Cauliflower and Celery Soup with a Kick!

 

Made this today as I had some celery and cauliflower to use up. Turned out really great!

Half a cauliflower, and a head of celery, all chopped into bitesize pieces. Fry in some oil for a few minutes while stirring - use a big pot.

Add vegetable stock - I used two cubes with plenty water to cover the veg. 

Add herbs and spices - I used two teaspoons of lazy garlic and one of lazy chilli. Also salt, pepper to taste, and a few dashes of Worchester sauce. Sprinkle in a little mixed herbs.

Simmer for at least half an hour and it's ready to go! Guaranteed you will want more :-)

Update: Made another version of this using two chopped bell peppers instead of cauliflower. Very tasty too! I reckon you could substitute almost any veg and get a good result...

Update 2: Have started adding a chopped onion and a teaspoon of chopped lazy ginger now too. Gives an even more rounded flavour in my opinion!

The top 5 books I'd recommend, in order...

Of all the books that I've gotten through in fifty-plus years, I'd recommend the following five, in the order given, to everyone and anyone. This is not a ranking but a logical sequence of the best books, in my opinion, on their topic areas to build a rounded understanding of our world and ourselves.

Each one introduces us to lots of additional layers of discussion for those who want to dig deeper. Many of the references given are to other works I have also had the chance to read or listen to and would recommend folk loop back and follow their own interests after the big picture is explored.

There is perhaps a sixth encompassing work which remains to be listed at this level - that of the future and our place in it. To my mind such a work would recognise that in many ways social structures have become more influential than the individuals that make them up, as entities that sustain themselves, and occasionally wither away or produce offspring in the shape of new alliances or corporations.

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything. Takes us from the origins of space and time up to the present day. It really is a foundational work covering all manner of topics about the physical world in a very accessible way. It's all about what survives, how and why.

2. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Continues the human story and outlines our rise to dominate this planet, and introduces the social structures that have emerged on top of us too. Being sociable is an essential trait balanced with free thinking.

3. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Explains how our modern economies really work and the price inflicted on the populations in the process. Understanding it all is the only way to make informed political choices.

4. The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Describes how only a science toolkit can help us really understand the universe clearly. Acquiring knowledge and making rational decisions is our duty to ourselves.

5. The God Delusion. Addresses the persistence of religion and how to we can be free of it through better educational processes and thinking methods. Be sociable, and don't worry too much, is my key take away.

They are all available as unabridged audiobooks, free if you use a library service on-line or in-person. Audio is my preferred way of consuming books these days as I can speed things up a bit when I feel the need. If you have suggestions for a candidate sixth work on the future please let me know and I'll check it out :-)

PS. I've now listened to Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow and it does feel like the sixth book I had been wondering about, though I think I need to listen to it again to be sure. I'm also listening to 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by the same author, which may be part of this as a seventh book, ie for practical action.

Update Aug '23 - I've listened to the above books twice now. For background I also recommend listening to The Selfish Gene, A Brief History of Time, Freakonomics, Guns, Germs and Steel, and I Am a Strange Loop.

Illusions: AI, Machine Learning, and Consciousness

In the news today - someone says a system may have feelings. Sounds impressive right? The trouble is folk have been making AI (and/or machine learning) claims for as long as I can remember, and it's all been snake oil in my opinion. 

To me AI is just sufficiently complicated programming that may start to appear somewhat intelligent. But there's no actual intelligence. Machine learning is just bigger datasets being processed by better algorithms. But there's no conscious learning.

Unfortunately I think these fancy sounding terms are mostly used to justify academic technology expenditures and to make business CVs look way better than they should.

However, for me, this topic raises an important question about ourselves instead. Is our sense of self not an illusion too? Is it not really a sufficiently complicated set of parallel feedback processes interacting with a large memory containing our backstory, logic principles and linguistic constructs? With enough monitoring of our internal processes and stored experiences a sense of self begins to emerge.

Our senses tell us a lot about the world, but they're never perfect. Nor are our mental models of the world ideal, hence we make many mistakes. In reality we're made up of lots of overlapping pains and pleasures, sharp and soft, as well as fuzzy facts and yes, it feels like, erm, feelings....

The baby plum / grape tomato diet

During the pandemic, and resultant lockdowns, with a shift to mostly homeworking for me, I put on quite a bit of weight. Recently I thought I really needed to find something low in fat and calories to fill me up. But what?

Then it occurred to me - baby plum (aka grape) tomatoes. High in vitamin A and C they have a great mouthfeel when eaten at room temperature and kill hunger pangs fast. 

