Chinese Cooking Made Easy

As seen on BBC2 last night.

[Update - It was Chinese Food Made Easy]

It was surprisingly good for the most part, she only used one unexplained cooking term - reduce - and of the more esoteric ingredients offered alternatives that are easily available. Likewise she didn't assume everyone has a garlic press, pepper grinder , or gold-plated pip remover.

She did seem a bit enamoured of her own cooking pulling 'yummy' faces when she tried her own food, which I found a bit pointless as I'd hardly expect her to spit it out. Then she shattered my enjoyment

"On your way home from work if you're thinking about getting a takeaway why not get fresh ingredients yourself?"

Oo oo I think I know the answer to this. Is it - "Because all the shops that sell fresh ingredients are closed by the time I leave work"?

[Update - Damn, actual quote

"Next time you're on your way home and you want to pick yourself up a Chinese takeaway why don't you pick up some fresh ingredients to cook with instead"

I still think my point is valid though]

Okay the supermarkets are still open, but that's about it. It's not as if I can do as she does and pop into a greengrocer in the middle of the day and pick up stuff on the way home.

She did have some good tips though so I'll be watching the next episode on Monday.

Throw out your food - Take 2

A follow on from my original entry about food waste as Brown over in Japan is urging us to cut our food waste. Here's the story from the Guardian.

the UK throws away an annual 4.1m tonnes of edible goods

Wow because WRAP was talking about 6.7m tonnes, and the BBC was talking about 3.3m tonnes, makes one really trust these figures.

Anyway the whole point is that food costs more and it's not his fault, that lower-income families are spending a greater percentage of their income on food and it's not his fault (oh wait a sec, yes it is)

The poorest 10% of UK households spent 15 % of their outgoings on food in 2005-06, while the richest 10% spent just 7%.

Um duh, hold on where's my stats sheet. The median annual gross wage of the bottom 10% of all full and part-time workers in 2007 was £6,192, the top 10% £42,902. So the bottom 10% spend ~£929 and the top 10% ~£3,003 a year. Oh yeah percentages are really useful in this instance.

[the UK throws away] the equivalent of £420 for every home.

Yeah somehow I don't think those bottom 10% are throwing away nearly half their food purchases do you?

[food prices] have risen significantly - due to a combination of poor harvests, higher costs for energy used in agriculture and transport, diversion of some commodities to biofuel, and a long-term rise in demand for grain to feed a growing global population.

Poor harvests - blame the screwy weather (nothing to do with us, well maybe, or maybe not); higher costs for energy - done that; biofuel - yep that's got to be the biggest ironic twist; rise in demand - those damned Chinese thinking they can eat like Westerners, who do they think they are?

So the solution being proposed is an "international body to oversee food security" just what we need another bloody committee. Who's betting that is this body comes into being food quotas will be the next step.

Okay fair cop our food prices have been damn cheap and we've got spoiled by them, but the prices have shot up not because of any market readjustment but because of greed and 'panic'. Like water and energy, food is a necessity and it's all been placed in the hands of companies whose sole function is to make money.

Unlike energy the supply really has gone down while demand has increased so who can be shocked that the price increases; the laissez-faire marketers state that the increase in prices will lead to more people entering the food market because there's profit to be made now. Yep start tearing down those rainforests we need more growing area there's profit to be made.

Here's an interesting stat from an American department - each citizen requires 1.2 acres to provide the standard amount of food they consume. So for the UK population of 60m we need ~295,000 km² to live at that level. Land area of the UK - ~242,000 km². Self-sufficiency advocates take note.

[To contrast the US needs ~1.5m km² and has a land area of ~9m km². China needs 6.4m km² and has a land area of 9.3m km²]

Reading the road

Sunday in Kidderminster showed up the idiots in cars. Workmen were tiding up the median strip that runs between the two lane roads joining up the islands and as such had coned off the outside lanes closest to them.

Now I was heading over to Crossley which along the Ringway is a straight, straight, straight, third lane for right; and as such I tend to stay in lane 2 all the way through. On my first straight at the Comberton Hill island I'm in lane 1 and come out straight into lane 1 and am instantly cut-up by a car who found they couldn't use lane 2.

