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It’s lovely now! Go outside and do some leafleting!
But there is a storm coming later this week – my RSS feed of severe weather warnings tells me there are warnings in place for Tuesday from 2am to midnight for very heavy rain and even snow on high ground. So, for Tuesday, it might make sense to plan some indoor activity – preparing your leaflets, researching your stories and making some phone calls.
The warning appears to apply for from the Midlands and further north, Northern Ireland, but not Scotland, so key seats from Watford to Durham and Cardiff to Chesterfield need be warned.
Broadly, next month, temperatures will fall, and seasonal April showers can be expected (as if we hadn’t been having that already).
So some opportunity to work on your campaign tan, and the usual problem of trying to dodge showers and hailstones to get the soggy pieces of paper with Riso ink running down the page through the ever stiffer letterbox brushes. Bonne chance, activists.
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When I started on t’diet, I mentally thought to myself that I wouldn’t be doing the dieting quite so publicly as much of my life.
But I can’t really resist talking or tweeting about it, so people know what’s going on.
And I’ve been doing it for a month now, with a variety of days from very strict to very liberal in the interpretation of what’s allowed. Some days I am more hungry than others. And actually, my weight is falling consistently and my clothes are feeling loser. I’ve had to start wearing a belt again for the first time in years just so that I don’t lose my trousers whilst leafleting.
I don’t actually weigh myself at home, although we do have a set of scales. I’ve been using “Healthy Weight Machines” at supermarkets and Boots. I’ve not been too conscientious at using the same machine all the time – it rather depends where I am.
In the last four weeks, my weight has dropped from 102kg to 95kg. The better part of 7kg or 14lbs or one whole stone. My waist, neck and chest measurements have all fallen. Go me!
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Wednesday’s editorial for the Guardian – which I found online here – is one of those pieces you see all too often in the Guardian, the time honoured preparation of the nose peg. Hold your nose, disregard the stench and put the cross by the rose.
It tries to find some vestige of hope in the Labour party, one thing remaining that is still worth voting for. But it’s the penultimate paragraph and not its conclusion that rings truest:
The party’s activists and MPs are so obviously convinced of their own decent intentions and past record that they fail to see how Labour can appear to outsiders. They have lost sight of the need to explain their actions, to listen to voters, to change and to stand up to immediate sectional self-interest – business as well as strikers. This confusion is the fault of serving ministers as much as it is the foolish greed of Hewitt and Hoon. The buzzword inside Labour’s ruling circle is renewal, but it is hard to see what this means, other than a hoped-for election win. The party is not renewing in any visible way. Its manifesto seems cloudy and unoriginal and its political base narrowing.
And the most remarkable thing about the piece? The comments that follow it. The Guardian’s online commentators are not buying it, not a bit of it.
In a number of comments, its readers are exhorting their paper to switch to the Liberal Democrats.
Claire McW:
Surely the Guardian can’t officially support Labour in the general election after this week’s revelations? They don’t deserve your support and need to work out what they stand for whilst well away from power. Take a chance on the LibDems instead.
Bernie29UK:
I would also like to see the paper coming out in support of the Lib Dems.
Labour getting back in would be disastrous for reform.
BrotherBig
[…]
I would find it difficult to spend the next 6 weeks trying to pretend that everyone was born yesterday and that Labour on 7 May 2010 will be fresh and optimistic and nothing like the burnt-out case it was on 6 May 2010. Perhaps you would, too.In which case, why not stop now, save yourselves the grief, and back the Lib Dems. At least they’re an unknown quantity backing social justice. Labour have an unforgettable 13 years in power demonstrating their inability to deliver the same.
In 2010, a Labour vote is a wasted vote. And a Labour editorial is a wasted editorial.
And on and on it goes.
Steve Webb MP has a piece in CiF today shoring up our progressive values in the face of more ill-thought out Fabian criticism.
It looks like he’s sowing seeds in fertile ground.
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Previously on Pudding Club: Apple soufflés / Chocolate mousse / Pear and Ginger cake / Chocolate/Chestnut torte / Beef Wellington canapés / Crème renversée au caramel
Today we were to have gone to our friends in Long Eaton again, but P felt rotten – we’ve both been sneezing and coughing recently, and I spent much of Sunday in bed, and he felt in need of an early night, so we pleaded off.
It’s shame, because I had already made our pudding – and now we have a diet-unfriendly dessert festering in the fridge that no doubt will go the way of all flesh over the coming days.
This recipe was pretty much invented out of the base of something off a jelly packet. I’ve been eating sugar free jelly a lot recently, remembering it as a diet tip from years ago. It has next to no calories and is something sweet to finish a meal with.
So, make a biscuit base out of a third of a pack of butter and a packet of ginger biscuits. Melt the butter, crush the biscuits, combine, and line a tart dish with them.
Scatter about 100 grams of crystallised ginger over the top and press into the base.
NB, you will need to press the ginger in more than that, otherwise it will poke through the cheese layer in an unsightly fashion.
Put the base into the fridge to chill.
Some time later, make the cheese layer. I used real jelly, not sugar free, as should become clear:
Make the jelly with half a pint of boiling water, reserving two jelly cubes to one side for the garnish. Add 250grams of soft cheese to the jelly and mix well. Pour slowly over the set biscuit base and return the fridge to set.
When the cheese layer is completely set, garnish: melt the remaining jelly cubes directly in the microwave with a tiny amount of water. Using a squeezy garnish bottle, make swirly patterns over the set cheese.
VoilĂ !
This was… OK. But a number of learning points. 1pt of jelly/cheese is barely enough to cover the flan dish, and I thought it would be masses. Perhaps individual ones instead? My crystallized ginger poked through the jelly layer and looked unappetising. The cheese mix seeped through the biscuit and made it hard to get out. The jelly garnish on the top was disappointing – and after I bought a squeezy bottle specially – perhaps with some green food colouring it would stick out more.
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