Jam!

It must be the silly season – jam’s in the news.

If you are, like me, an aficionado of the work of the great Eddie of Izzard, jam is indeed special. If you follow Mr Izzard’s example and use the internet to research your subject, you’ll probably know that jam was invented by Mr and Mrs Jam, who live in a toilet somewhere...and that the premise of jam is to get some stuff – strawberries, plums, chicken, mustard, whatever – and jam it into a jar.

That’s why it’s called a jam jar. It was originally made for 1950’s schoolboys to capture and imprison tadpoles so they can either wait for them to turn into frogs and die because they are all jammed together in the jam jar and can’t breathe, or to pour over their sisters to scare them.

Once the frogs have been scraped out though, the other stuff can be jammed in.

I think there is some culinary process involved too, by which you have to boil it in a saucepan, add yeast, let it rise and then prove it – which essentially means making sure it is jam because it is actually illegal to put one of those sticky labels on the jam jar saying ‘Strawberry Jam’ if the stuff inside isn’t.

Once you have proved it is really strawberry jam (best way, I think, is to taste a spoonful of it – but try not to do that just after it’s boiled unless you think a blistered tongue is a good look) then you can jam it in the jar!

As I understand it, apart from the jam jar, two things are needed to make jam: some foodstuff – and in this conservative country we tend to use fruit-based stuff – and sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. As much as you can jam into the jar.

And this seems to be the problem at the moment – some health-conscious officials want us to take the sugar out of the jam – or at least put less in.

So we have to ask ourselves why the sugar is there in the first place? Why not just jam a load of strawberries into a jar and spread it on your toast?

Because fruit goes off, that’s why! And who wants mould on toast for their breakfast?

So some clever person had the idea of adding sugar as a preservative – it used up the huge glut of fruit which would otherwise go off before you could eat it, it meant you could have fruit-based food for the next year – and it tastes good! All round winner.

You could spread it on bread or toast, on cakes, or get playing cards to make tarts with it – the obvious drawback with that being a male playing card would inevitably run off with the tarts, but that’s men for you – always on the lookout for a spare tart to cop off with!

Now, hundreds of years later, they want us to put less sugar in it to make it a healthier food. In the process, they admit, it will be a dull colour and taste awful.

Why not just ban jam totally – you might as well if you are going to enforce a dull, pale imitation of it.
Or – here’s a thought! Make ‘Reduced Sugar Jam’ and sell it alongside the real stuff – and see which one is more popular with the general public!

Oh – you’ve already tried that, and people prefer the sugary jam.

OK, why not advise everyone take to take 20 minutes’ exercise 3 times a week to use up the extra calories?
Oh, you’ve done that too. Well, it’s the nanny state then....... No sense in giving people the freedom to choose, is there?

Meanwhile, if you want me, I’ll be in the kitchen, tucking into homemade plum jam – because they can’t stand in your kitchen and tell you how much sugar to put in homemade jam....

...can they??

Pub Restaurants - a contradiction in terms?

Once upon a time (ie when I was a lot younger than I am now!) you knew where you were. There were pubs, which served drinks, and restaurants, which served dinner. If you wanted a sandwich or snack you went to a cafe and afternoon tea and cakes could be had in a teashop.


Then along came the fast food outlets, but they just added places where you could eat a burger for lunch or a kebab when you came out of the pub.


Now restaurants (and pubs) serve ‘traditional pub fare’ (or worse, ‘fayre’). Traditional pub fare is, surely, a packet of pork scratching with your pint! The only food choice to be made in our local twenty years ago was whether to go for cheese and onion crisps or salt and vinegar. If the establishment was really up market the landlord might even stock peanuts!


Now, they’d have us believe that traditional pubs have always served lasagne, shepherds pie and scampi and chips. I do remember chicken in a basket – introduced to keep punters at the bar downing drinks when otherwise peckishness would have sent them to the nearby chippie – and there was ‘Betty’s hotpot’ served in the Rovers Return at some time I seem to remember, but steak dinners and sticky toffee puddings were never part of the pub repertoire in my youth.


I am now confused as to what constitutes a restaurant, since so many pubs seem to serve more food than drink, and many restaurants have a bar at which you can drink before and after your meal... so where do you draw the line?


