Official: The easiest recipe in the world.

Fancy a quickie, anyone?

First catch your squash. We’re not talking barley water here. No – these are the peculiarly shaped vegetables familiar to Americans and now found in UK supermarkets. Kaboka Squash would work well. I used a butternut.

Cut it in half.
Scoop out the seeds and gunky bits.
Lay on a baking sheet (etc. etc, signore Gelli)
Bake.
(Moderate oven, about an hour)
In the last 10 minutes, cover with a little grated gruyere or emmenthal.
Serve with good bread and a green salad.

Even McQueenie could do this one!

**** Will these damned voices never stop?! ****

For once I agree with Jack Straw. We have no choice but to let Pinochet go. Either we give doctors a role in law, or we don’t. Still…at least the evil murdering bastard was made to suffer in his declining years.

On the other hand….see this written constitution which I keep banging on about, woolly minded Hampstead liberal that I am…Well, no that we finally have on, in the shape of the European Convention on Human Rights (in Scotland at least.), someone has challenged the constitutional legitimacy of the Glasgow District Court. The Convention holds that courts, and the decisions made by them, must be impartial and independent of government control. Now…the Glasgow court, uniquely in Britain, is run by the Council. They pay stipendiary magistrates, and fund the running costs of the court through the collection of fines. The Clerk of Court is on record as saying that she has advised magistrates to impose fines, rather than the alternative supervision orders, because she wants the money for her budget. No, don’t go to sleep. This is interesting, honest.

I ‘ad that Thomas Paine in the back of me cab, once.

I’ve had a further e-mail from a Mrs. Trellis of North Wales:

There was a great loss recently in the entertainment world. Larry LaPrise, the Detroit native who wrote the song "Hokey Cokey" died last week aged 83. It was especially difficult for the family to keep him in the casket.
They’d put his left leg in and ....well, you know the rest..........

According to Signore Gelli, similar difficulties are experienced by the relatives of deceased trombonists.