Cabbage & Mars

Riviera

I give in to the pressure!  Reading for the umpteenth time about the 'Mediterranean diet' and being hectored from overseas I am once again returning to a veg diet.  The Med diet is full of veg, fruits, nuts and oily fish, and mine has been less than equal to this for a while now.  In the morning I will visit the shops and purchase appropriate veg, though I might have that pie for breakfast first....
Carol tells us that 'Chia' is the power food of the day - or at least that's what her son tells her - and I read the other day about the 'superfoods' that the trendies were spending vast sums of money on.  One of them was 'Blueberries,' grossly overpriced and not much better than other berries, strawberries for instance, 'Kale' a type of cabbage my mum used to eat in the 20's because it was cheap, I read any cabbage is good for you, indeed 'cabbage' the much maligned substance is one of the best veg to eat as long as not overcooked.  Anyhow my cooking kills all goodness in foodstuffs so it makes no difference.  I will however attempt a new diet again tomorrow.

NASA

Continuing our fascination with the heavens I note that there has been excitement in space circles with the discovery, it appears, of water on the planet Mars.  Much excitement as there are many experiments ongoing regarding sending men to the planet and even establishing a wee village up there.  Hmmm it will take a round trip of three years to get there and back as I understand it, then with the time establishing the village you can add on another couple of years so whoever goes will be away for at least five years and possibly more.  No doubt political correctness will insist on females participating on this journey, indeed some astronauts will insist on this also, and I suspect Russians, Europeans and maybe even the Chinese will become involved, the costs will be prohibitive otherwise, and I suspect an effort will be made to bring about such a trip.  The difficulties of space exploration in such an environment are immense, the costs out of this world, the chance of success limited, and yet it does excite many people.  Will they find intelligent life on Mars?  Will they find intelligent life on earth first I wonder?

Cabbage

A man during the second world war was given the responsibility for ensuring children received sufficient nourishment from the limited foodstuffs now available.  Oranges and bananas, often beyond the price of many at the time, were amongst other luxuries no longer considered vital to keep the nation afloat.  This gentleman, who's name escapes me, decided that the answer was cabbage!  This combined with the 'Dig For Victory' campaign enabled the British population to be healthier during the war and the restrictions thereof that they have ever been since!    
However as I mused on this I cogitated also on how to cook this beast.  I looked closely at the fat, dense, wrinkled green creation in front of me and considered how like the rest of my family it was.
Dense, sums so many of them up, wrinkled takes care of others who will not be mentioned, and green, well, less said about that I suggest.

The wrinkles reminded me of the TV that the women watch.  While some refuse to lower themselves to the banal offerings (my sister insists on wasting her senility on X-box or whatever games) most will sit for hours watching programmes made in the seventies which are repeated several times a day (always with the same ending) and these women will get involved once again with a tour de force of bad acting!  The cabbage sums this up well.  Quite why there are so few couch potato size women around the family I know not, possibly the shopping sprees help there.  How can anyone with half a brain, and that sums up the family all to often, watch such badly made tripe beats me.

 
Worse still some would say, not me, is the way the cabbage reminds me of the men in the family.  Note how easily it stands alongside a, now empty, but full a short while ago, bottle of wine and half a bottle of beer.  Reminds me of the nieces husband and his fridge full of beer bottles for the cup final.  It turns out that was that fridges natural state!  He and his son probably have a fridge each these days.  The cabbage itself may be wholesome but the people around it require some improvement.

My delightful and best looking, indeed most talented and clever niece arrived one day last year and enabled my mobile to work!  So good was she that she managed to send a text to my phone and indeed from my phone.  I was glad as I had not managed to do so myself.  I indeed do not require the text facility as I do not have the friends to send meaningless texts to however it has some uses I suppose.  As she made her way homewards on the high speed rail network I sent her a text, well I tried to, as I typed all that would come up was CABBAGE.  So I gave up.  She understood, her dad had the same problem.  I blame her.

The weather is dreich, I sit listening to Radio 3 via the TV as the somewhat depressing fiddle violin quartet music is better than anything available elsewhere.  The boring tennis final is about to start and I suspect women everywhere are getting ready to waste hours watching.  I might drop in on the 'Tour de France,' a much more interesting activity, especially as by touring the country you see places you will never visit.  I read the 'Tour of Italy' might take a day out and pass by my window in a year or two's time, that will be good.  No cabbages there, unless I get on my bike to join them of course. 
Ah well, soon be time for bed....