BS: All welcome on this thread

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 06:41 AM


Well, neuro psychologists say 'learning styles' are a myth.

well bugger me. Allow me to (in my ignorance an experience) be contentious.

1) When I was at Uni I found writing things helped memory retention. Motor actions refer.
2) When I wrote songs I found that learning the finished song was essential, and an entirely different process from composing. Divergent cf Convergent. Writing it out, (repetition). Singing in the car - more repetition. Listening to my own renditions (recording).
3) I heard and practice the style when meeting new people to repeat their name back to them. Or even write it down. The motor actions put the memory in different parts of the brain.
4) I read in (think) the New Scientist that recall is better in the same context as when you learned it. And saying that to a guitarist at a session he came back with the immortal observation. "Yea, there are 1/2 pint tunes, one pint tunes and the ones you daren't try before the second pint."

Ring any bells anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 06:43 AM

These days I buy my minced steak mail order from Donald Russell. It's of superb quality and it's often on special offer, six packs for £19.90 last week (you do pay postage unless you spend forty quid). That's as cheap as the three-packs-for-a-tenner in supermarkets, and it really does taste like steak. I use it, among other things, to make the quickest and easiest burgers imaginable. You need to add nothing at all to the mince.

Form one pack of minced steak into six little burgers with your hands. Press them to make them thin in the middle and thickest at the rim. Cook them dry in your best frying pan on the highest heat for absolutely no more than two and a half minutes a side (under two minutes for me). Don't move them around. Have faith. That isn't blood. It's juice.

Done! Great with chips and some cherry tomatoes done for five minutes in the oven with seasoning, olive oil and fresh basil. I prefer to leave the burgers for a few minutes to rest in a warm oven before scoffing, as you would with a steak. You won't bloody BELIEVE how good they are. No salt, no pepper, no onion, no mustard, no nothing!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 10:35 AM

A most indulgent lunch: a few weeks ago my daughter spotted a jazz lunch at a highly rated brasserie and as is her wont persuaded my wife and I to join her and her partner. So a long and leasurely lunch listening to jazz and enjoying seared trout with a 1er cru Chablis. Then a local cheeseboard to finish.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Raggytash
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 01:26 PM

GREAT DAY FOR GALWAY !!!!

Both the junior and senior teams WON their All Ireland Finals

Party time beckons !!!!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 01:57 PM

The other thing that the hurling discussion made me recall,
was the Scottish Highlands thing called, is it Shinty?

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 05:24 PM

Well, we laid Dad's remains to rest in the family grave at St Augustines. It was a lot easier than I imagined it would be and a very uplifting experience. Went for a meal at the Henry Boddington (there's a name that some will know!) after and had a generally good day. We kept a bit of him and hope to take that to Poland at some point in time so at least part of him goes home. Nothing official. I think he would appreciate being smuggled through customs ;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 17 - 07:01 PM

I wish to speak up for the Herb Fed poultry company, based in Yorkshire I believe. I bought two of their free-range chickens a while back at Gloucester Services as they were half price due to that silly sell-by date thang. Great big hearty beasts they were, coming in at about six pounds each. I got them for just over six quid each and whacked them straight into the freezer.

Well we had one tonight, roasted with all the spuds and veg out of the garden. I've had many a damn fine bird in my time but this was the best chicken we've ever had. Lovely texture, gorgeously moist and full of flavour. They'd be well worth the money even at full price, which is actually not much more than Morrisons' corn-fed or Waitrose finest free-range (both very good). With chicken you get what you pay for. This one was the absolute numero uno. I will not countenance the pappy M&S Oakham jobbies, nor those other cheap supermarket barn chickens that give off a ton of watery slop when you cook them and taste like dirty dishcloths.

As for stuffing, I must make my own. Mrs Steve and I have almost approached divorce proceedings over the stuffing we have at Christmas, but all the rest of the year is mine.

Take twelve of the finest butcher's pork sausages you can get your hands on. Squeeze all the meat out into a big bowl and discard the skins.

