Charity Avoidance Tactics

Whether I'm listening to something on my mp3 player or just thinking my mind-thoughts, sometimes I find it good to stretch my legs along Princes Street, the main high street in Edinburgh. Sometimes I'm able to resolve some problems with my story ideas as I go, the meagre exercise no doubt sending much-needed blood to the brain of my otherwise poorly-circulated mortal shell. I like to be able to just lose myself in my ponderings and not have to think about anything else, but more often than not, that's impossible.

The reason? Charity workers.

Whenever I see one of those red or green waterproof jackets I panic despite myself, and all other thought is abandoned as I consider how best to avoid engaging with them.

Now, I'm not a completely uncharitable person. I've been known to make the odd donation to places in the past. Right now I don't have a regular income so I can't commit to paying a monthly direct debit like these guys inevitably want you to. But that's not the only reason I don't like these guys. They're always chirpy to the point of obnoxiousness, and they're always English.

Not that I have the problem with people from England. Some of my best friends are from Merrye Olde Englande. But these street folks are always posh hipster nobs. And they don't do it out of the kindness of their hearts. A lot of them are probably students at Edinburgh Uni and they're all paid by the charities to collect sponsorships. If you give them an inch of your time, they'll take a mile, along with your credit card details, or failing that guilt trip you into oblivion. But how to deal with this urban menace?

Let me show you.

So here I am just walking along the street, minding my own business when I espy a charity worker up ahead. What do I do?
1. The road-cross fake-out

As I see that the charity worker has caught me in its sniper-like sights, I make a beeline for the kerb and make out as if I mean to cross, and that I have no idea that the charity worker has seen me. Or is even there. Or that charity even exists as a concept. Then when the gull turns its waterproof back, I slip past unnoticed.

2. The shop-dive

 This one is simple enough. I dive into a nearby shop until the threat has passed. It's a little less silly than option 1. but carries a downside. If the nearest shop is Anne Summers, ain't no way I'm rushing in there.

3. The human shield

By far the best tactic. I follow closely behind other pedestrians, putting them between myself and the dreaded charity worker. The latter takes the bait, and I pass on unassailed. If the streets are quite bare up ahead when I notice a charity worker, I might tarry a while until suitable human shields come along.

Try them out!

My Anpan Masterplan

I've spoken before about missing aspects of my life in Japan. I can't remember why, but a month or so ago I suddenly got a craving for anpan. Anpan (from 'an' - bean jam, and 'pan' - bread) is a favourite snack of Japanese children. They're basically a slightly sweetened bread with red bean (azuki) paste inside. I first became aware of them through hearing about a popular cartoon for younger children called Anpanman, which stars a group of superhero characters made of bread. Anpanman's head is an anpan, and when he is injured, Uncle Jam the baker makes him a new head. It's the kind of subtly creepy cutesiness that pervades most Japanese entertainment.

One of my fellow JETs introduced me to real anpan for the first time in my second year, while we wear working on our annual musical. I never expected to like them - the thought of jam made from beans put me off - but I quickly developed a taste for the things and for the rest of my time in Japan my apartment was rarely without anpan. I used to get these small 'usukawa' (thin-skinned) ones, which had only a teeny layer of bread around a great wad of anko (red bean paste).

Anyway, when I got the craving, it occurred to me that I might be able to make them myself, assuming I could get the ingredients. I looked up Chinese supermarkets online and found one not too far from where I usually go to write in the city centre. It was quite a small place, with a tiny old Chinese lady behind the counter, and I felt a little on-edge while I stared at the beans and tried to work out if they were the kind I wanted. They were red, sure, but smaller than ones I'd seen in Japan. But since there was nothing else, I figured 'What the hey' and went for them.

I found a recipe for anko and last night I finally got round to making it. I decided it would be best to make the anko in advance since it was quite a time-consuming affair. It was maybe a little foolish to continue with the recipe without being sure I even had the right kind of beans, but I didn't think I would be able to find azuki beans anywhere else (I have since found out my mother has bought them in the past, so it's highly likely I could have bought them from a regular supermarket). The process involves a lot of boiling, simmering, draining and repeating. The only part of the recipe I had trouble with was pushing foil down onto the beans as they boiled, since it threatened to burn my fingers. I used a smaller pot lid that fit inside the pot instead. I was really doubtful that I was going to end up with the right thing - the consistency seemed odd as several stages, but at the very end everything came together, quite literally. This was the result:

It may not look like much, but the taste and consistency were there. Part one of the masterplan was a success.

