Home from Belgium

We have been away for a few weeks. Because of the health problems last year, we were unable to make our usual late autumn visit back to Belgium, so it really was time to do so. I didn't fancy the queuing up at airports, not to mention the getting up at unearhly hours of the morning in order to catch a plane with a take-off time of 06:30, yes six-thirty in the morning and you're supposed to check in a couple of hours beforehand. Instead, we planned on driving up, but on taking our time in doing so.

And that's just what we did.

The first night, we stopped in Tarragona, after an easy drive of some 500 Km. Then on to Montauban, aother 500 Km or so, an a night at a chambre d'hôtes (not wonderful, given the price). We had hoped to visit a few bastide towns in the area, but the weather was really bad—cold and wet—so we had a hot chocolate in one and drove on to Sorges, supposedly the truffle centre of the world, where we spent two nights in the wonderful Auberge de la Truffe, a place that was right up SWMBO's street. Food, glorious food (says she). An extensive evening meal upon our arrival on Friday evening, a visit on Saturday morning after breakfast to the market of Périgueux, in the company of the chef (not SWMBO, but the actual chef of the Auberge), dinner that same evening, breakfast on Sunday morning, followed by a visit to the truffle museum, and a final two-hour-long lunch to send us on our way.

And our way took us to Senlis, just past Paris, where we stayed the night before proceeding the following morning to our apartment in Belgium.

Surprisingly, the weather in Belgium was much better than we had anticipated from the horror stories we had heard during the months leading up to our departure. Indeed, we had several sunny days, with balmy temperatures, so nothing to complain about, even if the general impression was rather grey.

Anyway, thanks must go to Marleen and Danny, Robert and Godelieve, Jean-Pierre and Rita, Christiane, Frans and Marie-Christine, Jan and Nicole, Luc and Monique, and anyone I might have forgotten, for making us feel welcome once again in Belgium.

Our journey back to Spain followed a similar path (excluding Montauban), though we made a slight detour in order to be able to visit Oradour-sur-Glane, the village destroyed in 1944 by German troops, who also killed 642 civilian inhabitants. The day was dull and miezerig, but that suited the sombreness of the place, where the ruins still stand, many with household effects still in them: almost each house seems to have a sewing-machine. I have made a small website about our visit to Oradour-sur-Glane; you can visit it here.

Good buy?

SWMBO and I took our German neighbours to a few garden centres recently. They were looking for a new palm to replace one lost to the dreaded Red Palm Weevil and an alternative to their straggly bouganvilla.

In one of the centres, I spotted a set of three large cacti. Way out of my price range, I imagined, but I went over to have a closer look and to check the price anyway.  It was marked at just 47 euro, which I thought must be a mistake, but when I asked about it, I was told that as it was marked at that price, I could buy it at that price. So I did. (And then I paid more than that for the pot!)

It was delivered a couple of days ago and I wanted to know just what I had bought. As is the wont here in Spain, most garden centres do not mark cacti and are of little help in identifying them, so I placed a pleading post on the Cactus World Online forum and within less than an hour had the name I was searching for: Pachycereus pringlei.

The tallest of the three parts stand 90cm. with an almost unbelievable maximum circumference of 70cm.

As well as the portrait view, you might enjoy a top view of one of the stems and a closeup of an areole with its spines.

A good buy, I think.

Good bye.

Fruit soup

Over a hundred and fifty years ago, Lewis Carroll provided us with one of the very best tales ever to have been committed to paper, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Like Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Alice is often regarded as no more than a children's book, and contributions by the Disneys of this world have not helped in this respect.

Carroll provided us with mathematical insights, exercises in logic, word play, and many more non-childish aspects in Alice. One of these was parody, though that parody is now largely lost, as we tend to remember more Carroll's parodical versions than the originals and therefore have little basis for comparison.

One such parody that Carroll presented was in the form of Soup Of The Evening, and he based this poem on a popular song of his time called Star Of The Evening by James M. Sayles.

Carroll's amusing version goes thus:

Soup Of The Evening
by Lewis Carroll 

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

One would imagine that Carroll held soup in the same high regard as SWMBO.

I do not share their enthusiasm. At least not for the vegetable soups that SWMBO usually prepares in the Soup&Co machine that we purchased recently and which I have already written about. I am even less enthusiastic about fish soups, shellfish soups, or any other form of marine creature soups, and keep well away from cold soups of the gazpacho ilk.

As you can imagine, the Soup&Co has been put to enthusiastic use by SWMBO, so that vegetable-type soups are just about coming out of my ears. Recently, however, I have discovered a far more sensible use for the Soup&Co: it produces extremely fine fruit drinks.

