Dodgy recipes

I’ve collected dozens of recipe books over the years, but I still look on the web for fresh ideas.  The other day I saw a recipe for soda bread in the Telegraph; a recipe by Stevie Parle, who contributes to the paper a lot.  I decided to make it.  But that meant spending money on the ingredients, including buttermilk.  Not to worry, it sounded good, and it should be trustworthy, right?  After all, there was a photograph of the finished article.  But as I was making it I knew it wasn’t going to work.  There was far too much liquid.  I checked.  Yes, I was following the recipe correctly.  Perhaps if I just piled the very wet mixture onto the baking tray it would be all right.  But no, it’s inedible and went in the bin.

It’s not the first time this has happened.  You print out a recipe, buy the ingredients and then start to worry.  It doesn’t sound right.  And it isn’t.  A beetroot chocolate cake which could never have worked; a risotto which was impossible.  So how does this happen?  When photos are included you have to assume that someone has tested the recipe, so the error has to be in the copying of the ingredients list.  Or did the cook write the recipe down incorrectly?  Who knows, but it’s annoying, expensive and a waste of time.

The worst press in the world?

Maybe not; but it must be pretty close.

The editor of the Telegraph wasn’t content with reporting news, so he decided to send out “journalists” to pretend to be constituents of some Lib Dem MPs and encourage them to be indiscreet.  It worked better than they could have hoped with Vince Cable.  What he said to these liars (“undercover reporters” is a euphemism)  is now all over the news.  The BBC’s Robert Peston, not content with what the Telegraph published, decided to reveal the stuff they didn’t publish, about his relationship with the Murdoch empire.  Now the momentum is building for Cable to be given the push, the coalition to fall apart etc, etc.

How delicious for the press, how confirming of the power they wield.  And how disgusting for democracy.  Many of us wanted Cable to be the one to pull the plug on this coalition, which is set to be fatal for the Lib Dems.  It would be tragic if he was to be destroyed by an irresponsible set of unelected journos.

“Widdymania”? – I don’t think so

Here’s the Telegraph’s version of tonight’s Strictly.  They’d have you believe that Widdecombe stole the show.  Well, it wouldn’t be for want of trying by the BBC.  On every single show in the series she has been on last or next to last, the place all the contestants want to be so that they stay in the viewers’ memories.  Tonight Pamela Stephenson was in the least favoured spot, on first.  I reckon Anton is trying his hardest to get knocked out, rather than have to go on with this most embarrassing of experiences for a professional dancer.  But all the hype, and the stupidity of those who vote for her, will keep them in.  Apparently David Cameron said that watching her last week was worth half the licence fee; and Hogan, writing the Telegraph piece, thinks tonight’s performance might be worth the other half.  Clearly they have too much money.

PS.  Proving my point, the BBC “news” programmes this morning keep showing her performance.  That there were 10 other contestants, including people like Matt Baker and Scott Maslen who work for the BBC, has passed them by.  The BBC see the success of Strictly as depending on the ego of this woman and the short memories of the public.

A silly Bishop – or real religion?

The Right Reverend Humphrey Southern, the Bishop of Repton, has sparked the first “silly Bishop” story of the season, the Telegraph reported. “Writing in the monthly Derby diocese newsletter, he said: ‘This is the ‘Happy Christmas’ month. Yet to many that greeting will be hollow, coming as an insult, or even an obscenity.’ ”  Lots of sniggers and tut-tuts from those who think themselves superior to all things religious, but the Bishop is absolutely right.

Many people dread Christmas.  When I was a church-goer I occasionally went to an early communion service on Christmas morning, but would avoid the “family service” if I possibly could.  They always assumed that we were all in families, that we had all woken up to presents, that it was a day for people being together etc.  When people are alone, or are reeling from some catastrophe, this is profoundly alienating.  When I became a local preacher I would have refused to take the Christmas morning service (it was usually the ministers who had to do it, anyway).  I once, early on in my preaching career, had to do the Sunday before Christmas, and I made sure that I reinforced the message that for many people “Happy Christmas” was empty and that it should not be a time of smug contentment.  (That service was reportedly very well received, and I think the message was appreciated.)

For many people, Christmas has no connection with religion.  That has allowed some confused atheists to maintain that they can perfectly well celebrate it as a human festival of a hope for the future.  But the fact is that, as far back as you can go, the midwinter festival is profoundly spiritual.  Remove that foundation, and you get the consumer binge that is now all around us.