Wednesday 30 October 2013

Sex upside down under




I was educated by Jesuits, dear reader, and therefore… BegPardon?? Oh, no: just a few years, really. Never got around to taking vows. You see: I was kicked out of the college when at the precocious age of 13 I called into question, at uncompromising length and with irrefutable arguments, the historical existence of St Ignatius of Loyola, their putative founding father. So it was dishonourable discharge for me, because the good fathers were pretty bad losers. But that’s another story, for another day…

So, as I said: I was educated by Jesuits, and therefore I deeply love the Delicate Dilemma. You know the kind: a razor-sharp discussion of ethical puzzles, apropos of a story that has no clear moral answer. Like the one good old Immanuel Kant wrote down as an illustration to his Compulsory Imperative: suppose you’re living in a country with a perfect justice system, and your best friend knocks on your door, telling you he is being haunted by the police… Will you then let him in and hide him in your attic?

That one is, of course, a piece of cake to answer. But now, from Down Under, comes a far more fascinating one! Yes, a true gem excavated from the soil of the last continent to be discovered! And I may say it takes an Aussie to come up with such a risible riddle!

OK. Here goes without more ado.

Let us say you are a smart, upwardly mobile, well-educated, and quite physically vital Australian young lady who has landed a job as a civil servant in the pay of a respectable government bureau. Your employer sends you to a congress you have to attend so as to perform your duties optimally. As the congress will take several days, your employer books you a hotel room. The evening of your arrival, you happen to meet up (by chance or sly appointment) with a gentleman friend. You have dinner together (Ostrich steak, I suppose, with Aphrodisiac Sauce…) There are candles on the table. There is wine in the glass. There is romance in abundance. His manly hand softly touches the inside of your knee under the ta---… In short: once the kangaroo pudding has been gobbled up, the two of you decide to, well, continue the conviviality in a private setting. In Aussie idiom: to go up to her room to ball. You go at it with, well, young, upwardly mobile, and physically vital abandon. And just as the going gets good (Oh stop! You know what I mean, dear reader! Alfred B Mittington does not have to translate everything to Australian Idiom, does he?), just as the coming gets going, then… the overhead chandelier crashes down from the ceiling, hurting you badly in various places of your unprotected anatomy, and traumatising you no little in the head.


lethal weapon


We all know how that feels, right? Happens every day and to anybody…

But now what do you do? Do you go to the hospital, get fixed up, attend the rest of the congress as good or as bad as you can and steal home, silently, shamefully, embarrassed at this laughable adventure?

No, you don’t! Instead, you run to the nearest lawyer’s office, and you sue your employer for damages, because you have been harmed, both physically and mentally, in the line of duty during office hours! After all: you were in that hotel room - weren’t you, Sheilah? - because your employer obliged you to attend that bleeding congress! So if harm came your way in that hotel room HE forced down your throat (don’t get no picture into your head, dear naughty reader!) he is formally responsible…! And can we kindly hear now how many million the government are willing to cough up, mate…?

You probably will not believe this, dear reader, but the above is indeed a case that made the Australian High Court the other day. And the High Court decided that no, the lady in question is not entitled to compensation, because ‘the activities engaged in were not directly related to her duties as a civil servant’ and ‘she cannot have been under the impression that this could have been part of her task.’

Bloody H.! The freaking cheek of these judges! They seem to labour under the erroneous understanding that a person is only entitled to a bucket of money when harmed while ORDERED by their employers to fuck a third person! And that is not, of course, what this is all about (according to the wisdom which the Jesuit fathers instilled in me).

No, in reality, the matter ought to be decided by a far more ample, and ethical contemplation. It depends, in my Jesuit view, on four quintessential moral questions. They are the following:

1.     Would the young lady have been in that bed had she NOT met and ‘intertwined   herself’ with the gentleman friend in question? Let us hear about her usual schedule and daily routines!

2.     Had she indeed been an early sleeper, would she then have found herself in the EXACT SAME SPOT in the catastrophic bed? I mean: do give us all the gory details of the Kama Sutra position they were engaged in!!

