Let Us Spray

You know it's the week of Kid's Club...
Bob is busy with spray paint, repurposing the blank side of an old banner.

There is a large inflatable whale in his office at church

There are Superhero Costumes in production



And still more Bobblehead Jonahs to prepare

I am confident it will all come together in the end!

From Blitz To Bliss?

'Lord of all hopefulness' remains my earworm at the minute. The hymn ends  "Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day"- so when I heard part of a radio programme which kept referring to bliss, I just had to come home and check it out on BBC i-player.
I knew nothing about the man born in 1897 as Karl Kasiel Blitz, who graduated as a chemical engineer from Vienna University. As a Jew, in WW2 he was sent to Dachau Concentration Camp and then Buchenwald. Eventually his wife Claire, secured his release - because he was a brilliant mandolin player. The pair of them were reunited in Shanghai in 1940 - where they were interned in the ghetto.
Because of the blitz in England, he changed his name to Charles Bliss. He was haunted by the horrors of what he had witness in the camps, and committed to promoting peace, and harmony between the nations.
In Shanghai, Bliss became fascinated by Chinese ideograms. He felt that if only there was a universal language of symbols, then communication betweek nations would be so much easier. He had unconsciously picked up the idea of Leibniz,the mathematician, who had proposed 'Universal Symbolism' almost 30 years earlier.

Bliss developed a whole system of ideograms, initially calling it 


World Writing but then changing the name to Semantography.
This system has 2,000 basic symbols which can be combined together to create a huge variety of new symbols. The symbols can be formed into sentences and their order is based on English word order. The symbols are made up of simple shapes designed to be easy to write. 

Charles and Claire settled in Sydney and became Australian citizens. He worked as a labourer to finance the publication of his book "International Semantography" in 1949. But received no positive response. For the next four years he wrote to over 6000 Universities and professors. But his ideas met with rejection - almost everywhere. He was very disheartened. 
Here are two charts showing how the simple symbols combine to make compound words.

And then in 1961,Claire died, and Bliss set about reworking his book. In 1965 Semantography [Blissymbolics] was published.
In 1971, Bliss found out that for the previous 6 years, a Canadian centre for people with cerebral palsy had been using his symbols to help people communicate.
He was angry - this was not the purpose of his work, it was designed for world peace, and they were misappropriating his ideas ! For ten years he was engaged in a legal battle to try and stop them using it. Eventually he acknowledged that actually, it was a genuine help to people with speech and physical impairments. The Blissymbolics Communication International was set up in 1975, as a worldwide, nonprofit charity, to enable this system to be used to help others. But Bliss was still unhappy, and claimed they were misusing his system. Ten years later he was in relative poverty, a bitter and lonely man, living in his attic, renting rooms in his house to generate an income. Then one tenant got into a rage and smashed his precious mandolin. It was the final straw, his depression worsened, and he died of a broken heart in 1985 aged 88. 
I had not come across this system before I heard the programme, and was fascinated by the stories told of children and adults who had learned to communicate with these symbols. 

Here's a man, who drinks blood, at night!
You can find all sorts of fascinating words here
The system appears to be helping so many people - and somehow it seems terribly sad that the one thing its creator did not have at the end of the day was bliss in his heart. 
[That programme link is here, if you missed it]

Pucker Up!

It's National Lipstick Day - apparently this started in the uSA, but has been taken up by a number of British Retailers and there are NLD events happening in department stores all over the place [like John Lewis, Oxford Street]
I don't wear lipstick every day - but if I'm dressing up for something and wearing full make-up, then lips get included. Just occasionally I'll put on a slick of the red stuff, if I think my face looks particularly wan or tired [if only to stop concerned friends saying 'are you OK, Ang?...you look very pale today']
Lipstick has been around for years.
For many centuries, it was considered sinful to paint your lips, and implied you were a harlot, and no-better-than-you-ought-to-be.
Attitudes relaxed by the Georgian era.

Bizarrely, George Washington was known for wearing lipstick. I am not sure if this was to draw attention to his amazing wooden teeth, or to distract people who were staring at them.

I am not sure what the statistics are for women looking at men wearing red lipstick [presumably quite a while, if it is the President, see above...]

During WW2 the production of cosmetics was stopped in the UK - but Churchill believed lipstick was a 'morale booster' so that was allowed to continue. Note his wife Clemmie, wearing her signature 'tied headscarf' - she adopted this style in preference to hats, to show her support of the ordinary women of Britain.

