Want to be a free thinker but still a nice person

Freaky men's room

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:38:00 +0000

The Russian restaurant my friends and I ate at on Friday night was an odd place. Just look at the men's room:

And then this sign:

I think next time I'm looking for a restaurant for a big night out with my friends, I will not go for the overly humorous places like this. (Plus there was some kind of prostitution den downstairs.)

Brer Rabbit Excursions open for business

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:41:00 +0000

One of our commenters has a new business in Mississippi doing tours of the state on scooters. He's having opening ceremonies at Fat Mama's tamale place in Natchez, Mississippi, if you can get by there today. Here's the info:

He writes:

Got all the scooters in town, 16 of them, got the 24' trailer, and got a wonderful deal on a 2006 Ford 4x4 to pull the trailer with, I can start my local tours before my van arrives in mid or late december.

Yesterday turned out to be more interesting and more fun than I thought it would be. I had the pleasure of the company of two debutantes, one cajun and one pure bred Mississippian (a preacher's daughter); the first portrays Miss Teresa Mississippi Ellerbe in today's coming out party at Fat Mama's and the second Miss April Tennessee Rabbit.

We began her instruction on the 125cc SYM I captured from the Yankee across the river. She did very well, made a few trips up and down the gravel road on her grandparent's property, and then she and I and my wife took her on her first road trip.

Unfortunately, I, the lead rider failed to notice an abrupt change from pavement to gravel near the entrance to the Homochitto National Forest. I was able to stop but Miss Teresa shot past me with a big smile on her face until she realized she'd hit a loose, sandy, gravel road- she dumped the little red SYM and did a perfect head first arms outstrectched home plate slide on the gravel- and didn't get a scratch, not even her pride was wounded. She just wanted to try it again.

The little SYM had cattywompus rear view mirrors and one turn signal at a radically diifferent angle than the other, some scratches on the plastic body work but was otherwise just fine, so off we went.

For more info on the tours, see Trace Riders

Awful books written by celebrities

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:46:00 +0000

We were talking about celebrities 'publishing' novels on another topic and how awfully they are written. Fellow blogger Tim Trent sent us another example of non-writers getting published. He says:

If you like Martine's work, you'll love this one!

So erudite! So, so, so, footballer!

A convicted wife-beater has been kicked off a Danish soccer team for publishing his autobiography, which contains a rant about how he hates gay people. Pinknews reports that Polish goalkeeper Arek Onyszko's new book, Fucking Polack, includes the following passage:

"I hate gays, I really do. I think it’s fucking disgusting to hear them talk to each other as if they are girls. I can’t be in the same room as someone who’s gay. Look at them kissing each other – it’s sickening."

No word on whether the whole book is written in this style, although something tells me the player's not much of a wordsmith.

Good post from Mississippi Atheists today

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:11:00 +0000

Interesting points:

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and every off-shoot, sect, denomination, etc.) are each and all founded upon the same ideological mind trap clothed within a commonly asserted divine authority that is beyond contention by virtue of costume, incense, bell ringing and lots of repetitive chanting.

In other words, they are fictional narratives that human beings derive, craft, invent and re-invent to maintain power and authority for better or worse through the concept of ancestral tradition and childhood indoctrination.

The bottom line is that the moderates and liberals of all religious traditions should be taken to task for not being more pro-actively critical of the darker, more violent and absolutist brands of their own religion (cultural narratives) and not just pipe up to critique the criticism when one of their own goes “Old Testament” on folks (as in Fort Hood, Texas, last week).

Some moderates and liberals explain away these violent events by claiming that the “true” interpretations derived from each of these religions is firmly and universally founded upon “love, compassion, caring, empathy and reciprocity”, aka "many flowing rivers leading to one shimmering ocean of understanding", no matter the obvious violence and despair that some adherents promote due to their mythic bonds and purported special relationships with a God who never appears, but is most often just an expression of their own human desires and cravings.

My question for both rigid fundamentalist and liberal mystic continues to be this:

Why do we as a species hold onto these archaic myths, legends and lore to provide us directives on how to love and care for each other in this good life when they are inescapably polluted with the contradictions of brutal deities, prophets and teachers promoting “their way or the highway to Hell”?

Do we not know how to be good without them?

Do we not know how to love without them?

