The Book:
Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

The Facts:
Pages: 320 (paperback)
Published: 1^st ed – 1936

The Blurb:
Her mother’s dying request takes Mary Yellan on a sad journey across the bleak moorland of Cornwall to reach Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. With the coachman’s warning echoing in her memory, Mary arrives at a dismal place to find Patience a changed woman, cowering from her overbearing husband, Joss Merlyn.

Affected by the inn’s brooding power, Mary is thwarted in her intention to reform her aunt, and unwillingly drawn into the dark deeds of Joss and his accomplices. And, as she struggles with events beyond her control, Mary is further thrown by her feelings for a man she dare not trust…

The Review:
I first read Jamaica Inn when I was 11 or 12. The precious brat I was, I had finished the book the rest of the English class were reading, so Mr Priestley suggested I read this one while everyone else caught up. I remember enjoying it and I also remember bits freaking me out, but that’s it, so when I saw a copy in a charity shop, I figured it was time to revisit the book.

I’m glad I did.

It is a lot darker the second time around and, when read with adult eyes, the treatment Joss Merlyn gives to Aunt Patience is even harder to swallow. The darkest bit of the book comes in the middle, where you realise along with Mary quite how trapped and helpless to the situation she is. I was eager to get to the end, but forced myself to fully appreciate the plotting which is as tight as a drum. Not for a second does du Maurier let up with the gothic horror on the windswept Cornish coast. The half-remembered plot had me going “don’t trust him!” to Mary a few pages before the secret villain is revealed (ooh, how that shocked me the first time round).

The one bit that slightly annoyed me is the ending and Mary’s fate. Not to give it away, but for such a strong female character, I’m rather disappointed at the way she chose to end things.

Would I recommend Jamaica Inn?
Definitely! I loved this book the first time around and I loved it when I read it again over a decade later. I definitely took more from it the second time around. Some books you read and can’t understand why they’ve become “classics”, but Jamaica Inn isn’t one of those.

Four mugs of tea.

PS: The Amazon links I am using here affiliate links. All I get out of these reviews is the joy/horror of reading new books and sharing them with you 🙂

I have made a bit of a rod for my back at work by starting a tradition where I bake cakes for the team when it is someone’s birthday – well, I like to bake and if I bake for the team then it is not just me and Moose who are responsible for scarfing the lot. I then enlarged the rod some by taking requests. Last time it was lemon cakes with lime icing, this time chocolate ginger cakes. The recipe I usually use for ginger cakes is rather expensive and time consuming, so I decided to see if I could work out a recipe of my own. I really enjoyed the process and have this sneaking suspicion that I might have caught the baking bug. I am seriously contemplating asking for a food mixer for Christmas…

Anyway, the recipe turned out rather well. As always with baking, there is an element of guesswork and intuition involved, so have fun with it. It is a variation on a basic fairy cake recipe. The following amount makes about 15 standard fairy cakes.

Ingredients

• 100g margarine
• 50g caster sugar
• 25g dark muscavado sugar
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 2 medium eggs
• 75g self raising flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 1-2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 medium eggs

Method

1. Cream the margarine, caster sugar and muscavado sugar
2. Mix the flour, cocoa powder and ground ginger together in a separate bowl
3. Beat the eggs into the creamed sugar/margarine, one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour/cocoa/ginger mix with each egg
4. Gently stir in the golden syrup
5. Gently fold in the remaining flour and stir until smooth
6. Pour into paper cases (about halfway full as the mix will rise)
7. 190⁰C / GM5 oven for 15 minutes until firmly spongy to the touch
8. Leave the cakes to cool
9. Eat
10. Go for a five mile run to burn off the calories

Tips

• Taste the mix before you pour it into the cases. Depending on personal preference, you might want to add more ginger/sugar/cocoa – the recipe is a bit guess work still on the ratios
• It is the dark muscavado sugar that brings some of the extra moistness to the cake. If you don’t have any, try brown demerara or just 75g of caster sugar and 3 dollups of golden syrup
• These cakes taste better once they are cooled as they all lovely and moist

Inspiration hasn’t struck yet on the best way to ice/frost these. In my head I am leaning toward serving them with a hot chocolate sauce, but that’s not really practical for taking into the office! Other ideas in the comments please 😀

(P.S. The lemon cakes were just the basic fairy cake recipe, with the zest of one lemon grated into the mix. For the lime icing, mix icing sugar with lime juice et voila)

Ooh, it is a Sunday and I am willingly writing a Roast. I must be getting better! Actually, the week has been a bit pants, but with the aid of lots of tea and cookies it is looking up and I am all set to take on next week and whatever it has to throw at me.

God help all of us.

This week is a collaboration between Moose and myself – she is responsible for the lions share of the links, movies (and cookies). I am just here for the witty repartee and the washing up. Once again, deity defend us. I’ll stop blaspheming now and get on with the show, promise.

