Paella revised

Here's tonight's paella dinner.  Chicken, some salami in lieu of chorizo, prawns, capsicum and beans.

I've revised the process, which I record here for my future reference.

Season chicken and fry in pan, set aside.

Fry capsicum and beans, set aside.

Fry one diced onion, and as much garlic as you like, briefly.  Add three finely diced ripe tomatoes, some chilli flakes, and fry until liquid from tomatoes is reduced pretty much to a paste.   Add salami or chorizo and fry a bit.

Add two cups of rice, two teaspoons of smoked paprika, and stir around a bit.  Add one litre of chicken stock.  

Add capsicum and beans back in.

Simmer for ten or fifteen minutes.  Add chicken back in, push into the rice and liquid.

Fry prawns briefly in separate pan. (Update - no, I should have done them early on in the paella pan and put them aside.)

When most liquid absorbed in paella pan, throw prawns on top, cover in foiland put in hot oven for 15 or so minutes.

Check that rice is soft enough and rest on table for 10 mins.  Take photo and eat.

Yes, no saffron means it is missing a key ingredient, but this is still good.

Who would be funding the Institute for Paid Advocacy for this?

It's been noted on Twitter that the IPA is running a campaign arguing that "race has no place in the constitution".

I'm curious as to which person/companies with money to spare would be funding the IPA to do this.   Gina "it's a pity I can't pay my workers $2 a day" Rinehart?   (Whose company, incidentally, just made a $2.6 billion profit.  Gee, I guess paying workers more than a pittance still allow her to make a profit.  Who knew?)  

But I could be wrong.  It could another ageing, shadowy, rich conservative who doesn't like to make the case him or herself directly.  But it just seems to me an odd thing to want to spend money on.

Answer: none

Cult watch, continued

Like all cult members, Steve Kates continues to find perfection in its head, Herr Trump, and horrifying lack of understanding (or pure evil) in those outside the cult:

The Democrats are full-on totalitarian socialists, would appear willing to use any means they can find to overturn the democratic process. The most astonishing part of the past three years has been the revelation how corrupt the left in the United States is, having commenced their efforts to spy on the Republican candidate while Obama was still president, and then cobble together absolutely anything to find some, any, justification to overturn the election result. Impeachment does not of course mean that the president will leave office but that he will go to trial in the Senate where it requires a two-thirds majority vote to remove the President. That will never happen.

The left has descended into madness, but that is no excuse for any of it. Not an ounce of principle on the left, while the most astonishing part of all of it has been how unblemished Donald Trump is, both in what he has done and in his basic personal integrity.

Can't someone in his family or university stage an intervention?    He needs to be de-programmed, although what to do about his inherent stupidity I'm not so sure.

Late for Halloween

I enjoyed this article at the Washington Post about the scary stories told at Nosleep forum at Reddit.

It's not that I am a fan of such amateur attempts at horror, but I still liked reading about someone who tried to come up with a popular story (and succeeded - for the short time that counts as "success" on a Reddit forum).   It's also cool that a few people who submit there find real screenwriting work that way.

People to like / dislike

*  Prince Charles

*  Greta Thunberg

*  Jimmy Kimmel

On the dislike side

* Tulsi Gabbard

Blind fascism

I meant to post this tweet from (I think) last week, about a Federalist article:

Of course, the somewhat fascinating thing is that what we are watching is fascist supporters blind to their own support of fascist ideas.

Because they've spent a decade or two gaslighting themselves that they can see through the mega conspiracy of climate change (and "cultural Marxism"), they now also think they can see a Deep State conspiracy that is non-existent.

The books that are going to be written about this period in future....

Yet another thread of people questioning economic modeling of climate change

As I say, it's hard to keep track of useful links and discussion when discussion has moved off blog post comment threads and onto Twitter.  

But here's Ken Rice starting another thread on this topic.  What I don't understand is why the thread is different on my PC twitter feed to that I was reading on my phone at breakfast.

It's annoying...

Medical experiments of old

A Nature.com review of a book looking at the wildly varying results of studies of testosterone begins with this anecdote:

On 1 June 1889, renowned neurologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard shocked his colleagues. Speaking at the Paris Society of Biology, the 72-year-old announced that a slurry made from the ground testicles of guinea pigs and dogs (injected under his skin ten times in three weeks) made him stronger. He also noted that his “jet of urine” lengthened by 25%.

