Observations from a Hill

I've mentioned The Lads here many times, and as recently as the other day: the extended group of [formerly school-] mates that continued long after we had left secondary education, until we became our own diaspora spread far and wide around the UK and the world. Some of us survivors of this once extensive clan still stay in touch via email, the boomer's choice of remote communication. We sometimes get to meet up in person, in ones and twos, although a much larger gathering was formed at the funeral our dear friend Johnny Kyte [blog posts passim]: with representatives a number of the 'sub-tribes' that formed the Venn diagram of friendships within the larger 'super' grouping that was 'The Lads', which, by the time we hit the pubs of Birmingham in earnest back in the early-mid seventies, became very much a larger, mixed gender grouping, as we all started relationships and most got married. We had an email round yesterday to that effect, as it is sixty years...

We went over to Ynys Môn today for a drive out with Carol & Kev who are staying in the cottage for a few days before the next paying guests arrive; fetching up at Pringles - one of the most godawful retail experiences imaginable and to which coach-loads of ageing and aged people [don't say a word] flock in their hundreds every day during holiday seasons. Needless to say it was not my idea, but a pint in the pub opposite before was sufficient fortification to soften the blow. I simply studied the many shelves of fine whiskeys on offer, decided that all were far too expensive for my current pocket and went and sat in the car as the sun turned to showers, listening to Radio Four. We had previously paid a visit to Hooton's farm foods, passing the fields of sunflowers on the way, and bought some veg for tonight's soup; and then went and ate our sandwiches in the car-park of Plas Newydd, before deciding that the café there was effectively a no-go area of similarly old people,...

It's interesting to reflect that the 'internet' - as we would over-simply characterise that huge, sprawling, multi-layered, complex and nuanced network - that we all take as much for granted as we do [at least in the more privileged pockets of humanity] electricity or running clean water - almost never came into being. By which I mean the World Wide Web; those layers of software abstraction and network protocols that seamlessly enable us to suck network bandwidth in the form of cat videos and AI slop. Oh, and some useful stuff as well. Its creator, Tim Berners-Lee had a hard time convincing anyone that his idea actually had any merit at all, and if the naysayers had had their way, the notion of the Web as we know it would have been still-born there and then. But by the August of 1991, the World Wide Web had just one thousand users - all at CERN, where Berners-Lee worked, and the first ever website garnered no more than around  ten visits a day.  This truly was the ground be...

I watched Andy Burnham's first turn addressing Parliament at the sharp end this afternoon, and I have to say I was impressed both by his confidence and the message he was keen to convey. It's interesting to reflect - especially in the light of Keir Starmer's decision to step down as an MP - that, although I voted for Starmer's leadership and was very sceptical about Burnham's challenge for that leadership, that I feel I've been completely wrong on both counts, and it's not an uncomfortable feeling: I like to admit my mistakes where I can. It's good to know you're in the wrong and it's good to admit the fact when faced with it. I was wrong to assume that Starmer's legal background would carry the day in debate: the converse in the political arena proved to be true: he has a good heart, but is no politician. I thought initially that Burnham's challenge was born of ambition and hubris, but I genuinely now believe this not to be the case. I a...

I know this is taking gratuitous food posts to the next level - this being the third in three days: and about the same damned meal for God's sake - but bear with me, it was a long day yesterday and I'm both tired and would like to watch a movie before bed, so there you go. I mentioned the sheer value of the leg of sheep that formed the magnificent centrepiece to this dish; and looking at the amount of eating left on it [two more meals off it tonight, and more to come], this has to represent the best value meat, pound for pound, that we've bought in recent years; never mind the first-rate quality of the produce. I reiterate yesterday's main message: buy your lamb/hogget/mutton from your local Asian, Halal butcher: you really will not be disappointed...

