Lemon mousse that tasted  amd looked like rubber but was eaten   by  the guests anyway[Error in recipe]
A joint of spiced beef meant to last for the weekend was  consumed  on Friday by  two visitors
A mock turtle soup made of marmite could have killed  someone on antidepressants
A plum tart caused a guest to have a temper tantrum as she was on a diet [I was 2 stone underweight and never had known about being on diets]
A beef vindaloo meant to feed 3 or 4 people shrank  so much owing to vinegar it was only enough for one person
Banana icecream would not thaw  enough to be edible before the guests left
A man  friend had a row with his wife as  he said  she should make apple  mousse  like I did plus I had knitted my own jumper  and she could not knit [Don’t do this please’]
Someone was very rude when I used  carnation milk in a pudding [ and green jelly from a packet]We never saw her again, thank the Lord.
My hair set of fire when I opened the oven door  to get the meat out to serve{Still have a gas cooker, why?]
I dropped a gammon joint after getting it out of the oven,washed  and dried it and said nothing!
My mother in law complained all the time she was here that I did not take her into the West End, see all the shops and get home to make her a  hot dinner by 1 pm[.If I had stayed up all night maybe I could have]We lived 12 miles from the West End

So always have  enough food and more
Check  gelatine amounts carefully
Never make anything with pastry in it
Have gas cookers serviced
Carnation milk is  a moot point
Don’t attack your partner when eating with friends  as it makes YOU look bad
Remember it’s tough to please your mother in law
Don’t make your own icecream

Keep a sense of humour

Why not meet people out in cafe or pub instead of  cooking all day?

The end of nothing is  where life begins
The good, the mad, the trouble and the sins
The dancing of the particles of night
Makes connections ,brings us our day light
In the end will  creation always win?

Now the world turns on its  wreckers’ din
Armenia, and Rwanda and Katyn
The Holocaust  of  Europe’s Jews, our kin
What kind of God could conjure  with  such plights?
None, in the end.

The malicious  foment  rage, in evil grin.
The Congo  is not  far from Reich Berlin
The holy Jesus  downed in his last flight
The lips of  our observers tense and tight
Eyes, as sharp of  slivers, bite and  thin
The end  is nothing

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/the-guardian-view-on-the-pope-and-the-death-penalty-a-welcome-hardening-of-the-line

Extract:

“The Bible was written by believers in capital punishment. As recently as 2001, Avery Dulles, an American Jesuit scholar, noted that “The Mosaic Law specifies no less than thirty-six capital offenses calling for execution by stoning, burning, decapitation, or strangulation. Included in the list are idolatry, magic, blasphemy, violation of the sabbath, murder, adultery, bestiality, pederasty, and incest.” This list is not just of antiquarian interest: Saudi Arabia still beheads women for adultery and “sorcery”; Iran hangs people for blasphemy. But all the historically Christian countries of the west bar the US have turned their backs decisively on the death penalty, and so have most of the churches within them. The most important of these is the Catholic church, which also supplies a majority of the justices on the US supreme court. Pope John Paul II, in other contexts a champion of reaction, taught that the death penalty had no practical application in the modern world, even though it was theoretically permissible. Pope Francis has now hardened this position. He has changed the catechism to say that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”. This is no longer his personal opinion, but something that Catholics ought to believe; he adds that the church should work for the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.

This is more than a matter of concern to Catholics. He has touched an issue that is a political live wire in several countries where the church is an important political force. In the US, the pope’s decision has been greeted with rage and anguish on the Catholic right; on the other hand it will give heart to campaigners against the death penalty, and some of the most prominent of these are also Catholics. In Britain it can stand as a rebuke to the efforts of the May government to ship jihadis to the US without seeking assurances that they would not face execution.”