Quezi

Stock Photography cliche (photo by Noodle93 - CC-BY)

Stock photographs are convenient to use, but some stock images have been so over-used that they have become cliches. Here are the top ten stock photo cliches.

11. Two hands in a handshake. The connotation is supposed to be one of agreement and co-operation. Frequently one of the hands is female or black, but bonus points if they are both female or both black.

10. The impromptu meeting. The connotation is that the business is successfully generating new ideas. One person is always the center of attention while the others are clustered around (standing awkwardly). Bonus points if the person in the center is gesticulating.

9. Skyscrapers. The connotation is supposed to be of a cutting-edge efficient and successful business. Generally the photo looks upwards to make the skyscrapers converge into a blue sky with a few clouds and some sunbeams. Bonus points if an older stone skyscraper is incorporated into the photo.

8. The upward-pointing graph. The connotation is supposed to be of financial success. Generally there are a few minor ups and downs, but bonus points if there is a major wobble along the way.

7. A globe of the world. The connotation is supposed to be of ubiquitous presence. Bonus points if the globe is transparent and made of glass.

6. The business team. The connotation is supposed to be one of harmonious co-operation. Everyone is wearing suits and standing. The team includes a woman, a hispanic and an African American (but rarely a Native American). It never includes anyone obese, or anyone with crutches or a hearing aid. Bonus points if the team includes someone in a wheelchair.

5. The happy family. The connotation is that you will become as happy as this family if you will use the company’s service. There are always at least three generations shown. Bonus points if any wedding ring is visible.

4. The collection of high-tech “productivity” equipment. There’s inevitably a laptop in there, and quite likely an iPhone too. The connotation is of up-to-the-minute connectivity and efficiency. Bonus points if there’s actually anything displayed on the laptop screen.

3. The nurturing hands cupped around a seedling. The connotation is of something precious being started off on its path to growth. Bonus points if there is real dirt on the model’s hands.

2. Rows of gleaming server racks. The connotation is that the business has a well-equipped and smoothly functioning internet presence. Bonus points for every blue LED that’s glowing. The reality, by the way, is that most server rooms have loads of random equipment including servers that don’t look the same as each other!

1. The call centre girl wearing a headset. This must be the most over-used cliche, and is supposed to make you trust the business. She’s glamorous and smiling, and looks like she probably speaks your language. And she’s the same model who seems to work in the call center of many other businesses too, judging by their ads. She looks nothing at all like the people you see in real call centers. Bonus points if the stock photo uses a guy instead, although we bet he’s grinning suspiciously.

Bribery: it will send Old Father Time at Lord’s into a spin (photo by Mike Fleming CC-BY)

The recent alleged bribery scandal in cricket may be seen by many as another example of a recent trend where money is said to be influencing players to throw-away matches or produce a particular incident during the course of a game. It is reported that behind it lies the millions spent on gambling on the outcome of a match or on specific events during a match.

The alleged use of bribery to influence cricket matches is not a recent phenomenon, even in the early years of cricket there were problems. A look through the newspaper archives reveals two examples which came to the attention of the cricketing authorities.

In the late 19th century, cricket was a flourishing sport in the county of Lancashire. The Lancashire Cricket League was founded in 1892 and among the founding members were Nelson Cricket Club and Haslingden Cricket Club. Both were well established cricket clubs.

At this time the previously amateur status of cricket was changing and teams in the league were permitted at first two, and later only one professional player during a season, For Nelson this was Harry Riley, and for Haslingden, Jack Usher.

On 18 August 1900 a match was held between the two teams at the Nelson Cricket Club’s ground. It would appear that Usher approached Riley and made an attempt at what was described as bribery.

The Birmingham Daily Post of August 30, 1900 carried a report on the subsequent disciplinary hearing.

Cricket professional heavily fined
A special meeting of the Lancashire League called by the Nelson Club was held at Accrington on Wednesday night to inquire into the charge of bribery alleged against the Haslingden professional. The allegation was to the effect that Usher attempted to buy over Riley, the Nelson professional before a match between the clubs on Saturday week and that Usher afterwards made an admission to the Nelson secretary. Usher was fined £10 and ordered to apologise to the Nelson club.*

To modern eyes, the incident seems to have been treated as a minor offence, for Usher continued to play for his team and Haslingden even won the league that season. Perhaps the attitudes were slightly different at the time or the newspaper report is slightly inaccurate.

Another scandal, but not proven, was in 1882. The Times and the Australian newspapers carried reports of rumours that a two men from an ‘English Eleven’ team which was touring Australia had agreed with some Australian ‘betting men’ to ‘sell’ the match. An investigation was mounted by Marylebone Cricket Club and following the issue of a full denial of collusion with bookmakers, the interest in the matter died down.

