.   In 1586, Pope Sixtus V had his architect Domenico Fontana move it. This operation, which required hundreds of workmen, was directed by Fontana with the help of his brother, Giovanni, and took four months.   The whole endeavor was carried out using hemp ropes and iron bars weighing 40,000 pounds, plus 900 men and 72 horses.  

(http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Exterior/Obelisk/Obelisk.htm)

After the voyage the ship was filled with pozzolana - a Roman version of cement, I think - and sunk so it could be used as the base for the left pier of Claudius' harbour, at the mouth of the Tiber.  

London, Paris and New York all have an obelisk - the one in London is often referred to as Cleopatra's Needle - and it was interesting to find that the 68ft high structure destined for London was dug out of the sand where had been buried for nearly 2,000 years and was encased in an iron cylinder, 92 feet long and 16 feet in diameter. It had a stem, stern, a rudder, two bilge keels, a mast for balancing sails, and a deck house. This acted as a floating pontoon which was to be towed to London.  In the Bay of Biscay they encountered a storm and the obelisk and its packaging was violently thrown around by the waves.  Six crew members were lost in the storm, and the pontoon, named the Cleopatra, was eventually abandoned, to be later washed up on the shores in Spain.  After a tense and expensive disagreement on salvage rights, the whole thing was floated back to London and taken up the Thames river to stand on the Embankment where it still resides.

I love getting a glimpse into the scientific minds of ordinary people in history.  But what REALLY intrigues me is .... what happened to all those lentils?

Small talk is getting smaller ...

I found this story online and was just ... well, sad is the only word I can think of.  It seems that people feel that "small talk" and making conversation with strangers is not worth bothering about.  Why talk about the weather when you can trash some celebrity on Facebook or Twitter.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333298/Britons-obsessed-social-media-havent-spoken-stranger-months.html

More years ago than I care to remember, I took a secretarial course and we were told about the importance of small-talk when you have someone in front of you waiting to see the boss, or you have to take someone to another office.  Yes, talking about the weather is pretty boring, but it's just the start of the conversation ... "It looks like we're going to have some windy weather this weekend ..."  "Yes, but I love it as it means that I'm sure to have an amazing day hang-gliding/kite flying/sailing ..." and from there you have a subject to talk about.  Heck, it's one sentence that gets the conversation going. I've learned a lot of interesting things and even better, I once spent a few hours doing a beginners hang-gliding course for free, because I showed a lot of interest when I was making idle conversation with a stranger.  It ended up that it was too windy for them to let me loose up there, but I had several people holding on to everything and I got the general feel of it, even if I was only a few feet off the ground ... and it was good!

When we're out at a restaurant, Mr B and are always amazed at the number of couples or friends who are all sitting at the same table ignoring each other and jabbing away at their phones.  When out to brunch, I've seen whole families at the table, complete with Grandma, and each one is on the phone or reading a newspaper and poor Granny is looking like she would have preferred to be at home with her bowl of granola and three cats.  Yes, I know this makes me sound incredibly old - hey, I DO have a smartphone - but I find it very sad that people are disconnecting from the world around them and plugging into the less-than-mediocre badly-typed drivel that is a large part of the Twittersphere.  There ARE some very funny, entertaining, informative posts out there but they surely are few and far between.

I've seen it with some people I've met - either they just stand there staring into space in a "small-talk needed" situation, or just grunt or give one word answers and you just give up.

Okay, so I'm having a bad day today and am not my usual fairly upbeat self but it always make me wonder what people Tweet and post to Facebook about if they don't actually connect with anyone new.  Well, I guess if you read the article, it says that they don't talk to strangers or anyone else they meet in their daily routine.

They're missing so much and it's just sad.

Glorious Foxglove ...

... yes, that's "foxglove" in the singular. My gardening thumb is definitely not a dark, rich green, but it's sort of a pale, watery sort of green color.  Plants don't actually die in my presence but they generally don't thrive very well.  I read up on the different sorts of potting compost, fertilizers, sun or shade, etc. but somehow it just doesn't come together like it should.  I've planted tomatoes in pots and spent the summer moving them around the deck so that they get the maximum amount of Pacific North West sun each year, yet they still manage to look underfed, and provide me with about eight wonderful tasting tomatoes, but that's about it.  And that's exactly 8, not eight pounds.  Meanwhile, I see other people with 6 foot tomato plants running rampant and producing pounds of spectacular fuits.  So to the saga of the foxglove...

I love these plants.  They remind me of an English garden full of lupins, foxgloves and hollyhocks and a few years ago I bought one foxglove plant and put it in a pot with the requisite soil, fertilizer, etc.  Each year it's grown, flowered and then seeded itself in the pot so the next year I get another plant.  Last year, one of the seeds must have dropped by the path and this year we have this incredible, glorious, all-it-should-be foxglove.  I can't understand why, because there's a lot of concrete left in the grass by the path as it's fairly new.  Now look at this ....

