Food

Roast Carrot Salad

Memo to self: Heritage carrots taste just like carrots. I was persuaded to use “heritage” varieties here, which for the record, cost an extraordinary amount of money compared to their everyday supermarket varieties. Don’t bother.

They taste more or less the same, perhaps slightly less sweet, perhaps just less taste but they are a rather pretty range of colours which does look good in a salad. But this salad looks good anyway having a nice sprinkling  of pomegranate seeds. As always with a salad the value is with the dressing, and the addition of some pomegranate molasses.

Salad:

  • Enough carrots, heritage or otherwise chopped into smallish pieces to fill your roasting tin
  • Sunflower oil or similar for roasting
  • Salt, aromatic herbs if you fancy (rosemary, thyme)
  • Large bag of washed rocket (arugula if you’re American)
  • 1 bulb fennel sliced very finely on a mandolin
  • 3-4 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Dressing:

  • 3 tbsp decent olive oil
  • juice of a lemon
  • 1-2tsp pomegranate molasses
  • 1tsp garlic puree
  • 1tsp mustard

Roast the carrots in a hot oven (200C) for around 30-40 minutes before leaving to cool.

Mix the rocket and fennel in a large salad bowl. Add the cold roasted carrots. Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a screw top jar and shake to combine well. Toss the salad (hands are best) before topping with pomegranate seeds and serve.

 

London

Royal Academy: Revolution Russian Art 1917-1932

One hundred years on from the Russian Revolution,the RA has decided to stage a powerful exhibition exploring one of the most momentous periods in modern world history through the lens of its groundbreaking art.

Renowned artists including Kandinsky, Malevich, Chagall and Rodchenko were among those to live through the fateful events of 1917, which ended centuries of Tsarist rule and shook Russian society to its foundations.

Amidst the tumult, the arts thrived as debates swirled over what form a new “people’s” art should take.

But the optimism was not to last: by the end of 1932, Stalin’s brutal suppression had drawn the curtain down on creative freedom.

Taking inspiration from a remarkable exhibition shown in Russia just before Stalin’s clampdown, this marks the historic centenary by focusing on the 15-year period between 1917 and 1932 when possibilities initially seemed limitless and Russian art flourished across every medium.

This far-ranging exhibition will – for the first time – survey the entire artistic landscape of post-Revolutionary Russia, encompassing Kandinsky’s boldly innovative compositions, the dynamic abstractions of Malevich and the Suprematists, and the emergence of Socialist Realism, which would come to define Communist art as the only style accepted by the regime.

It also includes photography, sculpture, filmmaking by pioneers such as Eisenstein, and evocative propaganda posters from what was a golden era for graphic design.

It attempts to bring to life the human experience with a full-scale recreation of an apartment designed for communal living, and with everyday objects ranging from ration coupons and textiles to brilliantly original Soviet porcelain.

Revolutionary in their own right, together these works capture both the idealistic aspirations and the harsh reality of the Revolution and its aftermath.


It is especially interesting viewed with the much smaller exhibition upstairs “America After the Fall” It’s difficult not to see the overlap between the propaganda of communism, and the hearing for an idealised simpler populist lifestyle.

London

British Museum: America.

Apologies for so many museums but it’s the holidays and what better break from stressed out teenagers revising for exams could possibly be found.

Yesterday I went to see an art exhibition at the British Museum that pulled together a lot of the work I’ve seen recently at other sites in London, from Rauschenberg to Hockney. Since I’m not a member, but she is we just walked through the crowds in the main museum and into the quest, almost serene Sainsbury wing using her card but

I’d recommend the show even if you have to pay. If you just want to see the main exhibitions (which are free though a donation is requested) then come with a plan ie. print off the maps from the website (they cost £2 at the gallery itself), choose 5-10 objects that you’re interested in and stick to them. The museum is vast and at holiday time positively heaving with people.