I believe that all humans do, in fact, know the importance of the deep and abiding human values of love, empathy and reciprocity without such primitive religious narratives about burning bushes and assorted winged angels visiting special men walking alone to tell us what a deity beyond space and time thinks about women, other gods, pigs, oysters and foreskins or which tribe is his favorite deserving of a particular patch of desert and a glorious reward in the afterlife magic kingdom.

Given all of the empirical evidence we may currently have to the contrary, however, that claim might just make me the real faithful believer after all.

Long winter nights

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Do you know what's hard on a Mississippi girl living in England? The long winter nights, and the days with no sun. Last night it got pitch black dark by 5:00. I had been in town earlier having tea with my friend Madeleine so I thought I wouldn't have that confined closed-in feeling that I get by 6:30 in the winter, but I did.

I finished my domestic chores then I finished a book by Julia Childs. I played with the cat for a while. I watched some TV with my husband but it was still only 7:30. I talked to my son, but he was busy with homework and told me, in essence, to make it snappy.

I took the prices off some Christmas presents I'd bought earlier that day. I took an early bath.

I filed my nails -- but it was still only 8:30. I looked around for some cross-stitch I'd started a few weeks ago but couldn't find it.

I started reading another book. Then I felt sort of like a caged animal. At 9:45, I asked my husband if he would mind getting dressed and going out with me for a walk. I felt like I was going to go insane if I didn't get out. He was happy to go out, and we walked for a mile. When we got back, it wasn't even 10:15 so I started reading again.

How on earth am I going to get through this winter with my mental faculties intact?

PS
Just found a nice poem about long winter nights:

"The Cracked Bell"
by Charles Baudelaire

How bittersweet it is, on winter's night,
To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire,
As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light,
Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.

Lucky the bell—still full and deep of throat,
Clear-voiced despite its years, strong, eloquent—
That rings, with faithful tongue, its pious note
Like an old soldier, wakeful, in his tent!

My soul lies cracked; and when, in its despair,
Pealing, it tries to fill the cold night air
With its lament, it often sounds, instead,

Like some poor wounded wretch—long left for dead
Beneath a pile of corpses, lying massed
By bloody pool—rattling, gasping his last.

Eliz again: oops, not so pleasant an ending, but still, it's poetry so it must be worth it.

The Berlin wall and happy futures

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

It's been 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. I watched it on TV while I was holding my newborn baby in my arms. I was so hopeful that she would have a wonderful future in a peaceful world. Really, I was that naive. I thought there might not be any more wars.

Later on, I went to visit my cousin John Scanlon who was working in Berlin, and we visited the Wall with him (below).

Now, on this very day, his wife is giving birth to their first baby. Once again I'll hope that this baby is born into a peaceful world with no more wars. But how naive that hope is.

I wish we could get out of Iraq and Afghanistan! Surely we have moved past this need to solve problems by sending our people in to kill other people?

If in some smothering dreams

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:24:00 +0000

Sunday is Remembrance Sunday in England. Every year at this time, people start wearing poppies on their lapels. The poppy is a symbol of the poppy fields in Belgium where so many British lost their lives in World War I.

Below is my husband's favorite World War I poem by Wilfred Owen. He explains that the last two lines of Latin mean "Sweet and noble it is to die for one's country," and refer to a poem by Horace that glorifies war. Mel says, "The Horace poem was very important in World War I because it was used to rouse young men into volunteering for the military. Owen's use of the line is, of course, ironic."

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Royal drinking

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:19:00 +0000

I went to London this weekend to celebrate a couple of birthdays. We went to the hottest bar in town right now, Mahiki's. Prince William and Harry hang out there, as does anyone famous (the remnants of Elvis Presley's family was seen coming out of the bar at 3 am a week or so ago).

Here's our merry group:

There was such a buzz in Mahiki, and we had a great time. The signature drink of the house is the Treasure Chest. A waiter comes out and plunks a big treasure chest on the table, opens it up and out flies a bunch of confetti -- it goes high into the air, giving a festive feel. The treasure chest is filled with ice and fruit chunks. There is some rum spiced drink in the chest, and then, the best part, the waiter opens a bottle of Moet & Chandon and pours it all over the ice, gives everyone large straws and the party begins.

