The Mystery of the Missing Minutes

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I am starting better – sitting down sooner and doing planned work rather than just browsing – but by the end of he day I am faced with the fact that I really haven’t produced any writing worth doing. This quality concern applies to both quantity and quality.

Today I got up a touch after seven, brushed my teeth and sat down to do comments and check emails. It’s not onerous but it seems to suck time in and it is now 8.20. I have dipped into the internet, looking for a recipe for damper, It comes as part of the discussion of soda bread, and doesn’t seem that much different.  I first read about damper in a book called From Anzac to Buckingham Palace. It was a stirring patriotic tale of an Australian lad who joined up and won a VC. Published 1917, with what I later learned were inaccurate pictures, it seemed like an exotic book from a far off time.  It would, in fact, be less than 50 years old at that point. That is strange. It means that as a child, in around 1965, I was less than fifty years from the Great War. I am now more than 50 years from that point in time. I don’t know what that proves, but it does make me feel a bit of a dinosaur. This is a feeling further enhanced by Julia’s new habit of referring to my T-Rex arms. She is of course, making fun of the way I hold my arms when they ache after a hard day typing. It’s fair enough, I suppose, as I did refer to her as a grumpy bear yesterday.  I did not, however, develop any more metaphors around the phrase “a bit dense towards the bottom”, which I could have done.

Anyway – back to the point. At the time I read the book, I didn’t realise that ANZAC referred to a soldier of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. I thought it was a place.  They ate damper, which they cooked in a camp fire.

I have said before that I learned to read too soon and read a large number of books I didn’t really understand – children’s editions of the classics are a good example. I read them, didn’t understand them and, for the rest of my life, avoided them.  I still can’t settle with the Brontës, Dickens or Austen. It’s a chicken and egg situation, particularly in those pre-internet days. You had to read to learn, but you had to know things already to get the benefit of the reading you were doing. In the end I suppose it didn’t do me any real harm.

 

It was just a short step from there to the books of my youth and a few minutes spent amongst devotees of Biggles has left me recharged and ready for the day ahead. On the way to that conclusion I think I may have found out where all those missing minutes go.

 

 

 

A Return to Soda Bread

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Note poor attempt at cross

This morning I rose at 6.30, decided it was too early, went back to bed  and eventually emerged at 7.30. I then squandered my early start by going through an auction catalogue online. Then I trotted off for my secret mission. I planned to wake Julia by wafting the scent of freshly baked bread through the house. In fact, the clinking of kitchen implements woke her early and she pottered down to see if the er was any tea going. This burst the bubble of my planned surprised and slightly soured the the tone when she realised there was no tea.

Imagine a grumpy bear, roused from hibernation early, and wanting tea. It is,  admit, a slightly confused metaphor. But it is an accurate description of the atmosphere in the kitchen – double disappointment with just a hint of fury.

So I made tea and we had cereal. The bread baked. It was only soda bread, because I haven’t actually baked for something like nine years. There was a programme on TV last night, where soda bread was cooked, and my ambition was rekindled.

For lunch we had bread and cheese and pickles and then Julia went to work in the cafe.

The recipe actually stipulated half white and half wholemeal flour but I used cheap plain white flour, because that was what we had. I also squeezed lemon juice into milk to produce a substitute for buttermilk. I would have used yoghurt and milk, but we have had all the yoghurt this week. Apart from that and reducing the salt I didn’t alter the recipe at all. In other words, the only thing that followed the recipe was the half spoonful of bicarb. Amazingly, it was one of my better attempts, as I’ve never quite got the hang of soda bread.

Poor photograph, which flatters the bread

There were a few problems along the way. I added 90% of the milk and it wasn’t enough so I tipped the erst in and produced a very wet and sticky dough which stuck to my fingers. I used to be able to produce dough with a light touch and rarely get it stuck to me, but I have lost the knack. It must have looked like a kid trying to bake, apart from the lack of joy. I hate it when it sticks. Eventually, after shaking more flour in, and getting doughy fingerprints on the flour bag, I ended up with quite a wet dough, but was able to manage it, even though the cross in the top wasn’t very distinct. I hope the fairies were able to get out despite this poor attempt.

