I read, with delight, a leaflet on magickal tours the other day. You know: Rosicrucian sites, Cathar sites, Knights bloody Templar. An all-roads-lead-to-Rosslyn Chapel kind of a thing, with a nice pentagram at the bottom. The kind of thing to which Dan Brown has given a bad name.
What I loved most about this leaflet was the small print. For purposes of anonymity, we'll call the tour guide John Smith. I read this:
Tour guide: John Smith, BA (Hons), (Reading for History) MA.
Aaah! I love this. Made me want to go on the tour.
Yours sincerely,
Pluvialis, BA (Hons) MA (cantab), MPhil, (didn’t finish) PhD
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Gastronomy Domine
I did some baking with niece Aimee this weekend, at my mum's house in Hampshire. Rather than the normal baking, I'd come over all retro. Cake mix! I'd seen, and fallen in love with, a box of ‘farmyard cupcake mix’ sighted in the aisles of a supermarket a couple of days before. The box showed beautiful little green cupcakes dotted with sugar farm animals. Aaah.
We made the cakes. Aimee sifted. I mixed. I turned on the oven. Mum’s super-duper new oven, in which the fan is so silent I hadn’t realised it was operating at all. Spooned cake mix into cake-paper cups. Aimee and I arranged nascent cakes on tray. Put tray into oven.
After five minutes, horror. I looked in the oven. Something primeval was taking place; an experiment. Not cooking as we know it. The tops of all the cakes were dark, dark, brown. Some kind of matter had spewed forth from most of them, and puddled and grown up the frilled sides of the cake-cases. As I watched, horrified, a hole appeared in the cake nearest to me and something white and fizzy came out, volcano-style, before drying and hardening into a kind of secondary vent; a horrible pyroclastic flow of hot chemical sponge and hot chemical sponge-gases.
“Argh, Aimee, the oven is too hot. I’ll turn it down. Our cakes have gone really weird.
She peered in.
They are weird, she pronounced, decidedly.
We took the cakes out. Aimee’s brown eyes went very wide.
“I don’t know what happened, there, Aimee. Cakes aren’t supposed to look like that, are they?” She shakes her head, staring at the weird buttons with tongues of pale sponge arrayed in front of us.
“Let’s get them to cool and then we’ll ice them” I said.
So we get the pack marked “ICING” which is a pale, minty green, and seems to be nought but icing sugar with colour in it. And Aimee mixes, and as the first drop of water hits the icing sugar she yells with pleasure. “It’s gone REALLY GREEN!” And it had. And as I drip water in, suddenly there’s too much water, and we have bright green icing which I already know will never set, let alone cover the cakes properly.
“Oh dear” I say.
She looks at me expectantly.
“You mixed really well, Aimee” I say, “But I put too much water in. Shall we ice the cakes anyway?”
Cake-caulking. It’s horrendous, because after the icing is applied, it simply runs off the burned top of the cakes, leaving them stained a shiny green, and rests in a thick, wet green puddle around the outside of the cakes. It looks like the Grimpen Mire.
Aimee is diplomatic in the extreme. She looks at the cakes, and then at me. “Can I put the animals on?”
“Yes, lets do that” I say, hoping that the addition of tiny sugar sheep and cows and horses will at least deflect attention from the appalling sight of their soggy sugar pasture.
“Oooh!” says Aimee. It’s sunk! She’s dropped a sugar dog into one cake, and it’s upended, titanic-style. She’s half horrified, half full of hilarity. We put a sheep on one and it slips backwards. Righted, the white sugar sheep is running horribly with green slime. “The sheep's green!” she says.
We top all the cakes with animals, including one horse with all-broken legs. Then we stand back and look at the cakes.
There is a long pause.
“Aimee” I say. “Do you know what we have made, here?”
“Cakes” she says.
“Yes, but special cakes. Do you know why they are special?”
She shakes her head.
I enunciate very carefully and seriously, frowning.
“Because, Aimee, these are The …Worst … Cakes…In …. The … World!”
