Last weekend, having an idle Saturday afternoon to kill, I noticed that ABC was showing Fiddler on the Roof. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I had watched it since I had seen it in the cinema in 1971.
I remember my parents were a bit underwhelmed by it, as was I at the time. I think the basic problem was that, after The Sound of Music, there was a particularly high expectation that big musicals should end happily, and ones that didn't felt a tad unsatisfactory. And it certainly seems, looking back on it, that with the end of Rodgers & Hammerstein, the not-quite-so-uplifting musicals seemed to be quite in vogue in the 60's: Camelot, Sweet Charity, that little seen Julie Andrews movie Star!, Paint Your Wagon (which I haven't seen, but my mother said it featured lots of mud); and even Oliver and Mary Poppins have a somewhat melancholy feel about their happy endings, if you ask me.
Re-watching Fiddler, though, I did enjoy its music more than I remembered, and was reminded of its strong thematic relevance to the 1960's. The same challenges that Tevye, the father, faced in terms of his daughters not following his authority and that of "tradition" were certainly the same ones you could see sweeping the West, particularly (I think) in Catholic households. Yet the Broadway musical was from 1964, pretty much at the dawn of the sexual revolution and all the angst about contraception, and de facto relationships, etc. It seems in retrospect to be a pretty prescient work.
There's a very interesting recent article about the show up at the Guardian, written because it is its 50th anniversary. (Perhaps that why it showed up on TV too?) I see that the movie version was a big commercial success, although I wonder whether it was to the same extent here, since at that time I don't know that Australians had had all that much cultural exposure to Jewish humour and characters.
I do still think the story makes one regrettable choice which doesn't work as well as it should. Why couldn't Tevye's final scene with his 3rd daughter, the one who rejected tradition in the most direct way by marrying a Christian, have been more emotional? He is packing his cart, about to leave the village forever, and cannot bring himself to look directly at his daughter and her husband who have come to say goodbye. Tevye finally mutters softly, "And God be with you", which is relayed on by his other daughter, who is upset at her father's behaviour.
And that's it. Now, Tevye's attitude may be realistic, but if he is going to be shown to still care for his daughter, wouldn't it work better if he could soften just a bit more and look at, or embrace, the child who he may never see again? I think it sort of also sours a little the final appearance of the Fiddler metaphor, where Tevye invites "tradition" along with him as he heads his way to America.
Still, a very worthy movie musical.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
The "race to the bottom" question
I see that the headline is: Ireland moves to close corporate tax loophole" Well, about time, I think most people would say.
But I did note on his twitter feed a couple of days ago that Jason Soon thought that Bono defending Ireland's low tax regime was "sensible".
I would have been more sarcastic myself: "Super rich tax minimiser thinks countries that charge less tax are great." I generally would go along the line in this article.
Bono argues that lower tax is the only thing that Ireland has got going for it on which to build prosperity. Yet aren't there plenty of other small countries that are doing OK in fairly niche fields? Some of Scandinavian ones, with their corporate tax rates that range from about from 20 to 27%. Even New Zealand, which (as far as I can tell - correct me, anyone) is riding high on the cow's back, of all things, to be doing OK, and with a corporate tax rate of 28% (versus Ireland's "standard" rate - before the offshore business - of 12.5%.) International corporate tax rates all appear at this site.
They make for some interesting reading, and (as one would expect) national economic health is not always co-related to the corporate tax rate. Obviously, infrastructure and security issues matter. The oddest example is at the extreme, where it would seem Vanuatu looks particularly attractive to companies at 0%, but then again, the note contains this summary:
The main question I have to lovers of competitive tax regimes (who, largely, by not so odd co-incidence, also want governments to be as small as possible) is this: how do you avoid the "race to the bottom" - that if all governments undercut each other, they must at some point develop the problem of not raising enough revenue to do the things reasonable people expect governments to do.
And don't just give me some rubbish that is along the lines of "well, government can just never get small enough, and people have to adjust to that." Only a tiny minority of science fiction loving libertarians go along with the extreme views of how small government should be - the rest of the world is happy with the role of government in welfare developed over the 20th century, in a broad sense.
