The Jeans of Slave Traders

Some of you may remember a post I wrote a couple of years ago about my disillusionment with Richard Dawkins. A copy of that post is here. Yesterday I was reading one of our local papers and I came across this rather dodgy article here, which took me to the original, but equally dodgy article in the Daily Telegraph here. Continue reading “The Jeans of Slave Traders”

Steak Tartare

Something stirred in me today. It may have been the comment from Ferret earlier this morning about raw meat and vets that did it, but I went out and bought a kilo of rminced steak, chopped up an onion, four or five cloves of garlic, various pickled gherkins, a handful of alcaparras, wassaname in English? – capers – added loads of salt, sixty four grinds of black peppercorn, cracked a fresh country egg on top and ate the lot.

I absolutely love steak tartare even more than sex and sashimi. Or is it just me?

OZ

The Bozone Layer

In an effort to kick-start my brain after years of inactivity, I have started to learn the skill of solving cryptic crosswords. Some time ago, I bought a book of Daily Telegraph puzzles and began struggling away. I know there are some who rattle through them each morning in no time at all, but never having really attempted more than a handful before, I still usually battle to get beyond half way, though I am getting better. I actually completed my first puzzle, without help, just before Christmas. Occasionally my grey cells ignite and I will get several in a few minutes, but other times I stare blankly and cannot for the life of me figure out the answers. Continue reading “The Bozone Layer”

Doing the decent thing

So the Eurozoners are chipping another cool £110 bn. into the Greek pot – which is almost certain to be p*ssed away within a few years. At least that’s the view of the ‘markets’ this morning. Put another way, the neighbours have now subbed every Greek about £18,000 to zero effect so far. So why did the paymasters stump up?

Probably because they don’t want to wear the black hat. “We did everything we could, but the Greeks blew it,” they’ll say before long. Better than refusing charity and being blamed for the demise of a friend.

Is it? I wonder. Isn’t being nice to Greeks the same as being mean to the rest of the Europopulation? No contest then.

Three men and a Plane

Some time ago during summer months three of us used to take our lunch break out on the canteen landing. This idyllic setting was on the first floor. After a few weeks one of the men said.
“There goes my plane.” I asked him what he meant and he said. “Every day at this same time that plane flies right over us.”
For the next week we monitored his statement and judged that he was correct. This small plane did indeed fly overhead routinely at the same time. Continue reading “Three men and a Plane”

England here we come

No, no, I’m not going to the land of the wheel clamper or that place where the supermarkets / banks rule supreme!

I’m not going where black isn’t and white shouldn’t.

In fact England is coming to me!

Perhaps I should say us.

Bought our tickets for the Test Match today (thank you Eastern Province ANC branch for insisting that your comrades here in the Eastern Cape have an opportunity to watch world class rugby [and no, you’ll never get my vote])

Yep, the English are coming (oops, was that Paul Revere?) we’ll be here to welcome them!

Members may recall when I took my daughter to watch England play in the FIFA 2010 world cup, I’ve bought her a ticket for this one but she doesn’t want to come along 😕

Looking up and down

An afternoon in Oxford on my own to attend a talk by the artist in residence at Modern Art Oxford, Tamarin Norland (who is exploring the interface of art and the written word…. ) turned into a meeting-up with several friends from a poetry group I attend. We stayed on for a chat and cup of tea afterwards.

By the time I came out the sun was going down and the temperature was dropping. Mainly my eyes were drawn upwards to the tops of buildings caught in the soft light

Continue reading “Looking up and down”