177. ✒️ A letter to Terry: reply #24-20

Improbably green vegetables, nominative determinism and cheating at Top Trumps.

Oct 02, 2024

white and black number 9 — Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

In which Rebecca learns how not to cook Brussels sprouts and wonders whether Dr Payne chose his profession because of his name.

✒️

This is the latest letter in my regular, informal correspondence with Substacker and fellow Brit Terry Freedman, in which we take turns every other Wednesday to delve into the things that British people talk about the most. So that you can explore these unashamed clichés for yourself we’re inviting you to read our letters over our shoulders.

My next ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’ post will be published on Saturday.

Dear Terry,

Thank you for your most recent missive, in which you pointed out that we’d reached the twentieth pair of letters in this series!

yellow inflatable ring on persons hand — Photo by Matthew Ball on Unsplash

Like you I thoroughly enjoy our correspondence, and find new things to think about, have a giggle over or simply look at every time the e-postman delivers another of your epistles. Keep ’em coming! 📨

👦🏻 On identifying as a 25-year-old

It seems you agree with me that those appointed to positions of authority – police officers, politicians and the like – are getting younger. I was interested to learn that you ‘identify as a 25-year-old’, and have been wondering, well, which one? Trying to narrow down the field as to with whom you might most identify, I Googled ‘famous 25-year-olds’, and found in the results served up by famousbirthdays.com that I recognised absolutely NOBODY. Is that a symptom of my being old, I wonder?

That’s a rhetorical question, Terry. Please don’t hurt my feelings. 😉

(For the record, I identify as a person soon to leave her forties behind forever.)

🤪 Crossword insanity

Your section title, which I’ve reproduced above, is very well chosen; the phrase summed up perfectly both by your declaration that you ‘really do enjoy the type that features clues like this’ followed by your subsequent listing of the most incomprehensible challenges ever devised by a crossword setter. 🙄

❓ Too much choice

Ah yes, the ‘upselling’ approach by café staff does rather pall sometimes. Your unfulfilled desire for a jacket potato with cheese almost broke my heart! Although I admire the waiter’s attempts to get you to accept either beans or his signature homemade sauce I feel that his insistence on moving on to describe his whole range of available smoothies when you’d already declined any smoothie at all lands waaaay over the line marked ‘trying too hard’.

I sometimes find myself on the wrong side of menu writers in restaurants, and, where side orders are concerned, it can be a struggle to identify exactly what might arrive in response to my order. At one restaurant recently I was delighted to see ‘leafy green vegetables’ listed as an option.

‘Oh, and I’ll have the leafy green vegetables with my fish, please!’ I stated gaily to the friendly waiter. 🥦

In the fullness of time my sea bass was delivered to our table, together with a dish of peas. 🙄

Green ✔️
Leafy ❌

Of course, green veg comes in many shades of green. A chef’s suggestions for how home cooks might preserve its vibrancy stretched to three paragraphs in this article which I spotted a couple of weeks ago, but to my relief he concluded his exploration with these fine words:

One thing everyone agrees on, though, is that vegetables shouldn’t be cooked for too long.
Yotam Ottolenghi

Exactly!

When I was a teenager I was at a friend’s house for dinner. Pans had been bubbling for ~~ages and ages and ages and~~ ages in the steam-filled kitchen, and when in due course we took our seats at the dining table I was passed a dish containing a large number of tiny, bright-green leaves from which to serve myself.

‘Ooooh, this looks lovely!’ I smiled. ‘What is it?’

‘Brussels sprouts’ was the reply.

Research later revealed to me that the addition of bicarbonate of soda to the water in which veg is to be cooked will preserve the vibrancy of its colour, even when it is boiled FOR HOURS to a state of severed-leaf dismemberment.

😲

Gamesmanship

Hacking the colour of Mother Nature’s best then boiling it to death didn’t impress me, Terry, although I was bowled over by your account of how you’d hacked the computer game you were playing with your nephew. Sounds like you’d got your comeuppance when he figured out how to manipulate the game’s code for his own ends in retaliation. It jolly well serves you right!

When I was seven or eight I played ‘Top Trumps’ with a boy rather older than me. The subject of the game was military weaponry, and after he’d dealt the cards my opponent told me that he wanted to restrict our play to just one of the listed categories.

‘I’ll play you on Range’, he said.

‘Okay!’ It was fine by me that he was in charge.

The range of some of the weapons was mere feet, while for others it was miles. Some of my cards showed weapons with extraordinary spec, and I had high hopes of winning.

Turns out that one of the boy’s cards had ‘Infinity’ in the row for ‘Range’ – a fact he’d ascertained before announcing the terms of our game – and his eventual win had been inevitable. What can I say, Terry? I’ve always been gullible.

🦄 Gullible enough to buy these, though?

Wow, my online grocery shopping activities have taught me something. Terry, not only do unicorns exist but they’re also available sliced. 🤯

✏️ Six-word reviews

I’m glad to say that I’ve worked out both book titles represented by your six-word reviews. You’d told me that the two were related, so once I’d solved the more obvious one, the other was straightforward. Here they are, along with my answers:

Not 1948, though it almost was!
1984 by George Orwell.

Test tube babies, drugged up workers.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Although I’ve only read one of them – 1984 – I know that both are dystopian fiction. That’s the connection.

Right, I’ve got two for you. Like yours, mine are related, and they’re both books and films.

‘Jury’ justice off the rails. Retribution.

And:

Cruisers encounter crime chaos. Christie caper!

👨‍⚕️ (In)appropriate names for professional people

I had to giggle recently when I was told that my forthcoming medical appointment would be with Dr Payne, and I wondered whether I ought to take a couple of paracetamol before going to see him, just in case. 💊💊

I discovered in this Guardian article about nominative determinism – the idea that a person’s name can influence their choices – that my doctor being called ‘Payne’ is an example of an ‘aptronym’. Here’s the story’s headline and subtitle:

Examples given in the article include writers William Wordsworth and Francine Prose, and conductor and pianist David Loud. Have a read – I think you’ll find it interesting!

Speaking of reading, I’ve now finished Bill Bryson’s absolute hoot of a travel memoir ‘Neither Here nor There’, and have temporarily switched my attention from books to the required reading for an online taster course at CityLit called ‘Writings on Solitude’.

The topic has reminded me of this superb post of yours last summer entitled Solitude and isolation: a discussion with myself, which you’d written as a contribution to

Soaring Twenties

’ symposium on isolation. Well, it seems I’m exploring solitude myself right now! I shall report back.