Churchill even asked Elizabeth Aden to produce a colour which would go well with the uniforms of women in the forces- EA came up with "Victory Red"



After the War, Britain remained on ration, and people were still living in a time of austerity.
But 1953 brought the coronation of our beautiful young Queen Elizabeth. 
She commissioned a special lipstick [shade 'Balmoral'] to go with her red Coronation robes - described as a 'soft red-blue hue'




For many women, their lipstick is something without which they cannot face the day. In the film Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly [played by Audrey Hepburn, wearing a shade called Pink in the Afternoon] declares "A girl can't read without her lipstick"



The average woman wears around 4kg of lipstick in her lifetime. It is estimated that 30% of lipstick is 'eaten' and ends up in our stomachs. That's more than 2 of these bags of sugar!



I shall end this post with a favourite poem of mine, by the great American humorist, Ogden Nash]

The Perfect Husband
He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick
And helps you with your girdle when your hips stick

Feeling Sluggish

It rained an awful lot on Wednesday. In the evening, Bob discovered four slugs in the kitchen [three on the floor and one on the worktop] I was utterly grossed out, and did loads of frantic cleaning at 11pm instead of going to bed. We are trying to locate their point of ingress. Bob suspects it is either the tiny gap round the waste water outlet pipe, or the place where a previous resident vented their tumble dryer.
Also spotted on the worktop, another interesting creature

But this is just part of my current knitting project, not a hairy caterpillar.
Steph suggested I left it there to act as a Slug Scarecrow [Scareslug?]
I have just announced that our church will be taking part again in the West Moors Christmas Tree Festival. This year we are knitting, rather than sewing our decorations.
On Sunday I gave out quite a few patterns - I discovered yesterday that Ferndown Wilko has completely sold out of green wool!
I will post more about the Festival when I get back from holiday. It is a little bit too soon to put Christmassy stuff on the blog.

Three Minute Thursday #3 - Crunch Time

Here are some ideas, which are quick and easy, for using up any celery which may be lurking in the fridge. Celery is an ancient veg - trivial fact - Howard Carter found that King Tutankhamen's tomb had been decorated with garlands of wild celery.  

Salads; Everybody knows Waldorf Salad contains celery [plus apple, walnuts, mayo and grapes or raisins] but a stick of celery diced and thrown into any salad gives a bit of extra crunch. 

Braised - when you roast a chicken, cut a few celery sticks in half and lay them round the bird in the roasting pan. They will make a lovely hot vegetable.

Crudités - [or Cruddites to rhyme with Luddites, if you must] One carrot, one stick of celery quickly washed and sliced, served with a small pot of soft cheese [or hummus or salsa]. A much healthier snack than a stack of crackers or Pringles...

Remember to save your celery leaves from the top as a pretty, instant garnish for soup



Canapés - pipe or spread soft cheese into the trough along a stick of celery then cut with a sharp knife. Use herbed cheese, or sprinkle plain with a little paprika/pimenton for an attractive contrast

Make a quick relish - this one goes well with roast or bbq chicken - Chop celery and cucumber into dice, add spring onions, seasonings and olive oil. A handful of cranberries, if you have them will add a hint of tartness and a pop of colour.

And never forget the celery curls - cut a stick into 5cm lengths, and make narrow cuts just halfway down. That will take just a few minutes. Leave these in a bowl of iced water in the fridge - come back later to twirly little garnishes.

More Celery Trivia - both Madame de Pompadour and Casanova believed celery to be an aphrodisiac. Mediaeval magicians thought if they put celery seeds in their shoes it would help them to fly.

And I am sorry, but it is a myth that 'celery helps you slim, because it takes more calories to chew a stick than are contained in that stick'. But is is full of water and fibre, which makes it a healthy snack.

Coming Home

We went to Dunkirk yesterday- not the place, the film. I found it excellent. It is set in three 'chapters' - land, air, and sea.
The first is the beach area at Dunkirk itself, and particularly the Mole, a pier built out into the ocean so that troops could board ships which were unable to come right up to the shallower waters. British troops [and some French and other nationalities] retreating from the Germans had ended up stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk, awaiting rescue by the British navy. But lined up on the beach - in orderly British queues [a historically correct fact] or waiting patiently along the Mole to board the next vessel, these 400,000 men were at the mercy of the Luftwaffe. 

