Tag: The Joy of Norman Battle Tactics

The Joy of Sandwiches

Prepackaged sandwiches have their place
I’m not sure what that place is
A bit like using someone else’s toothbrush
A bit like getting coffee from one of those train station machines
A bit like comparing artificial grass to real grass
Sandwiches made by someone other than you…
…tend not to take the ingredients into the corners.

The ingredients are afraid of
going anywhere near the corners.

We eat them because we have to. We do most things because we have to, because we are railroaded into it.
But there is a way out. Make your own.
Now if you could imagine your very favourite, most delicious dream sandwich, what would it be? Imagine it
and make it. It’s a really easy way to be creative in a basic culinary way.

Cobs from
Kirkby were tough in texture, fresh and crusty and tasty. My mum used to make a great crusty cob sandwich. I find it difficult to get cob buns these days. It’s like trying to find the holy grail. My mother would fill them with a mature cheese, not too strong, with fresh sliced red onion and tomato. The blend and balance of flavours worked perfectly with the feel and flavour of the cob. The cob can take it, so to speak, is designed by its robustness, to take the strong flavours and textures, that thin and limp commercial bread can’t. There is no better sandwich than the cob sandwich. Perhaps the cob is in a different league and comes under the bun heading. There are so many different thicknesses and textures of bread and so many different constitutions of bun that they will all have their different categories and classifications.

It’s not just the sandwich. It’s the wrapping of it. I like sandwiches either loosely draped in foil and then folded into a bread wrapper to keep it all together, or, as an alternative, lovingly hugged by cling film and then put into
the bread wrapper. There has to be two layers. I suppose it goes back to the packed lunch days of my childhood where my mum’s slightly OCD persona influenced the double or triple wrapping method. It was like nesting dolls. The box inside the box inside the box. I think the double wrapping method is sufficient enough and good practice. First there is a hygienic layer like cling film or foil, to protect the sandwich from the elements and to keep it cool and/or fresh. This is followed by a plastic or paper wrapper, which would usually be a waxed bread wrapper, to contain the sandwiches and keep them from wandering off.
Then there might be a third wrapper. You never knew how many layers you had to get through to get to the sandwich. Then there’s the feel of the sandwich. There’s nothing quite like the feel of a good packed lunch. I’m tempted to give the package a good squeeze but just holding it in your hands is good enough. It’s a bit like a soft toy. Firm but cuddly, obviously, don’t cuddle it too much. Nothing worse than squashed sandwiches…although I can turn a blind eye to a warm squashed potted meat sandwich, a sandwich that has had time to marinate, but won’t make you ill, a sandwich that has gone through a certain amount of travel and wear and tear. An experienced sandwich. Of course, we must be careful about how warm a sandwich gets before it is eaten, how far it has to travel etc. they are all variables we have to take into consideration. If I was going on a day/coach trip for example, and the sandwiches in question, as a result, are marinating for several hours before being eaten, I probably wouldn’t have egg mayonnaise as a filling, or fresh ham, especially not chicken or fish or seafood for both spoiling and aroma issues in
enclosed spaces. I think beef might be okay, obviously cheese and tomato would be fine. Potted meat pastes are highly processed, so they may be okay.
There are cool boxes and tupper-ware available but that takes the fun out of the sport. What we want is a sandwich that can stand the test of time, that can go the duration, a kind of superhero sandwich that we can rely on to be edible, tasty and safe, by the time we come to eat it, whenever that may be. A sandwich that comes through for us, in this unpredictable world. After all, if we can’t rely on our home made, lovingly prepared sandwich, which we have researched for durability, endurance, deliciousness and safety etc. what in the world can we rely on?
There is also the foil versus cling film debate. As a child, I would see my school colleagues have either clingfilm encasing their sandwiches, or foil. What is best? Cling film invariably makes sandwiches squashy and sweaty as it hugs them closely. If you want your sandwiches to squash and sweat then this is not a problem. I quite like a squashed sandwich but surely foil is a better option for freshness and coolness. Perhaps this comes down to the time of year. Cling film in winter, foil for summer. I have not fully grasped the advantages and disadvantages of foil and cling film and what is the best wrapping of the two, if any. Whatever is available is usually my motto and if I was cornered, I would probably come out in favour of foil, after trial and error. I think what this all comes down to, is our own personal taste, our sandwich making ability is our last great freedom. We can make a mobile food, investigated, prepared, researched, devised, created and ultimately showcased, perhaps not to the world, but certainly to ourselves and possibly to our friends, family, neighbours.So go on, make those sandwiches, as they may be among the last great vestiges of expressed and tailored individuality that we can seriously enjoy in these uncertain and challenging times.

