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Post by lagatta on Jun 6, 2020 12:57:00 GMT
I'm listening to the music channel of Radio-Canada now. Both CBC (English) and Radio-Canada (French) have one channel that is more news, and another that is more music of different kinds. I'm a bit saturated now. However, although I feel just hopeless and frightened by the danger posed by the idiocy of Trump (evil twin of the North) and Bolsonaro (evil twin of the South) I was heartened by a story about Brazil's top doctor refuting that murderous crap. I'll post it in the COVID thread.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 6, 2020 11:01:11 GMT
I carry a teardrop shaped bag (bright red) called a "Healthy Back Bag". It is not very large, and weight sits mostly in the small of my back when I'm walking or cycling. Of course I can also carry it in front if I'm in a crowded bus or métro car (to avoid both theft and annoying other people. I see a lot of people, usually men, carrying a whole shopping in backpacks when cycling. I have pannier bags, fortunately beat-up looking now so nobody will steal them.
Yes, here too, there are warnings about children carrying heavy loads on their backs. And the NHS site is good advice anywhere, not just in the UK, ad-free if I recall and written in plain English. Don't remember whether it was also in other languages (whether spoken by immigrant communities, or Celtic languages).
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Post by lagatta on Jun 6, 2020 10:50:16 GMT
Headteacher, I presume?
I guess they aren't used to heat up in Fife.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 6, 2020 10:38:55 GMT
Yes, it was originally fish, but there is also a poultry-based version now. Both are very good. I ate it in Amsterdam, though. Prepared by my friends from Ghent (En) Gent (Flemish/Dutch) Gand (Fr). Especially monsieur, who is a more dedicated cook.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 23:25:51 GMT
I remember photos of soldiers in the "Great War" taking a knee mourning a fallen comrade (no political connotation). They half-kneeled as they had to spring up if combat resumed. (I worked on the series Apocalypse). It is a gesture of mourning.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 23:13:05 GMT
I just loved la Santa Cecilia.Will return for the others.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 22:54:19 GMT
I assure you that in Québec we know Simenon is Belgian,as well as the authors of many if not most bandes dessinées. And heartily agree with the perfection of Belgian frites/friet. I have friends in Ghent and hope to be able to take a Dutch course there - I do hope that there is summer lodging for "mature students". Friends speak (at least) French,English, German and at least some Spanish as well as Flemish. They taught in the UK.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 22:39:31 GMT
I'd definitely use the present perfect there (I'm still alive) but it would be so slurred one would scarcely hear the difference and I certainly wouldn't bother arguing about it - these differences can also be regional, and there are far more significant ones.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 22:25:33 GMT
Bixa, other than all the military deaths, genocides and torture, Nazism was also more a more banal campaign of mass theft of land, industry, assets and other forms of accumulated wealth. In the early years of Nazism, maintstream, "Aryan" and régime-friendly Germans (included the incorporated Austrians) actually experienced a rise in standard of living.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 22:20:20 GMT
I had a friend who took part, but he didn't "go in" as he was a Normand, and a partisan. He died not long ago, after a very good run.
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Baking
Jun 4, 2020 14:49:12 GMT
Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 14:49:12 GMT
I love (or loved) spicy food, but recently I've found, to my dismay, that any excess spicing upsets my tummy (No, I don't have an ulcer). I also have trouble with tomato sauce (spicy or not).
I do like very dark (90%) half-bitter chocolate, but only once in a while. Much fonder of cheese. There is a certain kind of young woman who gushes over chocolate, and also over smoothies.
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Baking
Jun 4, 2020 12:40:53 GMT
Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 12:40:53 GMT
Cardamom! And here in Québec, nutmeg over cinnamon. I eat parsley almost every day - important source of vitamins. Fresh ginger, fresh turmeric - not powdered. I find powdered turmeric very bitter. Caraway more than cumin.
I confess that an overpowering cinnamon odour reminds me of bad commercial baking, though I know that is unfair.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 12:07:39 GMT
Thank Bastet you didn't write "sadly died"...
That was horrible. My parents remembered it.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 11:31:07 GMT
Hoping she has succeeded in eradicating "has sadly died".
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 11:06:35 GMT
I do hope my neighbours don't think I've finally gone raving mad, exploding in laughter at 7 a.m. (fortunately not sputtering coffee on my keyboard). She just nails that bullshit.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 10:57:28 GMT
Mandela might have had a chuckle seeing a veld in Paris...
