Before you get comfortable, may I suggest that you go and read the update to yesterday's post, which is both witty and informative.
I had an excellent blog post planned for you tonight. I was literally about to sit down and write it when the doorbell rang. When I answered it, a whole new blog post was standing there begging me to write it.
'I put a notice through your letterbox a few days ago,' said the new blog post. 'for the church disco next week. Did you see it?'
'I'm afraid not,' I replied, guardedly. 'I usually put all the leaflets straight in the bin.'
'It's to raise money for the church, you see,' said the new blog post. 'We're having a disco and we'd like you to come.'
'I'm afraid discos aren't really my thing,' I told him, meaning in a non-verbal way that I was actually afraid that churches aren't really my thing and would he please fuck off now, thank you so very much.
Sadly, the new blog post didn't take the hint and utterly failed to fuck off, explaining at great length as he did so that if I didn't want to dance, I could always pop in to watch and listen. And even if I didn't want to pop in to watch and listen, I could always pop some money in an envelope to help the church out.
When I non-committally agreed that those were all things that I could do, he produced an envelope.
'Look,' he pointed out helpfully, 'If you put your money in here, you can get gift aid with it.'
'Thank you,' I said, taking the envelope, 'If we are free, we will certainly pop in.' meaning, again, non-verbally, I'm going to put your stupid envelope straight in the bin. Now fuck the fuck off.
This time, I think he heard me.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #4: Portugal (Updated)
Today, I had Portuguese sweets.
They were, allegedly, toffees.
Indeed, they came wrapped in a shiny toffee-like wrapper. And, when opened, looked a lot like the toffee that we all know and love:
At this point, you're expecting me to say that they tasted like someone had eaten three kilos of sugar and then shat it out in my mouth, or perhaps that they tasted rather like an elderly badger's groin.
I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. They tasted like toffee.
As such, I give them a solid 4 out of 5. Well done, Portugal.
We interrupt this fascinating discussion of the relative horribleness of foreign sweets to bring you this update to the Onion Threat Level: We have now officially downgraded from Moderate to Low.
UPDATE
Oh my, my assessment of Portugal's sweeties has been formally challenged!
They were, allegedly, toffees.
Indeed, they came wrapped in a shiny toffee-like wrapper. And, when opened, looked a lot like the toffee that we all know and love:
At this point, you're expecting me to say that they tasted like someone had eaten three kilos of sugar and then shat it out in my mouth, or perhaps that they tasted rather like an elderly badger's groin.
I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. They tasted like toffee.
As such, I give them a solid 4 out of 5. Well done, Portugal.
We interrupt this fascinating discussion of the relative horribleness of foreign sweets to bring you this update to the Onion Threat Level: We have now officially downgraded from Moderate to Low.
UPDATE
Oh my, my assessment of Portugal's sweeties has been formally challenged!
Mr Grumpy Face said...
How can you rate Portugal 4 based on toffee? Toffee that probably isn't even from Portugal. Go on, check the bag they came in ... if it says "made in the UK" then ... then .... then .... grrrr.
If you'd been basing your thoughts on marzipan piglets such as these ... http://www.travelsignposts.com/Portugal/files/2009/10/dsc_6395.jpg ... then maybe your arguement would carry more water ... but you weren't ... so it doesn't.
Charletan.
Well, Mr Grumpy Face. You raise some excellent points, which I am happy to address.
You're right. My research into the origins of these sweets left a lot to be desired, so here goes:
First up is an additional photograph of the packaging. It doesn't really help my case, but it does have some happy looking cartoon children dressed as pirates on it!
Now to address your 'not Portuguese' point. And I will address it with an address:
Senhora Da Hora. Hmm... Now where might that be...? Oh, yes. That's right. Portugal. Sorry, dude.
On the other hand, those marzipan piglets look absolutely amazing and, had I received those, Portugal would have had a solid five! You need to either send me some or tell me where I can get them!
Until then, I'm afraid I can only base my opinion of a country on what I've put in my mouth! Four is good, anyway. You should be proud!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
How To Make Fast Food Staff Explode In One Easy Step
Dr K and I were in a burger restaurant the other day.
The menu said she could have salad instead of chips with her chicken burger, so she asked for one.
It blew their minds!
Still a bit oniony, by the way!
The menu said she could have salad instead of chips with her chicken burger, so she asked for one.
It blew their minds!
Still a bit oniony, by the way!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Fat Hitler
Last night a waitress called me 'Fat Hitler' by accident. At least I hope it was by accident. It's not like I'd done anything to upset her.
