My Halloween was fairly relaxed this year, I did some pumpkin carvings of which you can see one in a picture here and I also baked a Pumpkin Pie, which may I say for the first ever time of doing it, it came out pretty good. I admit though some things I’ll change for the next time…
For one the container I used to bake the Pumpkin Pie was not really adequate, it is too narrow, which made it too deep and therefore it took way too long to bake, burning some of the pastry and not allowing all of it to be properly baked, next time I will make sure to get a proper tart tin. As well as that I could only find non-sweetened puff-pastry in the shop, I attempted to sweeten it by squishing sugar into it… kind of worked. But next time I will try harder to get sweet puff pastry.
At first when I tried my pumpkin pie, I was not really into it, but eventually after having a few more pieces I ended up liking it, like an accustomed taste. Also, the fact that the pie was a bit too watery was probably another factor, it was a squishy and watery mixture, which again was due to the improper container I baked it in, but also because I was unable to drain the mass amount of water from the pumpkin I used. Next time I will need to get some kind of sieve that I can push the pumpkin through and fully drain it of most water.
As well as that I picked out many of the seeds from the pumpkin pie pumpkin and the pumpkins I carved, which I roasted with vegetable oil, paprika, salt and black pepper to make a real good snack, they tasted kind of like salted popcorn, with the texture of sugar-puff cereal, but with a kick of spice from the seasonings and nice and crunchy. I substituted them in my lunch from the usual bag of crisps.
Today as I write this it is Halloween. I have already roasted more pumpkin seeds and I have my carved pumpkins displayed in my room. We do not answer to trick or treaters, we just never have done and in-fact for the last few years no one has knocked anyway. Mostly I just enjoy Halloween as a personal thing now a days, as well as watching Ghost Adventures with my sister. I am also going to be making some S’mores today, the American seasonal delight of melting marshmallow and chocolate together and putting it between two crackers/biscuits, I already tried one earlier in the week and it was pretty good. Although I will soften the marshmallow over the heat of the oven hob next time instead of using a microwave, as the microwave makes the marshmallow expand too much and also makes it turn to hard chewy caramel, rather than a nice, soft and squishy marshmallow.
So basically, I had a good Halloween week and I am now pretty much relaxing for the day itself.
But that is not all that happened this week, yes, we are thrust back into the world of politics where a General Election is finally on the cards, just as I thought it eventually would be, I said as far back as June that we were likely heading for one and now here we are, we are set to go to the polls on 12th December now that the one-line bill has gone through both houses of parliaments, and to Johnson’s relief, unamended as well.
Currently the latest polls have Conservatives leading by quite a large margin but I highly doubt this will remain consistent and I very much expect the polls to get closer as we get nearer and nearer to the election day itself and as campaigns are officially launched and manifestos are announced and published. Although for many a General Election is stressful, for me, it is always very exciting as I love observing the results of elections and putting my analysis into it all. So, you can likely expect some posts on the election from me, especially on the results after the big day itself.
As of now there are a number of outcomes that can happen, one is that the Conservatives could go on to get a majority, that is what Boris Johnson is hoping for. Another is that Labour could get another lucky break, similar to how they did in 2017 which would either give them a majority or allow them to form a minority government in a hung parliament. It is ALL to play for, so please do not take much note of the polls for now. It can all easily change.
Currently both parties have a 3rd party nibbling away at their hills, for Labour it appears the Liberal Democrats have been eating into them, although it is also likely they have taken voters from the Conservative party as well. But nonetheless, it is also possible that Labour can take many of the votes from the Lib Dems if they make some good moves.
For the Conservatives the BREXIT Party is a continuing threat, as if they split the vote enough, it could cause them to lose a number of marginal seats, which could spell disaster for them. As of late the Conservatives have claimed back a lot of the BREXIT Party vote, but there remains a lingering danger that they could always end up heading on back. This is likely to keep Boris Johnson awake at night for now.
The Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party on the other hand are set to make gains, with the Lib Dems also looking to make strategic electoral pacts with the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, as both also support remaining in the EU. The SNP could near enough wipe out the Conservatives from Scotland, while the Lib Dems pick up marginal Conservative and perhaps even some Labour remain voting constituency seats in England and Wales. It is a possibility that they may be the king-makers in any possible minority government that results from a hung parliament if no-one gets a majority after the election. Although for now, the Lib Dems and SNP have ruled out any coalitions.
The SNP ruling out a coalition makes sense, as they are a highly nationalist party looking to get Scottish independence, and so them joining forces with a party in the House of Commons, could cause them to look weak to their supporters as currently no major party supports another Scottish independence vote. But the Lib Dems not wanting a coalition is due to deep scars from the previous Con-Lib coalition, which ended up causing the party to lose dozens of seats in its backlash, which it is still healing from.
So there are many weeks of campaigning shenanigans to look forward to. And also 4th November, the day this post goes up, there is going to be an election for current MPs to elect a new Speaker for the House of Commons, as John Bercow is leaving the post after a decade. He was definitely one of the most humourous Speakers the House has had and he knew convention and house rules with umatched confidence, which is important for a Speaker, of course people also complained about him being a bit favouring to one side or another when making choices and decisions, but then that is politics, one side or another will always believe they have been shunned or treated unfairly. I for one will notice the lack of his booming voice in the coming parliamentary sessions.
And finally, some events from the US, one of the more-major candidates, Beto O’ Rourke, has dropped out of the US 2020 Presidential Race. I had been suspecting for a while that he would soon be dropping out as he was unable to really get any solid support in the polls and he was also unable to be admitted to debates for not reaching certain criteria. As well as that he didn’t really have any signature policy like many of the current top candidates. In my opinion Rourke needs to continue to try and run for a seat in congress and win a seat there before making another presidential bid.
Anyway, with him now dropping out I will post his Candidate Profile on Wednesday.
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