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Bill Bryson on the history and mystery of the British home:
Around the epergne on Mr Marsham’s table [in 1851] are likely to have been cruet stands — elegant little racks, usually of silver, holding condiments — and these, too, have a mystery. Traditional cruet stands came with two glass bottles, for oil and vinegar, and three matching casters. Two of the casters contained salt and pepper, but what went into the third caster is unknown. It is generally presumed to have been dried mustard, but that is really because no one can think of anything more likely. Gradually the third caster disappeared from tables — as indeed did cruet stands themselves. Just two condiments were considered so indispensable that they never left the table. I refer, of course, to salt and pepper.
I find it amazing that after only 150-odd years, we have forgotten what people kept in their third caster. Utterly amazing.
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The chair of the Criminal Bar Association, John Champion SC, on the Victorian government’s decision to abolish suspended sentences for certain crimes:
Take the case of an aged offender who, having spent a completely law-abiding life, commits the mercy killing of a cherished and terminally ill lifetime partner. Depending on all the known circumstances, the community may not necessarily expect such a person to serve a term of imprisonment. On the other hand, would an appropriate outcome be to impose an intensive correction order or community-based order on such an offender? The community needs to consider the possibility that such an outcome could occur if suspended sentences are abolished. Might a merciful and tolerant community, while fully recognising the sanctity of human life, accept that a sentence of imprisonment totally suspended may meet the circumstances of such cases?
Judges will make mistakes from time to time, but they’ll make far more mistakes with one hand tied behind their back.
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Chris Mullin, British Labour MP:
I remember once I had a woman come in who was really on the edge of a breakdown. She was talking about civil war and chaos, immigrants coming up the lanes of Sunderland with knives between their teeth to murder her. She was really in a terrible state. I just said to her “What paper do you read, love?” and, of course, it was the Daily Mail. I just said “stop reading it and you’ll find life gets better.” That’s the only advice I could offer.
What a shame he’s retiring. It was sensible advice. [via]
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Postcrossing: exchange postcards with a swarm of random strangers from around the world.
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Gerry Canavan observes:
When Malcolm X’s assassin was paroled earlier today, he walked out onto the corner of West 110th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard. You can’t make stuff like this up.
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Blair Peach was beaten to death by British police in 1979, for protesting against the fascist National Front. The report of Commissioner Cass, kept secret for thirty years, reveals that members of the squad responsible for policing the protest were found with a cache of illegal weapons and a collection of Nazi memorabilia, and concludes:
There is some evidence to suggest that the fatal blow was struck by a member of the first carrier at the scene, U.11., and indeed, an indication that it was the first officer out of that vehicle. This of course, was Officer E. However, there is no evidence of a conclusive nature. [...] ¶ I strongly recommend that proceedings be taken against Officer E, Officer H and Officer F for obstructing police in the execution of their duty, conspiring to do so and attempting or conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
No officer was ever charged. Alan Murray, who admits he was “almost certainly” Officer E, “resigned from the Metropolitan Police, receiving a certificate for exemplary conduct in his career.”
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A fascinating profile:
Sometimes, Vincent Kartheiser says, fame isn’t all it might be. … For instance, he says, he’d met a woman the previous night and they’d talked for 10 minutes, before she had asked him the inevitable question: “How do I know your face?” ¶ Kartheiser had no option but to own up. “I said, ‘I’m that guy Pete Campbell in the TV show Mad Men.’” ¶ And then it started. Kartheiser shrugs, resigned: “She said, ‘Oh my God, I fucking hate you.’ And I go, ‘Well, you mean you hate my character.’ She said, ‘No, it’s more than that. When you come on the screen, I don’t want to be in the room. It’s a completely physical thing. You make my flesh creep. I loathe you.’”
That — that right there — is why Pete Campbell is my favourite character in Mad Men. I hate him, I can’t help hating him, but I want him to redeem himself. ¶ Also, Kartheiser lives in an empty wooden box.
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Ben made tomato sauce, and you can too:
Take a few cans of tomatoes. Use fancy ones, use italian ones, use fancy italian ones, or use whatever is cheap at the supermarket. Italian Jesus will not smite you for using inferior tomatoes, at least not on a Sunday. I like chunky crushed, but if you really want to you can use whole tomatoes and crush them yourself. Doesn’t that sound fun, smooshing tomatoes and getting juice all over yourself?