In another bowl, put a good big handful of breadcrumbs, some finely-chopped fresh herbs (thyme, parsley, sage, or all three) and a finely-chopped onion. Add some salt and pepper. Pour in a small glassful of boiling water and mix like mad. Then add that to the sausage meat and mix thoroughly. I love doing it with my bare hands. I will not be deprived of that. Divide the mixture into three and put two lots in plastic bags and freeze them. The other third is for tonight. Form it into a shallow brick and put it on to a sheet of non-stick baking paper on a metal tray. It goes into your hot oven, along with the spuds you're going to roast, for about 45 minutes. You can't buy stuffing as good as that in shops, and it's so easy.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Sep 17 - 03:43 PM

Shinty, I was right.
They filmed a scene with a shinty game in "Outlander", with boots and kilts and those mean-looking sticks, and rather a lot of mud.


I looked Shinty up here on the Mudcat search engine.
A fellow Mudcatter recalls playing Shinty on New Year's Day, every year, but ON ICE. Now that sounds downright perilous.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Sep 17 - 04:00 PM

And then, it seems, there is shinty-hurling

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Sep 17 - 10:02 AM

Did you know that shinty hurling was an anagram of hurl shity ginn.

Just saying.

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Raggytash
Date: 05 Sep 17 - 10:18 AM

Well after a GREAT weekend for Galway hurling and two days of partying the town is a little quieter today. People were still savouring the victories of both the Junior and Senior teams late on Monday night.A

Hurling is possibly the best spectator sport I have ever come across. I love cricket and enjoy Rugby Union but Hurling is a class apart. So fast and so skillful and not many prisoners taken, respect for the referee and a shake of hands whoever wins at the end of the match.

Tonight it will be back to the music (after watching Ireland play in the World Cup qualifiers) with some fantastic musicians. I anticipate there will be at least one melodeon, one banjo and three guitars plus whoever walks through the door.

And copious amounts of excellent Guinness of course in a superb bar.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Sep 17 - 03:03 AM

No Bodhrans?

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Sep 17 - 07:52 PM

Of course there were no bodhrans. Raggytash did say back to the music!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 03:24 AM

OK, OK. Don't keep banging yer drum on that one!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 04:47 AM

I think someone is marching to a different beat here...

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 10:25 AM

There are Bodhrans ................. and one or two people can actually play them, but none at the session on Tuesday. My good Lady plays one, quite well as it happens.

If she couldn't I might have introduced a razor blade onto her tipper.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 10:49 AM

Ah Jaysus, here's me calling it a tipper when in fact it's correct name is a Cipin.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: MikeL2
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 03:01 PM

hi Steve

<"Some years ago we bought steaks from Donald Russell by mail order.">

We were not impressed by the quality or prices. Maybe we were unlucky.

Now we buy most of our meats from a local farm shop. Great quality at good prices.

I bought some steaks and lamb chops from them last week and they gave me a bagful of sausages for free. Bloody lovely too.

Not that keen on burgers. Best we ever had was in Menorca where a Spanish Restaurant made them out of freshly baked bread and we watched the chef made his mince chopping fillet stakes with two large knives - bloody lovely.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 05:58 PM

Well, generally the steaks from Donald Russell are pretty expensive, even with their mixed steak offers. But I've found the quality to be unfailingly good, and, if you're not happy, they'll sort you out anyway. I only ever buy stuff from them when it's on special offer and when I can get free delivery. I'm dead happy, but my bottom line is that I only buy stuff that I could otherwise not get locally at the same quality and price, and I'm a smart shopper!

Maybe you don't cook your steaks properly rare, Mike...

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 07:03 PM

Clearly I've missed some good recipes by not dropping in here sooner. That cauliflower and chorizo bake of Steve's sounds amazing. How thick are two one pound coins?

