Coronation Trifle with Extra Ducks - flash fiction

Georgia watched the Maître D for the signal, wishing he would get on with it. Her gilded brass tray wasn’t light, with its load of sixteen cut glass dishes containing Coronation Trifle.

One of the waiters brushed past her headed for the kitchens. He was showing off with a huge stack of used plates and silverware balanced confidently on one hand. As the heavy swing door closed behind him there was a huge crash.

“Extra ducks!” With a click of fingers the Maître D summoned two waitresses who were clearing serving dishes and directed them toward the kitchens. He then waved peremptorily to Georgia to begin serving the desserts. She was only carrying enough trifles for the top banqueting table where the Mayor was seated. She then had to return to the kitchens for more.

Behind the swing doors, chaos reigned. An extra duck had slipped in spilled gravy and gashed her knees on broken crockery, the other duck was trying to stem the bleeding with her apron. 

Georgia sidled around the mess. It was being made still worse by the waiter who had caused it sweeping around with a broom already impregnated with duck skin, gravy and spinach. The floor was becoming a skating rink. The kitchen staff were ignoring everything, their shift was almost over.

Georgia could not possibly cross that floor carrying another heavy tray. She sat down and began eating Coronation Trifle.

Empleomania - Word of the Day, Decade or ?

Taken from Susi Dent's Word of the Day -

‘Empleomania’

the desire to hold office or wield power, whatever the cost.

I shall say nothing else about the unfortunate Russians' overlord.

9/11 Where I Was Not

 On our first and my only trip to the USA, Rob and I spent a week in New York being total tourists, before moving on to visit friends Stan and Jen in Medford Lakes, NJ.

If our original itinerary had worked out, we'd have been in New York and would probably have done the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building on the 9th September. Once actually there, the more enigmatic Empire State came first, but might not have done if it hadn't been closer to our hotel. This budget hotel had roaches in the shower and smelled mouldy, but that was ok, it was exciting, we were in the Big Apple!

Luckily, because of various minor complications like Stan and Jen being on holiday in the West Indies and because BA's discounted airmiles tickets weren't available when we'd originally planned to go, we'd reversed the order of our trip and went to Medford Lakes after New York. We never did get to the World Trades Centre and I am eternally grateful for minor complications.

Watching the events on live TV, while in the safe living room of Stan and Jen's charming log-cabin home on the shore of the lake, was nonetheless terrifying. None of us could believe what we were seeing. We spent half the day frantically trying to phone home, to reassure our family in England that we were safe. All the mobile lines were completely overloaded and landlines weren't much better. Eventually managed to get an email through to my in-laws in Leeds and asked them to please phone my mother in Hastings to reassure her.

We carried on watching the inadequate TV reports as Stan managed to get in touch with his cousins in New York, who thankfully were safe too. Meanwhile almost as alarming was seeing that there was nobody on top of this. Politicians were panicking and TV channels had no known pattern, no appropriate template to follow, on how to report an event of this magnitude which was actually happening to their fellow American citizens, not people in far off lands of whom they knew little and cared less.

The pristine, primped and botoxed newsreaders unemotionally reported on whatever garbled messages emerged from the authorities, between jollifying adverts and distraught and panic-stricken vox-pops. Those presenters were without a tear out of place and the requisite perfect, toothy grins were still plastered on their shiny faces, their body language mocking the horrors they were failing to report in any meaningful way.

There was no information.

Later in the day I went alone for a swim in the lake, it was peaceful and temporarily soothing.

                                                                             *

I don’t deliberately try to mark 9/11. The stress (mine), the horror (everyone's) and the fear (the victims), is something I'd like to forget, although I won't. The only events which have come close to affecting me that much since are the horrific Grenfell Tower fire and most recently the impossibly hopeless evacuation of desperate people from Kabul. The only earlier event to have the same effect was, as a child, watching reports from Aberfan. I felt I was one of those children, experiencing that horror.

