A flush beats a full house

It's a trap!

It was Eid Al-Fitr, and a long weekend. The Goat had agreed with Beloved Wife that, because of the ridiculous costs associated with going away anywhere nice, the Goat would come home to the Crumbling Villa. The plan involved a quiet long weekend away from work, but turned out to be a fairly busy and productive one.

The Goat actually couldn't get a sensible flight to Dubai and had to fly at 0100 on Friday. He eventually fell into bed at 0400, but not before being upgraded to First Class, which was very pleasant indeed, so full marks to Qatar Airways for that.

Beloved Wife had honestly not assigned the Goat a list of tasks, other than to help M to move house. Fundamentally this consisted of taking away some old shelf units that M had no space for. The Goat had use for them, though. Old IKEA stuff is better quality than the more modern; these shelves were made of actual blockboard and not chipboard or, O horror, MDF. Fun and games getting all this into Rio, but it did all fit despite the uprights each being 2.5m long, or is that high?

Beloved Wife had paid someone to tidy the shed. Dive Central was indeed tidy and fully devoid of sand, dust, and dead rodents, but was by no stretch of the imagination a workspace, workshop, shed, or Goat Cave. Hence the interest in the shelves. Several hours later, and the Goat had put everything away, eventually found some of his ingeniously-concealed tools (why were the spanners all in a tent bag with some tent pegs?), and the Goat Cave was clean, tidy, and a usable space. Huzzah!

There was obviously a need to go out to dinner, so Beloved Wife and the Goat treated themselves to a slap-up steak dinner or three over at Hunters Room in the Westin Hotel. The Beef Wellington was allegedly for two. As this turned out to be two anorexic sparrows, a very hungry Goat had both.

Further tasks included getting the Goat's car into the shop to fix where some incompetent parallel parker had evidently backed one of those unfeasibly long towbars into Rio's front bumper. The Goat was going to get this fixed back in April, but as he feared possible offroad damage at the Desert Challenge, he'd deferred the task.

Next problem: Beloved Wife's car wouldn't start until Dial-A-Battery showed up with some monstrous jump leads. Now with a new battery and thus a working VW, Beloved Wife could put Rio into Terios Hospital until Thursday.

Getting the battery took longer than expected, and so while the Goat tinkered in his Cave, Beloved Wife made lasagne. Plans for a Game of Thrones marathon went all horribly wrong when the sink refused to drain.

It seems clear that the problem has been building, with reports of a 'sluggish' dishwasher. The Goat attacked the sink with various caustic substances, boiling water, and a sink plunger, but the archaic plumbing in the Crumbling Villa really didn't want to play. The Goat did manage to cause a fetid dribble of brown liquid to creep from beneath the dishwasher. Investigation revealed that because the dishwasher waste pipe was lower than the sink, plunging the former was pushing wastewater out of the latter. So, dear reader, imagine the scene: Beloved Wife with one hand blocking one plughole and furiously plunging the other, while the Goat had one hand over the dishwasher waste pipe and a thumb in the sink overflow pipe like some little Dutch boy.

Still nothing would shift, except all over the floor. The Goat now found himself sliding on his hind legs, burning his true knees with caustic soda, and using a garden hose to try to push the blockage upstream. Beloved Wife was all for shutting the door on it and calling a plumber, but Goats are very determined. Eventually, at about 11pm, it came free. Massive clods of 20-year-old chip fat dropped into the floor gully and blocked that, but as this was a four-inch pipe the Goat could reach in and retrieve the great globs of grease.

Now the cleanup, with antiseptic chemicals and furious mopping of the entire kitchen. What a team the Goat and Beloved Wife make! Incidentally, the Goat wonders for what possible reason anyone would willingly choose carpet for kitchen flooring. Tiles are surely the only way to go, especially where antiquated plumbing is involved.

After cleaning the kitchen, the Goat and Beloved Wife cleaned themselves and, in the Goat's case, applied antiseptic on some minor cuts and grazes. One cannot be too careful.

And the weekend was still not over. The following day, the Goat fitted a cat flap and tried to teach the cats how to use it, with around 50% success.

By the end of this long weekend, the Goat Cave was tidy and usable, the dishwasher was no longer sluggish but working properly (the Goat suspects if it can't empty, the machine simply refuses to fill), One car is fixed, the other is being repaired, the cats have access and egress, and the Goat's motorbike received a small farkle. M has had her shelving recycled, and the Goat is heading back to Doha for three days.

Then it's time for a proper holiday!

]}:-{>

Norse saga. Part V – Norwegian Blues

Friday 16 August

Pining for the fjords

The rain started just as we arrived at the railway station. It was just as well we weren’t late, as our reserved seats were very much at the distal end of the train. This would have offered photographic advantages, had the rear window not been befouled and filthy. It’s a seven hour trip from Oslo to Bergen, but the journey passes through some spectacular mountainous scenery and glacial valleys. I’m given to wonder what the occupants of the tiny houses dotted all over actually do for a living, outside the tourist season. There were several nutters in the 8°C rain on mountain bikes.

Photo opportunities were distinctly limited because the train’s windows didn’t open and raindrops obscured the view of the low clouds obscuring the mountains.

Mountains and lakes in the rain from the train.

