More pumpkin

Nicola has been making pumpkin muffins, biscuits, pie and more soup. Todays soup was curried pumpkin soup and was really nice.

Nicola has collated her recipes from a number of websites. Her favourites were The Pumpkin Patch and Pumpkin Nook. Pumpkins And More, and the pumpkin section of the PastryWiz archive also have some recipes.

It’s nearly safe to come out…

Thankfully the subject of the Conservative leadership is rapidly becoming moot. My concern is the same as over questions of deception over Iraq; that people will be taken in with a re-arranging of the furniture.

All the Conservative MPs appear to have fallen into line, each potential contender agreeing in turn to back one candidate. I’m unsure as to what this to achieve, all this talk of how the newly crowned King Michael of Conservative Party is so wonderful strong and moderate, and will lead them to new heights. Perhaps I’m not exactly the sort of person that will be turned on by Michael Howard, but I don’t see how he’ll make them any more attractive to the general public than IDS. Perhaps it’s the old media paradigm of saying something often enough until it becomes true.

There is the question of democracy here. I’ve been in Scouting for many years, and served on several committees, so know how difficult it is to get people to stand for some positions of responsibility. Sometimes the only candidate for a post is the one person warped enough to stand, or weak enough not to bear the arm twisting. I’m not so naive as to believe that is the case here. I have seen situations where the only serious candidate has been challenged by a “joke” candidate to force people to make a choice, which is not a situation anyone would want to see in serious politics.

However there could be situations where committees have sought to pre-select their successors by doing deals behind the scene, and this “election” smacks of that. In both SAGGA and mainstream Scouting I am concerned all members should be treated equally without special privilege, so I’m not impressed with the attitudes shown towards the ordinary members of the Conservative party. Just as well I’m not a member.

Michael Howard seems to be distancing himself from some of the more extreme elements of his party claiming to be leading from the centre.* However given IDS’s comments, and comparison to my (formeToryory father-in-laws perspective, the modern Conservative party seems to have an odd idea where the centre of politics lies.

But surely no-one would forget what Michael Howard has stood for?

Who am I kidding? People do have short memories. But luckily a friend of Paul Richards (aka The Thinker) is concerned we might, in all this revisionism, forget who Michael Howard really is and Paul has posted the article to remind us.

* Actually another example of bad media paraphrasing, he was talking about the centre of his party.

It’s been said elsewhere I’m sure…

But if Michael Howard is the answer- what on earth is the question?

If any of you are haing difficulty telling one tory from another, there’s an interview in this article that should refresh your memory.

Vandalism?

This reminds me of the only time I was ever tempted to do an antisocial act. I saw a car parked on my street emblazoned with “Accident group” logos, and felt an almost irresistable urge to scawl “Parasites!” all over it.

Thankfully I didn’t. Do you dare cross a company making money out of spurious litigation?

It’s been said elsewhere I’m sure…

But if Michael Howard is the answer- what on earth is the question?

If any of you are haing difficulty telling one tory from another, there’s an interview in

this article that should refresh your memory.

Junk Mail

I usually dislike circular joke emails (because I’ve seen most of them
ten times before).

Anyway had one this morning (claiming to have originated from Peter Kay) with the following gem:

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

You think you’ve got a bad job?

Yorkshire Soul has evidence to the contrary!

The pumpkin

Halloween approaches and we’ve hollowed out the pumpkin. Unfortunately too much and the side caved in. After saving the seeds for next year, and discarding the string, we’ve got about 60lb of pumpkin flesh for Nicola to try and cook. And try she will as she’s collated 101 pumpkin recipes from all over the net. The chutney she did yesterday is lovely.

Tesco have pumpkins for sale, but they have medium sized pumpkins labeled as large and giant. What would the call our 100kg monster I wonder.

Seeing eye to eye with the enemy

I’m a bit unnerved, you see I have something in common with grass root Tory supporters.

You see I too am fed up with hearing about all these plotters preparing to take out Iain Duncan-Smith. This is just getting so tedious I want to scream.

It’s either that or that Royal butler. No don’t remind me of his name, I’m quite happy not being able to remember it thank you very much.

I almost understand all the Blane haters now, irritated at all the “blanket” press coverage of an event they couldn’t care less about.

Well now it seems they’re going to do somthing about it. Good. Someone wake me when it’s safe to keep yourself informed again.

Why can’t we take it on the chin.

I have a lot of writing to do. I think I’ll be OK apart from two points, both related funnily enough to communication. One was where someone was a little bit disigenuous in the meeting to take criticisim off her, another where we were blaming each other for a communication failure.

I’m going to have difficulty writing these bits up with an adequate degree of fairness to all parties. I’ve been a bit irritated by both; why don’t people take it on the chin? It would deflate your worse critic to say “I’m sorry, I messed up, the next person will just have to do better.”

But then, I thought some more and realised the main reason I was irritated was the spined version looks badly on me as HR person and secretary. It downgraded much of the effort I’d personally made to get information out to others, and made the weak link look like it was with me, not with them. So on the surface of it, my irritation was not with any spin, but in my own hurt pride.

I’m sure I’ve made mistakes, there were things I never got round to that I should have done with fundraising. However if you ask me about it I am usually quick to point out any mitigating circumstances, not matter how small.