Yorkshire Pudding
"O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet Act II scene ii
25 April 2024
Sleepy
24 April 2024
Crookedness
"Crookedness". I also considered the terms "Scamming" and "Mugging" for this blogpost's title. I have written about insurance companies before and how they try to push up premiums to the max without, apparently, being brought to heel by the law. Because they seem to be able get away with it scot-free, they continue to do it. Here are three previous posts where I bang on about the very same subject - BANG! BANG! BANG!
From memory, here is the transcript of a phone call I made just this morning to the big, nationwide insurance company that currently provides my car insurance:-
CHIBUZO Hello you are through to Chibuzo . How can I help you today?
PUDDING I want to talk about my new car insurance premium.
CHIBUZO Why? What seems to be the problem?
PUDDING Well I am quite shocked that it has increased a full 20% on last year's premium so I was wondering if there was any way of reducing it?
CHIBUZO The best I can do is to reduce it to £378.07
PUDDING Well that sounds a much more reasonable figure. And the insurance details remain exactly the same?
CHIBUZO Yes. Just the same. Do you wish to accept the new offer?
PUDDING Okay, I'll take it.
CHIBUZO I will send you the revised insurance details by e-mail.
PUDDING Will the previous automatic renewal be cancelled?
CHIBUZO Yes. No problem. Is there anything else I can do for you today?
PUDDING No but thanks for dealing with my issue so swiftly.
CHIBUZO No problem. Enjoy the rest of your day.
PUDDING Goodbye!
23 April 2024
George
As far as I am concerned, St George has nothing to do with England. He was chosen as our patron saint by King Edward III (1312-1377). Apparently, St George seemed to represent the ideal of chivalry but even in Edward III's time he was a semi-mythical character.
He never visited England and may have been a Roman military leader, mostly based in the eastern region of modern Turkey. His life story is uncertain. There are many half-truths and theories but for the life of me I cannot understand why he gained his legendary status. He was venerated in various parts of the middle east and of course the nation of Georgia is named after him. He is also the patron saint of Catalonia in Spain.
England deserves a saint from these islands - pure and simple. If we can have a referendum about leaving The European Union we can surely have a referendum on who should be our patron saint. My money would be on Saint Cuthbert (634 - 687). He was a real man who did a lot of good in his lifetime and became The Bishop of Lindisfarne. He is buried in Durham Cathedral.
I have devised a voting slip to be printed off and posted back by English people only. We don't want any Americans, Australians, Canadians, Irish, Germans, New Zealanders, Swedes, Welsh or Scots deciding who the replacement Patron Saint of England should be:-
22 April 2024
Ripper
21 April 2024
Quiztime
1. With which staple food do you associate these names - basmati, arborio & jasmine?
2. No British Sunday roast is complete without a pudding made from plain flour, milk and an egg or two but after which English county is that pudding named?
3. In 2002, Donald Trump appeared in a TV commercial for a particular fast food company, but which one was it? (a) Taco Bell (b) KFC or (c) McDonalds
4. Which farm animal do both Jews and Muslims refuse to eat according to their holy laws?
5. Jambalaya is made from cooked rice, vegetables and meat but with which southern American state would you mostly associate this creole/cajun dish?
6. Shaped like little wagon wheels, rotelle is a form of which staple Italian food?
7. Zwiebelkuchen is a savory onion cake made of steamed onions, diced bacon, cream, and caraway seeds on either a yeast or leavened dough but with which European country do you associate Zwiebelkuchen?
8. What is this berry fruit called? (see picture)
9. What is the main ingredient in hummus?
10. Coq au vin is a traditional French dish from the Burgundy region. Which colour wine is nearly always used in traditional recipes for this dish?
20 April 2024
Missing
It's easy to miss things.
Last Friday, when I visited Bradford, I was very close to the house shown at the top of this blogpost. It was the marital home of one of Britain's most infamous mass murderers - Peter William Sutcliffe whose tabloid nickname was The Yorkshire Ripper. He killed at least thirteen women and was at large between 1969 and 1981. He terrorised the north of England until he was caught here in Sheffield in January 1981.
He married Sonia Szuma in 1974 and a few years later they were able to buy the house on Garden Lane in the Heaton district of Bradford. I understand that Sonia Sutcliffe, at the age of 74, still lives in that house. It may seem ghoulish I know but I would have liked to walk down Garden Lane to snap a picture of my own. The image at the top was snipped from Google Streetview.
It is tempting to wonder what drove Peter Sutcliffe to commit his terrible acts. So much has been written about him but when it comes to motivation a lot of the verbiage is pure speculation - guesswork. Sonia was a respectable primary school teacher but nearly all of The Ripper's victims were prostitutes. The couple never had any children though Sonia suffered an unknown number of miscarriages. At some stage she was judged by health services to be impaired by paranoid schizophrenia.
After this past Wednesday's visit to Barnsley, I realised I had missed something else and was reminded of this by blog chum Dave in County Cork, Ireland. It wasn't a murderer's house I had missed but the statue of a boy from a novel holding a kestrel.
The novel concerned is "Kes" or "A Kestrel for a Knave" by the late Barry Hines. The hero he created in that book was a teenage boy called Billy Casper - born into an obscure and challenging life on a Barnsley social housing estate. Billy had nothing going for him but he managed to train a young kestrel. I sometimes say that if you want to understand the real England you should read "Kes". The statue is located on Cheapside in Barnsley. I must have been within twenty five yards of it.
So frustrating. I can see that another day trip to Barnsley will be required.
19 April 2024
Babies
Babies may be notorious for crying but they also love to laugh. They laugh at the silliest things and of course because they are babies that laughter is not pretentious. It's 100% genuine.
There are plenty of compilation videos of baby laughter over at YouTube. If you are feeling down or blue and need a bit of cheering up, perhaps those videos would be just the ticket. Doctors could potentially stop prescribing anti-depressant tablets and just recommend laughing baby videos instead.
In this area of hilarity, babies probably have an advantage over adults in that they wear nappies (American:diapers) so that when the laughter causes temporary loss of bladder control, those babies will not be embarrassed but adults - well, that's another story.
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