Snack of the Month - Air Nuts!

Savoury snack this month. Another random find in the supermarket that I thought would be interesting to review. 

And what are air nuts? There's an explanation on the back of the packet. Nuts, flour and air, basically. 

Only 111 calories per bag! It's not hard to achieve such a low number of calories when there are literally only EIGHT air nuts in a bag. There's plenty of flavour dust as well. 

These look a bit like meteors.

Consistency-wise they are crunchy like breakfast cereal or savoury cookies. The "hot" chili flavour was very mild. 

Overall, they were nice but the stingy amount in the bag would put me off buying them regularly. 

Facing a childhood fear in the Moomin Shop

I had a trip to London last week and it included a brief visit to the Moomin Shop. In among the delightful toys I encountered a literary character that scared me hugely when I read the Moomin books as a kid. 

The entrance has loads of Moomin artwork.

And the shelves inside were laden with delightful toys. 

And some lovely books

At the bottom of the bookshelves is a basket of Grokes. Now the Groke wasn't the character that scared me (when I read Moominland Midwinter). If anything it made me sad. The Groke was always cold and just wanted to be warm, which is why it was drawn to bonfires and would sit on them - which put them out. 

(Years ago I did a 'Which Moomin character are you?' quiz and apparently I am a Groke.)

No, the characters that terrified me were...

... the Hattifatteners. 

I was talking to my Mum about them later and realised the Hattifatteners were the first characters that scared me. I'd read the Narnia books and wasn't particularly scared by the White Witch and I can't remember ever being scared of any other book characters.

But the Hattifatteners were creepy and weird. They were quiet and could give electric shocks. They had their own mysterious purposes and seemed dangerous somehow, because they were indifferent about harming other creatures. 

I had a faint 'brrr' shudder of revulsion when I saw the cuddly Hattifattener. I wasn't expecting that reaction. Some childhood scars stay tender. 

And, yes, I bought a Groke. I could just about squeeze it into my case

Another "fantasy" game? Are you ready to rumble (slam)!

It was my birthday this week and this arrived through the post courtesy of my man, Connor. It looks like it could be a lot of fun...

The two wrestling teams in the box are humans, halflings and an ogre versus orcs, goblins and a troll. 

There's some gluing and painting to do before I have a team ready for smackdowns!

There are lots of other teams and players available for the game. I had a gift voucher that I could redeem at Firestorm Games left over from Christmas (courtesy of my sister, Sarah) so I walked round and picked up The Furry Fury!

The first team I had for the reboots of Blood Bowl were the giant rats. Seems like I'm following a pattern!

When it went down in Abertillery

At the end of last month Cathy and I went to a gig in Abertillery. It was in the Metropole Theatre, an historic venue dating back well over a century. It even had Charlie Chaplin perform there back in the early years of the twentieth century. 

There's a series of information boards charting the history of the building in the corridor by the conveniences. I was waiting there and this reproduced newspaper clipping caught my eye. It was in a section about how the Metropole was built as the town's Market Hall was no longer considered a suitable venue for public events, following scenes like this:

I have so many questions... who was Dr Price? In what way was he "eccentric"? What was he lecturing about? Why did it result in the "unwashed" reacting violently? 

But hey, the "hooting" and object throwing helped drive forward plans to build a theatre so maybe it worked out for the best. 

Football recap of the month - March 2024

Getting into the business end of the season now. I had two football-free weekends at the start of the month but made up for it in the latter weeks, setting a new record for the month of March with a total of six games. 

Game 46: Pontypridd United 1-1 Barry Town

Bit of deja vu for this game as I went to the same fixture in phase 1 of the Cymru Premier season. Managed a very rare photo of a goal going in - in this case, Barry's equaliser.

Game 47: Cymru C 1-0 England C

My friend Steve drove us to Stebonheath Park in Llanelli for this C level international. This pitched the best Welsh players in the Cymru Premier against an England team selected from the National League. Cymru's goal was an excellent free kick. Former Barry goalie Kelland Absalom pulled off a world class save in added time at the end of the game to ensure Cymru won. 