Swimming vs. Sewage

I learned to swim in warm, tropical seas and though the English Channel is my only option these days, I love it. The local sea area from Beachy Head to Hastings pier was recently declared a Marine Conservation Zone and has amongst many other delights, rare chalk reefs, seahorses, dogfish, many spawning species of fish and rock boring piddocks who glow in the dark!

Our beaches are stony at high tide, covered in a fascinating variety of smooth, rounded pebbles from common flints and chert to quartz, jasper and indeterminate geodes with tiny crystals glistening in their crevices. 

Low waters reveal gleaming sands for building castles and canals, there is the remains of a shipwreck, the Amsterdam which foundered in 1749, a  petrified forest and rockpools with a myriad tiny seashells and creatures all enjoyed by locals and holidaymakers alike. The clean waters and beaches have been a huge joy for us all during two Covid summers, until earlier this month.

At the height of the summer holiday, swimming became unwise and unsafe. A major sewage spill near the railway track at Bulverhythe flooded beach-huts, contaminated many miles of sea and beach. Southern Water, whose responsibility it is, spend as little as possible on maintaining the infrastructure whilst awarding their grandees and shareholders huge bonuses from the charges which we have to pay to them, to get fresh water and sewerage.

To say the people who live here are angry is an insulting understatement. Our Marine Conservation Zone is contaminated, beach hut owners lose their prized huts, the Hastings beach-launched fishing fleet may have to go elsewhere and many tourists surely will so many local livelihoods are threatened.

Is this the price we must pay, to live on a fairly crowded island, surrounded by waters which though beautiful are a mere pawn in political games and uncared for by capitalism? It damned well shouldn't be!

Decluttering vs. Stuff

Decluttering, rejection of  'stuff' and the Kondo type of minimalism have become so fashionable, one is expected to feel guilty if disinclined to comply. But this fashion not only ignores individual creativity, it ignores the history that so many people keep safe, around them. 

Possessions are about so much more than style. I have my grandmother's sari, I never wear it but that's not the point. I have more things belonging to her and others of her generation, and subsequent generations. I have things which my children have made, things I've made including many clothes. I don't wear those clothes now and I don't look at the children's creations very often, but I know where they are, and what they signify. 

And I have books, so many books they'd give Ms Kondo the heebie-jeebies! They're not ornaments, they are culture. 

Mullock - Word of the Day

Mullock could be a handy word when commenting on the activities of certain politicians, eg. those blithering mountebanks have made a total mullock of... (insert official title of latest politicians' balls-up)

Mullock - noun originally describing waste from gold mining activities in Australia. If you prefer non-antipodean words, try slag-heap. 

At Random - My Blogging Topics

 I've decided to introduce a new topic for some pieces in this blog - 'At Random' for thoughts, essays, rants etc. which don't really fit in with any existing named labels/topics.  I already have 55 labels which is unwieldy and introducing a new one for every random entry seems impractical. 

I do need to reduce the whole list, for a start I have reviews under three separate labels which is probably unnecessary.  Some topics are self-contained and explanatory, The Fair Weather Gardener seems obvious, while Unsuitable Authors is ambiguous. Unsuitable why and according to who? The answer to the latter is my grandmother who, after being partly instrumental in teaching me to read before I was five was very censorious about what I read.

...remarkable things... is an open ended label, but only used very occasionally, for things (mostly books) which I've found truly impressive or moving.

Project 31 Women is my ongoing research into 31 specific artists, who all exhibited at one ground-breaking exhibition in 1943. My research into these artists has become more desultory since I produced the first of a flurry of entries in 2013, but it's been my most important project, sharing it has allowed information about some unknown artists to be seen and many people have followed it and used it for their research etc, which I'm very pleased about. The whole point of Project 31 Women was to get these artists known and I won't allow it to fade away.  Ideally I'd like to see the project become a book.

Other labels I will juggle with, is it necessary to have Animals and Wildlife separate? What about Conservation and Environment? I will have to think on't.

