TODAY IS THE START OF CHINESE NEW YEAR, THE YEAR OF THE OX.
I have been told that people born in the Year of the Ox are: responsible, dependable, honest, caring, honourable, intelligent, artistic, industrious and practical.
However, they are also: petty, inflexible, possessive, dogmatic, gullible, stubborn, critical, intolerant and materialistic.

If you were born between February and the following January in the years 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973,1985 or 1997 you're an Ox.

READING:

Last week I picked up a copy of A Poisoned Mind by Natasha Cooper from the new books shelf in Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution library. Even though I have a huge pile of books waiting to be read, something about this one made me get stuck in straight away, and I was immediately hooked.

On the cover there is a comment from a renowned crime writer describing the book as one of the best legal thrillers she’d ever read, and I would agree.

The story opens on a failing Northumberland farm, where a company called Clean World Waste Management have leased some land as a site for two chemical waste disposal tanks. The tanks blow up causing a conflagration in which the farmer is killed and the surrounding farmland is polluted.

Angie, the farmer’s widow, aided by members of an environmental pressure group, is taking the corporate giant to court in an attempt to get proper compensation.

Trish Maguire QC, whose sympathies lie with the widow, finds herself having to set aside personal feelings as she has to represent Clean World Waste Management. As the trial proceeds she begins to wonder what exactly has been going on, the eco-hippies who are supporting Angie may have a hidden agenda – not all do-gooders are truthful it would seem.

At the same time, Trish is coping with a troubling friendship between her teenage brother David (for whom she and her husband are responsible), and Jay, a schoolmate he keeps bringing home, who comes from a dysfunctional and abusive family.

Which situation is more poisonous, the chemical waste explosion, or the alcohol and drug fuelled lives of Jay’s family?

I had never come across Natasha Cooper’s books featuring Trish Maguire before, but joy of joys there are another eight for me to read – A Poisoned Mind is the latest – so I intend to read them in order so that I can follow Trish’s progression up the legal career ladder. She is a heroine I took to immediately, intelligent, feisty, professional and very real.

What a treat I have in store.

Rated: 4.5


RANTING:

If a colleague, friend, relative or loved one died in police custody, whilst serving in the armed forces, or when accidentally hit by an emergency vehicle you would probably want to attend the inquest to find out how and why they died, and who was responsible.

Citizens would be deprived of this right if this government has its way.

Last year the clause in the Counter-terrorism Act which would have allowed some inquests to be held in private was dropped, following fierce opposition from all sides. However the proposals have been included in the legislation covering Coroners Courts which has just been introduced to Parliament.

The plan is to have juries, families, and the press excluded from some inquests which would be held in secret with hand-picked coroners, on the grounds of – you guessed it – ‘national security’. I’ll bet that they will use it whenever some death might be going to be an embarrassment, or an inquest might point a finger at the failings of government departments

The whole idea of secrecy in trials or inquests makes my blood run cold – it smacks of Stalinist Russia, and of the old apartheid regime in South Africa.

Why is this Labour government so hell bent on getting this clause on to the statute books?

Yet again they are chopping away at hard won liberties which once kept this country a beacon of freedom and democracy. We must not let these rights be whittled away one by one.

RECIPE:

This dish is a hybrid, not quite a fritatta, not quite a Spanish omlette, a bit like a quiche without a pastry crust. It takes hardly any time to make and is a great meal served with a salad, stretching two salmon fillets to feed four people.

SALMON ‘n EGGS

Serves 4

8 large eggs

2 fillets salmon (300-400g)

Juice of half a lemon

8 spring onions

2 tablespoons chopped coriander

Salt & pepper

1 tablespoon (approx) butter

2 tablespoons corn oil

Pre-heat the grill.

Cut the salmon fillets into smallish dice.

Finely slice the spring onions.

Beat the eggs until slightly frothy, season sparingly with salt and pepper.

Heat the butter and oil in a medium sized frying pan, and when hot add the salmon pieces and drizzle the lemon juice over them. Stir over a gentle heat until the salmon has changed colour and is nearly cooked through, then tip in the eggs, the chopped coriander and the spring onions. Using a wooden spatula, gently mix everything together. Then let it cook for about a minute. Lift the edges gently with the spatula to let any runny egg seep downwards before placing the frying pan under the pre-heated grill for a couple of minutes to allow the eggs to firm up and brown very slightly on top.

Cut into four wedges and serve garnished with coriander leaves. A side salad of tomato, cucumber and lettuce with a tangy dressing is perfect with this dish.

A DOOR IS WHAT A DOG IS PERPETUALLY ON THE WRONG SIDE OF.
Ogden Nash

READING:

Robert Harris’s last two books have been set in Ancient Rome but his latest work The Ghost is set very much in the here and now, and mainly located in Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Cape Cod on the US eastern seaboard.

