The Nearly Good Life

Ghoti

2007-02-04T10:23:37Z

I had an E-mail from my Mother-in-Law yesterday, in which she inveighed against the current trend of "text" spelling, where an attempt is made to match spelling to sound. This is not a great idea in English, a language in which "fish" could be spelt "ghoti"; using GH as in cough, O as in phoenix and TI as in action.
Actually, Ma, a sprightly and cultured lady in her nintieth year, was regretting the richness being lost from the language. She quoted "rains", "reigns" and "reins" as examples of words lost to the texters, each carrying their meaning and their derivation in their spelling capsules.
I think that spelling and more importantly perhaps, grammar, are keys to clearer thinking processes. Grammar is like algebraic formulae which allow us to perform complex calculations without constantly developing methods from first principles. Rules, like making verbs agree with nouns and pronouns in number, and maintaining tense, keep our thinking as tidy as our speech.
Of course rules are made to be broken and poets may play fast and loose with both words and grammar, but just as a musician may extemporise and jam, the performance is always based on the basics.

Life and Death

2006-12-20T20:24:42Z

In a garden I know, one of a group of four trees has died. It was a willow and had been allowed to grow naturally whilst the others had been coppiced regularly. Why did the unpruned tree die and the others remain vigourous?
We may suppose that the increasing surface compared with the volume of living tissue and increased difficulties of transport with increase of size may play their part in the process of senility and that coppiced trees, assuming the cuts do not bring about fungal infection, will have increased life spans. In the same way a Lavender hedge trimmed anually will long outlive a single specimen left unpruned.
With trees as with other perennials, it is only a small proportion that remains alive, and it is the persistance of the older non-living parts which enable the superficial living parts to remain joined together so that we speak of the entire structure, living and dead as an old tree. In one sense a long established variety of potatoe may also be termed an ancient plant, because the tubers we plant today are the youngest surviving parts of an individual that we can trace back to the day that the variety originated; the material connections having perished and the living parts separated in space.
Actually, the willow died of honey fungus, which is rampant in the garden and has killed a number of large trees. So far the fate has not befallen a hard pruned specimen so perhaps the
reason that pruned plants outlive the unpruned is that regular pruning innoculates against honey fungus with the airborne spores entering the cut living tissue.
Just a thought.

Slavery

2006-12-06T19:28:12Z

Much talk yesterday about Blair's semi apology for slavery.
I, and Penny, spent a week in Malta recently and on a visit to the Church of St Lawrence to view the famous painting of the eponymous martyr being barbecued, we met a local historian who gave us a new insight into slavery. He pointed out the small chapels within the church, each of which was endowed by local guilds or artisans, such as stonemasons and carpenters. Each guild member had to subscribe to a fund for the ransom of any guild member who was captured into slavery by muslim marauders or corsairs.
In the 16th century there were acredited agents who sailed about the Mediterranean arranging such ransoms; a habit which ensured that kidnapping remained a lucrative business even if a plentiful supply was not required for the Sultan's galleys, which it was.
Later I read that these corsairs had even raided the east coast of Britain for slaves, and in the 17th century totally depopulated an offshore island of Iceland, dragging those unfortunates off to a short but desperate life at the oars.
Now what I want to know is, who's apologising for all this? And the ongoing slavery being practiced in parts of Africa to this day? Perhaps Blair will apologise for it as well, after all, he has the same responsibility as he had for Britain's part in the trade - absolutely none.
Incidentally, the Maltese historian remarked that there was no known case of a female slave being ransomed; spoiled goods he opined. Now that really is shameful.
It's a bit wet on the allotment, but the Broad Beans are well up and the purple Broccoli has begun to sprout. The digging is completed, but at these temperatures the weeds are still growing and there are even a few strawberries to be seen.

