Not about pig's cheeks

Every so often a miracle occurs in our household. I have never marked such miracles before so this time I photographed one.

So what are those doodads above? Pig's cheeks, but they are also part of a mystical process. I'm sure in nearly 55 years of marriage we've had pig's cheeks before but I can't recall them and I can't check; for the moment VR slumbereth.

Fact is we ate them in a sort of casserole a few weeks ago (see pic below) and they were routinely delicious. However they are incidental to what I have to say. This post is not really about pig's cheeks, understand?

Months before, in some meatery I have long forgotten, VR saw these miraculous symbols and bought them. I'll never know exactly why. Then she cooked them and we ate them.

Now here's the nature of the miracle. Chez RR, VR does the cooking, day in day out, year after year. I can only judge what she does by my disinclination to do it. I can cook, did cook for a time after I'd retired and VR was still working. But I don't enjoy cooking, I'm harassed by the deadlines and the detailed skills.

Imagining myself in VR's position I can't help thinking that by now I'd be worn down by what seems a burden. Certainly I wouldn't seek to vary the daily round; I wouldn't be tempted by invention; I'd want it to be all over quickly.

But no! On what to me seems a domestic road to Damascus, VR saw something new and responded. The fire of creativity (which burns well ahead of what goes on in the kitchen) was there as an ember and VR breathed upon it. I profited.

Look, it could have been calf's brains, except I don't like them.

To those readers who don't cook - and are lucky enough to be cooked for - I invite you to kneel with me and consider the Arundel Tomb.

All that glisters...

When I was sprung from RAF national serice ("Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!") I swore I would never again drink stewed tea, share a dormitory with 23 adolescents, leave a stupid order unquestioned or acquire anything made of brass.

Brass polishing was part of a process intended to convert me from a barely sentient version of homo sapiens (ie, your average teenager) into a Yahoo jelly-fish. Can't complain; it worked. To this day the smell of Brasso evokes a sixty-year-old memory of sitting down to watch a colour movie about the perils of VD. Come to think of it, that film worked too.

Thus in the division of labour chez Robinson the task of rendering metal bright and shiny falls to VR. As it happens we have no brass but we do have silver and, to her credit, VR accepts the task uncomplainingly.

It's a mixed bag, some predictable (sugar tongs, fish knife, cream jug, tankard, button hook) some almost exotic. The decorated item (bottom right) is the belt buckle VR wore as she nursed the damaged and poorly in several London hospitals. Less visible is a spoon and - I like this as a concept - "pusher" with which someone long forgotten marked the issue of my given name. There's more of my christening paraphernalia with that handled and initialled mug next to the tiny flower vase, top right.

The slender stemmed goblet ("Only silver plate," said my insensitive brother-law.) celebrated the ruby wedding of VR's parents. To the left is the only thing of  monetary value, an oldish bon-bon dish on  a tripod.

The circular object, top left, symbolises my 44-year career: a coaster once twinned with a glass decanter, now smashed - a freebie from someone aiming to corrupt my journalistic purity.

Cull words, not badgers

The Académie Francaise, France's word police, aiming to protect the language of Molière, have belatedly banned the anglo-import ASAP ("far from transparent, seems to accumulate most of the defects of a language that hides its contempt and threatening character under the guise of modern junk").

I try to imagine what causes I would support if unexpectedly elected to the little-known British imitation: State-School Comprehensive Workshop.

I'd be careful not to jump the gun. I sneered at "prioritise" when I first saw it ("It's new, therefore it must be bad.") But recently I haven't been able to think of a single-word equivalent. How can I then condemn  it? And I don't want to hear anyone say it's ugly - a very subjective judgement. Just imagine the reaction among the steppes-dwellers when they first heard: "We're thinking of calling it a yurt."

I don't like "tad", it's unnecessary, coy if not cute. But that's subjective. The battleground would be political euphemism. Replacing the burned-down House of Commons would not be a "challenge" (implying grandeur), simply a necessary job. I would not feel "challenged" if my trousers fell down before Huw Edwards; I would improvise new braces and curse the chainsaw manufacturer, Stihl, who sponsored my current pair.

I have already said "unacceptable" is not synonymous with "wrong". On a different tack I would condemn percentages, especially related to growth, if uttered baldly without reference to a numerical base. After all, a hundred percent increase on a base of a half, gives a total of one.

At the weekend I would erect gallows for my prejudices: "incredible" denied to all TV globe-trotters, "genius" a no-no in sports commentaries, and nobody, alive or dead, ever to be called "bubbly".

From the blogger's coalface

I consider compiling The Ten Worst Movies (TTWM) but can't immediately think of ten. Will I eventually meet my requisite "metric dozen" or will I have to cheat, trawling others' lists? Not cheating as readers might recognise it but minor (internal) fraudulences that take the zip out of writing the post.

An arithmetical matter arises. My posts are limited to 300 words (Is it time to re-explain why?) which means 30 words per movie. Take away six words to cover the title and some actor names and I'm left with 24. Oh, oh. I've already written 97 words of agonising, a third of my allocation. More like 14 words/movie now. Not much room for coruscating wit.

Where did the idea for TTWM come from? Because any time of the day or night I'm aware of the worst movie: Brigadoon (Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Van Johnson). I posted about that nearly three years ago. No one would remember, surely? But didn't Lucy make some comment at the time? She'll remember.

What's the second worst? That awful documentary about "foreign" surfers invading the sport in Hawaii. Oh yes. I cringe at the memory. But the reasons for its awfulness are astonishingly complex. Might I run out of words?

So-called classics often mine deep for awfulness. O'Flaherty's The Louisiana Story is a semi-documentary with dubiously "acted" scenes. Critics (the sort that compile Ten Best Movie lists) used to slaver over it and I once had to watch it twice in a single afternoon. But by now it's terribly obscure.

Foreign films? I watched swathes in my teens and frankly wasn't intellectually equipped to judge what I saw. Come to think of it I saw Rohmer's Clare's Knee in my sixties and couldn't make head nor tail of that. Does bafflement add up to worst?

Crikey! That's 300 words. And I'm nowhere.

LdP: Time off from tonic sol-fa

Apologies for not being able to give Tone Deaf and its rewarding commenters my attention over these last few days . Had to squeeze in sonnets at the time I did so that LdPs and guests could get to Hay Festival.

Seen and heard (day one): review of world publishing, mathematical history to the Higgs boson (the God particle), a psycho-summary of life on earth according the System 1 basis of mental processes (the instinctive) and System 2 (the reflective and calculating), and the adorable and supremely confident Dr Susan Greenfield, neurosurgeon and wearer of incredibly tight trousers (Boy, has she earned the right!) on What Makes You You. Weather: grey and raining.

Day two. Failed attempt of Michael Ignatieff (educator, biographer, broadcaster, long-time resident in Britain) to become liberal prime minister of Canada, discussion with author of The Art Of Fielding (novel about baseball), discussion of "anti-fragility" factor in public affairs.

Day three. Lord Martin Rees (astronomer royal), what's probable and what's luck, what it means to music enthusiast to lose all hearing in one ear. approaching philosophy via wonder.