Experimental sheldon biscuits

Eliza acton has a recipe for Threadneedle Street Biscuits. I was intrigued. I have been getting into biscuit baking recently so thought i would try it.
Its a large recipe so i cut it in half to a pound of flour 1.5 oz butter 2oz sugar. I used icing sugar and also a tablespoon of cornflour. Then a half teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Rub in yhe fat till it disappears. Then add about half a pint of milk to make a stiff dough and beat the crap out of it. Stiff is the word. Its like pastry. My joints being what they are my trusty kenwood and its dough hook did the work.
Then roll it out biscuit thick. I cut into sheldon shapes.
I also rang the changes by coating some in sugar and adding carraway seeds to others.
Started off in a low oven 140c. After an hour turned up to 150c. Cooking seems to be a process of drying out they crisp up slow but Eliza says crisp all over. The sugary ones seem to crisp quicker.

So in the end how are they?

Hmm. Interesting. V crisp. Rather like a bath oliver but sweet. I think this might be the grandparent of the rich tea. Definitely prefer with sugar or carraway though.

Towards evidence based biscuits.

I am keeping busy. Stopping and thinking is bad mmkay.
So naturally I thought of Eliza Acton.

You may not know the name but you should. Think of recipes...where you have a list of ingredients and times? She invented that. Modern cookery for private families, her chef d'ouevre, was the first cookery book aimed at norms not pros. It also had the first revipe in English for Brussels Sprouts.
Now that alone should get this mother of xmas flatulence a mention. Mrs Beeton came later and robbed Eliza blind.
Now Eliza always tested her own recipes, which Beeton never did. Plus she ran a girls school a mile from my house. So cookery, farts and schoolgirls. What more could one want.
I am fond of many of her recipes. I find her xmas pud way better than the modern ones. But sometimes you need to play with the recipes to see the intent.
Today we are trying her recipe for "a good scottish shortbread" and then her enigmatic threadneedle biscuits which will form part of a later post.
Hoping you can make out the recipe. Pound of flour 9 oz butter 2oz sugar 1oz candied citron basically put dry things together and...this bit is weird.
You melt the butter and squdge it in. Normally the recipes say rub in butter but dont handle too much. This is waaay easier.
Then you squdge it into molds.
Moderate oven is about 160c
She says 20 mins but use your fingers. Like men they should be hard everywhere you touch.
Foal describes the result as yummy. I agree. I recommend sprinkling with demarara sugar before baking as victorian tastes seem to have been less sweet.

Perfect Day...

I am in a bad place as you may have guessed. My expressive and sensitive friend has done a piece about opiates so it feels appropriate to share that amongst my other issues I am coming off tramadol.
I started this 2 days ago and have been slowly washing out.
The reasons are very personal. I am getting some additional pain cover and a cushion from the withdrawal from extra pregabalin. But its not good.
Trainspotting is a good resource on opiates dark side. For me the best scene is when Renton overdoses. He sinks into the carpet while Lou Reed sings perfect day.  That carpet is real. Taking an opiate is like sinking into a big warm shagpile carpet or lounging on a sheepskin rug in front of a fire. Withdrawal is the opposite.
I got the twitches first. Like having too much caffeine.  Jumping all the time.  Then the pain. New pain in odd places.
Today I am drained and faint.

I wanted this post to be longer and more poetic. But a big carpet just spit me out into the cold while Lou Reed sings backwards.

The Scientific Afterlife

I suppose that many scientists do not think of posterity much when they do their work.  in my experience generally you think of the problem in front of you, the bureaucracy around you and beer.

But in a way the output of your career, those papers you fought to get published, are your gift to the ages.  that is why Researchgate and similar H-indexing type sites focus on telling you who is citing you.

Researchgate is like a propellerheads-only version of facebook.  If you don't log on for a week or so it emails you with lots of things you could find out about if only you logged on.  For all I know ( I dont pay much attention to these things, I am a marketers worst nightmare) it is full of targetted ads for designer labcoats and Igor cages.

