antlers

I'm on postsecret.com every Sunday without fail. Today this one really resonated with me: I've had a slight fascination/obsession with the Actaeon character from Classical mythology ever since I saw the Metamorphosis exhibition at the National Gallery, and then studied the story as part of my course reading Ovid's Metamorphoses in my final year. No denying I'm a nerd. I could talk about the story for hours, and my poor tutor at university had to mark essay after essay on the same exploration of the hunted vs. the hunter, the duality of the self etc etc (whatacambridgetoff). As a result I've been secretly brewing an idea for an antlers tattoo on me somewhere..is this tacky? 

how to make pastelles (benjamin-cozier styley)

Definitely listen to this song whilst reading.

1. Get your machete out and attack a banana tree

2. Pass banana leaves to your fire guy

3. Make fire. Put a chimney on it and smoke the leaves on each side. Generously oil the leaves

4. Take your shirt off to sharpen yo knives. Cut the leaves into squares

5. Make corn dough stuff (really yellow)

6. Make corn dough stuff into balls

7. Flatten balls into pancakes using Trini-pastelle press, or invent another pressing device using oven dishes / rolling pins / hands / elbows

8. Put mince meat (mixed with raisins) on the pancake, and fold the dough round it

This all done best in a Fordist assembly line

9. Wrap the banana leaf round the parcel and tie it with string to make it look like a christmas present

10. Make s*** loads

11. Steam them and play sleeping lions while you wait (it helps keep you quiet if you've got a bit too excited by all the fun)

12. Unwrap and take yo shirt off to eat it

We tried to make a 'how to' video but didn't do very well:

How to make pastelles from Megan McLaren on Vimeo.

Here's a really how to make Caribbean pastelles.

grandanimals

I came across this video on a photography blog I'm addicted to and it's beautiful. We had two golden labs in the family until they were 15: their personalities became really well-defined in their golden years and we made sure to take a lot of photos of the pair of them.

Elderly Animals: Photographs by Isa Leshko from Walley Films on Vimeo.

dabudabi

,

Haven't posted in a WHILE. Mainly because the last 3 weeks have been spent all over the world - in a literal sense: I am an extremely lucky kid. I've been messing around a bit with this tumblr instead as I got a bit tired of ole blog and thought I might change it more into a space for comment on all things changemaking/social enterprise, but I've missed it and it lets me upload REALLY large photos so alas I'm breathing life into it again. Also - name change. After a while I started to turn my nose up at 'Shut up, Meg' so for now I'm adopting as the title a nickname I shared with my Grandma Helen. NB I won't actually be posting anything to do with space travel. (Famous last words, bet I get a job at NASA after this).

These snaps were from a quiet explore of Barsha South during call-to-prayer. With Dad living in the Middle East I’m lucky enough to visit a couple of times a year. This visit was probably my favourite: a week’s worth of sleeping off Trini-adventure (still to be documented online) ending in a big family party, and a night out with friends of mine from primary school. (I was schooled in the UAE until 11). Dubai has changed a lot since I lived there and I’ve been steadily building up a nasty impression of the place it is today, casting judgement on the haphazard and sprawling hyper-development and drawing a line through the possibility of ever coming back to live there. However, my Dad's moved house out of a commercial compound (where every house looks the same) to a stand-alone in Al Barsha. Spending a week drifting in between my bed, the supermarket and the living room, I grew to love Barsha, and a night out at a sports bar with childhood friends changed my view of Dubai. They’re the same old people, incredibly grounded and immune to the greed and attraction to a lavish lifestyle that newbies to Dubai seem to succumb to. My friend Ruaridh pointed out, “if you’re from Dubai, you’re always from Dubai” and I can indeed see myself fitting back into that scene I left over ten years ago. People definitely make a place, and I think the Dubai the rest of the world knows is certainly different to the one I grew up in and (maybe) want to go back to.