Just look at my daughter's face when she witnesses it:

We get to drinking:

After Mahiki's, we went to a Russian restaurant that was supposed to be loads of fun. The food was good (I had Borscht with beef --they said that was the way Russians eat it -- and you throw sour cream on the top and mix it all up) but there weren't many people there. At the end of our meal, the club downstairs started filling up with Russian men and what appeared to be prostitutes (as I call them, Hos).

I was embarrassed. My daughter went downstairs to the ladies room, and people tried to entice her to go with some of the men who would buy her drinks. That's all I need is for my daughter to go into prostitution right now.

Here Katie and I are chilling out:

I don't know why things are like they are

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:53:00 +0000

The old guy at the top of this photo was my grandfather. I really loved him. He died 28 years ago today, and it almost killed me to lose him.

My father was a terrible person so my grandfather was the only nice man I had in my life. You can see why I would hate to have him go.

I looked at his picture the other day, and I thought that my kids never knew him so once I go, Grandad will be gone forever too as he will no longer exist in anyone's memory.

I don't think there's anything after this life so there's not going to be any meeting up with my grandparents or my mother later on. That's just it -- they are gone from my life and I have to keep going without them.

It's a tough thing to think about -- that life isn't really like an Oprah show -- that you have no single destiny that you must fulfill or that there's a God with a master plan for your single teeny life or even that everything will be fine if you just read Oprah's magazine and follow the precepts there.

But, on the other hand, there are plenty of people left on the Earth to enjoy -- more on that later today.

Fort Hood killings

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Today's Profundity: The NRA reminds us---"guns don't kill people, people kill people, which is why people should never be allowed to have guns!" Oops, that wasn't exactly what he said, was it? Check with the folks at Fort Hood. (Gee, if all the people had guns to protect themselves, this kind of thing wouldn't happen! Oops! On an army base with lots of suicides! "Guns don't kill people, guns solve problems!")

Thank you for posting this, Dr. Dillingham. It's something I never thought of before. The argument always goes that if the population was totally armed to the teeth, this wouldn't happen, but yet it did in a place where everyone had a gun.

Another interesting opinion

A deranged murderer attacked an Army base packed with combat-ready soldiers trained to kill. The only person who could stop him? A female civilian.

Following Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's deadly Fort Hood shooting spree, and ensuing media chaos and misinformation melee Lt. Gen. Robert Cone's press conference delivered several surprises: Though Hasan was gunned down on the scene, he was not, as previously reported, dead. Nor was the person who shot him. Both were in stable condition in the hospital—and one of them was a woman.

Reporters clamored for details of her, stammering breathless questions about the "hero," who she was, and why she was there. All we know so far is that she is not in the military; that she was a "first responder" (maybe a cop); that bullets from her gun were what stopped Hasan's massacre; that she was shot, that she nearly died; and that, had she enlisted to fight in the front lines of the Army, she would have been turned down. Combat units are male-only.

Response to New Atheist post from yesterday

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:59:00 +0000

Thank you Wonderist for making this response to yesterday's post about the new atheism:

Are we fundamentalist, evangelical, close minded, pathologically certain, deranged, faith-based, paranoid, hateful, egomaniacal, intolerant, child-molesting suicide bombers?

No.

Are we even really that 'new'?

No!

All we are is unapologetic.

We don't believe in gods, we are not ashamed of this, we speak out about it, we criticize religions, and we're not ashamed of that either. We've done nothing wrong and have nothing to apologize for.

Notice that in that entire screed, Schaeffer does not provide *one single* shred of evidence to support his ridiculous equivalence. To be considered a dangerous theist, you have to have a machine gun or a vest bomb. To be a dangerous atheist, all you have to do is write a book or open your mouth.

What is going on here is that we do not respect the taboo against hurting people's religious sensitivities. In fact, we think this very taboo is dangerous and illegitimate. We feel compelled to challenge this taboo, because it fosters a public discourse where some dangerous religious ideas go unchecked and unchallenged.

And so we speak up. And we challenge the taboo. And the best way to challenge it is to break it unapologetically. To break the taboo against sitting at the back of the bus, all Rosa Parks did was unapologetically sit at the back of the bus.

We don't insult people, we challenge their beliefs. There's a big difference. A belief is not a person. A person is not their beliefs.

