Pancakes and Lent

Four days to go and it's Pancake Tuesday. I love Pancake Tuesday, partly because I love pancakes but mostly because the days are getting brighter and spring really is just around the corner. February has great light because there are very few pollen particles in the air.

While I'm not particularly religious (what does that mean?) I do try to give up something for Lent (Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday). Last year it was gravy. This year I have decided that it will be potatoes and bread, so no chip butties.

No jacket potatoes either. My favourite meal is an oven-cooked jacket potato with butter, grated Cheddar cheese, and tuna with mayonnaise on top. So why don't they do that at the Savoy Grill? And why, if I was eating at the Savoy Grill would I order something other than jacket potato? I suppose it's because you can have jacket potatoes any time.

Also, if it was jacket potatoes every meal time you would soon get fed up of them. So that's why Lent is so useful. To deny yourself something for 40 days makes you appreciate it all the more when the time's up.

Better than sex

But first, before all that denial, there are the pancakes. Here's how to make pancakes. Well why listen to me when Delia is only a click away? [As an afterthought I'm adding this for those who can't be bothered with the Delia stuff: For 10 to 12 pancakes you will need 8 oz (200 gms) of plain flour, two decent eggs and a pint of milk (the same stuff you use for Yorkshire Puddings). Whip the eggs in to the flour in a basin, then pour in the milk gradually to avoid lumps. No need to let it stand. No more effort needed than that.] A non-stick pancake pan is ideal but a frying pan will do otherwise. Put a bit of olive oil in and make sure the pan is hot. Ease the pancake with a spatula or something like that to make sure it's loose then flip it with confidence. Blokes should be good at the flipping bit. Whimps should flip over a clean floor so they can scrape up the bits.

Ignore Delia on the filling. This is what you need:

Some orange quarters
Cointreau
Double cream,
Golden Syrup

First squeeze your orange on to the pancake, then add a bit of Cointreau, next some cream and finally drizzle on some syrup, then fold up your pancake and tuck in. Better than sex. Well as good as. Some may say better with sex but I'm not going there. Save to say that with Lent just around the corner this is a great opportunity to indulge ourselves just a little.

Sex, drugs and Orchids that grow in the dark

Orchids are amazing plants. Firstly they are the biggest flower group in the world with about 35,000 varieties. Secondly they have developed all kinds of diverse ways to pollinate themselves.

Take the Bee Orchid. Somehow - I suppose it has to be natural selection - it has evolved a flower that looks the image of a female bee. So male bees hop on board for a bit of casual sex. While doing so the orchid's pollinia - its pollen sack - hooks on to the bee which deposits it at the next Bee Orchid to which the bee has taken a fancy. So as the bee does what birds and bees do, in blissful ignorance of the way it has been duped, the only real sex that's going on is between the orchids.

Slipper orchids attract thirsty insects looking for a drink in their flower pouch or sack. Often the insect slips in, gets wet and hooks the pollinia as it dries off.

One orchid is a little more sophisticated, exuding a narcotic substance that puts the insect's lights out when a lid closes over the sack. When the lid lifts, the insect comes round then crawls out with the pollinia attached. In this case the narcotic is addictive enough to drag the insect back to other flowers, like tiny insect junkies visiting their suppliers.

I know all this because we went to the Royal Horticultural Society Wisley today to photograph trees. There were daffodils in bloom. Daffodils in mid-January! Just to prove it I photographed Gill with some (above). On the way out we called in the plant centre. It was Orchid Weekend so the shop was packed with orchids and there was a Gardeners' Question Time-style presentation where, apart from the above, we learned that there is an orchid in Australia that grows underground. What's the point of that?

Wisley's resident expert assures us that Orchids are pretty easy to grow. Don't you believe it. We bought a Cymbidium two years ago and after a wonderful initial flower display we have had nothing but leaves. I took it outside in the summer, just as I was told to do. I have been sparing with food and water. It doesn't get too much sunlight. I have even tried talking to it in my best Prince of Wales' brogue.

After all the excitement at the start of this note I might have expected an X-rated Cymbidium by now, a Cymbidium so outrageous that it has to be stored on the top shelf , away from prying eyes or, more alarming still, a visit from the obscene vegetation squad.

Sadly I think we have bought the most Puritanical orchid on the planet. It doesn't dance, sing or flash at any passing wasps. It simply sits there looking green, dull and bored. It needs to get out more.

Another ripper

The five women found dead near Ipswich, all prostitutes, all murdered within a few days of each other, has brought back memories of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. I was working on Yorkshire newspapers at the time. I covered some of the attacks and attended the press conference in Dewsbury when the police announced that they had their man.

It was a dark time when women were afraid to walk out alone. Sutcliffe should have been caught much earlier. Much has changed in the interim. Card indexing files have been replaced by computers. There are many more CCTV cameras around today and DNA testing has come of age. It is inconceivable that the killer of these young women will be at large for long.

I heard a woman speaking on the radio this morning, saying that the victims should not be described as prostitutes but as "sex workers". It was a silly argument. She was suggesting, and I understand what she says, that the word "prostitute" has become loaded with derogatory baggage.

But should you avoid words simply because of the meaning they convey in the minds of some people? That some will make certain judgements about prostitutes is not going to disappear if you take away the noun and replace it with a different noun. Prostitutes sell sex. It's what they do whether we approve or disapprove.

The more important point is that there should be no distinction between the life of a prostitute and that of any other citizen. While the law upholds this point, I know that, in reality, not all will agree. Even the police, at times, can betray a "hierarchy of worth."

Many years ago I was assaulted on a train. When I was interviewed by a police officer he rang through to another force in an attempt to secure an arrest. Describing me on the telephone , he assured his fellow officer that I was "no toe rag". Presumably toe rags, whoever they may be, can expect a lower level of justice.

But I don't believe that such judgements will apply in this case. The public and police want this killer caught. The prospect of another Yorkshire Ripper is unimaginable.