Today was a different challenge. I realised the recipe I had intended to follow called for a breadmaker. Cheating, if you ask me. We don't have a breadmaker. Every other anpan recipe I found online also wanted a breadmaker. After looking over different recipes for a while, I decided to amalgamate the breadmaker one with another one for a milk loaf and basically make my own instructions. For the interested:

Ingredients
Bread flour - 450g (this is an estimate - I started with 380g as per the recipe but my dough was very sticky)
Salt - 1tsp
Sugar - 3tbsp
Dried yeast - 1 1/2tsp
Fat/butter - 3tbsp
2 medium eggs
Warm milk - 200ml

1. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl.
2. Add the fat/butter and rub it through with your hands until there are no lumps left.
3. Make a well in the centre of the bowl, add 1 egg, then lightly beat the second egg and add half (save the rest).
4. Pour in the warm milk a little at a time, mixing as you do with a knife until it comes together as a dough. If the dough is too sticky, use extra flour.

5. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, then split into 14-18 balls.
6. Cover the balls with a damp towel so they don't dry out and leave them to expand a little for 15 minutes.
7. Flatten each ball out, then spoon in your anko paste. The amount is up to you, but you can afford to be liberal. A heaped tablespoon's worth is about right.

8. Close the dough up over the paste and pinch it shut. Place the pinched side down on a greased baking tray, then depress the centre a little to stop an air pocket from forming between the bread and the anko.

9. Leave the buns to rise for 50 minutes in a warm place. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/350°F/180°C).
10. Brush the surface of each bun lightly with the remaining egg and bake for 15 minutes.

I'm really happy with how they turned out. Even though I bought the wrong kind of flour. It was supposed to be white, but I bought a kind that was brown and full of seeds. I sifted out the seeds but wasn't sure if the recipe would still work. As it turns out, the savouriness of the bread works well to offset the sweetness of the anko. Result!:

Prey

From my seat at my bedroom window, I see a lot of creatures. Wildlife seems to be fighting back against the destroyers of its environment and coming into our gardens. See how YOU like it, wildlife says.

Last night, I saw a bird of prey sitting on the wall. My camera's not good enough to get a nice close-up shot, but I did take a picture. I'm not sure what it was, but it may have been a sparrow hawk.

In Japan, there was a breed of kite that was really common on the coast, but seeing birds of prey in the wild here is still pretty cool.

Every journey begins...

...with a first step. And every great novel begins with a first chapter. I wanted to be able to write this post months ago. I wanted to say I had finally made a first chapter to the novel I've been trying to start that I was happy with.

I still can't.

However, I do have a beginning of sorts. I wrote a prologue kind of thing. It has a form. It's not without it's problems, but it's there. It exists as a thing in the real world, not just in my head. It's a start.

So I've decided, a journey need not begin with a first step. It can begin with a second step. Then when I know where I'm going, I can work out the best way to start off. Because so far, the beginning has been dragging me down and holding me back. No more, I say!

I don't know if what I've written will come to be a part of the story I'm working on. But it's there, it's written down, it's on paper. It's a material thing. It's a reference point I can look back on to remind myself of things.

But I'm moving on, I hope to better things. Better writing, certainly.
The only question is, am I capable?

The Return of Steve

Over the winter months, our foxie visitor had been somewhat elusive. I'd been used to seeing him out my window every so often in early evening, but of course in winter, early evening is pitch black. If he was around, I never saw him. I saw him again for the first time a month and a half ago. I saw him again a couple of weeks back. Neither time I managed to snap a shot.

Today was crazy stormy all over Scotland. Power cuts and falling tiles and broken stuff all over. Maybe Steve thought he'd go unnoticed under the cover of wind. He crossed the garden in the late afternoon, in broad daylight. He looked right towards me for a few seconds, which gave me just enough time to grab my camera and snap him as he jump up on the wall and into the neighbour's garden.

Not the best shots, I know. He's a bit camera shy, it seems.

Quizzlesticks

Last night there was a Pirates of the Caribbean themed pub quiz at one of the cinemas in town. High school friend Kirsty asked if I wanted to join her team. I'm no expert on the films, but I thought it sounded like a laugh. Kirsty really wanted a Johnny Depp beach towel, though we didn't know what the prizes were.

There were four rounds. The first round was supposedly about the films, though a lot of the questions were more about the actors and other work they'd done. We did okay that round, and wound up joint 1st with two other teams. We managed to get 7 of the 9 Pirate Lords from At World's End. Round 2 was about pirates in general. We did really good that round, only dropping 2 points. We disputed the last question, though, which was about the notorious (and false) allegations of innuendo levelled at classic British seafaring cartoon Captain Pugwash. We disputed it, but still got four points for putting the answer they expected. We were two points ahead of the field after that round.

The third round was where we fell down. We only got 3 points. The questions were all about which actors were appearing in which upcoming summer blockbusters. Funnily enough, in two or three cases we incorrectly wrote down the names of people for certain questions that ended up being the correct answers to other questions. We were back to joint first with another team after that.

