Denniblog

Recently, I watched a two-parter on the BBC about a woman and her plucky field-tech who studied red-capped mangabeys in Gabon. (The tech was the ingenious one, but he kept referring to his boss as ‘the doctor’ as if she was some female time lord). The woman was virtually rubbing her hands at the thought that people would pay “thousands of pounds” to come and see the monkeys.

I hope not, because if they do it would almost certainly destroy the small local community. But they probably won’t. People are paying thousands of pounds to interact with chimpanzees or gorillas—red-capped mangabeys or manatees don’t come even close. Unless, perhaps, you let them play with the pulley system that draws water from the stream and allow them feed in a few bits of data so that they, too, can feel like real adventurers and scientists.

And there is the problem with tourism, be it eco or otherwise. We’re expected to turn up, hand over fistfuls of money, and in return the operators/locals will put up with us for a few days and then we can kindly piss off again.

My problem is that my money is short and has to last a long time. I’m a winter refugee. I just want somewhere to stay that doesn’t give me SAD and the flu. If there is something interesting to do—or if I can contribute in some way—so much the better. But I don’t want to ‘contribute’ by handing over all my moolah to some dubious eco-charity. Even if I had any to spare, I’m tired of the tourist traps and the touts.

If I don’t go to Bangladesh this winter, you’ll probably find me on the west coast of Thailand or somewhere in Cambodia (although the idea of having to do Angkor Wat is putting me off). I want to chill for a few months and be left alone. That’s all.

When it comes to nose-to-rail eating eating, I’ve done badly with nose and heels, but I have used my share of heads and trotters.

Now it’s the turn of the tails.

Oildown is a dish I have heard much about, but never tried. Luckily, there are many recipes online. The dish seems to be simplicity itself, once you’ve sourced the ingredients!
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Elderberries are good against the flu and colds. Recently, the centuries-old lore has been backed up by clinical studies of Sambucal, of which I now own two bottles. However, they didn’t come cheap at nearly ten quid each for what amounts to a 3-day-course.

Thankfully it would seem that the elderberries’ curative properties are at least partially preserved after heat treatment, and it is not necessary to concentrate them overmuch, so I am looking up recipes for wines and cordials to help us through the winter. But it will be many months before the berries are ripe for the picking.

Prompted by a (harmless but annoying) summer cold, I’m casting around for alternatives. According to Wikipedia they produce a type of brandy in Hungary (bodza pálinka) which is made with 50kg of elderberries per litre. The online price (£ 1.85/40ml) would reflect that. But I’m reasoning that the stuff’s cheaper in Budapest.

However, according to a Google image search, the spirit is clear. Part of the beneficial activity of elderberries is due to the pigments (anthocyanidins, comprising 0.2-1% of the berries and a whopping 0.5% in Sambucal). There are darker incarnations, which I suppose aren’t distilled from quite as much fruit (more like wines), and these may be just what I’m looking for. One more reason to conduct some field research

I reckon there should be a EU-wide initiative looking into the benefits of elderberry drinks, which would boost the economies of several eastern/central European countries.

Nobody has been back in touch about the manatees (which I find a little rude). The expedition club has been in touch—fingers crossed that some members will be interested!

A large population of Irrawaddy dolphins has been discovered around the Sundarbans. The only relative refuge for this species which I was previously aware of (aside from a very sparse distribution in rivers in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Phillippines and along coastal areas in SE Asia) was in the Chilka lake in Orissa. The population in the Songkhla lake in Thailand has dwindled significantly.

With Platanista gangetica apparently thriving right around Dhaka (I’ve previously suspected that they are scavengers) a visit to Bangladesh may well be on the cards next winter.

Actually, the fledgling AI wasn’t on the list of trends I wanted to discuss. Talk about the elephant in the room.

It’s probably because hubby and I had a row about his working hours. He must have come close to a hundred a week. I’m not kidding. He summed it up thus, “Last week I clocked up sixty hours of CPU time.”

“So what? I clock up a few myself when Firefox freezes or Jarte goes into a sulk because I type ‘control-t’ for a new tab and it tries to access the online thesaurus instead.” It’s ‘control-n’ for new file. Jeez.

“No, I mean I clocked up sixty hours of meaningful CPU time on an eight core machine. It was processing.”

“Hrmph.” I shrugged.

“You never take any interest in my work!”

“Now wait a minute! I thought we had agreed not to talk about work. Every time I—”

He dismissed me with a wave. “I still know more about any of your projects than you care to remember.”

