Lemon Syllabub

Ugh. Weekus Horribilis. Instead of an account, I think a Syllabub might be more helpful. Do try this at home:

1 cup cream, chilled
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup white wine
1/8 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
A pinch of nutmeg
fresh mint

Whip the cream and sugar in a chilled bowl, until the cream begins to thicken. Gradually whip in the white wine, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Continue to whip until light and fluffy, but not grainy. Cover and chill. Serve in chilled parfait glasses, garnished with a dash of nutmeg, a sprig of mint, and a slice of lemon.

Chilled, ek se.

Send Pomes Now

We’ve been working round the click widdershins, and are pleased to announce that The Silvery Tay Poetry Competition is now open.

Here you go: http://ppomes.blogspot.com/

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Make a wish

I wish that as many people as have read The Da Vinci Code would read George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat’.

(You can find George, and his stuff, here: http://www.monbiot.com/
and here: http://www.turnuptheheat.org/)

Flipside # 1

There’s a downside to having teen kids in the house. No, let me rephrase that: there are downsides to having teen kids in the house. But some of the downsides have flipsides that are actually upsides.

Like, music. Thanks to them, I have been exposed to a lot of music that I wouldn’t have heard had they not been living in my house. Much of this exposure has been traumatic, but some of it has been numinous. They call it “Mom’s musical education”, as though I have none, but I am glad of it when it brings me things like Lark, and Regina Spektor.

Music lives, despite what my grandfather predicted. Even though he would not agree.

Great Scot

Now look here. They dedicate entire months to that Burns fellow, but not even a single hour to William McGonagall, Poet Laureate of the Silvery Tay. I find this shocking.

It is said that William Topaz McGonagall was "so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius". He was a legend in his own lifetime, fearlessly reciting anti-alcohol poems in Dundee drinkeries and elsewhere across the world. Despite peltings of rotten eggs and vegetables, he pursued his vocation with vigour and commitment until the day he died.

So, here at Pandora’s, I decree that the 12th of January will not be my birthday anymore. I am giving it to William McGonagall, and it will be known henceforth as Silvery Tay Day. I’ll accept no more diamonds, no more pearls, as gifts. No more fine French perfume, if you please. I’ll take only bad poems, and very bad ones indeed, on the 12th day of any given January from now until my end. There will be a Competition, we’ll have a guest judge and it will be… I haven’t decided yet, and the worst poem will win a Floating Title, and that title will be called… I haven’t decided yet.

All interested parties had better get started. Forty lines or thereabouts, there’s not a purple moment to lose here. As an example of what you’re up against, I give you: The Railway Bridge Of The Silvery Tay, a Poem by William McGonagall:


The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

BEAUTIFUL Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.
The greatest wonder of the day,
And a great beautification to the River Tay,
Most beautiful to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
That has caused the Emperor of Brazil to leave
His home far away, incognito in his dress,
And view thee ere he passed along en route to Inverness.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
The longest of the present day
That has ever crossed o'er a tidal river stream,
Most gigantic to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
Which will cause great rejoicing on the opening day
And hundreds of people will come from far away,
Also the Queen, most gorgeous to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
And prosperity to Provost Cox, who has given
Thirty thousand pounds and upwards away
In helping to erect the Bridge of the Tay,
Most handsome to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
I hope that God will protect all passengers
By night and by day,
And that no accident will befall them while crossing
The Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
For that would be most awful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
And prosperity to Messrs Bouche and Grothe,
The famous engineers of the present day,
Who have succeeded in erecting the Railway
Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
Which stands unequalled to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

- William McGonagall



But that’s not all. There is a sequel, because, alas, the Tay Bridge collapsed a year later, in 1879. I’ll post it tomorrow.

P.S. Does anyone know if there’s a video shop in Jozi that has a DVD of ‘The Great McGonagall’, with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers?

Pop Quiz

Who said: “Do not debase yourself for worms. Of all sinners, the merchants of deception are the most vile. Their fate is sealed.”

