Tuesday 13^th November, 2018 2320

Sunday was, as probably all my readers know, the 100^th anniversary of Armistice Day. I am not religious but I nonetheless observe the silence and rightly or wrongly I had mine at 1900 to coincide with the UK.

In China of course, the day was about as disparate as it is possible to get. Here it was Singles Day. 11/11 – all the ones. The day of the year everyone not in a relationship buys something from Jack Ma/Alibaba to treat themselves. And get a bargain. The world's biggest one-day spending spree that with every passing year breaks monetary records, this year I believe $30 billion in 24 hours. Students have asked me in the past why I don't snap up a great deal and the only answer has had to be that foreign food ingredients do not seem to enter the equation and Gucci heels are not exactly on my list.

Letting someone else cook who actually has no idea is at least twice as hard as doing it oneself.

Regardless, I mentored Alice as promised. I cannot list everything she had no conception of because it ranges from peeling potatoes to using a salt cellar but somehow, by dint of close observation, we produced two dishes.

It was however great fun to inform Stephanie that there was a secret ingredient in both dishes. She utterly abhors secrets and wanted to know instantly. At my prompting with loaded questions she asserted both courses were, if not the best, certainly up at the top of those I have produced. The final “reveal” once we had eaten was fun.

Since my last entry I had Kevin take control of my laptop remotely to fix my Windows activation problem. He couldn't and suggested I buy a code from Amazon. Ultimately I may have to but in the interim I have downloaded Picasa and hopefully this will allow me to upload photos. It infuriates me to have bought a machine with a legal copy only to now have the code declared void.

I have a particularly intriguing one (which I pray I can enhance) which is straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. I noticed this morning a large quantity of long, black hair trapped between the office door jamb and the lock striking plate. Sporting ½” grey/white plumage myself and with no discernible injuries to boot, I immediately ruled myself out as the culprit. My two guests though, both had dark, long locks.

Had someone fallen and struck their head? Enquiries revealed nothing. No bald patches either. Without forensic assistance I fear the answer may never surface.

The Christmas dinner shop has started to arrive already. My cheap brandy (Lion D'or) came along with two free shot glasses that will be handy for the post-prandial port plus a family-sized tin of pineapple slices for my sauce to go with the ham. Fresh pineapple is and will be out of season just when I need it. Alice panicked when the retailer told her the Tesco Xmas pudding would take fifteen days to arrive – until I told her we didn't need it for six weeks!