There were four of us at the table: me, Dr K, Scotty and Gayle. None of us can quite remember how it happened. There was some talk of my handsomeness (mostly be me) and then some mention of the tolerance of English people and the friendliness of Scottish people and then someone mentioned that small people could be tolerant and friendly, too unlike Hitler who was quite small, but neither tolerant or friendly.
And then the waitress commented that the key difference between me and Hitler was that I was much bigger than him.
To cut a long story short:
So that was nice!
I'll finish with a brief update on the onion fingers situation: they still smell. I've stayed clear of hand driers though, so hopefully all will be well!
There were four of us at the table: me, Dr K, Scotty and Gayle. None of us can quite remember how it happened. There was some talk of my handsomeness (mostly be me) and then some mention of the tolerance of English people and the friendliness of Scottish people and then someone mentioned that small people could be tolerant and friendly, too unlike Hitler who was quite small, but neither tolerant or friendly.
And then the waitress commented that the key difference between me and Hitler was that I was much bigger than him.
To cut a long story short:
So that was nice!
I'll finish with a brief update on the onion fingers situation: they still smell. I've stayed clear of hand driers though, so hopefully all will be well!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Onion Boy
A couple of nights ago, I made a curry. It wasn't horrible.
As part of the preparation process, I chopped an onion. Nit was a really strong one and made me weep onion tears. Those, I find, are the best ones, despite the hell they put me through.
But there's another side effect to chopping onions. It's not one that anyone else seems to suffer from. At least not as dramatically as me!
My hands smell of onions. Not just a bit. A lot. I may as well have onions for hands. And the smell won't go away for days. No matter how much I wash them, they just continue to stink of onions.
Yesterday at work, Rachael* tried to mask the smell with the liberal application of her moisturising hand cream, which smells of old ladies. The net effect of this was that my hands smelled of old, oniony ladies.
Then I used a hand drier in the gents (no, not like that - to try my hands!). It was catastrophic. Not only did I fail to smell less oniony, but the strength of the odour increased by a factor of ten!
I am fated to suffer this affliction forever. Nor at least for the next few days until it wears off.
Dr K, who is a scientist**, has a theory. I am actually made of onions.
Perhaps I was the result of a crazy interbreeding experiment between man and vegetable. Maybe there are other people out there who smell of cabbage or parsnip.
When I come into contact with my fellow onions, my inherent onionness comes out of me. Literally, oozes out of my pores.
Maybe if you cut me open, I would have layers!
Whatever the answer, the fact remains that if I ask you to smell my finger, it's probably because it smells of onion!
( * There's your long awaited name-check, Rach. You're famous now! )
( * And quite, quite mad. How else do you explain her reasons for putting up with my nonsense? )
As part of the preparation process, I chopped an onion. Nit was a really strong one and made me weep onion tears. Those, I find, are the best ones, despite the hell they put me through.
But there's another side effect to chopping onions. It's not one that anyone else seems to suffer from. At least not as dramatically as me!
My hands smell of onions. Not just a bit. A lot. I may as well have onions for hands. And the smell won't go away for days. No matter how much I wash them, they just continue to stink of onions.
Yesterday at work, Rachael* tried to mask the smell with the liberal application of her moisturising hand cream, which smells of old ladies. The net effect of this was that my hands smelled of old, oniony ladies.
Then I used a hand drier in the gents (no, not like that - to try my hands!). It was catastrophic. Not only did I fail to smell less oniony, but the strength of the odour increased by a factor of ten!
I am fated to suffer this affliction forever. Nor at least for the next few days until it wears off.
Dr K, who is a scientist**, has a theory. I am actually made of onions.
Perhaps I was the result of a crazy interbreeding experiment between man and vegetable. Maybe there are other people out there who smell of cabbage or parsnip.
When I come into contact with my fellow onions, my inherent onionness comes out of me. Literally, oozes out of my pores.
Maybe if you cut me open, I would have layers!
Whatever the answer, the fact remains that if I ask you to smell my finger, it's probably because it smells of onion!
( * There's your long awaited name-check, Rach. You're famous now! )
( * And quite, quite mad. How else do you explain her reasons for putting up with my nonsense? )
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The Making Of "L'udmilla" or "In Which I Try To String Together German Football, Asteroids And The Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield And North Plainfield, New Jersey In A Plausible And Vaguely Entertaining Way"
Did you enjoy yesterday's post?
What?
You thought it was nonsense?
It's a fair point. It was pretty nonsensical!
See, I though I'd challenge myself to take three unrelated subjects and see if I was capable of cobbling together an interesting post out of them. So I asked Dr K to give me the titles of the first three articles she came across on Wikipedia. Here they are:
Southern German Football Championship;
3636 Pajdušáková;
Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ.
