I am aware that the last post was a bit gloomy and self centered. So I am going to mix it up a bit now and do a recipe. This one is dedicated to a certain devilish chicken of my acquaintance, a fair cook himself.
This is a way of making a chicken last for ages. Or two meals at least. Thing is the cost of running a house in the U.K. and another in Switzerland means I have to be a bit economic betimes. This is a variant on Poule au Pot , a dish from the 17th century made famous by Henri IV of France.
First buy a chicken, In the interest of ethics its best to find a living chicken who is able to state clearly that it wishes to be euthanised. Sourcing depressed chickens can be tough but the ethical investment is worth it. Get your chicken to undress before it tops itself.
Once your chicken has offed itself, find a saucepan it fits in. ideally you want one the chicken just fits in lengthwise, leaving room at the sides. Said pan must have a tight fitting lid.
Check up the chicken for its innards. If it has removed these for you thats ok but if possible leave the liver and neck in there. Ram a large sprig of thyme, a large sprig of marjoram, a bunch of tarragon, some strips of lemon zest, 2 bay leaves and if possible a ham knuckle end up the chicken. This is a good way of telling if it is really dead or just pretending. Works on people too.
Heat a very small quantity of olive oil in the saucepan until v hot, then pop your chicken in face down to brown. you can tell when its done because it begins to smell really chickeny. Carefully fish it out then put it in tits upwards. Give it the same amount of time on a hot flame, throw in a chopped leek, some chopped celeriac and chopped turnip down the sides of the chicken then pour in enough stock.
Enough is a tricky concept here. basically too much is a problem. Best way to judge it is via smut and innuendo. When my wife is having a bath I like it when she is lying there relaxed with her breasts gently poking out of the surrounding steamy liquid. The chicken should be the same. Don't let its breasts get covered by liquid, it spoils the view.
Bring to the boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Again make sure her tits are poking out of the water, not immersed. Pop the lid on and simmer for 2 hrs. if it forns grotty froth skim it off
At the end of this time carefully remove the chicken from the pot and put on a draining plate. Allow the liquid to settle and separate off the fat, retaining it ( the flavour is in the fat). Carefully remove the breasts ( which have been steamed) from your chicken and set aside- these are lovely cold with a simple salad. This is meal number 1.
Pick the rest of the carcase over. theres lots of good meat on thighs, drumsticks, back muscles, all of it will pull off with your fingers. either shred with fingers or chop, then pop back into the saucepan with the liquid. Do the same for the ham knuckle if you had one- pick it clean. Now throw the bones away.
Take the chicken fat and make a paste with it and some plain flour(this is a version of beurre manie- used to thicken sauces). bring the liquid to the boil, stir in a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, then stir in spoonfuls of the paste one at a time until the liquid is the desired thickness. Season with salt and pepper. This glorious mess is halfway between a soup and a stew, and is the chickeniest soup evah.
So there you go two meals one chicken. It works best with a stringy old chicken.
for EPD.
RantingScienceZebra The rantings of a bitter, twisted, sometimes crippled and rather mad scientist
Sunday 30 November 2014
Friday 28 November 2014
I'm your only friend; I'm not your only friend, but I'm a little glowing friend, but really I'm not actually your friend
There are a multitude of things wrong with me.
Well any poor soul who has read my rantings so far will have tumbled to that, but for once I am not going to lead off with my physical woes here. I mean mentally.
I don't have an ongoing diagnosis other than occasional Major Depression for a simple reason: several times I have been assessed by psychologists as part of induction to some treatment or other on the NHS (where if you want your ingrowing toenail removed they do a psych evaluation to make sure you won't miss it) and they tended to all come back with very similar tentative diagnoses. My doctor and I looked up the treatments available for them ( none) and decided that a label wasn't necessary or desirable.
But if you want a ballpark area then if you have schizoid personality disorder in mind then you probably aren't far away from the truth. I don't socialise. I mean I really don't. The last social event I went to without being forced to by my wife or work was probably my wedding ten years ago. And even then you could say there was a certain coercion involved.
People trigger a threat response in me. I can't close my eyes with people around. I don't like going to spaces where people are. I prefer very formal, codified situations ( lectures for example are ok- its got rules). Put me in a box with people and you have about 2 hrs before I will go nuts just to escape.
