Plum crumble

Dessert yesterday was plum crumble . . .  No, I lie!  It was greengage crumble.  Anyway, I almost broke a tooth on the first spoonful as it contained a plum greengage stone.

"Oh!" exclaimed her ladyship.  "Sorry! I thought I had counted them all."

For some reason (who knows how those links occur) I was immediately transported back to 1982.  In April that year, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory some 8,000 miles from Britain in the South Atlantic.  A task force was sent to drive out the invaders and it was accompanied by BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan.  His words about an air strike launched from the carrier HMS Hermes became the journalistic quote of the war.  He was not allowed to say how many Harrier jump jets had taken part, but his words got round that problem and reassured the British public:

"I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back."

 Although that was more than 30 years ago, the Argentine government has still not accepted that the population of the Falklands is British and intends to remain British.  In a referendum last year, Falkland Islanders voted by 1,513 to 3 to remain British but only this week, the Argentine congress passed a law under which all vehicles used for public transport on road, rail, by water or in the air - and all stations - must display signs saying, "The Falklands are Argentina".

I do so hope that we are not going to see a repeat of 1982 but I have no doubt that if necessary, we will despatch a handful of troops and, maybe, even a warship.  If it does happen, it will demonstrate just how ill-advised have been the government's cuts in our armed forces.

The Scrooge within

I'm not poor, but on the other hand, although I do not consider myself rich, many people might contend that I am well off.  I am certainly comfortable financially; indeed, I'm more comfortable that way than I have ever been in my life .  Which I find moderately surprising.  When I retired from work, which was five years before I could receive the old age pension - sorry, the state pension - my income immediately fell dramatically, although I was in receipt of a pension from my one-time employer.  When the government kindly paid me more money, wow!  I was in the lap of luxury.

There had been a time when I was paying off one credit card each month by drawing on another, but those days are now long gone.  I did have to take myself well in hand in order to repay those debts and I suppose the habit of parsimony has stuck  And so I get irritated when I find the Old Bat has used the call back feature on the telephone at the vast expense of 20p.  But I am quite content to shrug my shoulders at something else and say, "Well, it's only a couple of pounds, and what's that in the grand scheme of things?"

I am quite happy to pay the tolls on French motorways - which are not always particularly cheap - rather than drive an extra ten minutes on toll-free roads, and yet when I look at the menu in a restaurant I go for the cheaper dishes, saying to myself, "I might prefer that dish but it's 50p more than this one.  I'll go with this one."

This switching from miser to spendthrift and back is something I just don't understand.  Surely I should be one or the other?  I'm so tight careful that I will put just one item into a bag on its own at the supermarket so I can truthfully say I've used four of my own bags - and thereby get another point on my Nectar card, a point which is worth (I think) half a penny!  And yet I'll buy a chocolate bar for 50p or 60p and sit in the car to eat it before I drive home.

Oh well.  As they say oop North, there's nowt so queer as folk.

Crime and punishment

And I'm not talking about Преступлéние и наказáние, the book by Dostoevsky.  Or Dostoyevsky.  I've seen his name spelled both ways.  No, my subject is a bit closer to home and actually refers to a professional footballer who has recently been in the news.

The background story is that this gentleman (and I use the word in the loosest sense) was convicted of rape and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.  He was released about three months ago, having served just half the sentence.  Now I am not concerned here whether or not five years is an appropriate sentence for the crime, nor am I concerned that only half the sentence was served.  The length of the sentence and the time actually served are not germane to my particular problem.

As I said, the man concerned is a professional footballer and he was very recently allowed back into training with the club where he was previously employed, possibly - or even presumably - with a view to him once again becoming part of the team in which he was the star striker (goal scorer).  This led to a storm of complaints from members of the general public and from patrons of the club, including one woman who won a gold medal at the London Olympics and after whom a stand has been named.  She announced that she would ask for her name to be removed if the footballer continued to train with the club.

The general view was that he should not be allowed back with the club because:

• he had been found guilty of raping a woman;
• he had never shown any remorse for his crime; and
• footballers are deemed to be role models for boys, a role for which he was patently unsuited.

Well, yes, I understand all that, but, on the other hand:

• he never showed remorse as he still claims he was innocent of rape and the sex was consensual;
• he has served the time in prison to which he was sentenced so, although the slate has not been wiped clean, a line has officially been drawn under the incident;
• he has as much entitlement to earn a living as anybody else.

Would there be any fuss if the person concerned was a lorry driver or a bank clerk?  I think not.  Nor would there be much complaint if the crime was dangerous driving, and possibly a lot less than we have seen if it was dealing in marijuana.  

He has now been told that he is not welcome at the club's training sessions.  But is it fair or just that his punishment should be increased in this way?  Is this not one little step along the road to mob rule?  If we wish to have a justice system that decides guilt or innocence and sentences the guilty according to the law of the land, should we simply stand back and say nothing in his defence?

