Sunday 23 January 2011

MY DOC MARTINS.

I wear Doc Martins 8 hole dress boots in black most of the time. Don't get me wrong, I love women's shoes but most are not the shape of my foot, so I may do a photo shoot in heels but for everyday?  No. I like my feet.  They do not narrow to a point in the middle and I refuse to ask them to do so. I take a size 4/37 so I can buy boys boots and save on VAT.  Also they don't expect boys feet to come to a point.  I have been wearing boys shoes since the seventies because I saw my mother-in-law's feet and what ill-fitting shoes could do.

The funny thing about the Docs is that people, men in particular, get all rhapsodical about it.  I went to a friend's the other day and this friend of his kept going on about it with a maniacal gleam in his eye.  Very unnerving.   Does it mean something to wear Docs?  I do it just because it is comfortable.

Plus you never know when you might have to kick someone or make a run for it, or both. Be prepared, that's my motto.

Saturday 22 January 2011

CHINESE CHICKEN SOUP. by C.A.Jones January 2011

CHINESE CHICKEN SOUP.


 INGREDIENTS:

I med. shallot - sliced                          
1/2 pack spring onions - sliced              
I red onion - sliced
1/2 yellow pepper -diced small            
3 cloves garlic - diced small, with salt    
1 large mushroom - sliced
2 tblsp olive oil                                    
1 pint water               -                            
1/4 pint milk
I large carrot, cut into matchsticks        
7/8 small broccoli florets                        
1 med. potato - 1cm cubes
1 teasp turmeric                                  
1 teasp chinese five spice                      
1/2 teasp ginger                
I/2 teasp cumin seeds                          
Salt and pepper to taste                        
Dash of soy sauce
1 oz flour                                            
1 cooked chicken breast, remove skin and bones and reserve
1 pint veg stock.

METHOD:

1. Flake the cooked chicken meat into small pieces & reserve in a dish. Place bones in one pint of water and boil for half an hour/30 min. Strain stock into a 3pt saucepan.  
2. Chop the shallot, spring onions and red onion roughly. Finely chop the garlic adding salt as you chop to soak up the garlic oil. Finely dice the yellow pepper. Place all chopped ingredients in a bowl.
3. Cut the potato into 1cm cubes, cut off 7/8 broccoli florets, peel and cut the carrots into matchstick sized pieces. place in a microwaveable jug or dish. Sprinkle over with a vegetable stock cube and add 1/2 pint to 3/4 pint of boiling water to cover. Salt lightly and place in microwave, cook for fifteen minutes on high heat leaving to stand when done.
4.  Heat 2 tbspn olive oil in a frying pan till sizzling. (if you put a small piece of food in the oil you will be able to see when it is sizzling and avoid undercooked food or a fire.)
5.  Add the three onions and the pepper and garlic to the pan. Stir until all covered in oil, cover and leave on a low heat to sweat down, for 5-10 mins, occasionally stirring to prevent burning..
6. Meanwhile measure the turmeric, ginger, cumin and Chinese fives-pice onto a saucer. When the onion mix in the frypan is softened add the dish of spices and stir-fry for another minute or so.
7.  Add a dash of soy sauce to the fry-pam and stir for one minute. Remove the fry-pan's contents into the sauce-pan. Add the cooked vegetables and vegetable stock to the sauce-pan. Add the meat and return to the boil, simmer for 20-30 mins and serve with hot buttered bread rolls.

(C) C.A.Jones 2011






Friday 21 January 2011

ROAST TOMATO SOUP serves 2

ROAST TOMATO SOUP serves 2



INGREDIENTS

250g tomatoes                                              1 med potato
4 lge cloves garlic                                          1 rounded tsp tomato purée
A handful of basil                                          1tsp castor sugar
Olive oil                                                        A splash of white wine/wine vinegar.
1 heaped tablespoon of creme fraiche.          Salt & ground black pepper

METHOD

1.  Halve the tomatoes and place cut side up in a baking dish.
2.  Peel the garlic cloves, chop into quarters and place at random in the baking dish.
3.  Sprinkle the castor sugar over the tomatoes and garlic.
4.  Sprinkle a handful of chopped basil over the dish, then drizzle tomatoes with olive oil, season to taste with salt and pepper.
5.  Cook in the centre of a medium oven 150deg C for half an hour, until starting to brown, add a splash of wine/wine vinegar and
      cook for a further five minutes, remove from oven.
6.  Meanwhile, peel and cube the potato, place in a pan with 250ml/10 fl oz water; add the tsp of tomato puree to the water.
7.  Bring potato to the boil and simmer for ten minutes, until soft.
8.  Empty the contents of the dish and the saucepan, including water to a blender and whizz for a minute or so til smooth.
9.  Serve with hot buttered toast or an oven fresh roll.