If you have a child in tow, consider asking for one of the children’s trail maps. I’m often tempted to ask for one even without a child – they’re that engaging – but haven’t quite got the courage.

To see the British Museum, you need a plan. Wander aimlessly and you will see nothing. If you’re interested in the “big ticket items” i.e. Rosetta stone, Elgin Marbles etc arrive at 10am to minimise the crowds.

Anyway, pop art….

The past six decades have been among the most dynamic and turbulent in US history, from JFK’s assassination, Apollo 11 and Vietnam to the AIDS crisis, racism and gender politics. Responding to the changing times, American artists have produced prints unprecedented in their scale and ambition.

Starting with the explosion of pop art in the 1960s, the exhibition includes works by the most celebrated American artists. From Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg to Ed Ruscha, Kara Walker and Julie Mehretu – all boldly experimented with printmaking. Experience this extraordinary history through their eyes.

Taking inspiration from the world around them – billboard advertising, global politics, Hollywood and household objects – American artists created highly original prints to rival their paintings and sculptures. Printmaking brought their work to a much wider and more diverse audience.

The sheer inventiveness and technical ingenuity of their prints reflects America’s power and influence during this period. Many of these works also address the deep divisions in society that continue to resonate with us today – there are as many American dreams as there are Americans.

This exhibition presents the Museum’s outstanding collection of modern and contemporary American prints for the first time. These will be shown with important works from museums and private collections around the world.

Food

Pear and walnut cake

All to go in a 9in lined cake tin or tarte tatin dish – it’s an upside down cake!

Remember: while creaming the butter, beat it well enough for the sugar to dissolve but not so much that it becomes pale, as this will increase the chance of your cake sinking after it is baked.

For the topping (which starts life as the base)

  • 4 small pears
  • 60g dark brown sugar
  • 30g butter

For the cake batter

  • 250g unsalted butter
  • 300g light brown sugar
  • 175g ground almonds
  • 140g ground walnuts
  • 1/2tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 4 whole medium eggs
  • zest and juice of one orange
  • 150g easy cook polenta
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  1. Heat your oven to a medium low setting (160C in a fan-assisted oven would be best). Line your cake tin with paper going up the sides as the melting sugar will try and escape if you use a loose base tin. .
  2. Peel the pears and halve them. Use a teaspoon to remove the seeds. Sprinkle the sugar on the base of the tin. Cut the butter into eight small pieces and place them in the pear cavity you created by removing the seeds. Place the pear on to the bottom of the tin in a flower formation so the butter touches the sugar and the flat part of the pear also touches the sugar. It should look like seven petals around and one in the middle. You may need to trim the pears so they fit snugly.
  3. Cream the butter and sugar, using a mixer with a paddle attachment or by hand with a large spatula, until they are well-combined but not too fluffy. Add two of the eggs and mix well, then add the remaining ingredients including the last two eggs and beat together until you have a smooth mix. Spoon the mix over the pears to cover entirely and use the back of a spoon to smooth it out as much as possible.
  4. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 30 minutes before rotating to assure an even bake, and continue for a further 20-25 minutes. This cake is a little tricky; the texture will feel rather soft when it comes out but it will settle and firm up after 20 minutes. Our suggestion would be to check the cake after the provided times — the centre of the cake should feel like the outer rim. The best way to tell if it’s ready is to poke the sides, then poke the centre — they should feel the same. If your finger sinks immediately, add another 10 minutes to the baking time.
  5. Remove from the oven and leave the cake in the tin. If you try and turn it out straight away, it will collapse. Set a timer for 20 minutes, then take a serving plate and place it on the baking tin, flip the cake and ease it out, peel away the baking paper and serve. It is lovely warm but will also keep well at room temperature.
Rants&Rambles

Identity

Amidst the recriminations and collective shock in the face of Trump’s victory (and the myriad other reverses suffered by progressives in 2016), a consensus is emerging: the weakness of the left is attributable to its embrace of “identity politics”.