Low clouds and rugged scenery.

However, we rolled into Bergen as the rain just about stopped. It’s better to spend a wet day on the train than in attempting a walking tour.

After a meal that in my case included a pleasantly gamey and slightly chewy whale steak (they were fresh out of panda), we ambled down to the harbour and booked tomorrow’s fjord cruise. Good weather was forecast for tomorrow: I was hoping that this would hold true.

It seemed that schools, or at least universities, were back on Monday, so the town centre was populated by students in fancy dress. Even the hotel had a sign apologizing about the noise of boisterous undergrads in the street late at night. We scored a room whose window didn’t open to the street. The Place to Be seemed to be a nightclub just up the road where there was a massive toga party, if the huge queue of students in bedsheets was anything to go by. Not a single toga in evidence; plenty of chitons and exomides sported by hardy Norwegians clearly very used to standing around half naked in chilly weather.

Saturday 17 August

The alleged good weather seemed to comprise dull and overcast with spots of rain. Bah! Nevertheless, we boarded the MS White Lady, which set off on its fjord cruise spot on schedule at 1000. The upper deck had a retractable Perspex canopy that was predictably not retracted, leaving only a small space at the stern for up to 100 passengers to crowd and take photographs. Most seemed content to sit in the warm on the lower deck and either look out of the windows or play with their smartphones. I resisted using the GPS on my own phone until we were well on our way back to Bergen.

The sun fought a losing battle with the clouds, only appearing for a couple of minutes, whereas the rain was much more successful. Still, between showers I got some pictures of some of Slartibartfast’s award-winning work. The scenery really is stunning.

One of the countless waterfalls.

Fjord view.

Vike church. This is just about as far north as I have ever been.
(Flying over the North Pole doesn't count.)

Looking north along Ostresundfjord.
The cliff continues at the same angle underwater to a depth of several hundred metres.

Looking south along Ostresundfjord

Lonely house. Bet they don't get troubled by many door-to-door salesmen.

A longer cruise may have been a realistic option had the weather been better, but it looked as if most of the sightseers were glad to get off the boat after just over four hours.

Next came shopping in the ancient wooden Bryggen area, the oldest part of Bergen (reconstructed on the twelfth-century foundations after it was burned to the ground in 1702.) The place is all wonky and wobbly, and looks more like Diagon Alley than anything else. Beloved Wife added to her Christmas ornament collection, and then we walked back through the open market and I picked up a pack of sausages: Venison, Whale, Moose, and Reindeer.

Bryggen, or possibly Diagon Alley

Then a little bit of shopping in Bergen’s department stores, where shop assistants were helpful almost to a fault, and back to the hotel with our booty.

Neo-classical atlantes and caryatids adorn many old buildings all over Scandinavia. Here's one of each, clearly caught taking showers.

As the weather had by now improved a little, we sauntered around the old part of the town and eventually found the bottom end of Bergen’s famous funicular railway. It starts with fun and goes up from there. It was windy at the top, but the views were excellent. The souvenir shop was full of the same old tat available at all souvenir shops in Scandinavia: Vikings, trolls, silly hats with antlers, anthropomorphic reindeer, and pelts and antlers from real reindeer.

The funicular railway.

Funicular time-lapse, viewed from the top.

Winter is Coming.

Down the funicular again, and another wander around Diagon Alley and some more shopping, before we discovered a café on an upper floor that had decent views of the harbour but glazing to keep out the wind, rain, and fishy aroma. I had reindeer patties; Beloved Wife chose Norwegian meatballs.

And then we fell into the arms of Morpheus. 

Sunday 18 August

Aargh, rain! Stair-rods all the way from the hotel to the railway station. Just as well, then, that we were able to do our fjord trip and funicular ride yesterday, when the sights were actually visible.

As the train climbed east, the weather tried to improve. I was repeatedly frustrated when trying to take photos of the glacial valleys because, every time I hit the shutter release on my camera, the train dived into one of the countless tunnels. This happened on repeated consecutive occasions. It certainly didn’t feel like a coincidence.

The weather at Finse was completely rain-lashed and foul. Finse, elevation 1222m, is the highest point on the Norwegian (and possibly the entire Scandinavian) rail system. The place is inaccessible by road. Scott (of the Antarctic) and his team trained here.

Nobody stops at Finse except hardy mountain bikers and hikers, military types doing Arctic training, and the cast and crew of Star Wars “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.” Yes, in the winter the place was and is the Ice Planet of Hoth.

Mountain bikes to rent. Only the deranged need apply.

The sixth planet in the remote Hoth system is just there, on the right. Known locally as the Hardangerjøkulen glacier

On 18th August 2013, the outside temperature was 6°C.

The weather improved as we headed east, down the mountain towards Oslo. We were treated to some glorious views of huge valleys, lakes, fjords, clouds hanging among the trees in the valleys, and on one occasion a full double rainbow.

Seven hours after setting off, we rolled into Oslo station and found our hotel. Then we grabbed a bite to eat and activated our unused 24-hour public transport cards to explore Oslo’s suburbs by tram. Beloved Wife really didn’t fancy a chilly evening ferry ride. Maybe tomorrow: I’d discovered that our train didn’t leave until 1300.

