You have solved a riddle. Our Chinese cooks always produced scrambled egg that looks like a sample of Googled 'buttered egg'. I had been satisfied to think these were simply done partway as an omelette and then whisked about with a chop stick or two. I now feel very privileged to understand that they were all trained by Margaret Rose, lately HRH the Princess.

The conundrum precipitated by this discovery is the ubiquity of Chinese cooks that 1) produced scrambled eggs as above and, 2) could not make decent bread.

Did HRH discard her Chinese cheferie on discovering that they all did good eggs but hard bread or did they resign because she wouldn't play pretend cricket with the luncheon rolls?

In Craig Browns book, Ma'am Darling: HRH Margaret was not a fan of Mothers Pride. Perhaps the silver fingered Paul Holywood would be more to her liking.

I am not surprised. The phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" is an invention of an insane not a sage.

It has become almost impossible to buy a loaf upon which to wield one's bread saw (with a hacksaw-like blade) and I have long since changed to making my own, recently augmented with my Hibernian friend's soda bread. Her No.1 son, so he tells me from London exile, is making sour-dough bread - that may put us in competition in a field other than 'GO' (and MIG welding) but I have not tried that yet.

Perhaps bakers are true psychopaths - dictating the width of every slice of bread such that they come only in army sized widths. Too thin for toast and too thick for the cucumber sarnie.

Noah's, here, have invented another variant. Sliced, presumably when hot, but self congealed again when got to the galley. They must be sawn again but only down the pre-cut lines.

Where did the "H" come from?

A memslip (or do you usually economise on the one in hacksaw?).

No, can't say that I ever considered making my own bread saw.

Available for a few bob from hardware stores and even Argos.

Exactly, so why would I want to make my own?

Noa Bakery not Noah.
Whats all this oul guff about gully knives.

Bread so good you slice it twice.

You have been lucky. I find them rarer to buy than hens teeth and once, when not even one hentooth emporium did we have I spent an afternoon filing the blade to restore the gullet depth (by Prestige, we have had it as long as I can remember).

Since then I have found an almost proper line at M&S. To be secure I bought two. There are also some friends with minor bruises incurred when they tried to cut something other than bread with it.

I have no such hang-ups when it comes to bread boards although the one presently in use when there are guests is in the deep freeze. It caught furniture beetle from the paneling.

I have to admit that the traditional bread 'saw' with finely serrated teeth is nowadays almost impossible to find, and those that we still retain are incapable of resharpening once worn.
The current fashion is for a coarser serration or scalloped cutting edge, also much easier to resharpen.

Perhaps the conspiracy is with the cutlers. Stop producing bread saws that make cutting of loaf in any which way wanted easy, and joe public has no option but to buy the ready fashioned variety.

Why the technology here has resulted in sliced loaves that require cutting again is a complete mystery. Perhaps the re-slicing of it requires less sophisticated cutlery.

Our bread knife is also a Prestige and is at least 1000 years old. And cuts an acceptable slice. Modern knives with a scalloped edge have a habit of cutting a tapered slice which, when toasted, has a raw half and a burnt half. Soldiers look more like a Lowland Regiment than the Irish Guards.

Serrated bread knife....pah amateurs... real men use a hatchet, one swipe and voila a slice cut to your own specification. In Harland and Bluff we used a burners torch, sliced and toasted all in one.

Personally there is nothing better than a nice toasted heel, lashings of butter and hours of pleasure chewing on the crust.

If you two think the rest of us want you onboard wielding bread-slicing cleavers and inert gas toasting-torches you have got another one or two further thinks apiece coming up.

(You have a point when it comes to meat, however. Imagine HLMK Henry VIII doing away with his petticoat brigade with a ceremonial bread saw).

Only if the heel surrounds 3 roundels of fried white pudding and HP Sauce. No, Varley not wholegrain Dijon mustard, HP Sauce.

Who is HLMK Henry VIII ?
Has Herman and his Hermits been told?
Was the Wainscoting "Oak"?, I do hope so.

Sorry BB.
Best that I can do is have some put aboard the Pilot Boat for when the GD next visits Melbourne. (Do we trifle with Pilots?)
Used to be available in gallon tins (like paint) for outback stations (perhaps ships) but no longer apparently.
Stay safe!
Geoff (YM)

wow YM now my mouth is watering at the sight of the Jar.

Just looked online - 2.5kg catering size buckets of the stuff are still available, minimum purchase x 4.

I think that is what is required here.

My mouth waters but my piles bleed.
BTW is 10 kgs of vegamite enough to kill all the cane toads in Queensland?

If a pilot wants vegemite a pilot may have as much as he brings aboard (for the sake of good order 'he' is merely shorthand I do not preclude the existence of lady pilots, whether Vegemite or Marmite would be especially tempting is another matter, especially if applied Germaloidally). Preparation V?

'... BTW is 10 kgs of vegemite enough to kill all the cane toads in Queensland? ... '

I use 1.1kg of Vegemite each year and have been doing so for the last few years that I have been keeping records so in the last 50 years I guess that I would have consumed well over 55 kg.

It hasn't killed me (yet)................. but I like to think that I am not a toad although one of my former titles before retirement was 'Lizard in Chief'
:curtain_call::bye:...... :angel:

Now that is dedication! I suppose I could estimate my Marmite consumption in units of 'a jar per some unit of time' but that would be neither accurate or interesting - well not to me. My consumption of Vegemite approximates (as in 'to all intentions any purpose') to zero. That does not mean that I consider Vegemiters as deviant. (Not very anyway).

Preperation V ? I rather think not.
Take your spare "H" from #6828 and add it to your germaloidally suspect ointment and you have Preparation H.
Isn't O-Level Chemistry marvellous.