Tasty Things To Do With Sage

Given that we have an almost completely untouched crop of sage (above) in our burgeoning garden, this afternoon I asked on Twitter for people's recommendations of what to do with it.

I had so many excellent and delicious-sounding suggestions that James said I should put them all into a blog post, so here they are, with appropriate credits.

1. Put it in a butternut squash risotto. (@danieljowen)

2. Melt some stilton into cream, add sage, butter some pasta and add sauce. Lots of black pepper. Rich so serve as a starter. (@davidsteven)

3. Pan fry until crispy and have with risotto - it's a Hugh recipe. (@ecovallee)

4. If you're not veggie, saltimbocca. (@SoniaRothwell)

5. Sprinkle torn up leaves over vegetables and roast. Yum. (@SueLlewellyn)

6. Tricky but affinity with pork and veal. Crispy deep-fried leaves. Twigs on BBQ for fragrant smoking... (@TessAlps)

7. Add to pork dishes, maybe some meatballs. It's a good stuffing ingredient as well. (@FoodiesSW)

8. I find the standard sage and onion stuffing with chicken most pleasant. It can also be eaten cold, should summer bust out. (@hannahswiv)

9. ...also substitute for basil in a pesto-like pasta sauce. Lovage excellent for that too. (@TessAlps)

10. If you've got heaps of it, Native Americans dry it and use for 'smudging' - burn it, blow out flames and use the smoke to clear sacred space. (@SueLlewellyn)

11. Coat them in batter and fry. Very Italian very delicious. Serve with a Prosecco or Pinot Grigio while listening to Puccini. (@EnterpriseIain)

12. Sage fritters, in a cornmeal batter. (@CulturalSnow)

13. Sage is also a good medicinal herb to keep in your garden - good for sore throats and dry coughs, dontchya know. (@RunSqueezyRun)

14. Mix in with Welsh rarebit. (@kevfrost)

15. Put it in a pork pie! Yum. (@piersroberts)

16. When eaten enough,pick some stalks and put it in vase with some pinks? (@JudyAstley)

Whew. That lot should keep us going until the sage plant is no more - hurrah!

Like No Aspirations You've Ever Had Before

Not long after giving birth to the Blue Kitten I was comparing notes about the whole gruesome affair with my old friend Becky.

Never one to mince words, Becky observed that in her experience (three infants to date) 'it's difficult to maintain any kind of dignity when some bird is doing embroidery in your minky'.

This word 'minky' was new to me, although its meaning all too painfully apparent. But then Becky has her finger on the pulse of modern argot, whereas I like to model my conversational and writing style on detective novels of the Golden Age. (You'd never hear Lord Peter Wimsey uttering the word 'minky', at least not to denote the precious flower of the female nether bits. It probably meant something different in the 1930s.)

For those who are similarly untutored in the vagaries of modern parlance, rest assured that the Urban Dictionary backs Becky up, providing no fewer than eight user-generated definitions of 'minky', three of which refer to the precious flower of the female etc.

So it was not without some merriment that it later came to my attention that there is a company called Minky, whose business is the provision of mops, pegs and other humble domestic essentials.

But Minky, a company - its own name notwithstanding - with its finger on the pulse of the early 21st-century Zeitgeist, has realised that in our narcissistic age, there is no room for humility in domestic matters. Just as buying an air freshener or a tea towel is now an important lifestyle choice, so the purchase of a new ironing board cover must be imbued with a sense of excitement, panache and social self-betterment.

Replacing one's worn-out ironing board cover can no longer be conceived of as an act of tedious but inevitable drudgery, no, but as a gesture symbolic of the renewal of hope and enthusiasm, of the recapturing of lost youth, beauty and energy, of a better life to come.

In short, it must be seen - along with everything else - as aspirational.

So while 'minky aspirations' may sound to my friend Becky like the kind of febrile affliction that besets a million pub-bound Nuts readers up and down the country every Friday evening, to the marketing department of this venerable British brand it represents nothing short of the complete re-imagining of domestic drudgery as something suffused with glamour and desirability.

And for attempting to instil those qualities in a metallised ironing board cover while having a name that is a rude word for a lady's secret place, I salute them.

