Heritage and Parsnips

Well After working on my garden for a few days i feel like progress is being made and I its time to think about what to grow, oh what fun! The possibilities are very nearly endless, there a lot of veg out there, but also a lot of different varieties. One thing i want to try growing however is parsnips, I really, Really love parsnips, no other vegetable can even hope to compete with the mighty Parsnip.

They a very British plant, growing well in our colder climate (in fact the taste better after a frost) and are very under estimated. Many people are familiar with them at Christmas, but i believe no dinner is a roast without a whole dish of these sweet roots. Apparently the French only used them for cattle fodder, further proof that Franks are not the be all end all of food.

This year in my garden I'm heavily considering growing a lot of heritage fruit, not only will this be keeping alive olde English traditions, you'll also invariably get more interesting produce. So up above you'll see the first purchased seeds for my spring garden. Until next time.

Three days in..

Ah just noticed its actually four. But lets begin, (actually on a side note, my pissing space bar is playing up, you reading this have absolutely no idea how irritating this is getting.) This is the time of the year when people start making outlandish claims as to what they are going to give up, but won't. This leaves two options.

1- Give up something you don't do, i.e. I know I'll quit smoking as I don't smoke.

2- Really, really try.

Now we all know which is the easy option, but lets try shall we? And lets pick something good, I personally like the idea of choosing to do something rather than cutting something out. The obvious being to get into shape, loose weight etc....BORING. You won't do it, not even till February.
My resolution is to have a go at forging my small concrete jungle into something life sustaining. Last year I didn't grow a thing and with spring just around the corner (unless there have been some rather serious changes that I don't know about) now is a good time to start planning.

Firstly, reclaim and clean. I need to take back the land, this will be a protracted campaign involving tools and bin bags. Its a little shocking how quickly junk can accumulate. Once all the rubbish has been cleared its time to take stock of what we have to work with. Really not much indeed. I have one actual patch of earth two metres by point five and several 50cm2 containers. Not a lot.

Not in previous years I have produced staples, such as potatoes, carrots, but really considering size restraints I can't afford to grow these ready available and cheap foods, so the plan is to grow more interesting fare. One thing we will definitely grow is leeks. Leeks are really nice, and astonishingly, to me at least, expensive to grow. Squashes and sweet potatoes, things I love but my GF won't touch and chillies. So in the coming weeks regeneration will start and magic will be sown. That's the idea at least.

Also, my last post concerned a rather curious book, that's fallen by the wayside due to lots of very interesting books (something Christmas hasn't helped at all) anyway, that will be back. Eventually.

The Complete Self Educator

I'm addicted to books, barely a week goes past when I don't pick another two or three. It's amazing how many you can pick up for so cheap. Most charity shops have bins full of paper and hardbacks all going for a pound or less, many in multi buy deals.

Markets, especially the flea variety. Can be brilliant, however the quality can be patchy. There's a distinct lack of quality control when people are selling their old junk off a wallpaper paste table than compared to a shop. Some of my best books have come form flea markets, including a second copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's 'The Master and the Margarita' (a book so fantastic I had to buy a second copy, and then several others of his books.) and a quite eclectic mix of fiction and fact. However the best little find has to be 'The Complete Self Educator'.

It's a good two inch's thick, very heavy and bound in something that could either be fake leather, actual leather or human skin. I'm not quite sure which. It's old that much is plain, but lacks a print date. What really sold it too me is four little words scrawled in red ink on the inside cover. 'Study all this book' is the sage advice that somebody in the past had to offer Janet Crowe (the faded pencil on the opposite page.

Essentially 'The Complete Self Educator' is a book of facts and information, not a text book nor a school book but something else entirely. It has fifteen chapters all on different subjects (rather endearingly Janet has ticked off chapters with a pencil, only two however, I don't think she took her advice too seriously) each of the chapters broken down into several subcategories,

English

French

Arithmetic

Biology

Medicine

Physics

Chemistry

Geography

English History

World History

Economics

Psychology

Philosophy

Logic

Intelligence Tests and Problems

Now I have no doubt that most of the information contained within is outdated and obsolete, especially in the case of medicine and psychology. But I have always been enraptured about the idea of a Polymath (polymath n somebody who has a wide range of knowledge), so I've decided to read a chapter a week to broaden my knowledge of the world. I'll be posting my findings up to share the cream of the crop with you. Now if you'll excuse me a number of cats are vying for my attention.

Ouch

After burning myself for the twelve hundredth time, why the fuck do people have stainless steel kettles? 

They conduct heat to hand a little too well..

Lust List

Three things for a Tuesday,

The Book,

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This is possibly the most astonishing book I have ever read, or ever will read. It concerns the ‘Locked in’ fate of Mr. Bauby the then editor in chief of the French ‘elle’ its beautifully written given that Bauby composed each paragraph and sentence perfectly in his mind before painstakingly blinking out each letter. Not a single word seems out of place, nor can it afford too.

