Gertsamtkunstwerk

More photos

I have added two new photo albums, both of which represent thwarted ambitions.

I set out to photograph a lot of the elephants that were distributed across London for the Elephant Parade, but failed, because life got in the way. We spent two weeks if June in Spain.

 For some of the time, the weather was exceptionally hot. On the penultimate Monday in May we went out to Virginia Water in Surrey - train to Sunningdale Station and cab from there. We had a really good walk round the lake, which made me feel more confident I would be able to do some walking on holiday.

It was hot and bright and I still wasn't really comfortable with the camera I'd bought three months earlier. So, I can't say I am particularly happy with any of the photos, but after some reflection, I have decided to publish them. I think that it isn't always necessary for photos to be visually stunning, if you want to tell a story.

And the story I want to tell, I suppose it's the leitmotif of this blog, is get out there, seize the opportunities to see the world on your doorstep, wherever your doorstep happens to be.

 I didn't tweet very much when I was there

• 13:46 Walking round Virginia Water
• 15:10 Seem to have bitten off slightly more than I can chew walk-wise
• 15:58 That walked was signed as 4.5 miles but suspect after hesitation, deviation & repitition more like 6. Now relaxing with pint of Adnams.

We finished off with an above-average meal in the Wheatsheaf which is the obvious drop-off place for the cab on the way in and close to the carpark.

Amuse bouches

A supplement fell out of the Radio Times. It was a Jamie Oliver guide to Christmas food. I quickly flicked through it and my eye was caught by something he calls Party Forks, which seems to be a suggestion for amuse bouches. I mentioned it to Jimmy, and he immediately said - oh, you can put them in vol-au-vents.

You cannot imagine how much that annoys me. Amuse bouches seem to be somewhat fashionable at the moment; vol-au-vents were fashionable sometime in the 70s. Okay, I know they pop up time and again on buffets, but I reckon that is so that a tiny quantity of ingredients can be disguised by a great big wodge of puff pastry.

I think there are some interesting ideas for presenting amuse bouches. Skewering them with forks looks fun - the picture that accompanies the article has a selection of non-matching foks with eye-catching handles. Other ways of serving that spring to mind include shot glasses, espresso cups and Chinese soup spoons. I suppose you can also use small saucers or ramekins as well as rather less exciting cocktail sticks and crostini.

But at home, when you're already creating unnecessarily fussy work by creating the amuse bouches in the first place, it seems silly to create even more fuss by stuffing them into a vo-au-vent case, which, basically has nothing to attract the eye. And some of the ideas for mini-appetisers should either be served raw or as liquid!

In so many ways that just sums Jimmy up. And it annoys me!

Pictures from the internet: if I have breached your copyright please let me know and I will remove the picture or give credit where it is due

On getting a new sofa

Months ago - and I mean months ago - we finally got round to getting new sofas. I had a bought a couple of cheap sofas when I first bought the house, with the intention of replacing them within five years. Fourteen-and-a-half years later, they remained.

We realised that in order to get the old 3-seater out of the house it would have to be broken up. I said I would do as much as I could in Jimmy's absence at work; he could finish it off in preparation for its removal on the Monday, when we had the new ones delivered.

Being me, I couldn't resist photographing various stages of the process. I don't think the photos require further explanation:

   

 

 

 

Do I want a cake or pastry?

I'm usually very polite to serving staff in shops, cafes and pubs. I've been the other side of the counter and it's horrible when customers are rude to you, especially considering the low wages. If you're polite and a regular customer, it comes back as good karma. Actually, those sentences are merely post hoc justification of what should be unthinking natural instinct.

But today, I was snappy with a serving person in a coffee shop, and it's not the first time in recent weeks.

I go into a coffee shop and I look around before I order. This may be because there's a queue to be served, or just because I look anyway. I decide what I want. If it's in an accessible display cabinet, I pick it up and present it to the server. If it's not accessible, I request it.

This morning I went into Caffe Ritazza, but it could have been Cafe Nero, because I no longer shop there for this same reason. There was quite a queue, so I had some time to peruse the goods on offer. Not just hot drinks, but cold drinks, sandwiches, paninis, cakes and pastries. Eventually, it was my turn.

"Hello! Can I have a large latte to take away please!"

"Large latte!" says the server to her colleague, who proceeded to heat the milk, whilst the server did the espresso. Whilst we were waiting, the server faffed around behind the counter. She said something, but it didn't particular register with me, because I was waiting for her to say "£2.65", or whatever. Next thing, she's waving her hand in front of me to get my attention, and asking if I wanted a cake or a pastry. I wasn't entirely with it at that point, so I said,

"Erm, no, I ordered a coffee..."

