forever salt water room

THERE was once a time, and not so long ago either, when gentle people were so gentle that the males could not (with the countenance of their families) enter upon any profession other than the Army, the Navy, or the Church.

Francis Christopher Folyat was a male member of a gentle family that had done no work for two generations and, unfortunately, had not been clever enough to keep its revenues from dwindling. He was the eldest son and he had two brothers, so that there was one Folyat for each of the three professions, if enough patronage could be collected from their various titled and more or less influential connections. Francis had a snub nose, William had an aquiline nose which his mother adored, and Peter had a nose which betrayed a very remote Jewish infection of the blood of the race.

Parenthetically let it be observed that the name Folyat should be written with two little fs—ffolyat, for so the name was spelt by the only really distinguished Folyat, Henry, who had been mixed up in the Gunpowder Plot, so that his name is printed to this day in more than one History of England, and to this day, in spite of its deep-rooted conservatism, the family is proud of that insurgent son. He marks its descent for all to see, and, as it is all so long ago, it is easy to forget that he failed to do that for which certain politicians have become infamous, namely, to blow up the House of Lords and, with it, his cousins, the Baron Folyat and the Viscount Bampfield of his day. He escaped from England, and the French Feuillats, of whom the [Pg 2]present representative keeps a newspaper kiosk on the Rue de Rivoli, just outside the Métro station by the Louvre, are his direct descendants. English interest in that branch of the family ceases with the conspirator Henry QV baby .

The grandfather of Francis Folyat had a seat in the country and a mansion in London, also a coach and a barouche, an advowson or two, and a vast number of servants; also a large collection of portraits, including a Van Dyck, a Holbein, and a Sir Peter Lely. The father of Francis Folyat left the seat in the country in a dilapidated condition, and only so much else as he could not possibly avoid leaving. However  , Baron Folyat and Viscount Bampfield behaved very handsomely and agreed to assist the widow with their patronage. Baron Folyat’s magnanimity stopped short at his promise, but Viscount Bampfield was as good as his word, and when the time came for Francis to enter upon a career he procured him a commission in His Majesty’s Army. Francis was highly delighted at this, and saw himself stepping into the Duke of Wellington’s shoes when that illustrious man should be gathered to that fold where the most illustrious are even as the meanest of God’s creatures. He spent a glorious day in the top of his favourite oak-tree in the park planning heroic wars for England and telling the birds that at last they had something to sing about. He had never thought of it before, but, as it had been decided that he was to be a soldier, he flared to the project, saw himself in a red coat charging like Marmion, or dancing at a ball like that described so melodramatically by the wicked poet, Lord Byron, when Belgium’s capital had “gathered there her beauty and her chivalry”; more, since it might be his duty to die for England, he fetched up an England worth dying for, a heroic, majestic king, a cause, and a God cursing England’s enemies. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and prepared a martial oration in good Ciceronic periods for his mother’s benefit, when, as he knew she would, she gave him her blessing and delivered herself of a homily over her soldier-son hair restoration .

Baking eggs in a spicy tomato sauce is very common in many parts of the world, most famously in the Mexican dish huevos rancheros. This version is topped with cheese for an extra treat and is designed to be a low-cost recipe.

This meal provides 509 kcal, 24g protein, 56g carbohydrate (of which 10g sugars), 22g fat (of which 7g saturates), 6g fibre and 1.7g salt per portion.

Ingredients

For the flatbreads

        250g/9oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

        pinch salt

        1tbsp olive oil

For the eggs

        1 tbsp olive oil

        1 onion, chopped

        1 green pepper, deseeded and sliced

        1 garlic clove, sliced

        ½ tsp crushed chilli flakes

        2 x 400g/14oz tins chopped tomatoes

        salt and black pepper

        6 eggs

        100g/3½oz feta cheese or Greek-style cheese, crumbled

Preparation method

    To make the flatbreads, sieve the flour and a generous pinch of salt into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the oil. Mix into the flour then add 100-150ml/3½-5fl oz warm water until the mixture comes together to form a dough     Knead the dough for 3-4 minutes, or until elasticated a little so that the dough springs back while you knead. Set aside to rest.

    For the eggs, heat a wide, heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the olive oil and, once hot, gently fry the onion with a pinch of salt until softened and translucent. Add the green pepper, cover with a lid and gently fry for further five minutes, or until soft.