Monday 19 August

Tram to the Town Hall, which is where the ferries dock and, incidentally, where we listened to Beethoven’s Ninth a few evenings previously. Our 24-hour passes would be good until 2110, so we took the ferry over to the Folk Museum and Maritime Museum stops, but didn’t get off. I was glad I’d previously taken pictures of Oslo fortress because today there was a massive cruise liner docked right outside the fortress, obscuring all views of and from.

We got to the train ridiculously early and boarded. Ended up chatting to an American who was funding her three-month tour of Europe by transcribing the scribblings of the first four US presidents plus Benjamin Franklin into text format. We chatted and offered possibly useful hints regarding where to go and what to see.

The train went as far at Gothenburg (Göteborg in Swedish) where there was about an hour to locate the next train that would take us to Copenhagen. We ran into the same American traveller, and unfortunately a couple of unruly children whose mother seemed incapable of understanding the fundamental meaning of “quiet carriage”. At last she got out and took her noisy brats away.

It occurred to me to check where the train would stop in Denmark. The train would stop at the airport on its way to Copenhagen central, but crucially would also stop at Ørestad, a few hundred metres from our hotel. I saved about half an hour of train and metro this evening, and a further 30 minutes tomorrow morning. A celebratory beer was called for in the hotel bar. Such a pity the room was so basic, minuscule, and with uncomfortable bunk beds and a dysfunctional internet.

Tuesday 20 August

Appallingly early start in order to ensure a timely arrival at the airport. The hotel breakfast was mediocre.

I should note a hard landscaping detail: rough granite flagstones look great and offer excellent skid resistance when wet or icy, but they’re appalling to drag wheeled suitcases along between the station and the hotel, and back again the next morning.

We got airside and tried to obtain our tax refunds on goods purchased in Norway and Sweden, only to be told that the receipts would first have to be stamped by Customs on groundside. This differs from the UK where all this tax refund business has to take place airside. I sent Beloved Wife without any luggage back into the depths of the airport. She was sent from pillar to post in an obvious attempt to avoid paying any refund of VAT, but eventually succeeded and reappeared with a receipt. Huzzah!

The flights were pretty much uneventful. At Dubai airport, the taxi rank has been moved.

And when we got home, one of our rickety air conditioners refused to fire up. Chasing the landlord: something else to add to my ‘To Do’ list.

Welcome back to reality.

Post Script

If we’d booked individual train and ferry tickets on line, cost would have been around $1261. Our EuroRail passes, plus reservation fees, plus cabins on the ferry came to $1168: marginally cheaper, but with Ultimate Flexibility.  We actually used seven of our eight allocated journeys. I guess you pretty much have to max out the ticket in order to make it financially worthwhile.

]}:-{>

Sumimasen, gomen nasai, wakarimasen

Is it unreasonable to suggest that the Japanese and the English are similar? I rather think they are in certain ways, and I suspect that this is borne of both being island nations. Both cultures developed independently on relatively small, crowded islands, and this resulted in cultures that are desperate not to offend. Kate Fox, anthropologist, in her book Watching the English, noted the frankly bizarre way in which English people will immediately apologise after being bumped into. Most other cultures would respond with some variant on a theme of “Oi! Watch your step, buddy!” but not the English. Nor the Japanese. “Gomen nasai,” (“I am so sorry…”) is very common in Japan.

It’s a consequence of living on a small and overcrowded island. To fail to defuse tensions after offending someone is a great way for fights to break out. The Japanese were rather better at that, with an entire level of society devoted to wielding murderously sharp swords at anyone who wasn’t sufficiently apologetic.

The other ‘Englishness” of the Japanese is the resistance to learning foreign languages. English language is pretty widespread, but it was extremely easy to encounter people who had no English, or French, or German. My absolute inability with the writing system didn’t help either. I can now identify “Tokyo”, “Ladies”, “Gents”, “Kyoto”, “Fire”, “Forest”, and “Forbidden”. And that’s about my lot. How useful, provided I only want to write a note about how smoking in forests in Tokyo is not allowed. We were able to get by, through a mixture of very broken Japanese, apologising, sign language, bowing, and apologising.

Ah, the bowing. Everybody bows. I greeted the chambermaid as we checked out of one of the hotels, bowed, and she returned by almost prostrating herself, much to my embarrassment.

Left-handed chopsticks actually do exist

In other respects, I found Japan and the Japanese extremely foreign unto the point of being almost alien.

Beloved Wife was in Japan a year or so ago, and she’d reported to me that in Tokyo's Electricity Street there was a multi-storey adult store. Now returned with her lawfully-wedded husband, we could explore all the floors. Basement and ground were merely videos and books, with selected movies shown on small screens to tempt the purchaser. Presumably, the purchased product would not feature pixelated images. Higher floors got progressively kinkier. Marital aids were followed by costumes, and then the S and M stuff. I spotted these, that might provide an amusing diversion on St George’s Day.

Fun and games on St George's Day

Muggins was blundering around this small but rather crowded emporium wearing a backpack. And being a bit of a lardarse, I kept blundering into the shelves and sending stock asunder. I can confirm that I was nearly thrown out of a sex shop for being too big. "Gomen nasai..."