Garnier's Law of Mascara Names

You may be familiar with Moore's Law, which dictates that the computing power of a single silicon chip doubles roughly every two years, as the transistors upon it get tinkier and tinier.

You may not be so familiar - mainly because I just made it up - with Garnier's Law. Garnier's Law dictates that the names given to mascara products will double in ridiculousness roughly every two years, despite the lack of any corresponding technical advance in the product itself.

Like Moore's Law, Garnier's Law has been in force for some years, such that we now find ourselves in a world where the names given to mascara have become entirely decoupled from reality.

Hence Lash Builder, a plausible name for a mascara, given that the sole function of the product is and always has been to cake your eyelashes in a manner that makes them look slightly thicker and longer, gave way in due course to Lash Architect, a ridiculous proposition when you think about it, since architects don't actually build anything but rather swank about in wenge-wood-and-opaque-glass offices wearing expensive glasses and reading back copies of Monocle magazine. A mascara does none of those things.

Rejected names for Lash Architect: Lash Brickie, Lash Structural Engineer, Lash Planning Officer.

But that was then. Today Garnier's Law has seen to it that we have entered the realm of the truly fantastical when it comes to mascara names. Only last night I was alerted to the existence of a mascara named Telescopic Explosion, which sounds more like an industrial accident than a cosmetic; the kind of thing that you might read under 'exemptions' in the small print of Sir Patrick Moore's contents insurance policy.

Rejected names for Telescopic Explosion: Optical Disaster, Lenticular Catastrophe, Oops I Dropped The Refracting Mirror.

I hardly dare let my mind dwell upon what kind of product names the future may hold in store for that same coloured goo that people have been caking on to their eyelashes for centuries. Perhaps we can look forward to sallying forth to Boots in 2019 to purchase a tube of Lashmageddon, or Thermo-Nuclear Lash Eruptor. I don't think Total Protonic Reversal strays too far from the bounds of the possible, nor Infernal Trajectory, nor Eyeschaton.

We may long for the innocent, simple days of Lash Builder when we're staring down the claggy barrel of a tube of Supermassive Interplanetary Collision Course, but in vain. Garnier's Law, like Moore's Law, is unstoppable. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It Was Tiny, And Purple

My friend S. dropped in for a cup of tea today on her way home from shopping in Truro, where she'd bought a dress for her birthday do tonight.

S: They didn't have a size 8*, so I had to get a size 6**.

ME: Bloody hell. Does it fit?

S: Just about. Bit of a squeeze to get the last bit of the zip done up, but I think it'll be OK.


S. is eight months pregnant.


* US size 6
** US size 4

Unusual Media Epiphany

I had an unusual media epiphany last week, and it had nothing to do with Trafigura, Jan Moir or the balloon boy, whatever that last one was all about.

No, what happened was this. I was sitting on a train, reading an article in the financial pages of the Guardian, on my way to a conference in Exeter.

So far, so unremarkable. The article was about WH Smith's business plans. It's going to open 80 new outlets inside office buildings, based on the success of a number of shops it's set up inside hospitals. Profits are up at WH Smith, the article added, thanks to the canny strategies of its CEO, Kate Swann.

It was at that point that I had my epiphany. Here was an article in a newspaper about a successful FTSE 250 company that happens to have a female CEO. Not only that, but it had been written by a female journalist (Julia Finch), and was being read by a female business person (me).

And yet at no point was the gender of the reader, writer or subject made an issue. The article didn't appear in the women's pages, or in a glossy women's supplement. The reporter didn't mention what Kate Swann looks like, what she habitually wears, or whether she has a partner and kids at home. There was no accompanying picture. There were no allusions to the glass ceiling. Readers were not invited to view Ms Swann's success as an exceptional achievement for someone of her gender.

It was just an ordinary article about business in the business pages of a national newspaper.

And I thought: 'This must be what reading the paper is like for men all the time.'

I know that by drawing attention to it I'm bursting the bubble of ordinariness surrounding this article, and turning it into something remarkable, and therefore defeating the whole object. But for a little while it did give me a glimpse of a glorious future media landscape in which women are just people, and our gender is neither here nor there. And that made me very happy.

Oh, and hello again everyone, I seem to be back!

...And They Lived Happily Ever After

The End.

