A Letter to Sarah Newton MP About Tuesday's Brexit Vote

This the text of a letter I've written today to our MP, Sarah Newton, ahead of the "meaningful vote" on Brexit on Tuesday. I hope it doesn't come across as being too smug and boastful. There are a million reasons why I think Brexit is a horrifically bad idea for the UK, but to have a chance of influencing our Tory MP I thought I'd better focus on the economic benefits that EU membership has helped me bring to her constituency here.

I can't imagine it'll hold any sway at all, but I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't at least try.

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Dear Sarah,

I am writing as one of your constituents and as the leader of a business employing 16 (soon to be 17) people in your constituency. I want to urge you not to vote for the proposed Brexit deal in the Parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

Now that it seems clear that there are other ways forward, including a second referendum on the deal, and the revocation of Article 50, I would ask you to please consider very carefully what the best outcome would be for residents and businesses in Truro and Falmouth.

My view is that there can be no better outcome for Truro and Falmouth than for the UK to remain in the EU if we possibly can.

I started Radix Communications Ltd in Falmouth in 2007 and since then it has grown to employ 16 people, now in Penryn. Over that time the business has generated very nearly £4m in revenue, almost all of which has come into your constituency from outside of Cornwall.

The jobs I have created here are skilled, permanent and full-time jobs, with an average salary above £30k. I have employed talented local residents and graduates who would otherwise have had to leave Cornwall to forge a rewarding career.

I have brought a new industry sector (enterprise technology copywriting) to Cornwall and put Cornwall on the map as a global centre of excellence for that particular service.

We have a client base that spans the globe, from Brisbane to Seattle. We are producing work every day for multinational technology brands like Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and Sage.

We are doing all of this in Penryn and we are proud to be based here and to be contributing to the local economy and community here.

I’m saying all of this not to boast, but because this business categorically would not exist today if it weren’t for the support of the many EU-funded programmes that we have had access to over the years.

When I lacked the confidence to hire people, I found it through the Enterprising Women programme run in Truro in 2011 by YTKO.

When our business hit a rough patch in 2013, it was advice from Oxford Innovation’s Grow Cornwall programme that enabled us to keep the jobs we’d created, stabilise the business and start growing again.

Whenever we have needed to grow our team, Unlocking Potential has been there to help us find, interview and subsidise new, talented recruits.

I am sure you know that extraordinarily few startup businesses survive through to 10+ years and are still growing at that stage. Radix is one of the lucky few, and we owe our survival and growth in large part to the EU’s Objective One and Convergence programmes.

Your vote for the proposed Brexit deal on Tuesday will deny that support to the businesses starting up today and in the future in Truro and Falmouth. They will have it tougher than we have, and many will not survive. That means the future holds fewer jobs, less money and more hardship for this constituency. Please think about that when you vote on Tuesday.

Lastly I’d like to remind you that Truro and Falmouth voted to Remain in 2016. I have no doubt that your constituents would vote the same way today. I urge you, as our elected representative, to do the right thing by your constituency and vote against the proposed Brexit deal, so that Truro and Falmouth – and the country as a whole – can have another chance to vote on the best way forward.

Many thanks,

Fiona

Homophonia

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

Mr BC and I are in bed preparing our characters for a new season of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, because that's the kind of saucy stuff we get up to these days.

ME: My character is going to be massively gung-ho and macho, but I can't think of a name for him.

MR BC: Call him something Pictish.

ME: Great idea, I'll borrow a name from the (largely fictional, history fans) Pictish king list. I'll call him ... *thinks* ... Brude Urpant.

MR BC: You could call him that, but I must warn you, people may laugh.

ME: WHO DARES LAUGH AT BRUDE URPA.. Oh OK, I'll change it to something else.

A couple of minutes pass.

ME: I've got it! I'm going to call him Ben MacDui.

MR BC: (Outraged) You can't call him that!

ME: Why not? Not Pictish enough?

MR BC: Ben's a well-known Jewish name.

ME: Yes, but it's also Scottish Gaelic for 'mountain'. Like 'Ben Nevis'. And Ben MacDui is a cool mountain, it's the second highest peak in the United Kingdom, you know, and it's supposed to be haunted by a ghostly Great Grey Man, although that's pretty much discredited now, and most people think it's probably just a Brocken spectre, although Brocken spectres in themselves are pretty cool, they're like a giant shadow cast on the-

MR BC: You can't call him Ben McJewy, it's racist.

ME: Not McJewy! MacDui! With a 'd'! And a 'u'! And, for that matter, an 'i'!

MR BC: I'm just saying.

ME: Brude Urpant it is then. All hail Brude, Eladrin Druid, occasional shapeshifter, and part-time forklift operator in a Feywild basket warehouse.

MR BC: Sometimes I think you don't take this nearly seriously enough.

The New Old Library

It seems that Penryn Library is about to fall victim to Cornwall Council's £110m cost-cutting initiative, details of which were made public today.


Reading between the lines it looks as though the library will either be closed or handed over to volunteers - if any suitable ones can be found.


Of course my immediate thought, apart from "bastards" and "where will the Blue Kitten get her Turn-the-Wheel with Spot books from now?" and "what kind of civilisation closes its libraries, for fuck's sake", and "there goes another community focal point" and "how can we expect standards of literacy to rise if this is the kind of thing we let happen?" was "well, this poses a problem for Penryn's microtoponymy and no mistake".

