In which the penultimate day comes to a tired end, and a list is made.
Ah, the inevitable day when "Well, do it anyway!" derailed completely and ended up in the ravine amidst sneering cacti and applauding jellyfish in a nearby bay. It had to happen eventually, and predictably it would be in Marseille. This city did greet me on my first morning here, way back at the beginning of the trip, with a seagull pecking a pigeon to death in the street and again with a dead rat there this morning. When French cities do the grimy side street cliché they go all the way. In fact, the extremes seem to be far further apart than in Britain, between charm and grime. C'est la vie.
As the cars beep endlessly - someone blocked the street to deliver some shop supplies - and in futility, it's interesting to note how this derailing occurred by trying to repeat something good rather than doing something new. It might have been tempting fate far too much, if you believe in fate. "Well, do it anyway!" will be back, but it might need a bit of a rest.
The attempt was repeat the beach of St Estevé in the Frioul archipelago, the that was laid waste by that scourge of swimming: Jellyfish! Little purple alien creatures of unproven self-awareness dumbfounded everyone. Were they dangerous? Were they not? Combined will all the swept in tidal trash that hadn't been there the day before, and a resurgent sun that had been hiding behind a cloudbank for much of the morning, it was effectively ruined. Even the search for a postbox in Marseille was ridiculous, the only one seemingly to be found at the post office. Strange, strange, strange.
The jellyfish, tennis ball sized in water, nailed down the end of the journey on many levels. Marseille has had none of the easy going charm of Barcelona, but at the same time I don't think I've given it a far chance. The comparative dinginess of my hotel, and the griminess of the street, and the seagull ruined it all before it ever began. The fortresses are faintly pretty in a yellow stone citadel way, the cathedral is pretty high up on that hill, but none of it pops. Everything gets swept up in the aimlessness of a holiday's last day. Soon there will be no more enforced eating out, or activities almost but not quite done, or loneliness of the person in the throng. Soon there will be sleep.
What a busy holiday it has been, though, loaded with a mass of fascinating experiences:
A board game shop hunt;
Font Magica;
Barcelona Aquarium;
Park Guell;
Casa Battló;
Botero's Cat and the Meditation Statue;
A sailing trip;
Good and bad paella, and Greek food;
A meal with strangers;
Barcelona Zoo;
Chateau d'If and the Frioul Archipelago;
Jellyfish;
Quantities of postcards;
Note taking galore!
For only five effective days, it's a massive amount, far too much in fact. No wonder exhaustion has set in! Even on the trip home there will be a sidetrip to the Orcs Nest board game shop in London, on the way from St Pancras to Victoria. That's a nice shop, by the way, very cute. To do that, though, there will need to be less tiredness. There is only one cure for exhaustion, and only one way to prepare for a super-early train. It is time to sleep, and early.
O.
Monday, 8 September 2014
Sunday, 7 September 2014
A bizarre hodgepodge of influences
Recovering from a holiday takes time. Recovering from interviews takes time, as does preparing for them. Recovering from anything takes time. The last week and a bit have been all of those things and none of them in the aftermath of the ridiculous France/Spain trip. It's maddening and deadening, as is worrying for someone far far away. At least that's done with for now.
An interview looms, and a presentation needs to be written after stalling for a week, but instead... instead perhaps it's time to clear the head. A long time ago, in another land far far away, bad things happened. The effects linger on, and it is only with time for reflection that you realise that those ripples just never go away. It's fascinating, and just a little ridiculous, how the ripples go in and out with the tides. The stresses of life and pent up emotions can get all bottled up, the world gets all the more abstract, and before you know what's going on everything's grey at the edges! It's one of the grand perils of solitude, that greyness, that slightly singed feeling that somehow chimes with that smokey powdery smell of a paperback that's been around a bit too long, undusted.
Solitude is grand and wonderful for the effete and standoffish, but it does have perils. You become more influenced by books, and films, and radio, and television than many other people would be. Lessons from life experience are drawn from fiction and biography, and emotional outlets occur behind a closed door while waving giant pencils in air conducting practice. The influences become legion, and then become forgotten, unless you happen to get brave and reopen a box. As a poet said, probably it was me, never said it was a good poet, "Sometimes you just gotta let it out! Or you will for lifetime badly pout!" Ouch, that hurt for a couplet made up on the spot. Go ahead, reopen the box, even if it is from before the land far far away. Join up the dots.
