My Brother is a Twisted Graphopath...

...But he blames me (not necessarily unjustifiably) for this particular piece:

• A Prophesise Sketch.

Back to Baking?

Hello interwebs.

I'm in the process of some mental rehabilitation, and attempting to back into a structured existence. This involves both baking and blogging, so this post seems like a pretty decent way to start. Cue picture:

Today I saw a post on G+ by my friend Florian who has just made an impressive looking first ever batch of English muffins, and it occurred to me that I haven't made any myself for a while. Being such a traditional foodstuff, there are, of course, many recipe variations on the muffin, but I was still intrigued by the differences in the recipe Florian was using, and thought I'd offer my own for comparison.

Ingredients:

• 8 fl oz/225ml milk
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1lb/450g all purpose/plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2oz/55g lard

Method:

• Put the milk and 2 fl/oz/55ml water into a saucepan and heat gently until just warm enough for you to dip your finger in comfortably. Put the warmed milk into a small basin or jug, add the sugar and the yeast, mix lightly and leave in a warm place for about 15 minutes and the mixture has a lightly bubbling top.
• Sift the flour into a roomy baking bowl, add the salt and stir. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour the yeast and milk mixture in. Mix all the ingredients together until a soft, non-sticky dough is formed; if the dough feels dry a little add more water a drop at a time, too wet add a little more flour.
• Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Put the dough back into the baking bowl, cover with a clean, dry tea towel and leave in a warm (not hot) place until the dough has doubled in size, this could take up to an hour, so be patient.
• Once risen, tip the dough back onto the floured surface and roll out to ½ inch/1cm thick. Cut into 3 inch/7.5cm rounds. The dough may start to puff up again but simply roll it back to ½ inch. Place the muffins on a greased baking sheet and leave to rise for 30 minutes, again in a warm, but not hot, place.
• Grease a heavy-based frying pan or griddle with a little lard, heat until hot but not burning. Add a few muffins, lower the heat and cook for 7 minutes on each side. Once cooked, put to one side, re-grease the pan or griddle and heat, then continue as above until you have used up all the dough.

I find this works pretty well, although I did like the look of Florian's recipe, so I think I may do a batch of each sometime and see which the family prefer.

As to storage and consumption, store them in an airtight tin and they will last a couple of days, after which they should be okay for a couple more as long as they're toasted, and why would you eat them untoasted anyway? To be honest, I feel the only way to eat them is to tear them open (don't cut them if you can help it), toast them and add lots of yummy butter and the preserve of your choice - marmalade or lemon curd for me. Alternatively, they work well with bacon and/or egg.

Hiding in my own house...

For a number of reasons, I have taken the decision to barricade myself into my bedroom which, although as hateful as the rest of the house right now, has the minor virtues of containing my bed, my laptop and the ability to be barricaded at all. Also, it gets me out of the way:

While my parents are away, my brother has become accustomed to having the place to himself to spend time listening to loud music and have his mates round. It's about half way through their holiday now and so far he's had to put up with me moping around the whole time. I figure that as he's been working all week and I've had the place to myself, it's only fair that he should be allowed some time which is similar to that which he is used to normally. So an additional bonus of choosing my room is that he's free to go about as if I wasn't here at all. With him being at work all day, my main purpose was to get food in for him, and I hope I've got enough to last at least until the beginning of next week, which means I'm not needed now until church on Sunday - I have cake and water in my room so I think everything's provided for.

I reckon we can probably go right up until mum and dad get home without him having to see any more of me, and if I miscalculate my provisions and die - we can always hope - it shouldn't be for a few days, and by the time it's noticed, they should be home and able to deal with it. He did tell me once that it would be inconvenient for me to die when it was just the two of us, so I'll try, but I have to admit, that today it was only through lack of equipment that I didn't wipe out an existence which should never have been at all.

Five Years; Five Pro-points

A week tomorrow I leave Bristol and return to Hounslow (anyone with whom I share correspondence, please don't send me any more Brizzle mail). This city has been my home for nearly 5 years now, and I don't mind saying that I really don't want to go.

5 years. How is it that in one breath I can feel that my degree has taken a lifetime, and in the next I'm wondering where the time went? It has been suggested to me, more than once, that me taking a degree was a "waste of time", and until I get a job I can't really judge one way or the other, but, although it has been a momentous struggle, it would be a lie to say that there aren't some things from the last half-decade which I can already recognise as positives. In the interests of balance - as they say on the BBC - it seems only fair to share some of the good things in requital for the seemingly endless stream of negativity so far published here.

