My Top 5 Ways to Improve the UK

Prompted by this http://www.bbc.co.uk/genius/ - I just *have* to throw my oar in. Sorry world.

My top five ways to improve the UK.

1) Mobile phones which play music outloud should be instantly confiscated and destroyed, and all unsold ones returned to factories, to have this remarkably anti-social function instantly removed.
Think of all the thousands of people on buses, trains, in the street, or just in daily life who are aggravated by being forced to listen to someone elses tinny distorted cruddy music? It's not the STYLE of music, it's the lack of free will not to listen. And the people playing it, who are so often doing it intentionally to show how cool and edgey their disrepect for other people is...

If users of said mobile phones are in school, meetings, libraries, "Quiet Coaches" etc, a socially cohesive community punishment may be served- which would bring others together for the postive purpose of removing this anti-social pest. E.g. being chained to a treadmill to power the school's lighting, or being made into compost for local allotments, etc.
 

2) All learner-drivers should have a minimum number of hours motorway driving practise before attempting their test. This is a sensible suggestion.

This would mean that people who are using the motorway WOULD BLOODY WELL KEEP LEFT (in the UK)!! YOU SHOULD DRIVE ON THE *LEFT*!! Then you can *OVERTAKE* on the right. If you are not overtaking something right now, YOU SHOULD BE LEFT!! And if you are on the RIGHT I hope you DIE HORRIBLY IN A SLOW AND BURNY WAY!

Rage caused by others misusing motorway lanes.

Not driving on the left, and causing others to slow or to be unable to overtake each other, should result in compulsary lesson or two on motorway driving and some kinda compulsory community helping activity- e.g. land maintenace, assisting with prison literacy programs, disability caring etc. By allowing offenders to pick their helpful activity you'd be optimising the chance that they may actually enjoy it and continue the worthwhile activity after the compulsory time limit. Alternatively, they could be used in the foundation of new road surfaces.


3) It should become a normal and pleasant occurance that frequently a different member of every work place bakes some kind of enjoyable confectionary. Including the boss. Once a week, or on different days to make it less routine and more exciting!

People who already have cake-day at their work have something to look forwards to, because, mmmm nom cake, and the person making the cake will enjoy the gratitude and compliments given by the co-workers. The participation of the boss will serve to help break down some of the social tension caused by the work hierarchy.

The other important thing about "cake-day" is that it would encourage everyone to practise, and then to experiment with their baking skills, and so to encourage them to be less reliant on pre-processed shop bought things, and rediscover the world of making stuff for yourself, so that the knowledge of cake is not lost to the take-away eating populace, and our children will know how to break an egg.


4) Disney films should become part of the primary school syllabus, along with idealised moral lessons in the classroom. This would basically just make everyone a nicer person, as when human nature kicks in and people behave in a less ideal fashion, they have a better starting position and so perhaps a better level of decreased behaviour.

Look at the love, friendship, appreciation of nature, and environmental importance featured in this little picture. See the bees in this pic are ideally coming towards us, rather than vanishing forever into the ether....

5) All automatic doors in shops, public buildings, basically anywhere should be removed. The only places where automatic doors may be permitted would be at supermarkets or airports- places where the things you are likely to be carrying, make doors difficult.

Automatic doors in shops for example, are a very bad idea because they open for much longer than people need them to, letting out heating and increasing the energy used to heat that building; they open accidently when you walk near them, again, increasing the money and carbon wasted through heating, and through opening the door, and they also encourage us to be lazy, as our arms get fatter and weaker every day. Shops who leave their doors open all the time are also culpable. Keep the heat in in order to ward of the climate apolcalypse and keep our arms fit and toned!

Save money, and help reduce Britain's bingo wings!

Jamtastic Ideas

This autumn my family had a very very poor fruit season. We basically got 5 damsons, no apples, some hedgerow berries, and some very very furry and inedible looking pears. But because I’d been collecting jam jars all year, we went to pick plums at a local Pick Your Own farm, and bought about a cow’s weight in Victoria plums. Hurrah! So jam happened.

Sister posing pretty with plums. The rest of us were using Sainsbury's carrier bags...

 

Plum Jam

3lbs of plums

3 lbs of sugar

Approx 1 pint of water

Optional lemon juice.

(Obv, adjust proportions for the amount of plums.)

So basically you have a choice in your method. It depends which activity you find annoying.

The options are either to stone the plums first, and to use the juice of a lemon to help it set. Or to use the plums whole, and then sieve the stones out with a spoon, removing the stones by hand. You can even stew the fruit, let it cool, and then pull all the stones out with your fingers. In this case you do not necessarily need the lemon apparently, but it may still help.

The method I use:

Before you start you need to sterilise your jam jars and lids, so that your jam will last a long time in storage without going off. Wash them well, and then put them in the oven at a very high temperature for at least half an hour, and then let them cool. You can also sterilise by boiling jars and lids.

