Inquire vs Enquire

I've never been sure of the correct usage of 'enquire' so I finally looked it up...and it turns out it's only relevant in Britain, as "enquire" is rarely used in American English.

According to the Oxford dictionary:

The traditional distinction...is that enquire is used for general senses of 'ask' while inquire is reserved for uses meaning 'make a formal investigation'. In all senses inquire and inquiry are the more usual forms in US English, whereas enquire and enquiry are chiefly restricted to British English.

I think "chiefly" is also chiefly British...

Happy Hanukkah

The bible defines five holidays: rosh hashana, yom kippur, pesach (passover), shavuot, and sukkot. So where did hanukkah come from?

According to the Bible, when the Jews settled in Canaan (now Israel) the first task was to build a temple to hold the Ark of the Covenant (of Indiana Jones fame), and lit an "eternal flame" that was never extinguished. After David (of Goliath fame) united Israel (Judea), his son Solomon (of wisdom fame) built the second Temple.

In 175 BCE, Judea was under the control of Syria but had religious freedom.  Unfortunately it was also involved in a civil war between the Hellenizing Jews, who wanted to be like the Greeks, and the Ptolemaic Jews, who wanted to be like the Egyptians.  The Hellenizing Jews were expelled, so they invited the king of Syria to intervene.  Unfortunately the king went a little further than expected, captured Jerusalem, outlawed Judaism, ordered an altar to Zeus be erected in the Temple and called for pigs to be sacrificed there.

The Jews, who were never good subjects (just ask the Pharaoh), revolted.  Mattityahu, a high priest, and his five sons led a rebellion which took two years but was ultimately successful.  Judah Maccabee ('Judah the hammer') ordered the Temple to be cleansed, a new altar built, and the eternal light to be lit.  However, they found only enough consecrated oil to last one day, and it would take eight days to press new oil.  Miraculously, the oil lasted eight days, and this 8-day period is celebrated as Hanukkah.

However, as my rabbi pointed out, the real miracle was that a tiny little country was able to win its freedom against one of the greatest empires in history, and by comparison celebrating oil burning for eight days just seems ridiculous.

That said, a 'festival of lights' during the winter is common to many cultures, and the 'hannukiah' (the 9-branched candelabra) is supposed to be displayed in a front window to reinforce the Jewish 'differenceness' that has kept the culture alive for over four millennia.

Independence lasted until 63BCE, when the Romans conquered Israel.  The Jews rebelled against them three times.  In the first (66-70CE), a group of Jews holed up in Masada, on a mountain, for two years while the Romans laid siege and finally built a massive earthworks to breech the walls.  (The Jews, known as Zealots, killed themselves rather than be captured.)  In retaliation, the Romans destroyed the second Temple; the remains still stand as the Western Wall.

In the third rebellion (132–136 CE), Simon Bar Kokhba established an independent state of Israel for two years, but the Romans sent six legions (30,000 soldiers!) to crush it, and then barred Jews from Jerusalem.  Another effect is that as the Christians did not support the rebellion, Romans began to consider Christianity separate from Judaism.  (Until then, Christianity was considered a sect of Judaism.)

The photos suck, but I had a wonderful time

...and 66 more photos.

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Religion

If you're wondering why I converted to religion, check out this cartoon and you'll understand.  For those with a short attention span, I'll transcribe the relevant bit at the end:

Would you kill for your religion?
Would you hurt, hinder, or condemn in the name of your God?
Yes?
Then you probably suck at your religion.
You should give it up.
Maybe take up windsurfing or ping pong instead.
However, does your religion inspire you to help people?
Does it make you happier?
Does it help you cope with the fact that you are a bag of meat sitting on a rock in outer space and that someday you will die and you are completely powerless, helpless, and insignificant in the wake of this beautiful cosmic shitstorm we call existence?
Does it help with that?
EXCELLENT!
Carry on with your religion!
Just keep it to your fucking self.

California itinerary

I was watching an old episode of The Big Bang Theory the other day, and Sheldon suggested that if you only have one day in Los Angeles to make it a "train day" -- lunch at Carney's in Studio City, the afternoon at the Travel Town museum (near Griffith Park), followed by dinner at Carney's in Hollywood*.  While I'm not going to stick with that formula exactly, I am bringing a friend who wants to see California, so I've been working on an itinerary.

Personally, for me the first step in any visit to California would be getting the hell out of Los Angeles, but in this case it's complicated by the fact that she wants to see LA, I want to see my friends, and the airlines want to charge £200 ($300) more to fly into LAX and leave from SFO.  So I'm not sure exactly how this will work, but what I am sure is that I will get an angry email from my mother when she sees I've only slotted her in for 3 days...

Day 1: Arrive Los Angeles
2: Beach
3: Hollywood
4: Downtown
5: Monterey
6: arrive San Francisco
7: pier 39/Alcatraz
8: napa valley
9-12: My family
13: Sequoias
14: Fly out of LAX

This is tentatively scheduled for January 10-22, but I'm hoping to have it firmed up by the end of the week.

*Yes, the order is important -- dinners are only served at Carney's on Sunset Strip.

AOC

An "appellation" is just an identifying name or title, but it has also come to be known as a system of protection to identify where a product is made or grown. For example, Idaho potatoes or Maine lobsters, which carry a set of expectations.

This is nothing new -- the Bible references wine of Samaria, Carmel, Jezreel, and Helbon -- but until the 19th century, it was just a convention, not a law.  In 1891, the treaty of Madrid gave legal protection to sparkling wine produced in Champagne, France.  Thus, you won't see the word "champagne" on a bottle of California sparkling wine.

In 1935, the French formalised this as the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, or AOC. In 1951, the European Union extended it.  Today, it applies to wines, cheeses, hams, sausages, seafood, olives, beers, Balsamic vinegar and even regional breads, fruits, raw meats and vegetables.

On the face of it, this seems like a good idea: If an area becomes associated with a particular product, you wouldn't want others to be able to claim their product was from the same region, right?  It's the same as trademark law -- if any IT company could call themselves "Apple," how would the Apple brand fare?

However, as with all things, whenever government protection is involved, things quickly become ridiculous.  I was intrigued by a news story yesterday that Britain now has 50 products of "protected designation of origin," the latest being Newmarket sausages.  Newmarket is a small town (pop. 15,000) in Suffolk that is more commonly associated with thoroughbred horse racing.  However, it has the distinction of two local sausage makers, who use two completely different recipes to produce two distinctly different sausages, and yet somehow the fact that they were both from Newmarket was enough to make "Newmarket sausage" a protected designation.  (Obviously I haven't tried them, but the "rate my sausage" blog doesn't give them high marks, anyway.)

In another example, "Newcastle Brown Ale" -- which was a trademark of a particular brewery -- was given protected status in 2000, but in 2004 the company moved the brewery to Gateshead, literally on the other side of the river, and had to petition the European Union to revoke the protected designation!  So just to recap, before the protection was granted only one company was allowed to create Newcastle Brown Ale, and if the protection hadn't been revoked then no companies would have been allowed to make Newcastle Brown Ale.

Cheddar cheese, by all rights, should be allowed protected designation -- after all, it originated in the town of Cheddar, in Somerset, around the 12th century, and there are still a number of artisan cheesemakers in the area -- but it was considered to be too "generic" to be given protected status.  (However, cheddar produced from local milk within four counties of South West England may use the protected name, "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar.")

"Buffalo mozzarella campagna" does have protected status in Europe (it must be made from the milk of water buffalo raised in Lazio and Campania, Italy) but not the rest of the world.  (And don't get me started on that low-moisture cow's milk product produced in the US and labelled "mozzarella"...)

Obviously these sorts of restrictions are just silly; if you're going to have the government enforcing appellations, the obvious solution would be to put a blanket restriction on geographic references; hence Parma ham has to come from Parma, and Darjeeling tea has to come from Darjeeling.  However, there was a bit of scandal a few years ago when the winner of the annual Cornish pasty competition did, in fact, come from the county of Devon, next door.  The rules were changed so only residents of Cornwall could complete, and then the following year Cornish pasties were given protected status, so even if the best cornish pasty came from Devon, they are now prohibited from calling them "Cornish pasties."  Of course, that's exactly what these laws do, reduce competition, regardless of whether it is better or worse than the original.

