From Twitter 10-01-2010

• 15:10:12: @NixonAzukiT My mom always said that I was a wise guy...thx!
  
• 15:11:49: Good afternoon, tweeps & peeps. The quack says that my right ring finger has something called "trigger finger". I don't even like Roy Rogers
  
• 20:44:36: @mrdentalhygiene Your haircut is as cute as the face underneath it! Which is to say, "very".
  
• 20:50:21: Have just pre-ordered Aunty Gok's autobiography. Should be interesting... @therealgokwan love you...
  
• 20:51:13: @seismic007 Can't you be naughty at work? Misfile a piece of paper or something like that...
  
• 20:53:39: @urbanbohemian Perhaps they should put a post office in the local Starbucks, or vice versa...no?
  
• 20:56:08: @Loopzie Hope you have fun tonight!
  
• 20:57:18: @dhruv_dhody First class I taught in Bangalore I was flummoxed by the wobbly head movement. Had to get a quick culture lesson...
  
• 20:59:28: @RichTheTiger And if his first-born is a girl?
  
• 21:00:23: RT @tsgnews: Drug suspect denies owning cocaine police found in his buttocks: http://bit.ly/8XrZbW
  
• 21:08:31: @RichTheTiger I suspect it'd be Britney I, or perhaps Boadicea II...
  
• 21:29:23: @Loopzie Thankx--mine's almost over unfortunately...(my Friday, that is...)
  
• 21:30:35: @dhruv_dhody Thanks for that; I wish I'd read it before I set off for Bangalore...
  
• 21:33:41: @urbanbohemian Some pubs here in England open as a post office for a few hours a week when Royal Mail has closed up the real Post Office.
  
• 21:40:03: @Loopzie I'm originally from the US so we're both someplace where we weren't born, I guess. I have a Pinoy friend who works in Germany now.
  
• 22:27:25: @GaySkyHooker Yummy! Shrivelled means it was well cooked...
  
• 22:42:09: @GaySkyHooker Raw is OK as long as it has a cream filling...
  
• 23:19:09: G'night, all!
  

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Happy birthday, baisuzhen…

…and many happy returns of the day!

Bits and Bobs

As an amateur genealogist, I'm always looking around for new facts about my family. I've finally downloaded a copy of the book written in the 1880's about my mother's family. I've discovered that Samuel F.B. Morse was my second cousin 6 times removed. (1)

I have also discovered that I have something called trigger finger, which at the moment is not painful, only uncomfortable. Apparently it is one of a number of hand complications that may develop in diabetics. Oh joy. If it persists, I can get an injection of steroids into the sheath surrounding the tendon, which normally relieves the symptoms. In some cases minor surgery is needed. The doctor said that if I liked, she could do it in the surgery, or I could go to the Hand Clinic. I told her that since I'm already being seen in the Foot Clinic, I'd rather not have to go to a Hand Clinic as well—one end is enough.

The Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern is well worth seeing. It's on until mid-January 2011. If you're in London, or even in the UK, you should definitely try to get tickets and go to see it. We went on Wednesday, the day before it officially opened, as it was an open day for Tate members. It wasn't very crowded, thank goodness. I overrode HWMBO's objections and bought the catalogue. This is the first London exhibition of Gauguin in more than 50 years.

(1) For those who don't know who he was, he is the gentleman who invented the telegraph and Morse code. (2)
(2) For those who don't know what a telegraph is, it was the first electrical instrument that was capable of communicating over long distances using Morse code, natch.

Our dinner

There is an innovation at the Elephant and Castle: we now have a farmer's market on Saturdays. It's not very big: 5 stalls, with bread, drinks, 2 vegetable stalls, and a meat stall. I bought some bread, 3 ears of very fresh corn, some Brussels sprouts that are the size of mini cabbages, and four free-range chicken thighs.

Now I'm not a vegetarian, nor do I play one on TV. However, I am becoming more and more disillusioned with the way that our food is grown and provided to us by the big supermarkets. Tesco often has corn on the cob, two smallish ears, wrapped up in cellophane but bereft of the protective leaves, ready to cook. I have found it pretty insipid. Their free-range chicken is expensive but just doesn't taste like Mom's chicken, in any way, shape, or form.

So I baked the four chicken thighs, set the pot of water on the stove and shucked the three ears of corn. I cut one ear in half (there are only the two of us), and boiled them for the scant amount of time that it took for them to be heated through.

So we sat down to a salad, 1-1/2 ears of corn, and two medium-sized baked chicken thighs. Everything was perfect. The corn tasted almost (but not quite) like the corn we used to buy from my step-grandfather's farm stall in Marblehead. Fresh, juicy, easily bitten off the cob, delicious with or without butter.

We don't say grace before meals. I never have, except in the seminary. However, as I looked at the plate, I said a silent prayer of thanks for the farmer who dragged his produce all the way from Kent to a farmer's market in deepest, darkest South London—a market which is not yet popular enough to have crowds thronging the stalls. I also thanked the chicken for giving up its life for our table. This might seem somewhat pagan but, you know, it made me feel much better, for some reason. The Spirit that animates us all certainly cast a little bit of itself into that chicken, and the least I can do is thank that little bit of Spirit for keeping us nourished.