My first thought when entering a party is always the same ..."when can i leave?"
All of which would be fine if I was happy with this. But I am not. I'm fucking miserable. And lonely.
Add all that to the EDS, a childhood of peer abuse and bullying and its a lovely mix. One of the reasons i react so badly to the idea of there being a God is that I wouldn't want to see what I would do to the fucker if I met him.
Until recently I had a social outlet I could cope with. It was an online forum which i joined almost by accident about 5 years ago and slowly came to spend a lot of time in. The people there were not real people you see, they lived in the pixels of the PC screen. They were safe.
Over time, the board, which had been very confrontational in a right-on sixth form activist kind of way came to be a more caring place, with several threads devoted to caring for others and offering support. As this coincided with my disabilities worsening you can imagine that this was very welcome.
The problem is it was not welcome to everyone. A number of the sixth form activists really rather resented this. Every time a fight erupted on the board they would suggest that getting rid of the support threads would be task 1 for a cleanup. Their conception of the board was very different from mine or others. I honestly could not tell you who was right.
Well you can probably see where this is going? One of the sixth formers and I got into a tussle. He regarded himself as having a direct and forthright manner in debate. I thought he was needlessly cruel, callous and obscene in his turn of phrase and quite vicious about it too. I had said so many times in the past, gently at first. Well recently there was a tussle, the normal suggestion was made and I objected to it. This morphed rapidly into a situation where it felt like every time I posted on any thread the sixth former was there shouting abuse at me.
The discussion was long and tedious. From my perspective he was unable to admit that he could possibly be wrong in any way. His behaviour towards me I regard as simple bullying. And I should Know. It was the same attitude I got from my abusers.
After the first block of this I was crying and shaking in my office. I had to lock the door so no-one could see me. The moderators asked for a break for reflection. He started again on another thread. I ended up self harming. That night I overdosed on pills and alcohol. I don't know if it was deliberate or not. Could be either.
I went back to the board the next morning to find he had started up again. And the people that I had cared about...well i m not sure what i wanted. some kind of reaction. But really, nothing happened. Ripples in a pond. So i said goodbye.
The thing is that what i was saying goodbye to was people. It turns out that people are never safe. It was an illusion. I suppose I should thank him for finally making me face the truth. I may want to open up to people and interact with them, but it is a horrifically dangerous thing to do. In truth it only leads to pain.
At least confiding in this blog is a mite safer. I am the only person who ever reads it.
Well any poor soul who has read my rantings so far will have tumbled to that, but for once I am not going to lead off with my physical woes here. I mean mentally.
I don't have an ongoing diagnosis other than occasional Major Depression for a simple reason: several times I have been assessed by psychologists as part of induction to some treatment or other on the NHS (where if you want your ingrowing toenail removed they do a psych evaluation to make sure you won't miss it) and they tended to all come back with very similar tentative diagnoses. My doctor and I looked up the treatments available for them ( none) and decided that a label wasn't necessary or desirable.
But if you want a ballpark area then if you have schizoid personality disorder in mind then you probably aren't far away from the truth. I don't socialise. I mean I really don't. The last social event I went to without being forced to by my wife or work was probably my wedding ten years ago. And even then you could say there was a certain coercion involved.
People trigger a threat response in me. I can't close my eyes with people around. I don't like going to spaces where people are. I prefer very formal, codified situations ( lectures for example are ok- its got rules). Put me in a box with people and you have about 2 hrs before I will go nuts just to escape.
My first thought when entering a party is always the same ..."when can i leave?"
All of which would be fine if I was happy with this. But I am not. I'm fucking miserable. And lonely.
Add all that to the EDS, a childhood of peer abuse and bullying and its a lovely mix. One of the reasons i react so badly to the idea of there being a God is that I wouldn't want to see what I would do to the fucker if I met him.
Until recently I had a social outlet I could cope with. It was an online forum which i joined almost by accident about 5 years ago and slowly came to spend a lot of time in. The people there were not real people you see, they lived in the pixels of the PC screen. They were safe.
Over time, the board, which had been very confrontational in a right-on sixth form activist kind of way came to be a more caring place, with several threads devoted to caring for others and offering support. As this coincided with my disabilities worsening you can imagine that this was very welcome.
