Posts by linger
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Feed: My Life in Curry, in reply to Ben Austin,
If you think Tulsi's butter chicken is too sweet, you probably shouldn't try their mango chicken. Both are pleasant enough, but the mango chicken was almost too sweet for me , and that takes some doing!
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Alice the digger
As in, down the rabbit hole she goes?
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Muse: Guilt By Association Copy, in reply to Chris Waugh,
the lack of a clear distinction between Good and Bad
Definitely. So the strongest distancing measure of all, perhaps, is official rejection and/or apology – a concerted, institutional labelling as "Bad", which operates in the case of Hitler, but not in the case of Mao.
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Muse: Guilt By Association Copy, in reply to Chris Waugh,
So I very much doubt the passage of time has much to do with how these things are perceived
I think it is important, as one of several ways distance can be achieved – others being cultural/social unfamiliarity and physical separation. So Mao can be “chic” for Europeans, no worries. But … are you also saying that Mao remains “chic” among Chinese, despite none of these distancing effects operating for them? Interesting. Do you think it may be that, for good or bad, Mao is still bound up with Chinese national identity, undeniably part of “our” (as opposed to Western) history and thought? (And similarly, in part, Mao memorabilia appeals to Westerners because it operates as a symbol of opposition to/ rebellion against Western capitalism?)
Whereas the official narrative of modern German national identity is founded on rejecting Hitler.
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My first experience of curry was in literary form: Gerald Durrell’s account of working at Whipsnade Zoo, which I have to admit was one factor that delayed by a decade or more my actual tasting of curry. Heavily redacted, here it is:
“Do you like curry?”
“Um… yes, I do.”
“ Hot curry?” inquired Captain Beale, glaring at me suspiciously.
“Yes. My mother makes very hot curries.”
“Good,” said the captain with satisfaction. “Come to dinner … Thursday.”
[…]
The hall was redolent with the smell of curry. From the direction of the kitchen came a sound like a trainload of copper pans falling over a cliff.
[…]
Presently, the table laid, we trooped into the dining room and the first course was served. Great bowls of mulligatawny soup, the virulent yellow of a jaundice epidemic and of a piquancy that left you feeling faintly surprised that your lips did not burst into flame.
[…]
Eventually the last searing spoonful of soup had been imbibed and the captain lumbered out into the kitchen and reappeared bearing a monstrous tureen.
“Cen’t get enough meat for a decent curry with this damned rationing,” he grumbled, “so you’ll have to put up with this. This is rabbit.”
He removed the lid of the tureen and a cloud of curry-scented steam enveloped the table like a London fog. It seized hold of your throat with a hard, cunning, oriental grasp and built up in thick layers in your lung cavities. We all coughed furtively. The curry was delicious, but I thanked heaven that I came from a household which specialised in hot dishes; otherwise, my tongue and vocal chords would never have survived. After the first few mouthfuls everyone, their larynxes shrivelled and twisted, was mouthing incoherently and grasping at the water jug like drowning men at a straw.
“Don’t drink water!” roared the captain, the sweat pouring in cascades down his face, his spectacles misting with the heat. “Water makes it worse.”
“I told you that you were making it too hot, William dear,” remonstrated Mrs Beale, her face scarlet. […]
“If you had a curry like this every day you wouldn’t get colds in the winter.” Here, I must say, I was inclined to agree with the captain. With one’s body incandescent with his curry, one felt that the humble cold germ would not stand a chance.–Gerald Durrell, Beasts in My Belfry
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Feed: My Life in Curry, in reply to Russell Brown,
On one level, Japanese curry is terribly wrong. On another …
As it happens, my lunch today, at a little restaurant behind my university, was a “cheese omelette curry”, which, as the name suggests, is a cheese omelette served on top of a beef curry rice. You might say this is one case in which both levels of the meal are terribly wrong.
Nevertheless, there are several half-decent Nepalese restaurants around these parts -- though they do seem to change management, staff, and names with alarming frequency. -
Hard News: Schools: can we get a plan up…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Does Parata have a "D'oh!"cile rating?
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Basically Labour’s chance of reversing Clausewitz is Foucault?
("Politics is the continuation of war by other means": Michel Foucault, in Society Must Be Defended (2003))
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Hard News: The New New News, in reply to Moz,
podcastrati
= high users?
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Busytown: School bully, in reply to Baxterabout,
Hell, banks don’t operate under “competitive pressure”. South Canterbury Finance sure wasn’t left to operate under “competitive pressure”.
In our system, which I suspect might not be your ideal system, government has an obligation to ensure continuous, stable, access to certain services – including health and education. If there was any argument to support National’s bailout of failed financial institutions on the grounds of “maximising security and stability”, it applies even more strongly to the state education system.
While we’re at it, in what way is a charter school that can only operate by subcontracting its teaching out to existing state schools offering any kind of acceptable “alternative” regarding educational outcome?
… But you were just trolling, right?