The only eateries which now seem to fully deserve the title of restaurant are those pretentious places serving the likes of ‘nouvelle cuisine’ which arrive at the table on a huge square plate on which is carefully and centrally placed a blob of some unidentifiable pureed vegetables of the portion size and consistency which I gave to my babies at four months old, topped with a sliver of fish or meat the size (and often the texture) of a postage stamp, the whole garnished with a twig of some herb or other and drizzled with a teaspoonful of some tasteless sauce. For which the mug – I mean diner – is charged three times the price of a huge plateful of shepherds pie at the local pub.


Suddenly, the thought of the pub restaurant doesn’t sound so silly – perhaps they were just filling the gap in the market!

To Autumn 2013

On this day in 1819 Keats wrote his famous ode.

But what would he have made of today's consumerism?

For the last few years I have been irritated by the Chrismas displays being wwheeled out before the summer holidays have even finished, so I have amended - a little bit - this famous poem to reflect what Autumn means 200 years on....



Season of mince pies and untimely Advent Calendars
Close bosom-friend of the grasping retail trade;
Conspiring with them how to load and pile
With tat, the trolleys that round the shops parade;
To bend with toys the Children’s Section floor,
And fill all aisles with chocolates and sweets;
To cram in every type of gift and card
For every family member; to set panic buying more,
And still more, food and drink we never need,
Until we forget warm days have not yet ceased,
For greed has o'erbrimmed their corporate plans.


Who hath not seen thee too early in the stores?
From September whoever wanders in will see
The tins of biscuits piled by the front door,
Turkish Delight, Yule logs, Christmas tree
Or if in the drinks section you may roam,
Drowsed with the fume of Cointreau, while the display
Groans with gin and whisky, Baileys and Cours;
Egg-nog and snowballs – when would we take these home
Except for Great Aunt Annie’s Yuletide stay?
And by the stock, with silver tray,
Staff offer little tasters, hours by hours.


Where are the Harvest celebrations? Or even Hallowe’en?
Think not of them, they make too little cash, -
A few buy apples and tins of stuff for the school assembly,
And trick or treat sweets and masks and all that trash;
Soon in a wailful choir Christmas adverts will begin;
The festive TV trailers, there among
The first Coca Cola advert assaults our ears;
And then we know we may as well give in;
Carols piped through all the shops decibels strong
We end up whistling Slade’s old song;
And celebrities tweet plugs for new CDs.

U turn if you want to - it might be a good idea!

Why do we believe what we believe?

All beliefs have some background, some point at which we experienced, or were told or shown something which shaped our thoughts on a subject. Many of the beliefs we have may have their sources back in a past situation which no longer has any relevance, yet the belief remains.

A few thousand years ago, a tribe of nomadic desert-dwellers made a discovery. They found that if they left cooked beef around for a few days before eating it, they came to no harm, yet if they ate three day old pork, they were sick. We now know that pork goes off more quickly than other meats if not refrigerated, but this was before they had Kitchens, let alone fridge freezers to put in them, and their understanding of biology was less developed.

So some wise tribal elder came up with an explanation, which also served as a deterrent to any hungry child to who thought that pork looked tempting. 

'God does not want you to eat pork,' he would have opined. 'So if you disobey Him, he will give you a tummy ache as a punishment'. Job done. People would avoid three day old pork and the resulting diarrhoea.

I wonder what that tribal elder would think if he could see the wholesale eschewment of pig meat in the 21st Century by two leading world religions? Does it make sense nowadays? But once God has decreed, it is apparently for all time. God appears to agree with Thatcher at least on the subject of U turns.

And don't get me started on rituals involving menstruating women....

Of course, some ancient religious beliefs are still valid, though not necessarily for the original rationale. Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim prayer involves a set of ritual movements which were, I presume, once presented to devotees as simply the only acceptable way to worship. Nowadays our greater understanding of the human body tells us that these postures stretch important muscle groups, help oxygenate the body and are conducive to calming the mind. The benefits we now attribute to health and well being were, I am sure, once seen as the godhead's way of rewarding the devotion of his followers.

So some old beliefs are of use, either for practical purposes or just to give us confidence. But what about those other ideas about ourselves, often inculcated in childhood, that we are for example rubbish at Maths, not good-looking, have fat legs or big ears - what are those beliefs good for, except lowering our self esteem? 