If our humanity is a measure of how we react, then what does it need to be prompted to react at all? I have no idea, and I am human, and sometimes need prompting. Well, sometimes I'm an air conductor or a writer of insane things that no-one ever gets to read, but mostly human. Except on Sunday afternoons. To feel is something special, and to find things that can help that is valuable beyond all hope of knowing, and those things form the Bizarre Hodgepodge of Influences. Sadly there's not a great acronym to go with that, but it does have a scruffy little bush for a logo. The bush grows.
The Hodgepodge expands slowly. I just watched The fifth season of 'Community' on DVD and there were moments that sank into the bush as if they'd never been anywhere else. That show is amazing, and heartfelt, and just a little clinically insane. Awesome. Sadly on a season-by-season basis you can never tell what's going to happen but tears and joy will pop in sometimes (except Season 4, which has a troubled backstory, not involving llamas). 'Parks and Recreation' is also good, but I mainly watch for the mighty and touching Ron Swanson doing what only he can do (see end of Season 6 opening two-parter). Steven Moffat can make you jump in the air and do cartwheels with some of his 'Doctor Who' endings, a miraculous performer.
Is it possible that there is a romantic at work somewhere inside this writer? The writer that is me? Surely not! If not, then why be moved by the 'Star Trek' novel 'First Frontier' or Columbo smashing that weight on Leonard Nimoy's desk, or the end of 'A Tale Of Two Cities' where poor self-ruined Carton finds himself in his own sacrifice. What does it all mean anyway if not romanticism? Madness? Or is it all just ripples in the fabric of who we all are? Some people feel the ripples and others fake it or try to make it. What does it mean to be moved by Woody getting the girl at the end of 'Condorman'? Terminal sappiness? That's probably not so bad.
Sunday, it was a Sunday evening when I wrote this, after an oddball couple of days. In a moment all focus will have to get back to presentation writing but for now lets just relax and feel the ripples. If there are ripples then at least the world's still moving out there somewhere. Ain't it nice?
O.
An interview looms, and a presentation needs to be written after stalling for a week, but instead... instead perhaps it's time to clear the head. A long time ago, in another land far far away, bad things happened. The effects linger on, and it is only with time for reflection that you realise that those ripples just never go away. It's fascinating, and just a little ridiculous, how the ripples go in and out with the tides. The stresses of life and pent up emotions can get all bottled up, the world gets all the more abstract, and before you know what's going on everything's grey at the edges! It's one of the grand perils of solitude, that greyness, that slightly singed feeling that somehow chimes with that smokey powdery smell of a paperback that's been around a bit too long, undusted.
Solitude is grand and wonderful for the effete and standoffish, but it does have perils. You become more influenced by books, and films, and radio, and television than many other people would be. Lessons from life experience are drawn from fiction and biography, and emotional outlets occur behind a closed door while waving giant pencils in air conducting practice. The influences become legion, and then become forgotten, unless you happen to get brave and reopen a box. As a poet said, probably it was me, never said it was a good poet, "Sometimes you just gotta let it out! Or you will for lifetime badly pout!" Ouch, that hurt for a couplet made up on the spot. Go ahead, reopen the box, even if it is from before the land far far away. Join up the dots.
If our humanity is a measure of how we react, then what does it need to be prompted to react at all? I have no idea, and I am human, and sometimes need prompting. Well, sometimes I'm an air conductor or a writer of insane things that no-one ever gets to read, but mostly human. Except on Sunday afternoons. To feel is something special, and to find things that can help that is valuable beyond all hope of knowing, and those things form the Bizarre Hodgepodge of Influences. Sadly there's not a great acronym to go with that, but it does have a scruffy little bush for a logo. The bush grows.
The Hodgepodge expands slowly. I just watched The fifth season of 'Community' on DVD and there were moments that sank into the bush as if they'd never been anywhere else. That show is amazing, and heartfelt, and just a little clinically insane. Awesome. Sadly on a season-by-season basis you can never tell what's going to happen but tears and joy will pop in sometimes (except Season 4, which has a troubled backstory, not involving llamas). 'Parks and Recreation' is also good, but I mainly watch for the mighty and touching Ron Swanson doing what only he can do (see end of Season 6 opening two-parter). Steven Moffat can make you jump in the air and do cartwheels with some of his 'Doctor Who' endings, a miraculous performer.
