Coffee

I think it's time I 'fessed up: I love coffee. I realised this while chatting with a good friend and fellow coffee lover. It's a love that has grown with my proximity to European coffee culture to be sure. "Three different methods of coffee preparation at home isn't excessive, right?" he asks me when I tell him about the new stovetop maker I bought recently. "No, not at all," I reply quietly calculating that I now have four. I resolve to discard the one I use least and don't particularly like just so that I'm back to the three methods I've agreed isn't an excessive number.

While South Africa has coffee shops it doesn't really have a coffee culture. The shops are places to meet someone, have a drink and a piece of cake whereas European coffee shops are places one goes to for the tea and coffee that incidentally serve cakes and pastries and offer tables where one can make use of the free wifi they provide. The South African shops seem to me to serve more of a social function than the European places sacred to the glorious brown beans at which we may meet and worship in caffeinated ecstasy.

I'll make do with drip filtered coffee but I'm no fan. I tried the French Press method at work for the convenience of it but the flavour is thinner and the texture too watery. The full flavoured taste of espresso is more my thing. The espresso method captures more of the oils from the beans by brewing them under pressure. It's not unheard of for me to have a double espresso in the morning and another in the afternoon and with my recent purchase of the stovetop I haven't bothered to measure the precise amount of my morning coffee since I make a full 6 cup pot and then pour liberally into a mug, leaving some for The Husband to enjoy when he wakes up. I'm lactose intolerant so I never take milk but I do enjoy a bit of white sugar to take the edge off less than perfect coffees. As time goes on I'm being introduces to better coffees with which I can see I'll gradually use less sugar (only a good thing) partly because the coffee is better and partly through my tastes changing as I get older.

How do you take yours?

What? You came back?

I didn't think I'd want to revive this blog. I happened to come back and read a few posts, chuckled and thought about returning.

I didn't think you'd come back and read here again since I've left it fallow for a year. Welcome back. Let's hope I have more to say that you'll find interesting.

The End (ish)

I've decided to bring this blog to an end. I would prefer to blog anonymously in future, as well as feeling like a very different person from when this blog started. My reasons for blogging have changed so it shall be au revoir to this site.

Adieu mes amis. Perhaps we shall meet again at the new blog, perhaps not. Good luck to you all.

Old Man Ahmedinejad

I've been watching the news of Iranian Presendent Ahmedinejad's visit to Lebanon with curiosity. He's quite a divisive figure who is quite clearly a basket case who may or may not be cunning too. It's hard not to credit some of his hard line looniness to his fervent religious beliefs and his political roots in the Islamic Revolution. Yet another religious loon making the world worse by his actions (see the previous posts about the Pope[1][2]). Mostly because the man is such a nutter, it's hard to get sensible reporting or commentary on his words and actions so it was quite refreshing to read this article in The Guardian's Comment is Free section about fair reporting.

One sentiment in particular stood out amongst all the babble: Zionists were an enemy to peace. Finally Mahmood and I have something we can agree on, if not precisely from the same motivations or with the same intentions. Hardline Zionists are obsessed with the idea of creating a safe and secure Israel with as much land in it as possible and continue to evoke the politics of conflict to achieve that aim. This is where I think that both Ahmedinejad and the Zionists go wrong. The state of Israel already exists. It is fait acompli. The Zionists are stuck in some recent past of a struggle to create something that already exists and Ahmedinajad is stuck in denial of the present. Neither are helpful positions and neither will help get the Middle East to a stable and peaceful equilibrium.

I must agree with his observation that the Palestinians are oppressed and mistreated in many ways by Israel and I understand the real fear and mistrust by the Israelis of many of their neighbours - the Palestinians in particular. For the region to move beyond the conflict will require change on both sides. On the Israeli side in particular, the demise of Zionism would be very helpful. Perhaps we might call it something like Post-Zionism, where they look beyond the recent past and the near future to an idea of how they want their children to live and how that might include an equitable settlement with their neighbours. That settlement has to include a sensible set of policies regarding land and water rights. I'm not brave or wise enough to say what that should look like but those must be the cornerstones of any future peace.

While I hope dearly for the demise of Zionism and for a practical and moderate approach to the future, I am also deeply pessimistic as to their prospects. Culturally, the Jews are a people who venerate the past, venerate the ways of their forefathers and who hold tenatiously to an exclusive ethnic tradition that fears and suspects outsiders after many centuries of being an oppressed underdog. Much of the religious texts are obsessed with the past with the exception being some few sections concerned with prophecy and in particular, messianic prophecy. Considering that the only religious and cultural expectaction for peace is through devine intervension or miracle, I'm not so hopeful for peace in my lifetime.

It would be pleasantly surprising if the Israeli people were able to move beyond their cultural context, but it would be a surprise.

Understanding Ratzinger

I think I finally understand Ratzinger. I used to be shocked and perplexed by his apparently dogmatic cruelty but I think I get it now. He's clearly a very smart and ambitious man. I doubt one can get to that high office without some political chops but man oh man, his ambition is staggering. Well done old man!

He's clearly angling for the fast track to sainthood. Being pope isn't enough. This guy wants to go as far up as is humanly possible and I don't think it gets higher than being a saint, clearly a higher rank than mere popehood.

I can just see him now, sitting at his desk as Prefect praying to god for a mission worthy of being his magnum opus. The files coming across his desk through the last 25 years must have gone something like thief, paedo, adulterer, paedo, paedo, paedo... "God! What are you trying to tell me?" Adulterer, paedo, paedo, paedo... "Ah, got it Lord. Help the paedos!" In an organisation as old as the Catholic Church, all the really cool saint roles got taken ages ago. Lovers, soldiers, travellers... all gone centuries ago so there's only the dodgy ones left. Patron saint of kiddie fiddlers couldn't have been his first choice but hey, when you got lemons you make lemonade.

So he insults the Queen of England and the sacraments of her church but manages to wangle a state visit invitation from her. During a severe crisis in the British public finances, he manages to get the UK government to cut 'im a cheque for ￡12 million for a holiday. Despite public evidence of his personal complicity of decades aiding and abetting child rape, he managed to make it into and out of the UK without being arrested even though he was surrounded by police most of the time. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've got ourselves several miracles here!

Breath-taking in its scope and ambition. Brilliantly executed. I hope he thinks the price of thousands of destroyed souls of raped children is worth it.