Mrs T-G Attempts a Croquembouche

Last evening Geoffrey and I huddled by the stone urn on the Fulmars' patio, watching the final of the Great British Bake-off on their 93 inch curved flat screen 3D TV, via their French windows.   It's lucky for us that they never close their curtains - aping people in the movies I suppose.  Take Sean Connery in The Untouchables for example.  Why, for pity's sake, if you knew that the henchmen of Al Capone were after you, would you.....

'Tuppy!!'

Geoffrey shook me awake and handed me a steaming cup of T-G Tips.

'Insufficient today Geoffrey.  It'll have to be the adrenalin shot to the heart.'
'Okey-doke.  I'll just give the syringe a flush through under the tap.  I was using it to baste the...'
'No you weren't.  Just get on with it.'

50cc of industrial-strenf 'aortic adrenalin' and three mugs of T-G Tips and four bacon sandwiches and five slices of toast and Val Nark's 'hedgerow marmalade' later....

'What did you make of that then?'
'I thought it was awful.  Anyone can bake a cake.'
'Can you bake a cake?'
'No.  But did you see the state of them?''
'That's not nice.'
'I'm only being honest.'
'All right.  What about the croquembouches'?'
'Excuse me?'
'Precisely.  Mrs T-G is making one At This Very Moment.'
'How do you know that?'
'I can sense it.  Not only that, I can smell it.'
'You can't.'
'That's right,  I can't.  But I've got a fair idea.  And it's the type of fair idea that makes me Very Afraid and Keeps Me Awake at Night.  Remember the black sausage rolls?'
'Oooh yes.  I do.   Everyone got...'
'Quite.   I'll raise you those and give you the Croquembouche.   Croquembouche translates as 'break in mouth'.  Need I say more, in this context?  Probably not, but I will anyway.  She's erecting a vast choux tower covered with toffee hard enough to crack your eye teeth on, right at this very minute, and she's seeking ways of insisting that we eat it, fuelled by rage and resentment relating to her Paris persona.  She's beaten that choux mixture and spun that sugar until it can take no more, and she's brooding until she's scared she bursts with the power of sheer hatred.  I'll even bet that she thinks she's bilingual because she can say 'Croquembouche' with a cigarette in her mouth and an air of 1950s Gallic aplomb.'
'Well! If she IS bilingual I dare say that's her own business; the T-G hasn't mentioned that before.  I suppose her Paris days must have broadened her horizons....'
'You're being disingenuous again.  Stop it, and start focusing on what really matters.'
'All right.  What does really matter, when all's said and done though Tuppy?  I've always wondered about that, but I've thought perhaps it's best to not know.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing Tuppy.'
'What do you mean?'
'I don't know what I mean.  Let's talk about Mrs T-G again.  It stops my head from spinning.'
'Well, one French word and she thinks she's Jean Paul Sartre.  Next she'll be contributing a weekly philosophy column to the Bugle.'
'Oh yes - the Bugle.  Our new local free at the point of delivery newspaper. But shouldn't she be thinking she's Simone de Beauvoir rather than Jean Paul Sartre?'
'She's bilingual, remember, silly?'
'Oh of course.....I'd forgotten already..........'

More on the Bugle later.  More on Mrs T-G's Croquembouche later.  More on the rights and wrongs of calling people 'silly', later.....

Find more Tuppy & Geoffrey tales on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Penguin-Part-Five-Selections-ebook/dp/B00FW19E0Y/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_1

Poetry, and Psychogenic Osmosis

It was National Poetry Day yesterday.  I love poetry. But there's nothing worse than looking at your Twitter timeline and seeing folk banging on about it.  I dislike the feeling of being churlish and sour of spirit (where's the harm in tweeting poetry?), while at the same time I think it's quite a sane reaction; Twitter is no place to be, if you want to 'create' anything other than kitten pictures, puns and one-liners. The inner disquiet produced by all this, is enough to put me off writing, completely.  Well, for about five minutes.  Almost!
It's not really that though.  For me, the whole literary thing feels a bit distasteful and uncomfortable.  There are a couple of exceptions though.  There's a John Betjeman account I like, and a Richard Jefferies.
My favourite poet is probably Coleridge.  I'm fondest of him anyway.  It's probably the opium.  I've most likely absorbed quantities of it via his poems, through some form of psychogenic osmosis.
Frost at Midnight is probably my favourite Coleridge poem.  'The Frost performs its secret ministry,  Unhelped by any wind*.' 
I'm unlikely to have discovered it had I not bought a small second hand edition of a selection of his poems after browsing in a second hand bookshop about twenty years ago.  The bookshop closed ten years ago, at least, and now there is nowhere to browse, unless I go to a city.
Don't start me off complaining again, but you can't browse books on the internet.  You just can't.


