The Chocolate Blog

What is heavenly sweet and deliciously creamy, made of cacao and flavoured with ginger and almonds and raisins and nuts and orange and lemon and a host of other ingredients that bespeak exotic climes – or a combination of any of these – and tastes divine at any time of the year but especially when days are cold and short and dark and the favoured pastime is reclining on a couch, sharing said delicacy with family and friends? Who makes an increduble version of this delicacy and has a concession in Harrods and a delightful boutique store at 33 Smiths Court (off of Brewer Street) in Soho? Tis the season to visit the William Curley Patesserie and Choclatier and select from an incomparable range of luxury chocolates and other quality confectionery. Better still, follow this link to the website and read the amazing story of the man who began it all, and take a preview peek at the mouth-watering products on offer.
Meanwhile, merry Christmas to all readers.

Wilko's Mouthwatering Handwash

Strawberry and pomegranate….doesn’t the sound of that combo just set your mouth a-watering? Google it, and you will find that it infiltrates every product from ice-cream to salads, and ciders. But the one that I am focussing upon is Wilko’s fabulous strawberry and pomegranate handwash. A dash of luxury in the midst of austerity, the soap is packaged in a smart dispensing flagon, with an eminently functional hand pump. One squirt and a glorious bouquet of said ingredients meets your nose. Silky-smooth on your palms, it performs the cleansing process expertly. In addition to this quality, it glows like a bauble in the gloom of my winter-darkened bathroom. Indeed, you could pop a flagon in a gift stocking or hang one off the branch of a Christmas tree, ready for a loved one to seize upon. Nor will it bust your seasonal piggy-bank. Retailing at 75 pence for 250ml, it comes with a companion shower gel. On reflection, it probably tastes just as good as it smells, but I will decline that gustatory experience and wait for the ice-cream and cider, instead.

O Christmas Tree

In all of the furore over the Norwegian Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, I want to throw light on a few facts. When Charles Dickens dismissed the Christmas tree as that silly German toy he was apparently unaware of the many traditional and social forces from which the decorated tree was descended. Or maybe he was just being ironic? Dickens was no doubt responding to the introduction of the tree to England by Prince Albert, German consort of the young Queen Victoria. The Queen had the tree set up in the State Room of Windsor Castle. Within a few decades, the custom of putting up a decorated tree for Christmas had reached all over the Western world. Over one hundred and fifty years later, Christmas without a tree is almost unthinkable. For those few weeks in December there are trees everywhere: official trees in public places and town squares, while shopping malls sport their corporate jolly sponsored ones. Jaded artificial branches sprout from office fixtures while more healthy specimens are seen in private homes, dripping with ornaments and gathering wrapped gifts underneath as 25/12 approaches. And the variety? Real, evergreen trees invariably in shades of green, artificial trees in green, blue and pink, red, gold, silver and white. No matter how many traditions we dispense with, we cannot seem to let go of the tree. How did it all begin? Much has been written about the connection between Christmas and Saturnalia, that midwinter Roman feast where revellers bedecked their halls with boughs of holly, mistletoe and other greenery. But does the custom of the tree have an earlier origin? An ancient myth tells how the body of Osiris floated ashore at Byblos, Phoenicia, and was revived as a green tree. Osiris is one of the principal deities in Egyptian mythology. He represented the male reproductive force in nature and became identified with the setting sun. He is reputed to have reclaimed the Egyptians from savagery, taught them to worship the gods and given them laws. Before his time the Egyptians had been cannibals but Isis, the wife of Osiris, discovered wheat and barley growing wild. Osiris introduced the cultivation of grain among his people. He is said to have been first to gather fruit from trees, to train vines and make wine. The story goes that his brother Set tricked him into lying down in a highly decorated coffer he had made himself. Set quickly fastened the lid and cast the coffer into the Nile. It floated down the river and away out to sea until it came ashore at Byblos, an ancient city on the coast of Syria. Here a tree grew, enclosing the coffer in its trunk. The king of the country had the tree cut down and restored to life, it was elaborately decorated and dressed with green leaves. This gave rise to a beautiful feast held each year, at which a fallen tree was erected and, with much ceremony, replanted. In the Middle Ages, a tree Decorated featured prominently in the German mystery plays. These plays were simple scenes from the Bible enacted by lay people at Easter and other holy days. On Christmas Eve, formerly the feast of Adam and Eve, the Creation of Man was the most popular play. Adam and Eve made their entrance into the Garden of Eden, represented by a fir tree hung with apples. The inhabitants of Northern Europe had distant memories of Yule, a midwinter feast they celebrated at the same time the Romans celebrated Saturnalia. To celebrate Yule, giant logs were trimmed with greenery and ribbons. Then they were burnt in honour of the gods and to make the sun shone more brightly. German immigrants, both Catholic and Protestant, brought the tree to North America. Through them the Christmas tree became a familiar sight in German-American churches everywhere. Charles Dickens may not have delved too deeply into the origin of the tree, but we won’t quibble over that. Instead we will recite his other great Christmas accolade from the mouth of the immortal Tiny Tim: God bless us all, everyone.
Source: The Golden Bough by James Frazer, Oxford World's Classics.