We can challenge, and defeat these baseless thoughts. Once we become aware of them and the damage they are doing us. And realise they are as pointless as refusing to eat meat because it made someone sick four thousand years ago.

Whether you believe in yourself or not, you're probably right...

Belief is a wonderful thing. Humans can believe nearly anything if they really want to. Often irrespective of facts, but almost equally often by twisting, even mauling, the facts to suit what they want them to prove.

What is fascinating is how society views beliefs: some apparently crazy interpretations of the available facts are, with reason, not accepted by the general populace and those who take those interpretations to their logical conclusions are sneered at. Like in the 1990s when I dared to suggest that the current government's failure to provide clear evidence to the public of the existence in Iraq of the much vaunted weapons of mass destruction, on which they were building a case for war, I clearly recall a colleague telling me that I had to have faith in the Prime Minister who was of course only able to reveal so much of the truth to the public. As it turned out, he revealed far less of the truth than my colleague assumed.

Why do we - or many of us at least - dismiss someone who believes in alien spacecraft and UFOs visiting earth as a looney, yet accept, even defend, those who believe a divine being visited the earth 2000 odd years ago on a mission to save mankind, and to this day has the power to affect what happens to you after you die?

Religious folk will tell you that their prayers are answered, and yes, that makes sense. Not because of some beneficent God (who alternately through history appears to have created miracles for the good of mankind and destroyed his creations through hurricanes, earthquakes and wars) but because of belief.

What the mind truly believes, the body takes on..

So if you go into a job interview truly believing that you will be appointed, that belief translates into confident body language: a firm handshake, a steady, positive voice, upright posture and good eye contact. All of which reassures your interviewer that you are a suitable candidate, and while your presentation of yourself may not guarantee success, it will go a long way towards increasing its likelihood.

Whether your self-belief comes from a conviction that Jesus will grant your prayer, a knowledge that your experience makes you the best candidate, some mental mind-games or pure delusion does not matter - the effect is the same. 

What most people do not realise is that we can choose what we believe, and can consciously shape our belief system to suit our purpose. The vast majority of us are at the mercy of beliefs that have been created for us, often without us recognising the process, by external forces. some of these beliefs may be of use (such as the belief that we should be kins to one another) but negative ideas about ourselves can destroy our self esteem and mar our happiness, so why allow them space in our head? 

Yes, changing our beliefs about ourselves takes work, but it can be done. You can programme your brain just as you can programme a computer.

King Richard III

So, it's really him! Exciting!

And of course, all the jokes have already started flowing - from how much he owes in car parking fees to 'I love it when a Plan-tagenet comes together'....

I have always had a great sense of history, particularly history connected with place: it's what underpins my interest in psychogeography. At the age of ten I was taken to the Tower of London and was found wandering up and down Princess Elizabeth's Walk in the Bloody Tower, transfixed by the thought that she once took her daily exercise in exactly the spot I was walking. I was lost in the trance of history.

And I love to visit the places associated with historical figures of interest and pay homage at their graves, whether Keats in Rome or TS Eliot in East Coker.

So the idea of finding the last resting place and seeing the actual bones of Richard III fascinates me. I went to the site of the Battle of Bosworth a few years ago and even that took me closer to the King and the events surrounding his downfall, and all the while the man himself - or hhis mortal remains - were lying only a few miles away, under a car park.

And that's another thing. It transpires that when he was buried, the area was a church, which was consecrated ground. Sacred land which all this time later is sacred only to the worship of the Devil's Horse. Nice irony there.

Much as I adore Shakespeare I have never really bought the villainous child killing hunchback of Tudor mythology. Too obvious a scheme to blacken the name of the last representative of the preceding dynasty - although let's not forget that Henry Tudor cannily married Richard's sister Elizabeth to underpin his extremely shaky claim to the throne - other than that, apart from distant connection through his mother to the royal family his main claim to kingship was the fact that he - or one of his henchmen - had killed the rightful king.

And the way the proof of who the bones belonged to, beyond reasonable doubt, through DNA and so on, is better than an episode of Silent Witness - and real!

Of course, over five hundred years after his death, it is now possible to be completely objective about the man and the myths perpetrated about him. We can now confirm that while he had curvature of the spine he was not a hunchback and was, if the facial reconstruction which bears a striking resemblance to existing portraits is to be believed, he was actually a delicately featured, handsome man. Not at all the way the Tudors had an interest in portraying him.