"But do you want a pastry or cake?"

"No. I would have asked if I did," I snapped.

Okay, I know she's 'only doing her job', but, actually, she's not. If she had any nous at customer service, she would have heard my coffee request as a closed sentence. Not one where there's clearly an 'and a cake or pastry...' lurking. My being miles away really should have suggested that I wasn't waiting anxiously for an opportunity to order a cake or pastry.

In my favourite coffee shop, I would have paid and got my change, and been able to put my purse away before the coffee was made. Instead, she's so busy faffing around desperately trying to push a cake or pastry, she's failing to serve customers promptly and there's a queue building up behind me. Multiply that by every customer and the queue just gets longer and longer, when the process of taking an order for coffee, preparing and serving the coffee, and any other requested product, and taking the cash should be a smooth operation. All the time I've heard this ridiculous routine in a cafe, I've never heard anyone say:

"Well, yes, now you mention it, I wasn't going to buy an overpriced baked good, but now you've persuaded me."

I have often witnessed people spending a long time ordering assorted baked goods. Baked goods which are already laid out to tempt the eye. It's even worse in Nero, when they don't just nag you to buy a random cake or pastry, but they select a pastry of the week, leaving me to wonder why I would specifically want an almond croissant, when there are apricot danishes, double choc-chip biscuits etc also on offer. And that's after she has failed to add the extra-shot to the coffee I had specifically requested.

I suspect that either I am totally unique in getting very annoyed by this pushing onto me of goods I don't want, or else, there are legions of customers getting just as annoyed as me, but not snapping.

As a sort of post script, last Saturday we went into Starbucks in Fleet services. I grabbed the only available table whilst Jimmy went to order. It wasn't until we were leaving that he told me he hadn't paid. The server took his order, walked away, told the espresso maker, and then took the order of the next person, so he thought he had to pay the person who pours the milk and shouts what's being served. Who didn't request money, either! It would have been quite funny to take the coffees back and say they were shit, which they were (but they were just much-needed caffeine on the motorway).

And as a post post script, on holiday we went into a coffee shop that looked tempting from the outside, but turned out to be a bit rubbish. I think it was set up in the 80s and they've only reluctantly moved into the late 90s. My scrambled egg was an insult. But what made me laugh was that the menu included 'expresso'. So Jimmy ordered a double espresso, and the serving woman - a bit posh, thought she was a cut above mere customers - corrected him like a school teacher, almost with a glare 'Double exxxx-presso'.

Like when I was on Cape Cod years ago with my friend who at the time worked at CERN, speaking French day-in day-out. She ordered a croissant and the server corrected her to 'croy - santttt'.

links 11/04/2010

• Nasal artistry turns Plácido Domingo into Cyrano

  Makeup artist Tim Santry puts the finishing touches on the fake nose that tenor Plácido Domingo wears for the title role in "Cyrano de Bergerac."

  tags: placi

   

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Don't tell me how I feel!

Imagine a scenario where a well known white person gives an interview to a specialist magazine,which is reported in the national press, where they opine that there isn't any discrimination against or harassment of black or Asian people.

Imagine if hundreds of black and Asian people think: "Blimey!" and write on Twitter "I've been on the receiving end of racial discrimination more often than you can possibly know."

Imagine then if several white people take to the internet and declare "I've discussed this with several of my white friends and we can categorically reassure you that that white celebrity was right, there is no racial discrimination. Now, you uppity Ethnics, please remove the characteristic chip from your shoulder and know your place"

This is in effect what has happened since Saturday night. Except that, instead of it being about race, it's about gender, and it's men - not all men, just some men -  assuming to know about being a   woman , and to mediate the supposed views of women without  listening to women, unaware that women can express their own views and are doing so.

The celebrity in question is Stephen Fry and he has, at best, behaved foolishly and arrogantly. Not liking the uppity women contradicting him, he resorted to the standard Celebrity Pathetic Excuse 'I was quoted out of context' and went off in high dudgeon at being 'bullied'.

The parade of apologists for Fry is predictable. They discount one woman's personal testimonial because 'personal testimonial' is meaningless anecdote. In their world, the truth can only out when authoritative people make sweeping generalisations. The combined aggregate testimony of hundreds of women is bullying - the word 'hysterical' hangs there unsaid but implied. And yet the cumulative spontaneous testimony of hundreds of women was glorious!