Of course, this is the one I planted in the pot and looked after, weeded, fed, and moved around in the sun.  Yes, it's great to have the flowers but look at it.  The two stalks look so puny next to their wild cousin on the path.  What did I do wrong?  I think next year my whole gardening strategy will be one of ignoring everything.  Heck, it works for me!!  Think of the time, effort and money I'll save.

Navigating by the Stars

I just read an article in The Week magazine about the humble dung beetle.  Not that the beetle holds a particular fascination for me - rolling your lunch into a ball and pushing it along the ground just doesn't do it for me - but I read that they navigate by the stars.

Rather than consuming their dinner where they find it, they push it away from rivals and eat it in a safe place.  Yum!  Researchers in Sweden have discovered that, although the beetles can't distinguish individual constellations, they use the Milky Way to get their bearings, ensuring that they leave the heap in a straight line, rather than circling back and risking losing their precious dung ball to a rival.

In South Africa, some fortunate dung beetles were taken out for a day trip to a Planetarium where it was suggested that the beetles do an orientation dance on their dung ball before setting off along the line of the Milky Way.  If the galaxy was removed from the star pattern, they became disoriented and, presumably, very hungry.

I think we sometimes forget how connected we are to this planet - and universe.



Photo : © J_loot | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Monday morning smile ...

I saw this story in the online version of the UKs Daily Mail newspaper.

"Spiderman, Batman, Captain America and Superman's mission for the day was to cheer up the patients at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh as they did their window cleaning rounds. 

The experienced high-rise washers positioned their safety harnesses around the costumes before unfurling their ropes from the 12th floor and abseiling along the walls.  Dozens of hospitalised youngsters pointed in amazement as they came into view and saluted to them before the cleaning job began.  The group of window washers - from Allegheny Window Cleaning - said they wanted to put smiles on the faces of the children battling illnesses at the hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  
The firm spent $800 on 'Broadway-quality' costumes for the two-hour job to make sure they were believable.  They are planning similar jobs in the future and said they have made the scheme a cornerstone of their community work.  Allegheny's office manager Michelle Matuizek suggested the costume idea after seeing a similar scheme in the UK. "

Well done to all those heroic window washers - you've cheered up a lot of lives.

(Photo from the Pittsburgh Tribune)

Watch Your Language ... !

They say that language is always evolving, but I'm a little confused as to why the names of towns and cities changes.

I had the TV on the other evening and someone mentioned the town of Warwick, somewhere in New England ... only it was pronounced "war-wick".  The town in England that it was presumably named after, is pronounced "worrick".  Why would it change?  That made me aware of other differences - in the US a town is called "Nor-witch", in the UK, it's "Norridge".  I think I remember someone telling me that the river in New London, Connecticut, is pronounced "Thames" as opposed to the original "Tems" , although they're spelled the same.

So - the mystery continues.  I'm not sure what to search for on the internet to find out why the differences but it would be really interesting to find out.  One more thing to add to my To Do list!  I think I'm safe to assume that the town names were brought over by the pilgrims and other travellers from the United Kingdom and if it's pronounced one way in the Old Country, why would it be changed when they get here?

Who is right? Which side of the Atlantic has evolved the language more than the other?

Is this another case of "The United Kingdom and the United States - two countries divided by a common language."?

The Travel Dilemma ...

When I was in my 20s, I used to travel quite a bit, both the ordinary two-week holiday in the Mediterranean, or something a little more exotic - India, Thailand, or backpacking around Australia. 

Then I got married.  

It's not the fact of being married that has stopped me travelling, but now we have a mortgage and jobs, which means it's not quite so easy to take off for a few weeks or a few months.  My husband, another traveller, would love to spend his time anywhere but, well, working and paying the mortgage!   The main reason, though, is that I'm forty eight hundred miles away from family and old friends, and when we DO have the time and money, we head back to Blighty.  Even then, we rush around the country, visiting parents, siblings and friends, and try to leave some time to have our own mini-adventure as well.  Because of the time constraints, we seem to keep to quick trips to Europe - not a bad thing, trust me - but I lust for far away places.

On my current Bucket List is the Potala Palace, Tibet (China), although I think I'd have to find a time machine before that happens as I'd like to visit it about 50 or so years ago.  The building itself is now a museum, which means the good news is that you can probably see more rooms there than when it was a working Palace.  The bad news is that the city of Lhasa has changed a lot in the past decades as has the whole history of the area.  It's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site - http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/707, which means that, when I DO find the time and money, it should still be there.   I hadn't realized that it consists of the Red Palace, where previous Dalai Lamas are buried,  and the White Palace which is used more for ceremonial occasions.  One day ....

It's a big world out there, and my Bucket List just keeps getting longer. 

Photo Courtesy : http://www.stockfreeimages.com/