There's Such A Thing As Too Much Self-Awareness

INT. BLUE CAT TOWERS - EVENING

PATROCLUS and JAMES BLUE CAT are sitting in companionable silence. Eventually:

MR BC: What are you thinking about?

ME: I was just mentally going through everyone who follows me on Twitter, and imagining all the ways in which I disappoint, annoy or otherwise fail to meet the expectations of each and every one of them.

MR BC: Crikey.

ME: Why, what are you thinking about?

MR BC: Goblins.

Public Trust Shaken By Fresh Revelations

The nation's trust in its chosen vanity products is being sorely tested by continuing revelations on the Quinquireme blog about improper copywriting in the toiletries industry, reports today's Daily Telegraph.

In what is coming to be seen as the scoop of the decade, Quinquireme editor-in-chief Patroclus reportedly paid £4.79 for the exclusive right to reveal the widespread linguistic and grammatical inaccuracies pervading the sector.

The scandal started as far back as August 2008, with an exposé of poor translation skills at upmarket hotel-toiletries firm Gilchrist & Soames, but it was not until this month that the Quinquireme began a full-scale investigation into the extent of the problem.

The blog's decision to drip-feed its revelations day by day is causing anxiety not only among makers of shampoo, conditioner and other bathroom essentials, but also among a populace that is finding its faith in its personal grooming products severely shaken.

Today's blog post caused embarrassment for shampoo manufacturer Aussie, maker of such products as the 'Three Minute Miracle' deep-treatment conditioner and 'Dual Personality' shine serum. In particular, the blog cited the unnecessary insertion of a comma into the copy on the reverse of the 'Miracle Moist' shampoo bottle.


Nowhere to hide: blog reveals comma misuse by haircare firm Aussie

As well as publishing a damning photograph of the misplaced punctuation mark, the blog also transcribed the copy in full for the benefit of readers lacking 20/20 eyesight.

Our unique formula, with Australian Macadamia Nut extract, helps condition and smooth hair.
Native to the land down under, the Queensland Macadamia Nut is rich in oils, and has been used in Australia for centuries. And it would have stayed their little secret if it hadn't been for, an intrepid 19th century explorer who schlepped half way across the world and brought it back for the rest of us. What a guy.

"I don't know how they thought they could get away with this," said Jibby McBib, a disappointed Aussie customer. "Just because it's on the back of the bottle doesn't mean people won't find out it's there."

McBib said she would no longer buy Aussie products, but was unsure of which haircare products she could now trust. "You never read about this kind of thing in the media," she said. "It's always all about how it makes your hair look, what it smells like, and that kind of thing. To imagine this kind of thing has been going on all the time behind our backs...well, it makes me sick."

Forensic literary science expert Bilbo McCrum believes the problem runs deeper than simple improper comma use. "Here is a company that promotes itself as being Australian, yet clearly refers to the country of Australia as a place from which macadamia nuts have to be 'brought back' for 'the rest of us'," he said.

"This, combined with the failure to name the explorer who brought back the nuts, or indeed to specify where the nuts were brought back to, very much points to the presence of an unreliable narrator," McCrum continued. "And if the brand's narrator is unreliable, that does not bode well for the trustworthiness of the brand itself."

Ursula Mop, senior analyst at personal-grooming think-tank HAIR, said that the crisis in public trust could have serious repercussions for the country's future. "With so many mainstream cosmetics brands being 'outed' by the Quinquireme, there is a real risk that people will turn their backs on the haircare establishment," she warned.

"I think there's a danger that people will increasingly turn to fringe shampoos as they become disillusioned with the major players."

It's a danger that, for the moment, remains academic, as the public reveals itself to have more common sense than is imputed to it by think-tanks.

"There's no way I'm buying a fringe shampoo," said Jibby McBib. "What would I use on the rest of my hair? It just doesn't make sense."

Polyglottal Bottle Plot

Assiduous readers of this blog will recall that I once had occasion to take to task the hotel-toiletries firm Gilchrist & Soames for its reckless and cavalier approach to labelling its bottles in what it endearingly imagined to be French.

You, dear reader, have no doubt moved on since then, caught up in the ebb and flow of daily life and its attendant demands. Rest assured, though, that I have remained steadfast and alert to the linguistical shortcomings of the companies that furnish our nation's hotels with tiny plastic bottles of goo.

