Author Archives: Natalie Bennett

How many more times?

November 6, 2007 – 12:40 am

How many more times will we have to read stories like this?

A police officer pleaded guilty to a misconduct charge today following an independent inquiry into the fatal stabbing of a mother of three. PC Charlotte Hall admitted breaching the police code of conduct by failing to perform her duties “diligently and conscientiously” when she was called to the home of Colette Lynch two days before she was killed by her estranged partner.

So much energy, effort and panic is wasted on concerns about “stranger danger”. Yet women are – overwhelmingly – at risk from their partners and ex-partners.

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Business opportunity

November 5, 2007 – 1:13 am

I’ve just watched with some bemusement a mangle (wringer) going for £132 on eBay. We’re not talking here of some substantial, attractive piece of Victoriana to decorate a fine conservatory, no, a probably 1950s or perhaps 1960s, bolt-to-the-side of the tub, plain white number of no visual merit whatsoever, but advertised as in good working order.

I’ve done a bit of research (and totally bemused the South Asian staff in my local odd-goods store by asking if they had mangles – well they do have lots of odd old-style things) and it seems no one is making these today. Obviously a business niche begging to be filled.

(And if you are wondering why I want one, yes it is for the obvious purpose. Having limited space in the kitchen, I’ve chosen to have a dishwasher and am washing clothers in a Wonder Wash, which works very well. But hand-wrung items are taking rather a long time to dry.)

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The weekly countdown

November 5, 2007 – 12:57 am

Britblog Roundup No 142 is no up on Suz Blog, and the author brings her own inimitable style to the task – definitely one to enjoy.

(And through it I found a spectacularly wonderful new – to me – blog, English Buildings and learned what a traditional English bee skep (predating the days of hives), looks like.)

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Where else would I be?

November 4, 2007 – 11:50 am

Note to my (non)-delivery man this morning. At 8.30 on a Sunday morning I will be nowhere else but in bed, asleep. Should you have told me that the delivery will be between 9 and 12, and I not answer my phone at 8.30, due to, obviously, being asleep, perhaps you could get out of your cab, walk 50 yards and ring my doorbell, rather than take the bookcase all of the way back to Lancashire?

Just a thought.

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How do you take your pepper?

November 3, 2007 – 9:40 pm

I’ve been enjoying a fascinating discussion on the Mediev-L email discussion list about pepper. Like the original questioner, when I thought about the spice I was thinking of the early modern period, and the early period of European colonialism, but I’ve now learnt that the Greeks employed it in their cuisine, as did particularly the later Romans, and our name for it came from them, and they drew it from Sanskrit.

But there are several different fruits known as pepper – long pepper and black pepper, while European medieval early modern* sources confused chillies and peppers (which suggests to me they didn’t know either very well – or in rather degraded forms.)

There was also the attractively named grains of paradise – a plant of the ginger family with a peppery taste (at least this seems to be the consensus view – some think it was cardamon).

* I got a bit early here, as the commenter below explains. What I find fascinating about that is how late the chilli gets to Asia, yet how essential it now seems to Asian cuisines.

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Why are we in the dark?

November 1, 2007 – 12:21 pm

You can feel spirits sink. Summertime ends, misery sets in, and as Anatole Kaletsky sets out, more people die on the roads, greenhouse gas outputs go up, and the children who are still playing outside stop doing so – thus putting on some more pounds. So why are we still changing the clocks?

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