Christmas Eve Punch: saving time for the desperate Hostess

If we know one sign that tells us that Christmas is near, it’s how frantically busy everyone becomes. Selecting presents, shops, buying presents, her office party, new outfit, school nativity play, unreasonable face time demands from parents, shops, his office party, wrapping presents, buying food, Christmas card list, exchanging new outfit, writing Christmas cards, shops, a present for the cat , his office party, sending Christmas cards, buying presents for people forgotten in first tranche, shops, deliveries, ridiculously unreasonable time demands from parents in law, buying drinks, a present for the neighbours’ cat, planning the menu for Christmas day, shops, buying a different new outfit because the first one didn’t match the tablecloth, planning the seating for Christmas day, more shops……..it’s a surprise anyone likes the whole thing at all. Then all the neighbours announce they are coming round on Christmas Eve. Seventeen of them. Even the ones who hate each other seem to have got together to plan this! But before you collapse into a nervous breakdown, we have a Cunning Plan. Which will afford you that most precious, most rare commodity that you will find this Christmas. Time. And how do you make time? Give your guests a good punch.

No more juggling 20 different wines and cocktails and beers and sherries for 20 different people, each with their own capricious needs. If you just mix up everything according to the recipe below and plonk it on the table you will save aeons of time and stress. And the beauty is-you can do some of the work the day before. So with the aid of the marvellous BBC food website, we present this handy time saving Christmas Eve Punch(click on link for full chapter and verse) [1] here we will skim over the main points

1 It’s simple: All you need are: gin, red grapes prosecco, cloudy apple juice, ice, stem ginger, rosemary and a clementine. All utterly available in your local Waitrose or Marks as you troll round on the Main Mission.

2 Its ergonomic: The day before( yup) pop the grapes, the prosecco and the apple juice in the fridge to give them that icy winter chill

3 Easy scaling up About 2 hours before The Hordes descend upon you, throw everything you’ve got into a Great Big Punch Bowl. Stir; then let it stand. Half and hour before combat arrivals take all the ice you can find and bring it down on your existing position.

4 Easy serve Just let them come up one at time and help themselves with a ladle. Keep the glasses small and let them pace themselves. With any luck you could yet turn a profit on all the bottles they have felt obliged to bring and can never take away.

We honestly believe that with the above, along with the right nibbles and decorations, even the most frazzled hostess can buy a bit of serious me-time. God knows you deserve it.

NEXT TIME: COCKTAILS FOR CHRISTMAS DAY

[1]https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/christmas-punc

#christmas eve #drinks #party #punch #festivities

Mobile Crisis Construction-a truly ingenious solution to an age-old problem

Photo by u0404u0432u0433u0435u043du0456u0439 u0421u0438u043cu043eu043du0435u043du043au043e on Pexels.com

Have you ever wondered what happens at a disaster scene or a battlefield after the cameras are turned off and the media circus has rolled on elsewhere? Do all those mounds of rubble and broken buildings suddenly disappear? Do all those dreadfully traumatised survivors go home to a nice cup of tea? You know as well as we do that the physical damage of war can take years, decades sometimes, to clear up. Which means a lot of people could be homeless or living in primitive tents and shanties for a very, very long time.

Until now. Because our researchers, bless them have come across a truly remarkable charity called Mobile Crisis Construction.[1] Who saw the need to provide solid, decent and healthy homes for all these pitiful victims as soon as possible. And what struck us here at LSS, humble researchers and Senior Management alike, was the astute simplicity with which they have gone about it. “You’ve got all that debris at the site”, they reasoned” all that broken brick, glass, etc. That’s not rubbish, that’s a raw material, mate!” So the first thing they do is move in a special mill which crushes it all up into a useable powder. Next the powder is put into a special oven and baked, on site, into bricks. Not just any bricks but ones with special grooves and sticky out bits on them so that anyone can run up a decent wall-after a bit of training of course. Their website is a trove of impressive statistics but here’s one for starters: they estimate that they can knock out enough bricks to create one school, or five large houses in a week[2]

Now gentle readers, we guess you have already spotted the true genius in their idea. No more supply chains! No more lorries carrying all those materials, skilled labourers and all the bureaucracy and red tape that goes with it. Instead, they take the factories to the site. You know we love inspired new solutions to ancient problems here (LSS passim). But this surely has to be one of the simplest and best so far? We wish this new venture every success and we hope you will too. Because all the suffering people of the world deserve something better.

[1]https://www.crisisconstruction.com/about-us/

[2]https://crisisconstruction.org/solutions/rapid-response-construction/

#war #refugees #construction #aid #housing #bricks #building #emergency

Let’s put children ahead of cars

An epidemic of childhood obesity. Lonely, de-socialised children spending endless hours on their phones and computers. Anxiety, depression, anorexia…….it’s every parent’s nightmare scenario and for once everyone agrees it’s true. The solution seems obvious. Let them out to play! To have real fun, burn off a few calories and above all learn the social skills which will last them for life. Sadly it’s not that simple, as every responsible mum knows. Leave aside all the perverts and gangsters( we’ll come to those another day). There is another more terrible monster out there. It’s far more common, far more dangerous and it hasn’t even got the decency to hide in plain sight. It’s called The Car. It runs down children, maiming or killing them. It fills the air with toxic gases and noxious particles both of which represent colossal hazards to childrens’ health and mental development.

Now an exciting new movement called Playing Out [1] has taken the initiative. Incredibly, they hope to reclaim the streets as safe spaces for children to play in Read their mission satement here

Our aim is for playing out near home to be a normal, everyday part of life for all children, as it once was. This means safer, less traffic-dominated streets and more connected communities. It means children having clear permission to play out in the spaces around their homes. It means no ‘No Ball Games’ signs. It means putting children first and protecting their right to play.

It’s already being tried in Leeds, a City in the north of England, and you can read about it here [2]

It is comforting to imagine that children of the future might be saner and healthier than they are now. But it’s also rather hopeful. You see, gentle readers, we at LSS get a bit melancholy about the fact that people are losing faith in their ability to shape their own lives. Which is why they turn from rational progressive parties to charlatans out on the fringes. Yet this movement is not only grass roots, it directly addresses a major issue in everyday lives. Above all it offers agency again, that magic elixir of hope that is essential to a sustainable society. Now, the stories we’ve retold today are about places in England. That’s because we’re based there. But hope can travel. What if you went out and tried something like this for your kids?

[1]https://playingout.net/about/

[2]https://cfl.leeds.gov.uk/play/play-streets

#childhood obesity #chidrens health #cars #pollution #particulates