Now you know me I'm a generous soul who thinks the best of everyone, this car might have come from Comberton Hill and not known the lane was closed. Except they hadn't, they'd come from lane 2 right next to me. Again being generous I have to assume that the driver didn't see the large yellow signs at the island entrance, despite the fact that the road leading to it is perfectly straight; and that they didn't notice that the road they would be heading for was coned off, despite the fact that the approach road slopes down and the exit road slopes upwards so is perfectly visible to anyone looking straight ahead.

I had the same coming back up St Mary's Ringway - two lanes and a big sign telling me lane 2 would be closing in 300 yards, 200 yards, 100 yards, closed. Traffic barely started queuing until the point it closed and yet traffic was still blarting up the second lane and then trying to force themselves into the queue. I had one force their way in behind me then try to overtake me in the second lane on the island only to 'suddenly' find that the second lane was closed there too.

Oh and no neither drivers felt the need to indicate no doubt 'cos they were going straight on weren't they [sigh].

I see the same lack of foresight in queues when drivers who can't see ahead because of a larger vehicle are 'startled' when the traffic starts moving. I, behind them, on the other hand am in gear waiting to move; why? Because I'm watching the queue in the reflection of the big shop windows and can see the cars in front of the large vehicle moving off.

On the other hand some of the road setups practically invite accidents and cutting up. The traffic lights on Minster Road; two lanes in, two lanes out except it's still a 30mph zone, it's enforced by a speed camera and oh look the second lane merges with the first with only painted road signs to warn you. The result is cars racing past the lane 1 queue at the lights, slamming their brakes on at the speed camera and then trying to cut back into the first lane.

At least in that case they have some room to manoeuvre, take the lights at the other end of Minster Road at Oldington. This is even worse as it's a 70mph zone with two lanes at the lights that almost immediately merge into one without warning. I've seen cars whistling past a moving queue that's already reached the merge point and accelerating down the middle of the road at even greater speeds to reach the head of the queue.

Oh and yes I still see cars coming into Stourport by that road switching to lane 2 and then back to lane 1 because of the signs telling them (falsely) that lane 1 is coming to an end. Again not good at 70mph approaching the point that the two lanes do actually merge (into lane 1 mind) and hit a 30mph zone (with countdown warnings on the approach). You should see the brake lights come on at this point.

[sigh] and a quarter of the time those who do blart past hold up all the traffic almost instantly by trying to turn right into Windermere Way.

A little trip

Headed down to a local (but out of the way) satellite office to lay on hands for the computers. Some security settings were causing hassles and one wonderful programme insisted on being installed as an Administrator, but created its start-up links on a per-user basis and only for the Administrator instead of in the shared menu as it was told.

Directions were amusing as I worked through them on Google Maps
"Take this road here" says the boss then turn here.
"Or I could just continue to this highly distinctive turn and continue down the A roads" I showed
"Yeah, but it's quicker this way"
"But knowing this wonderful country so well I doubt it's even signposted so I'm likely to miss it or take the wrong route"
"Go whichever way you like then"

So I did and I was right the road in question isn't signposted. Narrow lanes, refuse vans, and horse riders; all good fun. At least it was paved.

Heading back I got to a junction and spotted a useful signpost, which I followed. Heading along I realised this isn't the way I'd come, kept following the signs and yes came out at that road I'd scorned on the way in. Mileage was certainly less, but the trip was slightly longer due to the number of times I had to turn against the traffic compared to what I'd have to have done retracing my steps. Shorter isn't always quicker.

Back to the office and dropped some mail out back.

"Saw those posts in the Shuttle"
Yep those finger posts, or more accurately that post.
I mentioned the photo wasn't exactly up to scratch and we got onto various other things including the icing sugar pavements before departing.

Over the road to drop off some misdirected mail and
"What's going on with these posts?" I'm asked
"You been reading the Shuttle?"
"No, what are they for?"
"Oh they're finger posts"
[quizzical look]
I mime pointing in various directions "They just haven't put up the signs yet"
"That one is going to be a right pain"
"Yeah it wouldn't have been so bad if it was straight up and down, but it's flared at the bottom; someone's going to trip over that."