Is it possible that there is a romantic at work somewhere inside this writer? The writer that is me? Surely not! If not, then why be moved by the 'Star Trek' novel 'First Frontier' or Columbo smashing that weight on Leonard Nimoy's desk, or the end of 'A Tale Of Two Cities' where poor self-ruined Carton finds himself in his own sacrifice. What does it all mean anyway if not romanticism? Madness? Or is it all just ripples in the fabric of who we all are? Some people feel the ripples and others fake it or try to make it. What does it mean to be moved by Woody getting the girl at the end of 'Condorman'? Terminal sappiness? That's probably not so bad.
Sunday, it was a Sunday evening when I wrote this, after an oddball couple of days. In a moment all focus will have to get back to presentation writing but for now lets just relax and feel the ripples. If there are ripples then at least the world's still moving out there somewhere. Ain't it nice?
O.
Friday, 5 September 2014
Holiday Ramblings V: "Stamps" (Day 6)
Moving into the end stage of the extracts. Two days left to go!
At some point in history, selling postage stamps became inextricably linked to selling tobacco in France, Spain, and probably other countries in Western Europe. If I ever find out why that happened or who did it, then time travel will have to be invented just so I can go back and wreak full vengeance. Also, melons would vanish from the timeline, to make the trip more worthwhile and the world less full of horror. Melon. How can anything that is an anagram of the noble lemon be so worthless? If you like melon, you will get no apologies from me. Bah! It's just solid water!
Stamps are a pain to buy over here, especially when you consider how useful they are. At least we sell them in so many more places in Britain, if the post office is closed and not just in tobacconists! Presumably it's a link based on duties and taxes in history, and the ubiquity of tobacconists in those countries. None of the cities I've visited have had what I would call convenience stores at all, and most of them have had very few supermarkets in accessible places. Perhaps the tobacconists are the most numerous shops for the purpose?
This Mediterranean trip has received its crowning cliché: A trip to the beach! It was very lovely in the Frioul Archipelago, and I even went swimming at the calanque (beach in a little bay) of St Estevé. Now only the sunburn lingers, a horrible sensation and not experienced in years. Horrible! I might have to do it again tomorrow, Marseille proper not having taken the proverbial fancy. In fact, there was one brief look around at the beginning of the day, and then a swift and breezy walk to the ferry to Chateau d'If and Frioul. Chateau d'If is the prison island that once housed the Count of Monte Cristo and the Man In The Iron Mask, a yellow stone sun-bleached fortress in the beautiful blue Mediterranean. It's effectively Dumas island! Foolishly, they let me out. Mwahahahaha. It was actually very interesting, even after my camera sadly ran out of batteries and space. In many ways things are far more enjoyable sans camera, so that you can simply be yourself instead of the perennial and detached observer.
Now the day trip is over, spaghetti bolognese has been eaten, and there remains little to be done. Perhaps it's time to do the second batch of postcards... Parents get one for each leg of holiday, the delightful mad postcard collector gets a second too, and the ex-pseudo-sister-in-law and good friend. There's no excuse now that I've stomped around five tabacs looking for stamps. It took forever. No excuse at all.
Oh, stamps!
O.
At some point in history, selling postage stamps became inextricably linked to selling tobacco in France, Spain, and probably other countries in Western Europe. If I ever find out why that happened or who did it, then time travel will have to be invented just so I can go back and wreak full vengeance. Also, melons would vanish from the timeline, to make the trip more worthwhile and the world less full of horror. Melon. How can anything that is an anagram of the noble lemon be so worthless? If you like melon, you will get no apologies from me. Bah! It's just solid water!
Stamps are a pain to buy over here, especially when you consider how useful they are. At least we sell them in so many more places in Britain, if the post office is closed and not just in tobacconists! Presumably it's a link based on duties and taxes in history, and the ubiquity of tobacconists in those countries. None of the cities I've visited have had what I would call convenience stores at all, and most of them have had very few supermarkets in accessible places. Perhaps the tobacconists are the most numerous shops for the purpose?
This Mediterranean trip has received its crowning cliché: A trip to the beach! It was very lovely in the Frioul Archipelago, and I even went swimming at the calanque (beach in a little bay) of St Estevé. Now only the sunburn lingers, a horrible sensation and not experienced in years. Horrible! I might have to do it again tomorrow, Marseille proper not having taken the proverbial fancy. In fact, there was one brief look around at the beginning of the day, and then a swift and breezy walk to the ferry to Chateau d'If and Frioul. Chateau d'If is the prison island that once housed the Count of Monte Cristo and the Man In The Iron Mask, a yellow stone sun-bleached fortress in the beautiful blue Mediterranean. It's effectively Dumas island! Foolishly, they let me out. Mwahahahaha. It was actually very interesting, even after my camera sadly ran out of batteries and space. In many ways things are far more enjoyable sans camera, so that you can simply be yourself instead of the perennial and detached observer.
