ANOTHER WONDERFUL EPITAPH - this one is to a man named Knott, and is from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire:

Here lies a man that was Knott born,
His father was Knott before him.

He lived Knott, and did Knott die,
Yet underneath this stone doth lie:
Knott christened,
Knott begot,
And here he lies,
And yet was Knott.

READING:

I have never been much of a short story reader.I don't really know why they don't appeal to me now, when I was a girl I used to love reading them in my parents' copy of The Argosy (British version). Anyway, if I'd realised that Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance by Matthew Kneale was a collection of short stories I would probably never have bothered to pick it up in the library, let alone start reading it; it was only when I was a few pages into what I thought was the first chapter that it dawned on me, but by then I was hooked. In fact, like someone who opens a packet of biscuits intending to just eat one, I found myself staying up well past my bedtime so that I could scoff the whole lot.

The stories have a theme. In this inter-connected world the relationship between the haves (we in the west) and the have-nots has become increasingly complex and however well-meaning we may be as individuals, we can find ourselves complicit in situations of moral ambiguity which often have devastating effects on people on the other side of the globe. When is a crime a 'small' crime? after all, what is small to me may be very big to you - or should all crimes be considered equal?

'Stone' which is the first story illustrates this very well. It is of a comfortably off, middle-class English couple, Guy & Chloe Winter, and their two teenage children who go on a trip to China. At the end of the trip it is planned that they will go to Hong Kong where the Chloe has arranged a business meeting with a business man interested in buying her jewellery designs. Travelling with an organised tour group which transports them around the country to the main cultural destinations is not sufficient for their self image of being "travellers" rather than "tourists" so they have decided to leave the group for a few days and travel alone "to meet people and get to know the REAL China,". Needless to say they do not speak Chinese or know anything of the culture, and phrase books fail to bridge the gap; it all goes awry when they meet up with a helpful, English-speaking young man called Jiao, who they nickname Eeyore. Jiao assists them in finding a hotel, getting a meal and doing some shopping but his presence begins to annoy the family. When Chloe can't find the box of her jewellery samples they feel sure that Jiao, being a poor man, must have stolen them. A huge fuss ensues, the local cops arrive, Jiao is carted off following their accusations. As things have turned sour, the Winters decide to leave the following day. Of course, it being China, a crime against tourists MUST be solved and a forced confession is extracted from Jiao. And theft is a capital offence. As they repack their bags, Chloe finds her box of jewellery which had been carefully hidden by herself in a small inner pocket. They debate going to the police to tell them but decide against it in case they are not allowed to leave immediately as planned. En route to the railway station they see Jiao with some other prisoners in the back of a truck, all with their confession boards hung round their necks, being taken out of the town. They know what his fate is likely to be, but close their eyes to it. Back in England the memory of their trip slowly fades and finally they see what happened as "something far away, that was not quite real and that could not touch them".

The stories are very well crafted, and Kneale has a light touch when pointing a moral finger. There is humour too, especially in the story about a London solicitor whose career has stalled and who finds a big bag of cocaine and a mobile phone, and becomes a drug dealer in his spare time. From the other end of the spectrum is the story of the Colombian family who are made destitute when their legitimate crops are destroyed by anti-cocaine spraying, the spraying being done at the behest of the western countries whose citizens buy the drug.
This collection reinforces that it is as important to think about what we are doing on a personal level as well as on a national one when it comes to how we interact with other peoples and countries.

Rated 3.5*



RANTING:

OK - here's a question, what do you think has made the biggest contribution to the emancipation of women in the 20th Century?
Well, I know what the Pope thinks.

Last Sunday was International Women's Day so L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, published an editorial stating that the modern washing machine had done more to liberate women than anything else. Education, the vote, being able to work outside the home, legalised abortion and effective contraception such as the Pill and the condom (especially the last three) apparently count for nothing compared with the benefits conferred on us by the washing machine.