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 07:32 PM

Heheh! It's an Ottolenghi recipe. I think he says to use "cooking chorizo". But I always buy a spicy 200g job, skin it and cut it into rounds of about half a centimetre. But anything goes. I was going to have it again tonight, having sourced a lovely cauliflower in Sainsbury's, but Mrs Steve wanted a fine-herbe omelette, and who am I to demur! (She does do all the cleaning, so what can one do...)

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 02:54 AM

A pound coin is, apparently, 3.15mm thick.

You learn something new every day!

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 09:23 AM

Just posted on another thread about us (the global 'we' on Mudcat) not really doing much to change the world. If we stick to our specialist subjects, IE folk, blues and related minority pastimes, we do a pretty good job. But as we all know these below the line thread go well beyond that remit. Perhaps we can do something though. I did make the point that we can post our dreams and aspirations for that brave new world. Maybe what we can do is have a 'think tank' for how we get there. No dream is unachievable. No idea too daft. But please remember the opening sentiment of not coming here to argue.

My dream, like that of many others, is for global peace and a stop to wasting our precious resources.

My idea to achieve it is to drop all borders and educate everyone equally.

My policy on defense is to paint all de fences white so no one can sit on them.

There. Your turn :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: MikeL2
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 10:54 AM

Hi Steve

<" Maybe you don't cook your steaks properly rare, Mike.">

Hi Steve Idon't cook steaks. I leave that to my wife. She was a Cordon Bleu cook and worked for many years in the Family restaurant business.

When I met her she owned a Pub that had a fantastic restaurant.

I do cook as these days now we are both retired. So we share it.( just in process of cooling a vegetable risotto.

But I will concede that I am not a good shopper. I don't always look around for the best buys - but I'd like to think I know quality when I see it.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 11:34 AM

Wow Dave your personal dreams can't be beat.

Mostly I think of dreams as something that happen to us.
On rare occasions aspirational dreams like MLK come to mind but are almost never practical. For example to solve the race problem I see a CRISPR genetic engineering project to make all future people of any race become technicolored like exotic birds in fractal patterns with no two alike. Beauty would be omnipresent in marvelous markings rather than weight height or faces.

No more earth tones.

btw the technicolored markings are not present at birth but evolves from a gold color to full spectrum radiance as children grow.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 01:26 PM

Dream, aspiration, idea, policy....
....and of course what I do best is procrastination and conflict avoidance. Don't hold your breath waiting for me...

anyway, I will be done with Arizona in a few more days, and already I can barely wait.
The one thing I haven't witnessed in my visit here, is that infamous advertisement posted at a bus-stop kiosk on a Phoenix Metro bus route. I was driving my car down that street at the time, so I saw the advert in passing, and missed everything except the big message in capital letters:

GUNS SAVE LIVES

LEARN TO SHOOT STRAIGHT

That was years ago, and I won't soon forget it.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Sep 17 - 03:40 AM

On the 17th it is the simultaneous birthday of my daughter and myself, so we are at the start of a fairly long period of pre-and-post events. This evening we are off for a meal on the Wessex Belle, which should be fun, then on Friday we have a fairly packed day involving a tour of the Houses of Parliament, a visit backstage to the Royal Opera House and finishing off with a meal in Veeraswamy. Then later I will have some other celebrations with my other sons and their wives, before facing up to wedding anniversary celebrations on 30th.

A quick review: decades ago I booked a box at the Royal Opera house to take my then 4 year old niece to a ballet, because if she got fed up she could move and play a bit without disturbing anyone. It was, without a doubt, amongst the worst seats I have had anywhere. What I had not allowed for was that the point of those boxes was to be seen, not to see, so they face into the theatre, not towards the stage. By squeezing into one corner you could see most of the stage ...

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Sep 17 - 04:33 AM

Never you mind, Harpgirl. As I said, anything goes on this thread and it is good to see you are so well prepared. My Cousin and his wife up near Tampa are staying put but his mother has been moved from her care community to a bunker somewhere near Disneyland!

