Week 162: Dutch oven
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I keep returning to the New York Times no-knead bread recipe. Not because I donāt like kneading ā I actually miss the magical joy of turning a sticky mess into something workable ā but because I like the results it gives, a really pleasing texture. The recipe calls for a Dutch oven, which here means a casserole dish but can also mean the result of farting in bed. I have neither, just a loaf tin, which this week I didnāt grease properly, and a quirk of the āoven springā meant the loaf sprouted a protruding bulge at one end, like it had grown a head like a Colin the Caterpillar cake. But āpics or it didnāt happenā, and inexplicably I didnāt take any, so
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Voted by post, cos Iāll be out on the day of the day of the election, and itās so important to have your say about bin collections. Just about managed to follow the instructions, tearing some paper along a dotted line, placing one half in an envelope that goes in another envelope with the other half. Thereās a risk that my vote is rejected because my signatureās slightly too different to the one on the postal vote application form ā thereās a growing problem, which I last encountered at the driving theory test centre, of young people these days not having consistent signatures.
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Bought some shoes from the European Union, and there were some customs charges to pay. No sympathy expected ā itās up there with how itās harder to take your dog skiing these days.
The Parcelforce website asked for a āpayment reference numberā, but of course the letter they sent only gave a ātracking referenceā and a āparcel referenceā. Turned out it wanted the parcel reference after all ⦠so why not say so?
And the bank I bank with offered to let me pay the charges in instalments ⦠which is fair enough, and in less lucky circumstances I might have taken them up on the offer, but my point is how 2022 it is.
The shoes are great, thank you.
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š¦ Operation Mincemeat was merely OK. I was tired, and it was sunny outside, so I should have just had a nap in a park instead.
The Worst Person in the World ā better. Watch out for the discussion of car parking arrangements in Oslo.
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The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe was OK ā an ITV drama, you know, but itās a heartwarming true story about a landlord (12 rental properties) falling on hard times. Someone uses a search engine called āBongā on a period-appropriate Windows laptop, and thereās a fictional insurance company called āMutual Assuredā.
(Oh the adverts on ITV. Bemused at Jamie Redknapp saying āplus, theyāre machine washableā, and unaccountably enranged by the smug Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstallāsounding voiceover advertising poncey settees.)
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To a room above a backstreet pizzeria to see Liz Lawrence ā a small joy.
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Down by the river, it doesnāt take much sunshine for folks to lay about the goose shitāsmeared grass and enjoy some rosĆ©, which is almost enough to make you feel āproud to be Britishā. As I walked along, some flat-capped costermongers crossed a bridge ahead of me, and one shouted something something tits at the prone rosĆ© enjoyers, which seemed a bit rude. Was this catcalling that Iād witnessed? As I disappeared under the bridge, I muttered STFU, too quietly to be heard, a weak attempt at allyship.
But when I passed by a bit later, the tits shouters had joined the winebibbers on the riverbank, and a bit like in a thought-provoking advert for a broadsheet newspaper, all was not as it had seemed. They were just normal men, they were just innocent men.