Should I admit that I sing to my food sometimes? I suppose I have now. This adaptation of the Righteous Brothers song is what I sing to the ashes of my meals and the treacherous slovenly oven that hates me so.

Our oven is able to keep food raw at high temperatures for twenty or thirty minutes and then squeeze all the cooking into the thirty seconds at the end. This is pretty much my pattern of working too, but it’s disconcerting to see the oven mimicking it.

I hope none of the other household appliances acquires my foibles. I’ll be in trouble if, for example, the fridge decides that it can read the London Review of Books for a bit now, and chill the food later, because it has kidded itself that chilling the food won’t take long and it basically has the food chilled in its head anyway.

To prevent the rot from spreading, and to make the oven feel guilty, I sing this lament.

Whoa, my lunch / my dinner,

(Delete as appropriate)

I hunger for my lunch,

I hate, cooking time.

And time goes by, so slowly,

And time can do so much,

Is this food fine?

It is now quite black.

Raw two minutes back.

Tell me how can that be.

I just went away for a tick, for a tick,

Now this thing is burnt all to shit

Had to check my mail, like a dick, like a dick

I’ll be eating out, in a bit.