Lilian Knowles pretends to be a police station

Today was a funny day- it didn't feel like a proper day somehow. Maybe it's because it wasn't a weekend kind of day- I had one lecture- but it wasn't a week kind of day either- I spent most of the day in halls frantically cooking for the food fair this evening, which isn't normal for any week day, but is especially different to last week when I was manning the stall in the Quad most of the time when I wasn't in lectures or at one of the events, and was mostly in college from around 9am to 9pm.

I attained mixed results with the cooking. The potato salad, of course, which in any case was all done bar adding the mayonnaise and mustard last night, was fine, even good (and drew praise this evening). And the other salad was indeed as I had feared yesterday a write-off (though I didn't establish this till the actual food fair, since I hadn't had time to try it during the day but just grabbed it as I rushed out and tested it after I got there). The other two items were somewhat in between. The meringues basically came off as a success, and quite an impressive one, by the time I added the cream, pineapple and grated chocolate at the fair itself, but had their problems along the way: in order to make them into kind of 'nests' that would hold cream, I had to bake a thin base first then add walls- otherwise the walls just collapsed to become part of the base. So the base got quite brown while the walls in some cases weren't entirely done inside. Actually, the problems started before that, when on my fourth and final egg the yolk broke- I spooned it out but there were still traces. Luckily, in spite of what my mum always told me, it turns out that whites will still whip to soft peaks properly even if there is a trace of yolk mixed in- it must need a significant amount to prevent it happening. And luckily, I tried to see if it would work instead of just assuming it wouldn't and throwing it all out.

The other problem was that on one tray the meringues stuck to the bottom and I couldn't get them off without breaking them, so I made a new batch (when I came back after my lecture) of bases and added the broken walls before putting them in the oven- this actually worked.

The meringues was all I really had time for before going in for my lecture. I hadn't got up at 8.30 as planned and gone in search of an egg whisk (I have one back home but couldn't find it when packing everything up to come up to London), but had instead remained welded to my bed till 11. I even, for the first time, broke my iron obedience of the rules and ignored 2 fire alarms (I think I would have gone down if it had been 3am, because I would have known I could go back to bed, but because I was already oversleeping, I knew if I got up for that I'd have to stay up, a thought too awfull to contemplate...)- not to mention a third that happened when I'd just taken my pyjamas off preparatory to getting dressed (I thought, I'll either have to put my pyjamas back on or my clothes if I go down for it, so it might as well be my clothes, and it was actually a short alarm so was over before I was done). Anyway, the point is that I didn't get cracking as soon as I'd planned... Having wasted some egg white that came out with the yolk I got rid of, I needed some more, and also some greaseproof paper for the Swiss roll, and some cream. So I had to fit in a trip to Tesco's in the middle of all of it. I went while the meringues were baking, after I'd put the walls on, leaving the oven on so they could continue cooking... oh dear, I am very bad.

Tesco's was phenomenal. Something else. I'd never been there on a week day lunchtime before. Let's just say that it's a proper size supermarket, not just a Tesco Express or similar, and it goes all the way back, but on this occasion, so did the queue for the checkout. That's, at a wild guess, and bearing in mind that I'm hopeless at estimating lengths, volumes, weights etc, 20m. Two aisle lengths, at any rate. Fortunately, it was moving pretty fast, but even so, it made the visit a bit longer than I'd planned. I rushed back, took the meringues out of the oven and collected everything up that I'd need, then rushed down again. They were painting the door blue as I went through: today Lilian Knowles was pretending to be a police station for a film crew*. A bus came along as I got to the bus stop, so I was only very slightly late for my lecture. I'd got a sandwich while I was in Tesco, which I had on the bus.

After the lecture, I came back, pausing only to buy some pens (almost the only non-red pen I have left was running right out in the lecture, to the point where every line had to be drawn several times in order to be visible), some fair trade chocolate for grating on the meringues, and the Guardian, which disappointingly failed to cover the climate change demo, even though it was the first issue of the Guardian since the event. The Observer's coverage had been disappointingly brief- particularly considering I only bought it for that as I don't normally read it. There was just one photo and a couple of paragraphs, and it didn't mention the marches leading up to the gathering in Trafalgar Sq.

Back at LK, I tackled the Swiss roll, which took quite a while to make, in terms of mixing together the ingredients to go in the tin, surprisingly. It was pretty liquid when I poured it in, and I had my doubts about the recipe- it used just plain flour and no bicarbonate of soda, but when I looked in the oven shortly before it was done, to my surprise it had lifted up and formed a couple of big wrinkles or folds, presumably due to expanding and no longer fitting the tray. It didn't break along the folds or anything. It was much more like a pancake than a cake though. And when I finally got the buttercream in at the end, it was practically all filling (my fault as I didn't pay any attention to the quantities of buttercream mentioned in the recipe but just used one pat of butter), so probably very sickly.

In between all this, I also got those repair job meringues made (this time they mostly didn't break but the bases weren't really properly cooked- still floppy and sticky, like the topping on lemon meringue pie), chopped up the pineapple and added the mayo and mustard to the potato salad- as well as washing everything about ten times as I needed to use the same bowl for the Swiss roll, the meringues, the buttercream, and transporting the meringues in- I don't have a mixing bowl so I was using the only one of my big tupperware pots not taken up with salad for that. It then fulfilled a final function at the fair when I used it to whip the cream. I got everything done- but not till about 3/4 of an hour after I'd planned to leave, in order to get there at 6 to set up as suggested. So I was in a real hurry at the end- that's what I'm blaming my dropping the meringues in the corridor (some breakages and rather a lot of meringue pieces scattered on the floor), and leaving my key card in my room by mistake for the first time, on. I hurried out of the front door into a crowd of people with a film camera on rails and everything- I think I'd quite possibly got out just before a take which was lucky as it would have made me later, but didn't have time to see whether David Schwimmer was there (and anyway felt it would be beneath me, even while I was really interested to know whether I really was that close to a star of Friends...)