Virtus sola nobilitas

2006-11-08T15:34:14Z

There is, in one corner of the garden, a wild patch containing a number of mature Dandelions. Periodically I throw a dustbin lid over them and use the blanched leaves in salad. They are still slightly bitter but something like sorrel. I dug it over yesterday and removed all the dandelions, which set me to thinking, always a more attractive process than digging.
When one inspects a dandelion rosette the newest leaves are closest to the soil, so as new leaves develop why does the plant not get taller and taller? In fact it remains at the same depth relative to the surface. The root must be costantly adjusting the depth and drawing the upper parts down as they grow. A glance at the root shows horizontal wrinkles round the circumferance where this movement has occurred.
This process is common to many plants and is most obvious in corms such as crocus and crocosmia. If one digs up a congested bunch of crocosmia each corm will be attached to five or six withered corms below, which can be removed before replanting. If the corms were not capable of adjusting their depth they would soon be above the surface. Stout roots will be noticed below the newest corm and they change their thickness constantly, enabling the corm to remain at its favourite depth. The chosen depth varies with soil type and water content and probably depends on soil atmospheric conditions.
The discussion today was about religeon, Arthur having heard a conversation between the Archbishop of Canterbury and some Today programme hack. The consensus seemed to be that nobody believes in God anymore so the A of C was wasting his breath. My own opinion is that the existence or otherwise of God hardly matters, and that our English way of life has been formed by the interface and standoff of poliics and Christianity. The socialisation of The Church in Victorian times, which gave birth to the mission to improve the lives of working people by such arcane routes as the formulation of the rules of football, gave an example of living not just for ourselves but with some regard to the wellbeing of others.
I think I mean that Christianity teaches a good way to live even if, as I believe, there is no hereafter. Call me existential if you like, I've been called worse and quite recently, but to freely translate the name of this Blog: Virtue is the only nobility.

Roots

2006-10-27T11:53:00Z

I cut down my autumn raspberry stems yesterday, even though there were enough berries for a good bowl each after dinner. I also dug up all my remaining potatoes and left them to dry under a row of glass cloches.
In the poly tunnel, the old hands were discussing the gardening habits of the younger generation. The newer and younger allotters subscribe to the no-digging and raised bed view of life. I'm a digger, not from a love of hard work, but from conviction based on rigorous consideration.
The depth to which plant roots extend is often more than we suppose, since unless great care is taken fine roots are broken when a plant is lifted. The roots of Liatris pycnocephala penetrate to a depth of sixteen feet in its North American home, and I have seen Jacob pursuing Bindweed roots to a depth of seven feet.
All roots need to breathe, for which air is essential. In the process oxygen is absorbed and carbon-dioxide evolved. The latter, being heavier, tends to diffuse down between the soil particles, and the same gas is being costantly formed by the breathing of the billions of organisms which inhabit the soil. The soil thus has an atmosphere which is richer in carbon-dioxide and poorer in oxygen than the open air we breathe. The looser the texture of the soil, the more readily the soil atmosphere mixes with the open air above; and the converse is also true.
By digging, the gardener increases the ease with which the roots can penetrate to deeper levels, stabilising the plant and allowing access to usefull minerals. Further when the land is turned the soil atmosphere is mixed with the surrounding air, so that in every way the conditions for deep and healthy roots are improved.
When the no-digger spreads manure on the surface it is acted upon by multitudes of bacteria, which in their turn form the food of numberless protozoa, both of which add to the carbon-dioxide production, tending to replace the air. This is one of the reasons why some plants are intolerant of fresh manure, because it interferes with good aeration of the soil.
Most of the year I use a small cultivator in the top few inches of the soil, but once a year the plot is dug and the lower level broken up with a fork. This is the traditional method and I think it was evolved through many generations of acute observation by better gardeners than I.

Apercu.

2006-10-18T19:12:47Z

My leeks are good this year; they seem to be free of the usual rust which spoils their appearance as well as stunting growth. They are one of my favourite winter vegetables, either sauteed in butter or in a soup with potatoes. Jacob grows them in deep holes which he drives with a metal spike but I just grow them in a shallow trench and earth them up a few inches. He gets longer blanched stems and I get thicker ones. You takes your pick. I don't mean the tool of course, that would result in curved holes.
The scuttlebutt in the polytunnel was about environmental matters and in particular on the need to increase petrol tax to restrict greenhouse gasses. It always amazes me how the, usually, left wing True Believers get away with their constant attacks on the simple pleasures of the poor. The middle class environmental activists can well afford a pound or two extra on a gallon of petrol, but that increase would price many marginal drivers off the road. Not that that would concern the True Believer. The same applies to the critiscism levelled by the Politically Correct at cheap flights; they don't use them so it's an easy sacrifice to make. Let others suffer to assuage their own guilt complex
I rejigged a well known aphorism and defined political correctness as the tribute payed to compassion by hypocracy; which was a kind of apercu for Jacob and Arthur. By the way I can't find the cedilla on this anti EU computer. It will probably be illegal next year.
Apropos of greenhouse gasses; we haven't heard much of the ozone layer hole recently. This, of course, is because the hole is now smaller than it was and closing fast. Very bad news for the doomdeviners.