Anyway one disturbing thing about researchgate is its ability to raise the dead.

A collaborator of mine died last year.  A wonderfully kind and generous man called Soo-Ik Chang, he died suddenly leaving a young family.  I really think the Korean science community has lost a majr asset.

Anyway such is the time delay factor in science that he is still publishing.  People are finishing papers with him on as an author and publishing them.  We are too.

So this mornings email from researchgate was a bit upsetting.  It featured a picture of Soo-Ik, smiling like always, telling me he had cited my work.  Strange how these things work out.

Got a little black book with my poems in.

Thi pist was written in late february. Mrsinky originally asked me not to post it. I think now it is appropriate. 

This post contains lyrics I didn't write.  I hope the authors will understand my usage of them.  It comes from profound appreciation.

Roger Waters is a prophet, a genius and a symptom.

I mean sure there are bands that sound more miserable than vintage Floyd.  The Smiths come to mind ( never could stand them.  I studied in Salford, everyone had their photo taken outside the lads club. but gah). Leonard Cohen on a good day could sound more depressing I suppose although actually his poems ( I dont think of them as songs ) have a rare and fragile beauty. Anyone in a distance relationship will find
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, 
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, 
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, 
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, 
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, 
your eyes are soft with sorrow, 
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
something enormously descriptive of the process. Cohen's work is often covered by others but they tend to leave out the tough bits. Chelsea Hotel with it's killer line "we are ugly but we got the music" is simply beautiful. I am certain that Janis would approve.  People like Radiohead are novices by comparison although I do think Airbag conveys the feeling of depression well.

Like many people my age Pink Floyd was a huge part of my young life. It started, typically, with The Wall.  The Wall is arguably the best concept album ever produced.  And also the worst represented in terms of singles.  Everyone remembers it for "we don't need no education" aka Another brick n the Wall and yes, I have to say that was my introduction.  But then buying the album they would find, instead of the expected anti school songs that the whole thing was the story of a man in a job that took him away from home and forced him to perform in front of others (rock star in this case).  He had an absent father (dead) an overbearing mother, very poor relationships with others.  He becomes isolated from people, then reality.  His wife starts seeing someone else (it is unclear if this is real or a paranoid fear) and he completely cuts himself off from reality, building a "wall" between himself and others, which finally collapses.  Im not certain if the official interpretation of the collapse being a good thing is valid.

In terms of background my Dad was absent a lot ( not dead just working away) my Mum is...erm...forceful I have a job that requires me to travel and perform (any lecturer who isn't a performer is bad at it) ....you see why he is a prophet?

For those unused to concept albums/rock operas this sounds strange.  I urge you to give it a go. start at the beginning and work through.

Anyway I can say that I probably know every Floyd lyric from every album after ummagumma.  But as tweeted by @bengoldacre recently song lyrics can reveal your subconscious thoughts.  Recently I have found myself singing and playing "Nobody Home"
on the guitar.  And that piano intro is very hard to do.

Since xmas things have been bad. To understand why you have to go back a bit.  Also I am going to disregard the influence my EDS and medication has on this situation, so you have to add that in for fairness.  Also remember this is written from my point of view and so even though I am trying to be fair it must be remembered there is another side.

I got a job in Zurich.  On paper it is one of the best jobs I ever had and at first it was.  Before I took it Mrsinky agreed she would find a job in Zurich and we would transplant.  For one reason or another, not least the financial crash hitting Switzerland and their closing down the borders, Mrsinky hasn't been able to find a job there so we live apart.  At first I commuted every other weekend, flying back on the 7 am flight Monday morning which got me in to Z town work building at 10.30am  On a Friday I would have to leave at 3pm.

My working day is normally long.  Although as I may have stated before I struggle to get in in the mornings I work until late in the evening and call in at weekends so I more than cover the hours.  However my boss really resented the commute weekends.  It felt like he would deliberately schedule meetings when I wasn't there then blame me for not being there.  this is what it felt like, it may or may not be true.  So I ended up going home for one weekend a month.

