Are we there yet?

( Things I need to do: )

Oooh, light-en-ing! And FUNDER.

I get the BBC good food email which is cheaper and more useful than buying Olive (although it took me about ten issues to work that out). Last week was the courgette special, useful at this time of year. I cooked the lasagne earlier in the week (and very nice it was too) but was intrigued by the courgette cake and decided to do some baking.

I know. I do get embarassed by this when I look at all the fantastic cooks on my friends list. Perhaps you should look away now.

I grated the courgettes in the morning and in shifts. My RSI is better but not completely cleared (have now developed tennis elbow in my left arm because I've been compensating, *sigh*). The recipe said ten minutes to prepare and fifty to cook but I was smart and doubled the prep time because I know what I'm like. Mixing flour, cocoa powder, mixed spice and salt. Fine. Mixing olive oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla essense and courgettes, not so much. I put the bowl with the eggs and oil on the scale and added the sugar straight in. It came out as a block and meant there was a splash and a scattering so me, and the scale, and the counter-top, became a bit sticky. At least it was under the weight I needed. Then the courgettes meant that the mix was a bit... traditionally built.

I folded it in to the dry ingredients, no problem, lined the cake tin and put the mix in. It was then I remembered that hazelnuts were mentioned so I tipped them in and gave it a little stir. Into the oven with you.

After about half an hour I realised that the hazelnuts should have been chopped.

After another ten minutes I stuck a knife in to see how the cake was doing. It smelled lovely but was raw inside.

I gave it ten more. Still raw.

Ten more. Still raw.

At this point I began to wonder. Although comments said that many people left it for nearer and hour than 40 minutes I'd expected it to be sticky by now at least. I rechecked the temperature. Yes, I am a muppet and I'd set the oven at the temp for a fan oven, not my normal gas oven. I raised the temperature then got involved in the sort of silly internet discussion that means you forget about your cake until you smell burning.

So: I've cut the top off and iced it. It feels fairly heavy and looks it but I'm loathe to throw it out (having spent nearly £6 on ingredients to use up three courgettes) so I'm going to take it into work. It's got chocolate on, after all, and I work with people who can't resist anything for free. Even if there's a danger of choking.

EDIT: My cake box has spices in so I've put it on a plate with carboard round and covered it in tinfoil. *I can hardly lift it*. OOOO boy.

It does NOT look like the cake illustrated here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/633634/chocolate-courgette-cake

I had fun with this last time. I'm going to publicise it far and wide. Non-LJ account holders can join but will only get the summary posts as I'll filter the rest. LJ members will go on a filter (if not on current friendslist I'll add you as long as I know you or someone I know knows you) with daily match announcements and report.

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Oh, if not on LJ you'll probably have to send me an email.. lister AT liv DOT ac DOT uk with worldcup in the subject line should make it through.

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Closest answer gets mystery Disney gift if I actually make it out.

More Balls 5 is available to download. I can print and bring copies to Eastercon (from Thursday which is the putative printer delivery date).

More Balls 5

(Balls 1-4 are all linked from http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~lister/balls/)

Voting is still open for GUFF and will be until the Monday after Easter. I will have ballots at Eastercon but if you want to vote befor then via paypal the form is here. This morning I finally returned the votes from the Sheffield jury (which had been in a secure fannish location awaiting my verification). The voting is fascinating, I have to say. Doug Spencer dougs has published a fanzine (which I will link to as soon as I have a url) and James Shields has been writing online about it at lostcarpark.



I've realised that I've not written anything about my holiday anywhere so I'm probably going to write something else before Easter but that is going to be even more perzine than usual and probably not be Balls. IYSWIM. Plus I have all these letters of comment to write for fanzines...

I decided this morning to try and think of ten bad habits to break and ten good habits to develop. Then I decided I might go for a list of three each instead and aim to strike one off each month and add a new one, meaning ten over a year. So to start me off...

( I, Angela Rosin will )

I got a headache, yesterday. One of those ones that laughs in the face of OTC painkillers. I woke up with it (which really should have warned me) but I was thirsty so put it down to dehydration and carried on. By 2.30 yesterday I was laying down in the dark in my office hoping that it would subside long enough for me to not be sick.

I could function as long as I didn't walk around too much, but I also wanted fresh air to stop me feeling sick, so I compromised and walked down to Waterstones after work to buy Unseen Academicals. Then I had to sit through a talk by Jonathan Porritt (which I couldn't even close my eyes during as we were on the first row!), walk back to the car and drive home. To the comforting stash of codeine and a darkened room.

I must have drank about two litres of water, on top of my normal 6 or 7 cups of tea/decaf coffe yesterday. I've started off today with a good gulp of water and I'm now on to tea and hoping that the nausea goes soon. To Sainsburys on the way in, I think, to get some para/codeine just in case: I'm off to see Moby Dick tonight. Why don't I ever get this when I've nothing to do!

Does anybody else get migraines and, if so, do you get really thirsty with them? For years I've put these types of headache down to dehydration but I can't really see how it could have happened this weekend. It had every characteristic of the migraine headaches I used to get but with added THIRST.

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I've been to Octocon. I was lucky to get there in 2006 and meet Frank Darcy who I'd only really known online before then. It was an interesting experience and one that I'd like to repeat, but possibly not right at this moment.

Badly Done, as they say.

EDIT: Auntie Ang says: Remember, you can't kill everyone.

EDIT2: I'm linking to the joint statement published on slovobooks blog about the matter here for completeness. What I will say that this poll was always about confirming how I believed most fans I knew would behave in similar circumstances.

GUFF is the Going Under (or Get Up and Over) Fan Fund and transports Fans from Europe to Australasia (and vice versa). Nominations are now open for the Southbound race to transport an European fan (or fans) to Aussiecon 4 the 68th World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, Australia.

If you wish to stand please contact me at the postal or email address below. You will need three European and two Australasian nominators, a 100 word platform as well as a bond of £15 (25 AUD). If you wish to stand and are unsure about how to go about getting any of these things, what the fund pays for or the duties of a GUFF delegate then feel free to contact me in confidence at the email address below.

Nominations are open until the Friday before Novacon 39 (13th November) and candidates will be announced on the Sunday (15th November). Voting will then run until the Monday of Eastercon 2010.

Please disseminate widely.

Ang Rosin
email: lister@liv.ac.uk
post: 26 Hermitage Grove, Bootle, Merseyside, L20 6DR, UK.
http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~lister/guff/

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It's all so 2001...