House of the future? Isn't it time we COP-ped on)

There follows an excerpt from my book: Where Do You Live? Urban Dwellings and Open Spaces, available on Amazon Kindle (ISBN 978 0 955941931)
"In 1976 the BBC ran a television series called House Of The Future. Though many of the details have flown my memory, I can still remember the half-hour instalments of every Sunday noontide as a team of builders and engineers built a house with cavity walls, solar panels on the roof and water-saving devices inside and out. Curiously, there wasn’t anything futuristic about the building itself; no rooftop helipads or space rocket landing areas. The series creators deliberately avoided architectural clichés and refused to pander to images from science fiction. This was a generic house that any family, anywhere, could build and live in. No doubt the energy-saving devices were a response to the four-fold increase in oil prices in the mid-1970s and the idea of saving water followed in the wake of the drought of 1976, but it matters not. The idea that the house of the future would not be the energy-hungry beast we had all become acquainted with, was born. Three decades on, this idea has come to fruition, albeit somewhat belatedly. Everywhere; governments, private companies, public authorities and individuals have taken on board that all new houses must be built with water and energy-saving devices, as a matter of course. It is even possible to add these devices to older buildings."
I published the book a decade ago, so it is now four decades from the screening of House of the Future. And the lessons learned are all the more resonant today. Isn't it time that governments, big buisnesses and power brokers everywhere, copped on? I rest my case.

Here comes Halloween....Halloween....Halloween....

Whenever I watch Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - and I LOVE that movie - I always feel a sense of disappointment as the movie ends when Jack Skellington - The Pumpkin King - restores order and Christmas to the world. But then, I am among the minority who loves Halloween so much more than that other, bile-inducing festival of indulgence that happens later in the year. Halloween is a reminder that we all have a skeleton underneath our skins. Its occurrence at the end of October, when the year is growing old, is no accident. We need this annual convulse in the same way that the Mardi Gras occurs just before those weeks of po-faced penitence they call Lent. We all come from darkness and one day, we will return to it, too. Kitting out in a scary costume is a harmless masquerade, one that puts us in touch with this inevitability and our other, darker fears. Dressing up as a werewolf or in a skeleton suit allows us to externalise and release our fears in a benign and collective way. We need our intervals of darkness as much as day needs night, and summer needs winter; places of eternal summer do exist - I think they call them deserts? So, next weekend, as you enjoy the candied eyeballs and the witches’ fingers, let the darkness enfold you as relentlessly as you enjoy the blossoms in spring and the beach in summer. Have a wonderful and frightening time!

Super Sizzling Syzygy.....

Certainly, I am rather backward but when I first stumbled over this word, it sounded like a newly-branded energy drink. Or the name of a Czechoslovakian perfume. Or a strange skin disorder. Or yet another cute cartoon character launching a range of themed merchandise. Or one of those obscure political slogans that you see emblazoned across t-shirts, which keep everyone guessing without reaching any conclusions.
Wrong again. But now that I know what it means, I just can’t stop composing….night and day…..sun and moon...little and large...joy and sorrow….light and dark….boy and girl…..Tom and Jerry…..by the way, does anyone know how to pronounce the word?

The Bake-Off is Back

What with scientific Jurgen and engineering Giuseppe contending for the Bake Off prize, we have so much to look forward to. In the forthcoming weeks, I anticipate an Eiffel Tower of trifle, a research project of fruit tarts and plum puddings, and on savoury week, a probe into the bacteria that grows on varieties of cheese. In the meantime, we have so much to look forward to, landscapes of lemon meringue, castles of cake and chocolate, and seas of sponge topped with shortbread sail boats and waffle whales. All this amid the tears of joy and sorrow, cries of triumph and wails of despair at confections collapsing – or simply failing to impress the duo of judges. But what I love most are the antics of Noel and of the inimitable Matt – I just love that man - aah! My mouth is watering already.

OMG! I was on THAT...?

Several moons ago on this very site, I posted my account of the Vampire "jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, head-spinning, sense-dimming" experience at Chessington World of Adventures, one that rendered me a quivering wreck for years afterwards. Ever the glutton for punishment, I have just graduated from the child-oriented Chessington to the adolescent version, Thorpe Park. Well, I am quivering again. In a nutshell, Thorpe Park has more OMG! moments than an Indiana Jones movie. My experiences included the Tidal Wave “one of Europe’s tallest water rides” and The Swarm (see left) “reaches a top speed of 59 km an hour” and beginning to end is the “same length as 175 Great White sharks” - seriously, did anyone ever measure a Great White shark? I endured a roasting on the Nemesis Inferno which “has a section with a zero-g roll where riders become weightless” - no wonder I felt light-headed when back upon beloved terra firma. And they were not the scariest rides! I could have gotten on (but did not) The Colossus which “pulls 4.2 g’s of G-force on its riders”. Or The Saw which “has a vertical drop, plummeting you at an angle of 100 degrees down a 100ft drop”. And The Stealth is “the tallest ride at Thorpe Park, at a staggering 62.5 m tall”. Guh! Guh! Guh! Seriously though, why do we love being scared? Personally, I put it all down to Edmund Burke and his book A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, published 1757, in which the good philosopher tells us, in so many words, why we, er, love being scared. I quote: “Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the idea of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible or is conversant about terrible object, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is feeling.” In summary, you only feel truly alive when you come close to losing it all. And in the tame West, we need our theme parks and petrifying roller coasters. With the holidays coming to a close, I return willingly to the slower, gentler death of everyday life.
(Thorpe Parke, Chertsey Road, Surrey, is open daily. All quotations taken from its publicity material.)

Let's twist again

Friend, I have never been a sportie. School games left me in a corner of a tarmac court, quivering least that terrifying phenomenon,
THE BALL, should fly in my direction. But right now, I am quivering with outrage at the conduct of the European Handball Federation over the dress code of a group of young Norwegian sports’ women. The EHF have fined the team, it seems, for wearing SHORTS on the beach handball arena, instead of bikini bottoms. I ask you: why have the members of the EHF gotten their underwear in a twist? Whatever the answer is: they get to wear their underwear as underwear, while the sports’ women are expected to wear their underwear as outer wear. Just imagine the furore if male footballers were expected to go on the pitch with their private members covered only in cod-pieces? Surely all that matters is that the handball team wear clothing that is uniform, comfortable and non-hampering, while playing? Right now, I stand in the sand with these feisty young women – so long as they don’t send THE BALL in my direction.

A Traveller in Time

During the 1970's, the BBC presented us with A Traveller In Time, a serialised drama to fit their afternoon children’s drama slot. With a name like that and the era it was broadcast in – that of Star Trek, Blake’s Seven, Dr Who – I expected to witness a hokum futuristic set peopled by humans in helmets and boiler suits, and other motifs of a now defunct space age, entertaining a lost denizen of the twentieth century. But, lo, what a surprise! A Traveller In Time, written by Alison Uttley, is the story of a teenage girl who lives in a relative’s country house while recovering from an illness. In and about the old farmhouse, she encounters people dressed in sixteenth-century clothing and soon realises she is drifting between a bygone time and the present day. The ‘historical’ people intrigue her and slowly, she pieces the puzzle together. She, the heroine, becomes the sometime companion of a group of people conspiring to free Mary Queen of Scots, imprisoned in a nearby castle. The story was beautifully filmed, the two eras enchantingly interwoven, the heroine sensitive to whichever century she happened to be in. She goes on helping the conspirators, being careful not to reveal what she knows about the eventual fate of the Queen of Scots. The drama became the highlight of my week, and I felt real loss when it was over. Alison Uttley was unusual in that she was born in 1884, and became the second woman to graduate from Manchester University, with a degree in physics. Uttley was intrigued by the idea of time travel, as many physicists still are. The novel was the result of this interest, combined with her fertile imagination and skill as a lyrical writer. Later in life, Uttley was to write stories for illustrated children’s books, creating characters like Little Grey Rabbit and Sam Pig. Happily she was with us until 1976, long enough to witness the triumph of the Apollo missions in space. What she would say to our slow progress in conquering the solar system, if she were here today, we can only imagine.

The Day of the Horse

With all of this Olympic hubris flying about, horsemanship et al, I have begun to recall an event many, many years ago when I found myself in company with a horse. By this, I do not mean standing on one side of a fence with Dobbin safely tethered on the other. No, I mean in the actual presence of a horse, standing right up close and personal to the beast while he restlessly whinnied and his hooves – the diameter of dinner plates – roved about on the ground. Even though there were other people well used to horses in control of him, I was petrified, electrified. Friend, the beast was magnificent, on a scale I had never before witnessed. The ‘dip’ in his back – don’t know the jargon, I’m afraid – was roughly on a level with my head. And at 5’8’’, I don’t stand small. Presently, I got used to this exposure to danger and forgot my fears and began to consider Chappie’s other dimensions; the unbelievable undulation of his flank, the proportionally huge haunches, the preternaturally long legs. I longed to stroke his silky mane but I was in terror of a nip from those teeth – on calculation, I would say the distances from the top of his head to the tip of his nose was at least three feet – more than half my height. Instead, I reached out and tentatively stroked his flank. Once again, I was electrified. Instead of being cold and hard, like the dark-brown, shiny coat suggested, Chappie’s flank was warm, alive, throbbing with the power that had led us, for decades, to define our engines in terms of horsepower. Now, I understood the magical, mystical connotations that, for centuries, attached themselves to horses, why we painted their forms on the walls of caves and carved them on the sides of chalk hills. It was an experience that I will never forget. It was, in a word, awesome. But in spite of his magnificence, the memory of Chappie is sad and sweet. What place does the horse have in this world of super fast trains, planes and sky rockets? In aeons to come, I hope humans remember the beast whose power gave rise to the automated age and continue to find a place for him in their mythology – if mythology hasn’t died out either, that is.

Super Stourhead

The early 1700s' saw a frenzy of stately home building in the English countryside. Merchants and bankers grown wealthy from the proliferation of trade and commerce during the 1600s needed a showcase for their winnings. The Hoare banking family was among this roll-call of the nouveau riche. Their chosen plot was Stourhead in the heart of Wiltshire, England. In 1727, architect Sir Colen Campbell designed and built their Palladian villa. Tradition has it that Henry Hoare II - also known as Henry the Magnificient - designed and laid out the garden of Stourhead so that, from every point of view, it appeared like the idealised landscape of the classical painter.   Stourhead set a precedent for themed parks and gardens that has prevailed in the western world, ever since.
Eighteenth-century Europe was gripped by a frenzy for Neoclassicism, that is, a passion for the reinterpretation of existing classical styles. Because he was a scion of the eighteenth century, Henry Hoare II would most definitely have made the Grand Tour, that almost obligatory trip around France and Italy for every young gentleman of wealth and breeding. Such trips fostered friendships between fellow travellers, laying down social connections for life and engendering tastes in European foods and fashions, art and architecture, tastes that were imported 'back home'. 
Every visitor to Stourhead receives a map of the layout of the garden and all of its features, along with a suggested trail to follow. This is so you can derive the maximum enjoyment from the visit. The trail takes the visitor around the lake - the result of a dammed river - up hill and through forest, over bridge and into tunnel, and past several 'fabriques' or follies; the Temple of Flora, the Grotto, the Pantheon, and others. The garden is structured so that the visitor is always in view of at least one of these features. Tradition has it that these 'Italian' views evoke  the paintings of the artist Claude Gelee, better known as Claude Lorraine (1600-1682). 
In his styling of Stourhead as an idealized slice of Italy, Hoare was buying into another system, that of fashion. The recognisable fabriques of Claude's paintings transformed what could have been merely a pretty piece of wooded land into an entire cultural experience. Nowadays, we are so familiar with themed parks and experiences, that we don't turn a hair when a new one is opened. In the meantime, if you are visiting Stourhead, do not go when it is raining, but wait for the sunshine - and it's well worth it, I promise.