Now the day trip is over, spaghetti bolognese has been eaten, and there remains little to be done. Perhaps it's time to do the second batch of postcards... Parents get one for each leg of holiday, the delightful mad postcard collector gets a second too, and the ex-pseudo-sister-in-law and good friend. There's no excuse now that I've stomped around five tabacs looking for stamps. It took forever. No excuse at all.
Oh, stamps!
O.
Thursday, 4 September 2014
Story: Wordspace, XVII
(Part I , XVI , XVIII)
Mystery realigned its thoughts and took one last lingering look at the garden. It had been so long since it had seen Lies' peculiar touch with the wild verbiage that the beauty was overwhelming. Time was ticking away, however, and outside everyone was depending on the resourcefulness and unpredictably of the one they called 'Mystery'.
"Ready or not, here we go." Mystery declared to itself, and then pulled itself up by the vowels to take itself over to its companions. Lies looked much as it had all those years ago when it had been sent into exile, and Club was obviously torn between its distrust of that living legend and its enjoyment of the tales being spun.
"Ah, Mystery, my lad! I was just telling this friend of yours about the time we raided the larder in the Commission of Absolutism's mansion. I'm afraid it's not one of my finest moments, but you did very well! Also, those beverages were much the better for the drinking, eh?" Lies was apparently in full flow and sparing no details. Perhaps it had been alone for all this time, with no-one to talk to... An upswelling of compassion flowed out, but was swiftly put aside. There was no time.
"Sadly, my friend, we didn't come just to chat and make small talk. The world outside is in great peril, and perhaps even the world in here too." Mystery wasted no time in its explanations, during the latter portion of which Lies stood quite somberly.
"You must be wondering where they all are, all those grand Destructives? The banes of our existences before their imprisonment in this palace of... of banal nonsense?" Lies gestured at the outside wall of the dome, somewhat moodily. "I'm afraid you're going to have to put your preconceptions away, and your hopes on a low light."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Club cautiously.
"You had best both come with me. Mind your head now, and watch your footing. The jargon underfoot is most uneven. Many a time I've tumbled end over end." Lies led them out of the garden enclosure clockwise around the edge of the dome, and for the first time the two emissaries saw the Zone proper. A grand wasteland it was as far as they could see, a gentle peak rising up into the center and obscuring all that lay beyond. They continued on around, Club watching their surrounds to the right, while Mystery and Lies caught up in small chatter complacently. Eventually they reached a village. Yes, a village, quite surprisingly.
"It's deserted." Was Mystery's first comment, which amused Lies apparently. It chuckled.
"They'll be in their own garden. It's just around the back of the club hut." Lies led them around the back of a large round hut, where they saw some of the worst and most terrible words in the wordspace. They were drinking tea. Everyone facing them stood up politely, and the giant who must have been War smiled politely and held up its cup in salute, before making the totally unexpected greeting: "Hello! Nice day, what?"
It was possible that things might not go to plan...
To be continued...
Mystery realigned its thoughts and took one last lingering look at the garden. It had been so long since it had seen Lies' peculiar touch with the wild verbiage that the beauty was overwhelming. Time was ticking away, however, and outside everyone was depending on the resourcefulness and unpredictably of the one they called 'Mystery'.
"Ready or not, here we go." Mystery declared to itself, and then pulled itself up by the vowels to take itself over to its companions. Lies looked much as it had all those years ago when it had been sent into exile, and Club was obviously torn between its distrust of that living legend and its enjoyment of the tales being spun.
"Ah, Mystery, my lad! I was just telling this friend of yours about the time we raided the larder in the Commission of Absolutism's mansion. I'm afraid it's not one of my finest moments, but you did very well! Also, those beverages were much the better for the drinking, eh?" Lies was apparently in full flow and sparing no details. Perhaps it had been alone for all this time, with no-one to talk to... An upswelling of compassion flowed out, but was swiftly put aside. There was no time.
"Sadly, my friend, we didn't come just to chat and make small talk. The world outside is in great peril, and perhaps even the world in here too." Mystery wasted no time in its explanations, during the latter portion of which Lies stood quite somberly.
