The kitchen drawer: Blog

Zero rubbish and wriggly worms - you can do it!

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:52:00 GMT

Wriggly worms live at the bottom of my garden. Oh yes! I am talking about recycling worms, NOT earthworms. Did you realise that there might be a difference?

And why am I interested?

Well, in mid-March, Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 featured readings from a blog called ‘The Rubbish Diet.' The blogger, identified as ‘Almost Mrs Average’ lives in the borough of St Edmondsbury in Suffolk, which threw out a challenge to local residents to reduce their household waste to zero during the week of March 10th-17th.

She did it. The only item she had to throw out for the dustmen at the end of the week was a sticking plaster, which you can see on the wheel of her black wheelie bin. She used to throw out 3 x 50 litre bags of rubbish a week.

Her story so inspired me, that I went online immediately to order another compost bin, a bokashi bin and a wormery. More on these a little later.

I’m annoyed enough that my local council is hyper-selective about the types of plastic waste it will take. The environmental department accepts only plastic milk cartons and drinks bottles.

What about all those plastic containers for meat and vegetables and dairy products? As far as Charnwood Borough Council is concerned, they’re fit only for the landfill.

I tried writing to the council to complain, but ended up with a reply from a Junior official, tantamount to ‘The Computer Says No!’

Shepshed Recycling and Household Waste Site, run by Leicestershire County Council, has come to the rescue. It is infinitely more progressive than the borough council.

I’ve already cut my black bag rubbish output by more than half, mostly by recycling all that other plastic into a special skip at the Recycling site.

You can sort your booze bottles into different coloured glass skips at the recycling centre, whereas the council dustmen just tip the whole lot together into the collection lorry.

I diligently wash my milk bottle tops and aluminium foil when I can, and put it all into a sack for aluminium waste.

The site accepts old rags, although I prefer to put unwanted clothes out in those plastic sacks for charity collections.

This year, I’ve also discovered Freecycle. Freecycle is a worldwide network which enables you to give away the stuff you don’t want in your home, but somebody else locally, does. Since Len cleared out the loft 3 weeks ago, we’ve given away an old microwave oven, unwanted music cassette tapes from the 70s that we haven’t listened to in years, a box of VHS tape with Rosie’s recordings of 'Most Haunted,' and a Sky digibox.

Back to Shepshed Recycling Centre. All the garden waste – lawn mowing, weeds, tree clippings, plunges into the composting skip.

You don’t have to take all your vegetable waste to the recycling site though. You can do that at home. Hence the compost bin, the bokashi bin and the wormery.

What’s a bokashi bin? Bokashi is Japanese for “fermented organic matter.” I use the bokashi bin for all the stuff that won’t break down easily in a compost bin or wormery, such as bones and cheese and that chilli that you made last week and nobody’s had time to eat. Food waste basically. Just tip the waste in, cover it with a layer of wheat bran specially treated with molasses and composting micro-organisms, press a cover over the top, like a shopping bag, replace the lid, and leave it to ferment.

Once your bin is full, and honestly, it doesn’t smell, leave it for 10-12 days, then tip the contents into the compost bin to finish off decomposing. One word of caution, the bokashi liquid made in the process, does smell totally vile although it’s supposed to be a superb fertilizer.

Vegetable trimmings, banana skins, rotten fruit, egg shells, those hard bits of cauliflower and bread, paper and cardboard for roughage can all go to the wormery. Remember those recycling worms?

Worms love vegetable waste. They eat it and poo it and it’s their poo that makes a lovely rich compost for the garden. There’s loads of advice on the web on how to set up a wormery. It seems to be a favourite activity for schools to do.

You can even get wormeries specially designed to treat dog poo.

I leave you with the image of me chasing around my patio at 1am one wet April morning chasing the worms that had managed to escape from their box. They are now strictly confined and chomping happily away at my vegetable waste.

You too, can enjoy wriggly worms.

---------

This is the text of my Level 4 speech prepared for Toastmasters International - Competent Communicator.

The rising cost of food

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:29:18 GMT

Last May, I wrote about Agflation, the phenomenon by which the switching of crops to biofuels would diminish the supply of basic foodstuff and drive up the price of food.

It's happening. Today's Financial Times from London warns of an increased risk of malnutrition because of growing shortages in wheat, corn and soya, which feed not only people but animals which provide meat.

A farming programme on BBC radio broadcast that a farmer had had to destroy half his herd of rare breed pigs because he couldn't afford to feed them. Even the meat was wasted because there was no demand for it at that time of year.

Wheat prices rose 25% in just one day yesterday, because Kazakhstan announced export tariffs to prevent sales overseas which would enable prices and supply to stabilise within its borders. Russia and Argentina already have similar export controls.

Coupled with drought in Australia and poor harvests in the US and Europe, supplies of wheat are declining.

The FT remained upbeat about longer term adjustments to the market although there will be short-term suffering. The World Food Programme is having to contemplate cutting its food aid unless it receives higher donations to meet increased grain prices.

Nevertheless, the FT called for the repeal of subsidies which have moved four per cent of global coarse grain production to biofuels. "The environmental benefits of maize biofuel are ambiguous at best and it should not be favoured over growing maize for food."

Pain? Pain? or the value of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:51:21 GMT

Poor blog! And I used to enjoy writing in it so much. I think it must be age, as I have found over the last three months that it really isn't possible for me to push myself that extra inch to make sure it's updated. That might also be because my thyroid levels have been decreasing and I've just learnt that I have to boost my thyroxin dosage, at least for a couple of months.

Life does not seem to have calmed down much since the frenetic activity of last year. After my Betjeman Show, I took my Open University exam in Economics, barely passing because I hadn't devoted the time that I should have spent on the subject, and since then have been on holiday to Morocco and Jordan. See the photos on Flickr.

And I've also joined the East Midlands Toastmasters' Club, to support two friends of mine who wanted to get it off the ground. We meet on the first and third Monday of each month. I could write a whole lot more about Toastmasters, but not tonight.

Tonight I am going to cheat. Well, all that effort to prepare a speech for Toastmasters should not necessarily be wasted. I'm going to paste in the text of my prepared speech. It is, after all, on a subject in which I'm interested.

Why Pain? Pain? When I started acupuncture nine months ago, I seemed to have knots in every muscle of my body. Dr Tao would probe, and I would jump. "Pain? Pain?" she would enquire.

Wikipedia was invaluable for cross-checking facts on TCM.

-------------------

While I was driving to choir rehearsal in Leicester last Wednesday, I thought to myself, “Oh Bother!”, or words to that effect, “I’ve got to deliver a speech next Monday!”

At which my mind progressed speedily to the other reason I make the trek into Leicester, which is for weekly acupuncture sessions in The Shires.

And that gave me an idea for this speech. Does Traditional Chinese Medicine have a place in Western healthcare?

My own view is that it all rather depends on what your own experience is. On the whole, my own experience is positive. You could say that I have anecdotal evidence of other people’s experience as a result of lying, punctured by many needles, at weekly intervals on a couch in a small cubicle at the back of the HerbMedic stall in The Shires. Over the last nine months, this has enabled me to overhear not only what the manager tells potential customers, but also the complaints that some customers make and the symptoms they describe.

Let’s consider what Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM, is.

According to tradition, the Chinese began compiling their first medical treatise, called the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine almost 5,000 years ago. However, the earliest known manuscripts date from around 2,500 years ago, which is when the theories of Yin and Yang and the role that the five elements play in the physiology and pathology were developed.

Chinese medicine has always been based on pragmatism. This happened partly as a rejection of shamanistic beliefs that disease was caused by external events. Instead, TCM recognized that natural effects of diet, lifestyle, emotions, environment, age and heredity caused disease.