For this, we are shouted down by those who are taboo-sensitive, such as Schaeffer. We're smeared with: Are we fundamentalist, evangelical, close minded, pathologically certain, deranged, faith-based, paranoid, hateful, egomaniacal, intolerant, child-molesting, suicide bombing. And 'new'.

But we are only unapologetic, and we will remain so, until the taboo is broken. We have done nothing wrong, and we have nothing to apologize for.

Blasphemy is a victimless crime. Anyone who thinks it isn't has some explaining to do.

What religion should you be?

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:05:00 +0000

My friend Brenda sent me this amusing chart. I noticed that fellow blogger Steve had already put it up on his blog but since I didn't take it from there, and I've asked him to pretend he's never seen it before when he sees it here, I'm going to put it up. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

International night at the pub

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:51:00 +0000

I've been in meetings with guys from work this week -- two Finnish guys came over for them as well. Afterwards we went to the pub to continue team building (drinking and eating).

I was suprised when I went into the pub to see they have their Christmas decorations up already:

I think it's too much to ask that we have a Dickensian type Christmas spirit for two solid months.

Anyway, we ordered food and drink and got to know each other better. I asked the Finns all sorts of questions about their country. I said one of the guy's name but he didn't even notice so I knew I was saying it wrong. His name is Ilari, and I was pronouncing it like Hillary without the H.

He corrected me. Each syllable must be flatly pronounced -- don't put emphasis on one syllable over another. And you MUST roll your Rs. So his name sounds like ILL-A-RRRRRI.

Did you know that all Finnish children are taught Swedish and English in school? I didn't understand why they would have to know Swedish but they do.

We made the Finns order traditional British food. When they got their treacle pudding, well, they didn't know what to make of it, but they ate it anyway.

One of our group just got his English citizenship, so we made him order typical British fare like prawn cocktail. Here he is trying it:

New Atheists as bad as Christian fundamentalists?

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:33:00 +0000

Further to my post on atheists this morning, I just read this interesting opinion. What do you think?

"My problem with the so-called New Atheist movement is that several of the most successful of the New Atheist leaders -- as judged by book sales and speaking fees --say Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins -- remind me of the worst of my own fundamentalist evangelical background. They are as close minded as they seem to be almost pathologically certain of their beliefs.

I know a deranged faith-based personality cult when I see one, given that my late father Francis Schaeffer was a fundamentalist guru to millions in the 1970s and 80s and a leading founder of the Religious Right, something Max Blumenthal discusses in his important book Republican Gomorrah and that I go into (in depth) in my book Patience With God--Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion Or Atheism. (In that book I explain what is wrong with evangelicalism -- besides paranoia and hate! -- and why I got out.)

The New Atheist movement is being led by several egomaniac intolerant fundamentalists. It’s relevant to ask about who they are, not just what they say or write, because the New Atheism isn’t just about non-belief in God. The leaders of this movement make loud, repeated, and bold claims about atheism being better and more moral, more ethical, and a vastly improved alternative to religion. They also name names when blasting religious leaders.

If we are to dismiss Christianity and other religions partly because of the likes of Oral Roberts, Ted Haggard, and their shenanigans (not to mention child-molesting Roman Catholic priests, Islamic suicide bombers et al) it's just as legitimate to ask about the characters of the people pointing out religious people’s moral faults ad naming names."

God's whistle blowers

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:29:00 +0000

We have had so many fights over religion in this blog, and sometimes believers get upset with me for mocking Jesus too much. But now I read that atheists are actually a blessing to believers. Read on:

[Atheists] can be a "blessing" for believers, said Samir Selmanovic, co-founder and co-leader of New York's interreligious Faith House Manhattan and author of It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian. Atheists are "God's whistle-blowers," who keep believers honest and focused on the here-and-now, Selmanovic said. "Atheism at its best grabs us by the collar and throws us to the ground, demanding to see lives well lived, forcing us to dig deeper and live up to the best of our own religions," he writes.

Younger and thinner is better (for women anyway)

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:00:00 +0000

I usually listen to a kindly DJ on a classical musical station on my way home from work. He seems like a nice enough person even though he can be a bit of a windbag sometimes.

So I was suprised to hear him talk about an interview he had with Renee Fleming on his show today. 'She's 50 but she seems 15 years younger,' he said before going on to describe her figure (you expect sopranos to be fatter, he was implying, but she is thin).