We know that governments can suffer from cuts that are too severe - look at Kansas, which seems to have Laffer-ed itself into some serious fiscal trouble. (By the way, I know that the Right's answer to that is "just you wait and see. They'll work....eventually." Unfortunately, Stephen Moore, when defending himself on these grounds against Krugman seems to have made some embarrassing mistakes in his figures which had to be publicly corrected.)
And of course there has been much commentary that the Bush tax cuts just didn't work, and have cost "trillions" in revenue.
So tell, me, international tax competition advocates: how does your theory avoid a race to the bottom that is going to harm countries?
But I did note on his twitter feed a couple of days ago that Jason Soon thought that Bono defending Ireland's low tax regime was "sensible".
I would have been more sarcastic myself: "Super rich tax minimiser thinks countries that charge less tax are great." I generally would go along the line in this article.
Bono argues that lower tax is the only thing that Ireland has got going for it on which to build prosperity. Yet aren't there plenty of other small countries that are doing OK in fairly niche fields? Some of Scandinavian ones, with their corporate tax rates that range from about from 20 to 27%. Even New Zealand, which (as far as I can tell - correct me, anyone) is riding high on the cow's back, of all things, to be doing OK, and with a corporate tax rate of 28% (versus Ireland's "standard" rate - before the offshore business - of 12.5%.) International corporate tax rates all appear at this site.
They make for some interesting reading, and (as one would expect) national economic health is not always co-related to the corporate tax rate. Obviously, infrastructure and security issues matter. The oddest example is at the extreme, where it would seem Vanuatu looks particularly attractive to companies at 0%, but then again, the note contains this summary:
Corporate income tax is not levied within the Republic of Vanuatu. Furthermore, there are no income taxes, estate duties, gift duties, capital gains taxes, tax treaties or withholding taxes.I'm not at all sure what this means for how the country runs...
The main question I have to lovers of competitive tax regimes (who, largely, by not so odd co-incidence, also want governments to be as small as possible) is this: how do you avoid the "race to the bottom" - that if all governments undercut each other, they must at some point develop the problem of not raising enough revenue to do the things reasonable people expect governments to do.
And don't just give me some rubbish that is along the lines of "well, government can just never get small enough, and people have to adjust to that." Only a tiny minority of science fiction loving libertarians go along with the extreme views of how small government should be - the rest of the world is happy with the role of government in welfare developed over the 20th century, in a broad sense.
We know that governments can suffer from cuts that are too severe - look at Kansas, which seems to have Laffer-ed itself into some serious fiscal trouble. (By the way, I know that the Right's answer to that is "just you wait and see. They'll work....eventually." Unfortunately, Stephen Moore, when defending himself on these grounds against Krugman seems to have made some embarrassing mistakes in his figures which had to be publicly corrected.)
And of course there has been much commentary that the Bush tax cuts just didn't work, and have cost "trillions" in revenue.
So tell, me, international tax competition advocates: how does your theory avoid a race to the bottom that is going to harm countries?
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Sensible and Rotten
Johnny Rotten and I agree: neither of us wants Russell Brand’s ‘revolution’ | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian
I really don't care for Johnny Rotten's perpetually angry/aggro act (or genuine demeanour?), but he comes across as rather sensible and astute on politics in this interview.
It's also remarkable to note how few young people vote in England. Compulsory voting has a lot going for it.
I really don't care for Johnny Rotten's perpetually angry/aggro act (or genuine demeanour?), but he comes across as rather sensible and astute on politics in this interview.
It's also remarkable to note how few young people vote in England. Compulsory voting has a lot going for it.
Fear and loathing of divestment
I'm rather confused about the Right wing fury over the ANU divestment campaign. I'm not sure Judith Sloan is sleeping at nights: she seems to be too busy practising attempts at satire, perhaps because her "logic" is not gaining ground?
