Verbs Transitive and Intransitive

It makes me cringe when restaurant waiters  say ‘Enjoy!’ with no reference to the object, though when I feel charitable I reflect that they may just have been abbreviating ’Enjoy your meal!’

However there is no charitable interpretation of injunctions such as  ’X is hurting’ said by people who mean that X is suffering.

I recently heard President Obama say that he knew people were hurting. 'Whom are they hurting, and why?' I should have liked to ask him. I suspect he wouldn’t have understood the question.

'Immature'

A lawyer pleading for leniency for a 14 year old rapist urged that he was 'very immature'.

I recall that when I was at Cambridge someone, I'm not sure whether it was Noel Annan or Richard Braithwaite, used to say "When I say someone is immature, I just mean his testicles have not descended".

In that sense the word can hardly apply to a rapist.

For some reminiscences about Cambridge dons of the late 1950's see this page of my web site.

Programmers' Liability

One of today's news items concerned a number of errors in tax codes fllowing the introduction of new software.

We often hear of computer systems malfunctioning at great cost. I wonder if it might help if third parties were allowed to sue those who create the systems.

Those who produce commercial software could be treated in the same way.

I suggest  that both those who produce software for sale, and those who use it, should be liable for its malfunction. That would stimulate the production and use of open source software, where users can legally correct any errors they detect.

Make Your Jam with Brown Sugar

For many years I've used brown sugar in my marmalade, but only very recently did I think of using it for jam too.

I spotted apricots in the market at 2 pounds for 1 pound sterling. So I bought two pounds and made them into jam, using light moist brown sugar. The flavour is subtly richer than that of jam made with white sugar.

Incidentally, don't use dark brown sugar. I once used that for marmalade and found the flavour of treacle overpowering.

Many who write cookery books have not realised that when one makes jam with fruit with stones, there is no need to stone the fruit before cooking. Once the fruit is cooked and the sugar has been added the stones will float and can be removed while one removes the scum and waits for the jam to reach its setting point.

Annual Letters

A few weeks ago I posted on my website a Christmas card and an annual letter, emailing links to various of my friends and acquaintance.

There were nearly 50 visits to the Christmas card, but only 2 to the annual letter.

That suggests that few were sufficiently interested in an annual letter to click a mouse button to see one. I wonder how many of the letters other people print and send by post are read attentively to the very end.

It does not follow that annual letters are useless. I found that writing mine helped me form a mental picture of my year, so I might write another at the end of this year, but if I do I shall write for my own benefit, not for anyone else's.

An easily made pudding

(1) Take 500 grams of mixed dried fruit, often sold as dried fruit salad and consisting of prunes, apricots pears and possibly apples, and put it in a saucepan.

(2) Add a lemon cut into 4 or 5 thick slices, with one clove stuck in each slice

(3) Sprinkle over the fruit a quarter of a teaspoon full of ground cinnamon and 5 rounded dessertspoonfuls of brown suger.

(4) Add a whole bottle of red wine.

(5) Heat gently till it boils - when I did it that took about half an hour. Keep it simmering gently, with the lid on, for about an hour, then leave to cool.

Eat either on its own, or with ice cream, cream or yoghurt.

The slices of lemon are also edible, be if you do eat one, remove the clove first.

Many years ago I used to do something on those lines with just prunes. I was reminded of it when someone mentioned using dried fruit salad , and when I tried it I found I liked that even more.

Missing the Point

This morning's news mentioned a problem of terrapins living wild in Britain.

They are not a native species, and are here because people who bought them as pets got tired of them and turned them loose. They are considered a problem because it is feared they may eat too much. As more and more of the creatures are rounded up, people are struggling to find caring homes for them.

No one sugested the obvious solution - turtle soup!

Check the Time Zone for your Wireless Router

When I set up a new wireless router, it wouldn't allow connection to the Internet.

The radio signal was loud and clear. When I conected the boudband modem directly to a computer, Megaherz of conectivity came gushing through, but through the router there was only a local connection.

Eventually a sharp eyed friend looking through the settings, spotted something I'd missed. The router, which was made in China, had its clock set by default to Hong Kong time.

Once he changed it to British time, all was well.

I didn't bother to listen to the Queen's Christmas message

Until my grandfather's death in 1965 my parents and I always ate Christmas dinner at his house, with various aunts, uncles, and cousins. We always had to stand for the National anthem that preceded the royal message, and were then expected to listen to the message in reverent silence.

Standing for the National Anthem ended with grandfather's death, but I've usually listened to most of  one or another of the repetitions of the message, but no longer. It is usually a collection of plattitudes, so even when I saw a link to a recording, I didn't bother.

Has she said anything perceptive or unexpected the fact would have been widely and loudly reported, and I came across no such report.

I feel no ill will towards the queen, but I've lost interest in her pronouncements.

Vinegary Mincemeat

Beware, the mincemeat sold in shops usually contains vinegar.

The table of contents rarely says so in as many words. The label writers usually try to confuse the naive by calling it 'acetic acid', but vinegar it is.  The stuff reeks of that pungent anti-condiment.

This year I made my own mincemeat, with orange juice and lemon juice as acidifiers.

An Unusual Memorial to a Great Scientist.

Last month, while visiting Grantham for the first time for more than forty years, I noticed it now has an Isaac Newton Shopping Centre.

Divine Responsibility

There’s one aspect of the priestly child abuse scandal that, to my knowledge, has never been discussed.

To what extent is God responsible?

I ought to rephrase that. I, and most of my friends, think there is no God, so what I really mean is:

If there were a God, how far would he be responsible?

Theologians say that evil is the fault of sinful humans, acting in spite of God, and anyway he’s so powerful that if he intervened to prevent evil it would reduce us all to the status of robots so we shouldn’t have the opportunity for character building by using our free will to resist temptation.

That may have a little superficial plausibility (but see the discussion in chapter 7 of my Philosophy notes) However at best the first argument only precludes our blaming God for everything on the grounds that he supposedly created the world; the second argument excuses him only from intervening ostentatiously at maximum power, denouncing sin in a voice of thunder and turning the unrighteous into pillars of salt. He could still have anonymously emailed a few incriminating digital photographs to police or journalists without drawing attention to his omnipotence.

The abusive priests got away with it for so long because they were perceived to be God’s agents. A Human employer aware that employees were using their jobs as a cloak for criminality would be expected to intervene. Why should God try to wriggle out of his responsibilities by hiding behind a metaphysical quibble?

Of course, if there were a God he wouldn’t, so there isn’t.