Observations from a Hill

Whilst assembling my usual additions to a bog-standard Pizza Express American [Pepperoni] pizza tonight - anchovies, chilli flakes and extra oregano - I got caught up in reflection on times past, as this particular pizza topping combination harks back over forty years to my days working at Birmingham University; and reminds me of the possible life paths left behind in favour of the one I chose and where I find myself at this moment. As I've said before, I had a secure job and career path ahead of me at the University: I was looking at getting my own department and the the Senior Photographic Technician's post in Civil Engineering, and had also secured the teaching of a night class in photography, locally: all effectively by the hand of my boss, Arthur Burgess - lovely man - who oiled the wheels on both counts. The lunchtime pizzas I ate in abundance in those days were as far from the real deal as are the Pizza Express excuses for the estimable Italian fare of legend are today. ...

  Time for another gratuitous food post. Pictured, kebabs in process this evening on yet another jury-rigged temporary barbecue hearth: those redundant storage heater bricks really do make a good barbie as they help to create a fierce  and long-lasting heat. I'm currently using charcoal made in local woodlands at a place called Parc Y Moch, from the eponymously titled company - run by some local lads - that produces it. Fine stuff it is too, if somewhat more expensive than your usual filling station commercial stuff: but it is a by-product of actual woodland management, so win-win. I've yet to get around to starting a more permanent build: a garden pizza oven would be a good project, but I'd need to consider where to site it carefully as it would be quite an obtrusive structure. We've loads of space here, but not much is actually on the flat, so we'll see. I suppose there is something to be said for temporary structures after all, as it's easy to tailor an oven ...

I caught an advert for Range Rover just now which made me reflect on how much the design of current cars - particularly the blocky SUVs and Chinese EVs - takes from the extreme styling cues of the 'out there' design magazines of the late 1960s, when impossibly large alloy wheels and ultra-wide, ultra low-profile tyres were simply that: impossible to realise in the real world given the then current technology and manufacturing techniques. These, and most other design cues then, came from the fever dreams of sci-fi, and were signifiers of the inevitable future of the automobile. It may have taken sixty-odd years to get to it, but the future as imagined when I was a schoolboy - so far adrift from any kind of reality back then - appears to be now, in the second quarter of the twenty-first century.  The irony is that it just looks normal and rather prosaic now...

It's 21:15 in the evening, and I've just woken up from an hour's dozing in front of the tennis after dinner. I still have no particular thoughts in mind for a topic for this post, which is annoying. I started earlier to pen something about the awful Farage creature, who is now stooping to new depths to justify his mis-use of valuable oxygen and to maintain his spurious position in UK political life. He is obviously of the opinion that his voters that are too pig thick to notice his new and mind-bogglingly facile ploy: resigning as an MP to force a by-election and then standing for another parliamentary seat in said contest, all the while continuing to whine about injustice and how hard done-by he is. You really couldn't make this one up. The saddest thing is that taking his fans as complete idiots might well be a winning ploy, despite the insanity of the idea. Even more worrying is that two  all of his potential opposing parties have said that they won't field a can...

Graduation Day at Bangor University today: pictured, our son-in-law Leo, who has just graduated with a first-class honours degree in data science; his second [first] degree from Bangor University, his first [first] degree having been in psychology, some years ago. We're all [I think understandably and justifiably so] proud of his achievements: and he ain't done yet: there's more to come with a research Masters next year and hopefully his Doctorate to follow soon after. Given his drive and hard work, I don't see much in the way of his achieving both with ease. A top day for us all as a family, and also another feather in the cap of a great institution that three of our family have attended...

It's Sunday and gratuitous food post time! Being much exercised by Wimbledon at the moment, and what with Leo's graduation tomorrow and guests arriving throughout the next ten days, I feel at least some way justified in this rather meagre and mundane offering tonight. Pictured is a kind of mongrel Sunday roast, involving sumac roasted poussin, olive oil roasted potatoes, boiled tender-stem broccoli and a fairly standard gravy. I thought there might be a taste clash between the Middle-Eastern and British flavours, but I was pleasantly surprised that it all worked pretty harmoniously as a piece. There you go. Back to the tennis and my wine...