Month: April 2014
Warning, safety ahead!
A work colleague decided that my desk was sorely missing a health&safety catalog, so now I give you the best of Schärer+Kunz:
New art, yaaaay!
Oh conservatives, how you make me laugh (and cry)
A few days after it was revealed that an NHS group is considering charging patients for the crutches, walking sticks and neck braces it issues, we discovered that David Cameron has intervened to keep the cost of gun licences frozen at £50: a price that hasn’t changed since 2001. The police are furious: it costs them £196 to conduct the background checks required to ensure shotguns are issued only to the kind of dangerous lunatics who use them for mowing down pheasants, rather than to the common or garden variety. As a result they – sorry, we – lose £17m a year, by subsidising the pursuits of the exceedingly rich.
The Country Land and Business Association – the armed wing of the Conservative party – complains that it’s simply not fair to pass on the full cost of the licence to the owners of shotguns; unlike, say, the owners of passports or driving licences, who are charged on the basis of full cost recovery.
Three days later the government announced it would raise the subsidy it provides for grouse moors from £30 per hectare to £56. Yes, you read that right: the British government subsidises grouse moors, which are owned by 1% of the 1% and used by people who are scarcely less rich.
While the poor are being forced out of their homes through government cuts, it is raising the payments – across hundreds of thousands of hectares – that some owners use to burn and cut the land (helping to cause floods downstream), shoot or poison hen harriers and other predators, and scar the hills with roads and shooting butts.
While the rest of us can go to the devil, the interests of the very rich are ringfenced.
Before examining the wider picture, let’s stick with the shooting theme for a moment, and take a look at the remarkable shape-shifting properties of that emblem of Downton Abbey Britain: the pheasant. Through a series of magnificent legal manoeuvres it can become whatever the nation’s wealthy want it to be.
When pheasants are reared, they are classed as livestock: that means the people who raise them are exempt from some payments of value added tax and certain forms of planning control, on the grounds that they are producing food.
But as soon as they’re released they are classed as wild animals. Otherwise you wouldn’t be allowed to shoot them. But if you want to re-capture the survivors at the end of the shooting season to use as breeding stock, they cease to be wild and become livestock again, because you aren’t allowed to catch wild birds with nets.
If, however, pheasants cause damage to neighbouring gardens, or to cars, or to the people travelling in those cars, the person who released them bears no liability, because for this purpose they are classed as wild animals – even if, at the time, they are being rounded up as legal livestock.
The pheasant’s properties of metamorphosis should be a rich field of study for biologists: even the Greek myths mentioned no animal that mutated so often. In the treatment of pheasant and grouse shoots we see in microcosm what is happening in the country as a whole. Legally, fiscally and politically, the very rich are protected from the forces afflicting everyone else.
But to call on the government to make rational and progressive fiscal decisions, as many of us do, is to misunderstand what it is attempting. It is not seeking to save the country from fiscal ruin – there are many ways of doing that without cutting essential services. It is re-engineering the United Kingdom as a plutocrats’ paradise, in which the rich are scarcely troubled by laws or taxes, while the poor are plunged into a brutal world of casual labour, insecurity and legal restraint. It is creating a world in which the rich may live by their own rules.
So back we go to the hazy days of Edwardian England: a society dominated by rentiers, in which the city centres are set aside for those with tremendous wealth and the countryside is reserved for their bloodsports. As the queues lengthen at the foodbanks, our money is used to subsidise grouse and shotguns. That is all you need to know about how and by whom we are governed.
The 90s called, they want their artists back
Problems only an introvert will understand
You want to cut all ties to civilization but still be on the internet.
Your friend wants to invite more people over, and you don’t want to sound like a bad person by saying no.
Spending a heavenly weekend alone means that you’re missing out on time with friends. And you fear that by doing so, you are nearing ‘hermit’ status.
Your ride at a party doesn’t want to leave early, and no one seems to understand your distress.
That feeling of dread that washes over you when the phone rings and you’re not mentally prepared to chat.
You have an awesome night out, but have to deal with feeling exhausted for days after the fact.
People saying “Just be more social.”
You’re able to enjoy parties and meetings, but after a short amount of time wish you were home in your pajamas.
Staying up late every night because it’s the only time that you can actually be alone.
People making you feel weird for wanting to do things by yourself.
Having more conversations in your head than you do in real life.
People calling you out for day dreaming too much.
Carrying a book to a public place so no one will bug you, but other people take that as a conversation starter.
People interrupting your thoughts, and you get irrationally angry.
You’re asked to do a group project, and know that you’re going to hate every minute of it.
You hear the question “Wanna hang out?”, and your palms start to sweat with anxiety.
You hear, “Are you OK?” or “Why are you so quiet?” for the umpteenth time.
Having visitors stay with you is a nightmare, because it means you have to be on at ALL TIMES.
When people stop inviting you places because you’re the one that keeps canceling plans.
Being horrified of small talk, but enjoying deep discussions.
The need to think introspectively rather than go to someone else with your problems.
Not wanting to be alone, just wanting to be left alone. And people not understanding that.
When people mistake your thoughtful look for being shy, or worse, moody.
That people need to know that you aren’t mad, depressed or anti-social. You just need to not talk to anyone for a while. And that’s okay.
[recipe] Brie and ham bread and butter pudding
Ingredients
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for the ramekins
450g camembert cheese with rind
400ml single cream
400ml full fat milk
4 large eggs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 baguette, bottom crust discarded, cut into 1/2-inch dice
450g cooked, smoked ham, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 shallots, thinly sliced
2 large fresh thyme sprigs
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup dry white wine
Green salad, for serving, optional
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F with 1 rack set on the middle shelf and 1 rack set on the bottom shelf. Fill a large baking dish halfway with warm water and place on the bottom rack.
Butter eight 8-ounce ramekins and place on a baking sheet. Slice the cheese into 1/2-inch cubes and lay on a plate to keep them from sticking together.
Whisk the cream and eggs together in a large bowl. Add 1 teaspoon salt and a pinch of pepper. Add the baguette cubes and ham. Stir to combine.
Melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and thyme, season with salt and pepper and cook until slightly softened and browned around the edges, 4 to 6 minutes. Add the apples, season with salt and pepper and cook until slightly softened and browned around the edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the wine and cook until the wine has completely absorbed, 3 to 4 minutes. Discard the thyme sprigs. Add the apple mixture along with the cheese cubes to the beaten eggs, and stir to combine.
Evenly divide the bread pudding among the ramekins. Bake until a paring knife inserted into the center of a bread pudding comes out clean and hot, 18 to 25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Allow the bread puddings to cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Serve alongside a lightly dressed green salad.