Back in February, Sinclair Davidson posted about how the South Africa divestment campaign was not actually a financial success. (And he got very cross that anyone should argue that being anti fossil fuel mining is in any way a worthy cause - or at least worthy in the sense that being anti-apartheid was.)
So if that's right, why is the divestment campaign against all that lovely, lovely coal being burnt such an outrage? Are they worried for the universities losing money, or for the mining companies?
For the university, the ANU shares are apparently only 2% of its investment portfolio. How much trouble can that cause?
For the mining companies, the hope is that divestment campaigns causes public pressure for them to move away from fossil fuel mining, but how bad does reputational damage have to be before it really does hurt them when there is a market paying good money for their product?
Given the fury on the Right, the suggestion is that this is a sign the campaign can have serious effects. The best look at the issue seems to me to be this one by Frank Jotzo, who obviously thinks they can ultimately "work", but also notes the points I made above - the current reaction from the Right is rather over the top, and (in reality) probably works to give encouragement to those pushing divestment as worthwhile.
A good case can perhaps be made, then, that the Right wing hand wringing about it is actually counterproductive to their "interests". Hee hee indeed, hey Judith?
Update: Sinclair Davidson has missing out on the hyperbole, so he adds to it in a column on the Drum:
And by the way: the Drum article just contains the usual by-line that he's a Professor of Economics at RMIT. Isn't it especially relevant to this topic that it also disclose this:
Back in February, Sinclair Davidson posted about how the South Africa divestment campaign was not actually a financial success. (And he got very cross that anyone should argue that being anti fossil fuel mining is in any way a worthy cause - or at least worthy in the sense that being anti-apartheid was.)
So if that's right, why is the divestment campaign against all that lovely, lovely coal being burnt such an outrage? Are they worried for the universities losing money, or for the mining companies?
For the university, the ANU shares are apparently only 2% of its investment portfolio. How much trouble can that cause?
For the mining companies, the hope is that divestment campaigns causes public pressure for them to move away from fossil fuel mining, but how bad does reputational damage have to be before it really does hurt them when there is a market paying good money for their product?
Given the fury on the Right, the suggestion is that this is a sign the campaign can have serious effects. The best look at the issue seems to me to be this one by Frank Jotzo, who obviously thinks they can ultimately "work", but also notes the points I made above - the current reaction from the Right is rather over the top, and (in reality) probably works to give encouragement to those pushing divestment as worthwhile.
A good case can perhaps be made, then, that the Right wing hand wringing about it is actually counterproductive to their "interests". Hee hee indeed, hey Judith?
Update: Sinclair Davidson has missing out on the hyperbole, so he adds to it in a column on the Drum:
Australian universities simply do not have the social licence to trash the domestic economy or place the livelihoods of thousands of Australians at risk on a whim.Yes, it's economic apocalypse because a university made an investment decision he doesn't agree with.
And by the way: the Drum article just contains the usual by-line that he's a Professor of Economics at RMIT. Isn't it especially relevant to this topic that it also disclose this:
A paper to be released on Monday by the Minerals Council of Australia says the campaign "may contravene the letter or me spirit" of the Corporations Act, and calls on the corporate watchdog to assess tile potential breach.
The council commissioned Sinclair Davidson, a professor of institutional economics at Melbourne's RMIT University, to write die paper, in its most aggressive push-back to the anti-coal collective's urging investors to sell shares in coal companies.
'To the extent that stigmatisation deliberately causes investors to make valuation errors and consequently rebalance their portfolios away from fossil fuel stocks, a violation of the Corporations Act has occurred," Professor Davidson writes.Has anyone other than an economist associated with the IPA ever found that Corporation Act argument convincing? How did that other IPA big legal claim go - that tobacco companies could get $3 billion a year in compensation from the government for plain packaging laws? Oh, that's right: a complete bust. (Well, subject to the outcome of a rubbish Hong Kong arbitration.) Come to think of it, perhaps the Australian government should be sending Davidson over to the arbitration to give evidence - he's the one who thinks plain packaging hasn't had any effect on smoking rates, after all. As with divestment, the Right can't seem to keep its argument straight.
