A little education...

I’VE BEEN a bit under the weather lately, with some flu-like symptoms compounding a gippy tum.

I do manage to make – and enjoy – a shepherd’s pie yesterday, using some leftover salt marsh lamb, and today I give My Good Lady a hand in cooking up some sautéed new potatoes and some of my very own, and very delicious, tomatoes to accompany her floddies, her little Rösti bacon patties.

I even manage to get us to the farmers’ market where we stock up on locally sourced beef and pork for the month – including our favourite Cumberland and black pudding sausages.

And yes, I have to admit, despite reservations, I manage to drag myself to the last of my weekly carers’ meetings – this time learning to communicate.

I have to say I listen to the theories of how to use words effectively with some distraction, and not a little awe.

Clearly, this session isn’t intended for the likes of me.

I have, after all, been a sometime writer of both fiction and non-fiction, of plays and stories; I’m aware that whole branches of both philosophy and psychology are devoted to the use of words.

I can look up from this computer and see well-thumbed copies of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – classics, both, in the field of language and logic.

At one point I’m distracted by being reminded of Gregory Bateson’s theories of the double-bind and its influence on the onset of mental illness, especially schizophrenia.

And I’m longing to point out that some of the illustrations they are making have been brilliantly demonstrated by R.D. Laing in his little book, Knots.

And I know I have to remain – painfully – silent.

This is not an academic seminar, it’s intended as a practical session, designed to give ordinary carers a chance to express themselves with precision and effect, and to understand how to use simple logical techniques to be assertive without falling prey to aggression.

There are times, though, when I feel that having had a little education is a seriously frustrating thing…

Saintly reflections

I USED to enjoy the Saint.

Not the television series – with Roger Moore in his pre-James Bond days – still repeated over and over on ITV 4.

No, I’m talking about the books.

Leslie Charteris – a much better writer, in my opinion, than Ian Fleming – wrote about thirty of them, novels, novellas, collections of short stories, all featuring his dashing, eponymous hero.

And great fun they were too.

I’ve still got a couple of the novels – and I’m revisiting them…

Oh dear…

It’s said that you should never go back to where you’ve been before – first impressions can never be revived.

Sadly, true.

A cardboard character, against a cardboard background.

Not that it’s badly written – as I say, I still think Charteris is a good, entertaining writer; but I get the feeling that Simon Templar became something of an industry with him –Charteris had to produce.

And it shows.

All right, I can forgive the rather dated plots – many of these books were written in 1930s and 40s.

But the lack of any change, any transition; the Saint even in his old age never actually ages.

All right, yes, he stops smoking in one of the later books, but that’s about it.

He’s still as debonair, as handsome in the 1980s as he was in the 1920s.

Maybe I’m asking too much from a fictional character, but if you’re keeping the character alive, a little change is welcome.

Even in someone as iconic as the Saint.

Hey, just a thought – what about a new Saint, a new Simon Templar for our age? One who goes after corrupt politicians and crooked bankers?

Actually, maybe the stories aren’t as dated as I thought….

Breakfasts long gone by

THE Black Russians in the tomato patch are coming along nicely.

We had the pleasure of trying them the other day – and very excellent they were too, just the kind of flavour I remember from when I was nowt but a nipper.

My father used to grow his own tomatoes of course – most working men did in those days in our little town in darkest, industrtrial Lancashire.

And we were lucky to live on a corner terrace of two-up, two-down houses, and so our back garden was considerably larger than most of the others adjoining us.

I remember one of the meals my father used to make for himself and for me was fried breakfast; consisting of crispy rashers of bacon bought from the grocers across the road from us, and sliced to our exact requirements.

Eggs spitting in fat – no nonsense about using oil in those days – and my dad’s freshly picked tomatoes sizzling in the pan with a piece of bread.

Oh yes, I can hear those breakfasts now!

They were a real treat once in a while; my mother never approved of fried breakfast for some reason, so my father and I used to behave like a pair of conspirators behind her back.

Above all, though, were the wonderful flavours of bacon, eggs and fried tomatoes – just the sort of flavour my Black Russians have.

Not fried of course in these more health-conscious days – baked, rather, but still just as delicious!

Numbers

NOW I’m the first to admit I’m no great shakes when it comes to maths.

Some people have a talent for numbers, others don’t – and I don’t!

The advent of the pocket calculator was a great boon to me, for a spot of everyday counting, but when it comes to doing our annual accounts it becomes a bit of a longwinded chore.

Which is why I’ve decided to learn to use a spreadsheet program.

Windows Excel is said to make doing things like household accounts a snip!

This software is said to make the calculator a thing of the past.

Forget paper and pencil, they say, it can all be done on computer…

Yes, well…

Unfortunately, if you visit Microsoft’s website dealing with Excel and its uses, you find rather large blocks of information missing.

Such as how to set up the program for your needs; my first try ends up so muddled I have to scrap it and start again.

Then there are the curious idiosyncrasies of the program itself, such as why it sometimes insists on putting a dollar sign into the data cell. Every time you enter a number in the cell, up pops the blasted $ again.

So here I am, laboriously typing out long lines of numbers into the rows and columns and by the time I’ve checked and double checked each bit of data and somehow got the thing to cough up an answer, I’m wondering whether it wasn’t easier and quicker to stick with the old pocket calculator after all.