I first wash and stone the plums, and cut up the flesh.

Put the plums, water and lemon juice into a large saucepan and boil the fruit until completely soft (approx half an hour).

Dissolve the sugar in the stewed fruit, stirring constantly.

Boil the mixture until it reaches setting point- this is probably about 15 minutes. Skim some of the scum off the top of the mixture.

Test for the setting point by dripping jam onto a cool plate, letting it cool for a short while and looking at its texture. E.g. if you draw a line through some jam on the plate, does the jam close up again quickly? Or push into the side of a puddle and jam, and see if the surface wrinkles.

When you’ve reached setting point, pour it into the jars up to the very top, add a waxed paper cover if you like and put the lids on immediately. This means that there is minimal oxygen in the jar, and the jam will keep for longer. If the jar lids have depressing centres, they will be pulled down as the jam cools, and show that the jam has not been opened since you made it.

Warning. Horrific Sweeney-Tood-Esqe mess may occur. The above is the blood of innocent damsons.

Common problem: not setting? Either lemon juice or apple will help your jam to set so make sure you’ve included one of these ingredients. If you cannot get your jam to set with these ingredients, you can buy sugar with added pectin.

So if, like me, you have a lot of plums (or near equivalent) and want to play with different ideas, add different flavourings. The most popular one I’ve made so far has been Plum and Lemon Jam, or Lemon and Plum Marmalade, however you want to say it.

To make this I added the grated zest and the juice of 4 or 5 lemons with the plums. You can also taste it near the end to see if you need more sugar to balance the lemon, or more lemon if you want more of a marmalade taste.

I also made Mulled Plum Jam, which is great. Use about pint of wine, the juice of a large orange, and a little water instead of the water in the recipe above. Also add a few spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, or other mulling spices. This recipe may have trouble setting, so you may need to add some apple, lemon, or pectin as well. I used a little lemon, and a little added pectin. I have heard of people adding raisons or some kind of dead grape to this recipe too. I would hate that, but you may not!

You can use plum recipes with any plum-like fruit too, e.g. peaches, nectarines, greengages, damsons. If using damsons it may be easier to pick the stones out later, as they’re small and difficult to get out with a knife. Other ideas are plum/peach and ginger and plum and brandy.

Happy jamming!!

Wanted: Social consience. Alive please.

In fact thought I'd do another tonight in stead, as it's a way of avoiding tidying my room :)

This is kinda a ranty antidote to all the serious proper concepts related above. Fingers crossed for increased fun! It begins, as all things should, with a story.

Gather round lovely children and I shall tell you a tale.

Once upon a time there was a little boy, and his mummy who lived in Leeds.

Now the little boy, let’s call him Timmy, as going to his friend John’s birthday party, where there would be cake, three different colours of jelly because they weren’t gelatine racists, pass the parcel and all sorts of fun!

John’s mummy and daddy had *even* booked out Enrique the Accordion-Playing Squirrel, especially for the party! So everyone was very excited! Especially Enrique, but less so his parole officer, who had to be present at all times, disguised as a fez.

The party was fancy dress so Timmy and Mummy went into Leeds city centre to find him a costume. Timmy wanted to dress as Cher, but mummy was not very liberal and concerned about what this meant for his developing sexuality so they agreed on him being a cowboy covered in guns.

Whilst they were shopping Timmy started to need the toilet. But there was no toilet for at *least* 15 meters on this busy shopping street in the middle of the day! What to do!

So Mummy took Timmy over to a door next to Wilkinsons, pulled down his trousers and encouraged Timmy to wee against the door of this business whilst everyone else walked past him.

The wee made a stream and crawled across the tarmac that everyone was walking on, and Timmy felt better. So Mummy pulled up his pants and they went to find a cowboy costume.

Wait.

WHAT? 

Previous discussion on tolerance aside, I am frequently *DISGUSTED* by people! (tbh the rant above was about religious tolerance, so tis not as much hypocritical as comically placed.)

On a busy shopping street, in the day, or *wherever* you are, do NOT teach your child that is OK to urinate on someone’s door because you need the toilet. If you need the toilet, you find a toilet! If you are that desperate, find somewhere quiet at least! There is no justification for this shameful excuse for a mother because there were several cafes and a station around that area she could have gone into, and a few alleys too if the situation were that dire.

A little more social conscience would make the world a thousand times nicer to live in. A little bit of treating your neighbour like you’d like to be treated etc etc. Looking after your community and so on. This does *not* mean you have to volunteer to prune the roses in your local park, or teach challenged children to make potato stamps, it just means things like clearing up after yourself, sometimes picking up rubbish that isn’t yours, not playing your music too loud and smiling at people in the street.