This book is a very slick political thriller, and a gripping read. The story is of a professional ghost-writer who is hired by a big publishing house to take on the memoirs of a British Prime Minister who has recently left office having become unstuck as a result of his policies in the Middle East. These have embroiled Britain – together with the USA - in a War on Terror, not to mention a real conflict in Iraq. Now, does that remind you of anyone in particular?

The ghost writer is flown out to Martha’s Vineyard where Adam Lang, the ex-PM, and his entourage are holed up on the isolated estate owned by the chairman of the publishing firm who have paid a £10 million advance for the memoirs. He takes over the rough manuscript of the memoirs produced by a former aide of the PM who has died recently, and tries to get to grips with the character and thinking of Lang, but as he says “I realised I had a fundamental problem with our former prime minister. He was not a psychologically credible character. In the flesh, playing the part of a statesman, he seemed to have a strong personality. But somehow, when one sat down to think about him, he vanished.”...hmmm, that strikes a chord doesn't it?

Lang’s wife, Ruth, is a strong character, “everyone had said she was smarter than her husband, and that she’d loved their life at the top even more than he had. If there was an official visit to some foreign country, she usually went with him: she refused to be left at home. You only had to watch them on TV together to see how she bathed in his success.”

A set of events ensues which makes The Ghost realise he is swimming in deeper, murkier waters than he had anticipated, and after many clever twists the book ends with a stunning revelation. It would be rotten of me to reveal anything more of the plot, but suffice to say, anyone who is even slightly interested in British politics over the past ten years will find this a delicious, malicious tale, and a real page-turner. It has best-seller written all over it, and no doubt a film or TV version will follow ere long.

Rated 4.5*

RANTING:

The point of an inquest is to determine how an individual died, but in the case of the late Princess Diana we know how she died, in a car crash in Paris when the vehicle she was travelling in was going too fast, she was not wearing a seat belt, and the driver was –according to the French Police who conducted an inquiry – well over the legal drink-drive limit.

So what is this inquest, 10 years after her death, for? It seems to be to squash, once and for all, the claim that she was murdered as Mohammed Al Fayed, father of her lover Dodi Fayed who also died in the crash, has stated to anyone and everyone who will listen - particularly if they have a TV camera with them.

The whole thing strikes me as a completely unnecessary charade, and a charade that is costing us taxpayers a hell of a lot of money (estimates run from £10 million upwards). I, and probably thousands of others, am utterly fed up with the whole business, and god knows what Diana's sons must think about it.

It seems grubby and prurient for people to be poking through aspects of her life that should be private – every tabloid announcing that she was on the pill and therefore couldn’t be pregnant; jurors, lawyers and court officials being shown paparazzi photos taken of her when she lay dying; speculation that a ring ordered by Dodi meant she was engaged to be married to him (even if she was, it seems bloody far fetched to decide to kill both of them).

There has already been an independent UK inquiry held by Lord Stevens, which took 3 years to complete and cost the taxpayers £3.69 million, but Mohammed Al Fayed wasn’t happy with the conclusion which said that there was no conspiracy and it was just a ghastly accident.

Unless the coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker announces at the end of the inquest that the Royal Family are personally responsible, and the police rush to arrest the Duke of Edinburgh, Al Fayed still won’t be happy. He is an angry and embittered man whose ambitious plans for his much loved son ended when the couple were killed, and he has spent a fortune trying to convince everyone who will listen of his paranoid theories.

As with Kennedy’s assassination, there will always be people who have far fetched views that she was eliminated. Let them have them. The poor woman is dead and buried. Can we please move on. I can't stand the thought that tomorrow morning this whole ghastly business will be all over the media again, and again, and again , until next weekend; and its estimated that the inquest will continue for six months. Aaagh!

RECIPE:

The other evening I had two extra for supper rather unexpectedly, and though it was easy enough to stretch the pasta which the DH and I were going to have, the meal seemed a little insubstantial. In such situations what I try to do is rustle up a starter course (not something I would normally bother with for just the two of us). This Tuscan recipe is one of my favourite standby starters, as I nearly always have the ingredients to hand in the kitchen store cupboard. It goes down equally well in winter or summer, and is super simple.

TONNO E FAGIOLI (Tuna and bean salad)

Serves 4

2x 400g tins Borlotti beans
1 tin good quality tuna in olive oil,
1 medium red onion
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil,
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

Drain the tins of beans, tip them into a sieve and rinse briefly under cold water, shake off excess water and allow to drip dry.

Open and drain the tin of tuna, and flake the tuna into a bowl.

Peel the red onion and cut it in half lengthwise. Finely slice each half, and separate the rings.

Tip the beans into a bowl, season with salt and pepper and the lemon juice and a good glug of olive oil to dress the beans. Mix gently.

Divide the beans between four serving plates and then divide the tuna flakes and onion between the plates, spooning them carefully over the beans, garnish with the chopped parsley.

Serve with crusty warm Ciabatta bread.