Sunday 28 February 2016

Very Cheap Salt

I noticed that in the local supermarket tins of salmon without added salt cost 15p more than otherwise similar tins of salmon with salt, suggesting a negative price for the salt.

Perhaps next time I want a packet of salt they'll pay me for taking it away !!





Tuesday 16 February 2016

An Image of Cream Cheese

A poster about diet in the Cardiology Department of Kettering General Hospital urges us to avoid cheeses such as Cheddar and Stilton, and to eat cream cheese instead.

That reminds me of my childhood in the 1940's. Refrigerators were rare, so milk often went sour in warm weather, but people were reluctant to waste food in a time of scarcity.My father used to convert curdled milk into cream cheese. He separated the solid curds from the whey by pouring the milk into an old sock, which he left hanging from one of the taps over the kitchen sink.  After a while he'd squeeze the sock, extract the contents, and eat them while mother and I watched in horror.

If you are ever tempted to eat cream cheese, just visualise father's sock hanging from the kitchen tap !!





Sunday 14 February 2016

Augmented Ancient

There's now more of me than there used to be.

On Friday a very charming cardiologist put stents in two of my coronary arteries,  so I'm no longer entirely organic.

Does that make me a cyborg ?








Wednesday 10 February 2016

Afraid of Numbers

Reporting of the New Hampshire primary results has been copious but irritatingly  vague. There are comments to the effect that someone did better than someone else and someone else did even worse than yet another person, but there there is no clear statement what happened.

A table giving the votes of each candidate would make all the waffle redundant.

I've often noticed that the media are reluctant to be precise, and suspect that many reporters and editors are afraid of numbers.



Saturday 6 February 2016

Surplus Insulation

I have two Winter overcoats, the default overcoat, and the heavy one reserved for specially cold weather. It struck me that I haven't worn the heavy one for several years.

I can't remember details of previous Winters, but I'm sure that this Winter there has never been a frost severe enough to last until noon.

Is that a sign of climate change, or just an instance of the chaotic variations in our weather ?