- Allow.
- (Can't think of anything else right now)
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Monday, 7 September 2009
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
We were hard up when I was a kid, living in Norwich. We therefore went on holiday to places like Great Yarmouth and Pakefield rather than places like Amalfi, or Mauritius, which on the whole are rather nicer. Though I note that some marketing wag has branded the Suffolk seaside "The Sunrise coast". I ask you! If the only benefit that you can find is that you face East, you really are lost. Perhaps the marketeer would be well advised to target the Moslem community.
Back to my childhood, though. Once ensconced in our caravan or other crap holiday accomodation on the Sunrise Coast, we would embark on a range of adventures. We could scarcely contain our excitement as we went to the boating lake, the swings and slide, or for an ice cream. And sometimes we would go on excursions that ventured further. Once, my Dad splashed out for us to go on a mystery coach tour and I have to admit that for a while, as the mystery was unravelled, it did have appeal. And finally we arrived at our destination. Norwich!
Back to my childhood, though. Once ensconced in our caravan or other crap holiday accomodation on the Sunrise Coast, we would embark on a range of adventures. We could scarcely contain our excitement as we went to the boating lake, the swings and slide, or for an ice cream. And sometimes we would go on excursions that ventured further. Once, my Dad splashed out for us to go on a mystery coach tour and I have to admit that for a while, as the mystery was unravelled, it did have appeal. And finally we arrived at our destination. Norwich!
Thursday, 3 September 2009
MEATY STUFF
Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness, innit?
That means its crumble time, raiding the orchard or hedgerow for whatever I can find as the base layer and then wallowing in flour, sugar and butter to make it. Recipe: Fruit. Chop, cover with a bit of water and stick that in the oven whilst you make the crumble layer. Flour, a bit. Butter - more than you think would be healthy then double it. Sugar - most of the jar, then the rest. Rub as you would a sensitive part of your lover. Put crumble layer on base layer. 15-20 mins in the Aga. Bob's your uncle and vanilla ice cream's your Aunt.
It also means meat - a large joint fragrantly roasting. And I'm not talking about one you've rolled yourself.
That brings me to the season of grumble. Some time ago I signed, with a full heart, a pledge to buy my meat from local butchers. In part my motivation was to support my friend and neighbour who raises beef stock. In part it was a quality thing. I like going to the local butchers. I like the sawdust and blood stained aprons. I like to talk to someone who has actually slaughtered the animal he is about to sell you, or at least has a good working knowledge of what a carcass is and how to use it. I'm not talking about the people employed by Messrs. Sainsbury and Tesco now on their butchers' counters, good though they may be. I'm talking about Mr. Laverack of Holme upon Spalding Moor, Mr. Sissons of Pocklington, and other fine gentlemen of the butchery persuasion who display in their shops the blackboard upon which it is chalked "Today's Beef - Mr. Smithson, Ellerton; Today's lamb - Mr. Halliwell, Aughton; Today's pork - Mr. Blackhouse, North Duffield." I like that. I like to visualise the actual farm, and the actual field in which the animal was roaming that has given its life for my nourishment. I like the difference between supermarket meat and that I buy at the butcher's. You can tell the difference, and it's all in the slaughter and hanging. And it's in the conversation you have around which end of a joint you want, what purpose you want to put it to, and exactly how you want the meat cut for use before you. Most of all I like eating quality meat that has been properly butchered.
So I'm a big fan of local butchers.
And when I hear that local butchers are going out of business by the score, I grieve.
But then there is the other side of the coin. Go, on a Saturday afternoon, around any of the villages and small towns in our area, and you are hard pushed to find a butcher's open. Likewise, at other odd times of the week. Tough one, that. For the average punter who works all week, Saturday is prime shopping time. So it seems to me that the butchers are butchering themselves. It's a competitive world, and if local butchers are to bring to market their excellent quality, they must move with the times in customer service too.