I suspect there is less to Thiel than meets the eye
Today in “Peter Thiel says things.” Does society really hate tech? | PandoDaily
and
Do venture capitalists say controversial things to get attention? Are Peter Thiel's Fall 2014 comments part of a larger trend?
and what about this from a recent interview:
The difference perhaps was that they listened to scientists as to what was possible. The chronic problem today is that politicians on Thiel's side of ledger do not.
and
Do venture capitalists say controversial things to get attention? Are Peter Thiel's Fall 2014 comments part of a larger trend?
and what about this from a recent interview:
You hold up the Apollo program, the freeway system, and the Manhattan Project as examples of the kind of big leaps in technology we need more of. But those were all government projects. Should the U.S. government return to funding such things?Really? As if the US government was ever dominated by "scientists and engineers"? Roosevelt and Kennedy, responsible for two of those things, were virtually raised to be politicians, weren't they?
There is an argument that there should be state funding to help things get started where there are not many profits that could be captured. It’s in the public interest. But the way the U.S. government today is dominated by lawyers rather than scientists or engineers suggests that it is very poorly suited for evaluating these kinds of projects. For example, you probably could not restart nuclear power in the U.S. without the role of government. But because our government does not believe in complex coördination and planning, it will not restart the nuclear industry.
It’s quite possible it will just not get restarted.
The difference perhaps was that they listened to scientists as to what was possible. The chronic problem today is that politicians on Thiel's side of ledger do not.
New estimate for sea level rise
Rising sea levels of 1.8 meters in worst-case scenario
While Graham Lloyd is busy crapping on about how there is so much uncertainly about climate change, I haven't noticed the Rupert Murdoch mouthpiece mentioning a new study that gives an estimate of sea level rise that is worrying:
While Graham Lloyd is busy crapping on about how there is so much uncertainly about climate change, I haven't noticed the Rupert Murdoch mouthpiece mentioning a new study that gives an estimate of sea level rise that is worrying:
The researchers have combined the IPCC numbers with published data about the expectations within the ice-sheet expert community for the evolution, including the risk for the collapse of parts of Antarctica and how quickly such a collapse would take place.
"We have created a picture of the propable limits for how much global sea levels will rise in this century. Our calculations show that the seas will likely rise around 80 cm. An increase of more than 180 cm has a likelihood of less than 5 percent. We find that a rise in sea levels of more than 2 meters is improbable," Aslak Grinsted, but points that the results only concern this century and the sea levels will continue to rise for centuries to come.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Non existent wingnut donations to ANU to dry up
Well that's odd. Judith Sloan, who has taken to commentary that includes photos of women she doesn't like and wondering if their tan is fake, is now stamping her foot about the ANU divestment campaign and telling her wingnut readership not to donate to the university.
Update: seeing Judith likes photos so much now:
Update 2: I was reminded when doing this photoshop about Sarah Hanson Young suing Zoo for photoshopping her face onto a bikini model, with part of the grounds being it suggested that being a sex object was the only thing she was good for. I would like to go on the record as not intending to imply that Judith Sloan is only good for being a sex object.
Somehow, I can't imagine much cash from the aging, wingnutty fanbase at Catallaxy ever heading to ANU in the first place. (Any spare cash they have has probably flowed into the already filled coffers of the IPA after Professor Stagflation has asked, yet again, for donations to help the IPA whinge about free speech and get their heads on the TV network they want shut down.)
Now, to be fair, I have noticed that even Craig Emerson has questioned the logic of some of the ANU's divestment decisions. To be even fairer, Sloan actually makes a point I can partially sympathise with:
This whole episode is one reason why I have reservations about the government’s policy on university fee deregulation. The governance of universities is a complete crock and the additional revenue will simply be pissed up against the wall in terms of more highly paid administrators, including the VC.