Pictured, this afternoon's birthday main course after cooking - see last night's post for a preamble - although a kleftiko  is essentially a pot roast with juices, I decided halfway though cooking to separate the meat from the veg and strain the sauce from the potato/pepper/tomato/garlic etc. mix and continue roasting the meat and veg in separate pans on a higher heat to finish. The sauce was reduced just a little, and we served it more like a traditional Sunday roast. Despite the deconstruction, it was recognisably a Greek kleftiko, with a hefty presence of lemon, garlic and oregano. I used a large glass of red wine as the base liquor, and the initial cooking was started, covered, on a high heat for just under an hour then reduced to 150˚C for a couple of hours before the deconstruction and final roast for an hour or so at 200˚C uncovered. Most importantly, the meat was rested for about an hour before serving, and was tender and flavourful as a result. We will all smell rather...

  OK - it's going to be a completely lazy and gratuitous food post weekend this weekend. Tomorrow we feast for our son's birthday; and I won't reveal which one for reasons of my vanity rather than his. Pictured is the mis-en-place of the basic ingredients of a dish which I will spend half a day cooking tomorrow. To this a great pile of spuds will be added, along with sundry other flavourings and spices, oils and wine. The star of the show of course will be the wonderful piece of meat seen here acclimatising in the enormous cast iron pot in which the thing will be cooked, very slowly , on the morrow. The recipe called for a whole leg of lamb, but we went one better and bought 'lamb' from one of our local Halal butchers in Bangor; clue: this ain't no Spring Lamb just a few months old. Nah, this is the real deal. Could be mutton, but probably hogget: either way, way tastier than the over-priced stuff you get in Waitrose or Marks. This piece weighed in at just shy o...

We - collectively and severally - today have been musing on the issue of personal empowerment and the rights of the ordinary citizen: rights that most people appear to think that they don't possess. Most people below a certain age in the UK seem to subscribe to a fatalism that belongs in the pre-enfranchisement era; that they simply have no recourse to the law on their own behalf and have as a consequence, no voice in the world. Alongside this misapprehension there co-exists a sense of entitlement to material wealth no matter the circumstances; that somehow the disenfranchised are entitled to exploit the inequalities inherent in our current models of society despite the law. This polarised view of personal empowerment lies at the heart of our problems, politically and economically.  The politics of envy are always pitted against the politics of greed: the kind of crass simplification of a society best left to the Daily Mail's of this world: stupid, foetid and vile in equal meas...

I would hope to think that by now that even the most trenchant of climate-change deniers might just be having the teensiest of second thoughts about the absurdity of their position vis-à-vis the blindingly obvious evidence that surrounds them in contradiction of their head in the sand stupidity. Were it not for for the climate-induced tragedies that occur with geometrically increasing frequency, it might seem reasonable to them to pass it all off as merely part and parcel of the normal cycle of meteorological flux. But it ain't so, folks. We have ceased merely to be looking at the loaded gun pointed at us: we are staring simultaneously down both barrels pressed against our eyeballs with both triggers about to be released. The awful events in Nepal are just the latest evocation of a planet in rebellion against its inhabitants: along with wildfires, flash-floods can be directly attributed to the long-term actions of industrialised mankind. Yes these events do happen naturally and oft...

  We were watching re-runs of Rick Stein's India this afternoon and one of the featured recipes was a wonderful-looking Chicken Biryani, which reminded us of the only Biryani I've ever cooked , just after the first Covid lockdown had eased, and just before I retired from the world of toil. We just couldn't remember where I'd got the recipe for this version of the dish from, and I came to the conclusion that it must have come from the above-pictured book, which I bought over forty years ago. Then I rediscovered the post I wrote in 2020, linked to above, which gives the true origin of this wonderful recipe. I have to say that the prep was long, the cooking easy but stressful and the result totally amazing, so for those who don't own this book I would suggest getting hold of a copy just for this one alone: "The Curry Guy" by Dan Toombs published by Quadrille. Just be sure to get some good lamb - and lamb it has to be in my book - from your local Halal butche...

