The Embroidery is on the Wall
I said earlier, that I was going to put the three pieces of embroidery by C’s Auntie Rita on the wall. Well here they are.
The Embroidery on the Stairs
In the next few weeks, I’m going to get to the bottom of the story of the medal. Having been to the British Museum yesterday, it would appear to be made of bronze. But I can’t find anything similar on the Internet.
The Clock Gets its Seventh Wall
I said in an earlier post, that I was missing the clock.
Well, I’m not anymore, as it is now on its seventh wall.
The Brass Clock
As you can see it is a typical Kelvin and Hughes ship’s clock, that C bought for me in probably 1969 as a birthday present. She bought it in a junk shop in Liverpool and was assured that it had come from the SS Great Eastern, when it was broken up. A very unlikely story, although the ship was broken up in Liverpool and it probably had thousands of clocks. But Kelvin and Hughes did not merge until the 1940s!
It has proved very reliable over the years and except for a major repair in about 1995, it hasn’t needed any attention.
Our home has never been complete without this clock on the wall.
Walking a Lady Back to the Bus
Mary, an old friend for about thirty-five years came to see me today and we got some more of the boxes unpacked and few pictures up on the walls. As someone, who has earned her living from preparing food professionally several times in her life, she also tried to help me fathom out the cooker. In the end we baked some haddock, with onions and tomatoes. And it was very delicious too! Or at least we both thought so! But then I’d cooked it and she’d worked the oven.
She had to get back to her car to get home, so about seven-thirty I walked her back to get the bus back to the Central Line. Mary is about two years younger than me, so as we walked along, I asked when was the last time, she’d been properly walked back to get the bus home. She thought it was perhaps when she was about 19. After we’d said good-bye, I reflected on when was the last time I walked a lsdy to the bus. I may be wrong, but I can’t remember it since about 1966, when I walked a girlfriend to get her bus back to Aigburth in Liverpool. In all the time C and I were together we either went home together or drove in a car. I may have walked the odd lady to a tube or train, after a business meeting or because we were working together, but to a bus, never!
It was all so relaxing and very pleasant really!
I Need a Bookcase
This picture shows one side of my living space.
My Living Room
I need a bookcase to go alongside the stairs, hopefully in a similar wood to the dresser. Any ideas?
The Best Christmas Card I’ve Received This Year
This was the card I got from Ken Pyne, the cartoonist.
Ken Pyne's 2010 Christmas Card
If you’d like any of Ken’s work or feel you want him to draw something special for you, then use the contact form in this blog.
The Next Gluten-Free Food Opportunity
Yesterday’s visit to the cafe at St. Paul’s has got me thinking. What is going to be the next gluten-free opportunity. I was served gluten-free bread there and I suspect it might have been something like Genius. So perhaps the opportunity in a large metropolis like London is the supply of a range of quality GF bread and rolls. They will be a premium product as they will be aimed at restaurants and quality food shops. Get the product right and no self-respecting restaurant will be without its GF bread probably delivered almost daily. Remember in the late 1800s, virtually every part of London had their own craft bakers. Most incidentally were German.
Would the same also apply to beer?
I don’t know, but in probably ten years time, the market will be very different.
Is Privatisation Good for the Water Industry?
All of the English Water Companies are privately owned, but Northen Ireland Water is owned by the government. So according to the theories of the left, the water supply in the province should be better than that in England.
But it’s not, if these reports are to be believed.
Could this be because, if privatised industries fail to invest and do a bad job, as some have done in the past, they are an easy target and go bust, whereas government industries, like Northern Ireland Water have to fight for every small piece of investment against other things that the government needs to spend? So has Northern Ireland Water been starved of investment? You could argue too, that the South East of England has suffered one of the worst cold spells for over half a century and the water infrastructure has coped well.
So let’s solve Ulster’s ater problem by privatising water and sewage! A good company would surely do a better job than a bunch of politicians looking to win the next election.
I’ve just sent this e-mail to BBC Breakfast under the title of Northern Ireland’s Water Problems.
This surely lays the lie that privatisation is bad. The South East of England has suffered the worst cold spell in half a century and I’ve not heard of any problems with the privatised infrastructure.
Could it be that successive governments have starved NI Water of money? So let’s privatise it now! After all, everybody in the UK would benefit from the sale!
It won’t be read out.
Carluccio’s Start Selling Gluten-Free Pasta
According to the manager of their Islington Upper Street branch, they’ve now started selling the gluten-free pasta they serve in the caffes in the attached shops, where the demand is strong enough.
But yet again we have another reputable company targeting the coeliac market. Who’d be a specialist gluten-free food manufacturer?
They’ll be one main group of winners; coeliacs like me.
Free Speech in the Coeliac Area
Someone, who lives outside of the UK, has said that their coeliac society has objected to criticism of the society, that they wrote in an Internet chat-room.
I’m all for free speech as you know, providing it’s not malicious and very much support the reform of the libel law in the UK. I’m a big supporter of Sense About Science, who are trying to stop commercial interests using the UK’s libel laws for their our ends.
The coeliac area has been pretty free of legal spats so far, but I suspect we will see quite a few in the next few years.
So many companies make a lot of money and they don’t like new entrants to the market and so many doctors have a nice simple living from coeliac disease, and probably wouldn’t like changes to diagnostic methods and then there’s the charity racket. Certainly in the UK, there are loads of retired great and good, who get on the charity bandwagon to have a nice lifestyle. I have no knowledge of the UK Coeliac society as I’m a Marxist of the Groucho tendency, who wouldn’t join any club, that would have me as a member. But as it’s fairly small according to the accounts, it probably hasn’t any places for freeloaders. But sadly there are many charities, that are virtually run for the benefit of their board, if you believe some of the accounts I’ve read in the newspapers.
The problem with the coeliac market is that any good cook, can create their own completely gluten-free meals. I would argue you don’t even have to be a good cook, as some of the recipes I use are very much enjoyed by my friends and family. Most have been stolen from the Internet or borrowed from friends.
Also on the coeliac front in the UK, there is a war out there, partly driven by the recession, in that quite a few intelligent and ethical food technologists see the coeliac market as a place of expansion. Every week I go to Waitrose or other supermarkets, there seems to be something new. Yesterday it was the Honest bread, but there has been Lazy Days biscuits from Scotland and now there may be Estrella Damm Laura beer from Spain. I’ve also seen some luxury foods, like soups, that have been made deliberately gluten-free so that their market is bigger. Established coeliac food companies and even mainstream ones are under threat, but they have nowhere to complain about companies who are being both ethical and commercial. Even the supermarkets can’t help, as I suspect that the new quality entrants can give them better sales and possibly better margins.
The Anonymous Widower 