Another favourite poem - a little less well known perhaps

Catacombs, Paris by David Constantine

Collecting the photos at the counter next to where
She bought the testing kit he sees what he has done,
She has, they have, down there
In the deepest circle by the font that one
Script called the Samaritan Woman's Well
And the other Lethe. She is displayed
Much like a nude against the knobby wall
Of end-on femurs and humeri, arms wide
Along a dado curve of skulls. Boudoir
Or chapel apse in a kraal of bone of some
Few hundred of several millions of dead,
His lens, the flash, her look of centre spread.
The place? Down there. And when? The morning after
One of his several million sperm went home.

Saturday March 2, 2002 The Guardian

I read this poem in the Guardian in 2002 and it haunted me to the extent that I cut it out and kept it. The contrast of a tiny promise of new life and death on such a massive scale - and the innocence of the moment described. Bizarre. Anyway, I have never visited the Catacombs in Paris - but found this amazing picture here. So, this is me being playful in a macabre and slightly arty way. Don't mock it - as Jack once said to Vera: "Vera love... this is as good as it gets".

AND NOW.... Lemon syrup loaf cake (page 13 of Nigella's how to be a domestic Goddess)

125g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
175g sr flour
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons milk
23x13x7cm loaf tin buttered and lined

for syrup
juice of 1.5 lemons (about 4 tblespoons)
100g icing sugar

Oven 180 C/ gas mark 4

butter and line loaf tin well. Cream together butter and sugar (I did this in food proc). Add eggs and lemon zest, beating them in well. Add flour and salt gently, then milk. Put in tin and cook (45 mins - 1 hr until cake tester comes out clean). Should look golden and risen with a split - although may sink a bit later).

Make syrup while baking cake: melt juice and sugar together over gentle heat.

As soon as cake is out of oven, puncture with skewer all over and pour over syrup - tring to get some in middle. Leave cake to soak up the rest and cool. Don't try to take it out of tin until completely cold.

YUMMY