One of the things quack Dr Morell used to inject into Hitler was ground bulls testicles, I think.  So it's interesting to see that the allure of this form of medication had such a long history even by World War 2.

Oh, yes my memory is correct.  I don't recall the claim that it was given to Adolf specifically to help his performance with Eva Braun:

The report also states that Morell injected Hitler with extracts from the prostate glands or ground testicles of young bulls, to boost his nearly non-existent libido ahead of a night with Eva Braun, his lover, who was 23 years his junior.

"Morell gave Hitler a preparation called Testoviron, a kind of testosterone preparation, usually before Hitler was going to spend a night with Eva Braun," Cambridge University historian Richard Evans said.

"Eva Braun was young and much fitter. Hitler was much older, he was lazy, he didn't take much exercise and I'm sure he asked Doctor Morell to help him out before he went to bed with Braun."

Update:  it has occurred to me - wouldn't extra testosterone be more likely to worsen the "jet of urine" than increase it?  Because testosterone helps prostate cancer, and I would have assumed that any enlarged prostate problems would be worse with higher testosterone.

However, a medical article indicates that my guess is probably wrong, at least for benign prostatic hyperplasia:

Most studies, however, have shown no effect of exogenous androgens on PSA or prostate volume for older hypogonadal males.23 In an RCT of 44 late-onset hypogonadal men, Marks et al.14 found that those treated with TRT did not have a significant increase in prostate tissue levels of testosterone or DHT, despite having significantly increased levels of serum testosterone. More recent evidence from placebo-controlled studies of hypogonadal men receiving androgen therapy, indicate that the differences between those men receiving testosterone and those on placebo were insignificant in regards to prostate volume, PSA and BOO.24

These findings are echoed by Jin et al.25 who studied 71 aged matched hypogonadal patients. For younger hypogonadal patients, the zonal and total prostate volumes (TPVs) were significantly smaller than their aged matched eugonadal colleges whether they were treated with TRT or not. However, from mid-life, central, peripheral and TPV increased with age among healthy controls and men with androgen deficiency regardless of TRT. This demonstrated age is a more important determinant of prostate growth than ambient testosterone concentrations maintained in the physiological range for older men.

 ....

  Lower urinary tract symptoms in men are traditionally considered the ultimate clinical expression of BPH/BPE due to BOO. Nonetheless, LUTS are a set of subjective and objective symptoms, the causes of which are multifactorial and generally not disease specific. In fact, the natural history of LUTS is complex, and symptoms can wax and wane with time even without any treatment.32

Although there is no double-blinded RCTs to date, current studies seem to demonstrate that either TRT does not worsen LUTS or that it may, in fact, improve symptoms. This is not a new concept; as early as 1939, Walther and Willoughby33 used testosterone to treat 15 men with “BPH” with the improvement in their LUTS over 2 years; although this treatment seemed to have been dismissed or forgotten for some time.

Yet more way overdue climate economics scepticism

Further to yesterday's post:  there's been a good thread on Twitter about this, which I think you will find here.

And Ken Rice has tweeted a link to a paper from 2016 that appears to show (I only have time to scan it at the moment) that DICE models tested with 20th century growth show results nothing like what actually happened.

Interesting, but as I've been saying - why has it taken so long for people to question this whole field in the way that they finally are now?

Oh:  and someone on Twitter linked to an article on GDP effects of climate change that made some interesting points - but I am having trouble finding it now.   Keeping track of info via blogs used to be much easier than it is under Twitter.

Update:  Jason, do you have any idea what Graeme's story about you in the comment I have left is about?

Graeme - don't get optimistic.   99% of your comments are still going to be deleted, whatever they are about. 

Put in the "too good to be true" tray?

The story has been around for a week, but I should note it:

Erecting wind turbines on the world’s best offshore sites could provide more than enough clean energy to meet global electricity demand, according to a report.

A detailed study of the world’s coastlines has found that offshore windfarms alone could provide more electricity than the world needs – even if they are only built in windy regions in shallow waters near the shore.

Analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed that if windfarms were built across all useable sites which are no further than 60km (37 miles) off the coast, and where coastal waters are no deeper than 60 metres, they could generate 36,000 terawatt hours of renewable electricity a year. This would easily meeting the current global demand for electricity of 23,000 terawatt hours.

Speaking of composers, and listening to classical music...