3.     Did the chandelier come off the ceiling BECAUSE OF their carnal activities? We need the architectonical details of that hotel, its resistance to earthquakes, and yes, once again, more details of their throbbing motions!

4.     How can it be that Down Under, where everything is topsy-turvy, a chandelier comes crashing UP? Was there perhaps some diabolical government experiment involving the  manipulation of gravity going on nearby? Let’s hear it from Mr Snowdon and our fellow Aussie Mr Assange, if you please!

Until these questions are exhaustively answered, dear reader, Alfred B Mittington will not tell this poor Australian young lady, who already suffered so much, to go, well,…. lick herself. Like a hurt cat, I mean (oh, what a very sick imagination you have, you shameless reader of mine!) And meanwhile, I would be most interested to hear from you folks what you think of the case in the comments thread down below.




Tuesday 22 October 2013

Happy news for friends and fans!

To my immense satisfaction, it has come to my attention, dearly beloved readers, that a complete set of ‘The Collected Works of Alfred B. Mittington’ will be auctioned off by the House of Penjual Buku Penipu in Singapore on 6 December next, just in time for the Christmas Season.




It is not, of course, my intention to incite any of you to send in a hefty bid (go to www.penjualbukupenipu.com in case you wish to do so…), but you will perhaps allow me to point out, in all humility, that the writings contained in this splendid publication have been described as ‘beyond the imagination of even the most open-minded erudite in the intellectual world’ by no one less than the New York art critic H. Samuel Widdrington, and that the appearance, on the market, of a complete set is a very rare occasion indeed!

The story behind this grand edition is a complex and complicated one, which perhaps one day I will entrust to paper…- I mean: to the pixels of this blog. But for now let me merely remind you here that I nearly died in the printing process; that the publication was forbidden in no fewer than 14 countries within a fortnight of appearance; and that it was only saved from complete annihilation by the rapid charitable actions of my good Indonesian friend R.R.A. (as he is still alive, his full identity cannot yet be disclosed). It’s amazing what a virulent reaction innocent artistic illustrations as the one below could bring forth in the priggish, nerdish and puritan authorities back in the days before soixante-huit and the sexual revolution!




Saturday 12 October 2013

Cookbook: The easiest, simplest, yummiest little snack on earth!





OK OK OK, I know one can overdo the ‘Impress Through Simplicity & Please Through Ease’ (the famous slogan of Alfred B. Mittington’s Inimitable Cookbook). But the pure simplicity of this little recipe is a virtue, dear reader, not an exaggeration!

If ever you are called upon to produce an irresistible snack within 5 minutes, to still the ravenous   appetite of even the most demanding Unexpected Guest bursting in on your Englishman’s Castle or Frenchman’s Chateau, and you have barely anything in the house with which to improvise, do the following:

Get out the chunk of mature cheese and a sharp knife. Cut the cheese into thin slices. Arrange these on a plate. Pour ample quality olive oil on top. Then sprinkle with salt.

Serve with a glass of wine, cocktail forks, a paper napkin, and some brilliant conversation.

Triumph will be yours!

Monday 7 October 2013

Cookbook: Azra’s Danish Blue Delight






Recently, dear reader, I received a proposition from a young lady. It was an offer I could not refuse. But before you get the wrong idea: no, it was not that kind of proposition (one thing on their minds, these Hannah Montana educated young folk…!) No, it was a business proposition (and believe me: at my age, and after my very considerable experience in the realms of the romantic, that is an absolute relief…!)

This proposition came from my fellow blogger Ms Azra Ali, who lives many thousands of miles away from me in Joburg, South Africa. Being a young lady of taste and sophistication, a fine stylist, and no mean cuisinière herself, Ms Azra wrote, after reading one of Alfred B Mittington’s incomparable tributes to Mayonnaise:

I have a wonderful business idea... I'm thinking of making a range of Mayonnaise (slightly different flavours) and putting that stellar blog profile picture on the jar and calling it "Mr. Mittington's Mayo". I see a range of condiments actually!


My stellar blog profile picture that will grace the labels... 


