Gone quiet

BLOG READER 1
The internets have informed us we've lost contact with the Alien Onions.

BLOG READER 2
What were their orders?

BLOG READER 1
They were going to be lounging about, or cooking, or shopping, or reading, or swimming, or cleaning, or panicking, or picnicking - and generally BEING ON HOLIDAYS. They were supposed to report in for the first week of January. They were gonna surface to periscope depth and upload cake photos.

BLOG READER 2
Well, they've gone quiet. They're a publishing house.

BLOG READER 1
Sure. Maybe.

BLOG READER 2
But?

BLOG READER 1
They usually say they're going quiet.

BLOG READER 2
What are the other possibilities?

BLOG READER 1
That they've lost all power and they're drifting aimlessly in hostile territories.

BLOG READER 2

What hostile territories.

BLOG READER 1
Yeah. The Alien Onions are in Blog Limbo. Their last post was before Christmas.

BLOG READER 2
We haven't heard from them?

BLOG READER 1
Yeah.

BLOG READER 2
What do we have ready if we need to order a massive and undetectable rescue mission?

BLOG READER 1
They put two Illustrators on alert from St Patrick's Cathedral. Two Designers are on alert at the Fitzroy Gardens ready to pick up a rescue crew and fittings. They'll meet up with two Fast Attack Authors we have stationed off Parliament Station, each carrying cake. They practice for this all the time, but we shouldn't do it. Not yet.

BLOG READER 2
Why not?

BLOG READER 1
'Cause I think they've gone quiet.

---------------------------------

And then there was cake... finally.

Two cakes in fact. Two cakes for a Very Special Birthday for Our Fearless Leader.

A German Wednesday cake in the Mothership, accompanied by a Very Special Hat.

And an amazing Torta Caprese, with homemade truffles. And no, SB didn't tear out her own hair, that's very delectable Persian fairyfloss.

A nice plain chocolate cake

Regular readers will be well aware that many of the cakes in the Cake-maker Virtuoso's catalogue are fancy.

Fancy. Fancy. Fancy.

Sadly, one of the Onions has a palate that Jed Bartlet might characterise as plain-spoken*. And a plain-spoken palate is often challenged by a fancy cake. So sometimes the Cake-maker Virtuoso makes a nice plain chocolate cake that has no challenging bits in it.

Well, when we say a nice plain chocolate cake we mean a nice plain chocolate cake that has one whole cup of dutch cocoa and one and a half cups of expresso coffee and one and a half cups of buttermilk. And, in the ganache,** 680 grams of 70% dark chocolate and one and a half cups of heavy cream.

And we believe the nice plain chocolate cake that the Cake-maker Virtuoso chose to make is actually known on the internets as The most AMAZING buttermilk chocolate cake EVER.

Despite this unanticipated fancification of the nice plain chocolate cake, the plain-spoken palated Onion ate hers all up.

* Others might characterise it as picky.

** That's icing for you plain-spoken folk. Or frosting for you USians.

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Of course, as every chicken-owner knows, where there is poultry - there are predators. However, it seems that the wild dogs of the literary landscape are rather more appealing to humans than to domestic fowl.

Herewith, the beginnings of an arbitrary list...

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

Wolves in the Walls - Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Woolvs in the sitee - Maragret Wild & Anne Spudvilas

Lonesome Howl by Steven Herrick

White Fang by Jack London

The Big Bad Wolf

Fox - Margaret Wild & Ron Brooks*

Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl

Fox in Socks by Dr Seuss

Wombat & Fox Thrillseekers by Terry Denton

Foxy Loxy

Jacob Black (obvs) and his ever so alluring predecessor, Oz**

The weasels and stoats***

And how could we have a list of wild dogs without mentioning this:

* Oh Fox. How we love you, despite your betrayal - and we are shivering with the excitements about your handsome new hardcover edition (with cloth binding!) to celebrate the tenth anniversary of your original publication.

** As you may have noticed, rules, we relax em.

***The passage where Mole is hunted through the Wild Wood is so frightening and gives one such a good impression of what it might be like to be prey, that we thought we'd just remind you of it. ROWR (weasel roar).

From 'Chapter III - The Wild Wood', The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

It was over his shoulder, and indistinctly, that he first thought he saw a face; a little evil wedge-shaped face, looking out at him from a hole. When he turned and confronted it, the thing had vanished.

He quickened his pace, telling himself cheerfully not to begin imagining things, or there would be simply no end to it. He passed another hole, and another, and another; and then--yes!-- no!--yes! certainly a little narrow face, with hard eyes, had flashed up for an instant from a hole, and was gone. He hesitated--braced himself up for an effort and strode on. Then suddenly, and as if it had been so all the time, every hole, far and near, and there were hundreds of them, seemed to possess its face, coming and going rapidly, all fixing on him glances of malice and hatred: all hard-eyed and evil and sharp.

If he could only get away from the holes in the banks, he thought, there would be no more faces. He swung off the path and plunged into the untrodden places of the wood.

Then the whistling began.

Very faint and shrill it was, and far behind him, when first he heard it; but somehow it made him hurry forward. Then, still very faint and shrill, it sounded far ahead of him, and made him hesitate and want to go back. As he halted in indecision it broke out on either side, and seemed to be caught up and passed on throughout the whole length of the wood to its farthest limit. They were up and alert and ready, evidently, whoever they were! And he--he was alone, and unarmed, and far from any help; and the night was closing in.

Then the pattering began.

Stationery 3 - The Revenge

So, we have had the Top FIVE (six) FOR THE WIN stationery items and the Top THREE (four) FAIL stationery items.

What's next? As Jed Bartlet would say. And in the spirit of Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, we say: Let Stationery Be Better.

And with that we give you the Onion list of:

Oh-I-Wish-It-Existed stationery items:

• Self-organising notepad that records all those helpful tips jotted down and never to be found again.
• An auto-complete proof-checker and print-order generator (once-activated it checks all corrections efficiently, identifies any unseen errors and corrects them, and packages up the final PERFECT proofs - with trim marks - in a bundle with a letter to the printer and a completed print order).
• Right-sized, right-strength rubber bands.
• A filing robot that takes any document or photocopy and puts it neatly away in an easy-to-find file.
• A device that automatically sorts and tidies shelves, boxes, files, my brain...
• A mini desk-sized guillotine (with Buffy on it, and it's scratch 'n' sniff and smells like purple lollies, and beeps at 2.30 every afternoon like an editorial alarm. And also gives me unsolicited compliments.)
• The absolutely perfect never-fail pocket-sized pencil sharpener.
• Household sponges with labels, eg floor sponge, toilet sponge, sink sponge.*
• A nice green plant.*

Meanwhile, in the Mothership they are letting Bakers be Bakers. Behold this range of items that once-activated did not remain stationary** for very long. A beloved member of staff was leaving, and it seems the Mothership expressed their feelings through cake. Lots and lots of lots of cake. Jealous.





* No, we don't know how these items qualify as stationery either. As we have said throughout this stationery-fest, disobedient Onions. Nor can we fathom how one Onion has failed to realise that a nice green plant is not a pipe dream - nice green plants do actually exist in the world and could be easily, you know, acquired.

** By-the-by, if you have trouble telling your stationery from your stationary, here are a few mnemonics you might find useful . (1) The friendly person who sells you pens and post-its is a 'stationer', clearly not a 'stationar'. Problem solved. Or (2) remember that the 'e' in stationery is for 'envelope'. Problem solved. Or (3) paper ends in 'er', so does stationery. Problem solved. Onions - we are here to help.