It's the number of hours that the roadworks on the M5 will have cost me by the time they finish. And I begrudge every single one of them!
These roadworks started a few months ago and, for the duration, they have reduced the speed limit from 70mph to 50mph. Not only that, but they're going to continue until spring 2014. Thats two years of stupid roadworks slowing me down on my way to and from work every day. Plus every trip into town, every trip to the cinema or the shops, every trip to pick up my anti-sobriety friends. Bah.
If you'd like that formula above simplified, read on...
So it take 3.4 minutes to travel the four miles of roadworks at the normal speed of 70mph. Because I go in to work early, there's hardly any traffic, so I always manage that speed. Coming back, I occasionally meet some slow traffic, but not often enough to factor into my calculations (and because it's too hard for me).
At 50 mph, it takes 4.8 minutes. That's a difference of 1.4 minutes every time I make the trip.
For work that's twice a day, 5 days a week (okay, I sometimes don't make the trip on a Freaky Friday - but if I'm going to do anything Freaky with my Friday, I invariably do, so I'm counting it), 45 weeks a year (allowing for holidays and stuff).
And it's going on for 2 years!
((((((4 miles of stupid roadworks / 50 mph) x 60 mins) - ((4 miles of no roadworks / 70 mph) x 60mins) x 2 trips a day) x 5 days a week) x 45 weeks a year) / 60 mins) x 2 years = 21 damn hours.
Damn you, roadworks. Damn you for stealing (most of) a day of my life and damn you for making me do maths on my blog!
Here's a list of things I could be doing with that day you stole:
1. Watch Star Wars ten and a half times.
2. Bake a LOT of cakes. Like, shit loads of cakes!
3. Eat a LOT of cakes.
4. Walk to Oxford. With my feet!
5. Drive from Bristol to Aberdeen and back again via York and London. That's assuming there aren't any roadworks en-route!
6. Perth. I could fly to Perth. IN AUSTRALIA!
7. Have a 2.8 minute lie-in every work day!
8. Write about 20 blog posts from scratch!
9. Build my R2-D2 Lego set four times!
Seaking of R2-D2 Lego sets. If you check back here tomorrow, you may see a new high speed Lego building video. You know you want it!
I made the word 'Sunday' out of Lego. Because the post is called 'Lego Sunday'. It's dry, post modern, ironic humour. Or... er... something.
I suppose you're wondering why I might do something as crazy like naming a blog post 'Lego Sunday'.
Read on, and you might find out.
Today I went to Legoland. See, you didn't have to read on very far to find out, did you?
I may have mentioned in the past how much I love Lego. It's singularly* brilliant. Dr K bought me a Lego Milennium Falcon for my birthday.
Anyway, back to Legoland. Here are some pictures:
Oh no! It's a big lego dinosaur come to eat me alive!
Who needs a zoo? Lego elephants are way cooler than real elephants!
I resisted the temptation to look up his skirt. I was afraid that I'd see a giant lego willy!
Yarr!
Shuttle!
What's that you said about my good lady, sir? I challenge you to a duel! Have at thee!
(Plastic swords can hurt if you get slapped in the face with one.)
Oh no! I got eaten by a shark! Fortunately, I'm not very palatable.
Kaz dwarfs bits of London.
Kaz and I try out the throne in Atlantis. Not enough melted swords for my taste. A throne just isn't a throne if there isn't a chance that you'll accidentally stab yourself in the bum!
Oh yeah. And they might have had a little Star Wars exhibit on...
Fancy a drink? There's always a little cantina around the corner!
This was the droid I was looking for!
I wonder if there's good skiing to be had on Hoth.
Endor is a nice holiday destination, too. Lush forests. Certain death at the hand of the Imperial army!
The Millennium Falcon is so damn cool!
We were kind enough to allow the Dark Lord of the Sith to be photographed with us. When you're as famous as Dr K and me, you have to make these concessions to the little people!
That was my day at Legoland. It was awesome.
Afterwards, I was inspired to go home and build my Millennium Falcon, which has been waiting for the dining room table to become free. Here's an epic high speed video!
( * 'Singularly'. Because the word is 'Lego'. And the plural of 'Lego' is also 'Lego'. No 'S' on the end. Unless you're the sort of dumbass who says 'sheeps' or 'deers' or 'doughnuts'... no wait... )
China is a big, big place. As such, it's only fitting that they provide a larger selection of goodies for my taste buds to sample!
Here we have three very suspicious looking articles. Presentation-wise, I'm not really keen on any of them!