And I make them in it.

The photo shows today's creation, a magnificent concoction consisting of half a mango, about 150 gr of strawberries, a largish banana, the juice of half a lime, a piece of ginger about the size of the top part of a thumb, cut up (the ginger, not the thumb), and freshly pressed orange juice. That was enough for four glasses of the size shown in the pic (roughly 33 cl. each).

These drinks are very easy to make. I started out with a book of recipes for smoothies and other fruit drinks, but once you get the hang of it, such a book becomes just a source of inspiration, not something to be rigidly followed. Basically, you just put the fruits into the machine (larger fruits being first cut into smaller pieces), add a liquid ingredient (and I've used yoghurt, horchata, Casera—a sort of sugarless cream soda—and, of course, orange juice) and mix it all up for about thirty seconds at top speed. Check for taste and consistency, adding some honey, if necessary, or some more liquid, then mix again for a few more seconds.

Tomoroow I shall make something based on papaya.

Lubbly jubbly!

Llongyfarchiadau

And we did! (Or we don't, depending on which part of the badge you're looking at…)
Good game, good game.
Who'd have thought it after the disastrous first match against Ireland, all those weeks ago. But the Welsh rugby team pulled their metaphoric socks up and went on to beat the Scots, the Italians, and then, in the deciding match of the Six Nations Rugby tournament, the Old Enemy, the English.
And not only did they beat the English, they beat them admirably and decisively.
The thing is, Wales had to beat the English by at least eight points in order to win the tournament, so the task was quite a bit more onerous than merely having to "beat the English."
And they did it!
And not only did they beat the English by more than eight points, but they beat the English by a lot more. Indeed, they beat the English by 27 points, the final score being Cymru 30, Lloegr 3.
Congratulations also go to the Italians, who have come a long way since they started in the tournament some years ago and beat Ireland in their last match of this year's edition. France also deserves congratulations for coming back from a terrible run of poor play to beat Scotland in the final match of the series: not a wonderful display, but better than much of late.
But the biggest congratulations, of course, must go to Wales, who, in case you haven't heard, beat the English in an exciting match of delightfully fast and hard rugby.
Nothing like it.

Happy birthday, Steve

Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Inc., was born on 24 February 1955. Today would have been his 58th birthday, had he not died on 5 October 2011 of complications related to a pancreas neuroendocrine tumour.

Jobs was a highly charismatic individual. He could be obnoxious, appear aloof, seem impolite… but he was also somehow able to inspire others into producing great examples of both hardware and software, though not always using original ideas (the Macintosh was not originally his idea, for example). He seemed to possess a boyish enthusiasm for all things technological and he used that enthusiasm to present excellent, amusing, and entertaining presentations of Apple products.

Apple has perhaps struggled somewhat since Jobs's passing, but that is hardly surprising, given the enormity of his influence. It should be remembered, of course, that not all of Jobs's ideas were successful; it's just that the magnitude of those that were successes far overshadows the failures.

To celebrate Steve Jobs's 58th birthday, a YouTube Channel has been created, containing about 150 videos featuring the man himself.

Enjoy.

Through a Pee(p)-hole

Up early last Monday to get to the hospital by eight o'clock in order to have a cystoscopy, as part of the check-ups being carried out three months after the operation to remove my left kidney because of an in situ carcinoma.

I had already taken in three urine samples for analysis the week before and now it was time for an internal check.

I was, of course, well sedated during the procedure, so knew nothing about it after I had been taken into the operating theatre until I was awoken by someone cleaning up my nether regions.

After spending some time in the recovery ward, the surgeon came to see me and assured me that no cancerous cells had been found in the urine and that the inside of the bladder looked fine, with the hole where the ureter had entered the bladder nicely closed.

All good news.

The bad news comes when the sedation has worn off and you go to the toilet. Burn, burn, burn. Incredible. I only had two days of it this time, thank goodness, but even with fairly large amounts of pain-killers, it was still unpleasant.

And another cystoscopy is planned in three months time.

Six Nations and Rugby in general

Isn't football a dreadfully boring game? SWMBO quite likes a game of football. Well, she likes watching a game of football, put it like that, so I occasionally make the effort to watch a game with her, but I either fall asleep or give up out of sheer boredom and frustration at he lack of any real activity or excitement. And the players seem to be a bunch of pansies with poor acting abilities, too, rolling around in less than Oscar-winning performances at even a mere touch: it's as if the very grass hurts them, poor dabs. And as for their attitude to the game officials, it was quite, quite disgusting: almost every decision disputed, numerous players talking or shouting at the referee… I'd send the whole lot off.