*Also reported in Northern Echo August 31, 1900

Penguins in Antarctica (photo by Georges Nijs - CC-BY)

Stock photographs are photographs that have already been taken and are being offered for sale or use, as opposed to photographs that are commissioned in advance for a specific purpose.

The enormous advantage of stock photography is that it is very much cheaper than custom photography. If you want a picture of penguins in Antarctica, you don’t want to send your photographer on an expedition to snap the photo. It’s much easier to use a photo that has already been taken.

Stock photographs are widely available on the internet. There are broadly three sources:

• Traditional full-service stock photograph sites such as Getty Images which offer rights-managed and royalty-free (but not cost-free!) images
• “Micro-stock photo” sites such as iStockphoto who “pile the images high and sell them cheap”
• Sites such as Flickr where some contributors have pre-licensed their photos so that you can use them as stock images without payment

A stock photo can be successful when used as an illustration of something that’s mentioned in the text, but it’s not always possible to find the ideal image and there’s a strong temptation to use a stock photo that’s only distantly related to the subject matter. We do this sometimes at Quezi when an image has strong visual impact, but normally we try to keep the image close to the topic of the article. Some Quezi articles don’t use stock photos—they are illustrated with a custom photo taken by the author of the article.

Even mainstream publications such as New Scientist magazine are full of stock photos nowadays, and many newspapers are using them too. Many stock photographs are deliberately created with fairly generic subject matter to make the photo widely usable, but this can result in an image that is bland and meaningless.

In recent years, stock photography has expanded to include vector graphics, graphic art, video footage and animation clips.

Sloes fruiting on a blackthorn tree (Photo by Rhian - CC-BY)

If your sloes are not all wanted for sloe gin, try making them into jellies, jams, or spiced conserves to go with savoury dishes. It’s more trouble than gin – you have to really cook, not just mix – but you’ll end up with attractive and flavourful jars of stuff you made yourself, and the fruit is free, growing wild on the blackthorn.

Sloe jelly is well-known, but did you know you can also cook sloes in chutneys or make a jar of spiced sloes, a traditional German accompaniment to venison and game?

Spiced sloes
Take about 500g (1 pound) of sloes and prick the skins. Put them in a saucepan with a cup of red wine and 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar. One or two cloves and cinnamon (half a stick or 1/4 tsp ground) are the essential flavourings, along with 4 tbsp/50g of brown sugar. Add spiciness with a few black peppercorns and a teaspoon of mustard seeds. Add sweetness with orange rind and juice of a half orange, and more sugar if you like. Cook, covered, until the sloes have softened. Lift them into jars with a slotted spoon. You want them to be just covered by the liquid, and you may need to boil it down before pouring it over the sloes. Seal well and leave for a couple of months at least.

Clear sloe jelly
Simmer sloes in enough water to cover them for an hour or so. When tender strain through a jelly bag or muslin. Don’t hurry it by squeezing or your jelly will be cloudy. Measure the juice. Traditional UK recipes say 1 pound (450 grams) of sugar is right for 1 pint (0.6 litres) of juice. If you don’t want it too tart use a bit more sugar, or you may like half and half apple and sloe better. Boil it to setting point and pot. Sloe jelly can be spiced as you choose to go with meat.

Sloe jam
Sloes have a lot of stone in proportion to the fruity flesh. Once you’ve cooked the fruit you will have to sieve the pulp unless you picked out most of the stones with a slotted spoon during the cooking. Calculate sugar as for jelly.

Sloe chutney
Chutney is pretty much fuss-free as it is really just your choice of fruit and spices cooked to a mush in vinegar and sugar. I like onions in it but you can make it without. Try these proportions to every 500g (1 pound) of sloes:
2-3 medium onions and 2-3 cloves garlic
500g apples
250g sultanas
500g brown sugar
750ml wine vinegar
pinch salt
5 cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks, and a teaspoon of black peppercorns
You can use the macerated sloes strained out of gin as well as fresh-picked ones.

Note that some damson or bullace recipes work with sloes too. You may need more sugar, and because sloes are smaller there are even more stones to deal with.

Don’t expect sloe jam or jelly to work as a sweet spread unless the flavour is toned down by mixing it with other fruit. The fruit’s taste in autumn is not as pretty as the tree’s white spring flowers:

The blackthorn-blossom fades and falls and leaves the bitter sloe.  ~  Tennyson

Bullaces (Photo by Nick O'Doherty CC-BY)

A bullace is a wild plum that can be either dark blue-purple or light yellowy-green, sometimes flushed with red. Black bullace and white bullace are the traditional names for the two kinds. There are a few cultivated varieties too, which give rise to more names and varied colours.

Damsons are similar to a dark bullace, and belong in the same botanical group: prunus domestica ssp. insititia. This is an area of possible confusion since people used to treat these as a separate plum species, with origins in Damascus: a damascene or damson plum. In the UK damson means a slightly oval, dark, cultivated type of this subspecies, while bullace means the wild kind of either colour, or some round garden varieties, not much grown today.

