My dear mother makes a point of baking a cake to me on my birthday, and posting it to wherever I happen to be in the world. Not for her a simple Victoria sponge sandwich or fruit cake: The gateaux must carry some bespoke decoration. In her time she’s managed cake crosswords, football club crests, a variety of public transport vehicles, and a three-dimensional representation of Marlinspike Hall, Captain Haddock’s ancestral home, with chocolate button roof slates (this was circa 1989, before the advent of the many cake building technologies we now take for granted).
However, I have yet to see anything quite so post-modern, as the offering I received this year.
Yes! A rendering in icing of an electronic page, which itself metaphors paper. Thank goodness I don’t have Google AdWords on the site at the moment.
I have to say I’m disappointed no-one has entered anything in the comments, but I guess my mother didn’t have time to whip-up any RSS biscuits.
Working with icing is no mean feat. I refer you to an amusing interview with the anarchic Todd Trainer, drummer with the seminal Shellac, leader of the bizarre Brick Layer Cake, and something of an icing artist:
Yeah. Icing has definitely always been a part of the visual aspect of Brick Layer Cake. All four records have had icing on the covers, both front and back covers – literally all the artwork that has ever appeared on my records is icing, so that’s a theme, an aesthetic theme … Icing is a rather limited medium – I shouldn’t say “limited”. It’s an unforgiving medium to work with, because you only get once chance to really do it right.
remarkable !
bizzare and whacky – she should “get a life”
What a wonderful cake. I have always failed dismally in the mother/baking stakes.
Great Cake! A cake depicting a web-page which itself “metaphors” paper, which itself is a metaphor for papyrus, which itself is a metaphor for wax tablets, which themselves are a metaphor for stone tablets, which themselves are a metaphor for cave walls. Fantastic!
I can’t help wonder though if I like this lazy transatlantic habit of verbifying nouns.
your Mom rocks. I love the “comments” link!
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I’ve just noticed Kathy’s comment, which seems a bit harsh. Do I detect a note of jealousy? Sour grapes, perhaps?
I’ve just noticed Clarice’s remark – harsh but true – not sour grapes – I am also wondering in the brit round-up how in this day and age Tim knows that Robert is talking about Mrs.Sharp – she could be Ms.Sharp or Mrs/Ms/Miss Anybody
Well, it may be bizarre and “whacky”, but I’m sure Mrs Sharp doesn’t need to be told to “get a life”, if that cake is anything to go by. I do not like to see such a fine creative endeavour being disparaged like that, and I can’t help wondering about where you’re coming from? What is wrong with such a cake that the maker needs to “get a life” in your view?
Perhaps Isambard Kingdom Brunel should have got a life? Or Michaelangelo? Or the chaps who built the pyramids? I could go on…:-)
That’s a super cake! I can only imagine how good it tastes and I’m not surprised it lasted less than a day :)
How CUTE! (and so very sweet, if you’ll pardon the pun) :D
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