There is a wedding at Rothley Court this evening and the place is abuzz with activity. The slim and the beautiful are eating their all-English fare with relish and drinking their Chilean wine with gusto (or maybe they’re talking with gusto and drink their wine with something else).

I decided to dine at the suitable time of 8:30 pm. Not too late to be pretentious and not too early to be a completely unsophisticated tosser. Tonight it’s a delicate little fish-thing starter with quail’s eggs and a glass of Shiraz followed by calves liver and probably another glass of that fine plonk. And, I may, since this is my last sleep here, splash-out on some delicately sweet desert and an espresso to finish — maybe Treacle Lattice Tart served with a Spiced Apricots and Plumb Compote.

The dining room is intimate and as you might expect full of dark wood panelling combined with 18th century stonework and rich red carpets. The staff are young and nice and efficient and the fare is good — above average English fare I’d say and at a reasonable price.

Those who know me will testify to my delicate eating habits and my attunedness to a finer, subtler more ethereal form of eating experience. And dining at Rothley has surely lived up to these high personal standards.

As I look around I notice the wedding cake has recently been cut because the wait-staff are scurrying hither and dither with platters full of wedding-cake for the guest and the table to my right has just arrived — it’s 9:30pm and obviously an even more suitable hour to dine.

A cute blond waitress stands patiently beside me waiting for me to stop typing. She asks, “would you like custard as well as ice cream on your apple crumble?” And instead of answering immediately I ponder how life seems to be tougher in the UK for the average Joe than for us Aussies.

With an exchange rate against the UK pound that is to die for, things don’t get much better than this so I go for broke. “No,” I tell her. “I’ll have two scoops of ice cream and, when you have a moment, will you also fetch me a Cognac.”

Chin, chin.

Protein is often at a premium in the Tibetan monasteries I’ve visited. The Dalai Lama has asked monks to become vegetarian but Tibetans love meat and so many resist. Around Tibetan New Year (Losar) monks receive a variety of food and sweets they don’t get at other times. This young monk was happy eating egg.

each time I looked –
old clock, old rusted building once painted white
told me it was lunchtime

maybe not a Haiku by John Holman

Look at this cute way of carrying a baby! I saw a lot mums carrying their kids around like this — it seems simple and rather effective. The kids seemed to like the closeness and unlike here (in Sydney, Australia), I heard very little crying and no tantrums that I can remember. Mind you, I was mainly outside of the big cities so maybe it’s different in Shanghai or Beijing.

When I think about the really BIG stuff in life, there are many things that ring true for me. One of my truisms is: ‘There’s no going back’. And at my age I feel that more than ever. But would I go back if I could? Nope! I’m kinda happy where I am — fat belly, glasses, grey hair and all. Well, I might change the fat belly if it didn’t entail reducing my food or drink intake. Also, I’m not really into exercise so that would have to be marked as a no-no as well!

The boy in the shot comes from Varanasi, from a family of untouchables and attends Buddha’s Smile School. Buddha’s Smile School is a free, privately run school exclusively for untouchable caste, beggar children from the Sarnath / Varanasi region of Uttar Pradesh, India.

Most mornings my wife goes for a walk with our poodle dog, Toots. She takes the car and parks it near the beach and then takes off on one of her many marathon jaunts. Me, I walk from home — for a shorter distance and at a slower pace, and I listen to an audio book and maybe take a few snapshots. We usually meet at a cafe and sit outside, drinking a coffee or two and passing the time of day talking with the many morning-people we have come to know and enjoy and watching the town wake and the kids ride passed on their bikes going to school.

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There’s no doubt about it — this world gets crazier by the day!

It seems to me that if we create genetically identical animals, it’s going to have repercussions we don’t yet know about (because they haven’t been around long enough) — isn’t it genetic diversity that provides the resilience and strength of a species against illness and adverse conditions?

This is just one more reason to read the label and make sure were your food is coming from — you won’t get me eating these frankenfoods intentionally.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s nothing more dangerous than a scientist! Well, one thing maybe: a corporation that gets the scent of a profit making possibility.

Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.

The decision, expected by the end of this year, is based largely on new data indicating that milk and meat from cloned livestock and their offspring pose no unique risks to consumers. | Link