We all know how infectious a smile and “good morning!” are between strangers, and you can start these good feelings moving around *so* easily.

By infectious smile I mean, like making people happy, not giving them facial herpes.

Also- if you listen to headphones or something, which can be heard at *all* by other people, there will be hate and anger. I guarantee it. Because hypocritically it will be me grinding my teeth and glaring at you whilst your ears radiate even a quiet tish tish tish tish or bm bm bm bm bm, which to me feels like a cheese-grater on my recently flayed skull.

Seriously.

Anyway that aside. God I hate people. TAKE YOUR RUBBISH WITH YOU!! Or Enrique will hunt you down. He has a history of anti-socially prompted GBH. He hate’s iPods. And not even his parole officer will be able to help. Esp if you were listening to Basshunter, after which it'd be surpising if you could tell what any part of your flesh or bone used to be. At least without a lot of forensic pathology experience, and an iron clad stomach.

Love and hugs!! :D

PS I did actually find a picture of a squirrel in a fez, but it a was very disturbing and horrible example of taxidermy being basically a sad frozen animal, dressed up for sick amusement by people and sold for cash. Ick.

Religious Toler-rants

I am not a Catholic. I am not really an anything. I am an apathetic, liberal pragmatist- so much so that I don’t want to use a word as definite as atheist, or a word with as much potential as agnostic. I’m secular. Just, secular.

I love the ideas involved in modern Christianity, and I wish I found it believable, because I can see the support and comfort that it gives to people’s lives. But I certainly have far too scientific a mind, and have not had proof enough to believe in divinities. I love the sense of community it gives people. I love the historical values: churches as beautiful historical buildings, and the way religion has shaped our history.

(I should say at this point, that this discussion really uses Christianity as an example of religion because I am very familiar with it, as my background is white British, and my school was sort of relaxed academic Catholic. Not because other religions are less useful, I just know less about them.)

All peoples developed religion at some point in their culture’s development with similar themes- it seems to be an essential anthropomorphic development. Religion helped to understand and explain our world; it helps deal with trouble in our lives; it protects us from the bleak and depressing ideas of mortality, insignificance and helplessness. It performs vital social functions, creating a collective of believers, and adding cohesion to a community.

The immortal, allowed us to deal with being mortal. 

This is a phenomenon all cultures have in common, but it is seen as an insurmountable difference. It is in fact something that connects all human history in various different parallels and demonstrates the same mental function in all groups.

Many of us no longer believe in a divine character or pantheon. Technology has taken the place of many of these needs, in ways that are tangible, visible, provable. Science can also provide explanations or hope for many of our problems in life. And regarding social functions, there are many other things which add social cohesion to a nation, particularly in a literate nation, and after the invention of modern media. If I tell you to “Use The Force!” you will almost certainly understand this, because this is a modern shared reference for almost everyone.

 But that does not mean that religion is useless, antiquated, or should have scorn poured on it by those of us who do not believe.

Modern Christianity contains great ideas about the way we should live and the way we should act towards others. A social responsibility is fairly central to the lessons we are most familiar with. This is something I feel very strongly about, because many people have very strange (or absent) ideas about social responsibility. You do not have to believe in the deity being discussed to believe that the lessons taught in his name are positive ideas.

It also helps us with a function of religion that science cannot assist with.

No-one likes to contemplate their own mortality. This is something that science still cannot solve, and in the face of this people turn back to their Gods. It is hard for people to accept that all there is to life is these short years, and although we can see dying and and corpses, people *need* to believe that this is not the end. People turn to God when they have no choice, at the death of a loved one, when facing their own mortality; when medical science begins to let them down.

A religion can give them the comfort and hope to help people deal with these very emotionally traumatic times. And who would deny them this hope at their time of need, because you don’t believe in the power that is helping them cope?

On Sundays as I drive to work, on Radio Two, there is a programme with Aled Jones, of Walking in the Air fame. It has a lot more focus on religion than most BBC programming, and it normally features a speaker talking about recent events in their life, often mentioning the effect of their faith in this situation.

I do not share this faith, but I never fail to be touched to the point of tears, at the comfort and strength that these people have found with God.

I also very much enjoy Pause for Thought. I do not subscribe to the belief system that is delivering the thought, but they are brilliant things to ponder and hopefully improve your daily life, the way we think about ourselves and the way we treat others.

As the Pope is currently visiting the UK, we have all heard endless debates between people on all sides of this issue. Devout Catholics and very assured atheists verbally throttling each other, people getting very upset over the cost etc.

(Yes- we are paying a lot for his state visit, but the point is he is a head of state as well as a religious leader, and as a head of state this is something taxes pay towards.)

So basically. BE TOLERANT! Does it matter if you believe different things? Look for things you can appreciate in the beliefs of others, and respect that, whether it be a particular ideal that is taught, a character or friend of that religion whom you like, beautiful art done in its name... something. 