It tool longer to bake than suggested and, I confess, was a bit dense towards the bottom. Apart from that it wasn’t too bad and it went well with cheese and pickles. I have now ordered buttermilk with next week’s groceries and will be baking again next week. Soda bread is good because it is quick and simple, but above all, it doesn’t hurt my fingers. A loaf taking a lot of of kneading is still beyond me, though if I get the bug again I may buy a food mixer to do he hard work.

Compared to the excitement of baking, nothing much happened for the rest for the day. Next week I am going to try cheese and onion soda bread.

Ready to test

 

Nazis, Numismatics and Nonsense

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It’s just taken 33 minutes to write a fifty word email. It wasn’t the words that were difficult, it was striking the right tone. I often find that is a problem with emails. I’m sure the best way is just to slap a couple of dozen words down. The recipient probably won’t notice much difference and I would have saved 28 minutes.

I was reading a poetry blog last night when I saw the name Logan Pearsall Smith. I’d never heard of him, but I think I might have liked to have been him. It’s probably bad of me to mention him, a renowned perfectionist, in the same blog post where I words “slap a couple of dozen words down” but I am, above all, a man of contradictions. Or “very annoying” which is Julia’s preferred method of describing me.

Yesterdays early start became bogged down by too much research on flame fougasses of WW2. No, I don’t know why they gave the same name to a weirdly shaped French loaf and a primitive landmine, they just did.

I see, when skimming the fougasse bread page, that you can roll it up and fill it to make a calzone type concoction. The question in my mind now, which I don’t have time to dwell on, is why select a type of bread that is famous for having holes in it? Name me one bread that is less suitable for wrapping stuff in.

Anyway, in 1940 after the withdrawal from Dunkirk (other withdrawals were available but Dunkirk got all the publicity), we were short of anti-tank weapons but had plenty of petrol.  I’m halfway through an article on the Petroleum Warfare Department. You can see the foundation of the article in the Facebook page of the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire. It was posted on 31st December, you may have to scroll down a bit. I’m not sure how to get a link to a specific post. I am now adding to it with things of more military interest for the Military History group. Did you know that in 1940 we filled 50,000 40 gallon oil drums with inflammable liquids and buried them roadside banking, ready to fire them ay passing Nazis. Several have been discovered within the last ten yeas, though they are rusted, the oil has mainly gone and none of them have (fortunately) been rigged with explosives. Hence the photos of rusted oil drums, courtesy of various websites Wikipedia and the pillbox Study Group.

The diagram shows a “Safety” Fougasse. The explosive charges were to be inserted just before use, rather than the earlier method of having them ready to go and placing  a guard on them to stop people setting them off to see what happened  (usually a 50 foot fireball and the need to have the road resurfaced).

 

 

Busy, busy, busy . . .

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I rose early and at 6.00 sat at the computer. This is insomnia we are talking about rather than industry. It is now 7.02 and I have been through comments, made replies, gone through  my (short) list of blogs to read and then sorted my emails. That consisted of reading three, replying to one and deleting 23.

And that is the story of my first hour. It’s nearly as industrious as my entire yesterday, which was not a day of great achievements. Or even minor ones. It just seemed to pass in a blur.

Actual “work” as I call it, amounted to two hours of reading for research and a couple of hundred words. It’s not impressive. I meant to do a final edit on something and send it off. That still hasn’t been done either. I’m going to do it as soon as I’ve finished this post.

It’s a busy old life in retirement.  Julia’s hair appointment on Monday, woodturning on Tuesday, blood test tomorrow, cafe on Friday and cafe on Sunday. That only leaves Wednesday and Saturday free. You may notice that it’s not me who’s busy. I was going to go to the Military History meeting tonight but I have either the beginning or the end of a chest infection and I have decided to stay indoors and look after myself. It’s been rumbling on for a few days now and seems to be fading, but it’s difficult to tell. I have been caught out before by this sort of thing.