That means its crumble time, raiding the orchard or hedgerow for whatever I can find as the base layer and then wallowing in flour, sugar and butter to make it. Recipe: Fruit. Chop, cover with a bit of water and stick that in the oven whilst you make the crumble layer. Flour, a bit. Butter - more than you think would be healthy then double it. Sugar - most of the jar, then the rest. Rub as you would a sensitive part of your lover. Put crumble layer on base layer. 15-20 mins in the Aga. Bob's your uncle and vanilla ice cream's your Aunt.
It also means meat - a large joint fragrantly roasting. And I'm not talking about one you've rolled yourself.
That brings me to the season of grumble. Some time ago I signed, with a full heart, a pledge to buy my meat from local butchers. In part my motivation was to support my friend and neighbour who raises beef stock. In part it was a quality thing. I like going to the local butchers. I like the sawdust and blood stained aprons. I like to talk to someone who has actually slaughtered the animal he is about to sell you, or at least has a good working knowledge of what a carcass is and how to use it. I'm not talking about the people employed by Messrs. Sainsbury and Tesco now on their butchers' counters, good though they may be. I'm talking about Mr. Laverack of Holme upon Spalding Moor, Mr. Sissons of Pocklington, and other fine gentlemen of the butchery persuasion who display in their shops the blackboard upon which it is chalked "Today's Beef - Mr. Smithson, Ellerton; Today's lamb - Mr. Halliwell, Aughton; Today's pork - Mr. Blackhouse, North Duffield." I like that. I like to visualise the actual farm, and the actual field in which the animal was roaming that has given its life for my nourishment. I like the difference between supermarket meat and that I buy at the butcher's. You can tell the difference, and it's all in the slaughter and hanging. And it's in the conversation you have around which end of a joint you want, what purpose you want to put it to, and exactly how you want the meat cut for use before you. Most of all I like eating quality meat that has been properly butchered.
So I'm a big fan of local butchers.
And when I hear that local butchers are going out of business by the score, I grieve.
But then there is the other side of the coin. Go, on a Saturday afternoon, around any of the villages and small towns in our area, and you are hard pushed to find a butcher's open. Likewise, at other odd times of the week. Tough one, that. For the average punter who works all week, Saturday is prime shopping time. So it seems to me that the butchers are butchering themselves. It's a competitive world, and if local butchers are to bring to market their excellent quality, they must move with the times in customer service too.
TEAM BUILDING INNIT?
"We're going on a one day team building event!"
No. You're not. You're going on a surface scratching exercise at best, and, at worst, you're wasting your money to go and play with some planks and oil drums.
Teams are people. People feel close to each other, or they don't. They FEEL close. Or they don't. Geddit? It's about FEELINGS, EMOTIONS. Durr.
Think you're going to get to those in a day of welly boots?
Think again.
No. You're not. You're going on a surface scratching exercise at best, and, at worst, you're wasting your money to go and play with some planks and oil drums.
Teams are people. People feel close to each other, or they don't. They FEEL close. Or they don't. Geddit? It's about FEELINGS, EMOTIONS. Durr.
Think you're going to get to those in a day of welly boots?
Think again.
DAWNS
I like getting up to see the dawn.
Yesterday's was like someone had dipped a rag in petrol and set fire to it.
This morning's was like approaching a very large pink mountain from a long way away.
Yesterday's was like someone had dipped a rag in petrol and set fire to it.
This morning's was like approaching a very large pink mountain from a long way away.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
HOOTERS
Last night I was awakened at 2AM. Sleep was impossible for about two hours afterwards. Was it my racing brain, too much rare meat or coffee? No. It was the owl party that had started. I'm not talking about one owl. I'm talking about the whole owl neighbourhood.
One of the beauties of living at Laytham is the presence of owls. The barn owls are practically a logo of the place, so often are they seen. People think that barn owls are nocturnal. But not entirely. I often see them well before dusk, and occasionally some time after dawn. As the season gets colder, they hunt earlier. They are silent, relentless and ruthless hunters. Their pattern is to quarter fields and run down the lines of dikes, lanes and hedges. When they find prey they will hover a bit above it, then swoop down, and it's theirs. They normally eat away from the site of the kill. So sometimes you can see them flying with their prey in their talons. More than once I have been cycling or in the car with a barn owl flying along the line of the lane, keeping pace, totally unbothered by my presence. There are few more majestic sights than a barn owl in frosty or misty weather. Owls are nearly blind. They don't see well in the conventional sense at all. What they do extraordinarily well is hear. An owl, I'm told, can hear a shrew move in the grass a kilometer away, zero in on it, swoop and kill.
