If you’re looking for the actual manufacturing process then I’m sorry. I have to let you down.

A popular British treat and one of my personal favourites is Angel Delight. (People call it Angel Delight even if they have skimped and brought the supermarket’s own brand.) What else would you call jelly made out of milk? Well, it’s not jelly, but it gives you an idea if you’ve not had this stuff before. If you’ve never tried it I recommend it to you. Go and buy some now!

Back? Ok then, ignore the instructions. This is the best way to make the stuff.

1. Take a clean and dry protein shake shaker
2. Pour in 300ml of semi-skimmed or whole milk. (2% is fine if that’s what you have.)
3. Tear open the packet of Angel Delight and pour the powder on top of the milk
4. Place the grille in the top of the shaker
5. Screw on the lid and ensure any drinking caps are secure
6. Shake it! (Put your thumb over anything that doesn’t screw on)
7. Give it about ten seconds of vigorous shaking
8. Let it rest for about fifteen to twenty seconds
9. Shake it for another twenty seconds
10. Unscrew and pour into desert container / bowl
11. Leave for five to eight minutes in the refridgerator

Consume, Eat, Devour, Enjoy!

Whatever you do. Never use a whisk.

Try it, and tell me what you think!

I’m not going to say too much about how I feel. A few colleagues asked me if I were very emotional. Some, among the more forthright, asked me why I wasn’t bawling. I had no idea that I had established so firmly in their minds the, perfectly accurate as it happens, idea of my attachment to what we do here.

Instead of focusing on all that stuff I thought I would talk briefly about my leaving do. It was brilliant. Lots of people brought food; I’m not the big hungry giant by accident. Some staff from satellite offices came back to visit with me and crucially some didn’t. I’m not sure why but it was reassuring to know that my departure was part of the standard operation of things. That while I would be missed by some. I would not be missed by all. I would be promtly replaced and the activities of the enterprise would continue.

I found the sense of that strangely relaxing. Even those who occupy the most important positions are able to be replaced. It’s one of the things that makes me smile when countries go to inordinate lengths to preserve the life of their commander in chief. I know it’s inconvenient if something does happen to them but ultimately there is a chain of command in place. Should some mishap befall the person at the top then their responsibilities will fall to the next person in line.

As we say in England, “The King is dead, long live the King!”  That’s not because we have a universal faith in instantaneous resurrection or immortality, but instead there is a close recognition that when one person who happened to be the king or ruler dies that their role is instantly taken up by the next in line. The expression captures the idea that all loyalty and support also passes to the new incumbent.

I’m not the king. I’m a support worker to a small office in the East of London. But I was cheered by the idea that the small number of people I worked with and among would miss me and yet carry on regardless. Its the simple pleasure you can derive simply from things being as they should be.

I can’t wait to get started on Monday.

Word of the Day: Tabellion
- noun

1 – a scrivener or notary under the Roman empire or in France under the old monarchy

I’m not going to say a great deal about it really. Only that initially I forgot all about it. When I remembered I quickly learned a very important lesson.

Don’t eat pancakes you buy from the store. Make your own. I tried some from a supermarket in Stratford which shall remain un-named. Both, the pancakes and the supermarket. Rather than limit my disdain for these appalling creations as marketed by a particular chain I thought it best to condemn them generally. If you would like to nominate some exceptions to this general, and dare I say it, important rule then please comment away!

Making pancakes is easy. Flour, milk and egg. you can fuss about with extras like salt and chocolate chips but really I reccommend that you avoid detailed recipes. All that they lead to is mild panic that you may have added 220g instead of 230g of one ingredient or another. You can’t go too wrong with pancakes.

Take some flour. Plain is best but I have used self-raising too and I’m still breathing. When I say some I mean the sort of amount you would put of a favourite cereal in a breakfast bowl. Some. That’s going to be enough for one person like me and maybe one and a half, or perhaps two, persons of more austere appetite like you. When you have some flour put it in a measuring jug. If you have more than you can fit in a measuring jug then stop eating so much cereal. What are you eating out of? A salad bowl?

Crack an egg and drop it on top of your small mound of flour. yes, the one in the measuring jug. Don’t mix it in yet as this will make a sort of flour-egg glue which will stick to the sides of your measuring jug unpleasantly.