Further to my post on Saturday which included a link to a recording of Camille Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony No 3 finale:  I didn't know a thing about this composer, and didn't realise he was responsible for the famous Danse macabre, or The Carnival of Animals, which I am sure I have seen performed as well.  (I therefore presumably have seen his name on programs, but just never been curious to find out anything about him.)

Wikipedia has a long entry on his life, and I see that he was not just a musical child prodigy (as famous composers often seem to be), but he was interested in everything:

As a schoolboy Saint-Saëns was outstanding in many subjects. In addition to his musical prowess, he distinguished himself in the study of French literature, Latin and Greek, divinity, and mathematics. His interests included philosophy, archaeology and astronomy, of which, particularly the last, he remained a talented amateur in later life.

But as so often is the case when reading about famous people in the 19th century, illness and misfortune in their personal life was never far away:

Less than two months after [Camille's] christening, [his father] Victor Saint-Saëns died of consumption on the first anniversary of his marriage.^[11] The young Camille was taken to the country for the sake of his health, and for two years lived with a nurse at Corbeil, 29 kilometres (18 mi) to the south of Paris....

Throughout the 1860s and early 1870s, Saint-Saëns had continued to live a bachelor existence, sharing a large fourth-floor flat in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with his mother. In 1875, he surprised many by marrying.^{[6][n 10]} The groom was approaching forty and his bride was nineteen; she was Marie-Laure Truffot, the sister of one of the composer's pupils.^[58] The marriage was not a success. In the words of the biographer Sabina Teller Ratner, "Saint-Saëns's mother disapproved, and her son was difficult to live with".^[5] Saint-Saëns and his wife moved to the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in the Latin Quarter; his mother moved with them.^[59] The couple had two sons, both of whom died in infancy. In 1878, the elder, André, aged two, fell from a window of the flat and was killed;^[60] the younger, Jean-François, died of pneumonia six weeks later, aged six months. Saint-Saëns and Marie-Laure continued to live together for three years, but he blamed her for André's accident; the double blow of their loss effectively destroyed the marriage.^[6]...

Saint-Saëns was elected to the Institut de France in 1881, at his second attempt, having to his chagrin been beaten by Massenet in 1878.^[73] In July of that year he and his wife went to the Auvergnat spa town of La Bourboule for a holiday. On 28 July he disappeared from their hotel, and a few days later his wife received a letter from him to say that he would not be returning. They never saw each other again. Marie Saint-Saëns returned to her family, and lived until 1950, dying near Bordeaux at the age of ninety-five.^[74] Saint-Saëns did not divorce his wife and remarry, nor did he form any later intimate relationship with a woman. Rees comments that although there is no firm evidence, some biographers believe that Saint-Saëns was more attracted to his own sex than to women.^{[75][n 10]}

Elsewhere it notes:

 Saint-Saëns was a keen traveller. From the 1870s until the end of his life he made 179 trips to 27 countries. His professional engagements took him most often to Germany and England; for holidays, and to avoid Parisian winters which affected his weak chest, he favoured Algiers and various places in Egypt.^[72]

Hmm...Algiers was at the time popular for the homosexual male tourist - Oscar Wilde and his boyfriend used to visit there - so I would assume that this might be a reason for suspicions about Camille too.


Anyhow, I wanted to note something about listening to orchestral music that I have realised after seeing that piece live on Saturday, and then listening to it at home using earphones on a mobile phone.   The earphone experience has a lot going for it.   I mean, with pop music I sometimes find it initially distracting that a vocal track is happening (so to speak) in the centre of my skull.   But if you like an orchestral piece, the immersive sense of being in the middle of it that earphones/headphones give can be pretty impressive.   Or maybe I am just liking hiking up the volume? 

Go on, put on your earphones and listen to that blast of organ at the start, and at a least a few  minutes more, and tell me I'm not right..:) 

It's a wonder he had time to compose anything...

As with (I suspect) most of the public, I might know the names of the big classical composers, and have heard some of their musical highlights, but know little of their lives.  Especially Bach - until I read this, I really don't think I knew the first thing about him:

I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen groschen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology. They don’t know about Bach’s sex life: at best a matter of speculation, but what should we conclude from his twenty known children, more than any significant composer in history (a procreative career that has led some to joke with a knowing wink that “Bach’s organ had no stops”), or his second marriage to twenty-year-old singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, when he was in his late thirties? They don’t know about the constant disciplinary problems Bach caused, or his insolence to students, or the many other ways he found to flout authority. This is the Bach branded as “incorrigible” by the councilors in Leipzig, who grimly documented offense after offense committed by their stubborn and irascible employee.

