A heated encounter with a packet of peppers

I did a foolish thing last week. Preparing a pot of my world-famous, widely-admired and much sought-after vegetable soup, I thought I would pep it up with a couple of chillies.

At the market I bought a packet of finger-sized greens and reds. I snipped the ends off three, carefully split them down the middle, scraped away the seeds, chopped them small and added them to the mixture.

Half an hour later, my finger ends were tingling. “They must be good chillies,” I thought. An hour later, I was whimpering with pain as I realised my big mistake. I had neglected to wear gloves.

With wooden fingertips, I turned hastily to the computer and googled “chilli burns.”

I got a long list of preventative hints, though practicable curative measures seemed harder to come by. I had no coconut milk and no rubbing alcohol. Soap and water didn’t seem to do any good, I was fresh out of yoghurt and ice cubes just melted. Real fast.

Olive oil? Yes, I had that, so I sloshed it over my fingers and prayed. And waited. Was there a slight diminution of the pain? I washed with soap and water and poured oil on again.

Possibly, just possibly, the fires were waning. Three hours later, I was able to move out of the kitchen of torment, though if my hands came anywhere near natural heat, the pain flared again.

Next morning, the soreness had largely gone but there was a tingle to remind me that chillies were not to be trifled with. Dead right!

Using tongs, I buried the remainder deep in my garbage bin. In future when it comes to pepping up my widely-admired, much sought-after soup, I will resort to the little bottle of brown chilli powder at the back of the larder, removing a pinch with a teaspoon, no human contact required.

Oh, yes, the soup? It was perfect, nice and kali.

* * *

When Siobhan Yap, a saleswoman, aged 27, parked her £20,000 (Sh3 million) Audi A3 convertible on the forecourt of an Audi dealership in Watford, a delivery lorry accidentally smashed into it.

Audi repaired the convertible, provided a courtesy car and offered to pay for a restaurant meal for Ms Yap and a guest of her choice.

What the company did not expect was a bill for £714 (Sh108,000), representing the food, and mostly drink, consumed by the saleswoman and her mother, Janet, at the posh l’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in London’s Covent Garden.

The bill, published by a London newspaper, itemised drinks alone as four glasses of champagne for £72 (Sh10,890), two bottles of wine costing £69 (Sh10,530) each, six cocktails totalling £86 (Sh13,050) and a £10 (Sh1,510) sloe gin.

The garage said this was too much for two people and it would pay only half.

Ms Yap defended her conduct and said it was “a lifetime opportunity” to eat in a great restaurant.

There was little doubt what the public thought.

A series of comments on the London Evening Standard website described Ms Yap as “a greedy cow,” “a cheeky cow,” “a greedy little cow,” “a low-life,” and “a silly woman.”

One said “Audi should demand return of the car so they can damage it some more.”

* * *

So Joe Public fooled us all. The General Election did not end in a hung parliament; nor did it give a slender victory to the opposition Labour Party.

It gave a small but workable, overall majority to the Conservative party, returning Prime Minister David Cameron to power for another five years.

And, in the tradition of losers, there were prompt resignations from three defeated leaders. David Milliband walked away from Labour, saying he had given off his best; Nick Clegg accepted responsibility for what he described as “a catastrophic” performance by the Liberal Democrats; and Nigel Farage of the extreme right-wing Ukip party handed in his resignation letter, but the party rejected it, so he remained in place.

Big winners were the Scottish National Party, which took more than 50 seats from Labour.

The Lib Dems appeared to pay the price for co-operating with the Conservatives in the last coalition government. Ukip, though it came second in many contests and polled more votes than the Lib Dems, returned only one MP, sparking calls for reform of the first-past-the-post electoral system.

* * *

Lay readers in church are told not to be afraid to pause, but be sure where they do it.

The following is from the Rule of St Augustine: “Abstain from food and drink (pause) as much as your health allows.”

Pause in the wrong place and you could get:

“Abstain from food (pause) and drink as much as your health allows.”

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