There once was a girl with a plan
To cook with an old frying pan
She fried up some bread
And stood on her head
In a market in Uzbekhistan.

S.T. Coleridge (after)

*titters at the word wind

Now Reading - A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine by Tony Benn

I'm quite enjoying this book, which I borrowed from the local library.  It's infuriatingly unusual these days, for me to find a book that I actually want to read, in the library.  The library is no longer a place whose purpose is to encourage 'book learning'.  It is multi-functional.  It is noisy.  It hosts playgroups and old peoples groups and job clubs and computers.  And worst of all - it has a really terrible and rapidly-depleting selection of books.  As I've said before.
I'd like to read Benn's earlier Diaries.  He had so much irreplaceable knowledge and experience of our country's politics and the ways of government.  This final one is quite unavoidably depressing, because his health is clearly deteriorating, he's dealing admirably and bravely and realistically with a host of problems relating to his age, and he feels (understandably, at 82) that he's 'on his way out'.
I'm 54 and I often feel that I'm 'on my way out', as well.  But that's another matter. (or is it??) Growing old is no fun, but it's better than the alternative, as someone once said.
Anyway, it's a very interesting read.  I enjoy following politics, though I'm not a member of any particular party.  It begins in 2007 around the start of Gordon Brown's stint as PM and the financial meltdown.  Benn witnesses the demise of the Labour Party as he knew it, and the concurrent rise of the global economy.  He expects UKIP to thrive in such an environment, as indeed they do.  Nationalism, he says, is not the way forward - democracy is. He describes Brown as a 'managing director' of Britain - a Britain devoid of Trade Union power - but he writes more positively about him than Blair, saying that when he sees Blair and that 'awful smile', his 'blood runs cold'.   All in all, he's very depressed by the state of politics and who can blame him?  Just about everything ghastly he expected to happen, has.
I'm only on page 95 by the way.  However - I just, in the middle of writing this - skipped to the last chapter, 'Life after Diaries', in which he describes, with far more grace than I can envisage mustering in such circumstances, moving out of the family home and into a flat where he receives round the clock care.  Still little nuggets of information relevant to today's politics shine out - for example, he was Energy Minister in 1975 when North Sea oil was discovered, and he set up a system whereby 25% of the oil belonged to the Treasury rather than the oil companies.  This, had it been retained, would have ensured an 'oil fund' which could have been used in times of austerity - however, Thatcher sold it off.
Not the greedy and evil 'Westminster' we heard so much about during the referendum.  Thatcher.
Yes, that's the Thatcher upon whose back, by and large, because the Scottish electorate disliked her so, and they defined themselves against her, the SNP clambered to power.  After helping her INTO power, in the first place, of course.   That's the SNP whose membership has just overtaken that of the entire Libdems, and who are bankrolled by the unspeakable Brian Souter and two people spending their lottery winnings.
In my day the SNP were a joke. They had no policies, no underpinning philosophy except nationalism.  I don't think they've changed except they have much more power and influence, unfortunately.  People are off their heads and I only hope they gain some insight soon.
I'll say no more about politics.  Unless further referendum-style ghastliness ensues which seems likely to affect the warp and weft of my daily life.

Our Saturday Night plans: thinking of less cliched ways to describe Death.