Needless to say, dear reader, I jumped at this grand idea like a starving hyena onto the juicy meat of a freshly killed baby wildebeest, and answered:

What a marvellous idea! Fame would finally be mine! Let's go for it: Home Made Mayo the Mittington Way; Curry Delicious; Tartar Treat; Thousand Island Haute Couture; Wild Salmon Sauce; Horse Radish Relish; Aioli Al Fredo; and - last but not least - Azra's Danish Blue Delight (unless you prefer Azra's Assafran Mayo, of course). And may I suggest we register the company in the Cayman Islands or some such place? I'm paying enough taxes here in Portugal as it is...

Your future business partner, Al.

No less agile than old Alfred, Ms Azra enthused about this counterproposal, picking for her personal sauce the Danish Blue Delight. As she is at present registering the Limited Company on the Cayman Islands, opening bank accounts on Guernsey and the Antilles, approaching the British Royal House for an endorsement and looking into the procedures for going public on the Palermo Stock Exchange, I felt the moral obligation to set my shoulders to MY task in this enterprise, and create – over the weekend - the delicious sauce that will be the second item in our culinary arsenal (the first being, of course, Mittington’s Miraculous Mansion-Made Mayo).

But before we tackle the recipe, just a quick explanation why Ms Azra gets a Danish Blue Cheese Mayonnaise called after her. This is not because she is so extraordinarily fond of Danish Blue Cheese. (In fact, she is particularly fond of chocolate in all its shapes and appearances; but even the culinary genius of Alfred B Mittington does not know how to create a Chocolate Mayonnaise fit for human consumption!) No, the reason is the name. As you may read on herown blog: ‘Azra’ – closely related to Persian Azurah, Italian Azzurra, Spanish Azul and plain English Azure – means ‘Blue’. Consequently a sauce with a blue association had to be designed; but since sauces that look blue are not to anybody’s appetite, I decided to reduce the ‘blue’ to one of the ingredients, maintaining the colour of the sauce a pleasant, appealing wedding gown snowy, as you may see in this here picture:




Azra’s Danish Blue Delight is a simple and straightforward sauce, dear reader. We need only the following ingredients:

A modest chunk of Danish Blue Cheese (about 100 gr for 4 people)
(I made do with the common supermarket kind, and it came out quite nicely, so why spend more money than you must on posh cheeses from overpriced delicatessen?)

An ample splash of dry white wine, or – for those of you who do not take white wine – apple juice or grape juice
(the volume of the liquid should be approximately that of the chunk of cheese)

1/8 of a modest size onion, chopped very small

Half a table spoon of raisins, chopped very small as well.

A teaspoon of quality honey

Mayonnaise to taste (see below)

            NO salt, NO pepper!




Procedure: take out a normal saucepan. Cut up the cheese and drop it into the pan. Pour in the liquid. Turn on the fire very low, and gradually heat up the liquid, but make sure it does not boil. As soon as the liquid is warm, start stirring until the cheese is melted. This will take a couple of minutes. Now put in the chopped onion and raisins, and let the sauce sit on the lowest possible fire for a minute or two (stir from time to time). Finally, put in the spoonful of honey, stir a little more, and remove the pan from the fire.

What we have here now, is what I would call the Basic Azra Delight. This may be used, while still hot, to accompany broccoli, lamb chops, or other dishes with a strong flavour of their own. However, if you want to use the sauce cold, so as to go with artichoke hearts, asparagus, pork or boiled eggs, you will need to jazz it up a little and improve its consistency.

In that case, wait until the Basic Azra Delight has cooled down. Take out another little bowl and put in one or two sturdy tablespoon of quality bottled Mayonnaise. Little by little, stir in the Danish Blue Cheese Sauce until you have a smooth texture. (NB NEVER EVER do this the other way around, as in dropping spoonfuls of Mayo into the Cheese Sauce! A stiffer sauce does not dissolve in a more liquid one, it only breaks up into awful little chunks that look as horrid as they taste!)





Soon to come: Colin Davies’s Life Fried Owl Burger (as soon as I catch an owl, that is!)


[PS: Now that I come to think of it… A Chocolate Mayonnaise might of course be created so as to serve, for the special occasion of Easter, a Chocolate Easter Oeuf Mayonnaise…]