Picture 1 is the view from the car-park of The Cliff Inn, Crich. We visited for our lunchtime chip cob.The morning began at 10am when 7 willing helpers arrived at Ripley Town Hall to hang the Amber Valley Exhibition. And a very good exhibition it is too. It knocks spots off the Nottingham and Notts exhibition we saw a couple of weeks ago at the Brewhouse Yard Museum.
Ours was high-quality and lively and innovative. Theirs was high-quality but boring and same-ey.
After the hanging we adjourned to the pub where, as always, we were made most welcome. And the chip cobs were excellent. The original idea was that the chaps (inc. Helen) would go for a brief walk before lunch. I opted to go straight into the pub, and Brian decided likewise, and 30 secs later were joined by Helen who said it was cold and windy and a storm looked imminent. 5 minutes later the others reached the same decision and came back to the pub.
We enjoyed our usual lively conversation and Brian made an excellent point. When on a photo jaunt, and you are walking forward looking for pictures ahead - it is a good idea from time to time to stop and turn round. There may be great pictures behind you which you haven't noticed.A quick addendum to yesterday. Of course Bungus lives at Boughton and not Tuxford. It should have read Tuxford Road, and I omitted the 'road'.
Picture 3 is especially for Manxislander alias Mannanan alias Pete Brady. I spotted it in a second-hand book shop and acquired it for him. The title explains the book, but it was published in 1977 and therefore forms a historical aspect to his subject. (if you would like to e-mail your postal address Pete, I'll pop it in an envelope and send it to you).
Pete is certainly IT savvy enough not to put either his e-mail address, or his postal address, on a blog.The little bit of 'text' on the picture is courtesy of Picasa 3, just one of several additional 'tools'. Please click here for a download page if you would like a look at it.
Y is really seriously 'cracking on' with her Laptop and Vista. She's mastered 'attachments' and this afternoon went into 'Pictures' and deleted unwanted material, also adjusted the size of her thumbnails, and 'rotated clockwise' relevant pictures that were 'landscape' instead of 'portrait'. And she is much enjoying 'googlechat' with the Burton Joyce branch !
Comments
bungus ...... Re the Jools Holland line-up. I agree The Kaiser Chiefs are first rate and I always thought Boy George and The Culture Club were a good 'turn'. (Live links there folks).
Re the fungus. Whatever you tell me I shall believe because, like Football, it is not my subject. I simply admire your 'take' on living dangerously.
I absolutely agree that 'Coleman balls' was a great slot in Private Eye. Sadly missed.
The poem was enjoyable, but not one of your best. By the last two verses it had developed a distinct limp. Mind you, so had Byron - Ha Ha !
mannanan ........ please see above..... great soup, and if future recipes are similar they will be tried immediately by our discerning readers.
4 ticks ...... I don't understand the problem with the recipe ? Can't you just copy/paste it into somewhere? Y is on Vista too and there doesn't seem to be any problem with highlighting some text, the right-click and 'copy', decide where you want it to go and then 'paste' it in there.
I guess there must be something I'm not aware of.
Re spiders 'tatting'. One morning after a heavy frost I said to a granddaughter "I wonder why they build webs in such silly places ?" She replied "Perhaps because they are so beautiful". She is obviously right. I think I'm going to take her out on a fungus hunt - she would soon find some fairies.
Re medical matters. I too would welcome less involvement with the NHS - but have decided to concede defeat and try to hang loose - as per bungus. Jill, is excellent at 'making a fuss' and occasionally scores effective goals.
She should be back off her holidays I think - even as we speak. Hope she has had a good time.
No doubt she will soon post a comment and tell us all about it.
Hope your lesson-prep went well. I've decided to give EPS a miss tomorrow night, so I shan't see you.
Quotation time .........
"The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact"
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Sleep tight - catch you tonmorrow
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Sleep tight - catch you tonmorrow
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DIARY
ReplyDeleteNews Item from yesterday.
A member of the Tory Shadow Cabinet intends to introduce a one-year ‘back to work scheme’ for the long-term unemployed; what a good idea!
In the 1980s it was called Community Progtramme and it benefited both myself and my eldest stepson, Simon.
In my case it rescued me from several years of unemployment.
As Surveyor / Drawing Office Manager (at Family First Projects Agency) I was permitted, like other members of the management team, to extend the initial one year term over several more.
My duties were not onerous (although I like to think I served a purpose) and although, after the expense of travelling to Nottingham, I was no better off financially than on benefit, it allowed me time to teach myself to type to an adequate standard and gain very basic computer literacy skills (we had a networked Amstrad system). That in turn helped me in writing poetry and prose (99% unpublished) and, by joining Nottingham Writers’ Group, I met a certain well-known, then recently retired, ex Inspector of Police. I have also kept in touch with 3 colleagues from those days.
As a ‘manager’ I was also able to arrange a year’s employment for late teenager Simon (a member of the 80s’ ‘lost generation’ of school leavers). It temporarily saved him from the endless round of daily jobseeking (unlike me, he is one of those with the ability, will and desire to go door-knocking and asking for work).
At FFPA he learned basic bricklaying skills. Like his fellow fulltime firefighters, he has since put this learning to good use (along with other building trade skills acquired from short-course study) as secondary income-supplementing bowstrings.
Here is a recipe for a sort of chowder which, in my view, is terrific. Mannanan may wish to try it. I think it is as good as, although very different from, his tomato soup.
COLOMBIAN CHICKEN (for 3 or 4, or 2 greedy)
Heat good oil in a saucepan and brown a fine-chopped medium onion with several crushed cloves of garlic and some thyme (fresh or dried).
Scrub, scrape or peel several different varieties of potato (at least 3, waxy, floury, watery), a pound or more in total. Cut into bite size pieces and add to saucepan. Lay half a pound or so of smoked white fish (I prefer haddock) on top and add milk and water to cover.
Bring to boil and simmer for ten minutes or so before taking out fish to remove skin and bones. Flake to bite size and reserve.
Continue simmering potatoes for another half hour or so.
Add a tin of sweetcorn (or frozen), the reserved fish, and a small handful of chopped dried fenugreek leaves (the essential flavour ingredient, only obtainable from Indian shops, or by post or, possibly, a few Health Food Stores or herbalists), black or mixed pepper. Simmer about 15 minutes. Check taste and add salt if needed.
Some double cream will not hurt when serving, and capers may be added if liked. Warm, crusty bread and butter goes well.
(The original untried recipe contained fried chicken pieces instead of smoked fish and (instead of fenugreek) an unobtainable South American herb. Could well be worth giving an improvised go).
BLOG COMMENT
Title for your autobiography: ‘The Chip Cob Man (A life that revolves around chip cobs)’.
The Cliff Inn has as good a view as the Bird in Hand, if not better.
The following reads like an extract from a 17th or 18thC novel; a bit Pepysish or Johnsonish/Boswellish perhaps?
”After the hanging we adjourned to the pub where, as always, we were made most welcome. And the chip cobs were excellent.”
Brian must be related to the Woo-Woo Bird which always flew backwards – didn’t care where it was going but liked to see where it had been.
Lost your ‘road’ again youth, hey?
re Pete (should be Kelly, who nobody has seen) from the Isle of Man:
I bought a book on aircraft recently for a friend who is interested in same – nothing technical just illustrations of wartime planes. From a charity shop of course!
Dan tells me that I now have Picassa 3 but Lord knows where it is hiding! In that little box on the external hard-drive, I suspect.
I find that my thumbnails (Picasa that is, not my own) rotate themselves in a random manner and don’t necessarily print the wanted way up.
I am a fan of Jools’ own music and I think you would enjoy Seasick Pete. Dan has just acquired his latest album which shares its title with the song I mentioned,
‘I Started Out with Nothin’ /
And I Still Got Most of It Left’.