I was quietly watching a gentle climbing video this evening of a couple climbing a classic Lakeland slab route, going at about HVS 5a [look it up if you don't know UK trad grades], which was about my sweet spot grade back in the mists of time when I still climbed. I could do more technical stuff on the climbing wall or on boulders, but on actual crag climbs, that was the grade where I was most comfortable. I first came to North Wales at the age of about thirteen with two of my uncles to climb on Tryfan in the Ogwen valley here. My journey to discovering my roots in North Wales hadn't yet started by a long chalk, and it was to be another twenty-three years before we would up sticks and move here. Subsequently I took up climbing again as I turned thirty, and spent a few - in retrospect short - years going through the grades from VS to low-level Extremes, towed by my mate Bryan at the sharp end of the rope. I led a few of the easier things, but not much, being happier in seconding...

  I wrote the other night about Twll Balast [Pen Y Bryn Slate Quarry in the map shown], as I did last year . I remade my FOI request  to the council as I had no recall of receiving an actual reply, save acknowledgement of receipt of request, at the time. It could be that Mail simply shunted it into outer space, as it has a disturbing habit of doing from time to time, but whatever: the council came straight back with a reply and attached reports. The oldest was a W.S Atkins report [at least the executive summary thereof, commissioned by Arfon Borough Council the late eighties, and the slightly later report I mentioned in rather scathing terms the other night, by Environ, commissioned this century by Gwynedd County Council. It looks like I made too many assumptions about the nature off this later report, as it has more depth [pun unintended] than I had previously assumed. I have read the nearly fifty pages of it this afternoon, along with the Atkins' executive summary of their ...

  Pictured, sunflowers at Llanedwen, Ynys Môn today, part of Hooton's Farm Shop's sunflower trail; a touch of Provence in North Wales, and a welcome, momentary diversion... RIP Lady - a fine and lovely dog

I was reading a post on Medium earlier about what being a graphic artist meant before the days of desktop publishing software and Photoshop, let alone AI. The writer pointed out the broad variety of physical training, skills, experience and equipment required simply to do the most basic of design tasks. First and foremost was the necessity of possessing the actual ability to draw and paint: the fundamentals. All other techniques flowed from that underpinning. Since the advent of widespread computing power and the software to exploit it, new skill sets have grown up around it, transforming both the industry itself and its practitioners' praxis within the industry. I was minded about the type of school I attended at secondary level, and the subjects that were central to its curriculum, particularly in the pre-streamed first two years there. Ours was a technical school when I first started, and didn't start transforming itself into a more mainstream grammar school until I'd go...

OK - I wrote last year about issues with the water safety at the Nantlle quarries, caused by industrial waste dumping over the many years since the quarry's closure as a going concern. I was very guarded in my approach to the issue for a number of reasons, but in the light of the recent BBC TV toxic dumping exposé "Buried", hosted by Michael Sheen recently, I have to add to that previous post the rider that I accidentally had sight of a report commissioned in the late-1980s about the Twll Balast site above the Dorothea Quarry, where technical scuba and mixed-gas diving is popular, and where a significant number of fatal accidents have occurred over the last few decades. In that report - the copy I made sadly is no longer with me - it was stated categorically that the waters that have filled the Twll Balast workings since the quarry's demise are polluted with an extremely noxious cocktail of substances related principally but not solely to local plastics manufacturing...

I noted with somewhat grim amusement in today's bumper summer fun edition of The New Statesman, a piece by Nicholas Harris about the first Wetherspoon's pub to be opened outside of this archipelago, in Alicante, España. What makes this particularly of note is not the part of Spain chosen - pretty predictable given that it is a traditional holiday destination for package-holidaying Brits, but rather that it has been opened in an EU country. Consider the fact that the founder of the cheap booze at breakfast, lunch and dinner chain of pubs, Sir Tim Martin is virulently anti-EU and campaigned vigorously and vociferously for Brexit. What manner of business brain comes up with that combo, one might ask? First you and your political ilk manage to convince half of the population to vote for a restriction of their rights to free movement within Europe, and then later decide to open bloody pubs within the economic union you apparently loathe, to serve those very people. It adds to the co...

