Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

What could be the world's oldest recipe book, The Forme Of Curry (written around about 1390), turns out to contain a recipe for something called Loseyns (pronounced "Lasan").

It's remarkably similar to that Italian staple of pub fayre, lasagne. Well, it would be remarkably similar if it contained tomatoes, herbs, meat and bechamel sauce. As it is, all it is flat pasta (which was a common British dish until the arrival of the potato) and cheese:

"Take good broth and do in an erthen pot. Take flour of paynedemayn and make erof past with water and make erof thynne foyles as paper with a roller; drye it harde and see it in broth. Take chese ruayn grated and lay it in dishes with powder douce and lay eron loseyns isode as hoole as you myght and above powdour and chese; and so twyse or thryse & serue it forth."

In a Telegraph article, Antonio Carluccio is quoted as saying "This sounds a bit far fetched to be called lasagne. But I wouldn't mind making it."

...to go for a walk up the high street.

Went into Putney to buy a fan for the office. One the way back from the hardware shop, I wandered into the Body Shop. While I looked for some lavender wash, I heard an odd noise. Something was making that persitant quacking noise that ducks with ducklings in tow tend to make. Thinking it was some sort of ambient music, I returned to my fruitless hunt.

As I walked towards the door, I saw a crowd of people.

And then I saw the ducks.

Or rather the duck, and the four ducklings.

Someone was on the phone trying to contact the RSPCA, so I suggested she call the Animal Hospital (yes, the one from the TV series), which was only a couple of streets over. Another woman was trying to put the ducks into a shopping basket, which wouln't have been a good idea at all - they were obviously distressed and overheated. In the end, they were barricaded into the shop with a little line of shopping baskets, while the girl with the phone explained the situation to the Animal Hospital folks.

I wonder if Rolf Harris came to collect them...

Hopefully they're now back down by the river, where they belong.

Anyone fancy looking for a riverside pub in SW London this evening? And then spending the evening with a cool drink and the gentle sound of the river?

I think I am going to need a cold drink and a cooling riverside breeze.

Desk thermometer is currently indicating 32°C

Edited: currently I'm suggesting The Duke's Head, here in Putney - see http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/show.shtml/220/ for further details.

Edited again: Thinking 8ish or so.

Final Edit: Am going to wander down between 8 and 8.30 and see if anyone has come...

...especially the chap who dented my car while it was parked outside the house this morning.

At least he left a note with contact details, and it wasn't too bad a dent, but it will need a bit of panel beating to get right. Amazingly, in this day and age, the numberplate on the van matched the one the scaffolders from across the road noted down. So I will be calling Allied Bakeries in the morning to find out how their insurance company wants to deal with things...

But still... Peeved.