Conrad: Cooks And Creates

Or At Least He Likes To Think So
Allow an old man a small conceit, gentle reader.  In support of this allegation may I refer you to "Ribollita", an Italian (Tuscan) vegetable stew made with canellini beans and stale bread.  Er - once again no idea why this particular word popped into the old grey matter, especially as it doesn't appear in any recipe book I have.  The name means "re-boiled" in Italian, and it is supposed to taste better when re-heated the next day.

First time round, so it's just "Bollita"

     Made with gluten-free rolls so that Wonder Wifey can try it.
    I know, I know, she's a picky rascal and might think it's horrid and hate it.  Not to worry, Conrad has made this and by his Culinary Code of Conduct he damn well will eat it, all of it if necessary, even if it is horrid*.

A Touch Of Irony
Dear audience, you may or may not be aware of the level of enmity that has traditionally existed between Turkey and Greece.  No, this is not current** affairs, an independent Greece didn't appear until the early nineteenth century.  Recall if you will the chief city of Greece and the name of the goddess associated with it - Athens and Athena respectively.  Then flit a few hundred miles eastward and Hay Pesto!  Turkey.  From where the word "sultana" is deemed to have come.
     So what do we have here?

A splendid example of harmonious living!

"The War The Infantry Knew"
I will give you one week - one week! - to go and buy an edition of this splendid work.  After that there will be no mercy shown.  As mentioned about this and other works of that era, the language can occasionally mystify, as with the word "Ischaemic" used in connection with trench-foot.  It means "a restriction of blood-supply to the tissues" - at which point Conrad remembered that the author was a doctor.
     Then there are "chevaux de frise", which by late 1914 had been replaced by barbed wire.  Barbed wire is easily understood, but what on earth was a "Frisian Horse" (translation)?

Bake better pies the chevaux de frise way!

     The Frisians possessed few cavalry, back in the Middle Ages, and as a result used a wooden obstruction to prevent themselves being stampeded by the enemy's cavalry.  It looked like a scaled-up version of a pastry-roller.

Against The Day
Up to page 618 today, as the setting moves from Gottingen in Germany to Stuffed Edge in England, and Tom does manage to get the slang right.  Unusually, there are dates in the text, although given that he mentions the Revolution in Russia, the narrative had obviously reached 1905.  And it began in 1893. Will we reach the First World War, Conrad wonders - quite possibly at this rate.

Russian street party circa 1905.  These blokes mean business!

Silent Sentry Cyborg Cat
With the advent in the Mansion of the Edna Wunderhund Extremely Loud Early Warning System, there is less patrolling needed from our sentry cats.  Consequently Beej has taken to slinking off and hiding, only emerging when his stomach declares it's Food O'Clock.  Like all cats he can lie "still and silent as a fallen tree"***, frequently in Sally's room, under the bed.  The only indication she has is his faint but definite snoring - I think the factory forgot to reset this default setting.

Beej, thinking dark and sinister thinks.

Hipster Dad
I like to think so.  You disagree?  The exit door is THAT WAY!
     I am so a hipster.  A bit.  I read "Q" yesterday, specifically the Review section and gosh, there were a lot of names I'd never heard of before, including a couple that got 4-star reviews, so - quick scuttle to Grooveshark and I'm currently listening to Alt J and their debut album "An Awesome Wave" which hits some high points.  After that it'll be 2 Bears and their "Be Strong" album.
     Ah, the digital age, what splendours it has wrought!

Well for a start it's wrought this - oh - it was a rhetorical question?

Flash  Gordon
I caught a bit of this on television - about thirty seconds when Zarkov shanghais Dale and Flash into his rocket - which was enough for me to recall watching it a few months ago.  Not only that, Dave Kerry^ posted about hearing the theme just before he set out for the gym.
     Conrad does have to take exception with the lyrics that Queen provided, though:

"Flash!  Saviour of the universe!"

     Now, Flash is a pretty terrific chap all round, there's no denying that, but, really!  He saves Planet Earth - given that Conrad is living here for the moment he can appreciate the goodwill this creates - but one planet is NOT the universe!  It's not even a galaxy, and Brian May is a qualified astro-physicist so he knows the difference.  Bad Brian!  No biscuit for you!

NO! Enough of this loose use and abuse of "universe"!
And it's the wrong film.

     There again, can you expect scientific accuracy from a film with more camp than a bell-ringers convention^^?

There you go, Flash Gordon.  Hang on, wait a minute -

*  Especially if it's horrid, just to prove a point
** Please note the absence of any puns about dried fruit here.
*** I nicked this from "Dispatches" by Michael Herr.
^  No, he's from Yorkshire, not Ireland
^^  Mister Hand apologises for this pretentious drivel and will poke Conrad with two bamboo skewers in retaliation:  bell-ringing's latin name is "campanology".  Make that three skewers.