Thank goodness for...

Radio 4.  I have been off work with labyrinthitis for too long, and daytime TV is just so appalling it is guaranteed to finish off any residual brain activity by day two.  Radio 4 however is brilliant, really amazing.  I have been learning loads, how to avoid food poisoning, how to make sure Big Ben doesn't collapse when you are building a tube line underneath it, stuff like that.  You never know when it might be useful, although the food poisoning information is more likely to be relevant to my life.  Not because I give people food poisoning, but because it is handy to know not to wash your chicken as campylobacter loves water.  I am also up to date with everything going on in parliament, and have been enjoying 'Farming Today', although confess to falling asleep during the recent episode that covered the Common Agriculture Policy (or whatever it's called).

Evening TV is also quite bad.  I haven't recovered from the mother/daughter combo in Benidorm (or similar), where they went 'on the pull' together, after downing more shots than most people would drink in a week, and that was just for starters.  While channel hopping in desperation, I happened across an obscure American cartoon, that was explaining whether cooking with alcohol burns off all the alcohol.  Something I have always wanted to know.  It doesn't.  The water and alcohol combine in an azeotropic reaction, but some residual alcohol remains, depending to some extent on whether you put the lid on or not.

There, has that impressed you?

I have also been pottering in the kitchen and doing a spot of cooking, and have realised that choux pastry isn't that hard to make after all.  I need to get better soon, as all this lying on the sofa and eating profiteroles is going to be really bad news when I try to get my work clothes back on!