The largely undisturbed habitat around Laytham is home to at least three species of owl. The barn owl is one. The Little Owl is another. These, sadly, you mostly come across dead. They have an unfortunate habit of resting, or maybe even roosting, in the middle of the tarmac of a road. Then they get run over.
Last night's party was the tawny owls. One calls too-whit. Another calls too-woo. Or more accurately hoo-ha-ha-hooo. This call is often mistaken for the barn owl. But in fact, the barn owl rarely calls. When it does, it's a harsh screech. last night I guess about ten or maybe more birds were communicating. I could guess crude locations for each, based on the cry.Their calls are often described as ghostly or mournful. But I find them amorous, romantic, wistful and lovely. I've never heard as many calling as last night. What were they saying? Only when I rot will I stand a chance of speaking owl, alas.
But I wonder if they had been troubled by the great silver bird that had landed in their territory earlier in the day. Perhaps they were awake enough to see it. Matt and I did. It was circling the village in the early afternoon, uncertainly, evidently conning to find a suitable place to land and circling lower and lower. Then it made a very low circuit, at only a couple of hundred feet before skimming the ash trees on Tanner Lane and disappearing. Fearing for the safety of the glider pilot, Matt and I raced out to check everything was ok. The glider had come down in the huge field behind my meadow, landing on the stubble. The two pilots had got out and were completely unphased. Stubble fields are apparently the landing strip of choice as you can see what you are landing on. Grass is not so good as you can't predict how long it is. One of the pilots recounted to us an occasion where he had landed in a field of grass that was higher than the canopy of the glider. A weird and scary experience, he said.
"How will you get the glider out now?" I asked.
"Simple," said the pilot. "We'll call up the glider tug. The plane will come in and land, then give us a tow and we'll take off again."
A ripple of excitement ran through the village at the arrival of these unexpected guests. So maybe that was also the cause of all the owl commotion.
One of the beauties of living at Laytham is the presence of owls. The barn owls are practically a logo of the place, so often are they seen. People think that barn owls are nocturnal. But not entirely. I often see them well before dusk, and occasionally some time after dawn. As the season gets colder, they hunt earlier. They are silent, relentless and ruthless hunters. Their pattern is to quarter fields and run down the lines of dikes, lanes and hedges. When they find prey they will hover a bit above it, then swoop down, and it's theirs. They normally eat away from the site of the kill. So sometimes you can see them flying with their prey in their talons. More than once I have been cycling or in the car with a barn owl flying along the line of the lane, keeping pace, totally unbothered by my presence. There are few more majestic sights than a barn owl in frosty or misty weather. Owls are nearly blind. They don't see well in the conventional sense at all. What they do extraordinarily well is hear. An owl, I'm told, can hear a shrew move in the grass a kilometer away, zero in on it, swoop and kill.
The largely undisturbed habitat around Laytham is home to at least three species of owl. The barn owl is one. The Little Owl is another. These, sadly, you mostly come across dead. They have an unfortunate habit of resting, or maybe even roosting, in the middle of the tarmac of a road. Then they get run over.
Last night's party was the tawny owls. One calls too-whit. Another calls too-woo. Or more accurately hoo-ha-ha-hooo. This call is often mistaken for the barn owl. But in fact, the barn owl rarely calls. When it does, it's a harsh screech. last night I guess about ten or maybe more birds were communicating. I could guess crude locations for each, based on the cry.Their calls are often described as ghostly or mournful. But I find them amorous, romantic, wistful and lovely. I've never heard as many calling as last night. What were they saying? Only when I rot will I stand a chance of speaking owl, alas.
