This year's Easter Sunday falls on April 24th. Since Easterween is the midpoint between Easter and Halloween, Easterween falls on the 40th and 208th days of 2011.
Winter Easterween 2011 falls on February 9th
Summer Easterween 2011 falls on July 27th
Enjoy with candy.
Love,
The Easterweenies
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A nice cup of tea
It was on this day in 1946 that the mother of my future landlady bought a nice bit of rock from the fishmonger. When she unwrapped it, an article from the previous week's London Evening Standard caught her eye. It was written by a fairly popular journalist of the time, a fellow who called himself George Orwell. He was about to write some political novel, but at the time, he was more concerned with another obsession he shared with the English-speaking peoples: A nice cup of tea. The article remained in scrapbooks and recipe books all across the Greater London Area, and its wisdom was shared for generations to come, albeit smelling somewhat of fish.
In the interests of passing the torch, we do likewise:
A Nice Cup of Tea
By George Orwell
Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.
If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:
First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.
(taken from The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3, 1943-45, Penguin ISBN, 0-14-00-3153-7)
In the interests of passing the torch, we do likewise:
A Nice Cup of Tea
By George Orwell
Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.
If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:
First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.
(taken from The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3, 1943-45, Penguin ISBN, 0-14-00-3153-7)
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Having an OK day
March 23rd is more than just an OK day. It's The OK Day. It's the day that marks, as far as anyone can tell, the first appearance of the term OK in print. (It was handwritten as early as 1815 in the diary of William Richardson, near a big ink blot where he had erased something, but appearing in print, well, that's when an expression has really arrived.)
OK...so what's the full story? Well, it began with a researcher in 1960s wondering where the term could have originated. It has spread like wildfire through dozens of languages...but what's the origin?
The researcher, an etymologist named Allen Walker Read, read the March 23 1839 edition of the Boston Morning Post, in which Charles Gordon Greene reported on a trip taked by a frolicsome group called the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society:
The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.
Apparently, those goofy revelers in the late 1830s thought it was quite funny to misspell words--"oll korrect" indeed.
There are other explanations:
Greek railroad workers in the United States, some say, marked checked-over merchandise or workmanship with the initials of όλα καλά (all good).
It's a borrowed term from the Choctaw, whose okeh means, well, OK.
Three African languages use similar-sounding expressions. Wolof and Bantu have waw-kay and the Mande have a phrase o ke.
I like the idea that it's a misspelling. Why? Because the unlikeliest explanations, in matters of language, are often the best ones. I've worked as a journalist for decades, and old-school journalists routinely and deliberately mess up spellings.
In manuscript form, the articles you read in the New York Times or other old-media wood-pulp-based information packages have their various bits tagged. Compositors (the people who used to slide lead letters onto a printing frame) would tag headlines as HED. Decks (subheadlines) were tagged DEK. And missing bits that the reporter or editor needed to fill in were tagged TK for To Kome.
The theory was that misspelled words would shine out like beacons to everyone in the production line and they'd never make it through to print that way. That's the theory. I remember the day I picked up a copy of a certain computer magazine to find a TK tucked away in a sidebar.
Now the laughs we had at that editor's expense made for a really OK day.
OK...so what's the full story? Well, it began with a researcher in 1960s wondering where the term could have originated. It has spread like wildfire through dozens of languages...but what's the origin?
The researcher, an etymologist named Allen Walker Read, read the March 23 1839 edition of the Boston Morning Post, in which Charles Gordon Greene reported on a trip taked by a frolicsome group called the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society:
The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.
Apparently, those goofy revelers in the late 1830s thought it was quite funny to misspell words--"oll korrect" indeed.
There are other explanations:
Greek railroad workers in the United States, some say, marked checked-over merchandise or workmanship with the initials of όλα καλά (all good).
It's a borrowed term from the Choctaw, whose okeh means, well, OK.
Three African languages use similar-sounding expressions. Wolof and Bantu have waw-kay and the Mande have a phrase o ke.
