Sauerkraut Update

To recap:

I put about two-thirds of a chopped red cabbage in a jar with a clasp and a rubber seal Thursday lunchtime. I had to top it up with water, as even after 30mins soaking in salt it hadn't given off much liquid (might sea salt be better next time?). I probably overfilled the jar, there was maybe half an inch of air space. I stuffed about four whole cabbage leaves on top to keep the chopped cabbage below the liquid line.

Over the weekend the liquid line rose and liquid started to seep out of the seal - I had to open the jar a few times to let the air/gas out, and put the jar on a plate to catch the escaping liquid (it had already stained a wooden tray thing we use as kitchen storage - red cabbage!). There was no sign of any mould at any time.

Today is four days since the start date, so I just tried it. The liquid was basically filling the jar when I opened it. I poured some away, removed the top leaves and tried a piece. It was too hard, and more sweet than briny. I put the leaves back and resealed the jar. I reckon I'll try again on Thursday.

Lessons learned: I was very hesitant at the start of the process, asking lots of questions and overthinking it. This is because I was afraid of messing up the first batch and then just giving up. I feel relaxed about it now. I had mistakenly thought of the process as being three days' effort on my part that could be wasted, in fact it was about 20 minutes of effort on my part and the rest is just the cabbage. If I end up throwing it away, it's just a 70p cabbage, I'll start again.

UPDATE: It seems I haven't been properly accounting for gas bubbles / air pockets - will go give it a good poke with a wooden spoon.

Live blogging from night bus

Getting today's blog post in early, about 1am. Can't believe how badly Poland did at Eurovision, I felt real Slavic pride there, thought eastern europe would come through. Found the winner utterly tedious, but I wonder of I am going through the transgender equivalent of old people saying they don't mind people being gay but don't make a big deal of it, don't put it in our faces etc. .,,

Saw a bit of Harry Hill era you've been framed for the first time today, his voicrovers are very good, in a similar vein to TV Burp, I feel bad for dismissing it out of hand before...

I'm going from hackney central to new cross via London bridge...

Some northerners on the bus being loud and northern, slightly aggressive towards a woman. He's from Halifax! She's from somewhere near Halifax, she's into it, it's fine.  Ah they're getting on like a house on fire. Oh he got a kiss but had to get off the bus.

This is near Hoxton station

Went for a drive in a prius today, helping a friend pick up a washing machine. Cars have changed a lot in the last five years, driving seems quit attractive nor

Alcohol update - two corona and a bottle of rose. With a lot of food. Font feel too bad now, during the sobering up phase. No booze yesterday, dinner tomorrow that I expect to be quiet. Couple, wife is nine months pregnant.

Food bank tales

Speed posting - key points from yesterday's food bank session -

1. They made us all sign indemnity waivers, people felt a bit put out. Also signed away photographic rights.

2. Old guy told me he went to Stamford Bridge after work in the 1960s and saw Peter Osgood's first team debut, scoring both goals in a 2-0 victory over Workington Town in a Cup replay

3. The same old guy was later propositioned by a drunk middle-aged client with facial tattoos, who touched his hand and asked if he could "take him home and shag him". I totally failed not to piss myself laughing.

4. Client-facing team reports a small increase in "entitled" behaviour from clients. You always get one or two fussy eaters sending stuff back, I actually quite respect that, it's dignified in some way, and we certainly don't expect them all to tearfully thank us, but it seems a growing minority of clients don't really differentiate between charitable food banks and government social services, it's all just one big blob of people who have let them down or screwed them over at some point.

Cabbage on the counter

Updates

Sauerkraut: red cabbage chopped in bowl, salted, on kitchen counter, waiting for it to wilt a little

Afrobics: revenge for colonialism, I can barely walk today

Hospital tests: all clear, also learned that I have normal cholesterol

Food bank: walking down there in an hour, looking forward to it

Thought for the Day: Jake and I were talking about jobs and life during a nice Thames walk on Bank Holiday Monday, one thought that came up and has stayed with me is, what if your talents and skills, i.e. the things you are supposed to hone and develop and thus fulfil your potential, are actually dangerous to both yourself and society? Research, conceptual thinking, writing - are these not incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, or rather, applied to the wrong projects?

