Skip to main content

Very Important Questions

 Today, I have three VERY Important Questions to put to you. Please think VERY carefully before you respond because this year’s Annual Much Malarkey Manor Christmas Story Extravaganza (already in initial planning stages) may well depend upon your answers corresponding with my own, and therefore correct, beliefs on these matters. I shall reveal the correct answers tomorrow. Or maybe the day after, if you all go shy on me. Don’t think silence will help you, either. I am prepared to hold the Christmas Story to ransom on this one, mostly because, after sooooo many years, I am seriously running out of festive ideas.

Are we ready? 

Question 1: The correct way to take the top off a soft boiled egg is a) to cut it with a knife like this...


or b) tap it with a spoon, like this...


Question 2: when making a cup of tea, is it correct to add the milk before the tea, or the tea before the milk?


N.B Marks will be deducted for those who make tea by slinging a tea bag straight into a mug and bypassing the teapot. Quite frankly, if you do this, you should be drinking coffee instead. 

Question 3: Which comes first when eating a scone - jam or cream? Cream or jam? And for this question I do NOT care if you happen to be from Devon or Cornwall. One of these counties is WRONG.

Answers, please, if you will. 

I thank you. (Bows and exits, stage right, pursued by a testy armadillo.)


Comments

aileen g said…
Oh dear, Denise, I may have to stay behind and write lines as I don't like eggs very much and definitely not boiled. As for cream - another in the realms of "not very keen on" so the question never arises for me. As for tea - well I am a bag-dunker I'm afraid, mainly because a) I live alone and it's easier; and b) I like my tea hot - and I mean really piping hot and it cools down too quickly in a teapot (even with a cosy). I don't like coffee so if I'm not allowed to dunk I'll have to go on to the red wine, and I take that pretty much as it comes - preferably in a glass but I'm not too fussy.
28 September 2020 at 17:25
rusty duck said…
1. b.
2. I DO drink coffee anyway.
3. Well, Cornwall is wrong. Obvs. And a testy pheasant will attack anyone who disagrees.

But what does any of this have to do with the Christmas Story? Given due notice though I will now start work on Ptolemy's contract. As long as he doesn't have to be submerged in a vat of jam. Not good for feathers at all. Or dress up as an egg. He's already got the T-shirt on that one. And for the record he takes his coffee white, with no sugar.
28 September 2020 at 20:30
Anonymous said…
Hello 👋

I can do this!
1. Knife (but not keen on boiled eggs so don’t do it often)
2. Milk first (but as above)
3. Jam first (gluten free scones require the jam to hold them together before cream is applied!)
28 September 2020 at 20:31
Anonymous said…
Ad Question 1) both methods will get you to the end results. The knife method will make for a less messy approach but the tapping will leave you with your fingers intact.
Ad Question 2) Why put milk in your tea? I only drink tea when I am getting sick. It is a guarantee that I am getting sick if I prefer tea over coffee (black of course)
Ad Question 3) If you have just taken out the scones from the oven surely the jam should be the first to go on the scones so to protect the cream from melting. If they have cooled down, the cream should be the first to go on and with a dab of jam.
KJ
28 September 2020 at 21:52
Denise said…
Aileen, Aileen, Aileen...this is TERRIBLE! I am concerned now - in what do you dunk toast soldiers? However, you are saved from ‘lines’ because you do not like coffee. A huge saving grace!

Jessica, are you SURE Cornwall is wrong? Absolutely sure?? As for the relevance to the Christmas Story, well, the person with ALL correct answers (which is no one thus far) may be in line for a starring role and all the luxuries and benefits that come with it. And as for that upstart, Ptolemy, tell him he’ll have tea served correctly from a pot like he has for the previous umpteen years, and like it. (That was from Mrs Miggins.)

Hello Anonymous! Two out of three and I like your thinking re: jam and scone science. You might get an extra half a point for that!

Now see here, KJ. It’s no good you getting all smart and answering questions with questions, and thinking you’ll get away with sneaking in correct answers via the medium of confusion. It ain’t happening, my dear. Also - a ‘dab’ of jam? Jam is served in dollops here. Dab, indeed! Pah!!
29 September 2020 at 12:23
Athene said…
Answers: 1 - with a spoon, of course. Knives are far too scary
2 - I am another teabag dunker, as I live alone, but if I were to use a pot I would definitely put the milk in first.
3 - Cream, then jam. In my mind the cream is a substitute for butter, and you wouldn’t put butter on top of jam, would you?

I do love a Much Malarkey Christmas story.
29 September 2020 at 14:04
Anonymous said…
🤣
KJ
29 September 2020 at 15:28
Denise said…
Olly, I was so hopeful reading your first two responses. Here’s a sensible woman, I thought. And then the cream/ jam thing, although I do understand your logical thinking on the butter substitute. So 2 and a half out of 3! Bravo!!
30 September 2020 at 08:49
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Frosted Dawn Enigma

The decorators are in at the moment. Stairs and landing. Given my previous history of 'Hoo Ha Occurring on Stairs ' - reference the Trapped Under the Sofa Incident and the Foot Wedged Between Bookcase and Stair Rise Debacle - I thought it wise to pay for professionals to decorate the stairs and landing rather than get myself in a mix with ladder and plank combinations and achieve the Magic Three of staircase accidents. The decorators are a father and son combo who go by the  names of Craig and David. This automatically causes me entertainment. 'Came in on a Monday, prepped, filled and undercoated, back on Thursday, first top coating, by Friday finishing touches...' Okay, not as frisky or well-scanned as the original song, but you get where I'm coming from. Anyway, before they started the job Craig asked what colour I wanted for the walls. 'Same colour as the downstairs walls, please,' said I. 'Dulux Frosted Dawn.' And then white for all the woodw
2 comments
Read more

Day 1 - Decisions Are Made Beyond the Author's Control.

‘Well,’ I say, looking at the expectant faces gathered around the huge table in the Great Dining Hall of Much Malarkey Manor, ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen this year, but it is!’ There is a sharp intake of breath as everyone wonders of what I speak. I’ve been muttering about all sorts recently, and I’m not talking liquorice here either.   ‘The Much Malarkey Manor Annual and Traditional Christmas Story!’ I say, and wait for the expulsed air of relief to settle before I continue. ‘I thought we had done it all. I thought we had covered every Christmas story there was. I’ve been wracking my brains for a full two months now, trying to come up with something we haven’t done before and then it hit me! We haven’t done a version of one of the Great Christmas Films of Yore!’ ‘Your what?’ says Mrs Slocombe, who is more interested in the selection of pastries I have brought to this breakfast meeting, because that is what one does, isn’t it? Eat pastries at breakfast mee
8 comments
Read more

Launched!

  I was going to wait until tomorrow to launch the ‘Hallo Tarot!’ website, what with tomorrow being 1st July and, therefore, a nice tidy date for a beginning. But this afternoon, I became involved in a flurry of final tidy loose ends activity, and thus ended up cracking the metaphorical bottle of champagne against the ship of which I am Captain and whoosh! Off she went into the World Wide Web!  You can find it here : www.hallotarot.co.uk The blog is moving there, too, so unless things go horribly wrong, this will be the last entry here.  I hope to see you on the other side then! Let me know what you think. 
Post a Comment
Read more