You see, just around the corner from the library is a very handsome bow-fronted building, whose name is The Old Library. Here it is, resplendent in today's autumn afternoon sunshine.





The Old Library was once the actual library, but it's someone's house now, a bit like The Old Fire Station*, at the other end of the street.


Which made me think: if the current library goes the way of the Old Library, will the owners of The Old Library have to rename their gaff The Old Old Library?

And as the economic downturn continues to bite into Penryn, where every other shop is now empty, will we soon see a raft of similar name plaques springing up as abandoned emporia are turned into private residences?


'The Old Pet Shop'


'The Old Off-Licence'


'The Old Sex Shop'

And so on, until the whole of Penryn is just a collection of houses whose names preserve a blueprint of how the town used to function.

Which is a neat post-modern concept, but a rubbish reality. I'd rather have the library than The Old Library, any day.


* Which, as James points out, looks like it's built from Lego. In fact this actual Lego fire station looks more like a real fire station and less like Lego than The Old Fire Station does.

The Semantics Of Anti-Ageing Creams: A Monograph

Regular readers will no doubt remember my pioneering discovery of Garnier's Law of Mascara Names, which dictates that the product names given to fancy eyelash gunk will double in hyperbolicity every two years, irrespective of any corresponding technical development in the product itself.

I had long suspected that this same law must also apply to other areas of the beauty industry, but lacked the time and wherewithal to investigate further. But a fortuitous combination of circumstances yesterday led to a major discovery which I feel I must document here for the benefit of future generations.

Those circumstances were a) the good fortune of my being on maternity leave, and therefore having more time at my disposal to explore evolving semantics in the cosmetics industry, and b) the chance arrival of an email from Homes and Gardens magazine, inviting me to enter a competition to win a supply of L'Occitane anti-ageing products.

Now the anti-ageing business is not something I profess to know a lot about, being of the opinion that it's all a scam to sell expensive goo to ladies rendered suitably insecure by half a lifetime's exposure to idiot-rags like Grazia and Closer.

However, having time on my hands I duly clicked the link in the email, only to discover - to the delight of my scientific and enquiring mind - that unlike, say, Moore's Law, Garnier's Law of Anti-Ageing Cream Names appears already to have reached the limits of its potential.

Naturally, as Ben Goldacre will tell you, you can't make an assertion like this without first conducting an exhaustive survey across the whole field of enquiry. Before publishing my astonishing findings to the world, I first had to investigate the names given to anti-ageing creams from other companies. Not knowing any off the top of my head, I turned to Twitter for advice. Sadly this elicited little of use, unless you count 'jizz', suggested by @Lfbarfe, or 'Tesco Value French Mustard', suggested by @Nibus.

So, like all serious scientists, I turned instead to Google.

Here I discovered that, by comparison with mascara names, prevailing naming conventions for anti-ageing creams are actually quite modest. L'Oréal, for example, offers us 'Revitalift' and 'Renoviste', hardly the stuff of fervid dreams of long-lost youth. Garnier, meanwhile, prefers 'Vital Restore', which sounds more like a business continuity procedure in a midsize accountancy firm's data centre than a face cream. Elizabeth Arden has come up with the mysterious 'Prevage', which makes me think of André Previn, who makes me think of Andrew Lloyd-Webber, which we can't exactly chalk up as a metaphoric triumph.

This surprising reticence could be indicative of a number of things. Perhaps in a rare moment of marketing sobriety and self-awareness, these companies acknowledged that none of their products *actually* has the capacity to halt the ageing process, and are therefore a bit circumspect about making hyperbolic claims for them. Or perhaps, unlike their impetuous colleagues on the mascara watch, their branding executives are aware of how much time lies ahead, and how they must not gratuitously squander the precious finite resources of the English, French and Franglais lexicons.

But among all the reticence and linguistic frugality, one company stands alone, on a lavender-scented hilltop, throwing circumspection, restraint and Garnier's Law to the marin and the tramontane. Ladies and gentlemen, that company is L'Occitane, who have seen fit to name their anti-ageing range 'Immortelle'.

Immortelle. You don't have to have GCSE French to figure out what they're getting at there. "Buy this face cream," whisper L'Occitane seductively, "and you will become immortal."

It's a bold claim, and not one that I fancy would stand up under the brutal spotlight of scientific scrutiny. It's also not one that I find particularly comforting. Linguistically, 'immortal' is synonymous with 'undead', which conjures up images of hordes of desiccated liches stalking the earth, draped in grand clothing yet showing all too well the weight of years; decay and corruption their constant companion.

On balance I think I'll take my chances with soap, water and death.

I Love The Smell Of Permethrin In The Morning

Of all the wars in which this nation is currently engaged, the least covered in the media, discussed on Twitter, or made controversial reference to by the Deputy Prime Minister during PM's Questions is the War of the Fleas.

This is because the War of the Fleas is a comparatively small war, being fought on quite a localised front, id est down the posh end of Broad Street in Penryn.

(All of Broad Street is *quite* posh, but this end is posher due to its being situated opposite The Square, which is the poshest bit of Penryn by far, and doesn't really take kindly to being overlooked by the scuzzy-by-comparison houses that comprise The Posh End of Broad Street, but there we have it, that's how the medieval town planners laid it out in 1259 and there's no going back now.)

And when I say 'down the posh end of Broad Street' I really mean 'in our house', aka Casa Patroclus, or, if you prefer, Blue Cat Towers.

