Posts by Chris Waugh
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Legal Beagle: Police: "Ambrose not guilty", in reply to philg,
Brilliant idea! After all, the police wouldn't be hauling you before the court if you hadn't done something wrong. And of course, if you keep your nose clean, you've got nothing to fear. Only Bad People ever get in any trouble with the police.
-
hmmm.... I wonder if our John has any advice for Obama. I wonder how the US media and Republican contenders would react if Obama took a leaf out of our John's media management book.
-
Hard News: The real problem with the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
What the hell were the police thinking?
Put those uppity journalists in their place? Nothing like a bit of random intimidation to keep the media in line.
-
Well, it's a pretty crap photo taken quickly with my cellphone as I was expressing frustration with my mother in law for taking my daughter off somewhere without either telling me or taking her cellphone.... And I still don't have anything to contribute to the birds and flowers theme.... But spring has arrived and little buds of new life are starting to burst forth.
-
Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Lilith __,
hmmm.... thinking about it, I don't think I've ever tried scones. If we get this new oven, I will. And if they fail to rise, I'll sell them to my mate who keeps a big stick in his car in case somebody crashes in to him, I'm sure he'd appreciate having a bag of little shotputs to throw at the many dodgy drivers one has to deal with over here.
Another stodgy thing I rather like in winter
After so many years in places where winter days range from minus 5 to minus 10-ish at dawn to maybe 1 or 2 in the middle of the day if you're lucky, I feel quite comfortable in asserting that 'stodgy' is a seasonal synonym for 'bloody good'.
-
Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Hebe,
Oh, wow, thanks, but...:
Orders of more than 150 kg can be sent by freight
I doubt couriering flour 11,000-odd kilometres would be affordable, and in any case, the phrase nationwide crops up a lot without any mention of what those of us outside NZ should do. Looks like I'd have to open a bakery to bring it down to affordably extravagant.
I will make a note of that for our eventual return to NZ, though. One thing I like about my in laws being farmers is knowing exactly who grows our food and being able to ask them how it is grown.
-
Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Hebe,
I think I'm experiencing my first attack of flour jealousy.
My wife is talking about buying a decently sized (by China standards) oven. Our current oven is so tiny it can make two slices of toast or maybe roast an undersized minnow. But if we do get this new oven I'm going to bake, and if I'm going to bake I'm going to want wholemeal flour, among other things not commonly seen in your average suburban Chinese supermarket. I'll have to scour the Carrefours, Tescos, Jenny Lous, perhaps even Walmarts, or other places with Westerner-oriented product lines, or even find out if the old Friendship Supermarket at the north end of Sanlitun by the Shiny Horse River is still open, and I strongly suspect I'll wind up settling for whatever wholemeal flour I can find.
-
Capture: Better Food Photography, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,
Love the smell of them roasting in their barrels of charcoal on street carts in the autumn. Trouble is I find the flavour and texture don't quite live up to the olfactory hype. Still, they're one of many reasons why autumn is the best season in Beijing.
-
Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Islander,
amazing imagination in some bird names eh?
Place names, too, always astound me with their prosaicness. I live in the Northern Capital. The province that surrounds Beijing is called North of the River. Hebei's western border is the Taihang Mountains, and on the other side of that range is a province called West of the Mountains. Japan's capital is the Eastern Capital - eastern in opposition to the older capital, Kyoto, which means Capital City. And of course in Aotearoa we have Northland, Southland, Westland and the East Cape.
Still, every now and then you come across something a little more creative. Germany's capital is the Little Bear, China's northeasternmost province and the Chinese name for the Amur River (both the same word) is Black Dragon River. 100km southeast of where I sit is a city called the Heavenly Ford (Tianjin - but if cleanliness is close to godliness, then these days it's rivers, swamps, lakes and canals are very far from heavenly).
-
Hard News: Time to move on, in reply to Russell Brown,
Heh. You don’t read his column very often, do you?
I prefer not to. Experience suggests there's a 99% chance of both:
1: The academic writing teacher I am in my day job going on some insane rant about his inability to stick to one topic and offer up factual, logical evidence to support his thesis; and
2: My daughter learning some naughty words as I express my feelings about his expressed views.
However, I do try to keep an open mind. A broken clock is right twice each day, and other similar cliches.
