kestrel

from oldmotherchaos’s LJ here.

Iraq Sans Bullshit
Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, currently assigned as their middle-east correspondent, based in Iraq. A few days ago, she sent some friends an email describing the real state of affairs in the country — no spin, no editorial control, no publisher’s censorship, just one unhappy person letting her friends know what she’s faced with. The email was forwarded on to a number of colleagues, and from there it escaped into the blogosphere.

I am so heartily sick of everything being reduced to the lowest common denominator … The latest victim appears to be the BBC’s Panorama, a flagship current affairs programme.

no, it’s not necessarily “easy” television. It tackles difficult subjects, and does it with an assumption that its audience has intelligence. It’s been shuffled from pillar to post in recent years, ending up in the wasteland of Sunday nights, where it used to be on at prime time on a week night in days gone by.

now, we are informed by the Guardian that

Panorama, the world’s longest-running TV current affairs programme, needs a “touchy-feely” overhaul because it has become “too distant, demanding, difficult and didactic”, according to a briefing document prepared for the BBC executive in charge of the series.

there are so few programmes these days that require more than a single brain cell to appreciate. Horizon is but a shadow of its former self. We see very little good drama now. In these days of reality TV, D-list celebs, soap operas, etc., can’t we have just the odd programme that requires more than a single brain cell to appreciate?

thank god for Radio 4, that’s what I say.

we have just returned from seeing the Soweto Gospel Choir at Colstonall.

they were *fabulous* – I danced in the aisle. No really, I did. Singing, dancing, drumming, flashes of humour … one chap looked like a monkey. One girl, who looked very young, looked like trouble to us :)

if they perform round your way, go see them – it’s a grand night out, Grommit.

last weekend we got the breadmaker out of the loft – we hadn’t been using it, and it took up a lot of counter space, and I wasn’t terribly fond of the bread that it produced. But in our new spirit of organic stuff, we thought we’d give it another go.

yesterday – a full week later – we got round to putting it on the worktop (although it’ll have to be moved to somewhere with more headroom), and made an onion and garlic loaf to cook overnight.

I’d forgotten how nice it is to wake up to the smell of baking bread, and it looks *fab*. I made some soup with tired veg yesterday – carrots and courgettes, and some lettuce in a spirit of experimentation. That smells great too, so I’m looking forward to lunch :)

however, first we will have to take Mustrum to the vet – he is unwilling to put any weight on his front right paw, although we can’t actually see anything wrong, and ihe doesn’t cry if we touch his paw or his leg. So off to Judith with him.

my missing tapestry didn’t turn up. I’m really upset – I’ve been working on it, literally, for about 10 years, and both perlmonger and I know exactly where it was a couple of weeks ago … we’ve checked everywhere we can think of, but there’s no sign of it :(

on the basis that it might turn up if I get something else, I’ve ordered an aubergine in the sames series, thus:

I love Kaffe Fassett’s stuff, and I hope one day to have a whole series of these. You can see them in all their glory here – long page, which takes a while to load. Scroll down till you see the vegetables.

perlmonger: why isn’t this custom tag working? It should work – I’ve checked the directory and it’s there; I’ve restarted ColdFusion. Why doesn’t it *work*.

me: because you’ve forgotten the file extension, dearest – shall I rename it for you?

as spotted in trollprincess‘ journal

three to watch:

Brassed Off, the story of some brass bandsmen set in the UK during the miners’ strike. It’s not always an easy film to watch, but it has wonderful performances and a wonderful plotline. And serves to remind that we should never, ever elect a Tory government again. Except that, as perlmonger points out, we’ve got one.
IMDB page

The American President is, for me, the movie equivalent of “comfort food”. I know every word of every scene, and never tire of it. Written by Aaron Sorkin, it is the forerunner to that most excellent TV series The West Wing, although that’s not anything like as good as it was when Sorking was writing it.
IMDB page

Strictly Ballroom – if you read the blurb, you’d probably never watch it, unless the name of Baz Luhrmann was enough. It’s about a ballroom dancer in Australia, determined to break out of the mould of the accepted way of dancing, and is an utterly charming film. I never fail to cry at the end :)
IMDB page

now tell more people to do it. Hopefully, we’ll all have lots and lots of recommendations by the end of the day.

has anyone seen my tapestry?

you can’t miss it – iit’s a picture of a cauliflower.

[with apologies to brisingamen, cos I know she's disappointed with hers]

we’ve now been getting the veggie box for seven weeks, I think. It comes between 8.15 and 8.30 on a Tuesday morning, delivered from Riverford by a cheerful chap called Barney, and the invoice tells us he’s running a marathon soon for charity, and would we like to sponsor him. The veg come in a reusable box, which folds flat, so Barney collects last week’s box as he delivers this week’s.

we can see what’s coming in The Box from the web site, and we can add various items like milk and cream, organic charcoal and lemons and garlic, and more, – and one day soon I will remember to do this before the deadline of Sunday evening (in fact, I have just done it this moment). Every four weeks, we give Barney a cheque, and it all works like a dream.

but even better, I think, is that it has changed the way we eat. On Monday night, we had mushrooms, leeks and courgettes, lightly sautéd, to which I added cream and fresh oregano, eaten with a mound of pasta. Last night, we had roasted courgettes, carrots, new potatoes, red onion, and yellow pepper – tossed in good olive oil, with finely chopped garlic and chili, and served with couscous and coriander. Fresh food, simply cooked, and much better for us than meat.

and it takes more time to prepare veg from The Box – we have to wash it and trim it, so we spend more time cooking dinner, and less sitting in front of screens, either computers or televisions.

so I’m really pleased we got round to doing this – it’s improved our lifestyle in several different ways. And I’m getting very good at soup made from vegetable scrag end :)

from an article in the Times this morning, comes the news that Prince Charles thinks the army should guard the Royal Family.

the article goes on to mention some of the costs involved in protecting these people from … whatever they’re protected from. So, switching it to the Army would require *600-700 soldiers* – more than a battalion.

further figures:
to protecting the Queen at Balmoral this year – £1.2 million
to protecting Prince Harry for six weeks in Australia last year – £600k

The Home Office refuses to discuss the cost of policing the Royal Family but an authoritative figure is about £30 million a year, although that does not take into account the burden placed on police forces by royal visits.

———-

that’s a lot of money – are they worth it?