That is true. I don’t have his memory. “Yeah, but compared to computer programming, biology is easy to understand. I need a degree in computer science to follow what you do. Biology’s intuitive. But doing it is another matter.”

And that brings me neatly to the next item on the list.
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I don’t usually science-blog (that niche has been well and truly filled), but three recent developments have caught my eye.

On May the first, the world will change when the first true AI comes online. No, it’s not Hal9000 and it’s not going to take over the world. Except in the sense that Google has taken over the world.

It will be the end of Google search, which is a shame because it’s the only thing that Google does well. Except for Google Earth. In yesterday’s Independent there was a small feature about cars sporting the Google logo and camera rigs that have been driving around London over the past year, getting a street-level view. This may be what will underlie the augmented reality applications coming to a cell phone near you (this is last year’s news but, hey, I’ve been travelling.) Crucially, this is an Open Source development, and with the release of the iPhone developer kit, Apple is about to dip into this self-same talent pool. And once the iPhone is in on it…

And the third? Well, I’ll have to talk to you tomorrow. I have a chicken in the oven. Just one more thing: Wolfram Alpha will not be alone. There is another one about to be hatched, and it’s in the family. And if I know of one, how many more do you think will be out there, waiting to be released into the wild?

From May 1st, everything will be just that little bit different.

Even before the credit crunch, eating offal and ‘neglected cuts’ (such as ears and feet) became fashionable among the chattering classes, thanks to celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Fergus Henderson. But they are mainly regarded as things to chat about, not get stuck in day-to-day.

For me such meats have always been on the menu. I grew up in the countryside, and my elders tolerated no fuss when it came to eating. But I remember that most of the dishes were quite dull. The challenge is to come up with new and exciting ways to cook them. And, as always, travel provides the answer.

Tails, trotters, ears, noses and some bits of offal are what is generally known as the ‘fifth quarter’—food that was sold to the poor or given to slaves. While the Brits and North Americans nowadays tend to grind this sort of thing into their hot dogs, these items are still for sale in ethnic neighbourhoods (and some farmers’ markets), and they greatly influence the cuisines of the Caribbean and the US Deep South.

Nothing rams history down your throat like eating local fare. You can get pig tail stew a scant three-minute stroll from Tobago’s five-star Coco Reef Resort. Ditto cow heel soup. Cow heel soup is everywhere in Trinidad and Tobago. But as with so many ethnic dishes, over here it’s a closely guarded secret, and I had to go to T&T to find out what the fuss is about.

So when we were in London last week, I took a deep breath and pointed at one of the huge scorched cow’s legs that are for sale at the butchers in Deptford, wondering how I would get the thing into my pot.

No problem. Every ghetto butcher’s comes with a band saw.
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If you’ve been following my recent travels, you probably know that transferring flights between VA and BWIA at Bridgetown takes more than the allotted 2-2.5 hrs because no baggage agreement exists between the carriers and you must clear immigration, customs and check-in. On my return I miraculously made it, but only because my luggage emerged early (as part of the main luggage—not on a separate transit belt this time), and somebody put in a word for me before the customs officer arrested me for being pushy and obstinate (”give the poor girl a chance”—only in the Caribbean!).

I was shaking all over when I made it to the international check-in counter because it closes one hour before the flight is due to leave. Thankfully there was still a long queue.

Well, we have put in a complaint (several, actually) because I don’t want others to go through this kind of stress and I don’t believe the ticket was advertised correctly. Flight transfers ought to follow certain guidelines, or so I thought.

The initial reply by Lastminute.com followed from the misunderstanding that the luggage would be checked straight through (as I had been informed by VA check-in staff at Gatwick):

The minimum connecting time for your return flight is one hour fifty five minutes and you have almost 2 hours in hand, to take the connecting flight. As per the airline you will have sufficient time to go through the immigration formality and take the connecting flight. There will a through check-in of your luggage, you do not have to manually carry your luggage to the connecting flight.

Lastminute is standing by this claim, only now they admit that immigration and customs must be cleared and the required (’standard’) connection time has been decreased to one hour fifteen minutes.

Having studied the points raised in your e-mail, I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere apologies for any inconvenience that may have been suffered, after investigation into your case please note the standard connection time for Barbados [BGI] - Barbados [BGI] ], for an international flight is 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The connection time allocated for the outbound flight was 2 hours and 30 minutes, and 2 hours for the return section, the standard connection time is allocated including the time taken to collect and check-in baggage.