But seriously: Sloan has surely done enough over the last couple of years with her increasingly bitchy, shrill, and dumb ("climate change? ha!") internet and media commentary that she would be about the last person to head an effective campaign to attract anyone other than the likes of Gina Rinehart.
Update: seeing Judith likes photos so much now:
Update 2: I was reminded when doing this photoshop about Sarah Hanson Young suing Zoo for photoshopping her face onto a bikini model, with part of the grounds being it suggested that being a sex object was the only thing she was good for. I would like to go on the record as not intending to imply that Judith Sloan is only good for being a sex object.
A complete fool of a PM
Tony's Abbott's 'coal is good' line is familiar, and troubling | Lenore Taylor | Australia news | theguardian.com
Gee, Abbott's lines yesterday were worse than the mere "it's good for humanity" bit:
Completely unreliable; clinging onto pet policies which are clearly unwarranted; incorporating military leadership in press conferences and non military issues as much as possible for PR purposes like a 3rd world dictator; unable to please the Left or Right with an idiosyncratic set of budget choices that have little rhyme or reason: he's a shocker of a Prime Minister.
Gee, Abbott's lines yesterday were worse than the mere "it's good for humanity" bit:
“Coal is good for humanity”, Tony Abbott declared as he opened a new coalmine on Monday, and its use should go “up and up and up in the years and decades to come”. It’s a pronouncement at odds with the international climate goals his government says it supports but remarkably similar to the coal industry’s own global public relations campaign.And more from the link in that quote:
"The future for coal is bright and it is the responsibility for government to try to ensure that we are there making it easier for everyone wanting to have a go."This just continues the Abbott line of saying whatever he thinks his particular audience wants to hear, regardless of consistency with what he will say elsewhere.
“It is a great day for the world because this mine will keep so many people employed … it will make so many lives better.
“This mine epitomises the have-a-go spirit,” he said.
In May, Abbott told a minerals industry parliamentary dinner he could think of “few things more damaging to our future” than leaving coal in the ground.
Completely unreliable; clinging onto pet policies which are clearly unwarranted; incorporating military leadership in press conferences and non military issues as much as possible for PR purposes like a 3rd world dictator; unable to please the Left or Right with an idiosyncratic set of budget choices that have little rhyme or reason: he's a shocker of a Prime Minister.
Serious drought getting very serious for 6.5 million
Sao Paulo Facing Water Shutoffs If Sabesp Withdrawals Cut - Businessweek
And here I was, thinking it was looking serious when a million or so people in Brisbane had our water dam down to about 17% (after very tight usage restrictions) before the rains came. In Sao Paulo, it looks like about 6.5 million have a dam system at 5%, and the water supply is going to start stopping during parts of the day.
And here I was, thinking it was looking serious when a million or so people in Brisbane had our water dam down to about 17% (after very tight usage restrictions) before the rains came. In Sao Paulo, it looks like about 6.5 million have a dam system at 5%, and the water supply is going to start stopping during parts of the day.
So Rupert like monopolies? What a surprise...
I see that "extreme libertarian" Peter Thiel likes monopolies, and so does Rupert Murdoch. What a surprise.
Update: for a bit more nuance on Thiel's views, here's an extract from a review of his book:
There's no doubt in my mind that because of its ideological views, libertarianism is the enemy of effective action on climate change.
