The Maldovarium

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

As it is April 1st, I thought it would the appropriate time to share what is widely, and justly, regarded as the best April Fool’s Day sketch ever done (by the BBC in 1957):

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@blenkinsopthebrave Amusing indeed and so of its time. Spag” was an alien food to most Australians in the fifties and no doubt to most Brits as well. My parents never cooked or ate spaghetti. Indeed the limitations of Australian fifties cuisine, (if you could even call it that) is a theme of a cooking column I write for a friend’s newsletter. (I am no cook either but it is for a rural community and could not think of anything else I could contribute that would be of interest to the readers and the evolution of Australian cooking, thanks to immigration is worth reminding people of.)

Cheers
Janette

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@janetteb

“of its time”

I so totally agree. My memory of cuisine in Australia in the 50s and 60s (ie, when I was living at home) was of the dreaded “chops, peas and potatoes” where the chops were over-done, the peas were from a tin and the potatoes were…well, I try to block it out. And then there was “dessert”. Which, in the young Blenkinsop home, constituted a hideous flavour of jelly–sometimes with overcooked and stringy rhubarb. The horror!

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@blenkinsopthebrave I think Australian cooks of the fifties inherited all that was bad about English cooking with none of the redeeming qualities. Everything boiled to a pulp, no garnishes. Researching into S.A. history I am beginning to understand why. Mutton was the only meat available and it would have gone off so quickly that options were limited, very few vegetables could survive the climate and thin soil, so the staples were limited and cooking in 40c could not have been an appealing prospect. When immigrants arrived in Aus’ post war they could not even find garlic let alone such exotic things as Zucchini, capsicum, eggplant, or even broccoli. I think there is no better illustration of the benefits of multiculturalism than a study of Australian cuisine.

cheers
Janette

[Missy @missy]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Very funny.   I have to say that our meals were not like yours. My mum would dish up whale steak  (cheaper than beef)with mashed potatoes,  fresh peas or spinach and gravy made from the juice of the meat and vegetables and thickened with flour.(yum)

She never over cooked anything. Mind you, our puddings (not dessert in the UK) were rice pudding, spotted dick with custard, or apple pie also with custard.

Missy

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@blenkinsopthebrave @janetteb @missy

Fun factette: some the scenes were filmed in Pasta Food’s factory in St Albans (they also provided research to “sell” the joke), which I went past on the bus from school every day. We were implausibly proud of its role in fake history (the factory moved to Norfolk in the late 80s).

And yes, that is Richard Dimbleby, one of the most revered names in British journalism – who threatened to resign if the BBC forced him to tone down his dispatches from Belsen – absolutely deadpanning it.

[Missy @missy]

@pedant

My OH had seen this hoax, but I hadn’t. Loved it.

Many thanks

Missy

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

Hello folks.  I have been negligent regarding my Whovian interests of late, though I have dropped in from time to time to see what you’re all up to.  I guess we’re all somewhat holding our breath for the new series/new Doctor…

Meanwhile, I’ve got my big charity event, the 24 hour lecture marathon, coming up on 19-20 April, which at least partly explains my absence – if anyone is interested, the full details are here:

24 Hour Inspire 2018

I’ll be having a bit of a ramble about women on screen at 2.00 am, as part of which I may mention Who once or twice.  Possibly.

If any of you are in the vicinity of Sheffield Uni do pop in for one or more lectures, or you can listen in on the day to our pop-up radio station .

It’s all in aid of Rotherham Hospice (they run a hospice at home scheme which allowed my good friend Tim to spend his last days and hours in his own home,  as he’d wanted), and Impact Living, who support vulnerable young people with cancer.  I hope it’s not inordinately cheeky to post the link to our new fundraising page here:

https://mydonate.bt.com/events/24hourinspire2018/459043

Cheers all

 

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@cathannabel You are doing good work. I hope it is a success.
cheers
Janette

[syzygy @thane16]

@cathannabel

How are you?!  I read your post and so did Mum and she did say to me “watch for Cath’s work at the university.”

And I DID forget so I’m really glad for the reminder. Mum and I were really interested in the lectures and how fascinating they were -when you showed us where to find the topics that were around and advertised last year?

As @janetteb said you’re doing excellent work for Cancer survivors both those who are ill and those who are caring for those relatives and family.

@missy @pedant @blenkinsopthebrave

The pasta ad was SO good. Mum was saying that they had pasta when she was about 12 only once a year because grandad said it was “peasant’s food” and same with pizza which she never ate at ALL until she was16 and could buy it for herself and then at uni, every Monday before choir practise some of her and her friends would share different pizzas singing “garlic” at everyone but watered down with vodka and pineapple juice 🙂

Mum also said that her parents were the only ones she knew of who made salads in South Australia  in the early 1970s and cooked quite expensive beef including ‘fillett’ steak? which was really expensive but it was decided that a smll amount which would fit in the palm of your hand was enough nutrition for an adult?