Was it:
a)William Shakespeare
b)Robert Mugabe
c)Tom Eaton
d) Pope Benedict XVI

ANSWER: c) These are the words of a trigger-happy angel, referring to advertising execs, in Mr Eaton’s new novel ‘Texas’.


(Apologies to Hogarth)

Italian Bath Song

In Mike Ford’s honour, I was going to write an epic poem, but I’ve written an Italian bath song instead. It goes like this:


1
Zuppo pomodore
Napolitana arrabiata Verdi
Brodo con fungi brodo vegetale
Tiramisu piano canoli maria

Chorus -

Osso bucco Agnolotti agnolotti
Mmmhmmm hmmm
agnolotti

2
lentiche spaghetti
cacciatore frangelico zuchero
succo Panzerotti porcini
da consumarsi entro il

Chorus

Repeat 1

Chorus, however many times you want.


The tune’s along the lines of a cross between the Macarena and Schubert’s Der Lindenbaum. Try it tonight, it’s easy. He’d like it, I think.

John M Ford (Mike) is Dead

I never managed to actually get my hands on any of his official writings, but got to know him through his posts and comments at Making Light, the sum of which could fill quite a few very funny, very serious books. As Neil Gaiman has said, “…all of [his] great bon mots really did just come tumbling straight out -- they were always replies to something, with never a hint of ‘here's one I prepared earlier’ about them…”

Here are three of my favourites, from the particular body of work that Neil’s talking about:



“Scotty! I need a sonnet in three minutes or we’re all dead!”
“Och, Cap’n, ye canna force the muse. Have ye got a rhyme for ‘silvery Tay’ somewhere on the bridge?”

- John M Ford



Against Entropy

The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days --
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.

- John M Ford



NASA ANNOUNCES PLANS TO EXPLORE LANGDON SPACE
For Immediate Release As Soon As We Find Some Money

As part of its “Mission Earth” program to do things that might, you know, be comprehensible to the average American (see “Manned Mars Program to Incorporate ‘Survivor’ Elements” above), the agency today announced its “Mission to Langdon Space,” in which teams of EVA-suited scientists would be “inserted” into multiply-connected Occupational Use Terrains (MachOUT universes) with the intention of discovering who is, in physical-science terms, getting any, with whom, and in what combinations.

The first question that came to reporter’s minds should be obvious. The second question was, “What if everybody just, like, fibs?” Mission Specialist Victor von Kinsey (winner of this year’s Nash Trophy for Interesting Paramathematical Behavior) replied, “We naturally expect respondents to fall back on constructions such as ‘It depends on what you mean by “whoopee” and ‘Nudge nudge say no more.’ The purpose of this project is to collect interesting data from which results suitable for premium-cable distribution can be redacted. Everything else is error bars.”

Asked what the practical application of this effort might be, Dr. Kinsey said, “Global warming,” and ran off singing “Du, du, bist eine kleine Teekanne.”

- John M Ford


(These I took from Making Light, without asking - apologies: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ )

RIP dear man, although I think you’ll be too busy entertaining the astrals for any resting. We have lots of your words to keep us company, and we’ll treasure them.

Science Idols

Ahem. This just in. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists recently awarded Michael Crichton a journalism award. For his novel State Of Fear.

I… I’m… zzt...

Speechless.


The Union of Concerned Scientists is running its Science Idols cartoon contest. I was vacillating between numbers 3 and 7 but now I’m sommer going to vote for number 10, dammit.

http://ucsaction.org/campaign/vote_now_for_science_idol/?qp_source=wacucs%5fhomearspotlig

So Not Cool

There is a certain elitist discriminatory practice whose purpose it is to put an extra razor-wire frill above the electric fence on top of the eight-metre-high two-metre-thick concrete-encased lead wall that separates the have-maths from the have-not-maths.

“Oh, don’t be silly, it’s not that difficult,” the number-abled will simper, “Look, I’ll show you…”
And it always ends in tears, for the differently-abled one. The genius will be smirking and puffed up and superior. But again, as I’ve said before, somebody has to make the sandwiches. I really think people ought to be nicer to the ones who make the sandwiches.

