Diet Food of the Day - Keesh

I was featured in the local newsletter 'The Enterprise' this week as part of their 'health and fitness' promotion.  It wasn't a good thing.  Mainly because there was a photograph of me looking rotund, captioned 'How NOT to do it - One Sheep's Weight-loss Hell'.
I don't think that you'll be surprised to learn that 'The Enterprise'' is one of enterprising couple Dave and Val Nark's latest enterprises.  Or that its vile and clumsy motto is 'Boldly to Go Where No-one Has Gone Before - or at least, Not for a While.'
Val came round to ours far too early this morning with a copy hot off their bio-fuel-powered printer.  More of where precisely the bio-fuel comes from, later.
'There you go Tuppy!  I know we've had our differences in the past but Dave and I are nothing if not emotionally-generous and so we've put you right there on the front page!  I'm sure Geoffrey will be so proud.'
'Yes that's right - thank you V - ' began Geoffrey, before I kicked him smartly behind the knee. 'Ow!'
'Well I'll be off then!  Time waits for no-one and I've a pilates class at ten and I need to be on the door before they arrive so I can get the money up front.  Not to mention I also have yurts to fill, goats to milk, and a post-office to run. Do stop by the post office for a lo-cal goji-berry flapjack - I've got some stale ones on special.'
And off she whisked, power-walking back up the hill to what used to be the bare and empty tourist car-park, and which is now a sprawling mass of eco-yurts, the largest and pointiest of which has been converted into a post-office-cum-eco-minimart.
'Why am I not losing weight Geoffrey? I've had keesh for tea for the past five days,' I said, as I flung 'The Enterprise' into the fire and watched my own face staring back at me before it vanished forever into ash.
'I don't know Tuppy.  Keesh is supposed to be healthy.  Everyone eats it when they're on a diet.  You've also had salad with everything, as well, so what with that and the keesh you should be really slim by now. It's a mystery Tuppy.  I hate to say,  but you might have to consult Dr Wilson.  You could have a glandular problem.'

more later.

The Whingers Anonymous Club, Badges, & Gel Inserts

'I've got a new badge,' crowed Geoffrey as he flew through the hole in the kitchen wall and landed on his usual perch on the end of the mantlepiece.
'Really,' I replied, staring out of the window in my usual morose manner, while puffing on my electronic pipe and adjusting my belt inwards - yes, INwards - by yet another notch.
'Don't you want to see?' he badgered.
'No.'
'Why not?  It's lovely and shiny.'
'Oh do shut up.  I'm not interested in seeing anything shiny if it isn't baccy or food.'
'I know you'll like it.  It's just up your alley,' he continued doggedly, 'You'll never guess what it's for - you're completely foxed, aren't you?'
'No, I'm not foxed as you put it.  I'm never foxed.  I don't DO foxed,' I said standing up, and flexing my plantar, 'Cattiness isn't in my nature as a general rule, but I've had more than enough of the animal verbs and adverbs.  Crowing,  badgering, doing things doggedly, being completely and utterly foxed and so forth.  And before you say it - I'm not horsing around.   No more am I cowering in a corner, feeling cowed and looking cow-eyed.  Besides, I know precisely what that badge is for because I saw the notice pinned up outside the post office last Monday when I went to collect my gel inserts.'
'What notice?'
'The one about the new Whingers Anonymous Club that meets in the church hall on Tuesday evenings at 7.  It's like the Hellfire Club except there's no dirtiness, there's tea instead of port, and it's open only to whingeing old domino-playing half-wits like your good self.'
'What gel inserts?'
'The ones I got off Ebay for my plantar fasciitis.  Which, might I add, is giving me absolute gyp this afternoon.  Not that you'd care, with your shiny new badge and your new friends at the Whingers Anonymous club and all.'
Geoffrey looked crestfallen, and I immediately felt alarmed. If I didn't apologise pretty swiftly there would be no chance of his making the tea.  'I'm sorry.  I'm just hacked off is all, Geoffrey.  My feet hurt despite my new gel inserts, I hate my new-fangled electronic pipe and I hate being on this five two diet.'
'It was your own idea to go on a so-called health kick.'
'No it wasn't.'
'It was!'
'WASN'T!  And stop looking crestfallen. You're making me feel even worse.  Here am I with an electronic pipe,  starving myself for five days and eating rabbit-food on the other two....'
'I'm not crestfallen.  I'm cowed.  And by the way Tuppy - I haven't liked to mention it before, because you've been in such a toweringly bad mood - but you're doing the five two diet the wrong way round.  You're supposed to eat for five days solidly, then starve for two. You've been doing it wrong. No wonder you're feeling a touch out of sorts.'
I sighed heavily.  Or as heavily as I could manage, given that I was losing more and more of my 'body weight' by the second.  'I'm such an ass.  Have we any sausages?' I asked sheepishly.
'We always have sausages.'
'Good.  Now pass me the opium.'

Next up - Geoffrey stabs himself in the face with the un-safety pin at the back of his badge.

Monty Python- Lumberjack Song FULL

Stella Street - S01/E01

King Crimson - Starless & Bible Black

Silentless Movie / NOSFERATU in 4 minutes

This is very good.

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways by William Wordsworth : The Poetry Foundation

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways by William Wordsworth : The Poetry Foundation

A violet by a mossy stone

         Half hidden from the eye!

—Fair as a star, when only one

         Is shining in the sky.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear : The Poetry Foundation

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear : The Poetry Foundation

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

   In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

FLEETWOOD MAC - Oh Well (1969 UK TV Performance) ~ HIGH QUALITY HQ ~

I've blogged this clip a dozen times and I'm doing it again because it's great - the BBC4 subtitles aside.  I loathe music programmes on BBC4.  The ones about the 70s anyway.  They're depressing as hell.  There's something about watching it on the telly....years later.....it just feels wrong.

Peter Green. Marvellous.

Nukkel kraking

Have been neglecting my writing this last week or two, due to 'life' and stuff.
I'm expecting to have plenty spare time this week though, and am flexing my fingers and cracking my writing nukkels, ready for action,  so stand by, if you can be bothered.

The Doors Land Ho!

Sutherland Brothers - Lifeboat

Scottish Islands Explorer: Staying on Flannan

Fascinating photos of the Flannan Isles via >  Scottish Islands Explorer: Staying on Flannan: Not the easiest of landings, nor the most secure-looking steps, but this was the landing place for an expedition to the Flannan Isles ...



A place of (unsolved) mystery still - though for my taste much of the atmosphere is lost through the 'medium' of modern technology.  It seems in a way a shame that you can go there on a fast boat with powerful lenses and take the place apart, in a sense.  I can't help feeling that it's equally regrettable that visiting remote places these days seems to involve eye-popping amounts of ugly orange lycra, portable toilets, and hi-tech equipment. Oh for a wooden boat or a coracle, and a decent set of tweeds....or perhaps not....I suppose one must be 'practical'.  Very unattractive however. But I suppose you aren't thinking about appearances when you're desperate for the toilet in the middle of a Force 9.  Perhaps that's what happened to the three lighthouse-keepers!   One of them made an especially violent curry, and they all....no of course not.

I wonder if they suffered from scurvy.  It is possible, if they were there, unrelieved, for long stretches. I must read up on the mystery, and theories thereof.



Best account of Flannan that I can think of (the poem aside) is the fictionalised encapsulation in Neil Gunn's The Silver Darlings - they sail away, away west, beyond the horizon....and encounter wondrous things...



Haven't read that book for about ten years - not sure how much of my remembering is really from the book and how much is from my own imaginings.

Brain Fuel

One of the joys of life is food.  When you're on a budget it can be difficult to eat well;  I've had to learn how to do that.  Food is fuel - fuel for the brain, fuel for the body, and most of all, fuel for the spirit.  Without a healthy, varied diet, you might not actually get ill immediately, but you simply just don't feel good.  I think even if I had lots of money to spend on food, I'd hate to waste it.  I have a huge respect for it;  I don't like ready-meals (been there, done that).  I'm not keen on much out of packets - exceptions being Tesco crumble mix (39p), tinned tomato soup, Mr Kipling's French Fancies and sausage rolls out of the baker's.  Home-made is almost always best. I rarely eat out and when I do I'm almost always disappointed with what appears before me - and actually quite annoyed.  Why can't they cook, for God's sake?
I 'splashed out' on a bargain hotel break a few weeks ago ( as mentioned in a previous post).  The food was so disgusting and repellent I could barely eat it.  Over-cooked, bony fish, mushy potatoes, dry 'gateau', vile-tasting 'Lincolnshire' sausages at breakfast, liver pate that looked and smelled like dog muck - I could go on, but won't.
Well actually I probably will at some stage.  Probably fairly soon if I'm honest.
In the meantime I've made a page to share some of my tried and tested low-cost recipes.  I like them - you very well might not, so take your chances.
Here's the link.  The first one is Lovage Soup.  It's not everyone that has access to lovage (I do, obviously) but hey.

Clunie

The ramparts on Castle Hill, Clunie, Perthshire.

Loch Clunie and the island from Castle Hill