Pour on some milk. Again some. I like the breakfast analogy because that’s how much milk is in some. You know how you pour milk directly onto your cereal in the morning without measuring it? That’s some ‘milk’. Pour that much milk on top of your flour and egg.

Now mix it all up. the toughest part about this stage is not doing it so vigorously that you cover yourself with soft clouds of flour and splashes of eggy milk. Eggy milk doesn’t just rinse off, you’ll have to wash your clothes. Keep the splashes in the pancake mix!

Ok, while you are mixing it up you will learn about the consistency of the mix you have just made. If it is the consistency of milk then you may have poured the milk into an empty bowl rather than the one with the flour and egg in it. Try again please. If your mix is too dry then, again, you may have poured your milk in the wrong bowl or you have just worked out why your cereal is so crunchy all the time!

If the mix is too thick add a little more milk, mix it up and try again. If it is too thin, drop in a little bit of flour. This is actually quite tough to incorporate so I reccomend trying to cook your mix if you think it is too thin before you start trying to add more flour.

Cook a small pancake. Eat said pancake while adjusting the temperature of the pan/griddle and adding salt if required. Remember, you can always add more salt, you cannot take salt away! Be sparing.

That’s it, you now know what to do. Don’t buy them in the stores, make your own. Preferably thin like crepes with lemon and granulated sugar. Mmmm.

Word of the Day: Cachalot
- noun

1 – A sperm whale

It concerns an establishment called PFC in Stratford. That’s Stratford as in 2012 Olympics Stratford not “To be or not to be” Stratford-Upon-Avon. It’s awful. The food is Ok, but orders when you wait for ages only to find that what you have carried away with you certainly isn’t what you paid for. Well, something needs to be said. Given the profusion of such establishments in south east London I would gently recommend that you find another. I’m not even going to reveal the exact location of this place. If you see a sign proclaiming PFC (a humourous UK take on KFC used by smaller kebab and fried chicken establishments) then avoid at your leisure.

After a visit to our preferred Indian restaurant last night I thought it only right that I make a recommendation. After all, why should I keep this valuable information to myself?

A mistake often made by restaurants, especially given the emphasis the web receives today, is the failure to maintain an informative and interesting website. The Spice Island in Plumstead is no exception. It emerges very quickly that there is an appropriately named website listed. Unfotunately this is registered to a venue in another part of the country so I wouldn’t use their menu too much if you are going to be visiting their, completely unrelated, counterpart in south east London. On second thoughts I’m not sure I should mention it as using those place names will only cause confusion for googlers. (Edit).

So about the restaurant. You can find them here:

196-212 Plumstead Common Road
Woolwich
LONDON
SE18 2RS

There’s a small car park behind the building so if there’s no space available on the street to the front of the premsises you can try and park there.

The real appeal of the place is in the take away menu. If you place an order of more than ten pounds then you can choose a vegetable dish as a free extra. What this means practically is that you can have a delicious Indian for two hungry giants or three more normal appetites for a little over a tenner. Our usual arrangement is to place an order and put some rice on at the same time. Food is normally ready for collection after 20-25 minutes and the range and quality of the dishes is excellent. Like most small restaurants, if what you want isn’t listed then they will do all they can to accommodate your tastes.

I would go on to recommend some specific dishes at this point but before I do I want to point out that I am yet to be disappointed by anything I have order from this place. We often eat this food with friends and the inevitable mixing and matching that goes on with Indian food means that I have now tried a very large number of their dishes. They are all, even if I happen not to like ‘em, very good. The chicken tikka masala, a mainstay of British Indian orders, is excellent and very creamy and mild. Their Madras dishes are excellent and the Dansak dishes. A type of sauce which is hot and slightly sour and based on lentils is wonderful. Try it with the lamb!

I do enjoy my food photography and next time we order I’ll take some photos for you all to salivate over. In the mean time, why not give them a call yourself. Spice Island is open from 6pm. You can call them on 0208 316 5207. Do it now. Well, if you’re hungry and it’s after six!

Not.

I was frantic. There was music to listen to, a daughter to hang out with and a great deal of my own work to be getting on with. Now that it’s over I can tell you that working for me is a nightmare!

11,500,000,000.00GBP

I’m not going to tell you how long it would take me at my current rate of earnings to make that much money. Someone out there would probably work out how much I earn. Let’s just say that I could win the national lottery here in the UK, weekly, for forty-four years before I had that much cash. That’s assuming I get five million each time I buy a ticket. Of course once I had one two or three consecutive draws I would be arrested and the jackpot would evaporate as people stopped buying tickets. But this is all hypothetical eh? No need for common sense to interrupt our fun.

