Coffee Ceremony

 Love it!

D is For Door - Obviously

I was on a train in Kent on Monday, confronted by a pair of buttons marked D and L. They were beside the toilet door, and I wanted to close it.

Now, I'm reasonably familiar with doors. I've been opening and closing them for over seventy years, generally without requiring written instructions. I was therefore looking for something marked O for Open and C for Close. Not an unreasonable expectation, I thought.

But no. The buttons were marked D and L.

D? What the hell does D mean?

Fortunately, the railway had anticipated my intellectual shortcomings and provided a substantial notice explaining how to operate a door. Apparently, you press D to close it, L when flashing to lock it, and D again to unlock and open it.

D, it eventually dawned on me, stands for Door. Of course it does. Silly me.

The same button opens and closes the door, depending on what the door happens to be doing at the time. L locks it, but only when it flashes. And D also unlocks it, despite there being a perfectly serviceable L button sitting alongside it.

This is what happens when engineers design things for people who already know how they work.

Somewhere along the line, somebody decided that labelling a button according to the object it controls was more sensible than labelling it according to what the person pressing it actually wants to do. And when that proved insufficiently obvious, somebody else designed a notice explaining the first somebody's design.

There is a whole discipline devoted to this sort of thing, called human factors engineering. Its central proposition is that machinery should accommodate human behaviour rather than require humans to learn the peculiarities of machinery. The railway appears to have approached the problem from the opposite direction.

And it's not as though this is some complicated piece of equipment. It's a bloody toilet door.

The extraordinary thing is that the solution is so simple. If you want someone to open a door, give them a button marked OPEN. If you want them to close it, give them one marked CLOSE. If you want them to lock it, LOCK would seem an inspired choice. Three buttons, three functions, no explanatory essay required.

Instead, we have two buttons, a flashing light and an instruction panel that wouldn't look entirely out of place beside the controls of a nuclear submarine.

I managed to operate it eventually, although I did wonder how someone elderly, visually impaired or simply desperate for a pee might fare. Particularly if they were unfamiliar with the system and the train was bouncing around the Kent countryside.

The really irritating thing is that the designers probably regard this as an elegant solution. They've reduced the number of buttons from three to two. An efficiency saving of 33%, no less. All it cost was the ability of an ordinary passenger to understand the bloody thing.

And that, I suspect, is the problem with an awful lot of modern design. We have become remarkably good at making things clever and remarkably bad at making them obvious.

A door should not require a learning curve. Especially when you're on the wrong side of it with your trousers down.

The Marmalade Is on Fire

Whenever we go to Pembrokeshire, we try to travel on a Wednesday so that we can stop at the market in the castle car park at Laugharne. I’ve written before about the bloke there who makes the most delicious jams and pickles, and his stall is always worth a visit.

Laugharne itself is a lovely place, sitting on the Taf estuary in neighbouring Carmarthenshire. Its castle began life as a medieval fortress before being turned into a Tudor mansion, although it’s now rather the worse for wear. It’s also the place most closely associated with Dylan Thomas, who lived at the Boathouse overlooking the estuary and worked in a little writing shed nearby - known in our household as Bob Dylan’s boat shed. There are worse places to sit and find inspiration.

I’m not claiming that my own inspiration was quite on the same literary plane, but one of the jam man’s creations is a chilli and whisky marmalade, which I find heavenly. I decided to have a go at recreating it, although I wasn’t about to start making marmalade from oranges. Life is too short, and Lidl has already done the hard work.

I bought a jar of its marmalade and boiled it up with a little water to loosen it. I then thinly sliced some chillies, put them in the Mikey for 30 seconds to blanch, and added them to the marmalade with a good slug of whisky. Nothing terribly scientific, you understand.

There is one small complication. The bits of chilli tend to float, so you have to stir them back in as the marmalade cools and starts to set. Otherwise you end up with a particularly alarming layer at the top of the jar.

The result is rather hot - hotter than the bloke’s - but heavenly. The orange, chilli and whisky really do go together. I’m quite pleased with myself, although I shall still be visiting his stall next time we’re in Laugharne. There are plenty more jars to investigate.

