Essays in Idleness

Dump one 12-oz can of Aussie or New Zealish corned mutton into fry-pan, then moosh in contents of one 19-oz can of “whole potatoes” (reserving potato water to cook rice in, later). Lace with chillies and garlic to taste. When all is sizzling nicely, make hole with spatula, to drop hen egg in. Do not overcook (yolk must be runny). Serve with Mitchell’s ketchup (Pakistan’s finest). Gobble with mug of Red Label tea, and you will be returned to my splendid childhood.

This makes a monstrous amount, incidentally. Up here in the High Doganate, we freeze leftovers on the balconata. This is one of the many advantages we enjoy, through the Canadian winter.

But is it really mutton? Yes, “with juices,” so far as I can determine, from the very short list of ingredients on the can, and the inspector’s mark. The other ingredients are water, salt, and (most important) sodium nitrate. The “halal” label doesn’t bother me, much. At least the can doesn’t say “organic.”

I’m not sure why I have opened an Idlepost in this way. Somehow it seemed the right thing to do. I was anyway able to patch most of the text from an email. This was attractive, because at the present time the keyboard on my fairly new (Samsung) laptop is disintegrating. This makes typing slow. For days now I have had to copy-and-paste the defunct letter, i. You might think this would make me less egotistical, less first-personal; but no. (My son will come to my rescue soon.)

Messrs PayPal have meanwhile been shutting me down, for reasons they are unable to explain coherently. Something to do with someone who pressed “send shipping label,” thus alerting them to the fact that I am a large multinational corporation. I may also be on their terrorist watch list: the robots that write their form letters aren’t sure. Too, they have mentioned the Internal Revenue Service of the Natted States Merica, which must want cutting in to all the money I’ve been laundering.

It is hard to sort out people who don’t know what they are doing, and don’t particularly care what the consequences are. But I shouldn’t be too tough on them: all Internet business is conducted in that way.

I do like corned mutton, however. There is something so solid about it.