h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Reading anent possession.

I have spent the day in the back room.

Miah attacked my foot this lunch-time, when I failed to serve up her dinner quite quickly enougn to suit her. She has put fang-holes into my left slipper.

Shepherd's pie for tea. Lotsa Worcestershire. Veggie Worcestershire.

Case law from the 1630s ain't easy to read.

I did some paying (consultancy-related) work today.

I have a two-day job coming up in Ayr soon, and the company is going to try to book me into a 'Coloner Mustard with the lead pipe in the library' hotel - an old house, very pretty. Susan and I stayed there back 15+ years ago. I had the steak.

There was a very very goor programme on R4 at 1.30pm about a musical savant. He does concerts. He plays requests - the tune and the nominated style. I would ask him to play Tea for Two in the style of Art Tatum, as I know what that sounds like and it'd be interesting to hear if the guy simply replicated Tatum or came up with something Tatum-like but wholly different.

Linkage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxadblDT6zI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6cCaYoDz-Y

http://www.beentothemovies.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=653


Douglas

Saw Tennant in Hamlet at the beginning of the year.

A friend had booked it as the highlight of a birthday visit to London for her daughter. Daughter was only interested in seeing Tennant in the flesh and declined to go when he was no longer appearing, so I said would use the ticket instead. Daughter went ice-skating: mother, aunt and me went to the theatre. Pre-curtain announcement: "tonight the part of Hamlet will be played by David Tennant". Cheers from audience. Daughter sick as parrot.

Tennant was very good, as was Patrick Stewart.

PJ's OH

Lucky you.

I will get the DVD as soon as it is released and will show it on a big screen at the Uni.


Douglas

ho ho - I see himself has been in when he's supposed to be working late.

Actually I would like to ask Sue if she has any professional info about the almond crop this year and last year. Whenever I look in the shops, there are very low stocks in the baking section, and none of those lovely plump Marcona almonds at all.

Susan says she doesn't know but, time permitting, will ask around. She doesn't stock Marcona almonds in her shop, these being a bit too much of a specialist item.

I used to get wee bags of flaked almonds from Susan annd would have them on top of Greek yoghurt, all drizzled with honey. Pistachios would be good too, come to think of it, and a wee spoonful o' whisky. Hmmm... that's some stuff for this weekend's shoping list.


Douglas

Thanks, Sue.

Maple syrup. On plain yog or on porridge - entirely authentic Scots/Canadian variant.

"In Spain, crop production for MY 2008/09 has been revised downwards to 52,636 MT, due to poor weather conditions in the main producing areas. Spanish almond orchards are concentrated in Mediterranean regions, namely Andalucía and Valencia. Other significant production areas include Murcia, Catalonia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands and Castilla-La Mancha. The dominant varieties are Marcona, Largueta, Planeta, Valencia (Comuna) and Mallorca"

I suspect that the euro will have played a part in last years crop not coming to Britain. All the commodity almonds will be coming from USA where they do grow the Marcona variety but I suspect that growers will sell their crops themselves and not to the almond brokers.

The Spanish crop for this year would only have been available for the last month so the packing/importing/distributing probably has not happened yet.

Our conventional almonds always come from USA, but I have not checked on the organic variant.

I now know more about pesticides and salmonella in the almond orchards than before..

Cheers

Sue

Thank you very much for snuffling out this information. Will keep my fingers crossed for this year's crop.