Observations from a Hill

  It's been a very slow-time day today: that curious perceptual phenomenon where time seems to pass more slowly than expected; no matter how much you get done, there always appears time to do more. I used to get this when I was working: some days, you could be rattling through work and thinking the day was going well and would soon be over, only to realize it was barely lunchtime. Other days, I'd find myself struggling over the first job of the day to find it was almost time to pack it in and go home. Today, we've been shopping, got petrol and have spent a couple of hours clearing some of the jungle down at our car parking space in preparation for the spring and hopefully, the easing of restrictions for the start of the tourist season. After a good workout with ladders, loppers and secateurs, we headed back here for lunch; after which we tried to get the bonfire lit to start in on the mountain of garden waste that hasn't found space in the two wheelie bins that we pay a...

  With St. David's Day on Monday, the Triple Crown in the bag and a potential Slam in the offing, it's a good day to be Welsh. And the weather's been amazing today, too. I might just leave it at that for now - good enough, methinks! Hwyl fawr i chi gyd!

  Of the many things that I have either lost or abandoned along the long and convoluted path of my life thus far, one stands out; not because of any particular sentimental or pecuniary aspect, but because I actually think I was a complete bloody divot to leave it behind in the first place. This particular thing was abandoned, along with my Dad’s guitar [this one pains me truly as I have no idea what I was thinking of] at the top of the cellar steps of our first place: the flat in Stanmore Rd., Birmingham. I kind of understand the rush of blood to the head that gets to you when you’re moving on - especially when you’re young - but this is something that has happened to me time after time [we’ve moved around a *lot*] and considering how I hate to chuck stuff away, I’m amazed at how cavalier I’ve been over the years in letting some of the good stuff go, almost without a thought. The artefact in question was a Watkins Dominator guitar amplifier [or at least the chassis thereof] which I...

Now we’ve some sort of road map to guide us toward some sort of conclusion to, or at least a modus operandi in dealing with long-term, Covid-19; we will all be starting to think about doing stuff we used to take for granted before all this started. But will the world be the same place it was before the pandemic? Obviously not, at least not in the way we currently frame it. The next few months or years will not only be marked by a new caution and an adjustment of civilities, but by more fundamental, structural changes to the way our society operates. The shift in patterns of socialization in recent years has been guided by a number of factors: changes in the hospitality industry such as smoking bans and licensing relaxations among them; online activity and ubiquitous deliver-to-home services - all have contributed to the atomization of society; the need for public gathering has been subsumed by a ready fix of soma-like media and fast-food feeds, music on tap and endless box-sets to bing...

Stir-fried chicken and mushrooms with egg noodles tonight, which makes me think back to the 'seventies and Sergeant Bilko. The Phil Silver Show only ran - originally in the States - from 1955 to 1959: just 143 episodes: but like Tom & Jerry, took cult viewing hold over here in the UK through endless TV repeats over a couple of decades. The Bilko connection I suppose is the antediluvian equivalent of Love Island or whatever: a roomful of lads watching - in this case already antique - TV, eating takeaway Chinese after a skinful in the pub. [Again an antediluvian concept - does anyone actually go out any more?] Yep, the first Chinese food I ever tasted was in exactly this context: chicken, pineapple and boiled rice; chicken chow mein; spare ribs: name your number. It’s only in recent years, though that I’ve managed to make a decent stir-fry; which seems counter-intuitive given that on the face of it, it really is a simple cooking technique. It was only when I realized that when th...

Twenty-four hours on and the contrast in weather couldn't be greater, short of Armageddon itself. As predicted, the low has reached us, fanned by the disturbance in the jet stream precipitated by the extreme weather States-side: all resulting in a fierce Sou westerly and torrential rain from noon onwards. Compare today's picture [albeit taken in high-contrast monochrome - the iPhone's native app tends to cheer things up a bit artificially: this is what it feels like!] with yesterday's! I can see more repair work in the offing and as for the poor old garden: there's at least another twenty-four to thirty-six hours of this deluge forecast - roll on Thursday! As for Joe's comment on yesterday's post: life itself is Sisyphean: you never quite get to wherever it is you think you want/ought to be; the trick is not to mind.