'Does anything matter any more, Tuppy?'
'No Geoffrey.  Nothing matters any more, except the magical, the strange, and the unknown.'
'Isn't everything magical, strange and unknown, really, when you sit down and think about it?'
'I don't know about that.  I only know that my knee hurts, and my joints ache more in the morning with every day that passes, and if I'm not careful my back goes out when I'm least expecting it.  On top of that,  I can't manage any drugs harder than a junior aspirin unless I'm really in the mood to dice with Death.'
'Then you must come to terms with your own mortality.'
'I suppose I must, although I'll try my hardest to find a less cliched way of putting it.'
'All right.  So will I.'
'Great!  That's our Saturday night sorted.  Pen and paper Geoffrey - crack open the Madeira and the ginger crunch creams, and let's see what we can come up with!'
'By the way Tuppy....'
'Yes?  what is it?'
'You might try, as kind of a sub-set of our evening's task slash fun, to find a less cliched way of saying 'dice with Death'.  If it's not too much for you and all.'
'OK.  Fair point. I'll work on it.  But don't interrupt me again when I'm concentrating, or I'll tell everyone it was you who wee-weed in the community centre teapot last Friday, in a fit of pique after you failed - yet again - to win the DebSoc Whingers Anonymous Whinge of the Week Hamper.'


If they DO come up with any less cliched phrases, for anything, I will post them tomorrow.....

Meanwhile here is a link to more Tuppy and Geoffrey tales, on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Penguin-Fireside-Outcrop-Selections-ebook/dp/B007IKMM7E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411817855&sr=8-1&keywords=sea+penguin+part+three

Whinge of the Week - the Snottish Refernerdernerderndernderndnernernum

'Is that the kettle I hear whistling or is it the sibilant campaign at the door again?'
'It's the sibilant campaign.  Should I tell them that we're ambi-franchised?'
'Yes.  Tell them we're sure that we're swinging both ways.  They can rely on us to do whatever they say.  Get them to come back next week, when it's all over, and we'll give them a game of cribbage and a custard cream.'
'Okay doke.'
Geoffrey was at 'DebSoc' last night.  Again.  He's been there every night for the last three weeks, and he's all clued up about the Snottish Referenernernerdernerndernnernernernernemum.  And so am I. It's all a bit much now.
'I'm bored out of my mind hearing about the Snottish Referenernerndernerndernernernernnemum!'  I snarled, when Geoffrey came back into the livingroom.
'I know how you feel, but it's imPORTant Tuppy,' he replied.  Besides, it'll all be over soon.  One way or another.  Have you decided which way you're going to vote yet?'
'I'm not going to vote at all.  I'm lying on the settee all day with a pint of Madeira, three opium tabloids, a multi-pack of square crisps and Michael Palin's Diaries.  I'm not even getting up to go to the toilet.'
'You're a disgrace.'
'It's part twenty seven of my fifty stage plan to become the world's fattest and laziest person.  Don't tell me I have no purpose in life.'
'I didn't!'
'Anyway, it doesn't matter to me who's in charge.  Life goes on - until it doesn't.  And there's nothing any of us can do about it.'
'Don't you want to get the government you vote for then?'
'No.  There's nobody I want to vote for.  They're all shit.'
'When you resort to foul language Tuppy, you've really lost the argument.'
'Bollocks.'
'Is that the best you can do?'
'Fuckwit.  Put the kettle on and make me a bacon sandwich.'
'What did your last slave die of?'
'Don't get stroppy with me!  I've got a dicky heart.  I need to be indulged at all times.'
'All right.  But really Tuppy, you're language is...'
'I know.  I'll try to stop swearing but it seems to be beyond my fu- sorry - my control.  Shit-bum.'
What was happening to me?  Tourettes syndrome, perhaps?
You may or may not remember that about a month ago I swore at little Chelsy, the Fulmar's three year old niece, who is currently staying with them.  I was worried that she might tell Uncle Apsley and Aunt Cherry about my over-reaction and my awful language and that ghastly revenge would be wrought, but so far so good.  Chelsy has kept her mouth shut.  This might be because I've been providing her with a constant supply of Froobs, but I'm not sure.
'I like you Uncle Tuppy!  You're my betht fwend evva!  get me more Fwoobth!'
'That child will get sugar diabetes, Tuppy,' warned the Ghastly Wilson. 'You mark my words.'
Nobody Hereabouts has ever marked his words and nobody seems any the worse, so I'm sure Chelsy will be fine.
Anyway - I am planning to spend most of tomorrow on the settee with a bag over my head (one with plenty holes in), but late in the night we're going to go over the the Fulmars' for a 'Refernerdnernernernedernenernernernernernernemum party, to watch the results coming in on their 97 inch curved screen 3D TV.  They haven't invited us but we're going anyway.
And at dawn,  Dave and Valerie Nark are planning to light bonfires to celebrate the bright new dawn of a bright new Snotland.