Game 48: Taff's Well 1-2 Caerau Ely

My second game in a week with Steve, under the Friday night lights at Rhiw Dar. Entertainment was provided by a contingent of Finns who had watched Finland play Cymru the night before. They were good-natured and boisterous and worth the entry fee alone. It was the tenth time I've seen Caerau Ely and I got a badge when I checked in on Futbology. 

Game 49: Cardiff Draconians 2-2 Pontyclun

It was a brisk, sunny Saturday once the hail stopped! Pontyclun took the lead, then the Dracs scored twice and then Pontyclun equalised. One of those games that either side could have won, and neither did. 

Game 50: Barry Town 0-0 Penybont

My first nil-nil of 2024, but a draw that felt more like a win after Barry had two men sent off in the second half. I would charitably describe the referee as out of his depth. 

Game 51: Caldicot Town 0-1 Risca United

Caldicot hit the post twice and had a goal ruled out for offside. Risca took home the points despite being second best for most of the game. My friend Ben was playing for Caldicot, and his dad, uncle, two brothers and two year old nephew were all in the stand watching him as well so it was lovely to catch up with them. 

Ben makes his point

Miles and memories - happenings in March

A dragon for St David's Day! 

Cathy and I covered lots of miles in March. I had a couple of days off work because we had an appointment at the specialist clinic in Cambridge (we have been heading over there annually for about six years now, pandemics notwithstanding). This year we decided to go via Shrewsbury and see Mum on Mother's Day weekend. I went to church with her (and most of the rest of the family) on Mother's Day and got to say hello to lots of old friends. 

Our Mother's Day dinner plans were thrown awry by the restaurant phoning up to tell us they were having a software problem so they couldn't process any food orders or payments. So we ended up with a stack of takeaway pizzas instead. In a weird way, it was a nice reflection of how resilient we are as a family that we can adapt to a situation and still have fun.

Mentioning resilience makes me think of how we have adjusted as a family following the loss of my dad. This March marked the fifth anniversary of his sudden death. I found myself thinking of him quite a bit. I went to a Wales 'C' International football match on the day itself - I think he would have liked that. 

On the Monday after Mother's Day we set out to Cambridge. We had a trouble-free journey and after checking in at our hotel we went for a little trip to Newmarket. It's a horsey place with lots of horsey businesses and also a cracking toy shop!

After our hospital appointment on the Tuesday we headed home to Cardiff. We stopped in Oxford and saw our friend Ella on the way. 

We got home about midnight. The next morning I was on the 7.23am train to London for an all day meeting. I was also incubating a cold. Gotta admit, I wasn't at my best in that meeting. 

Before I came home I met up with my baseball buddy Gawain in an American sports-themed restaurant under Waterloo Station, in a warren of railway arches covered in graffiti. 

Selfie on the way to Waterloo

Meeting up had seemed like a great idea when we made the plan. By the time I got there though I was beyond exhausted. However, Gawain is very good company and we had a great two hours chatting before I had to get the train home.

All that excitement was just in five days. The rest of the month has been a bit of a blur. I made it to my first Keep Grangetown Tidy litter-pick of the year. Fiona who organises it took a picture as proof.

I also made my first foray to the cinema in 2024, watching Dune Part 2 (which I blogged about here). And we went to our first gig of the year - to see Tony Wright at the Metropole Theatre in Abertillery. It was on Easter Sunday, so we took him some Easter eggs, which Cathy presented to him afterwards.

We even had time this month for some ice creams in Victoria Park with the Wootten family. Spring is here. Summer is coming!

Book of the Month - Malcolm X speaks his truth

I've just finished reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which was published in 1965, shortly after his violent death, by Alex Haley, the journalist to whom Malcolm narrated his life story. 

The version I read (pictured) was the 2007 edition. It included a short introduction by Gary Younge, which didn't really add much (and included a weird shoehorned in reference to footballer Zinedine Zidane). Alex Haley's Foreword on the other hand, was a riveting piece of biography and explained the process by which he collated the details of Malcolm X's life including the many sessions where he took notes as Malcom talked. 

My knowledge of Malcolm X before I read this was embarrassingly paltry. I knew he was involved in the civil rights movement (although it turns out he was actually quite critical of much of it) and that he had been killed relatively young. If pushed, I might have remembered the link with the Nation of Islam although I knew absolutely nothing about that movement. 