  What a day! I know this is the false dawn before the next wave of low pressure hits us this week, but it sure makes a hell of a difference to the way you feel. I was up on the studio roof - anyone that has been reading me for any length of time will know that running repairs are a fact of life with a tar-paper roof that big and that exposed to the elements - and took the panorama above: the house at the top of the field behind ours can be seen at the extreme left, so I'm facing approximately east. To the right-hand side of the image is the view west, towards the part of Anglesey where the boys live, so about 180°. I'd really like some sort of viewing platform up there with a bench, so we could sit and appreciate the view: a future project, perhaps? One thing that's extraordinary is the ease and speed in making a digital panoramic image these days: the computational power required is truly staggering, and yet most people wouldn't give the 'how' a second's t...

  ...a day in the garden. We even had an hour or two's sunshine thrown in while we made a start on clearing the devastation left behind by the stream of winter storms over the last two months or so: ton's of work just clearing dead foliage from just about everywhere. I gave the big holly its annual trim around the base, to keep the bottom five or six feet of it permanently clear of foliage; but it's tenacious stuff, holly. There's a nice start to some ivy growth around the biggest trunk which I'll encourage to colonize the base of the tree: a Christmas carol writ large! Above are some daffs we've got ready to pot up for close to the house somewhere, maybe in the little stone garden in front of the cottage next door. Anyway, a good start and we feel all the better for it; so, here's to at least a few more days like this one to help push back the seasonal blues for another year.

  Y Tywydd - the weather, in Welsh: also the opening phrase of the multimedia show we built for National Grid/First Hydro at Llanberis back in 1994 [ blog posts passim ]. For the last several days the weather has been as unrelenting as the pandemic lockdown: a double-whammy, restricting activity to virtually bugger-all, unless one likes walking in torrential rain powered horizontally into one's face by gales. It's been pretty bloody rough here, though we're experiencing nowhere near the kind of climatic travails that Texas and much else of the 'States is experiencing presently. What with everything else that's happening, life feels claustrophobic - in our case it's not that we don't have room to breathe: thank God we chose this place to live all those years ago - it's just one feels hemmed in by simply having nowhere else that we can legally or safely go. As I've said before many times, we're lucky; and on the face of it, we're generally laid...

  U-Roy passes: another giant figure in the soundtrack of my youth has left us. I am truly blessed to have been at the right age at the right time with such great music in the ascendant. U-Roy, among many others, was part of the tapestry of sound that formed the backdrop to our formative years. Growing up in Winson Green, and reaching early adulthood in the mid-seventies, I was surrounded by many cultures and musics, all of which had a profound influence on my musical education and helped found what can only be described as my rather 'catholic' taste for music of all genres. On the walls of grimy streets in sixties and early seventies Birmingham were the fly-posts for sound systems, sound-offs and shebeens: hinting at a world we were yet to discover. Rock-steady & Ska [its first incarnation] was our first, adolescent introduction to the rainbow of music drifting our way from Jamaica; an ever-changing and evolving eco-system of bass and off-beat, call and response; always so...

  Tonight's supper: Masoor Tarka Dhal, with tenderstem broccoli cooked with spices and lemon juice, and home-made chappatis. I felt the need for something vegetarian as the combination of lockdown/inclement weather inactivity and my increased chocolate habit since I retired have combined with our increased meat cookery [both of us at home with all the time in the world to cook] seems to have upset my digestion a tad. Thought I needed a break. So, no meat [red at least] chocolate or heavy dairy for a few days... The dhal recipe is one we've used for nearly forty years - it's a Madhur Jaffrey, natch - and the method I use for making chappatis dates back to the same era [clue: you need an open flame to do these properly - I use a camping stove as we're all-electric here]. The recipe for the broccoli I found at Secret Sauce , by Nisha Katona.

