Language Rocks!

The Open starts on Thursday this week at Turnberry, just 60 miles south from my location in sunny Gourock.

As a keen watcher of golf, I am relishing four days glued to my TV to watch sportsmen at the top of their game exhibit their prowess (and see how they fare against the legendary Scottish deep rough, which is sure to yield plenty of shankers), as well as beautiful scenery of Turnberry with its coastal views, especially of Ailsa Craig.

I checked out the official Open Golf website and was bowled over by the video content available portraying The Open Championship; and the tournament hasn’t even started yet!

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Pork and Veg Leftovers Stirfry

This is a delicious, filling, incredibly quick stir fry I made today from fridge and freezer leftovers that’ll satisfy for lunch, dinner, coming in from the pub, or (if you’re as twisted as me) for breakfast (next-day curries are WAY better though).

Total time spent, including raking about in the fridge and freezer was 10 mins and if I was to guess the cost it’d be £2 at an absolute maximum.

What I Had As Leftovers

1 pork loin chop
A handful of beansprouts
1/4 onion
2 spring onions
1 red birds eye chili
3 slices sandwich ham
1 takeaway-sized portion boiled long grain rice (I make mine in batches using my awesome microwave rice steamer from Lakeland. No fuss, 10 min perfect rice every time).

How To Do It

Prep Work (2 mins)

Cut (forget knives, kitchen scissors are better) pork loin chop (or any leftover fresh meat) into 1 inch strips. HINT: cut the strips perpendicular to the grain of the muscle as the meat’ll turn out more tender.
Wash beansprouts
Roughly chop onion, spring onions and ham
Finely chop chili (I kept the seeds in to add more heat)

How To Cook It (4 mins)

Heat a little olive or ground nut oil (I added a dash to a bit of fat and juices from some sausages I’d just cooked a minute earlier) in a large frying/sauté pan or wok.

Once the oil is smoking, add all prepped ingredients except the rice.

Stir fry for 2 mins.

Add rice.

Stir fry for two mins.

Add a dash of dark soy sauce (optional), serve and enjoy.

“See it all, till tomorrow”

“Words are dodgy things”

A colleague of mine once uttered these words. I don’t believe he intended them to become legendary, but within my circle of friends they most certainly are and, I think, rightly so.

What is a word anyway?

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I’m not usually a fan of e-mail anecdotes, especially the ones that start with “Fwd” in the subject box, but this one hit my language-loving funny bone, and sent my train of thought immediately from impulse power into warp drive out of the station (or should that be spacedock):

An English professor wrote the words:

‘A woman without her man is nothing’ on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly*.

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In my post “The Zen of Communication, Part 2“, I wrote about a fellow who said “hello” as he passed me on his walk. About that encounter, I wrote “I’ve had this simple, spontaneous thing happen to me many times, but every time it happens, it reinforces to me the beauty of friendly connectivity and communication between people.”

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What is “upspeak“? Upspeak is when you make a spoken statement sound like a question by raising the pitch of your voice at the end of a sentence (technically called a high rising terminal). If you want examples, just watch any Wayne’s World or Bill and Ted movie, or eavesdrop on teenagers’ or 20 somethings’ shopping mall conversations.

The written equivalent is the simple question mark? However, there is a world of difference between upspeak and a question mark.

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It’s pointless me writing a treatise on Zen. There are plenty of ways for you to read up on it if you’re so inclined. However, I’m going to write about it anyway, and how its ethos can open up our ideas on how we can learn more about ourselves, life, and the marvelous way that ideas are communicated.

Zen Buddhism doesn’t have any formal sacred texts. It has no equivalent of the Bible or Qur’an. So how do Zen Buddhists learn? Well, Zen is about experience.

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A couple of weeks ago I was teaching my son how to spin for mackerel on the shore just in front of our house.

I’d just casted out and was reeling in when a seagull swooped down. I knew what was about to happen and shouted out “Oh NOOOOO!” I felt a tug on the line and thought the worst. It thought my lure was bona fide food. But, as the gull lifted into the air, minus my treble-hooked spinner attached to it, so did my heart.

I didn’t relish the thought of having to wrestle a “live kite” to the ground with a fishing rod, then have to put the poor bird out of its misery in front of my young son.

So, now when we see gulls or gannets circling overhead, or shags, guillemots or eider ducks diving, we just take a breather from fishing and watch the birds show us how it’s really done.

“See it all, till tomorrow”

Author Stephen King once was asked the question (and I’m paraphrasing) “I’ve always wanted to write but just can’t sit down and actually do it. Any advice?”

His reply: “a writer writes.”

That, to me, is pure genius. Genius most often lies in taking a complex idea and making it simple. It’s all about attitude, in my opinion. If you want to write, start writing. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering stuff. Above all, be yourself and just put something down. If you’re not happy with it, change it. If you think your story, article or blog is going nowhere, just take a break and revisit it when you’re in the mood. Don’t force it. Do it when you want to, you’ll enjoy it more, and the result will be more pleasing to you and your readers.

“See it all, till tomorrow”

Linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt said that language is “infinite use of finite means,” perhaps because it has to satisfy the infinite array of potential human experiences. To me this suggests that the roots of language lie deep within us as a universal well of kaleidoscopic expression, and that speech is not solely a learned or conditioned behavior, but is an essential aspect of the journeying pilgrim within each of us: the inner immortal hero that relishes life’s battles, quietly learns from victory and defeat alike, and suffers human weaknesses while urging onward courageously day by day, life after life, towards the light.

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