If one were to follow in the mighty footsteps of A.J.P. Taylor and cast about for the origins of the War of the Fleas - for its inciting incident, if you like - one would be hard pressed to identify anything as definitive as, say, Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. No Archdukes were bitten outside no. 42 during any of Penryn's many parades. No tiny aeroplanes emerged from the Western skies to destroy the yuppie flats in the recently-gentrified Inner Harbour. The fleas are not - as far as I can tell - evolved robots returning from hundreds of years in exile with a nebulous plan to annihilate the human race. I have no idea how it started, or how it got to the point I am about to describe.

For readers, I am ashamed to tell you, earlier this summer the situation reached a low ebb for the motley band of human and feline fighters whose wretched lot was to strive valiantly, day in, day out, against the indefatigable hordes of tiny, biting invaders. There were casualties, many casualties, on both sides. Hundreds of fleas were teased from their hiding places among the cat's fur to meet a boiling, salty, watery end. Hundreds perished in sweeping aerial attacks of R.I.P. Fleas. Biological weapons designed to annihilate the fleas' children and their children's children, yea even unto the tenth generation, were strategically, then indiscriminately, deployed. A sheepskin rug had to be thrown out.

To no avail. Like H.G. Wells's Martians, still they came.

Your human and feline heroes had to change tactics. High-tech weapons had failed. Blanket bombing, carpet bombing, bathmat bombing, all had failed. A short-lived offensive which involved transporting individual fleas to Falmouth in the car, then depositing them in Church Street Car Park, proved to be environmentally and logistically inefficient. It was time for something new.

Enter the parcel tape.

Parcel tape, as it turns out, is a pretty effective anti-flea weapon when deployed judiciously. Favourite tactics include:

1. Sticking strips of tape across the carpet, then removing the lot - and any adherent victims - in one satisfying wrench.

2. Watching, waiting, watching, waiting for a nasty leaping beast to get on to the cream-coloured sofa, then swooping from above with a pre-cut section of tape. Result: instant sticky death.

3. Romantically scanning each other's limbs and clothing for errant fleas, then either a) leaping into action with a pre-prepared section of tape or b) wildly shouting 'tape! tape!', in the knowledge that one's other half knows by now exactly what is signified by this stirring war cry, and will respond by passing the nearest roll. (N.B. not to be undertaken while guests are present.)

It has been quite a miserable summer, all told, not helped by being heavily pregnant for most of it. But now we have reached if not the end, then perhaps the beginning of the end. For today the War of the Fleas entered a new phase, marked by the emergence of an exciting new game that may soon be sweeping the nation. I will spare you the intricate detail of Dirt or Dead?, but suffice it to say the winner is the player who can most accurately distinguish between a) a small piece of black fluff and b) a Corpse of the Fallen.

The cat, meanwhile, has taken to living a shadowy twilight existence under the garden table and refuses to set foot in the house. But soon, all will be back to normal. I hope.

A Walk In The Park

Opposite our house is a little park, and it was to this park that I yesterday decided to take the Blue Kitten during a break in the seasonal Cornish rain.

While the Kitten is used to going to the park with her dad, an afternoon outing with me is a bit of a rarity, given that I'm one of those Daily Mail hate-figures; a full-time working mum.

Still, it all started off very successfully: we managed to navigate the crossing of the road OK, the Kitten obediently held my hand until we were safely inside the park with the gates closed behind us, and the planned game of kickabout with the plastic football unfolded in frankly impressive style.

(Indeed if Fabio Capello were to send a talent scout down to Penryn, he or she would undoubtedly return Up Country raving about a tiny blonde bombshell, the quality of whose dribbling and running-forward skills cannot be disguised even by the wearing of one-size-too-big Dora the Explorer wellies.)

Not only that, but we had a great game of peeking at each other through some of the new and slightly perplexing municipal exercise equipment, and I successfully dissuaded the Kitten from shredding the poppy wreaths around the war memorial (the park wasn't always a park; until May 1941 it was an impressive Georgian terrace flanking a three-sided Georgian square, brought to an untimely end - along with 18 of its residents - by a stray German bomb probably intended for Falmouth Docks).

There followed a chase around the path and a gaze through the railings at the Bowling Green, which, I informed the Kitten, had been there since the sixteenth century at least; the sea captains domiciled in Broad Street playing endless rounds of bowls while waiting for favourable winds and tides to take them to fight Spaniards, or loot Spaniards, or sell granite to Spaniards according to the prevailing politico-economic circumstances of the day.

(Today, the good citizens of Broad Street and Quay Hill stay indoors playing Fallout 3 and Bioshock 2 as they wait for favourable calls from literary agents, television commissioners, organisers of international sculpture exhibitions and artisanal tea-growers, but the Bowling Green remains, its clubhouse very much a terrestrial departure lounge for Penryn's elderly residents if the frequency of its flag flying at half-mast is any guide.)

This is where it all starts to go wrong. Wearying of my fascinating local history lesson, the Kitten makes a dash for the wrought iron gates, furiously shaking them in an effort to escape the park and go and do something more exciting, like rolling about in the road. In rapid pursuit, I gather up the football and discarded jacket and catch up with the Kitten just as she manages to wrestle her way out on to the pavement. Here, she decides, will be a good place to lie on the ground shouting 'DEATH!' and 'Six Six Six!' for the entertainment of passing motorists. Nothing will persuade her otherwise.

