I was diligently following a recipe called “How to make the perfect roast potatoes” Thinking, if I can achieve perfection Here in my kitchen That would be really quite major Offsetting all thoughts of career failure.
Like – alright, Macron You might have become President of France At the age of 39 And live in the elysee palace Rather than a 3 bed terrace But have you knocked out perfect roast potatoes Not just exceptional Not just blinding Perfect.
No. No, you haven’t.
So clear in my superiority I knuckled down and followed the recipe Par boiling to the second, Interspersing garlic among the King Edwards and as I sat there oven side, like a midwife I thought to myself I’m alright.
In terms of bread, is there a bread more bread-like, bringing more pure, unadulterated bread pleasure, than a bagel?
The answer is obvious, but as this is a blog let’s talk around the subject a bit before giving the answer about 400 words further down the page.
Numbers first. A normal, workaday roll comes in at a modest 133 calories. A bagel packs more than twice the calorific punch, coming in at an impressive 289 calories.
These raw, inarguable stats, are at the heart of the bagel’s appeal.
But the bagel isn’t just a heavyweight bread – it is also the most delightful to have and to hold.
As with all the best designs, the bagel’s perfect composition has a utilitarian purpose that would have the Bauhaus lads purring. The hole in the middle provides more surface to allow the thing to bake more quickly and has the added advantage…
So I was in the swimming baths – Beckenham Spa if you want to know, which you do, nosy – and I was doing a few lengths of my pretty average breast stroke in the medium lane, and there’s a guy doing his pretty average front crawl, about the same pace as me, but after a while he decides
I’m in the wrong lane. My front crawl is so superior and stellar that, by rights, I should be in with the champions, in the fast lane.
So off he goes, to the fast lane, where he continues his sub-par thrashing about, where there is a woman doing what I would describe as proper swimming: front crawl, high elbow, easy breathing, not too much splash, cutting through the water with the smooth efficiency of a German stereotype
and she finds herself being obstacled by Mr Sub-Par Thrasher, who absolutely refuses to cede any lane space to her because, well, he’s got some balls, and she hasn’t, and that’s that.
All the other men in the fast lane were also:
Not very good at swimming
Not going very fast, and
Not letting her go by.
So, after a while, she decides to sack it off and goes to the middle lane with a float to do some still-pretty-nifty legs-only lengths.
Which brings me to Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg, which is basically 200-odd pages of gentle encouragement for women to, politely, not put up with men in the fast lane who want you to drop down a lane or, better, get out of the pool altogether.
Sheryl Sandberg: she’s probably doing an email with the other hand while posing for this photo
Sheryl Sandberg is COO of Facebook, and probably up there with Stakhanov, Sisyphus and Sonic the Hedgehog as one of the hardest working S’s in the world, ever. Her idea of flexitime is taking a couple of hours off to have dinner with her kids, before working until the wrong side of midnight.
She thinks that if women were better at advancing their own and other women’s causes in the workplace, and men were prepared to do half the housework, you would soon be close to getting 50% of top jobs held by women. She thinks that would be desirable for both women and men.
It is fair to say that Jordan B Peterson doesn’t agree.
In his book, 12 Rules for Life, he takes the view that most women in really high-powered jobs back away from the demands of a career at the very top when they start having a family, because their priorities change.
Apart from him getting intense on Marxist postmodernists (by which I think he means the kind of spoken word poet types I hang out with) this is a really good book.
Peterson takes the long view that this is how men and women have always been, and it won’t change, so there.
Without wanting to align myself as a wishy-washy centrist, I’d say that the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Sandberg outlines, with devastating honesty, the toll her work has taken on her family life. She talks about her daughter holding onto her leg at the airport telling her not to get on a flight (to do a talk about women in the workplace).
She admits, “The days when I even think of unplugging for a weekend or vacation are long gone.”
Obviously, most people aren’t up for that level of work devotion when there’s telly to watch and stuff. But perhaps more men are, as Peterson suggests, by their very nature, driven towards that kind of lifestyle, and to make those kind of choices.
Which brings me back to the swimming baths, and some questions:
Why didn’t the female swimmer simply swim more aggressively so that she asserted her rightful dominance as the best swimmer in the pool?
Is it simply human nature for men to want to dominate literally every situation except childbirth and the washing-up?
Clearly, I don’t know.
But it would be nice if just one geezer doing his bog-standard Sunday morning lengths could notice a woman who is better than him and, if he can’t admit she is better, at least revert to chivalry, and doff his swimming cap, and let her pass.
A nice head and shoulders of Beckenham Spa. There’s a recycling centre in the car park as well.