On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Six Nations Championship, which has just seen its second week of games in this year's edition. Last year, of course, Wales won the Grand Slam, but I mention this merely in passing.

I played rugby during my time at Woolverstone Hall School in the 1960s and I even played one game after having left the school. At Woolverstone we were fortunate to have an excellent sports master, who, rumour had it, had once had a trial for Wales. Glynn "Taffy" Evans was not a big man, but he inspired fear and confidence, standing for no nonsense, but eminently fair and ready with a word of encouragement when needed and one of congratulation when deserved. Passing, backing up, lining up, grubber-kicking, dummying, tackling… we had to get the basics of rugby down pat, or we had Mr Evans to answer to, with extra training his supremely apt solution, irrespective of climatic conditions. Up and down the pitch, repeating the imperfectly executed procedure until it was perfect and little more than second nature.

Watching the professional players in the Six Nations, I often wonder what Mr Evans would have done with them. If he were still around today (sadly, he died some years ago), he would have these giants quaking before his diminutive yet elegant stature, as he mocked their inability to pass, to line up in the three quarters, to tackle correctly, to… well, you get the picture, for professional players who are presumed to spend hours practising, they make far too many basic errors.

Anyway, the rant has nothing to do with this post, which, instead, takes a look at some ways to improve the game in general, rather than the skills of the players.

So here are some suggestions as to how rugby can be made an even better game than it is now (and it is already the very best game in the world, of course).

1. Calling mark. In the old days, to call a valid mark, the ball-catcher had to be standing still with both feet on the ground. Let's return to that way of doing it and stop the nonsense of marks being called by running, jumping players. Either that, or scrap the mark altogether.
2. Delaying. The scrum-half can be punished for delaying the put-in at a scrum; the thrower can be punished for delaying the throw-in at a line-out. Let's add to this a punishment for delaying the ball from re-entering full play at rucks and other break-downs.
3. Off is off. Forget the sin-bin; players are deemed to know the rules. If a player infringes a rule so that he is currently sent to the sin-bin for ten minutes, instead let him be sent off for the duration of the game and let his infringement be judged for possible further banning.
4. Exuberant celebration. When a score is made, the game must recommence as soon as possible from the mid line. We do not want soccer-like celebratory exuberance and certainly no hugging: the scorer has done no more than his job and it is now time to get on with the game. Any delay caused by such celebration should be punished: how about wiping out the score that led to the celebration?
5. Binding. There is a correct way to bind in the scrum. All other ways are incorrect and should be treated as an infringement. Scrums should not be allowed to collapse repeatedly as a result of poor binding and because the referee does nothing about it.
6. Padding. Rugby is not American football, where players dress up in carnival outfits, full of hard padding and even wear, wait for it, crash helmets! Only basic padding (such as a double layer of cloth on shoulders) and a simple scrum cap to protect the ears should be allowed. All the rest is for the nancy-boys of American football.
7. Crouch, touch, pause, set: load of nonsense. If a pack doesn't scrum down correctly, penalise it, but don't let's go through these synchronised dance movements. The referee is there to make sure that the rules are followed; he is not Victor Silvester directing some strange new dance ("Crouch, touch, pause-pause, set").
8. Man in front: at kick-offs and drop-out restarts, no player should be in front of the kicker, yet this occurs time and time again. There's a ref and two touch judges (okay, assistant refs); surely someone should be able to see this?
9. Tattoos. Any player displaying tattoos should not be allowed to play, unless those tattoos are part of his culture (such as Maori players, Western Samoa players, etc.). Leave the tattoos to the soccer players.
10. There must be a ten, but I can't think of it now.

It's a funny old game, though. During the first week-end of play, Italy showed that it had improved considerably during the years it has been part of the tournament, and beat France fairly and squarely in the process. Their second match was against Scotland and great things were expected of them, but they seemed to lose all of the shine of the week before and failed miserably, with the Scots giving them a fair trouncing.

By the way, did I mention that Wales won the Six Nations Championship last year, performing the Grand Slam in the process? I might have done so earlier on. Sadly, things got off to a bad start last week, when Wales lost to the Irish. At least they pulled their rugby socks up this week-end and beat France in Paris.

Sadly, Ireland then went to lose to the common enemy.

I ask you.

Still, as long as Wales beat England (and that probably won't happen this year, I have to admit), we'll be happy enough.