The problem is it was not welcome to everyone. A number of the sixth form activists really rather resented this. Every time a fight erupted on the board they would suggest that getting rid of the support threads would be task 1 for a cleanup. Their conception of the board was very different from mine or others. I honestly could not tell you who was right.
Well you can probably see where this is going? One of the sixth formers and I got into a tussle. He regarded himself as having a direct and forthright manner in debate. I thought he was needlessly cruel, callous and obscene in his turn of phrase and quite vicious about it too. I had said so many times in the past, gently at first. Well recently there was a tussle, the normal suggestion was made and I objected to it. This morphed rapidly into a situation where it felt like every time I posted on any thread the sixth former was there shouting abuse at me.
The discussion was long and tedious. From my perspective he was unable to admit that he could possibly be wrong in any way. His behaviour towards me I regard as simple bullying. And I should Know. It was the same attitude I got from my abusers.
After the first block of this I was crying and shaking in my office. I had to lock the door so no-one could see me. The moderators asked for a break for reflection. He started again on another thread. I ended up self harming. That night I overdosed on pills and alcohol. I don't know if it was deliberate or not. Could be either.
I went back to the board the next morning to find he had started up again. And the people that I had cared about...well i m not sure what i wanted. some kind of reaction. But really, nothing happened. Ripples in a pond. So i said goodbye.
The thing is that what i was saying goodbye to was people. It turns out that people are never safe. It was an illusion. I suppose I should thank him for finally making me face the truth. I may want to open up to people and interact with them, but it is a horrifically dangerous thing to do. In truth it only leads to pain.
At least confiding in this blog is a mite safer. I am the only person who ever reads it.
Thursday 6 November 2014
Physio
Physio is a fact of life for anyone with EDS. Or it should be .
Our joints are not the luxury models you stiffs have , we don't h - ave ligaments holding our Joints together, just muscles.
So physio may not be the gentle waving of legs you imagine. For me a full physio session, a thing I am supposed to do every day, would be the following...
20 minutes on a cross trainer to warm up
3x 10 sit-ups
3×10 leg raises
3X5 chin ups (assisted)
3x5 dips
3X 10 back extensions
3x8 bench press
3×8 inclined bench press
3x10 shoulder press
3X 10 front shoulder raises
3X 10 shrugs
3X10 shoulder flies
3X 10 Bicep curls
3X 10 leg press
3 X 10 Squats
3Xl0 ROWS
Thats every day. oh and th ere's some other ones l dont even have a name for
It takes about 2 hours.
Sounds healthy huh?
No doubt if l was on benefits I would be held up as a cheat. But it | dont do it I lose the ability to move,. And it is often very painful indeed. My shoulders sublux all the time and walking is awful. My hands hurt on the weights and my ribs pop out.
It is like being sentenced to hard labour wth no hope of a reprieve.
Mow mow mow your boat
The groves of academe can be pleasant. This morning l had to give an early lecture on entropy, which is always a fun subject. I mean what could be more fun than the end of the universe?
But I started off with plugging my movember campaign . Its horrible to think that of all the handsome bright men in the lecture room roughly four will kill themselves . EDS is well known for being linked to depression . Constant pain, disability, poisoned genes etc. will do that to you.
Support groups help of course BUT ...
EDS mainly affects women. The support .groups can feel like hen parties. ..
Men are bad at sharing weakness at the best of times. But for many showing weakness in front of a woman is impossible.
l am doing movember for the depressed suicidal zebra males out there. l am up to 8 suicide attempts sofar. l don't really want more. Movember is not Just about balls and prostrates it is also about Mental Health. So I am becoming a walrus for madness.
I have had a beard for 3 years. In that time I have lost 70 Kg So l look different. My neice says I look like House. My wife says I look like Dr. Who. l think I look old. Ho Hum.
In other news I have a cold and my Joints are on fire. Left hip is particularly bad as is right wrist. My shoulder dislocated whilst doing sit-ups in last nights physio. And it keeps snowing.
Tuesday 4 November 2014
Come fly with me...
Apologies for the long absence. I have had speaking engagements, a concussion, 2 suicide attempts and an appraisal to deal with. I shall try to betterise.
