Left over rice

Having ventured into the world of risotto at reference 1, the presence of mushrooms in the refrigerator and left over (boiled, brown) rice on the side, prompted another go yesterday afternoon. That is to say, Friday afternoon.

Knob of butter into the sauté pan. Add most of a finely chopped onion. Failing to find the loose pepper for properly aromatic pounding, some ground black pepper from a natty contraption from Sainsbury's. Natty in that you buy the grinder and the pepper in the one package. Put another way, the top of the pepper pot has been stretched into grinding.

When the onion is soft, add the left over rice and a little water.

Simmer down to the right consistency. Add chopped mushroom stalks. Add a knob of Gubbeen, perhaps half a cubic inch. A little later add peeled and cut up caps. I don't usually bother with peeling, but it seemed the thing to do on this occasion. 

Stirring occasionally. Lid on most of the time.

Serve. With one of the two portions snapped above - and although I say it myself, I thought it did pretty well. One would not want too much of the stuff, but a portion of this size was fine.

PS 1: a bit later I picked up on the piece at reference 5. A tale from New York of the free market at work on greed. I dare say the same sort of thing goes on here in London, but maybe we manage with less noise.

PS 2: while the Google ad-server has gotten around to noticing my interest in Yellow Box, with the advertisement snapped above arriving in my mail this morning. A month since I last mentioned them (at reference 6), so quite a lag.

PS 3: from a correspondent. Flamingos over Montpellier.

Not all that many pixels left after they have been through the Google sausage machine, but hopefully the flamingos are visible if you click to enlarge. Heading from right to left. Bit more flashy than the skeins of geese we get from time to time over Stamford Green.

Google Images' observations on the matter.

While gmaps offers plenty of lagoons. It all hangs together...

A former correspondent once took the time to take in some bull fights in nearby Beziers, bottom left in the snap above. He had been a bird watcher when young, but he never mentioned flamingos in his context.

PS 4: Sunday morning: I woke up this morning thinking about these flamingos, prompting a short conversation with Gemini. He tells a good story, summarised in the snap above. Given the amount of work that appears to have been done on all of this, it should not be difficult to check, although I doubt whether I shall take the time.

But I did go so far as to ask Bing about the '2001 study led by Henri Weimerskirch on Great White Pelicans', on which clue he turns up the relevant paper in Nature. Reference 7 below. Abstract:

'Many species of large bird fly together in formation, perhaps because flight power demands and energy expenditure can be reduced when the birds fly at an optimal spacing1,2,3, or because orientation is improved by communication within groups4. We have measured heart rates as an estimate of energy expenditure in imprinted great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) trained to fly in 'V' formation, and show that these birds save a significant amount of energy by flying in formation. This advantage is probably a principal reason for the evolution of flight formation in large birds that migrate in groups'.

I learn that my connection with Nature is not what I thought it was, as if I want more I have to pay. One more thing to be checked. In the meantime, I share a few other snippets.

While breathing is synchronised (in small integer multiples) with flapping or stepping, the heart is not, at least not very much.

Birds are into mechanical efficiency, which means that there is a steady phase shift as you move down the line. Soldiers are into synchronisation, for which sound is a start - the sound of the big bass drum - but for which sight is much better. Singing can be helpful here, particularly when it is dark.

Quite a lot of work is done with special birds in wind tunnels, where it is easier to fit the monitoring gear.

Brain now in gear for the real work of the morning!

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/09/chicken-dinners.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/05/a-visit-to-town.html. The last Gubbeen on record.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/05/show-off-time.html. What appears to be the first Gubbeen on record. Probably some kind of birthday celebration.

Reference 4: https://www.gubbeen.com/. They also make knives.

Reference 5: What killed Weil Gotshal: Partners were stunned by the realisation that a profitable 95-year-old firm with 1,200 lawyers could be felled by a string of departures - Kaye Wiggins, Oliver Barnes, Sujeet Indap, Amelia Pollard, Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 6: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/09/screwfix-monday.html.

Reference 7: Energy saving in flight formation - Henri Weimerskirch, Julien Martin, Yannick Clerquin, Peggy Alexandre, Sarka Jiraskova - 2001.