But I wonder if they had been troubled by the great silver bird that had landed in their territory earlier in the day. Perhaps they were awake enough to see it. Matt and I did. It was circling the village in the early afternoon, uncertainly, evidently conning to find a suitable place to land and circling lower and lower. Then it made a very low circuit, at only a couple of hundred feet before skimming the ash trees on Tanner Lane and disappearing. Fearing for the safety of the glider pilot, Matt and I raced out to check everything was ok. The glider had come down in the huge field behind my meadow, landing on the stubble. The two pilots had got out and were completely unphased. Stubble fields are apparently the landing strip of choice as you can see what you are landing on. Grass is not so good as you can't predict how long it is. One of the pilots recounted to us an occasion where he had landed in a field of grass that was higher than the canopy of the glider. A weird and scary experience, he said.
"How will you get the glider out now?" I asked.
"Simple," said the pilot. "We'll call up the glider tug. The plane will come in and land, then give us a tow and we'll take off again."
A ripple of excitement ran through the village at the arrival of these unexpected guests. So maybe that was also the cause of all the owl commotion.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
A RACE APART
The acceptance of women's boxing as an Olympic sport and the recent controversey around Caster Semenya highlight an anachronism in today's gender equal world.
Sport still applies gender apartheid. From a feminist perspective it is difficult to understand why single sporting events should not be open to both genders. Who's frightened? Women, or men?
CV
The other day I received a CV. It is one of the better ones I've ever seen. Here (honestly) is what it said:
"Born – 1571 to Russian peasants earning a living by turning small pieces of fruit into very small pieces of fruit
Emigrated to England in 1892, having stowed myself away on a (late) Easyjet flight from Malaga
2007 – Entered the Guinness Book of Records as ‘Man with the most ridiculous haircut’.
2009 – Turned into a carrot.
2065 – Dies, probably at the hands of vengeful mormons, for making their children drink B52s when they came to our BBQ on that hot Sunday afternoon. "
"Born – 1571 to Russian peasants earning a living by turning small pieces of fruit into very small pieces of fruit
Emigrated to England in 1892, having stowed myself away on a (late) Easyjet flight from Malaga
2007 – Entered the Guinness Book of Records as ‘Man with the most ridiculous haircut’.
2009 – Turned into a carrot.
2065 – Dies, probably at the hands of vengeful mormons, for making their children drink B52s when they came to our BBQ on that hot Sunday afternoon. "
Monday, 24 August 2009
LEADERSHIP AND AESTHETICS
Leadership and aesthetics will meld.
It's obvious.
As emotional and symbolic benefits become paramount in markets, so aesthetic literacy becomes a leadership demand.
There's a gap here. Because business education in the last century was scared half to death to tackle this.
So a generation of aesthetic pygmies has grown up (or rather not grown up) to run organizations in less than beautiful ways.
To their customers they look and behave ugly.
And so, blighted by their own aesthetic failures, shall they die.
Those who live by the functional sword shall die by it.
It's obvious.
As emotional and symbolic benefits become paramount in markets, so aesthetic literacy becomes a leadership demand.
There's a gap here. Because business education in the last century was scared half to death to tackle this.
So a generation of aesthetic pygmies has grown up (or rather not grown up) to run organizations in less than beautiful ways.
To their customers they look and behave ugly.
And so, blighted by their own aesthetic failures, shall they die.
Those who live by the functional sword shall die by it.
GOING YOGIC IN ITALY
The Missus errs towards asceticism. My leaning would, of course, be toward hedonism. Left to her own devices the cupboard would be bare. Left to mine it would be groaning. And there'd be another cupboard for the grog tray.
You may tell, therefore, dear reader, how galling it is to report that I've returned from a short stay in Italy, having gone the entire time without eating a decent meal. In Italy! Mama Mia!
The reason is that her indoors cleverly persuaded me that going to stay in a hardcore yoga retreat centre would in fact be a decent family holiday for me, her and the youngest sprat. Why did I believe her? I'm more than old enough, and more than cynical enough to have doubted. But perhaps my softer heart prevailed.
Never again.
