pumpkinstrokemarrow

Back home to take another look at what Mrs. David has to say about yeast in her bread book, to find that it was clearly a tricky subject before the invention of the dried yeast pellets that I use. A whole literature about how different ways of making yeast result in different kinds of bread. About how real bread bores would not dream of buying yeast but would make the stuff from scratch. A process which seems to involve potatoes. Along the way I was amused to see that her book was endorsed on the back cover by no less than Sir J. H. Plumb and Sybille Bedford OBE. No puffs from the Sunday Telegraph or some fellow foodie for her.

Moved on to perusal of a review of Bush junior's apologia in the NYRB. Which made me ponder about intention. Bush comes across as a good chap. The sort of chap you might have a pint with - indeed I remember that reading he was an absolute wow at chatting and troughing with the voters. He could get more grits down with a smile than any other politician of his generation. He makes some mistakes, some rather serious, but he meant well. Most of the time he admits to the mistakes after the event.

Now people who take their politics seriously are apt to take a dim view of people with whom they disagree. People of the far right and of the far left are apt to regard people with whom they disagree, certainly those at the other end of the spectrum, as evil. Last night this seemed to be taking things too far. Some dreadful things happened on Bush's watch, but he meant well. The road to hell it not, as far as theologians are concerned, paved with good intentions. You are only evil if you plan to do wrong, you know it to be wrong and you in fact do do wrong. Bush, on my reading of this review, fails the second test. Justice takes a slightly harsher view in that one can be criminally negligent, in England & Wales anyway. Neither plan nor knowledge needed here, just the deed.

In TB, I do know people who do do wrong in the sense of the second test. They know that something is wrong - say slashing the chap you catch with the wife, bashing the chap that jogs the arm that drinks or stealing a laptop - but they do it nevertheless, perhaps claiming the defence of no planning in the first two cases. There is also the small number of people there who do not seem to think that bashing is bad at all; rather a demonstration of virility and status. An activity only qualified about rules about young people not bashing old people and ladies. That sort of thing. Whereas I know very few people of education who do things they know to be wrong. This perhaps because education can mean more control and less crime, more thought and less deed; but education can also mean dressing the deed up in fancy clothes, the dressing being both for private and public consumption, to the point where the deed is not wrong at all. Do we prefer the thug of simple morals or the smoothie? The thug of the streets or the thug of the banking hall?

So I am not sure what one does about Bush. Do we shout and scream at him because he was wrong? My understanding is that politicians do shout and scream at their staffs in private so perhaps that is the sort of language they understand. Or is enough just to change him for a new model while maintaining parliamentary decorum?

Is shouting and screaming just before he makes what you think would be a mistake OK? If he is about to make a very bad mistake, should one still maintain parliamentary decorum? I guess the answer is that it all depends. One breaks decorum at the peril of the civil state - but a very bad mistake might do that too.

PS: bread now running very late. Reduced to the expedient of cheese scones for tea. A well known way of getting a lot of calories down in about 20 minutes: 12 oz flour, 3oz butter, 4oz cheese and milk to mix. Enough for two or three.