Sadiq

 

Sadiq Khan shares my birthday though he came into this world seventeen years after me. Born in the London borough of Tooting, he became the Member of Parliament for that constituency back in 2005 having spent the previous ten years as a practising solicitor specialising in human rights. He became a  member of Britain's Labour Party when he was fifteen years old.

Sadiq grew up in a Sunni Muslim working class family that had its roots back in Pakistan. His father was a bus driver and his mother was a seamstress. With his seven siblings, he was raised in a three bedroom council flat. You could never say that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He attended council run schools before undertaking a law degree at The University of North London.

In spite of his native intelligence, Sadiq had to fight for everything he got,  often experiencing racist treatment along the way. He was first democratically elected to be The Mayor of London back in 2016 and has since then succeeded in two further elections. White or black or brown, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist - the people of London wanted him and that is why the majority put their crosses in his box.

Being the chief executive of a vast modern city like London - often with funding challenges - is no mean occupation. It takes a special, gifted human being to take on such a role. His areas of responsibility include policing, waste disposal, street lighting, air quality, education, transport, tourism and a whole bunch of other things not listed here.

Sadiq has had to keep a clear head and maintain focus on action plans in spite of critics such as the  generally right wing London media and wealthy landowners. He has also had to cope with attacks from both Jewish and Muslim organisations as well as extreme leftists and the ominous right wing Reform Party. The ocean he steers across is often stormy.

Sadiq married another lawyer - Saadiya Ahmed in 1994. They have two daughters - Anisah and Ammarah who are both in their twenties.  He once said, "I am proud that London is a city where, the vast majority of the time, Jewish people, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, those who are not members of an organized faith, black, white, rich, young, gay, lesbian - don't simply tolerate each other but respect, embrace, and celebrate each other."

He also said, "London is the greatest city in the world" which is of course wrong because everybody knows that the greatest city in the world is my adopted Yorkshire  city - Sheffield! He must have been joking.

Personally, I admire Sadiq Khan greatly for his steadfastness, his brilliance, his tolerance, his humility and his focus.  I am of course leaving showman Boris Johnson out of the equation when I say that being The Mayor of London is not  a job for ninnies.

Keep up the good work Sadiq!

Sadiq Khan with his wife Saadiya at a festival in Hyde Park

Sorrow

This picture was taken a good few years ago. On the right is one of my all time favourite singer songwriters - Jackson Browne. And on the left - that's his oldest son - Ethan Browne. Ethan's mother was Phyllis Major who took her own life in 1976 when Ethan was just three years old.

Now it seems that Ethan has done the same - not through an overdose of barbiturates this time but through a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died in his own home in Los Angeles which is where local police officers discovered his lifeless body. It was November 25th, two weeks ago.

Parents are meant to die before their children and  you may agree with me that there's something extra tragic about the death of a child - even when that son or daughter is fully grown up. And it doesn't matter if the only remaining parent happens to be  a millionaire singer songwriter.

I was privileged to see Jackson Browne in concert at Sheffield City Hall back in March 2009. I was there with my late brother Simon and we enjoyed the occasion enormously. For me it was almost a dream come true. I knew so many of the songs by heart and one of them was "Fountain of Sorrow" from the "Late for the Sky" album (1974).

I leave that song for you to listen to and in memory of an American man I never knew - Ethan Browne who finally gave in to his demons...

Soup

An English lady of mature years resides by the coast in southern Spain. She has often visited this blog and left comments that reveal her genuine and thoughtful engagement. She is known widely as Coppa's Girl though her real name is Carol. 

Anyway, just last week, she planted the seed of an idea in my mind when she justly derided my consumption of packeted instant "soup in a cup". Carol said she regularly makes a big pan of nutritious homemade soup which she stores in her fridge and consumes over several days. As you can tell, she is not just thoughtful but sensible too.

The seed was planted and like most seeds it grew. Yesterday, I roasted a chicken for our family Sunday dinner and instead of throwing the used carcass out on the back  lawn for the foxes, I retained most of it for soup making. I didn't want to utilise the rather grim inner body cavity of the unfortunate bird so at least the foxes got that.

The rest of the body - legs, wings, skin and breast leftovers went into a big pan of seasoned boiling water.  Then, after a few minutes, I added yesterday's leftover gravy, one large chopped carrot, a chopped onion, a handful of dried red lentils, chopped garlic, a bay leaf and a tablespoon of chicken seasoning.