Mutually Assured Destruction

2006-10-12T20:14:39Z

I dug up a row of potatoes this week to make room for a double row of broad beans. I use The Sutton for overwintering as it is short and stands up well enough in our windy conditions. I also surround my double row with some plastic mesh that I liberated from a skip; this should protect them a little more.
I only planted a short row because I am the only member of my family who eats them. But I like them either hot, or better still, cold with olive oil. It just shows how my tastes have changed over time; when I was young, the only shop that stocked olive oil was the chemist; for pouring in your ear.
After that exertion I joined the chatterers in Jim's polytunnel. They were arguing about the North Korean bomb test and the opinion seemed to be that if a country didn't want to be regime changed then it had better get a bomb. And anyway, what right have we to dictate when we've got one thankyou very much. I told them the parable of The Whittling Neighbour.
There was once a man who peered over his garden wall and saw his neighbour whittling a large piece of wood, I believe treen is the technical term. "Hello neighbour, what are you making?" he said. "I'm making a club, neighbour, and when I have completed it I'm going to come round and hit you with it very hard,", replied the whittler. What is the man to do, for even if he is a convinced peacenik and paid up member of the Guardianista, he has his wife and helpless children to consider. After meditating he realised that he must immediately take his own club, ideally the one with the big nail through it, and smite his neighbour hip and thigh.
Jacob said that I could put my raspberry prunings on his growing bonfire heap if I liked. We are only allowed one bonfire a year and we wouldn't get that if it wasn't for a remote Catholic terrorist. We must all be thankful for small mercies. Jacob is an expert fire starter as he used to be a forestry worker, so I thanked him for his offer, which will save me from failing to get mine going like last year.

Saxon sworders

2006-10-01T15:59:32Z

Jacob is a lifelong Labour supporter, while I tend to the Conservative furrow. He often harangues me therefore, but I am unlikely to vote for any of the big three next time. They never discuss anything that I am concerned about! On the whole the economy is not too bad and the NHS is probably as good as we deserve. The things I am interested in are: Europe and its increasing reach; law and order and finally immigration.
A young Lithuanian family work one of our allotments and the man's name is Mishi. He's a good fellow and works hard and so you might wonder what problem there can be from the arrival of 400,000 or so Mishis over the last few years and the further arrivals that are forcast from Rumania etc.
For the Chattering Classes that that are said to form opinion, there is no problem whatever. One of their major costs, which is the price of menial labour, has been reduced at a stroke. It is a bit different for those at the other end of the spectrum of power. What of the armies of people that worked in hotels, who did the cleaning in offices or looked after children? Quite simply they have been priced out of the market.
I myself am a parttime gardner for a busy man who owns a large garden that he has no time to look after, and I suppose it is only a matter of time before some young Lith or Latvian undercuts me. It all reminds me of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. This was not so much an invasion as a mass movement into Britain when the Romans withdrew in the 5th century. Britons, long under the protection of Rome, hired Saxons and Angles to protect themselves from even more undesirable attacks from the sea. Like Polish Plumbers, Saxon Sworders brought their families and eked out a marginal existence on the land down by the marsh. In time they got fed up with that and merely pushed the Britons out of the Big House and supplanted them. The Britons who survived walked to Wales and lived in the hills waiting for some Normans to attack.
I hope Mishi hasn't got his eye on my plot, but if he has and I have to walk to Wales, I bet the chattering classes splash me with mud as they overtake me in their Chelsea tractors.