Immunosuppressants are brilliant for sorting out arthritis but, as experience shows, they have their downside too.

Thirteen minutes, 267 words, that will do for now. If I can’t make it interesting, I can at least make it short.

Now, I suppose, I ought to look at the news and see what is happening in the world. If there is a world left to report on . . .

I’m well over 300 words now, so at least the quantity of word is OK, even if the quality is questionable.

Not long now . . .

In Which I Break a Long Term Rule and Become Political

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Sculpture at Ruffird – I will say no more…

I have answered comments. That has taken just over ten minutes. I am now sitting, looking at a screen, and wondering where all the inspiration goes. I wasn’t exactly full of it when I went to be and seven hours of broken sleep have not improved the situation. I have plenty to write about but it needs a spark of inspiration to get it going. I was going to add “just like the flames of the screwed up newspaper in the grate” and I stopped to wonder how many people reading this will have started a coal fire as a regular part of their home heating. It’s something you never see these days. A few people have wood burners, but the neatly made layers of paper, kindling and coal have passed into history, like cars with starting handles and, in fact, newspapers printed on paper.

That paragraph is the only survivor of my two attempts to write a post before taking Julia to wood turning. It’s turned to newspapers, and after turning to newspapers, I felt I had to mention Elon Musk’s AI for making pornography. Having mentioned that I felt necessary to move on to the concept that being opposed to child pornography is, in the eyes of some US politicians, an attack on freedom of speech.

Mallard drake shining in the sun – Idle Valley NR

However, that’s a bit serious for me, and people don’t come here for serious discussions on world news. If they did, they would be disappointed. So I junked it and took up the story again. This time I turned it to Elon Musk showing photos of Kier Starmer in a bikini. That’s the sort of bullying school yard response that shows exactly why we don’t need this sort of technology. Still a bit too serious. Plus it’s not a picture I want to store in my mind.

Then you have to allow for the fact that when I think of many US politicians, I think of pond slime and those formless things that squirm under stones in my nightmares. Unfortunately, under the Trump Administration “justice” has become weaponized (to use one of their favourite words) and is being used to shut down debate. (In the wind I hear a faint cry of Freedom of Speech for those who can afford it . . .)

Wren

Even though there are defences (for now) of truth and fair comment I can’t afford to be sued by pond slime and squirming things because I’ve lowered their reputation in the eyes of the public by associating them with US politicians.

Great White Egret

 

And Another Thing

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Sticky Toffee Cake

After finishing an article this afternoon I noted the time in my notebook (yes, I’m serious about getting organised) and then went to check my emails. There was one from the chair of a group I’m in, asking if I could let him know that I had received the email and asking if I could do him a favour. He couldn’t ring, he explained, as he had laryngitis and it was painful to speak.

It seemed a bit strange, as we had never corresponded before, but I checked the email, which seemed OK and sent him a reply.

I got a reply almost by return, thanking me for getting in touch and telling me what the favour was. Could I buy an Apple gift card for him. He wanted it as a birthday gift for a young cancer patient he knows but couldn’t do it himself by phone because of the painful laryngitis and couldn’t do it via Amazon because it didn’t seem to be working for him.

At that point I became annoyed with myself for answering the first email. The gift card, the heart-rending recipient, the pathetic excuses for why he couldn’t do it himself . . .

Botham’s Whitby

Someone was clearly trying to scam me. However, there is always the lurking doubt, isn’t there? I clearly couldn’t email as someone seemed to have hacked it. And I couldn’t ring, because if he did have laryngitis it would be uncomfortable for him.

So I rang the membership secretary. I was halfway through the explanation when he told me not to worry as I was the third person to call and I wasn’t about to upset a sick man by refusing to him buy a birthday present for a sick child.