Also Mum learnt to make proper creamy meat balls , meatloaf with herbs and goulash which I must say is one of my favourite meals with the oysterblade steak very very tender and mixed with wine and cream too; served with…….pasta, eventually, instead of just white rice.

Or something called bread dumplings which were shaped like a meat loaf, sliced and then put into boiling water served with the best type of vegetable gravy. I love good home cooking, when I was three apparently and my mates came around for lunch they didn’t want to sit. For them a vegemite sandwich was lunch but on weekends mum would insist on having a sit down with goulash or another fav which is creamed dauphin potatoes with nutmeg,  and cream or butter.

@janetteb because of your knowledge of cooking history do you know why the potatoes were called ‘dauphin?

@blenkinsopthebrave  !

Yes mum said the chops were always overdone too but it was her mum *my grandma who stopped doing that and realised they didn’t need to cook the chops for 2 hours or even 1 hour but barely 30 mins with steamed potatoes. I think steamed and boiled is often similar maybe?

We have lamb chops about once a month. Dad finds that they’re mostly fat and so he stays clear of them but I love nawing on the bone! Also the peas should be bright green? Just like asparagus. My friends are fussy with food and will complain at their homes about what they will not eat. I was allowed only ONE  thing I couldn’t like which was uncooked tomato but everything else I do like. At least I think I do!

Funny thing is that I don’t like pizzas/ burgers unless they are home-made and are healthy. I am striving to learn how to cook 3 new meals by the end of each year..

This is a long post! I hope people had a relaxing Easter and that @janetteb and @missy the heat of the Summer has gone by now.

All the people in the north of America and our Canadian and UK friends will be hanging out for Summer now!! Yee-hah.

Cheers everyone,

Thane

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by  syzygy. Reason: problems with lots of code appearing so I've broken the internet like Mum does all the time!

[Missy @missy]

@thane16:

Has your Mum ever mentioned Whale meat ?

After the war everything was still rationed and beef was too expensive.

Whale meat was more affordable and delicious if cooked properly. Each steak was about on and a half inches thick and tasted a little like liver. The gravy, made from the juice of meat and vegetables, thickened with flour was mouth watering.

The only vegetable I didn’t like was sprouts, and I still don’t. Pizza I can live without, hamburgers, take them or leave them.

My favourite meal – even more than a roast – is steamed or baked fish (salmon or mackerel), with mashed potatoes, spinach and  parsley sauce. My foreign favourite is beef or prawn curry.

My tomatoes I like raw or as juice, I don’t like them cooked.

Once when I was little, Dad splashed out and took us to a restaurant. Nice bit of meat, with vegetables. Unfortunately he told us that the meat we’d just eaten was Horse! I brought the whole meal up all over the table cloth!

Missy

 

 

[Missy @missy]

@cathannabel

 

I am so sorry. Welcome back and good luck in all your endeavours.

Missy

[winston @winston]

@thane16   I am happy that the heat of summer is over for you and @missy and @janetteb  as it looks like it was a hot one for you all. I am hoping we will at least get spring here soon. In Ontario where I live it is still very cold and has snowed on and off for days! Some brave crocus have bloomed only to be covered to protect them from the snow and the poor birds who came back too early are very cold. We feed them so hopefully they are not hungry.

I ate my first raw veggie salad when I was 10 yrs old and visiting a friend for dinner.When they asked what kind of dressing I liked I didn’t know. Now I am a vegetarian and a gardener I eat salad all the time and I like all veggies except turnip, Yuck. I also make bread and buns and then eat far too much of it warm from the oven,Yum. Now I am getting hungry.

[Missy @missy]

@winston

I don’t think we were able to get much salad during, and just after the war. But when we could i really made up for lost time.

The only veges I don’t like are: Sprouts, turnips, (unless they are in a genuine Cornish pasty) squash (tasteless)

pumpkin (also tasteless and OZ’s staple diet it seems!)  and new potatoes.

Mind, I do like American Pumpkin Pie for pudding.

My favourite is Spinach, raw or cooked.

Missy

[syzygy @thane16]

@missy

Mum said “””yuck” to the whale meat and said that Dad didn’t like turnips until she started cooking them and sprouts I like which is a surprise.

I’m with you on the pumpkin which is everywhere in roasts and soups but Mum does make a simple pumpkin soup with salt, pepper and cream -very thick. She does a Thai one with coconut milk, coriander and chilli.

