Give Them a Twist, a Flick of the Wrist

Put my head out of the door once today and didn't like what I found. After 2 days in the sunshine of Isle of Man I am refusing to leave the house until the rain stops. Something tells me I am going to lose this stand-off.

Got asked by MrsB (the idol of me life) to crack a coconut tonight using our custom-made special tool - the bar of an old hand dumbell. She's making what the Maldivians call Mass-Roshi , and which translate literally as 'fish-flatbread'. These are a sort of a flat round sandwich of tuna, chilli, red onions, lime and coconut squished inside some unlevened bread dough (a roti or chapatti basically) and then flattened and baked in pan or oven. My designated party piece (apart from testing the lime and seasoning...and err eating) is to crack the coconuts into two perfect hemispheres using a series of sharp hard blows all around the mid-line circumference. It needs to be broken cleanly into two equal halves so we can use it easily on our serrated steel coconut scraper. This looks like some sort of Spanish Inquisition torture device, but which rotates and grates out all the coconut flesh (The shells are retained and dried to become brilliant fire-lighters by the way). Whilst this is a short task, I believe it to be the most essential of the whole operation. After doing this, I then need to sit down to rest and have a beer.

Here is my 4-part demonstration of the rotational cracking technique. It is of course a potentially dangerous thing to try on Friday 13th, but as long as you keep your thumbs and other appendages out of the way, it is usually fine. The series were taken using my new little iPhone wide angle lens with tripod and the Shutterspeed and Photogene² Apps I have used before.

Please feel free to sing along with Merv here, and in particular note his wonderful 'Dick-Van-Dyke-esq' Cockney accent. Happy Friday the 13th" everyone.

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
There they are all standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist
That's what the showman said
I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Every ball you throw will make me rich
There stands my wife, the idol of me life
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch