Last night.

The news was announced of the death of Fr Tony Coote, patient advocate, charity fundraiser and the administrator of Mount Merrion and Kilmacud parishes in Dublin,

Chief Executive of the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association Róisín Duffy paid tribute to Fr Coote.

She said: “From the moment he was diagnosed, Fr Tony Coote not only bore his illness with tremendous dignity, he also became a tireless advocate for everyone living with MND“.

Fr Coote undertook a 550km walk from Donegal to Cork last year, called ‘Walk While You Can’, raising €600,000.

Priest who raised funds for motor neuron research dies (RTÉ)

Hello you.

Yesterday afternoon.

Grannagh, Waterford/ Kilkenny border

Fine Gael Minister of State John Paul Phelan (above left) talking to a group of independent farmers protesting beef prices and the Mercosur Deal at the Dawn Meats plant.

Unofficial pickets have been placed on some meat processing facilities despite a High Court injunction restraining groups of protesters from blockading factories.

Meat processors are in the High Court seeking a committal order to implement the injunctions.

Tuesday: Beef Futures

Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews

Gulp.

Free September 14?

Con Kennedy writes:

The Second Saturday in September is coming! And that means the Annual BlanchWheelies 100K Hospice Spin!

Sign on from 9am Strawberry Hall [Strawberry beds, Dublin]- Depart 10am sharp (2 groups)

Food stops at circa 50k (Skyrne) and burger and chips at the finish!

Route here

Donations to St Francis Hospice in lieu of entry fee.

Lunchbox-sized Lycra bulges to a minimum if possible.

BlanchWheelies Hospice Spin 2019 (Facebook Events)

BlanchWheelies

Of course you have. But not like this.

Behold: a spectacular composite ‘close-up’ of the spiral galaxy Messier 61 combining images from the Hubble Space Telescope, he European Southern Observatory and other smaller telescopes on Earth. To wit:

A mere 55 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, M61 is also known as NGC 4303. It’s considered to be an example of a barred spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way. Like other spiral galaxies, M61 also features sweeping spiral arms, cosmic dust lanes, pinkish star forming regions, and young blue star clusters. The bright galactic core is offset to the left in this 50 thousand light-year wide close-up. 

Full sized image here.

(Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble, ESO, Amateur Data; Processing & Copyright: Robert Gendler & Roberto Colombari)

apod

From top: Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro (left) greets President of Bolivia Evo Morales; Dan Boyle

I have been reading an interesting article on the wider implications of the Amazonian rainforest fires.

The article is unstinting in its portrayal of Brazilian President Bolansaro as an ignorant oaf dedicated to inflict as much environmental damage as possible, whilst encouraging others to do the same.

But Bolonsaro is far from being the only villain of the piece.

Dozens of rivers comprise the Amazon drainage basin. The furthest away of these reach as far as Bolivia.

There an equally demagogic President (Morales) is encouraging proportionately greater clearing of the rainforest.

Morales has been something of poster boy for progressive politics. His record since his first election has been spotted. He can point to some economic growth during his reign, but also a dimunition of democracy.

A new Constitution introduced in 2009 contains several clauses that speak in glowing terms of protecting natural resources and the environment. There doesn’t seem to be any real application of these warm words.

The same Constitution placed a restriction on the number of terms that can be served by a President. Morales wants to increase this to three terms from the current proscribed two term limit.

In fact it would be a fourth term for Morales, as he doesn’t count the term he served before a new Constitution was introduced.

Bolonsaro and Morales would be placed on different ends of the political spectrum. Although when it comes to demagoguery, however democratically legitimised, they are no different from each other.

The same can be said of the effects of their respective environmental policies. While Bolonsaro can be said to more honest in his contempt for the environment, the damage being caused in Bolivia is just as bad as that occurring in Brazil.

There should be no surprise in this. Environmental policies have never sat easily in being defined through the traditional right/left political axis.

Throughout the twentieth century smokestacks were just as highly thought of as economic status symbols in communist/socialist countries as they were in the most avidly capitalistic ones.

Political analysis dealt with mechanical change, then subsequently techological change, in the same way. Capital and Labour were the only inputs that were ever worthy of consideration.

Whatever economic system has been in place, particularly during the twentieth century, there has been a shared addiction to a carbon fix, resulting in a shared responsibility for the crisis the planet now finds itself in.

We need now to define the means of production differently and better. We need to collectively manage, preserve and protect the environmental inputs of air, water and soil.

This is what now we should define what we see as economic well being, and especially how we should be bringing about social fairness.