Her roasted red capsicum soup is really good with a 1/4 cup of lagavulin, a small amount of some aniseed drink in a very tall skinny bottle with brown sugar. Weird but terrific.

We love fish too -baked is easy for me to do and Mum used to say her mum cooked liver once a week with lots of onions and red wine with bacon on top of rice. Mum loved it but I said “no way. Not ever” and she says it’s cheap AND very nutritional with all the iron you need and steak is pretty expensive.

@winston you ‘re a gardner? I had tomatoes and lettuces in the garden last year and also a few carrots but it takes so much time to keep the bugs away, pour water over it and pull away all the leaves  and also I just LOVE my meat! Mum makes some good vege meals like a curry with dates, dries apricots and there’s a Greek meal you have cold containing red capsicum, red onions , dates and almonds and egg-plant. You serve it in Summer with warm bread -I think you’d like it. There’s also black olives and the small amount of dates are optional. There’s a cook book (could be English or Aus) which has this recipe in it.

If you’d like it, I’ll ask mum if I can safely post it. She made a few changes to it. You can have zucchini instead of egg-plant and change the amount of olives. Oh, it also has fresh tomatoes added with the seeds and skin removed. It’s a sweet dish and I don’t know why -must be the dates.

@missy Horse?? Are you SURE? Was he teasing?

Yep Dad makes the  best mash but easts most of it himself when tasting. Mum cooks the salmon fish very very lightly on high heat with capers, lemon juice, coriander or chives and parsley and with good salt and pepper. I know my uncle detests adding salt to anything but I think if you have it not too often it’s necessary to add more ‘depth’ to the meal -that’s mum’s word, not mine.

I do not go for desserts much preferring fruit and boy do I eat masses of fruit during training season -kiwi, strawberries are my favourite together and mum loves her tomato juice or that Australian drink V8 -aw, she could drink half a litre of that but knows shes not allowed.

Funny, but she’s put on weight which I think is great but she HATES it. She reckons she has to start dieting which she’s never done before. Crohns does the dieting for you 🙁

[syzygy @thane16]

@janetteb you should include some of those posts in your newsletter! Thing is, a lot of what we cook does come from other countries originally. Her Greek dish, the vegetarian curry (which was Grandma’s invention and won a prize 20 years ago in some magazine) and the spicy pumpkin curry.

We’re not really a meat and 3 vege family. But the doctor was saying that when Australians ate that way rather than pasta, risottos, pizzas and other things ALL the time we were actually heathier back then? It was a simpler diet and I find that interesting. It was a less fussy way of eating and it was done to get it ‘over with’ rather than as a leisure thing.

our ‘local ‘ restaurant we used to go to closed last year and it was ‘almost’ a 5 * place but with decent portions? Still I’d have not one but TWO main courses! We had to  stop going!

There’s a really nice chain place called mecca-bah with Persian food -some of it is vegetarian @winston with the BEST dips made with garlic, hummus and fresh Turkish bread – that makes me SUPER hungry thinking about it. We order THREE of those and that’s our main meal.

We were there at Christmas and the furniture and ‘ambience’ was awesome -private curtains in bright colours, cushions, big chairs, and non alcoholic fruit cocktails with  plates of olives and pistachios. I had my first pistachio icecream -not as good as the coffee one but almost! @blenkinsopthebrave there are many new eateries here since you left?

Cheers.

[winston @winston]

@thane16  Thank you for the kind offer and I would love to try something new. I really love humus , I fry pitas till they are warm and brown and than dip them in it. I garden for myself and as a part-time job. It is a passion of mine. I grow a lot of  our food and I also love flowers, everywhere and any kind. It is a lot of work but very satisfying to provide myself and my family fresh fruit and veg. and I can stare at flowers for hours if I had the time. @missy I grow pumpkins and make my own pumpkin pies with them. Every year I make the same dumb joke ” It took me 4 months to make that pie”.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@thane16

My memories of Brisbane are sort of vague (like most of my memories these days, but we won’t go there…) but I vaguely recall a place called 3 (or 4?) Frogs, and also the Moo Restaurant (?).

These days we go to a new cafe around the corner that caters to the locals (which means 70 year-olds who sit around with an espresso and work on their laptop, like a seniors version of a millennial), or we cross the road to feed the seals who are resident at the Marina and have worked out how to play the crowd.

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

I cannot eat out any more due to food additives. For the same reason i now have to cook everything myself, which is not something I really enjoy. This year I had to start making my own hot cross buns with mixed results. I love lebanese and Indian cuisine. Lately I started making my own Lime Pickle and there are a few excellent Indian groceries which stock lots of things like Samosas which are mostly additive free so every so often we go for a shopping trip and replenish the freezer and pantry. The local fruit and veg shop sells additive free hummus with chili.