 

Last Supper - Just a Bowl of Cherries

I read an interesting and evocative column by food critic Jay Rayner, about Last Suppers. Not only his idea of what he would really want for his own last supper, but the concept of last suppers. He was most concerned to be in good company, during his final meal. 

And he's right, it should be about who you are with as much as the food. 

I'd be with the family, all of them, from parents and husbands to adopted sisters and step-second-cousins-once-removed, all gathered together at the same time, in the same place, for once. Adults nattering and drinking and catching up because some of them haven't seen each other for years. Teenagers sharing selfies and apps, children racing around the tables with cousins they hardly ever see, babe's being nursed, or bottle fed or whatever comes naturally. 

Everyone could have whatever they wanted to eat and drink, from a gigantic buffet satisfying everyone from carnivores, vegetarians, pescetarians, fruitarians and vegans to insectivores, if there are any! There can be wine, beer, spirits, juices, tea, coffee and even those vile branded colas whose name I refuse to mention, for the kids.

I'd eat a perfectly cooked baked potato, made with a large desiree spud, with crispy, very slightly charred skin and soft but not mushy interior, split open and filled with a mound of butter, a large wedge of ripe brie and sprinkled with salt, black pepper and fresh grated nutmeg. There'd be a side salad of fresh watercress.  I'd follow it with the world's best, most chocolatey chocolate mouse and a huge bowl of ripe, dark cherries. Everything washed down with a bottle or two of Farnese Montipulciano D'Abruzzo.

Hmm. Think I'll start now, by sending the invitations. If I don't die, we can all do it again next year!

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/aug/25/one-foot-in-the-gravy-jay-rayners-last-supper

Garage Sale

7 garages in Fulham, London were sold for £700,000.

In view of that fact, my garage is also for sale.
It can be yours for a mere £100,000.

This period property has brick walls, 
an almost leak free tiled roof, azure
painted double doors and an enormous clematis,
which climbs over the roof and enters under the tiles, 
fills the loft space and encourages 
huge spiders and other sustainable wildlife.
Pith helmet and machete not supplied.

Sale does include:- 
a 37 year old road bike (tyres shot), 
17 loudspeakers of varying vintages, 
11 bits of carpet - random colours, 
3 lino off-cuts - fake tile effect, 
1 rusty wheelbarrow, 
2 tea-chests full of old paperbacks 
which never quite got unpacked when we moved in, 
113 random bits of timber that might be useful, 
2 broken bookcases - hence the books in tea-chests,
370 black plastic flowerpots, various sizes, snails included, 
1 box full of cables and other useful bits of vintage wire - needs unravelling, 
13 cans of nearly finished paint, in 1980's hues,
1 boot-mounted bike rack that fits neither the boot nor the bicycle 
and 
2,174 other equally fascinating and potentially invaluable objects. 

Not to mention a squirrel's nest - the squirrel would prefer to remain anonymous -
so I haven't mentioned him. Shhh!
 
I must add,  you can't drive into the garage 
because a wall has been built at the wrong angle 
blocking one door and a neighbour parks his Mini
far too close to the other door. 
… Also, the garage is not in Fulham.

Psephologist - Word of the Day.

The Greek word psephos means pebble. So maybe I'm a psephologist, I spend time every week on pebbly beaches. But no. The relavent pebbles were used by the world's first democracy as ballots.

So, a Psephologist, in case you don't know (I certainly didn't :D) is someone who specialises in using history and scientific analysis to examine election results. Good luck with making sense of Yesterday's local election!results. Whatever people felt like stuffing into the ballot boxes, it wasn't just pebbles.

Enough pebbles for a landslide...

A thought on brexit - which is an abomination of word and deed.

To the so called prime minister.
I will not listen to your pathetic press conference.
I will not endorse your perversion of democracy.
I will not condone your party’s defaming of my country.
I don’t suppose you want to know what I think,
I will tell you anyhow.

