How Clear, How Lovely Bright

I recently rewatched the Inspector Morse episode, The Remorseful Day, and realised that - in many ways, this episode was themed around the third stanza of A E Housman's poem, How Clear, How Lovely Bright, which goes:

Ensanguining the skies

How heavily it dies

    Into the west away;

Past touch and sight and sound

Not further to be found,

How hopeless under ground

    Falls the remorseful day

- A E Houseman

Reference: 

Houseman, A. E. (1880, 1936). How Clear, How Lovely Bright. Your Daily Poem. https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=737

Recipes for Katsu Curry & Fried Rice

These two recipes in the video below - Katsu Curry and Egg Fried Rice - work together really well, and are good, decent, budget food. I would be inclined to use snapper for the fish though... not salmon.

These two recipes arrive thanks to the creative brain of series chef, Gary Usher, from the UK TV series, "How to Save a Grand in 24 Hours" (Wilson, 2021).

I was particularly taken by the egg fried rice recipe, which runs for the last 20 seconds in the video clip below (Wilson, 2021, 4.23).

Source: Wilson, G. (Producer). (2021). Episode 5: Barton-Wilkinson family, Bristol [video]. How to Save A Grand in 24 Hours (TV Series). Avalon | Channel 4 Television (UK).

Bryant & May The Victoria Vanishes

I am a newcomer to the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant & John May books, having only discovered Christopher Fowler as an author this year, the year of his death. I am slowly working my way through the roughly 20-strong series, generally listening to the audiobooks from the library.

The one disadvantage of listening to audiobooks is that I listen at night, on very low volume - and fall asleep. As a result, I need to listen to each book a number of times in order to get the whole story. And the one thing I could not get from the sixth book in the Bryant & May series, the Victoria Vanishes, is quite HOW the pub in question - the Victoria - actually vanished.

Earlier on in the book, octogenarian Arthur Bryant stumbles past a corner pub, but then cannot find it again. Where he thinks the pub is located turns out to be a convenience store. Arthur begins to think that he is losing his marbles, and consults a 'specialist' in memory work... who turns out to be a witch (which should be no surprise to fans of Christopher Fowler, as his first writing 'career' was in the horror/supernatural genre. Not something that appeals to me, but murder mysteries are). Arthur even finds an old architect mate at another pub and the two go off and literally have a crack at picking off the fascia of the convenience store in the hope of finding a pub underneath. But no luck.

To satisfy my curiosity, in the end I had to go and read the ebook. It turned out that this particular piece of the puzzle is only explained in a 'by the way' statement between Bryant and May right at the end of the book:

“Yes, I thought I’d search for signs that the pub had been installed there. He told me they were pretty easy to spot once he knew where to look. Screw-marks, scraps of tape and paint stencil marks. Of course, the building had originally been converted from a pub to a shop, so it required very little effort to turn back time for an evening. They simply placed painted flats over the lower half of the extended shop windows and whacked some plant-holders on top. We can’t press charges on the store owner, as it seems he was pressured into co-operation by people from Theseus. Some kind of bureaucratic error to do with his immigration visa. I’d love to have seen the look on Harold Masters’s face when Pellew told him what he wanted next. Masters was over a barrel by that time. What could he do but comply with Pellew’s request?” (Fowler, 2008, 97%).

There is a quite lovely nod to the naming of this duo in this issue:

Bryant [...] produced some matches. He squinted at the yellow label on the box, then donned his reading glasses. “I say, has anyone noticed this?” He held up the matchbox, studying the logo in amazement. “That’s us. ‘Bryant and May – England’s Glory.’ I don’t know why I never thought of that before” (Fowler, 2008, 83%).

Very cute.

 

Sam

Reference: Fowler, C. (2008). The Victoria Vanishes. Côte d’Azur.

Meri Kirihimete

Our Christmas wishes to you all

Sam (& Jan in the USA)

News from Nelson - October 2019

Hi everyone,
Another month has rolled around already - and suddenly the end of the year is rushing toward us.

This month has been relatively quiet for me. We had two weeks of study break so I was mainly playing catch-ups on administration, marking and planning for next year. I have planned a new Leadership course for Semester 2 of 2020, and set up a new Moodle site for some students who need to complete the old version - which is now retired - over summer school. The break arrived just at the right time to do that work.

Jenny and Tracey came out to Rose Road for a night of debauchery, celebrating Tracey's and Jennie's birthdays. There were nearly hangovers in the morning, but we did do a lot of talking, a lot of laughing and even managed to avoid too much smartphone time while we were together!