Today there are 1,123 products with various protected designation status in the EU.  Here is the full list of British products.  Of the 50, I recognise 8.  That is, less than 20% of these products with government protectional actually have enough of a brand presence to differentiate themselves from similar products from other locations.  (I don't even know what a "perry" is.)

Beer
    Kentish ale
    Kentish strong ale
    Rutland bitter

Cooked meat
    Cornish Pasty
    Traditional Cumberland Sausage
    Newmarket sausage
    Melton Mowbray pork pie

Cheese
    Beacon Fell traditional Lancashire cheese
    Bonchester cheese
    Buxton blue
    Dorset Blue cheese
    Dovedale cheese
    Exmoor Blue cheese
    Single Gloucester
    Staffordshire Cheese
    Swaledale cheese
    Stilton - White cheese
    Stilton - Blue cheese
    Swaledale ewes' cheese
    Teviotdale cheese
    West Country farmhouse Cheddar cheese

Cider and Perry
    Gloucestershire cider
    Gloucestershire perry
    Herefordshire cider
    Herefordshire perry
    Worcestershire cider
    Worcestershire perry

Cream
    Cornish Clotted Cream

Fish
    Arbroath Smokies
    Cornish Sardines
    Lough Neagh Eel
    Scottish Farmed Salmon
    Traditional Grimsby smoked fish
    Whitstable Oysters

Fresh meat
    Gloucestershire Old Spots
    Isle of Man Loaghtan Lamb
    Lakeland Herdwick
    Orkney beef
    Orkney lamb
    Scotch beef
    Scotch lamb
    Shetland lamb
    Traditional farmfresh turkey
    Welsh Beef
    Welsh lamb
    West Country Lamb
    West Country Beef

Fruit and Vegetables
    Armagh Bramleys
    Jersey Royal potatoes
    Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb

Spices (final)

More than you ever wanted to know about brassicas, which include mustard, horseradish, wasabi, rapeseed, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, radish, and cabbage. 

• Mustard comes from three plants: black mustard, brown Indian mustard, and white mustard. (Not sure why it's called white mustard when both the flowers and seeds are yellow.)
• The earliest reference to mustard is from India in the 5th century BCE. When a mother loses her only son, she takes his body to the Buddha to find a cure. The Buddha asks her to bring a handful of mustard seeds from a family that has never lost a child, husband, parent or friend. When the mother is unable to find such a house in her village, she realizes that death is common to all, and she cannot be selfish in her grief.  (Mustard seeds are also mentioned in the New Testament and the Quran.)
• The Romans mixed grape juice (known as "must") with ground mustard seeds (called sinapis) to make mustum ardens — "burning must" — hence "must ard"
• Dijon, France, became recognized for mustard by the 13th century. In 1777, one of the most famous Dijon mustard makers, Maurice Grey, started making mustard with white wine, called Grey-Poupon.  It was the first mustard to use automatic machines.
• The use of mustard on hot dogs was first seen at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, when the bright-yellow French's mustard was introduced.  (George French actually thought of his mustard as a salad dressing.)  The bright yellow is from turmeric.
  
• Powdered mustard lacks any potency; it must be soaked in water to develop its heat.
• Mustard does not need to be refrigerated, but will retain its flavor and spiciness much longer if it is.
• Horseradish is poisonous to horses.  (Oh, the irony.)
• In the west, wasabi is often referred to as "Japanese horseradish." In Japan, horseradish is referred to as "western wasabi."  Wasabi and horseradish are different species.
• Wasabi is difficult to cultivate, which makes it quite expensive, so a common substitute is a mixture of horseradish, mustard, starch and green food coloring.  Real wasabi is darker and more coarse than the powder-made paste, and isn't nearly so astringent and head-searing.
  
• Rapeseed oil was produced in the 19th century as a lubricant for steam engines, but was not used for food because of its bitter taste and contained more than 50% erucic acid, a known toxin. Varieties were developed with a better taste and less than 2% erucic acid.  One strain, bred in the 1970s at the University of Manitoba, Canada, was labelled "Can.O., L-A." for Canadian Oilseed, Low-Acid.  The name was trademarked, but soon become generic (like Xerox, Kleenex, and Band-Aid).
  
• In 1998, a disease- and drought-resistant strain of canola was produced by genetic engineering. In 2011, 96% of canola crops were genetically modified.
  
• The noun rape comes from the Latin word "rapum," meaning turnip. The verb rape comes from the French raper, "to seize, abduct,"
• The rapeseed blossom is a major source of nectar for honeybees.  The state of Oregon prohibits it from being grown in three counties for fear it will attract wild bees away from crops such as carrots, which require bees for pollination.
  

Spices (cont.)

• Black peppercorns are actually the cooked and dried fruit (with seed) of a flowering vine. White pepper are the seeds with the fruit removed.  (Salt is a mineral, not a spice.)
  
• in the Victorian era, the term "pepper" become synonymous with "spirit" but has since been shortened to "pep" (as in a pep talk).  When Christopher Columbus first encountered spicy fruits in the New World, he called them "peppers" after the spice.
  
• Paprika is made by drying and grinding bell peppers or chili peppers.  Cayenne pepper is the same.  Chili powder is usually a mixture of paprika and other spices.
• Carobs are a legume, like peas, and the seeds -- known as locust beans for some reason -- are used as animal feed, while the pods are dried and crushed to make an imitation chocolate.  Locust bean gum is often used as a thickening agent in food.
  
• The term "carat" is from an ancient practice in the Middle East of weighing gold and gemstones against the seeds of the carob tree.  In late Roman times, the pure gold coin known as the "solidus" weighed 24 carat seeds (about 4.5 grams). As a result, the carat also became a measure of purity for gold. Thus 24-carat gold means 100% pure, while 18-carat gold means the alloy contains 75% gold
• Celery seeds are actually the fruit of the plant. In the UK, a different variety of celery is also grown for its root, which is called celeriac and is used in the same way as celery stalks but lasts much longer.
• Chicory roots are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute or additive, especially in New Orleans. Other varieties of chicory are grown for their leaves, and are known as Radicchio or Belgian endive.
• Dill seeds are what create dill pickles. (Duh.)  Pickling is a method of preserving food by storing it in an acid solution, such as vinegar, and adding antimicrobial herbs and spices, such as mustard seed, garlic, cinnamon or cloves.* (I should note that the term "pickle" is actually a 16th century Dutch word meaning brine; before that, a pickle was a mixture of fruits, vegetables, and spices served as an accompaniment.)
  
• The flowers of Sambucus nigra are used to produce elderflower cordial, very popular in the UK.
• The phytochemicals responsible for the sharp flavor of garlic are produced when the plant's cells are damaged, and are a defense mechanism to deter animals from eating the plant. (Oh, the irony...)
• Traditionally, safflower was grown for its seeds, used for colouring and flavouring foods, and making red and yellow dyes. Safflower dyes have been identified in Egypt c. 2000 BCE. It is only in the last fifty years the plant has been cultivated mainly for vegetable oil.
• The use of marshmallow to make a sweet dates back to ancient Egypt. The stem was peeled back to reveal the soft and spongy pith, which was boiled in sugar syrup and dried to produce a soft, chewy confection.  In the early 19th century, French confectioners extracted the marshmallow sap and whipped it with sugar to make a confection similar to modern marshmallow. In the late 19th century, French manufacturers began using egg whites or gelatin, along with corn starch, to create the chewy base.  In 1948 an American patented a fully automated machine to make marshmallows which extruded them into cylindrical shapes. Since gelatin is made from animal collagen, most marshmallows are not vegetarian.
• Annatto is extracted from the flesh around the seed of the achiote trees. (Think pomegranate seeds.) This yellow to orange food coloring is used in cheese (e.g., Cheddar, Velveeta), and margarine.  In the 16th century, high levels of carotene in the grass during the summer months would have given the milk an orange color which was carried through into the cheese. This orange hue was regarded as an indicator of the best cheese, so inferior cheese was dyed with annatto. In the UK, yellow cheese is now considered inferior.
• Oil from the dried root bark of the sassafras tree was a primary ingredient in root beer until the FDA banned it as carcinogenic.  Today, however, it is a precursor for the manufacture of MDMA (ecstasy).
• Turmeric is a rhizome, like ginger, and in fact they are part of the same family. (Cardamom is part of the same family, but it is the seeds that are used.)
• For longer-term storage, ginger can be placed in a plastic bag and refrigerated or frozen.
• After saffron, the most expensive spices by weight today are vanilla and cardamom.