(Note to LM: quit the grovelling—it changes nothing!)

Who is allocating such times? People who try to break the speed-immigration record? They are not meant for people like me, for sure, nor the lady who was sitting in the seat next to me and moves somewhat more slowly at eighty years of age (I don’t think she’d ever make it to Trinidad, so it’s just as well that she was staying in Barbados). No, the people who allocate these times must imagine that a plethora of specially dedicated staff awaits us at the airport to whisk us through customs and immigration, hand us over to the VIP check-in and probably carry our bags on the way there.

They sure don’t travel in our shoes.

It’s worth noting that this complaint reference has gone through ABTA, so I wonder what their response will be.

I’m currently listening to the Soca Show on One Xtra and checking out the amazing carnival pics on Flickr.

In the UK, carnival is a more modest affair—i.e. non-existing, except for the overcrowded but vibrant Notting Hill Carnival, which is really a Caribbean festival that happens nowhere around carnival time. I do remember the German version of Karneval, but it’s nothing like what happens in Trini or even Notting Hill, especially with home-grown British talent thrown into the mix.

Anyway, the closest thing that we have around this time that harks back to Christian traditions is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, which is essentially the opposite of Fat Tuesday. Trust the Brits to do penance while the rest of the world throws one final, all-out party on the day before Lent.

But any excuse for a pancake, I say.

In Trinidad (or more precisely: in Dougie’s Bar in Manzanilla) I discovered the secret of the bake, which has influenced the way I now make pancakes.

Bake:
½lb plain flour, 2tsp baking powder, pinch yeast.
Mix with enough water to knead, rest, form patties and deep-fry.

The secret lies of course in the yeast. If baking powder alone is used it affects the taste.

I don’t use exact measures for pancakes: the final batter should be the consistency of thick cream. You can always add more milk to thin it. Adding an extra yolk greatly improves the flavour.

Pancakes:
About 300g plain (preferably 00-grade) flour, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk, milk, ca. 1tsp baking powder, pinch yeast, small pinch salt.
Beat the eggs, mix everything together until smooth and rest in the fridge overnight.

[EDIT: you must sift the flour, even if it’s extra fine :/]

[EDIT 2: half the suggested amount of flour. God, I hate pastry And imperial measures >:( ]

Adding apples or blueberries: Bring some butter to sizzle in a pan and gently swirl the mix to spread it until the bottom sets. Press the fruit into the half-cooked batter. Continue to cook over a low heat until the top just starts to set and flip.

These pancakes tend to fluff up and break easily. Tossing them isn’t an option if you don’t want pieces of fruit flying around the kitchen, so I use a smaller pan and a big spatula to flip them over.

That’s the theory anyhow. We’ll see tomorrow.

I cringe each time Virgin Atlantic’s latest advert appears on TV. Cribbed from the Leonardo di Caprio movie Catch Me If You Can, it shows a bunch of red-clad mannequin stewardesses fawning over a dashing airline captain as they march across a drab airport to the tune of eighties music—just to show that in a quarter of a century nothing has changed.

But that isn’t quite true. I’m seeing more male cabin crew now, although I have yet to encounter a female pilot. And passenger service has declined sharply. My return flight from Barbados had the worst service that I have experienced in a quarter century of travelling.

It all started so well. VA has an image of being young, cutting-edge and fun. I was ecstatic to be flying with them again after my great trip to Nippon 2007. But the Barbados route is not Japan. On the Japan route they would never get away with that level of attitude. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but in future I will pay extra not to fly Virgin again.

Setting aside the complete lack of assistance by ground staff (that is another matter) the service was appaling. It isn’t just that drinks are dealt out in thimble portions: for about three hours after dinner I was waiting in vain for a drop of water. With an elderly passenger sleeping in the aisle seat, I could not get to the bathrooms. The cabin crew took a long time to respond to the signal (in the end I had to stand up in my seat and call out to someone as he was turning his back to me) and the response was “we have only just finished with the duty free”.

“So you don’t believe in giving your passengers any liquid?”

“You’ve had liquid from the bar and you’ve had liquid at dinner.” With a huff, the young man turned on his heels and returned with a beaker containing about 100ml of water.

Usually I take my own water on flights (and I usually do not need it), but in Bridgetown the final check point is past the drinking fountains and I had to discard the water from my bottle. I wasn’t tempted to refill it with the tepid water in the bathrooms.

I should have done.