I don’t like scammers. I don’t like the feeling that they are circling round me. And I don’t like the idea that one day, as my mental state declines, that I may actually fall for it and give someone my cash or my bank details. Or both.

I’m sure I had something important to say too.

Toasted Teacakes

I can smell banana cake cooking. Julia decided to pre-empt my baking efforts with her own. She’s also made crumble. OK, it’s of limited importance to most of my readers, but it’s quite important to me.

I’m sure there was something else but my brain tends to close down when it smells baking.

This is the second post of the day. This is the link to the first.

Eccles Cake

Words Per Day

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Tree cutting on the island.

Well, I said i was going to talk about word targets, so here I am. I have Checked the shopping list for Saturday, read emails (there were just two), checked WP (again, just a couple of comments, not needing much work) and turned to blogging. It is now 7.53 and I got out of bed at 7.31. That’s 22 minutes.

I didn’t experience an avalanche of regrets from people who preferred word counts to woodpeckers, so I’m going to take it that nobody is too concerned about the subject, except me and maybe a few passing writers.

Hemingway did 500 a day, Stephen King does 2,000 and a lot of people are somewhere in between. A thousand words a day seems to suit many people. I have written several book length accumulations of words and know that I can certainly do 1,000 to 2,000 a day. For an average sort of novel that means You should be able to do it in three months. At that rate, I can also polish a lot of it as I go along. What I can’t do is all the other stuff that goes into it. I end up, like Dr Frankenstein, with a pile of spare parts stitched together with good intentions (I think that’s part of a quote from Augusten Burroughs –  I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. My words do not live, and they certainly don’t build into a book. That’s why I turned to blogging (which is just rambling) and poetry, where you can get away with a handful or words, some mystery and a decent editor. Indecent editors, in case you are wondering, are the ones who don’t recognise my talent.

Mandarin drake at Arnot Hill Park, Nottinghamshire

Even with a diversion to check numbers and the quote I have just done 224 words in 14 minutes. Words aren’t the problem. Even good words aren’t the problem. The problem is that I’ve just gone back to add a bit and that’s another 6 minutes gone.

I’m now suspending writing at 8.12 to make breakfast for Julia as she is going out this morning and I try to be attentive.

But first, I will kill another minute or two reading back what I just wrote. That’s what writers do.

I bet Stephen King doesn’t have to stop and make breakfast for his wife. He probably has a housekeeper. I’ve read his book about writing but I don’t think he covers domestic staff.

8.14, I’m definitely going . . .

9.12 and I’m back. We had a moderate breakfast as Julia won’t be home until early afternoon, chatted and watched birds on the feeders. Nothing happened that needs noting down and it’s time to get back to work.

Nuthatch at Rufford Abbey

I was going well, but the pause has stopped me in my tracks. I re-read what I wrote earlier and am now staring at the screen. A lesser man would have writer’s block, I just can’t think of anything to say right now.

I’m examining word count from the point of view of a man trying to do many things. Tomorrow, for instance, I will be baking, amongst other things. I once read something that said it takes about fifteen minutes to change tasks and get back into the next one. That’s why multi-tasking, despite its almost mythic status, doesn’t really work. I researched that while I was working in the office at Quercus, as we used to call the corner with the desk in it.

That’s one of my problems with productivity, I’m trying to do too many things at a time and each one swallows up a small portion of time as you swap between them. It might be more like 5 minutes than the 15 minutes the research suggests, but do it a dozen times a day and that’s an hour gone for no result.

There’s also the time spent on research. Sometimes I can rip through something fairly quickly if I’m carrying the facts in my head (though they still need checking). Other times it takes a long time to gather all the facts and get them into order. It’s an imprecise calculation because sometimes I know what I need, or know where to look. Other times I just have to search, and search . . .