"You must be wondering where they all are, all those grand Destructives? The banes of our existences before their imprisonment in this palace of... of banal nonsense?" Lies gestured at the outside wall of the dome, somewhat moodily. "I'm afraid you're going to have to put your preconceptions away, and your hopes on a low light."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Club cautiously.
"You had best both come with me. Mind your head now, and watch your footing. The jargon underfoot is most uneven. Many a time I've tumbled end over end." Lies led them out of the garden enclosure clockwise around the edge of the dome, and for the first time the two emissaries saw the Zone proper. A grand wasteland it was as far as they could see, a gentle peak rising up into the center and obscuring all that lay beyond. They continued on around, Club watching their surrounds to the right, while Mystery and Lies caught up in small chatter complacently. Eventually they reached a village. Yes, a village, quite surprisingly.
"It's deserted." Was Mystery's first comment, which amused Lies apparently. It chuckled.
"They'll be in their own garden. It's just around the back of the club hut." Lies led them around the back of a large round hut, where they saw some of the worst and most terrible words in the wordspace. They were drinking tea. Everyone facing them stood up politely, and the giant who must have been War smiled politely and held up its cup in salute, before making the totally unexpected greeting: "Hello! Nice day, what?"
It was possible that things might not go to plan...
To be continued...
Wednesday, 3 September 2014
Holiday Ramblings IV: "Well, do it anyway!" (Day 5)
Once again, another part of the holiday extracts. Thanks to a lapse there are now only three days left!
It turned out to be impossible to write substantively every single day, no matter how much you might want to. So, now it's catch up time, before the next slice of travelling kicks in this afternoon.
It was a busy, so busy day, and very impulsive. It was a day governed by 'Well, do it anyway!" and, with only one secret exception it turned out very well. From early morning at Park Guell to Casa Battló via La Pedrera's gift shop and awful toast, it began as something entirely consumed by the the architecture of Gaudi (and crummy toast). From there a merry stroll ensued, mainly focussed on finding the Meditation Statue, Botero's Cat, and that rarest phenomenon of all known as the postbox. Good grief, finding postboxes abroad is hard! It's not as hard as holding in the gag behind the Meditation Statue, but hard nonetheless.
"Well, do it anyway!" is the definite motto of this part of the trip, and it culminated in the best thing so far, a lovely jazzed up and chilled out catamaran trip out onto the Mediterranean. Thank you catamaran Orsom, for you were awesome. Sailing is a lovely experience once the engine goes off and the sails go up. Truly lovely, and another victory for "Well, do it anyway!", that great dictum. Then when I took a photo of a nice couple for them they flagged me down and asked me to have dinner with them in a busy square. Sadly it was a pretty terrible dinner, introducing the worst of paella the day after the best, but still a very enjoyable experience. Well done, those people, well done! Once again, I have to throw a recommendation out for 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace, for maybe the thousandth time. My, that's a good simple book. Being approached by a drug peddler was less nice of course, as were the hordes of partiers assembling on the way back to base, but those are petty inconveniences in the long run. Note, however, that cities can be scary very, very often.
Now, however, get backing to today, this second trip to Barcelona is almost at an end or will be in a few hours and the traditional zoo visit is upon me, and indeed all around me at this very moment. It's lovely. They have scary looking Komodo Dragons, and a sad absence of dolphins at the moment. Zoos or safari parks are great ways to finish holidays. I know that some people disagree with them or at least their origins, but once you have tamed animals I don't know if it's ethical to release them into the wild to be slaughtered rather than keep them domestic. In any case, mandatory endings to holidays in zoos should be a law and I'll write to the Prime Minister. Let's start campaigning!
Much later, and the train has made it back into France. Spain is far behind us and the world is now a narrow - and inexplicably first class - metal cylinder rolling ludicrously quickly on rails eastward, toward Marseille. In my bag there is a gorilla called The Bish, a stingray called Trace, and a provisionally named Tuttle the turtle for the leafdaughter Zsuzsi. My feet hurt abominably. Blast you, wonderful and terrible footwear! Trains truly are wonderful places for writing, the best of the best. Sometimes I wish all of life was comfortable trains, with regular layovers to avert lassitude and corpulence. The in-train movie seems to be French again. Mutter mutter.