Raspberry Sunday

2006-09-26T21:28:46Z

I did the raspberries on Sunday. Well, I did the summer ones; the autumn fruiters will last a little while longer. The difference in treatment is quite marked. The summer raspberry fruits on canes that grew last year, so while I've been picking all those wonderful berries, a new set of canes has been growing and now the old ones can be cut out; right to the ground. While I was at it, I also cut out all spindly looking canes and dug up the ones that were growing out of the row. These can be given away to friends, if one has any. The new canes can then be tied in to whatever structure you have and the tops can be arched over and tied down after tipping. This does something mathematical to the flow of sap and is good for fruiting.
The autumn fruiters are rather different as they fruit on wood that grew this year, that's why they're late. So, when they finish fruiting, or more likely when the wasps have scoffed the lot, they should all be cut to the ground, leaving nothing but a set of woody stumps.
Jacob, he who planted potatoes to eat at Christmas, is a bit edgy as they were all killed by the blight. My rather childish comment that Global Warming seems to be over for the year didn't help his mood either.
As I may have said before, Jacob is a true believer in the new faith, the main tenet of which is not just that the world is getting warmer but that it's all our fault. Anyway, I agree that the world is getting warmer because since 1880, usually taken to be the end of the last mini ice age, the world's temperature has increased by 0.6 degrees Celsius. Of that, only 0.2 of a degree is due to man's baneful influence. The rest is due to the Sun and gas emissions from volcanic eruptions etc. I think the volcanos should be taxed until the pips squeak.

Silent Spring

2006-09-20T19:01:50Z

Looking at my carrots as I pulled a bunch today reminded me of pulling perfect roots from the sandy soil of Hampshire in the late 40s. Mine have been lightly attacked by the carrot fly which have spoiled that vision of perfection.
The 1940s was well before Carson published Silent Spring which effectively drove DDT off the market. I wonder if any other book has been responsible for so many deaths, and deaths predominately in what we now call The Third World. Malaria was on the ropes before DDT was proscribed, but without DDT it kills more and more each year. Not that the fault lies at the author's door alone; it lies particularly at the doors of those who being in power were convinced by the arrant nonsense of the book. What is it with politicians that they are so easily swayed by the half baked opinions and worst case scenarios of Enviromental Zealots
By the way, I wonder if it is possible for mosquitos, as they go about their blood sharing activities, to spread other blood borne diseases, such as HIV/Aids. If it is possible, then the book has been even more deadly than I realised.
I don't think it has ever been demonstrated that DDT harmed anyone, but it certainly saved a lot of lives. It would also return my carrot patch to the quality of the ones I ate raw in 1949. After rubbing them on my corduroy trousers of course.

Art for art's sake.

2006-09-11T19:38:21Z

This morning Jacob was seriously upset. Somebody had trampled on his garden and pulled up some plants. They had tried and failed to pull up some parsnips and then progressed to the leeks. As both these plants need a fork to lift the result was just the destruction of a few plants.
I thought that Jacob's reaction was way over the top; he has announced his intention of giving up his allotments and flounced off; never to return, he says.
Considering that he only eats a very small percentage of the crops that he grows and gives the rest away, I was amazed that he should be so upset. In retrospect I think that the explanation is that his allotment is much more than a garden to him, and is his personal work of art.
Last autumn he prepared his canvas by deep digging and manuring, and in the spring he mixed his colours and began to paint his picture. Planting an allotment, particularly by a man, is fairly ritualised and prescribed. But within the traditional structure there are wide possibilities for individual expression and skill. Jacobs picture was beautiful, and now it is spoiled, at least for him.
It is almost a cliche to describe gardening as an art form, and my pet hate is to hear the word "create" used by TV gardeners. But I think that the Hortiscenti would hesitate to so describe allotment gardening, with its essentialy temporary status, but I think myself that for something to be described as Art requires two attributes, and these are beauty and utility. An allotment, at least one prepared by an artisan like Jacob, has both properties in spades. I hope he soon returns.