Thinking on about last night's scribble about Apple, I was minded about Steve Job's early adoption of a totally enclosed proprietary approach to Apple product. Everything about the Mac - hardware, software, etc. - was in-house, and third-party involvement in any way not to be countenanced. It's not unlike the ethos that he created after his return to the company in the late nineties, at least as far as the iPod, iPad and iPhone were concerned: totally ring-fenced products and software, with any third-party software input - at least for the iPad and iPhone: the iPod being a special case during its lifetime - totally controlled by Apple itself through the Byzantine channels of the Apple Developer Program. To an extent, Job's early views on the issue were pretty understandable: the company was relatively small and upcoming compared to the industry standards and the giants of the day, such as IBM; they were treading very new ground back then, and were cognisant that what th...

I picked up a post on Medium today, from last month, about the apparent doldrums in which Apple seems to be becalmed of late, and I have to say I can't disagree with any of it. Since the death of Steve Jobs and the departure of Jonny Ive, there has been little advancement of note in either hardware, OS or software design language , only 'evolutionary tinkering', sometimes good, sometimes bad: nothing outstanding or remarkable. It's as if Apple product has reached its 'white goods' phase, like fridges and cookers: utilitarian, albeit with much flair and great build quality; a bit like Bosch anything or Neff cookers, Smeg fridges or Agas or Roll Royces. Pretty much as if 'we have refined our wares to a point where there is nowhere left to go to improve on our wares'. Except that we all know that as progress is made on the technical side of product development, this should be de facto followed by changes in the design language of the products themselves: e...

I watched the finals of The Hundred from Lords on TV yesterday, a format of the game of cricket that - as I think have written before - I was ready initially to loathe as a debased and rather tawdry version of the beloved game. However, in recent months, I've come to appreciate it for what is and for its potential to save the domestic game from oblivion in its longer forms. We were in danger of concentrating on the highly lucrative - although not domestically - Indian Premier League at the expensive of cricket here in the UK. Falling spectator numbers across the longer formats, with decreasing take up of the game amongst the young meant that the game was slowly atrophying and unable to turn a profit and stay alive.  Early take up of the game was not a problem in my childhood, as all - admittedly mostly boys in those days, unfortunately - played street and park cricket all summer long, switching to football for the autumn and winter. Schools actively taught and played cricket, field...

  We went over to meet the boys at Plas Newydd this morning for coffee and a walk and talk in the grounds there. Although the place was quite busy, we went in the opposite direction to the vast majority there, away from the house towards the Rhododendron garden, which is a kilometre or so back toward Llanfair P.G through the woods. Whilst the small (an acre?) terraced garden near the house was a riot of colour and variety [above], the cool dark of the woods was very pleasant indeed, and a good gentle stroll on which to converse about something and nothing and this and that, so to speak. We turned it into a circular walk, ending up near where we'd started, above the terraces and near the cromlech that sits in the field behind. One thing that was noted on returning through the 'National Trust Retail Experience' that starts and ends a visit there, was that the fifth Marquess, Henry Cyril Paget, the erstwhile black sheep of the family, is now being rehabilitated as somewhat a b...

Just a very short note tonight as we're absorbed in the penultimate evening of the European Athletics Championships and really don't want to look away. Just watched a fabulous 10,000m won in great style and form by Sweden's Andreas Almgren [pictured, after the race] - back in a minute or thirty ... Right, so GB have won both 4x100 relays; and the men's 1500m was taken to all the pundit's surprise by a magnificent final fifty sprint by the Nederland's Nillesen. Ireland's O'Connor won the Women's heptathlon fabulously, and  Steve Backley's javelin record fell after twenty-eight years, whilst Jonathan Edward's triple jump record still stands, despite a monster leap by Italy's Hernández which turned out to be a fouled attempt. All in all, an exciting if somewhat distracting evening that's sure to be repeated tomorrow. We're off to Plas Newydd to meet the boys tomorrow late morning, for a stroll and coffee, but we'll be glued to th...

