HERE I AM AGAIN AFTER THREE MONTHS OF BLOGGING HIBERNATION.

TODAY IS ST DAVID'S DAY, SPRING IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER.

READING:

 

Hearts and Minds is the latest book by Amanda Craig, and I think it is her best so far.  
In the last few years there have been several books (The Road Home by Rose Tremain, The Other Hand by Chris Cleave, My Cleaner by Maggie Gee) and one or two films (Dirty Pretty Things, Breaking and Entering) tackling the subject of what life is like for an immigrant/refugee/asylum-seeker living in Britain. In Hearts and Minds Amanda Craig has given the most readable, detailed – and at times depressing – overview of how our society functions only because of the huge underbelly of people from other countries who live and work here.  As I read it I kept thinking that this is the book everyone should read if they want to understand something of London life in the Noughties.

Like many big cities, London is a place of contrasts, and these are unveiled to show everything from the pampered luxury of life in a Hampstead mansion, the comfortable middle-class terraces of Islington, and the squalid apartments in ‘Kill Burn’ and Camden where brothels are called Massage Parlours.

The novel has five points of view: there is Job, the Zimbabwean mini-cab driver who is an illegal immigrant fleeing the horrors of Mugabe’s regime and who hasn’t heard from his wife for nearly a year; Anna, the fifteen year-old girl from Russia, who thinks she is coming to work as a cook or chamber-maid but finds she has been enslaved as a prostitute, her passport seized by the traffickers and without any access to the outside world. Katie, a young American who is escaping from a broken engagement, and is working for a pittance on a temporary visa. Ian is a white South African supply teacher working in a sink school in Hackney, and then there is Polly a divorced mother of two school-aged children who is struggling to advance her career as a human rights lawyer. These seemingly diverse individuals are connected through various chains of events which cross each other and interweave, all beginning when Polly’s Russian au pair, Iryna, vanishes without a word, and later when her body is discovered in a pond on Hampstead Heath.

Whilst I wouldn’t exactly put Craig and Dickens side-by-side in the pantheon of English literature, I certainly felt that the author was a very worthy successor to Dickens’s crusading zeal for depicting London life with all it’s social injustices, and she does so with a page-turning story and real characters who are tragic, frightening, charming, endearing and above all, believable.

Rated 4.5*

RANTING:

I have never been one for using much in the way of make-up, though as I get older there is no doubt that from time to time my complexion needs a little help to look its best. I call myself 'low maintenance' but what that really means is 'lazy'. However I do tend to put on some lipstick before I leave the house - that is if I remember.  For some reason I feel better dressed and more confident if I have applied a quick slick of lippy. 

I don't think I'm alone in this, thousands of women would probably choose  lipstick as their desert island luxury and nearly every handbag (or purse as the Americans  call it) probably has a tube of lipstick lurking somewhere in its depths.  Apparently during economic recessions - and we all know about those don't we? - the sales of lipstick actually rise because they are a small, feel-good purchase; if you can't afford a dress by Dior at least you can buy the lipstick.

As I am not what might be called a fashionista, I have a three lipstick policy, one shade for winter, one shade for summer and one shade for special occasions - I also have a little pot of lipgloss, but that is just an optional extra.  Last week I had to buy myself a new lipstick as my default winter shade was worn down to a nub. It should have been easy, but no, yet again the lipstick I like, the lipstick I want, has been discontinued.  

Instead of  just stopping at the beauty counter to pick up a replacement I ended up faffing around for 20 minutes in a swither of indecision whilst being 'assisted' by a young woman with glossy navy-blue fingernails, a tatoo or two, and at least five facial piercings.   

I am sure the cosmetic companies do this just to irritate me. I don't mind them bringing out new ranges of colours (although they always seem perilously, but not quite, like the previous range) with wacky names like 'Just enough buff', 'Wine with Everything' or 'Toast of New York' but please, please, please don't keep discontinuing the colours I like.

 

RECIPE: 

This area of North London has many Greek Cypriot and Turkish grocery shops, and I love some of the products they sell. Recently I bought a large tub of Taramasalata  (for which I have a great fondness) from a shop I use regularly and which always stocks good quality produce.    When I served it up with some hot Pitta bread I was most disappointed, it was artificially pink and bland. On close reading of the listed ingredients  it seemed there was very little cod roe in it, and rather a lot of vegetable oil, water and bread. The pink colour apparently came from beetroot juice! Beetroot juice - what the hell was that doing in taramasalata? 

I decided to make some myself, after consulting various recipes I phoned a Greek friend and she told me what to do - and also told me to leave out potato or bread which some recipes give to pad it out. Likewise any garlic, the flavour of the cod roe doesn't need garlic.  So here is the recipe:

TARAMASALATA - Helen's version

250g smoked cod roe

Juice of half a lemon

250ml olive oil - though you could need a little more

Boiling water

Soak the cod’s roe in a bowl of cold water for several hours or overnight.

Drain and peel off the outer membrane.

Put the roe in a food processor  give it a quick pulse - do not over process it.

Bring the speed up a little and add the lemon juice.

Now, just like making mayonnaise, start adding the olive oil in a thin stream, little by little whilst the processor is running slowly  Keep adding the oil until the mixture begins to look like a puree . The amount of oil needed varies and you will have to keep an eye on it.

Then add boiling water, a tablespoon at a time, until it becomes light and mousse-like.

Scoop into a serving bowl and scatter chopped parsley on the top.