The system grew by trial and error. But it’s still pragmatic. Nobody can say definitively how TCM works, yet work it does. It can help to control nausea and to treat chronic back pain, neck pain and headache. A friend told me last week that weekly acupuncture helped quell his asthma during his annual hay fever season.

So when you get accosted by a Chinese person in a shopping centre, as I did, what might you expect? You’ll be told that you need acupuncture, and to get the full benefit, you’ll also need cupping or moxibustion and acupressure as well as a course of herbal medicine tailored to your needs. This works out very expensive, but I suggest that you bargain, because the price comes down fairly easily – except for the pills. It’s still not cheap, especially when a course of treatment extends over months.

What are the techniques used in TCM? Acupuncture is a system of inserting fine needles into points along the meridians which are believed to channel the Qi or basic energy through the body. Ill health or rather, general lack of wellness, is thought to be caused by blockages in the qi, combined with poor circulation of the blood. The blockages can be relieved by acupuncture. Amazingly, it doesn’t hurt, except if a needle hits a nerve, and then only in passing. Chinese people want to feel penetration of the nerves to convince themselves that the treatment is working. English people want the treatment to be painless.

Moxibustion, also known as cupping, is the firing of mugwort fluff into a glass bowl or cup and then placing the cup over points on the meridians of the body creating a vacuum.

Finally, acupressure is basically massage. I’ve had good and indifferent Chinese massage. When it’s good, it’s very, VERY good.

The acupuncturist rarely speaks English and you have to have an interpreter with you in the consulting room. There you will have your pulse taken in a number of ways, your face and your tongue will be examined.

The doctor will infer observations of your heart, your liver, your kidney and spleen simply from feeling your pulse. Your tongue, believe it or not, is a good indicator of general health. It should not be coated or discoloured or dark. A dark tongue can indicate stress.

The Chinese take the spiritual nature of TCM very seriously. As a Chinese saying goes, “Chinese medicine treats humans while western medicine treats diseases.”

The very first time I had acupuncture I came away with an immense sense of well-being. I usually walk much better after a TCM session. I rarely have to take ibuprofen to take away the pain of arthritis. TCM doesn’t cure the arthritis but it makes me better able to cope with it.

I can concur with the Chinese who use Western medicine for emergency and acute disease and trauma, while resorting to TCM as a preventative health measure and a means of recovering more quickly from illness and surgery.

After all, medical techniques that have evolved over thousands of years and which are judged to work by many who use it, should not be ignored. I invite you to keep an open mind on Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Big Brother is watching you, and I don't mean BB

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:43:00 GMT

How lax I have been. It's over 3 months since I last wrote anything here, but I can justifiably claim that I have been otherwise occupied. For evidence of that alternative occupation, go to see Gothla.UK and Gage's JoGLE, both of which demanded a lot of time and energy to organise.

Gothla was Rosie's project. I mucked in to help her and some Goth BD friends organise it. The event was a great success, despite fears less than a month previously that we might lose the venue. We didn't lose any money. Didn't make any either, but the experience was good.

No sooner was Gothla over, than it was time to set up George's bike ride from John O' Groats to Lands' End with four of his mates. Len was home for that and he and I drove Bertha the camper van as support vehicle. The photos show us at John O' Groats at the start of the trip on 16th July. You should be able to spot the famous signpost in the background. You have to pay a photographer folding cash to get a photo taken there. We were too mean. Besides, the photo of the boys at Lands' End was a rip-off. There was a fault with the picture, the colour was far too saturated, and head office conveniently overlooked the promise at the site that a spare photo was always given in a pack for a JoGLE undertaken for charity. Fortunately, I had been inside the enclosure while the lads were having their photo taken, and was able to take better ones myself. QV. Please consider donating online to their sponsorship charity, Cancer Research, at Just Giving.

So what has happened in my absence from this space? The most positive news is that the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor who had been condemned to death in Libya for allegedly infecting Libyan children with HIV/AIDS, were eventually released. Colonel Gaddafi's son is said to have revealed that they were tortured while in custody. The Bulgarian government is conducting an enquiry. Thank goodness they are free.

Dreadful floods happened in Sheffield and environs, and in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. The JoGLE took us through Gloucester on a day when the rain started once more. Sandbags were still in the streets, the Severn was brimming and drinking water bottles were being distributed from a large lorry in Tesco's car park. Tesco's cafe was close for health and safety reasons. The drinking water supply had been cut off. Water bowsers were a regular feature along the road.

But I'm back today because an article in the Financial Times has reminded me that "The vast majority of blogs in the UK and the US are abandoned after a relatively short period of time or read by only a handful of friends or contacts." Yes, I suppose that I write mainly for myself.

However, that wasn't the main gist of the article. The British government now wants departments to review British blogs which might impact on policy decisions. The Central Office of Information (COI) is working out how to add blog monitoring to coverage of press, radio and TV.

"Pilot studies have looked at pensioners’ online reactions to a recent budget and internet opinions on counter-terrorism measures. They have tracked web traffic generated as well as the tone of discussions."

That means, dear reader, that anything you or I might say on Windows Live Spaces could be taken down and used in evidence against us.

I don't think it's that bad at all really. It does show that the government recognises that some self-publicists can actually influence other people's points of view. Blog monitoring could act as an early warning system and inform our representatives of what we are really thinking and wanting.

Must go. An Open University assignment awaits closure. And I suppose I had better change my age in my profile. I celebrated my 59th birthday on a lovely day at John O' Groats campsite.

Agflation!

Mon, 07 May 2007 09:21:06 GMT

'Agflation' is a word used to describe the phenomenon of the rising price of food. The Economist tells me that Merrill Lynch introduced the term to account for the fact that "The prices of rice, wheat, corn, barley, cattle and pork are all up by more than 30% since March 2005."

In an almost facetious take on the possibility of food scarcity and insecurity, Bedlam Asset Management created the headline: "NUNS mug disabled orphan for bag of crisps." But the reality is potentially much more serious. Food prices are rising faster than at any time since the early 1980s.

Normally, farmers would just grow more food to increase supply to meet demand. But there are conflicting requirements for crops on available land. Climate change is cited as the primary factor. Where there is no water, you can't grow more crops. Australia, which has been a cereals and meat exporter, is being hit hard by an intense drought which shows no sign of breaking.

Land once used to grow animal feed is now being used to grow corn to create ethanol in America. Corn is fetching higher prices as a result so cropping has changed from soybean to corn production. Since the price of corn is higher, so is the price of animal feed. A major American agricultural company, Tyson Foods, claimed it had suffered a 41% drop in profits on poultry in the first quarter of this year as a result. The costs are passed on to the consumer. The same goes for beef and pork.

Americans would be better off importing Brazilian sugar to make ethanol rather than paying Midwest farmers to grow corn, but tariffs on sugar imports are high.

The EU is positively encouraging farmers to remove land from cultivation.

The Economist, being a free market proponent, hints that regulation should be removed to encourage producers to respond to the simpler laws of supply and demand.

After all, bread riots have brought down governments in the past, or at the least, caused serious political tensions. Bristol in 1753. UK in 1847. Jordan in 1996. Bakers strike in Morocco against government refusal to increase bread prices, 2004. And so on.

It seems a far cry from picking up your individual salad or sandwich in a British supermarket. How much are you willing to pay for food?

Cheaper solar power helps enterprise in India

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:32:30 GMT

Powering on this Monday morning, a New Scientist story caught my eye on my Google home page. "Affordable solar power brings light to India".

UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Programme, is subsidising a scheme whereby local banks offering loans to low-income Indians in Karnataka claim re-payment at 5% interest, and UNEP pays the difference between that and the normal 12% interest rate on the loan. The scheme works with five selected vendors of solar panels, especially chosen and trained by UNEP.

UNEP's intervention has made electricity supply affordable for many low-income households and small businesses, but ends in May 2007. It has assisted 16,000 Indians since inception in 2003.

