Let me eat cake.

[davywavy]

I don't know if you've ever been to Stroud in Gloucestershire, but according to those who know such things it is apparently the 'most alternative place in Britain'.
I'm never entirely sure what this means but I think it has something to do with outrageously high property prices, because whenever the word 'alternative' is used it's a pretty sure bet that there will be a lot of disposable income involved somewhere along the line as having your Chakras balanced doesn't come cheap. As it is, Stroud is an extremely pretty little town at the junction of five valleys, each of which is dotted with farmhouses built from local honey-coloured stone and seemingly entirely inhabited by the sort of person who made a packet as an oil trader for Trafigura before moving to the country and joining the Green Party. I was there last weekend.

I spent the afternoon wandering around the town with its farmers market and little second-hand bookshops and local museum and after a while I fancied a sit down and a cuppa so I wandered into an organic, fair-trade cooperative cafe.
It takes a certain sort of place to support organic, fair-trade cooperatives. Where I grew up in Doncaster the closest they have to that sort of thing is KFC, and this one didn't disappoint. On the community noticeboard at the door they not only had adverts for eight different yoga groups (including niche groups like yoga for pregnancy and yoga for toddlers*) but also, to my delight, a flyer for a 'men's encounter group run by Hugo and Swithin'**.

I took a seat and ordered a mug of Chinese Gunpowder tea*** whilst I browsed the menu, and as I read my eye lit upon the following dietary masterpiece - a macrobiotic, organic, gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free cake. I looked at it. It looked at me. I couldn't resist. I ordered a slice.

It looked like cake. It smelled kinda like cake. The texture was sort of cake-like, if very crumbly. However, it tasted like someone had taken a cake and sucked all the joy out of it. It was like a cake which had been attacked by a Dementor. I know some people have various food intolerances, but I have my suspicions that the primary market for such confections is people who want to eat cake but don't want to derive any pleasure from doing so beyond the pleasure of knowing they're healthier than Chelsea-bun gobbling oinkers like me. Beyond that, this was baking with no reason.
Anyway, I've learned my lesson. If you'll excuse me I'm off to eat a Crunchie, and then I'm going to the gym this evening to get rid of it again.



^{*But not Yoga for fat, sarcastic cynics, so my market isn't covered yet.
**I totally wish I could have gone to this. A men's encounter group run by Hugo and Swithin? That's comedy gold right there, ladies and gentlemen. Comedy Gold.
**Which doesn't contain any actual gunpowder, much to my dismay.}

Comments

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Which doesn't contain any actual gunpowder, much to my dismay.

Indeed no, it simply looks a bit like gunpowder grains.

Interestingly, during the peninsular way, the British soldier generally kept tea in the same pouch they would keep gunpowder#, and so the tea got to actually have gunpowder in it, which was an acquired taste.

Gunpowder.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of its noted laxative qualities. I was planning to slip some to the she-David for a laugh.

Re: Gunpowder.

[(Anonymous)]

Legend has it that the Wath scouts once put some gunpowder in the scoutmaster's tea and then locked him in the hut, which didn't have a WC.

H

Re: Gunpowder.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

True stories recount how Darren Robinson made a chocolate cake with nothing but laxative chocolate and then gave it to Mr. Bacon.

Re: Gunpowder.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Oh, you wag.

Re: Gunpowder.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I liven up funerals no end.

Re: Gunpowder.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Oddly the toilets in the ECWS campsite after a battle can be popular!

Especially though it's the morning after...when the evening is on real ale.

We know how to live dangerously!

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I've been to Stroud, for work purposes. I didn't get the alternative vibe you describe, but if I'm there again I shall certainly look out for it.

the sort of person who made a packet as an oil trader for Trafigura before moving to the country and joining the Green Party

I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really hate that sort of person.

As an aside, I enjoy your Israeli-style strategically ambiguous policy of no swearing on your LJ. Perhaps you might benefit by actually making a statement of that sort somewhere? :-p

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Stoud is very much a two-tier community; there's the locals, for whom there's no work except at Waitrose, and there's the half-million-pound farmhouse crowd who've moved there and suddenly discovered an interest in crystals and rainbows. That said, there's a strong undercurrent of full-on self-sufficency anarchists, who I rather like.

Most people are well mannered enough not to have to be told about the no-naughty words policy :) Grim was the only person who'd ever broken it before, and he went off in a proper toys-out-of-pram sulk after about the third or fourth time I had to remind him. However, I shall alter my bio when I've got a second.

*Expletive Deleted*

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realised you had a no-swearing policy. But then I haven't had a reason to swear on here before. If I feel the need I'll just have to be imaginative. Which is considerably more fun.

Re: *Expletive Deleted*

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly! That said, if I can outrage people to the point of profanity I consider it a morngin well spent.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

There is a no swearing policy? I've never noticed!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's so rare anyone swears that I've almost never had to make an issue of it, especially since Grim threw a hissy fit and unfriended me. That boy has tourettes of the keyboard.

[elbly.livejournal.com]

Went to Stroud once for a job interview - came away wondering how the heck I'd afford living in such a place, or near such a place and travelling to it, on the salary on offer.

Visited the co-op tea shop... avoided the vegan cakes...

All in all Stroud seemed nice enough, but it did largely seem to be "alternative because we can afford to be"

On another note - It is possible to make wheat-free/low-fat/low-calorie cake that tastes quite simply amazing, however it seems as though hippies LIKE their cake to taste of soullessness, I think it makes them feel good about being hippies.

[(Anonymous)]

I know someone who works for the hospital there, and kinda epitomises the unthinking prius driving state cash sponge I hate.

Shame really, she has nice hooters.

[elbly.livejournal.com]

Sadly breasts aren't everything, as some of my ex-boyfriends proved.

[(Anonymous)]

It has just occurred to me that the gluten free cake could have been made instantly palatable, simply by soaking it liberally in rum

H

[(Anonymous)]

And then drizzling it with chocolate or perhaps fudge sauce? And throwing the cake away?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have ex-girlfriends for whom that statement is also true.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

I thought you just soaked YOUR SELF in rum, thus making other people palatable?

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I love Fair Trade, and indeed support it, insofar as it means "deliberately producing expensive bananas for the benefit of people who prefer overpriced bananas", or something very much like that.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a problem with it as a concept but I do wish they wouldn't call it 'Fair Trade', because it's neither.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Certainly, when it stops being a voluntary niche market, and becomes policy -- especially if that policy happens to rest on idea that artificially making an agricultural product more expensive will magically solve the problem of there being too much of it floating around the marketplace -- then quite clearly there's something wrong with the term.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Most 'Alternative' place in England? I think Glastonbury's got it all sewn up. Other Somerset towns look on in awe at their ability to separate the gullible from their money all year 'round.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I went to Glastonbury once and was genuinely stunned by just how much new age tat it is possible to buy. Needless to say, I didn't buy any of it. I think the alternative badge was given to Stroud as it's crammed with people who are actual anarchists and self- sufficiency types rather than glastonbury's commercial hippies on the make.