Anne Mustoe
I don’t think I ever met Anne Mustoe, but I may have done as I knew one of her three stepsons, Edward, quite well. My late wife and I used to eat in his restaurant in the 1970s and later he had a house near us in Debach. He used to affectionately tell tales of Anne.
Thinking about this a day later, I have a feeling that Anne did come to lunch with Edward. This would have probably been before she started on her adventures and was still the headmistress at St. Felix School in Southwold.
It was sad to hear today that she had died from one of Telegraph obituary writers, Nicholas Comfort.
Long live the British eccentrics.
Velcro Wallpaper
I like photographs and I have small frames of them everywhere. Sometimes I put letters and newspaper clippings into frames and want to hang them on the wall. But getting them all in line is a pain and you end up bashing endless hooks in the wall or drilling a large number of holes.
I thought that an idea to handle this would be Velcro wallpaper. Perhaps, in it’s simplest form it would be a plain colour heavyweight paper, with say 10 mm. strips of the loop Velcro vertically every 50 mm. or so. Pictures could then be hung by just sticking the hook Velcro to the back of the frames. No nails or screws. I know I could just stick strips of Velcro to the wall, but then if they were on the wallpaper, I wouldn’t have to space them out. Removal would also be much simpler.
I’m not the first to think of this, although this lady on her blog envisages modified flock wallpaper. From her experiments it would appear that Velcro can support quite a weight.
I’m not sure I’d use it like she has proposed in her bathroom.
PeopleQuake
I heard about this interesting book as I was driving along at three in the morning. I’ve just ordered it from Amazon.
Welcome to the Comedy Phone-In
It wasn’t supposed to be that, but the breakfast phone in on BBC Radio 5 was that this morning.
It was supposed to be on the Pope’s views on homosexuality and his criticism of equality laws. We had people on both sides quoting the Bible. I bet if you wanted to prove the sky is yellow, you can find the proof in the Bible.
All very funny!
Shouldn’t we get on with solving the world’s problems, rather than creating more, and discriminating against those who don’t fit our views of what the world should be like.
Spring Onion Chicken
The basis for this recipe comes from Group Recipes, although I’ve modified it slightly to make it gluten-free.
The ingredients were.
- 2 chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons of gluten-free soy sauce – I used Life from MH Foods.
- 3 stalks of spring onion
- some root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
- a clove of garlic, crushed
- 1 tablespoon of dry sherry
- 2 teaspoons of Demerara sugar
- 1/4 cup of chicken stock
The original used rice wine, but I substituted dry sherry as I had a bottle to get rid of. Does anybody drink sherry these days?
The method was as follows.
- Cut the chicken into pieces. Marinate with dark soy sauce and set aside for about 15 minutes.
- Heat up 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a wok. I used a large flat frying pan, as AGAs don’t do woks well. While doing so, cut spring onion in the bias into one and a half inch pieces. Finely chop the ginger.
- Stir fry the garlic and chicken until chicken changes colour. Set aside on a hot plate.
- Stir fry the ginger and spring onions until fragrant. Add chicken, sherry, sugar and chicken stock. Mix well, cover and allow to braise over low heat for about 10 minutes.
I served it with rice.
Erica Roe
Britain’s most famous streaker is Erica Roe who ran across the pitch at Twickenham during an England Australia match on 2nd January 1982. She was mentioned on BBC Breakfast this morning. According to her Wikipedia entry, she and her family are farming organic sweet potatoes in Portugal.
Erica Roe
I wonder who the gent in the left of the photograph is? And note Erica’s belt. We all had belts like that at some time, if you were born before 1960. I haven’t seen one in years.
Is that a ciggie in her mouth? How very 1980’s.
Sir Terry Pratchett
Sir Terry wrote and read part of the Richard Dimbleby lecture last night. It was a moving and very powerful performance as the writer is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease.
His plea for a right to die, when he chooses is summed up with this last sentence of the lecture.
Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.
He is right and everybody should see or read his lecture from last night. The Guardian has an edited version here.
Pope Condemns Equality
Isn’t he out of step with Jesus on this one? But what would I know as I’m an atheist.
But then what do I care about the Pope. Not a lot. I wish him no harm, but he heads a church that is very much against progress and is all for creating more people in this world. Remember that increasing the population of the world is one of the biggest causes of global warming.
Hawke, Nelson and Terry
It is fascinating to compare two of the naval heroes of the past, Admirals Edward Hawke and Horatio Nelson with John Terry. Both Hawke and Nelson were strong leaders, who won battles by leading from the front. It could be argued that John Terry has won matches by using exactly the same tactics, although his were undoubtedly lesser actions.
To compare Hawke with Nelson is interesting. Both were professional and their courage could not be doubted. But whereas Nelson died in battle and was famous for his mistress, Hawke lived a more sober life and died in his own bed. Hawke also refused a burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral, preferring to be buried alongside his late wife in the parish church at Swaythling near Southampton.
So what of John Terry. He has committed an indiscretion and various parts of the press are having a right go at him.
He has been stupid, but it could be argued that he has done nothing more than Nelson did. On the other hand, those that live and benefit from their status, should perhaps behave with a bit more dignity. But we can all name, others in the past who have been less than faithful and have not suffered at all in popularity.
So perhaps the public actually condone scandal. After all, history says that the British have enjoyed various indescretions through the ages.
Jim Bennett
I get a lot of spam. This is an interesting one.
My name is Jim .E. Bennett, I am a citizen of United State of America and the Executive Director of SPD Corporation, a multi-national oil corporation operating from London-England, UK. I am seeking your assistance to retrieve the sum of ( fifteen Million Dollars Only), consisting of two Consignments boxes.
This money was acquired from over invoice and it was accompanied by a diplomat to the U.S.A, my reason for this is because I have been cheated out of my entitlements by the company for too long simply because I am not a British Citizen.The details of the diplomat will be given to you if you indicate your interest to help me.
The two boxes content is $15M and for your help I am ready to release 30% to you, for security reasons the consignments was registered to be ( CONFIDENTIAL DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS), and I can explain why it was declared so. Bear in mind that the diplomat is not aware of the content of the two Consignments boxes , it has been there for the past 1 month as I’m looking for a reliable partner.
I will be leaving the country immediately the consignments is delivered to you for my private investment and I have vowed never to step back into London, England. Please, I need your urgent response before my plans to leave the company is discovered.
Please if you are not willing and interested in helping me kindly delete this e-mail from your computer and pretend you never got it.
I’m pretending I haven’t got this e-mail, so if you read this, then please pass it on, so that no-one gets conned by this crook.
One point is that he says he will be leaving London immediately the consignments are delivered. Funny, that but the e-mail came from China.
The Anonymous Widower 