The Profits of Doom

2006-09-05T19:39:08Z

Noticed Jacob planting potatoes last night. These are "specially prepared" seed potatoes that are sold to be ready for Christmas. Jacob asserts that he has heard of this global warming (GW) so they are bound to be OK.
Potatoes are of the Solanum genus and need lots of light, a property not much in evidence in the last three months of an English year; warmth is not the limiting factor. So unless the use of FWD vehicles on the school run has caused the Earth to untilt on its axis, I don't hold out much hope.
I trust that the reader, if such there be, does not gain the impression that I am a heretic about GW, because it is almost bound to be proclaimed a crime by this most pathetic of governments, and I don't wish to be reported to the GW gaulieter. No indeed, there is evidence abounding that my allotment was covered by many feet of ice not so long ago and it has certainly got warmer since then. So I am a True Believer (TB).
What actually caused the gradual increase in temperature since those frigid days is not clear, but I daily expect archaeological discoveries that will prove that the inhabitants were misusing their refrigerators and driving all over the country in SUVs. Jacob says that it will soon be too hot to grow cabbages so I'd better get on with planting my winter potatoes. Personally, I hope the end will be a bit farther away than that, but it doesn't stop the seed merchants turning an honest shilling out of the hopes and fears of TBs. That's what I call profits of doom.

Beans and Pythagoras

2006-09-03T12:02:41Z

Pulling up a row of Broad Beans today and putting aside some dried seeds to sow in October, reminded me that these are the only truly european beans, and so the only ones available in this country before the 16th century. They are the Fava beans, much enjoyed by Hannibal Lecter, presumably because the peeled seed resembles a foetus. They have been cultivated around the Mediterranean for 6000 years.
Curiously, they can have a nasty effect on a few people, causing headaches, nausea and in the case of some children, even death. Pythagoras, who was a vegetarian, advised his followers against eating the bean and even forbad walking through a field of flowering beans.
It wasn't until the middle of the last century that the scientific basis for his advice was made manifest; it seems that some people inherit from their mothers a defect in red blood cell enzyme, known as glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. This causes them to react badly to the Fava bean, even to inhaling the pollen. The syndrome is known as Favism.
I love the beans myself, particularly boiled and served cold with vinaegrette. Like a bean fed horse, it leaves me feeling sleek and full of beans.

Carrots

2006-09-02T13:44:28Z

I pulled a bunch of carrots this morning; they are grown under a material called Enviromesh, which is supported by hoops of blue water pipe. If they are left uncovered they become drilled through by maggots of the carrot fly and are unusable.

Many garden pundits advise the sequential sowing of carrot seed to miss the two main generations of the fly, but to me this is rather like the rhythm method of birth control recommended by the Catholic Church. Good sex, but lots of ruined carrots.

Jim was on his allotment this morning. He is the leader of our little world, by which I mean he is the committee chairman and general organiser. He is also a great gardener and very generous with his advice; he was sowing spring cabbage this morning so a nod is as good as a wink. He owns an enormous poly-tunnel which produces wonderful crops, particularly of onions, potatoes and tomatoes. All of these can be ruined by rain borne fungi, but they are safe in his tunnel.

Jim is now in his seventies and has invested in an electrical bicycle, complete with trailer, which at this time of year is always full of produce. He suffers from rosacea and has an enormous nose, like some rare and fissured vegetable marrow. But I don't think that this has anything to do with the bicycle

Potato blight

2006-09-01T18:02:45Z

With rain and sunshine replacing the drought, a lot of my neighbours' plots are suffering from the dreaded Potato blight. Mine are healthy so far as I bought Sarpo Axona seed potatoes, which are reckoned to be blight resistant. This is the second year that I have grown them and they have shown no sign of the problem, even though some of the other varieties I grow (particularly Pink Fir Apple) have been destroyed.

One of my neighbours was there, putting the finishing touches to his latest shed. He has two allotments and has a mini estate of two greenhouses and four sheds, all of the authentic mix of Hansel and Gretel house and a Bombay slum.

His name is Jacob and he is probably the world's best digger; pursuing the roots of bind weed to such depths that only his hat remains visible. He fails to understand why the authorities will not award him Disability Living Allowance, which would allow him to stop pretending to be looking for work and to spend the whole of his time in pursuit of the bind weed. I used to point to the fact that he is patently about the least disabled person I know, but in the interests of keeping the peace, I now demur from this kind of useful comment.