Update: for a bit more nuance on Thiel's views, here's an extract from a review of his book:
You see, Thiel is not interested in funding entrepreneurs trying to build a business that will beat the competition; competition, in fact, is precisely what he thinks every company should avoid. The true goal of every startup is to become a monopoly, a company so dominant in its technological arena that it can give investors enormous financial returns with cash to spare for the intensive R&D that can ensure its long-term viability. Google, Thiel points out, is a handy case study. The profits from dominating the Internet search business since the early 2000s have allowed it to diversify into cloud computing, mobile devices, and robotics. According to Thiel, this kind of market supremacy offers returns to more than just investors: companies that create de facto monopolies and use the profits to innovate, as Google has, are truly valuable to society. “Monopolies drive progress,” he writes, in his contrarian way. “The promise of years or even decades of monopoly profits provides a powerful incentive to innovate.”As the review then goes to note, Thiel (and I would add, libertarians generally) have an unrealistic take on how research happens, and their disdain for government money going into research is against the evidence and is merely ideologically driven:
His point is a good one—at least as a source for debate. Consider that today’s communications infrastructure is largely built upon innovations—the transistor, UNIX, digital signal transmission—that came out of AT&T, the U.S. phone monopoly for most of the 20th century. For contrary evidence, you might look to Microsoft, which has typified a powerful company’s use of bullying and market share to limit consumers’ choices without creating innovations of comparable magnitude. In any event, Thiel seems bothered by the fact that many economists focus on the dangers of monopolies without considering the potential benefits. In his cosmology, they’re simply mistaken. His faith in the ameliorative forces of the marketplace assures him that even a dominant company (such as Microsoft) will eventually be eclipsed by a younger and more creative company (such as Google). Capitalism, he promises us, has a habit of righting technological wrongs in time. ...
Thiel has been asking a huge question for a few years now: How can we avoid a dismal future of resource depletion, environmental degradation, mass unemployment, and technological stagnation? He thinks the answer is a new wave of startups that grow as large as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon but take on bigger problems, such as curing cancer or providing cheap, clean energy. He claims we aren’t making progress on such things now because we’ve grown less ambitious as a society.
You wouldn’t know it from Thiel, but investing is most of all about providing the feedstock with which some of the larger companies—not to mention universities and government agencies like NASA or DARPA—work to solve difficult problems. Our ecosystem for innovation is no doubt imperfect, but it has an established logic and a proven success rate. Sometimes a good idea is seeded through government funding: a 1994 NSF grant led Stanford grad students Larry Page and Sergey Brin to found Google. In other cases, a startup’s ideas only really start to spread after the company gets swallowed by a larger one. The biotech companies that have been bought by pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Novartis provide good examples. Startups that wisely resist getting bought up, such as Facebook or Google, usually don’t have much impact until they grow much larger (as Thiel acknowledges in his arguments for monopolies). Tesla—which took a $465 million government loan in its early days—manufactures 35,000 electric cars a year, making it interesting and successful. Producing 100,000 electric cars a year, as Tesla hopes it will by 2016, would make the company important and transformational.The other thing about monopolies is that we only get to see Google as a "benevolent" monopoly for the future of the planet because of the attitudes held by its leadership, which does not dispute the need for action on the planet wide issue of CO2. Can you imagine the difference if somehow Rupert was in charge of that company?
There's no doubt in my mind that because of its ideological views, libertarianism is the enemy of effective action on climate change.
How many Australians are now imagining the G20 meeting....
Monday, October 13, 2014
Lead poisoning revisited
Look, we've all read about the sorry history of lead poisoning, but this lengthy BBC magazine article still manages to contain some stories I didn't know about concerning the various ways it has sickened people. (The wine poisoning aspects I had either forgotten or didn't know much about.) http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29568505
Potential weird physics refuted
Old textbook knowledge reconfirmed: Decay rates of radioactive substances are constant
I'm pretty sure I must have noted here before a study which indicated that radioactive decay was weirdly connected to the seasons. Appears it was a measurement problem, which is a bit of an anticlimax, as so many weird physics suggestions turn out to be.
I'm pretty sure I must have noted here before a study which indicated that radioactive decay was weirdly connected to the seasons. Appears it was a measurement problem, which is a bit of an anticlimax, as so many weird physics suggestions turn out to be.
Eating crustaceans considered
They don't seem to appear in the frozen section of all Woolworths, but several months ago, my wife and I independently noticed that at one we visited they were selling boxes of frozen, raw scampi. (We both tend to look at the seafood section of the supermarket when we are in a new one.)
These interesting crustaceans come from somewhere in the North Atlantic, and we don't have anything very similar in Australian waters. I am very fond of Moreton Bay bugs, which have a lot more meat in the tail, but they are so ridiculously expensive I pretty rarely eat them.
