There is no way I can inflate my relief at the day’s events, or my gratitude to cyber-friends here on mb for their generosity of spirit.
#mbnov

Erk. I seem to have misplaced today’s #mbnov prompt.

Puzzling? This stuff writes itself, doesn't it. Not that I am going to let it, but the thought is definitely there. We've had near and anxious (ha; not anxious, astonish. Mr Freud, your slip is ready.) and stoop and now puzzling, and you still expect me to believe the choices are random?
#mbnov

Is the architectural stoop derived from the same word as step, and what exactly is it? Is it what I might call the front porch? Or is the little flight of steps leading up to the porch?
#mbnov

I have resisted the temptation to look at the news today, aside from scary hints in social media, and I am going to sleep. Perhaps tomorrow will bring actual information, reducing uncertainty.

The only thing that makes life bearable right now is that I am near the person who makes my life worth living. I can’t imagine surviving so much forced proximity with anyone else at all.

#mbnov

Whatever happens today is likely to astonish me.
#mbnov

I do remember orange juice made from concentrate and it seemed sensible; remove the water, ship, replace the water.
#mbnov

Not at all dreary the past few days. We had a great outing under warm, blue skies to stock up on culture. It may be a while before we can do that again. #mbnov

Sad to learn that James Randi, magician and stage artist devoted to debunking the paranormal, dies at 92 - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-randi-magician-and-stage-artist-devoted-to-deb...

I had the honour to know and work with the Amazing Randi for a while in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was always fun.

Currently reading: Our Daily Bread by Predrag Matvejević, ISBN: 9781912545094

#non-fiction
#food
#history
#mythology

Started to install tailwindcss rather than rely on the full stylesheet via CDN, and all I can say is, "so far, so good". Forced by actual work to take it slowly, which is probably a good thing.

Delighted to learn that Subway bread in Ireland is cake, in the same way that Jaffa Cakes are cake, at least as far as VAT is concerned.

Pleased, in a nerdy way, that tomorrow's podcast episode, in which I chat with a chef and teacher in Aoteora, will go out on a day when we all will have almost the same times for sunrise and sunset.

You may be doing it wrong.

Oh, they're probably coded items to buy young people. Note that the right-hand item offers both addresses and birthdays, hiding right there in plain sight.

Test reply because @chrisaldrich was getting an error. Might be OK with reply but not webmention, so will test that next.

New edition of Eat This Newsletter up at https://buttondown.email/jeremycherfas/archive/eat-this-newsletter-134-dated/ with input from @IKershner, @lindsmiddleton, @National_Ag_Lib, @jennywrenwatts, @gherkinstomato and others.

One of the stranger aspects of RSS feeds is when a long dormant site springs back into life. Usually, I'm glad. This time, I'm not sure what to make of the fact that Freakonomicsbook.com is now in the hands of someone else.

TIL that only 5% of podcasts have been updated in the past 90 days ... and mine was one of them

https://podcastindex.org/

The alternative book page at micro.blog is a more interesting to a straight Amazon link, but I do not understand how a new book finds its way onto that list.

New edition of Eat This Newsletter up at https://buttondown.email/jeremycherfas/archive/eat-this-newsletter-133-entirely-whole/ with thanks to @bittman @PhilMagowa_n @vidya83 @IsaRossellini and many others.

I still have questions: Were there forms of human #malaria in South America before the slave trade?

What fevers did local people use #cinchona bark to cure?

I’m sure there is an answer. I just have not been able to find it. Someone — anyone — please help.

Withnail and I has lost none of its charm over the past 35 years.

Slightly worrying; the new activity monitor (Xiaomi Mi-band 5) records 2846 steps to the 3000 of the old activity monitor (Garmin Vivofit). On the other hand, I have no good reason to trust the accuracy of the Garmin.

Just listened to fabulous @Transom_org show with @MairBosworth and Fiona Benson about their amazing series In The Company of Insects. Having heard Magicicada, I now I need to listen to them all. So do you, @nicolakidsbooks

Probably a good idea to disconnect the Photos feed while I iron out a lot of wrinkles.

