Serving Hamas up a dish

So the Hamas foreign minister has publicly defended Hamas' goal of destroying Israel. Doesn't that give you the cosiest feeling? I'm all warm inside! - but that might be due to the smoke damage: It would seem that I am inadvertantly helping him diminish the Israeli population via mine own abject stupidity. And believe me, this goes above and beyond my normal levels of self-deprecation: Last night, while I was grilling antipasti -for a work event where they make you bring food in- I fell asleep.

It wasn't even past midnight when I sat down in front of BBC Prime (a rare occurence in itself- probably because Star World were trying to convince me to accept Jesus into my life and Channel 3 were showing repeats of that boring series with an unconvincing Assi Dayan as a therapist) while it finished cooking. Granted, it had been a long day and I was more tired than I thought... Well, clearly, being as I stirred on the sofa almost 5 hours later, wondering the following things in the following order:

1) Why on earth am I watching BBC Learning?
2) Why are my eyes watering?
3) What's that smell?
4) Why does it look smoky?

Realisation hit, and suddenly wide awake, I flew with the speed of an Incredible to turn off the oven, which in 5 hours had unbeknowingly decimated my lovely antipasti into a tray of hardcore charcoal biscuits (which I recall are wonderful for- indigestion? Whatever, not exactly what I had in mind.) I then proceeded to open all windows - it was cold!- and began to ventilate furiously. Luckily there was no smoke damage to the apartment. So I might have been significantly less freaked out by the whole incident had I not a) recently seen the movie "Storytelling" and b) found faint rings of grey around my mouth and nostrils, presumably from the smoke (and very attractive, I assure you.)

So while Mr. Zahar might well prefer it if all the "evil occupiers" would save him (and those sweet Iranians) the bother of having to wipe us off the map with some Antipasti-related accident, I must point out that, unfortunately for him, this is a relatively isolated incident. (I've got a second tray grilling right now to prove it.) And while I have his attention, can I just say that openly reiterating your commitment to destroying your neighbours- however much you seriously resent them for taking what you believe to be yours- isn't really the way forward.

Charcoal biscuit, anyone?!