The non-bloggish blog

Bleak House

In 1967, I was given a small leatherbound Collins edition of Bleak House as a barmitzvah present. This series of small leatherbound Collins editions made very popular barmitzvah presents in my part of the world at that time. Other books I received in the series include A Tale of Two Cities, Tom Jones and 76 Short Stories by Saki.

I never read any of them. Having spent a week dealing with lawyers, however, I pulled Bleak House off the bookshelf and was almost immediately hooked. So to the Stiefel family, I would like to say a belated:

"Thank you very much for your kind wishes and generous gift on the occasion of my barmitzvah. I am already reading the book and enjoying it immensely.

Yours sincerely,"

At Buchenwald

Yesterday:

“Here in Buchenwald I would like to highlight an obligation placed on us Germans as a consequence of our past: to stand up for human rights, to stand up for rule of law, and for democracy. We shall fight against terror, extremism, and anti-Semitism. And in the awareness of our responsibility we shall strive for peace and freedom, together with our friends and partners in the United States and all over the world.”
Angela Merkel

“To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened -- a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts; a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.”
Barack Obama

“Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important -- as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It's important because here the large -- the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons -- political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings.”
Elie Wiesel

Business or pleasure?
                                                    "I have no patience for people who would deny history.”

Textiles, paper, electrical equipment: Dachau
Bavaria, an easy drive from Munich. Chemicals
And metal goods: Oswiecim, west of Krakov
Twinned with Kerpen. For less hustle bustle:
(To each his own) a beech forest by Weimar.
Also available: Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and
More. Trip of a lifetime. Facilities for children.

V.O.

Car goat cult

Finally, a new car sales strategy with legs.

Hats

Occasionally, you come across a story of a small person making a big difference. Here's a recent one:

HATS began with a childhood interest in sewing and a thankful nurse at an elementary school.

When she was 12, Monty churned out a batch of fleece hats with a sewing machine -- too many to keep at home. Her parents suggested she call the Goffstown School District and ask where she could give the hats. She was referred to Bartlett Elementary School, where she found that some students were so cold during recesses in the winter, that they were making excuses to come in and see the school nurse.

After she dropped the hats off, the gratitude of that nurse left an impression. "All of the sudden it struck me," Monty recalled. "Kids in my very age in a neighboring town don't have something that I take for granted."

Monty realized there was something she could do about that. The rest is here.

Poets laureate

With Andrew Motion stepping down tomorrow as UK poet laureate and Carol Anne Duffy apparently still to decide whether to take up the post, there's perhaps a window to explore the alternatives offered by other countries:

Scotland has a 'makar' (unpaid). The present holder of the title is Edward Morgan, who backs Carol Anne Duffy for the UK laureateship. He recently celebrated his 89th birthday with a cake cut on his behalf by Ron Butlin, Edinburgh's own makar.

Canada has a Parliamentary Poet Laureate. As explained in the Parliament of Canada Act, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate may:
    * write poetry, especially for use in Parliament on important occasions;
    * sponsor poetry readings;
    * advise the Parliamentary Librarian regarding the Library’s collection and acquisitions to enrich its cultural materials; and,
    * perform other related duties at the request of the Speaker of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Commons, or the Parliamentary Librarian.

The term of the Parliamentary Poet Laureate is two years. The current office holder is Pierre DesRuisseaux.

THe US poet laureate (Kay Ryan, at the moment), an annual appointment, has more financial and administrative support than the UK post attracts. Texas has its own as do a number of other states.

New Zealand's poet laureate is Michele Leggott. Ramsey Nasr is the Dutch poet laureate.

A minority of poets laureate have referenced goats in their poetry, but Tennyson is one such ("Catch the wild goat by the hair").

Andrew Motion's greaest achievement as Poet Laureate was the poetry archive.

Dead and buried laureates here.

Pictures of Paris

A tower:

On the way to the tower:

Some graves:

Where the graves are:

The end.

Avondale to Hackney

I grew up in a suburb of Harare called Avondale. Here is a picture of Avondale Primary School (motto: Attempt, Persevere, Succeed) courtesy of Avondale School Rocks Facebook Group

and here is what used to be called Second Street Extension shopping centre.

 

Long gone, of course, are the Dairy Den, where the general unpleasantness of the cantankerous old couple that ran it had to be offset against the delights of a choc 99, and Readers Corner, the bookshop whose owner moved to Seattle, Washington some 40 years ago or so.

But there are other Avondales. There is, for example, Avondale, Auckland, New Zealand, which in its early days had numerous market gardens, in one of which the kiwifruit was developed.

It is also home to Avondale College, the second largest high school in New Zealand and gave its name to the Avondale spider (harmless apparently).

I now live in Hackney, London. According to the Hackney Council website, the first real records of settlement in Hackney date back to Saxon times. The name 'Hackney' was first recorded in 1198 AD and "is probably derived from an island or a raised place in a marsh (an 'ey') in the vicinity of the River Lea, together with the name of a Dane called Haca or Hacon, who owned it." Hackney, Kansas, on the other hand, was named after William P. Hackney, a frontier lawyer.

Today is a bit grey and damp. Hackney, Adelaide  is having a better day and can look forward to a sunny 27 degrees tomorrow.

Israel/Palestine: good news/bad news

First this happened; then this happened.

Three recipes

Snake oil

Ingredients
1 oz rye whiskey
1/2 oz white creme de menthe
Method
Shake with ice and pour into chilled shot glass. Follow immediately with a beer chaser.
(From The Australian Good Food & Travel Guide)

Temple incense

Ingredients
(1 maneh = 5lbs)
70 maneh balsam,
70 maneh onycha,
70 maneh galbanum,
70 maneh pure frankincensee.
16 maneh myrrh,
16 maneh sassia,
16 maneh spikanard
16 maneh saffron
12 maneh costus
9 maneh cinnamon
3 maneh cinnamon bark.
Method
Don't try this at home. (Consult Master Perfumer)
Warning
Exodus 30:37 And the incense which thou shalt make, according to the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord.
Exodus 30:38 Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereof, he shall be cut off from his people.
In other words: Temple use only; no secular shenanigans.

Zimbabwe GNU
 
Ingredients
For Cabinet
15 ZANU(PF)
13 MDC-T
3 MDC-M
Seasoning TBC
Method
Mix together gingerly until ingredients settle. Do not stir vigorously. Do not expect ingredients to blend. Allow to cool (may take some time). Serve.

John Accola (1950?-2006)

Sometimes life has a 'curve ball' way of delivering information. Today I got an email of news headlines from the Wall Street Journal amongst which was an item about the closure of the Rocky Mountain News, a 150 year old Denver daily that has suffered a serious loss of advertising revenue as a result of the recession. I decided to send an email to an old friend of mine, a veteran reporter on that paper with whom I've been out of touch for 20 years or more. Looking online for his email address, I came across his obituary. He died of a heart attack in 2006. Here is an appreciation of his work as a reporter. I once gave him a lift from Harare to Johannesburg. He sat up one night in a friend's flat boiling a can of condensed milk to make some kind of caramel. A bit nuts. But a good guy. John Accola.