Kenneth Branagh plays Commander Bolton, who masterminded the evacuation and proves yet again what a fine actor he is. He has said that Christopher Nolan, the director didn't let anyone get 'soft' - once you put on the uniform, that was it -no sitting down, no cups of tea. Fight on till it was done, and the filming was completed.

Then the air - this section shows the bravery of the British Spitfire pilots who went out to try and shoot down the German planes which were attacking the minesweepers at sea, and the men on the beaches.
Listen out for the distinctive voice of Michael Caine - never seen but he is heard, as a radio operator in conversation with a pilot. The shots of the planes, against the blue sea and sky were utterly stunning.


And finally the sea - Mark Rylance, an ordinary middle aged man from Dorset*, with a little boat, answers the call. He sets sail with his son, and a young family friend, to travel to France and rescue some stranded soldiers. *People tend to recall that the flotilla left from the Kent coast - this was a nod to those other amateur sailors from the other places who bravely set out across the Channel [you can see another of Dorset's Dunkirk Boats at Poole Lifeboat Station]
I'd happily watch MR in anything - he is such a gifted guy. I am not giving any plot spoilers- other than to say there were some very clever and poignant twists to the story.
Oh, and Harry from One Direction is in it too. Yes, he is a competent actor, and yes I agree with Nolan's view that it was important to use young, inexperienced boys - because so many of those lads waiting on the beaches in June 1940 were young and terrified.

I hate war and violence. It is clear from the ads and trailers shown before the film, that they expect the audience to be mostly blokes. But this film does not set out to glorify war - it shows bravery, and willingness to make self sacrifice. It also shows the instinct for self-preservation, and how sometimes that may affect the choices people make, or the way they treat others. It demonstrates how the combined determination of a few, relatively insignificant, individuals can overcome the great, evil war machine. 

The background music is excellent - the clever use of the heartbeat device was particularly good at moments of suspense. 

But when the flotilla of little ships arrived, and the music segued into Elgar's Nimrod, I lost it completely, and was sitting there in the cinema weeping.

This film celebrates those brave soldiers who managed to come home, and honours the memory of those who didn't - and acknowledges the courage of those who risked everything to bring them back.

You can read Churchill's speech after Dunkirk here - but you probably know these lines already [yes, they do occur at the end of the film]

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

I know there were a few changes for dramatic purposes - but it's pretty accurate as far as I can tell. It had scary moments, poignant moments, and uplifting, joyful moments. I found it inspiring, challenging, and thought provoking.  

Personally, I would rate this film 5*

Sweet Treat

Last Thursday, my neighbour Jim called round to say his apples were ripe for picking, a little earlier this year than last. I picked some, and have promised to make him some pies for his freezer, but I used three small ones to make Rachel Allen's Apple Cake. 
I have done this recipe before, it is very easy and makes a lovely moist sponge with a sugary golden top.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 eggs
• 175 g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 85 g butter
• 75 ml milk
• 125 g plain flour
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 2¼ tsp baking powder
• 2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• cream, to serve

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas 6. Line the sides and base of a 20 x 20cm square cake tin with parchment paper.
2. Using an electric whisk, whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until the mixture is thick and mousse-like and the whisk leaves a figure of eight pattern (this will take about 5 minutes).
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan with the milk, then pour onto the eggs, whisking all the time. Sift in the flour, cinnamon and baking powder and fold carefully into the batter so that there are no lumps of flour. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface. 

4. Arrange the apple slices over the batter. (They will sink to the bottom.) Sprinkle over a tablespoon of sugar and bake in the oven for ten minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180ºC/gas 4 and bake for a further 20-25 minutes or until well risen and golden brown.
5. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool for 20 minutes in the tin. Cut into squares and serve warm with cream

It does not last long in our house! Served with cream, with yogurt, and by itself

Ear, Ear!

I know this is a trivial thing, but... I have had sticky-out ears for all my life to rival those of Dumbo and Prince Charles [except I hide mine under my haircut] I thought I'd got used to them.

However, since I acquired a new mobile phone [OK, inherited my daughter's cast off smartphone] I am finding that mid call, my dumbo-ear somehow touches the screen and cuts me off, or redials someone else, or causes other problems. It happens whether or not I am wearing ear-rings, with both left and right ears. [no jokes about final frontears, please]

It's OK if I hold my mobile in front of me and use speakerphone, but sometimes that is not appropriate when it is a private call. Does anyone else suffer from this interfearence ? Any suggestions?