It's a lonely and desolate beat, untroubled by sensational revelations, media scrums or mass outbreaks of public outrage, but I like to think that I'm performing a vital service in shining the uncompromising spotlight of scrutiny into a dark and neglected corner of consumer affairs.

Today that spotlight falls upon Elsyl, a range of hotel toiletries whose bottles, according to this hotel-toiletries website, have an aluminium lid that gives this unique range a little extra.

Look carefully, however, and you'll notice that the aluminium lid is not the only notable feature of the Elsyl range:


[Click picture for bigness]

It's hardly surprising that the makers of Elsyl are trying to distract you with their shiny lids, for their labels represent an attempt at international jet-set chic that can best be described as 'woeful'.

I wonder if I can imagine the process by which they were created.

...Wibbly lines descend across the screen...

BRANDING EXECUTIVE 1: What we need is a label that lends the product an air of continental elegance. An atmosphere of cosmopolitan élan. An aura of European finesse.

BRANDING EXECUTIVE 2: So what you're saying is that the label has to be in English and French.

EXECUTIVE 1: Yes, yes, good. But not just French, that's so parochial. That's the kind of narrow-sighted caper you'd expect from Gilchrist & Soames. No, we need to project an image of truly international refinement.

EXECUTIVE 2: So, English, French...and Italian?

EXECUTIVE 1: Yes. And - what's the other one? - German.

There is a brief pause for reflection.

EXECUTIVE 2: Can you speak any of these languages?

EXECUTIVE 1: Not really. Except English. I can speak English. Can you?

EXECUTIVE 2: I can speak English too.

EXECUTIVE 1: No, I mean any of the others.

EXECUTIVE 2: Oh. No.

EXECUTIVE 1: We could look the words up in a dictionary.

EXECUTIVE 2: (sucking teeth) I don't know...that's what Gilchrist & Soames did, and they got stick for it on Patroclus's blog.

EXECUTIVE 1: You're right. We don't want to get stick on Patroclus's blog. That's the very essence of what we don't want.

EXECUTIVE 2: It would be a PR disaster.

EXECUTIVE 1: Yes, you don't want to get on the wrong side of the blogs. I've heard that Patroclus has literally tens of readers.

EXECUTIVE 2: I have a marvellous idea!

EXECUTIVE 1: Hurrah!

EXECUTIVE 2: You said we only need to provide an air of continental elegance. An atmosphere of cosmopolitan élan. An aura of European...what was it again?

EXECUTIVE 1: Finesse.

EXECUTIVE 2: Finesse. Well, how about we just translate one word into each language?

EXECUTIVE 1: Brilliant! Which one shall we translate?

EXECUTIVE 2: How about 'with'? It's the easiest one.

EXECUTIVE 1: Fantastic! Quick - to Babelfish!

Some moments later...

EXECUTIVE 2: There, look. Perfect.

EXECUTIVE 1: 'Bath cream avec ginseng'. Oh yeah, baby. That's cosmopolitanism, right there.

EXECUTIVE 2: We're surely the best branding executives in the whole world.

EXECUTIVE 1: We surely are.


NEXT WEEK: Patroclus fearlessly exposes the unnecessary comma on the reverse of the Aussie 'Miracle Moist' shampoo bottle.

Ooh Dear

The blog seems to have ground to a halt somewhat, what with the twin disciplines of Work and Baby (and to a lesser extent Garden, Twitter, Dungeons & Dragons and Making Biscuits) taking up all my waking hours, including a good many hours when no sensible person should be awake at all.

I really hope to be back before too long, as not blogging makes me terribly unhappy, but I fear it's not going to be anytime very soon. In the meantime, I shall set you a jolly Dave-style quiz, which is:

1. Who is this?


and

2. What does he have to do with this field?


A prize will be awarded for the most entertaining answer, irrespective of correctness.

Mrs BC

Last night I get a phone call from my friend S.

S: So, about the wedding. What time shall I come round and help you with your dress?

ME: I don't think I need any help with my dress. I was just planning to put it on over my head and stuff. Put my arms through the armholes and so on. I can probably do it on my own.