Much discussion followed.

So two locals within ten minutes essentially saying "Who the hell put that there?"

On the same topic as trips and tripping, I now turn to rambling. In this instance the comment thread on the WFA regarding the Red Cross donation which has over 60 comments at last count. To summarise again (and I'm taking a risk here) part of the money donated for helping with the floods was set to be used to help with a play area not affected by the floods until someone asked why, at which point it was withdrawn.

Now the whole 60+ comments is essentially all about who asked whom and who gave (or didn't give) permission to whom and what was said. About 40 posts in I get fed-up and point out that all this could be settled by posting the documentation between the two parties involved. I repeat this three times and anyone in a position to have this documentation keeps repeating the mantra 'They said we could, and now they said we can't' without offering any proof oh and subtle legal threats against their 'accusers'. If this was a typical internet spat I wouldn't much care, but those of the mantra are our local councillors.

Television repeats

So I'm guessing that CITV has only the one series of "Justice League" given that they've ended the three part episode of "The Savage Time" (23, 24, and 25) and have just shown the three-parter "Secret Origins" 1, 2, and 3. As I'm late to the party and missed these total selfishness means I don't mind until they hit the ones I've already seen. At which point I'll moan that they aren't showing the second series or the thirty-nine episodes of the follow-on show.

Hey it's better then the news and quite frankly has a more mature plot then a lot of prime-time programming; besides it's got a proper taciturn, brooding Batman.

On the same note I see Channel 4 are doing their thing with "The Simpsons" again. We got five episodes of season 15 (out of twenty-one) before stepping back slightly to watch the entirety of season 14 skipping "C.E. D'oh", "'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky" and "Three Gays of the Condo" of course ('Damn it these are cartoons they're for kids we can't show these at 6pm') before jumping back to watching season 8 (again I recall some odd gaps) and hey look now we're starting at season 13.

I'll just give the simplified episode numbers in the order they're being shown - 1307, 1306, 1308, 1310, 1314, 1313. Okay so the order within the season doesn't mean much, but we seem to have jumped five episodes here; not to mention four seasons; why? Channel 4 made such a big fuss over getting the rights to broadcast "The Simpsons" from BBC2, trumpeting how they'll be showing brand-new content, and now they're doing exactly the same thing the bloody BBC did and flicking aimlessly between seasons and skipping episodes.

So with "Reaper", "The Big Bang Theory", and "Terminator:SCC" long off the air and both "Doctor Who" and "Heroes" coming to an end there truly does seem to be less and less of anything worth watching on TV (and this season of "Heroes" wasn't exactly ablaze). I'll take a look at this "Bonekickers", which I guess is replacing Who's slot, but from the trailers it does look scarily set in the "Primeval" mould. [sigh] At least there's always Channel 4's "Despatches". Now which book shall I start today?

Knife crime

Yep another media frenzy on knife victims, I'm sure the publicity surrounding this particular event has nothing to do with the fact that the victim had a semi-famous sister who would draw more semi-famous people in to be photographed, quoted and used to sell more papers.

Jacqui Smith MP took the tough option by appearing on the GMTV sofa this morning and, scary though this may be, she actually talked more sense then presenter Ben whom I'll deal with in a minute.

So things she said included the fact that knife crime has decreased, and this is true given the current statistics, which has been acknowledged to be not reliable; and that the majority of 'young people' don't go around carrying knives.

On the annoying side she said that knife carriers were now more then three times as likely to end up in court. At this point Ben earned his big bucks by complaining that this didn't guarantee a prison sentence. Yep you heard that correctly - GMTV presenter advocates government lays down yet more mandatory sentencing by taking yet more power from the courts. Perhaps we should do away with courts altogether and have send everyone up before the MP; heck that's pretty much how we used to do it.