Read more about this scourge in an article by Tom Eaton, here: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=279760&area=/insight/insight__columnists

I am, as you know, his Number One Fan.

Pale Green Mainstream

I was wondering about civilization, and about climate change, and thinking as always about how interesting the next century’s going to be. I looked up ‘Civilisation’ in the dictionary, just to be sure that I knew what it meant, and came across ‘Poop’ (it happens all the time. Dictionary-induced ADD).

So I asked some adolescents what ‘Poop’ meant. They were enthusiastic about it, in the way that only adolescents and Leon Schuster can be about all things fecal. If you want to talk to adolescents about the back bit of a ship and you want them to pay attention and concentrate, then don’t call it a Poop.

Same with climate change. Don’t call it global warming in public unless you want some armchair expert pounding out letters to the editor about how much snow there’s been in Antarctica lately and that last time he checked that didn’t mean warm.

There’s glitch in the ECM (effective communication matrix) with regard to the telling of the climate and emissions story. It does need to be told like a story, and with pictures too, because that’s what ordinary people all over the world respond to. They don’t relate and certainly can’t respond constructively to papers by A. Climatologist et al. Actually, there are some marginally more-informed people who don’t respond terribly constructively to them either, as a quick look around the comments section of climate-related articles in MIT’s Technology Review will tell you.

For a good few decades now, climate scientists have been trying to say what they need to say but can’t say in words that most citizens (even ones who read Popular Mechanics rather than People) can relate to. The beleaguered scientists wave graphs around and talk about ‘albedo’ and ‘hockey sticks" and ‘ITCZ’ and people either pity them, or think they’re crazy and should get out more, or that it must be a conspiracy by eco-terrorists against Our Way of Life. The Greens, you know. I pay my taxes, I don’t hurt anyone, I put a Ronnie Bag on my pavement at least once a year, leave me alone.
There are poets and artists and other assorted activists who do understand the scientists to some degree but they almost always end up dementedly joining Greenpeace and are thus further lost to the world of reason, which does not help the cause. (By the way, Germaine, your comment in public about the crocodile guy getting his just desserts definitely doesn’t help the cause, even if it is true)

It’s Joe Soap who could, if he chose to, contribute to a huge whack of mitigation. Instead of to a huge whack of catastrophe. He won’t choose to, though. He has to be made to, and bullying isn’t allowed so manipulation is necessary.

Someone has cottoned onto this and is looking at how best to deploy the manipulation. It’s the British Institute for Public Policy Research (described by RealClimate.org as “a UK based left-leaning think tank”), and they’re using a company called Linguistic Landscapes, which has some nice window dressing but who are basically about PR and marketing. While there’s something about this affair between Marketing and Climate that makes me want to scream, it might be fairly good work. Depending whose side you’re on. Pale Green might become mainstream because you can depend on marketing to sell stuff or die trying, and that’s what they’ll be selling with this. They’re using language like “…we need to work in a shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement… treat climate change communications in the same way as brand communications… Approach positive climate behaviors in the same way as marketers approach buying and consuming”. I’m biting my tongue.

The astonishing ongoing success of the Eden Project in Cornwall had mostly to do with horticultural determination in the beginning, but I bet marketing helped with getting the vital millions of visitors in. All those visitors leave with a smile that didn’t necessarily come from consuming stuff, and that’s cool. They also leave knowing what "waste neutral" means, and that’s very valuable in ways that money can’t buy.

I have this fantasy in which the mega consumers of Bedfordview get sentenced to a month’s tourism in Cornwall instead of Dubai and come back to happily convert their previously pastoral but now hideous suburb into an undulating valley of bubble domes and vegetable gardens, with little padstals along Kloof road. It’s nice, that dream. Sunbeds swopped for gaily fluttering umbrellas, gyms turned into concert venues, peace love and flowers man. Can you dig it?

A belated account, in three parts, for Dio.

