Katie Butcher

This book by Elisabeth Hyde was a rather unexciting and not particularly well written ‘whodunnit’. I don’t have much to say about it really.

The thing I find with ‘whodunnit’s’ is that there is always one fishy character who seems obvious as having ‘dunnit’, but actually hasn’t. But in this book it turned out that is was the obvious person. How boring is that?

I bought some lamb shanks from Morrisons but wasn’t sure what would be the best way to cook them. I was worried if I just stuck them in the oven and roasted them, they might be a bit tough. But I found this easy recipe for braising. It was delicious – shanks are one of the cheapest cuts of lamb but the meat just fell off the bone and melted in the mouth. Will be cooking this again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5354862.stm

Do some people just sit around waiting for a reason to get offended? How ridiculous is the whole Pope/Muslim world situation? I really don’t feel that Islamic world is doing itself any favours. The pope quotes something about violence in Islam from a medieval text, (not his own view) and some Muslims protest by burning down western churches, killing nuns, burning effigies of the pope. Hmmm…

I’m quite excited as this afternoon I’m going to collect the key for my new office in Bradford. Yay!

I won’t be able to move in properly for a few weeks as BT can’t put a phoneline in until the 4th October, and then it’ll take another week or two to get an internet connection in, but at least I’ll have access. It’ll be so much nicer when I don’t have to traipse to Leeds every day.

I used to have a lovely view from my Leeds office (see below). But in the past week the field has turned into a huge building site. It’s strangely interesting watching the workmen and their big diggers and dumper trucks, but it’s also a bit of a distraction; every time I get up from my desk to collect a print-out or send a fax I spend 5 minutes having a nosy out the window at what’s going on.

Grrrr. Why can’t people learn to spell the word ‘definitely’? I think I see it spelt wrong more than I see it spelt right. It’s so annoying. What is so hard about spelling the word definitely?

Oh yes, and last week I saw some signs up at the gym saying something like ‘Are instructor Jimmy will teach the new karate class’. I so so so wanted to write on the signs and put a big cross through ‘are’ and write in big letters above ‘our’. People are so stupid.

And as for ‘text speak’ – don’t get me started. If I see anyone using it on an Amazon review I always click ‘NO’ this review was not helpful to me.

I had quite high hopes about ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ but was disappointed. I think to some extent it was me because most of the reviews on Amazon for this book are really positive, and I think some other people I know would very much enjoy it. It just wasn’t for me.

I have to say that it does raise some interesting ethical issues. The main character of the novel, Anna was more-or-less conceived so that she could help her sister fight luekaemia. She’d spent a not insignificant amount of her childhood in hospital, although there was never anything wrong with her (she was donating bone marrow and various things), and then her parents are expecting 13-year old Anna to have another operation and donate a kidney to her older sister. Do the parents have the right to force their youngest daughter to donate a kidney to her older sister? That is the question.

I don’t really have a valid reason why I didn’t really enjoy this book, I just didn’t. I think it might have been because there was quite a lot of illness and medical things in it and that kind of thing tends to get on my nerves. Likewise, with emotional and sentimental stuff – I’ve just no patience for it. I’m more of a ‘no-nonsense’ type of person.

On top of this, I do wish that they’d edit American books slightly before they publish them in the UK. There were loads of annoying American phrases (e.g use of ‘gotten’) and spellings (diarrhea instead of diarrhoea). One phrase that particularly annoyed me is ‘…a suburban house in Upper Darby, RI’. How many non-Americans are going to know what RI stands for? It’s surely not much effort to change the text to say Upper Darby, Rhode Island.

I laughed today when heard that there’s going to be a program presented by Graham Norton about finding a Danny and Sandy to star in ‘Grease’ on Broadway. My goodness, every time they get an idea they have to do it to death don’t they? And once they latch on to someone (i.e. Graham Norton) that person is laughing too. It’s like that with every other show that’s on at the moment.