So imagine all this hysteria ends up along those lines - now read this true story :

A guy walks home from walk with a set of flat carrying pouches across his back when he's stopped by a police officer.
"What's in the pouches?" the policeman asks
"Knives" replies the guy
"What! You can't walk down the street carrying a bunch of knives!" exclaims the policeman
"I'm a chef" states the guy
"Doesn't matter" replies the policeman
"Look I'm just coming back from work and I'm not leaving them in the restaurant. They're my livelihood and they're expensive"

Fortunately nothing came of this, but this is the point - are the police going to be arresting chefs, fishers, carpenters, electricians, heck Boy Scouts for carrying knives? With this wonderful new 'more likely to end up in court' will we see more money spent on time-wasting court appearances in order to bolster arrest statistics and to satisfy the baying media hounds who will have already forgotten this and moved on to the next juicy story?

Back to Jacqui and the measures taken to 'educate' the young she said that carrying knives doesn't make you safe, makes you more likely to get hurt or hurt someone else and that they will get caught. Once again my slapping hand is poised both for politician and presenter for not grabbing that and ramming home the question "But why do some people carry knives in the first place?" - because it makes them feel safer perhaps as per the very first point Jacqui is advocating against.

Why would that be? Hmm perhaps the old rebellion against authority; perhaps that 'the young' feel persecuted by the police (at the instigation of adults); perhaps because of that they feel they have no-one to turn to if something should happen, take the latest incident where the Ben Kinsella called his friend on the mobile for help while being chased, it has yet to be mentioned that he himself called the police first or even after.

Perhaps because they're bored and thus form social groupings that it turn, thanks to our species delightful territoriality streak, automatically opposes other such social groups and thus requires defence against them. That, of course, has nothing to do with the disconnection in geography whereby each estate has its own established borders with its own local shops and play areas.

Again it's a minority that can sweep in the unconnected majority, but once again in both politics and media we see the easy attack on the symptom and not the difficult attack on the cause.

Just Stourport things

I was a little concerned driving back through town last night, York Street had a big maintenance wagon loaded with signs parked on it including traffic light notices. Of course as has been promised we're not getting any more disruptions at Bridge Street oh no indeedy these disruptions will in fact be on the corner of New Street and um Bridge Street. Central Networks 30/6 to 3/7. Checking through the list it also appears Severn Trent will have some lights up in Wilden Lane just for 3/7. I found these of course using the weekly Excel spreadsheet that Worcester County Council provide, their 'live' web search didn't bring up anything of use.

A minor delay coming through town this morning. A bus had parked quite inconsiderately in the High Street bus-stop; as I've mentioned multiple times the buses don't fit and thus jut out into the main road. Hey that doesn't matter we've still got one and three-quarters of a lane left... except another bus had turned up and had to park behind the bus-stop. Hey that doesn't matter we've still got one lane left... at which point the eye is drawn to the large delivery wagon parked opposite the bus-stop. You know parked at 8:40am across those No Loading stripes next to the notice telling them there's no loading between 8:00am and 9:00am.

Now of course the bus not in the bus-stop can't get past the one in the bus-stop (because it juts out) and no other traffic can get between the gap of the road-parked bus and the delivery van; so we all have to wait until either the bus-stop bus or the delivery van moves because the powers that be couldn't even build a bloody bus-stop properly and of course none of these vaunted traffic wardens are in sight.

Ah well it did give me time to admire the new directional signs that have been mounted on the finger posts... no I tell a lie none of them have any signs yet. I did get to admire the foreshadowing of the broken tar spreading across the icing sugar pavement on the corner of New Street and Bridge Street - you know, where they've got the road works.

[sigh] The water puddle at the OGL island is still there, and yet again I can understand why they don't want to disrupt traffic again at this busy junction while other work is going on, just grates that of all the work that this company has done in the town so much is sub-par (They're the ones who put in the jutting up plate in Mitton Street after they'd dug it up for the second time to fix a leak, they're also the ones who put down the mismatched bricks in High Street)

Now for an amendment, the tire tracks that now surround the lane leading to Thomas Vale may be caused by the road surface itself, in this hot weather there's a distinct smell that I last remember from the bridge resurfacing. I also note that cars turning into the lane are solving the narrowness problem by driving over the new pavement. I expect to hear a call for tank buster kerbs to be fitted rather than a call to discover whoever approved this width in the first place.