Pictured, a small gift from our current guest, Judith's father, over here for a few days visit from Germany. He's staying in our cottage and this afternoon presented me with this little tome, as he was aware that I have spent some time in Germany and speak [ein bisschen schlechtes] German. We communicated as such this evening, each admitting to our own linguistic limitations in turn, but understanding each other perfectly well enough. A nice gesture on his part, and well appreciated by me. Which makes me think of the damage that the Farage creature and his ilk have wreaked on this land in pressing through the Brexit agenda. We need more contact with the outside world, not less: there is no progress to be made in crude isolationism, as any truly pragmatic person here in Wales will attest to. Nationhood is a fine thing, but any nation has to sell its benefits outside of its own bounds to succeed: cutting ties with others is simply cutting your nose off to spite your face, as we ...

Fairview Heights this late afternoon, the temperature down to a balmy 28˚C, although to be fair we only touched thirty once, mid-afternoon, so not greatly oppressive. The house sits at around twenty-four, but then we live in a place with two-foot thick stone walls, so it is relatively easy to regulate the inside temperature with curtains and doors: old school tech is most often the best, methinks. Shades and a through draught are the free alternative to air-con, as we learnt in Corfu a decade ago: it's quite possible to spend a relatively comfortable night with no air-con in a hot environment as long as you limit the solar gain of windows using shutters during the day, and maintain a night-time airflow across the room. A bottle of cold local wine helps the zzz's along also. It's weird that it's now as as hot here in North Wales as it was back then in Greece, but there you go. One thing I definitely can't get around here though are the stupendous cheese pies and deep...

Pictured, the best that I could manage of the moment of ninety-percent eclipse, using an iPhone 16 Pro through the lens of a pair of cardboard eclipse specs - grainy and blurry that it is, it at least gives an impression of what we could see this evening. We sat out drinking cold beer in the peace and quiet of Y Ffridd, whilst the throng headed up onto the hill behind us, beyond the mountain gate. I think we had the best seats in the house, however...

Today I found this avian corpse down in our car park, with no obvious signs of injury or attack, but stone dead, nevertheless. We've no idea what it is, but at a good 200mm head to tail, it's not exactly small; however my suspicion is that it's not fully grown, although obviously fledged: could it be an adolescent corvid? It's beak suggests something of the kind, as do the enormous, taloned feet. We'd love to know more: Steve and Margaret - come to our rescue, guys. Tomorrow's eclipse beckons and our next-door neighbour has given us two pairs of the 'official' eclipse specs with which to view the event, a kind and thoughtful gesture. I've written before of past eclipses I've witnessed [blog posts passim], but this one promises to be pretty special, should the weather stay as it is. I'm determined to record this event properly and in real time, using my iPhone, running the BlackmagicCam app, with the thing mounted on my Manfrotto tripod. Sound...

I've just ordered an old, secondhand copy of "Transformational Syntax - a Student's Guide to Chomsky's Extended Standard Theory", my former, and now sadly deceased, professor's first book, which I've alluded to before [blog posts passim]. Somewhere in this house lies the original self-produced copy of this first opus by Andrew Radford; which he wrote, typed and Roneo-ed [an obsolete method of ink-based reproduction of documents, for the uninitiated: much cheaper at the time than using a photocopier, and a year or three before the availability of affordable computers and printers] over the summer break before taking up the chair in Linguistics at University College, North Wales [now Bangor University] at the tender age of thirty-four: both of which achievements speak volumes as to the man's ability. It is not out of any sympathy with or belief in Chomsky's syntactical theory that I've purchased the thing - I'd already come to the conclusion...