I allowed it all to simmer for an hour before carefully removing bones, gristle and shreds of floating skin with the help of a sieve.. Then I added an "Oxo" cube and little pieces of broccoli as well as a handful of grated strong  cheddar cheese.

Naturally, along the way, I kept tasting the soup  before more salt and pepper was added. 

At first, my concoction was watery so I mixed a little "Bisto" powder in cold water with some cornflour and poured that into the saucepan just to thicken the liquid slightly. I would have liked to use double cream but Shirley told me that that was fattening. Who knew?

And then the soup was done. I had a bowl for my lunch and it was most wholesome and delicious. There's half a gallon left in the saucepan. In Carol's honour I shall call my soup - Coppa's Soup which sounds, somewhat ironically, like Cup-a-Soup! Ah, well.

Development

Normally. when I am inspired to write a poem, it comes out quite quickly. I have the idea and the words swim through my brain and out onto the page or the computer screen. There are usually some small revisions as I try to get the best words in the best order but after a day or two the deed is done and by then the tide of my inspiration has receded.

With "Stanage Edge" I am deliberately doing it differently, putting reins on the emerging poem and sometimes leaving days between my tinkerings and final word choices. You may recall that I first shared my little scheme a month ago in a blogpost I titled "Incubation".

I want to do justice to this poem  because Stanage Edge is so special - not just to me but to lovers of the outdoors  in this northerly region of England. When my late brother Paul was studying biological sciences at Liverpool Polytechnic at the end of the 1960s, he was a member of the rock climbing club that visited Stanage Edge several times and when our children were very small we had a brief tradition of putting the big turkey in the oven on Christmas morning and then heading out to Stanage for a breezy winter walk. Stanage Edge is as familiar to me as Trafalgar Square is to London taxi drivers.

To write a worthy poem about Stanage Edge is a challenging but ultimately satisfying task. I might not get there but I am doing my best. Metaphorically speaking, it would be easier to stay home watching the television of inaction than tramping about on the moorland edge of poetry, exposed to the wind.

Last Sunday as I walked between the Handleys, two lines arrived in my mind like seals coming up for air. I did not consciously beckon them, they just arrived at the surface and when I got back home I remembered to write them down:-

Unfleshed the naked bones

Nothing changes like permanence

I rather like those lines for they do speak of the geology and the seemingly apparent timelessness of Stanage Edge. Now the  task is to incorporate the lines within the main body of the poem though I might leave them as an epigraph that provides a hint or foretaste of what will follow.  

In building the poem, I have written more than 2000 words so far in a Word document and I have handwritten a thousand more words on lined paper. I have researched history, geology, birds and plants as well as the names of rock climbing routes. Stable buildings require solid foundations.

So yes, I have not forgotten my ambition but I think the poem needs more time to mature like cheese or wine. I will keep working on it, editing, polishing, adding new ideas, deleting others. I feel that I owe it to myself as well as Stanage Edge.

Sixth

Saturday December 6th - St Nicholas Day... This morning Shirley and I picked up Phoebe and took her by bus into the centre of the city. Our prime mission was to visit Sheffield Cathedral. There some forty Christmas trees have been decorated by different organisations including Shirley's Women's Institute branch. The trees are all the same size and all have identical strings of white electric lights. It is a kind of competition to raise money for nominated charities.

As Phoebe approaches her fifth birthday, it's fascinating to tune in to her inquisitiveness and her evolving skills in reading and arithmetic. Around the cathedral, she asked me several questions about the things she saw - including the stained glass windows and the fifteenth and sixteenth century tombs that are located close to the main altar. To see things through a child's eyes can be pretty instructive.

I filled in the Christmas tree voting form and Phoebe popped it in the special postbox. You might be able to guess which tree I voted for but I must admit that it had been nicely "spruced up" - what a fine pun!

We had a light lunch in the cathedral cafe. Phoebe had a gingerbread reindeer, Shirley had a toasted teacake and I had a bowl of curried vegetable soup. It's nice to eat somewhere where all profits are used to support charities and Sheffield Cathedral does excellent work with the city's homeless throughout the year.

Upon leaving the cathedral, we headed through the "TK Maxx" store to Orchard Square then out into Fargate and past the city's magnificent late Victorian Town Hall before descending into The Peace Gardens. There was a lovely pre-Christmas buzz about the streets with choirs singing, musicians playing and traders selling their wares from temporary Swiss-style wooden kiosks. And there were plenty of shoppers and visitors bustling around too - just like Saturdays used to be.