In Hot Water, and Proud of It

My wife is a cold-water swimmer. Not merely someone who takes the occasional bracing dip in summer, but one of those extraordinary people who voluntarily enters water at temperatures that would persuade most sensible mammals to migrate south. She emerges invigorated, glowing with health and apparently delighted with the experience. I wouldn't step into cold water if my life depended on it. Although, on reflection, that's probably the one circumstance in which I would.

This morning, however, as I stepped out of a gloriously hot shower, feeling thoroughly refreshed and rather pleased with the world, a thought occurred to me. Why is it that cold water receives all the publicity for its supposed health benefits, while hot water, which has been providing humanity with considerable pleasure for thousands of years, gets so little recognition?

We seem to have developed an extraordinary reverence for discomfort. Cold-water swimming, ice baths and freezing showers are presented almost as moral achievements. Apparently, deliberately subjecting yourself to something unpleasant demonstrates discipline, improves resilience and does wonderful things to your metabolism. One gets the impression that the more miserable the experience, the greater the virtue. Suffering repackaged as wellness.

Hot water, by contrast, requires no courage whatsoever. You simply turn on the tap, adjust the temperature until it feels delightful, and enjoy yourself. Perhaps that's its problem. We've become suspicious of anything that makes us feel good without demanding some form of sacrifice.

The Japanese have understood the virtues of hot water for centuries. Their *onsen*, those wonderful natural hot springs, and traditional *sento* bathhouses are not simply places to get clean. They're places to relax, contemplate and restore one's sense of wellbeing. You wash first, then immerse yourself in hot water for the sheer pleasure of it. There is something rather civilised about sitting in a steaming outdoor pool surrounded by snow, contemplating the mountains while your muscles surrender to the warmth. Compare that with plunging into an icy lake and desperately trying to remember why you thought it was a good idea.

The Romans were equally enthusiastic. Their magnificent bathhouses had heated floors, steam rooms and pools of different temperatures. The *caldarium* provided serious heat, while the *frigidarium* offered a cold plunge, often at the end of the bathing sequence. So I cannot entirely recruit the Roman Empire to my cause. Nevertheless, they developed elaborate engineering systems to heat their baths and devoted enormous resources to making bathing pleasurable. Had cold water alone been the pinnacle of human wellbeing, they could simply have jumped into the nearest river and saved themselves a fortune.

And what of the science? Cold-water immersion certainly produces a dramatic physiological response, and there is some evidence of benefits for mood and wellbeing, although the research is considerably less conclusive than its enthusiasts suggest. Hot water has measurable benefits too, encouraging relaxation, affecting circulation and potentially improving sleep. The evidence for both deserves rather more attention than the fashionable assumption that discomfort must somehow be healthier.

Perhaps the most curious aspect is the belief that feeling invigorated requires a shock to the system. My wife emerges from cold water feeling wonderfully alive. I emerge from hot water feeling much the same. We have apparently arrived at a similar destination by entirely different routes, although mine involves considerably less shouting.

There is also something deliciously contradictory about the whole business. Humanity spent thousands of years discovering fire, developing clothing, building shelters and eventually inventing central heating. Civilisation has been, in considerable measure, a sustained effort to protect ourselves from the cold. Now, having achieved the remarkable luxury of remaining comfortably warm whenever we choose, some people voluntarily return to the conditions our ancestors spent millennia trying to escape.

I don't doubt that cold-water swimming gives my wife enormous pleasure. But why should she be admired for emerging refreshed from an icy lake, while I am regarded as merely having enjoyed a shower? Both of us feel better afterwards. The principal difference is that one has endured considerable discomfort and the other hasn't.

Personally, I regard that as a point in favour of hot water.

So I shall continue to admire my wife's enthusiasm from a respectful distance, preferably somewhere warm. She can have her icy lakes and invigorating winter mornings. I shall have my hot shower.

Some of us simply prefer our wellbeing without the suffering.