Alcohol: Tried the "5:2" line last night at my mate Dan's house, it worked although it was an easy environment, we were just working on some music. Got home and Jess had people round, so I ended up drinking half a bottle of wine and a can of Carlsberg. Left the final can in the fridge, whereas before I would have finished it out of "neatness". Baby steps!

Afrobics, vegetables, alcohol

OK I feel like those last posts on politics were like the last cleaning of old dirt from the pipes, it's just pure flow now, all new material. It might get serious but it will be present or future-oriented.

Just got back from Afrobics at Goldsmiths gym, Jess has been badgering me to go for ages. I thought I was going to die after 20 mins, I'm really out of shape. Gave up the gym about two years ago, was in my gym kit about to go do my regular routine of 3km on treadmill, light resistance training when I realised that I was never going to step on a treadmill ever again. Took up epee fencing for a while but it was on Friday nights (the Brixton Fencing Club!) so that fell apart after a while. Zumba was great for a bit (I get free classes at Goldsmiths gym) but my favourite instructor left and the other instructor mixes in all this house music and burlesque shit - keep it real! Afrobics was great though, the instructor is an African woman with a big chest and wide hips, which makes me feel more at home.

I guess I'm writing about health? Dramatically increased vegetable intake recently, feel much better for it. Trick, as always, was better planning, not buying random veg and letting it rot but buying a mix and immediately cooking it into stews, salads, etc.

Still need to sort out alcohol, I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads given my age. I quit smoking at the right time, 23, many of my friends who didn't quit by 25 will now probably smoke for life. I'm still drinking like a 26 year old. It's just so tasty and so enjoyable!

I reckon I need to cut down about 50%, but like advertising expenditure, it's hard to know which 50% to cut. I'm a bit all-or-nothing, genuinely enjoy extended periods of abstinence but find it hard to just have two - like I physically/mentally feel awful if a drinking session is "cut short". Any pro tips?

The tour finishes

Almost done, don't worry.

There Is No Alternative (that I can think of)

The Left has failed to come up with a more persuasive idea than neoliberalism. I don't say "better", I say "persuasive". It's persuasive because it denies even existing, even being an idea - certainly not an ideology. It just steadily reformats what it can - workplace relations, the welfare state - and it's never anyone's fault in particular, we just kind of had to do it.

The Left lost its head ten years ago but I don't blame it

Asking the Left to keep calm and respond in a rational, measured and constructively critical way to George W Bush, churchy Texas oilmen, Halliburton, the GWoT and a preemptive, transparently unthought-through war was a really big ask, was it not? I mean they went mental, shrill, hysterical and made all kinds of terrible decisions, but wow, there's only so much provocation you can take. Politics went kind of flat and stretched for a while there, but I don't think the Left made the first move in terms of reducing the overall level of nuance.

The Rise of the Meritocracy is a thing

I really liked Michael Young's The Rise of the Meritocracy (and can't believe that Toby Young, that bag of shit, is his son). Disparities in "cognitive capital" are only going to increase. I think/fear the liberals will get cleverer and cleverer and the Left and conservatives will get stupider and stupider.

Being on the Left is really really difficult

It's just really difficult. There's so much more you are trying to do, so many other dimensions of the human experience (dignity, stability, social ties, culture) that you are trying to stick up for, so much Romanticism that doesn't really slide easily into the conceptual language and faux-scientific approach of liberal governance. The intuitive sense of threat you feel from the powerful leads you down so many blind alleys and next to so many bad allies. If you're middle class, you also have to constantly keep your wounds open and resist the temptation to embrace quick-fix workarounds like ethical purchases.

It's difficult, it's maybe impossible, it's beyond me.

