pseudomonas

NB: "chiotte" is a distinctly vulgar term for a toilet (cf. "shitter"), and shouldn't be used in polite company. "toilette(s)" is just fine if you're asking for the loo generally.

…apparently "toilette" in the singular is Belgium-specific.. According to that article the Belgians reckon that the French use it in the plural because the state of French toilets is such that one must go to several toilets before one finds one clean enough to use.

Years and years ago now, in the comments to my Yuletide fanfic someone mentioned an electromechanical yule goat. So I drew one. And now finally I've done a bit of scripting and activated it so it shows the number of days until Christmas.



(feel free to embed the image anywhere you like; the numbers will stay up-to-date automatically)

If the UK and EU stop respecting each other as being regimes that automatically have appropriate data protection measures, are there any special-cases that kick in for the NI/ROI case to ensure that companies on one side of the border can continue to process the data of their clients on the other side?

He… was a bioinformatician from the suburbs. She… was a Bavarian lass made good. Together… they fight crime the forces of darkness Brexit.



So. Lisa-Maria — my better half and co-campaigner (whom many of you have met and the rest of you should definitely meet) — and I are expecting a general election sooner rather than later.^*

She will be standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate in Harrow West. I'll be standing in Harrow East. We'll be campaigning to stop Brexit, for better treatment of immigrants^**, for a more humane benefits system^***, and for economic and constitutional reform.

In May the Lib Dems in Harrow came a close second in the European Parliamentary elections, a success we've not seen for a long time in national elections.

We have a short window in which we can consolidate that success. We need the funds to do that, and we need them before a general election is called. Even if we can't win outright this time, getting into second place could be a vital stepping-stone for winning next time.

Please click the button below to donate to the campaign and help us win!

Help Adam and Lisa-Maria fight the 2019 General Election in Harrow

You can get in touch (adam [at] harrowlibdems.org) if you want to know more about our plans.

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^* My guess is that it'll happen shortly after PM Boris Johnson gets back from Brussels for the first time, having been told "non". There are plenty of other options, including that Johnson never even gets enough parliamentary support to be PM.

^**We are co-founders of Lib Dem Immigrants, and were influential in making the party's policy one of the most immigrant-friendly around.

^***I am working with others to move the party towards an unconditional benefit system. We have adopted the policy of abolishing benefit sanctions; further progress is expected… watch this space

for i have a sore throat

(basically an adulterated rum sour)

Juice of half a lemon
Dark rum (same volume a the lemon juice)
sugar syrup (or icing sugar and hot water) to taste
a drop or two of clove oil
a splash of glycerine (a couple of ml)

My new year card this year is based on this charming but hard-to-translate squirrel postcard found by a friend in Germany.

​


My translation attempt:




Here's hoping 2018 is a good year for all of us.

I have been getting into pickling things. Mainly, but not only, cucumbers.

It turns out, it's really easy. Cucumbers are less easy than other veg cos they can go a bit over-soft if you get the proportions wrong, but I love properly fermented cucumbers so much I'll talk about them here.

So, you get a jar. I've been using 2-litre spring-top Mason jars. Needs to be properly clean but doesn't need to be sterile.

If you're doing cucumbers, then some source of tannins is needed to keep things crunchy. I use some vine leaves (the sort that you can get preserved in a jar); other people use blackcurrant leaves, oak leaves, black tea, or horseradish leaves. You also want to top & tail the cucumbers (AIUI this is to halt the ripening process). I can fit about eight small cucumbers into a two-litre jar; I think it's worth getting the straighter mini-cucumbers rather than the curly ones just for efficiency of packing. ETA: I've now tried making pickled cucumbers with tea instead of vine leaves as a tannin source (just add a teabag to the hot brine as it cools before adding to the jar and swish it around until it's the colour of very weak tea), and it seems to work. Plenty crunchy, no obvious tea flavour.

For seasoning (all of which is optional!) I use maybe half-a-bunch of dill weed, several cloves of garlic, peeled and halved, some dried chilis, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, and mustard seed. I hear dill flowers are the thing to use, but they're something one has to grow oneself.

Salt solution "brine" is 3.5% w/v - this means 35g per litre of boiled-and-cooled water. 35g is about 25ml for standard table salt.

The fermentation relies on bacteria on the skins of your veg, which is why they need to be non-blanched, and why the brine can't be boiling hot. Pack all the veg and flavourings into a jar, and fill the jar with the brine. I sometimes use a slice of plastic bottle to stop stuff from floating above the surface of the brine.

Over the course of a week to ten days, you'll see the brine go cloudier, the cucumbers become a more yellowish green, and the smell and taste of the brine become more delicious. I tend to open the jar briefly daily to check the smell, taste a teaspoonful of the brine, and to vent any pressure build-up (though the jars I use seem not to explode, presumably the sprung lids let the gas out a bit. If you're worried you can use a less-sealed system).

When they're done to your liking, put the jar in the fridge; it'll slow the fermentation to a crawl and the pickles will keep for a good few weeks after that.

1) Pick a cause you care about, and focus on it, get knowledgeable, be prepared to become expert.

2) Approach things in ways that suit you, your temperament, your skills, your contacts, your knowledge. There are lots of strategies.

3) Don't do it alone — either find a group doing it already, or find a friend/partner/teammate so you can encourage each other.

4) Celebrate even small victories, and never beat yourself up when you can't save the world single-handed

5) Take time out if you need it; get enough food and sleep and socialising and alone-time^†. Self-care is a prerequisite to activism, not an optional add-on!


^†and tea!

This was written in part before today's tabloid shitstorm.

The Co-op supermarket account on Twitter had said, in response to someone saying that tabloid headlines inciting hatred against immigrants made them feel unsafe:

@SLevelt I see, well we aren't considering removing these as we need to offer choice to all customers, regardless of political leanings. ^JM

— The Co-op (@coopuk) November 2, 2016

Now, I respect organizations that take the extreme-free-speech position "we will allow everything that does not break the law". In fact, I expect it of organizations like ISPs.

But the Co-op doesn't take that position - it refuses to stock pornography, and it made great play of requiring "lads' mags" to be presented in plain covers, and removing them when they refused. And I'm pretty sure they wouldn't stock anything titled Neo-Nazi Monthly no matter how much demand there was.

The state of being an immigrant is not a protected characteristic in the way that race, religion, or sexual orientation is. But inciting hatred against immigrants is (in my eyes, anyway!) equally reprehensible to stirring up hatred against Jewish or Muslim or black or gay people.

The Co-op^* is welcome to decide that it's going to stock everything. It's welcome to decide that it's going to exclude some offensive things, but the Daily Express is not sufficiently offensive^⁂. What it doesn't get to do is to exclude some offensive things but then pretend that its reason for not excluding the Daily Express is that they "need to offer choice to all customers, regardless of political leanings".

Catering for customers who want to read diatribes against refugees but not customers who want to see sideboob is an arbitrary political position, it's not the high ground of hallowed neutrality, and if you're going to take that position, you should be prepared to defend it rather than pretend it doesn't exist.

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^* or any other mainstream retailer, pretty much. The Co-op is no worse than any other AFAICT.
^⁂ TBH I'm unsure myself whether it's appropriate to stock these titles, to refuse to stock them, or to stock them but insist on plain covers. But I am sure that it's a reasonable question to ask and shouldn't be dismissed with "we have to cater to all political orientations".