A world of wonder and enchantment and adventure and end of year financial statements

This whole idea of books as escapism strikes me as being entirely conventional. What if you were an unimportant and a boring person who managed a box factory who read a Company Accountancy book to escape into a world of wonder and enchantment and adventure and end of year financial statements? They just don't get a look in, do they?

Completely sincere feminist love poem #2

O strong-willed and independent womyn
Whose blood pulse is the pulse of the seasons,
Whose mind is the mind of Gaia,
Who runs with the wolves of the night while the ancients chant hymns by the tribal fire,
Natural, nurturing,
Peaceful, fructiferous,
Yet at the same time fierce and liberated with opinions about equal pay and underwear,
Does the sun say to the moon, "Let us dance"?
Does the seed say to the earth, "Let us sing"?
Does the inevitable hegemonising nature of perception irrevocably alter the supposedly natural social contexts in the space-time dimension?
I guess what I am saying is,
Would you go out with me?

Drinking months of the year

The committed alcoholic will of course already have his days full, but the rest of us may need a little encouragement. To that end, I have drawn up this helpful list of drinking months:

Jagermeister January
VBuary
Schwarz March
Grape April
Mead May
June-and-Tonic
Dry White July
Amber August
Siptember
Hocktober
Merlotvember
Brandycember

I have even devised an extra month to accommodate any accompanying headaches:

Allhungovertober

You're welcome.

Prepare to have your consciousness lifted, kids! It's the social issues karate show!

GET READY

(A demure older woman dressed for work enters a busy inner-city office where all the team are gathered around for a meeting)

OLDER WOMAN: Hello!

BOSS: As I was saying...

OOH YOU'LL BE SCARED

BOSS: So, any suggestions anyone?

OLDER WOMAN: Yes, actually...

BOSS: Good. So, now, moving on....

IT'S OLDER WOMAN NINJA

OLDER WOMAN: How about...

POW!

OLDER WOMAN: Here's an idea!

ZAP! 

OLDER WOMAN: We might like to discuss...

HOW DOES SHE AVOID BEING SEEN BY HER ENEMIES? 

OLDER WOMAN: Or what about...

ANOTHER BRILLIANT VICTORY FOR OLDER WOMAN NINJA

OLDER WOMAN: Oh, that's all right.

APPROXIMATELY 70 PER CENT OF EVIL SUPERVILLAINS ARE FOILED BY OLDER WOMAN NINJAS. 

STAY TUNED, BECAUSE LATER IN THE PROGRAM....

SOOKY LALA: Ooh you're being racist against homophobes by not screening this footage!

POLITICAL BIAS NINJA! THE LEAST INTERESTING NINJA OF THEM ALL!

A completely sincere feminist love poem #1

You're just a boi

I'm just a grrrrrrrrrrl

This is just a big pink box of chocolates with a picture of a puppy on it wrapped in a spotty ribbon with a love-heart-shaped card pasted on to it with with glitter-coated golden stars

Now I must hrrrrrrrrrl.

GET WARMTH AND COMFORT WITH TIM

Passing by a heating store last night in the cold winter night I noticed they mostly seemed to specialise in those silly videos of log fire stoves rather than actual log fire stoves. You know the ones; cheap restaurants occasionally have them, a five or six second image of severally cheerfully blazing stumps of wood, looping back on itself, often levitating incongruously over the top of the room (rather than on the floor, as a good log fire ought to do).

I mean, is that all? If they're selling videos of log fires, what about a video of a generic cat and a generic dog settling down together in a homely and happy manner in front of this blazing log fire? If any old sensation approximating the actual sensation of sitting down in front of a blazing log fire would do, how about a little cabinet charged with dispensing the pleasant odour of wood fire around the room? Maybe even (the luxury service) a specially-employed butler who blows this smell out through a little pipe? And for those not satisfied with just this, perhaps a video of a log fire would not suffice - maybe a video of a house fire, or a modest burning-down of a public monument, would be thought more warming and pleasant (let's call it the Pyromaniac's Package).

Though, I must admit, last night my thoughts went in a more modest direction: a slip of paper with the warming and comforting words 'WARMTH AND COMFORT' warmly and comfortingly printed on it, providing the reader with the same sense of warmth and comfort they would get when sitting in front of an actual log fire, only slightly less.

It is rather cold tonight. I think I might print them out for myself. WARMTH AND COMFORT. Ahhhhhh, that's better.

A winter poem

The blanket heaves and billows

With self-fomented storms.

The smell gets in the pillows,

But at least it warms.

Dissimiles

As sharp as a button.
As flat as a tack.
As clean as a baby's bottom.
As light as a featherweight boxer.
As clever as a sausage.
As happy as Barry.
As quick as clockwork.
As old as a whip.
As regular as a Mallee bull.