S: What about a bouquet?

ME: I haven't got a bouquet.

S: Do you want one?

ME: I don't think I do, thank you though.

S: What are we doing after the ceremony?

ME: We're going to have pasties on the beach.

S: Is that all?

ME: Yes. It's quite low-key.

S: What about the evening thing?

ME: There isn't an evening thing. It's just the ceremony, then pasties on the beach. That's essentially it.

S: I don't understand. What are you actually getting married for, then?

ME: Because we love each other. You know, we want to be married, we just aren't fussed about having an actual wedding.

A brief pause ensues.

S: Hmm, you know, all these years I think I've been getting it the wrong way round.

People Who Are From Cornwall

1. John Nettles, future star of Absolutely Bergerac, a dark reimagining of a 1980s Bergerac spinoff series that was never made, also starring Patsy Palmer as Patsy Stone, a jewel thief originally played - with, I feel, a different character name - by Liza Goddard.

(Mr BC maintains the series will be called Bergeracly Fabulous and keeps muttering about format rights.)

2. Jenny Agutter, to whom I once offered a seat on the Truro to Paddington train (she declined).

3. Rosie and the Goldbug, a tip-top indie-pop combo who are responsible for this fabulous slice of early-80s-style electro:



4. Our lovely daughter the Blue Kitten, who is six months old today and has just graduated to apple purée:


5. I can't think of any more. By popular demand, King Arthur, the once and future king. Although, like thingy out of Highlander, King Arthur is really from lots of different places.

6. The Owlman of Mawnan, although he's probably just a big owl.

7. Jethro

8. The Frontier Editor's brother

9. Kristin Scott-Thomas

10. Dolly Pentreath, the vaudeville fisherman/woman

11. That's enough people from Cornwall now - Ed.

It's Twitter Article Bingo!

Readers! Do you remember the old days, when you couldn't pick up a newspaper without seeing some columnist or other ranting about how bloggers are socially-maladroit saddos with empty lives, who do nothing but spout tedious drivel on tedious blogs which are read by no one but their mums?

(Then after a bit, the papers decided that blogging was actually the future of journalism, and immediately set about pretending they'd thought of it first.)

Well, pine no more for the days when we bloggers were daring, sexy outcasts, condemned by the establishment and forced to survive on our wits, cake and nice comments left by alluring strangers. For the papers are at it again, only this time they've got it in for Twitter.

You can barely pick up a newspaper these days without seeing some columnist or other ranting about how people who use Twitter are socially-maladroit saddos with empty lives, who do nothing but spout tedious drivel in tedious messages of 140 characters or fewer, which are read by no one at all, or at least no one who's remotely interested.

First, I wondered if this kind of pattern has actually been going on since Caveman Urgh berated Caveman Blurgh and Caveman Wurgh for making tedious cave paintings about their tedious little animal-chasing lives that no one except their mums was ever going to look at or be remotely interested in.

Then I thought that instead I would make it all a bit more fun by inventing a game of Twitter Article Bingo.

Next time you see some Janet Street-Porter type spouting off about Twitter in the national press, you can amuse yourself by seeing how many points you can score from this list:

Twitter Article Bingo

1. Article mentions the following individuals:

Stephen Fry (1 point) [add 1 if it mentions S. Fry getting stuck in lift]
Jonathan Ross (1 point)
Barack Obama (1 point)
Britney Spears (2 points)
Lily Allen (1 point)

2. Article contains the phrase '140 characters or less' in a manner that suggests that any message of this brevity must be devoid of merit (2 points) [1 point off for good behaviour if it says '140 characters or fewer'.]

3. Article hilariously refers to Twitterers as 'twits' (5 points)

4. Article says that the point of Twitter is to answer the question 'What are you doing?' in a manner that suggests that no answer to this question can possibly be in any way interesting or enlightening (2 points)

5. Article quotes an eminent psychologist making unfavourable pronouncements about the mental state of anyone who uses Twitter (5 points) [add an extra 5 points if it's obvious the psychologist in question has never been near Twitter and has no real idea what it is.]