From an economist's point of view, the take-up of the technology and the benefits engendered by the scheme contributes measurably to development if the idea becomes self-sustaining and subsidies disappear. There are signs that this is happening. Jyoti Painuly, senior energy planner for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told New Scientist, "Two vendors have told us that they are now selling 70% of their solar systems in cooperation with banks outside the programme."

Friends of the Earth are not so sanguine. FoE executive director Tony Juniper said "But in the end it won't go far enough or fast enough without the active involvement of governments."

Economists have mixed feelings about government intervention and regulation, so we shall have to see. If you read The Economist, you will know that it has a healthy regard for the power of a free market.

It's a heartening story amidst all the political mess that's going on in the world. You can read it at New Scientist too.

Victims of politics

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:54:43 GMT

Kristiyana Valtcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka, and Snezhana Dimitrova.

These are the names of the five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death by firing squad in Libya in 2004 for allegedly infecting Libyans with AIDS. They languish in prison, not knowing if the sentence will be carried out.

A Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hajuj, has also been convicted.

As if the Libyans couldn't be responsible for their own health issues. Such as a poor standard of hygiene in hospital and a lack of responsibility and quality policy. Oh how it riles me when governments and people make themselves out to be 'holier than thou'.

These nurses are being held politically accountable. There's talk of a deal to exchange them with 'Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, convicted of organising the Lockerbie bombing, and payment of $2.7 billion in compensation—the exact amount paid by Libya to the victims of that outrage.'

No country has interceded for these innocents.

'The African Union and Arab League have called for the issue not to be “politicised”.'

This is a link to an appropriate article in The Economist. Would writing to our own MEPs have any impact?

The charming conmen of Corralejo

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:28:16 GMT

I've been in one or two remote places in my time, so I thought nothing of travelling to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands in February. After all, it's an outpost of Spain, a member of the European Union, and thus a decadent Western country, depending on your point of view.

In fact, Fuerteventura is almost the 'least developed' of the Canary Islands. As a result, the scenery is a lot more restful and natural. I'm sure developers are itching to get their hands on land to build oodles of mass tourism properties, but one of the advantages of having remained undeveloped for so long is that a host of distinct species of plants and animals has been discovered on the island. Large swathes have been designated conservation areas.

I wonder if one of the reasons for not developing the island would have been a shortage of water. Annual average rainfall is almost nil. The topography is more subdued than on the neighbouring islands of Lanzarote and Tenerife, so there aren't the mountains to lift the moist air from the Atlantic and precipitate rain. It has the oldest geological basement amongst the islands.

But that's not my main concern here. The conmen of the Canary Islands thrive still in a backwater where regulation is little known and unexercised.

Len and I stayed in Corrajelo at the northern end of the island. One evening, sauntering back from our evening meal, I espied a Sony HD handycam in a shop called Photo World, offered for sale at £200. My eyes widened. Greed leapt into my soul. Ricky, or Nicky, the attractive-looking sales assistants of apparently sub-continental origin, had an air of suave, assured gravitas. As if customers could take it or leave it when it came to buying their goods.

I went back two days later to check on that price and to ask to buy one. They told me that they would have to telephone out and asked me to sit down. A conversation appeared to transpire over the telephone, ostensibly to acquire a model from stock. Nicky, or Ricky, put the phone down and started to work on me. Would I look at this other slimline camcorder which had much better quality than the Sony, was more compact, was Hitachi, etc etc etc

I was really, really stupid. I trusted him. I was tired and I wanted to get out of the shop. I wasn't wearing my glasses, so just before the sale was concluded, I suddenly realised that this was not a branded Hitachi camera at all. Hi Tech was the name printed on the box. Ricky, or Nicky, was adamant that it was Hitachi, or the same as Hitachi, a subtle and untrue difference.

AND it only took a 2Gb SD card. I'd wanted a HD video with gigabytes of capacity. I left the shop with a massive credit card bill as well as the camera. Nicky and Ricky must have thought that it was Christmas and their joint birthdays combined. And the Sony HD camcorder never appeared.

I decided that I had been well and truly had, and planned reprisal.

Happily for me, the management of the hotel where we were staying was outstandingly helpful, and explained how I should go back to the shop to get paperwork to reclaim my money. They also gave me the telephone number for the local police and said that they would help with translation.

Thus armed, I marched down Avenida General Franco and into the shop. I have a loud voice when I choose, and stated my position very forcibly. I also shooed customers out of the shop by claiming that they would be dealing with cheats and liars if they bought anything.

Ricky, or Nicky, had been very careful to point out at the time of sale that there was no refund on my purchase, which is phooey if you only know how to get the regulations working. The problem is that, as a tourist in town for only a week or so, you don't have the luxury of time to wait for the law to take its course.

Aware of this, and after I had vented my anger, I concurred with the suggestion that they get me what I actually wanted, an HD camcorder. A JVC Everio would arrive from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, on Friday afternoon, two days later.

I returned on Friday. A box branded JVC Everio GZ-MG37E was brought forth. This was more like it. I had taken my laptop with me to demonstrate the poor quality of the video clips recorded by the so-called Hitachi and I had managed to find an Internet page showing various models of the Everio. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get an Internet connection at the shop, or else I could have done even more research on the spot. I realised that the salesmen weren't altogether up to date with web content, and knew nothing of file formats. Their sole purpose was to charm and cheat you out of as much money as they could.

We loaded the software. I took videos of Nicky, or Ricky, or both, and of the shop from the street outside. They even had the cheek to sell me additionally a lens cover, which was probably a good idea, but failed to get me to buy a new battery. What part of NO don't you recognise? I asked. For all I knew, they were trying to sell me the original battery which they had substituted with a fake. I shall buy a new battery in UK.

And then, do you know what they did? They deleted all the videos that I had taken with the Everio from both my camera and my laptop. I was uneasy about this. And as I was leaving the shop, I passed another salesman concluding a transaction with another tourist for that dubious Hi Tech camcorder.

Back in UK, I have confirmed that there is such a thing as a JVC Everio GZ-MG37E camcorder, although I remain uncertain about my model in hand. I was able to download the instruction manual from the website. There had been no English language manual in the box. I can tell you that I was over-charged.

But there is a warning notice on the JVC website about a model of camcorder being sold under the brand of MXJVC in Spain, the Canary Islands and on the Internet. These products are not genuine JVCs, have no connection with JVC, and thus will get no technical support.

In addition, a very frustrated gentleman called Erwin Hainzinger has published a denunciation of this very same shop:

"I go to you with the intention to formally express my reclamation against CANARY establishment SIYA IMPORT CIF B35775451 or PHOTO WORLD; street Admiral White Carrero, 2, CORRALEJO, FUERTEVENTURA."

or here for the English translation.

You'd like to think that a holiday in the sun should be a happy experience, not one where you can be ripped off by conmen such as Ricky and Nicky. And I don't think the Spanish authorities should be satisfied with their lack of enagement in consumer woes. Much stronger action is required to enforce regulation and to get these people to trade honestly.

Incidentally, the receipts didn't show the telephone number of Photo World. I tried looking up telephone directories on the Internet, but was supremely unsuccessful at finding anything for the Canary Islands. In desperation, I rang the hotel where I had stayed. The receptionist apologised but said it was very difficult to find telephone numbers. Why? I wanted to know. Because people don't register their telephones.

Spain? A developed country?

A thought for the New Year

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 11:05:12 GMT

"It is important to recognize the power of our emotions--and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced." - Tarthang Tulku

There are lots of people to whom I would like to send this thought. But I doubt that they would appreciate it.

Besides, they'd probably respond with, "It's the pot calling the kettle black!"

Jaundiced observers would probably dismiss the idea as trite and naive. Maybe they should try it for themselves. Politics doesn't seem to me to work.