I now eat three packs a day instead of almost all other snacks. I still have a light lunch and a good dinner, mostly vegetarian dishes these days, but snack on the wee gems in between.

Previously I'd tried the popcorn diet but it was too much of a faff to make each batch, and I quickly got tired of eating so much dry stuff, but the little sweet tomatoes are cheap, readily available, and easy to store, rinse and eat. 

They are more like a fruit than a savoury. I just wish I could buy them without all the plastic packaging. Currently snacking on Moroccan Sweetelle from Morrisons, but I also get a regular delivery from Tesco each week, and sometimes buy them in the Coop too. When you look into it they are a surprisingly new thing.

So far I've been losing about 1 kilo a week. That's 2.2 lbs in old money. Hopefully this will continue until I reach my desired weight. At this rate that will be the winter! If you don't like them then I suggest you find something that fits the bill instead. Happy low fat, low calorie eating that fills you up :-)

P.S. Some folk have asked what else I'm eating apart from the light lunch & good dinner. Quite often lunch is homemade vegetarian soup. I think that probably helps! I do also allow myself some cornflakes with milk, and a wee supper of pickled herring and hard bread...  

P.P.S. Tesco changed supply mid-July to a UK Caramelo variant, which are too thin-skinned and mushy for my taste, so I've switched to Asda who are selling a UK variant similar to the Moroccan Angelle.

 

Top non-fiction books & how to access them for free

Most of us are used to films being ranked on IMDb, but how do we know which are the most valued books? A while ago I did a search and found a number of partial lists scattered around the internet which I pulled into one and standardised the rankings to produce this top 100 spreadsheet.

So how can folk access the material without cost? Well, the Internet Archive's Open Library offers a service where registered users can borrow books to read and/or listen to for free. Here are the links for the top five science books, which I'd strongly recommend for everyone -

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari

2. Cosmos, Carl Sagan

3. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter

4. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan

5. The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch

The audio option is quite good, and can be sped up, but please note it is computer-generated. Happy reading/listening! I'll extend the list with the next 5 when I get time...

Garlic Soup, with potato and celery

 

My dad used to make this, not sure where he got the recipe. My mum still has it in her head :-) 

20 peeled cloves of garlic - chop 5 but leave the rest whole. Start with an onion, chop n fry. 

Add any white vegetables like potato, leek, celery, mushrooms. Sauté for 5 mins then add chicken stock and black pepper. Simmer for 30 mins. Serves 4.

I added some white wine and lemon juice to give it a shine, and some crushed chillies for extra kick.

The whole garlic just looks and tastes like potato, so the flavour isn't over-powering. Wards off all colds and flus!

Peppery Chicken, Celery, and Potato Stew

Made this up yesterday from what I had available - so good! Fry onion (1 large), celery (6 stalks), chicken (300g), bell peppers (3), and potatoes (750g) until browned. Add white wine (250ml), cream (250ml), and milk (250ml) until covered. Season with chervil (or parsley), garlic salt, and black pepper. Chilli flakes to taste. Dash of Worcestershire sauce. Simmer until reduced to creamy sauce. Serve with salad, and enjoy! :-)

Visit to Palach & Zajic Memorial

I performed in a musical play at high school called Czechmate. It concerned the events of the Prague Spring in 1968. This year I visited for the first time and took time to remember Jan Palach and Jan Zajic who burnt themselves alive in protest at the Russian invasion. As we used to sing - "Live on Jan!"

Christmas Cabbage Soup

Made this up today based on what usually works well together. Chop one cabbage, then fry in oil in a large pot for ten minutes while stirring. Add 1.5 litres of vegetable stock, five crushed cloves of garlic, a good dash of chili sauce, eg Tabasco, some chili flakes, a dash of Lea & Perrins or similar, plenty of salt & pepper, some dill, a good dollop of mustard, and a tablespoonful of honey. Simmer with a lid on until the cabbage melts in the mouth. Amazing! :-)

Beef with sesame, orange, rice, carrot & lettuce

Made this tonight from a blend of recipes and memories of a dish I used to enjoy for lunch at an Asian restaurant in Stockholm. I think it's actually a Korean dish.

It's thinly sliced steak strips, with fine chopped onion, marinated in soy sauce, honey, sesame oil & seeds, with a little ginger, chilli & garlic, and orange zest.

Once flash-fried in a hot frying pan I served it on a bed of lettuce with warm sticky rice & topped off with grated carrot and orange slices to squeeze over to taste.