In the end, I got there about quarter of an hour before it was due to start, weighed down with four bags (2 tubs salad, 1 tub meringues, 1 unlidded tub Swiss roll**, 1 tub pineapple, assorted cutlery, grater, chocolate, cloth in case of spills...). There turned out only to be one stall; there hadn't been enough tables for two or something. In any case, CMCC and the Residences Officer weren't there yet and when they did come arrived without food, and as it had been they who were mainly going to do the local and organic stall, I suppose those two things meshed quite well together. So my potato salad went on the stall with all the fairtrade brownies (which were AMAZING, and made by the President of People and Planet) and so on, the only savoury item. I set to whipping the cream, while talking to E (a fresher who turns out to be quite high up in the Woodcraft folk, which my brother is involved with, and who was one of the candidates we campaigned for and got elected in the elections a couple of weeks ago (she ran for Academic Board)), who also whipped briefly while I was sorting the salad, and then CMCC and the Residences officer came along, and after a bit CMCC came over to E and I. I've already mentioned that he's a tactile person. He came and squatted by us with his arms round our necks. I've never had a crush on someone who did so much touching in the general way of things, and it really is quite bizarre. Once again I was enjoying it while feeling sad that of course it really didn't mean anything (though at least it perhaps indicates that he sees me as more than an acquaintance), and that, the action reminded me, there was a very concrete reason in the shape of the Residences Officer why it couldn't, and feeling a little guilty as well that I was enjoying this perfectly innocent gesture on his part. During the course of the conversation that went on at the same time, I got to stress how much I'd enjoyed Climate Change Awareness Week- this is important as people are starting to suggest I'm doing too much work for environmental things, and whilst it's nice of them to be concerned that I shouldn't overwork myself or let my studies suffer, and whilst I suppose it shows a certain amount of friendship, it's really not what I want- I want to do things that impress people, I admit***, but I don't want them to think I've been giving up unwise amounts of time, because I do it because I want to, and I want to be able to continue to without looking like a martyr to everyone else (which would mean I'd have to stop because it would just become too awkward, and could risk alienating people). I'm not a martyr because I've been happier this year with all the things I've been doing than either of the past two years, where I was either doing nothing at home or I was doing not much (during the working day) in Japan, and possibly even happier than since I was at school- I loved UCL but I'm not sure I was as happy while I was there (though I can't entirely remember to be honest).

Somehow, I was a bit out of it during the food fair. I managed to calm down and relax once the meringues were assembled, and bought three successive helpings consisting of different components of the stall, and sat just behind it eating and chatting to E- we decided that the Union needed, instead of a Women's officer, two Gender officers, one male and one female, though we weren't being that serious- but feeling like everything was rather unreal. I had a walk round the other stalls towards the end, but they'd mostly sold out, though I did get some pickles at the Polish stall (I think), and a vegetarian bun at the Taiwanese stall (it looked like meaty things I'd seen in 7-11s in Japan, so I was interested to see what it was like). We managed to sell everything on our stall, even shifting the last meringue by the end, which was quite a feat not because they weren't nice or didn't look appetising, but because, like I myself, everyone was completely stuffed (I felt like it was Christmas afternoon). And it looks like we made a profit- this is impressive because apparently most years the People and Planet stall makes a loss, and this year most societies were saying they broke even.

I picked up some of the amazing volume of rubbish, when we'd packed up the stall, as the Students' Union officers were going round doing the same and it felt odd and wrong to watch them working without helping myself. But as the Anti-Racism officer (who was organising the whole thing as well as the rest of the Rise Against Racism week) pointed out, they had gloves (I hadn't noticed), so I just picked up the stuff that wasn't too nasty. I found a five pound note under the International Society stall! So I handed it to the Anti-Racism Officer.

Back at LK****, I got them to let me into my room (with many apologies for leaving my key card there), washed up all the stuff (what with running 3/4 hour late there hadn't been time before I went), did some laundry (not as much as I'd wanted because most of my pound coins went at the food fair, so I only had enough for one load), and looked on the internet for some data. There are various options for our individual computational statistics project, but I think I'm going to do the data analysis one. The lecturer is going to talk to each of us about what we're planning to do in class tomorrow, so I had to be prepared. I think I'd like to compare the amount of waste produced per head and the percentage recycled, for each local authority area, with various things like income, rural/ urban composition, left/ right wingness (as shown by election results), age composition, and even what percentage have a doorstep recycling collection or live less than 1km from a recycling facility- this last, as well as the first two, I found data for but most of the rest will be harder. And it may turn out that the whole idea is unsuitable- I really don't know quite enough about what's expected of us.

*This was about all the information we were given, besides that access would be restricted at certain times, but somebody told me it was a film directed by David Schwimmer and involving Simon Pegg, and that David Schwimmer himself was there, and they also mentioned the title but I forgot it. But I don't know where they got their information and therefore how accurate it is. I think it might have been nice to check with residents that they didn't mind having their access restricted, instead of the hall just deciding to accept- but ah well. Maybe they consulted the Residents' Committee or something.

**This caused quite a few problems of a roll-sticking-to-bag nature, but I hadn't been able to find the lid for that one before coming up to university, like the egg whisk, and I didn't have another tub.

***I think because I'm very aware that they're all good at things I'm not, like politics or understanding how governments interact, or knowing how to motivate people or organise large scale things or whatever, so I want to show them how good I can be at hands on things like cooking or crafts, so as to effectively say 'I may be hopeless at politics etc, but I'm not a worthless idiot, look! I have other skills'

****Where filming had finished and they'd all gone home