Please hold out your hands and imagine
I am giving you a rounded object
No not a bomb – I am a civilised person.
This is a rough, stone lump the size of a coconut.
Dull and heavy isn’t it?
This inert thing is a dinosaur coprolite.
It was shat out
Sixty-six million years ago by a beast
so vast and so ugly and so stupid,
it needed a second brain in its arse
just to be able to void primitive bowels
all over the doomed Cretaceous plains.
 
You, on the other hand, are not that impressive
if smelly beast, neither are you its once putrid dung.
You are the botfly maggot which slithered and slurped
in the slimy crevices and creases
of the crinkled, stinking, reptilian anus
which produced this huge, fossilised turd.

Word of the Day; Coprolite.

My word of the whole month really. Apply to whichever politician you want, there are plenty of deserving choices.

Its meaning - fossilised turd.

Decimate - Word of the Day

I do get perturbed by certain words, but I get far more perturbed when people use words which they don't seem to know the meaning of. The word 'decimate' doesn't mean to destroy or to devastate, it means to reduce by one in ten. Please tell the TV news journalists - all of them.

Before anyone starts,  let me just say yes, I agree that the English language changes, of course it does. And online dictionaries are starting to say that decimate means to devastate or to destroy. I just want to know what's wrong with the words devastate and destroy? Their meanings are not quite the same so to use one or other of those would be more precise, but decimate has become a favourite word in the news media, where precision is seldom their objective. A punishment for a rebellion in the Roman army was to decimate, literally to kill one in ten of the soldiers.

"A cohort (roughly 480 soldiers) selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten. Each group drew lots (sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot of the shortest straw fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning, clubbing, or stabbing. The remaining soldiers were often given rations of barley instead of wheat (the latter being the standard soldier's diet) for a few days, and required to bivouac outside the fortified security of the camp.^[3]  As the punishment fell by lot, all soldiers in a group sentenced to decimation were potentially liable for execution, regardless of individual degrees of fault, rank, or distinction."      Wikipedia

Wikipedia, yes I know. But is that any less likely to be correct on this particular issue that any other encyclopedia or dictionary? Every academic/expert writing entries in any of those had a position they wished to take, how does that differ from the enthusiasts who contribute to Wikipedia? I haven't the enthusiasm to delve deep into the original history of the Roman military.

Anyhow I can't read Latin.

Coffee, My Friend.

I don't like January, although the month which is most likely to drive me to drink is December. But I could give up the demon drink for January; I could, honestly! Or I could give up consuming animal products; although I haven't gone full-on Veganuary, I'm definitely cutting down on dairy this year, but it's harder than it might be, we were given a lot of cheese for Christmas, I'm just trying to make it last the whole month.

Postcard of the Algerian Coffee Stores, established in Soho in 1887.

The one thing I'm certain I could never give up is coffee. I can't wake in the morning without a cup of strong, freshly brewed coffee. And then another with, or even before breakfast and a third mid-morning. One or two more during the afternoon, but not usually in the evening as it does keep me awake, well something does. And I'm picky. The best coffee as far as I'm concerned, comes in the form of black, pungent beans from the Algeria Coffee Stores on Old Compton Street in Soho. When freshly ground these make the smoothest, tastiest most aromatic coffee available in this country. I've been drinking it for 30+ years. Am I a coffee snob? You bet!

I wasn't brought up drinking coffee, or tea for that matter. Those were grown up drinks, we children had water, milk or squash, occasionally hot chocolate. No other stimulants, cola was a rare treat although I never really liked it, I preferred orangeade. The first time I consciously chose coffee was aged about 12 when I wanted to impress an adult who didn't know me and offered me coffee.

Then there was my grandmother whose idea of a treat was to boil full cream milk and mix it with cheap instant coffee powder, a truly vile concoction complete with a slimy skin which formed on the top of the cup long before it was cool enough to drink. I would try spooning the slime into the saucer so I could drink it - not drinking was not an option - and I would still be told off, for making a mess. That was the worst coffee I've ever had.