The answer is something to do with freely deciding to restrain yourself

Of all my ruins, this is just the faintest hint of an ancient floorplan amid the grass. I think it must come from theology. We have free will because that makes it more meaningful when we choose to love God - is that how it goes? We must freely decide to give up our freedom? To hold back from pressing our advantages just because we can. To transcend rational self-interest by freely deciding to destroy the self, if you're taking a more Eastern tack. I can barely make out the contours of this argument, to be honest.

This is the end of the tour, thank you for visiting.

The tour, continued

Theory of a Governance Class

I once wondered aloud why my immediate circle spends so much time reading about politics and arguing about it in the pub when few of us are actively involved in politics in any meaningful way beyond voting. The jokey conclusion was that, as high educational achievers and Oxford men, we have been subconsciously conditioned to think that governing is our duty, and that we might at any given time be substituted into the Shadow Cabinet through some unforeseen circumstance, and had better be prepared.

In other words we are members of a governance class. These people can be found drawing up Neighbourhood Plans, sitting on the boards of local charities, chairing the organising committee, voting as a school governor whether to introduce performance-related pay. Or just doing the work of developing and sustaining the mainstream political consensus, the grown-up view on things.

We need to look really carefully about who these people are and what drives them, I think. I suspect they're a bunch of fucking liberals.

Rational argument 

I have concerns about how logical, rational argument (the stock-in-trade of clever people/the governance class) functions in politics. It's not as clever as it thinks it is. Too many edges get knocked off. In particular, it bothers me that there's a sense that once the pros are shown to have outweighed the cons, then the cons must be banished from public discussion and never brought up again. In logical argument two opposing or conflicting ideas cannot be held at the same time, when in fact I think humans do this constantly, and are no worse for it.

coming together to discuss things rationally

Privilege is a thing, sorry

I feel sorry for poor old "check your privilege", the little political meme that could. Obviously 99% of what gets attached to it is garbage. Look at the obstacles it faces though. The idea is to point out to people that their opinions and "rational, disinterested" thought processes may be blinkered by embedded assumptions and blind spots arising from their social position. I think this is a really important point, particularly in relation to deliberative democracy and the governance class. But then the R&D for this idea mostly takes place on Twitter/Tumblr, removing all nuance from discussion and making everyone who expresses an opinion on it vulnerable to being charged with the very thing being discussed. Poor "privilege".

Let me offer a more grown-up, weird, French way of looking at it, taken from Latour's Atmospheres of Democracy. He uses the metaphor of the prosthesis a disabled person uses to mitigate the incompatibility between their disability and the built environment. We all need to use such crutches, such corrective lenses, he suggests, when we assemble around issues. We need to show respect for the existence of mediation in politics and pay attention to techniques of representation.

Champagne Socialism

People think that champagne socialism is the result of middle class guilt. That's the wrong way around. Champagne socialism doesn't arise from a champagne drinker's contact with non-champagne drinkers. It arises from contact between champagne drinkers.

Champagne socialism stems from a moment, or series of moments, in which it dawns on you, the champagne drinker, that most of the other champagne drinkers don't really think an awful lot of non-champagne drinkers. That they are basically unconcerned with inequality, either gruffly shrugging it off as can't-be-helped (conservative) or constructing elaborate intellectual justifications for it with the relish of someone solving a tricky sudoku (liberal). The champagne socialism starts when you begin to suspect that a lot of other people in your social class basically don't care. It's as though there is a war you didn't even know existed and you have to choose sides.

This starts you off on an internal mental process that might lead to middle class guilt - a form of guilt by association, not such a bad thing in itself - and phony identification with the working class, which is pretty embarrassing for all concerned. But the initial instinct is a sense of ethical and moral fracture within your own class. I defend my fellow champagne socialists.

I understand the seductive appeal of liberalism and liberal rationality

It's so neat and elegant. I really do get it. And it really does have a lot of explanatory power in a lot of cases. It debunks superstition and dissolves tradition and cant with a kind of scouring acid. The mind feels clean reading stuff like Freakonomics. And most people who believe in it seem to be doing pretty well, living decent and clean and honourable lives. (Libertarian = uncouth, socially failed liberal?).

Is that elegance a kind of poison though? Does liberalism spring from being in love with your own rational faculties?