  I've just got tonight's supper on the go: belly pork slices, garlic roasties and tenderstem broccoli, the former pair in the oven and the veg ready to go. The sauce is on a low light, so we're pretty much sorted for food tonight. This afternoon, when I was coming up the garden from the studio, I looked up to see a familiar and very welcome silhouette above me. Milvus Milvus: the Red Kite; the bird was hanging in the prevailing wind from the valley, in total command of the gusty conditions; just lazily surveying the landscape below it, before tacking its way over the Ffridd, towards the Carneddau and out of sight. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything to photograph it with, so here's a stock photo of this wonderful bird.

  Another for the most part grim weather day, today. I should have capitalized on the lunchtime weather window to finish the job I was intending to, in the garden: as it turned out, I had plenty of time, until it started raining. The optimist in me had suggested that the weather would hold all day, and that I could set to after I'd been to the village for supplies. Wrong. It's been raining pretty much ever since, and although it's now stopping; it's dark outside. Mañana, methinks; I no longer have to work outside in the rain, if I so choose... While pondering what to write here - I was considering something about Uranium [random you might think] - when I got a notification from a feed I subscribe to at Chemistry World, which seemed a tad serendipitous given that original thought. It would seem that during Trump's tenure at The White House the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] lost qualified staff hand over fist: 'From 2016 to 2020, more than 560 environmenta...

  Tonight's fare: on the left, two pieces of tarragon chicken left over from last night's dinner and on the right, a tray of spud slices ready to go into a hot oven. The pot steaming away at the back is the stock I made from the remnants of the poussin we had the other night. The potatoes are Maris Piper: my personal go-to variety for just about everything. It's such a versatile and tasty variety. It's also very forgiving when boiled or par-boiled for roasting; not suddenly going into the water, unlike the otherwise estimable King Edward. The Edward is probably the best for roasting when it's handled properly, but to be honest, I've made some stonking roasters with Pipers. To speed the cooking up, these are kind of a halfway-house between Lyonnaise potatoes and roasters; but with added chilli and garlic, salt, black pepper and a ton of olive oil. Thickness-wise, they're about 1/4" slices, about the same as the fried potatoes my Mom always made: our chip...

Another close margin of victory - my 'B' team, France, won out against Ireland at the Aviva by a kick's difference. I've always liked French rugby, but over the years I've watched them they've been by turns equally both superbly stylish and horribly flaky in the extreme: if they turned up mentally they could play the most beautiful, flowing rugby imaginable; otherwise - meh! Their game has come on leaps lately and the current squad seems to have the drive and heart to win: their line speed and imagination are lovely to watch; their play at the breakdown and defence superb. Where they were weakest today was the spot kick and some daft indiscipline: trips and slaps in the back really don't go unnoticed these days; it's just throwing away possession. Anyone wondering about my rugby allegiances needs to know that I support Wales first and France a close second; the first for obvious reasons and the second because as I said, I always liked the Gallic approach...

  A step forward - we got the first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine today. And Wales beat Scotland in the Six Nations, admittedly by a fine margin; but it works for me. The Trump impeachment trial closing remarks are in progress. I'm still doubtful that the Orange One will get his just dues, but there we are. The vaccination process in Bangor was faultless - someone knows what they're doing, and I suspect it's the NHS.  Long live the NHS. BTW, Yr Enfys is the Welsh for rainbow, and Ysbyty Enfys (Rainbow Hospital) is our version of the Nightingales. Cymru am Byth - Hwyl Fawr!

Yesterday's post about synchronicity generated a response I couldn't possibly have anticipated, but which was mightily welcome nonetheless. My niece Helen posted a comment that we have a family connection to one of the pubs mentioned that to be frank slightly trumps [sorry to mention that word] my Six Bells/Ikon/Big Nev thing. It looks like my great, great aunt (by extension Helen's great, great, great aunt) and her second husband, ran The White Horse Inn at Clun in the late nineteenth century: a pub we've frequented on many, many occasions over the last twenty years. But the best bit is that the place is reputedly haunted and that one of the ghosts is none other than my great, great uncle Job Graves. Wonderful... By the way, Job's apparition is apparently nowhere near as friendly as Casper's.