For a second she’s not sure whether this is a disaster. And then I twitch my mouth, and she looks at these sorry puddles of burned sugar and wet green paste. And she starts laughing uncontrollably. “They are the worst cakes in the world!” she yells.
“They are,” I say. "They are a real triumph. No-one but you and me can make cakes this bad!"
She is so delighted.
And then later, around the table, because it is the anniversary of the last time the family all saw dad, at his last Birthday weekend, we all sit, and there are candles, and we have eaten, and we have a bottle of 1997 Chateau D’Yquem that has been sitting waiting for this very moment, and I mess up the toast to dad in stupid ways, because I am choked up, but we all drink this exquisite, exquisite nectar, and toast dad, and send our love into the ether.
And then Aimee says, “Aunty Helen, you have to eat one of our cakes”.
I can’t bring myself to do it, but James takes a photograph of The Worst Cakes in the World next to a glass and a half-drunk bottle of glowing, bewitching, D’Yquem.
It may well be the Best Food Photograph in the World.
Here’s to you, pops. Clink.
We made the cakes. Aimee sifted. I mixed. I turned on the oven. Mum’s super-duper new oven, in which the fan is so silent I hadn’t realised it was operating at all. Spooned cake mix into cake-paper cups. Aimee and I arranged nascent cakes on tray. Put tray into oven.
After five minutes, horror. I looked in the oven. Something primeval was taking place; an experiment. Not cooking as we know it. The tops of all the cakes were dark, dark, brown. Some kind of matter had spewed forth from most of them, and puddled and grown up the frilled sides of the cake-cases. As I watched, horrified, a hole appeared in the cake nearest to me and something white and fizzy came out, volcano-style, before drying and hardening into a kind of secondary vent; a horrible pyroclastic flow of hot chemical sponge and hot chemical sponge-gases.
“Argh, Aimee, the oven is too hot. I’ll turn it down. Our cakes have gone really weird.
She peered in.
They are weird, she pronounced, decidedly.
We took the cakes out. Aimee’s brown eyes went very wide.
“I don’t know what happened, there, Aimee. Cakes aren’t supposed to look like that, are they?” She shakes her head, staring at the weird buttons with tongues of pale sponge arrayed in front of us.
“Let’s get them to cool and then we’ll ice them” I said.
So we get the pack marked “ICING” which is a pale, minty green, and seems to be nought but icing sugar with colour in it. And Aimee mixes, and as the first drop of water hits the icing sugar she yells with pleasure. “It’s gone REALLY GREEN!” And it had. And as I drip water in, suddenly there’s too much water, and we have bright green icing which I already know will never set, let alone cover the cakes properly.
“Oh dear” I say.
She looks at me expectantly.
“You mixed really well, Aimee” I say, “But I put too much water in. Shall we ice the cakes anyway?”
Cake-caulking. It’s horrendous, because after the icing is applied, it simply runs off the burned top of the cakes, leaving them stained a shiny green, and rests in a thick, wet green puddle around the outside of the cakes. It looks like the Grimpen Mire.
Aimee is diplomatic in the extreme. She looks at the cakes, and then at me. “Can I put the animals on?”
“Yes, lets do that” I say, hoping that the addition of tiny sugar sheep and cows and horses will at least deflect attention from the appalling sight of their soggy sugar pasture.
“Oooh!” says Aimee. It’s sunk! She’s dropped a sugar dog into one cake, and it’s upended, titanic-style. She’s half horrified, half full of hilarity. We put a sheep on one and it slips backwards. Righted, the white sugar sheep is running horribly with green slime. “The sheep's green!” she says.
We top all the cakes with animals, including one horse with all-broken legs. Then we stand back and look at the cakes.
There is a long pause.
“Aimee” I say. “Do you know what we have made, here?”
“Cakes” she says.
“Yes, but special cakes. Do you know why they are special?”
She shakes her head.
I enunciate very carefully and seriously, frowning.
“Because, Aimee, these are The …Worst … Cakes…In …. The … World!”
