Observations from a Hill

Even disregarding the immediate human impact [which we can't and shouldn't] of the current wars being waged in the Middle East by what is becoming an axis of the most hawkish of nations in the West, the US and Israel, we can't avoid the wider geopolitical issue of energy supply and what will become in the coming months and possibly for years hence a major factor in economic decline across the globe, most particularly in the West itself. Waging war in the Middle East has always carried with it the intrinsic threat of systemic economic damage: energy supply lines in the form of crude oil are directly impacted by the geographical vice that the Middle East holds over the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. Whilst we are still stupidly over-dependent on fossil fuels arriving at our refineries to supply industry and domestic fuel needs, we are beholden to those countries that surround that narrow sea passage trading normally and without duress of conflict. When that narrow line ...

Pictured, today's experiment: a kofta-kinda-curry. It turned out slightly odder than I would have predicted, but it wasn't too bad on the whole, as jazz cuisine goes. I'm going to have to think on some more about this one, but there are some basically good ideas in there that just need some tuning. I'm only posting this because I've spent the day either wrangling electrical wiring or watching the Six Nations: two great matches, I have to say; which have occupied me to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. Given the perilous and parlous state of the world at present, that qualifies as a bit of welcome relief, methinks...

Just a brief - and arguably gratuitous - food post tonight, as it's half-time between Wales and Ireland in the Six Nations this evening, and the game's getting pretty tight. I'm not holding out my hopes for a Welsh victory, but that's not really the point. Pictured, my gratin of last night's leftover veggie bake thing, which, to be fair, could have fed the five thousand: there's still a load left as I write; so I imagine a cold collation of at least some of it for lunch tomorrow; we'll see: either that, or I'll freeze it for future consumption. Anyhow, the stove's lit, the living room is warm and the game is about to resume: just time for a bowl of tobacco and back to the vicarious fray...

  I won't say that tonight's post is an entirely gratuitous food post, as I put some work in today in the garden, and indeed into the roasted veg pictured. But I have to say that the absolute star of the meal is featured in the little clay ramekin top left: shout out to Lidl for their cheese and chorizo bake. Utterly scrumptious and a fine top note to add to a plate of Mediterranean roasted vegetables. Yummy. And now I'm full, tired and retiring to the sofa and the wood-burner's warmth with a glass or six of decent red wine...

Randomly tonight, I chanced on a small guide to the rules for the card game of cribbage; a game I used often to play and which, as far as I know, is still the only card game legally playable in UK public houses. Which made me think back to the 1970s and The Lads [blog posts passim] playing crib at The Lamp Tavern, in Dudley, now in the larger metropolitan conurbation of the West Midlands. The Lamp has a special place in my beer-drinker's heart as it was the place where I was introduced to one of the finest ales ever created at the hand of mankind: Batham's Best Bitter, a decently strong beer, even by modern standards, at 4.3% ABV [that's OG 1043.5, old school]; so four pints at lunchtime on a Saturday was a bit of an undertaking, if you were to make it out for the evening session, which we always did, naturally.  Batham's brewery was founded in 1877 and had establishments ranging from the pub that housed the brewery in Brierley Hill: The Bull & Bladder, otherwise kn...

I came across a pre-release academic paper yesterday that, even though I haven't done more than scan it, and to be frank the absolute substance of it, mathematically, is beyond my ken, made me ponder on the glorious phenomenon that is human consciousness itself. As a species we are capable of the most astonishing achievements of engineering and science, coming up with not only an understanding of why things are the way they are, but also how to manipulate the phenomena we've observed and analysed to our own ends. Add into that the fact that we have created art, music and culture independent of physical need simply because we can, is testimony to a species not simply dependent on the need for survival itself. That we are capable, equally, of being an intemperate, unthinking and venal species is also, unfortunately, a simple fact, but one which does not naysay the depth of our creativity. The paper in question, however, despite its complexities of argument, posits what is essent...