Back outside, and  another Tokyo delight is the vending machines. Almost anything can be and is dispensed by a vending machine, including change so there’s no worry about not having the right money. Hot and cold drinks, chocolate bars, and crisps are easy. Rail tickets similarly. Used undergarments are now a memory following government efforts to clean up the industry. But what about the coin-op restaurant? That’s just beyond weird. 

And now we get on to the main point of this blog post: the food.

A proper restaurant. Order food and drink by referring to
the useful labels hanging around

In a normal restaurant, you enter and sit, and the waitress takes your order. You eat; you pay; you leave. Sometimes it was a culinary mystery tour of wondering what we’d just ordered. Al least “Birru” sounds like “Beer”, so that’s easy to remember, and I like “Sake”. In MuckDonalds (where I never eat), you order; you pay; you eat.

Cooked to order

In a coin-op, you make your selection from a vending machine. It takes your dosh, spits out a ticket, and you hand this over the counter and receive food from an actual person. Except that each of the fifty or so buttons on the machine only has a Japanese character (no, not Ponyo nor a Power Ranger).

Comprehensive choice of, erm, food

Vending machine in the corner, and food cooked to order

Time to accost a restaurant patron: “Sumimasen, gomen nasai, erm…breaded pork cutlet?” (Bow, apologise some more, etc). The only really important thing was to avoid seafood. Beloved Wife even set her husband up with a traditional Japanese breakfast one morning. A big rectangular room with tatami mats, low tables, and a whole selection of pickles, tofu, soup, vegetables, and fruit. The raw fish fillet was easy to identify and avoid. “Fish are friends; not food.”

Street food. Steamed, stuffed buns offer something that is
not entirely unlike steak and kidney pudding

Not that any of this put us off eating the local food. I recall the only really non-Japanese meal we ate was on the last day. We were waiting for our train to the airport, and a German-style restaurant was offering Bavarian lager and a big pile of assorted sausages.

Okonomiyaki. Anything you want here,
provided it's this one thing

My final Parthian shot was to buy a box of wacky Japanese sweeties to treat my colleagues back in Doha. When I got back, I was reliably informed that mochigashi are easily available from trendy shops in Doha.

]}:-{>

Yes we can

I recently read that the sale of tinned Pepsi and Coca-Cola is now banned in the UAE. Over the next month, cans of this popular cola-flavoured beverage are, by law to be removed from the shelves, on pain of 'strict penalties'. I don't generally drink the stuff, except to disguise the nasty taste of the rum, ha ha.

What has bought about this sudden move by the Ministry of Economy? Positive action against obesity, diabetes, rotten teeth, or littering? An effort to force the general populace to switch to OwnBrand^(TM) Cola, perhaps? Or are the plastic bottles that ultimately come from oil somehow more environmentally sustainable than alumininium, aluminium, aluminum or alumium?

Once we get past the 'Read me! Read me!' headline that suggests that the UAE has chosen its sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut and has banned soft drinks, we find that the truth makes a lot more sense.

The reason given in this news article is that the cans are breaking the regulations by not having the price or ingredients displayed in Arabic.

I see. Putting aside the semantic issue about the naughty and disobedient cans, it's not exactly rocket surgery to stick a printed paper label on the product, is it? That's what happens to other imported prepacked goods, much to the irritation of those of us who would like to read what's invariably obscured by the label. What is Arabic for 'sugar', 'high-fructose corn syrup' and 'aspartame', by the way?

What is actually happening is made clearer in this news article. The drinks are on sale in both 300ml and 330ml for Coke and 355ml for Pepsi, and they're all up for sale at the same price. The news articles do note that it's only the 300ml cans that are being withdrawn from sale. Apparently, Joe Public cannot tell that the big cans on sale at Dh1.50 offer better value than small cans at Dh1.50, and he and has to be protected. The cost to manufacture, market and transport any can size has got to be virtually identical: what's wrong with "...and up to 55ml free!"? This difference is worth Dh0.275 (less than a shilling in UK old money) to Mr Public, and is for less than four level tablespoons of the actual product.

As the stuff is made locally in the UAE, it surely cannot be beyond the wit of man to print the ingredients list in Arabic, can it? Even some of my beer has Arabic ingredients.

My other canned drink of choice is best served with juniper-berry flavoured beverage and a dash of lemon. I wonder if the curious mixture of 300ml and 330ml packaging will affect tonic water and other products, or be limited to cola?

]}:-{>

Pigs do fly

There is only one place for a resident of Qatar to obtain intoxicating beverages to enjoy in the comfort and privacy of his own home. This is through the auspices of the Qatar Distribution Company, a kind of cross between an off-licence and a members-only club. It will come as no surprise at all to learn that, in accordance with the law of the land, Muslims are not allowed to be members.

Back in the olden days, Cable and Wireless somehow managed to obtain permission to import booze for sale to C&W employees. Other thirsty expatriates wondered why they weren’t allowed to avail themselves of this largesse and, to cut a long story short, the booze permit system was extended to all non-Muslim expatriates and administered by the British embassy. With an allocated weekday and a fixed maximum QAR500 allowance, going up to the C&W Syndicate once a month became something of an institution.