There is no option but to pick her up, temporarily abandon the fallen-off Dora the Explorer welly boot, and bundle her home (which is only on the other side of the road). Heroically, I gather up Kitten plus football plus discarded jacket, and the mission is close to being accomplished.

Except that I can't get up. At eight and a half months pregnant, I am stuck squatting on the pavement opposite my house clutching a wailing two-year-old, a football and a jacket, and I can't move. Something has to be jettisoned, so I let go of the football, which trundles forlornly into the road. A passing motorist slows down, picks it up and throws it back on to the pavement, but there's nothing I can do about that now. I am the worst mother in the world, unable even to go across the road to the park without getting into difficulties and endangering the life of my own child and that of sundry passing motorists. I try not to imagine the Daily Mail headlines.

Seconds later, the Kitten and I both arrive home in floods of tears, much to the bemusement of Mr BC, who thinks we only went for a nice stroll in the park. I dash back out to recover the lost welly boot and the football, only to discover two lost wellies, one of which is in the middle of the road being studiously avoided by passing motorists, and one of which is on the pavement opposite.

There is no sign of the plastic football. I imagine it rolling away down Quay Hill, gathering pace as it approaches the junction with Commercial Road, causing a multi-vehicle pile-up outside Jumblies Day Nursery before bouncing nonchalantly on to Exchequer Quay, rolling towards the edge, falling into the Penryn River and commencing a maritime rampage across the Carrick Roads, causing multi-yacht pile-ups as it bobs merrily towards Falmouth Bay and the wide blue ocean.

In due course it will wash up, faded and deflated, in a lobster shrimp net along Louisiana's BP-blighted Gulf Coast, its historic role as the first football of England's legendary female 2026 World Cup striker unrecognised and uncelebrated.

Today the Blue Kitten's dad will take her to the park. It's by far the best all round.

Sofa No Good

For as long as Mr BC and I have been together (four years and a sundry number of days, fact fans), it's been my mission to procure a sofa that we can both sit on at the same time to watch DVDs and the like.

This has been no easy task given the triple constraints of a) my bank balance, b) the dimensions of the doors and stairwells in my/our various homes to date and c) the vast and comical height discrepancy between Mr BC and me.

When we were first going out, the only piece of comfy furniture I had to my name was a cherry-red leather Klippan from Ikea. Mr BC's six-foot-two frame promptly occupied the whole of said sofa, leaving me to perch awkwardly on a corner for entire seasons of Battlestar Galactica. This forced me into an unscheduled further visit to Ikea, which opportunistically took place between the ceremony and reception of a friend's wedding, from which I triumphantly returned (via the wedding reception) with a stripy Karlstad armchair.


This was promptly occupied in its entirety by the cat.

(In the end we had to drive to Somerset to get another red leather Klippan, so we could all have something to sit on, but that's another story.)

But that was then. Today, due to a variety of fortuitous circumstances, my bank balance is healthier than it used to be, my doors wider and my stairwell more expansive (although the comical height difference between Mr BC and me remains at an immutable 14 inches).

So it was with no little glee that I allowed myself to rootle through the Dwell sale in search of the perfect DVD-watching sofa. I ended up ordering an extravagant modular number, with a long bit, a corner bit and an extra bit for good measure, paying no heed whatsoever to how big these things might be or how much space they might take up in our upstairs living room.

At length (Dwell only deliver to Cornwall once a month, apparently) the items arrived. They got through the front door OK, but there was no way the long bit was going up the stairwell, however expansive its proportions. Eventually the drivers left the parcels downstairs and bid us a hasty goodbye before the INEVITABLE DOMESTIC ARGUMENT broke out.

Presently:

ME: This is all your fault, you know.

Mr BC: How can this possibly be my fault? You chose them. You ordered them. You didn't look to see how big they are, or whether they'd fit up the stairs.

ME: Because of what you told me about the sofa models.

MR BC: What sofa models?

ME: When we first knew each other, you told me that on sofa adverts, all the models are little people.

MR BC: Did I?

ME: To make the sofas look bigger, you said.

MR BC: Ah, oh. Ah. I see what's happened here.

ME: Yes. You told me that all sofas are modelled by dwarves. Therefore I have accidentally ordered an enormous sofa that doesn't fit in our house.

MR BC: I was flirting with you. Because you're quite small, and yet quite nicely proportioned. I was saying you could be a sofa model.

ME: Oh. I thought you were just trying to tell me that all sofas are tiny in real life.

MR BC: No.

ME: I've warned everyone I know.

MR BC: Look, this bit's broken.

The long bit of the sofa has indeed been damaged in transit.

ME: Hurrah, we can legitimately send it back!

Several weeks and another visit from Dwell later, we have a huge, fantastic modular sofa in our upstairs living room, made out of one extra bit and two corner bits. The broken long bit has gone back on the Dwell lorry, and everyone's happy.

Later, we're recounting this story to the lovely Rach, of Nappy Mountain fame, and her lovely husband Rob, who've come for a blogmeet during their holiday in Cornwall. During the retelling, Rach and Rob exchange meaningful glances. Afterwards they inform us that they have a friend who *is* an actual sofa model, and he is six foot four.

Not long after, Mr BC and I are lounging together on the new sofa, watching Sherlock.

ME: You could be a sofa model, you know.

MR BC: Shh.