For a second she’s not sure whether this is a disaster. And then I twitch my mouth, and she looks at these sorry puddles of burned sugar and wet green paste. And she starts laughing uncontrollably. “They are the worst cakes in the world!” she yells.
“They are,” I say. "They are a real triumph. No-one but you and me can make cakes this bad!"
She is so delighted.
And then later, around the table, because it is the anniversary of the last time the family all saw dad, at his last Birthday weekend, we all sit, and there are candles, and we have eaten, and we have a bottle of 1997 Chateau D’Yquem that has been sitting waiting for this very moment, and I mess up the toast to dad in stupid ways, because I am choked up, but we all drink this exquisite, exquisite nectar, and toast dad, and send our love into the ether.
And then Aimee says, “Aunty Helen, you have to eat one of our cakes”.
I can’t bring myself to do it, but James takes a photograph of The Worst Cakes in the World next to a glass and a half-drunk bottle of glowing, bewitching, D’Yquem.
It may well be the Best Food Photograph in the World.
Here’s to you, pops. Clink.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
And the award goes to...
Not the class I took last week, trying to teach Heaney and Muldoon while my head was increasingly gripped by migraine. That wasn't the most embarrassing moment of my life, although the increasing pain and a concomitant absence of any thought processes worth their salt. did make it the most most humiliating supervision ever. I swear they looked at me, with my random, fumbling attempts at exposition, with real pity. And some alarm. "Is this woman actually meant to outrank us, intellectually? She just said "Hughes" instead of "Heaney" twice, and she hasn't finished any sentences she's started for the last ten minutes". Christ, it was awful. I paid them off with apologies and a promise of chocolate cake and tea at the next class.
No, the award for my most embarrassing moment goes to: The Tesco Incident. Tescos, Camberley. The largest Tescos in the world, as the checkout assistant at Tescos Carmarthen once breathed to me, with awe in her voice. "You've been there?" she said, with disbelief. "Oh, I wish I worked there".
I had a basket of groceries and stood in the straggly checkout line for 'baskets only'. Idly looking about, my gaze fell to the basket held by the chap in front. He was thirty-odd; besuited in a middle-managery kind of way. And in his basket? Five packets of FONDUE CHEESE, and about eight baguettes. I thought this was sweet. He looked at me. I smiled. And said, "Well, I can see what you're doing tonight!" in a bright, friendly fashion.
Silence descended. Not just me, but the entire queue. Even the checkout girl stopped bleeping her goods past the laser and everyone listened as he said, in a strange, strained voice,
"I assume you're referring to the Fondue?"
And I looked again and — oh Christ. Beneath the packs of FONDUE CHEESE, and the BAGUETTES, were several HUGE PACKS OF CONDOMS. We're talking a LOT of contraceptives, here, guys.
Everyone in the queue started trying to stifle sniggers. I didn't know what to do, but my mouth broke into a rictus of embarrassed smiling that lasted the entire wait to the checkout, and then all the way back to the car, where my mother sat. My mouth ached for days.
No, the award for my most embarrassing moment goes to: The Tesco Incident. Tescos, Camberley. The largest Tescos in the world, as the checkout assistant at Tescos Carmarthen once breathed to me, with awe in her voice. "You've been there?" she said, with disbelief. "Oh, I wish I worked there".
I had a basket of groceries and stood in the straggly checkout line for 'baskets only'. Idly looking about, my gaze fell to the basket held by the chap in front. He was thirty-odd; besuited in a middle-managery kind of way. And in his basket? Five packets of FONDUE CHEESE, and about eight baguettes. I thought this was sweet. He looked at me. I smiled. And said, "Well, I can see what you're doing tonight!" in a bright, friendly fashion.
Silence descended. Not just me, but the entire queue. Even the checkout girl stopped bleeping her goods past the laser and everyone listened as he said, in a strange, strained voice,
"I assume you're referring to the Fondue?"
