Success is Boring.

Many years ago, I knew a gentleman by the name of Stephen Pile, he wasn't a bosom friend or anything like that, I don't suppose our conversations went any further than "Good Morning." Several years after I stopped knowing him, someone with the same name was interviewed on the radio about a book he had just had published, "The Book of Heroic Failures." It listed such stories as the one about the fire crew that rescued a kitten from a tree, only to run it over as they drove away.
For many years I did wonder if it was the same chap, he has, after all, a rather unusual name. However, the author is apparently a journalist, the other was an engineer, so I imagine that it is a mere coincidence.

According to information from the publisher, "Mr Pile was the Founder and President of the “Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain,” and also the Artistic Director of the first "International Nether Wallop Arts Festival” way back in 1984. The next week Stephen met his wife, had three children, and became a television critic." He was, obviously, a very fast worker.

But, I digress, the immediate outcome of the book being published was that he either resigned from, or was pushed out of, the club for having suddenly become a successful author; success, of course, was an automatic bar to membership of this august body. A secondary effect was that, because he had included a membership form in the book, the club received over 30,000 membership applications; having thus become terribly successful, the club had to be dissolved according to its constitution. It was a failure at being a failure.

The blip of the above failure doesn’t do justice to the horrific reality, it’s a long story. Some months ago, the “Friends of Roslin Glen” agreed to provide the refreshments for tomorrow’s Funday. We were aware that several of our key members would not be available to assist, but it was only the other day that I became aware of the full implications; yesterday, I started baking. At this stage I should make it clear that, although I am a reasonable chef, I have never done tray bakes before. The brownies, made from a cake mix weren’t too bad, the box carries a name something like Bessie Braddock, though I might have that wrong; thinking about it, perhaps she was more a connoisseur of consuming than of creating delicacies.
The cranberry, cinnamon and orange bake made from first principles was a triumph, even though I do say so myself; it will be a shame to have to watch others eat it.

My downfall came when I moved on to the flapjacks: the recipe requires the addition of 100 grams of syrup to a hot mixture of butter and sugar, so I put the saucepan on the scales and started measuring the syrup into it. I was about half-way through the procedure when I noticed that the indicated weight was not increasing; I stopped pouring and the weight started decreasing - the b****y scales are heat sensitive and I had no idea how much I had added. I pretended nothing had happened and pressed on; when it came out of the oven, the result didn’t look too bad.
I took care to get the measurements right for the second batch and put that in the oven.

Next were the rather exotic brownies, the recipe was not at all easy to follow and I remain unconvinced that the quantities given for the ingredients are correct; I was using a larger baking tray than that recommended so increased the quantities to compensate and, in addition, was using self-raising flour instead of plain so had to further adjust the quantity of baking powder. It was becoming complicated. While I was worrying about that, the second lot of flapjacks burnt. It was fifteen minutes later that the brownies tried to climb out of the tray in the oven; when they had eventually been cooled and cut into pieces, I had cakes with their tops and bottoms burnt while the middle of the sandwich was still liquid.
Oh, and the first lot of flapjacks couldn’t be separated from their grease-proof paper.

The good news is, that by this time tomorrow, it will all be over - for another year.