I like the idea that it's a misspelling. Why? Because the unlikeliest explanations, in matters of language, are often the best ones. I've worked as a journalist for decades, and old-school journalists routinely and deliberately mess up spellings.
In manuscript form, the articles you read in the New York Times or other old-media wood-pulp-based information packages have their various bits tagged. Compositors (the people who used to slide lead letters onto a printing frame) would tag headlines as HED. Decks (subheadlines) were tagged DEK. And missing bits that the reporter or editor needed to fill in were tagged TK for To Kome.
The theory was that misspelled words would shine out like beacons to everyone in the production line and they'd never make it through to print that way. That's the theory. I remember the day I picked up a copy of a certain computer magazine to find a TK tucked away in a sidebar.
Now the laughs we had at that editor's expense made for a really OK day.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Remember, remember
The Fifth of November is England's national day of celebration, but over the past 404 years, we've rather lost track of that. Four centuries of the trappings of The Fifth--the bonfires, fireworks, the scarecrows in wheelbarrows, and the roasted chestnuts--have rendered the whole thing a bit stale, and that's a real shame.
Part of The Fifth's thunder was stolen in 1981, when E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was first released, and Brits got the idea that it might be more fun to celebrate on Halloween than on The Fifth. But the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot is bigger than any autumnal festival you can think of: It's Great Britain's equivalent of the Fourth of July and 9/11 rolled into one strange celebration.
Tne story goes back to the autumn of 1605, when a group of conspirators plotted to destroy the Houses of Parliament, killing the entire government and the whole royal family in one massive explosion. The building's cellars were filled with gunpowder barrels, and they were primed to blow. The results would have been catastrophic. Without leadership, England would be in anarchy and foreign armies would have been able to stroll in and take power. It would have meant the end of England's home rule and way of worship: The Church of England was so closely tied to the government that it would have crumbled too. That one explosion would have changed everything.
But by sheer dumb luck, the plot was foiled. The barrels were discovered, one of the conspirators was caught on the spot and the others were unmasked. News of what might have happened sent a cold chill down the nation's spine--but their deliverance meant only one thing: It was time to celebrate. So they did celebrate--in the only way they knew how. The same way that folks celebrated in the Old Testament. The same way the Pagans celebrated. With a bloody great fire and a party. And for good measure, they threw an effigy of one of the conspirators onto the fire.
The guy in question was called Guy. Guy Fawkes. He wasn't the mastermind of the operation, but he was the first one they caught so he became a symbol for whole shebang. So he's the guy that generations of children have made in effigy, and wheeled around town in their quest for pennies or treats. (And yes, this is where the Yanks got their idea of Trick or Treating).
And he's the guy who gave the evening's celebrations their name.
Tonight is Guy Fawkes' Night. Or Bonfire Night. Or Fireworks Night (because let's not deny it--there's no better way to big up a fire than to send it whooshing up into the sky).
And whether your nation was delivered 404 years ago or 8, it's time to celebrate the fact with flames. If your township doesn't allow actual fires, light a candle and imagine loud explosions. And thank your lucky stars that you don't live in anarchy, ready for a foreign power to descend upon you. That's the real spirit of Guy Fawkes' Day. And it's worth celebrating, no matter what nation you belong to.
Part of The Fifth's thunder was stolen in 1981, when E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was first released, and Brits got the idea that it might be more fun to celebrate on Halloween than on The Fifth. But the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot is bigger than any autumnal festival you can think of: It's Great Britain's equivalent of the Fourth of July and 9/11 rolled into one strange celebration.
Tne story goes back to the autumn of 1605, when a group of conspirators plotted to destroy the Houses of Parliament, killing the entire government and the whole royal family in one massive explosion. The building's cellars were filled with gunpowder barrels, and they were primed to blow. The results would have been catastrophic. Without leadership, England would be in anarchy and foreign armies would have been able to stroll in and take power. It would have meant the end of England's home rule and way of worship: The Church of England was so closely tied to the government that it would have crumbled too. That one explosion would have changed everything.
