Donald Noble’s Site

A simple recipe for a vegetarian mixed bean chilli.

• one onion
• a red pepper
• handful mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 fresh tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato pureé
• can plum tomatoes
• can kidney beans
• can mixed beans (eg cannellini, flageolet, adzuki)
• 1/2 glass wine
• chilli pureé (to taste, I used 1tsp Swazi Fire)
• 1 square dark chocolate (preferably 70-90% cocoa)
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Fry the chopped onion in olive oil until starting to soften, then add pepper and fry for another 5 mins. Add the mushroom and garlic and fry for another minute
2. Add tomatoes, wine and beans, stir well and then add chilli pureé, seasoning and melt in the chocolate.
3. Simmer for about 20 minutes or more, until the chilli reduces to a thick consistency, then serve with rice, or tortilla wraps

I noticed an article on the BBC news website under the headline “Council faces large crash payout”

Appeal judges have ruled that a council could be liable to pay a mother up to £500,000 in compensation after she crashed on a poorly maintained road. Sussex County Council had argued it was being burdened with an “impossibly high standard” of maintenance in the case. … the nearside wheels of the car had “dropped off” the verge, which was depressed by almost six inches, partly because it was used to park cars by anglers fishing in a nearby river. … Despite driving at 45mph on the rural road, which had a limit of 60mph, the court found Mrs Russell’s speed was “too fast” for the icy conditions and that she was 50% responsible for the crash.

Surely all this will do is to further reduce the budget available to maintain the infrastructure, in times when Councils are already facing massive cuts as a result of the economic downturn.

The money paid out by the council should be used to repair the damaged road, and other damage on roads exacerbated by the winter weather. Otherwise, we enter into a vicious spiral of ever decreasing maintenance on the roads, and ever increasing litigious payouts.

There are plenty of rural roads that have drops at their edges — it is one of the things that one must be aware of when driving — in addition to potholes, bumps, blind summits, and sharp corners, plus water, ice, mud, and animals on the road. Yes, the council should try to rectify these faults as soon as possible, but time and budgets are constrained — and more so if they have to pay out on this case.

This week’s superfood is—in a Homer Simpson style— mmm beer

But hurry, there will be another study condeming drinking beer next week!

Dr Claire Bowring, from the National Osteoporosis Society, said: “These findings mirror results from previous studies which concluded that moderate alcohol consumption could be beneficial to bones.

“However, while the National Osteoporosis Society welcomes measures to improve bone health we do not recommend anyone increases their alcohol consumption on the basis of these studies.

“While low quantities of alcohol may appear to have bone density benefits, higher intakes have been show to decrease bone strength, with an alcohol intake of more than two units per day actually increasing the risk of breaking a bone.”

I’ve been tempted to try one of these ‘Multiple-self self-portraits’ where you appear multiple times in your own photo. Last week’s challenge theme was “Dramatic” so as I had no other great inspiration, I thought I’d give it a go.

It’s not quite perfect, but I am quite happy with the overall result. I used an additional source of light on the two figure photos, as it was a bit dark with me wearing black. Unfortunately, this cast unnatural shadows on the background, so I took a third photo of the background lit just by the overhead light. With hindsight, this wasn’t the best idea, as it meant more work in editing the photos due to the disparity in exposure. Nevermind, it was an experiment. Without being able to look through the viewfinder at myselves, it was difficult to compose the shot exactly as I would have liked, so i ended up having to crop a bit tight on my “evil twin’s” back.

I’ve been watching the fascinating series presented by Jim Al-Khalili, where he traces the story of how the elements, the building blocks that make up our entire world, were discovered and mapped.

Like much of the content on BBC Four, it’s not as dumbed down as much some popular science programmes on BBC Two/Channel 4, and is actually thought provoking and informative for people with an interest in the subject. All three hour long episodes are currently available on BBC iPlayer in a ‘series catch-up’. And I’m sure they will be repeated again soon enough. I do wonder if it was originally proposed to have six half hour slots, as the programmes seem to cover two main topic each; but the advantage of that is there is less repetition.