The Vinted Sniper Who Wasn't a Villain

Hayley buys and sells quite a lot of stuff on Vinted. I leave her to it, largely because I can't be arsed. She enjoys finding bargains, getting rid of things we no longer need and occasionally making a few quid in the process. All perfectly sensible. However, she's recently noticed something rather peculiar. Some of her items are being bought before they've apparently finished being uploaded. The little wheel is still going round on her screen, and somebody has already snapped them up. Now, I know the internet is fast, but this is ridiculous. There are quick shoppers, and then there are shoppers who apparently possess the ability to buy something before it exists.

Naturally, I became suspicious. A little investigation revealed an entire industry devoted to what is called Vinted sniping. There are businesses selling software that monitors newly listed items, identifies bargains and buys them automatically. Some offer one-click purchasing, while others advertise systems capable of completing the entire transaction without human intervention. One even advertises technology designed to detect listings that are still being processed and purchase them the moment Vinted's systems make them available. Which might explain Hayley's spinning wheel.

The buyer in question has a Vinted Pro account with an enormous inventory, so we're dealing with a commercial trader rather than somebody who simply happened to want another cardigan. Whether he's actually using automated software, I don't know, but the circumstances are certainly suggestive. Aha, I thought. We've found the villain. Some technologically sophisticated operator using software to hoover up bargains before ordinary people have a chance to see them, presumably selling the goods at a profit. Outrageous!

Except, on reflection, it isn't. Hayley has decided what she wants for an item, advertised it at that price and received exactly what she asked for. Almost instantly, in fact. No haggling, no waiting around for somebody to offer half the asking price, and no wondering whether it will still be cluttering up the house in three months. More importantly, Hayley isn't trying to run a second-hand clothing business. She's getting rid of unwanted possessions. She might well be able to obtain a higher price by researching the market, advertising elsewhere and waiting for the right buyer, but she has better things to do.

The buyer, on the other hand, has a business to run. Presumably he believes he can sell the item for more, so he pays Hayley's asking price and takes the risk. He might make a handsome profit. He might discover that nobody wants it. Either way, it's his money tied up in the stock, not hers. That's commerce. Hardly a revolutionary concept. Indeed, I spent enough years in business to recognise that identifying opportunities, investing capital and accepting commercial risk are generally considered desirable activities. So why did I instinctively regard this particular entrepreneur as a villain?

Presumably because he's using technology to gain an advantage. But businesses have always used technology to do things faster and more efficiently than their competitors. We don't expect them to abandon computers and return to quill pens in the interests of fairness. And then I remembered eBay. For years, people have used auction-sniping software to place bids in the final seconds of an auction. I've used it myself. It's perfectly permissible under eBay's rules, although sensible bidders can protect themselves by entering their maximum bid beforehand and letting eBay's own system do the work.

There is a difference, of course. An eBay sniper intervenes at the end of an auction, whereas a Vinted bot can intervene the moment something goes on sale, potentially before ordinary buyers have even seen it. But both are exploiting technology to gain a timing advantage. And the Vinted buyer isn't trying to suppress a bidding war. He's simply accepting the price the seller has chosen. There is one complication, however. Vinted's rules prohibit unauthorised purchasing bots, whereas eBay permits auction sniping. If our mystery buyer is using such software, he may be breaking the rules. That's a legitimate objection. A marketplace ought to enforce its own conditions consistently, and if some traders are using prohibited software while everyone else plays by the rules, there's a question of fairness. But that's an argument about the rules of the game, not evidence that Hayley has somehow been cheated.

What interests me more is how quickly I fell into the trap of confusing a commercial advantage with an injustice. Somebody else might have wanted Hayley's item at the bargain price, but they weren't entitled to it. And if our reseller subsequently finds somebody willing to pay twice as much, good luck to him. That's rather the point of running a business. We have a peculiar attitude towards capitalism. We keep telling people to be enterprising, spot opportunities and make a few quid. Then somebody actually does it, using a computer rather more efficiently than the rest of us, and suddenly we're complaining that it isn't fair.

I began this investigation convinced that somebody was using sophisticated technology to take advantage of my wife. It turns out he may simply be using sophisticated technology to give her exactly what she asked for. Hayley gets her money, the reseller gets his opportunity, and somebody else gets the cardigan at a price they're willing to pay. Capitalism appears to be functioning more or less as advertised.

