Peppercorns...

...all over the kitchen.

I was grinding some black pepper over my pizza when the grinder came apart. All over the kitchen; minor problem. Major problem was corns getting stuck in the mayo I had put on the pizza. Which isn't good for either the pizza or future pepper. I know, the foodies out there will be saying "get some fresh food inside you Nigel" and "mayo on pizza? weird". It's what it is; I like it. Although not so much highly peppered.

FYI it was spinach and ricotta. And I didn't eat a whole pizza. So no guilt.

Black peppercorns are dried berries from the vine Piper nigrum

healthline.com tells me that black pepper "has been deemed the 'king of spices' and used in ancient Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years due to its high concentration of potent, beneficial plant compounds". For those of you who need me to enlighten you about Ayurvedic medicine, it's an Indian alternative medicinal system which "provides personalized recommendations about which foods to eat and avoid based on your body type" [healthline.com again]. I asked some Indians for some help but they said "sorry, we don't have anyone of your body type here, Nigel". The Indian Medical Association characterises the system as "quackery". Fake news!

Anyway I'm getting some exercise picking up all the peppercorns, as I don't want them to clog up my Dyson.

Weekly quiz #6

What shall I offer as this week's quiz topic? If I go for "one letter answers" will that be too easy? Everyone knows Bond's tech wizard Q; D is the number plate code for Germany; Juliet is the common phonetic alphabet J. What if I expanded it to two letters? That might be a bit harder. Here we go.

Q1. What is the 9th letter of the Welsh alphabet?

Q2. What area is designated by UK postcode IM?

Q3. ISO 3166-1 includes code SG for which country?

Q4. Which British territory has the internet domain name io?

Q5. Name a two letter Japanese board game.

Q6. What does the Spanish verb ir mean in English?

Q7. Boris III of Bulgaria had a son Simeon with what regnal number?

Q8. In the periodic table of elements, which element is abbreviated as Hg?

Enjoy.

Quiz #5 answers - and a great discovery

Question 1: Which country has the most islands?

Sweden. 221,800 islands.

Question 2: What is the deepest lake in the world?

Lake Baikal. 1,642m.

Question 3: Which is the smallest country by population in Europe?

Gibraltar. 33,691. The Holy See is smaller but I'm not sure that's technically a country. Or Vatican City itself. But give yourself a point if you got either of those. One interesting point I discovered whilst researching this: using worldometers.info, if I click on a country name it takes me to a screen which claims to be a live running total of population. Is that true? If I click on the most populous country in the world, check the live count then refresh five minutes later, will it reflect births and deaths in those five minutes? Let's try it:

14:17 China: 1,440,.....wait! It changed while I was typing it! That's amazing. Keep going - 1,440,849,101 at 14:19. Waiting......1,440,849,152 at 14.24. Interesting. I've just seen 50 babies born!

Wow, that's fantastic; how do they do it? Check it out at https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/

Question 4: How many countries are currently members of the United Nations? (you can have 5 either way)

193.

Question 5: Name a capital city whose name is two words long, both beginning with the same letter of the alphabet.

Phnom Penh. San Salvador. Addis Ababa.

Question 6: How many states does Brazil have?

26 plus one federal district (so you can have half a point for 27).

Question 7: Which EU country has a population nearest to that of Wales?

Lithuania 2,722,289 (live at 14:37 on 8 October 2020). Wales 3,230,490 (1 July 2020; nearest I could get).

Question 8: What is the most recent country to join the UN?

Montenegro. 2006.

Question 9: What is the longest capital city name?

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratcha-thani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit. The capital of Thailand.

Bet you thought that was Bangkok. It is.

14:48 China now has 1,440,849,409 citizens.

Eureka

We're all familiar with the tale of Archimedes shouting "Eureka" when  he stepped into the bath

and postulated his Principle, with which I shall not bore you. Enough to say that, if the ancient Greeks had showers instead of baths, ships

would never have been invented. Which would be good because there would be no seasickness in the world. And no pirates. No British Empire. He was so pleased with himself that he ran excitedly naked along the streets of Syracuse and told everyone. Although that sure sounds like a modern day fantasy tale.

Another famous Eureka (aka "aha") moment was Newton and the apple.

He noticed that the apple fell down, rather than sideways or up. He was 25 years old at the time and one wonders how he hadn't noticed objects falling for the last 25 years. Did it never rain where he lived? Or snowed? Did the snow rise rather than fall? Come on Isaac, are you a bit Forrest Gump? Anyway, he proceeded to formulate his law of gravity, which we all now know because, when you trip over your shoelaces, you fall to the ground rather than floating up in the air. Where would have been without you?

Paul McCartney woke up one morning with a tune in his head (aha). He worked it up into a song which he called "Scrambled eggs". The lyrics ran:

Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs - diddle, diddle - I believe in scrambled eggs

Before the Beatles recorded it they renamed it Yesterday. And improved (presumably completely rewrote) the lyrics. Thank goodness for that.

There is a city Eureka in California. And the word is enshrined in the state motto. I believe Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he entered the state governor's residence, uttered the famous word: "Aha!". When he left of course he said "I'll be back".

I'm afraid I cannot confirm the veracity of any of the above.

Cursing Van Gogh

 Van Gogh's Starry Night is my current jigsaw puzzle.

It's apparently the view from his room in an asylum. It's dark [duh Nigel; it's night time!]. Lots of, presumably, stars. A moon which looks remarkably like the sun. Which after all is just a star, albeit a big one. To us on earth. A huge black obelisk which turns out to be a cypress tree. Partly blocking the view.

According to an (unattributed) article in vangoghgallery.com, "Blue dominates the painting, blending hills into the sky. The little village lays at the base in the painting in browns, greys, and blues." On close inspection, all the jigsaw pieces have subtle markings.

I cannot see into Vincent's mind when he paints this but I can see it from a jigsaw puzzler's perspective. It's a nightmare. Here's a blue piece; it could go anywhere in 60% of the picture. Likewise a yellow: 30%. The rest black/dark brown with no redeeming features.

How I am yearning for some bold colour contrasts; a yellow door, a green tiled roof, some black and white cows. Dear Vincent, jigsawers don't appreciate subtle! Or blending. Or browns, greys, and blues.

Oh dear, I remind myself of Kristina of Sweden's disapproval quote in Civilization 6: "I suppose you think art is great when it ties a room together, you philistine." Have I become that person?

This puzzle is going to take me until Christmas to complete. Not necessarily Christmas 2020. I shall persevere, mostly because I feel sorry for Vincent.

Careers quiz

I took the skills assessment test on the UK government's careers website.

There are 50 questions, each with five possible answers: stongly agree, agree, it depends, disagree, strongly disangree.

I did it and the outcome was:

Your answers show that:

• you like dealing with complicated problems or working with numbers
• you are a creative person and enjoy coming up with new ways of doing things
• you like to lead other people and are good at taking control of situations

The following job categories are based on the answers you have given.

Computing, technology and digital

After three more questions, three jobs were suggested:

Information scientist

Information scientists manage an organisation's information resources and make sure it's all readily available.

IT security co-ordinator

IT security co-ordinators protect their clients' data from unauthorised access, theft and misuse.

Technical architect

Technical architects help plan, design and build IT systems for clients.

Frankly, those all sound far too much like hard work. And it's all about machines rather than people. Nothing about teaching! But I don't think I was ever a good teacher anyway.

I was actually hoping it would come up with: "you should become a blogger".