If Business Was Really Like Inception

What a jolly romp Inception is, eh, film fans? A bit like reading a copy of Monocle after watching The Matrix and falling asleep on a train.

I enjoyed it in lots of ways (apart from its handling of the female characters, which was standard action-movie sexist tosh, and let's not even bother trying to apply the Bechdel test), but the most enjoyable aspect for me was its unintentionally hilarious depiction of the sort of thing that goes on in the world of business.

Now I've worked in 'business' for most of my adult life, so I reckon I'm fairly au fait with its daily rhythms and preoccupations. And this may surprise you, but my experience doesn't exactly tally with the depiction presented to me last night by Messrs C. Nolan & co.

If business was *really* like Inception, it would go something like this:

INT. MEETING ROOM - DAY

MARKETING DIRECTOR (terribly serious expression, portentous tone of voice) Jake, I need to know what Mega Corp. are planning for next week's product launch.

JAKE: Oh, my mate works for Mega Corp, I'll ask her, shall I?

MARKETING DIRECTOR (even more serious): No. Your friend could have been compromised. Or... worse.

JAKE: I could ring Bill McBill at PC Answers, he'll have had a press invitation.

MARKETING DIRECTOR: No. McBill can't be trusted. He's been to too many Mega Corp events. Brain got fried at that last wireless mouse launch. Can't even recognise his own children now.

JAKE: Er, I could ask on Twitter?

MARKETING DIRECTOR No. (Shouting) No! That's a trap, too easy. Jake... Jake... I need you to assemble a team. The finest people you can find. Hire them if you have to. From exotic foreign countries, if you have to. This is mission-critical.

JAKE: Right, OK, and, er, what would you like them to do?

MARKETING DIRECTOR: I need you to get inside the mind of Mega Corp. Find out what they're planning. Breakfast at the Lanesborough? Balloon flight over Hertfordshire? Go-kart racing in Nuneaton? We just don't know, dammit.

JAKE: You want me to assemble a team of mind-readers?

MARKETING DIRECTOR: More than that. I need you to lay a trap. Find a way to draw them in, reveal their H1 marketing plan. Get someone who can design an MMORPG, the best there's ever been. And a hypnotist. And an acrobat. And someone who can synthesise a new strain of MDMA that's stronger than LSD but subtler than Summer Meadow Fairy Liquid. And someone who can drive a van. And some really big weapons.

JAKE: (scribbling in notebook) What sort of weapons?

MARKETING DIRECTOR: Doesn't matter, as long as they're really big.

JAKE: And you'd like this done by when? Only I've got that contact report to write up by lunchtime.

MARKETING DIRECTOR: We only have two days. Here's a new suit, a first-class ticket to Bulawayo and passports in twenty different names. Good luck.

JAKE: Are you sure you wouldn't just like me to look on Facebook?

MARKETING DIRECTOR: (Portentous) Good luck, Jake.

UPDATE: Emordino draws my attention to this Inception spoof in the New Yorker, along the same lines but about a billion times better. The end bit is the best.

Tasty Things To Do With Sage

Given that we have an almost completely untouched crop of sage (above) in our burgeoning garden, this afternoon I asked on Twitter for people's recommendations of what to do with it.

I had so many excellent and delicious-sounding suggestions that James said I should put them all into a blog post, so here they are, with appropriate credits.

1. Put it in a butternut squash risotto. (@danieljowen)

2. Melt some stilton into cream, add sage, butter some pasta and add sauce. Lots of black pepper. Rich so serve as a starter. (@davidsteven)

3. Pan fry until crispy and have with risotto - it's a Hugh recipe. (@ecovallee)

4. If you're not veggie, saltimbocca. (@SoniaRothwell)

5. Sprinkle torn up leaves over vegetables and roast. Yum. (@SueLlewellyn)

6. Tricky but affinity with pork and veal. Crispy deep-fried leaves. Twigs on BBQ for fragrant smoking... (@TessAlps)

7. Add to pork dishes, maybe some meatballs. It's a good stuffing ingredient as well. (@FoodiesSW)

8. I find the standard sage and onion stuffing with chicken most pleasant. It can also be eaten cold, should summer bust out. (@hannahswiv)

9. ...also substitute for basil in a pesto-like pasta sauce. Lovage excellent for that too. (@TessAlps)

10. If you've got heaps of it, Native Americans dry it and use for 'smudging' - burn it, blow out flames and use the smoke to clear sacred space. (@SueLlewellyn)

11. Coat them in batter and fry. Very Italian very delicious. Serve with a Prosecco or Pinot Grigio while listening to Puccini. (@EnterpriseIain)

12. Sage fritters, in a cornmeal batter. (@CulturalSnow)

13. Sage is also a good medicinal herb to keep in your garden - good for sore throats and dry coughs, dontchya know. (@RunSqueezyRun)

14. Mix in with Welsh rarebit. (@kevfrost)

15. Put it in a pork pie! Yum. (@piersroberts)

16. When eaten enough,pick some stalks and put it in vase with some pinks? (@JudyAstley)

Whew. That lot should keep us going until the sage plant is no more - hurrah!

Like No Aspirations You've Ever Had Before

Not long after giving birth to the Blue Kitten I was comparing notes about the whole gruesome affair with my old friend Becky.

Never one to mince words, Becky observed that in her experience (three infants to date) 'it's difficult to maintain any kind of dignity when some bird is doing embroidery in your minky'.

