Forget War - Eat Cake

Watching War Horse and Birdsong this weekend left me wondering about the point of war.

Why didn't the first world war end all wars? Why didn't those men come back (the few who did) and say, "No more!" And what did it solve that couldn't have been sorted out over a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake?

The best answer I came up with was population control.  Cake can't reduce the number of people in a country so drastically that there are no problems of over-crowding.

I have always struggled with war propaganda.  I don't get why someone is brave because they killed someone. Surely, the brave thing to do would be not to take a life! Eight year old boys love war.  They are always crawling around on their bellies trying to shoot each other.  Do they not understand the reality or has the conditioning gone so deep that they can't feel like a true boy unless they are excited by killing people?

 

It's not really individual servicemen and women, I have a problem with but the people who make the decisions to go to war.  There has to be better negotiating skills at the top than, "let me have that piece of land or I'll send millions of men from my country to die and kill millions of men from your country!"

While I'm being controversial, can I say that I was a bit disappointed with War Horse?  Although, the cinematography, music, casting, screenplay were all brilliant.  I did think there were some timing issues.  The beginning was quite slow and then when you were just thinking about having a good sob it was all over. I would have like a bit longer to get the tears flowing properly.  What happened to the goose at the end? I'm sure when I read the book I was blubbing when the goose appeared and made me fall into a very painful bout of laughing and crying simultaneously.

The film left me questioning the morality of man.  Why are we so keen to believe that it was the Germans not the British who were cruel to their horses and why do we believe that only the Germans shot their deserters, while the British chap decided to get shot himself rather than shoot his fellow men?

My favourite part of the film was the co-operation scene and probably not just because it appeals to my pacifist nature but also because Toby Kibbell's performance is captivating.

My daughter predicts big things for this actor!

As for Birdsong, maybe the appeal of war is all the sex but if you look very closely it was the same sex scene repeated over and over again.  I think they probably only did it once!  Someone put on twitter that they were too distracted by counting her moles to really enjoy the scene anyway.

Chocolate cake and gadgets

The excitement that was enjoyed by the men in my life when the Screwfix Direct Catalogue plopped on the mat was something I struggled to understand until Lakeland Plastics made a version for women and then I became as excited by a gadget as any man I know.  Cake tin liners, chocolate éclair tins, cake storage boxes, Pineapple slicers,  specialist icing nozzles, things to make cleaning the oven or the teapot easy have all left me flushed with excitement at one time or another. This year for Christmas I had two gadgets that until yesterday had stayed in their packets.  Not using them for nearly 20 days has mainly been because all I have eaten is left over cheese and Christmas cake.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I cooked anything.

Yesterday we needed chocolate cake.  There is nothing in life that can't be made to feel just a little bit better with a slice of good chocolate cake.  Especially a layered chocolate cake sandwiched together with sickly chocolate butter icing.

I have always wondered why layered cakes in magazines or on GBBO don't look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  My cakes rise unevenly - they are never completely flat (something to do with oven temperature no doubt) and so when sandwiched together they wobble.  My first gadget solves this problem.

It slices the top off the cake and makes all the layers the same size.  The wire wasn't quite as sharp as I was hoping for but it did work and left a new cooks perk (almost as good as licking the bowl)

When the cake was put together it was a chance to use the best gadget EVER EVER EVER.  The cake lifter as seen on the Great British Bake Off. It meant that I didn't get icing all over my fingers or have the cake sag in the middle.

The finished cake tastes the same as ever but probably looks better than any layered cake I've ever made.

Is it wrong that I've had a slice for breakfast, lunch and will probably have slice for tea?