Aspirin is good for plants, and so is cinnamon

James Wong writes in the Guardian:

Simply take a teaspoon of cinnamon from your spice rack and pop it into a litre of lukewarm water. Drop in half a 300 mg soluble aspirin tablet, give the mixture a good stir, let it cool to room temperature, and you are done. When it comes to planting time, soak your seeds and cuttings for an hour or two beforehand. This will potentially give you higher germination rates, lower risks of infections and improve the plants' overall vigour. In fact, just watering newly sown seeds or cuttings with this bit of kitchen chemistry may be enough to trigger these benefits. It's like having green fingers in a bottle.

(explains science - aspirin can turn on the genes that express the plant's defence system, helping them stave off infections (ie rotting), while also boosting the growth of roots... Cinnamon is the bark of a tropical tree that has evolved a range of potent natural antifungal and antibacterial chemicals to stave off the rampant growth of pathogens in the tropical rainforest. ...it can work wonders for damping off ... and prevent new cuttings from rotting in the cool conditions and low light levels at this time of year (February).)

The Conference season, October 2015

Owen Jones attended the Tory conference to report on it for the Guardian. He gets a good reaction from everyone who knows who he is, which must be quite pleasing for him. (he is very baby-faced and disarming: Have a look at his interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg)

"On Tuesday, Theresa May incurs the wrath even of the Telegraph because of her inflammatory inti-immigration keynote speech, a tirade somewhat oddly entitled "a beacon of hope". Many of the delegates are happy with it, but there are exceptions. When I ask 25-year-old Rory White-Andrews - a corporate finance lawyer in the City - how he feels about it, his response is instant and brutal. "Disgusting. I think immigrants contribute a huge amount to this country and frankly we need more people coming in. I thought it was horrible."

"The atmosphere is peculiar. "It's remarkably flat, complacent", says White-Andrews. Nearly everyone I speak to admits to having been deeply surprised when the Tories pulled off an absolute majority in May. Conor Allcock, 17, says he felt "smug" about it.

"Liam Fox, an ex-minister and a flagbearer for the Tory right... [said] "The task in the second half of the parliament will be holding the party together in the referendum, and that very much depends on how we treat each other. People who want to stay in the EU are not traitors to the country, and people who want to leave are not idiots."

Owen found many Tories who were intensely opposed to Osborne's stance on Tax Credits - (and when finally the Lords did the huge favour to us all of throwing that policy out, Osborne wisely decided to drop it).

"Truth is, protests aside, there isn't much buzz at conference."

Frankie Boyle attended all the conferences in order to be witty or at least humorous about them. He is an unlikeable man but his comments were very perceptive:

"After the second world war, Melanesian islanders formed cargo cults near abandoned airfields. They thought that if they carried out the rituals they had observed the troops performing at the American air force bases, planes would land. So they would march up and down in improvised uniforms performing parade ground drills with wooden rifles, believing that if the rites were performed correctly the planes would return and bring them cargo. I only mention this as a useful point of comparison for the Liberal Democrat conference. An isolated tribe going through the formal motions of something they think will bring votes, failing to understand that their actions are meaningless and vestigial. ....

"Labour's conference featured quite an impressive run-up by Jeremy Corbyn, tackling TV interviewers like a soothing GP talking to a hypochondriac. There was remarkably little infighting at the conference, as happens when a party realises it needs to put divisions aside and show solidarity to become electable, or, indeed, when two separate halves of a party loathe each other so much that they have to go to different sets of meetings.

Listening leadership

"Corbyn took to the stage with his head like a haunted tennis ball, and the general air of a pigeon that had inherited a suit. ... The new Labour leader insisted, "Leadership is about listening." If leadership were about listening, the great political speeches would have been a little different. Churchill saying "Can you tell me what you'd like to do on the beaches?"...

"Corbyn has had trouble persuading his MPs that nuclear weapons are bad. Then again, he hasn't had much success persuading his MP's that Tories are bad. There seems to be a real split on Trident in the party between extreme elements who don't think we should recommission it, and more moderate voices who want to retain the ability to heat hundreds of thousands of people's skeletons to the surface temperature of the planet Mercury, in case 1970s Russia tries to attack us through some kind of Stargate.

Jobs - or nuclear holocaust?

"Len McCluskey announced that the union Unite would block plans to scrap Trident in an attempt to protect jobs. It's a tough call, jobs over a potential nuclear holocaust. But perhaps McCluskey is right: if there is an accident, there will be jobs aplenty. Full employment for the six people left in the UK. And they'll be happy to pay their Unite dues when they find out they have got a job for life (which may only be for less than a week) as they become their own farmer, cook, builder, doctor....