Badger cull

After 4 years in England I've still not seen a live badger (although I've seen quite a few roadkill) and if the government has its way, I may never see one.

That's because badgers carry bovine tuberculosis, and last year 26,000 cattle in England had to be slaughtered after contracting the disease.

A nine-year trial showed the spread of the disease could be slowed *slightly* if more than 70% of badgers in an area were eradicated. But it also found that if less than 70% were killed, the spread of TB could *increase*. (I don't understand it, I'm just reporting it.)

The alternative is to vaccinate the badgers, which is only 50% to 60% effective. The Welsh government opted to vaccinate while the English decided to cull. (Scotland is officially TB-free.)

Needless to say, there was a huge public outcry against the cull, leading to at least two years (and no doubt millions of taxpayer pounds) in legal challenges, but the court finally gave the go-ahead this year in two counties.

Except now there's a problem: It appears badger numbers are higher in Gloucestershire and Somerset than previously thought. A government spokesman said, "It would be wrong to go ahead if those on the ground cannot be confident of removing at least 70% of the population."

Brian May, guitarist for Queen who has campaigned against the cull, said, "Let's be very clear: this is a scientifically flawed, ethically reprehensible, economically unjustifiable and reckless policy that needs to be abandoned, once and for all."

The government insists it will do the cull next year.

Spices

I recently had the pleasure of home-made chai tea: Tea with cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and fennel seeds. It was delicious, but it was also the first time I'd used cinnamon sticks, and it was pretty obvious it was...tree bark. That got me reading about other spices, and some interesting facts:

• A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetative substance primarily used for flavouring, colouring or preserving food.  (Herbs are the leaves.)
• The spice trade was always lucrative, and made many port cities (such as Venice and Alexandria) exceedingly rich.  In the 15th century, the Europeans sought to circumvent the normal land routes, driving the trans-global sailings (and incidentally, the discovery of the New World).
• The Maluku (or "Spice") islands in Indonesia originally accounted for all nutmeg and clove trees in the world.  In Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries, cloves were worth their weight in gold.
• So valuable was nutmeg during the 16th century, the Dutch traded their interest in the New World with one of the Spice Islands from the British, to gain a monopoly on nutmeg trees. (The British promptly renamed "New Amsterdam" to "New York.")
• In the 17th century, The French and British both smuggled nutmeg seeds from the Spice Islands to their colonies in Mauritius and Granada and started successful plantations, bringing prices down significantly.
  
• Like most nut tress, the nutmeg fruit consists of a casing (or "rind") which encloses the nutmeg seed.  In addition, the seed has a reddish lave covering, which is mace. (See photo.)
• Cloves are the dried flower buds of an evergreen tree.
  
• Apiaceae is a group of aromatic plants with hollow stems, and includes anise, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, coriander/cilantro, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, parsley, and parsnip.
• In the UK, coriander refers to the leaves or seeds of Coriandrum sativum. Cilantro is the Spanish word for coriander. However, the US has confused the two, and refers to the leaves as cilantro and the seeds as coriander.  The plant is native to the Near East and southern Europe.
• The ancient Greeks kept ground cumin at the dining table, much like pepper is today
• Caraway "seeds" are actually its fruit.
• Licorice (UK "liquorice")  is the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra plant, which is a legume (related to beans and peas). In the US, only "black licorice" is made from licorice extract; red licorice isn't licorice at all.
• Cinnamon is obtained from the inner bark of several trees. "True cinnamon" is native to Sri Lanka; however, the more common cinnamon is from the cassia tree, also known as "Chinese cinnamon."  Cinnamon bark is one of the few spices that can be consumed directly.
• Allspice is the dried unripe berries of Pimenta dioica, . The English thought it combined the flavour of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
• Chocolate is produced from the fermented seed of the cacao tree, native to Mexico, and has been cultivated since 1100 BC. (Unfortunately the Aztecs didn't know about sugar.)  Today Western Africa produces almost two-thirds of the world's cocoa, with the Ivory Coast growing almost half of it.
• In the 19th century, John Cadbury developed an emulsification process to make solid chocolate, creating the modern chocolate bar.
• Vanilla is derived from an orchid, primarily from Mexica, which the Aztecs also cultivated.
• Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus. Each crocus bears up to four flowers, and each flower has three stigmas, which are then dried. Today, Iran accounts for 90% of the world production of saffron. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world.
• Coffee is made from the roasted seeds of the Coffea plant. Coffee's energizing effect was probably first discovered in Ethiopia, but coffee cultivation first took place in southern Arabia.  The first evidence of coffee drinking in the 15th century.
• Fenugreek seeds are often used in Indian food, but also for flavoring artificial maple syrup.
  

Diamond Jubilee city

Last year I mentioned Reading (pop 370,000) was a town, not a city. That's because in the UK, the title of 'city' is an honorific given by the Crown, and has nothing to do with population size. In fact, one city has less than 2,000 residents! For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, 3 towns were given city status, one in England, Wales, and Scotland. Sadly, Reading was not selected; Chelmsford (pop. 120,000), in Essex, was. It will likely be many years before the opportunity comes up again; the last time was in 2002 for the Queen's Golden Jubilee.

By the way, London is not a city, but it contains two of them: the City of London (pop. 7,000) and City of Westminster (pop.108,000)
If you want to understand more about this bizarre situation, watch this fantastic video:

-our

As you know, words like colour, flavour, harbour, honour, humour, labour, neighbour, rumour are spelled differently in the US and the UK.  Oddly, most of these words were spelled -or or -ur until 1066, at which point the French Normans changed the spelling to -our.  Of course, that was 500 years before Columbus re-discovered the Americas, so it is only coincidence that Americans switched back to the "original" spelling, and primarily due to Noah Webster whose 1828 dictionary was less a reflection of current spelling and more a political statement about becoming distinct from the English empire.

Of course, it isn't so simple.  Words like contour, velour, paramour and troubadour retain the u in the US, while words like chancellor, ambassador, emperor, governor, inferior, error, horror, mirror, tenor, terror, and tremor have lost the u in the UK.  America keeps the u in glamour but not in glamorous. Saviour is common in the US. Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it as it was named after Captain Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour. 

In the UK, the u is kept in neighbourhood, favourite, and honourable but dropped in honorary, invigorate, and laborious. The u is kept in  humourless but dropped in humorous.  Pearl Harbor is spelled without a u in Britain. "Savory" is an herb similar to sage, and is spelled the same in the US and UK, but the adjective savoury and verb savour have a u in the UK. An arbor (tree) is different than arbour (shelter).

Most interesting of all, though, is that honor is used at the end of the United States Declaration of Independence, even though the US was a colony and long before Webster had his say:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

However, it seems to be a typo--in Jefferson's original draft it is spelled honour!

(Thanks, Wikipedia -- or is it Wikipædia?)

More English expressions

I haven't done this for awhile, although I should--Even four years on, I still hear new phrases, and if I don't write them down I will forget them.  So new phrases I've heard in the past week:

"Good innings" (as in "he had a good innings") -- a long and good life.  (In cricket, as in baseball, an "innings" is the time one team is at bat.)

"Hang fire" (as in "hang fire until tomorrow") -- the delay between pulling the trigger and the bullet firing.  Generally, this delay is not noticeable, but if there is a problem with the powder then it might be a few seconds -- just long enough for someone to open the gun and get a shattered bullet to the face.  This expression just means to wait for a while.

damp squib (as in, "Well that was a damp squib") -- a squib is a small explosive, similar to dynamite, that miners used to break coal from the rock.  If it got wet, it wouldn't ignite--hence a "damp squib" is anything that doesn't meet expectations. More interestingly, however, is that the film industry started using squibs to simulate explosions, and then switched to compressed gas as it was safer -- but referred to that as a "squib" as well.  Now squib is  a term for anything that expels gas quickly -- including the mechanism is an air bag. :-)

In a fug -- almost self-explanatory, a "fug" is a hot, stale, or suffocating atmosphere, and "in a fug" is feeling poorly.

totally chocka -- from the term "chock-a-block" meaning completely full.  (I love when idioms give rise to other idioms.)  While its origins are unclear, "chock" seems to come from the term "choke" and was used to indicate when a port was so full, nobody could move. The "block" refers to block and tackle, when a sail was raised to its fullest extent there was no more free rope and the blocks would jam tightly together.

Compassion fatigue -- Not an British expression at all, I first heard this one from Aung San Suu Kyi, and means "a gradual lessening of compassion over time." It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s.

