Pointlessness

Children starve in lawless Somalia while the great Amazonian rainforest shrinks with each passing hour. Glaciers recede to reveal scoured landscapes never seen before as unemployed workers across the western world wonder where their futures lie. But what are numerous members of the English Women's Institute doing? Why, my friend, they are knitting cakes! Yes. Not baking cakes that people can eat but knitting replica cakes and buns!

Since completing her Masters degree, Lady Pudding has discovered extra hours to fill and so she thought she'd give the Women's Institute a try. At the second meeting in a church hall in the city centre, "secret Santa" presents were exchanged and she ended up with a practical guidebook to knitting her own cakes - complete with free patterns and illustrations. Here it is:-



My mother used to be a staunch member of the W.I. in the village where I was born - Nazareth in East Yorkshire. They made jam and chutney and useful things for the home like lampshades and baskets before singing "Jerusalem" and going home. They never knitted bloody cakes! What would you do with a knitted cake once it was finished? Torment children with it? Feed it to knitted teddy bears? Or, most likely, just ram it in a cupboard and forget about it.

What a mad world we live in. Here are some cakes I knitted earlier:-