“…AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD”

The dish was piled high with a vibrant tumbling of blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. Placing it on the garden table, Sophie picked up one particularly large, perfectly formed blackberry and looked at it appreciatively. “If you were God,” she observed, “how could you not be proud to have created something as perfect as this blackberry?”

Joined by the raspberries and blueberries (bravely refusing to be cowed by the adulation shown the blackberries), and accompanied by Strawberry Panna Cotta ice cream - also from God, but with the assistance of his disciples at Hagan Daz - it was the perfect ending to a perfect summer Sunday evening…

[Image: [Image: © David Weeks]

OLD BLOG - NEW LOOK

The regular reader of this blog --- sorry, the WHAT? --- will notice it has been given a make-over... OK, well, basically, I just chose a new blogger template! This 'face-lift' - or is that too grand an expression? - is simply aimed at making it slightly easier to read since, at my age, print seems to be constantly getting smaller!

Oh, yes, and I’ve also started a NEW blog which will contain, as it’s title explains, Just Stories so they can be read without having to wade through all my other mental meanderings. All of which is more than enough effort for a day when the temperature in London is already 29º and rising…

THE CROCODILE WHO GOT RELIGION

The Crocodile was a child of nature. He lazed about in the sun on the banks of the Nile for quite a lot of the time and when he wasn’t basking, he was swimming around gobbling up hundreds of innocent little fish by the toothy jaw-full.

The Crocodile was happy and whilst the fish weren’t especially happy (although it all happened far too quickly for much in the way of philosophical reflection) everyone accepted that it was ‘nature’s way’: crocodiles ate fish; fish got eaten…

Then one day a Missionary came to call and, through the use of many texts of Holy Scripture and much passionate oratory, showed the Crocodile the error of his ways. So powerful a preacher was this Missionary that the Crocodile was quickly convicted of his fearful wickedness, after which - with many tears of contrition - he repented of his manifold sins and embraced the True Faith with every fibre in his scaly body.

Thereafter the Crocodile became a totally reformed individual and never again ate little fishes --- without, that is, offering up a devoutly fervent prayer for their tiny immortal souls!


© Brian Sibley 2006
[Image: Larvalbug]

THE TOAST IS: “ENGLAND!”

Latest from BBC News-online: "FULL-TIME: England defeat Paraguay 1-0 in their World Cup opener, but it was far from convincing from England."

Oh, dear, I thought it hadn't gone too brilliantly as there weren't excessive sounds of jubilation coming from the streets.

Changing the subject, then...

Returning to favourite literary meals (see one of yesterday’s blogs), my dear friend Michael (an American) e-mailed to say that he always liked reading about “the little meals of bread and cheese” that Dorothy enjoyed en route to the Emerald City in ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’.

But when it comes to toast - I mean BUTTERED toast - I can’t help feeling that this is a peculiarly English obsession.

I mean, when J Alfred Prufrock (in the poem by T S Eliot, another American) talks of “the taking of a toast and tea”, it sounds decidedly pale, thin and dry - and absolutely nothing like the buttery doorsteps so enjoyed by Mr Toad.

Whereas perhaps only an Englishman such as sometime Poet Laureate, John Betjeman (denied all those muffins and waffles enjoyed by Americans at breakfast), could talk about being "safe in a world of trains and buttered toast" with a passionate conviction that tells you just how substantially thick the toast (and the butter) need to be!

And even in the bizarre world of Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (also an Englishman) selects it as the final triumphant addition to the unorthodox ingredients of Alice’s ‘Drink Me’ bottle: “Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off…”

Mind you, like my antibiotics, that particular beverage did result in some rather unpleasant side effects!

[Image:Sir John Tenniel]

WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED (II)

Shouldn't have mocked... By 4.00 a.m., I was developing several nice, by-the-book, penicillin side-effects: aching joints and muscles, swollen face, itching eyes, pins-and-needles; though not, to my great relief, the much to be abhorred 'black, hairy tongue…'

After a call to the emergency doctor, I was taken off the medication and have to go to a pharmacy in Brixton to which - it all sounds very unlikely - they will have a faxed a new prescription for a non-penicillin antibiotic...

Interesting, by the way, that 'antibiotic' was coined from the Greek words 'anti' (against) and 'bio' (life). Hmm, 'against life'? Not the most reassuring name to have come up with!

WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

Just back from the doctors with antibiotic medication for cellulitis, a condition that is both painful and boring. However, according to the accompanying leaflets, the tablets (which come in a choice of colours) are ALSO used in treating chest and throat infections; infections of the mouth, gums and teeth; boils, abscesses and carbuncles; ulcers, eczema and acne; sinusitis, pharyngitis and tonsillitis as well as inflammation of the middle ear! So, as David helpfully suggested, they may well help cure a few other things besides the cellulitis - and maybe even some things I don’t even know I’ve got!

The list of potential side effects - vomiting, stomach pain, heartburn and diarrhoea - is predictable, but problematic since, as David again helpfully pointed out, how does one know if the diarrhoea is ‘side effect diarrhoea’ or just common-or-garden diarrhoea?

Anyway, all that pales into insignificance when compared with what, to me, is a completely new and very alarming possible side effect --- ‘BLACK HAIRY TONGUE’!

Excuse me; I’ve got to go take a look in the mirror….

PHEW!

I see we’re having the usual rubbishy British summer then…

Just compare some of today's temperatures around the world:

Los Angeles: 18°
Sydney : 19°
Mexico City : 20°
Venice : 21°
Athens : 22°
Istanbul : 23°
Lisbon : 24°
Bermuda : 25°
Tenerife : 26°
Casablanca : 27°
Tokyo : 28°

And LONDON?

Well, need you ask?
Only what you'd expect..........
A miserable and totally unsatisfactory 29°!

[Image: Clipart Heaven]

TASTEFUL WRITING

In my book, the test of a good writer is his or her ability to write about food so that I can actually TASTE it!

Enid Blyton, for example, was constantly hauling out the picnic basket and dispensing the proverbial lashings of ginger beer and the books of Roald Dahl, Beatrix Potter, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, A A Milne, J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis are FULL of nosh and noshing! And for ever book I mention, you could probably suggest a dozen more...

Of my many favourites, the one I savour the most is in Kenneth Grahame’s incomparable ‘The Wind in the Willows’.

I read it first - and in one day! - when I was nine years old. Grahame clearly loved his food and the book contains several substantial meals. But it is the simple snack that the Gaoler’s Daughter takes to the hapless Toad when he finds himself incarcerated in “a dank and noisome dungeon” that sets my taste buds dancing:

“She carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled high with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats and the twitter of sleepy canaries…”

Now, that’s how toast ought to be! If only Mr Russell Hobbs had read ‘The Wind in the Willows’…

[Illustration © Ernest H Shepard]

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER

It's OK, it was just a false alarm!

I’ve just noticed that two days have passed since the calendar read 6/6/06 and yet, despite the remake of ‘The Omen’ having opened (happily to dismal reviews) and dark media-rumours of rampant paranoia amongst expectant mothers not wishing to give birth on such a seemingly inauspicious date, there’s no actual sign that the Anti-Christ is now in our midst - apart, of course, from the usual suspects…

But what do I know? I’m just a cynic. Far better to consult an informed oracle and I commend (either because, if you’re a believer, you may find it helpful or because, if your not, it’s good to spend at least a few minutes each day wondering why-the-internet-is-full-of-such-scarily-strange things) a web-page entitled What about Barcodes and 666: The Mark of the Beast?

You that have ears to hear, listen for the sounds as the bar-code reader scans your bargain-value pack of toilet tissue... It is the call of the Beast: "Clickety-clickety-click..."

THE CAT IN THE FLAT

Scouring the internet for apartments in Venice, I have found some truly evocative property descriptions, such as “large leaving room, very lighty, with arc windows over the underneath canal.”

One of the best, however, is this advertisement that - were I not seriously allergic to cats - would be impossible to resist:

“Apartment Eva is an apartment in San Polo area, near the Church Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Situated on the first floor, it is composed of a bedroom, kitchen, little bathroom and a terrace with a table and the chairs.

“This is an apartment where a young journalist Sabrina lives. She spends a lot of time out of her house and
sometimes rents her apartment for short stay.

“There is a cat named Eva, who lives in apartment. Sabrina picked her up and took care about her. And now, when she is away her friends take care about her, and when apartment is rented to some guest, they should devide apartment with Eva. In case you like cats she would be glad to share apartment with you.

“Eva is completely authonomouse. There will be the food for her, you should only give it to Eva.”

As opposed, presumably, to anyone else!

[The cat in the snap (by David) is not - as far as I am aware - ‘Eva’, but she is a genuine Venetian feline and is probably equally “authonomouse”!]