The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #17: Cybertron

You know Cybertron, right?

It's a planet on the other side of the galaxy and is home to giant, warring, transforming robots.

Here's a picture of the planet:





Today, I am reviewing sweets from this delightful holiday spot, supplied by a friend who has, presumably, visited on a holiday. I wonder if there's a toll on the space bridge.





Anyway, the sweets came in a bag that was clearly marked as originating from Autobot territory.





Inside the outer wrapping were two enticing looking packets. One contained fizzy cola bottles and the other a curious looking green sweet.





On closer inspection, the curious looking green sweet turned out to be a dragon. It was hard, so I assume it to be a boiled sweet of some sort.





One of the more curious things about the curious looking green sweet was the fact that it transformed into a robot thing. A rubbish robot thing, but a robot thing, nonetheless!





Sadly, it tasted very plasticky and no matter how hard I sucked, it never got any smaller. In the end I gave up trying to eat it.

I think Cybertronian sweets are best suited to the Transformer palate and not to the casual space-traveller and so, I'm unable to recommend them.

Sorry, Cybertron. You get a 1 out of 5 and a lovely red hue.

Because Cybertron isn't on Earth and can only be accessed through space travel or over a space bridge, I had a little difficulty placing it on the sweet map. In the end, I settled for the highly scientific method of sticking it wherever it would fit!

The Speed Of Smell

I can't claim credit for this concept. Dr K came up with it last night when we were lying in bed discussing farts.

Yeah, I know, there are much better things we should be doing in bed than discussing farts. Drinking tea, for one. Sleeping is another. I can't really think of anything else right now.

Back to the farts.

Don't you think it's kinda weird how farts spread at different speeds? I mean, I've guffed in bed and the smell hasn't reached Dr K's nose for a few minutes. Other tines, I've guffed in the en suite and the smell beats me back to the bed.

I'm pretty sure if we can unlock the secrets of the speed of smell, we'll have solved one of the greatest mysteries known to man.

I shall work on this and get back to you. I'm calling it my General Bumified Theory of Really Farty.

Arm's Reach

With all the stuff going on in the world, like war, famine and fish curries; it's often easy to forget about the real problems.

Like this one:

When I settle into my pit for the evening, I like to make sure I have everything to hand.

So imagine how upsetting it is for me when Dr K comes along and starts moving things.

Often, she will pick up the remote control and put it out of reach. I regularly find myself having to lean forward or worse, shift in my seat in order to change the channel.

Oh, the humanity!

To make it all a bit simpler for everybody, I've put together this diagram to clear up, once and for all, where you can put stuff like my tea and my iPad and, contrarily, shouldn't put the damn remote!



(I imagine, once she's read this, Dr K is going to indulge her domestic abuse hobby on my face...)

Premature Christmas

click to enlarge

You Maniacs! You Blew It Up! Damn You! God Damn You All To Hell!

The inflatable Santa, I mean. They blew it up. Blew... Planet of the...

Oh, never mind.


The point (in as much as there is one) of this post is that tonight, I was assaulted in the eyes by my first overt Christmas thing of the year.

There have been relatively discreet Christmas booking posters around, and I think I saw some seasonal gingerbread in John Lewis; but this was the first really offensively Christmassy violation of my not even autumn yet human rights.

I love Christmas. Just not in September, please!

Tea In Bed

Every morning, I make Dr K a lovely cup of tea and bring it to her in bed. I do it because I'm an awesome boyfriend.

But yesterday I thought I'd have a bit of a lie-in.

Shouldn't be a problem, because Dr K lies in at the the weekend too. Really late sometimes. And if she was in a lying-in competition, she would totally win. She's a pro. Hard-core. She's so good at lying in, in fact, that she often lies in right through the optimum tea drinking period and ends up with a stone cold cuppa.

Enough about Dr K's Pro Lying-In though, and more about my lie-in.

There I was, lying-in and having a thoroughly lovely time. It was maybe nine o'clock. In was all snuggly and warm and fast asleep. And then I was rudely awoken.

'Hey baby, are you going to make me a cup of tea?'

At first, I thought it was part of the delightful dream I was having. You know the one where you're flying through an Indian restaurant. Like this:


A demand for tea seemed a bit incongruous with that image though, so I dismissed it out of hand and went back to racing poppadoms through clouds of onion bhajis.

'Are you going to make the tea?'

