This may seem like an out of character comment from a (lapsed) Baptist like myself, but I think the old boy has recently played a blinder!  Basically he’s stood up to a recent internal European Commission document called the “European Commission Guidelines for Inclusive Communication,” which, amongst other things, advised officials to use inclusive language when referring to Christmas events, and to use non-specific gender terms wherever possible.  Apparently, it’s the brainchild of the Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, who it seems is quite proud of it, but accepts it needs some ‘more work’. Thus EU documents should henceforth refer … Continue reading Hurrah for the Pope!

I like cooking. It’s a bit like engineering with food – science in the kitchen, chemistry at the cooker. It’s also a rather peaceful, contemplative pastime. Even cooking something simple like a ragu sauce can provide a period of peace away from other worries. It needs most of your attention of course, but is not particularly difficult. Gently frying onion, garlic, diced carrots and celery in butter/oil, adding in turn the mince, tomatoes, Worcester sauce and tomato. Deciding which particular twist to add this time – a few porcini mushrooms, some sweet pepper, maybe a rasher of bacon. It’s all … Continue reading TV cookery programmes

As I type, Dr. Who is on the telly. In the old days it was basically about scaring the bejesus out of pre-teen kids. IE, me back in the 1960s. I used to regularly hide behind the sofa when the Cybermen came on. In fact i think I can recall one of the very early episodes with William Hartnell as the Doctor, where the cast had been shrunk and were climbing out of matchboxes. His female side-kick was his grandaughter. It was brilliant! Now the Doctor is female (OK, I get it, equality and all that, but it is quite … Continue reading Isn’t Dr. Who rubbish these days!

Year 12 and year 10 pupils have been particularly hard hit by the current lockdown. They’re in the middle of the GCSE or A-level studies and have basically recieved no proper teaching since March. Sure, the schools are making a half-hearted attempt to teach via e-mails and setting projects for the students, but without proper interactive lessons it’s very difficult to maintain motivation and focus. So I wrote the following letter to the Headteacher and Head of 6th Form at my son’s school, Farlingaye in Woodbridge. Dear Dr. Sievewright, Mr. Lampard, Before I retired from over 40 years working in … Continue reading Lack of on-line teaching during lockdown.

It seems ages since I’ve written anything that was not about various historical things, but I think it’s time to raise my eyes again, and mention one of my other favourite things: eating. I like cooking – it’s a bit like engineering with food. I particularly enjoy a good curry, and it’s an ongoing challenge is to actually make one. I have a collection of various curry spices : cumin, cloves, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, etc, and every so often the family indulges me and lets me have a go. So I dry fry the spices, put them in my old … Continue reading Curry powder.

I stumbled across this archaic law yesterday. At first I thought it must a misprint, but no, ‘scold’ is also a noun, describing a person a person who is habitually starting rows or quarrels with the neighbours, a frequent nuisance to the community or nags or grumbles constantly. The crime of being a ‘common scold’ came into existance sometime during the middle ages, possibly when the peasantry began to find their voice. It’s is not a gender specific term, but the majority of, if not all, cases I’ve found seem to be against women. Obviously it’s also a good way … Continue reading A Common Scold.

Today is Ret 12. I think it was Stephen Fry who made the interesting assertion that, “the older I get, the more noise I make”.  (I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to conform this via the interweb).  His point was not that he needed to turn the radio up so he could hear it, but that aging brings more physical issues that result in exclamations of, ‘ooh’, ‘ahh’, ‘ouch’ etc. as you perform tasks that  used to be easy.    It’s a valid point.  It becomes increasingly common that a body part which has been performing it’s simple job with little fuss for … Continue reading The aging process.

Today is actually No.1 Son’s 15th birthday. After he’d gone to school we started on the first (1 litre) bottle of gin – about 9:00 AM.  No breakfast. This took about 15 minutes, and we started on 2nd and 3rd bottles at roughly 15 minute intervals.   (Later on we drove to Aldi and got another bottle). Fortunately we had no early visitors, so the potentially embarrassing scene of a kitchen table full of gin bottles before 10:00AM was not witnessed by anybody. The recipe was basically a 1:2 ratio of sloes to gin.  This allows about 600ml of sloe gin … Continue reading Gin.

So I think I officially left **’s clutches on September 30th 2017.  That was a Saturday, so my old work e-mail address at **.com finally stopped working sometime on the following day.  Not that I was using it at all by then, but I had been using it as my main e-mail, private and work) for many years, so I’d wanted to make sure I’d extracted everything I needed and has deleted all my histories.  I’m sure there’s still something I’ve forgotten, but important stuff like ****** *** **** **,   **** **** and ******** ** are all sorted. My ‘final’ … Continue reading The idle life.