6. Article suggests that the only reason people join Twitter is to 'follow' celebrities (3 points)

7. Article claims that no one on Twitter has anything interesting to say, not even Stephen Fry (2 points)

8. Article makes one or more attempts to coin hilarious new word by replacing the first letter of any existing word with 'tw' (one point per rubbish neologism)

9. Article concludes that Twitter is incontrovertible proof that entire world is going to dogs (5 points)

10. Writer of article appears unable to recognise that if Twitter really was that dull, they wouldn't be writing yet another big article about it (5 points)

NEXT WEEK: Janet Street-Porter hails Twitter as the future of journalism.


UPDATE: Good work, Hadley Freeman!

Let The Pamphleteering Commence!

It's only taken seven years and several sleepless nights of paranoid agony right at the end, but I've finally taken the plunge and written something under my real name.

(Which isn't actually my real name at all, but let's not go into that now. Also I have written loads of stuff under my real name before, I used to have a whole blog written under my real name, or one of them, so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I've been up since 5am and I'm very tired, so if I'm making any sense at all it's a bonus.)

Anyway, you can find it here in The Pamphleteer, LC's marvellously titled new blogzine, to which he has kindly allowed me to contribute. It also features articles by notable bloggers Tim Footman, Great She Elephant and LC himself.

More will follow. And if you're a blogger and would like to contribute, and if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can get in touch with LC. (Clue: you can probably find him here.)

Cryptid Corner: The Beast Of Falmouth

The whole of the greater Falmouth and Penryn area is abuzz with the news that a mysterious animal has been spotted on the coastal path between Maenporth and Swanpool beaches.

The beast was spotted by 23 year old Sam Bradbury, who had the presence of mind to go home and make a frankly excellent drawing of the mystery creature:


Speculation about the animal's identity is almost rife. Richard Freeman from Exeter thinks it could be an aye-aye or a spring hare, escaped from a private collection. Falmouth Packet reporter Emma Goodfellow, clearly not letting facts, the evidence presented in the above sketch or common sense get in the way of the Packet's best story of the year so far, suggests that it might be a lion or a kangaroo.


Yet despite the paper calling on the local community to identify the animal once and for all, it seems that so far no one has managed to solve the mystery.

Fortunately, past experience has made me something of an expert in cryptozoology, and over the years I have built up an extensive library of arcane literature on the subject. While gazing absent-mindedly at Sam Bradbury's drawing, it suddenly struck me that I'd seen something very like it before, in one of the books in my collection.

Fired with the thrill of intellectual pursuit, I made a cup of peppermint tea, repaired to the library and began rifling through the dusty, leather-bound tomes.

It wasn't in any of those, though, so I turned my attention to more recent works.

It wasn't long before I found what I'd been looking for: a series of rough anatomical sketches bearing a striking resemblance to the creature in Sam's drawing:


Setting stylistic differences aside, the illustration at the top left-hand side of the page clearly depicts the creature adopting the same hind-legged stance that Sam so memorably describes. Combined with the uncannily similar references to a bushy (or 'fluffy') tail, I think we can quite safely conclude that the Beast of Falmouth and the beast described in this book are of one and the same species.


It seems that John Meek, animal collections manager at Newquay Zoo, wasn't far from the truth when he gave his expert opinion to the West Briton newspaper: "It doesn't look like anything I have ever seen. The closest thing is a wallaby, although that does not have a cat's face."

Indeed it doesn't, John, indeed it doesn't.


NEXT WEEK: Legendary Owlman of Mawnan 'probably just a big owl'.


UPDATE: Occasional Poster of Comments points out that Sam has a history of inventing bizarre animals, including these ones (more here):


Never trust anything you read in a town full of art students.

I Can Tie A Knot In A Cherry Stem, I Can Tell You About Leif Erikson

What with Obama getting in and closing down Guantanamo Bay, and now GlaxoSmithKline saying it's going to slash the price of drugs to poor countries and fund their hospitals and clinics, my favourite song of last year is already looking like a historical document from a nastier, more brutal time:



And long may it continue to do so.


UPDATE: Many, many congratulations to Stef and Wifey on the arrival of Baby Peanut. I'm sure Baby PEANUT will be delighted to know he has a namesake!

Mothers: Know Your Place

Rachel Cooke has written a 2,000 word article in today's Observer Woman magazine about how boring it is when middle-class mums start telling her about their kids.

