LOL

In general I wouldn't type a word or turn of phrase that I wouldn't use aloud.

The major exception to this rule is the word 'negligible' which I can't say aloud properly, no matter how hard I try. It's a ridiculous word. It's also a very useful word, though, so I use it every now and again in written form, but hardly ever in speech.

So, to the eponymous* word: 'LOL'. It's actually a pretty useful word, too. It fills a spot for which there is no other single word in the English language. In normal use, it acknowledges that a humorous statement or event has occurred and indicates approval of said humorous statement or event.

So in general, I have no issues with the word. 'LOL'.

Well... Okay. I do have a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy problem with it.

You see, it's actually an acronym for the phrase 'Laugh Out Loud'. And, more often than not, the humorous statement or event did not actually induce laughter of an 'out loud' type. Most of the time, I would suggest it induces an 'Internal Appreciation Of The Humorous Statement Or Event' (IAOTHSOE) or, at best a 'Small Chuckle' (SC).

My good pal, Mr Berry once told me a short anecdote about a guy ( I don't know his name, so lets call him Eugene) who sat at the next desk in his office, to whom he forwarded an amusing email. Eugene responded with an email that consisted of the word 'LOL' and nothing else.

Mr Berry would not have had a problem with this, except that he was sitting right next to Eugene and knew that he had not laughed out loud. In fact Eugene had shown no physical signs of amusement at all. Which meant that his 'LOL' was a dirty, stinking and outrageous LIE!

How can you trust someone that is prepared to lie outrageously to you, hmm?

Anyway, it's probably society's fault. Either that or Eugene's parents, Bartholomew and Gertude**.

So anyway, although I have my reservations about it, I'm prepared to accept that 'LOL' does not mean that I've induced fits of laughter but that someone has noticed that I made a funny. (Just don't get me started on 'LMAO', 'ROFL' or 'PMSL'.)

I wonder what would happen if I started saying 'LOL' out loud. I suspect I would get some pretty strange looks. Stranger than normal, I mean!

Those excellent gags were supplied by Dr K, by the way!

While writing this post, I began to wonder what people around the world use instead of 'LOL'. I checked with my only properly foreign friend, the Fish Lady, who told me that in Poland, they use 'LOL' as well, although a direct translation of 'Laugh Out Loud' would be 'Umierac Ze Sheichu' which would be 'UZS'. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

In France it might be 'Mort De Rire', which would be 'MDR', which is a little close to 'Murder' for my tastes...

( * 'Eponymous' is much easier to say aloud than 'negligible'. )

( ** I didn't know their names either, so I made them up. )

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. )

Rudeness

A while back, I had a discussion with the Fish Lady about whether or not offering your hand in greeting to the ladyfolk was rude. She maintained that it was, whereas I insisted that it wasn't.

She's probably forgotten all about it by now. But not me. Oh, no. I was just biding my time until I had a free blog slot to fill. And also, I only just remembered it myself!

Take a look at these two pictures, one of which is rude:



Which one do you think is the rude one?

Is it the horrible beardy git extending his middle finger in a gesture that pretty much means 'stick this digit into your bum hole'?

Or is it the handsome chap extending his hand in a traditional gesture of greeting and friendship?

Now, I'll admit that up to and including Victorian times, it was traditional for a gentleman to wait for a lady to offer her hand.

But there are a few things that need to be taken into account.

Firstly, it's not Victorian times. I know this because I don't dress like this:



Since Victorian times, ladies have become much less soppy. Hardly any of them do embroidery any more and some of them even vote! More importantly, they have campaigned for and won equal rights. Which means they should be treated the same as men.

Of course the other problem with Victorian times was that, once the lady's hand was proffered, a gentlemen didn't shake it. Oh, no. More often than not, this happened instead:



No-one wants that now, do they?

Oh yeah... And while we're at it, a reminder:



They're BOTH rude! Because they mean THE SAME THING!

The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #3: Poland

So then.  Today I have the pleasure of reviewing the foreign sweets supplied by the Fish Lady, who as I may have mentioned before, is foreign.

Polish, if you want to be specific about it.

Anyway, these sweets were hand-picked by the Fish Lady herself and, presumably, represent the finest confections available in the great country of Poland.

We'll start with the presentation:





As you can see, today's foreign sweets came in a personalised paper bag of the white variety. It was smart enough but, in my opinion, lacked the colourful pizazz of some of the previous entries.  This was made up for with the personal message.  I don't know what the word between 'bag' and 'Poland' is.  I think it might be a picture of a fence or a very small cannon.

Inside the bag were 8 delicious looking sweets:





You'll note that some of the sweets are in shiny wrappers.  I like shiny things, so this is definitely a bonus.

Obviously, I started with a shiny one:





This one looked a little bit like a Ankylosaurus, before I bit into it.  Sweets that look like dinosaurs are definitely brilliant in my book.  I don't know what Ankylosaurases taste like, but the insides of this sweet tasked quite a lot like hazelnut and I have a feeling that Ankylosauruses do not taste like hazelnut inside.  I like this sweet. Here is an ankylosaurus:

Next up is Michalki Zamkowe.




That's what's written on the wrapper anyway.  According to Google, Michalki is a place and Zamkowe translates to Castle, which is all very well but doesn't make much sense as, when unwrapped, the sweet doesn't look like a castle at all.  It did taste nutty again though, so I forgive it.





And then there was the selection of chocolate covered fruity jellies.  You read that right:  chocolate covered fruity jellies.  Those Polish are crazy.

Dear god, they were disgusting. And strangely difficult to photograph, which leads me to suspect that they might be slightly vampiric. On their mother's side.

Sadly, the 'jelly nightmares' brought the whole score down from the nutty heights of 4.5 to a round 3.  Sorry, Fish Lady, your country's sweets only rate a 3/5.  That's the same as Switzerland.

I think we have enough results to start displaying on my patented map of the relative horribleness of foreign sweets:





You'll see, if you zoom in, that the UK and Turkey are a lovely green colour, while we have a disappointingly middling orangey hue for the Swiss and the Poles.

Hopefully, we will be able to populate this map well enough that the budding sweet tourist will be able to plot a route around the globe eating only the tastiest sweets that the world can offer.

Now, I have a feeling that the Fish Lady was lacking in confidence somewhat, in her sweet selection as she also provided me with some white mice and some chocolate boobs.





I'm not sure if they were a bribe or a consolation prize!  Either way, thank you Fish Lady.  Yours was a worthy and most welcome entry!

I'm going to end this post with a bit of a plea.  You see, several of my friends and co-workers have been abroad to exciting places like Jordan, Egypt, Sicily and the Nederlands and returned with exactly no examples of horrible (or otherwise) foreign sweets.  So this whole thing is taking much longer then I'd hoped (by which I mean, I'm not getting as many sweets as I'd like).

So, if you are a Foreigner and your country has sweets, or if you're planning a visit to foreign climes, please send me some - or bring them to me.  Together we can change the world.  Or at least colour it in!

Special Chops, Lamb Madras, Pilau Rice And A Peshwari Naan, Please.

Curry nights with Bezz and the Fish Lady are always great, but last night's was especially awesome!

Not only did I get to eat curry, talk rubbish and discuss the relive merits of fun words like 'perineum' (a word we don't get to use enough in general conversation), I also got presents. And it wasn't even my birthday!

As indicated by the title of this post, I more often than not order the same meal every time I go to this particular curry house. This time however, I had planned to play against type and order something different. Maybe even something I'd never had before.

Events conspired against me, however. And by 'events', I actually mean 'Bezz' and 'The Fish Lady'! I also mean 'presents'.

I like presents nearly as much as I like curry, so you can imagine how delighted I was to receive presents on my curry night. I was almost overwhelmed!

One of the presents was a selection of foreign sweets courtesy of the Fish Lady. More on that will be forthcoming in tomorrow's post.

The main present, though, was an awesome t-shirt. Here's a picture of me wearing it:



And here's a close up on that manly chest detail:



As you can see, it's a visual aid for my favourite curry order... In T-shirt form! Amazing!

Of course, having receive this fantastic gift, it would have been downright rude of me to order something different. So when the waiter asked me for my order, I simply showed him the t-shirt.

When he, and the six other waiters that he called over, had finished laughing at me, they went and got my dinner. Which was delicious.

Now, if you look again at the lovely photo of me in my awesome t-shirt, you'll note that I am holding a shiny pen.

Why, I hear you ask, is Dazza holding a shiny pen in the lovely photo of his awesome t-shirt?

It's because the staff at the Indian restaurant wanted to give me a present, too. I think they were convinced that it was my birthday, a reasonable assumption, given the general flow of gifts in my direction, and not one that I was inclined to contradict.

It was all wrapped up in pretty paper and everything!

Here it is:



I don't think it's real gold! But it's a damn fine looking pen!

So thank you to Bezz and the Fish Lady for all of my presents. And thank you to the staff at the Taj Brasserie in Winterbourne for the tasty dinner and the shiny pen. And thank you to Dr K for her boobs. And thank you to everyone for a super duper evening!

The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #1: Switzerland

Today, I had a conversation with the Fish Lady, who is foreign, about foreign sweets. She assures me that Polish sweets are delicious.

