Things haven’t changed much:

The Publisher’s Pudding.

This pudding can scarcely be made too rich. First blanch, and then beat to the smoothest possible paste, six ounces of fresh Jordan almonds, and a dozen bitter ones; pour very gradually to them, in the mortar, three quarters of a pint of boiling cream; then turn them into a cloth, and wring it from them again with strong expression. Heat a full half pint of it afresh, and pour it, as soon as it boils, upon four ounces of fine bread-crumbs, set a plate over, and leave them to become nearly cold; then mix thoroughly with them four ounces of macaroons, crushed tolerably small; five of finely minced beef-suet, five of marrow, cleared very carefully from fibre, and from the splinters of bone which are sometimes found in it, and shred not very small, two ounces of flour, six of pounded sugar, four of dried cherries, four of the best Muscatel raisins, weighed after they are stoned, half a pound of candied citron, or of citron and orange-rind mixed, a quarter saltspoonful of salt, half a nutmeg, the yolks only of seven full-sized eggs, the grated rind of a large lemon, and last of all, a glass of the best Cognac brandy, which must be stirred briskly in by slow degrees. Pour the mixture into a thickly buttered mould or basin, which contains a full quart, fill it to the brim, lay a sheet of buttered writing-paper over, then a well-floured cloth, tie them securely, and boil the pudding for four hours and a quarter; let it stand for a couple of minutes before it is turned out; dish it carefully, and serve it with the German pudding sauce of page 126.

Jordan almonds, 6 ozs.; bitter almonds, 12; cream, f pint; bread-crumbs, 4 ozs.; cream wrung from almonds, J pint; crushed macaroons, 4 ozs.; flour, 2 ozs.; beef-suet, 5 ozs.; marrow, 5 ozs.; dried cherries, 4 ozs.; stoned Muscatel raisins, 4 ozs.; pounded sugar, 6 ozs.; candied citron (or citron and orange-rind mixed), J lb.; pinch of salt; i nutmeg; grated rind I lemon; yolks of eggs, 7; best cognac, 1 wineglassful; boiled in mould or basin, 4J hours.

Obs.—This pudding, which, if well made, is very light as well as rich, will be sufficiently good for most tastes without the almonds: when they are omitted, the boiling cream must be poured at once to the bread-crumbs.

Poor Author’s Pudding.

Flavour a quart of new milk by boiling in it for a few minutes half a stick of well-bruised cinnamon, or the thin rind of a small lemon ; add a few grains of salt, and three ounces of sugar, and turn the whole into a deep basin; when it is quite cold, stir to it three well-beaten eggs, and strain the mixture into a pie-dish. Cover the top entirely with slices of bread free from crust, and half an inch thick, cut so as to join neatly, and buttered on both sides: bake the pudding in a moderate oven for about half an hour, or in a Dutch oven before the fire.

New milk, 1 quart; cinnamon, or lemon-rind; sugar, 3 os.; little salt; eggs, 3; buttered bread: baked | hour.

Anyway, I’ll come back to that in a moment.
I’d been in The Greenhouse for breakfast, a place I usually avoid because I was once served an inferior and overpriced coffee there about six or seven years ago. I do harbour grudges . . . but not for ever.

This time the coffee was fine, no problem at all, but they were stingy with the bacon so I won’t be going back there for a while.

Next to the pharmacy to collect a prescription, but they were busy and told me to come back in fifteen minutes. If it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have started browsing the thrift shops.

I like second-hand books. I’ve listened to all the horror stories about them, but I still get a kick out of handling them, feeling and wondering (not too graphically) where they have been.

And I usually find something I’ve been meaning to read but which has successfully avoided me for the last several years.

But this morning there was nothing interesting among the books; more copies of McEwan’s Atonement or that Bridget Jones woman I do not need.

So I drifted along to the bricabrac section and poked about among the trinkets, knickknacks, baubles, gewgaws, thingamabobs and whatchamacallits.

The shop had metal shelves and up on the top was what looked like a porcelain butter-dish, blue, almost ultramarine, perhaps from one of the caves of the Pharoes (if they used butter?). I reached for it and as I brought it off the shelf the lid separated itself from the base and both parts leapt from my hand. I caught the base and clung onto it but the lid bounced back onto the shelf and dislodged a clunky wooden biscuit barrel, which fell to the second shelf down.

Two women, one on either side of me jumped with fright at the noise and walked down into the belly of the shop to dissociate themselves from me.

The wooden biscuit-barrel in its turn crashed into an oval meat plate which had been standing betwixt shelf and wall and this slid over the lip of the shelf and scrambled a pair of hand-carved stags with antlers.

By this time, though I was fully employed trying to quiet the carnage, I was aware that everyone in the place was wondering what would fall next.

The domino effect continued with the stags careering into an ancient and badly damaged squeeze-box, which leapt from its place, bounced off my knee and landed, playing some kind of cacophonous tune, dangerously close to a small pomeranian pup on the end of a tartan leash and attached to a large lady swathed from head to toe in electrified synthetics.

I believe the pomeranian pup was actually already close to insanity before the squeeze-box pushed it over the edge. It’s the way they breed them.