The Joy of November – Bonfires From The Past


In November, boys would come round in late September, early October
asking for wood for bonfires
And if they didn’t get enough
Sometimes people would find half their shed missing
You had to look after your wood at this crucial time
Treat it like gold
Teenage boys could sniff it out.
Wood, not gold
And there was nothing they wouldn’t do to get it.
It was great if you wanted to get rid of a cabinet
Old bookshelf or table
Then you wouldn’t have to pay someone to take it away
And they would be so happy
You would be doing them a huge favour
But unfortunately, we never had any wood waste
Wood was precious in our home
And my parents would hide from the wood boys
As if they were bailiffs
Turn off the lights and hit the floor
I never saw their joyful little faces as I handed over an old
dresser, or a hefty wardrobe, as we didn’t have any spare oak furniture
to needlessly burn.
These boys would find their own little turf for their bonfire
Have it planned for weeks, possibly months.
‘Bommies’ would be compared with other bommies in other
fields, in other territories.
Pride was taken
Our bommie is bigger than so and so’s,
Our bommie is going to be custy, sound…
The best for miles around
The best in Kirkby
Never understood why they said ‘Bommie’ instead of
‘Bonnie,’ or ‘Bonny’ as in Bonfire. Maybe I misheard and they were saying ‘Bonnie’ or Bonny’
There was a lot that was baffling in those days
And, you just let it go if you knew what was good for you.
Just let the ‘Bommie’ go into the ether. You’re ten years old, the
puzzlement of ‘Bommie’ is the least of your troubles.
I think there may have been mafia like mentalities in the bonfire world at
this time, perhaps boys may steal and sabotage from other ‘bommies’, publicly deride the wood mountain. ‘Our wood
mountain is bigger than yours.’ conversation. The evening
would begin as soon as it got dark. 4p.m is some cases.
It would generally be no later than 6, and that would be considered
delayed gratification. It would generally be all over by 8p.m.

Premature combustion.

Actually, some of the best bonfires would be held back for a little later. 8.30 p.m
but practically all bonfire people would be indoors by 10
p.m or thereabouts because bonfire night has a 5 in 7 chance
of being on a school night. Bonfires would consist of chairs,
tables, wardrobes, bed frames, old Tom’s wooden leg,
anything wooden that was available and probably some wood
that wasn’t. Furniture could be stacked ten, twenty feet high.
It was a creative process. Something fit for The Tate. Try stacking that amount of wood without it falling while retaining an amazing asthetic quality at the same time. Dame Tracey Emin would be proud.

The bonfires, once lit, would create a thick smog that began
at sunset and would hang around until about midday the next
morning. Not many people could afford expensive fireworks
where I lived as a child, so bonfires were the main thing. Most times it
was just a gang of juveniles in charge of a bonfire, but
sometimes whole families and communities would be
involved.
There was a dystopian air, around ten o’clock, long abandoned bonfires still smouldering away, the fog soup
of smoke blurring the night so bad, you couldn’t see your
hand in front of your face, the smell of a burning bombed city
pervading the air for miles around and a strange calm and
eerie silence, that you don’t experience on any other night of
the year. Meanwhile, the formerly impulsive and restless fourteen
year old boys, are now exhausted and slightly smoke
damaged and safely tucked up in bed.
Bangers, unlike sparklers, weren’t pretty but they were relatively cheap. All they did was make a noise like a loud bomb, like a really loud bomb and that was it.
Okay, the children said, that’ll do! That’ll do just fine.
Fireworks are a strange thing. It’s in the word. Hello. Fire.
Works. It says it all. Don’t let them near your pets and
children.
In the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, young people, i.e
children, were allowed to buy and handle these dangerous
and candy cheap explosives, without any adult supervision.

There were casualities and they would be reported in the newspapers on November the 6th.

I don’t think I’ve seen a
‘bommie’ since 1992, or thereabouts. In the economically
depressed area I grew up in, it was a good thing to have
‘bommies’. They brought the community together, it was
good for neighbourhoods who were able to bond through the
miracle of fire. It was much needed entertainment and light
relief from the daily slug.
As a child, the ‘bommie’ was something I
subconsciously desired and needed, pressing my face up
against the glass for a glimpse of blazing sun in the hopeless
night. Huge bonfires dancing and jumping like fiery Ents
with a troupe of black clothed, hooded teenage boys,
worshipping and dancing around the fiery maypole, like
warlocks, idolising a bonfire which, always seemed to be
about to burn out of control and sometimes did, and the fire
brigade would come out many times that night.
Fire.
Childhood.
A brutal innocence.

The Joylessness of Slugs

You’re a slug

You’re cold

You’re tired

You’re hungry

You’ve just spent several days

getting from the hedge

to the paving stone

And you are exhausted

Your children are hungry

They were crying when you left them

And what do you want right now?

What would make it right?