"There are obviously huge differences between Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, and it's refreshing to see a leader mess up some of his speech not because he's a freakshow, but because he simply doesn't care. As I watched the standard conference procedure of people applauding things they would fast forward on YouTube, it occurred to me that this conference may have accidentally stumbled upon the one message that might reassure British voters: that you can have enormous change without puncturing the boredom.

The conservatives

There was a ring of steel around the conference. Ironically, it's the last steel the north will be seeing for a very long time. Tory conference seemed to be all about saying how much you believe in British values, then immediately contradicting yourself: "This country has always welcomed migrants ... but we're full up."

The first big hitter to take the stage was George Osborne, a man who is not afraid to bark at his hairdresser "Demented syphilitic emperor!" and his tailor: "Prom night at Slytherin!"

The hair

The suit

"Osborne insisted that the Conservatives are the "party of labour" to a television audience largely consisting of the unemployed. ...

"Of course, it's absurd that we trust the Tories with our day-to-day reality, as so many of them don't really inhabit it. Why elect people to run our schools and hospitals who choose not to go to those schools and hospitals?..."

"Admittedly, the Conservatives are generally more persuasive orators than their Labour counterparts, perhaps a skill developed by spending school holidays trying to lure father out from behind his Daily Telegraph. Jeremy Hunt said that he wants Britain's workers to work harder, like the Chinese. Hunt's wife is Chinese and is often heard muttering, "Christ, this is hard work."

"Then came Theresa May, a woman who exudes all the compassion of stage 4 bone cancer, talking of her party's "proud history" of helping vulnerable people...

"The whole sorry season finished with David Cameron, of all people, giving a speech about equality. A speech blatantly at right angles to everything he has every said or done...

"It was a speech he could give because he knows it simply doesn't matter. TTIP be will coming in soon and all of this will be rendered symbolic. Our new rulers will be corporations. Looking down at Britain from business class, all the party conferences - and the protesters marching up and down outside them - will look like little cargo cults. We will be allowed to keep our political rituals because they have an entertainment value, and because somebody needs to give speeches and answer questions. That's not something our new rulers will be doing. They will be glimpsed only occasionally, stepping briskly into waiting cars. Our elected officials will soon fill a function much like the one the media fills now, as mere agents of a greater power. With no other role to play, our politicians will continue doing what they know: waving to the cameras, forcing a smile, hoping to keep us paying attention to their strange, dull ceremonies."

By Tim Lott in the Guardian some time ago: Home improvements

I am having a big chucking out session in my study, and when I come upon papers I have saved I am taking action by writing them up or binning them.

Here are words of wisdom by Tim Lott:

"What are you doing with your home right now: Some fresh carpets, a lick of paint, double glazing: A new kitchen, perhaps? A loft conversion? Got to be worth the investment.

...

"Is any other country so obsessed with home improvements? Much of Europe simply rents, so there isn't a great need or potential to knock down walls, or even freshen the paintwork. ...

"If I totted up the amount we have spent on our place and converted it instead into experiences - say spending time in five-star hotels in the tropics - we could have lived a life of opulent leisure.

"House improvement are like any other consumer durable - they are only briefly satisfying. The designer kitchen is very quickly just a place to cook and eat, the taps that you agonised over choosing are just devices for the delivery of water. Eventually, you begin to realise that all the money you have invested in "self-expression" and "individuality" leaves you with a house that looks pretty much like everybody else's house in the area. It is a race to see who can conform best, most quickly.

"Perhaps we spend all this money because the house stands in for meaning. If you are working on your house, you don't have to work on your relationship, and you don't have to think about the purpose of getting up in the morning to go to work, because the purpose is clear - to buy an Eames chair for the lounge.

"Of course, the logic is impeccable - you end up with a beautiful home you can be at ease in, which you have increased the value of by your "investment". The only trouble is, I don't remember being any happier than when I first moved into our house......

"In the meantime, I have spent many sleepless nights wondering how I am going to pay for it all...

"Home improvement is really a branch of shopping with the added bonus that, though it costs money, it also (theoretically) produces money. But if I had my time all over again, I would doubt that it was worth it. A wise man would be free of worry, and work on their relationship instead. If only I were that man."

There, I just thought that was interesting. It is not a problem we have had as there are many things we are not allowed to do with our house because of the residents' committee. We are not allowed to extend at the front or change the appearance of the front of the house in any way, which means we can't make the improvements we would like to make. In the meantime, one of us does a lot of sport and the other does less strenuous hobbies: I am sorry to say that working on our relationship is something that happens only when we are decorating or gardening ... in short: doing home improvements!