Rather than focussing on the interests and priorities of the majority, the story goes, the left has for too long embraced a simplistic and sectional politics in which the interests of racial and sexual minorities have taken centre stage, at the expense popularity and electability.

A recent outburst from the perhaps unlikely figure of Stephen Kinnock typifies this narrative. “What we need to see in the progressive Left is an end to this identity politics”.  & in its place “we need to be talking far more about commonality rather than what differentiates from each other – let’s talk about what unites us.”

Similar pronouncements have recently been made by Bernie Sanders, as well as a number of left-liberal commentators on both sides of the Atlantic.

However, this unease about so-called “identity politics” has been a longstanding feature of left commentary and scholarship.This disdain for identity politics is not isolated to a few individuals: it is a widespread sensibility expressed by Marxists and left-liberals alike

But what, precisely, is this “identity politics” that inspires such animosity?

At a basic level, “identity politics” refers to any politics that seeks to represent and/or advance the claims of a particular social group. But in the narratives outlined above, it has a more specific meaning: in left circles, “identity politics” is, as Nancy Fraser pointed out back in 1998, used largely as a derogatory term for feminism, anti-racism and anti-heterosexism.

The implication was – and very often still is – that gender, race and sexuality are identity-based in the sense that they are seen as flimsy, superficial and, to use Judith Butler’s memorable phrase, ‘merely cultural’.

This is contrasted with its constitutive outside, class. Class relations, in the eyes of the identity politics critic, exhibit a depth, profundity and materiality that ‘mere identity’ lacks. Furthermore, the alleged universalism of class is contrasted with the narrow, sectional concerns characteristic of so-called identity politics.

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But what, precisely, is wrong with this framing of the problem?

To start with, the implied distinction between “identity” (read: narrow, shallow, self-interested) and “class” politics (read: broad, deep, universal, authentic) misconstrues the character of these different strands of progressive politics, in at least three ways.

All forms of politics arguably involve some kind of appeal to an identity, insofar as they clearly involve claims to speak for a politically salient constituency (and thus an “identity” of sorts). This applies as much to “class” as any other dimension of power and identity. Indeed, these appeals to “class” are quintessential identity politics: they appeal to an identity category – the (presumed white) working class – whose interests have been shamefully neglected by elitist, out of touch leftists and liberals.

The question is not, therefore, universalism or identitarianism, but whether or not we acknowledge the “identitarian” character of our political claims. Something akin to this is eloquently described by James Clifford in a 1999 essay entitled ‘Taking Identity Politics Seriously’, where he argues that ‘opposition to the special claims of racial or ethnic minorities often masks another, unmarked ‘identity politics’, an actively sustained historical positioning and possessive investment in Whiteness’.

Few contemporary feminists or anti-racists would adopt the  view that one’s identity necessarily gives rise to specific forms of politics. Indeed, the recent history of feminism, queer politics and anti-racism is precisely one of challenging identity by analysing and questioning the various ways in which heteronormativity, capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy shape identity-formation.

Basically there is a frankly bewildering inference made by Pinnock et al that the left in its various guises has spent its time of late doggedly pursuing the interests of women, sexual minorities and racial minorities. The reality, however, is that left-wing movements and political parties in the UK and US have an at best patchy track records on race, gender and sexuality, as recent scholarship by the likes of Janet Conway, Julia Downes, Lara Coleman and Abigail Bakan make clear.

All the way from the moderate liberal left to the radical Marxist left, race, gender and sexuality continue to be cast as minority concerns at best, and “bourgeois distractions” at worst, while sexism and misogyny (including, but not limited to, the sexual abuse of women comrades) remain depressingly prevalent across a variety of left spaces.

Consequently, left-wing denunciations of identity politics yield a number of alarming consequences: they naturalise gendered and racialised hierarchies by casting white, male class politics as universal. Such a narrative is therefore not only powerless to challenge, but actively complicit in, the re-energised white supremacism which, as Akwugo Emejulu has recently outlined, has been fundamental to the context of Trump’s victory.