Barcelona ended well, with yet another restaurant trip, and this time it was Greek! Gosh, that is one country obsessed with pastry. First there was tyropita, then lamb exohiko, and finally karidopita, and it was all delicious. One can only hope that Marseille has places to compete with such great eating. One can only hope.
The train travels on.
O.
It turned out to be impossible to write substantively every single day, no matter how much you might want to. So, now it's catch up time, before the next slice of travelling kicks in this afternoon.
It was a busy, so busy day, and very impulsive. It was a day governed by 'Well, do it anyway!" and, with only one secret exception it turned out very well. From early morning at Park Guell to Casa Battló via La Pedrera's gift shop and awful toast, it began as something entirely consumed by the the architecture of Gaudi (and crummy toast). From there a merry stroll ensued, mainly focussed on finding the Meditation Statue, Botero's Cat, and that rarest phenomenon of all known as the postbox. Good grief, finding postboxes abroad is hard! It's not as hard as holding in the gag behind the Meditation Statue, but hard nonetheless.
"Well, do it anyway!" is the definite motto of this part of the trip, and it culminated in the best thing so far, a lovely jazzed up and chilled out catamaran trip out onto the Mediterranean. Thank you catamaran Orsom, for you were awesome. Sailing is a lovely experience once the engine goes off and the sails go up. Truly lovely, and another victory for "Well, do it anyway!", that great dictum. Then when I took a photo of a nice couple for them they flagged me down and asked me to have dinner with them in a busy square. Sadly it was a pretty terrible dinner, introducing the worst of paella the day after the best, but still a very enjoyable experience. Well done, those people, well done! Once again, I have to throw a recommendation out for 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace, for maybe the thousandth time. My, that's a good simple book. Being approached by a drug peddler was less nice of course, as were the hordes of partiers assembling on the way back to base, but those are petty inconveniences in the long run. Note, however, that cities can be scary very, very often.
Now, however, get backing to today, this second trip to Barcelona is almost at an end or will be in a few hours and the traditional zoo visit is upon me, and indeed all around me at this very moment. It's lovely. They have scary looking Komodo Dragons, and a sad absence of dolphins at the moment. Zoos or safari parks are great ways to finish holidays. I know that some people disagree with them or at least their origins, but once you have tamed animals I don't know if it's ethical to release them into the wild to be slaughtered rather than keep them domestic. In any case, mandatory endings to holidays in zoos should be a law and I'll write to the Prime Minister. Let's start campaigning!
---
Much later, and the train has made it back into France. Spain is far behind us and the world is now a narrow - and inexplicably first class - metal cylinder rolling ludicrously quickly on rails eastward, toward Marseille. In my bag there is a gorilla called The Bish, a stingray called Trace, and a provisionally named Tuttle the turtle for the leafdaughter Zsuzsi. My feet hurt abominably. Blast you, wonderful and terrible footwear! Trains truly are wonderful places for writing, the best of the best. Sometimes I wish all of life was comfortable trains, with regular layovers to avert lassitude and corpulence. The in-train movie seems to be French again. Mutter mutter.
Barcelona ended well, with yet another restaurant trip, and this time it was Greek! Gosh, that is one country obsessed with pastry. First there was tyropita, then lamb exohiko, and finally karidopita, and it was all delicious. One can only hope that Marseille has places to compete with such great eating. One can only hope.
The train travels on.
O.
Tuesday, 2 September 2014
It's not a cookie! Lets call it a sugar-less flapjack?
Let's deviate into baking for a moment, and assume that we're making things for people who don't want to take sugar, like me. This can be very difficult! As a first attempt, here's a go at (heavily) adapting the chunky cookies as found in Hamlyn's Student Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-600-60965-0, page 215). To do this you're going to need a bunch of ingredients, a couple of baking trays and some greaseproof/baking paper:
125g oats;
125g plain flour;
3 tablespoons sesame seeds;
3 tablespoons sunflower seeds;
3 tablespoons sliced dried apricots;
2 tablespoons sliced dried dates;
2 tablespoons walnut pieces;
Some vanilla essence;
75g butter;
100g honey;
4 tablespoons vegetable oil;
1 egg, lightly beaten (you might need a fraction of an egg more).
Step 1: Heat the oven 180C, Gas Mark 4, 350F. (I like 160C personally.)
Step 2: Mix together the oats, flour, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruits and walnuts in a bowl.
Step 3: Melt the butter and honey in a very large saucepan, then take it off the heat.
