Food For Thought

Book Review: The Course of History - Ten meals that changed the world, by Struan Stevenson and Tony Singh
The pre-Christmas work book sale is always likely to have its share of blockbusters, bestsellers, and erudite tomes, but also a selection of more quirky items, and this is definitely one of the latter. The hypothesis is that a good meal makes people more amenable to negotiation, to possibilities, to constructive viewpoints, and to this end the authors have catalogued ten meals on historic occasions through the past 300 years, with Tony Singh reconstructing recipes based on menus from Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden, through American independence, Carême at the Congress of Vienna, Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the Tehran conference of 1943, Nixon in China and finally the Egypt-Israel peace talks at Camp David. There must be some selectivity here; I assume that the food eaten must have been documented in sufficient detail, for example. Each chapter gives the historical context, the principal actors, describes the meal and its outcomes, followed by a series of recipes, which, despite the formality and grandeur of some of the occasions, at least look plausible to be tried at home. This isn't a deep book; I imagine scholars will find the history rather lightweight, but I think it's intended to be informative in a fun way, in which it succeeds.

The qatsi awards

So, farewell then, 2017. Better than 2016, but that is setting the bar a bit low. The best of the year for me:

• Fiction - The Art of Noise, by Julian Barnes


• Non-Fiction - Kind of Blue [LJ], by Ken Clarke


• Music - Filarmonica della Scala Milan at the Proms


• Film and Theatre - The Death of Stalin


• Museums and Exhibitions - Paul Nash at Tate Britain [LJ]


• Food and Drink - Maria Catita, Lisbon

Other highlights: (Fiction) Nice Work (if you can get it) by Celia Imrie, The Spy of Venice by Benet Brandreth; (non-Fiction) The Eroica by James Hamilton-Paterson; (Music) Les Siècles, BBC SO with Semyon Bychkov, The John Williams Film Music Prom, The Fourth Choir; (Film and Theatre) A Man Called Ove, The Farthest; (Museums and Exhibitions) The Museo do Oriente (Lisbon), Hokusai at the British Museum, Hockney at the Tate, Sargent and Jansson (both at Dulwich); (Food and Drink) Restaurante Farol de Santa Luzia (Lisbon); Erebuni (London), Moya (Oxford), O ver (London). After a couple of quiet years for film I've seen quite a few this year; I also appear to be making good use of my Art Pass from work.

I moved from LJ to DW following sinister downtime and changes to T&Cs of the former; it's pretty quiet here, but it had become so there, too.

It's been an indifferent year at work. The move to Bracken House has been delayed until late 2018/early 2019. I survived what has become an annual cull, but whether I will do so next year seems in doubt. It would be a shame to be let go without the opportunity of working there.

From time to time I do feel distinctly middle-aged, and my health hasn't been the best this year, with several trips to GP and dentist, and making use of my employer's private health scheme. Nothing serious has been revealed and I still enjoy generally good health, and what I do have may well be triggered by stress. In general I'm sceptical of that as a cause, but I can see the case that leads there. Work is not stress-free, though it isn't the most stressful job I've ever had; but combined with travel and it does put me under pressure for time.

I probably had a better 2017 than Theresa May, though that's not saying much; I also had a better 2017 than the people who lived in Grenfell Tower. I think that's a significant symptom of the British disease: not investing, or minimally and misguidedly investing, in something, being surprised when it goes awfully wrong, and then finding it is much more expensive and disruptive to put it right. We did that with the trains around the millennium, with a number of high-profile accidents that led to the demise of Railtrack. See also Brexit. Which trains are metaphorically going to depart from which tracks, I am unsure, but I have the feeling 2018 will be an "interesting" year with good and bad in it.