‘cors …

… cleaner skies will mean more immediate climate heating, oh dear. And my previous post and link for Sam Carana ie Arctic news blogspot focus on the huge release of methane from what looks to be an earthquake in the Arctic. Yuck.

Driving thro my nearby town tonight (NE UK) was a trifle upsetting considering how we still mingle for shopping and for instance many small businesses such as car repair seem to still have human interactions; I cannot help but feel pub and restaurant closure ie trifling but valuable human interactions will create a whole bundle of frustrations and eventual anger. I’m okay, I pretty well live the exact social distancing lifestyle that the Government would so wish us all to pursue, but I’m not sure the average person would wish to live as I do. In fact I know they would not and could not.

Boris has promised vast amounts of citizen wage aid, but be warned he will want his price ie stringent shutdowns as and when he thinks fit.

My heart bleeds for front-line Doctors and nurses … despite the pure lies and blindness of Government Press Briefings … we hear several times over each day from NHS frontline workers that the correct PPE is not present and is pathetically unsuitable, short of the decent minimum.

And where is TEST-TEST-TEST which we were implored to pursue? Its a bit like UK ‘Foot and Mouth’ in that all the hard lessons learnt from the experience of 1969 were ignored thirty years later.

A term seemingly forgotten is bio-security, quite handy actually, its what we all should aim for. Something else we should aim for is NOT to excessively stockpile, methinks there will be much waste, lots ending up in the bin, after all … its difficult to get excited at the prospect of yet more pasta based meals. Luckily I’ve started to get into Indian and Pakistani cooking, I’ve a couple of excellent charity shop books here and once you are ‘tooled up’ ie have the necessary herbs and spices you are able to create so much beautiful taste and often without using meat of any form. Heres so far my rock-bottom must have …..

mustard seed and fennel seed.

olive oil.

cumin seed with hot fried sweet potato ‘twiglet sized’ pieces.

fresh coriander.

try supermarket jars of Indian sauce (try Saag Masala) … you can use red onion, leek and broccoli for an instant meal. Garam masala is part of the toolkit as well as additional coconut milk. I also make my own chapati and Peshwari nan … all v quick and simple.

Besan flour too can make a simple bhaji or vegan burger which is wonderful with say an onion chutney.

I also use Ajiwan seed in my trad brit suet crust or for my nan bread mix.

I also enjoy a sea food pilaf (ie white wine, smoked haddock, mussels, chicken, rice, chicken stock).

a beef skirt casserole with chopped parsnip and carrot for flavour, don’t forget a couple of cloves, also Kalo beef stock ie low salt.

as a treat, crushed chilled raspberry with carnation, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg.

try to add fresh garlic and ginger wherever possible, fresh diced fig also fine chopped red onion, leek, spring onion; fresh ground black pepper and sea salt. This is all as can be termed ‘Natures Medicine Chest’.

The nonsense we are told.

bbc r4 this morning devoted a few minutes to some top medical bod telling us we mostly all carry too much weight (yes I agree) and need to look at calories and not particularly look at fat or sugar content (I don’t agree). There was no mention of sedentary tv and i-phone lifestyle, that kids seldom if ever play outside, that so many are hooked on the battery chicken Disney lifestyle, browsing, never making or doing much in particular. Particularly there was no condemnation of off-the-shelf meals, an over-reliance of frozen as opposed to fresh and the resultant lack of good quality nutrition.

My immediate reaction to this un-thinking piece of low grade journalistic nonsense was how unquestioning the interviewer was. As the famous Mr Meatloaf was quoted recently all you need do is look at sugar and fat….. to which I would add get into home-cooking and some vigorous walking exercise. The latter is so now desperately needed that a few weeks previous again bbc r4 ran a piece that Docs are desperate for pre-op patients wherever possible to get into exercise and a healthier lifestyle. This I concur entirely. It must be hellish to have to deal with raw material ie patients that are so tragically unfit.

I personally do not enjoy eating out whatsoever to the extent I would dread such an invitation. Surely its more fun to cook and learn at home, the beautiful aromas, the tweaking and experience gained in getting something ‘just right’, a friend and a drink surely what more could you want … and think of the money saved! Yes it takes time but at least we are not sat in front of the tv or dreaded I-phone and are somehow active and building a skill.

Likewise other moans today, American propaganda in general and specifically the downed airliner. I am increasingly highly sceptical of any intel or pronouncements offered from the Americans, particularly anything with the taint of trump attached to it. I personally think it was truly shameful that trump upped the tensions in the Middle East with the assassination Soleimani. And as the third article suggests, its probable the Americans can fool enemy radar into mis-identifying the data they see on their radar screens.

Heres some brain food ….

I Helped Sell the False Choice of War in Iraq. It’s Happening Again

Remember Iran Air Flight 655

https://limitlesslife.wordpress.com/2020/01/14/iran-jet-disaster-setup/

Those clever bbc r4 people.

Greta Thunberg was Guest Editor this morning on the bbc r4 ‘Today’ programme.

Does everyone know this? I was very impressed, I only caught the last half hour but is available to listen again and download over on the bbc radio website. Only drawback is that these days we have to perform the dreaded ‘log-in’; this I shall in this instance do. At one time it was merely click and play; everyone every organisation wants their stats. ‘The Cloud’ I read is running at 4% of annual electricity consumption and of course is set to rise!

I’m v impressed with Greta, she is erudite in English, has a v good brain and implores everyone note EVERYONE to read the science. We would hope a certain donald trump and his crooked coterie would likewise read the science but of course we know of his unshakable inability to read, inability to accept experts and inability to learn.