Step 4: Add the dry mix into the saucepan of buttery honey, mix, then add the oil and egg and combine again. If the mixture looks too wet then add some more oats or flour.
Step 5: You should be able to make 10 large flattened round flapjacks and place them on your papered baking tray. Or two batches of five using one baking tray.
Step 6: Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden but still slightly soft. Leave to cool and then they'll crisp up.
The resulting flapjacks are phenomenally full of all kinds of goodness and butter, and actually quite tasty once you get used to the milder sweetness. There's potential for cocoa powder and date variants, as well as many other options. Just be creative!
It's nice to bake again. Who knows why I stopped? Lots of things stopped after Hungary. In any case, please try out the flapjacks, and if you aren't off sugar then swap it in quantity-for-quantity with the honey. In a bizarre twist today I began to do research again and am feeling quite chipper, despite all the programming. Oh, the programming!
Coming up soon on the Quirky Muffin there will be more of the serialised story 'Wordspace', more of the holiday extracts and very soon some thoughts on the great Columbo episode 'A Stitch In Crime'.
You're reading in a strange land!
O.
125g oats;
125g plain flour;
3 tablespoons sesame seeds;
3 tablespoons sunflower seeds;
3 tablespoons sliced dried apricots;
2 tablespoons sliced dried dates;
2 tablespoons walnut pieces;
Some vanilla essence;
75g butter;
100g honey;
4 tablespoons vegetable oil;
1 egg, lightly beaten (you might need a fraction of an egg more).
Step 1: Heat the oven 180C, Gas Mark 4, 350F. (I like 160C personally.)
Step 2: Mix together the oats, flour, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruits and walnuts in a bowl.
Step 3: Melt the butter and honey in a very large saucepan, then take it off the heat.
Step 4: Add the dry mix into the saucepan of buttery honey, mix, then add the oil and egg and combine again. If the mixture looks too wet then add some more oats or flour.
Step 5: You should be able to make 10 large flattened round flapjacks and place them on your papered baking tray. Or two batches of five using one baking tray.
Step 6: Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden but still slightly soft. Leave to cool and then they'll crisp up.
The resulting flapjacks are phenomenally full of all kinds of goodness and butter, and actually quite tasty once you get used to the milder sweetness. There's potential for cocoa powder and date variants, as well as many other options. Just be creative!
---
It's nice to bake again. Who knows why I stopped? Lots of things stopped after Hungary. In any case, please try out the flapjacks, and if you aren't off sugar then swap it in quantity-for-quantity with the honey. In a bizarre twist today I began to do research again and am feeling quite chipper, despite all the programming. Oh, the programming!
Coming up soon on the Quirky Muffin there will be more of the serialised story 'Wordspace', more of the holiday extracts and very soon some thoughts on the great Columbo episode 'A Stitch In Crime'.
You're reading in a strange land!
O.
Monday, 1 September 2014
Holiday Ramblings III: "Postcards 101" (Day 3)
Part three of a seven part odyssey of dullness extracted from the notes of an eight day journey. On this occasion there was a turtle and a sting ray.
Following on directly from yesterday, sometimes reality doesn't measure up well to the rose-tinted view of nostalgic memory. In this case the Font Magica of August 2014 doesn't match up to that of September/October somewhere in the middle of the last decade. There were key differences. First of all there are far too many people hanging around in August, and secondly the the performance was hampered by opening with contemporary pop music, apart from the 'Barcelona' of Freddie Mercury of course. The pop music of 2014 is in no way comparable to that of ten years ago, when rhythm wasn't all and repetition not the king, even in those times of barbarity. However, once it got away from pop, it was still excellent, albeit behind a solid wall of people holding up cameras between them and the spectacle. How strange it is! It was especially nice to hear the 'Batman' television theme, but my sappiness is well known so no-one will be surprised. That was the evening, a bittersweet letdown, which eventually ended early for me as the crowds got ever more annoying. Oh, to be in September, when it runs two hours earlier in the day and you can even get right to the edge.
Oddly, Barcelona Aquarium was quite disappointing too, seeming so much smaller than it did in the hall of memory, but in the end it proved itself all over again. It's deceptively small but squeezes so much in that it becomes worthwhile, and the shark tunnel is still a fantastic way to view those venerable living fossils, unchanged predators from so deep in history. This is all assuming you turn up early as I did or can stand to stay in line for an hour later in the day. After that there was limping, fooding, and wandering in the rain. Yes, it rained as if the world had cried out for water or faced destruction in its dryness. Another odd echo of the last trip to Barcelona and perplexingly enjoyable for it! There's nothing as humorous as people running for cover from even the slightest of rain spells. Thank goodness for spontaneous rainstorms and saxophone buskers in the Metro saving a trip from abstract failure! Hopefully some sailing and Park Guell will complete the cure on the morrow.