  If there's one thing I miss about the city of my birth, Birmingham; at least of its cultural attributes, it's the Ikon Gallery. Originally started as a kind of art collective in the mid-1960's; a peripatetic travelling show for living arts and artists, it has grown and mutated over the decades from humble beginnings to Grade One gallery status, capable of showing the very best that the Arts can offer. At the time I and my mates from school discovered Ikon, it was based in Swallow Street, just off Hill Street, and situated behind the main Post Office building in what I've recently discovered was a disused mortuary. We used to hang around the place regularly, particularly Saturdays, and I always considered it to be the coolest, most magical little haven of culture there ever was. It was here that most of us bought our copies of Penguin Modern Poets 'The Mersey Sound'. From Swallow Street it moved into the [old-new] New Street Station Shopping Centre, near where ...

  With the impeachment of former US President Donald J. Trump now affirmed: his trial by the Senate deemed to be lawful and Fulton County GA prosecutors starting a criminal investigation over the “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” conversation with Brad Raffensperger; I thought I'd just mention Sedgeley, apropos of absolutely bugger all, by way of diversion. I have family connections with the place: my Great, Great, Great Grandfather was born there in the late eighteenth century, before moving to North East Wales and marrying my Great, Great, Great Grandmother, Sarah Parry; who was born in Ruabon. Also, Sedgeley is home to another Sarah: Sarah Hughes Brewery [another good Welsh name], based at The Beacon Hotel. In normal times, a cracking place to go for a pint of exquisite beer, or in the case of my favourite long tipple; ale. Wind back a few decades to the mid-nineties, and we were on a visit to Birmingham to see family. There were the three of us...

  Curious day - intermittently grey and threatening - but periods of beautiful sunshine, highlighting the snowflakes that continued to float lazily from above: mid-afternoon sunlight lighting up our dining-room [currently my office - everywhere else is just too bloody cold at the moment]. Did a little work in the cottage bathroom: decided on reworking the wall behind the washbasin as the original work I did was an outrageous kludge and needs to be done better. News-wise, Covid aside; one piece in the ' i ' made me smile: 'Hay fever season is getting longer and more intense...' Sorry people, I could have told you that several years ago. My hay fever season has been practically year-round for about five or six years, now; with the only respite being when there's snow on the ground. That little warm spell we had a few days ago got me sneezing and hacking first thing in the morning as normal: I think I've got a few days' respite, anyway. In passing: Tesla/Bitcoi...

  A thought on the value of the essentially intangible and very often misunderstood world of data. Two articles were brought to my attention today, both concerning data from spheres that often cross paths. The first was a piece linked to by my old friend John in Birmingham (UK), published in the New York Times a couple of days ago. The second, Jane pointed me at, is from today's ' i ' newspaper, here in the UK. In the first piece, the NYT [Opinion section] talks about a large dataset passed to them by an anonymous source, culled from information passed around the mobile phone network, that enabled the tracking and naming of people involved in the storming of the Capitol in Washington earlier this year. The dataset consisted of the advertising ID's from around 100,000 pings from smartphones across Washington that day. These IDs each in themselves contain a small amount of seemingly trivial data: date of birth, gender and approximate place of residence from a stub of pos...

       Gecko   A quick movement, sudden Green and fleeting, then Shy, sly Gecko is gone.

