Time and the instrumental factor

Every so often, I stop and consider what time has passed, and more often than not I'm surprised how much has, slipping through the fingers like sand. Days drag but months and years fly by, and when I think how far I've travelled in one year I'm astounded. Tempo isn't simply a matter of speed. One can move quickly but get nowhere, or one can move slowly and deliberately but with great purpose and force. Temporal distance is a construct we make to explain where we are, and how great it seems depends on where we put the markers. As we age and novel experience lessens, time seems to pass more quickly, and the most important trick to learn is therefore to remember how to experience every moment as new, to remember that similarities are always superficial and there is rarely, if ever, any such thing as genuine repetition.

Man-flu and cake

The trouble with illness is that it gives you time off work to do all the things that you never get done, but robs you of the ability to do these things. So I find myself here, struggling to get my head around the fairly simple concept of drawing a new Big Dog cartoon, and feeling vaguely disoriented from lack of sleep and the Man-Flu (which is, of course, very different from a plain old cold). The situation is relieved by the fact that one of the last things I did last night before I succumbed to the lurgy was bake a cake, so I can now test the cold-fighting properties of my Genius Banana Cake. I know that cake is not a subject that normally comes up here, but it's never too far from my heart, and so in a spirit of generosity, I give you the recipe. this cake is the product of many hours intensive research, is a handy way to use up all those over-ripe bananas sitting in your fruit bowl*, and is widely acknowledged to be in the forefront of cakes. If enough of us bake it, it may even End War and Unite all Nations in Peace and Hope.**

2-3 bananas
9oz. self-raising flour
4 oz. brown sugar
4 oz. butter
2 eggs
2 dessert spoons golden syrup
nutmeg & cinnamon, to taste

Mash up the bananas. Cream the butter and sugar together***. Mix the two sludges together with the eggs and syrup. Add spices to taste, then mix in the flour. Pour the resulting goo into a greased cake or loaf tin, and bake at gas mark4/ 180° for about 40 minutes, or until done. Check with a knife or skewer, and turn onto a rack to cool. Although it's rather nice warm, too.

On a completely unrelated note, may I also commend to you Rachel Mayfield, whose album you should buy, because it's good.


*N.B. I'm aware this is a problem only suffered by sad live-alone types like me.
** N.B. this is a wild assertion, unverified by any fact.
***If you have a food processor, you can just bung everything in and whizz it round until it congeals.