My thanks to Amidabuddha for the thought. A module on my personalised Google page throws up a new quote every day.

Who loves ya baby?

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:17:07 GMT

The choir sang in Leicester Cathedral last night. Choirs from Loughborough Church of England Primary School and Donisthorpe County Primary School joined us to sing sweetly, enthusiastically and energetically. We are grateful to the proud parents, grandparents, friends and other relations who undoubtedly swelled the congregation to bursting.

It was an Advent Concert rather than purely a celebration of Christmas carols. Thus we sang 'How lovely are the messengers' by Mendelssohn, 'Never Weather Beaten Sail' by Shephard and 'This Christmas Night' by Williamson, which begins, 'How sweet and clear above the sounds of war..' The choir director thought this was an appropriate piece for this time.

He also thought that we might be singing the type of music with which most of the congregation would not be familiar. That sounded rather patronising although I am sure he didn't mean it to be so. We all say these kinds of things without really thinking.

Looking around at all the people, I thought back to the last time I had sung there. It was Evensong one Sunday in October, when the Leicester Bach Choir met its annual commitment to the cathedral by taking the place of the choristers who go off on an overseas choral jaunt.

We sang in the choir stalls. At four pm, the light was already low. There were thirteen in the choir directed by the Senior Assistant Organist. His deputy was up in the organ loft. The Cantor took the service assisted by another canon. There were three people in the congregation.

It is highly fashionable to refute the traditions of the Church, but I think Evensong is a lovely service, especially when you're singing famous settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...' It's like a Goodnight prayer in the fading light, when you can go home afterwards, lock the doors, make a good cup of tea, toast a couple of crumpets and doze in front of the telly.

How many people realise that research has shown time and again that singing in an organised group actually raises the level of emotional and mental health in the participants?

Last night, before we went in, I was talking to Nicola, whose little girl is five months old today. She had escaped from the tyranny of nappy changing and feeding to come and sing with us, leaving her husband to deal with bath time. We agreed that that would be very good practice for him.

I was telling her about my own experience in having babies, and how nothing prepares you for the total change it brings into your life. We compared notes on breast feeding support. I would have thought that by now, midwives and health visitors would be totally supportive to any woman who wants to breast feed.

I can swear honestly, that if it hadn't been because I was totally determined to breast feed my children, the force of the health visitor brigade would have thwarted me. I was almost astounded to learn from Nicola that nothing has changed in 25 years. Hospital midwives and nursing sisters are extremely supportive, but once you're in the clutches of a health visitor, your sanity and willpower are up for grabs.

My lifeline was 'Breast is Best' by Drs Penny and Andrew Stanway, which I thought was the most down-to-earth, realistic description I ever read about breast-feeding. Some Mums may have clockwork babies who wake up every 3-4 hours for a feed, and forsake the night-time feed within a couple of months. But I bet that most women don't. And I bet that the constant and/or erratic feeding, because that's what it can be in the first few months, plus the cracked nipples and the sheer loneliness and the total commitment can really wear women down.

My health visitor actually CONFISCATED my copy of 'Breast is Best', saying that it was giving me a lot of wrong ideas. She wanted me to put both my babies on to the bottle as soon as possible. She seemed to think that I, as a 'professional' woman, should not be muddying myself with such primeval activity.

I'm pleased to say that 'Breast is Best' was revised and republished by Penny Stanway in 2005. You can buy it from Amazon UK.

Why did I want to breast feed so badly, despite all the problems? I don't know, but I did. The resistance that I met made me more determined than ever. And it proved invaluable when we went to Sri Lanka for 5 months when Rosie was just 4 months old. I knew exactly what she was getting. No sterilisation of bottles and mixing water of doubtful provenance for me.

Then as now, as Nicola tells me, it's the National Childbirth Trust which is the rock of support for the woman who truly wants to breast feed.

I was lucky with George, my second baby. Because I am coeliac, I was referred to an extremely sympathetic dietitian who was also an NCT counsellor. She advised me to give up dairy products while breast-feeding as these could have been getting through to George. I was SO pleased when the health visitor arrived to weigh him the following week and he'd actually put on four ounces. She had told me that if he hadn't put on weight, she was going to make me stop breast feeding and put him on the bottle.

God save us from ill-informed, 'know-better-than-you' nurses and health visitors.

This is one thing that I dread about getting older and becoming physically incompetent. I shall fall into the hands of so-called medical professionals who will dismiss me as a dumb, dotty old lady. And I shall rage.

Does eating organic give you that warm glow?

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:00:50 GMT

Think again.

The editor of The Economist, that organ of political and economic pragmatism, has started writing to me weekly. Well, not me personally, but all those sorry people who have signed up to be informed of his 'Pick of the Week'.

Amongst his titles this morning is an article called 'Good Food?'

Trust The Economist to blow your pretty balloon. Buying organic food will not, of itself, change the world. I aim to summarise.

1. 'Farming is inherently bad for the environment.' Why? Because we've been chopping down trees for millenia to create agricultural land.

2. When farmers started using chemical fertilisers in the 1960s, they tripled crop yields without increasing the need for more land, thus, supposedly, saving forests. Don't get me started on exploitation of rare woods, and the devastation of tropical woodland to create grazing land for the cattle which supply the American beef burger market.

3. Fairtrade claims that it is paying poor farmers a better, if not necessarily realistic, price for their produce. Actually, Fairtrade is propping up the system of agricultural subsidies which pays farmers to overproduce certain crops rather than diversifying.

4. Wouldn't buying your food locally at farmers' markets save on carbon emissions? No. Half of Britain's food-vehicle miles are used up by you and me driving to and fro from the food shops. It's actually more fuel-efficient to have huge, lumbering trucks blocking our roads in order to supply our supermarkets.

5. Buying New Zealand lamb is more energy efficient, because raising lamb in New Zealand is less energy intensive.

6. I have to quote this. 'since the local-food movement looks suspiciously like old-fashioned protectionism masquerading as concern for the environment, helping poor countries is presumably not the point.'

What does The Economist propose by way of solution?

Abolish agricultural subsidies. We should pay the proper price for our food.
Reform the world trade system. This would pay food and crop producers the appropriate price for their goods.
Create a global carbon tax. The cost of energy would be incorporated into what we paid for goods. If it was more efficient for retailers to source locally, then they would.

The one positive aspect that the Economist identified in the ethical-food movement was that it showed that people did want change and fairness.

But it's entering into politics that would achieve that, not by feeling better by buying organic.

Hurrah for Starbucks!

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:24:44 GMT

Rosie and I met up for lunch yesterday. Neither of us felt particularly hungry so we agreed to go to Borders, which was less than five minutes from where she worked. Borders hosts a branch of Starbucks. I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks. I think the coffee is lousy and there's nothing there that I can eat because I'm coeliac.

I had been having symptoms of gluten intolerance since Monday - I still don't know what it was that I ate - which had made me feel under par, and she was feeling low and said she wouldn't eat.

Well, we got to the counter. And there, Rosie espied the last remaining sandwich of, guess what, cheese and pesto sandwich in GLUTEN-FREE BREAD!

It even looked somewhere near enticing.

I was pleased to see Rosie pick up a chunky sandwich of something for herself too.

Now, when very helpful organisations like airlines serve you gluten-free bread, it is often dry and tasteless. Gluten-free bread has to be refreshed by heating it up briefly in a microwave, or ordinary oven. THIS sandwich was totally edible. Maybe it was the packaging, but it was a perfectly acceptable texture. You can't expect too much, ever, with gluten-free bread.

It really lifted my day, and I hope that gluten-free sandwiches will become more widespread at Starbucks - and elsewhere for that matter.

I was very pleased to see that Rosie looked a bit better too, after having had something to eat.