Five Years; Five Points in their Favour

1. Living Solo:
   Okay, so I didn't adjust too well to all the changes to my life which I encountered on first moving to Bristol, but having my own place was a great boon to me. A place of order, where I could lay my hands on whatever I needed, as soon as I needed it; a place where I lock myself away and hide when I was at my worst; a place where I could go and not have to talk to anyone or be obliged to make conversation; a place where I could shout at the television and not disturb anyone but myself...
2. Family:
   I have a reasonable number of relatives in the West Country, but over the years, for one reason or another, we had lost touch a little. When I came to Bristol to study I was able to reconnect with them, and they were as great as I remembered from my childhood. My aunt and uncle (to say nothing of the dog) saved me in a not insignificant way, and were brilliant and understanding company, both when I was really sick and when I improved. My two cousins, whom I pretty much idolised when I was growing up - I think they came second only to my brother as my role models - have become "grown-ups" since I was last in any real contact with them, with partners and mortgages and the like, but they're tech-savvy, drink friendly, geek grown-ups, who are cool to spend time with and gave me some very sound advice during my time here.
3. Unintended Friendships:
   I have to say, if you'd asked me 5 years ago to predict this list, I would definitely not have put friendship. I have never had, or felt the need for, many friends as they don't really seem to me to be necessary, but over the years I have encountered some people who just seem to fall into that category. At Uni and through church I have met people who have had a real impact on my life, and the starts of pretty much all of these friendships have had very little to do with me.
   Take my Best friend, Maddy, for instance. Now, Maddy is a genius of the first degree (literally, she actually got a 1st), who has a life, a good degree, a black belt in Kempo and now a good job, and yet on the first day of the first year of lectures, she met me and seemed to decide that I would make a good sidekick. For a seemingly well-balanced person, this has always struck me as a bit odd, and I can't for the life of me work out what she gets out of the relationship, but I think it's been good for me in a number of respects.
4. Rekindled Hobbies:
   I think that I always quite enjoyed photography, helped, of course, by the fact that my father was a photographer, but it was just one of those things that one did on holiday. I've also always had a bit of a thing for the countryside and for good architecture, and Bristol has both in abundance. So what would be more natural than to take some shots? It was at this point that I discovered I really enjoyed photography, and when my uncle gave me his old film Canon, I found I could have some real fun. I have no pretensions to creativity (my brother got all the family "artiness"), so my shots are neither imaginative nor particularly pleasing aesthetically, but they're fun to take, and I have, in the past, tried to get some inspiration from sites such as ephotozine and flickr.
5. An Interesting Diagnosis:
   At the end of last year I was diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome (AS), a condition on the autism spectrum. It may seem strange to list this as a positive, but this is a life-long condition which is now recognised and may explain quite a lot for me. I don't know for sure what difference knowing I have AS will make in my life, although there is a chance I will be able to get some more support with certain aspects of it, but it does seem to shed light on some things both from my past and my present (certainly my mother thinks so), and it is at least a piece of knowledge for my internal files.

You're Giving Me Capt. Archer? Really?

Sometimes when thinking about certain situations, people envisage a number of different scenarios - generally along the lines of the best, or at least most preferable, one; the good, or at least acceptable, one; and the one which would be bearable if absolutely necessary. In this instance:

• To never have existed;
• To die;
• To have some use in the world and enough health/strength to see it through.

The problem is that one so often falls short of their own imaginings, even those they feel are conservative.

It's like needing someone to command the Enterprise: you're thinking Patrick Stewart, Bill Shatner, or maybe, at a push, Alan Ruck, but then you get stuck with Scott Bakula.

Of course, the first case is clearly impossible, but neither of the others are intractable problems, were I not so weak (even ignoring the physical weaknesses the solutions to which are largely in the hands of others at the moment). How often is it said that getting something done, particularly curing oneself of a mental illness, is simply dependent on really wanting it and deciding to make it happen? Motivation is surely a key, but I don't think it is purely will, I think it is the strength of character driving the will. I don't mean strength in the sense of depth of yearning, but more fundamentally, the ability to put such yearning into action. It is an ability, like painting or composing, which is not always available to whoever wants it. Yes some abilities can be taught, to a point, but can they all, to all people? Can a deaf man hear, just because he really wants to?

I am not just weak, I am weak minded. I mean, both ends of the life spectrum are on my list: oblivion or useful existence, and presumably I could make either happen - I'd love to in fact - but my mental feebleness and pervading cowardice leave me stewing.

I wonder occasionally, if God's idea of 7 days is 14 billion years, then surely the 28 day warranty on this life he gave me must still be intact. D'you think he does refunds?