Gadwall

An example of that is a group of medals I’ve just been researching. Just before calling it finished, I checked the article and decided to run a quick newspaper search on his sons.  One went farming in Kenya after WW2 (having served in the Army since before the Great War). His grave showed him as a Lt Colonel, but I had a gap between him retiring in the late 1930s and reappearing on a gravestone in 1955. Reports of his death, which were printed in several newspapers, indicated that he had been in the Home Guard in WW2, before going to Kenya to farm. He had been gored by a rhinoceros which charged him as he was walking with his wife near their farm house. He pushed her behind a thorn bush for safety and tried to fight off the rhino with his walking stick. It has little to recommend it in some ways, as I was really researching the father, but it’s an interesting story to round things off. However, it probably took me half an hour to find the three reports and patch them together. It’s taken me a while here, as I’ve amended the last paragraph a couple of times to make it flow.

9.39 now. By the time I finish, I will have done a thousand words, just like a proper writer. It’s easier, of course, when you can just ramble rather than having to worry about plots and pacing and possibly, with my thoughts on detective fiction, probably poisons. Prussic acid, strychnine or perhaps the poisonous mushroom tha is only lethal when taken with alcohol. Sorry, I just wandered off to have a look at poisonous mushrooms. The facts don’t seem quite as cut and dried as stories I have read about it. It would be great if you wanted to make someone very ill, less good if you wanted to kill them. And it took me eight minutes to read.

Lomg Tailed Tit at Rufford Abbey

9.49 and I have passed 1,000 words. So, my point for today is that words are simple, even in quantity, but organisation and research, and domestic tasks, are making me less efficient. I will think about this, as I think their are large efficiencies to be had from organising, making lists and doing the research before the writing rather than alongside. If anyone has hints of efficiency please let me know.

1087 Words. 9.52. Allowing an hour for breakfast that’s a thousand words an hour. A touch over that if you add the final reading I just did.

Now, in my disorganised way, I will waste some time wondering what to do next . . .

They say, in case you are interested, that Edgar Wallace could write a 70,000 word novel in 3 days, using wax cylinder recordings and secretaries. That’s quick.

Heron at Arnot Hill Park

A New Bird for the Garden

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Green Woodpecker – previous residents had them in the garden but we have only seen them in the trees next to us. So near, yet so far.

The big news of the day is that we had a Greater Spotted Woodpecker on the peanut feeder today. based on previous experience we are hoping this may become regular and I may actually get a photograph. By the time I had got the camera, put a card in (I’d been using it for working on a coin article) and got back to the window, it had gone.

It was, at least, there longer than the parakeet, and being able to access the food, should have been happy. The woodpecker was a regular visitor to the feeders on the farm and is not a problem to other birds. We were talking about how to extend the variety of birds that visit and we have decided that we don’t know.

We tried pasta. They threw it all over the lawn. we tried white rice (recommended by many people) they turned their noses up at it. We try fruit. The squirrels like it. It seems that white bread is the only thing they like apart from seeds, peanuts and fat based foods. And mealworms. It’s just that we don’t particularly like feeding mealworms. They need soaking before serving and you don’t always feel like soaking dried mealworms at 7am.

GReat Spotted Woodpecker on a feeder on the farm

We are keeping our fingers crossed for something interesting on 23-25 January, the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. You can also do it in small gardens or, in fact, anywhere. So far 265, 725 people have signed up. One year we did it at my Mum and Dad’s house with the kids and turned up to find three jays in the garden. We’ve only had jays here twice in a year so I doubt that will happen. I also, in Nottingham, spent ten minutes waiting as  a Sparrowhawk perched on next door’s chimney and resisted the temptation to fly into our garden.

I have suggested putting cat food down to tempt the kites but Julia has vetoed the idea. It would scare the others, it makes them easier to poison (assuming you would want to) and it is, she says, cheating. I agree with the last one, as it will skew the records, but that’s just how I am – fair-minded and under the thumb of my wife.

This was going to be a post about daily word targets but it seems to have been derailed. Maybe later . . .