I confess I do not know.

Now why did I do that?

I'm not at all sure quite why I foisted yesterday's post on my regular readers - all two of you - as I really know next door to nothing about the pepper Pot.  I know whereabouts in Brighton it is - roughly - but I rarely drive past it.  Or, indeed, anywhere close to it.  What put it into my mind was the fact that I had seen the top of it from a block of flats I was visiting on Monday afternoon.

It was a large block of flats; actually three interconnected blocks, each of seven storeys, a total of 108 flats of sheltered accommodation.  I was there to deliver an invitation to the residents of each flat to a pre-Christmas party the Lions are organising for some of the city's senior citizens.  This was not the first sheltered accommodation that I have visited recently, most with the same object in mind, but this was by far the largest.  It really brought home to me how little I would want to live in any sort of "retirement" complex.  I know that in many of them there are leisure activities organised: bingo (horror!) or art classes and so on, but I sincerely hope that I will never be reduced to having to enjoy endure such activities organised for me.

And just imagine being surrounded only by other old cronies!  I might not want to have screaming children ion the same room as me - well, not all the time - but I do enjoy living in a community of different ages, from toddlers to geriatrics, and seeing and hearing children at play.

If it ever gets to the old folks' home stage, just bring on the immobilon!

The Pepper Pot

 

There are quite a large number of towers around Brighton, usually clock towers, and this one is something of an oddity.  Commonly known as the Pepper Pot, many long-time locals insist that it should be called the Pepper Box although it is sometimes known simply as the Tower.  It is now a listed building but nobody is quite certain what its original purpose was.

We do know that it was built in 1830 and that the architect was Charles Barry, he who was also the architect for the Houses of Parliament.  It was built for Thomas Attree, a property developer, who had Charles Barry design a villa for him as well.  Some say that the tower housed a water pump and supplied water to the villa from a tank in the top of the tower.  Another suggestion is that it was intended as a vent for sewers, or maybe it was simply a folly.  A nice story is that it was used by Mr Attree to watch for his ships coming up the Channel.

Whatever its original purpose, the tower has been put to a variety of uses.  During the 1860s, the new owner used it to print his newspaper, the Brighton Daily Mail, while in World war II it was used by the military as an observation post.  After that it became the headquarters for a Scout group and an artist's studio before public toilets were built in an extension.  It fell into disuse and disrepair before the Council, into whose ownership it had passed in Victorian times, managed to find funds to restore the building.  But I have no idea what it is used for nowadays; if, that is, it is used at all.

Time warp

I don't know quite what has happened today.  here we are, just before six o'clock, and I'm only just getting to grips with email and the blog round.  That's six o'clock in the evening, by the way.  I wasn't late getting up, well, not very late, but somehow there seems to have been no time to think.

For once, we have had a dry day.  No rain!  I'm probably mistaken, but there doesn't seem to have been a dry day for weeks.  Dry bits of days, perhaps, but not one of those crisp, autumn days with a brilliant blue sky.  We have been warned that there is a distinct possibility that 2014 will turn out to be the wettest year since records began.  Just when records began is something quite beyond my ken, but I suspect it was well before 2009.  The odd thing is that, although the early part of the year was very wet indeed with much flooding, the summer was great.  Perhaps this wet autumn is the pay off.  But at least it's not cold with temperatures usually maxing out at about 10 or 11, and not falling below freezing at night.

There was a bit of a treat when I opened the curtains this morning.  A bit of blue sky!

British is best!

And that's according to a Frenchman!  His comment even made the front page of my newspaper yesterday.  But I need to explain.  Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec,who has been described as France's most famous butcher (I didn't realise that any butcher is famous) has made a documentary in which he travelled the world to find the world's best sirloin.  And he declared that British grass-fed Aberdeen Angus, Galloway, Hereford or Longhorn cattle are the tops, far better than the 'food porn' (his words) that is the beef from the French cereal-fed cattle.

I have to say that I fully agree that British beef is far and away superior to French, especially when grilled or roasted.  The Old Bat narrows it still further, saying that she thinks the best beef is Scotch.  Whichever, the important thing, to my mind, is that the animals are grass-fed and brought to maturity slowly, not pumped full of hormones or whatever unnatural things are put into the food.  They should be kept calm before slaughter and the carcases should be properly hung for three weeks minimum.

We are lucky in our butchers, there being two from whom we buy our meat locally.  We enjoyed a leg of lamb yesterday although, unusually, the butcher failed to tell us the farm on which the animal had been raised.  Generally he does tell us, and it is always only a few miles away.

The other butcher from whom we buy is my cousin - but that is only when we are staying on the farm with him in Somerset.  His beef is from Dexter cows crossed with Highland, grass-fed and properly hung.  His mutton - from Hebridean sheep, a sort of cross-Soay breed - tastes better than most lamb and is just as tender.  But his main line is venison, and much as I like that, I do prefer beef.  Just not French beef.