Putting the pre into sumptuous

We've covered, or should I say, eaten a lot of subjects here at WillTypeForFood over the years. Are Arnott's Nice biscuits really, as they claim to be, nice? What tastes better: the holes in cinnamon donuts, or the holes in Swiss cheese? And what foods really constitute a 'well rounded diet'?

Now the time has come for us to discuss another topic: just how 'delicious' is lemon delicious pudding really? Could it be that the name 'delicious' is actually misleading, and the pudding is merely quite tasty?

Over the years, I have cooked many lemon 'so-called delicious' puddings. They were, indeed, highly enjoyable. The presence of 'lemon' in the recipe was undeniable; no-one could belie the actuality of their puddingness. But were they truly 'delicious'? Just what is 'delicious', anyway? Who can say, in this subjective world in which all personal judgments as to flavour and taste ought to be highly qualified by the acknowledgment that they come from a person whose observations may be affected by an innumerable variety of environmental causes, what 'delicious' really means*?

It may, indeed, be time for the people who make up the rules about the naming of food stuffs (whoever they may be) to consider a name change:

Lemon all right I guess pudding
Lemon quite pleasing pudding
Lemon tasty if that's your thing pudding
Lemon not entirely inoffensive to an educated palate pudding
Lemon thing that also happens to be a pudding pudding
This blob wot I cooked here
Lemon suspicious pudding
Lemon possibly delicious pudding (or, 'lemon possibly')
Pudding (or, 'this pudding', or, 'this damn pudding').

I'll write to the authors of the dictionary and inform them of my decision shortly.

*That sentence came out almost all at once, and I still have no idea what it means. I'm quite proud of it.

On cup nursing, beard stroking, and other important moments in civilisation

An essential moment in the ritual of service in any cafe, bar, club, or pub is that moment after which the patron has finished their drink and falls to nursing their glass or cup. If they have just consumed a beer, they will lovingly, if absent-mindedly, shift the glass from one part of the table to another. They will angle it to their mouth to consume the last, golden drops. Or they will grasp at it possessively in the midst of a conversation when the figure of a patron looms, ready to whisk the glass away. If they have just had a tea or coffee or hot chocolate, they may run their spoon around the rim, catching the last evanescent, delicious drops of froth. They will clasp the cup to their chest, folding themselves in its warm embrace. This moment, of cup embracing, of glass nursing, is stimulative of all manner of deep philosophical thinkings and artistic inspirations, and is crucial to the survival of civilisation in this changing modern world, and any wretched bar or cafe that ignore the deep significance and importance of the ritual being undertaken by the nurser is not worth the patronage.

Similarly, an essential moment in the ritual of reading any book, magazine, zine, or blog post is that moment after which the reader has finished reading and sits back, stroking their beard, and thoughtfully pronouncing, "Hmm". This moment, too, is stimulative of all manner of deep philosophical thinking and artistic inspiration, and is crucial to the survival of civilisation in the changing modern world, etc, etc, etc. Of course, not all blog readers will have a beard on their own faces, but it will merely suffice for them to find someone else with a beard, which they can then stroke and thoughtfully pronounce "Hmm" at leisure. It is well known that, if they do go to the trouble of stroking someone else's beard, they will have good luck for ten years.

I'll let you all do that now at your leisure.

Wherein I implore our cat to come inside

Of all the futile things in the world, the very definition of futility would seem to be provided by a cat, sitting outside the open back door on a cold winter's night, clearly wanting to be inside, but waiting for the owner, sitting on the other side of the open back door, to proffer her a treat. The owner is cold. The cat is cold. The cat is hungry. The cat biscuits are sitting in a bowl just behind the owner. And yet nobody moves.

Can life get any more futile than this?

Somewhat-badly-timed Sunday essay

For today's edition of the somewhat-badly-timed Sunday essay, I would like to present the thoughts of Sir Winston Anticleugh Carruthers on the difference between men and women. 

The difference between men and women

The more I think about the difference between men and women, the more I realise the truth in the old adage: a man needs a horse like a woman needs a fish on a bicycle. Just what men are doing with horses and women with bicycling fish is quite beside the point, whatever that point may be. Men and women are as different as two peas in a pod, and it is our differences that really make us the same, as differences frequently do.

Men! Women! What are they really? I knew a woman once, but that didn't last. However, in the brief time that we met, I remarked to her that men are about as useful to bulls as a kangaroo loose with a six pack, and she acknowledged the truth of my observation. Alas, the brief time of our attachment soon drew to a close, and she went back to training her fish to ride on a bicycle.

It all goes to show, it's a long way to Rome that bodes no good in a month of Sundays.