Rather disappointing, really. I was looking forward to being indignant, but I've probably spent more time investigating this particular transaction than Hayley spent selling the bloody thing. I shall now return to not being arsed.

When the Balloon Goes Up

The Government has apparently been advising us to stock up on non-perishable food and other essentials, enough to survive for three days in the event of a national emergency. Predictably, some people are complaining. Quite what there is to complain about escapes me. Nobody is suggesting we dig an Anderson shelter beneath the patio or start cultivating potatoes on the village green. Just keep a few essentials handy in case the electricity goes off, the water stops flowing or the supermarkets can't open.

I would have thought most households already had considerably more than three days' food in their cupboards. We certainly do. Between the freezer, the fridge, the tins and the various things lurking at the back of the pantry, I'm reasonably confident we could manage a week without going shopping. Admittedly, the menu might become a little eccentric towards the end, but we wouldn't starve.

In fact, thinking about it, we're rather well equipped for the collapse of civilisation. We have solar panels and a substantial battery, bottled gas for cooking, a log burner that heats the whole house, a well and an enormous pond. The latter two aren't exactly ready sources of drinking water, but they're useful things to have around. Apparently, we've been preparing for the Third World War for years. We thought we were just trying to keep the energy bills down.

And this is where Vladimir Putin comes into the picture.

Russia has spent years demonstrating how the vulnerabilities of modern European societies can be exploited. We depend on electricity, communications, water supplies, transport and electronic payments. Disrupt enough of those systems and you can generate economic damage, public anxiety and political pressure without sending a single tank across the border. Putin doesn't necessarily need to defeat NATO militarily to achieve some of his objectives. If he can persuade European populations that supporting Ukraine and standing up to Russia will make their lives sufficiently uncomfortable, he may hope they'll pressure their governments to back down.

This is why the Government's advice is rather more significant than it first appears. Deterrence isn't simply about persuading an adversary that you can hit him back. It's also about convincing him that hitting you won't achieve very much. If people are prepared for disruption, and know they can manage without normal services for a few days, threats to those services lose some of their psychological force.

I don't suggest that the campaign was devised primarily to send a message to Moscow. Floods, storms and ordinary infrastructure failures are perfectly good reasons for being prepared. Nor will three days' emergency rations defeat the Russian military. But civilian resilience is part of the wider defence strategy that NATO increasingly regards as essential. A society that is difficult to frighten or disrupt is a less attractive target for coercion.

There's a certain irony in the complaints. My parents' generation thought nothing of keeping a well-stocked larder, just in case the balloon went up, as they used to say when contemplating the outbreak of war. These days, apparently, being advised to own a tin opener is evidence that the Government knows Armageddon is just around the corner. We don't need to resurrect the Blitz spirit, but a little elementary self-reliance hardly seems an outrageous proposition, particularly from those who are forever telling us that Britain should stand on its own two feet.

There are, of course, people who cannot afford to build up emergency supplies, and the Government ought to help them. National resilience is not much use if it extends only to people with reasonably comfortable bank balances. But that is an argument for making preparedness more widely achievable, not for dismissing the idea altogether.

Which brings me back to our own preparations, and a couple of minor difficulties.

Our solar inverter is perfectly capable of providing emergency electricity, but I have yet to establish whether the installer actually connected the backup facility. Which means that, in the event of a national power failure, we could find ourselves sitting beneath a roof covered in solar panels, alongside a fully charged battery, in the dark. Modern technology does occasionally have a rather perverse sense of humour.

More importantly, there is one area in which our preparations remain woefully inadequate.

Homemade ice cream.

It's all very well having a log burner, bottled gas, solar panels and enough food to survive a modest siege, but what happens when the ice cream runs out? There are limits to the privations a civilised society should be expected to endure. I shall therefore be concentrating my immediate efforts on establishing a strategic reserve sufficient to last at least seven days.

Provided, of course, I can get the bloody battery to keep the freezer running.

Putin must not be allowed to win.

Practical Footwear

I bought a pair of what I call smoking slippers at a market in Hay-on-Wye. Leather uppers, rather elegant in an old-fashioned sort of way, and decidedly slipperish. The sort of thing one might wear while sitting in a leather armchair, reading the newspaper and wondering whether it was too early for a whisky.

I rather liked the look of them. They seemed just the thing for a gentleman of advancing years who still retained some sense of sartorial dignity. Very comfortable. Very smart. And almost entirely unworn.

The problem is that they have backs.

Now, I appreciate that having a back is generally considered a desirable characteristic in footwear. It prevents your shoes from falling off, which is probably quite important if you're mountaineering or running for a bus. But these are slippers.

And the entire point of slippers, as far as I'm concerned, is that you should be able to put them on without having to bend down, use your hands or undertake any other physical activity beyond vaguely pointing your feet in their direction. If I have to bend down to put them on, they're not slippers. They're shoes operating under false pretences.

Hay has now decided to sell them. Not because there's anything wrong with them, but because I simply never wear them. Their principal function has become occupying space.

Which reminds me of my father.

He used to dismiss slip-on footwear as something worn by old men. A sure sign that someone had reached the stage in life when personal appearance had finally surrendered to convenience.

Then, as he grew older, he started wearing them himself. When I pointed out the inconsistency, he explained that they were practical.

Practical.

Not old man's footwear any more. Practical footwear. The transformation was apparently complete, and entirely logical.

And now, somewhat to my amusement, I find myself agreeing with him. I'm beginning to understand that ageing isn't necessarily a matter of abandoning your principles. It's more a process of discovering that some of them were bloody silly in the first place. Particularly the ones involving bending down.

I appear to have reached the age where I understand exactly why old men wear slip-ons, but not yet the age where I remember to buy them. There's something faintly ridiculous about purchasing a pair of elegant slippers, admiring their craftsmanship and then discovering that they're too much trouble to put on.

After all, the purpose of slippers is comfort, and comfort ought to begin before you've actually got them on your feet.

I suppose this is how it happens. You don't wake up one morning and announce that you've become old. You simply make a series of entirely rational decisions about convenience. And eventually you look down and discover that you're wearing precisely the sort of footwear your father once ridiculed.

The worrying thing is that he was right.

Not when he called them old man's footwear, of course.

When he called them practical.

Although I suspect those are increasingly the same thing.

The Cat Sat on the Keyboard

I was recently developing some software with ChatGPT when the neighbour's cat decided to contribute.

Without invitation, consultation or the slightest apparent interest in the project, it climbed onto my keyboard and produced:

p0

ChatGPT, understandably, queried this rather cryptic contribution to the development process. I explained that the neighbour's cat had sat on the keyboard. It suggested that the animal was making an editorial contribution and should probably be kept away from the Publish button.

I replied that the cat probably made more sense than I did. Which got me thinking about cats.

Cats have an extraordinary ability to insert themselves into whatever you're doing, apparently without the slightest comprehension of why you're doing it. Or, more likely, with complete comprehension and an equally complete disregard for its importance.

You can spend hours concentrating on something that genuinely matters to you. A cat will survey the entire room and conclude that the one place it absolutely must occupy is the precise location where your hands are trying to work.

Not the comfortable chair. Not the sunny windowsill. The keyboard.

And once installed, it will look at you with an expression suggesting that you're the one behaving unreasonably.

Of course, this particular cat isn't even ours. It belongs to the neighbours, although I'm increasingly doubtful that the cat recognises the arrangement.

As far as it's concerned, ownership appears to be a concept invented by humans to complicate an otherwise perfectly satisfactory system of unrestricted access. We own the house, the furniture and the computer. The neighbours presumably own similar things. The cat has simply concluded that all of them are available for its personal use.

There's something particularly impressive about an animal that can maintain two households without paying rent in either. Indeed, it's managed to outsource virtually every inconvenience of domestic life. Food, heating, accommodation and the opening of doors are all provided by humans. The cat's contribution consists largely of deciding which household is currently offering the better service.

And occasionally interfering with software development.

The remarkable thing is how readily we accept this arrangement. If a neighbour wandered into my house, climbed onto my desk and started pressing random keys on my computer, I might have something to say about it. Although I suspect the neighbour would be considerably less charming if he sat on the keyboard.