After that,  I expect that we'll stagger home and have a bacon sandwich.

Find my Sea Penguin e-books here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Penguin-Fireside-Outcrop-Selections-ebook/dp/B007IKMM7E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410973253&sr=8-1&keywords=sea+penguin+part+three 

Another day closer to the awful vote.  I wish I could see a positive side to all this. I can't relate to the Yes campaign at all, and that disturbs me profoundly, because according to the polls, half the country is behind the Yes campaign.  It's really disturbing to feel such a gulf between how I perceive things and how the other half of the country perceives things.
I look at images of my countrymen (for want of a better word) waving flags and cheering and painting their faces blue, and I feel like I'm on another planet. I can understand people wanting to get rid of the Tories, but I cannot for the life of me understand this intensity and nationalistic zeal.
I see people being interviewed on the TV and it scares me because I honestly cannot relate to their fervour or to what they say, and I feel I need to because on Friday morning they could be leading a victory parade and making plans for a whole new country.  MY country - or what was.
I read an article today about 'anarchy for Yes'.  I'm quite well-disposed to anarchy as long as it stays well away from me and my life, i.e. in the ether of the theoretical realm.  We are talking about Real People being affected on every level here - Real People with lives, children, mortgages, jobs, credit cards, aged parents,  illnesses - the paraphernalia of 21st century life.  What relevance does - or rather, should - anarchy have for them?  How self-indulgent and cruel to talk of 'anarchy' and a total change of regime in that context.
The whole campaign has been utterly ghastly and I cannot wait for it to be over.  I pray that it's a resounding no, but I'm preparing myself mentally and spiritually for a yes.

This is now for sale in my local Co-op - first time I've seen it there in twenty years.  I'm sure it must be a 'sign of the times'.
I'm feeling more relaxed today.  I'm 'indyref'ed out.  The whole thing has tipped over from the febrile anxiety stage into a ghastly spectacle with celebs tripping over each other to join in.
I'm still going to vote No.  The Holyrood elite are worse than Westminster - and that's saying something.  And there's no 'second chamber' in the Scottish parliament to put the brakes on them.
Brian Souter anyone? 80s pop star Pat Kane?  Franz bloody Ferdinand?
Heaven preserve us.
Obviously it's all a hugely more serious matter than the bandwagon-jumpers currently make it appear.  
I passed a No stall yesterday.  They were handing out wee Union Jacks.  I've never waved a Union flag in my life and I won't start now.  And I'm still voting No.
It's a journey, eh?  A bloody great long one.

Right.  Regarding the prospect of a Yes outcome, I think we've moved, today,  from shock and crisis mode through grief and dismay mode through victim mode through to coping mode.  We've had to pull ourselves together, and think, how do we face this independence carry-on, if it happens, in a positive way that feels right to us?
We now have a Plan A and a Plan B.  And we're working on a Plan C.
It's not a bad thing actually because it refreshes and focuses the mind.
This is a totally bizarre experience.  I intend to vote no, for practical reasons and because I prefer to keep the UK together, and face its undoubted problems along with the other three countries.  If there is a No vote,  perhaps it will bring the promised change that will help those that need it. I think there is just as much chance of that happening within the UK as there is within an independent Scotland - but only if people remain engaged with politics and make their voices heard, loud and clear.  I think that in an independent Scotland, a self-interested 'Holyrood elite' will immediately replace the despised 'Westminster elite'.   And when I consider who that might include, it's not an inviting prospect.
'This is what the people of Scotland want...' Really?  I'm a person of Scotland, and I don't want what you want.
I'm not keen on the public face of the No side, either, although I am definitely a No voter.  The celebs that have come out in support are not people for whom, by and large, I have a huge amount of time.  But the Yes lot are far, far worse.  The whole celebrity endorsement thing is horrendously cringey across the board.
Looks that way from where I'm sitting, anyway.
I feel like a threadbare old buzzard, perched on a telegraph pole, watching events from a distance through squinting eyes.

