'HERE LIES JOHN BUNN, WHO WAS KILLED BY A GUN;

HIS NAME WAS NOT BUNN BUT WOOD,

BUT WOOD WOULD NOT RHYME WITH GUN

AND BUNN WOULD.'


British graveyards are full of fascinating, entertaining epitaphs - every month I shall put a new one up on the blog.

READING:

There were moments in my childhood where I felt so completely at odds with my parents that I was sure I must be adopted, and that somewhere in the world were two people who were my REAL parents and who would be charming, loving, and most of all, sympathetic and admiring of me. Of course this was not the case, I was the real child of my parents and merely suffering a typical bout of misunderstood youth. For the novelist A.M Homes whose memoir The Mistress’s Daughter I have just finished reading, such feelings were all too true. She WAS adopted as a newborn baby, and had always known the fact. She, like many other adoptees had always wondered about her biological parents, and had made some half-hearted attempts to trace them.

“In my dreams, my birth mother is a goddess, the queen of queens, the CEO, the CFO, and the COO. Movie-star beautiful, incredibly competent, she can take care of anyone and anything. She has made a fabulous life for her self, as ruler of the world, except for one missing link – me.”

However when, aged 31, her birth mother, Ellen, makes contact with her via the lawyer who had arranged the adoption, it comes as a complete surprise.
She discovers that Ellen was 22 when A.M. was born, and had been the mistress of Norman, an older married man, since she was 17 years old. Ellen has also contacted Norman to inform him she intends to trace their child, and so A.M. writes to both of them.

Almost immediately it becomes apparent that Ellen is a very difficult and needy woman. She never married, and has led a rather ramshackle life, both financially and emotionally. She considers herself sophisticated, but seems to be stuck in a time-warp of the early 60s. It is obvious that she has contacted A.M. because of her own needs rather than any desire to fill any needs of her daughter.

“Why won’t you see me?” she whines. “You’re torturing me. You take better care of your dog than you take of me.”
Am I supposed to be taking care of her? Is that what she’s come back for?
“You should adopt me – and take care of me”, she says.
“I can’t adopt you “, I say.

When A.M. first meets her birth father Norman in his lawyer’s office, the conversation is stilted and extremely odd.
“Tell me a little bit about you”, I say.
“I’m not circumcised. My grandmother was a strict Catholic, she had me baptised, I’m not circumcised”.

He also insists that they both undergo DNA testing to make sure she is his child, and when the results prove it to be the case he tells her that he will now introduce her to his family – he has four other children, all born before she was, and he is still married to his first wife. However, though he continues contact with A.M. for a while, he is reluctant to follow through with this promise, and eventually rejects her completely, even refusing to give her the DNA paperwork which proves his paternity.

Ellen dies unexpectedly a year or two after they have met, and A.M. is left even more painfully confused about who she is than she had been originally. Norman’s subsequent rejection, in effect abandoning her for a second time in her life, enrages her, and she embarks on a quest to discover everything she can about her ancestry.

Using all the tools of the electronic age she turns detective, following the tiniest clues and thanks to the wonders of the internet, and diligent fossiking in old archives, she builds up a picture of each of her parents and their antecedents, as well as the family history of her adopted parents who have remained solidly supportive whilst all this turmoil has been going on.
“The desire to know oneself and one’s history is not always equal to the pain the new information causes”.

Eventually she has a child of her own and at last becomes settled in a sense of self.
“I am my mother’s child and I am my mother’s child, I am my father’s child and I am my father’s child…
Did I choose to be found? No. Do I regret it? No. I couldn’t not know.”

Other people’s lives always seem more interesting than one’s own life, merely because their lives are unfamiliar. In this memoir A.M Homes has managed to distil what it is that people crave when they seek out their family backgrounds, a sense of belonging, a sense of place, and a sense of self. I found the book totally compelling.

Rated 5*

RANTING:

“Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today

I am going to play God. “

These are the opening lines of a poem entitled Education for Leisure* by Carol Ann Duffy, one of our most celebrated modern poets.