What is more, to pit class politics against identity politics casts women, racial minorities and sexual minorities as outside the boundaries of true, authentic “working classness”. As such, the political claims of working class ethnic minorities, queers and women increasingly go unheard. This is exacerbated by the continued use of “left behind” as euphemism for “white working class”, with its inference that white poverty is unnatural, exceptional, worthy of our attention, while black poverty is either invisible or simply part of the natural order of things. Who is seen to “count” as authentically working class has thus become a key terrain of struggle in the era of Trump and Brexit.

Let us, therefore, not be under any illusions about how these dismissals of “identity politics” function: they are, in effect, a kind of dog whistle to those on the left who might, for instance, agree that black lives matter, but ultimately believe that when push comes to shove it is the (white male) working class that matters more.

As others have pointed out, this is tantamount to being called upon to sacrifice a range of constituencies – women, racial minorities, queers, immigrants (and at times perhaps also trans people, non-binary and gender non-conforming folk, sex workers) – on the altar of political expediency. Putting aside any doubts as to whether this would actually work in terms of galvanising electoral support, this is clearly a morally bankrupt form of politics.

Any solution that insists we forget, minimise or ignore the disadvantage of those who are not white and male is not one I want to sign up to.

Political

Populism

POPULISM has already upended the politics of the West. Americans have elected a president who has described NATO as “obsolete” and accused China of ripping off their country. Europe’s second-largest economy, Britain, is preparing to leave the European Union (EU). But the populist revolution still has a long way to go. The far-right Sweden Democrats have been near the top of polls in a country that is synonymous with bland consensus. Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, a party that wants to take France out of the euro and hold a referendum on France’s membership of the EU, is a shoo-in for the final round of the presidential election.

Populism comes in a wide variety of flavours, left-wing as well as right-wing and smiley-faced as well as snarling. But populists are united in pitting “the people” against “the powerful”, them and us.

Spain’s left-wing Podemos bashes “la casta”, Britain’s right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP) demonises the liberal elite, and Italy’s impossible-to-classify Beppe Grillo rails against “three destroyers—journalists, industrialists and politicians”. Populists are united in suspicion of traditional institutions, on the grounds that they have been either corrupted by the elites or left behind by technological change.

But they differ in all sorts of ways that make a populist front across political or national boundaries difficult. Right-wing populism is typically triadic, portraying the middle classes as squeezed between two outgroups, such as foreigners and welfare “spongers”. Left-wing populism is dyadic—it champions the masses against plutocratic elites or, as with Scottish nationalism, a foreign elite.

Populism was born in the prairies of the American Midwest: farmers, hit by falling grain prices and exploited by local railway monopolists, raged against “the money power” and organised new parties such as the People’s Party. The rural populists forged alliances with urban workers and middle-class progressives. They found champions in mainstream politics such as Williams Jennings Bryan, who warned against crucifying the people on a “cross of gold”, and Teddy Roosevelt, who railed against “malefactors of great wealth”.

Populism profoundly shaped the 1920s and 1930s: not just in Germany and Italy (where dictators ruled in the name of the people) but also in America (where Franklin Roosevelt moved decisively to the left to head off a challenge from Huey Long, a Louisiana populist who promised “every man a king” and “a chicken in every pot”). The tendency retreated to a few islands of rage during the long post-war prosperity: France’s National Front drew its support from marginalised groups such as the pieds-noirs forced from Algeria after decolonisation, and small shopkeepers who hated paying taxes.

But populism began to revive during the stagnant 1970s: in 1976 Donald Warren, an American sociologist, announced his discovery of a group of Middle American Radicals (MARs) who believed that the American system was rigged in favour of the rich and the poor against the middle class. And it continued to grow during the long reign of pro-globalist orthodoxy: for example, Ross Perot doomed George Bush senior’s bid for a second term with a presidential campaign that prefigured many of the themes that Donald Trump has sounded more recently.