And I looked again and — oh Christ. Beneath the packs of FONDUE CHEESE, and the BAGUETTES, were several HUGE PACKS OF CONDOMS. We're talking a LOT of contraceptives, here, guys.
Everyone in the queue started trying to stifle sniggers. I didn't know what to do, but my mouth broke into a rictus of embarrassed smiling that lasted the entire wait to the checkout, and then all the way back to the car, where my mother sat. My mouth ached for days.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
No mere hackwork, this
Which might be the greatest sentence ever to have appeared on the BBC news website:
Mr Weston-Webb, who supplies flooring to hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, said he will also use a cannon, which once shot his wife Mary across the River Avon in a circus show, to fire a railway sleeper at intruders.
It is poetry. Full story, which of course you now want to read, here.
Mr Weston-Webb, who supplies flooring to hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, said he will also use a cannon, which once shot his wife Mary across the River Avon in a circus show, to fire a railway sleeper at intruders.
It is poetry. Full story, which of course you now want to read, here.
Huukaja! Huukaja!
I'm likely to never post on football again. But this is the most heartwarming game ever.
Apparently a pair of eagle owls live and nest in this Finnish stadium, hence this eared-chap's extreme lack of concern. And what makes this so delightful is the joy everyone has in its antics. "Isn't it beautiful!" says the commentator, and the crowd, as one, start chanting "Huuh-kaja, Huuh-kaja" ("Eagle-Owl! Eagle-Owl!) as the English referee casts about for some solution. Note: no-one tries to scare the owl or 'move it on'. I love this.
Apparently a pair of eagle owls live and nest in this Finnish stadium, hence this eared-chap's extreme lack of concern. And what makes this so delightful is the joy everyone has in its antics. "Isn't it beautiful!" says the commentator, and the crowd, as one, start chanting "Huuh-kaja, Huuh-kaja" ("Eagle-Owl! Eagle-Owl!) as the English referee casts about for some solution. Note: no-one tries to scare the owl or 'move it on'. I love this.
New Goshawk Game
1. Scrunch up a piece of softish paper into a ball the size of a cherry.
2. Toss it gently towards goshawk's head (she sits there with her foot up)
3. Goshawk catches it in her mouth.
4. Goshawk throws it over her back and watches where it lands. Or chucks it across the room with a flick of her head.
5. I pick it up.
6. I throw it to her again.
7. She catches it in her beak....etc. etc.
Sometimes she misses, and cranes her head right round to see where it's gone. Sometimes she throws it straight away; sometimes she holds it in her beak for ages before dropping it. Sometimes she holds it in her beak and makes tiny scrunching preening movements before dropping it. Sometimes she squeaks. After seven or eight throws, she gets so excited by this game she stands on both feet and leans forward to catch her paper ball.
No, I don't think she's a cat. Or a baby. Really I don't.
2. Toss it gently towards goshawk's head (she sits there with her foot up)
3. Goshawk catches it in her mouth.
4. Goshawk throws it over her back and watches where it lands. Or chucks it across the room with a flick of her head.
5. I pick it up.
6. I throw it to her again.
7. She catches it in her beak....etc. etc.
Sometimes she misses, and cranes her head right round to see where it's gone. Sometimes she throws it straight away; sometimes she holds it in her beak for ages before dropping it. Sometimes she holds it in her beak and makes tiny scrunching preening movements before dropping it. Sometimes she squeaks. After seven or eight throws, she gets so excited by this game she stands on both feet and leans forward to catch her paper ball.
No, I don't think she's a cat. Or a baby. Really I don't.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
On Peter Fleming's Rook Rifle
"Mr. Money-Coutts writes from Berkhamsted and can perhaps be forgiven for his ignorance of the armaments market in North China"
Thank you, Patrick Wright, for mining the archives of the Times for this exceptional correspondence...
Thank you, Patrick Wright, for mining the archives of the Times for this exceptional correspondence...
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Not Cambridge
Photo by Jon MicelerRobert Macfarlane's account of his Minya Konka trip is up on the Guardian website. Glorious stuff!
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