Still from 'Contagion' - ©Elsewhere -- taken from The Verge --   Late-ish and listening to Handel: the six Concerti Grossi Opus 3 to be exact [sur disque, bien sûr]. A very pleasant respite from everything and better than beta-blockers for reducing cardiovascular stress. Having said that, I re-watched most of the Soderbergh film ‘Contagion’ from 2011 this evening, and the parallels between that and the now are fairly scary: the film was made in the wake of 2003’s SARS outbreak and pretty much foretold the events and course of the current pandemic, caused by its more tenacious cousin, SARS-COV2. The film also predicted negative social media influence to a tee, with - in this instance - a lone conspiracy theorist ‘influencer’ who also barges into hospital situations uninvited; much as we’re seeing during the current situation with anti-vax protesters. The similarities between the plot of the film and Covid-world are striking at times, almost a script for the present day; however,...

  ...and all the men and women merely players... Age. It's what we do. No matter how long or short the time we are here. Fact. Growing old can be a ball-ache: stuff breaks, things no longer work as expected, ache or hurt like buggery. Our once pristine looks are carved and greyed, memory faulty, tempers frayed. What the feck: who gives one? It's life. Last night we watched the best portrayal of ageing on film I've ever seen: 'Quartet', directed by Dustin Hoffman. I don't know how I've missed this one before, as it was made in 2012, but for once, an honest portrayal of growing old, without condescension or sentiment, mawky soundtrack or any of the other bollocks that normally obtains with these things. I realize that I've reached that point in life where family and friends have fallen and are falling by the wayside at an increasing rate; that physically and mentally we are all changing. This does not diminish who or what we are, but rather modifies us, ju...

  Cast Iron Goodness - image © The Guardian -- There was a piece in yesterdays ‘i’ about cookware. Specifically, the non-stick variety. Apparently, we're told, food sticks to non-stick cookware - something I think most people might have noticed by now - and that this is because we’re not using enough oil to coat the base of the pan evenly, resulting in hot spots that make whatever it is you are frying down ‘stick’. Problem is: non-stick pans repel oil and don’t coat evenly by design! Oops. Add to this basic cuisinatory (I think I just made that word up) nonsense that most of the cheaper pans tend to shed the ‘non-stick’ coating into the food you’re cooking, and you might think a pause for thought was due. Long ago, I decided that cast and spun iron cookware was the best there was. We’ve had just three, very expensive Le Creuset pans in forty odd years of marriage, two of which are still going strong: the third, as far as I know, is in our derelict garage and probably in a bit of a ...

  Baskerville. A name redolent to most of Holmesian fog, bogs and a hound from hell. To me, it's a font - this one in fact. Designed in Birmingham in the 1750s by John Baskerville and a refinement of older-style faces like Caslon. The beauty of these typefaces and particularly of Baskerville, is their readability. The word on the page is not impeded by the design of the typeface. Brummie, you know. I just thought I'd mention it.

  Well, the tragically inevitable has happened and Captain Sir Tom Moore has succumbed to Covid-19. All I can say is that if any of us can contribute even one-hundredth of what he did in his one hundredth year to the world; even in our entire lives, we'll be doing well and worthy of some respect. I take my hat off to the man. That he fought in the last World War is enough in itself: to take up the cudgels in support of the NHS at ninety-nine is testimony to the fact that there are decent people in the world: just very few of them get to run the place. As I've said so often before, humility is a virtue: ...'We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves….' So farewell to the Captain: we need more of your kind if we're to progress at all as a species.

  I was going to write something about the tenuous connection between M.R. James and the Talmud, or more specifically the Mishna, but because of a [rare] piece of good news received today, I'll shelve that until tomorrow. Also, tonight's leftover-chicken curry went horribly wrong at the first pass [burnt the garlic] so I went with plan B which was to revert to my stock method, to be on the safe side; one difference being that I cooked out a tub of passata with sugar and black pepper to take out the bitterness of the tomatoes and used that as my 'tomato paste' to thicken the sauce. Anyway, the good news is that our friends Alan and Irene got their first jabs today! It was only the second time that Irene has been out of the house since last February (the only other time was the Biriani bash here, which I wrote about in the summer). So if tonight's curry eventually turns out OK, then I think a day for celebration all round.