See also: The Awl‘s pie crust recipe: “Give or take! IT DOESN’T MATTER.”
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David Cameron covers Common People: “And then Gideon and I will go for drinky-poos, because we’re Tory, and that’s what we do.” [via]
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Melbourne, I love you lo-fi: “shot from the hip with an iPhone camera.” [via]
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Owen Hatherley takes an architectural tour of Moscow and St Petersburg, focusing especially on the Constructivists:
What is so striking about Moscow Constructivism is how intimate and small-scale it all is, in the context of generations of soaring gigantism — whether Tsarist onion domes and neoclassical office blocks, Stalinist skyscrapers and hulking apartment blocks, or Brezhnev-era attenuated modernism. Even the most brutally powerful buildings — like that ur-brutalist masterpiece, the Rusakov Club — refuse to dominate their users. Perhaps this is why they’re so neglected — just not Bolshoy enough.
That would certainly explain why the “delicate lattice structure” of the Shukhov Tower has been allowed to decay. As the Russian press put it, “Only foreigners care about its destiny.” Tragic.
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I don’t like cucumber. I find the taste overwhelming, and if I eat a piece of lettuce that has been touching cucumber, I can’t taste anything else in my meal. Because cucumber has a mild flavour to most people, they think I’m just a fussy eater and a bit of a weirdo. But in searching for information about the coriander-as-soap debate, I came across this possible explanation:
Cucumbers and melons have a similar mild, weird taste to me, which I don’t find particularly unpleasant or indeed pleasant. By contrast my Dad is completely repulsed by cucumber and can just about manage the occasional slice of honeydew melon. He says these foods “taste like petroleum.” My partner J. reports something slightly different. To him, melons and cucumber taste almost, but not quite, like sick. He can’t even bear to eat things that cucumber has touched. I can’t find much information on the net about this particular aversion, but I believe it might be down to a chemical called cucurbitacin, an alkaloid which can cause severe stomach upset if ingested in a large enough quantity. There is certainly an evolutionary advantage in being able to taste this chemical, since tasters and non-tasters alike are equally susceptible to its effects.
This could explain it. I can’t eat anything that’s touched melon, either, and I’m not a big fan of pumpkin or zucchini, which all contain cucurbitacin.
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The Southern Star is in pieces, the Perth Observation Wheel is closing, and now Jeff Kennett is leading a campaign against a proposed ferris wheel in Geelong and the barely-used eyesore on Birrarung Marr:
I can’t stand that Ferris wheel stuck in the middle of it, it’s an absolute eyesore… ¶ The park attracts enough people on its own as they walk or jog along the river, it doesn’t need a man-made piece of Meccano set sitting there for that purpose… Why don’t you go and shove it in an area that’s full of concrete? Take it out of our parks.
Hopefully things are taking a turn for the interesting. Love it or hate it, at least Anish Kapoor’s Orbit isn’t another bloody ferris wheel.
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Lovely: “A photo of every painting on display from the painting galleries in the MoMA on April 10, 2010.” ¶ I particularly like the ones that include people — if you want a record of the artwork, buy the programme; if you want a record of the gallery, photograph the visitors. (But look out for mimes…)
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Christopher Walken visits his childhood neighbourhood:
He peered through a first-floor window. “This was our apartment,” he said. “Look, it’s still the kitchen! You can see the icebox. The kitchen table is exactly where it was.” He paused. “Oh, there’s somebody there. I wonder if she’d let us in.
¶ Related: Christopher Walken in his kitchen.
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Anarchist Tintin — it helps if you imagine he’s from Teesside.
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Robin Boyd, multitasker:
In his office, he took advantage of his ambidexterity by writing with one hand and sketching with the other, sometimes while also talking on the phone.
One of the delightful details in Gideon Haigh’s profile of the late, great architect. Boyd’s scathing criticism of Toorak’s Tudor revival is also brilliant:
Decent, honest buildings cannot exist amongst this maudlin riot of half-timbered crenellated erections … scrapped together to make room for the village idiot … The result is a setting which would disgrace a tenth rate comic opera.
¶ Haigh’s article is in The Age (Melbourne) Magazine — unfortunately not available online.
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