The keyboard incident was a particularly fine example of feline indifference. There I was, attempting to develop some reasonably sophisticated software, and the cat decided that the entire enterprise would benefit from the addition of two completely unsolicited characters.

Perhaps it wasn't even being deliberately obstructive. Perhaps it simply saw a convenient horizontal surface and decided to put its bottom on it. I was engaged in systems analysis. The cat was engaged in sitting down. It's difficult to say which of us was more successful.

And that's probably the fundamental difference between cats and humans. We insist on attributing significance to everything. We analyse behaviour, search for motives and develop elaborate explanations for events that may have no deeper meaning whatsoever.

The cat, meanwhile, has gone to sleep.

I've decided to preserve its contribution to the software development process. It seems only fair. After all, ChatGPT raised the query, I supplied the explanation, and the cat has shown no interest whatever in responding to criticism.

Having spent much of my working life in management, I recognise the technique.

As for p0, I have no intention of editing it. I wouldn't presume to interfere with another author's work.

Drumroll, Please

I'm watching a programme about Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and it occurs to me that there's something profoundly unfair about the hierarchy of rock music.

The guitarist can leave the band and become a guitar god. The keyboard player can embark on a distinguished solo career, composing grand orchestral works and being hailed as a musical genius. The singer can become an international superstar.

The drummer? Well, he can always get a job with another band.

Think about it. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman. All celebrated as individual virtuosos. Their names alone could attract audiences, even if their solo careers enjoyed rather different degrees of commercial success.

Now name a drummer who could do the same.

Carl Palmer was an astonishing musician. Watching him perform with Emerson, Lake and Palmer, it's difficult to argue that he was any less accomplished on his instrument than Keith Emerson was on his. The technical skill, the timing, the sheer physical coordination were extraordinary.

But Emerson could sit at a grand piano, play a few bars of something suitably complicated, and have an audience hanging on every note. Palmer could sit behind an enormous collection of drums and demonstrate equally extraordinary virtuosity, but after ten minutes somebody would probably ask when the music was going to start.

And spare a thought for the bass guitarist. He's in much the same predicament, providing the musical foundations while the lead guitarist gets all the attention. At least he might be able to pick up a six-string guitar and have a crack at the solos himself. Whether anyone would want to listen is another matter.

The drummer hasn't even got that option. He's spent years mastering an instrument that nobody particularly wants to hear on its own.

It's a peculiar prejudice. We regard the piano as a musical instrument, the guitar as an extension of the artist's soul, and the drums as something you hit with sticks.

The lead guitarist is an artist. The keyboard player is a virtuoso. The bass guitarist is a musician. The drummer is apparently a member of the equipment.

And then there were the legendary drum solos.

Ginger Baker's *Toad*, with Cream, became one of the defining examples. Carl Palmer's extended solos with Emerson, Lake and Palmer were equally celebrated for their technical brilliance. Both demonstrated extraordinary musicianship, yet both became associated with the sort of self-indulgence for which the excesses of 1970s rock were eventually ridiculed.

A guitarist could spend twenty minutes improvising and be hailed as a visionary. A keyboard player could disappear into an elaborate classical interpretation and be called a genius. Let the drummer have twenty minutes to himself and suddenly everybody started complaining about pretentiousness.

Admittedly, the criticism wasn't always unreasonable. Palmer's enormous drum kit, with its orchestral percussion and assorted hardware, was hardly an exercise in modesty. Neither was Ginger Baker exactly renowned for his retiring personality. There were occasions when a drum solo seemed less like a musical performance and more like a prolonged demonstration of everything the percussion department could supply.

Even the most enthusiastic admirer of percussion has limits, particularly when the rest of the band appears to have gone off for dinner.

But consider Michael Shrieve's remarkable drum solo during Santana's performance of *Soul Sacrifice* at Woodstock in 1969. He was only twenty years old, and the solo was electrifying. It wasn't interminable, nor did it feel like a separate exhibition of technical prowess. It emerged naturally from the music, built the tension and carried the whole band back into the performance. The drums weren't interrupting the music. They were the music.

Perhaps that's the distinction. A solo that becomes part of the musical journey rather than an opportunity to demonstrate just how clever the musician is. Although, to be fair, Baker and Palmer were entitled to demonstrate their abilities just as much as Clapton or Emerson. Why should the guitarist be allowed to show off while the drummer is expected to behave himself?