But by sheer dumb luck, the plot was foiled. The barrels were discovered, one of the conspirators was caught on the spot and the others were unmasked. News of what might have happened sent a cold chill down the nation's spine--but their deliverance meant only one thing: It was time to celebrate. So they did celebrate--in the only way they knew how. The same way that folks celebrated in the Old Testament. The same way the Pagans celebrated. With a bloody great fire and a party. And for good measure, they threw an effigy of one of the conspirators onto the fire.
The guy in question was called Guy. Guy Fawkes. He wasn't the mastermind of the operation, but he was the first one they caught so he became a symbol for whole shebang. So he's the guy that generations of children have made in effigy, and wheeled around town in their quest for pennies or treats. (And yes, this is where the Yanks got their idea of Trick or Treating).
And he's the guy who gave the evening's celebrations their name.
Tonight is Guy Fawkes' Night. Or Bonfire Night. Or Fireworks Night (because let's not deny it--there's no better way to big up a fire than to send it whooshing up into the sky).
And whether your nation was delivered 404 years ago or 8, it's time to celebrate the fact with flames. If your township doesn't allow actual fires, light a candle and imagine loud explosions. And thank your lucky stars that you don't live in anarchy, ready for a foreign power to descend upon you. That's the real spirit of Guy Fawkes' Day. And it's worth celebrating, no matter what nation you belong to.
Mischief Night, Part II
Tonight, the night of November 4th, is Mischief Night.
Hold on, you may ask, wasn't that on October 30th? Well, maybe for some, but not for everybody. Mischief Night is the night before the biggest celebration of the early autumn. In the United States, that's Halloween. In England, it's November 5th.
To get some idea of why, do yourself a favor and rent V for Vendetta. Or borrow the graphic novel. Or just read tomorrow's blog.
Suffice it to say that anyone of English descent (especially those who live in England, Australia, and New Zealand) can quite legitimately say "Tonight I'm allowed to set fires, light firecrackers, and generally cause a ruckus. Because my country was almost brought into anarchy and overrun 404 years ago, but it survived."
And that's a cause worth celebrating!
Hold on, you may ask, wasn't that on October 30th? Well, maybe for some, but not for everybody. Mischief Night is the night before the biggest celebration of the early autumn. In the United States, that's Halloween. In England, it's November 5th.
To get some idea of why, do yourself a favor and rent V for Vendetta. Or borrow the graphic novel. Or just read tomorrow's blog.
Suffice it to say that anyone of English descent (especially those who live in England, Australia, and New Zealand) can quite legitimately say "Tonight I'm allowed to set fires, light firecrackers, and generally cause a ruckus. Because my country was almost brought into anarchy and overrun 404 years ago, but it survived."
And that's a cause worth celebrating!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Day of the Dead Authors
Now that Halloween is over, we can really begin to celebrate!
Halloween is the evening before All Hallows' Day or All Saints' Day, which comes the day before All Souls' Day. These days are designed for us to revere the departed--which in most healthy cultures means to celebrate the lives of the dead, rather than get all glum about their being dead. The Mexican misnomer, the Day of the Dead, actually spans three days from October 31st to November 2nd, and involves music, fun, and sugar skulls--all of which meet with our hearty approval.
The souls of children are supposed to return to join in the celebration on November 1, with the creakier old adult spirits following on November 2nd. To prepare for their arrival, families usually clean and decorate their kinsmen's graves with ofrendas of marigold wreaths and toys for los angelitos (the kiddies) and bottles of tequila or mezcalfor adults. In the home, they prepare food and drink for the deceased, but eat everything they leave behind on their plates.