Sunday 16 January 2011

NO BOOZE, NO GRASS & NO SLEEP

Isn't it strange how you can be almost asleep at the keyboard but by the time you get into bed you can't sleep? I was dozing off earlier but now its five hours later and I can't get to sleep at all.  Its 06:00 GMT now.
I have given up booze and grass which may be why I can't sleep. I just need to accept the fact that Xmas is over. This last binge started a week before Xmas on my birthday, 17th Dec. but its over now.  All I need to do now is keep up the diet and exercise to remove those few extra inches off the spare tyre.  Mind you, not sleeping will knock a couple of pounds off , ha ha.

Saturday 8 January 2011

Depression.

   Depression is a strange illness. People think it means just being sad, like when your puppy gets run over and killed - but it doesn't., its far more complicated than that.  It is a daily fight with total apathy. Nothing seems worth it. Washing, getting up, food - its all meaningless when one is on a downswing. But when one is on an upswing its hyperactivity all the way. Both states are emotionally exhausting.

Thursday 6 January 2011

06 JAN 2011


The Gas ran out AGAIN!!!





I rang up and its some stupid way they have of doing it now. Once, If you used the fiver emergency credit you would put in seven pounds, it would take five pounds leaving two pounds credit. If the two pounds got used up you could go back on emergency credit. No more. New rules say that the meter has to give you 30% of whatever you put on it, so if you put seven pounds on now, that means two pound ten pence has to be given to you. This means that you still owe ten pence, so if it runs out again, you have no access to emergency credit because you still owe it ten pence!!!
Is it me or is that stupid???
A few seconds ago · 

DEATH & TAXES

There's nothing certain in this world,
Except for death and taxes,
Yet everyone's caught up in a whirl
And no bugger relaxes.

Jesus said, "God will provide."
The church says, "Boy! Get workin'!"
"God won't let you into heaven
Unless you all stop shirkin'."

Jesus said, "No need for priests,
Just talk to God direct."
The church says, "You must go through me."
So that they can collect.

Jesus said, "God loves us all
And wants us to be free."
Priests say, "Sinner, on your knees!
You talk to God through me!"

The church says we are born in sin
And live our lives that way,
That everything we think and feel
And everything we say

Is not allowed by God above,
So why make us this way?
Did he really want us to suffer?
To be made to pay and pay?

Not according to Jesus,
Who they all claim to follow,
But as they twist and change his words
Their meaning becomes hollow.

Jesus said God loves us,
A Father to us all;
I really don't know how the church
Can spit out so much gall!

GOOGLE SENSITIVITY AT ITS BEST.

Excerpt from an article on guardian.co.uk on the Tories' plans to sell off OUR forests. Check out the sensitive Google ad at the bottom.


"The Forestry Commission sale would encompass 20% of all of England's wooded land – 650,000 acres in total, including 20,000 hectares of ancient woodland. The scale of it is preposterous, unimaginable. But it is not the enormity of it we should be looking at, not the numbers or the acreage – rather, it is the specifics, the places, the people, the species under threat: the woods where you walk your dog, or where you take your children to see the bluebells in spring; the streams where you played in your youth, the trees you climbed, the dens you made. It is the foresters who work in these woods. It is the hornbeam, the field mouse, the foxglove, the pearl-bordered fritillary, one of the many butterflies under threat. It is the call of the nightingale, and the cuckoo, the hawfinch, tree pipit and the lark. It is the smell of wet earth and leaf mould, it is the sound of the mistle thrush, the sun-dappled ferns, the scent of wild garlic. It is what has lain at the heart of English culture for centuries.
In his introduction to Wildwood, Deakin also wrote of a desire to excite "a feeling for the importance of trees through a greater understanding of them, so that people don't think of 'trees' as they do now, but of each individual tree and each kind of tree". It is such an approach we need now more than ever – for our forests and our students and our sick and poor, we need to excite a similar kind of understanding of individuality, an understanding that promotes compassion. After all, if a single tree falls in the forest, I believe we have a responsibility to make sure that it is heard."


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Wednesday 5 January 2011

SOLAR STORM AND FLARE SCARES OF THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS.

