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

I'm wary of any product or recipe that has 'quick', 'easy' or 'instant' in the name, and likewise any recipe, so I don't blame you for steering clear of that stuff. Mind you, I can still remember how tasty Reddy Brek was on a cold morning, and Bob knows how processed that must have been.

Ah, elderberries. The only time I ever jam before now was about 30 years ago when a bunch of us went blackberrying in Abney Park Cemetery at just the right time to catch the full elderberry harvest too. I had a recipe for elderberry and blackberry jam. It was tasty... but I reckon you could have formed it into a ball and played tennis with it

Doesn't apple skin have a lot of pectin too? Or perhaps it's the pips. I know they've got arsenic

not sure about the skin, but the pips do have pectin as far as I remember.

As for Elderberries what I really really like is wine. Yum.

There's a lot in the skin, too. When they make it commercially they use the pomace - ie. all the squeezings and pips etc left over from juicing.

I've heard of people adding apple juice instead of pectin, but I can't imagine it working that well. I think to get enough pectin from the juice you'd need to add so much that it would taste more apple-y than you'd want.

I'd have though so too, unless maybe it's the unfiltered kind? Either way, when I made this bacth it had nothing besides strawberries, sugar... oh, hang on, let me find the recipe.

Ah, here it is. I had a plum that was especially ripe which I added, but I took the skin off http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/classic_victoria_sponge_54621 Apart from that I made the recipe exactly as it says, but with ordinary sugar, and to compensate I boiled it to about 230 F instead of the 220 he recommends. I probably could have got away with 225 or so.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23654815
"But he could not claim the £10,000 prize for the furthest flight over 100m (330ft) because strong winds caused his hang glider on a sideways route, thus rendering his attempt invalid."

Caused his hang glider on a sideways route?

Oh BBC

How out of touch with popular opinion is it possible to be? This much http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23662583

"Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's tie vouchers for free smartphones to balloons and have people grab the balloons to get a free phone. What could possibly go wrong?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23681200

Sorry, but...knives on sticks?

I'm not quite sure why Corporal Jones springs to mind!

I am

HIV patients told to rely on God
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23729684

Oh good grief

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23734584
"He later stopped taking his medicine and his condition worsened."
Well it would, wouldn't it

Religion. Fleecing people for thousands of years. Millions killed.

http://eater.com/archives/2013/08/06/la-restaurant-has-a-water-menu.php
Los Angeles restaurant has a water sommelier and 20-item bottled water menu

Sigh

This is nothing new. I think I saw this on an episode of Penn & Teller's Bulls#!t. It was about bottled water in general, but they did a hidden camera thing with a water sommelier touting their exclusive gourmet waters, but then they show him filling the bottles from a hosepipe in the alley behind the restaurant. Then they get the customers on camera singing the praises of the various waters they tasted before showing them "the source".

New or old, it doesn't really matter. Everything's relative, and the argument about how many people have no access to clean drinking water goes without saying. Weighing up those two factors, and a few others, it crosses my line as far as pretentious, unpleasant and smug decadence is concerned. Gourmet water will always do that, for me.

I'm running a little late on this one because it's been going on for a couple of weeks already and I kept forgetting to put it here, but...

Halloween stores are already open

Having a little spelling, no, I mean thinking, difficulty?
http://twitter.com/_SteveWilson_/status/377067698292678656



Mind you this is hardly new. Many years ago, I'm talking about the 80s, I was accosted by a group of schoolkids with clipboards who were engaged in some kind of school exercise, asking passers-by which radio station they listen to. I told the kid "Capital and Radio 4, mostly."

I watched him write 'CAPTAIL 4' on his piece of paper

I wonder whether he wasn't wilfully winding Phteven up, though...

I've got a friend who's name is spelt "Stephen" but he goes by Steve... but he spells it "Steph".

I think I'll start calling him Fteve.

Well, the letter s was often fpelt with an f in old bookf and textf, although not for the firft letter of a word, I thinkeft http://books.google.com/books?id=X2lHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false

Speaking of which, did everyone see this last week?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

I don't believe it. When Doctor Who took Martha back to the 1500s and they met Shakespeare, he wasn't talking like that They were right there so it must be true, right?

I rest my case.