I now suspect the clump of mushrooms featured in yesterday’s blog MAY be what I at first thought the previous specimen was, viz: Meadow Wax Cap. That said, I do not recall seeing those as a clump.
The poem means more to me because it is a ‘record poem’ with little manipulation - only ‘cropped’ and lightly ‘tuned’ as Picasa would have it.
There being “No such thing as a finished poem”, it has concerned me from its inception that, for the sake of rhyme, I had used the incorrect year (we were in Torremolinos again in ’64 which, as the result of an oversight on my part when booking, meant that I tragically missed the World Cup sem-final and Final; aaagh!) but, until I wrote it out again yesterday, I had found no satisfactory way of changing it. Then suddenly, as is usually the case:
“In hot midsummer sixty three
we bask beside that tideless sea.
Oh who could ever ask for more
than sunning on Spain’s southern shore?”
etc:
Personally speaking, I don’t think it works QUITE as well poetically although I like the alliteration of the 4th line.
As when the words were first spoken by the late Clem, I still enjoy the last 2 lines (which were really the point of the whole composition).
But I appreciate your honest crit and am glad I gave you an opportunity for the Byron joke.
My comment to ‘4 ticks’, below, pretty well echoes yours.
I remember the "Perhaps because they are so beautiful" quote.
When you take said granddaughter on a fungus hunt do not let her lick her fingers after touching any (no chance of anything REALLY serious but it could make her poorly if it is a ‘wrong ‘un’).
Re medical matters.
Penultimate ‘drip-trip’ today.
Some readers may remember that I went for an MRI scan a couple of weeks ago. I have since been waiting to hear from my surgeon, fixing an appointment. The letter came yesterday. The appointment is not until March which would normally perhaps cause concern, But I can only think it must be good news.
The only thing everyone seems bothered about now is my blood pressure (about 200/80) but I have an appointment with a (new to me, at my request) GP next week, Helen Ward, whom Sandra has been very happy with for several years.
Tom Huxley is right; hypothesis slaying does spoil things. Was he father to Aldous, I wonder?
4 ticks:
I don’t understand your problem with Windows but the following might help:
Locate a passage in the blog, Highlight it, right click, and Copy. You should then be able to right click and Paste it into a Word (or other?) document. (if right clicking doesn’t work, try going to Edit on the top toolbar and use Copy / Paste from there.
Surprised to hear your chutney is fit to eat so soon. Isn’t it vinegary? We never eat any until the following year and find it improves for several years after that. Have just moved onto 2007’s from the 2006 vintage.
"we were in Torremolinos again in ’64 which, as the result of an oversight on my part when booking, meant that I tragically missed the World Cup sem-final and Final; aaagh!" Tut, tut, Bungus. Of course you missed the World cup semi-final and final in 1964 - by two years. Which ones did you want to see, those in 1962 (Chile?) or those at Wembley in 1966?
ReplyDeleteThe Nottingham and Notts Exhibition sounds like a typical camera club effort where the technical quality is deemed to be much more important than the image quality. I've never quite got my head around why that should be so and have always tended to make derogatory comments about "camera club photographers" not knowing what a good image looks like. Perhaps the culture of competitions and the influence of judges is also responsible. Perhaps we do not need to bother with this line of thought.
I love the way Bungus has picked up on the "after the hanging" statement. Did Albert Pierrepoint ever enjoy a chip cob? I didn't see any being eaten by Timothy Spall a few weeks back.
When you go WoW-ing, RG, you could always put your wheels into reverse and be like the young man of Tashkent, who did something or other and instead of coming he went. Or you could strap your camera to the back of your head and just use a cable release to take pictures. That idea reminds me of an exhibition I saw at Wollaton House many years ago where someone had strapped his camera to his dog's collar and used a remote control to take pictures. There were about a dozen or so pictures in the exhibition and one of them was good. There are times when I feel that many of my great pictures are behind me.
I had my probationary review meeting at work today. They want to keep me but I'm not sure whether the order is being revoked for good behaviour. Does this face look bovvered?
Rob