This word 'minky' was new to me, although its meaning all too painfully apparent. But then Becky has her finger on the pulse of modern argot, whereas I like to model my conversational and writing style on detective novels of the Golden Age. (You'd never hear Lord Peter Wimsey uttering the word 'minky', at least not to denote the precious flower of the female nether bits. It probably meant something different in the 1930s.)

For those who are similarly untutored in the vagaries of modern parlance, rest assured that the Urban Dictionary backs Becky up, providing no fewer than eight user-generated definitions of 'minky', three of which refer to the precious flower of the female etc.

So it was not without some merriment that it later came to my attention that there is a company called Minky, whose business is the provision of mops, pegs and other humble domestic essentials.

But Minky, a company - its own name notwithstanding - with its finger on the pulse of the early 21st-century Zeitgeist, has realised that in our narcissistic age, there is no room for humility in domestic matters. Just as buying an air freshener or a tea towel is now an important lifestyle choice, so the purchase of a new ironing board cover must be imbued with a sense of excitement, panache and social self-betterment.

Replacing one's worn-out ironing board cover can no longer be conceived of as an act of tedious but inevitable drudgery, no, but as a gesture symbolic of the renewal of hope and enthusiasm, of the recapturing of lost youth, beauty and energy, of a better life to come.

In short, it must be seen - along with everything else - as aspirational.

So while 'minky aspirations' may sound to my friend Becky like the kind of febrile affliction that besets a million pub-bound Nuts readers up and down the country every Friday evening, to the marketing department of this venerable British brand it represents nothing short of the complete re-imagining of domestic drudgery as something suffused with glamour and desirability.

And for attempting to instil those qualities in a metallised ironing board cover while having a name that is a rude word for a lady's secret place, I salute them.

Garnier's Law of Mascara Names

You may be familiar with Moore's Law, which dictates that the computing power of a single silicon chip doubles roughly every two years, as the transistors upon it get tinkier and tinier.

You may not be so familiar - mainly because I just made it up - with Garnier's Law. Garnier's Law dictates that the names given to mascara products will double in ridiculousness roughly every two years, despite the lack of any corresponding technical advance in the product itself.

Like Moore's Law, Garnier's Law has been in force for some years, such that we now find ourselves in a world where the names given to mascara have become entirely decoupled from reality.

Hence Lash Builder, a plausible name for a mascara, given that the sole function of the product is and always has been to cake your eyelashes in a manner that makes them look slightly thicker and longer, gave way in due course to Lash Architect, a ridiculous proposition when you think about it, since architects don't actually build anything but rather swank about in wenge-wood-and-opaque-glass offices wearing expensive glasses and reading back copies of Monocle magazine. A mascara does none of those things.

Rejected names for Lash Architect: Lash Brickie, Lash Structural Engineer, Lash Planning Officer.

But that was then. Today Garnier's Law has seen to it that we have entered the realm of the truly fantastical when it comes to mascara names. Only last night I was alerted to the existence of a mascara named Telescopic Explosion, which sounds more like an industrial accident than a cosmetic; the kind of thing that you might read under 'exemptions' in the small print of Sir Patrick Moore's contents insurance policy.

Rejected names for Telescopic Explosion: Optical Disaster, Lenticular Catastrophe, Oops I Dropped The Refracting Mirror.

I hardly dare let my mind dwell upon what kind of product names the future may hold in store for that same coloured goo that people have been caking on to their eyelashes for centuries. Perhaps we can look forward to sallying forth to Boots in 2019 to purchase a tube of Lashmageddon, or Thermo-Nuclear Lash Eruptor. I don't think Total Protonic Reversal strays too far from the bounds of the possible, nor Infernal Trajectory, nor Eyeschaton.

We may long for the innocent, simple days of Lash Builder when we're staring down the claggy barrel of a tube of Supermassive Interplanetary Collision Course, but in vain. Garnier's Law, like Moore's Law, is unstoppable. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It Was Tiny, And Purple

My friend S. dropped in for a cup of tea today on her way home from shopping in Truro, where she'd bought a dress for her birthday do tonight.

S: They didn't have a size 8*, so I had to get a size 6**.

ME: Bloody hell. Does it fit?

S: Just about. Bit of a squeeze to get the last bit of the zip done up, but I think it'll be OK.


S. is eight months pregnant.


* US size 6
** US size 4

Unusual Media Epiphany

I had an unusual media epiphany last week, and it had nothing to do with Trafigura, Jan Moir or the balloon boy, whatever that last one was all about.

No, what happened was this. I was sitting on a train, reading an article in the financial pages of the Guardian, on my way to a conference in Exeter.

So far, so unremarkable. The article was about WH Smith's business plans. It's going to open 80 new outlets inside office buildings, based on the success of a number of shops it's set up inside hospitals. Profits are up at WH Smith, the article added, thanks to the canny strategies of its CEO, Kate Swann.

It was at that point that I had my epiphany. Here was an article in a newspaper about a successful FTSE 250 company that happens to have a female CEO. Not only that, but it had been written by a female journalist (Julia Finch), and was being read by a female business person (me).

And yet at no point was the gender of the reader, writer or subject made an issue. The article didn't appear in the women's pages, or in a glossy women's supplement. The reporter didn't mention what Kate Swann looks like, what she habitually wears, or whether she has a partner and kids at home. There was no accompanying picture. There were no allusions to the glass ceiling. Readers were not invited to view Ms Swann's success as an exceptional achievement for someone of her gender.

