Lemon Barley

Having finished the Oasis mentioned in the last post, I thought I would use the bottle for lemon barley water, something which I have thought about making for a while. I think we used to get it occasionally from Robinson's, when I was a child, and quite liked it. Sold as a concentrate, like orange squash in that way, but a sort of cloudy off-white in colour.

Boiled up 4oz of pearl barley in getting on for a couple of litres of water. Maybe a couple of hours. Strained the liquor off into the bottle, something less than a litre and a half. When it had cooled a bit, added the juice of four small lemons and some sugar. Not lemony enough, so added two more lemons and it was about right. In the refrigerator to cool down properly.

Not bad at all, even with the slight back taste of porridge - the sort of porridge made with oats rather than barley that is. And a lot more like the rhubarb drink noticed at reference 1 than one might have thought. Perhaps it is all in the colour, the sugar and the fruit acid.

Reading Radiation afterwards, I find that I might have got rid of the pink colour by blanching the barley before cooking it, and that I might have got more lemon flavour had I added the grated peels - but not the juice - to the cooking barley.

Not wanting to waste the cooked barley, that was added to some stewed up onions, lardons and tomatoes. It did rather well. Lardons being the day's discovery at the M&S food hall: chopped, smoked bacon. 120gs worth. They did well. And enough left over to serve in place of potatoes the next day, that is to say today.

PS 1: in the margins of this post, I have been reading about bonding which got me onto alcohol. All this for reasons which will become apparent in due course. But, in the meantime, I have learned that 'alcohol' started life as the Arabic name for the various powders applied to eyelids by their ladies. By extension to other powders. From there to the fine powders you get by a process of sublimation. From there to meaning essence of something. From there to essence of wine. The same root as the kohl we hear of today. With the word acquiring something of its present meaning in English by the eighteenth century. Furthermore, according to OED, for the chemist, an alcohol is water in which one of the hydrogen atoms has been replaced by a hydro-carbon radical, that is to say a hydro-carbon which has lost one of its terminating hydrogen atoms. Methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, amyl and so on. With ethyl being the stuff we drink.

PS 2: and, more generally, I have been reading of troubles at what used to be called the Central Statistical Office, invented during the war to look after the production of the statistics needed to prosecute that war. Later championed by Harold Wilson, who had done his service as a statistician. Who drove the wave of expansion which carried me into the statistical service. But maybe now, too much time and money has been sunk into the flashy sounding Integrated Data Service, at the expense of bread and butter economic and social statistics. See references 2, 3 and 4.

PS 3: it looks as if joining this service can give one privileged access to government data. But it does not look to be aimed at casual punters like myself. Only serious people with proper accreditation need apply.

PS 4: Friday morning: the story continues with a UN flavoured plea at reference 5 for trusted, centrally produced, public statistics. Something which looks to be in very much the same space as the Integrated Data Service. Something about which I dare say POTUS neither knows nor cares. Just another chunk of deep state to chuck overboard. Let Daddy do the talking. 

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/rhubarb.html.

Reference 2: Former ONS head was allowed to act ‘without check or balance’, says senior MP: Committee probes UK Statistics Authority’s role in overseeing Sir Ian Diamond, who resigned as national statistician in May - Delphine Strauss, Valentina Romei, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 3: UK to split leadership of statistics office during turnaround effort: Review warns of ‘deep-seated’ issues within Office for National Statistics - Sam Fleming, Delphine Strauss, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 4: https://integrateddataservice.gov.uk/about-the-integrated-data-service. 

Reference 5: Bad data leads to bad policy: Using official statistics to train AI could ensure that quality information shapes public life - Georges-Simon Ulrich, Financial Times - 2025. The writer is chair of the UN Statistical Commission.