I’m proud of Cadbury. I’m British. It used to be British. I feel a sort of mutual success. The brand is well known and produces good products. Compared to the chocolate I have tried in the US Dairy Milk is a sort of Ambrosia. I’m not going to say too much about European chocolate. It is perhaps superior. But then that’s the appeal of Dairy Milk. It’s not fine chocolate. Quite carefully so I imagine. Dairy Milk is everyman chocolate. I think there have been years of my life where I have consumed some literally every day. Imagine that.

Aside from those interested in the stock implications of the deal there has be considerable discussion about whether or not the government should involve itself. Cadbury Schweppes is one of our larger and better employers. Thousands of people have jobs tied to the company in the UK. With sale to a company based abroad the moral obligation to employ workers in Britain fades. Cadbury will be more inclined to move production and other enterprise to more economically convenient locations and some thousands of jobs may be lost.

This has tested my opinions. Generally I believe that business should be left to itself. Progress and economic growth depend on flexibility and dynamism in business and employment. People who lose their jobs with Cadbury may move into or create new sectors and companies as the stress of redundancy inspires creativity and passion in people. Conversely it is easier for people who have perfectly good jobs at present to keep those jobs. I know that were I employed by Cadbury right now, I would not be hoping that my job would cease to exist.

In the end I think the government was right to stay outside of the deal. Whether I will agree with myself on that point in six months or six years time will require some review.

There are of course a small number of compatibility issues. Peanut Butter cookies don’t work well with calorie controlled diets, they’re anathema for people with peanut allergies and they make your fingertips oily. All of these ‘cons’ as it were are obviated by they’re warmth, flavour and finger lickin’ goodness.

A few of our more pedestrian friends may be concerned that combining peanut butter, butter, brown sugar, white sugar, a drop of vanilla, a couple of eggs and a pinch of baking powder is hardly a way to foster health and good teeth but who’s listening to them eh?

Peanut butter cookies are also incompatible with keyboards, not to mention crumb-free environments. So if you work for Intel forget it. No one’s going let you eat these treats in the lab.

Despite their multitudinous failings, being cooked in a shade under eleven minutes not among them, I still feel that these distinctive nibbles with their twice-fork-pressed tops are a classic example of American cooking and to quote the free and the brave. God bless America for peanut butter cookies.

Yes, yes. I know, that’s paraphrasing.

Word of the day: Balalaika
-noun
1 – a Russian musical instrument having a triangular body and a neck like that of a guitar

I should be candid. This is not a great work of literature. I have not yet acquired new books to read and so while I struggle to find the time to visit my local library I have taken to borrowing books from the shelves of willing friends. Sansom brings the plot along at wondrous pace and where I found myself sometimes lonely and wandering in works such as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or Music and Silence there is not a moment to spare for middle aged Matthew as he hurries around the capital unearthing a slew of plots and bodies on the way.

While there are those who have complained about the constant references to the weather I found them refreshingly repetitive. After all, my own life is full of comments about the weather, it’s an important part of practically every conversation I am involved in. Well, perhaps at least those which include strangers. For the peripatetic hero, Shardlake to make a reference or two to the weather in London felt very natural to me. So much so that I wouldn’t have even commented on it should it not have been picked up elsewhere.

When he isn’t commenting on the weather or feeling hungry Master Shardlake is a very entertaining man to follow. His honesty with not only others but with himself is a delight to follow. I would perhaps have preferred it if he had remained an entirely sedentary character but must wistfully admit that his involvement in the little physical action in the book does lend to the drama of the novel as a whole.

Despite the lack of splendour in the writing the novel provided plenty of entertainment. I suppose I should say something of what it is about, but I’m not going to. At least, not beyond mentioning that the discovery of a barrel of Greek Fire serves as an excellent vehicle for a romp around the London of the time with all of its customs, features, persons and laws well explained and explored by an intriguing character. I learned all too late that this is the third in a trilogy. Will I read the first? No. The third? Probably.

Mind you I would be most pleased if I could write something like this.

Word of the day: Abscission
-noun
1 – The act of cutting off; sudden termination
2 – Botany. The normal separation of leaves, petals, and fruit from plants