For the past 5 years, AQA one of the biggest exam boards in the UK, has included the poem together with others by the same poet, in an anthology of poetry used by students sitting English GCSE.

It is a challenging poem which gives much food for thought and I imagine it would generate some interesting comments during classroom discussions.

In all the years that the anthology has been included in AQA’s English syllabus, there have been three complaints about the poem. Two complaints about it both by the same person, referring to the narrator carrying a bread knife with the possible intention of hurting someone,

and one complaint about the line in the poem which refers to a goldfish being flushed down the loo.

Based on a back of the envelope calculation using GCSE numbers given on the OFQUAL website (Office of Qualifications & Examinations Register), I estimate somewhere in the region of ¾ million 16 year olds have written AQA’s GCSE English exam in the past 6 years

So – over several years and ¾ million students only THREE complaints. AQA say they have bowed to these complaints, given the current media publicity about knife crime, and have instructed schools to remove the poem and/or the anthology.

Why not do away with Romeo and Juliet? surely it is not an appropriate play for young people to study in Britain today; it features stabbings, gang warfare, the teenage protagonists are bunking out to have pre-marital sex and it climaxes with a double suicide. And as for The Merchant of Venice....

In fact, why doesn't AQA go the whole hog and just remove anything by W. Shakespeare from the curriculum, his plays are just far too violent and in the current climate of panic over knife crime it would be better that teenagers were not exposed to such influences.

Sorry if I seem snarky, but really AQA has been ridiculously weak - they should have had the guts to tell Pat Schofield - the complainant - that it is a POEM, not an instruction book. Removing that poem won’t stop knife crime – hells bells, the poem won’t have caused any knife crime in the first place.

What will they feel they should censor next ?

*Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today

I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,

a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets

I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.

We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in

another language and now the fly is in another language.

I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.

I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half

the chance. But today I am going to change the world.

Something's world. The cat avoids me. The cat

knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain.

I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.

Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town

For signing on. They don't appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio

and tell the man he's talking to a superstar.

He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.

The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

RECIPE:

Way back in 1975 Shirley Conran wrote a bestselling book entitled 'Superwoman' in which she came up with the line "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom", and for many years I agreed with her. But then the delicious large open brown mushrooms known in the UK as Portobello mushrooms became widely available and I revised my ideas. These are wonderful as a side dish, as the vegetarian option on a braai/barbeque, or on their own as a light supper. The foul weather we have been enduring in Britain this summer has meant that these have had to be baked in the oven each time I've made them - too wet for braaing these past few weeks.

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

6 large flat mushrooms – Portobello or similar
3 spring onions, finely chopped
120 g white breadcrumbs
2 cloves garlic
1 heaped tablespoon finely chopped parsley
Salt & pepper
Olive oil

Optional extras:
A slice of cheese placed on top of each mushroom prior to baking.
A fried egg placed on top of each baked mushroom.

Pre-heat oven to 200°C

Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and chop finely.
Heat a little olive oil in a sauté pan and gently fry the spring onions and chopped mushroom stalks until onion is soft but not brown.
Put the breadcrumbs, chopped parsley, minced garlic, spring onions etc into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix together, add a dash or two of olive oil if needed to make the stuffing slightly moist.
Divide the stuffing between the mushrooms and press it in carefully.
Drizzle a little more olive oil over each one.

Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the mushroom is soft.

Alternatively, the mushrooms do well on a braai (use tongs to lift them), place round the sides of the grid when the braai is ready for cooking.

WHAT WAS THE BEST THING BEFORE SLICED BREAD ? I'VE OFTEN WONDERED...
Answers on a postcard please.


READING:

Amongst other books I was given for Christmas were two slim volumes from a new series, Great Journeys, published by Penguin Books. There are twenty books in the series, each consisting of an extract from a larger work by renowned writers from Herodotus and Mas’Ūdī to George Orwell and Ryszard Kapuściński and covering journeys on every continent.