I feel grateful that Malcolm X took the time to share his life story. He doesn't hold back in detailing his failures and mistakes. His early life as a hustler, drug dealer and burglar in Boston and then in Harlem, New York, is a source of sorrow and shame to him. However, he also clearly sees how those experiences gave him some useful skills and experience that he put to use in later life as a Minister in the Nation of Islam and as a spokesperson for the movement. 

I have read a lot of conversion testimonies by people who have left behind lives of gutter crime, being transformed in some way by an encounter with Christianity. This is the first time I have read a testimony of someone converting into a different religion. But the mechanic is the same - discovering a sense of purpose, an internal renewal and change in moral outlook, a 'calling' to serve and a passionate tendency to take things to an extreme. 

All of this is evident in Malcolm X's description of his conversion to the idiosyncratic brand of "Islam" practiced by the Nation. He explains the Nation's teachings, many of which don't really hold up to serious examination. Although, in fairness, the idea that white "devils" were created as an act of rebellion against Allah is only as ridiculous on the surface as any other religious fables. As with all such stories, they represented a deeper truth - believable to Malcolm because of the brutal reality of growing up black in a deeply racist society where oppression for people with his colour skin was baked into the natural order. 

Reading his account of his early years, it seems inevitable he ended up as a street hustler. After his father was (apparently) murdered by white racists, his mother was driven into an asylum after having her children removed by social workers. Malcolm X is put in his place by school teachers who tell him to aim for a career "suitable" for black people rather than pursuing his idea of being a lawyer. He returns to that several times in his story - it was clearly a source of resentment for most of his life. Justifiably. 

The surprising element of his story is not that he ended up in prison. Where the story takes a turn is his 'rescue' by the Nation of Islam. When he leaves prison he rapidly ascends the hierarchy of the organisation, aggressively proselytising in the black community and founding mosques in cities across the USA. 

His success meant he eventually grew too big for the Nation and its founder, Elijah Muhammad, to deal with. Malcolm's rejection by the man he credited as his saviour left a deep psychological scar on him. It happened only a couple of years before his death and it's widely believed he was killed by members of the Nation on the orders of their leader. 

Following his departure from the Nation, Malcolm went on a Hajj to Mecca and travelled in Africa, seeking to improve the cause of black Americans by promoting brotherhood with Africans. This was in the heyday of post-colonial liberation for African countries. There is a tangible sense of hope that Africa was a rising power in Malcolm's descriptions of his travels. Sadly, that hope hasn't materialised in the sixty years since his death. 

His description of the Hajj, the joyfulness of the pilgrimage experience and the brotherhood he experienced with his fellow Muslim believers, is very compelling. It is the experience of a true believer deepening his faith, seeing the hand of God at work in every little circumstance. As very recent events in his life, this part of his story is obviously still hugely significant - he talks as if it is the culmination of his life journey. Which, tragically, it was.

Reading his life in his own words, it's hard not to like Malcolm X even if his opinions and attitudes have dated. His view of women, generally, is unenlightened, although he was in awe of his half sister, Ella. The Nation had very strict views on gender roles, which he absorbed uncritically as they aligned with his street hustler viewpoint that women weren't to be trusted. He also makes some sweeping comments about Jews even while claiming he's not being anti-Semitic.

However, Malcolm X would probably say I don't have a right to cast judgement on him, as a white man far removed from the context he lived in. I'd happily concede that. There is a comment he makes towards the end of his story that resonated with me:

"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who is for or against."

I felt I was reading a lot of truth in what Malcolm X narrated to his autobiography's author. 

The book ends with Malcolm presciently saying he expected to die young and violently. I felt sad as it seemed he had just reached a point where he had managed to outgrow the limiting half-truths of the Nation, and was embarking on a much more wide-ranging mission. He had moved through hatred of white people to a mature sense that while whiteness itself was still a huge problem, there was hope for white people as individuals - and indeed many were sincere in wanting to end racism. 

It has left me wondering what he might have achieved if he had been able to explore those ideas more fully.

