A lighter look at the news

This week Theresa May visited the continent of Africa and took her alter ego 'Tay May' with her. Unfortunately, she also took her dancing shoes along.

When she was greeted with enthusiastic dancing from some youngsters, Tay May got quite enthusiastic herself and broke out some dance moves of her own.

Actually, they were not her own. She was trying to mirror the youngsters' moves but whereas they looked rhythmic and cool, Tay May looked like she was trying to relocate some ants from her pants.

She did appear to have successfully relocated them to her shoulders because she then started some jerky shoulder moves with periodic arm extensions.

Well, to be fair, at least she tried. If she hadn't tried, I would not be inspired to come up with this brainwave of a suggestion (if I do say so myself). 

At the next Brexit talks, Tay May could try twerking. All she'll have to do is make one promise - to stop - and I bet we'll get the best deal ever. 

It might even go down in history as 'Twexit'.

Just one precaution - someone will have to monitor Messrs Banier's and Juncker's pulse rates to make sure they don't hyperventilate.

If you remember last week, Labour MP Dawn Butler (of Jamaican heritage) was very vexed with Jamie Oliver for Jerking rice and selling it in packets in supermarkets. 

Apparently, one should only jerk meat, or perhaps fish, if one is  feeling adventurous. But never rice. That is sacrilege.

St Jamie of Oliver did not get the memo, and not only did he jerk rice, he committed further sacrilege by not including a single jerk ingredient in said rice. Not a scotch bonnet was to be had in the entire packet of rice that he claimed to have jerked.

Ms Butler called it appropriation and suggested that he contact Levi Roots (Mr Jamaica himself) to help him.

This week, by sheer coincidence, someone sent me a box of Ainsley Harriott's Goan Spiced Chicken Soup.

Now,  I have lived in Goa for 30 odd years. In all those odd years, I have never come across any soup like the one described by Ainsley (coincidentally, of Jamaican heritage).

Nevertheless, since I said in my blog last week, If it looks good and it tastes good, keep calm and eat it, I decided to put my food where my mouth is ....and I wish I hadn't. 

It did not look good, it tasted even worse, and subsequently, I did not feel the need to keep calm. In fact, I flipped ...... the box to check the ingredients.

Mixed spice powder (coriander, cumin, chilli, paprika and turmeric), garlic and coconut cream along with  1% chicken powder. In other words, curry masquerading as soup.

On an aside, what the hell is chicken powder? I have gory visions of someone hanging a slaughtered chicken out in the sun to dry (we've had the summer for it), then pounding it and grinding it and taking a pinch of it to add to Ainsley's Goan chicken soup.

Also, since when does 1% of anything, allow it to pose as the  main ingredient?

I remember the most popular soup I consumed as a child, growing up in Goa. It had onions, tomatoes, stock and rice or pasta in the shape of tiny alphabets.

Not the biggest culinary delight I'll admit, but if Ainsley Harriott had flogged the real thing, I would have polished it off, along with a ladleful of nostalgia.

Until next week, try and keep it light!









  

A lighter look at the news

Recently, a Goan politician (an ex-Chief Minister, no less) appeared to suffer from 'Foot in Mouth' disease, when he had a dig in the Legislative Assembly at Goans who work abroad, particularly those who have used Portuguese passports to come to Europe.

'Toilet cleaners in Heathrow' he labelled them disparagingly. (I am paraphrasing). Did anyone present correct him? Well apparently not. They found it hugely funny and even thumped tables in accompaniment to their laughter. 

Unfortunately for Pratapsingh Rane, what gets said in the Legislative Assembly, does not stay in the Legislative Assembly, so he found himself walking into a s***storm of his own making.

Sadly, all the toilet cleaners have left Goa, so he is left to clean up after himself.

You don't have to look any further than the first four letters of his name, to define this man and his behaviour.

Usually, it is Jamie Oliver who takes the moral high ground on all things culinary but this time, he was at the receiving end as  Dawn Butler tweeted this in response to his packets of 'Jerk Rice'.