But because history is written by the victors, Richard's reputation has been severely dented by his immediate successors and it is wonderful that a more enlightened and scientific age has been able to right the wrongs done to him.

And maybe in five hundred years time, our more objective descendants will be able to finally piece together who Jack the Ripper was and why five women were murdered?

Do we need a Church of England?

So there is, as reported today, a back bench revolt against the Prime Minister introducing and supporting the idea of marriage being opened up to gay people.


Whatever your view on the actual issue, the MPs' objection seems to be largely that this was originally a Lib Dem policy with which David Cameron happens to agree, but that it did not form part of the Coalition agreement and there was no discussion or consultation with Conservative MPs before the bill was introduced.


OK, so much for inter-party warfare: I see their point, but that is between the MPs and their leader.


More importantly, the bill itself seems to be a huge mish mash in an attempt to placate everybody and offend no one.


Religion is always a difficult area, because our society traditionally accepts it as a genuine belief system. If I claimed that an alien had landed from Mars and ordered me to brush my teeth twenty times a day, I would be viewed with sympathy, indulgence and a measure of ridicule. If my claimed beliefs involved me refusing to carry out my job or displaying prejudice, I would be sacked, and possibly sectioned.


Yet the claim of thousands that their own particular Holy Scripture makes it necessary for them to denigrate people whose lifestyle is apparently condemned by that book, written hundreds of years ago, is considered in itself sacred.


Yes, the Bible - or a page in it somewhere -  may state that man should not lay with man, but other bits also say that certain meats are inedible (Jewish people still accept this, as do Moslems - so to quote Mr Minchin, 'why not, not eat pigs together'? But Christians, at the forefront of those condemning gay marriage, have conveniently forgotten that their parent religion forbids their bacon and egg breakfast and Sunday roast pork). 


Still other Bible passages label menstruating women as unclean, instruct them to keep to their homes and not mix with polite society until they have ritually bathed themselves once their period is over. Logical and hygienic when you are living in a desert-dwelling tribe four thousand years ago - as indeed is the notion of circumcision, but rather outdated in these days of tampons, flushing toilets and showers. 


So quite rightly, most Christians, and a lot of Jewish sects, view these instructions as outmoded, yet quote the Bible chapter and verse when it appears to support their own particular prejudice. Pretty easy, as a lot of the Bible is self-contradictory anyway. Other religious texts may be more or less so: I am not qualified to judge.


And the notion of accepting gay marriage for all English people, but then banning it within the state Church of England, sounds crazy. I accept the reasoning - an individual Quaker church is free to marry or refuse to marry any couple, while an Anglican parish church, by virtue of its status as the representative of the national religion, is obliged to marry any Tom Dick or Harry who requests the sacrament, irrespective of their personal belief or religious affiliation. As long as he is marrying any Thomasina, Diana or Harriet, of course. 


But the prospective ruling means that even if your local Anglican vicar is quite happy to perform a marriage ceremony for a gay couple - he or she may even be gay and in a civil partnership him/herself - this is strictly verboten. Yet if - however unlikely this may sound - the local Roman Catholic priest is not averse, he may perform the ceremony. Yet he must be male and celibate.



There is also the separate outdated law currently under review: that stating that those in direct line to the throne of England may not marry a Roman Catholic. At any time in the last few hundred years the way has been open for us to have a Queen or Prince Consort who is a Hindu, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist..... and in a way I am slightly disappointed that has never happened, for it would call into question this law. Yes, I know the history of the English fear of a Catholic monarch but would we be totally sanguine about the heir to the throne being brought up as a Buddhist, even though his destiny was to lead the Church of England?



And the answer to both the conundrums above seems to me obvious: dis-establish the Church of England. If the monarch is no longer the Head of the Church (ironically, the title the Queen still holds of Defender of the Faith was awarded by the Pope to Henry VIII in recognition of his defence of Catholicism!) then it will not matter two hoots whether the child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge espouses atheism or Hinduism and who he/she marries; equally, if the Anglican Church has the same status as the rest we can no longer demand to be married in it, and it will therefore have the right to accept or reject a request for marriage from a same sex couple.


Sinple, eh?