The food was unutterably shit. Worse, it was paraded as healthy, macrobiotic, organic, vegan and the rest and served to grateful female skeletons who'd just done an outrageous two hour workout. I don't mind vegetarian. I don't mind wholemeal. But I do mind food preparation that is utterly devoid of love. And I fail to see how this could be in any way considered to enhance one's spiritual application in the world.
In fact the whole accommodation left something to be desired. By which you may infer, dear reader, that it was just the right side of Dachau.
The sprat, under nourished and under stimulated, whined incessantly. Upon return home,by contrast, and with a decent sausage and egg breakfast inside her, she chirped and sang through the rest of the day, in her normal happy way.
There was a nice pool, though. That I will say.
Well, I only have myself to blame.
But there are two features of this experience which bear further comment. The first is a caveat emptor to those sold on holiday experiences of the green / eco / wholemeal variety. This is the second time I have been stung. The first was in India. We stayed at an "eco hotel". What this meant was that it was a hotel, just like any other. Except it had all the correct green rhetoric. And charged more than top rupee for it. Now, in Italy, the same thing. There are great margins to be made from starving your guests, and giving them spartan conditions that flatter their quests for inner meaning by confusing them with rejection of outer luxuries. Better still, these punters will view complaining as bad karma. So you can get away with near murder.
The second is a musing about motivation. My natural inclination is the carrot. Or, more probably, the whole carrot cake. But the sad truth is that for some people, with whatever deep self worth issues they have derived from over critical parents, the stick really is more effective. It's the same terrifying confusion by which the abused becomes abuser. And there are plenty of people who realize that this is a perfectly legitimate tool by which you can lever an individual away from their cash. Or get them to work harder for you. Or go to war for you. Or..... you name it.
I thought yoga was about freeing the spirit. But I've returned wondering.
You may tell, therefore, dear reader, how galling it is to report that I've returned from a short stay in Italy, having gone the entire time without eating a decent meal. In Italy! Mama Mia!
The reason is that her indoors cleverly persuaded me that going to stay in a hardcore yoga retreat centre would in fact be a decent family holiday for me, her and the youngest sprat. Why did I believe her? I'm more than old enough, and more than cynical enough to have doubted. But perhaps my softer heart prevailed.
Never again.
The food was unutterably shit. Worse, it was paraded as healthy, macrobiotic, organic, vegan and the rest and served to grateful female skeletons who'd just done an outrageous two hour workout. I don't mind vegetarian. I don't mind wholemeal. But I do mind food preparation that is utterly devoid of love. And I fail to see how this could be in any way considered to enhance one's spiritual application in the world.
In fact the whole accommodation left something to be desired. By which you may infer, dear reader, that it was just the right side of Dachau.
The sprat, under nourished and under stimulated, whined incessantly. Upon return home,by contrast, and with a decent sausage and egg breakfast inside her, she chirped and sang through the rest of the day, in her normal happy way.
There was a nice pool, though. That I will say.
Well, I only have myself to blame.
But there are two features of this experience which bear further comment. The first is a caveat emptor to those sold on holiday experiences of the green / eco / wholemeal variety. This is the second time I have been stung. The first was in India. We stayed at an "eco hotel". What this meant was that it was a hotel, just like any other. Except it had all the correct green rhetoric. And charged more than top rupee for it. Now, in Italy, the same thing. There are great margins to be made from starving your guests, and giving them spartan conditions that flatter their quests for inner meaning by confusing them with rejection of outer luxuries. Better still, these punters will view complaining as bad karma. So you can get away with near murder.
The second is a musing about motivation. My natural inclination is the carrot. Or, more probably, the whole carrot cake. But the sad truth is that for some people, with whatever deep self worth issues they have derived from over critical parents, the stick really is more effective. It's the same terrifying confusion by which the abused becomes abuser. And there are plenty of people who realize that this is a perfectly legitimate tool by which you can lever an individual away from their cash. Or get them to work harder for you. Or go to war for you. Or..... you name it.
I thought yoga was about freeing the spirit. But I've returned wondering.
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