What (Male) Breasts, Bellies and Stomachs can tell us

Adolf Schroedter  1805-1875
 Falstaff und sein Page

Make prognostications from the breast and stomach, which are governed by Cancer.

The Breast without hair signifies a man to be unshamefaced and fearful; the Breast very fleshy, to be inept to learn; hairy on the Breast to be bold but unconstant. The Belly small, signifies to be of good capacity; much Hairy from the navel downwards, to be full of Words; the Belly bearing out big, to be a great feeder.

The Shepherds Prognostication 1729

Are Cows Getting Their Own Back?

image: cow pictures.net

The Guardian had an article in their Experience series entitled "I was crushed by a cow". in which a herds manager describes how an irate Frisian cow threw him down, face in the mud, knelt on him and pushed her head into his back after he had waved his stick at her and told her to get back. 

That cow was cross.

The paramedics who came to his aid were concerned enough to call for an air ambulance to transport the injured man to hospital. He recovered and two weeks later he was back at work.

The cow was destroyed.

There's been a spate of similar incidents;  a chap who was killed when his herd turned on him, a vet who was trampled to death. Dog walkers have been killed in fields, because they've held on to their dogs instead of letting them run for their life. Beloved and I were pursued by a herd of heifers across a muddy field. One of them saw us, alerted the others and the whole two dozen of them turned as one animal and came galloping towards us; we ran and stumbled for the stile, me howling in fear. The heifers bellowed the theme tune for Rawhide as they almost caught up with us.

Have they caught on that all we want them for is to eat them, make cheese out of the milk meant for their calves, put their baby girls in cages to become veal and kill their boy offspring at a few days old if they happen to be born into a dairy herd? I hate the sound of a dairy cow howling and crying for her young after they've been taken away. The sound goes on for weeks, as each herd is deprived of its babies. 

And to crown it all, we can now interfere with the sex of their offspring; we can now determine that no boys are born into a dairy herd. If that's not enough to turn a mild-mannered, soulful creature like a cow into a vengeful killing machine, I don't know what is.

Football Fervour

I don't know what you're all doing .... but there's an awful lot of football being watched in this house .

( the specs are key to the enjoyment of the whole thing , apparently )

Say Cheese

Source: Wikipedia

May cheeses are now being made.

Cheese that is good ought not to be too hard or too soft, but betwixt both; it must be of good savour, not full of eyes, nor mites, nor maggots. Yet in High Germany the cheese which is full of maggots is called there the best cheese, and they will eat the maggots as fast as Englishmen do comfits.

Andrew Boorde Dietary of Health 1547

To make Whitsun cheese-cakes, take twelve pints of milk warm from the cow and turn it with a good spoonful of rennet.  Break it well and put it into a large strainer, in which roll it up and down, that all the whey may run out. Then break the curds and wring it again, and more whey will come, and so break and wring till no more will come. Work the curds exceedingly with your hand in a tray, till they become a short uniform paste; then put to it the yolks of eight new laid eggs, two whites and a pound of butter. Work all this long together, for in the long working consisteth the making them good. Then season them to your taste with sugar finely beaten, and put in some cloves and mace in subtle powder; lay them thick in coffins of fine paste, and so bake them.

The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened 1669

Personally, reading this, I have no problem with being dairy intolerant.

Beau Brummel-ish

The sudden onset of summer with sun and temperatures in the double figures has made us all rush to find something cool and reasonably flattering to wear . Even the rather strange drunks that hang round the supermarket entrance have discarded their flappy anoraks and are eating ice lollies . But no one looked quite so hip and happening today as one of the regulars . In a baggy white tee shirt , white-ish bermudas belted with a nylon orange , green and silver scarf , white shiny leggings and over-the-knee black wooly leg warmers tied up with string garters he cut quite a figure . Pity he hadn't put his teeth in .

And Now A Feast

In case anybody was left feeling hungry after that last post, here's a well known Brueghel painting of a more sumptuous repast for you to contemplate  - though by the look of it, pies were the only things on offer...

The Friday Market , Chapter 8 ( or 9 )

I do love going to the weekly market on Fridays . Huge stalls piled high with every sort of fruit and vegetable , trays of corn fed chicken and fish , spices and cheese ..... For overcaterers like me , it's Paradise .
Today I stood at one of the vegetable stalls behind a wispy young woman , holding a shopping list . She bought : 2 cherry tomatoes , 2 yellow cherry tomatoes , 1 plum tomato , 1 stalk of rhubarb , 1 small onion and an apple . After she'd paid and gone off with it all in a plastic bag , the stallholder said approvingly , one eyebrow only slightly raised , "Good , eh ! Now she won't have to dash to the shops all week . "