Pedi
has asked me to get a piccy of a haggis and cheese panini - so I asked around in the pub as to where I could find one - no-one could offer anything helpful - other than they'd make one up at the pub if I asked - but this feels like cheating. It did open up one of those 'great things I've done with a haggis' conversations though (please don't try claiming you've never had a 'great things I've done with haggis' conversation). The two that stick in my memory are haggis soup and haggis lasagne.
Haggis Soup
Apparently this soup, a creation of one of the pub regulars, once made it to the specials board of a pub in Finchley. The recipe is as follows - make a lentil soup. Add haggis. Serve. It sounds OK to me - could be one to try on those eternal winter nights.
Haggis Lasagne
This is stated to be good, if you and half of your street are incredibly hungry - like not eaten for two or three months. The recipe: Make lasagne, only use haggis instead of meat sauce.
Quite a lot of the men work offshore, normally 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, or even further afield. There was a guy there last night who'd been in Poland for a couple of months or more and was just back. He was depressed when he learned we had glorious weather in May - "That just means the rest of the summer will be rained off."
Great.
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Firstly, there is nothing more important than me and my family. The most precious thing I can give them (including me) is time. In my job, with all it's pressures, I singularly failed to do this. So we run for the hills and try to redress the balance.
Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.
Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.
And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.
Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.
There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)
Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.
If you think there's something wrong, change what you can to make it better. I'm trying to lower my carbon footprint, step out from the 9-5 grind, rise from the weight of leadership and responsibility and have some fun again.
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Where I"m coming from - !CAUTION! a bit of a polemic
Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.
Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.
And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.
Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.
There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)
Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.
Things I"m going to miss
- Jour Fixe - especially Tagd and CDs from Sean
- Lennie's coffee, bacon rolls and flapjacks, always served with such...erm...charm
- Liz's happy hello in the morning
- Unpacking the Crunchy veg box (people of Dunbar - use them! - http://www.crunchycarrot.co.uk/crunchy_carrot_4/services.html)
- Our wood burning stove - we had a hybrid - http://www.dowlingstoves.com/stoves.htm
- Oh and that pumped up sense of self importance you get from being the big cheese
- Financial security
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5 comments:
Ah, thanks for this, this is even better than a picture! Pretty hilarious! I'm embarrassed to admit though that,you guessed it, I've never had a "great things I've done with haggis" conversation. In fact, I don't think I ever actually had haggis. This may have to do with the fact that I've only spent one day in Scotland in my entire life, and that was for a student demo against Maggie Thatcher in Glasgow, where we were bussed in in the morning, and bussed back south in the late afternoon, without being given an opportunity to sample the local delights. Maybe that's a mute point, I was a vegetarian at the time anyway. And the more I think about it, the more I get the feeling that they must have served it every now and then at college, but that I didn't have it because I was getting the wimpy beans-and-rice or pasta-and-garlic- bread option. But truth be told, the mere mention of haggis is still enough to strike the fear of god into me and I'm full of admiration for you hardy lot dining on it up there. The haggis soup and lasagna actually sound less intimidating than the real thing by itself...
I bet you can find haggis over there - but you might be better waiting until you or Ritesh are over here to try it (or take some back). Haggis is good! - it's a real winter warmer.
Would that be the poll tax demonstration in March 1990? I couldn't get there - was working (here - http://www.whithorn.com/archaeology.htm) - but a lot of friends went.
yes! that was it, the 1990 poll tax demo! How on earth do you remember this, when you didn't even go? I'm obviously one step closer to Alzheimer's than you are :).
But small world, eh?
So you're an archaelogist by training?
I remember it because one of my pals went to court over non-payment - the poll tax was a big deal. I wanted to go to the demo and felt a bit of wimp because I had to work. And anyway who could forget the riots in London and the pompous indignation of the press because an'anarchist' put a traffic cone on the head of a statue of Churchill? Hilarious really.
As for pin-pointing that demo - well there weren't that many 'anti-Thatcher' demos - there was lots of stuff in the early 80's - CND, The Falklands War and the miners strike - but I don't reckon you're that old. You could have gone to the demos in Glasgow later in the Summer of 1990 - but after the riots in London in March I reckoned that was unlikely. It was an informed guess but I'm pleased I was right!
Archaeologist? - No, Biochemist.
Haggis Pakora - outstanding combination and strangely right, somehow...
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