It was just an ordinary article about business in the business pages of a national newspaper.

And I thought: 'This must be what reading the paper is like for men all the time.'

I know that by drawing attention to it I'm bursting the bubble of ordinariness surrounding this article, and turning it into something remarkable, and therefore defeating the whole object. But for a little while it did give me a glimpse of a glorious future media landscape in which women are just people, and our gender is neither here nor there. And that made me very happy.

Oh, and hello again everyone, I seem to be back!

...And They Lived Happily Ever After

The End.

There's Such A Thing As Too Much Self-Awareness

INT. BLUE CAT TOWERS - EVENING

PATROCLUS and JAMES BLUE CAT are sitting in companionable silence. Eventually:

MR BC: What are you thinking about?

ME: I was just mentally going through everyone who follows me on Twitter, and imagining all the ways in which I disappoint, annoy or otherwise fail to meet the expectations of each and every one of them.

MR BC: Crikey.

ME: Why, what are you thinking about?

MR BC: Goblins.

Public Trust Shaken By Fresh Revelations

The nation's trust in its chosen vanity products is being sorely tested by continuing revelations on the Quinquireme blog about improper copywriting in the toiletries industry, reports today's Daily Telegraph.

In what is coming to be seen as the scoop of the decade, Quinquireme editor-in-chief Patroclus reportedly paid £4.79 for the exclusive right to reveal the widespread linguistic and grammatical inaccuracies pervading the sector.

The scandal started as far back as August 2008, with an exposé of poor translation skills at upmarket hotel-toiletries firm Gilchrist & Soames, but it was not until this month that the Quinquireme began a full-scale investigation into the extent of the problem.

The blog's decision to drip-feed its revelations day by day is causing anxiety not only among makers of shampoo, conditioner and other bathroom essentials, but also among a populace that is finding its faith in its personal grooming products severely shaken.

Today's blog post caused embarrassment for shampoo manufacturer Aussie, maker of such products as the 'Three Minute Miracle' deep-treatment conditioner and 'Dual Personality' shine serum. In particular, the blog cited the unnecessary insertion of a comma into the copy on the reverse of the 'Miracle Moist' shampoo bottle.


Nowhere to hide: blog reveals comma misuse by haircare firm Aussie

As well as publishing a damning photograph of the misplaced punctuation mark, the blog also transcribed the copy in full for the benefit of readers lacking 20/20 eyesight.

Our unique formula, with Australian Macadamia Nut extract, helps condition and smooth hair.
Native to the land down under, the Queensland Macadamia Nut is rich in oils, and has been used in Australia for centuries. And it would have stayed their little secret if it hadn't been for, an intrepid 19th century explorer who schlepped half way across the world and brought it back for the rest of us. What a guy.

"I don't know how they thought they could get away with this," said Jibby McBib, a disappointed Aussie customer. "Just because it's on the back of the bottle doesn't mean people won't find out it's there."

McBib said she would no longer buy Aussie products, but was unsure of which haircare products she could now trust. "You never read about this kind of thing in the media," she said. "It's always all about how it makes your hair look, what it smells like, and that kind of thing. To imagine this kind of thing has been going on all the time behind our backs...well, it makes me sick."

Forensic literary science expert Bilbo McCrum believes the problem runs deeper than simple improper comma use. "Here is a company that promotes itself as being Australian, yet clearly refers to the country of Australia as a place from which macadamia nuts have to be 'brought back' for 'the rest of us'," he said.

"This, combined with the failure to name the explorer who brought back the nuts, or indeed to specify where the nuts were brought back to, very much points to the presence of an unreliable narrator," McCrum continued. "And if the brand's narrator is unreliable, that does not bode well for the trustworthiness of the brand itself."

Ursula Mop, senior analyst at personal-grooming think-tank HAIR, said that the crisis in public trust could have serious repercussions for the country's future. "With so many mainstream cosmetics brands being 'outed' by the Quinquireme, there is a real risk that people will turn their backs on the haircare establishment," she warned.

"I think there's a danger that people will increasingly turn to fringe shampoos as they become disillusioned with the major players."

It's a danger that, for the moment, remains academic, as the public reveals itself to have more common sense than is imputed to it by think-tanks.

"There's no way I'm buying a fringe shampoo," said Jibby McBib. "What would I use on the rest of my hair? It just doesn't make sense."

Polyglottal Bottle Plot

Assiduous readers of this blog will recall that I once had occasion to take to task the hotel-toiletries firm Gilchrist & Soames for its reckless and cavalier approach to labelling its bottles in what it endearingly imagined to be French.

You, dear reader, have no doubt moved on since then, caught up in the ebb and flow of daily life and its attendant demands. Rest assured, though, that I have remained steadfast and alert to the linguistical shortcomings of the companies that furnish our nation's hotels with tiny plastic bottles of goo.

It's a lonely and desolate beat, untroubled by sensational revelations, media scrums or mass outbreaks of public outrage, but I like to think that I'm performing a vital service in shining the uncompromising spotlight of scrutiny into a dark and neglected corner of consumer affairs.

Today that spotlight falls upon Elsyl, a range of hotel toiletries whose bottles, according to this hotel-toiletries website, have an aluminium lid that gives this unique range a little extra.