In fact, Australia has a pretty limited range of affordable crustaceans. Sure, farmed prawns are now very reliable in terms of taste and often quite affordable. But our blue swimmer crabs, the type most often available, tend to be somewhat watery and weak flavoured. Mud crabs have a better flavour and can be nice, but tend to be expensive and I've never tried to cook one at home. They tend to be an occasional treat from an Asian restaurant. The lobsters from Tasmania we saw on holiday there can be enormous and (from little we ate of them) tasty, but again, they are really expensive.
So, I quite like eating crustaceans from other parts of the world, and when on holiday. It's been a long time since I had one, but I remember being impressed with the gigantic prawn like thing served in Singapore. When in Japan, it is definitely worth eating their crabs. My wife believes that crabs from colder water are always tastier, and I think the Australian experience with blue swimmers backs that up. I see that some supermarkets here now sell sections of the huge spiky crabs from somewhere cold - I've never tried them, as I am generally not so keen on defrosted, cooked, crustaceans. (I'll take defrosted raw prawns though; they seem to do OK in the process.)
So, what about the scampi? We had some in a soup some months ago, and they seemed OK, but their flavour was not all that obvious.
This weekend, we split some down the middle and grilled them, before serving them on a paella. Well, this went quite well - it seemed quite clear that the meat (what little of it there is in each tail) was distinctly sweet and flavoursome. The claws contain some meat but are very hard to get into. Still, they were a pleasant surprise.
Only a week ago, I had been watching some SBS cooking show (Ottolenghi's Mediterranean Island Feasts) when he was on Mallorca (aka Majorca) and eating a local, very expensive, species of prawn which was famous for its sweetness (and also for being very red straight out of the sea.) I thought it odd that a prawn should be "sweet", but this seemed definitely to be the character of the scampi meat too.
So, what about scampi generally? I see via that authoritative source, the Daily Mail, that deep fried nuggets of what is called scampi have become a popular British pub food, after they were introduced as a way of dealing with (what appears to be) the unwanted catch when they were trawling for white fish. However, the cheapest versions of pub scampi are apparently like our "crab sticks" (who on earth actually buys those?) - a small amount of the actual crustacean with heaps of "extender" added.
Scampi thus seems to have followed the reverse culinary trajectory of oysters in Britain: the latter went from being food for the working class until they were all dredged up (the English seem to have long been keen on fishing methods which scour the sea bed) to something for more exclusive tastes; scampi have become a food that apparently is still only eaten on special occasions in Spain and Portugal but is mere "pub food" in England.
Anyway, they were nice, and now I know more about them...
These interesting crustaceans come from somewhere in the North Atlantic, and we don't have anything very similar in Australian waters. I am very fond of Moreton Bay bugs, which have a lot more meat in the tail, but they are so ridiculously expensive I pretty rarely eat them.
In fact, Australia has a pretty limited range of affordable crustaceans. Sure, farmed prawns are now very reliable in terms of taste and often quite affordable. But our blue swimmer crabs, the type most often available, tend to be somewhat watery and weak flavoured. Mud crabs have a better flavour and can be nice, but tend to be expensive and I've never tried to cook one at home. They tend to be an occasional treat from an Asian restaurant. The lobsters from Tasmania we saw on holiday there can be enormous and (from little we ate of them) tasty, but again, they are really expensive.
So, I quite like eating crustaceans from other parts of the world, and when on holiday. It's been a long time since I had one, but I remember being impressed with the gigantic prawn like thing served in Singapore. When in Japan, it is definitely worth eating their crabs. My wife believes that crabs from colder water are always tastier, and I think the Australian experience with blue swimmers backs that up. I see that some supermarkets here now sell sections of the huge spiky crabs from somewhere cold - I've never tried them, as I am generally not so keen on defrosted, cooked, crustaceans. (I'll take defrosted raw prawns though; they seem to do OK in the process.)
So, what about the scampi? We had some in a soup some months ago, and they seemed OK, but their flavour was not all that obvious.