I am one of those people you stare it in airport queues in jealousy. Nay not for my good looks or enormous genitals but because i have a silver frequent flier card which zooms me past queues. I earned this by flying far too much between London and Zürich on BA.
I also, particularly these days, get zoomed because I am in a wheelchair much of the time.
Most airlines will offer wheelchair assistance of one kind or another. In fact they buy it from the airports and the airports subcontract it from companies and the companies hire the staff. Just the kind of arrangement that Mrs Thatcher put into the NHS and which turned our hospitals into the vibrant infective MRSA plague zones we know and love. Because in this model no-one, and i mean no-one is responsible for anything.
The first point to ponder is this: airports are not big investors in wheelchair stocks. The chairs are crap. I have become something of a wheelchair fancier of late and i can say the best loaner wheelchairs I have found are the ones used by the Science Museum in London. Seriously awesome things. The worst ones are the rebadged shopping trolleys dredged out of a canal and operated in London City Airport. Being wheeled around in those has caused me pain and injury before and generally now I will try to use my own chair when possible.
It is not just the injury risk. lets say you turn up to an airport and ask for assistance from the check in on ( never do this). It will take up to an hour to turn up. They will then take you straight to the gate. you will not get a chance to shop or do anything else because you are an unworthy cripple and should know your place. Even should they turn up on time you will be in a transport chair not a self propelled chair so you cant move it anyway. And often they will dump you then disappear off with the chair anyway. I once spent 2 hrs marooned in a seat in the BA lounge in Tokyo Narita because this happened. The service is overused and understaffed and customer wishes are way down the list.
London City Airport takes this a little further. They have just revamped their terminal building. For those who do not know it City is a small airport but very good for European flights. It has a couple of shops and cafes and it has just upscaled the facilities with money from Bloomberg. Bloomberg should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for the result. What they have done is ceate a facility that is impossible to access if you are chairbound. It is one of the worst pieces of discriminatory developement I have ever seen and the company should be pilloried until they revise it. Essentially you can access everything on legs but they have positioned chairs, tables etc so that wheelchairs are excluded from use of the restaurant, tables block access to the disabled loo, charging sockets have seats in front of them etc etc. If one person had used it one time in a chair during design it would not have gone ahead, but there you go.
City is not alone. Heathrow Terminal 5 is a similar disgrace in places. Ok the open thoroughfares are alright but the terminal staff selectively use disabled loos even when no queue is in the normal ones and get shirty when challenged. The South lounge is full of nice comfy chairs etc but these are arranged in order to ensure cripples cant mix with real people. Service counters have items arranged at the back out of reach. The customer support staff talk down to you like nobodies business and have little grasp of reality. One of them, sitting right next to a tannoy mike seriously wanted to indicate where I would be sitting for 5 hrs so she could see me. The idea that I might want to roll around a bit and that she could use the Magic Talking Stick to find me was very alien.
But lets say that you make it to the gate on time... What should happen is that you pre-board along with the other priority passengers. This means they let you through early and then wheel you down. You then take a seat on the empty plane. Why do you go in first? Well two reasons, firstly disabled people often have hand baggage that they really need mid flight such as meds, walking sticks, pillows etc. If you get on with everyone else the stowage space gets full quickly. If I cannot reach my walking stick mid flight I am a danger to myself and others and may very well piss in my seat, out of revenge if not need. The other reason is about dignity. would you like to hobble slowly down the aisle with 150 people you do not know all staring at you wondering why you are delaying them?
On Saturday that is exactly what the woman on duty at gate A22 terminal 5 on the 1305 to Zürich wanted me to do. Simply because she could not be bothered to fill in a luggage form ( the lack of which was BA's fault incidentally) she wanted me to wait until after boarding and hobble onto a packed plane as a free freakshow for the masses. I did manage to express my displeasure without actually telling her to get fucked but the get fucked was clearly implied.
Now pre-boarding is also offered to small children in pushchairs etc. We all trundle down the ramp leaving our chariots at the bottom next to the plane door. My chariot is known as Davros and I am considering fitting Boudicca style blades. Now BA gives you an orange tag to attach to such things which tells the baggage pixies to return it to the plane door at your destination. People on American Airlines would know this as Valet bag service. My experience is that pushchairs automatically get this service. But for wheelchairs you have to fight very very hard. In Dallas Fort Worth on Friday last I had a flight which was delayed, then had its boarding moved up without announcement. I got to the gate as preboarders were being lined up and asked the very artificial blonde lady for my wheelchair to return to the plane door.
