After another hellish exam week I find myself completely void of any necessary task or hindrance. In short: I’m Free!!! My summer has yet to begin, as I have an upcoming group project to attend to, but I have no details about what that entails or when it begins, so for now, I can do whatever I like.

After a small amount of experimentation, I found that a pursuit for diabetes was the key to me enjoying this newfound (and incredibly rare) spare time. Prior to exams I had a thing called “Chocolate Tuesday”, where every Tuesday I would make it a point to make something delicious involving chocolate. It lasted a good month, featuring truffles, shortbread biscuits and various other things, but was cut short because of exams and my terribly dull priorities.

With the pain of revision over, it returned with a bang featuring a project I was thinking about since Easter: the solid Easter Egg. The key is in the chocolate, filling it with solid chocolate would make it impossible to eat, so instead I used truffle chocolate, which is about 40x richer and 800x more unhealthy (95% of all statistics are wrong).

Recipe: Bring about 250ml of double cream to boil while cutting up 300g of dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa; no one likes wimpy truffles). On completion, you should have at least 250g of chocolate left, which you place in a bowl, pouring in the double cream and mixing. One you have a consistent delicious colouring in the bowl, rehearse a two minute acceptance speech for a food based award you will soon win for these treats and then add 50g of unsalted butter in two stages. Mix until they have completely melted and then pour into two easter egg halves. Quickly put them together and tightly wrap in foil. Fridge for at least 3 hours, turning occasionally to avoid pockets of air. Once done, you’ll need a calving knife and a round of insulin injections to serve

Thanks for reading,

Chris

xx

Epic Chocolate Time

For a third successive year I made my way to East Meets West, and this year I anticipated something special. Rather than the usual Theatre Royal, the show was moved to the impressive IndigO2, inside, what will always be known to me as, the Millennium Dome. The unusually high level of buzz I was getting about the event, since I knew many of the upcoming performers this year, did a splendid job of building suspense at the start of the term.

Unfortunately, the show had a rather ill-fated start. Delays on the Jubilee line meant that a large proportion of the seats were empty at the beginning, which had it’s up side for those late members of the audience, as they missed part of the terrible performance of host Paul Chowdhry. Chowdrhy set the benchmark on how not to do racial comedy; with a broad range mediocre jokes about various cultures; a highly repetitive (and limited) attempt at “funny gangster speak”, a testament to Einstien’s definition of insanity; and the bizarre idea that all white people are called “Dave”. At one point, a member of the audience comically walked up to the stage after taking offense to a joke Chowdhry made about Chinese people. Every nerve in the entertainment-seeking portions of my brain (effectively all of it) were hoping he would steal the spotlight and replace Chowdhry as host, but sadly that was not to be.

Beyond that, the show was amazing as always. One major improvement in IndigO2 over the Theatre Royal was the sound system. Subwoofers that shook the thread out of my shirt and almost propelled me upwards at particularly epic moments. This complemented the dances perfectly, and brought me ever closer to leaping up and busting some of my own moves. Fortunately for the dancers, I refrained.

Highlight performances, for me, were funkology, who gave their consistently stunning display of hip hop and street dance. Dangerous also brought the heat with their award winning Michael Jackson style routine that managed to overshadow all other MJ references made by the other performers. Once again, I will mention the Light Opera Society and, once again, I have to praise the performance of Luminère who lit up the stage with his vocals. Someone really needs to tell me his name!!

It was a close call deciding who the best performance of the night was, but I have to give it to Funkadelics (choosing an Ellie Goulding track was a big factor in that decision). Very cool hip-hop dancing, stunningly choreographed, absolutely sensational.

I have nothing but respect for the Indian Society. Three years of a consistently polished, highly professional show, which you would never believe was produced by students in their spare time. Everyone involved works unbelievably hard to get everything sorted and it’s a show no Imperial students should miss. Can’t wait till next year!!

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

Tuesday was an irritatingly busy day. It began with the battle I always tend to lose: the 9 o’clock lecture. Swiftly after banging my toe against the the bathtub, jumping into a freezing shower too early, fumbling around for a matching pair of colourful socks, grabbing a food-like substance from the fridge and staggering out the door, I force myself awake with the walk to uni, and then try to force myself to stay awake with 2 hours of vector mathematics. Were I to chart my productivity throughout the day, I really would need a negative y-axis from 6 till 12.

This drowsy morning was quickly followed by a Student Staff Meeting and a two hour lecture. Again, wiping a good portion of the remaining energy cells left in my body. Fortunately, I ended my day with a pleasant stint with the Chocolate Society.

This week, we went to Rococo, a lovely little shop tucked behind Harrods, for some chocolate tasting. This was the most professional tasting session I’ve ever been to, as the employees there explained the history behind the company, as well as some of the basics of making chocolate, all the while feeding us some of their delicious produce. Our taste buds were put to the test, as we tried to identify the odd mixes of sea salt, lime, cardamom, passion fruit and cocoa nibs incorporated into the various samples they had for us. The result of this game was that bar 2 members, none of us can really meet the specifications necessary to call the muscle in our mouths a tongue, but nevertheless, we all had a great time.

When the session ended and we were about to make our way out, everyone grabbed a few bars of what they liked, or what they thought sounded interesting, and we had a sugar-infused journey back to our respective homes.

Like I’ve said many times before, the chocolate society is great in that it’s not such a serious club to join. We meet every few weeks, have a lovely time chatting to everyone and leave with a belly full of rich, exotic chocolate. Without it, this post would have been a depressing spiral of sobbing; so be glad and raise a bar to Choc Soc

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

For comedic effect, I do tend to play the “students raving till 4 in the morning, getting completely gazebo’d” card far more than I should. The fact is, while that lifestyle does exist and is regularly celebrated in the “Drunken Mate of the Week” section of Felix, there is plenty on offer for students like myself. People who prefer a sit-down meal or a quiet night out/in.

A society that has certainly merited a mention this year is iCU Cinema who have, thus far, had screenings of Scott Pilgrim, Inglourious Basterds, Toy Story 3 and all to a predictably packed theatre. Another society I like for the more relaxed evening events is the Chocolate society. I’ve already advertised them in a previous post, so in summary: Meet, Eat Chocolate, Chat. My idea of a good time!

Last Tuesday I attended the Light Opera Societies performance of Beauty & the Beast. The society consists of a group of medics who rip off their rubber gloves, throw out the bed-pans and take the opera-tunity to hit the stage.

My review: it was really good; a highly professional execution that made me feel incredibly nostalgic for the Disney VHS tape I used to own. The entire cast were talented and played their role as a fork or a swooning girl with vigour. A special mention should definitely be made to the breathtaking vocals of Belle and Mrs. Potts and a huge apology is in order to the entire cast as I don’t have a program and thus can’t praise the faces behind the characters (medics, please help me out in the comments). By far the most outstanding performance was given by the lovable candlestick Luminère whose charisma and French accent (which seemed far more convincing than the original Disney version’s) kept the audience smiling every time he appeared and in hysterics with every joke me made. Well done to everyone involved, I thank you all for a very lovely night.

While the performance was unfortunately marred by loud hecklers in the audience (who vastly improved my knowledge of innuendos), it was a show that I suggest you all see if you get the chance. It’s still on at 7:30 every evening until Friday.

Thanks for reading

Chris xx xx