In some of the poorest countries in the world, where people live in shanties, child mortality rates are sky-high, and the Catholic Church has a huge presence, there are precious few washing machines around - not to mention the lack of safe and reliable water supplies to which such machines could be connected, and I very much doubt that any woman given a washing machine would suddenly find herself emancipated.
What would be really helpful for the women and girls in developing countries (and that means most of the women in the world) would be literacy programmes, work that brought in a living wage, the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies, protection from life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases, equal rights with men. I am sure there are many Catholic priests working in such communities who would agree with me. But back at head office, the Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests and Prelates live in an ivory tower where the nuns who wash their robes and cassocks probably have had their lives made easier by the wonders of modern domestic machinery; therefore they assume it is true for all womankind.
Lordy, lordy, the Holy See (as it is called) doesn't have a bloody clue about life, women and the real world . From now on I am rechristening it The Holy-Can't-See-What's-Really-Going-On.



RECIPE:

After cooking for a family for umpteen years I have default recipes for certain things, recipes which are tried and tested, totally reliable and practically known by heart - so I tend not to experiment with new versions of dishes I make regularly. Recently I found a new recipe at the hairdressers - there I was, my head covered with foil packets, idly flipping through Hello magazine (what a guilty treat!) and I came across this recipe for an apple pie. How many Apple Pie recipes does one need in life? two, three, more? Well fortunately I decided to copy it down, and last weekend I made it - the DH has declared it the BEST apple pie he's ever had and has begged me to make it again. I will, and so should you, you won't be disappointed.

VIENNESE APPLE PIE
50g sultanas
3 tablespoons dark rum
225g plain flour
175g butter 50g ground almonds
175g caster sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 large egg - separated
700g cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
50g sponge fingers, crumbled
25g roughly chopped walnuts
Half teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon granulated sugar for topping.

Put the sultanas and rum into a small bowl and leave to soak for several hours or overnight. Mix the flour and ground almonds together, then rub in the butter. ( I do all this in a food processor). Stir in 50g of the caster sugar and the lemon zest. Mix together the egg yolk and lemon juice and stir it into the dry ingredients to make a firm dough. Wrap the pastry in cling-film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Pre-heat oven to 180'C/ Gas 4; grease and base line a 20cm (8") loose-bottomed sandwich tin. Put sliced apple into a bowl, add the remaining 100g caster sugar, walnuts, cinnamon, sponge finger crumbs and rum-soaked sultanas (plus any surplus soaking juices). Use a wooden spoon to gently stir everything together. Roll out two thirds of the pastry and line the prepared tin with it, allowing any excess pastry to hang over the edge of the tin. Spoon in the apple filling and press down firmly with the flat of your hand (which I trust is clean!). Roll out the remaining pastry and using the tin as a guide cut out a circle to form a lid. Place it on top of the filling, flip the excess pastry over it and roll or press gently to form a neat seam on top of the pie. Use a fork to whisk the egg white until frothy and then brush it over the top of the pie, sprinkle with the caster sugar. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the pastry is golden. Allow it to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before carefully pressing the loose-bottom of the tin up and gently sliding the pie onto a serving platter. Serve warm or cold with a dollop of whipped cream.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADIBA!
Nelson Mandela is 90 years old today.



READING:

When I read on the Orange Prize short list that The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam by Lauren Liebenberg was set in Rhodesia in the late 1970s, I knew I had to read it. Books set in central Africa are few and far between, and as I spent all my early childhood there I try to read anything and everything that is published.

The book is narrated by Nyree O’Callohan who is almost nine years old; she lives on a farm in the Vumba Mountains (to the east of Rhodesia, near the Moçambique border) which has been in her family for three generations. The Rhodesian ‘Bush War’ is on-going and Nyree’s father comes and goes as he is is mostly away with the ‘Troopies’ (Rhodesian armed forces) fighting the ‘Terrs’.

Nyree, her six year old sister Cia, her mother and her paternal grandfather, Oupa, remain on the farm together with the farm workers, domestic servants and all their families. The whole farm is surrounded, as most Rhodesian farms were in those days, by high security fences to protect them from the ‘Terrs’, and the fence is the boundary of the girls’ world.

In term time, they attend a small local school for children from all the farms in the area, but during the holidays they can roam freely all over the farm, hunting for fairies, observing Sangoma rituals, watching Chongololos curling up when poked with a stick, feeding ants to ant-lions, putting chameleons on to brightly coloured rugs to see if they will turn scarlet or orange, and generally enjoying all the pleasures of a bush childhood.