The best was in Egypt. We were on Holiday in Cairo and had been lured into a warehouse behind a much smaller shop that sold rugs and cushions and leather, camel pouffes. The proprietor was quite certain he could persuade us to buy a larger rug or even a carpet so took us through to his huge, dusty warehouse. He offered us refreshment and when the coffee came it was, obviously Turkish coffee style, sweet and strong but it was also laced with cardamom. The effect was utterly delicious, I've since had the cardamom infused coffee elsewhere and even made it myself, but that first taste in the dusty carpet warehouse is still one of my best coffee memories. Did we buy a carpet, 'La, shukran,' just an un-stuffed camel pouffe, much easier to carry onto the plane to Manchester!

So when I'm old and grey - any minute now - and a medical person, who doesn't know anything about me apart from a few stats on a computer screen, says to me "You should probably give up drinking coffee you know, have a nice cup of decaf tea," I will decline sweetly, go home and have a nice cup of extra strong Algerian Special - no sugar, but maybe a pinch of cardamom.

And Finally... they Voted...

I lose sleep, frequently, over the unpatriotic, self-seeking disloyalty and short-sightedness displayed by this garbage of a government, and the cowardly, arrogant dolt who started it all quite unnecessarily.  





I could be even ruder, without using a single expletive, that might well by my only achievement for today. I refuse to use the B word.

Palm Oil, Why is it in Almost Everything I Try to Buy?!

Does bread and breakfast cereal need to contain Palm oil? What about peanut butter and lemon meringue pie? Or toothpaste, or shampoo? Of course not, so why the hell is it there?? Companies who claim that their palm oil is sustainably sourced are very seldom telling the truth; they either don't know and take someone else's word for it, or they more likely don't care. Forest destruction and the slaughter of wildlife continues, while they are still filling almost every product we can buy with unnecessary palm oil.

On a recent journey I was thirsty. Stopped at the small Tunbridge Wells service station on the A21 and nearly bought a bottle of M & S sparkling Florida Orange drink. But saw in time that it contains palm oil so put it back. Why a soft drink of any kind needs to contain oil, let alone palm oil, is beyond my comprehension. What was in them before palm oil became the go to ingredient for every manufactured product in the universe? Palm oil comes from the nut, palm kernel oil which is used in soaps etc comes from the outer layer around the nut. 

So, when did palm oil become ubiquitous? Not before the 1960's. I understand that the oil palm tree - Scientific name: Elaeis guineensisis - originated in West Africa, where it's been used by humans for four or five thousand years. But don't blame Africa, the continent itself uses all the palm oil grown there. Its spread to Indonesia and Malaysia began in the nineteenth century, introduced by colonial Europeans from The Netherlands and Britain. However it wasn't until the 60's that oil palm plantations in the Far East began to spread beyond what had previously been rubber plantations and onto land carved and burned out of the rainforests.

The oil palm is an easily cultivated, highly productive tree and creates more usable oil from its nuts than any other tree on the planet. So it's cheap, easily available and who cares about the orang-utans, or the forest ecosystems, or the carbon released into the atmosphere by their destruction? Not the companies producing and exporting the oil, that's for sure. And we're to blame for encouraging them.

New Year Resolution - What's mine? Less Waste, More Thrift.

Is there any point to making a new year's resolution? I'm bad at keeping up random commitments/expectations of myself at the best of times and I suspect plenty of other people are too. I'm making no judgements. I have no intention of expounding any expectations I'd like to have for my family, friends, country, Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbin, East Coast Mainline trains, European Union, Huddersfield Town FC, Brexit, Monster Raving Loony Party, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and/or all. But I have quietly made a commitment relating to my post of 8 August 2018:-

https://sugswritersblog.blogspot.com/2018/08/its-environment-stupid.html

Any sane commitment I make for the future has to be aimed at helping to save the environment. So for now, mine is that I shall try to be less wasteful. I started by saving some of the Christmas wrapping paper, ribbons and ties that were used. I do remember that my grandparents, both sides of the family, did this and really nice, good quality wrapping paper often reappeared three or four years running before finally being consigned to the fireplace or bin. They didn't do this because of serious poverty but through innate thrift, which we seem to have forgotten is a virtue.

