The Seagull Has Landed

Tags

adage, culture, levity, life, musings, sayings, thoughts

My friend Kim came back from a training course in Germany, where the tutor tried to persuade her that culture comes from sayings, adages or saws. That set our morning coffee gathering to a lively debate.  It feels like a case of the tail wagging the dog or the cart before the horse to me.  Surely, it’s our culture that defines our sayings, not the other way around?

We’re not usually very serious for very long and this occasion was no exception.  Levity is the watchword, even if I’m the only one who knows what it means.  Claire proposed “lol”, though I don’t think that qualifies as a saying.  If at first you don’t succeed, maybe sky-diving isn’t for you.  If you can keep your head, whilst those around are losing theirs, maybe you’ve misunderstood the situation.  Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may diet.  Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll want a quota.  Little Jack Horner pulled out a plum and said “where’s my thumb gone?”  Procrastination is the thief of time, but so are a lot of other long words.  Beauty is only skin deep but ugliness goes right to the bone.  It is better to keep your mouth shut, and have everyone think you’re dumb, than to open it, and prove it beyond all doubt.  “Hell hath no fury like a woman’s corn” (Taming Of The Shoe).

Culture?  Don’t talk to me about culture.  Ask the man with the petri dish.

Poverty Cooking

Tags

children, economics, life, malnutrition, musings, poverty, rants, thoughts

A saw an item in on a news magazine last night that made me wonder. They were discussing the resurgence of malnutrition as a problem in the North of England. One interviewee, a single mother of two, told how she sometimes went without food herself, in order to guarantee that her children were fed. I salute her dedication. But then she showed the meal she was making for them: chicken nuggets, tinned mushy peas, and frozen chips. Chicken breast, dried marrowfat peas and potatoes are significantly cheaper than the ingredients she chose (and probably healthier too). I’m guessing the reason behind her choice is that she can’t cook.
It is an absolute disgrace that folk should suffer such poverty in a country as rich as the U.K. I fully support the interviewee’s right to demand better.
There’s an old saw that says if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day; if you give a man a fishing rod, he will eat for evermore. I wonder whether a few cooking lessons might ease the situation?

Angling

Tags

behaviour, life, musings, sports, thoughts

I’ve never really fancied the idea of fishing. If my memory serves me well, I’ve only done it twice in my entire life.

The first occasion, I was invited by the bread delivery guy who lived next door to us in Gillow Heath. I guess I’d be about nine or ten years of age. We drove to a pond near Knypersley and sat on the bank in the rain for a few hours. I was cold and miserable: I didn’t see a fish at any point in the procedings.

The second occasion was at a beautiful lake in Idaho. My american brother-in-law, who is a keen angler, was showing me how to cast. He was fishing whilst I was practicing. I decided it was quite boring and thought I’d go and help with the barbeque. So I wound the line in and found a wide mouth bass wriggling on the end. No-one was more amazed that I that I’d caught something.

Even that escapade did nothing to enamour me to angling as a pass-time.  I have a grudging respect for the patience of anyone who can sit on a bank for hours, in all weathers, waiting for a nibble.  But that’s just about the only positive thing I can find to say about it.

I think I’ve seen and heard enough about angling over the years to understand the basic principals of what happens.  Or so I thought.  On Saturday, I took Smudge for her usual run around Jubilee Park.  In the middle of the rugby pitch there was a man who was fishing: straight up, no word of a lie!  I’m sure there’s supposed to be water involved in the process somewhere.  I managed to resist the temptation to ask if he’d caught anything.