Did You Say 118?

Perhaps 118 reminds you of the adverts for that company - 118118  - with the two crazy moustachioed runners. Firstly they were advertising a directory enquiries service

And then as their company had a dramatic reduction in profits, because their call charges were so high, they re-invented themselves as a loans provider.

But the number 118 reminds me of that Psalm in the middle of the Bible. It has some great, and familiar verses in it - The Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes...Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever...This is the day that the Lord has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it...The Lord is with me, I will not be afraid.

118 118 have made two claims - the first was that they could help connect you with the people who will help you, and the second is that "you are not alone, we are a loan". In both cases, you will end up paying rather a lot of money for their assistance.

But look again at Psalm 118 - if you take all the verses in the Bible, the exact middle verse is right there - Psalm 118:8 says

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man"

At the very heart of our faith is the truth us that Jesus came to help us reconnect with God - and that we are never alone, because nothing can separate us from God's love.

If I have to choose one or the other, I will go for 118:8 rather than 118 118 - much more reliable, imho!

btw, it was suggested that the two runners modelled themselves on David Bedford, the British athlete who was so successful in the 1970s. When DB complained about his image being misappropriated, the American parent company said "We have never heard of him, we are basing our runners on Steve Prefontaine, the US athlete who died in 1975" Look at the picture and judge for yourself. I think the Psalmist had a point about where to put your trust.

Cracking Jokes

Sorry, no time for a proper blog post today. It has been a very busy week and unexpected urgent things crowded in and required time [and money] This morning we are off, bright and early to a gathering of the Almond Clan for some Significant Birthday celebrations.
Please note, technically the almond is not a nut but a drupe, and it is related to the peach. 
In the last 37 years since I changed my surname, I've been given a number of plaques similar to the one below. The first time it was mildly funny. Is it awful of me to confess passing on subsequent ones to the nearest CS?

Miss Austen, Take Note!

So we have been given details of the new ten pound note featuring Jane Austen.

The £10 note has security features that the Bank says make it very difficult to counterfeit. It is expected to last at least two-and-a-half times longer than paper £10 notes – about five years in total.

The new tactile feature is a series of raised dots in the top left-hand corner, developed in conjunction with the RNIB, the charity that supports people with sight loss. This is in addition to the elements already incorporated in UK banknotes for visually impaired people: the tiered sizing, bold numerals, raised print and differing colour palettes.

That is all very good - and the fact that a woman is featured is also brilliant. 

But...

...lots of people are unhappy about the quotation printed on the note - I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading...In Pride and Prejudice, it was spoken by Miss Caroline Bingley as she flirted with Mr Darcy. She was a deceitful character with no interest in books. This brief clip explains...

I apologise that the voiceover is an American who clearly thinks he is the world expert on JA, and probably thinks she was an American too. This is a difficult one - quotations are often taken right out of context, because they make a good soundbite. This one is already on plaques and teatowels and notebook covers. 

Perhaps Mark Carney received one for Christmas and liked the quote without having read P&P himself [MC is Canadian after all, and probably had to read Anne of Green Gables, Margaret Attwood and Michael Ondaatje at school]
Another Austen Gaffe was by the Tory MP Andrea Leadsom, who declared JA to be one of our greatest living authors.
Can I state at this point that I think JA is okay, but I haven't really enjoyed her books as much as the rest of the world seems to. Sorry. That's just me - you will have to forgive me for my lack of literary taste here.
However, I am not in the same group as the guy on Pointless a couple of months back, who thought Jane Austen included Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox as one of her characters in P&P.

Ah well, as JA said [in Mansfield Park, I think]

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery

I shall endeavour to keep writing a cheerful blog. Dear reader, if you are a committed Janeite, and have any new tenners and are desperately unhappy with the quote, feel free to pop them in the post to me, and I will ensure they are spent with all due sense and sensibility.

Three Minute Thursdays #2 - Merry Berry

After last week's TMT featuring peas, this week is another freezer stand-by;  frozen mixed berries

I love these - they are so useful. 

Lots of supermarkets sell them, under various names [berry mix, forest fruits, essential berries, summer fruits etc] NOTE - aboiv the ones called 'smoothie mix' - as they often contain pieces of melon and or banana slices. They are OK, but not as useful for the ideas below.
As with peas, I decant my berries into a box - to ensure none get lost, and also to make it easier to pick out specific fruits.
So here are some ideas as to what I use these little beauties for..