Guy Clark

I've been a big fan of Guy Clark ever since I heard his song, "LA Freeway" on (of all things) NPR.
... Adios to all this concrete.
Gonna get me some dirt road back street
If I can just get off of this LA freeway
Without getting killed or caught....

Another song of his, "Desperados waitin' for a train," started to resonate as my uncle got older, and now I have a hard time listening to it:

... I played the Red River Valley 
He'd sit in the kitchen and cry 
Run his fingers through seventy years of livin'...

I was 25 and my uncle was 69 the first time I went to see him. He was living in a small apartment with my aunt and a large dog named Jacque, had $11,000 in credit card debt, a part-time job as a security guard, and was almost completely deaf, but he was family.

... We were friends, me and this old man 
He's an old school man of the world 
And our lives was like some old Western movie 
Like desperados waitin' for a train...

Ok, so Guy Clark is not grammatically correct, but my uncle and I became good friends. After I got him a computer, I think I got an email every day for 10 years, and when he learned how to play Scrabble online he became a monster. Between visiting Dawn's mom and my uncle, that was our two weeks of vacation every year.
 
... One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty 
He's got brown tobacco stains all down his chin 
Well to me he was a hero of this country 
So why's he all dressed up like them old men...

Thankfully, my uncle stopped smoking before I met him, and he was much too sophisticated to ever chew tobacco. He never dressed like an old man, although his shoes did become more 'comfortable' as the years progressed. He also had a (reasonably) full head of hair when he died, which gives me some hope. He liked to wear shirts that said things like, "In dog years, I'm dead" but since I gave him the shirt, I couldn't complain.

... The day 'fore he died I went to see him 
I was grown and he was almost gone.
So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen 
And sang one more verse to that old song...

I loved my uncle more than I could ever express, but I had to live my own life. After I got divorced, he often suggested I come live with him, and I probably would have if he lived anywhere other than the American South. I wanted him to move to California to be closer to my family, but of course he was too old to change. (In the end, I didn't give him a choice, but he didn't stay very long.)

There are many things that remind me of my uncle, not least of which are four pictures I took from his home and hung in mine; a hat and raincoat he gave me when I moved to England; any jazz music (especially Chris Barber); his WWII medals; Scrabble. But the Guy Clark song seems to sum it up perfectly: 16 years of two people, separated by time and distance, like desperados waiting for a train...

Wheat is delicious

That's it, that's all I had to say. Until you stop eating it--or try substituting for it--you don't really appreciate it. I always assumed people started eating it because it was easy to store, not because it tasted good, but it really does. Plus the gluten makes it so incredibly flexible, no wonder why--5,000 years later--it's still a staple crop! Amazing.

Of course none of that means it's actually fit for human consumption, so I am still avoiding it, though I'm not freaking out if it's the only thing available. ("Better wheat than meat" is my motto.)

Now the next step is to start a fasting diet, eating less than 500 calories two days per week and normally on the other five. Having just enjoyed (?) a 25-hour fast over Yom Kippur, I know I can handle it, especially as you're allowed to drink and eat small portions. It's just a question of getting started and sticking to it, two things I've always found challenging.

Day of atonement

Today is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, when you are to 'afflict' yourself by not eating or drinking, bathing or anointing, or wearing leather. More importantly, you are to recognize the wrongs you've created over the past year, and try to make them right. And lastly, many Jews spend the entire day in synagogue, some praying, some just socializing, most just being in the company of people as miserable as themselves. If you can imagine a room full of people who haven't showered or eaten in 24 hours, some would say that was atonement enough.

Looking back over the past 12 months, I have wronged some of the women I've dated, usually by ending the conversation without any explanation. I've often ignored the Sabbath, even though it was one of the most compelling reasons for converting.

But what I'm really sorry for is neglecting my mom, my whole family, and all of my friends. This is what I need to atone for.

Shana tova

Rosh Hashana is always celebrated on the first day of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar.  Why, then, did it occur on September 28 last year, and September 16 this year?  That's because the Jewish year is a modified lunar calendar, with each month corresponding to a lunar cycle, and every 2-3 years a "leap month" is added to adjust for the solar cycle. 

Now, even back then a clever clog could have calculated when the "leap month" would need to be included, and they could have planned for it, but of course that's not the way they did it.  Instead, they waited until Adar was finished, and then checked the ripeness of barley, fruits of trees, and the equinox.  If two of these were lacking (i,e. it wasn't spring yet) then the month of Adar became a "do over."  I'm not kidding--Adar becomes Adar I (with 30 days) and Adar II (with 29 days)!  That keeps the holidays in approximately the right season.

Now that I've told you all that, I should mention it has nothing to do with Judaism -- it was developed in Mesopotamia, and the Jews inherited it from the Babylonians.

Last October I mentioned Rosh Hashanah was defined in the bible as a day to rest and listen to horn blasts.  Somehow along the way that became defined as the new year for vegetables (as opposed to the new year for kings, animals, or trees) which then became defined as the day to advance the year; in other words, the new year for people (sort of).  Rosh Hashanah literally means, "head of the year" and it wlll be 5773 on Sunday evening.

And like every Jewish holiday, it involves community, prayer, and a meal.  We will eat apple dipped in honey (to symbolize a sweet year), greet each other with "shana tova" (literally, "good year"), and cast our sins into the water (actually, we throw bread into the river, but it's the symbolism that's important). 

And as with every major Jewish holiday, we shall light candles, drink wine, and eat bread before the meal. If that sounds familiar, it's because it is done every Friday night; the weekly shabbat meal is just as important (if not more so) in Jewish life as the once-a-year celebrations.  And I think that's beautiful.

So I wish you all shana tova -- or more specifically, Le'shana Tova Tikoteiv Vetichoteim which means "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year." It is believed that on Rosh Hashanah God starts to compile a "naughty" and "nice" list (where have you heard this before?) but leaves the books open for ten days until Yom Kippur, at which time they (and your fate for the year) are sealed.  It is a time for reflection, for apologizing, and for rectifying the wrongs of the year.

My regrets, as always, are not spending more time with the people I love.

Fireworks

If you don't mind sitting through a 10 minute video, the Thames festival fireworks were quite spectacular:

Radio silence

My aunt passed away June 15, and my uncle July 20.  It's been over a month now, and I really haven't been able to deal with it.  Of course I've carried on, as one does, but my heart hasn't been in it.  I sleep a lot, eat too much, and rarely go out.  Work has suffered, my social life has died, and I really haven't spoken with anyone.  I know at some point I'll snap out of it; I just didn't expect it to last so long.

Possibly it's because I haven't marked my uncle's death. My mother held a small service in California, but finances precluded me from attending.  My cousin plans to scatter their ashes in autumn, so hopefully I'll be able to be there and find some closure, but I don't know when that will happen. 

A lot has happened in the past two months, not least of which was the Olympics, but also Edinburgh, Liverpool, my friends Ellen and Jim, Derren Brown, Paul Simon, my new phone, security at the synagogue, etc. and I know I should at least acknowledge them, but I just don't have anything left in me. I did write about my uncle, but even that took such tremendous effort, and took me days to finish.

I'll end this with something my uncle said near the end: "I've been around a long time and I've learned that the only affairs that matter are affairs of the heart."  My uncle and I took completely different routes through life, so it's amazing we both arrived at the same conclusion.

Hampton Court Flower Show

Rant of the day

It's 7am and I'm standing in a Walmart in Georgia, blinking sleep from my eyes, my hair matted on one side, looking at pills.

Everyone knows how much I hate Walmart, because of their predatory nature, forcing out small businesses and leaving themselves as the only store in town. Which is why I'm standing in a Walmart.

As for the pills, vitamins are extraordinarily expensive in the UK. I have no idea why that is, but as a result I stock up whenever I am in the States. Today I need slo-niacin, alpha lipoic acid, hydrocortisone, and multivitamins. Then I remember I have no money.

I have two US credit cards, one of which I accidentally left in the UK, and the other I've discovered has been cancelled for 'lack of use.' In addition, Wells Fargo started charging for a checking account so, after 20 years with them, I closed that account and moved my money to ING. Except ING sent my debit card to my mother, who has not sent it to me.

I do have some cash but it would be foolish to spend it on my first day in Georgia, so I will have to come back to Walmart next week.