Today I saw three sea eagles.  Normally this excitement would dominate my brain for at least three days before fading, gradually.
Not today.
Sodding independence referendum. My emotions lurch from fear, to anger, to disgust, to hope, to dread, and back again, with a touch of astonishment thrown in here and there.
Saltires everywhere.  Demonstrations outside the BBC. A general feeling of aggression and threat.
I can understand the thuggery that goes on.  People's feelings are ramped up and that is how some people behave, at such times. That doesn't appall me. What does appall me is the arrogance and smugness of the artistic community.  I'm shocked that there are no dissenting voices, no-one who challenges the nationalist line, nothing remotely controversial in terms of artistic content.
I don't want to be part of any of that.  I've considered going along to writing events - I'm not much of a joiner-in, so I never have - and I certainly won't now, if I'm going to be surrounded by delirious yes-men and women, belching on about independence and building their careers on it.  Is there nobody who disagrees with them?  I even read something about change not being possible without pain - so the feelings of people like myself (no voters) don't matter - we must be sacrificed for the greater good, apparently.
My blood runs cold.
Thank God for the internet, where you can speak to a world-wide community and borders (for now...) don't matter.
Goodness only knows what is to become of us over the next week.

Sorry - terribly miserable posts at the moment.  Latest polls show that Yes have an eight point lead.  I'm sick at heart and really cannot face living in Scotland if they win.

The referendum certainly sharpens your wits (up to a point...) and forces you to think about things you formerly took for granted.  I do not want to see the UK broken up.  I did not realise how strongly I felt about that until I was faced with a choice.
Some of the things I find myself saying and some of the people with whom I now find common cause sit uncomfortably with me.  When I looked round at my fellow attendees at the Usher Hall last night, I felt that perhaps I was not in the best of company.  But that doesn't alter my view. I think that separation is a mistake and I do not want it.
I find myself saying 'The UK has done great things' and 'the British people who fought in the war' - and I cringe!  But it's true that the UK has done great things.  It sounds naff, but it's true.
It's done some terrible things as well.  I always have, psychologically, placed myself 'against' the prevailing 'elite' if you like, and now I find myself in support of what they represent. It doesn't feel good,  but it doesn't change my view, either.
I don't want to wipe out 300 years of history.
I dread the result, either way.  

Another day closer to the dreaded referendum.  Feeling stressed out and depressed as hell we decided to 'plunge in' to the maelstrom and went to the Usher Hall in Edinburgh to see George Galloway and others.  On the trip down we kept a look-out for signs indicating support or otherwise for either side of the campaign.  Where we are, every window and garden seems to have a Yes sign, but on the way south and right into Edinburgh there were only a few of each.  Considering that nearly 90% of the population has registered to vote and that the polls are neck and neck I find this surprising.  In a general election you usually see a fair number of posters.
I hadn't been to a political event since the 1980s and early 90s, when I was an enthusiastic member of COHSE, the health service union and attended conferences and various protests in support of the miners and against health service cuts.  The only major politician I can remember seeing speak live was the late Robin Cook.  So, it was interesting to see George Galloway.  He's an excellent speaker and I agree with pretty much everything he has to say on this subject.  Brian Wilson also spoke. I was not a fan of his when he was a Labour minister, really, but I've always been interested in him and had an admiration for him because he set up the West Highland Free Press on Skye, and, curiously, I believe he may have had a cottage across the glen from my aunt's, in the late 1970s.
I feel very old.
I also feel very detached from my - what is the word? Compatriots?  Countrymen?  Citizens?  Even from the country itself - the land. I'm seeing it all through a new lens, as I said the other day.  I feel, in a way, in a definite sense, actually, that it is being taken from me.  By force. I took some photos of Edinburgh - beloved to me - knowing that it may be the last time I see it as wholly 'my' city.
We arrived at the right time to avoid parking charges and we brought our usual flask and some muffins to fuel ourselves cheaply for the evening.  I went along more from curiosity than anything else, because I was already sure of my views and what I heard only confirmed them.  Moment of the night for me was when a very old ex-miner got up and made a very moving short statement about his experiences during two strikes and the support he received from union members across the UK.  I remember that time very well, myself, and I cried a little because he spoke from his heart and I felt his pain, and because I too would hate to lose that sense of solidarity with the rest of the country. It would be like erasing a memory and losing part of my own personal history.  I don't think many people share that view though - possibly because it all happened a Long Time Ago, and the Unions have been decimated and nobody feels that way at the moment.  I think that if the Labour movement appeared more effective, so that people felt it and knew that it worked, nationalism would not have stood a chance.  However, sadly, that is not where we are.  So, History in terms of co-operation and supportiveness between the four countries of the UK doesn't seem to be part of this particular equation.  It seems that we all must move on.
I am even more depressed.
Gordon Brown spoke at the end.  I think he spoke well. I am glad he may stand for the Scottish Parliament.
But I remain absolutely completely and utterly depressed.  As two friends said to me yesterday, we should not even be IN this position.  We do not want to have to choose.