Great Spotted Woodpecker – and an admission that I should have labelled my photos better.

Fish & Chips and Forgotten Titles

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Haddock Special at the Dolphin Fish Bar, Sutton on Sea

It is the 10th today and I seem to have only written 8 posts, despite cutting and pasting a poem and an article of medallions. Despite this sharp practice I just can’t keep up. Today I am going to post two shorter posts and try to keep up that way.

Today I have top make tomato soup for lunch. That involves a reasonably quick recipe, but it is still time. I have read and commented today, had breakfast and skimmed a number of subjects on Wiki. (This may be leading us to the exact source of my time leakage. After reading Billy Mann I ended up looking at hammer types and after reading Derrick Knight I ended up looking a Esmond Romilly  and various other things. There are 32 types of hammer listed on the internet. I have three sorts that aren’t on the list and know of at least one other. However, I do believe that as long as it is big enough you can get by with just one.

Haddock Special at the Fishpan, Scarborough

That will leave me with the afternoon and evening to achieve something but Julia will almost certainly expect to see me at some point and an epic nap is probably on the cards. I’m thinking of doing fish fingers for tea, with potato wedges and mushy peas à la Nottingham.  They eat their peas with mint sauce in Nottingham. I’m not sure why but any excuse for vinegar-based condiments is always welcome. It’s a cheap nutritious meal and I get the ones that are supposedly full of extra omega 3. I just checked it up and find that there is limited evidence that this actually does any good, but I’m a sucker for implications that stuff does you good whilst you are eating it. If they could grow potatoes which included omega 3, I could eat chips and feel I was becoming healthier.

Looking at the featured image I feel vaguely ashamed of my lack of culinary expertise.

Undoubtedly the worst fish I’ve had for years – look at the scale of the fish compared to the size of the fish and the portion of chips. Even then, they had to add insult to injury by doing something unspeakable to the peas.

Festival of Britain Medallion 1951

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Festival of Britain Medallion 1951 – Yes – it is Soap!

 

The word medallion is used in several contexts, including architecture and food, so trying to define it can be confusing. Generally, in numismatic terms, it is a large piece of metal used to commemorate something. However, does it have to be metal? I have a glass medallion from Pilkington’s Glass. It is 65mm in diameter and commemorates the Royal Visit of 1961 and the information in the box lid refers to it as a “glass medal”. Without that description I would have thought it was a paperweight or a coaster. But if they say it is a medal, that’s good enough for me.

Another unusual material used to make medallions is soap. This, again, is made more complicated by the tendency to use the term medallion as a description far a small decorative soap. However, I have seen at least four things which I consider to be medallions made from soap – two George VI Coronation medallions, a Preston Guild set of three soaps (I was the underbidder on that) and the one illustrated here – the Festival of Britain. I know that a bust of George VI was made in soap and that there was another soap made in 1951. However, that was described and marketed as soap and was uniface, with the Festival logo on one side.

The medallion pictured here is 67mm in diameter. It was probably ivory-coloured when it was produced but has grown darker over the years, particularly the obverse. The reverse, I think, was protected from the air by resting on the bottom of the box but the obverse has darkened due to contact with the air.

The obverse has the familiar 1951 Festival of Britain logo on it, and the reverse has a design featuring the Great Exhibition of 1851, and even has details of clouds in the sky.

My mother bought this when she went to the Festival with her sister in 1951, and my sister still has it. I first saw it in the 1960s, and remember that it was still heavily scented. My example came from an antique fair about thirty years ago and even now retains traces of the original scent.

I have seen the soap medallions in both red or blue boxes. The inside of the lid says “Made in England/by/RICHARD WHEEN & SONS LTD/London SE8/Makers of fine soaps/since 1769” They are signed “WHEEN LONDON” below the logo.

This was first published on the Facebook page of the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire 01.01.25. As such I tend to limit he length and, with writing one every week, don’t have time to spend on editing, which is why it may be  a little rough around the edges.