I started with Pajdušáková. It's an asteroid which can be found in that rocky bit between Earth and Mars; and by that, I mean the asteroid belt, not the pavement between my garden and the sweet shop.
That was going nowhere (well, except around the sun at a speed of one revolution every three and a half earth years). So I decided to take a look at the lady who found it. She was actually quite interesting, but I cast all that aside in favour of fictitious New Jersey and football aspirations. The bit with the Nazis was a bonus and one of the only truthful parts of the post.
I hope you enjoyed it!
I did, especially because I managed to string it out to two blog posts, which means that this evening I can relax and take Dr K out to drool over Johnny Depp.
What?
You thought it was nonsense?
It's a fair point. It was pretty nonsensical!
See, I though I'd challenge myself to take three unrelated subjects and see if I was capable of cobbling together an interesting post out of them. So I asked Dr K to give me the titles of the first three articles she came across on Wikipedia. Here they are:
Southern German Football Championship;
3636 Pajdušáková;
Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ.
I started with Pajdušáková. It's an asteroid which can be found in that rocky bit between Earth and Mars; and by that, I mean the asteroid belt, not the pavement between my garden and the sweet shop.
That was going nowhere (well, except around the sun at a speed of one revolution every three and a half earth years). So I decided to take a look at the lady who found it. She was actually quite interesting, but I cast all that aside in favour of fictitious New Jersey and football aspirations. The bit with the Nazis was a bonus and one of the only truthful parts of the post.
I hope you enjoyed it!
I did, especially because I managed to string it out to two blog posts, which means that this evening I can relax and take Dr K out to drool over Johnny Depp.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
L'udmilla
Here's a little history lesson for you. It's mostly true. Ish.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl called L'udmilla Pajdušáková, who was a Slovak with an unexpected apostrophe in her name. This little girl grew up to become a young woman.
Even though she was a young woman, she sadly did not qualify for membership of the Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ on account of being from Slovakia and not from New Jersey which, one assumes is a basic requirement for membership of the Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ.
This was unfortunate, as every young Slovakian girl dreams of growing up to be a member of Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ.
So instead, at the tender age of 18, L'udmilla set out to travel the world - or a least a small part of Europe and, as it was her back-up ambition, tried to join the Karlsruher football club, only to find (and I think you'll like this bit) that the Nazis had banned the Süddeutsche Fußball-Verband, otherwise known as the South German Football Championship, the year before! Goddamn Nazis!
So she became an astronomer instead, and, with her new friends, Minoru and Antonin, discovered a comet and an asteroid which were named after them!
And they all lived happily ever after. Oh, except L'udmilla died in in her sixties, which isn't very old, really. But she has an asteroid named after her, so it ain't all bad!
Once upon a time, there was a little girl called L'udmilla Pajdušáková, who was a Slovak with an unexpected apostrophe in her name. This little girl grew up to become a young woman.
Even though she was a young woman, she sadly did not qualify for membership of the Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ on account of being from Slovakia and not from New Jersey which, one assumes is a basic requirement for membership of the Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ.
This was unfortunate, as every young Slovakian girl dreams of growing up to be a member of Young Women's Christian Association Of Plainfield and North Plainfield, NJ.
So instead, at the tender age of 18, L'udmilla set out to travel the world - or a least a small part of Europe and, as it was her back-up ambition, tried to join the Karlsruher football club, only to find (and I think you'll like this bit) that the Nazis had banned the Süddeutsche Fußball-Verband, otherwise known as the South German Football Championship, the year before! Goddamn Nazis!
So she became an astronomer instead, and, with her new friends, Minoru and Antonin, discovered a comet and an asteroid which were named after them!
And they all lived happily ever after. Oh, except L'udmilla died in in her sixties, which isn't very old, really. But she has an asteroid named after her, so it ain't all bad!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Cars
I was in the car with a lady yesterday and she was shocked when I announced that I quite liked the Mini Clubman. In fact she said that she'd lost respect for me because of my vehicular preferences.
What surprised me most about her claim was that she had any respect for me in the first place; also that she felt able to judge me when she declared her love for her Corsa which she loves 'because it's round'.
Mini Clubmen and their awesome rear doors notwithstanding, I don't really care much what my car looks like. I drive a Focus, after all. But I do think that Bmws are aggressive, predatory looking cars and if I wanted a car on which I was going to mount machine guns, it would probably be a BMW.
And if there was a car that I was going to paint pink and use as a pretty, flowery garden ornament, it would probably be a Corsa.
What surprised me most about her claim was that she had any respect for me in the first place; also that she felt able to judge me when she declared her love for her Corsa which she loves 'because it's round'.