@winston I am vegetarian too, but none of my family are and as I don’t eat much I rarely cook vegetarian dishes but I do make sure that vegetable dishes are interesting. I love gardening but it is not one of my skills so I can manage flowers and herbs but vegetables are beyond me. I do have some very loaded chili plants at the moment which I watch over jealously. Right now I have a huge yellow and read hibiscus flowering just outside the window. I have taken a lot of macro shots of the blooms.

@thane16 try roasting spouts with garlic, leek and fresh thyme. They are really good when roasted.

@missy Mashed pumpkin, really sums up Australian fifties cooking. Pumpkin is edible when roasted, otherwise I agree with the Polish, it is pig food.

Cheers
Janette

[Missy @missy]

@thane16

NO! He wasn’t teasing.

Just after and probably during the war (the 2nd btw I’m not that ancient) Horse was very popular and, like whale, cheaper than beef, lamb or pork. What he didn’t allow for, was my love of horses. *shudder*

I much prefer plain English food, although I do enjoy a good curry, Italian and Thai at times. None of the meals your Mum makes appeal to me, too fussy – sorry Puro. The fish in particular I love baked on it’s own, afterwards squeezing at least half a lemon over it, lightly salted potatoes and fresh unsalted spinach. All covered with lightly salted parsley sauce…YUM! Plain Jane that’s me…or rather Missy, I simply don’t like tinkering with food. I’m not keen on fruit either, much preferring vegetables.

@winston:

Oh how I love pumpkin pie! Covered with nutmeg, my favourite spice and a large dob of clotted cream, if you can get it. The only way to eat the vegetable.

@janetteb:

Sprouts…..how can you stand the taste of them? besides, I can live without garlic, you don’t need the stuff, but I do like leeks, so wouldn’t defile them with sprouts and garlic!

I always laugh when we go out for dinner/lunch with my OH’s Canoe club . “What’s the betting, say I, that pumpkin soup is on the menu?” I’m always right!

Missy

 

 

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

@cathannabel —

Sorry a bit late to this party. The 24-hour inspire looks great. Best of luck with it, and with your lecture.

[winston @winston]

@janetteb   It seems we have more than Who in common, I am also the only vegetarian in my family so I rarely cook “vegetarian dishes” just extra veggies for me. I also grow hibiscus and I adore them. I have 3 colours-a solid white, a pale pink with a magenta eye and a solid dark red although they are all asleep now and I won’t see the flowers till late summer they are well worth  the wait. Your yellow and red sounds beautiful.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@winston my garden is a sorry sight today. We have just experienced the hottest three April days on record and everything is parched. Fingers crossed we will get rain today. It is long long overdue. Normally fire restrictions are lifted on April 15 and then the farmers burn the stubble. The town in ringed with plumes of smoke. I suspect that the burn off won’t start until May this year but the farmers will continue to deny that Global warming is real and happening and just blame it all on seasonal weather variations.

Ont the subject of food and bad Australian cooking an amusing story has just emerged about the origins of chicken salt. (an abomination that chip shops sprinkle liberally over chips if not instructed otherwise) It turns out that our town has the dubious claim to being the home of chicken Salt. Not sure that the council will be keen to broadcast that as one of the town’s great achievements when they do the grand opening of the renovated civic centre next year.

Cheers
Janette

[Missy @missy]

@janetteb;

I agree with the farmers. this has been going on for millions of years, long before the Industrial Revolution!  Still, I suppose it gives the Greens something to do.

Chicken salt, yes I’ve had that on chips…thing is I liked it. Very bad, but haven’t indulged for ages.

Missy

 

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@missy

But the science is true whether you believe it or not. And nearly all farmers *do* believe it because they are living it.

@janetteb

Stubble burning has not been allowed in the UK since 1993, although not because of climate change (it’s impact is minimal, compared to coal and oil). It destroys nutrients, pollutes generally and, on a fairly compact industrial island, cinders can do damage electrical transmission gear. ’tis but a childhood memory for me.

[Missy @missy]

@pedant;

To stop emissions is a good thing, especially for breathing. But if the ‘experts”  ( and not all of them do) believe that

they are making an impact on the Earth’s climate, they want to study past climate properly.

Thousands, if not millions of years ago, most of the Northern Hemisphere was blanketed in ice. Indeed the UK had

the odd glacier or two.

Whereas, the Southern hemisphere and 7 deserts, were tropical forests.

Where were the emission then?

