Phew! London 2012 Olympics are over. There's Paralympic games starting next week, but London has sort of regained its normality. In fact, it's more than its normality. It's extremely quiet. The traffic is easy peasy lemon squeezy and the streets are peaceful. It's almost like we're missing something and it's bordering on feeling sad. It was so exciting to see the games and their truly awe-inspiring athletes. I'm also immensely relieved to have seen no violence nor any sort of terrorist attacks.
I've picked up a few newspaper articles on interesting trivia during the games. One of them is this - why was the UK team was called 'Team GB', not 'Team UK'? I've always wondered that. Apparently Great Britain doesn't include Northern Ireland, and someone from there complained and suggested that it should be called 'Team UK'. Then there was someone else saying, "Oh, but Team UK (United Kingdom) would exclude the Isle of Man and Jersey. Now I'm wondering if the country I live in has got a name which embraces everyone.. Very irritating, this.
The other news which caught my attention was that half of Team GB's gold medalists are privately educated. British private schools are called public school for some reason and a mere 7% of all the kids in this country go to public schools. The rest go to what you think of as public schools which are in fact called state schools. The average fee for public school is £10,000 a year. If it's in London or if it's a boarding school, the fee would easily be twice as much. This means half of Team GB athletes are from well-to-do families. I don't believe in communism, but if the country invests a bit more on the majority of the kids the medal league table would look very different.
Having said that, are league tables that important? Winning or losing in competitions is a very important experience in life, but ultimately what really matters is to always be yourself whether you win or lose. I'm jumping on to a personal matter here, but yesterday was one of the greatest days of my life. My son got excellent results in his exams and going to the university that he wanted to go. I am incredibly proud of him. Life is in his hands now, and I want him to always come back to himself no matter what happens and..just enjoy.
Notting Hill Carnival next weekend!
Ingredients (for 20cm cake tin):
(for the sponge)
2 eggs
120g soft butter
60g self-raising flour (or plain flour with 1tsp of baking powder), sieved
60g almond powder
100g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large or 2 small pears
(for the chocolate ganache)
80g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
50ml double cream
Preheat oven to 190C.
Peel and core the pears and cut them into 12 or 16 wedges depending on the size. Set aside.
Mix everything except the flour in a bowl. Add the flour and mix with a large metal spoon in a sort of cutting and folding motion.
Pour the cake batter into the buttered and floured tin and lay the pears on top in whatever pattern you like. Bake for 25-30 minutes until light golden.
Boil the double cream in a small pan, turn off the heat, and add the chocolate pieces. Stir quickly until you have lovely smooth chocolate goo.
When the cake is done turn it out and leave it to cool. When the cake is cool, pour over the warm ganache. If you are impatient like me the chocolate ganache would run, as you can see..