Jan's work in the US has appeared to become pretty much routine, and - being without a car - he pretty much only went to work and back to the accommodation for the month. However, he had taken a couple of photos:

Jan was back in Kiwiland briefly in the last week of October, mainly to attend Hartmut's 80th birthday. To get as many of the jobs that had piled up at Rose Road done as we could, we flew up to Wellington and back on the one day. Tina had booked the Tugboat Restaurant by the Freyberg Pool on Oriental Parade and everyone had a lovely time. There were no gifts to be given, so people made things: cards were made using old photographs; Lara played guitar and sang one of her own songs; Otto played violin; and we made marzipan and almond chocolates. Tina had a slideshow of many of the old family photos. Joerg made a very moving speech about the gifts that Hartmut had given him. Jan spoke about bringing the family on an adventure to New Zealand which gave the entire family opportunities that may well have been closed to them if they had stayed in Germany. A very nice afternoon, ended by kaffee und kuchen.

I was surprised on our way back to Nelson from Hartmut's birthday party to see that Wellington airport had only been established in 1959. Perhaps it had been named something else, or been an aeroclub ground before that.

The travel agents who are organising the Danube Cruise tour group from NZ got the group together for another event, luckily held while Jan was home. Everyone except our friends Sharon & Ian were able to attend. We got our packs of materials, and now know what is going to be available each day. We will start planning what exactly we want to do and see closer to time, next month.

Jan has dropped some more trees so that we have a few down and drying ready to saw up into rounds over summer, when I hope he will be home for a couple of months (though this time off has not yet been confirmed - sigh). With spring being well advanced, the weather was good enough to get out and have coffee at a couple of local cafes, even with the dogs.

Thanks to Warren, and with Jan being home, the tunnel house is almost complete. The gravel base was laid, the frame has been secured to tar-painted railway sleepers, and those have been fixed to the ground using reinforcing steel rods.

I say almost because unfortunately the glass louvres for the window at the back arrived broken. The company is re-sending them, and they should be here this week coming. At least I will be able to fit these on my own!

My old office desk has been re-purposed as a planting table, but I need to find some old plastic drums or mussel buoys which we can (a) have off the ground to avoid too much bending, and (b) fill with compost and use for planters. But I need to have the irrigation system worked out before we start that, and, realistically - as we are going to be in Europe for a month - all that is best to wait until we get back at Christmas.

While Jan was here he put up a fence around the vege garden which is HOPEFULLY dog proof. I have planted out Lebanese cucumbers, courgette, Rapunzel, spinach and tomatoes. The silver beet has bolted already, so I am busy converting that into dog veges and freezing it for our house-sitter to feed the dogs while we are away.

It was great to have Jan home, but also horrible to have him go again so quickly. It seemed like five minutes before I was saying goodbye to him at the airport again.

As usual, the weather and the views have been lovely:

Our Europe trip is now organised, and we both arrive into Munchen on 23 November, then catch the train to Ulm, arriving late afternoon. We leave Ulm for Budapest on the evening of 26 November, then - after much Christmas Market river cruising - we end the organised part of our tour in Prague on the morning of 10 December when we meet Justine. We have a few days in Prague seeing the sights, then head off to Stuttgart where Jan has a training course on the 13th.  We leave from Munchen to return to New Zealand on the 21st.

As we will not have a car, we hope to see as many of you who can get to Ulm or Stuttgart to see us. Please get in touch if you can make time to come to us: we would love to see you.

Back to you all with the next update in another month.


Sam (& Jan who is back in the US)

News from Nelson - September 2019

Hello everyone,

The days are getting longer and warmer and it is time to recap September. 

This month I have spent time with Sharon & Ian, Warren, Tracey, Erica, and Jenny.

I went to Sharon & Ian's for lunch, and found that Sharon had rather a lot of teaspoons for me to pass on to my jeweller friend:

Warren came out and we spent a morning putting together the frame of the little (!) tunnel house that Jan bought when he was here last, and we even read the instructions:

We have put the frame of the tunnel house together so that when Jan gets home, we can prepare the site (that is the clay patch you can see behind Warren reading the instructions), then cover it and move it into position together. It will save half a day of Jan's time home, in which there is plenty of other stuff to be done. Warren also helpfully put up the bike racks which I bought from Torpedo 7 on special a few years ago, so at last I can get into the space under the stairs in the garage. There are lots of boxes under the stairs which have not been touched since we moved in. Now that I can get to them easily, I can sort them out, and decide what needs to go, and what I want to keep.

