I believe I once met a lawyer named Selkirk Bannock

Flatbreads are a big deal now in carryout shops and sit-'em-down restaurants. I think the perceived advantage is that you get the grain and flour or whatever but without the added weight of leavened loaves. 

I read that medieval peasants made a simple flatbread out of oats, barley, dried peas, and beans. 

Hold the beans and dried peas on mine. No, wait, hold the whole thing and give me a big slab of grainy bread by Dave's Killer Bread.

This Middle Age cracker, if you will, was called Bannock. The Scots invented it and had one variety - Selkirk Bannock - made with wheat flour and fruit. 

What I read in the Encyclopedia Britannica is that old-time people back in the day made these crusty flatbreads all the time, but the common superstition of the day warned against stirring the batter clockwise, because that action was believed to bring bad luck to the whole house. 

I don't hesitate to point out that while the Middle Ages are commonly held to have taken place from 500 AD to 1500 AD, and clocks were invented in 13th-Century Europe, which means that from the year 500 to the year 1200-and-some, if you told someone not to do something "clockwise," the only answer you could have expected was, "What? What's a clock and why is it wise?"

 

Coming and going

 The owners and management of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team sometimes have to make tough choices. Yesterday, they did a housecleaning, because if there's anything that the first 2/3 of this season is proving, it's that being in the playoffs is not in the cards for the current team. So they discard and deal again.

People around here are howling mad because popular catcher Adley Rutschman was traded to the Red Sox for some prospects with what's thought to be very high potential - so high, in fact, that Red Sox fans are taking to the internet, howling mad because they feel their club gave up too much to get Rutschman. "We were fleeced," they vehemently cry.

We all know that Adley was the cornerstone of the rebuilding of the Orioles, the re-establishment of values and skills that were to take the team back to the top again. Check the calendar, folks. He's been here since 2022 and we have won exactly zero (0) playoff games since then. Not that it's his fault, although he has been bogged down with injuries lately. He's had a comeback year this year, which is why the Sox wanted him, so dealing him (and his newly-acquired backup Jake Rogers) for some promising talent, while ceding the #1 catcher spot to  Samuel Basallo, seems to make sense on paper.

Farewell, Adley!

But baseball is not played on paper; it's played on dirt and turf.  I'm sorry that so many people are upset about losing a popular player, but the management of the team has to shuffle around their chess pieces as they see fit, and maybe in the next couple of years, these new guys will be just what makes the pieces fit, and the O's will be back in the playoffs.

If that doesn't happen, just forget I said anything. I've been a baseball fan since I was a little boy, and I try not to take it personally.  

More than one

The other day, I saw a woman at the self checkout who had selected Spanish as her language, so the machine was talking to her in the words she understood best, and I hoped that no one would come over and start berating her to "Speak English!"

And it was a reminder that not everyone speaks English first, or even second.

I read in the Washington POST that learning a new language is good for your brain, and that's good for any brain at any age anywhere.

They went on to explain that being conversant in another tongue offers mental stimulation, and that keeps the old noodle active and sharp. They're even thinking that knowing more than one language may delay a diagnosis of dementia, or stop your brain from aging (or at least slow that down!)

Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor emeritus of psychology at York University in Canada, has looked into this for more than fifty years. She says that some people might practice music for a couple of hours a day, but the study of new language(s) is "intense and constant," so that's like strength training for your brain.

And even if you aren't actively speaking your second language, your brain has it "on" at all times.

Que será, será’!

And please remember, when you are hearing someone speaking haltingly in English, it's probably their second language! 

Sunday rerun: Belief

 It's the middle of August, what I call Elvis Week, and once again, our crepe myrtle in the back yard is fully ablaze in pink!

Funny tree, or shrub, or bush, whatever it is. Some people spell it Crepe Myrtle, some go with Crape Myrtle, and now and then you'll see Crepemyrtle.  However you spell or name it, its blooms appear right in the middle of hellish summer heat, long after the forsythias and azaleas have lost their luster and retreated back to stubborn green.

Ms Myrtle waits until all the other bloomers have had their turns, and then she does her thing. And with her blooms at the top of long tall branches, they wave majestically at the people piling into their SUVs to get back-to-school shopping done.

(Kids - ask your folks if they had Trapper Keepers back in the day! They drove teachers nuts, for some reason.)

We planted our CM shortly after we moved in, maybe 2001 or '02. And every year since it took a notion to bloom, it has done so in this very week. Like being able to expect people to say, "The Ravens will never win a Super Bowl with Lamar," it's as dependable as an Accutron watch. 