It seems that the current populist explosion is unlikely to be a mere temporary aberration: particular parties such as UKIP may implode, but the tendency draws on a deep well of discontent with the status quo. Technocratic elites lost much of their credibility in the global financial crisis in 2008. The EU has damaged its claim to be a guardian of democracy against populist extremists by repeatedly ignoring referendums in which voters rejected new treaties.

The populists have shown a genius for taking worries that contain a nugget of truth—such as that unrestricted immigration is destabilising—and turning them into vote-winning platforms. And they have relentlessly broadened and deepened their appeal as establishment politicians have marginalised the issues that give them life, for example treating worries about migration as nothing but racism. France’s National Front, the most mature of all the populist parties, has already extended its constituency from small businesses to blue-collar workers, pocketing districts that were once dominated by the left and now extending its appeal to public-sector workers.

Some blinkered commentators still see populism as no more than a protest movement: dangerous and disruptive but ultimately doomed by the advance of globalisation and multiculturalism, which are in turn driven by irreversible technological and demographic forces. A glance at history suggests that this view is questionable.

Globalisation went into rapid reverse in the 1920s and 1930s despite the spread of aeroplanes and telephones. The proportion of Americans born abroad was 13.4% in 1920, but after the Immigration Act of 1924 that fell, reaching 4.7% in 1970. The Western elite may be as wrong about the long-term impact of populism as it has been about its short-term prospects.

We are where we are. What happens when populism doesn’t provide the answers that people are looking for? Even worse, what happens if it does?

London

Tate Modern: Rauschenberg

I am unconvinced by the Rauschenberg Exhibition but entirely willing to accept that the fault is mine.

According to the Observer ‘Robert Rauschenberg is America’s Leonardo – ceaselessly inventive, a mind in perpetual revolution. That is the revelation of this exhilarating show’

And it is blindingly obvious that he is the inspiration for any number of current artists. The link between his “bed” and that of Tracy Emin, or his “goat” and Damien Hirst’s various formaldehyde animals is clear, but rather sad;y the technology means the latter are much easier to appreciate.

Rauschenberg blazed a new trail for art in the second half of the twentieth century.

The landmark exhibition at the Tate celebrates his extraordinary six-decade career, taking you on a dazzling adventure through modern art in the company of a truly remarkable artist. The thing that strikes the visitor and stays with you is the range of his work.

From paintings including flashing lights to a stuffed angora goat, Rauschenberg’s appetite for incorporating things he found in the streets of New York knew no limits. Pop art silkscreen paintings of Kennedy sit alongside 1000 gallons of bentonite mud bubbling to its own rhythm. Rauschenberg even made a drawing which was sent to the moon.

Each room captures a different moment of this rich journey, from Rauschenberg’s early response to abstract expressionism to his final works saturated in images and colour. Seen together they show how Rauschenberg rethought the possibilities for art in our time.

This exhibition, organised in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, is the first full-scale retrospective since the artist’s death in 2008 and is claimed by the Tate to be the ultimate Rauschenberg experience. Hmm. It is a chance to see these major international loans together in one place, while discovering the full story of an inspirational and much-loved artist whose influence is still felt today

Political, Rants&Rambles

Leading Light or Lead Balloon?

Labour’s predicament is that Jeremy Corbyn is hugely unpopular. His poll ratings are worse than for any comparable leader in British polling history. The gap between his standing and that of the PrimeMinister Mrs. May is now alarmingly wide. In a recent poll, 17% approved of Corbyn’s leadership and 58% disapproved. The comparable figures for Mrs. May were 46% and 33%. (In both cases, the rest had no opinion).

A recent article in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper suggested that the policies of the Labour Party were actually quite popular with the electorate right up to the point where Corbyn’s name was associated with them.

