Marmalade

We've just finished our annual marmalade making session, with proper Seville oranges. 'Pudding' tonight will be toast and marmalade. Yummy! Over the past 12 months we've only consumed two jars of shop-bought marmalade, so I think we have the amounts about right.

We have a very simple recipe and it includes putting the oranges through the mincer. It's brilliant because it saves all the cutting up. We showed a jar to someone, who commented, "It wouldn't do for showing!" But we don't want to show it, we want to eat it!

And we'll enjoy eating it!

Plaster & Chris Evans

If you were listening to Chris Evans on Radio 2 this morning and you heard the "megaphone moment", you will have heard me announcing to the world that I'm having my plaster off today. If you didn't hear it (and why not???), then you can go to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00q9gv3 - it is 1 hour 6 minutes into the show.

Well, I've got the plaster off and I have a splint. They say the kneecap fracture has healed - praise the Lord! Thank you if you have been praying.

Now I walk carefully with one crutch, and slowly will exercise to get the knee and leg back into full operation.

The Cold Winter

Living in Essex in the south of England, one expects to get warmer weather than the north of Scotland. So why is it that for the last four weeks or so, when we see the temperatures on the weather map, Stornoway is consistently warmer than us?

In case you don't know, Stornoway is on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. So what's happening to our weather? Should we book our summer holidays for the Shetlands in order to get some sun? These are difficult problems and I need to find some solutions!

Rock and Chips

We watched Rock and Chips the one-off 'prequel' to Only Fools and Horses last night. Rather disappointing, I thought.

But one interesting thing was Del Boy's Dad was, I'm sure, also Rose Tyler's Dad in Dr. Who. After all, it's only a slight change of name, Trotter to Tyler, isn't it? But how did he do it? Rose lived in the noughties and Del Boy was in the 1960's. Wait a minute, I wonder if he also found that time portal that Rodney used in Goodnight Sweetheart?

But back to Rock and Chips. Presumably, the point of the drama was to explain why, in Only Fools and Horses, the two brothers Del Boy and Rodney look so different. Mind you, Rodders really DID look like his Dad. Uncanny that ...

Today's newspaper says that Harriet Harman will make a speech in which she will talk about inequality, which will be a "key dividing line" between Labour and the Conservatives.

She will say, "The public want an equal society, one where there is not a yawning and growing gap between the bottom and the top."

So, will they hear that public who are shouting,

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT BANKERS' BONUSES AND TOP BANKERS' MASSIVE PAY??"

Getting out more ...

I know I really ought to get out more, as the following story proves. But as I'm still on crutches, I can only get out when someone takes me. That's my excuse, anyway.

We've just watched the first of the new series of Numbers, a TV cop show (actually, FBI) where Charlie, a young professor of mathematics, helps solve crime using maths (or 'math' as they insist on calling it), along with his brother, Don, who is an FBI agent.

Unlikely plot? Yes, but we enjoy it! I like the characters in it - there is a bit of home life with Charlie and Don, along with their Dad (Mum died some time ago).

The 'cliff edge' at the end of the last series was when Charlie asked Amita to marry him. She was one of his students, but is now a lecturer in her own right at the uni. She hesitated, and we've been left, not knowing the result until this new series.

And during the first episode, all we knew was there was some tension there. But it was revealed at the end that she wanted him to ask her parents first. She is of Indian extraction and they still live in India, so it was not that easy!

The end result is, they agreed and they are going to be married! And I found myself almost shedding a tear because I'm so pleased for them. They are a really nice couple ...

- and that's why I need to get out more!

Some while back we passed a pub called "The Lion and Lamb". I don't remember where it was, but I'm sure there are many. The name, I assume, comes from the book of Revelation in the Bible. This is where St John has a vision of heaven. Of course, visions, like dreams, don't necessarily make logical sense, but certainly in the case of St John's vision from God, it all made spiritual sense.

There is a scroll to open, and no-one is able to open it, in heaven or earth. Then we hear that the Lion is able to open it, because he has triumphed. So John looks up, and there is a Lamb! The strong, fierce Lion who has conquered is in fact a Lamb, "Looking as if it had been slain." (Revelation 5:1-6)

The Lion / Lamb signifies Jesus, who has triumphed over sin and death by being willing to be slain for us - as in those days a lamb was sacrificed. And this is the thing that hit me afresh as I re-read that passage in Revelation yesterday - Christ triumphed, not as a fierce, roaring lion, but through love, service and self-sacrifice.

What a lesson the world continues to need to hear! Where 'might' is the way to overcome, the strongest weapon of all is never considered - that is, love.

Food changes ...

In the last few years there have been various outcries about too much salt in many of the processed foods we eat, as too much salt isn't good for us. So manufacturers have been busy producing low-in-salt grub for us to consume.

So what I don't understand is, surely there should be a 'salt mountain' of all that's now no longer in our food. So why haven't we got enough to sprinkle on our roads?

The G word

Apparently 143 people complained to the BBC because when Dr. Who 'regenerated' (from David Tennant to Matt Smith), his first words were, "Still not ginger!" when he looked at his new head of hair. According to one viewer the remark was totally inappropriate and will encourage bullying.

Well, it's comforting to know the great British public are ready to complain about such atrocities. Never mind the sex, the violence and the bad language we see and hear on our televisions - as long as no-one uses the dreaded G word!

Enough of this blogging, I just fancy a cup of coffee and a g****r biscuit! (I hope I've not offended anyone there)

Getting a Life ...

In the weekend newspaper I read an article, which was extracted from Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America And the World by Barbara Ehrenreich. Basically she is railling against those who say that positive thinking can help you survive cancer.


She quotes Lance Armstrong as saying that cancer is the best thing that ever happened to him. Others also say how having cancer has made them re-evaluate their lives, so they call it "a gift".

It seems rather perverse to call a disease that invades one's body and, if unchecked, can kill, "a gift" . What they seem to be saying is that it forced them to see life in a new way. It made me think how sad it is when something as bad as cancer has to strike before people take a close look at their lives.

When God called me into the Baptist ministry about 30 years ago, I gave up my job to go to theological college. At the time I found a surprising number of people wished they, too, could give up their current jobs and do something different. But family, mortgage, etc meant they felt they were locked in to their job and lifestyle.

It doesn't need a call from God to enable you to take a fresh look at your life - although that can help! It certainly needn't take a killer disease to do it.

Hurrah for John Humphrys!

I say a "Hurrah!" to John Humphrys! On Celebrity Mastermind tonight, when telling us the website address he said it was "BBC dot co dot UK stroke Mastermind". None of this awful "slash" Americanism that has all but dominated such addresses.

I was told that some time ago that 'slash' is better as it distinguishes between one that goes in a NE / SW direction from a 'backslash' that goes in a NW / SE direction. As far as I can see this is a nonsense because our strokes go NE /SW anyway!

I also recall Stuart White from BBC's Look East saying 'stroke' instead of 'slash'. Well done to Stuart also!

Us middle-aged (or so!) men must keep up this good work!

By the way, I assume that the general knowledge questions John Humphrys was asking have been "dumbed down" for the celebrities, as I could answer in excess of five in each round, as opposed to the one, if I'm lucky!