• Mr Provost’s Finest Reindeer Receipt

    Roughly chop a leek, couple of slices of bacon and as many cloves of garlic as you dare.

    Heat a frying pan to a sizzle and fling the leek, bacon and garlic in, closely followed by the reindeer steaks.

    After five minutes turn the steaks over and scoop the leek/pig/garlic into another pan.

    Heat this as far as you dare and tip in enough cheap gin to make you wonder whether this is a waste of good gin.

    Throw in a handful of blueberries

    Heat until kitchen is covered in fog reminiscent of the incense at midnight mass.

    Remove from heat and gently stir in several good dollops of crème fraîche.

    Rudolph steaks will now be ready having cooked for a further five minutes. Artfully plate them up and cover with the sauce that will now be advent coloured.

    Serve with oven roasted potato, butternut squash, red pepper, courgette ensemble.

11 responses to “Predictions for 2014”

  1. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    I am struggling with nine – I mean, Lord Carey, being unhelpful, oh no, beyond imagination …. 😉

  2. Kate Avatar
    Kate

    In what way is 9. a ‘prediction’. Next it’ll be ‘mystic sage thurible predicts continued arising of the sun’. Also tricky to imagine that there’s much more dirty washing in O’Brien’s washing basket unless he also has a wife and three children. 6, interesting. 7, I am merely a passing English person who has to read Scottish government press releases for work, but on this basis I can’t for the life of me think why you wouldn’t want to separate yourselves from England – just about everything is better – whether it’s some interest and care for soil fertility and the land, an enlightened approach to the arts or a First Minister actually prepared to turn up at a Food Bank. If it wasn’t a bit chilly up there, Id be taking Gaelic lessons now.

  3. Kelvin Avatar

    9 – might just have had a touch of sarcasm about it.
    4 – there *is* more dirty linen to be washed
    6 – surprised other people haven’t seen how clever Pilling was
    7 – I don’t think so. We neither speak Gaelic here nor want separation. It might be suggested that reading SNP press releases might not actually be the most balanced way to grasp what is happening in Scotland. #bettertogether

    1. Kate Avatar
      Kate

      4 – crumbs, and probably ‘oh dear’
      6 – When the Faith and Order commission’s last gutless report on marriage came out, we still weren’t short of people (Giles Fraser among others) who thought there was all a secret coded message in their somewhere that was altogether more positive. Pilling seems to me like another not-very-brave dog’s breakfast where you can see pretty much anything you like, if you squint. That doesn’t mean to say that nothing positive will come of it, in the sense that whatever he’d written, the C of E is going to be overtaken by events – and the sheer statistics of the whole of their youth turning against them. And the Evangelicals are quietly fracturing down exactly the same generational fault line too. But I’m not seeing the artful contrivance in Pilling that you clearly are….
      7. Here, my tongue was a bit in my cheek too. But I do read UK government press releases too, and honestly, if I was immigrating, I’d totally head for Scotland.

      1. Kelvin Holdsworth Avatar

        7 – I think that Scotland is the best part of the UK to be in.

      2. Beth Routledge Avatar

        7. I too think that Scotland is the best part of the UK to be in, and I am pleased that various things are devolved. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

  4. robert Avatar
    robert

    It seems (to me!) that Carey is now filling the same place that David Jenkins took when Carey was ABC and is sought out by journalists at Christmas/Easter wanting something to write about.

    1. Kelvin Avatar

      Well, if they just ring me, I’ll be happen to take the burden out of his hands…

  5. Zebadee Avatar
    Zebadee

    [7] Yes Yes Yes– in my all too humble opinion Scotland is the best part of the UK live in. This opinion has not changed over many many years.

  6. Chris Avatar

    7. I want to throw the baby out, but having once sung in a Gaelic choir (phonetic renderings of words) have no desire – nay, no need, even in Argyll – to learn Gaelic. Just saying.

  7. Craig Nelson Avatar
    Craig Nelson

    I agree Pilling is not meant for us but it is a mechanism that allows for the smallest change possible. If that change doesn’t happen, none will, if it does then eventually the change will perforce continue. It’s a kind of fulcrum around which change will/can happen.

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