But you hardly need to study these incidents in Bach’s life to gauge his subversive tendencies. Just listen to his music, which in its ostentatious display of technique and inventiveness must have disturbed many in the austere Lutheran community, and even fellow musicians. Not much music criticism of his performances has survived, but the few surviving reactions of his contemporaries leave no doubt about Bach’s disdain for the rules others played by.

As the title to the post says - a big beer drinking habit and (by the sounds of it) oversexed, and he still had time for his extremely intricate brand of music.   Good thing smart phones weren't around then.

As for the number of children - you would think there must be many Bach descendants scattered through Europe.  However, it would seem that there are in fact none.

Great contributions by Jewish folk noted

The Spectator has a review of a book with the heading:

Is there no field in which the Jewish mindset doesn’t excel?

Norman Lebrecht celebrates the explosion of Jewish talent between 1847 and 1947 in music, literature, painting, film, politics, philosophy, science and invention

In the body of the review is this:

‘Between the middle of the 19th and 20th centuries,’ Genius & Anxiety opens,

a few dozen men and women changed the way we see the world. Some of their names are on our lips for all time. Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka. Others have vanished from our collective memory, but their importance endures in our daily lives. Without Karl Landsteiner, for instance, there would be no blood transfusion or major surgery; without Paul Ehrlich no chemotherapy; without Siegfried Marcus no motor car; without Rosalind Franklin no model of DNA; without Fritz Haber there would not be enough food to sustain life on earth.

 I don’t know if Lebrecht actually buys into so simple a description of scientific progress, or whether it is just a good, combative kick-off to a book, but either way the main thrust of the argument is inescapable. For the best part of the past 200 years a small and threatened minority has exerted a creative influence out of all proportion to their numbers, and whether they flaunt it like a Disraeli or a Bernstein, or a convert like Mendelssohn, whether they hate it like Marx, are religious or atheist, Orthodox or Reform, assimilist or Zionist, the one thing they share is their ‘Jewishness’.

It's a good argument, even allowing for the later negative contributions to economics, climate change, and political discourse generally of Steve Kates and Sinclair Davidson.   (Is SD himself Jewish or just married to one?  He certainly notes their feasts on the blog.)

And for an added bonus - I get to delete probably scores of comments by Graeme - for whom this post will be like 100% irresistible clickbait. 

EU history

OK, so I know pretty much nothing about the history of the EEC, the predecessor to the EU. 

Hence it was interesting to read this short article at France 24 about how Charles De Gaulle opposed Britain joining it in the 1960's.  (I had no idea that Harold Macmillan would have been waiting to join at that time).  Here is a (large) extract:

In November 1962, de Gaulle hosted then British prime minister Harold Macmillan, an Old Etonian with a famously Edwardian style, at the French presidential summer retreat of Rambouillet – an exquisite Renaissance chateau just outside of Paris. Macmillan was desperate to gain de Gaulle’s approval for British entry into the European Economic Community (EEC).

De Gaulle convened a shooting party for the very posh prime minister. The French president didn’t himself partake in blood sport, but loudly informed Macmillan every time he missed. “The General”, as de Gaulle is affectionately known for his role as head of the Free French during the Second World War, told his British counterpart that the UK would have to ditch its “special relationship” with the US if it was serious about joining Europe.

At one point, the General’s tough stance provoked Macmillan to burst into tears. “This poor man, to whom I had nothing to give, seemed so sad, so beaten,” de Gaulle told his cabinet. “I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder and say to him, as in the Édith Piaf song, ‘ne pleurez pas, milord’ (don’t cry, my lord)”.

De Gaulle kept Macmillan in the lurch for a while. Then he announced at a press conference in January 1963 his opposition to British entry into the EEC. He argued that the UK would want to “impose its own conditions” on what were then the bloc’s six countries. The “insular” character of the island nation across the Channel had created a politico-economic “structure” which differed “profoundly” from “that of continental Europeans”, the General postulated.

The UK “is maritime; it is bound by trade, by its markets, to the most diverse array of countries – and often the most far-flung”, he went on. “It has a lot of industry and commerce but very little agriculture – and its habits and traditions are very different.”

Upon hearing the news Macmillan wrote in his diary: “The French always betray you in the end.”