Look carefully, however, and you'll notice that the aluminium lid is not the only notable feature of the Elsyl range:


[Click picture for bigness]

It's hardly surprising that the makers of Elsyl are trying to distract you with their shiny lids, for their labels represent an attempt at international jet-set chic that can best be described as 'woeful'.

I wonder if I can imagine the process by which they were created.

...Wibbly lines descend across the screen...

BRANDING EXECUTIVE 1: What we need is a label that lends the product an air of continental elegance. An atmosphere of cosmopolitan élan. An aura of European finesse.

BRANDING EXECUTIVE 2: So what you're saying is that the label has to be in English and French.

EXECUTIVE 1: Yes, yes, good. But not just French, that's so parochial. That's the kind of narrow-sighted caper you'd expect from Gilchrist & Soames. No, we need to project an image of truly international refinement.

EXECUTIVE 2: So, English, French...and Italian?

EXECUTIVE 1: Yes. And - what's the other one? - German.

There is a brief pause for reflection.

EXECUTIVE 2: Can you speak any of these languages?

EXECUTIVE 1: Not really. Except English. I can speak English. Can you?

EXECUTIVE 2: I can speak English too.

EXECUTIVE 1: No, I mean any of the others.

EXECUTIVE 2: Oh. No.

EXECUTIVE 1: We could look the words up in a dictionary.

EXECUTIVE 2: (sucking teeth) I don't know...that's what Gilchrist & Soames did, and they got stick for it on Patroclus's blog.

EXECUTIVE 1: You're right. We don't want to get stick on Patroclus's blog. That's the very essence of what we don't want.

EXECUTIVE 2: It would be a PR disaster.

EXECUTIVE 1: Yes, you don't want to get on the wrong side of the blogs. I've heard that Patroclus has literally tens of readers.

EXECUTIVE 2: I have a marvellous idea!

EXECUTIVE 1: Hurrah!

EXECUTIVE 2: You said we only need to provide an air of continental elegance. An atmosphere of cosmopolitan élan. An aura of European...what was it again?

EXECUTIVE 1: Finesse.

EXECUTIVE 2: Finesse. Well, how about we just translate one word into each language?

EXECUTIVE 1: Brilliant! Which one shall we translate?

EXECUTIVE 2: How about 'with'? It's the easiest one.

EXECUTIVE 1: Fantastic! Quick - to Babelfish!

Some moments later...

EXECUTIVE 2: There, look. Perfect.

EXECUTIVE 1: 'Bath cream avec ginseng'. Oh yeah, baby. That's cosmopolitanism, right there.

EXECUTIVE 2: We're surely the best branding executives in the whole world.

EXECUTIVE 1: We surely are.


NEXT WEEK: Patroclus fearlessly exposes the unnecessary comma on the reverse of the Aussie 'Miracle Moist' shampoo bottle.

Ooh Dear

The blog seems to have ground to a halt somewhat, what with the twin disciplines of Work and Baby (and to a lesser extent Garden, Twitter, Dungeons & Dragons and Making Biscuits) taking up all my waking hours, including a good many hours when no sensible person should be awake at all.

I really hope to be back before too long, as not blogging makes me terribly unhappy, but I fear it's not going to be anytime very soon. In the meantime, I shall set you a jolly Dave-style quiz, which is:

1. Who is this?


and

2. What does he have to do with this field?


A prize will be awarded for the most entertaining answer, irrespective of correctness.

Mrs BC

Last night I get a phone call from my friend S.

S: So, about the wedding. What time shall I come round and help you with your dress?

ME: I don't think I need any help with my dress. I was just planning to put it on over my head and stuff. Put my arms through the armholes and so on. I can probably do it on my own.

S: What about a bouquet?

ME: I haven't got a bouquet.

S: Do you want one?

ME: I don't think I do, thank you though.

S: What are we doing after the ceremony?

ME: We're going to have pasties on the beach.

S: Is that all?

ME: Yes. It's quite low-key.

S: What about the evening thing?

ME: There isn't an evening thing. It's just the ceremony, then pasties on the beach. That's essentially it.

S: I don't understand. What are you actually getting married for, then?

ME: Because we love each other. You know, we want to be married, we just aren't fussed about having an actual wedding.

A brief pause ensues.

S: Hmm, you know, all these years I think I've been getting it the wrong way round.

People Who Are From Cornwall

1. John Nettles, future star of Absolutely Bergerac, a dark reimagining of a 1980s Bergerac spinoff series that was never made, also starring Patsy Palmer as Patsy Stone, a jewel thief originally played - with, I feel, a different character name - by Liza Goddard.

(Mr BC maintains the series will be called Bergeracly Fabulous and keeps muttering about format rights.)

2. Jenny Agutter, to whom I once offered a seat on the Truro to Paddington train (she declined).

3. Rosie and the Goldbug, a tip-top indie-pop combo who are responsible for this fabulous slice of early-80s-style electro:



4. Our lovely daughter the Blue Kitten, who is six months old today and has just graduated to apple purée:


5. I can't think of any more. By popular demand, King Arthur, the once and future king. Although, like thingy out of Highlander, King Arthur is really from lots of different places.

6. The Owlman of Mawnan, although he's probably just a big owl.

7. Jethro

8. The Frontier Editor's brother

9. Kristin Scott-Thomas

10. Dolly Pentreath, the vaudeville fisherman/woman

11. That's enough people from Cornwall now - Ed.