Observations from a Hill

As you can see from my notepad, I scribbled a jotting the other day to the effect that my friend John, in repairing the old Zenith watch of mine [also pictured], had afforded me the gift of time. At least, the gift of time as measured by the venerable old timepiece in question. Time, as I think anyone who reads my scribbles in these pages knows, is a bit of a thing for me. It flows and passes - or appears to do so - never to return, apparently. All is relative, as is the 'passage' of time. Nothing is fixed, and all is possible...

  Pictured, tonight's repast of a Chicken Pasanda with Peshwari Naan - the small portion is actually my normal habit these days: I need far less food than I used to when I was working - which I have to say, turned out rather fine. The recipe was not entirely mine own, but as usual I worked with what I'd got to hand in the kitchen and modified accordingly. With Christmas approaching we both of us realised we had done bugger-all actual cooking lately, so I decided I'd get my act together, exercise my new chef's knife and plough on [btw, the knife is gratifyingly sharp and is very well-balanced in the hand, despite it being much lighter than a European knife of similar size]. I'm glad I did, as I've never tried to cook a Pasanda before [no idea why], as I'm rather taken with ease of it and the very tasty results. It's given me a few ideas to try out in the future, too, as the use of ground almonds as a thickener adds all sorts of dimensions to a sauce. Any...

It's gratifying to know sometimes that there are other people in the world that agree with one's intuitions on the future of society, and in addition add a depth of research, knowledge and erudition that cements those intuitions into a concrete basis for actual progress to potentially happen, given the right circumstances. Paul Mason, writing in last week's special AI edition of The New World, is one such person; calling out the AI 'revolution' as potentially precisely that: a revolution, but not one that the tech bro's and billionaire owners of the technology would either recognise or wish for. He posits the notion that within the bounding constraints of traditional capitalism and the adversarial zero-sum politics that we still insist in engaging with, AI will eventually crush its makers economically, as more and more workers [particularly middle-class, white collar workers - a trend already pushing more people into effective poverty] are edged out of work into...

I ventured out to The Bull in Bethesda for the first time in over a week, my rhino-viral indisposition having rendered the prospect hitherto less than attractive on several fronts. Anyhow, venture forth into the rain I did. On a rather more sober note, I was met at the pub with news from Chris that a mutual friend and well-known and loved local lad, Gareth Williams, had died at the rather too young age of sixty-one, having been ill and under treatment for some time. Gareth Taxi, or Cochin as he was more widely known [he was a redhead in his youth], was a well-liked and respected member of our community, who we first got to know when he was a teenager back in the early 1980s. He was then a member of the Welsh language rock/punk band Proffwyd, playing in the then nascent and soon to burgeon Welsh rock scene of the time. As time went on and music took the back seat, he eventually took the reins of his late parent's taxi and funeral directors businesses, working in both until very rece...

Further to my post of the other night, the Zenith pocket watch [pictured] that John repaired for me - I thank you for that good favour, mate - would seem from its movement's serial number to date from 1914, making it not only 111 years old, but coincident with the onset of WWI and the death of my cousin Tom Rudge in France that year. The fact that the watch's case is of Birmingham manufacture by A.L. Dennison is kind of pleasantly circular in itself. I bought the timepiece in a charity shop [long gone now] in Menai Bridge some twenty-odd years ago for ten pounds, non-working and with a broken glass crystal, but I wanted it because it was a Zenith, a manufacture I respect, and because it's simply a beautiful watch. I had a chap in Bishop's Castle, Shropshire, fix it up initially, but it stopped running again last year or the year before, so I gave it to John to have a go at it, and here we are: running again and considering the age of the thing, keeping good time. Old do...

Pictured, Yr Elen, from above Mynydd Llandegai late this morning, just before the squall that was already forming over the Eryri massif obscured the Carneddau in grey cloud and rain: a promising start that was already thwarted by the time we had reached the other side of Deiniolen, heading for Ynys Môn and lunch. The Bull in Biwmaris proved an unworkable option as it was rammed, and they don't do bar-food on Sundays when full. So a quick pint later, we decided to decamp to The Gazelle again for a Sunday roast and a glass of wine. After a mercifully light shop at Waitrose in Porthaethwy, we hied for home and the curiosity of a long-distance topical quiz via John's phone with friends in Scotland for an hour. Just a snack for supper, followed by a good two or three hours jangle, and Fairview Heights is settling down for the night: not exactly rock & roll, but there you go: we are all now, shall we say, a tad advanced in years, and so quite naturally averse to staying up till d...