This weekend, we split some down the middle and grilled them, before serving them on a paella. Well, this went quite well - it seemed quite clear that the meat (what little of it there is in each tail) was distinctly sweet and flavoursome. The claws contain some meat but are very hard to get into. Still, they were a pleasant surprise.
Only a week ago, I had been watching some SBS cooking show (Ottolenghi's Mediterranean Island Feasts) when he was on Mallorca (aka Majorca) and eating a local, very expensive, species of prawn which was famous for its sweetness (and also for being very red straight out of the sea.) I thought it odd that a prawn should be "sweet", but this seemed definitely to be the character of the scampi meat too.
So, what about scampi generally? I see via that authoritative source, the Daily Mail, that deep fried nuggets of what is called scampi have become a popular British pub food, after they were introduced as a way of dealing with (what appears to be) the unwanted catch when they were trawling for white fish. However, the cheapest versions of pub scampi are apparently like our "crab sticks" (who on earth actually buys those?) - a small amount of the actual crustacean with heaps of "extender" added.
Scampi thus seems to have followed the reverse culinary trajectory of oysters in Britain: the latter went from being food for the working class until they were all dredged up (the English seem to have long been keen on fishing methods which scour the sea bed) to something for more exclusive tastes; scampi have become a food that apparently is still only eaten on special occasions in Spain and Portugal but is mere "pub food" in England.
Anyway, they were nice, and now I know more about them...
Sunday, October 12, 2014
My path to creative riches ruined by advancing science
Study: Frozen poop pills may make fecal transplants simpler and safer - LA Times
Curses! My proposed television series based on time travelling, fecal transplanting doctors (the scene involving Hitler plays particularly well in my mind) has already, probably, been made redundant by medical science.
It's been reported that taking the healthy poop by way of oral frozen capsule might work just as well as the tube in the butt method.
My path to riches is foiled again...
Curses! My proposed television series based on time travelling, fecal transplanting doctors (the scene involving Hitler plays particularly well in my mind) has already, probably, been made redundant by medical science.
It's been reported that taking the healthy poop by way of oral frozen capsule might work just as well as the tube in the butt method.
My path to riches is foiled again...
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Galaxy song 2014
I'm glad I am not a big enough Monty Python fan to have paid to see their London farewell show livecast at the cinema (I think they did that here?) seeing it turned up on SBS a couple of weeks ago.
I just watched most of it online. Some dubious sketch choices early on, I thought, and I have to say that in the current world of porn at the touch of a keyboard, the main theme of Gilliam animations (riffs on dirty old men wanting to see nudity in any form) is well beyond redundant. (He did have a weird imagination though.)
But the highlight for me was the cameo at the end of the Galaxy song. Most amusing:
I just watched most of it online. Some dubious sketch choices early on, I thought, and I have to say that in the current world of porn at the touch of a keyboard, the main theme of Gilliam animations (riffs on dirty old men wanting to see nudity in any form) is well beyond redundant. (He did have a weird imagination though.)
But the highlight for me was the cameo at the end of the Galaxy song. Most amusing:
Friday, October 10, 2014
Would be good if the Korean problem was suddenly resolved
The Koreas: Till Kimdom come | The Economist
Hmmm. Young Kim hasn't been seen for more than a month, and while he's gone, 3 powerbrokers turn up to shake hands with South Korea? Seems a potentially good sign?
Hmmm. Young Kim hasn't been seen for more than a month, and while he's gone, 3 powerbrokers turn up to shake hands with South Korea? Seems a potentially good sign?
The stupidest heritage move ever?
Northbourne redevelopment in doubt after public housing registered by Heritage Council - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The biggest, most embarrassing, eyesore in Canberra has a provisional heritage listing? This is such a ridiculous idea, I think the offices the Heritage Council work from will need a listing to prevent people from burning them down.
The biggest, most embarrassing, eyesore in Canberra has a provisional heritage listing? This is such a ridiculous idea, I think the offices the Heritage Council work from will need a listing to prevent people from burning them down.
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