It isn’t what I want to believe, it’s simple logic.

You believe it I do not, either way it doesn’t matter, Earth will do exactly what she has been doing for millennia, without any help from us.

Missy

[syzygy @thane16]

@missy @pedant @janetteb

Well well. This IS new. First time I’ve ever responded on a blog, blog post or topic

It’s Thane’s dad with Thane who is waving hello

Lots of things I know nothing about. Which is why I like experts. But I know this: whether any hemisphere was once ice or not and whether or not the dry and dusty plains were rainforests filled with all manner of flying things, there were never any cars “back then”

The problem with ignoring something like this is that villages along coast lines in Indonesia etc have shrunk. Everything gone into rising sea levels. Denying people’s hardships is ignorance up with which we will not put.

Except we do. I guess some people and cultures matter more than others and that’s plain wrong. 🙁

On the stubble burning issue I remember having an argument with my brother-in-law when back on my other home turf. He couldn’t deny that one transmission after another had been ruined on his Essex property in the 70s to mid-80s costing thousands. Wind measurements saw freakish cinder travel across many miles.

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@missy

they are making an impact on the Earth’s climate, they want to study past climate properly.

Crikey. I’ll bet the scientists never thought of that. Oh, hang on – they have. There’s a beginner or intermediate explainer for you to choose.

Thousands, if not millions of years ago, most of the Northern Hemisphere was blanketed in ice. Indeed the UK had

the odd glacier or two.

I have spent enough of my life traipsing across the glaciated landscapes of Wales and Scotland to know this (some for direct educational purposes, some ‘cos its just so damned gorgeous). It is very cool being able to explain which way the glacier was going and how I know, or how the retreat of the ice sheets diverted the Thames, meaning London grew up about 20 miles further south that it otherwise would have – that’s exactly the stuff I learned at university. I have no problem thinking on geological timescales, and nor do climate scientists.

Not a single credible climate scientist doubts that humanity’s fingerprints are all over global warming and they have the data to show it – all of which is publicly available, as are the models they use to process it.

You have strayed far, far beyond what you understand. You’re logic is not actually logic – it is non-sequitur. I can only assume you get your science from the Murdoch press.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

The BBC’s helpful guide to spotting fake news:

… if thermonuclear war was breaking out in much of the world and the BBC had reported on it, it is likely the news would be mentioned on the website and would be corroborated by other news organisations.

Just so you know. 😀

[ichabod @ichabod]

@thane16 or rather his dad and @missy and others: what’s happening has surely happened before, in the way that climate change has always been a “thing” — *slowly*.  Now it’s happening with (geologically speaking) at lightning speed, as I understand it, and that speed is the human contribution: we’ve forced something very quickly that might have gone quite slowly (if at all) without our input — and what that means for us is that we don’t have the time we normally would have had (without, that is, the speed-up of the Industrial Revolution et al) to adapt to a slow change.

The question isn’t what caused this climate tsunami that’s hard upon us now, but whether or not we can recognize our own part in it soon enough to abate the speed and give us a little extra time to make up for all the time we’ve wasted *arguing* about the damn thing, long after the great majority of scientists knew and accepted the reality of what’s been happening, and continues to happen, right now in the form of rapidly occurring extreme weather events and changes in sea life in particular.

This is not a test: or rather, this *is* a test — or how smart we *really* are, and is that smart enough to get us out of this rapid and increasingly violent fluctuation in climate, alive and still more or less civilized.  Look at the US, at one end of the spectrum, in the grip of lethally Reactionary forces, and rolling back the rather pitiable advances we’d managed to make under relatively sane governance; and, who, maybe the Dutch, who *must* invent and refine things like sea gates and floating towns or disappear entirely as the rising seas encroach.  This stuff has head-spinning effects on things like which countries take leadership rolls in riding out the storm(s) and which, like the US right now, fall back into the category of childish nuisance yanking on the grown-ups’ coat skirts.

That’s why “it’s just Nature doing its thing” is so dangerous: it distorts the truth so that places where human effort can be leveraged to slow things down and try to catch up with adaptations become invisible, or derided as beside the point, when they’re all we have going for us so we have to make the most of them instead of denying that we bear any responsibility, or have any  meaningful action to contribute, at all.

 

[Missy @missy]

@pedant:  @ichabod

At last! Real life has given me a proper pounding lately, so much so that I could only be bothered to e-mail.

One thing I do agree with,  is that emissions are not good, especially for people with Asthma. But I still still need to be convinced that we are to blame for all the disasters on this planet. I’m not being bloody minded either.

Experts, change their minds on a regular basis, in particular dietary experts  – so-called. Newspapers have played no part in my conviction, simply common logic, whatever you think.