And then there's Keith Moon, who could demolish his drum kit and be hailed as a rock legend. Apparently, a drummer was permitted to become a theatrical spectacle, provided he didn't get too carried away with the idea of being a serious musician. John Bonham could play an extended *Moby Dick* solo to the adoration of Led Zeppelin fans, while elsewhere the very idea of a drum solo was being dismissed as an exercise in musical self-indulgence. The rules were never terribly consistent.

Of course, there are exceptions to the general rule. Phil Collins escaped from behind the drum kit and became a global superstar, although he had the good sense to start singing. Don Henley followed much the same route. And Cozy Powell actually had a hit record with a drum-led instrumental, *Dance with the Devil*.

And then there's Dave Grohl, who achieved something rather extraordinary. Having been the drummer in Nirvana, he emerged as the guitarist, singer and frontman of Foo Fighters, becoming an even bigger individual celebrity. He'd actually played guitar for years and recorded virtually the entire first Foo Fighters album himself. Evidently, the solution to being an exceptionally talented drummer was to demonstrate that you could do everybody else's job as well.

The bass guitarists have their exceptions too. Paul McCartney and Sting became international solo stars, although largely because they could sing and write songs rather than because audiences were clamouring for an evening of bass guitar solos.

And yes, Buddy Rich could command an audience through drumming alone. There have always been exceptional percussionists capable of making the instrument the entire attraction. But they remain exceptions.

So it isn't that drummers cannot have solo careers. It's that drumming itself is rarely treated as a complete musical performance in the way that playing the piano or guitar is. To achieve widespread celebrity, the drummer generally has to do something else, preferably involving a microphone.

And here's the real absurdity. Remove the guitarist and you might still have a perfectly respectable band. Remove the keyboard player and nobody may even notice, depending on the repertoire. Remove the singer and you have a rather different proposition, admittedly.

Remove the drummer and everything goes to pieces.

In a conventional rock band, the drummer is the person holding the whole enterprise together. He's keeping time while everyone else is indulging in artistic expression, extended solos and whatever other forms of musical self-importance happen to be fashionable. The guitarist can wander off into an improvisation lasting half an hour. The keyboard player can explore the outer reaches of progressive rock. The drummer has to know where the bloody beat is.

And if he gets it wrong, everybody notices.

Perhaps that's why I have a certain affection for drummers. While everybody else is busy being a genius, somebody has to keep the bloody thing moving.

Everybody wants to be a rock star. Nobody wants to be the drummer.

Until the drummer stops.

Easy on the Bayleaf

I've been watching Rick Stein travelling around India, sampling curries, and I find myself increasingly concerned about the sheer number of ingredients involved.

Every dish seems to require a small agricultural holding, the contents of a spice merchant's warehouse and a degree in chemistry. Can't be good for the stomach.

Cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, fenugreek, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic, chillies. And just when you think they've finished, someone produces another little bowl containing something apparently essential to the entire enterprise.

What on earth is wrong with a bay leaf?

British cooking has managed perfectly well for centuries without requiring the cook to empty the botanical gardens into a saucepan.

Take a decent piece of beef. Add an onion, some carrots, a little stock and a bay leaf. There you are. Dinner. You can even taste the beef, which strikes me as rather the point of buying it in the first place.

And pepper? Well, that's where things start getting dangerously exotic. Before you know it, someone will be suggesting paprika, and civilisation will be on the slippery slope towards a chicken tikka masala.

I have nothing against Indian cooking, you understand. I'm sure it's all perfectly splendid, and Rick Stein certainly seems to be enjoying himself. But I do wonder whether anyone has considered the possibility that, beneath seventeen layers of seasoning, there might actually be a perfectly respectable chicken trying to make itself heard.

The British Empire may have departed India, but apparently we didn't leave before bringing home enough spices to confuse our national cuisine for the next hundred years.

Personally, I think there's something reassuring about a dish whose ingredients can be counted without taking your socks off.

And if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you can always put two bay leaves in.

Although I'd advise against making a habit of it.