I got another partial truckload of kiln dried timber ends from Kev, and stacked it in the shed:

And the sunrises still don't fail to impress:

There were lots of birthdays in September, including Jan's (which he was away for, but I sent him some new Sennhauser earphones from Amazon). Max & Karen, their Woofer, Erica and I helped Warren celebrate his 50th by having fish and chips at Tahunanui beach, followed by a dog walk. Warren has now bought a new house in Enner Glynn. I helped him a tiny bit with a couple of loads, and took a couple of photos. He has lovely views to the West and to the North... and a swimming pool:

Finn thinks he is a people and has taken to sitting on the outdoor furniture. I am amazed he can fit himself in, because he has turned out to be quite a big dog:

Erica came to stay for the weekend with Jade and Ollie, and four dogs had a LOVELY time with a long walk each day and much playing. Even Jade managed the 4k round-trip down to the second ford each day without running out of steam (big walks for a little dog):

Boo and Finn ate the side off one of the rubber mats on the deck. While the mats might have prevented me slipping, they also prevented Boo from digesting. Sigh. More trips to the vet, but thankfully no surgery yet. We are hoping that "this too shall pass"!

The washing machine has been at the repair shop for six weeks, waiting for a part to come: it arrived and was ready for pick up just as Warren moved into his house and needed his washing machine back! Spectacular timing. 

The ford by the winery has been concreted in, to the tune of two concrete trucks full of concrete. Simon did all the boxing and prep, and he and Cie did the screeding while I was out teaching for the day. All I had to do was to leave one car on the 'inside' of the ford and the other on the 'outside' for a couple of days while it cured. It is fabulous now:

My undergraduate research students are mostly on track, and I have another couple of post-grad students doing Master's projects. My teaching workload at present is steady, which is good, and this month I delivered my last research lectures for year. However, I still have orals to organise, and my Sport & Rec paper lectures finish at the beginning of November. Then it is only marking and getting results into the system to be finished with the undergrad work. I will have three Master's supervisees who will still be going until late November, with one not finishing until January.

While I am still saying no to additional teaching projects this year, I am in talks about mentoring a new undergraduate research paper co-ordinator and moving into teaching post-graduate papers in the business school next year. I am still a bit hesitant about this, but have said yes to teaching a first post-graduate paper in semester 1 2020. I am also doing some Sport & Rec planning for semester 2 2020, as two of my AUT papers are being rolled into one, and I am working through what needs to be kept out of the two originals, and from two previous papers I have taught. I have been thinking about this for some time, and have a meeting next month where I need to formalise my proposal... and the write up of those thoughts will need to be tackled in the study break.

Additionally, I have hired some cleaners, so on the weekends I am no longer spending half a day cleaning. With the spare time I have created, I have been enjoying the books of Rhys Bowen, the "Her Royal Spyness" series. They are quite fun, and the library has a few of the talking books. I went to the movies for a charity fundraiser for the Motueka swimming pool, and saw the Downton Abbey film. It was quite good, but not as taut as Gosford Park had been. 

At the end of the month, daylight saving started. This is a horrible time of the year for me, as I am now effectively getting up at 4.30am, and really struggle with an hour's less sleep each day. It usually takes met two weeks to adjust, and luckily this year, the study break gives me that two weeks to adjust my sleep pattern.

Jan is still in Rock Hill SC, but has done some travelling at last, having gone to Chimney Rock with some of his colleagues:

  

He met up with an old school friend, Claudia, and her partner, in Durham, NC. This was midway between where Claudia lives and where Jan is staying:

Aside from a few hours at the beach one Sunday, the rest of his time has been working, having evening bbqs (as they are not supposed to cook in their rooms) and following his workmates on shopping trips locally in Rock Hill or further afield to Charlotte:

  

Jan is back in NZ on 19 October for a nine days, then off again. He will next be back in NZ next on 23 December. We meet in November in Munich, visit Ulm, then head off on the Danube river cruise meeting Justine in Prague,  then onto Stuttgart for Jan to do a week-long Siemen's course where we will meet Simone and Andreas. I will potter about Stuttgart and sightsee while Jan is on the course each day, and continue to supervise my Master's supervisees. We return to NZ together. 

Talk to you all again in a month or so.


Sam (& Jan in the US).