I decided to get the worst out of the way first. These sweets have a giant shrimp on the front of the packet. Doesn't really bode well for me, considering I've never met a seafood that I liked. Still, in the interests of science (and padding out a blog post), I was willing to take one for the team.
Inside the shrimpy wrapper, it was kinda like a big boiled sweet. With stripes on.
Weirdly, it did not taste fishy at all. In fact it tasted like peanut butter. That's because inside that stripy shell, it was... er... peanut butter. With not a hint of decapod crustacean.
On closer inspection of the packaging, there was no mention of shrimps at all. So all in all it was a much less traumatic experience than I was expecting.
Not to worry, though. There's plenty of trauma to come...
Not quite yet though. Because despite looking quite a lot like a dog treat, this next one was bloody delicious. It had a tasty creamy bit surrounded by a lovely wafery bit and although it was much moister, it reminded me a lot of one of my favourite biscuits: The pink wafer.
Pink wafers are deeply unpopular with the general population, but me and my tatsebuds like 'em. And, in fact after tasting the chinese dog treat, I went out and bought a packet of pink wafers.
And scoffed them.
Finally we come onto this fruity little abomination.
I say it's some sort of fruit. I'm not sure what fruit it is. It was in a sweet wrapper and I am assured is what the people of Hong Kong munch instead of M&Ms. I suspect someone was fibbing.
The skin was like leather, and when I bit into it, something salty squirted into my mouth.
Without further ado, I sent the little fucker to Finland*.
So China has a full range of sweets which range from absolutely fucking horrible to not entirely vomit-inducing to bloody lovely. On average, I think it gets a 3. Maybe a 3.5. Either way, it's Amber. Eat sweets in China at your own risk!
I have now run out of horrible foreign sweets. But I still have a long way to go, so expect more in the not-too distant future!
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( * You will remember, of course, that I coined the phrase 'to Finland' a few days ago.)
Now Cyprus is a tricky issue. It's a bit Greek and a bit Turkish and therefore may not actually warrant an entry of it's own. But I'm trying to string this out 'til the end of the week, and so I have decided that it qualifies!
What's this? More Turkish Delight?
Oh, my mistake. It's Cyprus Delight. You know, the traditional taste from Cyprus. Not to be mistaken for the identical, but obviously entirely different Greek Delight from Greece and Turkish Delight from Turkey.
Upon opening the box, I discovered that presentation was not one of the strong points when it came to confectionery from Cyprus. It looks a little like someone had a really heavy cold today. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that taking photographs in focus was not one of my strong points when it came to confectionery from Cyprus.
So, much as I enjoy a bit of Turk... er... Cyprus Delight, they lose a couple of points for copycatting the copycats and get a 3 out of five, which means that they're Amber too.
It gave us Democracy, Philosophy and Trigonometry. It also gave us dodgy knock-off Turkish delight.
But, I guess if it was made in Greece and bought in Greece, it must be Greek, so here goes!
Tasty enough. Nothing like the melon that it claimed on the box. As far as knock of Turkish Delight goes though, I think I preferred yesterday's Big Turk!
I'm only giving Greece a 3/5 Amber, because they're ripping off Turkey and, unlike Canada, didn't even bother to put chocolate on it!
Here, I have a Big Turk and and Eat More, both of which enjoy very functional packaging. No cartoon characters. No pictures of Turks or... er... eating. Just the name of the sweet in big letters. Canada doesn't muck around, it seems.
Contrary to expectations, Big Turk was not in fact a large, hairy man from Turkey who wanted me sit in a steamy room clad only in a little white towel.
It was, in fact, chocolate flavoured Turkish delight. You can't get much better than that. I mean you can get better. Just not much better.
I was very pleased. It was delicious. So delicious, that I only saved Dr K a very tiny bit at the end! Yum.
Eat More looks quite a lot like sawdusty turd, but it's actually pretty tasty. It a sort of gooey brown... er... goo with nuts in it.
I liked it, although not as much as Big Turk. And I'll take a Snickers over it any day.
I have to admit that I was a little put off by the packaging on this one. It felt a little too bossy for my tastes and, indeed after I'd sampled it, I decided to rebel and not eat any more at all. Dr K polished it off though, which just goes to show that you can polish off a turd.
Canada did well, scoring 4.5 out of 5 and getting itself a nice solid GREEN! Big Turk For The Win!
I haven't had much luck with sweets from the Finnish corner of the world. Apparently they think that liquorice and salt make a good combination.
