Viking grub, pt. 2

Following hard on the heels of the global gastronomic success earned by the smørrebrød, any self-respecting Scandiwegian will offer you küttbullar or perhaps frikadeller. Meatballs to you, madam, which were for some years announced on the overnight ferries from Harwich to Esbjerg and points north as ‘a Danish speciality’. Laughter rang around decks. No, to be fair, they are special – for their ordinariness.

Frikadeller med kartolfter, broccoli og løgsauce

They are the from the same stable (in the case of IKEA’s menu) as, say, Bratwurst or doner kebab, the ‘left-overs’ solution for butchers and mothers alike. In fact in post-war Coventry, pork butchers sold ‘faggots’ which were much the same: minced or ground cuts or offal bound togther with milk or cream and seasoned to taste with various herbs and spices; fried and served with spuds or owt available.

Not bad with a decent onion gravy.

And to accompany the meal………………. Continue reading “Viking grub, pt. 2”

Poof!

Magic is in the air …
Poof!
Wow it’s a rabbit
white and twitching
pulled from a hat
well how bewitching
just like that
from a shiny black hat;
Abracadabra – blow me, a dove!
well Lord above
there’s five of ’em
and one large white glove,
five a flutter, winging high,
feathers floating from the sky,
birds in the waistcoat, birds up the sleeve,
It’s bloody magic
I believe.

Tom’s River

Sunday June 9

Still inside today but good progress, made it from Atlantic City to Tom’s River (north end of Barnegat Bay)  Probably all we could have done offshore and a lot easier on the boat, probably about 70 miles (as the crow might do it) more for us given all the twists and turns of the ICW.

 The boat is now home so to speak, Marine Traders were sold out of Bay Head New Jersey, just up the river from here.

 Not many pictures today, forgot to take the camera up top this morning, so just these two of Tom’s River (officially it does not rate an apostrophe but it should).

A few classic sailboats

Image

Continue reading “Tom’s River”

Winter

PORT Elizabeth shivered as the temperature plunged to an icy low of 1.9°C yesterday – the lowest temperature recorded in the city in five years.

In August 2008, the mercury plummeted to a freezing -0.7°C, according to the SA Weather Service’s Garth Sampson.

The cold and snow experienced in large parts of the Eastern Cape at the weekend and yesterday were, however, expected to clear this week, with temperatures in the mid-20s predicted.

Today’s minimum in Port Elizabeth was expected to be about 7°C, with a high of 23°C.

(From the front page of my E.P. Herald yesterday.)

Continue reading “Winter”

Underrated: Andrea Temesvari

Who?

In la primavera a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, in the summer it turns to tennis. Back in the days of wooden racquets, all white clothes and Dan Maskell I was crazy about tennis. I used to play all the time becoming quite adept at the sport.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Hungarian tennis player called Andrea Temesvari. She batted balls in the 1980’s and is a contemporary of me. When she was winning the Italian Open in 1982 I was celebrating being crowned school champion. It was a vintage year for tennis. Continue reading “Underrated: Andrea Temesvari”

It’s official, the age of chivalry is dead

There was no way that I was going to lay my denim jacket over the puddle in the camber for the fair damsel aloft on the kerb to step on and cross the road, no matter how pretty she was. I didn’t want history to repeat itself. My head is quite happy on top of my neck. I’m also quite fond of the jacket.

And as I observed a few couples idling walking along the pavement I knew that chivalrous behaviour was for the knights. It was something my old grandmother used to say to me.

The three partnerships I saw, of varying age groups, were holding hands as they strolled. Romantic as this was, it was their positions that was all wrong. The females were situated nearest the kerb and closet to the traffic. My granny always said that the gentleman should always be placed on the outside, otherwise the man was putting the woman up for sale.

In other news today…

You don’t get something for nothing
You can’t have freedom for free
Lyrics © Neil Peart

My son bought a Blackberry Tablet from Curry’s a few weeks ago. Included in the sale was a three month trial subscription for The Times. This was of no use to him so I grabbed the prize. I’m not sure if anyone here is a Times+ subscriber but I’m sure most of the UK Charioteers will have bought a copy of the newspaper at some time.

The package in the deal includes full access to The Times website and a daily downloaded copy of the whole newspaper to your android (I have a simple Acer). There are other bonuses exclusive to Times+ subscribers but I won’t go in to them here.

I’m getting to the main point now; the thrust of the blog, if you like. There seems to be a number of news and magazine sites that are introducing a pay wall or limited access to their home. The new generation don’t have the same liking for paper and some older readers are “genned” up in the digital age which means that producing a paper copy can be unprofitable. I believe the American current affairs magazine Newsweek is available online only. Will there come a day when all newsprint is vanquished?

I hope not, I prefer the paper version. Turning and folding the rustling, creasing pages with big inky fingers, spilling tea on it, drawing moustaches/glasses on random figures and finally, shaping and constructing elaborate paper planes to fire at hostile family members. Great fun these newspapers, one of these days I might get round to reading one.