Eid Mubarak - a poem for Eid

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 08:11:17 GMT

Today is the first day of Eid al-Fitr in Oman. Most of the rest of the Arab world started celebrating on Monday 23rd, but they always seem to see the moon one day later in Oman.
Since Eid begins after sunset on the last day of Ramadan, I sent round an Eid greeting yesterday evening, and was amazed at how many people were still up in the small hours of the morning when they sent good wishes back. UK is 3 hours behind Oman and 2 hours behind Egypt.
The nicest text message was from my former boss, who must have sent this just before Eid prayers. It woke me when the phone went off at 3 am, but I didn't mind. And I hope that you will see why.

With petals of red roses,
Palm full of spring water,
Rays of sunshine,
Fragrance of a thousand flowers with dew,
I wish you a VERY SPECIAL DAY,
And
EID MUBARAK!

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:38:26 GMT

George has borrowed his father's short-sleeved pink shirt to wear over his All Black rugby shirt at school today. He told me it's Cancer Awareness Day at school. I asked if he meant Breast Cancer Awareness, but he wasn't aware.

Anyway, he went off proudly this morning looking very fetching in his shirt.

I find that it's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in America, and I know that all sorts of events are being organised for this coming weekend.

To work. I started up the PC and downloaded the accumulated email amongst which was one from Developer Shed. Right at the bottom of the newsletter, which is actually devoted to web programming technologies, was a very interesting item about how melanomas can be detected by photoacoustic detection in a blood sample.

Just ten melanoma cells in a sample can provide a detectable response, which can warn doctors that further treatment is needed. It's only melanin from melanoma cells which produce this response. Another encouraging approach in the battle against cancer. Read the story from Reuters.

Full marks to Developer Shed for its contribution to cancer awareness.

Rejected by history

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:58:22 GMT

Added Friday 20th October: Hurrah, hurrah, I sussed it. The total amount of information that you can submit on the History matters website is 4000 characters, which INCLUDES keywords and personal information as well.

AND you have up to November 1st to submit your story.

So I have finally blogged my bit for history, as an abbreviated form of what follows. You get the unexpurgated version!

----------------------------

Today (17th October) was One Day in History. We were all invited to contribute to a national blog, recording what we did on October 17th 2006 as a snapshot of society for future generations to pore over.

Except that when I went to submit my entry 15 minutes ago, the website said No. Entries could be no longer than 4000 characters long. It would have been a good idea if the organisers had specified that clearly on the page before entering text. I edited my piece to 3976 characters. It was STILL rejected.

I am not a happy bunny.

So you can have the long-winded entry instead. Rejected by history, I don't feel bound by terms and conditions.

--------

Woke at 07:00 to find the gas central heating had finally come on. Although I switched it on two days ago for the winter, temperatures had been mild enough for the thermostat not to kick in.

George, my son, aged 16, who is doing A levels in English, History, Biology and Chemistry, at Hind Leys Community College, a ten minute walk away, got up at 07:40 to have a shower. He should have showered last night after coming home from tennis training, but couldn't be bothered.

While sipping my first cup of tea of the day, enhanced by a gluten-free ginger biscuit, I leafed through the Kleeneze catalogue which had been left on the doorstep yesterday evening. If I want to buy something, I have to fill in the form today before leaving the catalogue, in its plastic bag, with order outside for collection tomorrow. I never see the people who leave and then pick up the catalogue. The publishers are always urgently wanting agents 'in my area'.

I washed down my 150mcg of thyroxine tablets with a glass of barely palatable Cacit D calcium drink. I also take high strength cod liver capsules and a glucosamine tablet once a day. The Kleeneze catalogue was advertising high strength glucosamine capsules with added chondroitin in two packages, both of which claimed to offer 365 pieces. But one was £36.99 and the other was £9.99. I thought they's made a proof-reading mistake, and later, I wrote by email to the contact address on the website to query it. I got a quick response. The £9.99 package only contains 60 tablets.

Turned my computer on at 08:40, to check email and to look up the Kleeneze website. A reminder that the deadline for the monthly press release was due on behalf of East Leake Amateur Players, or ELAPs, prompted me to write an item which also republished details of the colouring competition announced last month for free tickets to the pantomime in December. Sent it off to the editor of the East Leake Times.

21 emails arrived in my main account, only one of which is still in my inbox, which will be deleted later today after I have checked links. Most of the emails were of marginal interest, but were valid. There were no personal ones. I've set up a rule to catch an annoying batch of spam which purports to be advertising stocks but actually sell things like Viagra, or Cialis, or fat-fighting drugs.

One of the emails, from Global E-Law Highlights, reported a case in which a Chicago based email list provider, aka spammer, had won an injunction in Illinois against a UK group called SpamHaus, which catches and deletes spam emails directed to its members. The court ruling is problematic. How can the court in Illinois have jurisdiction over an organisation with an IP address based in Britain? And isn't it absurd that the spammer can win his case and the anti-spam agency is slapped over the wrist - metaphorically.

By 10:20, I had begun this entry but decided it was time to go and eat breakfast. I had egg and bacon with several small sweet tomatoes from my neighbour's greenhouse, which I had been able to pick because I had watered his tomato plants while he was away on holiday last week. I had two mushrooms too. The bacon was cooked over the tomato and mushroom in the microwave oven, but the egg was well and truly fried. I cut and toasted a slice of home-baked gluten free bread as well. Actually, I don't make the bread from scratch. The Panasonic bread maker has a gluten-free programme which so far has been very successful in turning out loaves.

Then I washed and dressed ready to go to Leicester for my mostly weekly hour-long singing lesson.

I topped the last quarter of my toast with olive oil margarine and 'local' honey delivered by my doorstep milkman. I never see the milkman either. He comes after 1 am to deliver the milk, and I leave payments in an envelope outside once a month.

Up until my singing lesson, the only person I had spoken to today is George. If I don't go out, because I have no appointments nor need to do shopping, he is often the only person that I do speak to in a day. I work at home from my computer, building and maintaining websites, writing in my three blogs and trawling the news sources for articles about Oman, where I lived and worked for almost nine years in the 1990s.

My husband, Len, works at the Tengiz refinery in Kazakhstan, coming home every six weeks for a two week furlough. My daughter, Rosie, left home at the beginning of September to go and live in a flat in Leicester, sixteen miles away.

I opened the post over breakfast, despatching the envelopes to the red recycling bag for paper and cardboard. A routine letter for my husband from his stockbroker, a circular from Business Link, which also went into the recycling bag, because I won't have time to attend the meeting it advertised and a Lands' End catalogue which I quickly thumbed through. Lands' End, which is at source an American firm, tends to make its clothes generously sized. To my eyes, the clothes, though casual, are reasonably smart and warm, which is going to be important in the winter. I try not to keep the heating on during the day or overnight because of fuel costs.

My latest dual fuel provider, Sainsburys' Energy, has just informed me that it intends to put up my monthly direct debit by 300% from November, which I consider very unreasonable. Incredibly, the company also makes it as difficult as possible to protest their charges. I have written strongly and await a reply.

While I ate breakfast, I listened to Woman's Hour on my digital radio in the kitchen. Sometimes the earnest, worthy and well-meaning items annoy me, and then there are lighter interludes advertising a female singer's or actress' new venture. Today it was Eve Best who is appearing with Kevin Spacey in Eugene O'Neill's last play, in London. I didn't catch the details. The serial was a monologue about a 30 something lady with agrophobia who had an obsession with The Sound of Music. She broke out of her fear by going on a Sound of Music trip to Salzburg, getting off the bus to run up the hillside like Maria - the hills are alive with the sound of music.

The 11 o clock news told of a collision between two underground trains in Rome, in which one person was reported to have died. The rate of inflation went down last month, or was it up? I can't remember which.

