Devil’s freeze for sipu

There isn’t really a recipe, it is old deep South, handful of this and that!

Start off with a quart of good vanilla ice cream, I use a recipe with eggs, cream and milk, scalded plus vanilla and sugar into the ice cream maker.  Or you could start with a large tub of best ice cream already made.

Part freeze and then add, chopped pecans, chopped angelica, flaked sweetened coconut (NOT dessicated) and brandy, no more than 3-4 tablespoons per quart otherwise you screw up the freezing temp abd get slurp instead.  Freeze hard, pack in a box and leave to firm up for a day or so.  You would need a good handful of each addition.

If you need a good ice cream basic recipe let me know and I’ll dig mine out.

How the Confederates managed to lose with ice cream like this defeats me utterly!

Copacabana Dreams

The left footers really should know better. Don’t they read the good book? Graven images aren’t allowed. God is not happy. After trying to hold his temper and count to, I don’t know, a virgintillion and one his patience ran out and he rained down on the Rio statue of Christ the Redeemer some very, very frightening tautological thunderbolts and lightning.

Aiming this year to travel more, Brazil is one of the countries on my goto list. My goal is not to help fix the statue or swim in the Amazon river or look at the rock paintings in the Parque Nacional da Serra da Capivara. Would you believe I’m not even going there to watch the skimpily clad carnival girls rocococoing in the flesh. My mission is to make the natives better at football. Coming from where I come from I’m sure my ministry will be helpful in this godforsaken land of no-hopers. After all, my five-a-side team have won their last few matches.

Gin and Fat.

Well this started out as a comment on Sipu’s recent post, then as usual it got so long and convoluted I decided it better belonged here.

A number of unforeseen consequences of Whitney’s cotton gin followed rapidly after its wider application.  The rapid growth in cotton fibre production in the southern states was accompanied by a huge supply of cottonseed, for every bale of cotton (480 lbs) an astonishing 700 pounds of cottonseed were produced, most of it was dumped in the nearest river (gins were often water powered) or simply left on the ground to rot.

Continue reading “Gin and Fat.”

War and Gin

Had my father been alive, this month would have seen him celebrate his 100th birthday. Of course 1914 is better remembered for being the year that The Great War commenced.

It was an earlier great war, what Southern States call, ‘The War of Northern Agression’ aka the American Civil War, that saw the birth of my grandfather, in November 1862; exactly one year before President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

The Napoleonic Wars had not yet commenced when my great grandfather was born 220 years ago, in February 1794. However, they were well under way when, at the age of 16 he went off to fight with Wellington against the Corsican upstart. Much to his chagrin, my ancestor was wounded at the battle of Quatre Bras, which took place two days before Waterloo and thus was unable to take part in that more famous battle. Continue reading “War and Gin”

So you thought you were going to win at last?

Second ODI between England and Australia.

The ninth wicket fell at 244, leaving James Faulkner and Clint McKay to face the music for the last six overs, 57 runs behind the target of 301.   Now James is a recognised bowling all-rounder, but Clint is, let’s face it, a nice guy, a good fielder and a talented bowler, but he’s not quite sure what a bat is for.   His batting average is about 10.

Everyone – on-field spectators (35,000 or so), media commentators, yours truly and the entire England squad – was convinced that England were just a few balls away from their first win of the tour (no, the game against the Prime Minister’s XI doesn’t count).   The Barmy Army all had beautific anticipatory smiles on their faces.

Five and a half overs later, after the most enthralling demonstration of how to avoid being out by facing as few balls as possible, from Clint, and an incredible master-class on how to hit effortless fours and sixes when the chips are down, from Faulkie, we had won, with three balls to spare.

The most exciting and mind-blowing one-day-er I’ve ever watched. 😀

Question.

Does anyone here have any experience of Japan?

Watching a movie yesterday afternoon, The Last Samurai, got to talking subsequently with spousal unit re Japan. Thought about it and realised that Japan never seems to contribute to foreign aid, never takes immigrants, never seems to take asylum seekers and the rest of the world doesn’t emit a peep of comment let alone tell them to share the load?

Why not?  considering all the ‘earole’ Australia gets over the boat people.  Nothing to stop the Indonesians turning left up the China Sea is there?  But they don’t.  All pictures of Japan appear to be homogenous native population, no blacks, browns, spotted or striped etc. The odd white appears to be tolerated if they live in their style.  Is that fair comment?

Any offers of elucidation?

 

An undeserved reputation

When I was young, it was always said that proficiency at snooker was the sign of a misspent youth.  Snooker halls were considered the depth of depravity.  A friend and I were the first two females in the snooker room in our university union when the ban was lifted and since then I have been interested in it.

Yesterday I watched the first two matches in this year’s Masters Championship from Ally Pally and it struck me once again what a pleasant, courteous atmosphere prevailed.  A cue can be used for making a shot or tapping the table to signify praise for an opponent’s shot.  No sledging, (do female cricket players like those who beat Australia in Perth do that?) no abuse of racket, no shouting at the referee, no physical assaults on opponents, no diving.  Nothing at all unpleasant.  There are accusations of players having thrown matches, but that is true in all sports.

By the way, I am not at all proficient at snooker.