One day Ronin, the 14 year old illegitimate son of a great-uncle arrives to live with them, and their lives slowly begin to change. Ronin is a nasty bit of work, the two girls dislike him and are wary of him, and with good reason as he is sneaky and spiteful hiding and breaking their toys whilst sucking up to their mother and Oupa. Oupa is a difficult old man, constantly bemoaning the fact that his son only has daughters to inherit the farm, he is an unreconstructed racist of the worst sort; never-the-less, he sees through Ronin and his wily ways and acts as a buffer between him and the girls until his age and dwindling mental abilities make him a problem himself.

Slowly the Bush War comes to an end as does the family’s time on the farm, and with a dark twist to their lives, and violent birth pangs, Zimbabwe is born.

It is not a happy tale, but it does accurately convey the time and place. The descriptions of the flora and fauna of Rhodesia are beautifully written, and reading the book there were moments when I was really emotional remembering my own childhood in the bush. Liebenberg uses very authentic language and has her characters use the terms ‘munt’, ‘Afs’, ‘kaffirs’ etc just as some white Rhodesians would have done at the time - which could offend some readers, however I thought it added to the very real way she creates the atmosphere of those times. The book also made me think long and hard about what ALL the people of Zimbabwe have lost in the past 25 years, and that too made me feel like weeping.

Rated 5*

RANTING:

Whilst parking my car the other day I noticed a 'rough-sleeper' lying on cardboard with some clothing rolled up under his head as a pillow. Next to him was a tiny pile of his belongings. He had chosen to sleep (mid-afternoon on a hot sunny day) at the top of a flight of four or five steps leading to the padlocked entrance doors of a disused office block. On the pavement next to me as I parked were two teenage girls in school uniform (I think I know which school they attend), both neatly dressed and chatting away non-stop as teenage girls are wont to do. Suddenly, to my amazement, one of the girls broke off the conversation and tiptoed up the steps to the rough sleeper, picked up his packet of cigarettes, and tiptoed back down to join her friend. I leant through my car window and yelled at them whereupon they scarpered. Little b*tches.
It all happened so quickly that I couldn't get out of the car fast enough to chase them.
What kind of person steals from a down-and-out? Those girls had mobile phones and were sporting smart shoes, why would they even consider stealing from someone who had so little? Not of course that they should steal from anyone, rich or poor, but this really was the lowest of the low. What word describes girls like that?
It ages me to say this, but I can't imagine it happening when I was young.




RECIPE:

If you have to provide food for a picnic, this recipe, given to me years ago by my sister, is absolutely ideal. It slices into wedges that can be held in the hand, no need for cutlery, and tastes wonderful with salads if the sun is shining, or with a mug of hot soup if it is cold and wet. Perfect padkos. You can play around with the herbs you use, and with the number of spring onions; the only thing to watch is that you don't over bake it, as it can dry out somewhat. I made it recently for a picnic lunch with my DD's soon-to-be in-laws; lying on the grass by the River Cam, accompanied by a glass of chilled Chablis, it went down a treat.

LELO’S COLD CHICKEN PIE

1 quantity shortcrust pastry made with 350g flour/125g shortening

1kg raw chicken meat – I use a mixture of breast and thigh
500g good quality sausage meat
1 teaspoon mace
6 spring onions
Rind and juice of ½ lemon
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 tablespoon fresh sage – chopped small
2 tablespoons cream
Salt & Pepper

Beaten egg to glaze

Pre-heat oven to 200°C

Line a 9in pie dish with half the pastry.

Cut the chicken meat into strips and sprinkle with the mace and salt and pepper – set aside.

In a food processor whiz together the sausagemeat, herbs, spring onions, lemon rind, half the lemon juice and the cream.

Fill the pie with a layer of the sausage mix, then a layer of chicken, layer of sausage mix etc alternating and ending with a layer of the sausage mix. Sprinkle each chicken layer with some of the remaining lemon juice. Dome up well.

Cover with the remaining pastry, seal and crimp the edges of the pie, cut a hole in the centre of the lid, and glaze with beaten egg.

Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 170°C and bake for a further 1 - 1¼ hours until golden brown.

Allow to go completely cold before cutting and serving.