The two books I was given were #11 In the Heart of the Amazon Forest by Walter Henry Bates, and #14 Adventures in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird.

Bates was one of the major zoologists of the Victorian era, and spent eleven years living on the Amazon where he gathered 15000 specimens, mostly insects. This extract, from his book The Naturalist on the River Amazon, tells of his time staying at a place where the various river systems of the Amazon all meet. He describes the lives of the various tribes of Amazonian Indians who live there, how they use blow-pipes for hunting, what they eat and drink, and how they have interacted with the colonials who are spreading slowly through the forests. His descriptions of the wildlife he encounters are so vivid, I could really SEE the various ants, jaguars, turtles, alligators and birds that he writes about.

Isabella Bird was also a Victorian traveller although she was not a zoologist. She was the daughter of an English clergyman and was sent off to Hawaii and America to improve her poor health – given that this was in 1854 it seems a rather drastic remedy, but seemingly it did the trick, after she had climbed the worlds highest volcano (as one does) she set off, in 1873, for Colorado - which in those days was untamed territory, still occupied by Red Indians (or Native Americans as they prefer to be called now) and outside the boundaries of the fledgling union of States which has become the USA.

The book consists of a collection of some of the letters she wrote to her sister Henrietta who was back in England, describing the incredible beauty of the country she was riding through, the magnificence of the Rocky Mountains and the wild pioneers who are settling the land. She tells of encounters with a grizzly bear, beavers, elk, a half-crazed settler who had become a cannibal, and describes the the trees and plants which grow in abundance and are all strange to her. A formidable woman in every sense of the word!

I found these books absolutely enthralling, and because of their size I was able to tuck them into my handbag, so passing tedious time standing in queues at the supermarket and post office, mentally transported to north and south America. When I announced that I intended to collect the entire series, my DD and her BF were delighted, as there are 18 more, and that should solve the perennial question of what to give Mum for her birthday and Christmas for some years to come!

Rated 5*

RANTING:

I have only dialled 999 on three occasions, once when a neighbour’s teenage daughter inadvertently set fire to her bedroom when her mum was out, once to call for an ambulance when a motorcyclist was hit by a car in front of me, and once, at 3 a.m. when I was woken by the sound of breaking glass and saw two men breaking into the house opposite. On every occasion the appropriate service arrived fairly quickly (fire speedily doused, motorcyclist scooped up and blue-lighted to A&E to be treated, burglars escaped but were arrested two weeks later).

In each case I was confident that dialing 999 was the correct thing to do. You dial 999 when there is an emergency. That is an E.M.E.R.G.E.N.C.Y. not when you have a problem. I thought everyone knew that, come on, its basic knowledge isn’t it? Apparently not. South Wales Police have just announce that they are changing the words they use when answering 999 calls. Up to now you would have heard “How can I help you?” from now on they will be saying “What is your emergency?”. They have decided to do this because they are getting so many time-wasting calls such as the woman who dialed 999 and said "My husband has the TV remote and won't let me watch EastEnders”, and the man who called to say "Can you come round and take my mother-in-law away? She has been here for 18 days".

Pound to a penny this sort of ridiculous behaviour is happening all over the country and not just in South Wales, and every time some moron makes a call like that, the rest of us who might really need the emergency services are put in jeopardy if we can’t get through because the lines are busy.

I am not a great one for demanding new legislation, but modern telephony makes it possible for calls to be traced, and anyone who makes one of these utterly stupid calls should be hauled over the coals and given a hefty fine


RECIPE:

In the 70s when I was newly married and just beginning to flex my muscles in the kitchen, Beef Stroganoff was often on menus, but I couldn't afford the fillet steak that the recipe usually demanded and so made a version of the recipe using pork. Of course it is not the 'classic' dish which was apparently created in the 1890s by the chef of a Russian aristocrat, Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov*, but it was jolly tasty anyway, and the other night I suddenly had the urge to make it once more. This recipe is more or less the same as the original one I used all those years ago, but with one addition which I took from the recipe given by those fantastic cooks, The Two Fat Ladies, namely some gin to flavour the pork.