Rather uninspiring conclusion- no-one is forcing you to agree, but wouldn’t it be nice if everyone were nice?

If everything above looks like soppy idealism it’s because I am a soppy idealist. But I also think if no-one spreads soppy idealism, the ideal will never occur.

If you don’t like any of this. You’ll prob at least enjoy the “Benedictaphone.” 

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11278500 )

I shall write a fun post tomorrow so I don't lose my audience due to this MASSIVE rant.

Love and hugs!

Sinister Garage Food Blood-Monopoly, a bit of preaching maturity, and the forgotten beauty of the every day universe

The Dark Lord eats Ginsters’ Peppered Steak Slices

How do Ginsters still exist? They provide food which is about 50% salt and 50% fat, either of a sausage roll/wrong shaped scotch egg variety, or strange pasties. Surely chicken slices and things with steak and gravy in them should be served hot? 

Isn’t a cold chicken slice like eating congealed cream and chicken juice that has set into a jelly? Why would anyone do that voluntarily? Also on the few times I have eaten a sausage roll, or a strangely shaped scotch egg, the meat has had some hideously shaped gruesome lump in it containing both distressingly chewy and crunchy bit, and I have spat it out in a panic and thrown the whole thing away, vowing never to buy anything with unknown meat in it again. Also, the meat of the scotch egg was a very *very* dark grey. This is wrong.

To be fair I haven’t tried their sandwiches, as I consider mayonnaise one of the great gastronomical evils of this earth, and they are all heavily laden in it. But that to me is a failing too. There are plenty of people in the world who dislike mayonnaise, and all of us have trouble buying sandwiches.

In a large variety of convenience places- mostly petrol stations, Ginsters are the only available lunch-ish food. Why?? It’s horrid? Presumably there is some kinda violent monopolisation of the sandwich market going on? People baked into their own pies to warn off their company? Does Ginsters sponsor the Voldermort? People drowned in vats of mayonnaise. It makes me rethink the horrific lumpy sausage roll meat in a cold sweat.

In the paraphrased words of the evil baddy from Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal”, Reacher Gilt- they aim not to provide a good service, but the only service, by suffocating the drivers of other deliveries with a grey and sausage shaped scotch egg.

Reacher Gilt. To be fair it'd probably have been difficult for him to get a normal job. E.g. teacher, dog trainer, admin assistant.

Depressing people...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11256182

“Oh no! These people believe something different to us. Also some of them are prepared to take their difference in belief to devastatingly violent lengths. We’re not going to get out-done in outraged confrontational behaviour! How dare they win at being bastards! What can we do that will be really inflammatory whilst justified by the civilised concept of vengeance.

Inflammatory...

I’VE GOT IT!”

When I was little, like all children, me and my sisters would argue and fight and SCREAM at each other and things like that. Mum- “HELENA DON’T HIT MELISSA!” me aged 8 -“SHE HIT ME FIRST!” sister-“SHE WAS BEING ANNOYING!” me-“SHE WAS IN MY SPACE!” etc etc.

Happily we have left these Halcyon days behind us. But my point is, if children arguing on a car journey can at one point learn not to rise to provocation, to chose *not* not hit back, for the same of not escalating a conflict, surely someone in that Pastor’s life is able to say:

“Now Terry! I know they hit you first but that’s no excuse! Be a grown up boy and look out the window. See if you can see a tractor! Maybe we’ll have an ice cream at the next service station. Well done.”

Finally, something that isn’t a rant. Have a look here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11213528

These are some extremely beautiful astronomical images which I wanted to share with you. Take some time to really sink your mind into them, with or without the commentary. These are images of the universe as it is every day, right now. And when I see these stars, I find it incredible to think that if I look up, I am really looking up through the vastness of the universe protected only by our atmosphere, before an endless vacuum between these phenomena.

In the day we are hide behind a blue screen and forget what lies beyond. But we are really just standing on the edge of a spectacular infinity which we barely ever really contemplate and appreciate.

Enjoy the pictures. 

(unfortuantely I can't save and add any on here directly but I would have added this one )

Hurrah a new dance move to try at home!

Hello beautiful children.

I am back from being on holilday. I have been on a boat for about 40 hours recently. And urgh. I still feel sick. I am *not* a natural sailor. Perhaps if you sail regularly you just adapt? Or are sailors born not made? Either way. I'm still swaying, and dozy from all the sea sickness tablets, so I shan't attempt to make interesting discussion for fear it's entirely unintelligable tomorrow.

So here is a dance move just for you. It is performed by Jin, in lovely Fran's garden in Cambridgeshire.

I present to you: The Corkskrew. Apologies for the semi-darkness.

Enjoy! xxx