The Christmas Cake Waltz

This year I reluctantly signed up to a Creative Writing module on my course at University, and recently we were set a task to write a piece to submit and have our classmates read and evaluate.

As you'd expect, upon hearing that I had to do this I went into panic mode, wondering how in the hell I was ever going to pull this off.

However, I've somehow managed to produce this and thought I'd might as well post it on here as well before it gets ripped apart by my tutor and fellow Creative Writing students.

Enjoy!

Sugar, eggs, butter, flour and spice

Blended together with smells to entice

And tantalise the tongues of the hungry and needy,

The famished and ravenous, so eager and greedy.

The sugar, a temptress and so sweet a dame,

Seducing one’s lips like a moth to a flame,

Crystalline capsules of charm and allure

White in their colour, exquisite and pure

Glistening like jewels in a chest full of treasure

In jumps the salt, a pinch for good measure.

A sly Casanova, a sleaze of a soul,

The butter is next to flop into the bowl,

Oily in looks, slick and sebaceous

Wooing the sugar, his nature flirtatious

Ever so charmed by his flavoursome taste

The two are combined in a velvety paste.

Erupting with envy, the covetous flour

Emits its full rage in a powdery shower,

In true disbelief that her heart seems to flutter

At the unsightly view of this devious butter

The texture turns thick as the powder is blended

With wishes and hopes that the feud can be ended.

The batter takes shape but growing in density

Hostility reaches new heights of intensity,

In need of appeasement, four eggs are invited

And in the spoon’s dance their fuse is ignited,

Conjoining components, on fingers so runny

On eyes golden yellow and dripping like honey.

Yet lacking in zest and sweet Christmas savour

This cake yearns for sparkle, a sharp pungent flavour,

Dates, nuts, sultanas and scarlet red cherries

With currants and raisins, a helping of berries

Soaking in brandy and poured with a splatter

Into the bowl and then mixed with the batter.

Spooned from the bowl and laid into a tin,

Ready and waiting, the bake can begin,

Into the oven, so torrid and steamy,

The mixture rests quietly, its texture so creamy

Transforming from dough to sponge light and fluffy,

An afternoon cooking, the oven now stuffy.

Five hours pass and the timer is sounded,

The scent overwhelming, the cake is abounded

With spices from heaven and perfumes galore,

Aromas so gorgeous that guests cry for more,

Cooling completed, the icing placed gently

And each decoration laid down so intently

Holly leaves carved with meticulous flair,

Lettering piped with precision and care

With wishes of bliss and such bright festive cheer,

Raise a large glass to a happy new year,

The guests take a slice and bite into their treat

With the cake now completed and ready to eat.

A generation of social networking suckers

At the start of this month, I started my third and final year of University, which I find to be very weird. In fact, if I was given a £10 note for every time I have uttered the words "I can't believe it's nearly all over, how very very weird" in the last four months, I imagine I'd be snapping at the heels of Mark Zuckerberg on the Forbes' World's Billionaire List for 2014.

Still, in spite of this typically sarcastic declaration, Zuckerberg's mind-blowingly successful social networking phenomenon leaves me with a fair amount to thank him for.

Facebook has had an overwhelming effect on University life over the past five years, making it far easier to expand our social circles, communicate with our course-mates and stay connected with friends and family from back home. My own Mother, a self-proclaimed "hater" of Facebook, even signed up when I moved away as she knew it was a much simpler way of keeping in contact with me.

Catching up with friends over Skype or over the phone usually means recapping what they have already seen on their news feeds; our society has seemingly adopted this new philosophy that we need to tell the world what we are doing each and every minute of each and every day. Since the site's 2004 launch, we have fallen victim to this pathetic necessity to share every experience, photo, 'hilarious' quip or story with those we are virtually connected with on the site. And few can deny that warm glow of feeling appreciated when a fellow Facebooker 'likes' or comments on something you have posted - oh, what shallow creatures we have become.

Nonetheless, have we ever questioned what life would be like at University without Facebook? To what extent would University life be affected without it to keep us connected to the outside world?

In a survey I conducted amongst my own Facebook friends, 60% said they thought University would be considerably worse without the social networking site, with others stating they thought it would be perhaps "socially worse, but academically better". Suffice to say, Facebook is a popular source of procrastination when there are deadlines to meet and exams to revise for. I'm even signed into Facebook at this very moment as I write this post.

In truth, it is part of this whole fear of "missing out". The harsh reality of it is without an account you are, to some extent, cut off. Facebook is utilised as a way of sharing and discussing ideas and problems on course-related groups, finding out about Student Union events, befriending those in your sports team or society and obtaining the details for meetings, socials and get-togethers. We create Facebook events for days out, nights out and birthdays - the suits at WH Smiths must be tearing their hair out as sales of party invitations in their greetings card department continue to plummet into near nothingness. Not to mention the advantages, though more than often in my case, disadvantages of photo sharing and the entertainment you get from looking at those snaps from the night before, struggling desperately to remember the names of those girls you became best friends with in the toilet and took thousands of pictures with to mark the occasion.

Facebook offers its users the opportunity to create better versions of who they truly are; the ingredients to emitting a more vibrant, fun and flourishing social life are handed to us on a plate - all we have to do is utilise them in the correct manner.

And while we hate to admit it, the social networking site consumes far more of our time than we may initially realise; the average Facebook user spends a total of 20 billion minutes on the website per day. Since Facebook was launched in February 2004, 1.5 billion of us have been posting, liking, sharing and poking (the latter applies to a mere disturbed few) online, with few of us able to go 24 hours without checking our news feed at least once.

Is Facebook making obsessive, robotic fools of us all?

I would love to say no. But if you don't click the like button when you've finished reading, I will be most upset.