There are those amongst his many supporters within the party who argue that Corbyn is being judged both prematurely and by the wrong standards. Those attracted to him were looking for a different model of leadership, whose role is to empower, to galvanise and to operate as a standard bearer of a new mass movement.

In this context it could be useful to explore James MacGregor Burns’s distinction between ‘transactional’ and ‘transforming’ leadership. The former envisages leadership in terms of a transaction between the leader and other players in the party. For example, a leader may seek the co-operation and compliance of others through offering a range of incentives, such as policy concessions and personal advancement. Each party to a bargain would be aware of the power resources, proclivities, and preferences of others, and would engage in a process of mutual adjustment.

Transforming leadership, in contrast, envisages as the crucial leadership functions teaching, inspiring and energising, with fervor and dedication in the service of promoting a party’s collective purposes. Endowed with clear visions, transformational leaders are primarily concerned with the advocacy and pursuit of wide-ranging values – such as social justice and equality – and are loath to engage in too many compromises that might jeopardise them.

This approach meshes well as the radical (or ‘hard’) left’s model of the party. Labour’s prime purpose should be to give effect to the ideals and objectives with which it was historically associated. These should be embodied in policies determined by the wider party, and not by any parliamentary conclave. The role of the leader should be to ‘rally their own side effectively’, to appeal to the party’s base and to facilitate both its democratisation and ‘an empowerment of a new grassroots movement.’ Corbyn’s role as a transforming leader is, in short, to invigorate, mobilise and enthuse as the new voice and standard-bearer of a remoralised party.

Corbyn’s ability to perform this role has undoubtedly been severely handicapped by an unrelentingly and often venomously hostile media. It also needs to be said that his limitations as a communicator and his inability to convey the impression of a man possessing the skills and stature of a prime minister in waiting has not helped.

This is widely recognized (at least by his critics). But, even more fundamentally, his very concept of leadership– the leader as transformer – is flawed.

Here it may be useful to take the argument further by citing Weber’s distinction between ‘the ‘ethic of responsibility’ and the ‘ethic of ultimate ends.’ A political leader who accepts the former is animated by a prudential and calculating spirit, is acutely aware of the consequences of any action, and sees political choice in terms of balancing priorities and awkward trade-offs.

But the ‘ethic of responsibility’ can too easily slide into opportunism, careerism, self-serving actions and mere expediency. It is this that the ‘ethic of ultimate ends’ vehemently rejects. It stands for a more steadfast, determined, and uncompromising form of politics driven by principle and honesty. Corbyn’s appeal for many in Labour’s ranks is that he embodied this ‘ethic of ultimate ends’ and rejected Labour’s customary mode of leadership, with all its equivocations, evasions, and half-measures.

The danger is that the personal appropriation of a higher morality and a disregard for pragmatism and compromise can transmute into unyielding and obdurate political stance. As Weber commented, ‘the believer in an ethic of ultimate ends feels “responsible” only for seeing to it that the flame of pure intentions is not quenched.’ 

This might be compatible with effective leadership when a leader directs a tightly centralised party with full mastery of its key institutions. But Corbyn presides over a party in which power is dispersed among a whole range of institutions, several of which are centres of resistance to his rule. Labour is riven by multiple divisions, over policy, strategy, ideology and, most of all, internal organisation.

Most damagingly, it is suffering from a veritable crisis of legitimacy.

At present, Corbynistas and their critics lack a shared understanding of the ground-rules and values (democracy, accountability, and representation) which should underpin and validate the way in which power is distributed, decisions taken, and sovereignty located. In short, Corbyn both lacks consent and is hemmed in by institutional constraints, without control of decisive levers of power and the confidence of key players.

In such circumstances transforming leadership imbued by an ethic of ultimate ends is peculiarly inappropriate. Labour is a pluralist organisation composed of people attached to a range of often divergent interests, objectives, and values. When this is compounded by profound internal divisions, the skills of a transactional leader are essential.