I just published Eat This Newsletter 127: Ingenious solutions.

Read it at https://buttondown.email/jeremycherfas/archive/eat-this-newsletter-127-ingenious-solutions/ and, if you like, consider subscribing.

Very happy with the service from @widefitshoes A pair of shoes were not up to scratch -- not their fault at all -- and they agreed to send out a replacement with no argument. That is how it should be. If you need wider fittings, I highly recommend, and their foot-measuring chart makes it easy.

So happy to see Helen Rosner @hels in The New Yorker do a much better job on rotten apples than I managed. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/how-apples-go-bad

Hey @uber_support When are you going to do something about the people in Rome who park bikes where no one can find them? walked past four ghost bikes before I found one that was actually where it was supposed to be.

OK, pure confirmation bias, but I finally read something that expands and provides details on the chaotic thoughts swirling in my brain about why Joe Rogan's Spotify deal need not be the end. The open podcast ecosystem is dying — here’s how to save it https://divinations.substack.com/p/the-open-podcast-ecosystem-is-dying

"Blaming the internet for your gullibility is like blaming a screwdriver for your neurological defects."

No idea where I found this, but I liked it enough to write it down. If you know the origin, please let me know.

I am amazed and saddened by the number of beginner bakers I see in forums saying that their bread tasted fantastic but didn't rise enough, or didn't have giant holes, or didn't a shiny crust, or whatever.

Just eat it.

Bread porn too has a lot to answer for.

It is extremely regrettable and demoralising that robbers and the élite agree on just one thing-- living in hiding.

Kierkegaard quoted in Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust p256

And what you learned yesterday, I learn today. Thanks!

I’ve been getting myself in a right old muddle about taste lately. Not music or architecture -- well, not entirely -- but gustatory taste, the taste of food. Of course, we all acknowledge that taste is subjective. 1/6

Chicken Skin Music is truly balm for the soul on an afternoon that feels weird for reasons I cannot put my finger on.

Today I happened across two wiseacres on Twitter -- and no I am not going to bother with a link -- who make me glad I am able to say nothing, there, in return. Turning off RTs doesn't help either, when people will insist on quote RTs when they have nothing of substance to add.

I fully endorse this proposal.

I'm prompted to note that the sounds our kettle makes depend on how recently it has been de-scaled, and I have no idea why that should be so. Our water is very hard, so I have observed this often, and it mystifies me.

I think it is a splendid idea to revisit indiewebify.me and reorient the expectations around that page. It does suggest that one fiddle with HTML, and that might well be off-putting if one is new to IndieWeb.

Hey, @FAOstatistics! http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home has been unreachable for more than 24 hours. What's up?

Today, in random pieces of delight shared by people I follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=108&v=QPKS5ngz01s&feature=emb_logo

Thanks http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/

Last night we watched The Rose Tattoo on iTunes. Strange film, shot on Key West, which was why we watched it, with Anna Magnina and Burt Lancaster. She plays a woman widowed by her cheating husband, who eventually falls for Burt. Dated, histrionic, fun. Tennessee Williams wrote. Now, a competition: who was the worst young Italian? Burt, in this, or Warren Beatty in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, another Williams classic?

As a gardener myself, albeit without an actual garden, only a terrace full of pots, I could really relate to what Dezz.ie had to say.

But the really cool thing is that pink banner at the top of her site, and how it occupies the full window at any height until you scroll past it. That's intentional.

John Naughton asks: Also: isn’t herd immunity about vaccination, not infection?

Nope, it is about immunity. That may be the result of prior infection, or it may be the result of vaccination. Either way, what matters is the percentage of contacts who are susceptible.

Kudos to @Cockos for offering a temporary Reaper license to anyone who needs one to work from home.

https://cockos.com/reaper/reaper_2020_temporary_license.txt

Just wondering, what's so bad, the way Hans sees it, about the way Italy has handled the coronavirus?

Woke to an unsettling SMS and email from Ryanair telling me the return flight at the end of March had been cancelled. What about the outbound flight? I need to decide what to do.