(((Dawn Butler MP)))

✔@DawnButlerBrent

#jamieoliver @jamieoliver #jerk I'm just wondering do you know what #Jamaican #jerk actually is? It's not just a word you put before stuff to sell products. @levirootsmusic should do a masterclass. Your jerk Rice is not ok. This appropriation from Jamaica needs to stop.

10:02 AM - Aug 1

Takes me back to when I first came to Britain many years ago and was truly puzzled that Indian Cuisine was reduced to one word: 'Curry'. 

When I lived in Goa, curry was either fish, prawn or chicken curry in a coconut base. Every other dish had its own name. However, I soon got used to it and confess to going down the 'curry' route myself.

I genuinely don't care. Food should be joyous and shared and not a bone of contention between cultures, although I quite understand Dawn Butler's irritation with the ever sanctimonious Mr. Oliver.

If it looks good and it tastes good, I would say, Keep Calm and Carry on Eating.

Until next week, try and keep it light!

A lighter look at the news

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't done the 'lighter news' for a few weeks. Fortunately, it is the summer and it is 'silly news' season, so most of the news has been light anyway.

I did watch with interest the run up to the meeting between the President across the Pond and everyone's friend, Jean Claude Juncker.

Trump had previously labelled the  European Union a 'foe of the US' and the day before Juncker's visit he also tweeted this :

Not to be outdone, Juncker retaliated with 'we can also do stupid'.

It was like watching a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.

Both men have egos the size of the continents they come from and being the best, is all that matters - even if it means being the best at being stupid!

Talking of stupid, Boris Johnson decided to propel himself into the news yet again. Having resigned as Foreign Secretary, he found that the only basking he could do in pastures new, was in natural light, otherwise known as the Sun.

There was not even a glimmer of limelight to be had, so he put pen to paper (or digits to keys) and had a go at burka clad women.

The best punishment for him would be total indifference. Not giving him the oxygen of publicity would be devastating to him. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Theresa May was the first to be outraged and demand an apology, conveniently forgetting that she appointed him as her Foreign Secretary despite  his previous racist comments.

Remember his comment that Tony Blair would be met in the Congo with 'water melon smiles'? Not to forget the other chestnut, and I quote, 'The Queen has come to love the commonwealth because it provides her with a regular supply of flag waving picaninnies'.

So it's a tad hypocritical for her to now be jumping up and down on her designer clad feet, shouting protestations. 

Besides, I think his comment is pretty idiotic anyway. He compared a burka clad woman to a bank robber and a letter box. 

One would deduce that if a burka clad woman looks like both, a letter box and a bank robber, then a letter box and a bank robber would look similar. But they don't.

Mind you, I think a bank robber would rather like to resemble a letter box. It would make escaping so much easier. All he would have to do is run around a corner and stand still.

Now I know why Mr Johnson's hair looks the way it does. It probably is in a permanent state of shock at what goes on beneath.

We've done stupid and we've done dumb and dumber. Now we'll move on to the dumbest of them all.

A woman decided to breastfeed her child while eating her lunch at a Subway restaurant in a Walmart store, somewhere in the USA.

This did not please the man in charge, so he asked her to cover up or move somewhere to the back. She objected. This pleased him even less. 

So, the Einstein of fast food chains, then came up with what he probably thought was the perfect analogy to draw, in order to help this uncooperative mother, who was hell bent on nourishing her child, understand where he was coming from.

He asked her how she would feel if he whipped out his Boris Johnson (he may have used another word) and peed everywhere.

I'll wait for a minute for you to pick up your jaw and for your eyebrows to descend.

In my opinion, three things need to happen. First, the 'Manager' needs to go back to education and attend all those Biology classes he skipped, paying particular attention to the human anatomy of both genders.

Next, someone needs to confiscate his passport. Can you imagine him visiting countries where women, and society, have the audacity to think that breast feeding is natural, and therefore, do not feel the need to slink off somewhere to feed their babies. 