For two people I used 400 grams of meat, 1 small onion, 3 tablespoons of soy, 1 tablespoon of honey, 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, and 1 teaspoon each of lazy ginger, chilli & garlic. Grated the surface off 1 orange, and prepared sushi rice finished off with rice wine vinegar. Sliced the remains of the orange and grated two carrots.  Really yummy and fresh. Top marks from the better half! :-)

Update - made it again without the onion or carrot, more honey, and more sesame oil. Also heated the rice wine vinegar with some vegetable oil, sugar and salt. Tasted even closer to the dish I hoped to recreate...

Paths Through Addictions

I've recently drafted this diagram to help outline what I feel are my own paths through addition to both alcohol and nicotine. I feel very lucky to be able to say I've recovered from both - five years free from smoking and ten years free from drinking.

After unsuccessfully trying patches & gum a few times, I quit thirty years of cigarettes by using Champix tablets over two months. Effectively they "switched-off" the part of my brain that craved nicotine.

Interestingly, my escape from alcohol ten years ago involved a massive last binge (and prolonged hangover/withdrawl) with a very powerful movie* as a background narrative, and transferal of addiction from booze to fags in the first few weeks. After that period there was almost no temptation to drink again (I did have a couple of 12 hr curiosity lapses 6 months apart in the first year which only reinforced my determination each time). It has, since then, felt that the part of my brain which craved alcohol has been switched off too.

I'm keen to get any and all feedback, in the comments below please, to refine the diagram and answer anything I haven't explained adequately. Thanks.

* Touching The Void - which shows the extent to which people can recover from trapped situations.

Cheesy Chicken & Vegetables

Chicken breasts - 4
Cheese - grated 200 gm
Carrot sticks - a bowl
Mushrooms - 6 medium
Sweetcorn - half a small can
Green beans - pack trimmed
Peppers - one large diced
Cream - large dash
Milk - a cup or so
Chilli powder - sprinkle over
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste
Chicken Stock - one cube mixed in water
Mixed Herbs - to taste
Parmesan - to sprinkle over near end of baking

Made this after New Year to use up stuff in the fridge that needed eaten.

Dice meat and chop veg. Mix with other ingredients except Parmesan.

Bake covered at high heat for 1 hour stirring halfway. Reduce to medium heat and and bake uncovered for another half hour, sprinkling the Parmesan on halfway through to brown.

Serve with lettuce and tomato salad with vinaigrette. Yum yum :-)

We're not using bus-stops efficiently, making delays, congestion & pollution worse...

It seems to me that we aren't using bus stops efficiently. The photos show examples of buses using the rear half of stops in both Glasgow & Edinburgh. Let's go through this step by step -

• The stops are planned by the local authority and then painted on the road. 
• A route number flag needs to be displayed on a pole and/or shelter to inform us. 
• These flags are very often NOT positioned at the front of the painted space.
• The passengers tend to queue around the flag with information.
• The drivers tend to stop at the flag/passengers.

All of this results in only half the stop being used and unnecessary tailbacks of buses waiting to use the stop - for health and safety reasons drivers can't let passengers on or off unless the front of the vehicle is within the designated stop area.

So let's move the flags to the front of the bus stops and encourage drivers to pull as far forward as they can each time. By doing this we'll reduce congestion & pollution and speed up journey times.

If you spot further evidence of this phenomenon please let me know!

Sassy Sweet & Sour Peppers with Pumpkin Seeds

A twist on the classic that I made by accident.

Roughly slice three bell peppers & three small onions into large matchstick proportions.

Fry for a few minutes using a little oil, then add thirty millilitres of vinegar, and stir to a simmer.

Add three heaps of honey, three whooshes of Worcestershire and the same of soya sauce.

Finish with a dollop of ketchup (yes, really), and thirty grams of pumpkin seeds.

Simmer until the sauce thickens. While waiting cook some rice to serve. Enjoy...

Fair votes on Twitter

You've probably seen them - Tweets saying RT for A, Fav for B, or similar.

Unfortunately, this approach will always produce very skewed results as the people that follow the Tweeter are only going to see their RTs, not their Favs, so the RT option has a very strong advantage over the Fav option.

What we really want to do is retweet the question but collect the response a little differently.

The easiest way to do this is to ask folk to RT Only for A, but to RT & Fav for B - the total RTs minus Favs gives the A result & the number of Favs gives the B vote.

Because the question is retweeted each time there is no skew to one option or the other. To recap-

RT Only for A.

RT & Fav for B.