Then they marked the picture round, for which we got all but one correct. I think at that point we slipped into second place. The only thing left was the creative challenge. At the start of the quiz we'd been asked to design our own pirate ship. I suggested we do a space pirate ship. After that, basically any random idea that came out of my mouth became part of the drawing. I said Princess Leia should be the figurehead. Then I said it should ride on a rainbow made of skittles.  In the end, Buzz Lightyear was captain and Chewbacca was first mate. He had an eyepatch. It was no contest, really. We got first place for our picture which landed us ten points, putting us in first place. Here's the picture that clinched the deal. Kudos to Jill for the drawing it:

The prizes were impressive. To Kirsty's delight, there was a Johnny Depp beach towel. There was also a DVD box set of the first three films, the movie soundtrack, a poster, a badge set and some free cinema passes and popcorn vouchers, all in a nice shiny PotC bag. We divvied up the spoils as pirates do. I took tickets, a voucher, the poster and badge set. Here's the poster:

Arrr!

Trouble at the Ol' Mine

I've had a bit of a mental week. I had another Creative Writing assignment to hand in, and I found myself somewhat distracted. One part of that was becoming an uncle, and getting irrationally excited about the whole thing. I wasn't much in the mood for sitting still while there was a baby to go and gawp at. Also, despite my resolution to never drive again, my dad offered to put me on his insurance so I could drive the family car. Combine stalker uncle with newfound freedom, and it's not long before I'm driving my mum to the hospital to visit my sister and the babbie. This was my second trip out in the car, the first one being half an hour earlier as a test to see if I could do it. I stalled about seven times, but I didn't let that deter me, and I was absolutely fine on our trip to and from the hospital.

The real drama only set in on Tuesday. I'd managed to make good headway with my writing by then. I decided recently to try a new method with my writing. Instead of going straight from my notes to word-processing, I decided to write my first draft on paper as well. It was after I saw something on a website about working with your hands. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but it has its advantages. I was still on my first draft on Tuesday, with the assignment due on Thursday, but I was planning to finish the draft by the end of the day and then type it up on Wednesday, leaving Thursday to do the report and other things the assignment required. However, something happened which put me out of the mood for writing.

After dinner that evening, my dad got a call from my grandmother. My grandfather had left a note saying he had gone out for a walk in the Bilston area. He would have been expected back around 3, and it was now 6. At 7, my dad called the police, then went out to Bilston to look for his car. He came back around 10, having found nothing. We were all pretty worried by this point. My grandfather is 83, and though he's fit and healthy, he's still an elderly man. We got calls from the police throughout the evening informing us of their progress, of which there was none. By the time I went to bed around 2, they still hadn't found his car, so could not direct a search team. I'm sure my dad would have been out looking with them, but he was told to stay at home by the police. I went to to bed to an uneasy sleep, more or less convinced I was going to wake up to the news that a body had been found.

I woke around 5.45am, aware perhaps of the phone having gone off, though I don't remember hearing it. Lying in my bed, afraid to get up to be confronted by bad news, I overheard my mum tell my brother that the car had been found, but there was nothing else yet. I decided I should probably get some more sleep, so I dozed in and out with the TV on, hoping it would stop me from sleeping all morning. My dreams were filled with thoughts of my grandfather, turned surreal by my having recently played a game called Ghost Trick where you play as a spirit that possesses objects. When I woke again a couple of hours, I heard my mother on the phone, and by what she said I was able to surmise that there had possibly been good news. It sounded like she was talking to my grandmother.

When she got off the phone, she came and talked to me. My grandfather had been found - alive - and indeed barely injured at all. He had fallen down a disused mine shaft and been unable to get out. He was still there, but only waiting on special equipment to be retrieved so he could be rescued. You can imagine how relieved we all were. It was an ending none of us imagined possible.

I heard the full story later.

My grandfather, who is a keen caver - and according to one of his caving club friends, quoted in the paper, 'knows more about the country's old mine entrances than any other person'. He was planning to go out, and when he goes out for a walk he generally waits to take his medication until he returns, because it weakens his muscles. It rained, so he was going to give up on the excursion and so took his medication, but when it turned out to only be a brief shower, he headed out anyway. Not long into his walk he came to the mine entrance, and took a look inside. He often reports his findings to his caving club so that areas can be explored more fully, and in some cases his findings have led to safety measures being taken to alert country walkers to the presence of these old mines. He climbed down a ladder to take a look, but because he had taken his medication, he lost his grip and fell. The area at the bottom was only four foot across, and after hurting his back he was unable to lie down. He had no food with him, and he wasn't wearing particularly warm clothing. To keep warm for the 15 hours he spent trapped in that four-foot space, he paced repeatedly up and down. Again and again. Forget Chuck Norris, do not mess with my grandad.

I know the question you're asking yourselves, because I asked myself the same thing. Where was Lassie in all this? That dog has a lot to answer for.

Anyway, my grandad got an x-ray but was found to be fine (though I'm sure my poor grandmother gave him an earful and a half), and I ended up getting an extension on my creative writing assignment. I finished it after painstaking editing last night. 1000 words over the limit. But you know what I say? Bollocks to word limits, that's what. You can't limit my creativity, man. I'm livin' the dream.