I drove to Leicester in my Mercedes A160-class Elegance bought second-hand in June. The route over Charnwood Forest is direct and generally traffic-free. It was foggy over the top of the forest but had largely cleared by the time I reached Cropston Reservoir. The sun was trying to break through, but at 15:00 hours this afternoon, it's hidden by a cloud blanket. Autumn is touching the trees. From a distance, the woods are still green and leafy, but odd leaves here and there are yellowing, rather like the grey streaks in hair as you get older. It's the horse chestnuts that have turned brown already. I've read somewhere that British horse chestnut trees are being decimated by an illness which is also turning the conkers soft.

At the lesson, I did vocal warm-ups and then Judy and I looked at several 'jazz' songs from the 30s and 40s. I decided that I must make another CD now of such songs, called 'Songs my father taught me'.

Then I went to Rosie's office at Intertek on the Meridian Business Park to deliver her degree certificate which she has to take into a local branch of her bank, LloydsTSB, to prove that she was a bona fide university student up until she graduated last year. The bank had no notes on her since 2000. She is entitled to low interest rates for that period, and possibly some benefit now. She showed me round her office, and Trudy, the receptionist, very kindly made me a cup of tea.

On returning home, I inadvertently set off the house alarm because I had to rush to the loo.

Some person styled Foxy (or similar) left a comment on my latest entry in my Windows Live space this morning. I returned the compliment and visited hers. All pink and black and telling us what a 'kickassbitch' she was. I doubt it. There was quite a lot of clever technical stuff on her space, like a Windows Media Player window showing movies. I still haven't worked that out for my space, The Kitchen Drawer.

Meanwhile, I had had a few personal emails. Len forwarded a url to The Religious Policeman in an email, a blogspot allegedly written by a UK and US educated Saudi. It's enlightening reading. I sent the link to a friend in Oman. He replied that the site was probably a fraud and that the writer was not even Arab.

Cup of tea time at 15:15. Accompanied by another slice of gluten-free toast with liver pate and four tomatoes.

George brought the grey wheelie bin round the back when he returned from school at 16:00. It was the non-recyclable rubbish collection today.

I managed to devote almost two hours this afternoon to honing a website for a client. I'm designing in XHTML and CSS using PHP for server side includes. Each time I make a change to presentation in the CSS, I have to inspect the appearance of the web page to check that the design does not 'break'. That means using as many browsers as possible, although I only have Firefox, Internet Explorer 6 and Opera 9 at my disposal. Internet Explorer 7 is supposed to be being released within the next month. It will be updated over the Internet through automatic Windows updates.

Because IE7 has been designed to be CSS compliant, many designers, which will undoubtedly include me, will find that designs will break, so that's going to be a headache as I check all my client designs, plus my own websites.

I caught the end of the news on BBC Radio 4 while beginning dinner. After some 'pushing', George came to help get the bolognese sauce ready. We have to make this from scratch because, since I am coeliac, we can't use packet mixes which are almost always wheat-flour based. He cut the onions and I added the garlic.

The FTSE 100 index finished down 63 points today, so I had lost £803 on my portfolio. No matter. It's in a much stronger position now than it was in the summer.

David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary who had had to resign because of personal indiscretions and apparently telling falsehoods, was in the news again for having allegedly told the governor of Lincoln Jail to send in the troops to machine-gun prisoners during a riot in 2002. Naturally, he has denyed the allegation. This story will run, and I expect that we shall hear more details thanks to investigative journalism.

The inflation rate had, according to some measures, gone down last month.

Old Age Pensions are to be increased by £3 a week from April 2007, the first increase of such magnitude for a decade.

Went back to finishing the bolognese sauce at 19:00. I added the mince, and fried it, a tin of chopped tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar and then half a jar of the sun-ripened tomato chutney that you find at garden centres. I put a pan on in which to boil the gluten-free spaghetti and George came out to grate the cheese. I'd forgotten that I have some grated parmesan, but it's good that he made the effort.

While cooking, I listened to this evening's episode of The Archers. The main story is 'What will happen to David and Ruth's marriage?'. David Archer is the third generation that we know of to inherit Brookfield Farm. He's not terribly imaginative. He's a plodder. But his intentions are honest, and his feelings are solid. An old fiancee, Sophie, had come back into his life. We could all tell that she was trying to seduce him, but David, bless his cotton socks, hadn't cottoned on. On the other hand, he was flattered to be complimented by a beautiful (we're told), sophisticated woman. Then she kissed him. Oh goodness me, as if a kiss were the depths of perdition. But it brought David round, and he explained all to his patient wife Ruth the next day.

However, it's not so simple. David has been taking Ruth and the children for granted for a long time now. Given his lack of imagination, that's probably not altogether surprising. The situation is now complicated because Sam, the Brookfield cow man, has declared his love for Ruth, when she went running to him for sympathy. It's a variation on an old theme - women are always suckers for love, while men believe in the establishment of marriage.

Mark Lawson on Front Row, reviewed the new musical Spamalot directed by the famous Mike Nicholls. Then it was a repeat of the daily serial from which I learnt that the monologue was written by Miranda and Alice Hart and performed by Miranda Hart. She was supposed to be 33. I suspected that there was a strong element of autobiography in the story in more ways than one.

At 20:00, the news reported that President Jalalani of Iraq wanted the coalition forces to stay in the country and that the lawyers for a Muslim teaching assistant suspended from duty for wearing a face veil in front of children would seek an injunction against Prime Minister Tony Blair for praising the responsible council in Yorkshire for suspending her in the first place.

I switched off the radio at the beginning of File on Four which was investigating how effective newly established private medical centres in Britain were in supporting the National Health Service and whether they were in fact a financial drain.

I packed up the dishwasher as far as possible and came back to the computer to post this. I shall try to not leave it too late before piling washing into the washing machine and turning on the dishwasher, timed so that they come on after 01:00 British Summer Time in the Economy 7 period when electricity charges are much lower.

I hope that I shall have spent my requisite 15 minutes on the floor doing Alexander Technique to ease my back and my mind, and just maybe I shall watch TV or an episode from the first series of Spooks on DVD before crashing into bed. That could be any time between 22:00 and 23:00. Good night.

Coda

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 06:45:43 GMT

The serialisation of The Blank Wall has finished. Lucia's lover sacrificed himself for her, taking the blame for two murders, after being shot by police. Perhaps his devotion to Lucia was his redemption. He had been described as a hardened criminal. That surely has to be a classic cog in the female psyche - the man who turned good for love of a woman.

Instead of fleeing to Montreal, he had returned to the lake to hand back Lucia's jewelry which she had pawned in the hope that she could buy back the pornographic photos of her daughter, Bea, for which she was being blackmailed, and the photos too. He couldn't get away from the boat house. The police were watching the house and grounds

There was one, long passionate embrace before the lovers parted, in which Lucia said she 'poured herself into him like a river'.

And after that? The day-to-day business of living continued, the days falling like Autumn leaves over the passage of time and an episode that was complete.

But as Lucia said, what would it be like when her husband Tom returned from the war? They would not be the same people that they had been.

I took Rosie to dinner at Popadoms last night. I barely recognise this confident young woman with ambition and aims in life. She's not my cuddly, bubbly little girl anymore. Although still cuddly and bubbly, she has a streak of steel in her.

It's a shock that I hadn't been prepared for. I had thought that there would be a continuum of feeling and responsibility, but I have had to relinquish the responsibility, and life is suddenly empty.

Listening to her plans to move to London, I realise that I do stand in a continuum. The days of my childhood, the glad Sunday mornings crossing the wasteland of the pea field to run down Pepys Way to see my Auntie Annie and Uncle Albert, for that blessed hour or two of being pampered. The stories from my Dad about the war. The recollections of my Mum about the dances and the men in uniform who were not to be trusted. The sensation of great and wonderful things opening up before me. These are now only memories, and when I pass, so will they.