I get back in the car and listen to NPR discussing Obama's new immigration plan, which I think is long overdue. Of course, this being the South, they trot out a long line of white, middle class racists to give 'balance' to the story. That doesn't bother me--it's du rigeur--but what gets me very upset is to find the state of Georgia has long held a policy of preventing children of illegal immigrants from attending the five most prestigious universities in the state, regardless of merit! I want to scream at the radio. They interview a chancellor who is desperately trying to defend the indefensible, claiming that since the schools are part funded by the taxpayer, that is why they need to keep out immigrants. (Um...easy answer to that is to tax the immigrants. Oh, but you can't do that because you made them 'illlegal'...)

Worse, he is trying to find a loophole in the President's new order so they can continue discriminati--I mean, defending the taxpayer. I really don't know what is wrong with people.

Meanwhile, of course, NPR interviewed several Latinos with perfect grade point averages who were denied places at university because of their 'documentation status' and their stories are heartbreaking. These are smart, hard working kids pushed down so that white, middle class, less-qualified students can attend. Go USA.

And you wonder why I live in England. They have a lot of problems and do a lot of stupid things, but denying people an education is not one of them.

Oh wait, the UK just introduced a £9000/year fee, ensuring most minorities and lower class students will be excluded from the university system, while ironically *increasing* the cost on the taxpayer (through financing) of sending white, middle class students to university.

So I'll shut up now.

Lake District photos

http://goo.gl/YIhET

I don't know what it is about nature that is so restorative but I have to wonder why, when such beautiful places exist, do we live where we do?

Which, of course, begs the question: Perhaps the places we live used to be just as beautiful...

Ambling in Ambleside

If I told you I came here because of a vegetarian restaurant, you would not be surprised.

If I told you I left with the most profound sense of peace and serenity, you might be.

"Here" is Ambleside, at the north end of Lake Windemere, the largest lake in England, in the middle of the "lake district."  It's easy to see why the area is so wet -- hilly terrain on the western edge of England soaks up moisture blowing off the Atlantic like a sponge. They had some torrential rain just before I arrived, and everywhere I went water was flowing -- down paths, through walls.

I am here because my work requires me to do a presentation at a hospital nearby.  Normally they have me travelling Tuesday through Thursday, so I never get an opportunity to "extend" my travels, but in this case the client requested Monday morning, which meant I had to come up the night before, which meant I came up the day before that.  A weekend in the Lake District for £80 is not bad.

Taking the train through the countryside, I couldn't believe it had taken me four years before returning.  And I say "returning" because I actually was in Ambleside 9 years ago, although then I didn't get off the boat.

It was 2003 when Dawn and I did a 2-week whirlwind tour of England.  We had taken the train but at a connecting junction, I managed to get on the train going the wrong way.  I realised it right away, but it was 20 minutes to the next station, a 2 hour wait for the next train, and another 40 minutes to get back to the Windemere.  By the time we got to the lake, the last ferry of the day was leaving, so we took a round-trip tour and then left.

So it was with a certain sense of accomplishment that I actually get off the boat today, even though I had no idea why I was there or what was to do.  I hadn't done any research, had no itinerary, the only thing I had was a note of the vegetarian restaurant, although I had no idea where I'd heard about it.  So I set off on the 1-mile hike into town to find the restaurant (like most of the restaurants there) did not open until 5:30pm.  The last ferry left at 5:40pm.  Clearly this was not meant to be.

Fortunately, I'd bought some carrot sticks and hummus at the local shop, along with a bottle of water, so I had a reasonably healthy meal.  There was a church spire nearby so I followed that; at the church there was a sign for a park so I followed that; past the park there was a road that followed a stream into the hills, so I followed that.

Now I have to mention I was listening to music, and obviously music has an influence on your mood.  That last time I had a perfect moment was in 2001 or 2002, driving through the Colorado Rockies. I had just purchased the soundtrack to the "Lord of the Rings" movie, and the music was haunting, which really accentuated the raw and rugged nature of the mountains.

Today I was listening to a CD I bought last week in celebration of the Queen's diamond jubilee.  It had a number of patriotic songs such as Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia, plus songs associated with the monarchy including the national anthem (God Save the Queen) and Zadok the Priest (the coronation anthem).  I didn't actually choose this music, it just happened to be playing on my mp3 player, and the combination of walking through such beautiful countryside and listening to such overwhelming music, and feeling such pride in this adopted country of mine, After all the bad news I've gotten over the past three weeks, it just helped me put everything in perspective, to find what was important, and to release all of the stress I'd been feeling.  It was amazing.

It was also short-lived.  My mp3 player is my phone, as is my sat nav, and the battery died just as I decided to turn around and head back. I didn't bring a map, I had no idea where I was, and every time I came to a fork I was literally scouring the area for clues as to which way I'd come.  Amazingly, I did make it make all right, although looking at a map later I realised I could have taken a much more direct route.

No matter, the ferry was pulling up just as I arrived, so I bought a cup of tea and relaxed for the 35-minute boat ride, know when I got to Bowness I would have to walk 1.5 miles uphill to the train station.

I even lucked out there--the train runs every hour, but I only had to wait 10 minutes. When I got back to Kendal, it was only a 1 mile walk to the hotel, but I had other ideas.

The night before, I had walked through the town center which was all pretty sleepy (on a summer Saturday!)  except for a Chinese takeway that was packed.  I thought to myself, "They must be very good" although in retrospect I should have said, "They must be very good or very cheap."  As I paid £8 for three dishes, I should have known.

They also didn't give me any utensils, so I was using my fingers to munch on fried tofu (or 'beancurd' as they like to call it) as I walked through a park, over a footbridge, down several side streets, and up a footpath to my destination: the ruins of Kendal castle, on top of a hill and overlooking the valley.  There I sat on the grass, enjoying the solitude and the sun that had just started to poke through the clouds, and using my fingers to eat sweet and sour vegetables and rice.  That's when a bus-load of Chinese tourists arrived.  I think they actually approved of the way I was eating.

When finished, I laid back in the grass and closed my eyes.  A moment later I was woken by a small black dog licking the sweet and source sauce off the corners of my lips.  The owner was suitably horrified and came running over, but by this time the dog had discovered the bits of rice that had dropped into my lap, and was now burrowing into my crotch.

As the dog was carried away, I decided to get going as well.  It was trying to leave a different way than I had come, and got lost a couple of times, but finally found the exit and got back on the right road, which took me back to the hotel.  I calculated I had walked 12 miles that day, and could definitely feel it in my thighs.

Tomorrow should be an easy day--someone else is doing the bulk of the presentation; I'm just eye candy--and we should be done by 2pm.  I even brought a DVD to watch on my laptop on the train ride home.

Pictures should be posted on Tuesday, and I definitely won't let another nine years lapse before I return.  In fact, someone recommended a B&B in the area but it's a "self-catering" service that you rent by the week, with a minimum of 2 people.  That is just another incentive to find someone I want to spend time with...

Sugar highs

So I've talked about the myths of protein and energy, and how your body creates energy, but I've had a very difficult time understanding the relationship between food and energy.  And I just realised that's because I've been asking the wrong question; the right question is, what's the relationship between food and your brain?

I've talked about the sugar cycle -- how your body breaks down food into simple sugars, putting them into your bloodstream with oxygen for the mitochondria to convert to energy (the "krebs cycle") -- but that doesn't explain why you have an "energy boost" when you eat pure sugar.  Anyone can tell you it's because the sugar is easily absorbed into your bloodstream, creating a "sugar high."  Of course, they'd be dead wrong.

They would be correct in that your blood-sugar level will spike, which in turns causes the pancreas to release insulin, which tells cells to absorb the sugar and convert it into glycogen or triglycerides for storage.  (Type I diabetics don't produce the insulin, and Type II diabetics don't respond to insulin; either way it is a problem because sugar molecules are larger than blood capillaries, and so if they aren't removed quickly, the capillaries will burst.)

However, the blood-sugar spike has nothing whatsoever to do with the "energy boost"!!  Your brain, through evolution, has been hard-wired to reward you for eating certain types of foods, notably the ones that have historically been difficult to find in nature: fat, salt, sugar.  So while your body is dealing with a physiological response to sugar, your brain is producing endorphins as a reward for eating it!  Those endorphins give you that "high" but are all too quickly absorbed, which then causes a "crash."  But this only has to do with your mood, and nothing to do with your body's energy level!