I cannot say with satisfaction and conceit that I am right, but then neither can the experts, whatever you say to the contrary. You may be well travelled, but you weren’t there millions of years ago every time this change happened.

No one’s opinion should be thrown out because of what the experts say.

In thousands of years time when all emissions have been stopped, the Earth will be going through the same old changes that she is now, unfortunately we won’t be here for me to say, “I told you so.”

There is one thing we can all agree on AND prove, the terrible disaster of plastic bags. That HAS been proved conclusively. Did anyone see the whale that washed up on the beach? After it had died and they cut it open they found 80 plastic bags in its stomach. It had starved to death. Now that is what I call proof positive.

Missy

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@missy

Of course experts change their minds. They go where the evidence leads rather than sticking bull-headedly to a line of argument that has been demonstrated to be knuckle-headed drivel. Because expertise isn’t an opinion, it is a skill developed over many years and firmly rooted in evidence.

You should maybe take that lesson on board.

[ichabod @ichabod]

Love Tyson; tells it as it is.  And as it is, is that we damn well better pull our socks up and get serious about things liek (today’s news) the Artic ice sheets melting faster than ever, and probably not because they’re mean and want to make like difficult for everybody, or because, oh, you know, it’s *time* for that to happen.  @missy This is not a drill.  This is *real*.  And anything we can do to ameliorate these unusually sudden and drastic changes *we had damn well better do*, because otherwise we’re going to be sitting here cooking in our own grease and pointing our fingers at each other.  Science is not a perfect tool — it’s a process of inquiry — but it’s better than the opinion of some fathead on Fox Noise etc. who just doesn’t want to have to *change* anything that might affect the bottom line of the CEOs of this world negatively.  Change wins, or we all lose.

I just attended the wedding of my grandson to a charming young woman from India.  He’s got $ from his other grandmother, enough to live modestly for the rest of his life, but he’s taking a brand new degree from NYU in Food Security and Nutritional Science, and working with urban “farmers’ markets” to make them more sustainable and effective.  Shruthi, his wife, is pursuing a degree in social work.  THEY understand what’s at stake, even though they don’t have kids of their own yet.

So I don’t bloody well feel like sitting back and taking the word of paid spokesmen for a bunch of fat-assed rich guys who keep getting richer on The Way Things Are that nothing needs to happen except more de-regulation and stupider schooling, and leaving those kids and their kids to the mercy (non-existent) of reactionary goons, morons, and soul-less profiteers.  I’ve got skin in this game; based on your posts about this, I have to say, I wonder whether you feel that you do.

 

[winston @winston]

@ichabod  First let me congratulate you and your grandson and his new wife. They sound like wise young people with brilliant futures. Secondly , I want to say I agree with your posts and I also have a big stake in the game. My granddaughters and grandsons as well as all the children on this planet deserve better than what we are leaving them and it is up to us to listen and learn from the scientists. We have to do better and be better. Climate change is not an opinion but a fact based on years of research by independent men and women around the world.

In 2005 and 2006 there were a series of public service commercials on TV  by Competitive Enterprise Institute calling climate change a myth and even saying that carbon dioxide was not pollution because “plants breath it”  and that industrial waste was “harmless” and “essential to life.” The members of this institute were Exxon, Texico, Ford, Arco and General Motors . These ads were placed in reaction to An Inconvenient Truth . Methinks they do protest too much.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@winston   public service commercials on TV  by Competitive Enterprise Institute calling climate change a myth and even saying that carbon dioxide was not pollution because “plants breath it”  and that industrial waste was “harmless” and “essential to life.” The members of this institute were Exxon, Texico, Ford, Arco and General Motors .

SOP from the bastards running the show.  If I could kill assholes like the heads of these evil creeps, I’d be willing to take on a hell of a karmic burden in debts to stinkers to give us a shot at at least clearing the way to *starting* to think about not what to *say* but what to *do*.  Some of it we know, but that loathsome shit Dump is making even the smallest advances more difficult and more expensive.  The karmic debt will be his — maybe for the suffocation and poisoning of the whole planet and everything trying to keep living on it.  If we all dropped dead and the raccoons took over (opposable thumbs!), they’d be starting at square one, and having to go through all the learning that masses of us *are still resisting and denying*.

Or maybe they’d just start with more sense; who knows . . .

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@ichabod

*Applause*

Just to be clear: people alive *today* will probably – and their children will certainly – see displacement of people on a scale that makes the current refugee crisis in the Middle East look like a day trip to Disneyland.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@pedant — Thank you; applause right back.  And thanks for the clarification.