I gave personal testimony because I cannot presume to speak for any other woman. I can guess what some other women think, at least partly. And I read other women giving similar personal testimony, not presuming to speak for me. Of course, there is always the one voice of a woman who says "Well, I've never had sex, therefore Stephen Fry is right", probably a woman with more psycho-sexual hang-ups than Fry himself - famously 'celibate' for, what, 15 years.

What does 'celibate' mean, anyway? An active choice, a vow to be broken when temptation becomes too great to resist, a public admissions of one's own inadequacies, or a prosaic acknowledgement of one's reality for the time being? Probably lots of people are, short-term or for most of their lives, but don't make a thing of it!

Fry does rather take on the persona of Renaissance Man, the person who knows about a great breadth of subjects. It's unclear what research is there, scholarly or otherwise, his own or that of unheralded lowly researchers,  to support his jack-of-all-trades dominance of the media; he is but a dilettante. I really can't imagine the arrogance that can drive someone like him to believe that he has anything whatsoever to contribute about female sexuality.

He seems to have made his career out of being a rebel against his background. How often do we hear how he was expelled from two public schools? Presumably not to hang round drear shopping parades sniffing glue, vulnerable to predators and drug dealers, allowed three hours a week at Pupil Referral Centre.

Emerging from Cambridge University in a blaze of glory, he displayed his rebellion by behaving as if he's been to a state grammar school and 'Russell Group' university. In the advanced stages of middle-age, he probably still thinks he is anti-Establishment as he floats through gilded palaces, frequently congratulating himself on his iconoclasm, oblivious that the world has moved on past him, and the internet is stuffed with people from comprehensives and Polytechnics, women and black people, who don't have to negotiate the Old Boys network to be published,  writers, many of whom write well, some of whom write brilliantly. And can bear witness to their own lives without needing Mr Establishment to mediate their opinions and translate them for an audience imagined to consist only of equally privileged men.

The Police!

Quarter past eleven, loud knock on the door. 'Who is it?' I called out, knowing better than opening my door to strangers. A female voice called out 'Police', so I opened up. That's how middle-class I am!

As I opened, I thought, it could be robbers or noisy neighbours bluffing me. Then, when I saw a police uniform, I knew they were police.

So I went through a quick examination of conscience (it's obviously something in my upbringing; I once shared a lift with the now Commissioner of the Met and almost surrendered myself into his custody so wracked with guilt I felt), then I felt a thrill of excitement - there's been a major incident in the neighbourhood and they're doing door-to-door enquiries, before again feeling guilty because 'major incident' may be exciting to me, but devastating to someone else.

They asked me if I knew someone - gave her name. I said I knew the name, because I had received post in her name. Several increasingly severe demands for gym membership renewals. I've asked at the two rented houses but they had no knowledge of her. I assumed she had lived there previously, and moved on, without leaving a trace.

I mentioned to the police that I had received a parking ticket for her and was meaning to ring up TfL to say 'it's not me'! They asked to see the parking ticket - in actual fact it's a penalty charge notice for box junction infringement. They took some details, and said it was very useful, because they're looking for her. I've just taken a look at the PCN and it's for a vehicle with a 2010 registration (YG10), so it seems that either she's decided to use this address as an address of convenience, or else she's lived in one of the neighbouring houses until recently.

As I wrote this, I suddenly remembered that Jimmy said he'd bumped into the owner of the other cottage (not the Noisy Neighbours nor the Religious Nutter Neighbour) the other day, and he (the landlord) had said the previous tenants had done a runner without paying the rent. So I got on the phone to the Met's telephone answering service and passed that snippet on, too. I was even able to come up with a name for the landlord.

I'm intrigued as to why the police are looking for this Vicky woman. I'm not sure that failing to renew a gym membership, and then driving into a box junction on the corner of Brixton Road and Gresham Road (hmm, outside the cop shop) makes her a dangerous criminal. But there's definitely something dodgy about her.

UPDATE: 00:10 Control at Brixton Police ring to say this Vicky 'has been found safe and well'. Now I'm feeling guilty, thinking, assuming, she was a bad 'un all along, and it turns out that she was missing/maybe vulnerable. I like to think that my handing over her car registration details may have proved vital in tracing her, but I rather suspect that most cases of adults reported missing result either from rows or from excess alcohol, and end when the presumed-missing person returns home, embarrassed at having caused such a fuss.