Although I didn’t watch it, I can see how the first series of Big Brother could be considered as original and innovative television, but the seventh series? Nah, methinks all but a few brain-dead are getting a a bit fed up with it by the seventh series.

On a positive note, I have actually seen a bit of the ‘Maria’ show that’s on at the moment, and I quite like it, although all it is is Pop Idol with a twist. But the kicking one person out each week thing seems to be a pointless exercise when it’s so obvious that Connie is going to win it. It makes it embarrassingly plain that the only reason the 6 other girls are still in it so they can string it out to make a program.

I think it’s so cruel that the ‘loser’ has to sing ‘Goodbye Farewell’ though!

There has so much in the news recently about how fat we’re getting in this country. It’s actually getting quite on my nerves. We’re told day-in and day-out how important it is to exercise and eat healthily, yet so many people seem to ignore it and then we’re told even more.

In order for anything to happen people’s fundamental attitude and lifestyle needs to change. At the moment almost everyone seems to have an excuse for their sedentary lives and unhealthy eating – ‘I don’t have time to cook’, I don’t have time to exercise’, ‘I can’t afford a gym membership’.

Why does staying fit have to involve spending money? It doesn’t at all, it’s merely about being active, which can easily be done with just a few lifestyle adjustments. Ninety-five percent of people never walk down their own street because whenever they step out of their front door they get straight into the car, it doesn’t even cross their mind to walk anywhere. People don’t even walk to the corner shop or the nearest post box. I don’t think it’s always necessarily laziness (although that is partly the case), but it’s also that people don’t even consider walking/cycling anywhere because we’re all so wrapped up in car culture.

At the moment I walk 3 miles a day just getting to and from work. I don’t really think anything of it, yet so many times when I tell people in my office block that I walk to the office from the train station they raise their eyebrows -’Wow, that’s a long way!’. No it’s not. It’s a 20 minute brisk walk. At rush hour in Leeds it would probably actually take longer in a car and it’s almost certainly less stressful. My point is that walking for 20 minutes twice a day really isn’t as strenuous as many seem to be under the impression it is.

As for people having lack of time, many of us have busy lives, yet plenty of people seem to manage to watch ‘Eastenders’, ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘Celebrities in the Big Brother Jungle’ every evening. But slightly aside from that, employers should also be responsible and ensure that their employees have a good work-life balance; after all, it’s in an employers interest to have fit and healthy employees. We should follow an example of places like the Netherlands where it’s common for workplaces to have showers; people cycle, walk or run into work then get showered, have their breakfast, and start work. Also, employers could provide incentives for employees to get to work in methods other than the car (and that can be for environmental reasons too).

Also we need to teach children how to cook and appreciate good food! There is no end of cookery programs on the telly, yet so many people seem to live off ready-meals. It really does not have to take a long time to cook a balanced meal. All children should have cookery lessons (that’s *cookery*, not food technology or whatever it is this week). They need to be shown how to prepare simple but tasty, healthy, and wholesome meals; methods like grilling, roasting and steaming meat and fish, steaming, stir-frying and roasting vegetables, and how to prepare food like rice, pasta and cous cous. So many children are brought up on chicken nuggets, chips and pizza etc. at home, and it’s unlikely that they’ll eat so very differently as they grow older and prepare their own meals.

There’s been suggestions of adding an extra tax on unhealthy foods and that annoys me too. I guess the reasoning is it will discourage people from buying it. I very much disagree with that. I would resent having to pay extra for a chocolate bar I might buy once every 6 months because some others can’t control themselves and have to stuff themselves with chocolate every day.

To be brutally honest, I wouldn’t really care less about other peoples lifestyle choices, if there wasn’t the implications of how much it’s likely to end up costing the NHS. If people want to eat rubbish. smoke, sit on their bums all day etc. then that’s their problem, but when they end up in hospital after having a heart attack or something then unfortunately it’s a problem for all of us.