Denniblog

I finished day-dreaming about Japan and woke up to harsh reality.

It’s icy cold. I refuse to put on the heating until October 1st. But if my upbringing in these matters is strict, that’s nothing compared to the zealots in government who tell us to lower the thermostats still further to save the planet.

I will, if they double the tax on 4WD cars or—better still—ban the things. In fact, let’s ban all company cars, included the chauffeured jags that the politicians whiz around in. Then we can start talking. But I will be on one of the last open flights out of this country—with a one-way ticket.

Meanwhile, it’s getting dark and I realize that I have wasted the entire afternoon (on one of the few sunny days we’ve had) sitting at the computer waiting for the carpet man to turn up, instead of going to Reading.

The UK must be the only developed country in the world where builders and repairmen take a sick pride in their unreliability. It is far from the first time that this has happened; in fact it would be highly unusual if it hadn’t. The fact that I have wasted an entire day thanks to a lunchtime appointment which hasn’t been honoured must give these people some sort of perverse kick. And naturally, there will be no apology (not that an apology from that sort is worth anything, since they’re not bound by a code of honour) and I will be expected to do the same thing again and again. If I’m lucky, they’ll eventually turn up and rip out half the floor boards before vanishing into thin air. Not without causing major disruption in the process, of course. For—when they deign to turn up—these people demand your full and undivided attention whenever they whistle/knock/shout out “Oy!” and no matter what it is you’re currently trying to concentrate on.

The flood happened over three months ago, and nothing has been done since. The ground floor is still basically uninhabitable, and sodden carpets and flood-damaged rubbish are piled high out at the front and back.

Can you imagine this happening in Japan?

Wait a minute: why do we have to put up with this shit? Is this our house?

I reckon we’ll move. But it may cost us if we end up paying double-rent when we sign the new lease before our notice has run out (this usually happens).

And to think that, following the flood, our neighbours received compensation for the inconvenience…

Did I just bow when leaving the shop?

I’m going through a period of cultural readjustment. Earlier, struggling with my ailing hardware and seeing that John works for an internet company, I snapped at him: “I don’t know why I have to put up with this crap. You do realize we’re living in the twenty-second century—”

I think I can be forgiven, having just returned from Worldcon in Japan…

At long last, I have a brand-new website, with a brand-new (stolen) template and sleek, sexy look 😉 No more elephants! (But Easyspace wheedled 15 quid ‘transfer fee’ out of me.)

For FTP-in-your-sleep, FlashFXP is a work of art. After my very first upload (OK, all the index files and two directories—took about 30 seconds) I wanted to shower them with money for the shareware version, a mere $25. But why do they make it so difficult? I can’t pay them until I register, so that they can shower me with newsletters in return.

Doh!

(…our living room, that is.)

We’re used to grey skies here, but Friday morning was just ridiculous. It felt as if we were living on the bottom of a lake.

I put on the coffee and went back to bed, snivelling. It wasn’t actually that cold. Had I left the heating on?

Then I remembered: it’s July—not November.

Outside, the water was lapping at our doorstep.

Four centimetres below the threshold, it began to recede. The brook that flows past our house was still draining, although a slight overspill had occurred on the opposite lawn where the bank is slightly lower. We’d gotten away with it—this time.

I went back upstairs and sat down at the computer, reflecting on the floods which have claimed parts of Yorkshire twice this summer. It had been close. Almost smugly, I took one last look out of the window.

The footpath had disappeared.

You have probably read that you’re not supposed to camp in or near dry river beds, right? Because flash floods, when they happen, won’t leave you time to get away. Believe.

The water was now irrevocably creeping over the threshold. I had perhaps a few minutes left. Staring vacantly at my feet, I wondered if we would all get electrocuted once it reached the sockets. I tore down the mains switch, but some houses stood empty as the water rose; in others, people had other things on their mind. There had been no news about electrocuted flood victims in Yorkshire…

Whatever. There was no time to hesitate.

