A Fire We Were Warned About.

Within hours of publishing an update on Southall’s Toxic Town scandal, the recycling site behind our home burned - an event long predicted by residents and enabled by years of regulatory inaction.

Some amazing photos of last night’s fire. It’s literally around the corner from us, but all we knew about it was the sound of the sirens.

Local recycling plant went up in flames this evening.

Local recycling plant went up in flames this evening.

Chilli On The Rocks

Made my usual chilli on Thursday. I must have been a bit distracted because I heated the pan up on a medium-high heat rather that the usual medium, making it too hot for the olive oil. Then I literally dropped the garlic powder jar into the pan (don’t tell the wife!). I got the jar out and thought, wow, that’s a LOT of garlic powder! I did think about scooping it out, but it was already burning and I needed to get the onions and cumin in the pan. I should have started over, but didn’t have enough oil left. Going against all LESS IS MORE principles I figured I could correct for the burnt garlic overdose by simply ADDING MORE STUFF. So I added more cumin, more turmeric, more sweet smoked paprika, more oregano, more jalapeños. It smelled and tasted pretty bad. I added vinegar and Kefir yoghurt, which made it look and taste more like a curry. There was tons of it.

The wife came home and had some for her dinner. She asked what it was (never a good sign). I explained that I added yoghurt to calm it down a bit. She ate it and said it was much better than my usual chilli.

I had some yesterday, and while it was edible, it was obviously (to me) totally overpowered by garlic. I don’t fancy any more of it if I’m honest.

The streets of Southall and the road to hell…

Jack Frost visited overnight and left some beautiful souvenirs on car windscreens this morning.

The pavements, however, are treacherous.

I saw a number of little kids slide and tumble on the way into school. As we climbed up and over the canal footbridge and approached the invisibly icy downward steps to the school side, we all received a text message from the headteacher asking us to be mindful of the slippery conditions. Distracted by the beeps and buzzes in our hands, on our wrists and in our pockets, we all reflexively reached out, shifted our focus and fell like lemmings over the edge of the top step and down into a crumpled, groaning heap of legs and arms, shouts and cries. Well… Not really. We all carried on like the battle-hardened school-runners we are and dragged, coerced, danced and sang our recalcitrant little ones into class as usual. It could have been worse.

Intricate frost patterns resembling delicate feather-like designs cover a cold surface.Intricate patterns of frost create a delicate, feather-like design on a surface.

Wife took these stunning photos this morning.

Auto-generated description: Fiery clouds create a stunning winter sunrise backdrop over a frosty suburban neighborhood. Auto-generated description: A neighborhood is shown at sunrise with dramatic orange and pink clouds illuminating the sky.

I arrived three minutes later, late to the show.

A neighborhood scene at sunrise features houses with dramatic, colorful clouds in the sky. A sunrise sky with vibrant orange and pink clouds looms over a row of houses and trees.

Eighteen months wasted, to add to the previous ten years. Time for a manager with a proven track record in the PL?

Last year I had a plan:

  • fundraising for youth work
  • fundraising for school
  • local democracy activism
  • health improvements
  • a new hat

I was successful with the first two, partly successful with the third and fourth, and while I did buy a new hat it was the same colour and style as my old hat.

I’ll take that as a win.

More of the same this year!

The framing of this “story” is very interesting, to say the least, for all sorts of reasons.

New archbishop urged to scrap £100m slavery reparations: bbc.com

Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan:

“Pluribus is my twist on a post-apocalyptic zombie tale.”