Wrapping paper is largely insignificant, do I realise this and will try to do more, much more. Just as soon as I get over this damn horrible cold! At least the dirty tissues have gone in the stove and briefly helped to keep us warm, thus saving a minute puff of gas.

Signing Petitions.

In the past month I've signed ten petitions. I've been sent a request to sign about twice that number, but I'm selective. I have to be, I can't become a petition junkie like at least one person I know.
It's the environment, it's the NHS, Brexit and the atrocities happening because of the arms trade which I try to concentrate on.

Should I feel guilty not signing petitions about the plight of individuals, whether they're murdered journalists, sick children or people imprisoned for their beliefs? I don't believe I should really, I try hard to look at bigger pictures.

I do try to take part by signing and sharing if I feel the petition may have a chance of :-

A) Reaching and being read by the person it's addressed to. Any petition addressed vaguely to a government or corporation will undoubtedly find its way to the bin/delete button without anybody senior having to bother with it.

B) Not be disregarded, because I'm not in the USA, or Saudi Arabia, or wherever the topic of the petition relates to. Foreign signatures may devalue a petition in the eyes of the people it's aimed at, particularly if it's on a local issue.

It's the Environment, Stupid.

My recent reading matter has brought something to my attention. I read 'Reservoir 13', I have just finished Gerald Durrell's biography, now I am reading, with a little difficulty, 'H is For Hawk.' All these books have at their centre a depth of knowledge of and care for the natural world and man's involvement with it. This morning I woke up and realised that this is what I care for and about, more than anything else. How have I not been able to acknowledge this before?

Online, I read stories about environmental destruction and devastated communities, about for example, rhinos slaughtered for their horns and children suffering from terrible diseases. All these make me feel sad, more than sad, but the ones that make me feel desperate are the environmental stories and the slaughter of endangered, irreplaceable species. And so then I feel guilty about not caring enough for the suffering children. Maybe this feeling of guilt has clouded my sense of what is fundamentally important.

But thinking about it, my care about suffering children is innate. I'm a mother and grandmother, of course I care about the suffering of children. However I have to protect myself. If I grieve over every little boy with incurable brain damage or every little Yemeni girl starving to death before her mother's eyes, then I will die of exhausted grief and nobody will gain. Empathy can only go so far if an individual human being is to survive and remain sane. Think of the X Men founder Charles Xavier as a young man, having to learn to control his empathy before the mass of human suffering over-whelmed him. We all need to learn this - or switch the internet off.

A love for 'God's Creation' wasn't dutifully pumped into me as an infant, although christianity was vaguely involved. I was read bible stories involving animals at a sunday school that I attended for a couple of years. And I was read Kipling, the wonderful, poetic Just So Stories, the more adventurous Jungle Books, all about man and animals in natural settings. So partly by their chosen reading matter it was the adults in my family who began my deeper involvement in creatures and nature in general.

My mother's mother taught me many things in the garden, when I was very tiny, including the names of all the wild and tame flowers and that worms were good and should not be killed. My father's father, on the other hand, showed me that nature was to be tamed, controlled and turned to production in his burgeoning fruit garden, he would trap and shoot the pretty brown rats that dared to venture into his compost pits. Meanwhile his wife, my Granny, was allowed to feed 'her' robin, Bobbity, at a little bird table on the kitchen window ledge.

Their son, my father, loved wild and solitary places, marshes and mountains, deserts and rocky coasts. He was a twitcher and more. He showed me that nature was wild and free. When I was a confused, sulky teenager he drove us for many hours to Loch Garten, to show us the only ospreys then nesting in the UK. All I saw then was a distant bird, soaring, silhouetted against the grey sky and water. Nobody controlled that bird.

Today there are probably 300 pairs of osprey breeding in the UK. Should this give me hope?