It quickly savaged the instrument and wound itself up in its owners legs. This had the effect of sending the large lady into a spin. While she span the dog found its voice and yapped away at full volume while trying to extricate itself from the tartan strapping and sending me threatening glances, from time to time making a run in my direction, only to be stopped abruptly by the limit of the leash or the spinning of its owner.

Throughout this whole scene the lank-haired volunteer who was obviously in charge of the shop did not so much as look up from her newspaper.

I thought of many things I could do to ease the situation. Primarily I would have liked to rearrange the items I’d caused to leave the shelves, secondly I thought of helping lady with dog, and somewhere down the list there remained a moment when I would apologise to volunteer for disrupting her shop and to the remaining customers for ruining their day.

But I just left.

4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO

It then lists four emergencies, which, it claims, can be solved with a mobile phone and a little knowledge.

FIRST: The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

Well, first of all, don’t try it out. You will be connected to an emergency number and you will be wasting the time of valuable professional help. But do remember it. It will work in most countries of the world.

SECOND: Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone.

Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other ‘remote’ for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

I tried this and it works fine. I just unlocked my car and locked it again with a mobile phone.

THIRD: Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

This is absolute nonsense. The code *3370# is concerned with the sound quality of the phone. There is no way around a flat battery.

FOURTH: How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

Your mobile network will be able to do this as long as you can give them the 15 digit serial number of the handset.

The email I received also had this snippet of nonsense attached:

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location. This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don’t know about it. Please pass this along to everyone.

Actually, please don’t pass this info along to anyone. If you enter your pin number in reverse the machine will register it is the wrong PIN. It will not notify the police. You have to telephone an emergency number to do that.

Last week we learned that Amazon.co.uk has bowed to pressure to stop selling a book by a former senior Irish Scientologist. The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology (Merlin Publishing, Dublin) describes John Duignan’s 21 years in the religion, not all of it a happy tale. According to Amazon, “Unfortunately, we have had to withdraw The Complex by John Duignan in the UK because we received a specific allegation that a passage in the book is defamatory regarding an individual named in the book”. Other bookshops are also thought to have been warned not to stock the book. And everyone who has ever encountered the Church of Scientology sighs and says, “Here we go again.”

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America – Bush ushers in Midnight Regulations:

Dozens of new rules have already been introduced which critics say will diminish worker safety, pollute the environment, promote gun use and curtail abortion rights. Many rules promote the interests of large industries, such as coal mining or energy, which have energetically supported Bush during his two terms as president. More are expected this week.

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SFGate reports on the 20 most trusted companies:
A report which is bizarre to say the least, being sad and funny at the same time. Neither Google or Microsoft are on the list while other omissions include Countrywide Financial, Bank of America and Weight Watchers.
The top ten, however, include American Express, IBM, eBay, Amazon and Apple, most of which I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. (TimesOnline today report on Amazon, Britain’s most popular website for Christmas shopping, which is making its staff work seven days a week and threatening them with the sack if they take time off sick.)
Can’t understand why McDonalds and Starbucks didn’t make the list. Must be a mistake.

With thanks to A Little Red Blog

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The Guardian has a piece from Richard Price on his old tutor, Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road:

We were in our early 20s, and most of us had neither read nor even heard of him. In class he called you by your last name, no title: a brusque, slightly boarding-schoolish and utterly seductive form of address. He regularly and passionately savaged those writers whom he perceived to be his more validated (“lucky”, he called them) peers, but he treated a student’s work, no matter how hapless, with shocking earnestness.

He was a nurturer of grudges; an incubator of slights.

His personal gods were Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

He was bitter.

He had every right to be bitter.

He was really bitter.

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Chris Bowers at Undernews doesn’t see much hope or change on the horizon:

Even after two landslide elections in a row, are our only governing options as a nation either all right-wing Republicans, or a centrist mixture of Democrats and Republicans? Isn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration? Also, why isn’t there a single member of Obama’s cabinet who will be advising him from the left? It seems to me as though there is a team of rivals, except for the left, which is left off the team entirely. Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration.

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Jonathan Dozier-Ezell speculates on writing and publishing:

It’s now easier than ever to get your ideas and content out to readers with or without help from publishing channels. Now there are writers who only write to see their names on a pulpy spine (and they will be disappointed), but on the whole, writers, authors, poets, etc. simply want to be heard. Being paid is nice, but it really isn’t the priority.

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Robert Fisk in the UK’s Independent:

General Roberts of Kandahar (told) the British in 1880 that “we have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. . . I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us, the less they will dislike us”.

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Love Thy Belly:

The record label Roadrunner has been getting some serious online bellyache from fans of one of its artists, Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls, after she reported on her blog that she had been asked to cut shots from the video for her solo song Leeds United because “they thought I looked fat”.

The Norwegian Wind Ensemble, conducted by Maria Schneider, played Porgy & Bess, followed by Sketches of Spain, to a capacity audience.

Solo trumpeter Nicholas Payton used Porgy & Bess to present a laid-back opening set with a smooth and beautiful tone, if somewhat lacking in fire and commitment.

The Opera House, Oslo

But after the interval the band were fronted by the young Norwegian trumpeter Arve Hendriksen, who more than made up for the soporific effects of the early evening, bringing the audience to their feet with his muted and haunting probing of the ghost of Miles Davis.

And, great as this performance was, I was most impressed by the band and the setting and the rapt attention of a knowledgeable and expectant audience.