Evoking Classicism: the Wonderful Garrick Temple

David Garrick, ah, the very name evokes classicism, the cadence of eighteenth-century music, the sweep of ladies’ gowns and the swoop of feathers on gentlemen’s hats. Shakespearean actor Garrick built his famous Villa in Hampton in 1754, by the river Thames. Nearby, he built a Temple to house his collection of Shakespeare memorabilia and to celebrate the Bard's genius. With its distinctive octagonal footprint and domed roof, the Temple cannot fail to catch the eye as you sally along the river bank. Once upon terre, the visitor climbs the steps to a front porch or portico, its columns supporting a massive pediment over the entrance door. From where did Garrick get his building references? In the 1700s', there was a surge of interest over ancient Greece and Rome. This was in part due to the Grand Tour, the trip about Europe made by young men of means in order to complete their education. One point of interest was the Villa Rotunda, begun by Andrea Palladio in 1567. Palladio based his Villa on that Roman landmark, the Pantheon. The form is quite simple; a round building or 'rotonda' fronted by a portico of Corinthian columns supporting a pediment. In spite of the simplicity of the design - or maybe because of it - the Pantheon captured the imagination of architects all over Europe and North America. The Garrick Temple is not so grand, of course. The roof is domed and its three Queen Anne windows overlook the river. Inside, a statue of Shakespeare by the French sculptor Roubiliac, is set into an alcove in the wall opposite the entrance door. The walls are hung with paintings linked to the life and work of David Garrick, several of them by Johan Zoffany. In normal times, you can see the inside of the Temple every Sunday afternoon from April to October. At present, opening hours are irregular. But the garden in which it is situated is open daily from dawn to dusk, all the year around. The exterior alone, in its exquisite riverside location, is well worth seeing. Overall, there is an air of the unexpected about the place, as if Portia might suddenly appear on the portico - or the stirrings in nearby bushes presage the appearance of Puck. If you are in or near Hampton this summer, do try to see it.

The Power of the Humble Tomato

For years, my friends and I waged a war of words over the 'fruit or veg?' issue surrounding the tomato, a war that has never been resolved. It matters not. I have always had a thing for this juicy, fleshy semi-sweet little number. Every summer while on the beach, our long-suffering Mum and aunts would transform a sliced loaf, a pat of yellow butter and a heap of the red fruits into a pile of sandwiches for us to tuck into. Since then, biting into a freshly-made tomato sandwich evokes those lazy, hazy childhood summers. And even back then, I was surprised at how energy-boosting those small snacks were. Two or three tomato sandwiches could fuel an excursion into the ice-cold Atlantic, participation in a ball game, a walk along the cliff tops, and a final swim before leaving the beach. As the years have gone by, I have watched as the proven health benefits of these shiny, scarlet (and yellow and purple) wonders are box-ticked, one by one. Like all fruits, tomatoes contain natural sugars, the source of all of our beach-time energy. Tomatoes are also rich in Vitamin C.
The Bioflavinoids
The typical colouring of the tomato indicates the presence of a group of compounds called the bioflavinoids, or flavones, flavonals and flavonoids. They work in conjunction with Vitamin C to repair and strengthen cell membranes and capillary walls. This process is essential for the production of collagen, the 'stuff' that skin is made of, and for the efficient healing of wounds. These benefits alone would make the tomato a powerhouse of nutrition, but these fruits have other powerful qualities.
A Taste for Paste
Not too long ago, I watched a television programme in which a number of people were required to eat a certain amount of tomato paste, every day. Tomato paste is processed from fresh tomatoes, and is used as pizza topping and to enhance the flavour and texture of other, tomato-based dishes. A 'control' group of people did not consume any of the tomato product. After twelve weeks, all of the subjects including the control group in the experiment were subjects to burst of ultraviolet light, the same wavelengths of light that are responsible for sunburn and the ageing of skin, in natural sunlight.
Skin Protection
The clinicians conducting the experiment then looked for certain chemical 'markers' in the skins of all of the subjects. These markers indicated the presence, or not, of changes in the skin due to ultraviolet exposure. The tomato-eaters of the group had up to 30% less of the marker than the skins of the control group. The experiment was repeated and the results came back...the same. At this point, I shouted and punched the air. Not only had I and my family gloried in our beach holidays; we had been protecting our skins from the sun. As the years went by, we became more sophisticated and discovered sun-factor creams. But I not sure that our natural, low-grade protection which also allows sunlight to trigger the production of Vitamin D, wasn't healthier than being covered in chemical-laden sun product? Scientists are still unsure why tomatoes offer this protection from sunlight, but one strong suspect is an anti-oxidant called lycopene. Anti-oxidants are chemicals that slow down the oxidization of lipids, or fats and oils, in the body. They do this by 'mopping up' unstable oxygen molecules and becoming oxidized themselves.
Naughty and Nice
Cooking actually helps to release lycopene from the 'cells' of the tomato plant. So, devouring pizza or trimming your fries with tomato ketchup is actually good for your skin - awesome! I am not the world's greatest cook but I cannot bow out of this feature without advising readers of a delicious and nutritious dish. Sift two cups of self-raising flour and a teaspoon of salt into a bowl. Rub in one ounce of soft margarine until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in a tablespoonful of basil (dried will suffice) one cup of drained, sundried tomatoes and half a cup of milk. Turn the dough onto a floured surface. Knead very lightly and roll it into a rectangle. Cut it into 2-inch squares. Arrange the squares on a floured baking sheet, and brush their tops with milk. Put them into an oven that has been preheated to 200 C/400 F/Gas 6, and bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. So there you go - so simple that even I can do it. And proof that everything nice doesn't have to be illegal, immoral or fattening!!