And of course if most of the ground water is poisoned by chemicals from fracking, the raccoons don’t have much of a chance either . . . nobody does.  Rich fucks don’t care; they just want another private submarine and a house in Monaco, and to hell with everything and everyone else.  I think some of them actually think they can buy security for themselves in refuges being built (I’ve heard there’s already one in Colorado, and of course DC has access to a nearby underground city for lawmakers and, not their wives, but their interns, who are nice and young, prime breeding stock), while the rest of the world dies of heat, wars, starvation, poisoned water, and all the rest of it.  Under these circumstances, heads on pikes are not an unreasonable concept.  But revolutions rarely lead to anything other than another gang of ruthless thugs taking over, so that is not a good bet (though it could certainly happen anyway, if things continue on this present course as seen in the US).

[winston @winston]

@pedant and @ichabod  I agree that people and animals today are already suffering from the effects of climate change all over the world. Hotter summers every year along with the smog alerts that go hand in hand with forest fires and massive heat related tornadoes. Our far north Inuit towns losing feet of shore line to rising sea levels, and rotten ice making life harder for both animals and people. Well we know I could go on and on because it is real and it is happening and we do cause it.

I am a lean mean green machine who lives frugally and fights pollution where I can, I rant and rave and lecture and I vote but I often still feel helpless. I keep up the fight and raised my kids right so that they carry on the fight for a livable planet. Like my Dad used to say when we left a camp site “Leave it cleaner than when we got here”.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ichabod I echo @pedant‘s applause.

@winston Yes the helplessness is the worst especially when watching fools vote for political parties that not only don’t care about the environment but actively go out of their way to sabotage anyone who does. (We just lost the State Government that has worked for years to make this the “greenest” state in the country)

I made a comment a while ago about farmers not believing in Global Warming and I think it was Pedant who disagreed with me. I was talking about Aussie farmers who vote for the Liberal/Country party buffoons who are all pro coal and adamantly in the climate change denialist camp. (Liberal party in Australia is opposite of liberal. The name is a lie.) I discussed this with a friend who lives in the country. Apparently the younger generation of farmers are more aware so there is some hope but will probably be a case of “too little too late.” I have met well informed farmers who plant trees on their property but they are unfortunately the exception. A few years ago a farmer acquaintance informed us that the rainfall records for the property showed a steady decline since the 1920 when his family bought the land. He still denied that climate change was happening. We even have a friend who is a keen gardener and he refused to believe that Climate Change is happening. Meanwhile I look at my own poor garden and think, “well at least I have something else to blame it on rather than my abysmal gardening skills.

It is not just climate change that worries me. The next generation face a lot of challenges, disappearing jobs, increasing inequality, governments hell bent on protecting their rich friends at the cost of the general population and people so deluded by dishonest media that they start voting for idiots like Trump or our own bunch of bullying clowns. I have listened to the later talk at events and wondered why anyone would ever trust them with the running of a country.

Ahh Sorry for the rant. Been a tough week. Boys doing exams, boys not doing as well as they should because they are so terribly disorganised missing deadlines etc etc. REally wish I could go back to school/uni and do it for them, except for the Maths. No desire to do maths ever again.

Cheers
Janette

[winston @winston]

@janetteb    Sorry about your tough week. I am done with dragging kids through school and in fact we are going to my granddaughters grade 8 graduation next week.Her parents can fight the good fight and we will just enjoy the milestones.

In Ontario the province I live in we just had an election for premier and they voted in a Trump impersonator who immediately cancelled cap and trade and a rebate that helped Canadians to become more green and energy efficient. I shudder to think how my province will look when he is done. He is just “putting money back in taxpayers hands” while refusing to see that a good quality of life requires clean air, water, green space ,stable weather and hope for the future for our children and grandchildren.This is worth far more than the average $600 the middle class may save. Poor people will save nothing but will feel the bad effects more than anyone. Rich people and corporations will of course save the most.

We live in a crazy time with lots to be worried about so I try to find my happy place out in my garden with birds singing and flowers and veggies growing. Outside in my own little green space repeating to myself “Think happy thoughts,happy thoughts,happy….”

Have a calm day.

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@winston Yes just today our idiot government voted for a new tax system that benefits the rich at the cost of public education and health care. Think I need to do more gardening, only right now that is hardly cheering. It is mid winter and the river is still dry. We are clearly heading into drought conditions. I fear for my garden. that is why I need Dr Who.
Cheers
Janette

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@xad4 @winston @thane16 and I’m sure others who have followed the Dyfi Ospreys. I went down on Monday on a rather dreck and dreary day but which was replete with the hope of seeing at least one of the chicks fledge. Thus I took my tripod and Sigma 150-600mm lens and wound the latter all the way out. The Observatory is a wooden structure and with a lot of excited people about, even the tripod had its limitations. Somewhere in among 257 shots, I got this 13 frame sequence. It is uncropped so the apparent movement of the poles shows how bouncy the floor is. It is the first flight of Dinas, the one male in the three chick brood. For the technically minded, f8/1/125sec iso 100.

