the only way is cheese
I recently encountered a new cheese, or to be totally accurate, an old cheese. One of my favourite hard cheeses is Lincolnshire Poacher, a cheddar type hard cheese made with unpasteurised milk. The enterprising makers have various iterations of this including smoked and vintage among others, they have now produced a variant called Knuckleduster, which is a three year old and very fine it is indeed. It packs quite a punch.
The Index of Social Inventions #1
Sometime when, a long, long, time ago, my curiosity was piqued by a reference to a collection wherein people could contribute their socially useful ideas, not as a profit making venture, but in a small way for the collective good of humanity.
It's quite possible I may have made this up, or dreamed it, but even so, it still seems like a good notion to me and so I propose to make occasional visits to this conceit whenever something occurs to me.
So, some ground rules; ideas can be practical, or theoretical, the main thing is that they need to improve the quality of life, or at least make it more easily understood.
Here are three ideas that occurred to me:
1) Fit supermarket trollies with small bicycle bells. I don't know if it's just me, but I keep finding my way blocked by shoppers, who have either used their trollies to barricade themselves in while they peruse the yoghurt section at extreme leisure, or are simply unaware that they are pushing a metal battering ram. I almost always use a basket, as I am very aware of my personal space, and don't like to get in the way of others, but some means of politely penetrating the dwalm that seems to overtake some shoppers might lead me to take up the trolley.
2) A reject coins jar by the supermarket coin sorting machine. If, like me, you dump your loose change into a pot, and every now and again cash it in, there are inevitably a few interlopers that the machine rejects, it just occurred to me that a smart charity could strategically position a collecting jar or bucket by the machine, and encourage users to recycle the useless coins.
3) Axle load indicators for vans and trucks. Given how wired modern vehicles are, it seems strange that this isn't an option, some cars can tell you what their tyre pressures are, for example. The load sensors are cheap enough, and correct axle weights are increasingly significant. It's not an earth shatteringly important idea, just something that would simplify life for some people.
So, feel free to comment or contribute, I will return to this subject again.
entitlement
Since I am contemplating reviving my moribund series of stories, the issue of titling them has crept back onto the agenda. I am well aware that a zippy title is important, especially when, as I am, you're attempting to write something entertaining, and not in the least profound. As an avid reader of charity shop fiction I am very conscious of how a name can repel just as easily as attract, by way of example; anything with a title like; 'the something something', you know; the broccoli index, the carrot imperative, the aubergine dictum etc, etc, ad infinitum, is very likely to explore the nature of tedium beyond your dullest dreams.
I have to give Charles Stross an honourable exemption here, although if I had found his Laundry stories on the shelf, rather having been given a couple by my sister, I would very probably have passed them by as his addiction to the three word title is potentially discouraging. In his case, he is a) partly sending up the genre (at least in the early books) and b) the object in the name does at least feature in the story, by no means a certainty in the dubious world of writing by numbers.
Out of mild curiosity, I googled 'random book title generator', and found that there were several, not only that, but on one of them you can bagsy something if it particularly takes your fancy, nothing did, as it happens, but maybe that's because I'm not trying to write in a very specific genre.
When I was working for a very famous playwright (plays in performance all round the world even now), we were all very conscious of his writing method; he started with the title and every spring he tootled off to his island to write, and when he returned there would be a new play ready for the summer. When I wrote my first (and currently only) book, the plot came first, and the title after, the sequels, that I am thinking of returning to now, were the opposite way round, and maybe that is why I have not yet had the urge to continue beyond the few chapters and plot outlines I had created up 'til now. So, perhaps I'll revisit my characters, freed from contraints and give it another go. Watch this space...
and another thing...
Before Christmas we finally got our collective acts together and the farmers wife and I colluded and got the Cats Protection League spaying team in. In the cold weather the cats tend to return to the farm, and consequently we were able to trap fourteen of them over two days. They were back and demanding food within 48 hours, none the worse for their experience, and no more trusting than previously.
If you ever see a feral cat with the tip of an ear missing, this is an indicator that the creature has been spayed/castrated, it's a handy way of identifying them. So far there have turned out to be three cats that avoided the knife, two toms; which have demonstrated their relief (and frustration) by fighting each other and anything in sight and one queen, not seen for a couple of years, who made a one night flying visit, and hasn't been seen since. The rest of the colony, now that the breeding imperative has removed, is notably mellower, they are still very cantankerous, especially when there's food around, and their table manners are appalling, but despite the indignity imposed on them, they're becoming more friendly and trusting.
it's that time of year again..
There must be something about January that occasionally reminds me that I have a blog, and that I haven't written anything in it for about a year. I'm not given to annual resolutions, tried it once, didn't like it, but as I have forsaken Facebook for the time being, I have decided to return here and use up some of my longer-form preoccupations.
Without going back over the years to check, I can't recall if I have ever previously mentioned that I hate H*lland and B*rrett, high street purveyors of dodgy health supplements and bulk protein powders to the masses. Time was that you could go to your local brown paper bag and lentil emporium and stock up on a few scoops of dried apricots or whatever, and not have to leave your platinum card at the till while you were shopping. Nowadays, 'Health Food Shops' have enthusiastically adopted the DIY store model of putting two items into an artfully designed little plastic bag and charging the price of an entire box for the privilege.
When I was on tour in the employ of an experimental theatre company, I got into the habit of breakfasting on yoghurt/fruit and some form of granola or bircher muesli, on the basis that this was likely to be the closest to fresh food that I would see in most places (full English palls after a few days). I have stuck with this, on the admittedly feeble basis, that it feels like it ought to be quite good for me. I do, however, like to liven it up with a few extra lumps of this and that, hence my foray into H&B in search of interesting dried fruits to add to the mix. Just because, before visiting a branch, I checked online to see what they actually do stock, and it looked quite promising. I'm not naïve enough to expect them to carry everything they claim online, and I wasn't disappointed. In some ways they could be said to have made improvements to what some ghastly
MBA toting arse in a suit calls 'the offer', the shop assistants no longer look as though they need to pop out the back for a toke of oxygen to get them through the next few minutes, and the stores are much better lit, on the other hand not having a clue and avoiding eye-contact seems to have remained an employment requirement. I was able to locate a couple of small baggies of interesting things, and, by a process of deduction, work out what they were likely to cost (the shelf labels only applied to larger sizes, or were missing), and whilst they weren't a bargain, they were significantly better value than T*sco or M*rrisons are able to offer. After the woman bulk buying vitamin pills had finally cleared the till, I wasn't at all surprised to find that my two little bags of fruity gribbles didn't ring up (bleep up?) at the prices I had calculated, but I was surprised that they were significantly cheaper.
I have long since abandoned any notion of contesting computerised pricing systems, on the rare occasions when they interface with human beings things usually go awry; there was one assistant at my local T*sco who hadn't quite entered into the spirit of the end-of-date markdown, and you would find a 0.60p packet of custard tarts marked up to £4.00 for example. I always find the reduced to clear section worth a visit, nonetheless, it's your best chance of getting ripe cheese or fruit when you're part of a supply chain that operates on the principle that appearance is more important than flavour or ripeness.
So, having bought my gribbles, I fully expect to be charged a different price next time I make a visit to H&B, I will report back if there's anything earth shattering to tell...