He would never talk that way about a man. We're supposed to be getting away from the idea that women are better if they are thin and young, yet here a mainstream DJ goes again bringing it up.

Stoopid women's calendar

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:06:00 +0000

I made my daughter buy a calendar for me for Christmas last year. It was called something like 'a calendar for women who do too much.' I do too much so I thought this might help me.

Boy, was I wrong. It's filled with one stoopid daily thought after another. It almost makes me ashamed to be a woman who does too much. Surely a man who does too much would never own such a ridiculous calendar?

Today's page says:

Blessed is the woman who has a pet in her life who really knows her. This is a different kind of intimacy. We need a variety of intimacies in our lives.

Doesn't it sound like a second grader wrote that?

Did a man produce this calendar and is secretly laughing at all the stoopid women who bought it?

A Confession

I have to confess that after I slagged this calendar off for talking about intimacy with pets that I had a moment like that with my foster cat. I was asleep in my cozy bed this morning (English houses turn the heat off at night so the house gets cold and slumberers snuggle into their warm beds and can't get out in the mornings.)

Anyway, the alarm went off, and I was just waking up but not moving. The cat tried to wake me up so I could get her breakfast. She mewed loudly at me for a bit, then started poking me with her paws. I decided to pretend I was still asleep just to see what else she'd do. She started climbing on top of my body and getting her face right into mine while she mewed. She was some hungry cat.

Cancers can vanish without treatment?

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:34:00 +0000

A reader sent this to me this week. This is so interesting. There is a debate about how much screening a person needs, especially those expensive all-body scans that you can get yourself.

Might this also explain some of the cancers that sufferers think God has healed?

"Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened.

But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week, data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear.

“The old view is that cancer is a linear process,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. “A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously.”

So, Dr. Kramer said, the image was “an arrow that moved in one direction.” But now, he added, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers require more than mutations to progress. They need the cooperation of surrounding cells and even, he said, “the whole organism, the person,” whose immune system or hormone levels, for example, can squelch or fuel a tumor.

Cancer, Dr. Kramer said, is a dynamic process."

500,000 animals slaughtered + I visit the hairdresser

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:39:00 +0000

I read a grisly article at the hairdresser's tonight. I went after work to get something done to the frizzy mess that is my hair. As usual, I was annoyed that the manager of the salon has promoted people again this month and raised their prices. She'll say she only raises prices once a year, but that doesn't count all the promotions she gives her staff that means they can command more for a haircut.

They start getting silly made-up titles too once she's run out of Style Designer or Senior Stylist. I'm sure she's given some people titles like Commander of the Haircut or Queen of the Scissors. Boy do they get expensive when they acquire titles like that.

Anyway, the shocking article I read in the paper at the salon was about animal sacrifice in Nepal.

Plans to sacrifice more than 500,000 animals during a two-day religious festival in Nepal this month have met with the wrath of animal rights activists who have called for the 300-year old ritual to be banned.

Every five years the tiny village of Bariyapur near Nepal’s southern border with India is swamped with blood as hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees flock to the local temple to take part in what is thought to be the world’s biggest ritual slaughter.

This year it is expected that about 500,000 animals, including about 25,000 buffaloes, will be offered to the Hindu goddess Gadhimai by devotees who hope that in return she will answer their prayers. Proceedings begin with the sacrifice of two wild rats, a rooster, a pig, a goat and a lamb.

Opponents of the ritual say it will harm the reputation of Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries. Pramada Shah, of Animal Welfare Network Nepal, said: "By perpetuating such a mass massacre in the name of religion, culture and tradition in the 21st century, we are projecting Nepal as barbaric."

Activists have also claimed that the slaughter is a health hazard. Govinda Tandon, of the Stop Animal Sacrifices Alliance, said: "There are rivers of blood for months with carcasses lying everywhere. The grounds are dominated by vultures, while the stench makes life miserable for people living nearby.

Aubergine Parmigano

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:33:00 +0000

I'm sorry to take the blog from the sublime of OJ's prose this morning to the mundane of recipe storing, but I must. I need to access this recipe from my blog later in the week. Maybe you'd like to try it too?

Aubergine Parmigano

This is a firm family favourite, a comfort food that I serve with crusty bread and a green salad on cold days. Very easy to make - you just layer the aubergines, mozzarella, tomato and parmesan and cook it until it all melts. It's also great for dinner parties and easy weekend lunches.

