Tag: dailyprompt

Radio 4

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What do you listen to while you work?

I first listened to BBC radio 4 when I was a teenager. I had a little transistor radio and used to listen to an Issac Asimov story ‘Foundation’ that had been dramatised for radio.

From that discovery I got a lot of pleasure and knowledge. When I was doing my homework Radio 4 would be on in the background. Then as I got older I went to college. I listened to shows like ‘The hitchhikers guide to the gallery’ while I learned to paint.

After that I had a job where I could not choose a radio station. The radio station was pop based and I hated it. Jingles and pop music irritated me. I’m definitely happier with speech radio.

Finally my job became much more professional, there was no radio to accompany my work. But when I was on visits to clients I would tune my radio in to 92.7 FM, which is radio 4 and also happens to be the BBC World Service outside the hours BBC radio 4 is being broadcast. There are a great deal of news, drama, finance, comedy and satirical programmes on the channel. Always worth listening to.

Fish and chips

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What’s your go-to comfort food?

I couldn’t find a photo of a battered fish and chips but this was the best I could get off WordPress free photo library.

If its comfort food you want I don’t think there is anything better. The fish needs to be fried in thin batter, the chips soft on the inside crispy but not hard on the outside. Not too oily. Lashings (did I really write that? ) of salt and vinegar. Wrapped in greaseproof paper then newspaper for preference.

Why? It was a treat when I was a child. The chips and batter used to be orange coloured because they used food colouring where I came from. If you couldn’t afford fish you had “crispy bits” which were bits of batter that had come loose off the fish and were floating seperatly in the frying fat. In those days I think they used lard or beef fat to cook in.

So that’s my comfort food, my go to meal. I don’t have it very often, but when I do I really enjoy it.

Chess

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What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?

I don’t really have a favourite game, but chess has become a way of socialising with a friend.

We only just started playing this week, but I found I enjoyed the challenge, and after ten years of not playing it, it made my brain work overtime! My friend is quite good and I was surprised how evenly matched we are.

I’d like to get better at it, but I don’t have the ability to think several moves ahead, I’m more of an artist, looking for patterns in the next move or so. It also means I can make random moves that surprise ‘real’ players. Is that an advantage? Maybe.

I used to like Scrabble, but the one friend we played against used to make up rules. For instance he would add words to another word to make a sentence! He insisted this was OK and would argue and lose his temper when we disagreed. So those games stopped (he would also sneakily swap tiles if he didn’t have good letters).

The final game I used to play was Monopoly with my sisters, that was very competitive. We used to squabble a lot over who was winning. It got too argumentative at Christmas when we used to play, so I was glad when we stopped playing it. X

I love cooking

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Cherries from the garden

What foods would you like to make?

The answer would be cherry pie!

I’m a reasonable cook and food is fun to make. I can make a good trifle, roast chicken dinner, pizza, curry, paella, and many other things including cakes and bread. But I’ve never made a homemade cherry pie.

I could probably make the pastry, I’ve made apple pies and tarts before. But I don’t know what to do with the cherries? Do you de-stone them then put them in raw? Or do you cook them first with sweetner and a dash of alcohol like cherry brandy?

We only got a few cherries this year as the majority blew off our tree in a gale. They were pecked by the birds so I left them on the ground for our hedgehogs too.

So does anyone have a recipe they can share please? I will have to get fresh cherries from the shop. I don’t want to use a tin of pie filling which would be full of sugar. So if you can help I would appreciate it. Thanks x

Cats!

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Dogs or cats?

Sorry, I’ve always loved cats, I’ve had cats since I was a child. We never had room for a dog, I don’t think my parents had the time to walk one while they were looking after all of us children.

Cats always seem aloof, but once you get one, and start to understand it they can be very loving. I used to whistle a little tune to get our cats to come home. I’d do it when they were due to be fed, or at bed time, and I suppose they understood the reason behind the whistle so they would come. So cats can be trained. I had one which would jump from one gate post to another when I tapped the post and whistled. She was very special and liked climbing up on my shoulder and having a little ride around the house or garden.

Don’t get me wrong though, I do like dogs, it’s just that when you go out to work all day it seems cruel to leave them shut in the house or tied up in a garden. At least cats can use cat flaps and enjoy independence. And I know you can get dogflaps but they look like a burglar could get in through them…

Also, thinking about cats, I think they are not as expensive to look after, although when you have multiple cats it’s not cheap. Maybe one day if we suddenly have lots of money I might get a dog.

Apologies to dog lovers. X

Painting

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A photo of a previous exhibition of my work.

Which activities make you lose track of time?

Art, and particularly painting is where I get “flow”, that is lose track of time when I’m creating art. Sometimes I can go months without painting, but I still create things either by drawing or working on digital art.

From my earliest memories I can remember painting and drawing. It got to the stage where my mom would show relatives my art because she thought they were good. I only had half a bedroom because I shared and that was on the window side, so to display my art I strung strings across the bedroom and hung my pictures from them!