The sad tale of Bauby will stay with me not least because the authors stroke then subsequent condition looms large as my greatest fear (well perhaps second after going blind, and spiders) but the haunting last words ‘I’ll be off now..’

The Film,

Waltz with Bashir

An incredibly animated story of a solider trying to remember what he did during war.

The Item,

Areaware Alarm Dock

 This is perhaps the coolest thing I have ever seem, I really, really want.





Hacher quelqu’un menu comme chair à pâté

this post has no name, or an app a day keeps luddites away

This post has no name, although that’s mainly due too me being cheap and running open office at home, forgetting to save as a .doc and having accessibility problems on this machine.

Anyway, you’ll see the intended post soon enough, a serial it shall be too. But this really needs a new post and this is it tada!. Okay so that’s a messy sentence.

I need to really post at least once a week, but I have been so busy doing, well nothing tbh, looking for a job takes time and is incredibly frustrating.

One thing I have been meaning to talk about for a while now is apps, I have an iPhone and with that come applications. Usually I hate trying to draft up review articles, mainly because I’m nice and rather easily pleased, but plunging into the murky world of the app store can be confusing and overwhelming due to the sheer quantity that’s out there (several trillion billion thousand, true story) so I thought I would help you out by suggesting a few I like,

Instagram

 

Instagram is a nifty little camera app that allows you to see your and your friends photo’s as they stream. This has to be my favourite photo-sharing app and according to its user info, 7 million agree.

You can upload your pics to bookface et al with a few taps but in all honesty the built in news feed works best. Coupled with a slightly rehashed ‘like’ feedback on each pic it allows you too talk and comment on each picture. Perhaps its main selling point is the filters included allowing you to edit new and old photo into something much nicer.

The popular page is a good way to find other users you like and too nab inspiration, as with all photo platforms your going to find a lot of crap among the goodness but there is some genuine talent in there.

Come find me @stephen_green 

Hipstamatic

Hipstamatic is a very, very nicely done camera app and although I have started using Instagram more, it is in some ways far better. Although you have to pay for this one, and there’s a lot of inapp stuff too, it is pretty good quality software. Unlike Instagram you choose from a variety of films and lenses before shooting making for a more realistic app and a plethora of customising opportunities and scope for playing around, extending the life of this app nicely. You also get a cool onscreen camera complete with viewfinder (while cool, this can be annoying when trying to get a shot, luckily you can disable it).

Synthetic Corp, the makers, is also pretty generous when it comes to bringing out special edition freepaks once in a while.

More to follow,

 

The Battle of Belko

On Saturday our new washing machine arrived, the hired men dropped it in the dinning room and left. That’s all well and good but it needs to be in the utility room.

Now this leaves us with two problems, firstly now I have to move it, secondly and this is the big one, now we will have to install it ourselves. Have you ever installed a washing machine? Well I have now. Flicked through the instructions and they read simply enough, it all seems so straightforward. Can’t be hard, no I’m certain it will be simple.

Day One,

Step one, remove restraining bolts. I own one spanner, it doesn’t fit, we give up in despair.

Day Two,

Step one, remove restraining bolts. Go out shopping a buy a new set of spanner, spanners don’t fit. Rage. Think to myself ‘I knew I should have bought an adjustable spanner’. Ask next-door, return with a magic albeit rusty adjustable spanner. Spanner works and we loosen bolts, not sure what to do so we just keep turning. After twenty minutes my beautiful assistant manages to remove one, turns out you have to pull them out not twist. Well get the remaining three out in record time. What’s next..

Step two, move into final resting place. Now this was the part I was dreading, now moving it into place sounds deceptively easy but bear in mind its going into a very small utility room with very little room for play. We had about an inch height clearance and a foot width. Slots in nicely you may think, ah I retort but if you just slide it right in how do you connect it up?

Washing machines have three main connections, water in (some machines have two water inlets, a hot and a cold, ours had only the one, being more of an economic model, electricity in and waste out. It’s recommended that you get each of these connections right. The electric connect is an easy one to make, even I know what a plug looks like.

I guessed which pipe I needed for the water and connected a hose before testing into a bucket, water flows, right, good. The waste pipe was the one I really had to get right, mess up with that and you get flooded. With the waste and mains connected it was a relatively easy case of walking the machine into place and reaching around into the dark and trying to screw on a fiddly connection. It’s like when you try to reach around a big television a plug in a scart lead but infinitely harder and aggravating. That done however and a firm shove into place and our washing machine was in. Turning on the water was a nervy moment, but hooray no leaks! I had confirmed my masculinity and installed a washing machine.

The first couple of washes were regularly scrutinised but it stayed a flood free environment. God am in proud. This must be what having a child feels like…