The correct and proper English breakfast

the English breakfast

Instructions for the making of:

9. There are many different ways to cook eggs but most of them are purely of interest to invalids, children and the feeble-minded. The correct or ‘proper English egg’ is fried with lightly browned edges in the fat left over from the bacon. At the last minute, oil is flicked over the top of the yolk to seal it. This dangerous procedure causes the yolk to form a perfect, golden, viscid capsule, the violation of which with a rough shard of toast, is the nearest that an Englishman will permit himself to unbridled sexual ecstasy.

Via Sore Eyes.

Linky Linky

How was such a terrible environmental disaster allowed to happen? Deep Sea News has at least some answers in The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill: A Timeline. And guess what – the whole affair has Halliburton’s mucky fingerprints all over it.

Dill and Honey flavour potato chips anyone? Satay and Ginger? Frikadelle? Avocado & Lobster?

Maak de Smaak, the Cloggie version of Do Us a Flavour

If you thought Walkers crisps fans came up with some weird flavours in their “Do Us A Flavour” competition (last year’s winner, Builder’s Breakfast, allegedly tasted of bacon, eggs, sausage and baked beans) then you should see some of the suggestions in the Dutch version, Maak de Smaak. 95% of the entries can be dismissed as mere variations on that classic cloggie theme, kaas, kaas en kaas, garnalen met en beetje kaas, but there are some interesting entries, like the aforesaid Avocado & Lobster – mind you, whether the suggestions will translate into actual recognisable flavours remains to be tasted. Walker’s is still way ahead of Lay’s in the PR stakes though: their latest marketing effort is to tie new flavours to the world cup. Anyone for a bratwurst crisp?

Who says Merkins don’t get UK politics? A masterly summation of the election so far, by Stanley at Unfogged:

Let’s see. Labor and Tories are both lame-os. Brown, because, basically he’s boring, and there’s a recession about, and something about the banks, plus Britons are still smarting from the Blair decision to play wardude alongside Bush in Iraq, which was totes expensive and morally squicky at best. Cameron, because, despite being young and charismatic (not to mention riding a bike to work—did I get that part right? I remember something about a bicycle), he’s a privileged wanker.

There’s also the fact that that Cameron has (it’s not original but I can’t remember which commenter wrote it) a waxy-melty face like a Victorian doll. No really, just look:

Victorian wax boy doll

But do go on:

But! This year, they had very, very special US-style, televised debates, which, gasp!, propelled Liberal Dem Clegg into the national spotlight, and it’s possible that now, mayhaps, the Liberal Dems could win a plurality, but, no matter what, it seems no single party’s going to outright take it, so some sort of coalition of governing parties is inevitable, not to mention likely to be unstable. After all, the last time there was a comparable power-sharing agreement (in the 1970s? writing this from memory is easy, because I can seemingly make stuff up), the whole thing went in the can within six months or so.

So, lots of crazy uncertainty abounds, and no one’s really happy about the whole mess. But the queen’s position is definitely safe (for now)

Yup, that’s pretty much it.

Believe, indeed. We didn’t think the Labour Party would do such an illiberal and opressive thing as to force biometric ID cards on an unwilling populace either. But they did, because they were shit scared of being accused of being soft on immigration, just like Obama and the Dems. Now look where they are in the polls. Goodbye Gordon, Goodbye, Obama…

OMFG. This latest from Oklahoma is utterly inhumane. I’d even call it torture. From the Rude Pundit:

The Oklahoma Legislature Will Look Inside Your Daughter’s Vagina (Part of the “Your State Sucks, Too” Series):
The brutal assault on women’s rights continues in states where you’d expect there to be a brutal assault on women’s rights. This week’s yahoos are the members of the Oklahoma legislature who voted by a veto-proof majority to require pregnant women who want an abortion to get a vaginal-probe ultrasound in order to show them the fetus. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.

In other words, if you are a woman who wants a perfectly legal medical procedure in Oklahoma, you must submit to the forced insertion of an implement into you, even though that act carries medical risks (you know, perforation, infection, that kind of stuff) and serves no actual medical purpose. It’s just to be total dicks about abortion.

In otherer words, the Oklahoma legislature wants to sodomize pregnant women.

Like I said, OMFG.

Linky Goodness: Science, Scones and Squid

Discover Magazine: Off the California Coast, Giant Volcanoes Made of Asphalt

Tin-Tin In The Congo is likely to be banned in Belgium unless sold with a racism warning sticker. Quite right too.

Also sounding rather Tin-Tinesque, an insight into the odd social life of the world’s only living secular saint in The Mystery of Naomi Campbell and the Blood Diamond

But back to the benthic theme: a lovely deep sea fauna gallery, including video of the elusive oarfish (often mistaken historically for an actual sea serpent) , from the Serpent Project. NB: Piglet squid!

There’s nothing as delicious as scones with jam and cream (or better still, treacle and cream, AKA ‘thunder & lightning’) but it’s not a treat I get often; even though I was born and bred in Devon my scones are like bricks, despite my incredibly light hand with pastry and talent for cakes. But my mother’s scones were light as a feather, while her pastry was like concrete. Small wonder her pasties (the savoury kind, not the sequined nipple covers) were known in our family as ‘trainwreckers’. The scone gene got twisted somewhere. So when I saw this post – How to make the perfect scone– I was inspired to have another go. But first I have to get out of this hellhole of a hospital.

3,000 years of pre-Sumerian history left undiscovered because of husbandly misogyny

Pandering to The Pizza Base

What a political weekend.

Never was so much freeloaded by so many in New Labour’s long march to attain – and maintain – the haute-bourgeois lifestyle to which they think they should be accustomed. Never were so many acres of newsprint or miles of pixels expended in condemning it. ‘Do they think we’re stupid?’ is the general cry.

Yes, they do.

If this ASDA customer service recording is any evidence, they’re right. We are stupid. And like greedy MPs, we all expect something for nothing too:

Hello? Is that ASDA/Walmart? Can you deliver another Parliament, please? This one’s got no bottom to it.

A Little Pizza Sophistry

Headline of the day, from the Metro:

‘Cheese-snorting’ pizza staff charged

Two Domino’s Pizza staff who posted a video on YouTube showing one of them stuffing cheese up his nose and breaking wind on a piece of salami have been charged with distributing prohibited foods.

Kristy Hammonds, 31, and Michael Setzer, 32, have also been fired from the branch of the chain in North Carolina where they worked.

They could argue that’s not fair. There’s no proof they use that cheese and that salami to make pizzas afterwards, so technically they’re in the clear, despite their behaviour being disgusting to any decent person.

What do you mean, that’s a specious argument? It works for Jacqui Smith.