Mrsinky doesn't cope well with people leaving.  See Leonard Cohen above.  When I got home she would turn on the tv, watch Hollyoaks on the Sky+ and ignore me.  Then when we got to bed turn her back and fall asleep.  She felt she had to reconnect with me, as I was a strange irritant in her home.  When you have 2 days together there's not much reconnecting.  All the way home I would be longing to see her, and yes, I am a bloke, touch her.  Then when I got home I couldn't.  I cannot blame her for this, it is not fair to do so.  I can see her point.  I can also see my behaviour was bad because even if you have been doing nothing but look forward to seeing someone for a week, counting the sleeps, not wanking in anticipation etc. it is wrong to impose your feelings on another.

Anyway after xmas I found that I was increasingly in the position of the guy in the song. Calls, texts and emails were not returned, either through bad luck or happenstance.  My world began to fall apart.

I have to apologise to Mrsinky for sharing this stuff, and I hope I am being fair to her.  I am trying to say what my perception was and to be fair.  I am sorry my darling.  I love you so much. If I don't connect with someone, even these imaginary people, I cannot go on. Please understand.

Anyway for the first time in my Marriage I didn't feel like she was there.  In the back of my head I always had her there with me, wherever I was.  I don't know if I ever told you that sweetheart? I always knew you were there. Now she was gone.  So  was my anchor to reality.

Oddly from a work perspective it began to look better.  Things from my cavernous Moebius To-Do list began to be done.  But this was not a good thing.  I was clearing my desk.  I began looking up LD50 data on all the lab chemicals to see how much I would need to take to be certain of death.  I stashed some polythene sheeting in my cupboard to spread on the floor under my corpse so that the mess would be contained if the poison made me shit myself.  I worked out which day to do it on so the cleaner found me, not my colleagues.  This may seem rough but frankly she is a cow.  I got down to two items on the list when a row errupted with my boss over funding, we had a meeting and then he basically ordered me home to talk to Mrsinky.

At first we did not talk at all.  My Valentines gifts sat unopened on the table. By the Wednesday ( I flew home Friday night) I was sat on the couch as per the Dalek post, fighting the suicidal ideation.  I was too scared to move.  The truth is that I need her.  Only time will tell if I get to keep her but I need her.  Without her my world stops.

Mrsinky and I have started talking.  It hasn't been helped by the GP giving me some news that has completely removed any basis for my identity.  I spent 2 days unable to be in the same room as mrsinky or to talk. I have eaten 3 chocolates (Sprungli, shoot me.) a yoghurt and a pot noodle since Monday. I am going to the gym, picking machines without mirrors near so I dont have to look at myself and exercising till I feel faint and sick. I am punishing myself.  I still have to keep doing things.  Hence the loser length blog post.  When I stop the images of ropes and knives and pills come back and my world crumbles again.  This time it is worse.  Losing mrsinky made my world stop.  This has removed any chance of a world again, has removed me. I do not know what the future holds because I cannot imagine one.  I cannot live with this.
That is the closest I can get to talking about it.  And that just made me vomit into my latte glass in Costa.

Anyway, I urge you to listen to the Wall, even if only out of curiosity.  After all it does contain the two finest guitar solos of all time.

KJV

My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.

5 Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.

6 And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for thenwould I fly away, and be at rest.

7 Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah.

8 I would hasten my escape from the windy stormand tempest.

Rearranging the deckchairs.

Today has been so epically shit already that I am hiding out in public places so as to avoid suicide.  There arent words.
However I am doing displacement activity quite nicely.
So here goes. I hate the Daily Mail. It is, in my opinion, a vile hate filled rag. It has not changed much since it was boldly supporting the British Fascist Movement and backing the wrong Mitford sister.
One of it's current idees fixes is that many things cause or cure cancer. This delightful blog has preserved this vital information for Science.
I am heartened by such dedication.