We Brits do like to grumble about the NHS, but then you look at the impact it has had on our lives and realise it could be a lot worse.

I have made a few little snits in the past about how Steven Moffat, great writer though he is for Dr Who, does have a couple of foibles. Ol’ Surly challenged me to defend my thesis and my brain just fell flat on its face. I give you this summation instead. (A few spoilers/teases contained for those who haven’t seen Season 4 yet).

My dream e-book reader? Certainly the Readius is the most portable and funky of the ones to date. It certainly beats the Kindle into a cocked hat, looks wise.

I know it is not very professional to be jealous of your colleagues, but I am. I am emerald green with envy: the latest EDLO is shortly going off on his travels, and more to the point he isn’t taking me with him. Damn him. 😉

I have been reading a lot of vampire novels lately, partly because even I was getting sick of a steady diet of regency romances, and partly because the local library has been on a spending spree (each library in the city network has a genre they major in, and at the moment the paranormal is top of Portswood’s list). So for me finding a bat in your bra seems strangely appropriate. Odd, but appropriate. (And how can you NOT have realised there was a bat in there?!)

Now tell me slugs aren’t scary?

I like audiobooks – they are great for long car journeys – but I never listen to them in everyday life. Something about just sitting there, listening… I can’t do it. I need to fiddle and being doing something with my hands. Glad to hear I am not the only one. Perhaps I need to take up knitting or something?

The Moon was mistaken for a UFO. So many Welsh jokes, not enough time.

For Abi, who I have been neglecting shamefully lately, lots of movie trailers:
Burn After Reading

Elegy

Quantum of Solace – quote of the week has to be Moose when she introduced the trailer with “He’s got a big gun! And that’s not a euphemism!” I shall just content myself with “Mmmmmm, Daniel Craig”

Blindness

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Miracle at St Anna

Kabluey

And whilst I leave you digesting that little lot, I am off into the kitchen to invent a recipe for ginger cake. If it works, I will share, but I am a little dubious. They’ve got to go into work tomorrow for someone’s birthday, so no pressure!

What is your measure of a day? I used to have an informal rating system based on toast. A day was either a soggy toast day (bad) or a crispy toast day, which was good. Seeing as how I am now denied bread and all bread-products – something that is very, very hard for me (just ask Moose about my reaction to the Crack Muffins) – I felt the need to reevaluate my rating system.

So I now have an rating system based on mugs of tea.

The first mandatory cup of the day is not counted in this system, by the way. Without that first cup mug bucket of tea as soon as I open my eyes, the day simply wouldn’t happen.

My standard day used to equate to about a two cup. One mid-morning and one mid-afternoon, with a cup’s variation either way depending on weather and whether I am at work (often less tea) or writing (often more tea).

Taking this as the mean, therefore, you can see that it’s not been good lately when I have been on five cups of tea. Yesterday I downed six, yes six, cups of the warm nectar. Even for me that level of chain-drinking is excessive, especially when you take into consideration the fact I now have to drink my tea black. Damn lactose intolerance over-turning twenty years of tea drinking habit. I think the last time I was that bad it was the Thesis Summer and I was existing on Kit Kats and tea. A great way to loose a dress size, but not conducive to overall health or good skin.

Yes, I am turning into the Tea Monster again. I have even taken my own tea bags into work, because if I am going to be drinking endless cups of black tea, I would rather drink my favourite Assam than manky Asda’s own.

I’ve just remembered another time I drank endless cups of black tea: when I was doing archaeological field work. When you’re stuck in a field in the middle of nowhere and you don’t smoke, there’s not a lot to do in your breaks other than drink tea. Well, there are other things, but when your 18 and every other person in the unit is over the age of 50, tea is always the safe and more appealing option.

This post is by way of explanation for when/if I start or end a post with “today was an X cup of tea day”.

For the record, today was a five cup of tea day. I had got it cut down to three whilst at work but some days, all that stands between you and total office oblivion is a trusty Tetley teabag.

I am treating you all abominably at the moment, dear blog readers. No Sunday Roast again. I sat down at the computer last night to have a quick pre-Sunday gander at what I had instore for you all today, and was driven to swearing. Loudly. Out of deference to my poor father reading this on a soggy canal-side in Essex, I shan’t repeat what I said, but it was rather uncouth and unbecoming of a well brought up young lady. You see, normally by Saturday evening I have around 100 links ready for weeding through. Last night I had two.

Two links does not a roast make so I had to scramble around in my brain, folder of shame and pile of notebooks for some half-written draft I could wow you with. Which is when I remembered the series of Celebrity Squares the Guardian have been running, where they interview celebrities about their favourite piece of technology.