If you eat low-GI foods (ie. complex carbohydrates that take longer to break down, and thus don't increase your "glycemic index" level dramatically), you will be doing your body a favor because it won't be having to deal with the sugar spike, and it won't be storing all those sugars.  However, your brain isn't going to reward you for eating those foods -- thus you don't experience the mental highs (and lows), either.

Caffeine (and other stimulants) are another kettle of fish.  Although you may feel your body's physiological response -- increased heart rate, nervous jitters -- you are actually messing with your brain, because caffeine binds to adenosine receptors.  Adenosine is produced when brain cells fire, and it inhibits brain cells from firing--that is, it's part of your body's natural feedback system to keep your brain from become overexcited, and is also part of your sleep cycle. Caffeine blocks the adenosine, allowing your brain cells to continue firing.  However, while caffeine may make you feel sharper and smarter, measurable performance is not greatly improved!  As someone put it, it's not so much putting your foot on the gas as taking your foot off the brake.

For reasons that aren't yet clear to me, the over-stimulated nerve cells then release the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline), which is part of the "stress response" (or fight-or-flight response) which increases heart rate, blood pressure, and blood flow to muscles, decreases blood flow to the skin and organs, and causes the liver to release glucose, all in preparation for the body to use energy in a short outburst. That's fine if you're about to fight somebody (or do a heavy workout), but not so much if you're going to go sit at your desk and make a phone call.  I've been reading lately about Dr. Bruce Ames' "triage" theory of aging -- that is, your body's response to short-term survival is at the expense of long-term health. That makes sense at an evolutionary level, but when we deliberately induce a short-term survival mechanism, 3 or 4 times per day, you really do have to wonder what the long-term health indications are.

So to summarise, unless you are actually starving and have 0% body fat, there is no link between food and your body's energy level.  Your body is wonderfully efficient at maintaining a consistent energy consumption (your metabolic rate), just as it maintains a constant body temperature, only making short-term adjustments to deal with specific threats.  On the other hand, your mind is a mess.  It's a chemical soup of producers and receptors for a host of chemicals, all of which impact the way you feel from one moment to the next. For millennia, it's had to deal with a shortage of food; it hasn't adapted to deal with a surplus.  That's why it encourages you to eat a Big Mac even though you already have plenty of fat stores!

The good news is, it can be trained.  Dr Kessler, who tried to bring cigarettes under the auspices of the FDA, has written a book called, "The End of Overeating."  In it he compares health attitudes towards cigarettes, going from "sexy and glamorous" to now "foul and disgusting," even though nicotine has a similar effect on the brain to caffeine.  He suggests that in the right cultural climate, we can do the same to fast food, thinking of it less as a "reward" and more as something you wouldn't want to do to your body.

Of course, just like cigarettes, this will take time and discipline.  And unlike cigarettes, the long-term results aren't so obvious.  However, it will be a glorious day when Big Macs actually carry cigarette-style warning labels: "Eating this product will make you fat, increase your cholesterol level, cause mood swings, sexual dysfunction,  depression, lethargy, headaches, and heart palpitations."

Remaining Olympics tickets

Can I be bothered with any of these? :-(

Sunday 29 July 09:00-10:40

Archery

Women's Team 1/8 Eliminations

Lord's Cricket

£65.00 - A

18:00-22:00

Table Tennis

Women's Singles Third Round

ExCeL

£85.00 - A

20:00-23:30

Volleyball

Men's Preliminary Round (2 Matches)

Earls Court

£45/55/65

Monday 30 July 09:00-12:55

Archery

Men's Individual 1/32 Eliminations Women's Individual 1/32 Eliminations

Lord's Cricket

£65.00 - A

10:30-16:00

Fencing

Women's Epee Individual Quarterfinals

ExCeL

£65.00 - A

15:00-17:40

Archery

Men's Individual 1/16 Eliminations Women's Individual 1/16 Eliminations

Lord's Cricket

£65.00 - A

15:30-17:30

Table Tennis

Women's Singles Fourth Round

ExCeL

£85.00 - A

Tuesday  31 July 09:00-12:55

Archery

Men's Individual 1/16 Eliminations Women's Individual 1/16 Eliminations

Lord's Cricket

£65.00 - A

15:00-17:40

Archery

Men's Individual 1/16 Eliminations Women's Individual 1/16 Eliminations

Lord's Cricket

£65.00 - A

Thursday 02 Aug 09:00-10:45

Archery

Women's Individual 1/8 Eliminations

Lord's Cricket

£45/£65

09:00-16:30

Fencing

Women's Foil Team Semifinals

ExCeL

£65.00 - A

Friday 03 Aug 10:00-13:00

Table Tennis

Women's Team First Round

ExCeL

£85.00 - A

Baking powder

This is kind of interesting...if you've ever mixed baking soda and vinegar, you know it explodes in a frothy mess.  Well, that's essentially what baking powder does, only instead of vinegar it uses "acid salts" which don't react with the baking soda...until you add water.

edited from Wikipedia:

Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods. It works by releasing carbon dioxide gas into a batter or dough, causing bubbles in the wet mixture to expand. It is used instead of yeast where the batter lacks the elastic structure to hold gas bubbles. Breads made by chemical leavening are called "quick breads" because the process is faster than fermentation.

Baking soda is the source of the carbon dioxide; when mixed with acid salts and water it produces a chemical reaction. "Fast-acting" acids (such as cream of tartar and monocalcium phosphate) work at room temperature, while "slow-acting" acids (sodium aluminum sulfate or sodium aluminum phosphate) will not react until heated in an oven. Baking powders that contain both fast- and slow-acting acids are called "double acting" because they providing a second rise in the oven, thus making baking time less critical.

The inert starch (usually cornflour) is primarily used to absorb moisture, and thus keep the alkaline and acidic components from reacting prematurely.

Before baking powder, people mixed baking soda with an acid such as sour milk, vinegar, lemon juice, or cream of tartar, which all reacted quickly so the batter had to be baked quickly before the gas escaped. Alfred Bird, a chemist, invented baking powder because he wanted to make bread for his wife, who was allergic to yeast.  (She was also allergic to eggs, so he made Bird's custard.)

So that was quite interesting, but then made me wonder anew about the underlying chemistry.  My high school chemistry teacher would be quite proud of me, if it weren't for the fact that I was 25 years late in wondering about these things.

In pure water, there is an equal number of hydroxide (OH) and hydronium (H3O) ions, which is 10⁻⁷ moles per liter.  The important thing there is the "7" which is why water has a pH ("power of hydrogen") of 7.  If a substance has fewer hydrogen ions (pH < 7) it is an "acid" whereas if it has more (pH > 7) then it is "base."  (Alkaline -- as in batteries -- refers to a set of metals that are naturally base.)  When the two are mixed, a chemical reaction occurs to transfer the excess hydrogen from the acid to the base, which is (for obvious reasons) referred to as "neutralisation."  Depending on the substances, this can be quite a violent reaction.  In the case of baking soda and vinegar, the two end-products are carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), which is why it bubbles.

Why do you need to know this?  Well, if you keep fish, you have to know that some prefer slightly acidic water, while others prefer slightly alkaline. Or if you want to know why your cake just fell, it might be helpful to understand what's going on at the molecular level.

Or if you read some nonsense about an acid/alkaline theory of disease, if might help you to understand why what they are saying is absurd.  (This article also explains why if you eat excess protein, your body excretes calcium as well, and why cranberries help prevent urinary tract infections.)

(By the way, this line of research started simply because I wanted to confirm that cornflour -- "cornstarch" to you Yanks -- didn't actually contain flour.  It doesn't.)

Oops

While I'm out and about, of course I use my phone to capture random thoughts, to do lists, etc.  I often just put these into emails to myself, so I can access them from my laptop.  I also use email to post entries to my blog, because my work doesn't allow me to access the blog site directly.  (Go figure.)  Unfortunately, yesterday the streams crossed* and I posted a really embarrassing entry, a near stream-of-consciousness list I made while waiting for my car tire to be replaced.  I've since removed the post, but if you saw it please purge it from your mind as well.

Thanks.

A short note to my younger self

To my 32-year-old self: In 10 years you'll be vegetarian, divorced, living in England, Jewish, wheat-free, broke and alone (mostly in that order), You'll also be listening to folk music and eating rice cakes.  However, you'll be happier and much more content with your life, you'll have known some wonderful women, and finally learned the importance of friends and family...so carry on.  You're doing something right.