Masks and Masking

With masks and masking being very “in” at the minute, I thought that it was time to revisit the sixteenth century, Shakespeare’s day, in fact. In his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Flute says to Quince: Nay, faith, let me not play a woman, I have a beard coming, (Act One, Scene II, 43-45) Quince replies That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask. In Shakespeare’s day, masks were not just for actors, it seems. Women wore them generally, especially while out of doors in the summer, to protect their complexions. Ah, I love that. Those Elizabethans were a funny lot, when you think about it. On the one hand, ladies courted poisoning by covering their (indoor) faces in white lead in order to appear pale and beautiful. On the other hand, they were aware of the deleterious effects of the sun on the complexion – but every age has its contradictions and paradoxes. Now, we are masking for another, very serious purpose. Whatever, pay attention to style as you mask - see above!

Never cast a clout....

As someone who is still wearing her winter woollies at almost the end of May, I have never poured such endorsement upon that old adage. As I write this however, the sunshine pours in the window and I believe we may be seeing the beginning of summer, at last. Whatever, it is interesting to note that summer hasn’t always been the red-hot demon that we have come to experience it as, this past number of years. For example, consider this extract from Titania’s speech to Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter:
But do read this speech from Act 2, Scene 1 of the play. Experts believe that Shakespeare and his peers may have been experiencing the rougher end of the Little Ice Age, a period of cooler weather that covered Europe from about the mid-1300’s to the mid-1800’s. It was that time when, in winter, bonfires were lit upon the frozen Thames and skating parties abounded. Great fun, I am sure, but this inclemency extended to cooler, wetter summers. But the sun is still shining and I intend to make my first salad of the season. And my winter jackets, etc, may find their way to the back of the wardrobe, after all.

Finding a slice of the cheese market.

Almost exactly eight years’ ago, I reported on a Guardian editorial (April 20, 2013) that explored the possibility of building a British, cheese-based economy. On churning over the matter, I lauded the idea as a good one. I wrote the following:
“There is so much already in place (in Britain); the land, the rainfall, the herds, the people, and cheese districts like Stilton and Cheddar. What is more, our grazing pastures and herds of cattle cannot be salted off abroad. This is in contrast to the manufacturing sector where moneymaking enterprises are routinely carted to faraway places. Another plus is that agri-businesses can be distributed throughout Blighty in ways that compartmentalised sectors like finance cannot. Just think of young people flocking to courses in stock husbandry, dairy culture, nutrition, cheese cuisine, marketing, branding, advertising – OK. We got those already, but this would be marketing with a twist – a cheesy twist, you might say. And just think of the spin-offs; the mountains of crackers and biscuits, the olives and bottles of wine, the cheese tastings and fondue parties – we might even knock the Swiss off their mountain perch. So, how about milking this idea for all it is worth, leaders? My mouth is watering already!”
Well, what goes around comes around and a few days ago, the same newspaper reported that the cheese business is booming, yes, booming, thanks to a number of factors, the lockdown included. And with it, the attendant rise in cheese futures' investment. At production level, well done to those of you who found a slice of the cheese market. The remainder of us will go on maturing for a while, yet. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/apr/28/cheese-futures-could-we-all-make-millions-by-investing-in-cheddar

The rise and rise of the hybrid word

In recent times, I have been compiling my own register of hybrid words, chief among usage being “frexhaustion” (frustration + exhaustion) and “vexhaustion” (just guess). Previously, I created “mizzly” (miserable + drizzly) to describe that sort of day. And “melding” (melting + blending) is a very useful word when describing oil paints on canvas, with particular reference to the sunsets of JMW Turner. However, I involuntarily clench my jaws and grind my teeth to the sound of “glampers”, redolent of a hormonal disorder, and “staycationers” which brings to mind a chain of questionable stationers. And “chillaxing” so beloved of politicians a decade ago, conjures an image of an ice monster gone mad with an axe! I have tried consoling myself with the knowledge that many words we use colloquially today began life as hybrids, e.g., “brunch” (breakfast + lunch), “glitzy” (glamorous + ritzy) and “twittering” (talking + wittering). But somehow, it all feels horribly wrong. Melding, brunch and twittering are made of two words spliced together to describe similar activities or things. The resulting hybrid is all the stronger for it. On the other hands, “glamper” and “staycationer” are oxymorons, the adjective/noun pairs in contradiction with each other. These hybrids have a ring of bitter irony, of someone torn between being very clever or very funny, and not really succeeding in either aim. It remains to be seen whether such words die the death they deserve, or if they creep into our dictionaries, like lice into woodwork. If the latter happens, it wont be long before a good book becomes a “gook”, going “clubbing” is synonymous with beginning the cleaning and scrubbing, and a poor tourist is reborn as a “poorist”. Truly, we need a force of word police.