Reading and reminiscence

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:24:16 GMT

'The Blank Wall', by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding and published in 1947, is the serial being broadcast at the end of Woman's Hour on Radio 4 this week. It's been revised as a screen play for a film called 'The Deep End' starring Tilda Swanson released in 2001.

It's not a story that I would have thought I would have paid much attention to. Set in WWII, Lucia, who has moved to a lakeside house with her father and two children while her husband, Tom, is serving in the Pacific, lives a life written in the culture of that time, when women often conformed to stereotypical roles as housewives and mothers. In each episode she says, "Tom, this is a letter that I am never going to send.."

I thought her children were shrill, ignorant brats, and she annoyed me with her over-anxiety to do the right thing as a mother and to establish social connections on their behalf, without apparently considering her needs as an individual apart from them. The story starts with her reproof of her daughter's liaison with a thoroughly unpleasant older man.

Somehow, life goes off the rails, beginning when her father accidentally, and unknowingly, kills the lecherous boyfriend.

But instead of going to the police and revealing all, Lucia becomes enmeshed in an intrigue of blackmail, deceit, romance and murder, only because she thinks she is protecting her daughter and father. Perhaps we shall have another perspective during the final episode tomorrow. It could be her very boredom and frustration at the monotony of her life that is responsible for her actions. Detective Levy has already asked her if it is true that she borrows murder, who-dun-it fiction from the library.

I'm finding the story riveting. How could a woman be so stupid! But there you are. If she had gone to the police, I suppose it is quite possible that she would have been socially blackballed in a community where everyone is expected to be 'nice' and there is a strict social hierarchy. Her son would never have been accepted into the Yacht Club for example, which at the age of 15 is his ultimate ambition.

'Being nice' is still a parameter of acceptance in social circles. We may be able to get away with not 'being nice' when we're younger, but it certainly seems to be a requirement of living in middle-class communities.

But 'being nice' for the sake of it doesn't get things done in life or business. Trying to be nice to everybody strikes me as a form of castration. Being fair, if at all possible, is probably harder.

Michael Palin is also on Radio 4 this week, reading from his first volume of diaries. This morning, he described a party he went to at Studio 54, a smart upmarket disco in New York in 1978. Truman Capote and Andy Warhol were the hosts. Mick Jagger bumped into Palin and told him to be careful of the 'poofs' (Palin's expression, not mine).

Palin told of how the party degenerated into decadence as all the party-goers tried to outdo each other for outrageousness. At that time of the morning, it was probably not appropriate to provide details. He left at 1am feeling very relieved to be out of the atmosphere. Reminds me of that Joni Mitchell song, 'People's parties', All the people at this party, They've got a lot of style, They've got stamps of many countries, They've got passport smiles...

It also reminded me of the one evening I spent at a smart disco in Stockholm in September 1969. I'd met an English girl somewhere, who was also working as an Au Pair, and she had contacts and asked me along.

I wore my best psychedelic frock which I'd bought out of my student grant from Wallis (sic), a well-known high street fashion store at the time. It was far too long, this being the era of micro skirts. I had always been conscious of my shape and being large-hipped and on the heavier side meant that I wasn't brave enough to drastically cut the length. In fact, my second employer in Stockholm was always berating me about my weight and size and exhorting me to starve myself.

I enjoyed being in the music. As usual, I danced on my own. I'd long ago given up the idea that any male would be interested in asking me to dance, and I wasn't going to wait around on the off-chance. My companion met a man in a group that she knew, and left me to my own devices. We left, not too late - I thought because of work in the morning (how green I was then) - and they took me back to a flat somewhere in the city.

During the night, I got up to go to the bathroom and stumbled into the main bedroom where she and her lover lay entwined. I tiptoed out, but not before the room had seemed to fill with a huge darkness, a sensation of emptiness. As I wrote to someone much later, the sensation was of a lack of love. Not me, them. Psychologists would say that I was transferring my own unconscious needs to the couple, although the event left me equally sure that I didn't want to have that type of fate, waking up in strange beds with strangers in the morning.

I crept out just before dawn, as I had to catch the early train to my workplace in Bromma. I was in the kitchen at 7 am, serving breakfast as required. I don't know if my employer ever knew I had been out all night but I could hardly wait until 7 pm when I could just go and collapse in my cellar room and sleep.

I never met that girl again.

My little eyrie

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 22:08:33 GMT

I went back to Leeds last week, to take an IT course at the University Business School's Innovation Centre. It was 40 years to the week that I had first gone up to the university as a 'fresher', or first year student.

Even though it was Sunday evening, the M1 was still busy and I had to admit to feeling vulnerable on the road because the visibility in the Merc isn't as good as it was in the old Passat. And I'd neglected to have my replacement driving glasses coated with anti-glare factor. Well that'll larn me. I won't do that again.

I remembered Clarendon Road and found my hotel on Woodsley Road. It was one of those tall, Victorian(?), three or four storey, brick terrace buildings that cling to the outskirts of the campus on all sides. Beautiful, stately, grand, but falling gradually into disrepair, which seems to be the fate of most student accommodation in inner city areas.

I was lucky to get an en-suite room at the top of the house, with a window flanking one wall, looking out over the back streets and beyond to the city centre. The shower room was adequate and the cupboard was generous. A small TV on which I could watch Spooks on Monday evening and a kettle to brew my morning cuppa.

However, I wasn't impressed when I returned at the end of the first day to find a parking ticket slapped on my windscreen. I had tucked the parking permit that the hotel had given me in the licence holder, which I thought might be the first place a parking warden would inspect. How silly of me!

At any rate, after I left a note in the front of the car pointing to the permit's position, I didn't get a ticket on the successive three days.

It was nice to return at the end of the afternoon to lean back against the pillows and sup another cup of tea while reading a book or magazine and then just watching the clouds through the window. No washing, no cooking, no housework! Fantastic.

On Wednesday morning, before checking in at the Innovation Centre, I strolled across Woodhouse Moor. An old stomping ground which I used to cross regularly between digs in Headingley and the campus. Signs of decay there too. The ground of the tennis courts is all broken, with just the net posts standing to remind you of what was once there. Three basketball hoops had been installed on one of the courts. I don't know if they were used. The roof of the old bowls pavilion had either caved in or been smashed in. Graffiti covered most surfaces.

But the students still stream in at the start of lectures at 9am. I'm told that there are now 30,000 students at Leeds, considerably more than the population of Shepshed.

I found my old department, Earth Sciences, at the centre of the campus. When I had been at Leeds, it had just been built at the perimeter, replacing the homely house on Cavendish Road. Leeds was big in the 60s but I was over-awed by the size of the place now. The City Centre is a disappointment, a clone of every other city centre in the country. But the old Victorian buildings, the Town Hall, the Library and Art Gallery, the Infirmary are all still there, massive and imposing. I went into the Library to check my email, because, believe it or not, the Innovation Centre didn't have a working Internet connection on the first day. I was astounded by the details of the carvings on the balustrades and arches. Go look for yourselves at the dogs carved at the end of the banisters and the intricate flower reliefs.

I dined at the Casa Mia restaurant on Millennium Square each of the three nights I was there. Believe it or not, I couldn't find anywhere else with an ambience that I liked, and ordering a takeaway curry to be brought to my room seemed defeatist, although it would probably have been rather cheaper.

Thanks to my waiter on the first night, I recovered hope that I might be able to consume red wine in the future. I had finally realised that red wine was making me feel REALLY ill, and wasn't doing my voice any good either. The waiter said that the sulphites added to the wine as preservative were to blame, and recommended that I tried organic red wine. I was so relieved when I discovered that I could indeed drink organic wine and not wake at 2 am then 4 am with raging thirst. But it still makes me tired, so regretfully, I shall have to continue to be much more moderate in my intake.

And then it was Thursday afternoon, and time to drive home. Fortunately, the traffic was free-flowing and I was back at the house well before 6pm.