  1. Here we go again....

    This spate of extreme Solar activity began towards the end of October 2003 with a ... with a severe threat to all space satellites and telecommunications. ...
    www.nasca.org.uk/Strange.../solar/Solar.../solar_flare.html - Cached - Similar
  2. 1 Feb 2010 ... Could solar activity and its interaction with the Earth's magnetic ... that “the Commission is divided over how imminent a threat this is… ...
    www.thespacereview.com/article/1553/1 - Cached - Similar
  3. 10 Jun 2010 ... Solar Storms Are a Real Threat for the Future. ... and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity...
    news.softpedia.com › News › Science › Space - Cached
  4. 7 Jun 2010 ... Solar Storms Could Be Threat in 2013 ... It warned that a solar activity storm could "could cause twenty times more economic damage than ...
    www.myfoxny.com/.../solar-storms-could-be-threat-in-2013-dpgoha-20100607-fc_7958116 -Cached
  5. 20 Sep 2010 ... Defence Secretary Liam Fox will today highlight the threat to ... that it could be paralysed by a once-in-a-century solar flare. ... Food & Drink · Outdoor & Activity · Arts & Books · Travel · Green · myIndependent ...
    www.independent.co.uk › News › UK › Home News - Cached
  6. 17 Sep 2010... so the threat becomes more widespread,” he will say. ... An aeroplane is silhouetted against a partial solar eclipse as seen in the ...
    www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Solar-flares-could-paralyse-Britains-power-and-communications-Liam-Fox-says.html
  7. 17 posts - 10 authors - Last post: 15 May 2006
    The ions from the solar flare carry a charge. Even with the normal solar wind, some of the Earth's magnetic field gets torn away. ...
    www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread207848/pg1 - Cached - Similar
  8. 6 Jun 2010 ... The Newest Threat to All Human Life on Earth: Solar Storms ... in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity...
    gawker.com/.../the-newest-threat-to-all-human-life-on-earth-solar-storms - Cached
  9. serious threat to humanity. Sea surface temperatures, extremely low solar activity and increased volcanic activity would lead to ...
    www.iceagenow.com/Triple_Crown_of_global_cooling.htm - Cached
  10. 10 Jun 2010 ... The sun's activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, ... "the potential extremes of the geomagnetic threat environment may be much greater ...
    www.foxnews.com/.../electronic-armageddon-solar-flares-disaster/ - Cached

ASTEROID SCARES OF THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS.

I look at these and wonder, "What government cock-up prompted this bit of reporting?"  Forgive me for scepticism.

  1. Giant asteroid 'heading for Earth in 2182' - Telegraph

    29 Jul 2010 ... A giant asteroid called 1999 RQ36 may crash into Earth on September 24 2182, scientists believe.
    www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Giant-asteroid-heading-for-Earth-in-2182.html
  2. BBC News | World | Celestial bomb heading for Earth

    Celestial bomb heading for Earth A newly-discovered asteroid could be on a collision ... [ image: A meteorite found on Earth]. A meteorite found on Earth ...
    news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/64871.stm - Cached
  3. CNN.com - Giant asteroid could hit Earth in 2014 - Sep. 2, 2003

    2 Sep 2003 ... A giant asteroid is heading for Earth and could hit in 2014, U.S. astronomers have warned British space monitors.
    www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/02/...reut/index.html - Cached - Similar
  4. NASA - Is an Asteroid Heading Toward Mars?

    21 Dec 2007 ... Right now it's about halfway between Earth and Mars. It just flew by Earth in early November and it's heading toward an encounter with Mars ...
    www.nasa.gov/multimedia/.../jpl-mars-20071220.html - Cached - Similar
  5. YouTube - AN ASTEROID IS HEADING FOR EARTH!

    30 Jul 2010 ... "1999 RQ36" As dubbed by NASA is heading for Earth! Well, scientists have said the asteroid, which is 560m across, could pass very closely ...
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLFfDRFmIbw - Cached
  6. Mile-wide asteroid heading towards Earth poses greatest threat yet ...

    25 Jul 2002 ... An asteroid more than a mile wide is heading for earth, posing the greatest threat yet by an object approaching the planet, scientists have ...
    www.independent.co.uk › News › Science - Cached - Similar

THE CAROLE ANNE JONES BLOG: CAPITALISM.

THE CAROLE ANNE JONES BLOG: CAPITALISM.: "The best trick capitalists played on the world was to convince people that capitalism = freedom. This enables the rich few to manipulate the..."

CAPITALISM.