The dark purplish-blue wild bullaces look rather like large sloes. Typically, ripe bullace are about 2.5 cm or one inch across, and sloes about half the size, but this can vary. The leaves of both are similar to others in the prunus (plum and cherry) family, but bullace leaves are rounder than sloe, and there are no thorns on the branches. The bullace has a more appealing fruity flavour, which is why gardeners bothered to cultivate special varieties of it: something that was never done for sloes (prunus spinosa). Bullaces can be rather acid but not as mouth-curling as raw sloes.

If you can’t decide if a tree is bullace or sloe, don’t worry. The similarities mean you can easily use sloe recipes for wild bullaces; even sloe gin recipes will make a nice bullace gin. Bullaces are also suitable for most cooked plum and damson recipes which allow for plenty of sugar. Any basic fruit pie or plum crumble recipe will suit if you adjust the sweetening.

A bullace pie is a standing dish at the harvest home supper in the south of England; only it requires rather more sugar than the housewife is always willing to allow. (1830s encyclopaedia)

For something more unusual, you could make old-fashioned bullace cheese. If you’re not familiar with fruit cheeses, these are just fruit pastes formed into a nice “cake” for slicing. Quince paste, aka membrillo, is one of the best-known kinds today, but bullace and damson cheeses were once familiar in English larders. Here’s an 18th century recipe. I think you might need to add a drop of water but don’t overdo it or it won’t make a solid cheese.

To make Bullace Cheese.
Take your Bullace when they are full ripe, put them into a Pot, and to every Quart of Bullace, put a quarter of a Pound of Loaf Sugar beat small. Bake them in a moderate Oven till they are soft, then rub them through a Hair Sieve. To every Pound of Pulp add half a Pound of Loaf Sugar beat fine, then boil it an Hour and a Half over a slow Fire and keep stirring it all the Time. Then pour it into Potting Pots, and tie Brandy Papers over them [or seal your own way], and keep them in a dry Place. When it has stood a few Months it will cut out very bright and fine.
n.b. You may make Sloe Cheese the same

Sloe gin and Spanish patxarán, also made with sloes. (Photos by Christian Cable and LarraZan - CC-BY)

Sloe gin is not just the easiest way of using wild sloes, it’s probably the most popular in the UK. Other sloe-flavoured liqueurs – patxarán or pacharán from northern Spain, Italian bargnolino and Schlehenfeuer from Germany – have interestingly different flavouring, even though the basic idea is much the same.

Sloe gin
Pick sloes after the first frost, and prick the skins. This is tedious for large quantities so some people freeze and thaw them to help break down the skin. Watch out for cracked fruit stones if you do this. Too many may give a “bitter almond” taste.

Take one or more big jars and put in sloes to half way up, add sugar, then top up with gin before sealing. Typical proportions for a litre size jar are roughly 400g – 500g sloes, 150g – 250g sugar and a bottle of gin. Keep in a cool dark place for a few months, shaking regularly. Try to shake every day at first. If you’re rushing to have it ready for Christmas you can strain the lovely red liquid into bottles after 6-8 weeks, but longer is better. If you think it’s not sweet enough add more sugar and put it all back for several days. Almond essence can be added. Some people make sloe vodka the same way.

Patxarán or pacharán
This sloe liqueur is traditional in the Basque country and Pyrenees, and is now known across Spain. A special semi-sweet anise-flavoured alcohol is sold locally for this recipe, but ordinary anisette/anís will do. The method is like sloe gin. Use 400-500g of sloes to a litre of anisette. A few coffee beans are usually added for a distinctive flavour, but cinnamon, bay leaf or camomile flowers may be used. Once it’s ready you can mix it with sugar-water to adjust sweetness and strength.

Bargnolino
Sloes from the hillside blackthorns in the north of Italy are steeped in 95% alcohol to make this liqueur. (Gin is about 45% alcohol.) Recipes suggest a kilo of sloes to a litre of alcohol and 500g sugar. When it’s nearly ready you can dilute with up to half a litre of white wine (!) or water. Traditionally this was drunk as a small “digestive” after a meal.

Schlehenfeuer
This German “sloe fire” is made with schnapps, brandy or rum. Vanilla is sometimes recommended.

Sloes lend themselves to liqueur-making. Their tang works well in characterful drinks and there is no fiddling around removing stones, or dripping juice through muslin as you do when cooking with sloes. And remember not everyone is enthusiastic about sloes. In warmer parts of Europe with plenty of sweet fruit they have usually been overlooked except for alcoholic drinks, traditional herbal medicines and dyes. In the coldest regions they may be almost the only fruits available, except for low-growing vaccinium species like bilberry, cranberry, or lingonberry. Without sugar would anyone eat them? I suppose it would depend how badly you needed them.