There it was again. This time it woke me up properly, so I said some naughty words which, paraphrased, went something like this: 'No, my precious darling. I regret to advise that I am not, in fact, getting out of bed to make you a cup of tea.'

And then I went back to sleep again.

About an hour later, I got up and made some tea. Dr K was fast asleep and didn't drink it.

Fast forward to this morning and I was aiming for another serious attempt at a lie-in and I heard the voice again. Only this time it wasn't demanding anything.

'I'm going to make you a cup of tea, baby,' she said.

And she did. She's lovely, she is.

9 Things To Do Before You Die

There seems to be a preponderance of bucket lists on the internet. Stuff like '100 movies you should see before you die'. Or '50 places to visit before you die'. That sort of stuff.

I'm not really sure why they all feel the need to make reference to your death. It seems a bit morbid and a bit unnecessary.

I mean would the movies on that list be any less great if the title was just '100 movies you might like'?

Probably not.

Anyway, here's my slightly more pragmatic list of things you really should do before you die:

1. Take your last breath. This won't take much planning. You'll be taking your penultimate breath and then suddenly you'll be having the last one. And then you'll die. So that's nice.

2. Have a final meal. Same with this one. At some point you'll eat some stuff. And some time before your next meal, you'll die. So you can't really help having a final meal. I hope mine is curry.

3. Drink some stuff. I'm willing to bet that you've drunk some stuff in your life. So you can pretty much check this one off if you like.

4. Famous last words. Well, maybe not famous ones. But you'll definitely have some last words. Unless you can't speak I suppose. Anyway, some last words are better than others. I'm hoping mine won't be 'I'm off for a poo!'

5. Blink. Because if you don't, your eyes will dry out and get all itchy. And that's no fun.

6. Grow your hair. Unless you have alopecia, or you're having chemotherapy, it will take care of itself. Actually this one's a bit rubbish, isn't it? I think I'm pushing my luck a bit. Moving on...

7. Live for at least 85 years. This one's really important. If you don't do this one, you've done it wrong. Or you're really unlucky!

8. Get born. Well duh. You can't die if you weren't alive to start with. I guess there are some technicalities - you could argue that a foetus can die before it's born- but this post is about you, and you were definitely born. So there.

9. Finish reading this blog. Hah!

Peaking

Today, I walked up a hill. This one, in fact:


It's Cam Peak, since you ask! According to the Wikipedia article that I just doctored, it's four hundred miles high and really, really steep. Also it looks a bit like a boob. A single, solitary, grassy boob.

Having climbed to the top of it, I collapsed and died and so was unable to take any photos up there.

Fortunately, I got better in time to see this field of beefs:


All this walking made me hungry, so I went home and cooked me a nice juicy steak! Yum.

Queue Too

I was recently standing in a queue, with Dr K, in the Cribbs Causeway branch of Marks and Spencer. They seemed to be a bit short on staff, so the queue was moving slowly.

I was quite bored. I get bored easily, and you know how I hate queuing. But there wasn't much that could be done about it, so I endured. The couple behind us, however were not so resigned to their fate, choosing instead to complain loudly and angrily to each other.

'It's ridiculous,' said the man (who had a silly teddy-boy haircut so I'm going to call him Ted). 'This is supposed to be Bristol's flagship store and they can't even find enough staff to man the tills. And this bloody idiot is serving people really slowly. Look at him. I think he might be retarded or something.'

This went on for several minutes, and I developed a deep rooted and sincere dislike of Ted. So I decided to amuse myself at his expense.

'I really enjoy queuing,' I informed Dr K, loudly. 'It's just so much fun.'

It all went quiet behind me. I could feel Ted's eyes burning into my back.

'I mean,' I continued, 'queuing is so much better than just standing around aimlessly. It's like themed standing. And you get stuff at the end of it. How cool is that?'

'It's okay,' agreed Dr K. 'But standing in the shower is even more fun.'

She had a good point.

Ted wasn't having any of my nonsense. He resumed his bellyaching with renewed vigour and a bit more volume.

'I can't stand it when shops treat their customers like cattle,' he groused. 'Someone needs to tell them that this is completely unacceptable...'

He was obviously still staring at me with white hot fury, as I could feel the back of my jacket smouldering.

'Remind me,' I said to Dr K, 'to thank the chap at the till for the excellent queuing opportunity. It's certainly the nicest queue I've stood in today.'

This continued for a few minutes more, until we reached the front of the queue and a new till was opened.