I was obsessed with Elizabethan fashions and used to draw women and men in great dresses and suits of silk, with slashed sleeves and enormous ruffs around their necks. I was also interested in the Asterix the Gaul and would copy the cartoons of him and the other characters. I would spend hours getting the images correct. I think that was when I started getting better at drawing.

I remember spending hours over my art exam paintings. In fact one of my paintings was selected to be put on display at our twin town in Europe.

I think they say you have to do something for 10,000 hours to become an expert. I must have done far more than that. But the time has flown and I don’t recall it being hard work, “time just flies when you are having fun” is a saying that I think is based on what happens when you do an activity and you lose track of time.

Global warming

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What bothers you and why?

I have lots of problems but the one that  worries me the most is global warming. This is essentially the biggest threat to humanity I can think of. We should respect the world and it’s environment.

Carbon dioxide levels are higher now than in the past. It means that global heat is held in by a greenhouse effect. Europe, America and China are suffering extremes of heat and wildfires that can be seen from space continue in Canada and in Sardinia. Children at a holiday camp near Athens in Greece were evacuated because of wild fires nearing their camp.

Friends and relatives are my concern to some extent. I have no way of protecting them or their children. But it’s the rest of the population that are at risk. Water shortages, food shortages, lack of health care, damage to crops, drought, all have an impact. And it’s not just humans. Animals are increasingly endangered as we take over their land to grow crops or fell the trees they live in. We grab land like it’s infinite. We have to work together as societies to reduce emissions.

But even as some governments try to persuade us to be more careful with the planet, others are are being lobbied by Industrial bosses to just carry on with old technology and fuels, they are more interested in profit than saving the planet.

I can remember fears about population explosions and pollution back in the 1970’s. This has been happening insidiously for decades. We have to realise that our responsibility is not just for ourselves but for generations to come if we want them to have a decent future. Perhaps the idea of constant growth needs to end and we should work towards sustainable development goals.

Ten certainties?

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List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.

Is this an exam?

1. The Earth is an oblate spheroid. That is it’s almost a sphere but it is fatter around the equator because of its spin.

2. Crisps are crunchy and made of potatoes that have been thinly sliced and fried (who said these had to be serious? ).

3. The Sun is approximately 93 million miles away from the Earth. But because the Earth’s orbit is an ellipse it has times when it is slightly nearer, and times when it is slightly further away.

4. Water freezes at 0°Celsius. I don’t know if it’s the same in Fahrenheit.

5. Too much sugar and salt is bad for you. But you need some to maintain your electrolyte balance.

6. Halleys comet comes back into the inner solar system every 76 years, it’s next due in the 2060’s (I’ve forgotten the exact year)

7. Cats don’t have 9 lives, they just pretend!

8. I know for a fact that I don’t get enough sleep!

9. Green plants absorb all the other colours and reflect green? I think.. I’ve forgotten the physics behind it though.

10. Singing really can help your mental health. It’s good for breathing too.

Well those were a few random (and probably useless) facts. I tend to pick up a lot of ideas, and as I have a retentive memory I hold onto facts that are not much use to anyone.

Security

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Are you seeking security or adventure?

At my age I prefer security. I used to like adventure, but I’ve grown out of it!

When I was young we used to cycle all over the country, riding a bike or a tandem for miles. We would go out and ride at weekends to different destinations. We would also catch the train and then cycle from there to campsites or a place to visit like a castle or a forest. One of my favourite places was Grizedale Sculpture park. On that occasion we had got a car and the bikes were tied to the top of it. We parked at the campsite and used that as a base to cycle all around the lake district.

One day I was cycling home from a friends houss and was hit by a car. I ended up with a fractured skull. From that day I became nervous of cycling. After a couple of more years of riding the bike suddenly collapsed underneath me. It had been damaged in the accident and the brazing had broken on the bike headset. It took months to get my bike repaired by which time I had started to drive more frequently. My health got worse and I was not able to ride my bike any distance.

I think it was about then that I became more risk averse. I still liked to go and do adventurous things but I was more careful. Nowadays I am even more concerned with safety. Covid and the pandemic has made me more aware of my situation and my security. I guess that I realise my life has changed, and I can not do things I would have happily done in the past.

Who to invite?

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If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?

I would invite all my artist friends from over the years. Plus all my family. I would go to the Leopard Hotel in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. It would be fully restored (it was destroyed in a fire) and all my murals would still be there.

We would chat about the old days, and what they had been doing. Find out about where they had lived after I lost touch with them. I would lay on a good meal for them depending on what food they liked. I don’t remember what they used to eat? How could I after 40 years or more in some cases… But to know their life has gone well and hopefully they have been successful.

Who wouldn’t I invite? Famous people. I would be in awe and unable to talk. Can it be possible to meet someone who is important and speak with them at their level? I just don’t know.

Questions like this trouble my imagination. It’s wonderful to think of great people, but I would be too nervous and shy!