If it is the morning after the night before and you can hardly bear to open your eyes, here’s the answer for that flawless facial finish to disguise the ravages of last night’s over-indulgence. Estée Lauder has launched a new mobile app with a voice assistant to help you get make-up right without opening those bleary eyes. The Voice-Enabled Makeup Assistant (VMA) app is only available on iOS and in the UK but will be further improved, extended to android and further afield soon. “Machine vision and voice AI” are combined to help you get the look you want: the shape and colour of lipstick, foundation, and eyeshadow on your face. The voice AI will tell you if the makeup is applied evenly and where it’s too much or too little. Try it out and help the system improve. And I forgot: perfect for anyone with limited or no sight! (I confess that I found this on the latest Open Sight Hampshire newsletter – thumbs up to them for discovering it).
Fascinating afternoon with Geoff who is trying to make the Vernon monument website more accessible. Not sure that I was the best person as I barely go on-line: once bitten by dreadful inaccessible sites, one doesn’t go back for more misery. Impressive to learn how this diminutive charity has created such a superb artwork in the midst of Portsmouth’s Gunwharf Quays and now working hard to reach blind people too. There is a world-wide network of divers that trained at HMS VERNON creating an international audience for their efforts. If you can help them with ideas and more, please get in touch via the website.
I’ve been trawling through masses of Office for National Statistics reports and data, trying to better understand the make-up (pun?) of our communities. One startling fact is that the number of people with long-term health conditions has shot up since 2019 to 2.5 million. Yes, long-Covid played a part but probably more is due to the basic practical problems of getting treatment when around 7 million of us are waiting for treatment and waiting times doubled from 7 to 14 weeks. We all understand that our GPs and hospitals are still under enormous pressure but the result is more people needing help and being unable to work. Getting the NHS fit and well is a key part of creating the long-term economic growth that we all want.
My experiment with another, different pastry (hot water – see the pork pie recipe ) only just avoided utter disaster. I’d done all the right things to bake it “blind” but hadn’t realised that the oven wasn’t working: lit but not heating enough. In desperation, I filled the warm, sagging pastry with filling and stuffed it into the second oven. Amazingly, it just about worked! With a pastry that doesn’t need rolling out (less mess and washing-up), freezes well and has lots of different uses, it is worth me trying again before I share it. Thankfully, Rob has ordered the part and he’ll be repairing the oven soon.
Don’t forget: a quick and simple pastry for sweet and savoury pies, flans etc. Baking Blind: Back to Basics – March 13th at 10.30 am via Zoom.
Register on Eventbrite: https://back-to-baking-blind-basics.eventbrite.co.uk or contact Zoe on 023 8064 1244 for more details.