As we left I managed to get a really good look at Ted, who was glaring at me with open hatred. It's curious how people that look like dicks often are actually dicks as well.

The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #16: Poland Redux

It turns out that Poland can get their sweets right after all! After their relatively poor showing a few months ago, they have struck back with a new challenger:


A coffee flavoured boiled sweet.

Doesn't sound great, but it turns out that it's one of the tastiest sweets EVER! Yum. It's like sucking a hard cappuccino!

With this one entry, Poland is instantly catapulted out of mediocrity and into the heady heights of 5 out of 5 territory!

Well done Poland!

Still to come: Scotland, France and the Nederlands. Watch this space!

Scarface: The Cuban Years

The Amazing Mr Berry brought up the subject of movie remakes this morning and it got me thinking about the endless remakes, sequels and prequels that are going around at moment. Although his question was more along the lines of what movie I’d remake, my thoughts actually took a wrong turn and end up heading straight for what movie I’d like to make a prequel to.

Like, say a prequel to 1981’s Scarface which covers the grim and gritty story of Tony Montana’s life leading up to his arrival in America.

Only, in order to reach the widest possible audience, I'd make it a PG rated musical romantic comedy set improbably in a modern Cuban High School starring Justin Timberlake as Tony Montana and replacing the rapes and murders alluded to in the 1981 movie with an abortive attempt to sneak into the girls locker room to see boobies, a TP-ing incident gone awry and a hilarious misunderstanding with a Canadian tourist played by a CGI John Candy.

It would open with a heart-warming scene in which Tony, trying to impress a girl, orders the most expensive thing on the menu in a Chinese restaurant, little knowing that the dish is actually a live kitten with noodles. When he tries, reluctantly to eat his meal, the kitten scratches him in the face, giving him the semi-eponymous scar and beautifully setting up an early scene in in the 1981 Scarface movie, in which an immigration officer asks him whether he got the scar eating pussy. 'How would I get a scar like this eating pussy?', Tony asks. Oh, the irony!


Rather than eating the kitten, Tony adopts it, leading into a massive burlesque show tune called 'Say Hello To My Little Friend' in which Tony introduces the world to his little kitten, which he has since named Pedro. Pedro is later run over when Tony leaves the handbrake off his vintage Ford Galaxy.

Stricken with grief, Tony searches Cuba for a replacement kitten but can find none and, in the movie's climax denounces his own country and declares his intent to go to America in search of a new kitten.

I think this idea works so well, because it lends emotional resonance to some of the key moments in the earlier movie. Remember the scene in the 1983 movie where Tony's brother waxes lyrical about how many kittens there are in America and how eager they are to be stroked? Or that tear jerking moment at the end, when Tony realises that he's lost sight of his search for a kitten and, flashing back to his high-school days, cries out the lyrics to the first great musical number in the saga?

The Rules Of Tea

Yeah, 1500 teas. 1500. One thousand, five hundred teas.

So I thought I'd continue to celebrate my awesome achievement by writing another tea related post.

I've been thinking for a while that we need to lay down a few simple rules around the supply and consumption of tea.

How many rules? I hear you ask. Why, nine of course!

1. It's always your turn to make the tea. Look, I make way more cups of tea than I get made for me. I'm in a permanent state of tea deficit and it makes me grumpy. So far today I've made ten cups of tea and drank five and a half (see point 6). Of the five and a half that I drank, I made all but one and a half. You owe me tea. So don't test me, bitches.

2. Never, ever put the milk in first!. Yeah, that's right. There's a million reasons why you shouldn't put the milk in first, but the most important one is that it makes a shitty cup of tea!

3. Three minutes.. That's the minimum amount of time it takes to brew my tea. I don't care if you've read a study by the University of Northumbria that says 2 minutes is best. I don't want that weak-ass crap.

4. That said, I'll probably drink it. . Because let's face it, a cup of tea is a cup of tea. And my boss promised that the milk was okay this morning. I drank it even though it made me gag a little.

5. Use the big mug. Honestly, I put this rule in writing ages ago. We really shouldn't have to go over it again.

6. And fill it up, for pity's sake! Certain people - you know who you are - use the big mug, but only half fill it. That, my friends is known in the trade as 'taking the piss'.

7. Don't call it what it's not! It it ain't made of tea, it ain't tea. Peppermint ain't tea. Lemon ain't tea. Raspberry and euthanasia ain't tea. Green is tea, but it tastes like badger pee and sticks.

8. If you put sugar in it, you're doing it wrong.. Same goes for that sweetener crap. I mean, just have a cup of sugary water instead, cus you can't taste the damn tea.

9. Tea = Civilisation.. It's this simple: the more tea you drink, the more civilised you are. Which pretty much means that I'm more civilised than you. Yeah, okay. I ran out of ideas. Look at this picture instead!






Phew. I think I got away with that!

T1500

We have reached a momentous day. I have drunk 1500 cups of tea in 2011.

Here's a picture of my dad pouring the tea in question:


Once you've got over the predictable 'that's a lot of tea' and' how do you not drown in tea' and 'you must be obsessed with tea' responses, here's a bit of maths for you:

So far, we've had 261 days in 2011. That means I've averaged 5.7 cups of tea a day. Which isn't actually a lot of tea at all in my book.

The average mug of tea is about 250ml. Yeah, I know I have a pint mug at work now, but that's quite a recent development. And when you have a cuppa in a cafe or restaurant, it's usually in a disappointingly small cup.

So, anyway... 250ml x 1500 = 375 litres.

Google tells me that the average bath uses about 80 litres. So I've had four and a half baths worth of tea. I probably could drown in it.

I may be obsessed with tea. It's a distinct possibility. But I'm not sure I'm any more obsessed with tea than my Scottish friends are obsessed with alcohol and casual racism about all things English*. So that's fine too!

( * They were complaining last night that the Fish Lady gets more mentions than them, so I thought I'd get one in! )

The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #15: USA

I'm off to a party tonight, so today you get a super-quick review of sweet from the U S of A.

I've had the odd American sweet before and haven't been impressed, so my instructions to the cross-Atlantic traveller who acquired these sweets was simple: 'Don't bring me any of that Hershey's shit!'

I'm pleased to say that he did an excellent job. Look at this little haul!



We have Reeses Pieces, pretzel filled M&Ms and the jewel of the collection, the mighty Twinkie!



Twinkie first! Sadly this Twinkie isn't 35 feet long and weighing approximately 600 pounds. Instead it represents the normal amount of paranormal activity in the New York area.

For this that don't know, Twinkies are cream filled sponge cakes.

Did I say 'cream'? I meant sugar.

Oh, I said 'sponge cake', too. I meant sugar.

Honestly, one of these is enough to give you instant diabetes. Which is to say that I loved it!



Moving on...

The Reeses Pieces were brilliant. Like little peanut butter filled smarties.

The Pretzel M&Ms were not so brilliant. I was pretty nonplussed with those.

So overall, I'm giving the United States of America a solid 4 out of 5.

Pedicures

What the hell is this fish pedicure thing that's popping up in shopping centres everywhere? As far as I can tell, you pay to let some fish chew on your feet and this, apparently is a good thing.

You know what they call fish that eat human flesh? They call them piranhas or, if they're a bit bigger, fucking SHARKS!

Could it be that the Fish Lady has teamed up with the Evil Cartel Of Evil in order to further a somewhat bizarre piscine amputatory method of world domination?

Penguin Lady

Today, we had a brief discussion in the office about why the Fish Lady was so named*.

Although not quite the truth, one of my workmates asserted that it was because she kept trying to make me eat fish. But not, she assured us, in the same way as a penguin makes it's children eat fish.

And that was enough to lodge an image in my mind. An image which I share with you below.



( * You will be amazed to learn that it is not, in fact, the name she grew up with, although it is true that her entire family now refer to her as Pani Ryba**, which is odd, because you'd think that they'd have a better grasp of Polish than that.

The real story of her unusual name dates all the way back to January. )

( ** This is not true. But you probably guessed that. )

Stuck In A Hotel?

A friend of mine is trapped in a hotel. Which is to say that he's been working in a far-away city for a week or so and is expecting to be there for another week or so.

So he posted online asking for suggestions on stuff to do to while away the lonely hours. Being a good friend I came up with a list, and not being one to waste a potential blogging idea, I present said list below.

But I don't want you to feel that you're not getting value, so I have also illustrated each entry on the list for your entertainment!


Things to do in your hotel:



Take a lot of baths.



Build a fort out of stuff from the room and leave it there for the cleaning lady to find. Do this every day for three days, but on the third day, be hiding in the fort.



Take the sheet from your bed, and wander the corridors dressed as a ghost. In the morning, discuss the haunting with the staff and see if you can get a discount.



Chat up the receptionist for extra biscuits.