He may feel compelled to let his good old BJ make an appearance every time, with the threat to pee all over the place. Not a good look at all.

Finally, he should be forced to look for a change in employment. Somewhere, where there is absolutely no chance of him encountering lactating mothers, with the inconvenient desire to feed their children.

A coal mine seems ideal. And with Trump planning to revive the coal mining industry, his future certainly looks good, in fact I would go as far as to say that his future looks orange.

Until next time, try and keep it light!

A fly in the ointment

I don't know about you, but I am a 'shower in the evening' kind of person. I don't see the point in sliding out of clean sheets in the morning and jumping into the shower, only to collect dust and grime through the day, not to mention taking said dust and grime to bed at the end of the day.

Not that I am judging....just expressing my opinion. Anyway, I was getting ready for my shower a few evenings ago, when lo and behold, there appeared a house fly.

I opened the bathroom windows in an attempt to encourage it to leave. I waited patiently, as it messed with me, appearing to head towards the open window, only to swerve like a Red Devil at the last minute and do a somersault above my head, buzzing all the time.

At some point I must've blinked because it disappeared. Being the optimist that I am, I concluded that it must've forgotten to swerve and ended up flying out of the window.

Before it could fly back in, I hastily closed the windows. I got into the shower feeling quite pleased with myself but as I pulled the shower curtain, guess who joined me in the shower?

Having craftily hidden in the folds of the shower curtain,  Gertie was now in full volume. Yes, I named it. I couldn't possibly share a shower with a stranger.

Not sure why I chose the name 'Gertie'; possibly because it rhymes with 'dirty'. Apologies to anyone called Gertie who may be reading this. But don't complain to me, talk to your Parents.

I ended up having the most frazzled shower of my life. My attempts at aiming the shower nozzle at Gertie only resulted in water ending up on the bathroom walls and ceiling. In fact, everywhere except on the damn fly.

After the quickest shower known to mankind, I got out of the bathroom, shut the door and decided to be the 'bigger' person. Feeling like a Zen master in training, I channelled my inner Buddhist and decided to let Gertie live out its 24 hours on this planet.

I decided to use another bathroom. Fast forward 24 hours, and I got ready to have my shower. I looked for Gertie and alas!(hypocritical, I know, but I was still channelling my inner Buddhist) I saw its lifeless body on the window sill.

I went to pick it up, when it did a Lazarus on me, buzzing in delighted anticipation.Why the 'anticipation' you might ask? 

Well, I realised that between the heat and the tepid water, I was creating a tropical paradise for Gertie.

It was having the best of both worlds. Had it lived in a tropical country, it would have had to face the inevitable danger of its arch enemy, the fly swat.

I broke my own record for the quickest shower known to mankind, and got the hell out of the bathroom.

Fast forward yet another 24 hours. I stepped into the bathroom and the Methuselah of the fly kingdom rose to greet me. I did not care. I was as smug as Gertie's close cousin, the bug. I had invested in a pair of water proof ear plugs.

Not sure if I imagined it but I thought I saw Gertie's wings droop a little with disappointment. It did not last long because my shower did and Gertie deliriously basked in the tropical paradise I'd once again created for her.

After my shower, I was subjected to Gertie's 'gratitude' dance. Ear plugs still in place, I was able to ignore it. Next, Gertie got flirty as it buzzed sweet nothings in my ear. Still no reaction from me.

Not used to this lack of attention, Gertie decided to take it one step further and perched between my eyes. 

Now, we are all told that when one sense is disabled, the other senses are sharpened. That goes for reflexes too, I guess.

Before I could stop myself, my hand slapped my forehead and just like that, Gertie was gone  (along with my aspirations to be a Zen Master).

I consoled myself that in house fly years, Gertie was probably 300 years old.

I stuck my face out of the window to respectfully scrape off what was left of Gertie. As I did so, Gertie no.2 and her friend Bertie flew in. Talk about instant Karma....