h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you only after much effort to follow your usually excellent recipe and cocktail suggestions. Having succumbed to a particularly nasty cold after strolling too late one damp evening last week I read with phlegmatic glee your recipe for Egg Flip, Hot. I quote:

"Pour a pint of Bass's ale in a saucepan and set on fire to boil. "

Please tell me how best to set my ale on fire, I have wasted innumerable matches.

Yours in hope,

pigletsan

I rather suspect that Boothby means for you to set the saucepan filled with onto a kitchen range (or open fire?) and heat it from below rather than combust the stuff directly - although I could be wrong!

Perhaps his erstwhile translator and devotee will be along later to advise you further.

shazz

Dear pigletsan (What a delightfully evocative name; I have visions of a politely porcine oriental toilet cleanser)

Whatever method you choose to ignite your ale, please do not try this one at home; or indeed if one is a guest; spimcoot and myself did, with almost disastrous consequences.

Confronted with a total lack of electrical supplies, due to various aspects of French life, we were in dire need of both emotional and nutritional sustenance. We thus tapped into our inner Baden Powell and heated up a can of H***z Tomato Soup over a splendid display of tea-lights (night-lights, the little jobbies that go in incense burners etc....)

All was well until the bread board caught fire.

It still bears the scars. Luckily we don't.

My advice is to microwave it if all else fails. Boothby probably invented it; he just kept it quiet or all the customers would be wanting one.



zdt