PORK & MUSHROOM STROGANOFF

Serves 4

500g pork tenderloin (fillet)
200g mushrooms
Dash of sunflower oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium onions
1 teaspoon Paprika
6 tablespoons gin
150mls sour cream or crème fraiche
Salt and pepper

Handful of parsley, finely chopped for garnishing.

Cut the pork tenderloin across the grain into 1cm wide discs.
Finely slice the mushrooms.
Peel the onions and cut in half from top to bottom and then slice in the same direction to make fine slices. (This makes long slivers of onion rather than half-moon shaped slices)

Heat the oil and butter in a large frying pan and sauté the pork slices in batches turning regularly so they are slightly browned. As they are done remove them from the pan and keep warm. When all the pork is done, add a little more oil to the pan and then sauté the onions until quite soft and just beginning to colour then add the mushroom slices and continue cooking until they are soft.
Remove the onions and mushrooms from the pan.
Return all the pork to the pan, together with any juices, add the gin and heat gently for a few minutes. Then use a long match to set light to the gin, and whilst it is flaming baste the pork with it. Season with salt and pepper, and then stir in the paprika.
Lastly, stir the crème fraiche into the pan and continue cooking for a few minutes until it is bubbling gently.

Serve, sprinkled with parsley, on a bed of noodles or with creamy mashed potatoes

*BTW I've just discovered another recipe which takes Count Stroganoff's name - a cocktail of vodka, white creme de cacao, and lime juice - sounds yummy, I intend to try it sometime.

A MODERN PHENOMENON - THE TXT (SMS) MESSAGE -

Pls stop sendg msgs 2ths
no, i am not linda,
I hv not slept w/yr sis,
+i wd nvr call any 1's ma a slag.
Gd luk w/viag.
Luv, yr wrong no. xx

by Charlotte Fortune


READING:

Some book bloggers only ever review books they have liked and which they can recommend, and I did consider doing the same; but in the end I have decided that as my blog is about anything I have been reading, I should write about any book I have read recently, whether or not I enjoyed it.

Deciding what to read is always a dilemma, there are so many books on my “must read” list, or on my “that sounds interesting” list, and like all good biblioholics I also have a huge pile of books on my TBR pile. However, there are times when I just don’t feel in the mood for any of them and end up reading something completely different. Needless to say, this can be rather hit and miss when it comes to reading satisfaction.

The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis is just such a book; I picked it up off the new acquisitions shelf in the library when I didn’t fancy reading any of the other books I had waiting for me at home. The blurb on the jacket sounded promising. Set in bohemian Paris in the 1920s, Genevieve Shelby King is young, pretty and married to a rich American. Mixing in the society of the artists and writers who inhabited Montparnasse, she longs to be accepted by them as a poet. She lives in a fashionable apartment, where her enormous shoe collection is housed, and she flutters from one party to another, bored with her husband, and lacking any focus in her life. At a dance one evening she meets the most exclusive shoe designer in Paris, Paulo Zachari, who hand-picks his clients. Immediately she becomes determined to have him make shoes for her, and her determination turns into obsession, an obsession which pulls her whole life apart.

According to an afterword, the author has based the character of Zachari on a real life shoemaker called Pietro Yanturni who worked in Paris in the early 1900s whose designs have remained a major influence on shoe designers to this day.

I think I would have preferred Anna Davis to write a biography of Yanturni, because this book is really chick-lit with long descriptions of clothes and shoes, padding out what is a very meagre story. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good chick-lit book as much as anyone else, but even if one was mad about shoes – and many women are – the book hasn’t really got what it takes to keep a reader’s attention.

Rating: 2*

RANTING:

I am totally and utterly against Gordon Brown’s stated plan to extend detention without charge to 56 days. All South Africans of a certain age will recall how 90 day detention was used by the apartheid regime, and it chills my blood to think that a British Government could even be considering going along this extremely slippery slope.