1. Cut the aubergines into slices approximately 1.5cm thick, sprinkle them with salt, lay them on a plate and put another plate on top of them with a weight on the top to squeeze the aubergines together. This will draw out any bitterness in the aubergines. You don't get many bitter aubergines and you may be lucky, but one day you won't and it will ruin your dish unless you've salted them first so it's just not worth the risk.

2 Leave for 30 minutes, then rinse the salt off and dry the aubergine slices.

3 Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the aubergine in batches until golden, drain on lots of kitchen roll.

4 Once all the aubergine has been fried, take a big, deep casserole and layer starting with aubergine, then mozarella, passata, salt and pepper, basil and finally parmesan flakes. Continue until all the aubergine has been used. You should have 2-3 layers depending on how deep and wide your casserole is.

5 Put the lid on and bake for 1 hour - the top layer of parmesan should be golden brown and the mozzarella should be melted.

6 Serve with crusty bread and green salad

A broken silver chain

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:51:00 +0000

I am so lucky to have the best commenters in the world on my blog. They cheer me up, keep me going and surprise me all the time. Last night one commenter brought up Madame Bovary, which led to a lively discussion and ended with this beautiful essay written by one of our favorite commenters, Oranjepan. Thanks, OJ. Here it is:

I wrote to a Mlle Bovary once upon a time.

We quickly became pen-friends, exchanging letters for several years until the intimacy had grown that we had to make the effort to meet.

We arranged to meet at Biarritz when I was on one of my trans-continental journeys.

I stayed in a nondescript hotel, and the night beforehand I could hardly sleep for dreaming. We met before the Atlantic waves under a glacial autumn sky.

She had acquired the use of the holiday home of a family friend nearby where we stayed for the week until our desire for one another was temporarily quelled and it was time to part again - back to our lives in the suburbs.

Our passionate scribblings maintained their steady flow back and forth, always promising to break away from the suffocating ties we were bound in.

But after a year the letters suddenly stopped. Maybe she had grown tired of the waiting. Had I noticed a trace of doubt that the pledges we had made to one another were anything less than complete? Or maybe it was a growing realisation that some flowers bloom just once in their lifetime.

As time allowed my memory to fade I grew accustomed to the routine of daily expectations and I grew more settled and comfortable. But this calm was broken when I received a package one day.

Inside was a delicate silver chain - her ankle bracelet. The clasp was broken and with it was an envelope containing a short newspaper report of a car accident, and the letter she'd had with her that day.

National Obesity Week

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:02:00 +0000

I got this e-mail from our workplace gym. Doesn't it sound like you are supposed to do your part this week to become obese? Vending machine, here I come.

NATIONAL OBESITY WEEK
2ND – 8TH November 2009

During National Obesity Week we are encouraging as many people as possible to take an honest look at their weight and go through some simple steps to see whether they are overweight or obese

Is your weight appropriate for your height? Do you actually know this? Has your BMI been properly tested or is it just guesswork based on the tightness of your trousers, a sideways look in the mirror or stepping on the bathroom scales? If this is the case…. it’s probably time to get this checked out professionally

Jealousy is a bitter thing

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:48:00 +0000

I've been doing my little blog for a couple of years now and enjoy it. But imagine how jealous I was to hear of my friend from school who landed a gig blogging for Huffington Post. She's never even blogged before and now she'll have a built-in audience of a million readers instantly.

I was happy for her really but didn't realize until I was out walking today after work that I was also tasting the bitter fruit of jealousy.

I feel better for confessing. I'm only human after all.

Boldly ignoring superstitions

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:03:00 +0000

One of the most pleasant feelings is getting rid of superstitions by boldly ignoring them. Go on: walk under that ladder. The resulting sense of liberation, of maturity, is refreshing. AC Grayling

Weird Japanese inventions

miss_mudpie@yahoo.co.uk (Elizabeth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:07:00 +0000

These made me laugh -- just the thing for a Monday.

These are weird Japanese inventions. The first is a 10-in-1 garden tool.

This is a portable tie.

And this is a cockroach killer. (I remember reading the best way to kill cockroaches is to put a bowl of cheap red wine in the middle of the floor, and they will come in the middle of the night to drink it and fall in drunk.)