Dismantle any framed pictures in your hotel room and rehang them upside down. See if anyone notices.



At the breakfast buffet, take ALL of the bacon. Then only eat one rasher.



Plant a small tree in reception. If anyone asks, tell them it's to remember the war heroes.



Ride the lifts. Announce each floor number and indicate whether you are going up or down an whether the doors are opening or closing.



Ask the staff for tips.

The Household Hierarchy

So no-one liked my rambling monday-centric post yesterday. Apparently it was substandard, unoriginal and/or crap. And three people expressed their disappointment that the Boomtown Rats weren't even referenced once.

So, it was shit. You know what? I'm not sorry. I'll probably do it again.

Anyway, Dr K and I were having a discussion the other day about how the hierarchy works in our house.

And then it was mentioned that I hadn't done a diagram or chart for a while.

So without further ado, I present the hierarchy of our household in the order proscribed by Dr K:


For those not in the know, the players, in order, are: Steve Jobs (representing the Evil Cabal of Evil), me, tea, Rochester, Dexter, Grimlock (King of Autobots) and, at the very bottom, Dr K.

I think Dr K is undervaluing herself, but far be it from me to argue with her.

Household position aside, she may not know it, but I'm the best boyfriend in the world.

Why, I hear you ask?

Well, because I just set the new season of True Blood to record for her. It starts tonight and she didn't even know it.

I'm so awesome.

Apparently, I Quite Like Mondays

A great deal of fuss is made of how horrible Mondays are. Even I have a moan about it now and then. But actually, I don't really mind Mondays.

It's not Monday's fault. I mean, if I had Monday off and my first day of the working week was Tuesday, then I'd hate Tuesday.

So it can't be Monday I hate.

So what is it I hate. Going to work?

Nah, it's not that. I quite like going to work. Some of my favourite people are at work and I have a cool job.

Maybe it's the actual getting up in the morning.

Nope definitely not that. It's always very quickly followed by a cup of tea, and I love tea. And Ivan Pavlov's experiments prove that I must therefore love getting up.

So if I love getting up and I like going to work, then I must actually quite like Mondays.

What an anticlimax of a blog post, huh? You win some, you lose some.

Bye.

The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #14: Israel

Today is the turn of Israel, courtesy of one of Dr K's workmates.



I can't read Hebrew, so I'm having to guess what the flavours are based on the pictures on the front of the packet. Best guess is that the red one is chocolate and the blue one is vanilla.



So this is what they look like unwrapped. Kinda like the foam stuff you use in flower arranging.

Sadly, that's what they tasted like, too. Either that or asbestos.

I'm pretty sure that the troubles in the Middle East can be traced back to the awfulness of Israel's sweets. I mean if you fancy something tasty and sweet, and pop to the corner shop for a mars bar, imagine how grumpy you'd be if they gave you asbestos instead.

Sorry, Israel. One out of five. You are officially a sweetie danger zone!

It will be very interesting to taste other sweets from the region.

The Cat's Holiday

It wasn't just me and Dr K that were on holiday this week. Rochester and Dexter spent the week at Uncle Scotty and Auntie Gayle's house. Ii am reliably informed by Rochester that this is how their week went:






As always, you can click on the pictures for larger versions!

There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch...

...Although the shreds of plastic wrapping and paper that Dr K found in her lunch meant that she came as close as you ever get! Yum yum. Plastic and paper.

Didn't put her off though and she scoffed her liver and onions and mash and then got a refund!

Also we went to another castle. At least it was called Elvaston Castle, but I'd say it was more of a big house. Sure, it has crenelations, but that doesn't make it a castle in my book.

Judge for yourself. I took a few pictures:









I also took a lovely picture of Dr K looking like a model:


And I finally got my cream tea:


This is important because if I don't get a cream tea then I'm not on holiday.

In fact as this trip involved visiting my brother, spending time with my parents and going out for lunch with Dr K's mum, it could easily have fallen into the 'visiting family' category which, as everyone knows is officially a chore - even if it's fun.

So the cream tea officially changed my visit to the Midlands from a chore to a holiday. Brilliant!

Of course this rule doesn't always work in my favour - remember the Conference I went on in January for work where they served mini cream teas? Well that was officially a holiday. Disappointingly, it wasn't the worst holiday I ever had.

I'm writing this post in the car on the way back home, which means Dr K is utterly thrashing me at the Eddie Stobart game.

I can't wait to sleep in my own bed again.