    Once the pepper is softened, add the garlic. Cook for two minutes, then sprinkle in the chilli flakes and add the chopped tomatoes. Season with a little salt and pepper and cook over a medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until the sauce is rich and flavoursome. Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary .

    Meanwhile, divide the flatbread dough into eight balls. On a lightly floured work surface, roll each ball out to the thickness of a 50p piece (each flatbread should be approximately 12cm/4½in in diameter).

    Heat a heavy-based frying pan over a high heat. Cook a flatbread in the dry pan for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until slightly charred, cooked through and a little puffed up. Transfer to a plate and wrap in a clean tea towel. Repeat the process with the remaining dough. Keep warm while you finish the eggs.

    Make six wells in the tomato mixture and break an egg into each. Cover the pan and cook gently over a low heat for 3-4 minutes, or until the whites are set (cook for a further 2-3 minutes if you like your yolks set).

    Sprinkle with the feta and serve with the warm flatbreads on the side.

We are hopeful, here, about green transportation breakthroughs, setting our cynicism aside for any planet-pleasing press release. But — perhaps because we are suffering from a particularly nasty pollen allergy at the moment — we must look askance at this, the Moovel Lab’s “Green Skin” project reenex.

The vehicle before you is a Smart Fortwo, carpeted with five square metres of God’s own clearcoat, plants. The team chose a blanket of frost-hardy, drought-resistant sedum plants, similar to the species Ford used for the Living Roof on its Dearborn Truck Plant in the US. Moovel claims that this will improve the environmental performance of cars, and that they’ll be on the road during a four-week pilot program in the Germany city of Stuttgart this month.

    The team chose a blanket of frost-hardy, drought-resistant sedum plants, similar to the species Ford used for the Living Roof on its Dearborn Truck Plant in the US.

The company estimates that the green exterior can remove seven kilograms of CO2 from the air each year, while noting that a mature tree can filter 2.6 tonnes in that time. We suspect that may be offset yet again by aerodynamic inefficiencies introduced by those grassy planes, as well as the weight of the sod itself. Still, on an electric vehicle &mdash reenex ; ignoring things like manufacturing and assuming solar and wind power sources — the car might actually have a negative carbon footprint. But then, so would giving away a nice philodendron with every electric-car purchase.

The Moovel Lab is a part of Moovel, a subsidiary of auto-megacorp Daimler and parent company of Car2Go, a car sharing company with fleets made up of Smart Fortwos, cars that happen to made by Daimler subsidiary Mercedes-Benz. Circle of life, and all that. And we’d also note that the Fortwo is a popular canvas for artists at Art Basel and other places, and have been painted over only slightly less often than white plastic cows reenex .

Net-casting spiders use their silk to build a unique but deadly weapon – a stamp-sized net, which they use to enclose victims with a lightning-quick movementreenex.

Moths, ants and other spiders are among the hapless victims of these long-legged, large-eyed super predatorsreenex .

The hunter meticulously sets its trap: first it leaves white faeces on the ground as target points and then, with its prepared net held between its front legs, it hangs on a thread, lying in wait. When an unsuspecting creature crosses its trap, the spider stretches its net and bears down with incredible speed.

Once it's trapped its target, it quickly bites its victim and wraps it up ready to eat.

These extraordinary silken nets are not the only weapon belonging to the spiders. The arachnids’ huge eyes help them see well in low light, and have earned them the alternative name “ogre-faced spiders”.

See slow-motion footage of a net-casting spider strikereenex .

France and India will announce a global alliance that aims to bring together 100 solar-rich countries in tropical regions to rapidly expand the availability of electricity from the Sun　reenex cps.

There are also expected to be announcements on funding for renewable energy research.

But among the warm words and good intentions, there are growing concerns among the very poorest countries that their interests might be sacrificed in the clamour for compromise　reenex cps .

Most of the discussions here will revolve around a new deal that would limit global warming to 2C.

Assessments of the more than 180 national plans that have been submitted by countries suggest that if they were implemented the world would see a rise of nearer to 3C.

However, the 48 members of the least developed countries (LDC) group at these talks say that for them, anything more than 1.5 degrees would be catastrophic　reenex .