Whether or not she is correct in her assertion, this conversation got me thinking about foreign sweets. While I fully appreciate the generosity of my globetrotting workmates, in my experience, foreign sweets are generally pretty horrible. In fact that's almost the point of them!

Today, we got 'Milka' chocolates from Switzerland.


This one is strawberry flavoured. That's right: strawberry flavoured chocolate. Not chocolate with a strawberry filling. Strawberry flavoured chocolate.

And by strawberry, I actually mean 'shit'. Yuck.

I don't want to start my scale too low as I think the world has a lot more horribleness to offer, so Switzerland will be used as the mid-point, or the benchmark if you will.

3/5

(An additional weird thing about strawberry flavoured chocolate sweets from Switzerland is that the wrappers are purple, yet when photographed, they appear to be bright blue!)

Update: one of my workmates had a camera phone that could see the correct colour of the sweet wrapper:



So there you go!

Another Fish Supper

Before I start, I should clarify that I did not eat fish for my supper and in fact, the meal that features in this post is not, in fact, supper in anything other than the loosest sense.

I have in fact created a blog post title that completely misleads you with regards to the content of the post. Even the word 'another' is a lie, because I have never had fish for supper.

I'm not sorry.

This post is actually about a Chinese meal that snuck up on me today. The fish referred to in the title is actually the Fish Lady, who was not nearly as sneaky as the sneaky Chinese meal. I'm not sure she was capable of doing any sneaking at all, given that she had caused her knee to explode the other day by running up a mountain. Running up a mountain? Who even does that?



A sober warning, I think you'll agree, of the dangers of running up mountains.

Anyway, that's off topic.

I went to Chipping Sodbury this evening because Mr Berry was playing at some sort of charity gig and I felt duty bound to provide mildly disinterested support. I was not entirely successful at this endeavour as his band went in for their one hour set about half an hour early and were asked to stop playing before their hour was up. I'm unsure whether the cease and desist order was related to the quality of their music.

The upshot of this was that we only had to hang around the pub for about twenty minutes.

Following the music segment of the evening, Mr Berry declared that he was hungry and, by coincidence, so was I, having failed to consume the regulation quantity of cake today. Dr K and the Decidedly Unsneaky Fish Lady, who were also present, did not appear to completely share our enthusiasm for food, but were willing to go along for the ride.

So we walked (most of us, anyway - those members of our party with exploded knees sort of hobbled) to the nearest Chinese restaurant and... well... had Chinese food.

Mmm...

Two important things were learnt during the course of our conversation over dinner:

1. Crispy chilli shredded beef looks like Nic Nacs.

2. If you want to upset a Polish person, swear at them in German!

A Nice Day... Apart From The Traffic

Well, I did get dressed today.

You've probably surmised from my posts this week that I've been skiving from work. And I really lucked* out with the weather. Look:


This photo was actually taken when we got home from Leicester on Sunday, but the weather has been similarly fantastic all week. It's brilliant. For the first time this year, we can sit out in the sun and... er... drink tea.

Dr K informs me that there are other things one can do in the garden. Something called 'mowing' and something else called 'pruning'. And then there was something about putting wet clothes out there, but that's clearly a stupid idea. They'd get all grassy.


Although I've spent the vast majority of my week off (well, the bits when I wasn't adventuring in the East Midlands, anyway) putting together a music video for Stead (god, I never want to hear that song again), I have taken the occasional opportunity to pop out and enjoy the sun. It would be rude not to. Unfortunately, sometimes the popping out can backfire horribly.

This afternoon, for example, I popped out to the shops for a few minutes and, on the way home, got stuck in a godawful traffic jam on the motorway. It took me two hours to get home. What was particularly annoying was that the vast majority of the delay was within a mile of my house. In fact for the last half an hour or so, I could actually see my house from where I was parked on the motorway.

I shouldn't complain though. Someone was obviously having a far worse day than me.

Steve Jobs for example. I'll tell you why: while I was at the shops, I noticed the enormous queue for iPads outside the Apple store. What caught my attention in particular though, was that the staff were handing out sandwiches to the people in the queue.

Do I even need to tell you what happened next? Here, let Steve and Bill tell it:



Tonight I shall be going out for my slightly delayed birthday tea with all of my favourite people and Stead. Oh yeah, and the Fish Lady.

Dr K just came in wearing a lovely dress and asked me if I would be getting changed out of my scruffy jeans and Batman t-shirt. I hadn't really planned that far ahead yet, but I suppose I'd better go and put my birthday suit on!

(*you probably don't need to know what Sigmund Freud made me mistype here)

A Fish Supper

Tonight I was introduced to a lady who prefers fish to curry. I don't think we're going to get on.

EDIT: I've prepared a diagram to help her, and anyone else in any doubt, understand the the issues involved in preferring fish to curry: