Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Tigging and Tuscany

DK is incensed that he has been tigged and, charming young man that he is, responds to his tigger with his customary invective:
"damn his eyes."
Quite. DK then falls for the usual tosh that a problem shared is a problem doubled and has tigged me. Damn his eyes.
 
Your reliable Pedant-General, possessed as he is of a solid Protestant - some might say almost Calvinist - work ethic, will rise to the challenge...
 
... just as soon as he has finished up an ugly CR that needs to released shortly, worked out how to package a 3 tier wedding cake in order that it can be "DHL-ed" safely to Tuscany (don't ask), ensured the smooth passage of Lady P-G and the young masters P-G in hot pursuit of said wedding cakes (see above) at the hands of those nice people from Lufthansa, mowed the lawn, got his hair cut, responded to the delusion morons infesting the message boards at variously the BBC and the Telegraph, polished his kilt pin, found his already-polished-but-subsequently-mislaid sgian dubh, talked to his jolly nice lawyer about the impending wre-write of the positively byzantine P-G wills and then disappeared and (hopefully) subsequently returned from a much needed holiday....
 
Arezzo beckons. Who am I to ignore its siren call?

2 comments:

James Higham said...

Pilot safely and don't drop her in the briny.

The Pedant-General said...

Pschaw. I wave a hand dismissively in your general direction ninme.

Make another comment of a similar degree of asininity (?) and I shall have to adjust your rating as regards inimitableness.

Lady P-G has an extraordinary range of talents but even she can't arrange for the time travel necessary for this.

Any fule kno that:
1) you have to soak the fruit in brandy (or rum) for a couple of days.
2) It takes a day or so to assemble and bake the cakes. A 12" cake requires to be baked for ~6 hours, and if you don't have lots of ovens at your disposal, you need to the 3 cakes consecutively rather than concurrently
3) The cakes then need to cool (overnight at least) before being fed with more brandy (or rum, or both) for a week or so.
4) The marzipan (the Devil's food I know, but it is a necessary evil in order to get a properly flat surface for the icing) needs at least 3 days to dry out otherwise the icing goes all wrong on it
5) Royal icing has to be added in lots and lots of layers, each layer drying before the next is applied.

I reckon 3 days to get the cakes baked and at least a further week for the icing and the resulting cakes will be very dry because they will not have been "fed".

And besides:
1) they don't have proper dried fruit in Tuscany. I mean what do you think currants are made of?
2) WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HAVING A BLIMMIN HOLIDAY.

Come along.