This day, 2 November, in 2017, the concept of, “Building a community with a shared future for mankind”, proposed by China, was included in the “Further Practical...
Tea is supposed to be zero calories. So what is this shiny slick on the surface of yesterday’s drink?
It’s like the blue-brown façades of blocks in China’s fourth tier. It’s like a rolled scarab carapace. It’s like the squeezed temple of a liquid crystal.
Shake it and the metallic tectons quite collapse, broad shards collecting into one bronze rim-stain. Perhaps this is why we are frequently warned not to drink tea that’s been left overnight.
Well, if there is a swollen cigarette-butt floating on top, let me concur; that cup may...
They call it “herbal medicine”. And in this house, this week, it’s everywhere.
I call it “horrible medicine”. But I actually quite like it.
It smells of fragrant-soil and it tastes like fragrant-soil-with-brown-sugar.
Apparently, it has an English name; Isatis Tinctoria. But, like the names for all those things popular only in China, that’s not really an English name.
The brew hasn’t caught on elsewhere; what Americans call root-beer is a completely different thing. But here it’s enormous. As I write, your local pharmacy is selling fast out.
There’s no scientific evidence that...
We can never borrow each other’s mouths. I will never know what it means to taste the way you do, nor you me.
Then again, perhaps if we could try that, we would no longer be the sufficiently the same people we originally were to make the new observation meaningful...
Anyway, that imperfect empathy is part of the tragedy of writing and reading about food and drink. I also often wonder if my speculations on taste may be even less meaningful to someone who has a Y chromosome.
In Classical legend, there...
There’s an English word that begins with “b”. It literally means “female dog”. Don’t pretend you don’t know it.
The word has retained its full force during the many years since I first learnt it, while other “b” words, such as “bloody”, have lost theirs.
Secularism and permissiveness have prevailed. But even as the old lexicon of oaths and obscenities fades into quaintness, there is actually a whole group of curses that retain the capacity to shock.
These are the terms that will lose a broadcaster his/her job; the terms that imply/constitute...