She said "you mean the baggage carousel".
I said no, I meant the plane door.
"Its better if you reclaim it afterwards"
Better for who? Give me the orange tags please
"these are for pushchairs"
No, they have a picture of both wheelchairs and pushchairs on. furthermore it is BA policy that this is my right. Also this flight will be very much more delayed because no-one is getting on till you comply with my reasonable request.
"I will have to ask my supervisor if we can do that"
Eventually she complied. because she had to. I was damned certain I would see her sacked if she didnt. But this is how check-in staff bully you into things. needless to say staff in Narita are worse- they attach the tag but then wrap the entire chair in bubble wrap, tie string around it and put it in the wrong hold so only the pilot can find it 1 hr after landing.
American airlines twice did an assistance fail this weekend. At San Antonio the terminal is rather taller than an MD80. So when the plane attaches itself the TerminalPenis has to slope downwards. Now slopes are a nightmare in a chair. My arms are pretty strong but fairly gentle inclines are tricky. It took me 10 minutes to explain to the gatemonkey that although it was a ramp I needed someone to push me down or i was quite likely to splat at high speed into the side of the plane.
I may write up the whole journey in another post but before i go this time heres a final BA fail. I have a medicalert tag, and I generally start a long haul flight by telling the service crew where it is and also asking them to wake me before bringing any trolleys through. this is because if my muscles are relaxed a blow from a trolley can dislocate all my joints. Fairly simple conversation, huh? Here is my tag, Please wake me before trolleys.
When i said this to the lady on the 1745 Fort Worth to Heathrow i got in order "should you be sitting there?" ( yes i need to move around so an aisle is sadly necessary) "I dont see how we can help" and, my favourite "Well you shouldnt be flying then, are you sure you have medical clearance?".
Just one of those bigotted interactions that makes life so much better.
I am one of those people you stare it in airport queues in jealousy. Nay not for my good looks or enormous genitals but because i have a silver frequent flier card which zooms me past queues. I earned this by flying far too much between London and Zürich on BA.
I also, particularly these days, get zoomed because I am in a wheelchair much of the time.
Most airlines will offer wheelchair assistance of one kind or another. In fact they buy it from the airports and the airports subcontract it from companies and the companies hire the staff. Just the kind of arrangement that Mrs Thatcher put into the NHS and which turned our hospitals into the vibrant infective MRSA plague zones we know and love. Because in this model no-one, and i mean no-one is responsible for anything.
The first point to ponder is this: airports are not big investors in wheelchair stocks. The chairs are crap. I have become something of a wheelchair fancier of late and i can say the best loaner wheelchairs I have found are the ones used by the Science Museum in London. Seriously awesome things. The worst ones are the rebadged shopping trolleys dredged out of a canal and operated in London City Airport. Being wheeled around in those has caused me pain and injury before and generally now I will try to use my own chair when possible.
It is not just the injury risk. lets say you turn up to an airport and ask for assistance from the check in on ( never do this). It will take up to an hour to turn up. They will then take you straight to the gate. you will not get a chance to shop or do anything else because you are an unworthy cripple and should know your place. Even should they turn up on time you will be in a transport chair not a self propelled chair so you cant move it anyway. And often they will dump you then disappear off with the chair anyway. I once spent 2 hrs marooned in a seat in the BA lounge in Tokyo Narita because this happened. The service is overused and understaffed and customer wishes are way down the list.
London City Airport takes this a little further. They have just revamped their terminal building. For those who do not know it City is a small airport but very good for European flights. It has a couple of shops and cafes and it has just upscaled the facilities with money from Bloomberg. Bloomberg should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for the result. What they have done is ceate a facility that is impossible to access if you are chairbound. It is one of the worst pieces of discriminatory developement I have ever seen and the company should be pilloried until they revise it. Essentially you can access everything on legs but they have positioned chairs, tables etc so that wheelchairs are excluded from use of the restaurant, tables block access to the disabled loo, charging sockets have seats in front of them etc etc. If one person had used it one time in a chair during design it would not have gone ahead, but there you go.