This mode of leadership ‘requires a shrewd eye for opportunity, a good hand at bargaining, persuading, reciprocating.’ It demands an orientation to leadership governed by the ethic of responsibility, incorporating an open and conciliatory style of engagement, a ‘capacity to modulate personal and political ambitions by patient calculation and realistic appraisal of situations’ and an overriding emphasis upon the importance of reaching consensus and coalition-building. It involves accommodating public opinion with membership preferences, regulating disagreements, astute political maneuvering and a capacity, above all, to hold the party together.

Corbyn has merits – decency, honesty, integrity – but it is not at all evident that concept of leadership is what the party requires.

Food

Ginger Stout Cake

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 125 grams raw (Demerara) sugar (1/2 cup)
  • 1 cup stout
  • 1 cup molasses/treacle
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 340 grams plain flour (2 cups)
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon allspice
  • ¼ teaspoon fine salt
  • 3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
  • 3 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 210 grams dark brown sugar, lightly packed (1 cup)
  • 200 grams granulated sugar (1 cup)
  • ¾ cup sunflower oil

PREPARATION

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a Bundt pan well with the softened butter. Coat the entire pan with raw sugar so that it sticks to the butter. Turn the pan over to dump out any excess sugar.
  2. Add the stout and molasses to a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat. Carefully whisk in the baking soda and let cool to room temperature. Be careful as the stout mixture will bubble up.
  3. Sift together the flour, ground spices, pepper and salt. Set aside.
  4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mix the fresh ginger, eggs, vanilla extract, dark brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium speed for five minutes.
  5. Turn the mixer down to low speed and add the oil. Mix for another 5 minutes. Slowly add the stout mixture and mix for another 5 minutes.
  6. Carefully add the dry ingredients in two parts, mixing well in between each addition.
  7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes and then flip upside down to release while still warm. Let cool completely.

Home, Rants&Rambles

Healthy

In our house we are counting down months towards retirement, which is both a positive expectation and a financial worry.

It isn’t about how long we expect to live for necessarily since the cost of living will change as our old age changes. The first ten years will be relatively expensive as we plan to travel and enjoy our lives. We’ll also  probably end up spending some money helping to make our kids independent lives a little easier.

Then we’ll probably start to settle down and travel less extensively, live closer to home, more baby sitting and less rock climbing.

And finally we’ll settle into proper old age when our biggest weekly trip will be to the supermarket and relatives, maybe the bridge club once a week, with a (hopefully) brief last two years when physically it all goes “tits up”. The last seems to be true whenever you die, whether at 60 or 90: the last two years can be grim.

Life expectancy at age 65 for men in the UK reached 18.4 years in 2012–2014 and for women it reached 20.9 years. This means that a man aged 65 could expect to live to age 83 and a woman to nearly age 86.

In 2009-11, Disability-Free Life Expectancy (DFLE) for males at birth was 63.9 years, for females it was longer at 64.4 years. Despite having shorter DFLE, males expect to spend a greater proportion of their lives (81.0%) free from disability, compared to females (77.8%). basically women live longer but not in perfect health. Disability can hide a multitude of sins at this age, but given our socio-economic class the cards are stacked in our favour a little.

 

Before we all rush to book one-way tickets to Dignitas when we are 80, it is important to remember that many older people have no social care needs. If you ask people what they would do, knowing now what they do about old age, to prepare for it.

The advice went something like this: make a will, make a living will, put in place power of attorney, have a pension, avoid being overweight, don’t smoke, drink moderately, stay active, think about your needs in old age before you get there and, if necessary, downsize and move to somewhere more suitable, don’t stick your head in the sand about old age, have a social network, stay mentally active, keep out of hospital if you can (a geriatrician told me that 10 days in hospital is equivalent to 10 years of muscle wasting in elderly people), work for as long as you can, and find what you enjoy and do it.

That is as much as we have control over. Except, knowing all this, we may also want to start voting for a political party that invests in elder care. You know, just in case.