More Precious Than Gold

 

As a creature of the Seventies’, I have always had a thing for the colour purple. Even in the middle of the finest summer, I loved getting out of toxic sunlight and into the dark heart of a boutique, pulsating strobe lighting and rock music by turns, and finding that perfect purple handbag, preferably made of suede and alive with fringing. Or a jacket of aubergine wet-look plastic. Or a pair of purple wedgies to match either accessory – ah! What’s not to love? In the longer term, it came as a surprise to learn that purple dye, as we know it, came not from the imagination of a hyper-aware hippy, but from the laboratory of one William Henry Perkin. In the mid-nineteenth century, he was trying to synthesize the malaria drug, quinine, normally extractable from the bark of the exotic cinchona tree, in a glass flask. But the experiment failed and the only result was a black solid. Perkin tried to clean out his flask with alcohol, and it was the resulting solution that gave the world mauveine, or synthetic mauve. With it, a whole new Victorian cult of purple was born. The fashion for purple has waxed and waned ever since. It became very  popular in the 1970s, being regarded by the 'new agers' of the time because of its associations with higher consciousness. 

Throughout the ages, purple has always been a special colour, associated with magic, mystery and royalty. In antiquity, writers like Democritus (c. 460 - 370 BC) believed that the colour resulted from the harmony of the four elements the ancients believed the world was made from; earth, air, fire and water. By Roman times, the wearing of purple had become a royal prerogative, a colour reserved for the highest officers in the state in the form of a purple and gold robe. By the time of Diocletian (244 - 311 AD), it had come to be exclusively associated with the Emperor. For anyone else to wear it was tantamount to treason. Until the Middle Ages, purple had connotations of magic. In William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon describes the flower as 'purple with love's wound'. One reason for the cult of purple may have been the expense involved in its manufacture.

Tyrian purple had been manufactured from the shells of sea-molluscs by the Phonecians, from about 1500 to 300 BC. For many centuries, the closest the common people got to the wearing of purple was from a blue dye, approximating to indigo, obtained from the woad plant. But unlike magnificent Tyrian purple, it faded easily. Modern optical physics was born in 1704 when Sir Isaac Newton published his book, Opticks. As early as 1665, Newton had 'bent' light rays from the sun by passing them through a glass prism, and producing the spectrum of colours that we call the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. At one end of the spectrum  violet light waves approximate to 400 nanometres in length. At the other end, red light waves approximate to 760 nanometres, with the remaining colours in between. Violet waves are shorter and high-frequency, while red waves are longer and low-frequency. What we call ultra-violet is a wave higher in frequency than the violet we can see, and therefore not visible to our eyes. It is this high-frequency quality at the violet end of the spectrum that gives us the abundance of 'blues' in nature - and turquoise, ultramarine, mauve, mulberry - in contrast to relatively few reds and yellows.

Until William Henry Perkin's time, other purple dyes had been available but these were unstable and unsuited to mass manufacture. Following Perkin's discovery, the Victorians went purple crazy. In Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Mr Guppy wears a pair of mauve kid gloves as he proposes to Esther Summerson. Today, I am in possession of purple sheets, towels, blouses, t-shirts, skirts, undies and yes, a purple handbag. Wherever and whatever, long may purple last. 

Perseverance and Curiosity

 

Now that Perseverance is beaming back Earth-like pictures of Martian landscapes, the age-old question raises its head: could man and woman ever go there? The answer is, very definitely yes. The next question is: could man colonize Mars? Again, the answer is positive: it is perfectly possible. There are a number of practical challenges to overcome first, however. There are differences between Earth and Mars, but also a number of similarities. The Red Planet, so-called because the abundance of iron oxide or haematite on its surface gives off a reddish light in space, has polar ice caps. It spins on a single axis and there are roughly twenty-four hours in its day. Mars has Earth-like seasons and in addition to iron oxide, the planet surface is abundant in minerals like magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine, all essential for plant growth.

Phobos and Deimos

However, liquid water cannot exist on its surface. This is explained partly by the low atmospheric density, due to a weak gravitational pull. Mars has only about half the diameter of Earth, but only marginally less surface area. However, the 'mass' of the planet is much less dense, which accounts for the low gravity. The planet core is made of iron, also magnesium, calcium, silicon and oxygen. Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a polar magnetic field. Scientists believe that the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, are "captured' asteroids, and they do not have the stabilising effect on the spin of the planet that the moon has upon Earth. Because Mars is further from the sun, a Martian year is 687 days, nearly twice as long as an Earth year. By implication, Martian seasons are twice as long as ours. The Martian environment is not a friendly one, its average surface temperature being minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Its atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide while that of Earth has only 0.039% carbon dioxide and 21% oxygen. In preparation for the human colonisation of Mars, seeds and organic matter would have to be transported from Earth to begin growing plants and establishing a food supply.