P.S. Shave the mustache and don't even think of growing your hair long.

End of hell week

What a day! Up at 6 to get the train to Exeter, the client arrived an hour early so we didn't have any time to practice our presentation, and instead of staying 3 hours as planned, they stayed 6.  (From a sales perspective we must have done a good job, but coming the end of this week the last thing I wanted to do was talk to 10 strangers...)

I had security duty in Maidenhead tonight (of all nights), so I had to be there at 7:50. The trains from Exeter were hourly, and the last one I could take and get there in time was 5:03. Leaving nothing to chance, I called ahead and booked a taxi for 4:30, even though the train station was only 10 minutes away.

The taxi showed up at 4:54! The only reason I made it was the train was 1 minute late!  Unbelievable.

I got to Reading at 7 and had to leg it back to my house to get my car to leave by 7:20--the synagogue is 25 minutes away--only to find I had a flat tire!!

Assuming it was a slow leak (I hadn't driven the car in a week), I went to the nearby gas station and, after I paid 50p, discovered their air compressor didn't work! 

So I crawled--at 20mph--to the next gas station,*6 miles* away! That's when I discovered the first air compressor wasn't broken, I just didn't know how to use it. (The second pump was exactly the same but included directions, and after you paid you had to press a button to actually start pumping.)

In the middle of all this, I got a call from the girl I was infatuated with (and still am). When she told me she wasn't interested in dating, I suggested we be friends. Now she was calling to tell me she wasn't interested in being friends, either! Could this day get any worse? :-(

I did make it the synagogue--about 20 minutes late--but it wasn't a slow leak, and an hour later the tire was flat again. I couldn't be bothered to change it--I just pumped it up again and drove home. Tomorrow I'll take it to the shop and see how much damage I did...

But hell week is over! Well, almost--tomorrow, after I take care of the car, I'm going into London to meet a woman for coffee (first date), see some friends, and see the musical 'Ragtime.' It is at the 'open air theatre' so of course booking in advance in England is quite risky, but I really lucked out--it is supposed to be a fabulous weekend!

The week that wouldn't end

I knew this was going to be hell week.

Over the past several months, as events came up I bought tickets to things I was interested in, so it was completely coincidental that I ended up with three events in London this week.  (And nothing for two weeks before and after.)  That would have been fine, of course, except that all four of my projects -- that have been running me ragged over the past month -- suddenly needed me to be travelling this week!!

Tuesday I had to be in Sheffield, Wednesday in Coventry, Thursday in Manchester, and Friday in Exeter!  All of these were 2-3 hours from my home.  Again, that would have been fine -- I would have just stayed in hotels -- except that now I needed to travel back to London each night to attend these events!

I did catch two breaks -- the trip to Coventry was changed to a trip to London, and I was able to stay at my friend's hotel Wednesday night.  However, on Monday -- the one day I was allowed to work from home -- I got a call at 10am asking me to be in London for a meeting at noon!

The worst day was Tuesday, when I had to leave before 6am, and got home after 10pm.  The meeting in Sheffield was scheduled to last 3 hours, but it ended up lasting 8 hours, and we didn't even break for lunch!!

Friday I would have happily spent the night in Exeter and explored the British coast during the glorious sunshine we've been experiencing, but even that was thwarted--I had been tasked with security detail for my local synagogue!

So my goal is to simply survive this week, and rest next week -- I have absolutely nothing planned, and no travel scheduled!  I suspect by this time next week, I'll be complaining about how bored I am. :-)

Energy

So, having dispatched the myths around protein and energy, the question remains: Where does the body get its energy from?

The answer is the "Kreb's cycle" (or Citric Acid cycle) which I will simplify at a great loss of accuracy:

Each of your cells has several hundred to over two thousand mitochondria* inside of them, depending on their need for energy. For instance, heart cells and muscle cells may be up to 40% mitochondria. All together, your body has over one quadrillion mitochondria that are constantly producing energy. Approximately 90% of the oxygen you breathe will be used by your mitochondria.

Your body takes the sugar or fat molecule and breaks it down to smaller units of two carbons. Mitochondria then use oxygen to break down the carbon and strip off two electrons, creating carbon dioxide as a waste product.  The electrons, in a series of chemical reactions, are attached to a phosphate molecule, which is then attached to another molecule, changing adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to adenosine triphosphate (ATP). When your muscles need energy, this high-energy phosphate is stripped off the ATP, and it becomes ADP again.  These chemical reactions require vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, and B6; vitamin E, Coenzyme Q10; iron, sulfur and other micronutrients.

Of course, your body gets the sugar or fat from your digestive system but, unlike protein -- which is discarded if not used -- your body will happily store excess for later.

Of course, it's pretty complicated because it was designed by a blind watchmaker, but it is also very efficient, and all animals use the same basic process to create energy.

However, stripping electrons is dangerous business, because at the cellular level they can do significant damage if not controlled. Oxygen is already pretty volatile (and the reason your body uses it to produce energy), but if it picks up an extra electron it becomes a "free radical" which can rip through cell membranes,  There is some fairly compelling evidence to indicate that the entire "aging process" is actually the result of the damage of free radicals over time.  Experiments with aging rats, for instance, indicate that the mitochondria become less efficient and the cells themselves become "leaky" and less able to control the processes of what goes in or out of the cell.

Some interesting experiments were done with these aging rats to give them supplements of acetyl-L-carnitine to increase the mitochondria rate, and alpha-lipoic acid to reduce the number of free radicals, and found that within two weeks the old rats were as active as young rats.  Of course, humans aren't rats, as we discussed on the issue of protein! (I've been taking alpha-lipoic acid since I read that over 10 years ago, and I seem to have aged just fine...)

* Not to be confused with "midi-chlorians," which is the source of the Force. George Lucas is an idiot.

Death by misadventure

The coroner is a uniquely English institution.

In medieval times, justice was slow -- literally.  The court (or 'eyre') would travel around the country in a giant circuit.  When the court was in session, the first thing they would demand is an account of all crimes that had occurred since the last court, which may have been 7 years ago, or 44 years ago!

Now, if you thought the purpose of this was to ensure justice was done, you get points for altruism but lose them for gullibility.  The courts -- then as now -- would fine the miscreant (and sometimes the entire village) which was an important source of income for the government!

So in 1194, King Richard the Lionhearted -- trying to raise money to support his disastrous Crusades -- ordered that every village appoint three knights and a scribe to keep track of all crimes, which would then be reviewed by the next court.  This was known as "keeping the pleas of the Crown" (Latin, custos placitorum coronae) from which the word "coroner" is derived.

Now, if that sounds like the role of the sheriff, you're probably right, except you'll know from Robin Hood that sheriffs were notoriously corrupt, and for a small contribution a crime would not be reported to the court.  Coroners (or "Crowners" as they were known at the time) were an attempt to curb this, by having a separate person document the crime.

From the start, one of the key functions of the coroner was to investigate a sudden or mysterious death.  Again, if you think that was to understand how the person died, or to figure out by whom, you've been watching too much CSI.  One of the first acts of the Normans (after conquering England) was to pass the "murdrum" -- a huge fine levied against any community where a Norman was murdered. Thus, the coroner had to determine if the body was Saxon or Norman, and if the death was intentional or accidental.  To that end, they could order an inquest, subpoena witnesses, hold a jury, and deliver a verdict.  Much of this has been carried forward today.

They also had one other important function: To determine the object that caused the death.  That is because the Normans also supplanted the Roman law of noxal surrender -- whereby animals or objects causing serious damage or death were given to the victim -- with "deo dandum" (literally, "to be given to God") which, in effect, meant they were forfeit to the Crown.  (Usually, they were assessed a value that the accused had to pay to keep the item, so it was effectively just another tax.)

In 1340 they did away with the murdrum, and in 1846 they abolished the deodand. As courts became established there was no longer a need to "keep the pleas," and coroners increasingly focused on sudden deaths. However, historically this was never a medical role, and even today a coroner in England must have a degree and five years' experience in the medical or legal field.  In the US and other colonies, there are a patchwork of laws -- many areas require a degree in forensic pathology, but other areas have no requirements whatsoever!  Other countries

In the UK, a coroner can return one of 15 "verdicts":

• Death by natural causes
• Death by misadventure
• Accidental death
• Lawful killing (e.g. self-defense)
  
• Suicide
• Unlawful killing
• Occupational disease
• Drug dependence
• Non-dependent drug abuse
• Attempted abortion
• Self-induced abortion
• Disaster
  
• Still birth
• Self-neglect (for example, anorexia)
  
• Lack of care/neglect

They can also return an "open verdict" (cause not established) or a "narrative verdict" which makes no sense to me.  (I don't have all the answers!!)

