Category: UK

positively crackers

When there used to be an M&S in Madrid, you could buy hot cross buns at Christmas – I think they labelled them bollos de Pascuas – but I’ve always thought of them as an Easter speciality. On the other hand, I’d associate crackers with Christmas or birthdays, but it seems there are places in the UK where you can now buy crackers for Easter.

Easter crackers
I wonder what they contain.

Christmas and birthdays are times for gifts, and the knick-knacks, fripperies and party favours seem totally appropriate.

Easter, though, has always struck me as more focused on the religious side of things. Which meant my first idea was that there should be no paper hats and plastic toys, but that an Easter cracker should burst open with a loud Hosanna and a dazzling manifestation of the Risen Christ.

Further thought made me decide that this was unrealistic and that a little more symbolism would probably be appropriate.

So I’ve reached the conclusion that you must pull the crackers on Easter Sunday, only to discover that, just like the tomb, they are empty!

(Thanks to MG for the photo.)

(mis)reading skills

From a BBC news story, yesterday:

“Plans have been published by ministers in England to tackle the “social exclusion” of adults with autism.
[…]
[T]he cross-government strategy sets out a range of measures to help them have “rewarding and fulfilling” lives, including training for Jobcentre staff.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with Jobcentre staff. I’m not even sure they were called “Jobcentres” back then. Surely we used to go to sign on at the Labour Exchange? (Was it the Tories who implemented the name change, afraid that the ignorant unemployed would believe their benefit cheque was funded entirely by Labour and vote accordingly?)
Continue reading “(mis)reading skills”

hiraeth

The round-shouldered cobblestones nudge
at my sandalled feet. They are smooth
as the pebbles that sang on an Anglesey beach,
as the present-from-Beaumaris paperweight
whose faded dragon still parades
across my desk. They are warm
as cottage loaves fresh from Powell’s,
or bakestones from the griddle. The gulls
shriek with the same harsh voice, but the river
is an unfamiliar olive green and runs
beside a motorway that leads me
away from you.

 
 
(Not a new poem, but appropriate for March 1st, the feast day of Dewi Sant.)

plus ça change

The BBC are running a story under the headline, “Middle-aged targeted in Change4Life health campaign“.

The report says that people in the 45 – 65 age group

are to be urged to downsize their plates and dance to the radio as part of the government-backed Change4Life advertising campaign.

Continue reading “plus ça change”

totally rad

Maybe it’s just me, but this headline, from the BBC website a few days ago, bothers me:

Plane bomb suspect "radicalised after leaving UK"

I think there are two problems. First the fact that “radicalised” could be either active or passive – “he radicalised”, or “he was radicalised”. And then the verb itself, “to radicalise”. It may be the correct usage, but it sounds strange. And it immediately makes me think of “free radicals”.
Continue reading “totally rad”