Lockdown Diary - Tuesday 22nd September 2020

Back to work, so not much chance to write anything today.

Trying to stay in the here and now whilst my mind is trying to invent a future that'll never happen. Ho hum.

I've not had time to walk today either, as son #2 and I delivered various essentials (bath mat, bin, driving licence (for Id)) etc to son #3 in his uni flat. 

First cooking query from son #3: 'Is couscous supposed to be wet?' I've suggested some workarounds, but worst case you can still eat it, maybe after draining, if the subject of a deluge!  There are two ways of learning how to cook couscous: read the instructions or learn by trial and error.  I admire the trial and error approach - after all the first person to cook couscous probably had to make it up as they went along, too - however, and this not always the advice I follow when it comes to electrical items, given there are instructions, why not follow them?

After that amusing interlude, I return to our own cooking and vegetable preparation, before son #2 comes to help. Recently I've taken to removing the corn kernels from the cob before cooking them into a fresh sweetcorn creation.  Flirting with danger in this was add excitement to an otherwise mundane task, which goes like this: remove all the husk and other crap (I bloody hate those hairy strands, no matter how much you clean things you still find another on the worktop or the chopping board or in your hair, if you have some), chop the top and bottom off where necessary, halve them if they are long enough, then stand them on the widest end and cut vertically downwards to remove the kernels. Rotate and repeat. All being well you are left with lots of corn, some useless stick things (not sure of the technical name for this bit - maybe the shaft?) and 10 fingers (assuming you started with 10, if you didn't but now have 10, something has gone badly wrong. Ask any others present to check) 

At serving time son #2 had decided to spice up the corn - literally - by folding (note use of technical cooking term) the corn into a mix of paprika and curry powder.  It was quite spicy when it came to eating it, but I really enjoyed it.

After that we watched the penultimate 'Strike' before the usual sequence of events that culminates in oblivion.

Again my main playlist on random came up trumps. Dawn of the Replicants. Hadn't listened to them in years. Great band, first heard (where else?) on the John Peel wingding. This is 'Lisa Box' from the 1998 album, 'One Head, Two Arms, Two Legs' 

[[]]