I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms . He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on the PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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Opportunistic Gooseberries Our new place in Downham Market is not medieval, although both it, and the town center, have many traits which have their origin in medieval architecture and 'town planning,' if I may be permitted the use of both an anachronistic term and concept. Specifically, the buildings tend to have narrow street frontage and extend back for quite some distance. In Downham, the main East-West axis is Bridge Street, which runs from the High Street to the East, turns into Railway Road and continues across the tracks and over the river. One is tempted to suggest that the whole stretch was called Bridge Street until the railway station was built, but I cannot prove it. To the North and South of Bridge Street are Paradise Road and Priory Road, both of which run westerly from the High Street before curving to meet Bridge Street, roughly where it becomes Railway Road. This gives a bisected rectangular ovoid (or ovoid rectangle, I suppose) which encompasses most of what I think of as the old town area - with the notable exception of the parish church of Saint Edmund on a rise to the East. Our house is in Paradise Road, called such (as the anecdote goes) because the gallows were along the road somewhere, and the condemned were as close to paradise as they were every going to be as they walked along it to their doom. This means that while our narrow street frontage faces north, our back door and garden area have a much more southern exposure. Which helps to explain the thriving gooseberry bush outside my back door, under my kitchen window. The berries are not ripe exactly, but ripe enough to be used. They are still tart, but are easily plucked, and are firm enough to stand up to a little cooking. A crumble seemed in order. The recipe, if it can be dignified with such a term, is simple. Put the gooseberries in a dish. Make a crumble topping with flour and oats, perhaps equal parts, and perhaps half as much brown sugar. Add in as much cool butter as seems good to you, and mix the topping until it is crumbly - if the butter is too warm you get something more like a batter, and we don't want that, do we? Stick it in a medium oven - 350F? a bit more? - for twenty minutes. Ish. Put some cream on top. Life, thus far, is good here. Luddite'sLog, 3 July 2016 © 2016 Jeff Berry

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