Keeps well in the fridge (cover it tightly)

AKRASIA - that is what I'm suffering from.
I've been wondering what my problem was and now I've found a name for it. It is the state of acting against one's better judgment. Weakness of will, inability to make myself do what I need and want to do. Apparently it was a state of mind much pondered over by the ancient Greeks, and Socrates posed the philisophical puzzle that defines akrasia - if one judges action A to be the best course of action one can take, why would one do anything other than action A ? I need help, advice on a postcard (or in the comment box below) please.

READING:
Dunno by Peter Inson

I came upon this book completely by chance, and I am so glad I did. In fact I am putting a copy into the Retiring Rooms at both the Youth Court and Family Court where I sit as I think all magistrates who deal with young people would benefit from reading it.

This is the story of six months in the life of a fifteen year old boy called Jon. The only child of a single mother of 32, his life has been one of physical and emotional poverty and abuse. He is a truant from a school system that he doesn’t understand, and which doesn’t understand him. From a young age he has drifted into petty crime, and now cannot see any other way of living. His life is a complete misery as he is caught between a loveless home, a rigid education system, and the threatening attentions of other criminal bullies – his future seems bleak to say the least. However as a result of an injury he sustained when breaking and entering his own home, he has to go to A&E at the local hospital where the male nurse who stitches his wound manages to get through to him, and slowly he finds another way of living through encountering adults who do not threaten or browbeat him. The solutions he finds may well not be what society wants or expects, but they turn his thinking and way of life around sufficiently to move him in a more positive direction where he has some hope of coping with adulthood without becoming one more of those individuals who spend their adult lives in prison or on the dole.

The language is strong and realistic, the tone is never patronising and the author doesn’t offer any hard and fast answers to Jon’s problems, just possibilities.

I see youths like Jon in both the Youth and Family Courts over and over again. This is the first novel I have come across which exposes the lives of those who live well below our radar, the underbelly of our society. The news media has been full of stories of ASBOs, hoodies, feral youths and so on, reflecting the glib comments made by our politicians – Jon is a hoodie if ever there was one, and whilst reading this book I felt moved by David Cameron’s instruction to hug a hoodie. If I could have given Jon a hug I would have done so immediately, he desperately needed one.

A teenage book for adults, and an adult book for teenagers, it may open your eyes.

This book has not had the publicity it deserves, as the author self-published it in 2004 it did not have the PR machine of the big publishing houses behind it. Peter Inson was an English teacher, and eventually Head of a large comprehensive school in Acton, west London. He then taught at an international school in Switzerland for five years.

RANTING:

WEARELONDONERS

If you live or work in London you have probably noticed these banners appearing on lamp posts all over the city.

What does it mean? What is it meant to mean? Who cares what it means?

“We are one, we are Londoners”? Or, “We Londoners are as one” ?

This is the latest whiz-bang campaign dreamt up by our beloved Mayor “Red” Ken Livingston, and sponsored by British Gas (I think most Londoners would rather they lowered our gas prices rather than help aggrandise Red Ken and his jammy job). Apparently this is to celebrate how we are now a multi-cultural bunch who all love one another. Oh yeah?

Anyway, if we are, do we need to be told? Surely we know already.

Personally I think this is all a load of claptrap.

Pause for a digression …. I suddenly thought that I didn’t know the real meaning of the word ‘claptrap’ which I have always used to mean bollocks. So I looked it up, and the real, original meaning is, according to my wonderful Oxford English Dictionary is:

1. (with pl.) A trick or device to catch applause; an expression designed to elicit applause.

Well what do you know, claptrap describes this campaign exactly!

RECIPE:

Every family has foods that they eat so often they take it for granted that everyone else does so too, and in our household that includes coleslaw. There is nearly always a container of it in our fridge. It is such a useful salad, you can eat it all year round, it is cheap and easy to make and so versatile. Vegetarians and carnivores both seem to like it. Coleslaw can go with braaied meats, or with cold cuts, it can be added to sandwiches for packed lunches, it can be served with a baked potato or an omlette to make a light meal. And what is more, you feel so virtuous when you eat it - after all it is raw vegetables, how healthy is that?

There are loads of different coleslaw recipes in the cook books, but this is my own variation and I can practically make it in my sleep I've been doing it for so long.

ALL YEAR ROUND COLESLAW

Half a white, green or Savoy cabbage, finely shredded

3 large carrots, peeled and very coarsely grated

3 sticks celery, strings removed and finely sliced

6-8 spring onions, trimmed, and finely sliced (including green parts)

3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

A handful of sunflower seeds

For the dressing:

4 tablespns good quality mayonnaise

4 tablespns crème fraiche

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 teaspn mustard powder

2 tablespns olive oil

1 tablespn white wine vinegar

1 tablespn lemon juice

Salt + freshly ground black pepper

Prepare the vegetables for the salad, (a mandolin makes life much easier!)

In a bowl combine the mayonnaise, crème fraiche, and mustard powder. In a separate bowl whisk together the oil, vinegar, lemon juice. Now gradually whisk the oil/vinegar mixture into the mayonnaise mixture. Season well.

Combine all the grated, shredded and sliced vegetables, parsley and sunflower seeds in a big bowl and pour over the dressing and toss with fork and spoon till everything is well coated. Taste for seasoning. Cover and chill before serving.

This salad is very flexible, you can substitute ½ a finely sliced onion for the spring onions, and ring the changes with the amount of carrot and the type of cabbage, and add some red cabbage for extra colour. It keeps well in the fridge for 2-3 days.