We headed down The Moor and popped into "Next" and "Primark" looking for a sparkly Christmas jumper for Phoebe but there were none to be found and time was pressing as she had been invited to yet another birthday party. We had to get her home by 1.30pm. 

At the front of the top deck of the Number 88 bus home, Phoebe was insistent that Grandma should sit next to her and not smelly old Grandpa with his bristly chin. Grandpa was rather cold-shouldered as she played "I-Spy" with her favourite grandparent but I managed to fight back the tears of rejection. Walking up Greystones Road on the way home, the little princess did allow me to hold her gloved hand.

Manners

When I was a small boy, my parents drummed into me the importance of saying "please" when I wanted something and "thank you"  when I received it. Sometimes I would forget and my mother would snap, "What do you say?"

As far as I know the "please" and "thank you" training goes on in nearly all British homes. We followed the tradition with our own children when they were growing up.

"Have you forgotten something Ian?"

"Oh yeah, please may I leave the table?"

"And Frances. Can you remember those two little words?"

"Errr...mmm... oh - thank you Daddy!"

And now I see our granddaughters getting their "please" and "thank you" training from our daughter and son-in-law.

In a human lifetime, I guess we say "please" and "thank you" a million times each. I will not complicate matters by throwing in all the "excuse mes" and the "pardons" and "sorrys". Let's  just stick with the pleases and the thank yous.

Is it just a western thing? Do other cultures have their "please" and "thank you" equivalents - drummed in to the young from an early age? I decided to google the question and this was the AI response:-

No, not all cultures use direct equivalents of "please" and "thank you"; many express politeness, gratitude, and respect through context, tone, gestures, specific grammatical structures, or words for different levels of favour, as the need for explicit niceties often arises from anonymous interactions in individualistic societies, not small, interdependent communities. While essential in some cultures, frequent "thank yous" can be seen as odd or even insulting in others, where kindness is assumed or shown non-verbally.

What use are hollow  pleases and thank yous when they are just parroted ritualistic words? Surely they have to mean something and be delivered with genuine consideration for the listener involved.

Is it good manners to keep reminding people - usually young people - of their forgetfulness? What would folk think if the corrected child said, "To tell you the truth, I find your persistent corrections quite unmannerly for I consider the please/thank you ritual to be a cultural affectation that has filtered through generations without question and requires some re-evaluation. So would you please go away and leave me alone. Thank you so much!"

Nuts

There is a stall in Sheffield's covered Moor Market called "The Nut Bar". Perhaps you are thinking it's a regular bar but for nuts like Bruce Taylor, Bob Slatten,  Meike Riley and JayCee Manx to meet up for beer and chat - but sadly, it is not that kind of bar.

No. It is just a regular market stall that happens to specialise in nuts. There are all manner of nuts there - all carefully packaged by Jack Schofield the market trader who has been selling nuts for the past forty six years. Actually, there's a team of seven staff members.

This is The Nut Bar's message to the world, "We stock every kind of nut from peanuts, cashews and macadamia nuts to wasabi or yoghurt-coated nuts, as well as fruits, dried cranberries and goji berries. Our nuts, fruits and seeds come from around the world. If we don’t have what you want, we will do our best to source it for you."

This may sound nuts but when I visited the stall on Tuesday of this week, I was not after nuts. I wanted dried apricots, dried cranberries and banana chips. It was so much cheaper to buy these items there than in a regular supermarket or health store.

I wanted these natural products  to snack upon occasionally during this phase of my life when I am trying to shed two or three stones with the assistance of weight loss medication. No more potato crisps, cheese and biscuits or late night sandwiches. Instead, bring on the cranberries and the dried apricots if you would be so kind.

But now I get to the real reason I decided to write this nutty blogpost. Each of the three packages I bought was labelled up showing the countries of origin. My apricots came from Turkey, the banana chips from The Philippines and the cranberries from the USA.

I find that a little crazy and further evidence that we do indeed live in a mad world. I get the same feeling when I see mange tout from Kenya or  strawberries from Spain or rice from Thailand in our supermarkets. All those air miles! All that fossil fuel! It was not like this when I was a boy. Most of what you ate was seasonal or it came from our own island - not from some faraway place. 

To add to the nuttiness and hypocrisy, this evening I  booked a little holiday in Egypt. A seven day Nile river cruise from Luxor to Aswan and back. We will be seeing some of  what remains of Ancient Egypt and perhaps also  fields of green beans being harvested by Tesco, Sainsburys and Aldi. That's 95 days away in early March. Something to look forward to as we emerge from  the bitter depths of winter.