Life goes on as we await the vote in one week's time.  It's a complete nightmare and I cannot wait until it's settled, one way or another.
Social media undoubtedly makes it worse.  People are terribly aggressive.  Feelings are running high and it's all too easy to get caught up in the intensity.  I knew - or suspected - that it would be like this.  Nationalism and identity cannot be treated lightly.
When you're out and about doing your shopping or getting on with work or life in general everything looks the same as always, but the tension is there and when you switch on the news or go online, it hits you like a sledgehammer.
I had campaigners at the door the other evening.  I said I was an undecided just to make them  go away.  The zeal in their eyes reminds me of converts to Amy Semple McPherson or Billy Graham.  It's truly frightening.  Especially when you see the rage online.  I'm hoping and praying for a peaceful outcome regardless of the way the vote goes.

Another day, another night with minimal sleep.  I know I won't sleep well again until the country settles down.  We're in the midst of what feels like cataclysmic change.  I cannot believe that the United Kingdom is breaking up - and it is, even if Scotland votes No.  More devolved powers - and that means that Ireland and Wales will want them too, and England. The whole dynamic of the islands is shifting.   The old order is changing, and what is to come?  Nobody knows.  I didn't want this change, and neither did many of the people I know.  Of course I want to be better off - and so do most people.  But I would wish to achieve that through a change in government, not by breaking the Union.   For Pity's sake.  I suppose that nothing is eternal, unless you believe in God - not even the Universe.  But it feels tragic.  And I'm feeling old.  I feel like a new chapter of history is being written, minute by minute, and I do not belong in that story.  And yet, of course, everyone does have a part to play, regardless.
Prior to the Union, three hundred years ago, Scotland was a nation that bickered with itself, and Scotland and England were regularly at each others throats.  The Union isn't perfect but it has kept the peace.
Till now.  Times change, of course, but people, by and large, do not, unless they learn from history.
I went out to look at the Moon tonight.  Such a mysterious and beautiful and wondrous object. Tonight it was very bright and later on it was surrounded by chiffon clouds, and reminded me of a Blake engraving.  And then I remembered something ghastly I read a while ago, about the Chinese (I think) building something on it, or planning to do so.  How awful it would be, to look up at the Moon and see some vast scaffolding or a mine or something.  I'm glad that I've lived at a time when for most of my life the Moon was unassailable,  mysterious, and certainly 'undeveloped'.  Planet Earth's 'Other', and I hope she remains so until long after I'm gone.
So, events unfold and we cast around looking for certainties while we await the next stage.  

September's Novel Progress Chart, or N.P.C. (flat-lining already)

Starting September off with a BANG

Yes, here we go with another month of novel-writing, using my top-notch 'motivational tool', featured on the left.
I'm thinking of patenting it, along with my Book of Secrets, 'How to be a Self-Starter'.  It's so secret I don't even know what's in it, myself. In fact, it doesn't exist.  Well, it does, but only in the darker reaches of my celleb...cereb...whatever.  The part of my brain that deals with that kind of thing.  What kind of thing?  The Kind of Thing that Will Never Happen,  Not Even in a Million Years.
Last month's N.P.C. got scrunchled up and flung in the bin, and I expect this one will, as well.
Who ARE these bastards that actually manage to write novels?  Especially ones that get published! They can fuck right off.  Sorry and all that, but they can.
I'm off to have a fag.