Rachel doesn't want kids, you see, and so she finds it boring when other people try to tell her about theirs.

Rachel thinks that people should be more sensitive to her feelings, and not engage her in conversation about things she finds boring.

Rachel would prefer it if you could talk to her about "books, or Michelle Obama, or Mad Men".

OK Rachel, I will talk to you about Mad Men. Mad Men is a television programme that portrays (among other things) misogyny and sexism in 1960s New York. In Mad Men, men lark about drinking whisky and copping off with their secretaries, while mothers are confined to the home, where they are neither seen nor heard.

I can see why this programme has struck a chord with you, Rachel, because you also seem to be quite keen on the idea that mothers should be confined to the home and neither seen nor heard.

According to you, not only should mothers not talk to you about their kids (which is fair enough), but they shouldn't talk to each other about their kids, either:

The other morning, while I was thinking about writing this piece, I logged on to one of the dozens of websites now devoted to all things baby-related. The discussion subject of the day - email us! - was the funny ways kids mispronounce words. Really. To which I say: new mothers, by all means, tell your own parents, or a close friend, about how your son said the word "bottle" and made it sound like "bottom". But don't be incontinent. Don't tell the entire world. Telling the entire world will make people, and not without reason, think that you have lost your mind.

Mothers: know your place. No matter how lonely or bored you get at home, do not seek out the company of other mothers on the internet. Do not ever discuss your baby's foibles, not even in an internet forum designed exclusively for mothers. Do not make friends with other mothers on the internet, not even if you don't know any other mothers in your real life. Not even if your own mother is no longer there to talk to about baby things. Not even if you use a pseudonym to hide your terrible shame.

Because Rachel Cooke might log on to Mumsnet and read what you say. And Rachel Cooke might find it boring, because Rachel Cooke doesn't want a baby.

But you don't hear her telling the entire world about it.

Obligatory Snow Picture

Apparently it hasn't snowed this much in Cornwall for a long time. It's even snowing in the Isles of Scilly, for the first time in 22 years. Here's a photo of a snow-covered palm tree in our back garden:


UPDATE: The enveloping snow has not, however, dimmed the enthusiasm of the good ladies of the Network Cornwall mailing list, whose latest offering is thus:

MESSAGES FROM THE ANGELS ONLY £10 FOR A FULL DAY

HI GIRLS

i WILL BE DOING A JOYSHOP WITH THE ANGELIC REALMS AT CARNON DOWNS VILAGE HALL ON 15TH fEBUARY

PLEASE FIND ATTACHMENT BELOW WITH THE INFO

AND PLEASE PASS ON TO ANYONE YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED

lOVE AND BLESSINGS

G********* XX

I've been trying to think of a Plan B, should the recession take its toll on my copywriting business. I was thinking of buying a van and selling old tat on eBay, like I did during the post-dotcom bust, but now I think I might do better business selling dream interpretations from the bench outside the old fire station.

Journey To Meet Your Power Animal

I'm beginning to think the Network Cornwall mailing list needs its own blog. Today's choice offering:

Shamanic Sounds Workshop

Journey to meet your power animal. Experience the power of healing sound with drum, voice and rattle and learn Mongolian Overtone Singing.

A one day workshop teaching the basics of Shamanic Journeying and some powerful sound healing techniques.

With warmest wishes and Happy 2009

V** S****
Voice Facilitator/ Sound Healer/ Shamanic Healer/ Reiki Master-Teacher/ Shiatsu Practitioner

Normal service will be resumed just as soon as I can think of something to blog about. Twitter chums will already have an inkling of the depths to which I am about to sink...

The Contracting World Atmosphere

More from the Network Cornwall mailing list. I'm at a loss to understand what's being recommended here, unless it's some sort of belly button fluff alchemy:

"Releasing, revealing and restorative - just had the first of a few sessions with M****** D***** at Marazion (magic mix of therapies). Priceless and expansive! I was very tempted not to indulge in this, given the apparently contracting world atmosphere. But the dross that turned into gold by putting myself and body on the receiving end means it's already paid for itself."

In other news, my stats tell me that someone who works for DaimlerChrysler has been researching machine guns on the internet. I wonder if they're planning bloody revenge for this.