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 Huge, Mega Tea Related Post I Promised Yesterday

Remember the day that Dazza tried to drink 12 pints of tea from a mixing bowl?

In the future, you may find yourself asking that question. This is the day you will be talking about!

Here's how it came about:






"A huge jug of tea. Extreme tea drinking. Not for the faint hearted!"

That was the photo message that my brother sent me yesterday. Obviously I took this as a personal challenge and immediately set about locating the largest tea-worthy receptacle I could find.

Although I was tempted to simply fill the bath, I settled on a mixing bowl that took a very respectable 12 pints of tea. I had to boil the kettle three times to fill it!




Look at the unadulterated* glee on my little face!

Delicious though it was, it soon became clear that drinking from a mixing bowl in the conventional manner was a little on the difficult size due to the size and... er... flexibility of the receptacle.




So, I had to find an alternative delivery method. My first attempt was a ladle:




This proved quite effective, but didn't really provide a proper, thirst quenching tea experience. It felt like I was eating soup, and tea flavoured soup is just weird.

Fortunately I had Dr K's keen scientific mind to hand and in no time she had provided a curly, purple solution to my problem:




Perfect. Although I recommend waiting for your tea to cool down a bit before you try sucking it through a straw, otherwise you may be as surprised as I would at the unexpectedly hot liquid spurting into my mouth**. Straws, it would seem, make hot things hotter.

Anyway, armed with my curly, purple tool, I made excellent headway into my enormous cuppa***.

Sadly, I was unable to finish the whole twelve pints. In fact I only got this far before I had to give in:




I broke out in the tea sweats. It was quite nasty.

We estimated that I'd drunk maybe five pints. It was certainly less than half. And I think that's quite respectable for one sitting.

Following this little adventure, I probably went for a wee about 15 times. In fact, just thinking about it is making my bladder twitch, so I'd better sign off now...




( * Emphasis on the 'unadult'. )

( ** Yes, yes. I know. )

( *** Cuppa? It ain't in a cup. Must be a... bowla?)

I-Bloody-Kea

Following an overly vigorous video editing session, I found myself forced to visit I-Bloody-Kea last night to replace the computer desk that I managed to break!











Tomorrow, you are in for a very special, tea-related treat'

Not Just Clean...

I Think They Must Like Me...

My workmates, I mean.

Today was a Freaky Friday, which means that they didn't have to put up with my stupid face, inane wittering or slightly creepy innuendoes.

I thought they'd be glad to be rid of me for a bit.

And then one of them turned up on my doorstep with a tin of delicious homemade cakes. Look, here they are:



I hadn't even got dressed. I was lounging around in my Batman PJs and dressing gown.

Now, you know me. My body is a temple, so I wouldn't normally eat cakes, but it was such a nice gesture that I guess I'll have to make an exception. Only to be polite, you understand.

I think I'll start with the rock cake... Om nom nom...

Thanks, guys!

Another One?

Same person. Same game.



That's two gynaecologically correct rude words in one game.

Awesome.

I Hate Adverts

Adverts aren't usually a problem for me as I rarely watch anything at the time of broadcast, preferring instead to record or and watch it later. Adverts are something that whizz by at 30x speed.

But every so often, Rupert conspires to show me adverts against my will.



The other night he hatched a plot with Dr K. It was thinly disguised as a desire to watch the Kerrang channel. Live. With adverts.

It took about two seconds for my eyes and ears to start bleeding as some hip youngsters started prancing around the screen singing a cheery song about how I should recycle my mobile phone.

This was followed up by a seemingly identical bunch of irritating tweens trying to convince me, via the medium of song, that if I were to drink their delicious orange brew, I might be able to jump around with people just like them.

Because that sounds like something I'd want to do.

And then someone decided that in order to persuade me to buy some sort of loan product, it was necessary to patronise me with the most condescending voice over I've ever heard.

Fuck you, Rupert. Your plan didn't work. I'm still here!

A Moral Dilemma

I have a problem. I'm in a pickle, if you will.

I'm playing scrabble online with a female co-worker. That's not the dilemma.

She's winning at the moment, but I can claw back a substantial amount of the points difference by playing a particular word.

Problem is, I'm reluctant to play the word because it's a bit rude and I'm not that good friends with her.

Let me illustrate my problem for you:






If I place the contentious word at the bottom there, I can get a good 30-odd points. But would it be ungentlemanly for me to play such a word in a game with a lady (who presumably has the ladypart in question).

Ah, what the hell! I don't really know why I'm worrying about it. I don't normally let propriety get in the way of rude words. Rude words are funny! At least it wasn't 'pissflaps' or 'poonani' or 'wookie hole' or 'pink velvet sausage wallet' or 'beef curtains' or 'tampon tunnel' or 'dugout' or 'fish mitten' or 'cum crater' or 'cooze' or 'magician's sleeve'...

See how I turned a post about scrabble into an excise to write lots of filthy words? Heh heh heh!

What's your favourite rude word?

Tea One Thousand

This is me and my one thousandth cuppa of 2011, which I enjoyed at around 10pm this evening.

I had it in a special commemorative Tea One Thousand mug and put on one of my favourite movies to celebrate.

My mum would be so proud if she wasn't so busy tutting and shaking her head!