It has always been the case that the liquor permit system allows the bearer to acquire beverages up to a cost limit, and then to transport it directly to his residence for his sole consumption. Selling it, giving it away, or taking an Eski of refreshing hop-flavoured thirst-quencher to the beach are all strictly forbidden.

In due course, the Syndicate was taken over by the new Qatar Distribution Company, a branch of Doha Duty Free and therefore ultimately part of Qatar Airways. Allowances were doubled overnight, as were prices, so that the cost of alcoholic liquor aligned broadly with UK high street prices. The monthly allowance is now based on an individual’s salary.

Last week, the QDC quietly introduced an additional line of products that would not interest Muslims. Bacon and sausages. Proper ones, made of flat-nosed, curly-tailed haraminal. Apparently, plans are afoot to increase the range to hams and proper pork joints once the freezer space is available. And as a hog-gobbling infidel I say huzzah to this! Up until now, Qatar has been a pig-free zone, apart from the occasional pack of “Egyptian Veal” or “Turkey Burgers” flown in from Dubai or further afield. Now the bacon and sausages are flying in courtesy of Qatar Airways. I’m quite happy to purchase the products supplied by the State of Qatar, and then to take home and enjoy those same products.

Within a day of the news breaking, the Qatar Living website had multiple pages of forum comments, getting progressively more extreme. Such as:

“You shall not eat the flesh of swine.”

“But that only applies to Muslims, and my having a bacon butty doesn’t affect your beliefs.”

“But this is a Muslim country.”

“Then take it up with the Emir and his state airline.”

By the time I got to QDC this evening, the speciality sausages and all the bacon had vanished, and the freezers were resplendent with hundreds of identical packets of ordinary, bog-standard bangers. This is exactly as predicted by pretty much everyone. I like billy-basic bangers, so this isn’t actually a hardship, but a delight.

Being able to buy pork and booze in the UAE has not caused the complete collapse of civilization, as far as I know. It surely shouldn’t be any different in Qatar. I feel that the situation is a little like the idea of gay marriage. You may or may not approve, but if you don’t want one, don’t have one.

]}:-{>

Merry Christmas!

Put the turkey
In the oven,
Mummified in tinfoil,
With an onion
Stuffed up
Its behind.

Sage and onion,
Roast potatoes;
Put the sprouts on to boil.
Friends arrive,
And ply them
With red wine.

Tryptophan!
Tryptophan!
Ten-thousand calories later...
I’m a man;
I’ve a plan:
Snore through the film on TV.

]}:-{>

München Wurst

So what exactly are the official holidays? With UAE National Day falling on the ever-predictable 2nd December, it was reasonably safe to infer well in advance that Thursday would be a day off. Islamic New Year, on the other hand, was going to be a different matter.

As usual, the date of 1st Muharram would be subject to seeing the new moon on the previous evening around sunset. In the UAE, the astronomical new moon was going to occur on Sunday 5th December at 9:36pm. This is well after sunset and moonset as eny fule kno, therefore the new moon would surely be spotted on Monday 6th December and the New Year holiday would be on Tuesday.

Except the gubmint decreed about three days in advance that the public sector would have Sunday for New Year (making a four day weekend – huzzah!) That same gubmint instructed that the private sector would have Saturday off for New Year. Anyone who has a two-day weekend in the UAE will instantly realize that this is a chiz: having your holiday on a normal weekend.

It is high time that public and private sectors had the same official holidays. Come to that, publishing the holidays well in advance so that we can actually plan ahead might be nice. The date and time of the new moon isn’t magic: anyone reading this is surely connected to the Interwebz, small parts of which are dedicated to publishing the dates and times of movements across the celestial sphere.

On with the story, and Beloved Wife gleefully emailed the information regarding her long weekend. Having failed to get a holiday decision out of De Management, the Goat booked Sunday as annual leave and then booked flights and hotels. Goat and Wife were off to Bavaria! Dust off the winter woollies, and in the Goat’s case unearth a pair of chunky boots. These have steel toecaps and therefore go down well through airport security.

It was going to be more practical to fly from Abu Dhabi to Munich than from Dubai via Istanbul, so Etihad became the airline of choice. We were deposited in a sub-zero and snowy Munich at some obscene hour of Thursday morning. Once we’d figured out the cheapest way to get to the hotel by train, an all-day, all-zone family ticket for €18, we rolled into town past Christmassy scenery as the train filled with commuters. At the Novotel München Messe the receptionist was happy to let us have our room immediately rather than wait until mid-afternoon to check in, so we collapsed for a few hours to recover from the red-eye flight.

München Messe is a new, modern development on the site of the former Riem airport. The Novotel is astonishingly close to a metro station, which made travel in and out of town spectacularly easy, as we discovered once we arose at the crack of noon.

The primary purpose of the visit was to explore the famous German Christmas markets that spring up in clusters all over cities in Germany and beyond. It’s not only glass ornaments and wooden mobiles for sale.

One of the Wurst things that can happen

Street food is also very much in evidence, as are hot drinks. We both spent the days and evenings living on Bratwurst, Currywurst mit Pommes Frites, and various flavours of Glühwein and Eierpunsch. The latter is, of course, very similar to eggnog, and all beverages are gratuitously alcoholic. Beware the Kinderpunsch that looks and tastes similar but is disastrously devoid of alcohol.

