Then and now

My Bloody Valentine still sound like My Bloody Valentine, Suede still sound like Suede and pie still tastes like pie. We haven't used up all our potential rolling down one wrong hill after another and I haven't run out of ibuprofen. Some of us wear our coats indoors because we want to, not because we haven't got round to taking them off. Some of us prefer to sit on a dining chair.
To make a pie, begin with pastry. This is a shortcrust pie. You want about half a pound of flour to a quarter of cold chopped butter and two cold hands. Butter and flour in a bowl with a decent pinch of salt, hands in after, rub the butter hard in the flour till the lumps have gone and the flour's fluffy. Mix in just enough liquid (an egg, beaten in a little water and less lemon juice) to make it hold together when you squash it into a lump. Wrap it in cling film. Put it in the fridge. Leave it there for an hour. You may need more pastry than this. Scale up as necessary. Use your initiative with the egg.
Make a filling. Pie fillings: 1) steak (chunks, browned in a bit of flour) and potato (chunks, parboiled) with a little Oxo; 2) chicken in a floured sauce with leeks. Today's pie is pork, smoked bacon, cheese, egg and herbs from Angela Boggiano's Pie book. Some people will tell you to make meat and potato pie with mince. These people are fools (even you, Angela Boggiano). It's Not the Same. Only Clark's Pies can carry it off successfully. They've had more practice than you.
Preheat the oven to 180 or 200. I assume it's one of these settings. I never use any others.
Roll out pastry. Line dish. Add filling. Roll out more pastry for the lid. Glue lid to base edges with egg. Brush lid with more egg. Make small holes. Bake for three parts of an hour.
Sweet pies also exist. And flaky pastry pies. And spanakopita. Don't make the pastry for spanakopita. Buy it.
Some of us like the middle-distance. I am irritable today.