Baked by yours truly. You missed out, Old.

Good!! Scones are clog you right up stuff.

That's what I like about you, Odd. You can turn the most negative situations into positives. Here, have some of these:

I don't need 'm. I didn't get any scones.

Righto. I have one day off and look what you and Willsy have gotten up to all over this forum. Your scone-prints are everywhere. I'll deal with you in the morrow.

BTW, you didn't need any scones. Are you having trouble enough flogging your old ones off to trusting forum members? Ah, how I hate it when people come onto forums with dodgy ulterior motives...

No, no, I'm not flogging them............ free to good home.

Well, in that case you are in the wrong thread. Go and put your advert. in with the one with the free nicorettes.

Maybe that will entice Willsy to get over the health fears on fake sugars. That's what I like about Trad Caths., they are so discriminating. Wistfully advocating would-be lung-poisoning but condemning liver-poisoning. (Don't come after me with a broom OR a scone, will you, Willsy?)

My dear Katie, no broom or scone missile, just a quick quiz.

What would you choose? To have a pipe/cigar/cigarette, which is traditional and practiced by none other than the great Pope St Pius X himself? Or a dose of aspartame, which was created in 1965, the same year that Vatican II completed its three years of treachery (fake sugar, fake council), and included in all those soft drinks and sweets capable of turning normal children into an argument for aliens from another planet?

Affectionately, Willsy.

Dearest Willsy,

Okay, you've got me. I admit I have an aversion to fake sugars. They cause far more damage to organs other than the liver. The diet drink thing allows imbibing copious amounts of poison whilst staying skinny. Those drinking sugary drinks stay pleasingly plump. Therefore fake sugar encourages vanity and lack of moderation. Real sugar encourages being fat and lack of moderation. Much better. Being fat is not a sin, vanity is. I will deal with the lack of moderation thing another time. Aspartame and other fake sweeteners were invented by Monsanto. I don't have any relatives or friends with that name and I don't like it. That will do for now. Yes, I realise I've strayed a bit and introduced a few new themes here and although Bellarmine Forums is exceptional and The Fresh Scone Room is extraordinarily well run - it still is a forum. And running off- topic is part of the definition isn't it?

On the other hand, I have an aversion to any criticism of the Great St. Pius X (so you picked up on that, eh?). He caused far more damage to the Modernists than tobacco ever did to him or anyone.

Leaving my great, favourite saint out of this: Smoking allows ingesting large amounts of nicotine whilst staying skinny (because smokers tend to eat less as they can't fit food and smokes in their mouth at the same time. Usually. Further the average-waged heavy smokers never have any extra money for food.) Ex-smokers tend to become pleasingly plump. Smoking encourages vanity and lack of moderation. Non-smoking encourages being fat and lack of moderation. Much better. Being fat is not a sin, vanity is. W.D. and H. O. Wills were tobacconists and I like the name Wills. Few pro's and con's there to think about.

[I must add in seriousness, that Pope St. Pius X was moderate in all things, including smoking and meals (exceptionally so, eating minestrone practically every night made by his sister, for example), and he was neither skinny nor fat. He is not an example for any of my arguments but rather an exception and the example of all that we should be.]

Finally after much deliberation I will sum up the safe course: Don't smoke, don't eat, don't drink. Anything. Don't chew gum. Don't be vain by avoiding fat-free products, but feel free-to-be-fat by all means - if you can be creative enough to find a way given all the abstinence recommended. Ah, the moderation thing was dealt with after all.

And yes, I've had a Jekyll/Hyde moment and put on Odd's personality whilst writing this. Let's hope it's a passing thing.

Yours,
Katie

Well, not a bad first time effort at impersonating me. You will improve with time and practice!

Jekyl/Hyde??? I am confused as to which is which in this instance.

I'd better just keep my trap shut... wouldn't want you to break your broom so soon.

Royal Mail in the Fresh Scones?

Fresh Scones in the Royal Mail?

From what I've heard about the Royal Mail, scones would be anything but fresh.

Unanswerable!



I think you might have been corrupted by some of those "other" forums. You need to stay at home, Katie!



Our very own Catholic Carcinoma.



Do you think one could be fat and therefore sinless by hooking up to the tyre air dispenser at the local fuel station and inhaling? Where there is a will...

Shall we wait for Odd's contribution before we declare a consensus?



Yes; provided one was moderate and didn't exhale.

Well, as long as there is a gentle breeze, that is one way to head towards Heaven, I suppose.

Speaking of exhaling reminds me of Leo Rosten's fictional character, Hyman Kaplan. The immigrant who took English and Grammar classes at a night-time school. When asked to give the opposite of "inhale" he gave the answer as "dead."

Anecdotally, it seems Uncle Tom was a jolly rotund... they cut a semi circular notch out of the refectory table at his place so he could reach his plate. (Europeans hadn't discovered tobacco yet).