A similar Bolonsaro/Morales axis can be seen with the current holders of the highest office holders in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Trump, in that unique fantasy land he inhabits, declares himself an environmentalist, even though his every action is antithetical to bringing about a health environment.

Johnson speaks a better game, but he and his ilk are dedicated to a deregulated world that will drive environmental degradation ever more quickly.

The moral here is to judge political leaders only by what they do. A lesson that our Taoiseach and his government seem particularly slow to take on board.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Pic via YouTube

Protests in Westminster, London last night calling for the British parliament not to be suspended

Now Boris has said to the Queen
That he can’t stand the Westminster scene
So could he please take
A month or so’s break
And then let the Commons convene

John Moynes

Pic: Getty


From top: The Great British Bake-Off returned last night on C4; Vanessa Foran

For the truly engaged  Great British Bake-off viewer and fan, last night’s Fruit Cake was a great challange as we all have one or two recipes that we will never depart from, but it was also a very unfair one.

Fruit Cake is instantly recognised as a dried fruit bake, just like Meringue is egg whites, so it must be said that two and half hours is no time for a proper fruit cake, nor is three and a half.

This probably explains why some of them were decorated loafs, not cakes. Just saying, because Mary Berry would have said so too.

Either way the odds were against them getting this as good as they get it at home, so it made good sense that many used ring moulds or loaf tins in the reduced baking time.

I have a plain ring mould myself but if I see the fancy Bundt one on special offer somewhere I might go for it, because Phil’s recipe . definitely appealed to me, shur look at how easy it was to decorate and make fancy.

However, I would twerk it somewhat, remove the marzipan for a start, and probably mix Kahlua with the rum.

You can’t not make a good fruit cake, it’s like ironing, even if there are still a few creases on the sleeve, the shirt is still wearable.

But before any novice or first time baker considers Phil’s, or any other fruit cake, be it a simple everyday brack or the proper one-stone Christmas Cake, there are two things that will always feature with this type of bake.

Firstly, there are loads of ingredients, and prepping them, and assembling them may put you off, but do push through. Because (and secondly) the smell in your kitchen and your home will reward you for days afterwards.

One tip, you will see in Phil’s recipe, how to make Pumpkin Spice on its own, this is the sort of thing I might make a batch of and keep in the baking press.

Oh, a third thing to remember about proper Fruit Cake bakes; they last ages. I still have some of Nigella’s Christmas Cake here still a tin. It will be three this Christmas. (It was too expensive a bake to throw out!)

So, to the Technical; I wouldn’t buy an angel slice, and I wouldn’t eat one if offered so I’m never going to bake one.

However, possible spoiler alert; the teenager is at me to attempt the technicals as a special side order type of thing. I’m not so sure but if anyone wants to give it a lash Prue’s recipe can be followed, but it is correctly classified as Challenging.

I love the Showstoppers usually, and in one-way last night’s was fun. But these big themed ornate cakes are not anything I do myself, although I do have the kits and the books and reasonable facilities. The thing really is that I don’t really like thick icing or edible fondant creations or marzipan anything. Nor do I have the imagination.

If there was anything in the challenge last night is that some potential Star Bakers started to make themselves known more obviously than in the Signature or the Technical did.

Michael’s treasure chest is worth a shout out, and David’s snake was very accomplished; like him actually, a bit too practiced and way too proficiently efficient and unfussy.

Same for Henry, I actually sniggered when his house fell apart. While he’s one of the youngest (20) this year, he’s actually the oldest one in the tent. I just know he’s got a soggy bottom ahead of him.

I’m loving Steph  and think she’s one to watch. She has self-depreciating yet everyday personality that I always find myself familiar with, so I hope she gets a good run at it, even just for the telly appeal.

As some of the others are all a bit too perfect and make being organised look so normal – like their life is a recipe that they are just following themselves.

I’m also expecting Phil to still be around in October.

Yet I couldn’t call Star Baker last night. Although no complaints when Michelle got the call up. I don’t fancy her chances.

But Dan had to go. While I do think it had an unfair time allocation last night, there is no excuse for getting your Signature so badly wrong.

It’s a promising start, we’ll know way way more about our bakers after bread, so still too early to call. Which might explain the number of Hollywood Handshakes (HHs) being nil. But there is a risk we might have already reached peak innuendo; Furry Garden will be hard bate in fairness.

Next up, Biscuit week: while I may be a day or so late with the post-mortem, let me leave this with ye; Are you ready to crumble?

Pic: Channel 4

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