Another hazard for Cambridge Uni

If it's not MI5 trying to recruit you, it's the local constabulary. Apparently they are keen to find out which members of the student body are joining political groups. This was in the Guardian yesterday. It's amazing because the sort of political activity the police officer is talking about is a campaign against cuts in public spending - a perfectly legitimate political issue. On the Guardian website there are video clips of this police officer telling the student what he is to find out about his follow students, taken by the student he is trying to recruit. My friend who is a lecturer jokes that he has been a police informant for years and gets a preferential rate of £35 for his information. ha ha.

An officer monitoring political campaigners attempted to persuade an activist in his 20s to become an informant and feed him information about students and other protesters in return for money.

But instead the activist wore a hidden camera to record a meeting with the officer and expose the surveillance of undergraduates and others at the 800-year-old institution.

The officer, who is part of a covert unit, is filmed saying the police need informants like him to collect information about student protests as it is "impossible" to infiltrate their own officers into the university.

The Guardian is not disclosing the name of the Cambridgeshire officer and will call him Peter Smith. He asks the man who he is trying to recruit to target "student-union type stuff" and says that would be of interest because "the things they discuss can have an impact on community issues".

here is the link

North Devon

Devon was great. Lovely bright sunshine, wonderful blue sea and dramatic cliffs. But I am not mad about walks that are really steep up and down and even have steps cut in the cliffs because it takes ages to walk even 5 miles, which is when I called it a day and we got a bus back.

However, we entered Ilfracombe harbour by the very best route. It's a beautiful fishing harbour and we got the very best (and unexpected) view of their brand new landmark statue, which is called Verity.

Verity is slightly reminiscent of Degas' Little Dancer of 14 years, who has always been especially touching to me, but this one is pregnant and half her skin is cut away, revealing muscles in her legs and back, and the foetus in her stomach. She carries a sword (of justice?) and the scales of justice are held in a careless way behind her back. She is standing on a pile of books (probably Law books). So, all this iconography, and what does it mean? I would quite like an explanation of how it's relevant to Ilfracombe, but the answer is probably that it's not. It's on a 20-year loan from Damian Hirst, who is the maker.
The Guardian critic hates it.

Chris Addison at the Queen Elizabeth Hall

He gave us a good long show, but started by using the foulest language, calling us fucking fuckers and so forth, and I realised that the effect of this abuse was to make us nervous, so that we would laugh nervously - it's just a tactic. Not at all funny. The audience was sophisticated and mainly of late middle age. I think we were hoping for witty political analysis - I know I was. I was disappointed.

Not only did he tease the middle class audience, which went down very well as they recognised themselves in his references to Farrow and Ball paints, picking blackberries and Waitrose, but he also targeted the most ignorant class, and the latter was a problem for me as I don't like to laugh at people less fortunate than myself.

I think a lot of people felt like that. There were sectors of the audience who didn't like the trivial stuff Addison was dealing out, and I think the obscene stuff about the man playing with his dick went down particularly badly. When a man is in his 20s and is talking to students he can do this. Chris Addison is now 41 and a parent. It is a completely inappropriate a) activity b) talking point. This is a man who simply doesn't  know 1) how to be an adult 2) how to do an act as himself. His act seems to be borrowed from all the other stand-up comedians, especially Michael MacIntyre, and I particularly noticed that in his references to "camp". At one point I recognised something he had borrowed from Alistair McGowan - who is a very talented mimic, whereas Addison is not.

He had a London audience who are, as he recognised, intelligent and educated, and he had a chance to talk about anything he wanted, and he chose to talk about cleaning his computer with his dick.

Gradually we got to know the guy, and he just seemed like someone who liked to remember himself as he was at university. Those were his times, and in spite of his great successes as an actor in good TV series, he hasn't really found himself since.

His comments on our political elite focussed on the appearance, voices and backgrounds of the personalities. These are things they can't do anything much about. It would be a better idea to criticise politicians for their effectiveness or otherwise where change is actually possible.

He ended with some good points about the necessity of having real debates instead of saying "Sorry, that's just me. End of." As though the speaker had the power to settle an issue by being pig-headed. The four of us all agreed that this was a good point about something irritating, increasing and plain wrong.


Addendum: The Guardian reviewer wrote that Addison targeted "the poor". I think of them as the ignorant. Often they turn out to be quite well-off. But generally, the Guardian reviewer and I agreed, though he's not such a prude as me, of course, and he gave Addison a grudging 2 stars, warning him if he carries on like this he's likely to lose his audience.