  OK, it's Sunday and gratuitous food post time! I really don't have much mental or physical oomph left in the tank to write otherwise; we've done a stint in the garden this afternoon and my back's sore, so I'll keep it short. Anyway, tonight's repast is worth remarking upon: the usual combo of belly pork, potatoes and vegetables in my usual sauce. Except that tonight's turned out to be exceptional. Two things about the meat and spuds: first I did my usual parboil of Maris Piper potatoes with a couple of bruised garlic cloves, plenty of sea salt and a glug of extra virgin olive oil in the water. Then I roasted the little buggers in beef dripping. The belly pork strips, which were nice and fatty, I just salted with the aforementioned sea salt and roasted them off as is, rendering the fat off the things without adding anything else into the pan. I also didn't drain the fat off the pan, instead basting the skin a few times whilst letting the meat itself sit...

Some institutions die in the full glare of the public eye with fanfares and encomia befitting their stature and importance to society and to the history of mankind; their mark ensured for future generations to commemorate and contemplate. The common man's history seldom leaves such particular remembrance beyond their family, very often in spite of their uncommon achievements. Such is generally the fate of we, the hoi polloi. However, 'tis not such a deep thing as this that I seek to offer in the following regretful, rather rueful, remembrance. I only heard today - entirely peripherally, and God knows how I missed the news in the first place [April of this year] - that Gentlemen's Relish had been discontinued by its current owners. Alas they simply could not see further profit in the product, despite its history. Short-sighted bastards if you ask me. I first discovered this most pungent of fishy accompaniments in 1980 and was blown away by the airlift that it could give to m...

It's been a great couple of wildlife days up here in Fairview Heights. The weather's been a tad cooler and we think that might just have encouraged the fauna to get a bit more active than during the very hot weather of late. The day before yesterday saw a juvenile Red Kite [Y Barcud Coch in Welsh] hovering very low over our patio, being harassed by a couple of gulls. We know that there are Kites nesting a few miles away around Tal Y Bont, and they increasingly stray towards us [very welcome, too, as they're one of our favourite birds] in search of carrion and small mammals. Today, though, has seen an enormous influx of butterflies and bees into the garden as the buddleias [apart from the Black Knight, which is over by now] are in full bloom. And joy of joys, a couple of Hummingbird Hawk Moths feeding right in front of us to top it all off. Bendigedig iawn, iawn...

Growth. What is 'growth', aside from being a gloriously Old English word in nature, with its qualifying noun suffix '...th' added to the verb 'grow'. Well, applied to ourselves and our offspring it can relate to both our physical and mental growth: we start out physically small and grow into adults before we start to shrink again somewhat as we get past a certain age. It relates to a our intellectual growth from childhood, through adolescence into adulthood. Any subsequent shrinkage obviously being subject to any number of factors, if at all: but ultimately one's ceasing will put a stop to that growth, either way. By definition, personal growth is limited by mortality; in itself variable, but generally limited to the low hundred-plus years at its upper bound. As far as shared human knowledge is concerned, the limit to its growth is theoretically bound to the lifespan of our species, which is unknowable, but which is predictable statistically from within that...

I was just watching the opening scenes from the 1987 film RoboCop, and saw the future now, writ large in Technicolor. This film, alongside many other dystopian fictions of the era, actually seem to have been a playbook for capitalism and rogue politics for this first quarter of the twenty-first century, with megalomaniac billionaires foisting crackpot visions of the 'benefits' of blind technological advance, despite little empirical evidence as to its actual, societal efficacy. It is a vision of conquest and control in the service of profit. We used to take this kind of movie with large pinches of salt tempered with small twinges of 'what-if? Looking at the corporate structures and mega-vanity projects currently extant, I think we should have taken more heed of these 'entertaining' narratives with a good deal more perspicacity than we did at the time. We are living in the future we were watching in fiction back then. Robots are a thing. Artificial Intelligence is a ...

