Serves: Makes 12-15
50g Butter
100g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
5 tbsp golden syrup
80g cornflakes
So we went to see Kung Fu Panda last week which was great, the boys all came out kicking and throwing themselves around and seemed to get some of the basic elements of chinese martial arts when we bored them to death with it. Nige and I both dabbled in the ancient art, him more recently and me in my I-love-everything-chinese phase (born in Hong Kong, studied mandarin at university as a night class, martial arts, nearly did a Masters in Beijing but met Nige instead, aah).
I definitely want to train again (classes will be packed with parents wanting to impress their offspring…?) and Nige and I have been doing some Tai Chi Push Hands (martial side of Tai Chi) in our front room! The thing I loved about these types of martial arts is that they use a soft energy rather than physical strength: Wing Chun Kung Fu was developed by shaolin nuns travelling across China and they needed a defense system to protect them from attack that didn’t rely on brute force. Using the opponents strength and your own softness and go-with-the-flow-ness, you can absorb their attack and thrust it back on them (Po the Panda uses his enormous belly to help him absorb the force and wobble it back out).
My week has been a bit crazy to say the least, finalising my ad for Tatty Bumpkin in the Yellow Pages, getting ready to take Tatty to Trowbridge Pump Festival (great folk festival), last week of school with teacher presents etc, playgroups and the like having parties and inviting Tatty to entertain them etc. I have a tendency to hit these things head-on rather than with a softness any self-respecting martial arts master would be proud of. Po the Panda (and indeed the Tao of Pooh / Te of Piglet if you ever get a chance to read them) could teach me a thing or two…
Trees talk to each other at night.
All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.
Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.
Tiny bears live in drain pipes.
If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.
The moon and the sun had a fight a long time ago.
Everyone knows at least one secret language.
When nobody is looking, I can fly.
We are all held together by invisible threads.
Books get lonely too.
Sadness can be eaten.
I will always be there.
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.
The Case of the Interfering Brassieres In 1982 the Daily Mail reported that a local manufacturer had sold 10,000 “rogue bras” that were causing a unique and unprecedented problem, not to the wearers but to the public at large. Apparently the support wire in these bras had been made out of a kind of copper originally designed for use in fire alarms. When this copper came into contact with nylon and body heat, it produced static electricity which, in turn, was interfering with local television and radio broadcasts. The chief engineer of British Telecom, upon reading the article, immediately ordered that all his female laboratory employees disclose what type of bra they were wearing.
Man Flies By Own Lung Power 
In 1934 many American newspapers, including The New York Times, printed a photograph of a man flying through the air by means of a device powered only by the breath from his lungs. Accompanying articles excitedly described this miraculous new invention. The man, identified as German pilot Erich Kocher, blew into a box on his chest. This activated rotors that created a powerful suction effect, lifting him aloft. Skis on his feet served as landing gear, and a tail fin allowed him to steer. What the American papers didn’t realize was that the “lung-power motor” was a joke. The photo had first appeared in the April Fool’s Day edition of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. It made its way to America thanks to Hearst’s International News Photo agency which not only fell for the hoax but also distributed it to all its U.S. subscribers. In the original Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung article, the pilot’s name was spelled “Erich Koycher,” which was a pun on the German word “keuchen,” meaning to puff or wheeze.
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