Super-sized Bees and Mars Bars

An unmanned mission could utilise Perseverance-type vehicles to drill for water in the subsurface aquifers that scientists believe are there, and channel it to 'growing hubs' or 'growing bubbles' or 'grubbles', where plants could grow. Again, an unmanned mission could construct these. The grubbles would have transparent walls to let in light and activate photosynthesis. The walls would also serve to contain respired water. Condensation would trickle down the grubble walls and into collection channels. The 'rain' would be recycled for watering. Plants need pollinators as well as water, and the best pollinator on Earth is the humble bee - and entire hives would be transported to Mars. Once there, the insects would be let loose among the grubble-bound plants. However, without natural predators, they could grow very large, indeed.

The scientists who initially colonise Mars could find themselves having to deal with super-sized bees. However, all kinds of other, interesting things will be happening. When the scientists have established a food supply within the grubbles, they can experiment with growing them in a pure Martian environment. By now, road building will have been established and scientists can travel to and from work in cute little Martian buggies. At weekends, they will go on excursions up mountains and down into valleys. Slowly, automated building machines will establish a network of small settlements. For relaxation, there will be the public house - the Mars Bar?

Martian Arts

There are still problems to overcome, for example, the infamous Martian "dust devils", dust storms that begin when Martian weather is at its hottest. There are also the seasonal "wobbles" to which Mars is prone. Just as on Earth, life will not be perfect. Earthlings are bound to deal with earthquakes and volcanoes, tornados and hurricanes - and this on the one-tenth of the Earth's surface that is actually habitable. Yet, seven billion of us live to tell the tale. Over time, science will settle into the background of life on Mars. Humanity will assert itself and children will be born. These Martians will be like any immigrants to a New World, defensive of their roots, but full of the hubris of having been among the first people born on Mars. They will be creative, establishing a body of Martian art and music, literature and philosophy.

Overcoming Challenges - Opening Possibilities

There will be other challenges to overcome, for instance, the effect on the human body of living in a field of lower gravity. But these are already issues for astronauts living on the International Space Station. There will be grumbles from conservationists about how human activity is going to change the face of Mars. Yes, this could happen, but we must not forget that early plant life changed the oxygen ratio in the Earth's atmosphere, completely. Right now, we ought to welcome the challenges that colonising another planet will bring. The more challenges that we overcome now, the more prepared we will be for moving out of our solar system (comfort zone?) and into the grand, cosmic adventure that is ahead of us.

Alchemy and the Canterbury Tales

 

Still on matters medieval, my thoughts have turned in recent times to the subject of alchemy. To the majority, the word “alchemist” conjures up the image of a scholarly person in a cap and gown imprinted with cosmic symbols, waving a wand and mumbling jumbo over a variety of everyday substances, in the hope that one of them at least, would transform into shining, yellow gold – aaah, if only! To throw light on the subject, I enter into The Canterbury Tales, that epic work by Geoffrey Chaucer, structured about a group of travellers on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. Every night as they sit about the fire of whatever inn they stay in, one of the group tells a tale to the others. The entire gamut of medieval professions is represented by the characters present; a Knight, Miller, Reeve, Shipman, Physician and so on,

In one instance, Chaucer recounts the tale of the Canon and the Yeoman, who enter into a dialogue about the secret craft that they practise. The Host asks the Yeoman why, if his master (the Canon) is truly so sagacious, then why is he, the Canon, dressed in gaberdine that is hardly worth a mite, torn to bits and isn't even clean. The Yeoman hints darkly that what the Canon works at can never be successful. The Canon, he tells them, is clever enough to understand his esoteric craft, but does not know enough to make it succeed. The Yeoman doesn't want to say any more, but the Host slowly teases more details out of him.

Presently, the Yeoman warns the gathered company against the debt, despair and ruin that practising the craft has brought them. He names the substances we worked upon, among them silver, orpiment, burnt bones and iron filings, ground into finest powder and poured into an earthen pot, followed by salt and pepper, and covered by a sheet of glass. At this point, I wondered if Chaucer were not indulging in a medieval leg-pull, rather than rendering an authentic account of the chemistry of the time. Tradition has it that he himself had sometime practised the "esoteric craft", in addition to being a poet, soldier, knight and Justice of the Peace.

The odder substances mentioned by the Yeoman, the least of which are the salt and pepper, are likely thrown in by Chaucer for comic effect - or just to trip up would-be practitioners with. After all, if Chaucer really did know "the secret", he was hardly going to give it away. No matter his agenda, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that the fourteenth-century alchemist was actually a proto chemist. For example, the Canon's Yeoman lists orpiment among his roll-call of substances.

Orpiment, or sulphide of arsenic, made a beautiful yellow paint in illuminated manuscripts, but it is too poisonous for contemporary use. As the Middle Ages ran into the Renaissance, trade rather than alchemy, became the fount of wealth. Out of the crucible of persecution and superstition, the modern chemist, distinct from the miscreant and the mystic, was born. However, I suspect that even the earnest, hard-working, proto chemist of Chaucer’s imagination toiled with gold pieces rather than the betterment of mankind, prominent in his imagination? Whatever, I do urge you to read the wonderful snapshot of medieval England that is The Canterbury Tales.

