The Lazy Cook

Potato cakes - the quick and easy way.

Make up a packet of instant mash and allow to go cold.
Add 75g of plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder.
Sprinkle in some dried parsley or mixed herbs.
Whisk together 2 eggs and 125ml of milk and add to the mash mixture.  Whisk until smooth.
Heat some oil and a knob of butter in a frying pan.
Add a tablespoon of the mixture and fry until golden brown underneath.
Flip and repeat on the other side
Repeat with the rest of the mixture.

Goes nicely with scrambled eggs and bacon.

The goalposts have moved!

I must confess to always having had the "hots" for Maria Sharapova, so perhaps I'm biased, but I find the way the press (or some of them) are savaging her for failing a drugs test a couple of months ago very over the top, and even somewhat vindictive. The facts are that she has been on a certain type of medication for many years for various health problems, but at the beginning of this year this medication was - for the first time -  put on the "banned" list, and neither she nor her team seem to have noticed this and she continued to take it, and it showed up when she was tested in January.  She accepts that she has broken the rules and will be suspended and maybe even banned from the sport. And some of her sponsors are already jumping ship. But perhaps you can see why I got very annoyed at the headline in one paper that asserted she "took banned drug for ten years".

Speak English??

An aide to a candidate for London Mayor is in trouble for comments he made in the past about "faggots" and "hoes".  Now faggots I get, but hoes? Judging by context, I assume it is the word "whores" in some sort of vernacular speech.  Not a nice man, it would appear.

Result!!

Refer back to my post of 10/11/15.  The government has now relented and said that the old lady can stay here and does not have to fly back to South Africa.  So sanity prevails, but really, why was there ever any question of her having to do so?  It has apparently taken the intervention of the Immigration Minister no less to come up with a decision which should have been obviously the right one from day one.  I suppose this is yet another example of regulations being allowed to override common sense and common decency.

O, what a tangled web...

It's a constant cause of confusion - O - is that capital "o" or zero?  There was a time when zero was written with a diagonal line through - Ø - to make it clear, but that idea seems to have been abandoned.  Does it matter?  Well, it can be when you get these "prove you're not a robot" tests where you have to copy a line of letters/numbers and the question arises as to whether what you are being asked to copy is "o" or zero, but here's a case where it has potentially cost someone money. You know those automated carparks where you have to input your car's registration to get a ticket? Well a lady input her reg, except that she erroneously input capital "o" instead of zero and has now been hit with a £100 fine, and the parking company are refusing her appeal.  So be careful out there...

Crouch - bind....

So rugby (union) is in the doghouse again. There's no doubt that it's a potentially dangerous sport and has become more so recently as a result of the way the game is played these days.  So, what can be done?  I have a few ideas which I think are worthy of consideration and which would not only make the game safer for the players, but also more entertaining for the spectators.  So - here goes -
1.  Do away with the penalty kick at goal.  You either take a tap penalty, or kick for touch and take the resulting line-out.
2.  Increase the points for a drop goal from 3 to 4.
3.  Tackles must be made below the waist
4.  Replace scrums with rugby league-type "play the ball"
So there you have it - the idea is to speed the game up, allow more "off-loading" and get away from boring games being decided by penalty kicks.
What do you think?

In, out, shake it all about.

Not sure I can put up with another four months of pre-referendum waffle.  Problem is that nobody can say for sure just what the situation will be if we leave the EU.  It's all just guesswork, with the "out" crowd trying to convince us that everything will be fine, and the "remain" crowd trying to convince us that it will be a disaster - and the reality is that neither of them know for sure.  I'm already beginning to wish that they would all shut up!

Who can remember...

I was earwigging someone else's conversation the other day, when I heard one of them say "...so I just hung up on him".  It had never struck me before, but the phraseology to hang up the 'phone is completely archaic now.  It really goes back to the days of what are now called "candlestick" telephones, when to end a call you literally had to hang the earpiece back up on the hook, which cut the connection. These days of course you just press a button - but I suppose "...I just pressed the button on him" doesn't have quite the same ring (no pun intended).

Ha ha

- I've left my job.  I just couldn't work for that man after what he said to me.
- Why, what did he say?
- "You're fired!"

Mix and match

It took me some time to try peanut butter and jelly (seedless jam) sandwiches.  Big over in the States although little heard of over here.  But really tasty.  So here's another idea - comes from Germany. Nutella and cheese sandwiches.  I'll be honest - haven't tried this myself, so I put it out there for what it's worth. Apparently you should really use Gouda cheese.  Go on, give it a go!