There is no effective difference between accidental death and one of misadventure, except that one sounds tragic and other sounds hilarious.

Hawking Centre

Some beautiful birds...

Olympic disappointment

Well, it looks like I'll be watching the Olympics from home, on the telly.  What an epic disappointment.  I tried to buy tickets in the 'pre-sale' this week, but my efforts were frustrated by work (I had meetings at 11am every day, which is when they released the new tickets), and the web site was set up so poorly that if you weren't able to reserve tickets to your first choice, it took five minutes to make a second choice, by which time those were all gone as well.  Naturally, game theory suggests I should have gone for a second-tier choice instead of fighting it out for the prime seats, but I didn't, and I failed.

I could have bought tickets for £295 each (or closing ceremony tickets for $655 each), but that's just crazy.

Crash and burn

OK, that was short-lived.  I told her how I felt, and she suggested I not contact her again.  Ouch.

It actually hurt quite a bit; I'd really opened myself up.  In hindsight, I wish I'd done a million things differently, but in the end I'm sure it's for the best.  As I said, I'm grateful just to know I *can* feel that way again, and now the trick is to find someone who feels the same about me.

In the meantime, however, I have the very practical problem that I've now cut off contact with everyone I was talking to, I don't have anyone in the "pipeline," and I have tickets to *four* events in the next week!  I've invited friends, who are all busy, and I'm really going to kick myself if I waste these extra tickets.

P.S. Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream contains wheat.  Duh.  I'm eating it anyway.

Summer is here

The number of events, festivals, and activities in summer is staggering.  In Los Angeles I had to comb the web sites to find things; here I have to avoid web sites to avoid going to too many things!

Next weekend I'm going to a wolf sanctuary, which turns out to be just up the street from my house in Reading.

The Rooftop Film Club has a number of outdoor movie screenings -- I have tickets to see Trollhunter, Big Lebowski, and Labyrinth.

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is on 5 June, the Olympics 27 July-12 August, and Paralympics 29 August-9 September

Music-wise, I have tickets to Rumer, Paul Simon, and Paloma Faith, plus a revival of the musical, Ragtime.

If it's dry, I'll be attending Folk by the Oak again.  (I thought about attending WOMAD, the World Music festival, but it is at the same time as the Olympics...)

Outside of London, I plan to go to the Bristol hot air balloon fiesta and the Edinburgh fringe festival, both in August.

Comedy includes Pajama Men and a staged reading of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

And finally, I will be attending the Thames Festival, which marks the end of summer, on 9 September. :-(

Of course, those are only the things I already have tickets to.  I'm sure there will be much more before the summer is out.

Feasts

As I've mentioned before, I don't celebrate rituals to praise God, but to connect with people and history, and I just read a nice parable about this.  I will paraphase to keep it short:

A king was travelling through the desert, when his son became ill with thirst.  The king ordered that a well be sunk into ground, so that his child might drink. His soldiers argued it would be faster for them to ride to the nearest town and bring back water, but the king insisted on digging the well.  When the child recovered, he, too, was puzzled and asked his father, "Why did you trouble your men to dig a well when we had the means to obtain water more quickly and easily?"  And the king replied, "In many years, you may again be travelling this way, perhaps alone and without privilege, but the well will still be here to quench your thirst."

And the son replied, "But father, in many years the sands of time will have refilled the well, stopping the water and erasing its very memory."  But the king said, "We will mark the site of this well on our maps, and preserve our maps, so whenever you travel this route, you will be able to reopen the well and obtain the water that will sustain you on your journey."

So a festival is an appointment with the past, an encounter with an event that occurred in our history, but becomes part of our present and our future.  It comes complete with instructions on how to re-open the well and access its waters.  These were not "one time" gifts because these were not "one time" needs, and festivals serve not only as perpetual reminders, but as perpetual sources.

So it really doesn't matter if you celebrate the Jewish festivals, the Christian festivals, the American holidays, or just make up your own.  The important thing is to mark and remember, to appreciate what has gone before and what is yet to come, to know that you are part of something bigger, and while you can always choose to cut yourself off, you can also always choose to reconnect.  As I get older, I have really started to appreciate not only the circle of life, but how important those circles are in our life.

Completely besotted

Spring is in the air, the birds and the bees are up to their old tricks, and while I actually hate to admit it, I met a girl who makes my heart skip a beat whenever she smiles, and all I want to do is lie in a field with her and watch bunnies.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what we did today.

In some sad, self-loathing way, I was actually hoping to find out our first date was just a fluke, that she couldn't possibly be as wonderful as I thought, or as lovely, and that I've been obsessing over her for nothing.  However, in those terms, it was a spectacular failure.  Not only was she just as pretty, but I went to her neighborhood and in the process of walking down the street, half a dozen people came over to say hello.  And she'd only lived in that area for a couple of months!  I've been in Reading for 9 months now and I can't think of a single person here who would recognise me, never mind say hello. :-(

Which brings me to the other major emotion I've been feeling: Inadequacy. It's funny, at some level I recognize how much I've accomplished in my life, but I don't derive any pride from it.  On the contrary, it feels like it's no longer relevant.  Years ago I took a personality profile (of one sort or another), and one of the things it said was that the clock started over every single day.  I think that is absolutely true, and I wonder how that comes across.

In any case, I have no idea how she feels about me, or if anything will come of this, but the important thing is that she reminded me how dating is supposed to feel like.  I've spent a lot of time with some really lovely people and I've certainly enjoyed every experience, but I haven't been "dating." So I've ended communication with everyone else I've been talking to, which wasn't easy but was necessary.

Watch this space.

Shavuot and cheesecake

There are five festivals mentioned in the Old Testament, with directions on how they will be celebrated:
1) Rosh Hashanah to listen to the shofar (horn)
2) Yom Kippur to repent and make atonement
3) Pesach (Passover) to eat unleavened bread
4) Sukkot to live in a tent
5) Shavuot to...uh...well, this one is a bit vague.

To be fair, all of these involve making sacrifices of meat, fruit, and bread, and three of the festivals (including Shavuot)  involved going to the temple in Jerusalem (which, oddly, hadn't been built when the Old Testament was supposedly written).  Unfortunately, the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 CE, and while all the other festivals had other things to keep them going, Shavuot was kind of forgotten.

Fortunately, the great sages managed to rescue it from obscurity.  They argued that since Pesach represented the Jews fleeing Egypt, and Sukkot represented the Jews entering Israel, then Shavuot (which fell between them) must have been the day the Jews went to Mount Sinai and received the Bible from God.  (That's a pretty big stretch, although not quite as big as when they literally interpreted the phrase, "the people were beneath the mountain" and therefore claimed the entire mountain lifted off the ground.)

Now, of course, it gets a bit weird.  The sages then argued that during the day, the Jews would have been preparing a meal, slaughtering animals, and so forth.  Then they went to Mount Sinai and accepted the Bible, including all the laws about keeping kosher, so that when they came back to their camp, they would not have been allowed to eat any of the meat.  Therefore, they only ate the dairy products and went to bed.

From this we get two traditions around Shavuot: One is to stay up all night discussing the Bible; and the other is we eat cheesecake.

I probably won't stay up all night, but I will definitely eat cheesecake.

Here is the section of Leviticus 23 (King James Bible translation) that deals with the festivals.  (Leviticus, the fifth book of the bible, was kind of a cliffs notes for the first four books, and even though it got a lot of stuff wrong, it summed up the holidays nicely.)

Passover:
5: In the fourteenth day of the first month at even [sundown] is the LORD's passover.
6: And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
7: In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
8: But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
...
Shavuot:
15: And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
16: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
...
21: And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

Rosh Hashanah:
24: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
25: Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

Yom Kippur:
27: Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
28: And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.

Sukkot:
39: Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.
42: Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:
43: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

P.S. Oddly, Christians have tried to claim all of these festivals, with the idea that these were not annual events, but prophecies to be fulfilled by Christ.  I don't get that at all.  However, since Shavuot falls 50 days after Pesach, the Christians renamed it Pentecost, with something about the holy spirit.  Christians=holy spirit comes to earth, Jews=cheesecake.  'Nuf said.