Just pick out a few to garnish a dessert plate - and throw a few into a basic cake or muffin mix to add moist, fruity flavour.

 Sprinkle some on your home-made natural yogurt

Just two or three fruits will transform the colour of a beige smoothie made with your leftover bananas into a more enticing pink shade.

Put some into a jug of water to make a cool drink. NOTE - if you use raspberries, serve and drink the water promptly. Otherwise they will make the water slightly pink, but lose their colour, and float at the top looking like sinister little bloodless brains. Trust me on this one!

...blast some frozen berries in the microwave for half a minute, and make a hot sauce for vanilla ice cream
...pick out some blackberries or blueberries to freeze into your ice cubes
...put a tiara of berries round the top of a plain cheesecake or simple sponge cake
Fresh berries are delicious when they are season - especially strawberries- but a punnet of the frozen ones is a thrifty way to add just colour, taste and vitamin C throughout the year. Strawberries do not freeze well - so I usually only buy British ones in the summer, and avoid out of season imported or frozen ones.
I am still delighted to have discovered that the first blueberries grown commercially in Britain were in a nursery just 2 miles away, right here in Ferndown. And they are in season again right now.

Soap Opera

Where is your washing machine? Mine is in the kitchen.

Kirstie Allsopp has provoked an outcry recently by declaring that keeping it in the kitchen is disgusting. 'Why mix your poo, pee and period with food?' she says - and 'why mix toast, marmalade and butter with clean washing?' She claims her life's work is in part dedicated to getting washing machines out of the kitchen.
KA spent some of her childhood in the USA, where her parents followed the custom of keeping their machine elsewhere in the house [btw her Daddy is 6th Baron Hindlip, former chairman of Christie's Auction house] and she points out that the Brits are unusual in their habits - continentals put their machines in other places too...

Under the stairs, in the bathroom, in the downstairs loo, in the garage, hidden in cupboards in the bedroom or dining room...or in the Utility Room.
Personally I have no problem with mine being in the kitchen. In fact I like it there - it is close to the back door - so it's easy to carry the basket of laundry outside to the rotary dryer in the garden. It is close to the sink, so it is easier to transfer stuff which has had a pre-soak to the machine, or to do a quick rub and scrub on Bob's shirt collars. And of course, there is good access to plumbing.
The idea of carting a basket of wet washing from the bedroom down the stairs, or struggling outside to the garage in the middle of a hailstorm to wash my sheets does not appeal at all.
And if it is in the dining room - what happens if it goes into noisy spin cycle in the middle of your dinner party?
At Cornerstones we have a relatively small kitchen - and both the dishwasher and the washing machine are in the Futility Room [that's in the extension built by the previous owners]. But many people I know just do not have the space in any other room for a washing machine. Furthermore, the majority of British bathrooms do not have regular electric sockets. 
Is she right - is it really 'disgusting'? I know that the Romani people will not prepare food in the same sink as they have washed their hands or their clothes - and some even have two washing machines - for clothes from the upper and lower parts of the body.
By Kirstie's own logic, you couldn't site your machine in the loo, because then clean washing would be in close proximity to all those bodily fluids...

Maybe the answer is to schlep your sweaty socks round to the nearest Laundrette [we have at least three quite close to us here] I've used these in the past, in student days - and more recently I washed a duvet in one. I honestly have no idea what a regular wash costs in a Laundrette now. Should one wash one's dirty linen in public, anyway?
KA has backtracked a little now, saying it was all a joke and people over-reacted.
What do you think? Is it worth getting in a lather about?

Y Pray?

I am in London this week for my WWDP Committee Part of this will be planning the Y-Pray? Conference next May. 





If you - or someone you know - is in the 20-40 [ish] age bracket, this might interest you.

Y-Pray? is the WWDP weekend conference, held in alternate years at the beautiful King’s Park Conference Centre, Northampton.

The name Y-Pray stands for two things

Y-Pray means why pray? a challenge to grow closer to God, and develop a stronger prayer life.

Y-Pray means youth pray – an invitation to younger women to discover more about our worldwide prayer movement.

Why not encourage those you know to come and enjoy a great weekend of faith, fellowship and fun?

In 2018, the dates are May 4th - 6th and our keynote speaker is inspirational Emily Owen, Worship Leader is gifted Helen Pollard - and Saturday night's entertainment will be provided by brilliant illusionist Steve Price. Email me for more details