Hmm. Halloween. Better go and say happy birthday to the woman in the UCL Residence office.
Thursday 1.11.01
The descent into chaos has started - the UCL President's Cup is on Saturday and Michelle and I are...somewhere approaching ready I guess. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it's a debating competition for novices which we run every year. For those of you who've just surfed on on linking from Matt Williams' amusing comment on Delphi, hello to you (how the fuck he got hold of my URL I am still working on, but believe me I'll get there. Looking foward to seeing you on Saturday...)
On a different point and one which will only make sense if you actually know me, I am getting increasingly paranoid as lots of random people have come on to me in various fashions in the last few days. There was the sweet Italian girl in halls who told me I was beautiful at breakfast on Monday morning (had just been to the gym - need I say more?), my manager at work who told me today she's been dreaming about me (fuuuuuuck!), the other sweet girl who kept man-handling last night (and even Michelle said I have looked a LOT better than I did yesterday, trust me I looked rough) and the reliable information gleaned from Jo that I get lots of looks when I walk through London (no doubt he was glaring at them back :-)). So either I have oddly become good-looking in the last few days or everyone has gone blind, triffid-style. I think the latter is much more likely.
Monday 5.11.01
After the successes and exhaustions of this weekend's debating competition, I decided last night to throw together a dish I meant to make about two weeks ago for my hall's International Night, but didn't quite get round to. So here below is how the
evening went, just because any other form of description just doesn't do it justice.
About three weeks ago: Decide to make pala csinta (rough translation: cake made out of pancakes, very popular in Hungary.) About two weeks ago: Purchase ingredients, including ready-made pancakes from Sainsburys - thought that making the pancakes as well was pushing it a bit. Put pancakes in freezer for no apparent reason.
Yesterday about 12.00: Decide to make pancake cake. Take pancakes out, put in fridge. 17.00: Get pancakes out, still frozen. Decide to sod it and make dish anyway. 17.10: Get other stuff together, including big dish to put final creation in. Realise have no scales or other measuring device. Decide to guess amounts. 17.13: Claire and Sarah come in to supervise my work, laughing at the receipe my mother sent, specifically the 'bring to boil - notice bubbles' instruction. 17.15: Open first pack of pancakes. Still frozen. Find pancakes are square. Swear at pancakes and sodding Sainsburys for making stupid-shaped dessert. 17.16: Remember that pancakes have maple syrup already in, which would clash with my receipe. Scrape out. Drop on shoe. 17.20: Pancakes now lying on plate. Pick up first one with a view to spreading with cocoa and stuff. Pancake falls apart in hands. Grit teeth, laugh. Remember why I hate cooking. 17.21: Attempt same with pancake number two. Successfully negotiate into dish after mistakenly tearing in half, but realise by this stage am beyond caring. Chuck raisins on, cocoa, blah blah blah. 17.40: Pancakes prepared - look like they have been put together by someone with no arms, but aside from that, feel proud of creation. Decide that everything will be OK when sauce it made. 17.43: Sauce coming on nicely - mixture of custard powder and milk. Notice stern maternal warning not to let milk curdle. Ask passing housemate how the hell this is done. 17.45: Decide to ignore mum's instructions; I mean who the fuck boils milk anyway? 17.45 30 seconds:Fling in what I hope is 200g raisins plus 100g sugar. Or was that 200g? 17.46: Shit, shit, shit. Raisins and sugar immediately dive-bomb to bottom of saucepan, and will not be aroused by any amount of stirring. Using wooden spoon a little too liberally, slop a good quarter of the mixture onto shirt. 17.48: Consider phoning mum. 17.49: Consider phoning 999. 17.50: Consider chucking whole thing in bin. Look at watch, panic about time. 10 minutes to go. Take mixture off heat, pour onto pancakes. 17.52: Whole thing looks like, well, shit. Perform lightning-speed cleanup. 18.00-19.00: Attend course-thing I promised to go to, while cake sits in my room. 19.00: Sieze pudding, put in oven (mum's instructions suddenly become a lot less helpful: 'Cook in hot-ish oven for around 20mins, but longer if necessary') and try not to think about what will emerge. 19.25: After triumph of self-cooked curry (OK, OK, bought the sauce - did the chicken and the rice, anyway, and I'm still breathing now), extract cake from oven. 19.30: Surprisingly good, despite looking like culinary equivalent of WW3. 19.40: Fr. Jeremy walks in, asks if I have attempted to replicate something out of Alien. Only now realise that I am triumphant. All evening: Housemates tenatively try creation. Avril and Claire laugh themselves silly when they see it. Then decide it is quite nice. Michelle just looks worried, but seems to like it. 20:00 Clean up. Decide to stick to microwave meals.
Tuesday 6.11.01
Right, now I have dealt with Sunday night's cooking chaos, I can actually get round to talking about the President's Cup compeition. Those of you who have just surfed in from Michelle's blog will know that this is the only debating compeition in the country for novices, so I won't bore you and repeat it again. Anyway, I thought it went damn well. Not perfectly, but then I think if everything had, it wouldn't have been a true representation of the style of UCL Debating (in that most things are thrown together at a few minutes' notice.) Michelle seems to be singing my praises on her blog today, and normally this wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but I do need to just clarify that most (if not all) of Saturday's organisational blunders were completely my fault, and therefore the fact that I got plenty of exercise
running round the building doesn't bother me in the slightest; especially since my diet that day consisted of two weetabix, one McDonalds and one KFC meal. Hmm.
So like I was saying, it went damn well, with a few minor crises. Just little things like, oh well, I failed to spot that two of the rooms we had booked with the unstable woman in the room bookings office didn't exist, I didn't buy enough water, forcing Russ to go out and stagger back from Budgens with about
30 litres' worth (which I think I will be eternally grateful for - thank you, thank you, Russ) of the stuff, lots of other random things like that. But all in all, I thought it went very well.
On a completely different note, my Hobbit name (link a la Michelle) is Milo Bracegirdle of Hardbottle. Now, I think this is quite cool, but I rather think it would sound better as 'Dr. Milo Bracegirdle of Hardbottle.' Yes. I think I had better start working on that thesis I've been promising myself to do...