Postcards and gift buying are the sole duties imposed on the single traveller, so my backpack quickly got crammed with a cuddly turtle and sting ray, two of the the fine gifts from the Aquarium shop, a place I hold to be legendary. If you don't believe me then you're reading the wrong blog, but it is true. Postcards are harder than gifts, if only because of the sheer amount of work involved. First you collect the addresses and take them with you, then you buy the postcards, write the postcards with laborious copying of addresses, and somehow get them in the post. This of course is harder if the post office is remote or closed, as you must find stamps in a tobacconist somewhere, and then find a postbox. Postboxes are tricky. It's a fiendish amount of work, not even including the pressures of writing messages so mundane as to be cripplingly dull!
Of course, the difficulty of finding stamps and postboxes is one of the ways you know you're in a foreign country and probably in continental Europe. Other signs include drivers stubbornly driving on the wrong side of the road, a proliferation of mopeds, non-free museums and galleries, rampant smoking, and a difficulty in finding milk in shops. Also, if the green men at pedestrian crossings aren't entirely reliable, then that's a good indicator too. Be warned of green men of dubious fidelity to the truth.
O.
Following on directly from yesterday, sometimes reality doesn't measure up well to the rose-tinted view of nostalgic memory. In this case the Font Magica of August 2014 doesn't match up to that of September/October somewhere in the middle of the last decade. There were key differences. First of all there are far too many people hanging around in August, and secondly the the performance was hampered by opening with contemporary pop music, apart from the 'Barcelona' of Freddie Mercury of course. The pop music of 2014 is in no way comparable to that of ten years ago, when rhythm wasn't all and repetition not the king, even in those times of barbarity. However, once it got away from pop, it was still excellent, albeit behind a solid wall of people holding up cameras between them and the spectacle. How strange it is! It was especially nice to hear the 'Batman' television theme, but my sappiness is well known so no-one will be surprised. That was the evening, a bittersweet letdown, which eventually ended early for me as the crowds got ever more annoying. Oh, to be in September, when it runs two hours earlier in the day and you can even get right to the edge.
Oddly, Barcelona Aquarium was quite disappointing too, seeming so much smaller than it did in the hall of memory, but in the end it proved itself all over again. It's deceptively small but squeezes so much in that it becomes worthwhile, and the shark tunnel is still a fantastic way to view those venerable living fossils, unchanged predators from so deep in history. This is all assuming you turn up early as I did or can stand to stay in line for an hour later in the day. After that there was limping, fooding, and wandering in the rain. Yes, it rained as if the world had cried out for water or faced destruction in its dryness. Another odd echo of the last trip to Barcelona and perplexingly enjoyable for it! There's nothing as humorous as people running for cover from even the slightest of rain spells. Thank goodness for spontaneous rainstorms and saxophone buskers in the Metro saving a trip from abstract failure! Hopefully some sailing and Park Guell will complete the cure on the morrow.
Postcards and gift buying are the sole duties imposed on the single traveller, so my backpack quickly got crammed with a cuddly turtle and sting ray, two of the the fine gifts from the Aquarium shop, a place I hold to be legendary. If you don't believe me then you're reading the wrong blog, but it is true. Postcards are harder than gifts, if only because of the sheer amount of work involved. First you collect the addresses and take them with you, then you buy the postcards, write the postcards with laborious copying of addresses, and somehow get them in the post. This of course is harder if the post office is remote or closed, as you must find stamps in a tobacconist somewhere, and then find a postbox. Postboxes are tricky. It's a fiendish amount of work, not even including the pressures of writing messages so mundane as to be cripplingly dull!
Of course, the difficulty of finding stamps and postboxes is one of the ways you know you're in a foreign country and probably in continental Europe. Other signs include drivers stubbornly driving on the wrong side of the road, a proliferation of mopeds, non-free museums and galleries, rampant smoking, and a difficulty in finding milk in shops. Also, if the green men at pedestrian crossings aren't entirely reliable, then that's a good indicator too. Be warned of green men of dubious fidelity to the truth.
O.
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