Part I

In which an expedition is undertaken...

During my July expedition to Hermanus, I pondered over how few whales were frolicking in that comely bay. I began discreet enquiries as to the whereabouts of the great beasts. A local fisherman suggested that perhaps it might be a little early in the season and that I ought to consider myself lucky to have seen any at all. However, his toothless smile, twinkly eyes and candid manner did not fool me! My sharp instincts in these matters led me to consider the possibility of a scandalous conspiracy. Just then, my good father received a telephonic communication from my godfather in Amanzimtoti. With keen interest I learned from my father that my godfather and his wife were sitting on their lawn watching whales. In Amanzimtoti. We have always suspected my godfather and his wife of nefarious activities, and now here was proof.

“By gum, Daddy!” I exclaimed excitedly, “They have whales in Amanzimtoti and we don’t have any here in Hermanus!”

“Indeed, indeed,” mused my good father bemusedly, “Most curious indeed. Daughter, we must exert ourselves tirelessly in pursuit of a solution to this perplexing puzzle! We have always suspected your godfather and his wife of nefarious activities, and now here is proof!”

“Yes!!!” I enthused with enthusiasm.


Part II

In which the intrepid sleuths tirelessly pursue their instincts...

And so it was that we spent the week relentlessly wandering the charming cliff-paths and the beaches and the rockpools, with great courage fighting off bloodthirsty Tourists, Sabre-Toothed Dassies and deranged Whale Criers, stopping only too briefly for replenishment at various pubs, restaurants and coffee shops, and it was most exertional. We found no further clues. We even made two sub-expeditions to Kalk Bay, hoping to glean information from intellectuals with old grey-muzzled dogs in antique bookshoppes or arty types in quaint alleys, or indeed from the waiter at the Brass Bell, but alas.

News of our mission had spread, and those in the know had detected our stealthy footsteps on patina’d pavements, and had obviously gone to sit in their wretched little hillside houses to peer out from behind their genuine sash windows, smugly. I also tried, in vain, to obtain the autographs of Ann Donald and Finnuala Dowling, neither of whom was anywhere to be seen. I suspected that this was because they were in on the conspiracy. I noted their reticence, and marked them down on my trusty Suspicious Persons list.

In due course I returned home to Johannesburg, no closer to solving the mysterious mystery of the whales that we did not see in Hermanus but that my godfather and his wife did see in Amanzimtoti. Just then, I received a missive from Secret Agent S. It treated on a conference by SAUFOR (South Africa's Unidentified Flying Objects Resource) on the shameful covering-up of extraterrestrial technologies by Authorities and suchlike. Also mentioned was the Relatively Very Recent Incident in Port Shepstone, in which a spaceship was observed crashing into the sea by a great many eye witlesses. Authorities have to date found no trace of that spaceship and have expressed doubt as to its status as a spaceship at all, preferring instead to placate citizens with fairytales about weather phenomena etc, etc. But as we know, Authorities are always lying.

So I joined the dots, crossed my eyes, and came to a startling conclusion that I will now reveal to you!


Part III

In which a conclusion is reached, a revelation made, and a follow up expedition is followed up...

I will now reveal that:

My godfather and his wife were working for the aliens, in cahoots with Authorities, and had arranged for most of the whales to be in the Durban area whilst everybody who usually knows where to look for whales was looking for them in the Hermanus area, so that the heinous aliens might thus abduct our whales, undetected, from those Natalian waters! HA! We had always suspected my godfather and his wife of nefarious activities!

“Oh, Daddy!” I emoted, emotionally, “We cannot let the aliens escape with our whales, no, never! They can take our lives but they’ll never take our whales!”

“I concur most vigorously, Daughter!” My good father concurred, vigorously. “I will at once invite the traitorous pair to HQ here in Hermanus under a pretext, and lock them in my shed until your Mother returns from Cornwall!”
With this, he invited the traitorous pair to his house for the weekend under a pretext, where, as promised, he lured them into his garden shed, and where they presently remain.