Shakily, I pulled on wellies and shoved boxes, papers and books indiscriminately onto window sills, chairs and tables. There wasn’t time to think or plan ahead.

As the carpet rose and began to wobble underneath my feet, my perception of reality shifted. This was really happening, there was no arguing with nature.

I continued to snatch things up blindly. Nothing could be saved if the water rose much above knee height.

By the time I remembered the storage space underneath the stairs, it was already too late. I grabbed the camera and stumbled down the front step, the water percolating into my useless wellies.

We all gathered on the nearest patch of road, looking on bemusedly as the calamity unfolded. The hammer blows and drills at number 13, where our neighbours have spent the last couple of weeks renovating, were now silenced. The woman at number 15 shook her head and muttered something about new carpets. “Three months old.” Her voice grew louder. “I won’t allow anyone to eat in the lounge,” she said. “No shoes. I even wipe the dog’s feet.”

The dog had just swum all the way from said lounge to the parking lot.

After an hour, the waters receded. The light from the windows reflected lazily in an indoor lake on the kitchen floor. I mopped it up with a bathtowel and spent the afternoon trying to brush out a river from our living room, cubic centimetre by bloody cubic centimetre. Some instinct took over decreeing that I should be doing something, however futile.

The deluge had come to within a centimetre of our ground floor sockets. The electricity was still working. So was the washing machine. As for our carpets, they were due for replacement, and our landlord will be pleased that the insurance pays for it.

As I’m writing this, the gasfire and fan heaters are blowing away downstairs, raising the temperature to sub-tropical levels while outside the rain continues.

We almost got away with it—this time.

I missed the New Scientist last week (the local Sainsbury’s stocks it because there is a higher density of atomic weapons engineers per square metre in this town than anywhere else in the UK).

Never fear, The Advertiser—one of the many freesheets that drop into our letterbox in a steady trickle because we’re living on the ‘desirable’ side of the brook—led with a news item about an article in New Scientist that I might otherwise have overlooked. The feature, written by Robert Rowlands, stated that the author of the NS article has spent two years wrangling with the MoD over his Freedom of Information request, ‘ “the most tortuous and probably the most important” FoI request he had ever made.’.

Having read the article, I can see why.

This from New Scientist:

‘Between 1983 and 1991, the US stationed 96 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles at Greenham Common in Berkshire[…]

[…]the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston had estimated that 10 million people, including the population of London, could have been exposed to an “inhalation hazard” from plutonium if warheads exploded or caught fire.

[…]The report said a fire in one storage cell, fed from fuel from the missiles, could result in the plutonium from eight warheads being blown across a large swathe of southern England. Still, the risk was considered “acceptable”.’

Small wonder that both the MoD and the Pentagon wanted to keep this quiet.

‘The MoD’s response is that it “does not confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons at any particular place at any particular time”. It added, “There has never been an accident involving nuclear weapons in the UK that has put the public at risk.’—interesting to see that, apparently, there have been accidents involving nuclear weapons that have not put the public at risk (they don’t always blow up).

Well, it only takes one.

It’s reassuring to know that, to my knowledge, only a couple of warheads are stored in our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment at any one time.

As part of my Japan preparations, I’m currently reading Hokkaiodo Highways Blues (this is a great book by the way), in which writer Will Ferguson repeatedly bemoans the fact that—after years of living in Japan—he is still an outsider and will never be regarded as an equal by the Japanese.

At first I nodded dutifully along. Then I went to the pub on Saturday evening while John was away.

This is my twentieth year of residence in the UK, and our third in this neighbourhood (which is far from my favourite). Yet as soon as I set foot in the pub, I found myself staring at the radiant face of a semi-oiled old codger who slurred something about didn’t I remember him, I was that German whom he talked to back in February?

I can’t say that I did and fled outside to have a smoke under the newly erected umbrella. There was another acquaintance with one of his mates. He introduced me and his mate said: “Oh, you’re German—there was a German shepherd in the yard not so long ago.”

