Mat Harden

Best before June 1989

My wife was making a carrot cake at the weekend. When she went to use the baking powder, she found it was 3 months out of date and threw it out. We had just come back from the supermarket, but forgot to pick up some more. I offered to ask our retired neighbours for a teaspoon. They very kindly invited me in whilst they had a look whilst telling me it’s been a while since they had done any baking. Out of their flavouring and colours tray came this old looking ‘Butterwicks’ [I think] backing powder. I accepted the packet but thought I’d better check the ‘best before’ stamp - June 1989! That’s 20 years passed it best before date. Twenty years!

We got the other one out of the bin. Cheers though, good cake.

Lately I’ve been trying to eat my recommended daily intake of fruit and veg. So I’ve been laying into the tasty oranges that Waitrose has to offer. It’s nice to get some decent, fresh fruit for once after living in London. I’ve not eaten many oranges since I was a kid, and I’m finding them really enjoyable.

What I want to know is… has there been a change in their design? They’ve got a skin, that’s fine, no change there. Then there’s the segments, I’m largely familiar with these too. My beef is about the strange mini-segments which exist at the top. I’ll have to take a picture to show you what I mean. I’m not sure I remember them from the younger orange eating career. Where have the come from? Does anyone know? Anyone?

James, Stu and myself attended the Mean Fiddler last night to see DJ Format with support from Little Barrie, a 3 piece 70s funk style summer jam type outfit who were rather good. The drummer has a surprisingly high singing voice for his chunky hairy appearance, but this is not to say it was bad. The harmonies & rhythm worked very well over the top of the jingley jangly guitar. Shame we missed the solo on Free Salute due to the second broken string of the night.

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A mug with a shelf for biscuits

Now correct me if I’m incorrect, but is this not the greatest invention ever? This mug holds up to 3 HobNobs - in case you didn’t already know HobNobs are the ultimate in dunkability & are therefore the official template for any biscuit holder or dispenser - underneath your cup of tea ready for dunking.

Tea-time doesn’t get much better than this!

Pret turkey club sandwich

Just had the new turkey club sandwich from Prêt. Not impressed. Looks good on paper, but failed to achieve maximum satisfaction. All those tasty ingredients only amount to another bland feed. Suffered from the same messy hand problems as many of the Prêt range.

The best Prêt sandwich was the coronation chicken before it went all tits-up when they replaced the yummy pine nuts for about ? a ton of almonds.