The chairs look strange as they are usually placed like that in front of a café or other building, so both patrons could people-watch.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 10:14:20 GMT
I couldn't find what Bixa wrote. "I never?" I'd say or write "I'd never" (you would scarcely hear it). It isn't something I'd bother correcting in colloquial speech or writing. None of us are using Trumpisms.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 10:05:36 GMT
I have allergies this time of year, and have to blow my nose constantly. I strongly doubt that is the reason for children's relative immunity.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 3, 2020 22:30:03 GMT
I also had elderly parents. Not all the baby boom was horny veterans rushing home to marry sweetie. Many people could not contemplate marriage in the Depression, less still in the War. My mother was 42 when I was born, Dad was older. This was incredibly difficult in the years of the Generation Gap, not to mention my dad's litany of smoking (and probably industrial-pollutant) related diseases. Personally, I'm very happy that here we have made great progress towards the right to die (rather than being kept "alive"). Not that I want to die, but being kept in such a state is far more horrific, and at some moments demented people (thinking an uncle) are sadly aware of their state.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 3, 2020 22:10:45 GMT
Thanks so much! Un grand merci! I'll be sending this to some (northern) Acadian friends.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 3, 2020 22:04:54 GMT
Yes, a book one treasures would never be held like that. I have several written by professors and/or friends, some of whom have died. I'd never hold them like that.
It is funny, but holding a book like that reminds me of something supposedly at the other end of the left/right spectrum but at the same end of the authoritarian one: the Red Guards' little red book.
His play-acting is very offensive to the Episcopals across the street. I've interpreted at (non-fundamentalist) churchy things and a surprising number of Anglicans here are people from the British West Indies. There was a very lovely Londoner at the Thorn Tree (Ben Haines?) who was a member of a C of E congregation and a large number, perhaps a majority, of his fellow congregants were people of colour.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 3, 2020 16:16:39 GMT
Here too. And well known for shitting on everything. I'm ashamed to admit that the official name of our housing co-operative is Les Goélands de la Petite-Patrie (named by the son of a member who was a small boy at the time). There are gulls here because they land on the roof of an old Bell Canada building, across the street. Disgusting things, and far too large to hope our cats will kill them. Originally, they caught fish, but now they mostly eat fast food and rubbish.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 3, 2020 0:12:10 GMT
Yes, I think you are spot on.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 23:13:53 GMT
Bixa, the fat levels vary from country to country, but it is similar to light (more or less 15% cream) as opposed to 35% cream.
Single cream, double cream.
By the way, I still have the same weird semi-anexoria. I made a lovely dish of saffron rice, beautiful wild Argentine prawns and fresh herbs, and could on.y eat half my tapas dish. I love good food, and while by no means a glutton, have certainly never been underweight as an adult, and more than a bit porky around menopause.
I'm a proper body mass now, but am a bit worried about the anorexia (in the scientific sense - I am not referring to very young women starving themselves to death). I mean loss of appetite, and I'm probably still a wee bit on the podgy side - very far from skeletal! There is no danger, just feeling very perplexed and guilty about throwing out nutritous food that became a bit iffy.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 17:11:43 GMT
Moreover, both human and equine cut fine figures!
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 16:20:18 GMT
The Rhinegau I bought some years ago was bone-dry, certainly no sweeter than any Alsatian wines I've imbibed. The wines of the German Moselle tend to be sweet and a bit sour (overly acid, though I know wine needs some acidity). I don't like them.
I've really been enoying dry Portuguese whites recently. Don't know if they are as available in mich64's town, but you might find them on a trip to Ottawa or Toronto.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 16:13:57 GMT
Heineken is crap, like lots of near-tasteless beers produced by multinationals the world over. My friends in Amsterdam, including native Dutch, (Flemish) Belgians and people from many other places, don't touch it. Here is a very good organic brewery located in Amsterdam East not far from where I stayed when in that city: www.brouwerijhetij.nl/ Located at an actual windmill! There are historical/religious reasons why the food was better in Belgium than the Netherlands, namely Catholicism vs Calvinism. This applies less and less nowadays. And a couple of generations ago, few but the wealthy got much more than an orange for St. Nicolas Day, Christmas or New Year's - anywhere. Often other gifts were useful things such as clothing, sometimes hand-knit or sewn. Ethnic or national jokes can be funny once or twice but not over and over. As for the most INFAMOUS Belgian, that's easy: King Leopold II.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 15:44:12 GMT
A "two-fer", otter-style.
There are otters at our Biodome. They have quite a large area with a deep pool. So fun to watch them, though I suppose they'd still be happier (though not as long-lived) in real nature.
Today, I turned up TWO tiny transparent plastic boxes of saffron in my work desk. And no, I have no roommate with a saffron fetish. Mice and lizards, yes. I also have basmati rice, so I made a dish of saffron rice. Shrimp will be added later.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 15:38:29 GMT
This will be very hard for certain of my Parisian friends, some of whom are considerably older than I am. Yes, it was a better venue for the demonstration. Both the US embassy in Ottawa and the US consulate here are such bunkers that one feels demonstrations have little impact.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 2, 2020 11:09:46 GMT
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