Cat food

Some kindly soul

Or careless cat owner

Or overfed cat

has left some

delicious, mouthwatering cat food

with a side serving of beer

The beer was either left by the cat

Or by one of the tall beings

who had poured the liquid on the ground

by mistake

Anyway, this ‘beer’ you like, is right by you

You’ve caught the scent

you are down that route

Second wind

you have found the strength to sliver down thereabouts

You are onto it

Life is good suddenly

You get that sometimes don’t you?

You know, when you dare to think that life is good?

That maybe, just maybe, the powers that be might favour you?

Or that the wind has changed direction

And you are no longer the scapegoat

The cursed

The person for whom sods law was invented

No bad luck tonight though eh?

Tonight, lady luck shines on you

You can smell the cat food

in all its horsey meatiness

Oh and the beer, the sugary, yeasty, malty, nutritious beer

Let’s go!

A light in the kitchen

Floods the paving stone

As I take my fill

I feel grateful

You think a slug can’t feel grateful?

Well, I do.

I’ve been on my butt for days

Slivering along

It was never ending

I thought I would go mad

So exhausted

But now everything

Just everything is okay

The universe has blessed me for once

me, a lowly working slug

Now after eating and drinking at the door of this

warm generous host, I will have the energy and means to feed my babies

Oh, wait, what’s that?

A bright light at the end of a big steel phallus

And at the end of that

a human

With a packet of something

Looming face.

Long body, legs, arms

Packet upturned

White stuff coming out of it

Is it snow?

It’s coming down

Upon my body.

I stop eating the delicious nutritious cat-food

It…it burns, this snow

Should snow burn?

I look up at the human again

They are smiling

If they’re smiling

It must be okay

But oh, it’s burning

It’s burning so bad

And they’re watching,

Waiting

Looking at me

So creepy

Oh, it burns

It burns so

And then I see

I am turning to liquid

My body is…

Pooling like blood

Oh, what are you doing to me?

Don’t!

Stop!

Please!

I am losing sensation

I look up and they are pouring more

Of what I thought was snowflakes

But now I realise must be a terrible poison

I don’t feel so good

That grin

It’s inside of me

They are

So pleased for my pain

They are happy for it

I’ve never felt pain like this

Help me

It’s agony

I can hear myself scream

Can they hear it?

They are grinning again

Grinning into my soul

Pouring down the snowflakes

the snow keeps pouring down

on my delicate skin

My body is seared

the snow is like acid on my skin

My body is water

The humans are happy

My kids…

I will not see them again

and now the human’s grin

also burns into me

It burns

It burns…

The Joy of Books (Part Four)

So, as a child reading children’s books, I came across a lot of food and drink stains in the pages and other assorted debris.

I call them U.B.O’s, unidentified book objects

As an adult reading second hand books, things got a bit more savoury within the pages and I’m not talking about the authors viewpoint.

In this final part of The Joy of Books, I’d like to talk about hairgate.

I’ve had a couple of memorable instances regarding dubious looking hairs in books. When it happened the second time, it triggered me because it was almost an exact replica of the first time it happened, about twenty five years ago. The U.B.O’s both had a similar pattern of regularity with similar content.

I was reading a second hand book, of a sci fi genre, an omnibus, consisting of five books. It was a tome of a book and from the get go, quite frequently, between the pages, in the crease, was a long, thick, crinkly, wiry black hair. More hairs of exact colour and texture appeared throughout the book. I tried to ignore them at first and made sure that said hair did not slip out of the book onto my lap.

By the time I got to the third book in the omnibus, I was getting more and more repulsed but the hairs kept coming, and soon, after a bombardment of (what felt like) extreme porportions, I snapped, closed the book and slung it in the bin. Problem solved.

I didn’t want to put someone else through the same experience. I didn’t want to pass the book on as it was, yet, I also didn’t want to go through each page indvidually and somehow extract and dispose of said hairs because I was repulsed just by looking at them. Also, they were distracting. I was reading about iconic characters from a famous sci fi T.V series and all I can see are these hairs.

Had the book been in an orgy? What the hell had it been up to, to get so many hairs in it? My love for star Trek books wasn’t strong enough to endure the U.B.O’s.

I have had one other instance of this with an interlude of about 25 years. So, I think it’s quite an unusual occurence. I have read many second hand books, thus increasing the risk of more foreign objects inside, so the fact that I’ve only had two with a hair infestation is actually not that bad odds.

Illustration by Steve Young

The Joy of Books (Part Three)

The look of books

Aesthetics

Cover, size, look of print,size of print, font type

Light, medium or dark print

Colour and page environment

White page, off white, slightly yellowed, very yellowed

Dirty, mouldy, unidentified stains

Food, liquid, grease, sweat, other.

The cover of books?

I’ll let someone else cover the cover.

