the brilliant Kate Tempest

Europe is lost, America lost, London lost
Still we are clamouring victory.
All that is meaningless rules
We have learned nuthin’ from history.

Hostile, worried, lonely,
We move in our packs and these are the rights we were born to …

Live porn streamed to your pre-teen’s bedrooms …

England! England! Patriotism!
And you wonder why kids want to die for religion?

Massacres, massacres, massacres, new shoes.
Kill what you find if it threatens you,
No trace of love in the hunt for the bigger buck
Here in the land where nobody gives a fuck.

English rapper and poetess, Tempest’s words perfectly capture the zeitgeist of our times. Nominated Best Female Solo Performer at the 2018 Brit Awards, she has received wide critical acclaim for her written and live work.

The video is harsh. But then, so are our times.

beautiful food

I have an immense admiration for food bloggers. Why? Because eating, preparing, imagining and just plain drooling over beautiful food is a favorite pastime of mine. And did I mention the photography? The artwork on some of these blogs is exquisite. Truly inspirational.

easter carrot cake

7 pm on a coolish Sunday evening. I’m sitting here drinking a glass of leftover champagne and listening to Miles Davis (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud) on the stereo. Back to work tomorrow. One thing’s for sure: weekends are too damn short! Luckily, Thursday November 1st is a national holiday here (All Saints’ Day, it’s a Catholic thing; a day to visit cemeteries and place flowers on the graves of deceased family members). So I have a 4-day weekend coming up because everyone will take off the Friday as well.

Maybe I’ll make this cake on that weekend; I think I’m invited to a gathering on the 3rd. It’s called Killer Cake.

Killer-Chocolate-Cake-09-1280x854

choc cake two

killer cake with knife

Gosh, that knife looks ominous. Maybe this is a cake to die for … literally!

Here’s the blog, filled with beautiful recipes (and photos).

http://vegdept.com/category/recipes/all-recipes/

Here’s a list of best food and nutrition blogs –

https://greatist.com/eat/best-food-blogs-2016

And saving the best for last. I make these raw food energy balls often. I take them to work (they replace a pain au chocolat or a croissant). Eat with strong espresso in the morning. Yum!

https://greatist.com/eat/energy-bites-recipes-for-on-the-go-snacking

Sawday’s travel guides: the perfect place to stay (and off the beaten track)

piscina1

Fancy a vacation on the Sicilian island of Pantelleria? Or perhaps Panarea located between the Lipari and Stromboli islands? Or maybe a Bed and Breakfast in a huge country house located in Cornwall, England?

cornish housefireplace

Fellow travellers, look no further. Take a gander at the offerings in Sawday’s travel guides. Here’s how they describe themselves: Incurably curious, we seek out quirky, independent and authentic places to stay across Europe.

Bon voyage ! (I found my dream house in southern Italy, see bottom link)

https://www.sawdays.co.uk/

http://journal.sawdays.co.uk/

Gorgeous house in Puglia, located in the heel of Italy:

https://www.sawdays.co.uk/italy/puglia/brindisi/la-vigna/?guests%5Badults%5D=1&term=Puglia

truly extraordinary film images of Paris

I was blown away by the integrity of this film footage dated around 1897. What struck me first were the sounds: the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, the clatter of carriages and wagons – common sounds of yesteryear that we no longer hear. And yet, other sounds endure: the clang of Notre-Dame’s bells, a dog’s bark, the tinkle of a bicycle bell, and laughter and murmur in the streets. Those magnificent horses were everywhere (think of the manure piles to be removed daily; the stink and the flies in hot weather!) 

Other observations: how hazardous those streets were. Tight constricted clothing, but nevertheless very elegant. Street theater – so much going on! I know every one of those landmarks: how strange to see the same buildings and same locations populated by people 120 years ago! Exactly one month ago I was at the Round Pond in the Tuileries Gardens. In this film you see the same pond, but instead of casually-dressed men and women lounging in chairs, you see boys in caps and sailor suits prodding their sailboats with long sticks. Extraordinary. As one commenter noted – It looks like a French impressionist painting come to life.

And that moving sidewalk? Talk about avant-garde! It was in fact an experiment for the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. See for yourself. Further below is another view of Paris nearly thirty years later.

Here’s some more footage taken in 1927: less horses, more motorized vehicles. In exactly twelve years’ time war would break out. Occupied Paris would be besieged by German Nazis. That’s the other extraordinary thing about watching historical films: you know what’s going to happen next, and they – blissfully unaware – do not. I’m amazed by the hordes of people in the streets. Central Paris was packed! It seems more crowded then than it is today. Notice the men, how pompous and self-important they were.