When I first arrived in the UK many years ago, if you were arrested by the police for a “normal” criminal offence you had to be charged or released within 24 hours; this was then extended to 48 hours if you were being arrested and it was thought to be a “serious” offence, and a high ranking police officer could apply to a judge to have this extended to 7 days detention if he could provide good reason for so doing. Eventually this power of pre-charge detention was changed to 14 days, but in 2006 Tony Blair tried, at the behest of the police, to have it changed again and for 90 days detention become the potential time frame. This was resisted by MPs of all parties, and by the House of Lords, and a compromise of 28 days detention was set in place. Now the Labour Government wants to try on again and extend it to 56 days. This would become perilously close to internment without trial, a tactic frequently used by unscrupulous dictators and corrupt, undemocratic regimes, it was tried and failed in Northern Ireland.

We are told that this 56 day time span is necessary for the protection of us all in these troubled times, so that the police can investigate possible complex cases. I think that is a load of hogwash.

Within 28 days it should be possible for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to have figured out whether or not the individual should be publicly charged with an offence. That is all they have to do up to that stage, once charged, the police could and would continue investigating right up to the time of trial. The police admit that 28 days has been quite sufficient so far, but say they can “envisage” a scenario where it might not be long enough. We shouldn’t base draconian legislation on imagined or envisioned situations.

As a people the best defence of our liberties and way of life, is to continue to behave in a civilized, temperate manner that sets an example to other nations; and to reject the temptation to do as the terrorists themselves would do, but at the same time strongly resist any attempts by such individuals or groups to subvert our society by foul means.

The great aphorist, Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the USA, summed it up brilliantly when he said:

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

God knows what he would think of George Bush and co, and of Gordon Brown and his henchmen.

RECIPE:

My DH and I absolutely love mushrooms and I am always buying them as we never seem to have enough, my default mushroom is what is called the Chestnut mushroom here in the UK, it is a brown version of the usual white mushroom that all the supermarkets supply, and has much more flavour than the white variety. Recently Waitrose have been stocking a type of mushroom I'd not come across before, the Buna Shimeji. Given their name, I suppose they originated in Japan, they do look a bit like Enoki mushrooms but not so thin and pale. They come in a cluster joined at the base which is about the size of two fists together with quite long, thin stalks and small fleshy caps. To prepare them all you have to do is cut off the rough base and then separate them out ready to cook. They have a wonderful nutty flavour and go brilliantly in a simple stir-fry.

BUNA SHIMEJI MUSHROOM STIR FRY

Serves 2

1 tablespoon sunflower oil
300g fresh broccoli, cut into florets
500g. Buna Shimeji mushrooms
2 spring onions, chopped
60g dry-roasted cashews
1 tablespoon water
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

Heat wok and add 1 tablespoon oil, then add the broccoli and salt. Stir fry for 1 min. Add water and cook, stirring, until broccoli is tender-crisp. Remove broccoli and set aside. Add the mushrooms, spring onions, and nutmeg. Stir-fry until juices evaporate (about 3 mins.). Return broccoli to the wok and stir to mix. Top with roasted cashew nuts.

Serve with oriental noodles.

HOW COME THERE ARE ONLY 24 HOURS in a day, right at the moment I could use an extra 5 or 6. At least we should have the option, don't you think?


READING:

The Mitford Girls by Mary S. Lovell

The six Mitford sisters were born into an aristocratic English family between 1904 and 1920. They had an unconventional, some might say eccentric, childhood and adolescence with no formal education of any kind but all grew up to be well known as individuals. Nancy, the eldest, was a highly regarded biographer of Madame de Pompadour and Louis IVX, who spent the later half of her life living in Paris; she also wrote wonderfully sharp and witty novels and articles on English manners and mores, and coined the phrase "U and Non-U".

Pamela the most domesticated of them all, was the sister with whom John Betjeman fell in love. Diana was the elegant beauty, who first married a member of the Guiness family, and then fell in love with and married Sir Oswald Mosley M.P., leader of the British Union of Fascists, she became a figure of hate, imprisoned during WWII for supporting the BUF. The middle daughter, Unity, an unstable young woman who went to Germany in the 1930s, was in love with Hitler and totally obsessed with Nazism. When war was declared she shot herself in the head and survived handicapped for several years. Next in line was Jessica - always known as Decca - who eloped at 19 and went off to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War where her husband was killed. She then married an American,

became a member of the Communist Party and was active in the Civil Rights movement in the USA; she too, like her sister Nancy, became a writer of some reknown. Finally there was the beautiful Deborah who married the Duke of Devonshire and became chatelaine of Chatsworth, one of the greatest houses in England.

Now widowed, she lives in an old Rectory and is famous for keeping hens amongst other things.

Their lives have been covered partially and individually several times by other writers, but Mary Lovell has managed to write about them in the context of their sisterhood, yet gives a clear picture of each of these rather extraordinary women. An absolutely fascinating read about a fascinating family of women.


RANTING:

What is the problem with the British Transport Police? they seem to have had collective common-sense failure, or maybe they are just being badly trained. Of course it could be that some members of BTP are right little dictators and love the power rush they get from officiously hassling people.
A few weeks ago the Director of the Institute of Engineers,Tom Foulkes -a former Brigadier who used to work at the Ministry of Defence, was arrested when bording Eurostar en route to a business meeting in Paris. His crime? at the bottom of his briefcase was a Swiss Army Card*.

He was charged with carrying an offensive weapon.

Today, a lawyer who plays cricket as a hobby, was stopped at Belsize Park tube station by a member of the BTP. His crime, carrying an offensive weapon. What offensive weapon was that? a cricket ball. A CRICKET BALL - for crying in a bucket. Apparently a spokesman for British Transport Police said: "What if the ball was dropped and hit an old lady further down the escalator? “We would advise passengers to be careful, both for themselves and other people at this busy time."

Now I carry a lot of heavy stuff. My handbag, which seems to contain everything bar the kitchen sink, is a prime example. What if I dropped it on the escalator and hit an old lady,

or, scary thought, what if I took leave of my senses and used it as a cosh and smashed some cretin of a BTP officer over the head? My handbag obviously falls within their definition of an offensive weapon - I await my arrest.

* Just in case Santa is reading this blog rant, here's a wee hint - I wouldn't mind one of these in my stocking this year, it would be so useful and I believe it is available in a variety of fashionable colours.

RECIPE:

Friends coming for supper tomorrow evening and I have a busy day, so I'm making the starter tonight; as I know them quite well I know they will all eat mushrooms, this is not a recipe to make for non-fungi eaters! When my darling daughter was little she wouldn't touch them, I think the texture put her off; now she has become a real foodie and eats absolutely everything. This is a dish I love, in fact, left to my own devices I could scoff the whole lot! The recipe comes from a famous Jewish cookery writer, the late Evelyn Rose, via her eldest son with whom my DH and I shared a house many years ago.

MUSHROOMS A LA GRECQUE

Serves 6-8

750g mushrooms – choose medium/small closed-cap
3 Tablespoons olive oil
3 Tablespoons sunflower oil
6 Tablespoons water
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons wine vinegar, white or red
2 teaspoons tomato purée
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
1 large Bay leaf
15-20 coriander seeds, roughly crushed
12-15 peppercorns, roughly crushed
10 grinds of black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or a large pinch of dried thyme

Wipe the mushrooms clean, if very small leave them whole, cut in half if medium sized, and quarter if bigger.

Put all other ingredients into a saucepan, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Uncover, put all the mushrooms into the pan and spoon the liquid over them, cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes. The mushrooms will shrink in size and produce a lot of liquid.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the mushrooms from the sauce and place in a serving dish.

Bring the liquid up to the boil over a high heat and cook until it is reduced by ¾ and has become quite thick and syrupy. Pour over the mushrooms and leave overnight to marinate.

Serve as a starter with warm Pitta bread, or as part of a salad buffet.