City is not alone. Heathrow Terminal 5 is a similar disgrace in places. Ok the open thoroughfares are alright but the terminal staff selectively use disabled loos even when no queue is in the normal ones and get shirty when challenged. The South lounge is full of nice comfy chairs etc but these are arranged in order to ensure cripples cant mix with real people. Service counters have items arranged at the back out of reach. The customer support staff talk down to you like nobodies business and have little grasp of reality. One of them, sitting right next to a tannoy mike seriously wanted to indicate where I would be sitting for 5 hrs so she could see me. The idea that I might want to roll around a bit and that she could use the Magic Talking Stick to find me was very alien.
But lets say that you make it to the gate on time... What should happen is that you pre-board along with the other priority passengers. This means they let you through early and then wheel you down. You then take a seat on the empty plane. Why do you go in first? Well two reasons, firstly disabled people often have hand baggage that they really need mid flight such as meds, walking sticks, pillows etc. If you get on with everyone else the stowage space gets full quickly. If I cannot reach my walking stick mid flight I am a danger to myself and others and may very well piss in my seat, out of revenge if not need. The other reason is about dignity. would you like to hobble slowly down the aisle with 150 people you do not know all staring at you wondering why you are delaying them?
On Saturday that is exactly what the woman on duty at gate A22 terminal 5 on the 1305 to Zürich wanted me to do. Simply because she could not be bothered to fill in a luggage form ( the lack of which was BA's fault incidentally) she wanted me to wait until after boarding and hobble onto a packed plane as a free freakshow for the masses. I did manage to express my displeasure without actually telling her to get fucked but the get fucked was clearly implied.
Now pre-boarding is also offered to small children in pushchairs etc. We all trundle down the ramp leaving our chariots at the bottom next to the plane door. My chariot is known as Davros and I am considering fitting Boudicca style blades. Now BA gives you an orange tag to attach to such things which tells the baggage pixies to return it to the plane door at your destination. People on American Airlines would know this as Valet bag service. My experience is that pushchairs automatically get this service. But for wheelchairs you have to fight very very hard. In Dallas Fort Worth on Friday last I had a flight which was delayed, then had its boarding moved up without announcement. I got to the gate as preboarders were being lined up and asked the very artificial blonde lady for my wheelchair to return to the plane door.
She said "you mean the baggage carousel".
I said no, I meant the plane door.
"Its better if you reclaim it afterwards"
Better for who? Give me the orange tags please
"these are for pushchairs"
No, they have a picture of both wheelchairs and pushchairs on. furthermore it is BA policy that this is my right. Also this flight will be very much more delayed because no-one is getting on till you comply with my reasonable request.
"I will have to ask my supervisor if we can do that"
Eventually she complied. because she had to. I was damned certain I would see her sacked if she didnt. But this is how check-in staff bully you into things. needless to say staff in Narita are worse- they attach the tag but then wrap the entire chair in bubble wrap, tie string around it and put it in the wrong hold so only the pilot can find it 1 hr after landing.
American airlines twice did an assistance fail this weekend. At San Antonio the terminal is rather taller than an MD80. So when the plane attaches itself the TerminalPenis has to slope downwards. Now slopes are a nightmare in a chair. My arms are pretty strong but fairly gentle inclines are tricky. It took me 10 minutes to explain to the gatemonkey that although it was a ramp I needed someone to push me down or i was quite likely to splat at high speed into the side of the plane.
I may write up the whole journey in another post but before i go this time heres a final BA fail. I have a medicalert tag, and I generally start a long haul flight by telling the service crew where it is and also asking them to wake me before bringing any trolleys through. this is because if my muscles are relaxed a blow from a trolley can dislocate all my joints. Fairly simple conversation, huh? Here is my tag, Please wake me before trolleys.
When i said this to the lady on the 1745 Fort Worth to Heathrow i got in order "should you be sitting there?" ( yes i need to move around so an aisle is sadly necessary) "I dont see how we can help" and, my favourite "Well you shouldnt be flying then, are you sure you have medical clearance?".
Just one of those bigotted interactions that makes life so much better.
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