Beloved Wife advised that there was a very large and famous Christkindlmarkt in Nürnberg (or ‘Nuremberg’ for those who don’t have an umlaut on the keyboard (which is a right pain when writing about Germany)), so one day we took a day trip through the magical snowscape of Bavaria in winter. Nürnberg was indeed very much as advertised, complete with oompah band and sub-zero temperatures. As in München, plenty of locals, expats and tourists were happy to engage in conversations in a mixture of English and German.

Hospice of the Holy Spirit, Nürnberg

From a railway carriage

Listen to the band

Many sausages, beers, Glühweins and Christmas ornaments later, we reeled unsteadily back to the railway station and caught the fast train back to München Hauptbahnhof. Despite the tales of woe on the TV about how this disastrous and unprecedented snow was affecting transport across Europe and completely halting all movement in the UK, our experience was that everything was working to timetable in Bavaria. Unprecedented? It snows every winter, and the only unusual thing about 2010 is that it came a bit early.

Marianplatz, München

The public transport ticketing in and around Munich is very similar to the systems we encountered in Rome and Naples earlier this year. You can buy a single ticket at a machine at the station or on the bus or tram, you frank it yourself, and then it’s good for a couple of hours. Or you buy one of a selection of all-day or all-week passes. There is no need to get yourself to the Hauptbahnhof in order to buy a smart card that you then have to preload with credit before you use public transport. Dubai, take note. The system relies very much on trust; it would be incredibly easy to ride for free. In all our travels only one metro employee produced an ID card and asked for Fahrkarten bitte. I conclude that the fines for getting caught fare-dodging are extremely punitive, or that Germans are incredibly law abiding, or some combination of the above.

It wasn’t all eating and drinking. I did something for the first time in my life: I walked on the natural ice covering Nymphenburger Schloß ornamental canal.

So the Goat can indeed walk on water – something he had hitherto only suspected.

Others were playing ice hockey or a game similar to curling, and in a random walk through Narnia a Munich park, we discovered children tobogganing.

Narnia?

Wheeee!

My extolling the virtues of German organisation went awry when I tried to send the Nanny Goat a Christmas card. Could I find a post box anywhere? Eventually the unposted card ended up on the airside of Munich airport. I asked in the shop that sold postcards and souvenirs where I could mail a card, only to be told unhelpfully: “Unmöglich”. If it is indeed impossible, why do you sell the damned postcards? Beloved Wife resolved the problem by smiling sweetly at Etihad ground staff and asking the nice lady to post this envelope when she got off shift. And I’m pleased to report that the card duly arrived chez Nanny Goat less than a week later.

We both slept on the return flight to Abu Dhabi. This was just as well because I drove straight to work. Meanwhile, Beloved Wife had to get back to Dubai before reporting for duty on Monday morning. To my delight, De Management had finally made a decision regarding holidays and decreed that my office would be closed on Tuesday. I spent most of the holiday recovering from the ravages of time zones and tryptophan.

]}:-{>

Full of yummy badness

I must have anorexia. You see, every time I look at myself in the mirror, I see a fat goat...

My doctor had an absolute fit a month or so ago when he saw the results of my cholesterol test. “You must reduce the fat in your diet. Wholesale lifestyle changes, otherwise you are going to die.”

“And since when have you been the custodian of the secret of immortality?”

“All right. ‘You’re going to die soon.’ Happy now, Mr Semantically-Sensitive Goat?”

So in addition to the new prescription of cholesterol-lowering medication I have switched to a low-fat, low cholesterol, low taste, healthy diet. I now eschew lard, eggs, processed meat, red meat, butter, cheese, cream, pies, pasties, and proper milk, and instead eat fresh steamed vegetables, grilled chicken, salads with balsamic vinegar dressing, tofu, low-fat yoghurt, whole grains, horse food and rabbit food.

It’s all been a bit of a struggle really. Most of the list of Verbotenfruct is stuff I seldom if ever ate anyway: fast food burgers, cream cakes, anything containing trans-fats, deep-fried pizzas and sausages in batter. So this leaves very little in the way of Yummy Badness still to cut out. English fry-up breakfasts, steak and chips and pies are what I have had to drop, and as a self-styled Lord of the Pies this has been difficult. Now it’s zero English breakfasts a month rather than one.

Beloved Wife and I have worked hard to think up new and inventive ways to make this healthy diet palatable. At least I enjoy seasonal vegetables, and moderate consumption of booze is considered OK. There’s no cholesterol in beer, wine or G&T, although ‘moderate’ clearly precludes drowning one’s sorrows.

Anyway, the process was apparently a success, and my total cholesterol has dropped from an allegedly life-threatening 254mg/dl (or 6.57mmol/l in old money) to an astonishing 127 (or is that 3.28?) which is well below the desirable maximum value of 200. Triglyceride and LDL levels are also now the healthy side of maximum. And my blood pressure had dropped too, no thanks to work-related stress. Mysteriously, even though the new diet leaves me constantly hungry, my body weight steadfastly refuses to budge.