Science we know can be achingingly slow at coming back from the ‘front line’, we now have to stay on the up-curve, work hard to be near the crest of real-time feedbacks and data. Science too is full of vested interest, funding sensitivities, viewpoints and stances of all forms of regard and hue.

I wish Greta the greatest good luck and good health in maintaining ‘the message’. She is much too valuable to go back into a schoolroom, it would horrifying for me to see her having to plod along at dated quite needless material when her real task is elsewhere ie the whole world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na1aHtv0OKI

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z/episodes/player

For a ‘no punches pulled’ instructional overview on climate change and what we need do, the best I can think of is anything from Prof Kevin Anderson, full of intelligent content; it is a no waffle, pure condensed informative and knowledgeable overview. He speaks with the directness and brevity of a top class experienced engineer.

My own ethos is, in my own immediate little world:-

no more long drives out into the countryside, I walk and ramble much closer to home.
make clothes last, wear them out.
cook quick meals, seldom any longwinded oven cooking (and for me certainly no baking).
I wash everything by hand, wring dry and use a bamboo pole across the kitchen ceiling and/ or my washing line outside. No tumbler, no spinner.
get rid of the SUV…. and something that particularly irritates me, forget about letting the diesel idle pointlessly in the supermarket car park!
forget about airflights.
pester the Council, some carriageways are far too overlit at night.
eat less red meat; move away from ready-bought ‘burger culture’ its a con !
I actually prefer a £15 Melissa bench-top oven, the main oven hasn’t been used in twenty years.
slim down web posts, keep it brief, therefore reduces charging and ‘cloud’.

Thinking abt sausages …

I can’t believe I’m writing this, maybe five or six times a year I’ll buy Morrisons Lincolnshire sausages (quite good as sausages go, the best in my opinion) and bake them with herbs and black pepper to stuff into my face tween other saner meals, usually after breakfast ….. lightly drizzled in extra v olive oil and drained and squeezed between kitchen roll before eating. But it just struck me I’ll be eating the material that for the remainder of my other seven hundred meals a year I avidly cut or discard. I don’t eat ready meals or prepackaged ‘on the go’ cookery.

At middle age and looking good and wishing to remains so I therefore need low salt, low fat and gluten free; the latter of which the Docs have been utterly hopeless …. but the ‘fix’ I’ve applied works and explains a lot re fatigue, feeling bloated, slow digestion and as of last summer horrible stomach pains like a bag of razor blades and problems with number 2’s !

My egg n bacon each morning is carefully trimmed bacon medallions, not a hint of anything fatty … fat after all is where the veterinary interventions reside, though occasionally laxing to streaky chosen for miniumum fat. Likewise with my chicken and Veetee brown wholegrain rice at 5pm; the chicken is carefully pulled a apart to eradicate anything other than 100% lean meat, thighs are best, again a pre-cooked Morrisons purchase. So again, why in heck do i eat sausages when i know fine well its not up to my self assigned standards? Gluttony pure and simple!

The chicken and rice includes in order of cooking: a quarter red onion, then chicken and rice, a spring onion, sweetcorn, garlic heated in a little Apro non-butter-butter, sometimes fresh ginger ditto, a small diced day old cooked potato, a small diced fresh fig as uncooked as possible, sauted green cabbage leaf with fg b pepper, a slice of parma ham v carefully trimmed, parmesan cheese. All made in one pan, I make it every morning and it never fails to please … nutritious too! These are all my ‘standard materials’ therefore always to hand and cannot cost very much per meal.

Lunch varies from three days with beef skirt casserole and two of baked salmon. The former has got quite involved, a small panful of red onion, two sticks of celery, half a dozen mushrooms, all diced and as with most of my cooking includes oregano, black pepper, chopped garlic. This routine provides three meals, beef skirt spend say £3.80 total. Meat is diced, sealed in non gluten flour, balsamic vinegar to up the flavour reduced, lots of black pepper and some oregano, Baron red wine from Aldi reduced, bay leaf, two cloves, mixed herbs, two Kallo gf stock cubes; simmer to reduce, 90 minutes in my bench top oven. I love a boiled carrot and swede and a couple of pots as accompaniment.

The baked salmon is simpler and quicker; baked in extra v olive oil, fg black pepper – i actually use a pestle and mortar as my pepper grinder went kaput a year ago. Side order veg is v clever, small pyrex bowl layer peas at bottom, Apro to lubricate, chopped garlic fg bp, on top do not mix Nisa carrot and swede mash topped with English mustard worked into the upper layer along with Ajwain seed from middle eastern cookery. Ajiwan has a sagey sort of taste, looks like carrot seed and be careful if a newcomer, good for bowel movement! fifteen mins to cook and is superb no fail recipe.

I eat well, my medicine is my food and av cost looks to be £1.80 – 2.50 per meal. Its also good fun and i enjoy knowing i control what I eat. It baffles me this obsession with ‘eating out’ … why not cook at home and make it social…. think of the money you’ll save !!!

I don’t eat crisps, nor fizzy drinks, not much chocolate, one cup or at most two of coffee per day, being gluten free I use Morrisons / Warbutons gf ‘Thins’ with a filling of very thin sliced of Aldi Irish ‘Craic’ placed inside as an accompaniment to egg n bacon; no bread and anyway the gf bread available is not very exciting to say the least! One egg only per day, no cakes, no sweets, no pastries, all of which i have utterly no interest in.

If i need to snack i have my homemade sauerkraut, or a carrot or apple and an occasional supper could be mackerel or sardines on gf crackers.