For the technically minded, f8/1/125sec iso 100. And all the “ospreys trying to fly” images you could shake a stick at, click here.

[winston @winston]

@pedant Thank you for sharing that with me. It is so nice to see the ospreys doing so well and learning to fly. I like the structures built along side the nest  like a couple of old trees. Are they put there to help the young learn to fly? Or maybe just more leg /wing room? Those birds have a beautiful view and the one you give us from the tower is breath taking.

I even called my husband in to see the images as he is a birder and a photographer. He enjoyed them also. He knows how hard it is to get the right shot when “shooting” wildlife. They just won’t co-operate.

In our area the ospreys are doing fairly good with lots of nesting platforms built and more protection of their environment.

One came down and caught a 4 or 5 lb bass from our big pond a few mornings back but it happened too fast for pictures and he had never fished here before so we didn’t expect it. Wow the fish was really big!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@winston

I think the structure next to the nest is there to simulate the wild habitat at bit. They usually nest in trees, but natural nests can be a bit rickety (the first pair to breed in Wales – Glaslyn had their nest collapse. When they came back the next year the local ape descendants had done some reinforcement work). The birds can hop onto it in a single flap, so getting there doesn’t count as fledging.

The camera pole is, as you can see from Dinas’s trajectory is further away so getting there counts. The two females were a bit more impressive: Alys’s first flight was for two minutes. When I was there, Helyg’s wing flaps were noticeable more chaotic than her brother and sister, but she got there in the end. (Dyfi chicks, by tradition, are named for Welsh rivers ands lakes). The mother is new this year, after Glesni failed to return. She is named Telyn, which is Welsh for harp.

Fun historical footnote: the Dyfi platform wasn’t supposed to be there. DOP had built a new platform in what they thought to be a better position. They were just about to take this one down when Monty moved in and it immediately became a Schedule 1 Protected Site. The “new” nest is now just somewhere Monty goes when he wants to eat in peace.

Where do your ospreys over-winter?

[winston @winston]

@pedant  The ospreys that fish our creek and pond did nest on an old radio tower across the highway from the water for a year but it was dangerous for them because they sometimes barely cleared the cars and trucks while flying across. A new platform was built for them before they came back in the spring and the old nest and tower were taken down. Luckily for us, and the birds, they liked the new location and have come back for the last 3 years. We get to sit in our garden and watch them collect branches for the nest by flying above dead trees and snapping off the branches in midair. Quite a sight.

Our ospreys fly all the way to Central and South America for the winter, but who can blame them.

[winston @winston]

@everyone   Last Thursday I was at my son’s when his boxer named Ruby had 10 yes 10 puppies.That was a pile of pups. My granddaughters head almost exploded in excitement. Her awwwwws got so high pitched my ears hurt. But all are well and mom is a real champ!

Anyway they all needed to be named for the vet and their records so my son thought he would have fun with names and give his pups a good back story. Their new parents will name them whatever they want but until then they will be called in order of birth…

1.  Ozzy Pawsborne  2. Hairy Pawter   3. Sarah Jessica Barker 4. James Earl Bones  5. LL Drool J  6.Chuvalo the Canadian boxer. 7. Captain Jack Barkness  8. Gem  9.PB&J (peanut butter & jelly, my granddaughters pick) and my fave 10. Stormy Spaniels.

 

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@winston – am jealous. I have a 4 hour drive if I want to see the Dyfi ospreys.

The UK birds head for Senegal, although some have taken to stopping in southern Portugal.

I literally laughed out loud at Stormy Spaniels.

[winston @winston]

@pedant   We are lucky to live on a creek with miles of swamp and marshland around us. These wetlands are so important as a nursery for so many birds, mammals and aquatic animals. We even have a family of river otters.

Glad you liked the name.My husband came up with it, just with his brain as I told my granddaughter.( he is computer free) I did show him this and he was pleased with himself.

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

What the Moff did next …

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/time-travelers-wife-drama-steven-moffat-scores-hbo-green-light-1131042

[winston @winston]

@jimthefish      Moffat does like time travel.  I think this is great for him and fans of the book and his work. I liked the book but I didn’t love the book. I expect with the Moff at the wheel it will be very good.

[Author]

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