Except for one year, and I will tell you this with my hand on a Bible if you wish...

D.

In 2014, that sad June, my mother (who bought and brought the little plant to us) died, and in July, our dear Deanna went to be with the Lord. Deanna's funeral was in Phila on July 19 that year, and when we got home that night, we looked out back and the crepe myrtle was gloriously pink and waving greetings from above.

A month early.  And it never happened before then, or since.

I believe in signs and messages. This is one that lives with us every day.

The Saturday Picture Show, August 1, 2026

 

It turns out that some of the funniest writers in the world work in the field of clothes labels.

Squirrel with catsup looking for another with fries. Object: matrimony.

The US Department of State put out this chart showing aid expenditures in Africa. Big surprise: every nation on the chart was incorrectly identified. Bigger surprise: they used AI. I think AI is as useful as a sundial in a blizzard.

Nice idea, Tom! I like this! I also like using cash register receipts, the checkout receipt from the library or bookstore where the book came from, any of the 51 playing cards left in the pack since you lost the Ace of Spades, or one of the billions of bookmarks the library hands out so we won't dogear a page. That's a criminal offense, you ask me.

Live coverage on ESPN with your hosts Tony Romo and Cris Collinsworth, Sunday at 8!

If this is the Colton High School in Riverside, CA, be aware that they are ranked the 975th best high school in the state! 

We loved The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night, and crusty old Wilfrid Brambell played Paul's grandfather ("He's very clean.") Crusty, he was. Old, he wasn't! He was 52 when they made this movie. 

"This is Friday. I already heard."

Don't do drugs! Stay in school! But for the love of Pete, get a better pencil!

I think it's a cat thing, liking the sunbath in the middle of the day. Enjoy yourself, Tabby!

Neither A Borrower...

This is not really a "guy thing," more a "woman thing," but here we are.

Oprah Winfrey was on the Keke Palmer podcast (available wherever you find your podcasts under "Baby, This Is Keke Palmer") the other day and she astonished millions by saying she and herbestfriendGayle (it's all one word) do not share clothes.

Oprah and Gayle have been hanging together since the days they worked together here at Baltimore's WJZ-TV.  They vacation together, they shop together, they dine together, but they don't have a common wardrobe area.

In fact, Oprah says, “I don’t share things. Once you take something of mine, keep it.”

To be honest, my list of eccentricities is so extensive as to disallow buying or wearing used clothes. I mean, if I were over at your house and somehow wound up with a gallon of marinara sauce down my shirt and pants and socks (you would be amazed at how often this happens!) and you offered me an old sweatsuit so I could go home with at most an eighth of my dignity intact, I would probably go with it (probably) but I'm not going to ask to wear your sweater because it would look perfect with my new shirt.

A, I have a sweater, and 2, I haven't had a new shirt since little Bush was president.

On the other hand, if there is some particular item in my closet that you find enchanting, you can have it, and you can keep it, except for my orangish red sweater that I wore in 1988 when we went to see "The Phantom Of The Opera" on Broadway.

I love that sweater. It reminds me of one of the best afternoon naps I've ever had, and I've had many.  I was sawing a log, dozing away when some stupid chandelier came crashing down out of the ceiling. 

Oh hear my tale of woe

 Say, how would you like to be famous? I mean, not just known in the neighborhood for handing out dog treats to every passing hound, but really show-biz famous like this Robert Pattinson, an actor in no movie I ever saw.

But lots of people took my place and saw him in most of his dozens of movies. I know he played an ashy-faced guy in the Twilight movies, and I know he must be English because he has two middle names. They must have a lot of time over there to paste monikers like Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson on a baby.

I would like to think that, given an extra ten minutes to fill out my birth certificate, my parents would have given me an extra name like "Tito" or "Leon," but they ran out of time.

Anyway, Pattinson is a big star in the world and people in his shoes get lots of email and mail mail and messages from their fans. I imagine it can be a hassle, having fans chase after you with offers of undying love as they tear your clothes off. But he seems to be a practical man, because - in his words:

You see what he did there? He pulled back the velvet rope that some of us have to separate us from the rich and famous, and let the fan see that it's not all that great to walk around all pasty-faced and handsome all the time.

I would love to see his list of kvetches (a term for a constant flow of gripes, from the Yiddish word kvetshn, meaning "to squeeze or press") but I would imagine it's  basically similar to everyone's list, just that the cold coffee that bothers him, or the car that broke down, are a lot more expensive than yours or mine.