The Trick, a review.

I’ve just watched a TV programme about climate change called the Trick. I don’t know if you can get the BBC but it was very informative and interesting. It was about the way anti climate change supporters hacked into scientific information and twisted it to try and discredit the scientists. These were scientists who had produced the hockey stick graph which shows that global temperatures were relatively steady on Earth until the industrial revolution and then started a steep increase.

The Trick is based in 2015. A scientist and his colleagues are accused of exaggeration of global warming, based on emails that were hacked and deliberately misinterpreted to throw doubt on the reality of climate change.

The programme showed how the scientist had to defend his reputation and the serious harm it did to his mental health and to his family while investigations were ongoing.

In the end his insight was accepted. He was exonerated and he was reinstated in his job. But it did mean that public opinion was skewed and that it cost at least ten years in fighting global warming because of the actions of vested interests.

An intelligent BBC film that is very worth watching. Don’t expect car chases, do expect strong acting and thought provoking ideas.

Virtue Signalling?

I’m having a discussion about various political issues and I suddenly realised when I share my opinions I could be said to be virtue signalling. Then I thought who comes up with these phrases and why?

I really do think we have entered an age of Orwellian ‘newspeak’. I think it’s always happened, but the phrase collateral damage, instead of saying innocent casualties was the start of it.

People weave words to obfuscate (hide their meaning). It might be to save people’s feelings, or to confuse people by misleading them. Perhaps the tricks and cons that advertisers have used have spread into politics and ordinary life.

I may be being harsh. But with climate change and the damage to the Earth from pollution, its about time we cut out the confusion and started being honest again!

Bread and butter pudding, again!

A friend posted two recipes on making bread and butter pudding. Here they are :

I used to make this 2 different ways:
1: buttered leftover bread cut into triangles and put overlapping into a dish with sides.
Sprinkle with raisins and sugar/sweetener.
Beat an egg into about 3/4 of a pint of milk and a pinch of salt, and pour over the bread.
Make sure it’s properly soaked.
Dot with butter and bake in a moderate oven until golden and crispy on top- probably about 30mins.

2: The posh version:
Use a brioche loaf.
Slice but don’t butter
Place overlapping slices in a dish with sides.
Sprinkle with chocolate chips or raisins and a little sugar or sweetener
Beat an egg into a mixture of single cream and milk with a pinch of salt.
Leave to soak. Dot with butter.
Bake in a moderate oven until golden and crispy on top- probably about 30mins

up late/early?

I’m up messing about on my computer, I want to work out characters for a childrens story I hope to write and illustrate for my college project. I am not sharing what it will be called or the scenario. And given my bad grammar here I dont even know if I will be able to do it. But the saying goes that we all have at least one book in us. Mine might be a bit musty and old fashioned! I think I need dragging into the 21st century. I also want to find some watercolour sketches I painted years ago to illustrate this (its a very old project) wish me luck.

More ceramics

One strange thing I saw at the BCB was a large group of ceramic leeches! It was weird seeing them. Black and shiny but very static.. I guess it was something conceptual? Had they sucked the life blood out of someone, or are they a health idea if the National Health Service was to collapse? Whatever the reasoning I found them strangely cute! I don’t know why….

Bread and butter pudding?

How do you make it? Raisins and currents between slices of bread with a mixture of egg and milk and nutmeg and sugar somehow added to it? The outcome is a sticky, stiff, yummy lump of slightly crispy pudding.

Problem 1, I have no currents or raisins or even sultanas..

2, I have no sliced bread

3, I don’t eat sugar because of diabetes.

4. I have no recipe to work from and don’t know what temperature to cook it on.

Solution…just make it up as I go. So I sliced some slightly stale brown bread. Buttered it and placed it butter side down into a pyrex glass shallow oblong tray. Added a layer of sliced banana and some sliced pear. Then a few more bits of bread and dots of butter. Finally more banana and pear and a bit of a crust of bread on top. I then whisked up six eggs?! With milk, sugar substitute and a bit of cinnamon (I don’t have nutmeg).

Poured the liquid over the bread slowly so it soaked in.

What heat? I chose gas mark 5 (medium heat) and set the oven for forty minutes. It might be horrible. It might be OK. For future reference does anyone know a recipe?

Mosaics

Just back from the last day of the BCB (British Ceramic biannual). I would have gone before but my leg restricted my movement. The exhibition was over three floors but luckily there was a lift. Of the numerous ceramics my favourites were a series of mosaics by a ceramic artist called Cleo Mussi. I will post other photos but I wanted to share these.

1980’s views

Photos from an old album. They were taken forty years ago. They won’t mean anything to anyone except me. They are old memories. Of winter when snow fell deep. When I lived in a flat. When the underfloor heating woukd blow out in a strong wind and me and my friends would be very cold till it was fixed.

It also has memories of when the skyline of the city was simpler, when some of the houses still stood. The colours are strange because I always used 400 iso film. That and the misty murk makes it look very gloomy despite the snow. So much has changed since then. No tape recorders or cassette tapes. No black and white TV’s. Even videos seem to have come and gone. Computers were only just being introduced. Yes my memory goes back a long way.