The Blurb: January 2010

Is it really about the magazine?

Saturday 30 January 2010  1.00 pm

The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless men and women as a way of earning some money instead of begging.  And sometimes when I pass a Big Issue seller in the street, I buy a copy.

Why?  Because something in me wants to help, and something in my suspicious nature is appeased by the official badge.  "This is a better way of helping than giving money for nothing to a beggar," I think to myself.

And now I have, in exchange for my £1.50, a magazine in my hands.  Should I bother to read it?  Or has my conscience been sufficiently pacified by just buying it?  Actually, here's the good part.  It's a really interesting magazine.  I've learnt a lot from some of the articles in there from time to time!

It's so good, in fact, that I think I'll take out an annual subscription, pay online by direct debit and get every issue delivered to my door.  Cut out the middle-man, so to speak.  What a brilliant idea!  Surprised the Big Issue Foundation haven't thought of that one yet.
 
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A nice cup of tea

Saturday 23 January 2010  11.14 am

It is a truth not quite universally acknowledged that the solution to most problems in life is a nice cup of tea.

It's also commonly agreed that despite the instant gratification afforded by brewing in the mug, a teapot does give a better result.

But that's only the beginning of a whole new world of problems.

Whittard of Chelsea asserts that, when pouring from a teapot, the milk should go in first, because it dissolves in the tea better.  That makes them prelactarians. 

Victorians with expensive crockery, on the other hand, would vote for tea first and then milk - after all, if you've got good cups that won't break on encountering tea at its full un-milked temperature, you should make the most of it, right?  That puts most of upper-class 19th century Britain in the postlactarian camp.

Alongside these two major factions are other significant armies of opinion.  You will from time to time have come across alactarians - those who take no milk at all - and even antilactarians - those who disagree with the very idea of putting milk in.  Most of continental Europe seems to be antilactarian, and in Poland, I am reliably informed, putting milk in your tea is something only pregnant people do.  It's worth noting, though, that only a strong-willed delactarian will attempt to actually remove the milk should you put it in for them by mistake.

And then we have a cluster of breakaway splinter groups.  Intralactarians like to mix the milk with the tea throughout, and you'll find East Africans among this group.  The chi tea in Uganda is actually quite nice.  Microlactarians don't necessarily mind whether it goes in first or later, but there must only be a tiny bit of it, or it spoils the taste.  Hyperlactarians are the sort that make you wonder when they will stop tipping that milk jug, as the tea becomes dwarfed in a sea of white.  Neolactarians, who, traditionally, never use the same kind of milk twice, have interesting stories to tell of what they have tried in search of that perfect cuppa.  Enough said.

Finally, there are the truly dangerous groups.  In this day and age we might even call them terrorists.  It would make sense to steer well clear of an electrolactarian, for example, but it's definitely worth standing back when you see a pyrolactarian reach for the box of matches.
 
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Ski resort closed due to snow

Saturday 16 January 2010  12.55 pm

It's the most severe cold snap I can remember.  The trains have been struggling, the grit has been running out, and schools and businesses up and down the land have been closing due to snow.  Even London got a full inch of it just a few days ago.

And now the Scottish ski resort at Cairngorm Mountain, which in recent years has hardly opened due to lack of any actual white stuff to ski on, has now also followed the crowd and closed due to snow.

I've always been of the opinion that Britain shouldn't compare itself to Scandinavia every time snow falls and need not spend billions preparing for an event that occurs on but a few days a year.  We can afford a bit of disarray every now and then, and it's quite fun anyway, so why complain when the snow stops things for a bit?

However, I think that logic falls down when it comes to ski slopes. :o)
 
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Welcome to a new decade. Yes, really.

Saturday 9 January 2010  11.40 am

Happy New Year!  And Happy New Decade!  I know, I'm a week late ... sorry.  It could be worse; I could be a year late, like the separatist "Millennium Was Actually In 2001" group, who tried to spoil all our parties ten years ago.  Some of them have even been seen back ten years later, claiming that we still have a year left of the Noughties.

Fortunately this time, the doubters can be silenced with a quick reference to definition 2 of the word "decade" at dictionary.com.

Things might be trickier for Gordon Brown, since the media have joined the opposition parties in proclaiming that his time is up.  Just or unjust, I don't know.  Maybe we do want a more charismatic leader after all.

But although 2010 looks like being a bad year for Labour, it might not be such a bad one for me.  In fact, I'm full of optimism as we head into this new decade, and have made several plans (God willing), and even resolutions.

First up: draw one cartoon a week.  So if I keep this resolution, you can expect to see a drawing in this spot every Friday or Saturday.  Enjoy!
 
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