I am happy to report that during my most recent expedition, from which I am now returned as you might surmise, we had some evidence that our brave plan has indeed foiled the terrible plot to abduct our Whales! Yes! There are more whales in that good bay right now than there are geeks at a gaming convention!

:-)

Hermanus

These three pics were taken in Hermanus. The last one is at Hemel En Aarde dam, the middle one at Kwaaiwater, and the top one taken from the cliffs just west of there – the dark blob in the water is a Southern Right Whale, just the top ten percent of him, about forty (maybe less) metres away. I get so beside myself with this that I can’t take proper pictures, and so I missed the rest of him. Nearby was a mother and her calf, they were just moseying around contentedly. Further out in the bay about a dozen others were leaping clear out of the water, and slapping their tails, and generally showing off as though they knew we were watching. Which, of course, they did. How do you know that a whale knows you’re there? If you’re standing on a cliff with a whale in the sea below you, and he rolls so that one great eye looks directly at you, you know that he knows. It’s nothing short of awesome, and it makes this silly world we live in seem irrelevant.
Apart from the whales, the sheer beauty of everything within a three hundred kilometer radius lets you know you’re somewhere special. There’s a valley here, called Hemel En Aarde (Heaven And Earth), and that’s exactly what you get. Who could ask for more?

I am completely in love with Hermanus. I will live there, soon. I’m doing everything in my power to make this happen. I’ve decided this, and once I decide something it’s practically carved in stone. I don’t decide things very often, something has to be monumental before I decide on it so hear ye, hear ye: I will live in Hermanus. I will grow old there, happily. Mark me.

Whinge

I am a very bad blogger. Sometimes, I even forget I have a blog. Today, I remembered, and shuffled over to see if it was still there. It was. Is. Bugger. Did I write all this? How is it that I have time to write this much waffle? And it’s not like I didn’t ask myself, at the beginning, when a blog seemed like an exciting sort of thing to do, how is it that people have so much time to write such waffle? So I knew what I was in for.
But really, what’s this all about? It isn’t real writing or anything and I don’t think anyone thinks it is. At the top end I suppose it’s all about traffic, and the point of it is probably equally divided between peppy popularity and product placement. But down here at the pond-scum end, it’s just us little amoebas whiffling away about whatnot. And haven’t we figured it out by now: the internet is not real life and 99% of the people who live there are not real people? Yes, of course we have. We watch the next generation blissing out on some myspace hallucination, and we know they’ll grow out of it. Or will they? It’s different now. Mind you, all old people say that, when they don’t feel like getting their heads around whatever new thing.

Doug Shaw Update

Doug Shaw loves me. He said so. And not just any old Doug Shaw either, but Doug Shaw Prime. THE Doug Shaw! Not just Doug Shaw the arch villain, or Doug Shaw the mad professor, or Doug Shaw the trapeze artist; but Doug Shaw Himself. Doug Shaw loves me because I mentioned his name so many times, a couple of posts back. So this is how it works, eh? Mention someone’s name enough times and they find your blog, just like that. And then they either love you or they hate you. Doug Shaw loves me, Mandy De Waal hates me: 50/50 odds, not bad… Neil Gaiman, Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman, Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman. Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman, Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman...Tori Amos…

So, Doug Shaw Prime, thank you for solving the Doug Shaw mystery. I’d leave a grateful comment on your blog but I can’t, it won’t let me. I’m not going to push it by hacking either , not because I can’t (he-he), it’s just that I’m dead scared of that half-a-cow corpse you have in your freezer…
Dear readers (all three of you :-) ): you can see the corpse for yourselves by going to http://revdj.livejournal.com/ and scrolling down a bit.
But, seriously: are people googling themselves or something? ‘Cos, how does this work? What are the chances of you stumbling across your name mentioned on one of a zillion piddly blogs, just by accident? If I google myself I don’t get anything at all. I am unfamous. Infamous would be more interesting and probably quite lucrative. But I’m not going to go there because I still have living relatives and there’d be hell to pay.