LDL and HDL are interesting. The misnomer is that these are ‘bad’ and ‘good’ cholesterol. Given that cholesterol is the specific molecule C₂₇H₄₆O there ain’t no such thing as a good one or a bad one. Actually LDL is a protein that carries cholesterol from the liver so that it can be deposited in artery walls and block them. HDL is a different protein whose purpose is to carry cholesterol from the artery walls back to the liver. Logically then, lots of HDL and little LDL is a good thing.

Unfortunately, my recent diet and pharmaceutical habit has reduced all the horribly high numbers, but has also pulled HDL below the minimum required for a healthy life. I may currently be at higher risk of heart disease that I was before messing with my body chemistry. The solution is to boost HDL by eating wholegrains, tofu, lean meat, nuts, fruit, olive oil, only moderate alcohol consumption and not smoking. This is exactly what I have been doing, paradoxically only to see HDL drop.

What constitutes high cholesterol anyway? Back in the mists of ancient time, five years before the turn of the millennium and before cholesterol had become a fashionable stick with which to beat the populace, I had a total cholesterol test that resulted in 5.7mmol/l and my doctor advising me that this was way below the average value of 7mmol/l and that I should keep up the good work. Several years later, in 2001, the result was 5.79mmol/l or 224mg/dl. Now I was advised that this was borderline high and I should take steps to lower it. An increase from 220mg/dl to 224mg/dl makes all the difference, it appears. Last month the test yielded 254mg/dl, which is now the high side of high. That’s 6.57mmol/l and still below the 1995 average.

Going off on a brief tangent here, the conversion between millimoles per litre and milligrammes per decilitre works like this:-

One cholesterol molecule C₂₇H₄₆O has a molecular weight of 386, so one mole weighs 386 grammes.
One millimole per litre is 0.001mol/l, or 0.0001mol/dl
Since 1mol C₂₇H₄₆O weighs 386g, 0.0001mol weighs 0.0386g = 38.6mg

Thus to convert, 1mmol/l x 38.6 = 1mg/dl

Back to the rant.

I am a cynical old goat. If the medical experts and pharmaceutical companies are in collusion, what better way to increase sales of cholesterol-reducing drugs than to move the goalposts defining what constitutes ‘low’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘high’? And then doctors will have no difficulty in prescribing medication to progressively more and more customers, thus increasing sales. Until we reach to point when all natural levels of cholesterol HDL and LDL are deemed unhealthy and everyone is on medication to achieve and maintain unnatural levels.

There is a long rebuttal of the widely perceived idea that ‘fat in diet = heart disease’ on this hyperlink, for anyone who’s interested enough.

]}:-{>

Hog wash

Cartoon nicked from 28th April’s Daily Telegraph

It looks if we’re all going perish horribly as some virulent death-plague sweeps north from Mexico into the United States then east to Asia and west across the Atlantic and through Europe. Swine influenza virus (SIV) has been around for ages, but the current Uncle Nasty, a mutation of the H1N1 strain, is actually not related to swine at all.

The swine flu pandemic is so named because the virus responsible looks similar to SIV. Not only does the infection target humans (and not goats, ha ha!), it’s unknown whether the H1N1 strain can affect pigs at all.

Here in the Lands of the Sand, we are assured that the UAE is 100% free of the disease. Huzzah! And yet today all pork products are being removed from the shelves ‘as a precaution’. Presumably all the meat will be thrown in the back of a freezer until the current health scare is over. The influenza microbes – those wee beasties that don’t exist in the UAE - can simply hibernate. Not that they’d survive the cooking process anyway. The fact that we normally cook pork before eating it seems lost on the decision-makers over at the Ministry of Undercooked Ideas. No, wait: not ‘undercooked’. It’s ‘half-baked’. Of course: therein lies the explanation.

But wait! You can’t catch swine flu from eating bacon butties! You have to be sneezed on by an infected person. Not pig. Person. It’s impossible to catch swine flu from the meat, even if the animal was infected. And as pigs can’t catch H1N1 anyway, the meat can’t ever become infected.

I’m completely wrong, of course. One of my colleagues recently assured me that anyone more astute than something growing on a piece of damp bread would recognise that swine flu is divine retribution: a plague against the godless hog-gobbling infidels. Clearly, therefore, removal of pork from sale is for our own good. It is not simply an act of petty malice.

]}:-{>

The Omnivore's Hundred

Keefieboy found this one chez Jayne. It's irresistible.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Add comments to taste
5) Optional extra: Post a comment at Very Good Taste

1. Venison A big steak, with black cherry sauce. Mmmm!

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare Yummy! A big slab of raw steak is better than mince, though.

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding Straight from the fridge, or fried, and even à la thermidor.

7. Cheese fondue I had to do something with that device off the Conveyor Belt.

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J (peanut butter & jelly) sandwich Yes, but I hate the texture of peanut butter.

14. Aloo gobi Not a fish dish.

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses A cheese I gotta try.

17. Black truffle No, but I once had a very gritty truffle omelette.

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Lurgashall Winery

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes Probably. I've eaten some weird-shaped tomatoes in my time.

22. Fresh wild berries Some blackberries even made it as far as jam-making.

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn Tried it; hated it.

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters

29. Baklava

30. Bagna càuda Oh, no! Anchovies!

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl Try it here. Half a point for sourdough bowl. Shellfish makes me ill.