Total A = all RTs minus all Favs,

Total B = all Favs.

A Twitter vote done this way is both fair and easy, once you've tried it :-)

There's another example here.

Beefis, Neeps & Tatties

Made this by accident today using up some left-over ingredients - but it's surprisingly delicious. For those that don't like Haggis I'd like to suggest this as a modern alternative...

Mince - about a kilo of beef
Turnip - diced - about half a kilo
Carrots - diced - about half a kilo
Bell Peppers - diced - one or two
Spice Mix for Fajitas - Old El Paso
Cashew Nuts - I had a 65 gram bag of salted ones
Tomato Paste - about half a tube
Couple of Potatoes - thinly sliced

Boil & mash the Turnip & Carrots - can take a long while to soften enough. Season well with salt & pepper.

Fry the Mince & Peppers until browned off then add a little water and Tomato Paste.

Mix in the Spice Mix. Simmer and stir for a few minutes. Stir in the Cashew Nuts.

Transfer this "Beefis" mix to a large over dish and layer the mash on top using back of a spoon.

Brush the Sliced Potatoes with oil and layer on the top with a little more seasoning  for effect..

Bake in a medium over for about an hour and then enjoy with some of Burns poetry...

Edit - think I'll rename it Texas, Neeps & Tatties :-)

Why is UK housing so expensive?

Oxfam Scotland have previously identified housing as the top quality of life priority for most people.

In the seventies the average house cost about 3 times the average income. Today it's closer to 6 times. Why is this, and is this progress? In my opinion there are two main problems, a restricted supply and continued wealth accumulation.

Firstly, a free market should enable the supply of competitively priced units that should not increase in relative price over time. For housing there is a finite supply of land, and one could argue this restriction has driven prices up, but the population has only increased by around ten percent in forty years so it can actually only be a small part of the overall picture.

Secondly, each generation inherits more wealth, particularly that stored up in their parent's housing. This has a one-way ratchet effect, constantly pushing demand and driving up prices. Houses come to represent layers of fossilised wealth valued for their rarity rather than intrinsic utility.

Other questions remain:

• How much has the rise of dual incomes caused the current cost/income ratio?
• Are there secret suppliers cartels in operation and how can we ensure none exist?
• Are politicians doing enough to see that land is reused and enough social housing is built?
• Are enough voters in favour of a stabilisation, even reduction, over time, of relative house prices?
• What about the impact of Buy-to-Let? Does this help or hinder supply? via Twitter.

Ultimately, I think, we need to ask what real progress will look like, devise policies to take us in that direction, and secure mandates for change - ie that we need a full supply to meet the strong demand.

But what do you think? Feel free to leave a few thoughts below. The image is from an Economist article that's worth reading too.

The Nut Thing - A Tex-Mex Pasta Recipe via Sweden

When I worked in Sweden a good friend made this one weekend.

I've tried a few times to recreate it with mixed results, but it's always tasty.

I really need to confirm the actual ingredients & method some time soon :-)

It's basically a beef mince pasta bake with cashew nuts and taco spices.

Boil pasta. Fry mince & onion. Add taco mix.with water and tomato paste.

Add herbs and garlic. Salt and pepper. Add cashew nuts and stir to simmer.

Add whatever other vegetables you fancy - eg some chopped bell peppers.

Combine pasta and sauce in oven dish. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top.

Bake covered for 30 mins with additional 10 minutes without lid to give crunch.

Enjoy with a salad - the cashews make a nice texture - the nut thing, not a nothing...

Most under-65s voted Yes at IndyRef, but why so many older No voters?

These figures show the average of both exit polls conducted on the 18th September.

The under-65s voted 50.01% in favour of Yes, but why did the older group vote so much for No?

I'd say the strongest reason is that they were the group most dependent on the establishment media, which was almost entirely aligned with the pro-UK camp.

So take heart, we are closer to independence than ever before, it's only a matter of time and effort to get there. The seeds of the future have been planted and objective information will set us free, eventually :-)

Ashcroft Exit Poll - YouGov Exit Poll

Fabulous Bread & Butter Pudding - quick and easy to make from scratch using a microwave

Two heels of pan loaf, butter, strawberry jam, raisins, a small jar of single cream.

Butter and jam the bread on one side. Slice into bite size pieces..

Arrange in layers, with raisins between in dessert bowl. Sprinkle more raisins on top.

Pour cream over and place in microwave on low for 10 minutes.

Increase to medium and microwave for 5 minutes or until cream starts to bubble over. Let cool for a few minutes.