Apparently the Spinstress is an insect blogger now.
No sooner had I finished complaining about moths (existing, in general), than I discovered that Jacinda Arden, Prime Minister of New Zealand, has finally really made it in life. She’s had a bug named after her!
Hemiandrus jacinda – a cricket.
It’s flightless, so it’s already 400 times better than a moth. In fact, if you ask me, moths should be abolished immediately and replaced with Jacindas. I give this insect 4/5. This is the maximum score, as the only way to achieve the final point is to not be an insect.
Better than any moth.
This is not even the first insect named after Jacinda Arden. She’s also lent her moniker to a beetle and an ant. Her spokesman has said she is “honoured” to be constantly likened to creepy-crawlies. I think she’s very, very polite.
Now this one is…I wouldn’t be happy to see it crawling across my kitchen floor, put it that way. I think it still deserves a solid 3/5 though, for conforming so perfectly the stereotype of a beetle. This beetle knows what it’s about.
Crematogaster jacindae – an ant.
This unflattering picture of the jacinda ant is from its AntWiki (!) page. Unlike the other two, it clearly doesn’t have a social media manager. It looked borderline cute in profile, but in this picture, its bum looks like one of those fat spiders that insist on hovering about doorframes. I therefore regrettably have to lower its score to 3/5.
On the off-chance that there are any groundbreaking entomologists reading this, I would like to petition you, with the utmost respect, to name your Big Discoveries after some other politician. For example, any of them.
Poor Jacinda will soon tire of issuing press releases.
In nineteen eighty-four, Winston’s worst thing in the world was rats, which I never understood. Like, really? Rats?
This was before I had seen city rats. Being brought up in the seventeenth century, I had only seen sweet little country mice.
Innocence!
I had occasionally stumbled across well-groomed pet rats on TV.
Probably not too bad!
When I moved to the nineteen-eighties and saw RATS like Winston must have meant, I suddenly understood.
Like this, but bigger.
They’re still not the worst thing in the world, though.
The worst thing in the world is this.
Evil insectified.
My room 101 has moths in it. I can only assume Orwell had forgotten moths when he was writing the book. If your room 101 doesn’t have moths in it, I’d love to hear your case for that bizarre omission. Look at it!
YUK.
The seventeenth century is full of moths. Last summer, I opened my curtain to find a queue of moths waiting to enter my bedroom window. Happily, ‘last summer’ lasted about 5 nights, so it could have been worse.
On Sunday, I was leafing through the weekend papers when to my utter shock, I spotted the 17th century in a headline. The 17th century makes it into real-world headlines perhaps once a year, and it’s usually because religious zealots have made some strange pronouncement. In this occasion, though, it was about the discovery of an insect which had previously been considered extinct in Britain, in a back garden. I began to have suspicions.
The insect was discovered by a man who for some bizarre reason had set up a light trap in his garden to – I kid you not – attract more insects. I googled the insect.
Still not extinct.
It is a moth. Apparently, it is a ‘caddisfly’ but clearly it is a tiny moth. Revolting.
I am all for species diversity, but why have we been stuck with a moth-thing? India has tigers, China has pandas, Russia has polar bears. The seventeenth century has extra moth-things that everyone else has managed to get rid of.
“What is a dusting of icing sugar, anyway?” wondered the Spinstress, as she lashed the stuff on with a trowel.
A really brilliant but not particularly pretty cake.
This cake is my rendition of this recipe for Pink Marble Sandwich Cake from BBC Good Food. Instead of the white chocolate cream filling in the original, I used Dr Oetker chocolate buttercream, because there happened to be some in the fridge. Waste not, want not!
It was spectacular. I can hardly remember the last time I ate such a yummy cake, let alone made one. My pink marbling was more dark-reddish, because of too much food colouring or too little food colouring or too cheap food colouring or something, but I’m not baking to win photography prizes.
It’s definitely one to add to your bookmarks for the next time you need a new recipe!
The weather is the 17th century is even worse in the winter than it is in the summer. At the time of writing, it has been blowing a gale for 10 days.
Today, the Spinstress was regaled with a tale about a naive minister of religion whose hired van blew away overnight. It was found floating in the shallows at the beach the next day.
“Was that during the really bad storm?” asked an innocent listener.
“No.” replied the storyteller. “That wasn’t the very bad one.”
[It is with a heavy heart that the Spinstress must confess to being from not only the seventeenth century, but also from Scotland: this is necessary to prevent you taking any of the following commentary as anti-Scottish bigotry.]
Scotland is wrongly praised on many sides. For example, parts of the 17th century are supposed to be full of “beautiful beaches” on which one can spend a holiday. I can only assume that these claims were first made by a Siberian tourist and have been taken out of context. Every year, dozens of optimistic people whose only crime was trusting the weather forecast are punished by death in the mountains. Meanwhile, the best thing that can be said about traditional Scottish music is that it is extremely well-adapted for the deaf community.
And yet there is one area in which Scotland excels: suicide cuisine. Contrary to popular belief, Scotland’s cuisine extends beyond the tedious and disgusting haggis which the English have been trying to pin on us for centuries. The only country which can hold a candle to us in terms of unnecessary but delicious deep frying is the good old USA, and even they somewhat balance themselves out by also being home to most of the latest fitness crazes and food fads. No one has ever heard of a nutrition plan originating in Scotland, which is a shame because the Spinstress for one would happily try a whisky-based diet.
Here are some of those health-destroying, tastebud-enlightening and sometimes mind-altering delights.
Interestingly, during “research” for this post, the Spinstress discovered there is a popular dish known as macaroni cheese pie in the American South and the Caribbean. It sounds ridiculously perfect, but it is not what we are discussing here. It suffers from a tragic lack of pastry. This is a Scottish macaroni cheese pie:
It is a triumph of mixed carbohydrates, on a par with the macaroni cheese, chips and beans we used to get for school lunch. It allows you to get a little cheesy hit while calorie counting, if you are masochistic enough to serve it with salad. Most importantly, however, it allows Italians to grumble about everyone else bastardising their food, which is one of their favourite hobbies.
2. The deep-fried Mars bar
Nicer than it looks, we promise! (Image from Wiki commons.)
Something that English people tend to have heard of. In fact, there seems to be a nineteenth century by-law covering most of England which requires everyone to bring it up within 13 minutes of meeting a Scottish person, along with William Wallace and how cold it must be in his homeland. (Bonus points if they manage to get in an enquiry about men’s underwear before the Scot drops dead of asphyxiation due to fake laughter.)
The deep fried Mars bar is a gooey melty delight from food-heaven, rarely merited by the occasion, which is one of the reasons that their actual consumption is rare. The other reason is so that we can tell English people we never really eat them so they shut up.
I know, I know. You were promised a total lack of health food and yet here we are, suffering through a bowl of raspberries. Never fear. The offending fruit has been totally neutralized by the cunning addition of mountains of whipped cream, honey and – wait for it – whisky. Eat up, it’s the only thing in this list with any vitamins at all.
If you Google these, you will not find them unless you precede the name with ‘Scottish’. Ditto their marginally less delicious and much less native siblings, the pineapple tart. For some reason, these just disappear at the border, to be replaced by disgusting nonsense like the iced bun.
Happily, the fruit in these is strictly theoretical. It’s basically jam, in pastry, topped with cream and ultra-sweet icing. Beauty is simplicity.
This is teeth-shatteringly, joyously, perfectly sweet. Especially great if you’re worried your dentist is short of work.
What is it? It’s sugar. Legend has it that there’s some milk in there somewhere but those of us who are genuinely committed to our future diabetes prefer not to believe it. People sometimes compare it to fudge; this is like comparing a Lamborghini to your mate’s dad’s second-hand Vauxhall Corsa. The only thing that comes close in terms of sheer glucose content is karak chai. This the Scots cannot claim – it has spices in it, after all – but it took exactly the same level of sociopathic genius to create.
Other Scottish foods exist, but alas, they must wait for another day. These will have to do for the next time you fall off the #eatinghealthy bandwagon, if you can get them. Enjoy!
One interesting development after she moved to the seventeenth century was the Spinstress’s rediscovery of baking. It is very easy to rediscover baking when there is literally nothing else to do, as everyone else found out during lockdown.
The best dish to make when you want to like you have put some effort in without actually putting any effort in is a pancake stack. The Spinstress has Pancake Tuesday every day she can manage it, whatever the church or the calendar has to say about it. However, the Spinstress is also on a permanent diet, known in the 21st century as “counting macros” and in other eras as either “being female” or “having bad aim with the spear”.
Burnt and wobbly: a pile
This is today’s stack: BBC Good Food’s fluffy pancakes with blueberry cheesecake protein powder replacing 25g of flour. It had a rather beautifully diet-compliant 300ish calories for 4, but it made the Spinstress nostalgic for other, more synful stacks. Also, it was burnt.
In the seventeenth century, global warming was Not a Thing, which is why, when our beleaguered heroine opened the weather forecast on her Samsung A10, she was met with the following predictions:
June 23rd 14°C 🌧
June 24th 14°C 🌧
June 25th 14°C 🌧
and so on, for 15 days, until
July 7th 14°C 🌧
It would not be fair to claim that the meteorological soothsayers had not varied their pronouncements; on the contrary, June 29th’s raincloud was very dark grey instead of mere grey, while July the fifth went so far as to promise a gust of wind.
“Well”, said the Spinstress. “That will make a nice change.”
She leapt out of bed and…[actually, who are we kidding]
She lay in her bed until her cat gave up meowing politely and pounced on her head.
What, you may ask, is a Spinstress? She is an unmarried woman who is too old to be affectionately referred to as a princess (>25) but too young to be officially designated a spinster (<40). And why, you may further enquire, if you could be arsed, was this particular Spinstress beleaguered? The answer is that, having once taken a sudden bad mood, she had rashly resolved to return to her roots, and had been paying for it ever since.
Having spent 12 years in the 1980s (otherwise known as the north-west of England) the Spinstress had grown thoroughly used to the trappings of the Late Modern period, such as having her provisions delivered to her doorstep, having something entertaining to do in the evenings, and never ever ruining her new high heels by stepping in sheep shit. It therefore came as quite a shock to Remember What It Is Like Up Here.
After a few days, upon hearing some remark along the lines of “women should not…[insert almost anything]”, she began to feel a nagging sensation that she had landed not only in her hometown, but in the 1950s. Other symptoms of this era abounded: the public transport only took actual money; many people were still doing Religion in all earnest; and the housewives were all on psychotropic medication in order to cope.
Now, the 1980s had had their problems, not least a mugging or two and some period smackheads, but the 1950s still represented a serious step back in time, and the Spinstress was already unimpressed.
It was only when she heard the tragic tale of an innocent old dame whose cancer had gone undiagnosed, despite dozens of trips to the local barber’s, until she was well and truly dead of it, that the Spinstress realised that the truth was far worse. She was actually way further back than that. And that is why our beleaguered heroine was beleaguered; she was a City Girl (Woman) dumped by fate in the seventeenth century.
Alas, she had taken her entire existence with her, including her library, her large collection of bargain summer dresses, and the Cat from Hades. Thus, she was forced to winter in the tower in which she had spent her tedious childhood. You may have noticed that wintering there has taken her up till June; kindly refer to the weather forecast. In the seventeenth century, it is always winter.
The Spinstress 