33. Salted lassi I prefer it plain. In a pint tankard.

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted cream tea With a Cornish father, how couldn't I?

38. Vodka jelly

39. Gumbo Full of seafood, innit? Not a chance.

40. Oxtail Only in the eponymous soup.

41. Curried goat Both knowingly and I suspect as alleged 'mutton'.

42. Whole insects Only by accident while motorcycling wearing an open-face helmet.

43. Phaal Obvious reference to this.

44. Goat’s milk Full-fat, skimmed, and cheese. Yumm!

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth costing £60/$120 or more Only once, and only a teaspoonful.

46. Fugu Poisonous blowfish? I'd not touch that even with your bargepole!

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel Nassssty!

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut Way too sweet.

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone Seafood, innit?

54. Paneer Also known as cottage cheese.

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal Seldom. And only to remind myself why I don't do Mucky Dee's.

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV Goodbye braincells, I must leave you...

59. Poutine The Canadian cheese-curds-and-chips, or poutine râpée: potato and pork dumpling?

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores Like hot Wagon Wheels, no?

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin With morphine. But not coming in Dubai on pain of four years in Al Slammah.

64. Currywurst

65. Durian Had to try it while in Singapore. Leaves me underwhelmed.

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis And neeps and tatties too. Washed down with whisky.

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette No, but they're sausages, n'est-ce pas?

71. Gazpacho "Waiter, this soup is cold!" - A. J. Rimmer, BSc SSc

72. Caviar and blini Salty blackcurrant jam and pancakes? Not together.

73. Louche absinthe Makes the heart grow fonder, perhaps?

74. Gjetost, or brunost A goat's cheese I ought to try.

75. Roadkill The pheasant was full of bone shrapnel and completely inedible.

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail Described by my host as "Garlic-flavoured India-rubber."

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum Only the seafood-free version.

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant I wish!

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare Jugged, and just the once.

87. Goulash Features regularly in the Crumbling Villa.

88. Flowers Does cauliflower count? I assume the beer does.

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam Straight from the tin, or fried, or deep fried in batter ex chip-shop.

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox Half a point for bagels?

97. Lobster Thermidor No, but how about black pudding thermidor? See #6.

98. Polenta I have eaten and enjoyed grits and gravy, the North American version.

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

Additional from Keefie:
101. Deep-fried Mars Bar Try this once. Twice if you like it and three times if your arteries are still flexible.

Additional from the Goat:
102. Kangaroo Skippy, Skippy. Skippy the bush barbecue...

Only 52/100 (or thereabouts) off the original list. Is that all?

]}:-{>

Lord of the Pies

Open any newspaper or magazine at the 'Lifestyle' page, and there'll inevitably some article about diet. It'll go on and on about healthy eating, explaining how to avoid those excruciatingly addictive chocolates, cream buns, doughnuts and Coca-Cola. Apparently it's impossible only to have one chocolate. "Just say no," the mantra goes in its attempt to steer the yoof away from addictive substances, or you'll clear the shelves of Dairy Milk, Ferrero Rocher or Quality Street.

Now I enjoy a chocolate as much as the next Goat, but I personally can't see a good reason for troughing an entire box of Black Magic - both layers, and even the Coffee Cremes - while watching the telly.

My weakness, for we all have at least one, is savouries. Pasties, flans, quiche and best of all: Pies.

Keefieboy is a fan of steak and kidney pies, and I'm pretty much in agreement with him. A 'proper' pie consists of a lower layer of pastry, a delicious moist meaty filling and a pastry crust on top. So-called cottage pie doesn't really count because there's no bottom pastry at all and the top is mashed potato. What use is a pie that you can't pick up in your hand if necessary? I think those individual hot, ready-to-eat pies from Spinneys et al are excellent. Wrapped in alumininium foil and perched somewhere in the engine bay, after a couple of hours of desert driving a hot steak and kidney pie is a gastronomic delight.

Fruit pies are a little different. I feel that a shallow pastry-lined dish full of fruit is more of a flan, or even a tart. However, I still refer to one of these full of cherries and covered with a pastry lattice a pie. By my definition, I suppose Beef Wellington (one of my favourite things, along with raindrops on roses and bright copper kettles) is a sort of pie. Check out The Fat Expat for a recipe.

Although they fit my description, I feel that fish pie is some curious travesty. I'm biased because I'm allergic to seafood, but cracking open a pastry crust to reveal a piscatorial filling makes me feel as if some great blasphemy has been committed. The Stargazey Pie, in which herring heads poke out of the rim, is nevertheless a Cornish tradition.

And this provides a slick segue into the Cornish Pasty. It's not made in a dish or tin, but nevertheless fits my rather arbitrary definition of a proper pie. Nanny Goat was born and bred Oop North, or at least in the English Midlands just north o't'River Trent and should in theory not be able to produce a decent pasty. But she learned how from her mother-in-law who was dyed-in-the-wool authentic Cornish. Until at last, imagining a kind of Cornish Yoda: "Arrr! Maaarrster the Apprentice has become."

Nanny Goat has now left the Land of the Sand for the more temperate Mundane Kingdom. Evidence of her visit remains: a freezer full of pastiferous delights.

]}:-{>