Whilst I am not a celebrity and interviewing myself seems a little bit… egotistical… I really couldn’t see another Sunday sail blithely by without some form of post, so here goes:

What’s your favourite piece of technology?
My 12″ PowerBook G4, aka the PocketCalculator. I got it over five years ago now and I am still totally, head-over-heals, irrationally in love with the shiny thing. When I had to reinstall the OS a few months back my heart was in my mouth the whole time when I had to face the thought it might not pull through. And can I just say – one reinstall in five years? That isn’t bad going.

How has it improved your life?
It is so totally part of my life for so long I can’t really point to any one thing and go “that is better for having it”. In one respect I am actually worse off because it is thanks to its dinky keyboard and portability that I was tempted to take it to the library when writing my dissertation, which directly led to my current RSI woes.

On the whole though, it enables me to keep in touch with people, gives me the means to access a world that fascinates me (the internet), and is always there to act as a repository for my ramblings and writing, helping me make sense of my screwball brain.

When was the last time you used it, and what for?
Right now for writing this post.

What additional features would you add if you could?
I’d give it some new batteries so it can go for longer than ten minutes without being plugged into the mains – it used to last four hours fine. I would also get more memory and replace the processors with some Intel chips so I could run the latest version of OS X. It is starting to reach the point where I cannot play with exciting new pieces of software because they will only run on the dual core modes.

It might be nice to rip out all the guts, keep the shell, and start over with new innards. In the style of Gibson’s Sandbenders. You see, I really, really like the size and shape of the PocketCalculator! The newer Macs just don’t sing to me in the same way. Sob.

Do you think it will be obsolete in 10 years’ time?
Yes. Given the way technology keeps moving forward, I would be slightly foolish to think I would still be on my PowerBook as my main computer in ten years time. I’d like to think it will actually still be running though, if only because it is going to take me ten years to save up for a replacement!

What one tip would you give to non-PowerBook users?
Switch. Not for one moment do I regret moving from a PC desktop to an Apple laptop. Reliability aside, it is just more fun to use, and it is great that it is portable. Plus, it is just so damn sexy looking, all sleek and sliver and tiny. I used to get some good looks when I whipped it out on campus. So to speak.

Do you consider yourself to be a Luddite or a nerd?
I can’t even fight the label, I am a nerd. But a cautious nerd with a few Luddite tendencies lurking in the background. I love new technology and heartily embrace the bits that make my life easier, but I do think there are more than a few instances where the “traditional” methods are just as valid. I am not a whole-hearted fan of the current trend toward digitising every aspect of our lives and putting it on a government database. I am not convinced children of seven need to be doing all their homework on a computer hooked into the network. I worry at the way my own brain and how I think is changing.

When someone asks me “should I get that piece of technology?” (usually my father) the first thing I always ask is “why?” Why do you want it? What would it do to aide your life that what you currently have doesn’t do for you? If you can give me a sensible answer then go for it – why not? But if it is just a case of “it’s shiny, new and everyone has one” then I do tend to suggest caution with a healthy dollup of wait a few weeks/months. If you still want it, then go for it.

Damn, I sound like my mother, but she had a point. Impulse buy everything and 1) you end up with no money and 2) you won’t be able to move around the house for gadgets you never use because the instruction manual is too daunting to understand.

What’s the most expensive piece of technology you’ve ever owned?
Without a doubt the PocketCalculator. The thing set me back £2000 and the only reason I could afford that is because a beloved relative died and left me the money. Perhaps I should have saved the money, or brought jewellery or something, but I like to think she would have approved. I use it every single day, it is throughly a part of my life, and each time I use it I remember her.

Mac or PC?
Mac. Given an option I would never switch back to a PC for personal computing. I have to use a PC at work and that is bad enough. At the same time, I am not one of those devoted fanboys who yells at anyone who says a word against Apple. I can accept there are situations where a PC might be called for and I understand Macs aren’t for everyone. They are damn pricey for a start!

What song is at the top of your iPod’s top 25 most played?
Right now I couldn’t say as I haven’t listened to music for a good few months, but I would have to hazzard a guess at either “Photograph” by Nickelback or (god help me) “Don’t Stop the Music” by Rhianna. I never claimed my musical tastes were that sophisticated.

Will robots rule the world?
Well, Skynet is already up and running, thanks to the British military… Maybe not rule per se, but perhaps manipulate for our own good, a la Asimov and Daneel Olivaw.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
I dream of my perfect phone/email/web/e-book/camera/writing/portable device thingy. Something that does everything I need to do on a daily personal computing basis, but that fits in my pocket. Ubiquitous computing so when I am at home or in the office I have the power of a mainframe with all its processing behind me, but when I am out and about I can still access my information, add to it, alter it, and…

I read far too much science fiction, that’s my trouble. I foresee a day, not too far off, where computers really are mobile and ubiquitous and multi-function. The only problem will be the interface. Typing has it’s limits, but so does speaking. If I had to dictate my writing I would have to 1) get a lot less shy and 2) have a sound-proofed office!