Books are meant to be shared

An old, well used paperback or hardback

is good as long as it’s clean

The odd elusive grease stain is acceptable

Can be ignored easily

But then, when we get into food stains

of the third kind

of the oily, damp, highly coloured

sticky kind

the ones that graduate to 3D status

by that, I mean actual food stuffs

Then, my will to ignore

becomes weak.

When I was growing up

the Childrens Library was the absolute worst

for undesirable and unidentifable stains in books.

The stains were mostly food and liquids

the ones I couldn’t stomach

were the green ones

They seemed to appear regularly on the pages

Maybe it was just once

and it traumatized me enough to think

it was just snot all the way

a terrible distraction from whatever I was reading

I had a slight germ phobia

so the children’s book, story and author

had less of an impact than those

slightly alien 3D luminous green things.

The bottom line is, I thought things would get better when I graduated to The Adult Library.

Then I discovered that books for adults were a whole other ball game. Quite literally.

The Joy of Books (Part Two)

The feel of books

Hard back or soft back?

Both please, depending on mood and accessibility.

The hardback is in it for the long haul

Something to hold onto

When all the world is falling apart

When we are falling apart

The hardback can be gripped more fiercely

than any paperback

Without it withering or bending

under the stress of our fingers

to give us the sense that

the world

or ourselves

are not spinning wildly

out

of

control

Hold onto that hardback

For as its name suggests

It is hard

It is a back

And when someone says

they have got your back

It’s good.

Ever read a book with a traumatised spine?

Once a spine goes in a book

it really doesn’t take too long for it to fall apart

a bit like people

Paperbacks bend well

Sometimes circling in on themselves

like a willow in the wind

I love a good bendy paperback

a contortionist of a paperback

Unyeilding paperbacks have their place

but give me a double jointed paperback any day.

Well used paperbacks that have been through the mill

worn and tired and weary

still have the same amount of reading in them

perhaps more so

because of what they’ve been through

You can feel their years on the earth

the emotions that have passed through them

from all those hungry eyes and minds and hearts

fingers clutching or gripping the cover

or gently holding or caressing

Books are inanimate objects

But they were my friends growing up

still are

Like pets, they give unconditional love

they do not judge

and they impart wisdom.

The Joy of Books (Part One)

The smell of books

The scent of print and paper

Some of them like the best cologne in the world

Some spanking new and clinical

Some sharp and gluey

Some sweet and elusive

Some deeply inky

Some second hand,

old, papery, leathery, musty,

earthy, damp, sour

Some impregnated with cigarette smoke

Some experienced worldy books

The ones they call dog eared, well thumbed

The ones that have lived a full, rich life

The wise old ones

that have the stains

the yellowed pages

And the strange odours to prove it

All the hands that have held them

Turned their pages

In daylight, or lamplight, or candle

All the eyes that have gazed upon their pages

Riveted, bored, entertained, comforted

All the rooms they have lived in

All the bookshelves they have marinated in

All the drawers they have got bored in

All the charity shops they have ended up in.

The Joy of Subtitles

I used to think the joy of subtitles could only be enjoyed by three types of people

Those who are hard of hearing

Those who have varying degrees of audio processing disorder

And those who like French film noir

I discovered not many other people like them, unless it’s through necessity while watching foreign language movies but also because they distract from the movie they’re watching. I’ve always liked them and have very fond memories of them. Sometimes they stand out in my mind’s eye in favourite films more than the visuals. For me, it adds to the visuals immensely (not just because I’m hard of hearing and have a degree of audio dyslexia) but writing this, I’ve learned that I’m not alone in that thinking.

Lots of people like subtitles nowadays because a lot of actors mumble and you don’t have to be hard of hearing not to catch their words.

The very best thing about subtitles is, if you choose the hard of hearing option specifically on your DVD menu, rather than any other subtitle option, any song playing in the background, no matter if it’s below normal human hearing, will come up in the subtitles. Also whispers come up. So it’s also handy for people who have good, sharp hearing.

Also, any other noises will show up in the subtitles. Scoffing for instance. Scoffing always comes up in Netflix subtitles. He scoffed, she scoffed, they scoffed. I think that’s why I unsubscribed.

So the bottom line is, you tend to have a heads up, if you want a heads up, on everyone else who is watching the movie, in terms of knowledge, details, songs, whispers, scoffing, certainly more info, than if you don’t have subtitles. You never know, it might add more depth to the film. On the other hand, it might give you more knowledge than you desire and you may just want to watch the film without all that palaver.

The Joy of Muscle Rub

The joy of muscle rub is sometimes in the rubbing
And sometimes in the topical painkiller
And sometimes in the smell
And always in the heat
The killjoy of muscle rub is often in the neglect to wash
hands
after using, before touching sensitive parts of the body.