Tuesday Ephemera

Apparently, this is the third Tuesday ephemera post I’ve done, as you may have noticed from the URL above. Evidently, after the chaos and panic of Mondays (they always seem to surprise people, don’t they?), Tuesdays and Fridays are the days when I unbundle all of the links I’ve collected and collated in my Pocket. Today is no different, as thus, without further ado… Stuff, but with more additional comments than usual:

3 month YouGov polls show folly of campaigning:

ge15

At least, it shows the folly of competitive campaigning. I’m sure that if one party didn’t campaign while the others did, that would make a difference, but given that no-one’s percentages have really done anything very much since mid-January, think of the money, effort and tedium that could have been saved by everyone just not doing anything to woo voters.
Also, it shows the danger of having (really) crap policies – support for UKIP and the Greens having actually dropped as they revealed their plans should they score an unlikely victory.

Local beach clean up yields skull 

The skull is hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years old – the remains of a young adult probably part of a hunter-gatherer community.

Yes. The real surprise was that it wasn’t a more recent murder victim.

This Xilent remix of Ellie Goulding’s Figure 8 is very pretty:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/71479604″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

 

A nice piece on the memories recalled when your childhood home is sold. My parents still live in the same house that I grew up in, so I’ve never really experienced this. Also, it isn’t a massive seven bedroom Yorkshire farmhouse and we didn’t have our wedding reception there, so this is a bit foreign to me as well:

Thirty people slept in the house, with 20 more in tents in the field. Many never made it to a bed, and Mum and Dad reckon that’s the highest number of overnight visitors they have ever had.

How could there actually be any doubt? Were there other occasions when there were “ooh, maybe 49 or 51 – I can’t quite recall”? Or did they previously also own a hotel with 26 double rooms, which may once have been very nearly at full capacity?
But look, this rather bizarre statement shouldn’t detract from what is an otherwise lovely, heartfelt piece.

Finally: Sheffield now and then. Or then and now, depending on how you poke the pictures.

For me, this was interesting not just because I come from Sheffield, but also because firstly, it’s really well done and secondly, just the way that some photos showed massive differences between the old and the new, and some where there were still elements that had been preserved. Sadly, I can’t link to individual photos, but if you have the time and/or inclination the 1945 VE Day crowd outside the City Hall (about a third of the way down) is especially interesting, showing the shrapnel holes from German bombs in the columns, and the patching work still visible today.

On the downside, many of the older photos were taken in the heyday of the city’s industrial past. That’s because that was the thing that made Sheffield special then. That was what was happening, that was the interest. Essentially, that was why the photo was taken – to show that industry, not the green spaces and parks, which didn’t exist back then. The modern day equivalents of those industrial scenes are fairly depressing, in that much of that industry has gone and has been replaced by soulless office buildings or (only arguably worse), nothing at all. It doesn’t help that the present-day photographer seems to have successfully avoided getting any sunshine in any of the photos.

Historical interest 10/10.
Accurate portrayal of modern-day Sheffield: 2/10.

Still. At least it’s not Luton.

Dyson

An abandoned factory in Sheffield apparently makes for an interesting photo subject. I know this because I saw karl101’s photo album on flickr and then I looked around some more and found some more photos here and here.

article-2569304-1BDFC34B00000578-831_964x641

I’ve lived the  Urbex life both vicariously and fairly regularly on this blog through people like silentUK and longexposure.net, and that’s been fun, but there’s obviously additional local interest for me in this one.

The company was founded by John Dyson who began mining clay and making bricks in the early 1800s. From the very beginning the business was a success. The 1834 Sheffield trade directory lists “John Dyson – Brick Maker, Stannington” which indicates that he ran the business on his own. However, by 1838 the business was listed as “John Dyson and Son – Black clay miners and firebrick manufacturers, Griffs House, Stannington”.

Dyson’s were manufacturers of refractory material, ceramics for the steel industry – basically making the tiles which lined the inside of the furnaces and ladles used in steelmaking – they also produced fire backs and other household ceramic bricks for the likes of Agas, fires etc.