DtG

---

She re-posted on the thread she'd meant to put it in, [What's the weather like where you are?] so I deleted the duplicate on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Sep 17 - 01:05 PM

Thanks mudelf.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 17 - 03:02 PM

But it was a nice post! I wouldn't have deleted it but I'm not the boss!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Sep 17 - 05:46 PM

It was indeed, Steve, and and here it is!

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 01:31 PM

My wife is away babysitting so I thought I might investigate an upmarket burger and cocktail place that has opened about a half a mile away. I look at the menu and the first two sides are 'fries' and 'gourmet chips'. What are you trying to do to me? I have no idea if 'gourmet chips' is to be read as American or English. If they are both the same basic thing, call them both fries or both chips. Otherwise I assume you are making a distinction and 'gourmet chips' are actually what UKers would call 'gourmet crisps'.

No, it turns out they are both fries/chips. The change in terminology is purely to irritate customers like me ...

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 01:52 PM

I will be joined by my good lady tomorrow, she at present is on route to Holyhead.

Goodo !!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 04:56 PM

We went to an Irish bar in St Louis once and got fish and chips. It was crisps and fish goujons. What a disappointment. Still, the music and beer were good.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 08:09 PM

You did not get good beer in America, Dave. Now I'm going to be very nice to you and simply offer you the opportunity to rethink that post...


😂😂😂

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 17 - 03:07 AM

There was a micro-brewery in St Louis that did some really good stuff. But, yea, probably had something cold and wet in the Irish pub :-) The other thing you don't get in America is cheese. They do stuff that they call cheese but I reckon some of it has never seen a cow.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 17 - 03:35 AM

A pound coin is, apparently, 3.15mm thick.
New or Old?
& not if you pound it!

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 17 - 04:45 PM

I think you may be on a (bank) roll Mr Red. Cash in on it while you have a yen.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Sep 17 - 07:43 AM

Are we all done on here then?

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:09 AM

Devils Bit Scabious is blossoming all over the Connemara

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:30 AM

I am not sure if scabious or the devil's bits are all that welcome...

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:35 AM

Field scabious is abundant round here. I get them mixed up. I have to remember field scabious dry, devils-bit wet. It's called devil's-bit because the root looks like it's been bitten off. The devil did it in anger at the Virgin Mary. I read it in a recent history book by a living historian.

😈

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:37 AM

They used the plants to cure scabies. I think that's another reason that the devil was cross. He prefers people to suffer.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:42 AM

Wet devil's bits are even less welcome.

Living historians are tolerated :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:43 AM

Ooooh. And that was a gross. In more ways than one.

:D

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 12:41 PM

D McG has a joint birthday coming up,
as per his earlier post to this thread.
Hope it is a grand and glorious occasion for all concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 01:09 PM

Thank you kindly! The whole weekend will be busy with celebrations of various kinds, with tomorrow as the first day (apart from.last weeks steam train trip). I am under strict instructions from daughter to make sure my wife sticks to a single cake - she was thinking of three for some reason. But anyone leaving the house underfed has always been something she avoids at all costs.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 08:03 PM

Are you a Nazi tonight,
Do you miss a good fight?
Are you sorry you joined KKK?
Does your memory stray to that bright sunny day
When you lynched raped and killed, those unlike you?
Does the media lie, and tell only fake news?
Is the world made of shit, and you are the glue?
Is your heart filled with hate, is pain and death your true fate?
Tell me Adolf, are you lonesome tonight?
I wonder if you're lonesome tonight


sniff...Nazis have feelings too.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: DMcG
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 02:18 AM

I am afraid our celebrations got off to a shaky start about an hour after I last posted. My daughter is due a medical examination to find out if she has a problem - I will spare you the details. The need for an examination under anaesthetic was decided in April. The examination itself was then set for August. Shortly before it was cancelled and rebooked for October. Yesterday she got a letter saying it is cancelled again.

Subject: RE: BS: All welcome on this thread
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 04:23 AM

Bugger :-( Sorry to hear that cousin McG. Hope it all goes well - eventually!

Good luck

DtG