Dune Part 2 - finishing telling the tale of Muad'Dib (for now)

In 2021 I saw Dune Part 1 with Bryan. Here's what I wrote about it then:

Broadly speaking, I thought Dune was an excellent capture of the essence of the book. I realise if someone hadn't read the book then it might be hard to follow. But, you know what, the book was published over 50 years ago so people have had plenty of time to read it. For once it was nice to watch an adaptation that didn't dumb it down for the non-reading masses. My only criticism was that it had a score by Hans Zimmer, whose one trick is big, blaring atonal noises to signify vastness. It could have done with more subtlety, because everything is vast in the Duneiverse so there were lots of atonal blarts throughout the film.

Now, after several delays and changes in release date, Bryan and I have finally seen part 2 of Dune. I have a few thoughts about it. Spoilers follow below the image...

Part 2 picks up where Part 1 left off. Paul Atreides and his mother, Jessica, are fugitives in the desert, seeking asylum with the oppressed indigenous Fremen after the massacre of their people. This is quite an early point in the book so there was a lot more of the story to pack in to the second 'half' including Paul's growth into Muad'Dib, the messianic guerrilla leader foretold in Fremen prophecy. 

In among all this is galactic-level intrigue and power politics. Dune Part 2 manages this quite nicely by actually turning the Princess Irulan into an actual character with something to do. In this case, exposition. But sometimes a bit of exposition works, and this is one of those times. 

In contrast, the character of Feyd Rautha is rather diminished. In fairness, Feyd is played in this film with a level of intensity that would almost be impossible to sustain for long without it slipping into parody. Maybe the director could have made him more subtle, and his true malevolence be less immediately obvious. It's a bit heavy-handed giving him a cannibal harem. 

I read one comment about the film saying there seemed to be no suspense. When Paul sets out to ride a sandworm, we all know he is going to succeed. There wasn't any jeopardy. But I think that's the perspective of someone who hadn't read the novel. As a reader of the book, I already knew he would ride the worm and I knew why that was important in the development of the story. 

I guess that's one thing about going in knowing the story - I was more interested in how they told it. Did they show the mechanics of worm-riding? (Yes, they did.) How much exposition would that need? (Turns out, none.) Is the director's vision of what Fremen riding giant sandworms would look like match my idea of what that would look like. (Yep, it was close.)

Of course, knowing the story has its drawbacks. One major divergence from the book is the time-frame. The desert war goes on for years in the book. Paul's sister, Alia is born and is sort of a superhuman because her mother, Jessica, drank the Water of Life while pregnant. Paul has a son with Chani. The reunion with Gurney Halleck is after some years apart, not a couple of months. And so on...

I was left feeling a bit nonplussed by the ending which felt like it was setting up a third movie. That has apparently been mooted and presumably will be based on Dune Messiah. Fingers crossed it will get made. The first two have been massive box office hits, so it seems likely to get greenlit. 

I'd also repeat the point I made about the score for the first one. Hans Zimmer only seems to have one trick - very loud atonal blasts. For everything. Shai-halud breaks the surface. ZIMMERBLAST! A spice harvester explodes and crashes. ZIMMERBLAST! An atomic bomb goes off. ZIMMERBLAST! Sometimes less is more, Hans.

But overall, it was very good. It's brave to take on a novel that's often been described as unfilmable, and when previous attempts have had a mixed reception. Again, I have no complaints about the opacity of the story. It feels like it was done for people who know it already and its nice, for once, not to have something diluted for people who don't care about it. 

Snack of the month - Gold Billions Wafer

A mid-afternoon shortage of milk prompted a short walk to the local Post Office, where this unusual confectionary treat was sitting on the counter. One intrigued impulse purchase later... 

It's about the size of a KitKat Chunky. Maybe a fraction thinner.

Colour-wise, it's not as yellow as a McVities Gold wrapped biscuit, despite being a product evolved from that very successful item.

The discolouration on the side of the bar was unsightly.

But explained by a layer of milk chocolate on the underneath of the bar. This chocolate was a decent quality and offset the sweetness of the caramel flavour coating on the rest of the bar.

The wafer was crispy, but not too hard. 

The filling around the wafer meant it wasn't too dry. It wasn't over-filled either.

Overall, this was a very sweet wafer snack. It bordered on sickly. If the caramel coating had been used all over it that would have made it even sweeter so the milk chocolate was a good design  choice. 

And although I enjoyed it enough to not regret my impulse purchase I won't be rushing to buy another one. Worth trying once, though.