As with all industry these days, however, China does it more cheaply. But rather than going under like so many other British businesses have, Dyson reacted to this by building a plant in Tianjin in China. They still supply “technical ceramics and thermal technologies” to those people and industries who need technical ceramics and thermal technologies.
I guess 2015 China is a far cry from even the 1970s in Sheffield, though:

I worked at Dyson in 1970. When I was there we mostly made teeming refractories for steel making. They lined the blast furnaces, ladles and moulds. The pipes for “uphill” teeming were stamped out in wet clay (mined from the local Ughill quarries) in drop stamp moulds. Every so often, someone would be a bit slow taking his hands out of the way of the stamp and would lose the end of his fingers. Almost everyone in the factory was missing bits of fingers, crushed by the stamper.

Eina.

123

Given the number of photo albums and sites devoted to it, I guess that the Dyson Ceramics factory in Sheffield must be the most accessible derelict factory in the world. What’s interesting to me is the respect with which it appears to be treated by the explorers and photographers. Easily mobile items (like the bottles and stamping kit above) appear in photos from both 2010 and 2014 – people are going in there to take photographs, not souvenirs.

That Chocolate & Hendo’s Mousse recipe

I mentioned it here. And I got it from here (although I have adapted it a little bit).
If it goes well for you, support the author and buy a copy – there are loads of other lovely recipes in there too.

Ingredients

  • 325g 70% dark chocolate
  • 2 medium egg yolks
  • 25g caster sugar
  • 130ml milk
  • 4 tsp Henderson’s Relish
  • 150ml single cream
  • 400ml whipping cream

Method

  • Melt the chocolate slowly over gently simmering water or in a microwave.
  • Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until light in colour.
  • Heat the 150ml cream, milk and Henderson’s Relish until a gentle simmer.
  • Slowly pour the cream onto the egg mixture, mixing continuously to avoid scrambling the eggs.
  • Pour back into a clean pan and stir.
  • Cook until the temperature reaches 80°C or the mixture coats the back of a spoon.
  • Remove from the heat, put into a cold bowl and immediately blend with a stick blender.
  • Pour onto the chocolate, stirring continuously.
  • Whip the 400ml of cream into soft peaks.
  • When the chocolate mixture has cooled slightly, fold in the whipped cream using a metal spoon or flat spatula
  • Pour into moulds or glasses as required and chill in the fridge.
  • Serve with fresh berries and a sprig of mint.

As I said, this is a slightly adapted recipe. I found that the Hendo’s flavour wasn’t coming through enough and so I (wait for it) quadrupled the amount the that original recipe suggested. That might seem like a massive increase, but if anything, I think you could go even further. Be warned that this makes a lot of very rich chocolate mousse – certainly enough for eight people. You need the berries and the mint to cut through that richness.

Usually the only recipes on this blog are ones for disaster. But given that I got a couple of cookbooks for Christmas and the fact that I am now a master in the culinary arts, expect some more over the next few months. I’d suggest that this one marks a pretty decent start to the proceedings though.

Tonight’s Menu

Friends round tonight, and it’s nice to try something a little different every now and then, so I’m doing a Sheffield-inspired menu for them.

Starter:
Toad in the Hole (in the Road)

Main:
The infamous Slutty Rutty Butty: “molten cheese, spicy tomato sauce, bread, like some unholy marriage of bacon sandwich and chip butty (in a good way)”, served with mushy peas and without a glass of King’s Blockhouse IPA

Dessert:
Chocolate and Hendo’s mousse

Recipes to follow if stuff works out.

It could be great, it could be a disaster; it’s going to be fun either way. *looks up phone numbers for local takeaways*

Best Atmosphere in England? Mauricio knows…

I’ll just leave this here:

Asked about the best atmosphere he had experienced in his time in England, Pochettino picked Bramall Lane. “They are a historic club currently in the third tier and for a Cup game there were 35,000 people in the stadium. So it’s that, not Old Trafford, or Stamford Bridge or the Emirates that stands out.”

Not wrong there, Mauricio.

And HITC Sport’s Subhankar Mondal evidently knows his stuff as well:

English football is not necessarily the most aesthetic, but support and passion in the lower leagues is probably the best in Europe. United regularly get thousands of supporters for League One matches, sometimes more than some Premier League clubs do.

The Sheffield-based club are one of the biggest of England despite playing in League One, and retain one of the largest fanbases in the country. What is refreshing about the United fans is that they have remained loyal and go to games despite their team not being in the Premier League or in the Championship.

Yep, there’s just something about being a Blade that brings out the passion and encourages undying allegiance, and despite the occasional disappointments, there are many moments to savour as well.