Subtitle: In which I meet an award-winning journalist and set fire to my own hair
I’m moving in rarefied circles these days. I’ve also learnt how to spell rarefied, I think. If you search for rarified it also seems to exist. Does anyone know which is right? If I’m moving in those circles I should at least be able to spell them.
Yes, award-winning journalist Andrew Cowper has been down to the farm to film an item on healthy eating. It seems that kids in Nottinghamshire are 38% heavier than kids in the rest of the East Midlands. Clearly, as obesity is thought to be a Bad Thing, I wasn’t going to feature heavily in the filming. I left that to Julia and Gail the Bread Lady.
I was allowed to construct the figures “38%” in salt dough and to load up the pizza oven. That was a drama in its own right. First of all it burned too well (which is unusual) and second, it set fire to the oven door. When I came to rake the embers to one side there were too many of them so I had to push them all round the perimeter, which prevents convection currents moving round the top of the oven chamber.
This led to burnt pizza, pizza with ash on it (though that was my fault due to inept handling of the peel) and pizza that wasn’t cooked in the middle. It also led to pizza that was all three. As events have shown over the years, there are few faults that I cannot produce when left alone with a pizza oven and a load of dough.
Despite this, everyone ate their pizza and said they loved the outdoor pizza experience. In the interests of accuracy I have to report that the ones who had theirs done in the electric oven seemed pretty happy too, and didn’t have to spit as many bits of ash out.
It wasn’t all drama, of course, there was comedy too. I have no hair on my arms now (a sign that the oven has reached 600 degrees Centigrade. I have also managed to get rid of the bushier bits of my eyebrows and make the quiffy bit at the front of my head look even more ridiculous. Tonight I will be shaving my head.
That’s about it.
I will be watching Notts TV tonight. I won’t be making the 5.30 show, but 8.00 or 10.00 could be a possibility. I’m a bit hazy on details but it will be a short excerpt followed by something more substantial next week when they can get hold of a local councillor.
I’m tempted to end with a note about broadcasters who keep their promises (like Andrew and Notts TV) and those that don’t. But that wouldn’t be nice, would it?
Anyway, I have burns to see to and a head to shave…
The price of stardom eh?
As always I love the style, humour, humility and honesty mixed in your posts.
Thank you.Your comments are appreciated, as is your alliteration. 😉
Congratulations on the filming. Having consulted all my dictionaries, I can confirm that ‘rarified’ does not appear in Chambers, Collins, or Oxford. And WP has just underlined it in red.
I have checked The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors and can confirm that the correct spelling is “rarefied”… so now you know!
I said before you could rely on your natural radiance, so there really was no need to set fire to any part of your anatomy. Anyway, I’m sure the shaved head will be very practical for the summer… not so sure about shaved eyebrows though.
Thank you – that is my education for the day.
Fortunately I still have substantial parts of the eyebrows but the hair is a lost cause. 😉
Not that it’s any great loss…
What fun you’ve had today! 😉
That’s one word for it. 😉
😉