Mona Siddiqui on Desert Island Discs

Very listenable, academic Mona Siddiqui on Desert Island Discs yesterday. I love that her luxury item would be tea. And I had not heard of Jagjit Singh.

Tea for two

My mother recently made fun of my fine range of organic teabags - she's a Scottish Blend/Typhoo woman - and remarked that I must have my tea delivered by an elephant every day. This jasmine green is my current favourite, not at all bitter (some green teas are). And, last week, a friend brought me some of this Pekoe China Green, which is just exquisite, though I must get a decent strainer, I'm using a flour sieve.

Parody

I almost felt like I'd myself turned into a lavender plant when I put this round my neck such was the headiness and soothing. And it's a beautiful colour. I had a cup of organic peppermint tea at same time. I know, almost a parody of alternative medicine. But it felt good. (And I got it for almost half the price, locally.)

Rosy and not rosy

I'm sorry if you got a Kindle for Christmas and wanted perhaps to download The State of Me - the e-book is still not showing on Amazon - or Book Depository (this is not rosy!). On a happier note, I got a collection of Norman MacCaig poems as a gift, loving it, there is a poem about a toad that you just want to read again and again ('Stop looking like a purse...' ). And everyone should drink this, my new favourite tea: black with a hint of rose. I can also tell you that the best fairy cakes are made when you are on codeine (you simply don't care about the oven/timing, the whisking does not seem so exhausting and all is dandy). And the thaw is still on (this is rosy!). I would love if the snow melted to reveal all the spring flowers in bloom, a real Wizard of Oz moment. Needless to say, Happy and Healthy New Year, when it comes, to all who read this blog.

Miranda & Voltaire

I don't watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. I can't watch the spiders, that big one that they have between shots (the camera zooms in and I freeze). And I find it undignified eating insects unless you are actually starving. I happened to glimpse the quite awful not really a doctor Gillian McKeith, in the opening episode. I believe she has been pretending to faint. I do watch Miranda, though always forget it's on. I like the all too knowing nods and winks to seventies' comedy. And she is funny. Also enjoyed, on Monday, The Essay, Radio 3, on Voltaire. I listened in the dark with my eyes shut and a cup of Earl Grey (which I stopped drinking for years, it gave me a headache, but I recently restarted and remember how much I love it). I quite often sit in the dark and silence with a cup of green or black tea, just to completely rest my senses. I never take milk (in tea or coffee) and I hate herbal tea. This episode of The Essay had extracts from Candide, one of my favourite books. I still have my well-thumbed copy from uni, 1982. It is pink with a yellow trim, faded now.

Too Much to Bear

BBC 2 tonight: first there was the live coverage of the baby seal, covered in blood and dragging itself along the beach. I don't know what was wrong with it, I missed the beginning. I fear it will not last the night. Then there was 'The Tea Boy of Gaza', focusing on the lives of those who work in Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The doctors and nurses (like all government workers) have not been paid for 6 months since Hamas got in and the west cut off funding. One orthopaedic nurse drives taxis after his shifts, he has seven children to support. He still managed to joke about things and shrugged off the situation, saying, Life in Gaza is strange. The Shifa medics not only have to patch up the hideously injured, they have to contend with the armed visitors who swarm in the corridors, guarding the injured. Fights often break out between factions of Hamas and Fatah. In one scene, two warring families shot each other in the car park, doctors had to abandon the ER, and the hospital director was hiding in his office, crouched on the floor. Weaving in and out of the chaos, 12 year old tea boy, Mahmoud, can always be found. He supports his six brothers and sisters by selling tea to the staff and patients. He boasted about his 'regulars' and how he can often sell out in the maternity ward. He said he likes to watch the drama of shootings and he has lifted up the body parts of martyrs, though he was so scared afterwards his mum had to take him to a faith healer. He is peeved that it's harder to get into the hospital now because of increased security. But no matter how grim things get, he can be seen with his kettle, running here and there to sell tea.