Alan A Dale's Gone Off The Rails!

Not The Robin Hood Stalwart, Oh No
Nothing so mundane.  No, I refer you to the episode "Qpid"*, where the omnipotent and meddlesome superbeing "Q" transforms the STTNG bridge crew into analogues of Robin and His Merry Men.  Plus a couple of Worrisome Women.  Geordie La Forge plunks tunelessly and endlessly at a mandolin, plainly having no idea what to do with it. Plunk plunk plunk.  Plink plink plink.  Plenk Plen Plenk**. Plunk plunk plunk.  Plink plink plink.  Plenk Plen Plenk. Plu -

Worf, confusing a mandolin with a drumstick

 - at which Worf (a.k.a. "Will Scarlett" - the costume is a clue) loses his temper and smashes Geordie's instrument of awful into splinters.  A great moment!

Vineland
Finally finished this on the bus to work today, and it ends more than it finishes.  Pynchon doesn't do sequels so "Bleeding Edge", set in the Nineties, must answer as the successor to this work set in the Eighties.
     And I'm really unsure about Weed Atman and Brock Vond.  At one point in the narrative - I hope this isn't going to spoil it too much for you - Weed is dead, shot at point blank range.  How then does he turn up later, quite hale and hearty? The transition for Brock is a lot more subtle and segues from helicopter crash to dying car to a trip across the river of the dead.
     Then there's Tom's rather bizarre habit of creating strange fictional films - "Young Kissenger" starring Woody Allen.  Then an un-named baseball epic starring Paul McCartney, Sidney Poitier, Sean Penn, Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson. It doesn't exist, I checked on IMDB.
     And as ever there are new words, except this time round they're anagrams.  I've already explained "WPA".  Then there were "FBN", "BNDD" and "EPT".  I'm not going to explain them, you'll have to traverse older posts***.
     It does have a kind of happy ending, Prarie Wheeler ending up meeting her mother Frenesi, step-brother Justin and stepdad Flash.

What Baked Goods Do the "National Institute for Clinical Excellence" Like?
Kind of obvious, really:

Isn't it?

     Tip o' the hat to Dom, who came up with the acronym when I put out my packet of Nice biscuits this morning, explaining that I'd only bought them as a visual pun.

The Cake I Make
Today it was the turn of the gluten-free Danish Apple Cake, which was tasty yet rather friable, tending to disintegrate under stress.  If made again I might have to use more egg and or xanthan gum, both of which act as binding agents.

In Tin

Conrad Worries Sophie
I got troubled looks from Sophie when I wore my 14 pens to work, which only came about because my shirt had two pockets.  Today she declared the below "this is a concern":

Not that serious, surely?

     Obviously pen's envy.

The Great British Bake Off
Week Six, and the herd has been thinned-out considerably.  This means that those remaining really have to bring their top game to the table^, and no mistake.  Paul Hollywood also said that guessing who'll remain is too hard as all the contestants plunge from fantastic to awful and back again.
     Signature was a Frangipani, which is a pastry base, an almond cream filling and sliced fruit decorating the top.  With two hours to go, this is actually a bit tight for time, as the pastry has to be chilled in the fridge, usually for 30 minutes.  It mustn't be over-handled or it ends up tough, and you use as little water as possible, or else it ends up tough.  You have to prick the base with a fork to remove bubbling and bake it blind to keep the shape.  
     That hoary pun "the soggy bottom" applied to Nadiya in this one.  O dearie me!

Frangipani

     Technical was a real torment, with the bakers having to make "Flaounas", a Greek dish that nobody had heard of, with flavourings that nobody had heard of, and with minimal instructions to boot.  There were some bizarre looking things presented!
     Conrad had a secret advantage as the glamourous understudy Anna made them at Easter and gave him one, which he promptly scoffed.  Although the cheese-and-sultana combination might sound odd, it's very nice in real life.  When done by someone who knows what they're doing.

Flaounas as they should be

     Showstopper was another horrid hard challenge with time management essential, as always.  Twenty four vol-au-vents, in two different flavours; the vav bring a little cylinder of puff pastry with a base that you fill with various stuff.  Puff pastry is a bind to make and Conrad would buy it rather than make it.^^  And who did the best?
     Mat!  And Wonder Wifey crowed with glee at the ghastly black apparitions that Ian produced.  Alvin did even worse, his vav's were raw on the inside.

Art would love these, they look like coal

     SPOILERS AHEAD!

     But before we go there, a short historical diversion to the Yorkshire village of Denby Dale, where they have a long tradition of making giant pies.
     The first one was quite small for a giant, only 8 feet across, and had to be buried in a field for fear of poisoning people.  Another one as big as a car got stuck being taken out of the bakery.  We then transition from 8 feet or 16 feet to pies so huge they have to be hauled on an 18-wheeler lorry and which can feed 30,000 people.


Okay, Star Baker = Mat                                                  Going Home: Alvin

Well, we've gone well over the 750 word limit (1,000 actually) , and I've split my typing time with a Thai Red Curry in the lounge watching that damnably addictive programme "Pointless", so I'm not sure if I've gone over the 60 minute limit as well.  Tee hee!  What a rock'n'roll rebel I am.
     Now for a nice cup of tea.



* A pun so bad I am jealous of it
No "Plank Plank Plank" as that would be silly.
*** Ha!
^ Yes, a mixed metaphor.  Whose blog is it?
^^ Idle yet honest.