Finally there is a chewing gum which accurately
reflects the British class system
a gum on which the professional can chew
safe in the knowledge it is way more distinguished
than Wrigleys spearmint or Juicy Fruit
I look forward to the other gums in the range
Orbit working class and Orbit immigrant
so every chew knows its place
and doesn’t find itself embarrassed
in the wrong class of face
I hope, one day, people will recognise Orbit
professional as a watershed moment, with
the government taking heed and ensuring everything
we buy comes with a strict traffic light
class guide alongside the nutritional advice
That way, you could know for certain
if Innocent Foods really are too posh
or if Chicago Town pizza is,
by your standards, a low class of nosh
In the meantime I, a middling civil servant,
can sit back with my Orbit, chewing and relaxing, happy…
At a wine and snacks gathering
in Canonbury, I was stood with
some adults discussing teaching.
In a despondent bid for attention
I said I had met Michael Gove
and liked him. “How can you say that?”
was followed by “he’s a dreadful man,
and you know it, Richard” at which point
I said he was only trying to raise standards
and what was the harm in that. Although
the party began to peter out
shortly afterwards, I stayed
until the end, insisting on
washing-up the glasses
even though the host twice said
there was no need.
Despite a life of complete moderation, Khan is a dangerous extremist
Having read the national newspapers and listened to the comments of the Prime Minister over the past few weeks, I have become convinced that Sadiq Khan is, and always will be, a dangerous extremist.
I have noted with horror that, as a lawyer, he sometimes interacted with people accused of crimes. I have been left open mouthed by his willingness, as a Muslim, to talk with other Muslims – some of whom don’t preface every remark they make with a full-throated rendition of Land of Hope and Glory and a sizeable donation to Help for Heroes.
Needless to say, I was not expecting such a man to win the London Mayor election. I expected the noted beer-drinking, tube-travelling, Bollywood-loving man of the people Zac Goldsmith to canter to a comfortable victory.
Aghast at such a turn of events, I read, in my Daily Telegraph, remarks made by Mr Khan in his victory speech – and after contorting his words out of all context I realised my views about this man’s unsuitability for office were confirmed.
You have probably already realised that I am referring to Mr Khan’s incendiary assertion that he will run London “for all Londoners.”
This shocking statement means the man now in charge of our capital is not just running London on behalf of decent, hard working people who pay their taxes and want to get on.
Khan is running London, brazenly and unashamedly, on behalf of pimps, vagabonds, litterers, terrorists, fakers, wake and bakers, narcissistic selfie takers, doggers, diggers, liggers, laggers, taggers, newly-returned backpackers, members of the campaign for real ale, people who eat crisps made out of kale, traitors, idiots standing on the wrong side of escalators, thieves, northerners who talk constantly about how bad London is but somehow never leave, looters, Gooners, those smug posh people out after the riots waving their brooms, thugs, people who reserve tables in pubs, arrive late and don’t even have the decency to get drunk, retards in moustaches, members of ISIS, people who think they are saving the planet by driving a Prius, and, finally, people who act all polite and nice but are quite the opposite.
Khan, with his being the avowed Mayor for all Londoners, brings the above under his banner of seeming moderation.
Yes, this even-handed approach by Khan might not seem like much of a reason to criticise him. Yes, Mr Khan may, on the face of it, be the blandest of bland politicians. Yes, he might have an entirely modest agenda of restraining transport costs and doing a bit to make the housing system fairer. Yes, it might be quite good the way his dad was a bus driver and he grew up on a council estate.
But I am not going to sit back and accept that the Daily Telegraph, The Mail, the Prime Minister and all the rest didn’t have a fair point when they suggested that Sadiq Khan is a dangerous extremist.
I, for one, will continue to believe these trusted servants of the public interest – whatever the facts suggest.
Despite there being no evidence for this whatsoever, my predictive text seems to think that I constantly want to use the word ducking.
Perhaps I should write a formal letter,
Dear Android/Apple,
I am writing to you, very politely, to say that as a small man and I am rarely, if ever, ducking.
Did napoleon duck the big issues?
No. And nor do I.
I do, however, occasionally get slightly irritated by some things (humans, etc) which occasionally gives me cause to colour my language. So when I hit the f, and follow it with, ucking, there is no mistake.
As a staunch royalist, I would like to express my own personal disappointment that footage of the Queen and Queen Mother innocently zieg heiling has been published by The Sun.
My own personal take is that it was harmless fun. My grandmother often spoke of how our family did the same in the 1930s before going to synagogue. It was just what you did in those days, and people lacking historical perspective should not think otherwise.
The Royal Family’s record on diversity and equality speaks for itself. You only have to look at the long line of royals marrying people of different races – and indeed social classes – to see that quite clearly.
Similarly, we should not take offence that Prince Charles gave an Asian friend the nickname Sooty, nor that Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi at a party, or called a colleague a “Paki”.
None of these innocent and harmless incidents should in any way damage the credibility of the Royal Family, and its divine right to rule over us.
On a day like today, the Queen and the Royal Family need our support more than ever. I for one will not be shirking my duty.
To this end, I shall be spending the day outside Buckingham Palace, singing God Save The Queen, goose-stepping and Zieg Heiling as I do so.
By the factory wall 