Eh?

I hastily finished my pint and went home. I have no illusions ever to be accepted as part of the crowd here.

In Germany we have a saying: “You look like seven days of rain” (i.e. miserable).

Seven days?

In England, we had a month of rain, and it looks as if there’s going to be another to follow.

And I suppose I have to be grateful that we don’t live in Yorkshire, which is flooded 🙁

By late afternoon, the sky was lead grey, but the threatened downpour didn’t happen. And even if it did, would I stay at home?

For twenty-two years, the peacewomen have camped by the side of the Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons bomb factory almost every month; come rain or shine, in freezing temperatures, howling winds and chilling damp. And in the two-and-a-half years that I have been living in the neighbourhood, I did not once go to join them, or even visit.

Why not? Because it was inconvenient.

And yet, I have been invited to the party. We all have. Tonight, the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Campaig(-n) would celebrate its twenty-second birthday in style: a cocktail party with music late into the night and a dress-code of ‘fabulous’.

So, I dug out my mother’s vintage cocktail dress (which fits, because the rubber band broke long ago, so the skirt has to be tied under the loose-fitting top) and set off, equiped with a bottle of sparkling Chardonnay, a punnet of local strawberries, a big bag of tortilla chips and some kick-ass home-made guacamole.

(Artfully blurred)
Me in front of our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment
[read on]

I’ve been invited to a Cocktail Party (9th June), and you can all come too, if you’re female.

The Women’s Peace Camp(aign) at our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapon’s Establishment is 22 years old. What better occasion to celebrate the introduction of new byelaws which are designed to protect the MOD from peacewomen (LoL).

Contrary to what most of you may think, I don’t often get invited to parties, much less to ones where the dress code is ‘fabulous’. With that being the case, and with the British weather being what it is, I’m now too fat to fit into any of my fabulous cocktail dresses.

Well, I’ll just have to improvise.

Tonight we’re going to the pub to sink a few pints with some people who work inside the base. It’s kind of strange to live in a village like this. The police are taking pictures of everyone who participates in the demos, and I’m curious of what they’d make of ‘suspected terrorist’ peace-campaigners hob-nobbing with nuclear weapons engineers…

I promised a few summertime cook-out recipes, but as I see, my old blog entry from way back already describes the procedure.

A bit of background:

Head-to-tail eating has become trendy lately, but I’ve grown up with it.

I mean that literally—both parts of said anatomy made regular appearances on my dinner plate.

Back in the Sixties and early Seventies, people were not as removed from their food as they are now. (Disgracefully, this is even true of some chefs, such as Leslie Waters who gushes in the current issue of the Good Food Magazine (June 2007): : ‘Offal—I hate it, too much information for me. I’m not into all that, nor stuff like pig’s trotters.’. Mmmh…)

Back then, it was quite common to raise pigs on smallholdings (even the nuns at my boarding school did this). My elder sister’s best friend came from a farm, and her parents raised their own pigs and cured and smoked their own bacon. One year, we decided to share a pig with them (we acquired a big chest freezer, taking up almost an entire wall of the cellar entrance, for the occasion).

I remember watching black pudding and sausages being made. And while my sister’s friend’s parents went on to brine the legs and belly for ham and speck, my mother surprised me by making her own Sülze, or headcheese (unlike brawn—which is set with only a tiny amount of stock, much like a low-fat version of rillette—Sülze is jelly-like, with cubes of meat and garnish set in a clear stock).

Along with other off-cuts and innards (the term ‘offal’ reminds me too much of the German word ‘Abfall’—yuck), pig’s heads and trotters are still for sale at some traditional butchers (they may have to be ordered in advance) and at the Greenfield Pork stall at Basingstoke Farmers’ Market, where I saw it for the first time two years ago. And remembering my mother’s cooking during my childhood, I took up the challenge yet again.