Fortunately, I know better and have been able to put them in their place.
Now, I have a bag of chocolatey treats from Finland. I've been quite looking forward to these. They look like they're going to be chocolate covered crisps...
Which sounds AWESOME!
Look. They even look delicious out of the bag:
Well... except for that oddly crippled looking one at the bottom. But mostly they look delicious.
Oh dear. Finland, you've done it again. Yuck. Chocolate covered crisps are not good. And inexplicably chilli flavoured wheel shaped chocolate covered crisps are even worse.
RED, damn you. RED! And never darken my door with your horrible foreign sweets again!
There is an upside to the horribleness of Finland's horrible foreign sweets. I've coined the verb 'to Finland'. Which means 'to throw something in the bin with extreme prejudice'.
So... I Finlanded Finland's horrible foreign sweets.
It's been a while since I reviewed some horrible foreign sweets, hasn't it?
Well, this week I have loads to review, so you're getting a review a day until they're all gone. This will be a very intense burst of horrible sweetness. This much horrible sweetness in such a short period is potentially harmful. I do a dangerous job. You should be grateful that I have taken on the responsibility so you don;t have to. Grateful, I say.
Anyway... today I will be sampling some more of Japan's offerings.
You may recall that Japan previously got an Amber rating due to the mediocrity of the sweets that I sampled. I wonder if they'll be able to nudge it up into the Green?
Well, I have two sweets here, so they have two chances to get promoted. Lets hope they don't screw it up by say, making one of them tomato flavoured.
Oh no!
It was, quite honestly one of the most horrible things I've ever put in my mouth. And I've put some pretty horrible things in my mouth - fish and licorice to name a couple. This was definitely up there with those.
The yellow sweet was pineapple flavoured and not offensive at all. But the damage has been done, Japan. You are being relegated to RED until such time as you can redeem yourself with something so awesomely delicious that I simply can't deny you a green!
I love Lego. It's brilliant. Especially Star Wars Lego. I have a Lego Millennium Falcon sitting in the cupboard waiting for me to build it! Would you like to sponsor me to build it? No?
I also love tea. I have a cup right here waiting for me to drink it. How would you feel about sponsoring me to drink it? No?
You know what else I love? Listening to The Offspring. I'd quite like you to sponsor me to listen to the Offspring. No?
Hmm...
I don't get it. Why wouldn't you want to give me money to do my hobbies or things that I claim to enjoy? I'd sponsor you, if you asked me to. Probably.
I've been asked by a number of people to sponsor them to do their hobbies, and I've been happy to do so. It just so happens that their hobbies appear to be running, or cycling, or some other activity that more often than not involves lycra.
Why's that more sponsor-worthy than building Lego space ships?
The only conclusion I can draw is that the more lycra I wear, the more likely I am to be sponsored to do stuff.
Would it help if I wore lycra to build the Millennium Falcon?
It is a beautiful, sunny day and I'm driving merrily down the motorway on my way home from work, looking forward to a delightful bank holiday weekend with the lovely Dr K.
A car shoots past me on the outside lane and, because the driver wants to take the exit just a hundred yards ahead and absolutely has to do it in front of me, he cuts me up. And half-way through his heroically stupid manoeuvre, he indicates.
Not before his heroically stupid manoeuvre, thereby giving me a chance to anticipate his idiocy. Half way through it.
I already know you're cutting me up, you berk.
Indicating at this late stage is fricking pointless as I'm far more concerned with slamming my brakes on so I don't die horribly in the accident that you seem desperate to cause.
The lesson for today... indicators do not make you invincible. Nor do they make your heroically stupid manoeuvres okay.
From Flaming Hot Monster Munch and Bombay Badboys to Pepperami Firesticks and supermarket Vindaloos, many products claim to be hot and spicy.
But they're not. Not really. They're kinda vaguely peppery or leave a bit of a tingle on the end of my tongue. But they're not really 'hot' and 'spicy'.
I suppose, if I were a little girl in a pretty gingham dress, clutching my favourite dolly and a bunch of flowers, I might find these foods 'hot and spicy'.
But I'm not. I'm a big, fat, hairy bloke with an enormous beard and a craving for hot and spicy food that is actually hot and spicy and reminds me of this fact the following morning!
Even the curry houses around here seem to have tamed their curries down to a more 'mainstream' level.
Food manufacturers: please stop calling your bland shit 'hot and spicy'. Also, please make me some hot and spicy food.
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