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Heresy

Food & Drink

Having read about my love for sausage rolls and the Greggs chain before, Loyal Readers will no doubt be waiting for my comment on the furious public reaction when Greggs recently decided to open a store in Cornwall:

The bakery chain Greggs has sparked fury after it opened its first branch in Cornwall – but it won’t be selling its own version of the famous Cornish pasty.
Workers have said the store feared its crimped on top ‘the Devon way’ pasty would upset locals and wouldn’t be welcome.
Instead the outlet at a service station just off the A38 in Saltash features a range of slices and other baked goods including sausage rolls, sandwiches and cakes.
One outraged local even asked: ‘Why in the name of Satan does our county need a Greggs?’
It is understood that Greggs, which has had several stores in neighbouring Devon for many years, has never sold pasties in the West Country as it did not want to create a pasty war. [it’s pronounced “pass-ti” not “pay-sti” — Kim]

I find myself unmoved by the brouhaha because — and let it be shouted from the rooftops — Cornish pasties are shit.

Here’s why.  The problem with adding vegetables to a meat pie is twofold:  firstly, the carrots, beans and such are generally overcooked, which makes them taste bland and horrible;  and secondly, if I buy a meat pie, I want meat — and for too long, unscrupulous bakers have overloaded pasties with veggies because vegetables are cheaper than meat.  (I’m even a little iffy about steak ‘n potato pies, for the same reason.)

So my proud boast is that I haven’t eaten a Cornish pasty in (probably) thirty-five years, not even when I was in Boscastle last year.

And when (not if) I venture into a Greggs in Cornwall in the future, it’ll be sausage rolls or steak bakes, not that pasty rubbish.

Kicking Back

Two-Minute Hate

As usual, His Excellency John Bolton has the right stuff, this time about the horrible International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague:

“If the court comes after us, Israel or other U.S. allies, we will not sit quietly.  We will negotiate even more binding, bilateral agreements to prohibit nations from surrendering U.S. persons to the ICC.  And we will ensure that those we have already entered are honored by our counterpart governments.  We will respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by U.S. law.  We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States.  We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and, we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system.  We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.  We will take note if any countries cooperate with ICC investigations of the United States and its allies, and we will remember that cooperation when setting U.S. foreign assistance, military assistance, and intelligence sharing levels.  We will consider taking steps in the UN Security Council to constrain the Court’s sweeping powers, including ensuring that the ICC does not exercise jurisdiction over Americans and the nationals of our allies that have not ratified the Rome Statute.”

I’m gonna give y’all just 20 minutes to stop applauding.

Some liberal asswipes created this pic to whine about God-Emperor Trump’s appointment of The Mustache (“The Warmonger”) as his National Security Advisor:

Me, I wanna make a fucking tee-shirt of it.

Much Better

Grooming

After my rant last week about men who shame their wives by dressing like slobs, I’m glad to report that at least some men have got the memo.  Here’s someone apparently named Alyson Hannigan at a recent awards show, with her hubby:

Now that’s how a man should look.  Absolutely faultless appearance.  And she’s combined sexy with demure, with excellent results.  Well done, both of you.

And these guys get kudos as well, all dressed like grownups:

Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope…

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From NeverTrumper Jonas Goldberg (proving that a stopped clock can be correct at least once):

“But [Trump] isn’t Hitler, for any number of reasons, the most important of which is that Americans aren’t Nazis.  We’re not even Germans.  Hitler’s rule was possible because there was a market demand for a Hitler and a wider tolerance for a Hitler.”

And Trump’s election came about because there was a market demand for a Trump and a wider tolerance for a Trump.  There, however, the similarity ends (to the anguish of the Left).

Homosexuals, other sexual deviants, Jews and gypsies haven’t been rounded up and put in concentration camps [no comment];  there have been no public book burnings (except, paradoxically, by the Left, both literally and figuratively);  Trump hasn’t advocated a policy of Mexikanerrein (only a wall to end invasion of same);  and no matter how appealing the action may seem to some of us, Trump hasn’t made plans to annex the Sudetenland Alberta or invade Poland Baja California.

In fact, the only outcomes of Trump’s administration that are remotely Hitler-like are the soaring growth of the economy and the virtual elimination of unemployment — and those outcomes, I think we can all agree, are not malevolent (except to the Left, who like a seething mass of the unemployed to whom they can offer free stuff).

Not that it matters.  To the American Left, all Republicans are Nazis and all Republican leaders (whether moderates like the Bushes or conservatives like Pence and Goldwater) are Literally Hitler.  The accuracy of their labeling is irrelevant, as long as they can create a bogeyman that will fire up their base of rabid Commie crapweasels.

Bastards.

Long-Time Favorite

Culture

(I was reading this article and it triggered a train of thought which is worthy of a post.)

I am sometimes asked which classical novelist is my favorite, and honestly, I have a tough time answering the question.  Victor Hugo?  Balzac?  Dumas?  Mann?  Hardy?  Robert Graves?  D.H. Lawrence?

Wait, go back a bit;  Hardy?  Jude The Obscure, Far From The Madding Crowd, The Mayor Of Casterbridge… that Thomas Hardy?

Indeed.  My first exposure to Hardy was The Mayor Of Casterbridge (our 12th-grade set work).  I was utterly captivated, and despite the oncoming final exams and the endless study involved, I still somehow managed to squeeze in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Return Of The Native  and The Woodlanders  before year’s end.  In my lifetime, I have read all his “major” novels (i.e. the Wessex series) at least twice each, and Casterbridge maybe six times.

Here’s why.  I was (still am) a rebellious soul who has always looked on the customs and mores of society (of any era) with a critical and jaundiced eye.  (That I have a favorite era — late Victorian / Edwardian — does not stop me from being critical of it, understanding its shortcomings and loving it nevertheless, especially when I compare it to our modern, soulless technocracy.)

Hardy was probably one of the most critical writers of my favorite era, ever.  In fact, so scathing was his “realistic” perspective that many people believe that he finally eschewed novel-writing for poetry because of the opprobrium he received for his baleful scrutiny.

And for the 16-year-old Kim, full of ignorant passion and rebellion, Hardy was fuel to the fire — not for his displeasure with the Victorian era, but for his displeasure per se.  It became easy to criticize apartheid-era South African society (and I did) using Hardy’s prose as my role model.  It may therefore come as no surprise to my Loyal Readers that I haven’t changed a bit, except that now my ire is directed towards our contemporary society of the early 21st century.

My only regret is that I don’t have Hardy’s skill as a novelist — nobody does — but that doesn’t stop me from reading him, over and over again.

In fact, I think it’s high time for me to re-read… hmmmm, which one… Native?  Jude?  Casterbridge?

I’ll let you know.