The Seven Jestures: how to gain your Fool's Charter

 

Further to friend Wamba from Ivanhoe, the clown, the Fool and the jester have had a chequered history in art and literature. In the days when monarchs actually ruled, the court jester played - literally - a significant role in the decision making of his overlord. The jester dressed traditionally in bright colours. He had at his command a store of rhymed wit and the ability to perform. Through singing, dancing and clowning around, he knocked upon the modes of thought of his 'superiors'. He had the ability to lighten any occasion with a chance remark, pave the way towards solving thorny problems and blow old ways of thinking out of the box. From that point of view, who would not be a jester? I say that we are all jesters - and ready to receive the following "jestures".

First, don't forget your jester's hat. I mean this quite literally. What you carry on top of your head has a profound effect on the way that people see you. It is not for nothing that the judge wears a wig, the don wears a mortarboard and the official wears a peaked hat.

Second, wear rose-coloured, jester spectacles. When faced with a problem, remember the old adage "Two men looked out through prison bars. One saw mud, the other saw stars." If you have a fridge busting with food, throw a party, coffee-morning, beer-bash, whatever. Dub it a business-networking event - and you never know who might turn up.

Third, turn your jester's coat routinely. In other words, don't be afraid to switch your point of view, either literally or metaphorically. If you get into a disagreement, try to see what really happened. Maybe you were lazy, indifferent or under-performing in some other way, on the project.

Fourth: always carry your marotte, the baton or stick with the carved effigy of the jester speared on the end. The origin of the marotte is uncertain, but historians believed that it lampooned the Emperor's sceptre, the magician's wand, and so on. Your marotte can be a mascot, calling card or business card. Use whatever works for you, and make it memorable.

Fifth, remember the power of words. Words are the ultimate weapon, and it is not for nothing that 'word' is just one letter short of 'sword'. Always have a good dictionary within reach. Learn a new word every day, and use it. Join a poetry class. Identify a playwright and plough through his or her entire output. It is time-consuming but possible - mine is Shakespeare. Record and learn quotes and anecdotes. Your erudition will wow everyone.

Sixth, be aware of timing. Know when to speak and when to stay silent. A funeral is not a good place to crack a joke about the deceased. You do not plonk a cream gateau in front of a friend who is earnestly trying to lose weight.

Finally, learn a sense of humour. The true Fool knows the difference between humour, and bigotry and ignorance. Above all, learn to laugh at yourself. So, with your jester's coat, glasses and cap, your marotte and extraordinary command of words, your impeccable sense of timing and sophisticated sense of humour, you are ready to receive the Fool's Charter. I leave the final words to William Shakespeare's Fool, the fictional jester from King Lear: "Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest, Lend less than thou owest....

Soft shoe shuffle.....

 

Like the majority of people, I wish this pandemic was not happening. I wish that life would revert to a type of normal, at least. Like Priya Elan, fashion editor of the Guardian, I am fishing for fragments of treasure amongst the ruins. Mr Elan asserts that one good effect of not having to dash about office corridors all day is the re-discovery and recovery of those most basic of elements to human well-being, namely, our two feet. Recovery from corns and calluses, aches and pains. He goes on to extol the virtue of the Big Softies, such as Uggs, Birkenstocks, Crocs.....and I want to add my voice to his in the form of my box-fresh Ecco shoes (pictured), made of Nubuck, flexible, sturdy, insoled and bespeaking quality in that way that Ecco always does. Retailing at £90 and available in red, black, white....and you can order a pair by post....what's not to love? Happy New Year everyone.....

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/jan/15/how-to-wear-ugly-shoes

Ivanhoe and I......

 

Oh, what a miserable winter! What terrible chaos that this horrible virus has thrown our world into. All we survivors can do is behave with decorum and responsibility until it is over. Like many people, I am taking the opportunity to catch up on books that I have never before ventured into, you know, those volumes that you thought you had read because you had caught a passing movie or television series – or you had heard a few instances of discussed by friends somewhere, sometime. Thus it was with Ivanhoe and I, Sir Walter Scott’s glorious medieval romance cum political thriller, imbued with real historical characters such as King John, and the mythical Robin Hood. Now, our relationship is burgeoning. Filled with dashing knights and comely maidens, jousting and espionage staged across forest, field and mountain, inside stately banqueting hall and humble cottage - what's not to love? And the drama cuts a swathe through society, from grand Saxon and Norman lords to Gurth, the humble swineherd and, in finest medieval tradition, Wamba the jester. With its swashbuckling action and colourful romance, this deck of cards cum chessboard saga is the ideal read for these long, dark nights and storm-tossed days - and I haven’t even finished it yet. Avaunt to Amazon, right away….

The year ahead...

                                                         

                                                      

                                                         By frost and sleet, and ice and snow

The month of January we know.

In February the days grow longer

The year is young and ever stronger.

March is dressed in palest green

While round the house, the winds do keen.

The month of April brings forth flowers

That drink a-plenty rain from showers.

By May’s brave month the battle’s won

Winter over and summer begun.

Roses bloom in hot, bright June

By day the sun, by night the moon.

July and it grows hotter still

The countryside, the stream, the mill. 

In August is the harvest there

The sheaf of wheat in field, at fair. 

September is a month of mellow

Of apples red and pears so yellow. 

October and the leaves are falling

With bonfires crackling, winter calling.

November is a month of gloom

As shorter, darker days do loom. 

But December will be ever jolly

With the Christ Child’s birth, and gifts, and holly.