Strange really. Leeds is good on buses and bike tracks and space, and it was a formative era when I was first there, but I was secretly glad to leave.

Apocalyse imminent?

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 19:02:31 GMT

Would you think that the USA, bogged down as it is in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be considering going to war again?

It hardly seems credible, but reports in the last two weeks suggest that the US administration is seriously contemplating attacking Iran. It would be justified to the American public as a pre-emptive strike against a nation that is resolute on pursuing nuclear technology to the point where it can manufacture nuclear weapons.

Notwithstanding that reports suggest that the country is still several years away from this accomplishment, and probably needs additional resources as well as, perhaps, technology transfer. However, the point at which Iran enriches enough uranium to make a bomb could only be a year off. (Iran’s NPT Violations – Numerous and Possibly On-Going?, The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS))

Why should a country so rich in oil want to develop, as it claims, nuclear power stations? Well, I haven't looked thoroughly at the ins and outs of it, so you can go look for the information yourselves, but there probably aren't enough of the right kind of hydrocarbons to sustain the power demands of the Iranian economy. Iran would probably prefer to sell its hydrocarbons and use the income to build its own energy infrastructure - which obviously includes nuclear power stations.

On the other hand, the devastation of Iraq has virtually left Iran as the sole regional power, religiously antithetic to Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states on the western side of the Arabian/Persian Gulf. And the country is wielding its political and military muscle. Doubts still remain in the US about whether it ordered Hizbullah to attack Israel across the Lebanese border in the summer, despite strong denials from Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's leader, that Iran had anything to do with it. A regional power expects to have the military might to enforce its pre-eminence.

Therefore the Americans may feel compelled to put contingency planning into practice to 'nip the problem in the bud', so to speak.

I suppose the positive light is that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has been emphasising the importance of a diplomatic solution, but she may yet be over-ruled.

The US navy has been given orders to deploy in the area of the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Military commanders are discussing the situation. Intelligence sources suggest that an order to take out nuclear installations in Iran from the air could come even before Congressional mid-term elections in the US in mid-November, or before the middle of next year - which I suppose would provoke a jingoistic support for the Republicans.

What might happen as a result? The leading article in Time magazine of 25th September suggests merely that the US could not guarantee that it could hit every single nuclear installation. Some sites could be deep underground. The Iranians would lay mines across the Strait of Hormuz paralysing all shipping in and out of the Gulf. The price of oil would soar above $100 a barrel. That would certainly lay into the global economy.

Other commentators have been much more stark. Iranian missiles would be fired across the Gulf at US military bases in Bahrain, possibly Qatar where Central Command is based, and at Saudi Arabia and UAE. The Moslem world would become even more polarised against the West than it already is. Terrorist attacks would increase throughout the West and against Western interests.

In short, escalation of terrorism.

The older I get, the more pessimistic I feel about the possibilities of changing established viewpoints where attitudes and opinions are hardened and entrenched. And maybe it has to be appropriate to have a military option. But I don't think it should be the first port of call. Unfortunately, the last six years of President Bush and his cronies hasn't given us a lot of encouragement to believe that their policy is otherwise.

Judah and Mohammed

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:39:22 GMT

It's three months ago now since I watched Judah and Mohammed on Channel 4. The programme tracked what happened to both 15 year old boys for around a couple of years.

Judah was a Jewish boy living with his single Mum in an apartment in Tel Aviv. He was potentially violent, abusive and rebellious. Despite being very able, he had given up on his school work as a result of his rebellion. His mother despaired of him. Searching the net for references to the programme, I discovered that a World Health Organisation report has concluded that Israeli schools were the eighth most violent out of the 28 nations surveyed. Judah did, however, have an ambition to be an F16 pilot.

Mohammed, a Muslim Palestinian, lived with his large family in a spacious apartment in Ramallah. He and his siblings and friends would sit at their first floor window watching the activity on the streets outside. He was a quiet, bespectacled, thoughtful and moderate student.

The programme filmed Citizenship and/or History classes in both schools. It seemed impossible to choose between the antagonism towards the other party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict portrayed on both sides.

Then something momentous happened to both boys.

Judah failed his exams. He had to go to the head teacher, who gave him short shrift. She said he could either work to achieve his ambition, or he could leave school with absolutely no prospects. The choice was his. She made it stark. And Judah began studying again.

But for Mohammed, it was far more appalling. The camera caught him standing on the edge of one of the frequent demonstrations between stone-throwing Palestinian youths and the Israeli military. He was on his way back home from school and lingered to watch. The soldiers didn't ask why he was there, they just roughly manhandled him into a van. He spent six days in prison. He was given a lawyer, and then released to his father at a checkpoint for appearance in an Israeli court at a later date.

When he got home, he was asked whether it had been alright in prison - and that was when he admitted that not-so nice things had happened to him. I may have been jumping to conclusions, but I suspected that he had been sexually abused.

Back at school, he was praised and lauded as a martyr, entitled to wear a martyr's banner around his brow. He was the centre of attention. He couldn't help it. The entire ethos of the school centred on the exalted status of martyrs. It transformed him. Although he had said originally that he didn't want to be a suicide bomber, but could understand why people did it, it began to appear that that kind of fate was expected of him. Somewhere, somehow, sometime. It was as if a trap was closing around him.

Other than the expectations of both young men, I was intrigued by their relationships with their mothers. For all their conflicts and misunderstandings, Judah had a freer, and I think warmer relationship with his mother. Poor Mohammed was cast off. Once he came home from prison, his mother said to him, "Now you are a man, my son." She had no warmth. She didn't hug him. I'm not even sure if she felt that she could hold him. Or even want to hold him.

That must have been a very hard thing to bear for a sensitive, impressionable youth, almost as if his personal, emotional lifeline had been cut.

By the end of the programme, I couldn't help thinking that Judah had matured into someone considerably more thoughtful than he had been at 15, whilst Mohammed was almost akin to a zombie.

On another note, Len sent me a round robin list of jokes from the 'Palestinian stand-up comedian, Goffaq Yusuf,' last week. I read them, thought they were a bit near, but laughed and forwarded them. Then Charlie wrote back with another list of jokes apparently attributed to the same comedian. They were not nice.

So I did a search on the net for Goffaq Yusuf. To my horror, I found that the 'jokes' emanated from a rabid, right-wing Zionist website called Masada, and that Goffaq Yusuf stood for Go F*** Yourself.

I sent an apology to those to whom I had sent the jokes for having circulated propaganda, but the most chilling thing is, that after watching Judah and Mohammed, I can see that there's more than a grain of truth in them.

A WOW tip for skin care

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:30:33 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I went into the consulting room with George when he finally managed to see a consultant dermatologist, six months after he had had what the dermatologist diagnosed as a case of infected eczema.

He really did look poorly with sores covering virtually all his body. Anyway, that outbreak has cleared up and the doctor was extremely understanding and helpful

He gave a tip which I think that anyone, anywhere, who uses moisturising cream would be delighted to hear.

BEFORE you get in the shower, rub on Aqueous Cream. A huge tub costs about £2 from pharmacists and chemists.

The cream acts as both cleanser and moisturiser, so that when you emerge from the shower, your skin is silky smooth and you don't have to apply moisturisers afterwards.

I haven't tried that on my face, since I still like to indulge in my luxury of Lancome Hydrazen, but it works beautifully on neck, arms and legs.

Back in time - the Eagles and Hotel California

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:25:21 GMT

I've just sat through a grainy Yahoo video of The Eagles performing Hotel California back in 1976.

It was fantastic. I hope this link to the video works if you want to check it out.

Of course, I was still in Botswana during the first half of 1976 and was worrying about where the next job was coming from during the second half while Len and I were sojourning in Oxford.

So I didn't catch on to The Eagles until rather later in life. Enjoy!