The best trick capitalists played on the world was to convince people that capitalism = freedom. This enables the rich few to manipulate the rest of the world. No-one can argue against freedom, now can they? We are all free - free to do their bidding or face the consequences. And there is no opt-out. No-one is exempt from land taxes so everyone has to earn at least SOME cash.
Before capitalism we had Feudalism. We were serfs then but still owned by the rich, the difference being that we knew it. The benefits of capitalism to the rich is that we still have to work for them but they no longer have to feed and house us in return. And whenever they get their foot in the door of a new area the work goes there and we are left high and dry. Capitalists have no concern for any country or people - everything is a commodity, no room for sentiments like patriotism in business. (As we have seen all too clearly in recent years.)
They want to bring consumer goods, - I mean democracy - to the world. Wages will go up in China as time goes on, so they have their eyes on the middle east. And after that? I guess there is still Africa.
Eventually there will be no new consumer/workforces to be exploited. What will happen then? It'll be back to Britain where there has been no manufacturing for decades and wages will be low. Our rights and freedoms are already being encroached on under the guise of "terror and crime prevention" in anticipation of times to come. They'll make it so that we will be glad to work for peanuts.

Mind you, they couldn't do anything like as much damage if people just didn't buy stuff that they don't need. For consumer capitalism to keep expanding all it needs is consumers.


Tuesday 4 January 2011

04.01,2010

09:40.
I'm listening to a conspiracy theorist expounding his views. It would greatly help his case if he could decide what to say before filming and not talk rubbish about crystals. Now he's on about 'them' opening vortices to other dimensions to let in 'the evil one' and "open the gates of Hell." All I can say to that is BOLLOCKS!!!  I don't want to bring down the system, just the corrupt tossers in charge of it all.

10:00
Last night I had to wake up once an hour to check the bank so as I could put cash in the current account for a direct debit. I moved the cash over and the bank nicked twenty quid off me! That was food money for the next three days so I'm understandably pissed off. I shall be raiding the freezer this week.

11:05
"I don't have a car, nor a tv, nor do I fly anywhere. I buy local meat, veg and dairy products. I have double-glazing and good insulation. My carbon footprint is tiny. And I re-use and re-cycle. I even buy most of my clothes in charity shops. What about you?" - a question I asked an aquaintance on Facebook earlier.His reply was interesting because he finally got to what he wanted to say.

12:25
Dean has spent the last half hour stretching the gloop he peeled off the side of my pad to an incredible 4-5 times its original length. Unfortunately it has now split. :(

23:00
I watched Dances with Wolves followed by Wallender. Good evening's viewing curtesy of the bbciplayer.  I'm of to bed now, after a smoke.

Monday 3 January 2011

03.01.2011 - 19:25

What nonsense life is. Sometimes bugger-all is going on and at other times so much is happening one does not know which way to turn...Dean has fallen asleep on my floor during cooking dinner. The beef casserole is in the slow cooker already so it can only improve in flavour.
One of us has to stay up until the cash goes in the bank after twelve midnight, so it can be transferred to the bills' account before the direct debits are called for.  One of us ought to make it. :))
I'm having a smoke and watching a couple of quiz shows. I may go to sleep for a while too.
MWAH!!!
xxxxxxxxx

Hello and welcome to my blog.

Its more of a diary than a blog, I guess. A new year is upon us and I have taken up Tai Chi. I'm only managing every other day on average. But I need to do it cos I promised myself that I would.I was going to totally give up alcohol but I am failing - not too badly. :))
It took me years to stop smoking so I will not beat myself up; after all 4-5 glasses of cider is bugger-all considering what I used to put away on the wine and spirits. Mind you, I was an alcoholic having a nervous breakdown after a nasty episode in my life. Date rape - stupid expression - sounds so innocuous for such a total betrayal of trust...
I've spent a lot of time under a blanket over the last fifteen years - a blanket of pain and dark clouds, of hatred and rage and loss. I'm up to just using a fleece now but its been, and still is, a constant battle against hopelessness. 


Sitting here earlier on my folded up quilt with a fleece over my legs I was musing on what makes a blanket so nice and a short poem popped into my head - its a bit soppy, but also true.


THE LURE OF THE BLANKET
by C. A. Jones


The warm brown fleece 
Seperates me from the cold. 
My legs and toes are softly 
Kept warm, like in days of old 
When I was just a baby, 
Held close in loving arms
And wrapped in fleecy blankets - 
Contented, loved and warm.


So half the Sun blew up did it? Haven't heard much about that. Apparently we are all going ti die. Better smoke this and drink that while I have time.