OK, here's a thing. I thought I'd mentioned the very shortest of short-form cricket - 'The Hundred' - here before, but I can't find a reference to it on searching. Anyhow, I have changed my opinion of the game in the last few weeks, from one of outright dismissal of the form as a rather crass gimmick when it was first introduced, to now enjoying the game very much indeed. I'll never give up my love for first class cricket and the five-day test format, but I honestly think that they've actually got this one right. And it is bringing new blood into both playing and watching the game of cricket, which was so desperately needed. I don't think the IPL had anywhere the kind of impact here in the UK that it has had elsewhere, and added to the  the fact that first-class cricket is still hidden behind a bloody paywall - a total disgrace in my book - The Hundred strikes me as the democratic alternative form of the game which is inevitably reaching an audience that...

The truly unique thing about the written and printed word is its persistence, resilience and resistance to tampering. Unlike the digital domain, which is subject to failure at all of these points. A book or journal can be damaged - by fire, water, insects, fungi or very often just rodents - granted, but text in the digital realm has an especially tenuous, often evanescent existence by comparison to more corporeal forms of storage. The very language of the text itself is actually key to its resilience. Written or printed language is the direct analogue of the spoken word expressed at one, very slight remove, for storage and later retrieval. In more recent history, analogue audio recordings have provided us with a slightly less removed analogue of human communication. The same applies to film and video. But with the digitisation of either text or speech, film or video, we enter a realm of total abstraction where the medium of storage is essentially disconnected from the content being tra...

OK - yet another throwaway food post, as I'm completely fashed and this laptop seems to want to keel over at any moment. Pictured is tonight's pork and potato sort of Goan curry. I was going to be creative and do something from scratch, but laziness kicked in and I bought one of those semi-fancy curry kits. Now I have to say that the basic premise of these particular kits is pretty sound: a dry masala to temper in the oil or ghee to produce the bedrock flavours; a base sauce in which to flavour the meat and/or vegetables and a final sauce to complete the cooking with. The issue I've always had with these kits is the instructions, which parallels most of the issues I've had with South Asian cookbook recipes aimed at the British [non-Asian] cook: timings. They, of a piece, try to conflate cooking times to suit a modern, fast-food attitude to producing food. In the case of South Asian food, for the most part, this is almost always a recipe for raw-tasting and frankly disa...

  I was watching a really wonderful documentary earlier, on YouTube, from a series of TV programmes titled 'Parts Unknown' by Anthony Bourdain, which culminates in his eating at the table of Paul Bocuse, in the latter's hunting lodge after they had spent the day duck-hunting for the pot. Bocuse was one of France's fêted Chefs de Cuisine, and a culinary hero of Bourdain's personally. It's a wonderful programme overall, but the final, informal setting is one of plain good cooking and eating in the company of friends: good food, good wine and good company. Over the last half century I've spent many an hour similarly, and cooked and eaten thousands of such meals in good company, accompanied by much quaffing of drink. Anyway, what did I cook for myself this evening, as I'm flying solo for a few days? The above pictured cheese and streaky bacon toastie with HP Sauce. Not quite wild duck spit-roast over an open fire, but a damn sight easier to prepare and not ...

The world is arguably, and some of us would assert demonstrably, in the most perilous state that it has been since mankind evolved. Hyperbole? I really don't think so: climate change is now accelerating at a pace predicted by climatologists just a few years ago; a rate of change so fast that extreme weather events normally restricted to Africa and the Indian subcontinent are now commonplace across northern Europe. This year has seen catastrophic wildfires taking hold across Spain, Italy, Greece, France and the UK. Drought has been declared similarly widely across the continent, making fighting these fires increasingly difficult. Is there any significant rainfall in the offing for us? Not as far as the meteorologists can foresee: we're looking at similar conditions for the next month or so at least. On the international politics front, how many wars are being waged at present and for what reasons? The Middle East, Ukraine, what next? And what will the antagonists party to and in...