Eighty years ago, the United States threw another celebration into the pot for November 1st: Author's Day. Presumably, in the great stew of holidays at this time of year, we should celebrate dead authors. So I'll be raising a skull-shaped glass of meszcal to Edgar Allen Poe. And in my wildest dreams, I'll aspire to his greatness as we also enter National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org)--a month that begins with three days of the dead, and is supposed to end with a completely finished novel.
Well, we can dream, can't we?
Halloween is the evening before All Hallows' Day or All Saints' Day, which comes the day before All Souls' Day. These days are designed for us to revere the departed--which in most healthy cultures means to celebrate the lives of the dead, rather than get all glum about their being dead. The Mexican misnomer, the Day of the Dead, actually spans three days from October 31st to November 2nd, and involves music, fun, and sugar skulls--all of which meet with our hearty approval.
The souls of children are supposed to return to join in the celebration on November 1, with the creakier old adult spirits following on November 2nd. To prepare for their arrival, families usually clean and decorate their kinsmen's graves with ofrendas of marigold wreaths and toys for los angelitos (the kiddies) and bottles of tequila or mezcalfor adults. In the home, they prepare food and drink for the deceased, but eat everything they leave behind on their plates.
Eighty years ago, the United States threw another celebration into the pot for November 1st: Author's Day. Presumably, in the great stew of holidays at this time of year, we should celebrate dead authors. So I'll be raising a skull-shaped glass of meszcal to Edgar Allen Poe. And in my wildest dreams, I'll aspire to his greatness as we also enter National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org)--a month that begins with three days of the dead, and is supposed to end with a completely finished novel.
Well, we can dream, can't we?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Zipper de doo dah
Guess what, chaps? Today is the 96th anniversary of the zipper. For about twenty years around the turn of the twentieth century, a Swedish design engineer working in New Jersey was trying to perfect a fastening method that worked faster and more reliably than buttons and hooks and laces and all the other ways that people tried to keep their clothes together at the time.
His name was Gideon Sundback, and he fixed two rows of teeth on opposing cloth tapes, which interlocked by the mechanism of a central device that slid over them. In short, he designed a zipper. Of course, the word wasn't in use at the time--and wasn't until 1921, when B.F. Goodrich ordered up 170,000 of the things from Sundback's Hookless Fastener Company for its new line of rubber galoshes. Goodrich coined the trade name Zipper, either to indicate the speed with which you could get in and out of the boots, or to imitate the sound the fastener made when you, well, zipped it up.
The whole thing was a bit of a novelty, but over the next ten years, they were regarded as a trendy thing, and not necessarily in a good way. (In his dystopic science-fiction novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley held them up as an exemplar of what the brave new world was about. And it wasn't a world he held in great favor.) But eventually, they insinuated their way into the garment world, and they've been there, front and center, ever since.
But aside from the front of a few retro garments, these fasteners now maintain the modesty of trouser-wearers across the planet. And for that, Mr. Sundback, we offer you our thanks. After slyly checking that we're not at half-mast, that is.
His name was Gideon Sundback, and he fixed two rows of teeth on opposing cloth tapes, which interlocked by the mechanism of a central device that slid over them. In short, he designed a zipper. Of course, the word wasn't in use at the time--and wasn't until 1921, when B.F. Goodrich ordered up 170,000 of the things from Sundback's Hookless Fastener Company for its new line of rubber galoshes. Goodrich coined the trade name Zipper, either to indicate the speed with which you could get in and out of the boots, or to imitate the sound the fastener made when you, well, zipped it up.
The whole thing was a bit of a novelty, but over the next ten years, they were regarded as a trendy thing, and not necessarily in a good way. (In his dystopic science-fiction novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley held them up as an exemplar of what the brave new world was about. And it wasn't a world he held in great favor.) But eventually, they insinuated their way into the garment world, and they've been there, front and center, ever since.
But aside from the front of a few retro garments, these fasteners now maintain the modesty of trouser-wearers across the planet. And for that, Mr. Sundback, we offer you our thanks. After slyly checking that we're not at half-mast, that is.
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