Mini Clubmen and their awesome rear doors notwithstanding, I don't really care much what my car looks like. I drive a Focus, after all. But I do think that Bmws are aggressive, predatory looking cars and if I wanted a car on which I was going to mount machine guns, it would probably be a BMW.
And if there was a car that I was going to paint pink and use as a pretty, flowery garden ornament, it would probably be a Corsa.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Life Is Good
It occurs to me that life is good. Much better, in fact, than the 'good old days' which as far as I can tell, weren't that good at all (although I imagine that back in the good old days, there were still old people who reminisced wrongly about the even better, older days).
So, here are nine things that are definitely much better than the good old days:
Toilets
Start with something obvious, why not. Toilets used to be rubbish in the good old days. They were buckets. Or holes in the ground. And they were often in a freezing cold outhouse. And they stank. In the good old days, you certainly wouldn't want to sit on the bog checking Facebook on your iPhone for long. Which brings me nicely to...
Smartphones
Phones in the good old days were really really dumb. The only game you could play on them was a really rubbish version of swingball, only worse because the cord was really short and they tended to break if you hit them with stuff. You could talk on them, I suppose, but you couldn't, say, put a blog post onto the www with them. That conveniently leads me to...
The Internet
Oh the internet is absolutely fricking awesome. Back in the good old days, if you wanted to see a hilariously captioned cute kitten, you had to start by finding a kitten! And then you had to make it do something awesome, capture the (several) moment(s) with your pinhole camera and then develop the film and make up your own hilarious caption. Or hope to hell that one turned up on the clumsily linked TV...
Television
Oh my god, television was shit in the good old days. It was tiny and fuzzy, badly acted and sounded like it was made of baked bean tins. Now, it's HUGE and colourful and has explosions and boobs and swearing and even though we have reality TV, we also have The Sopranos and The West Wing and Dexter and that's at least 900% better in my view! And what else can you do with your telly?
Video Games
They didn't have video games back in the good old days, did they? Billiards, maybe. A few card games, perhaps. But there aren't many opportunities to shoot the living shit out of fourteen year old American kids with high explosive, hollow point rounds spat out of your awesome mini-gun at 200 rounds per second in the average game of Snap. EAT HOT LEAD, YOU SPOTTY LITTLE MOTHERFUCKERRRRR!
And we can pretty much thank Science for video games!
Science
How cool is science? There's so much more of it now than in the good old days. They didn't have String Theory or the Hubble Telescope in the good old days! Where would you see amazing pictures of deep space? The internet, maybe? No, wait! It's the good old days! They don't even have robots. Even giant ones...
Transformers
This one doesn't even need an explanation, does it? Transformers are brilliant. None of them in the old days. You just had to play with rocks!
Rock Music
Put simply, rock music rocks, an the heavier the better! It's so much more awesome than all the other music. In the good old days, you'd never burst an eardrum listening to crackly old doo wop nonsense or crooning bollocks. Now you can experience the internal injury of your choice by turning up the volume! And it's all okay cos we can fix you...
Medicine
Medicine was really crappy in the good old days. If you went into hospital, chances are you weren't gonna come out alive. And people died from 'wasting illnesses' and bloody hankies. And now people live twice as long as their great granddads because we can cure or mend almost anything. Cos it's not the good old days any more!
Thank God, huh?
So, here are nine things that are definitely much better than the good old days:
Toilets
Start with something obvious, why not. Toilets used to be rubbish in the good old days. They were buckets. Or holes in the ground. And they were often in a freezing cold outhouse. And they stank. In the good old days, you certainly wouldn't want to sit on the bog checking Facebook on your iPhone for long. Which brings me nicely to...
Smartphones
Phones in the good old days were really really dumb. The only game you could play on them was a really rubbish version of swingball, only worse because the cord was really short and they tended to break if you hit them with stuff. You could talk on them, I suppose, but you couldn't, say, put a blog post onto the www with them. That conveniently leads me to...
The Internet
Oh the internet is absolutely fricking awesome. Back in the good old days, if you wanted to see a hilariously captioned cute kitten, you had to start by finding a kitten! And then you had to make it do something awesome, capture the (several) moment(s) with your pinhole camera and then develop the film and make up your own hilarious caption. Or hope to hell that one turned up on the clumsily linked TV...
Television
Oh my god, television was shit in the good old days. It was tiny and fuzzy, badly acted and sounded like it was made of baked bean tins. Now, it's HUGE and colourful and has explosions and boobs and swearing and even though we have reality TV, we also have The Sopranos and The West Wing and Dexter and that's at least 900% better in my view! And what else can you do with your telly?
Video Games
They didn't have video games back in the good old days, did they? Billiards, maybe. A few card games, perhaps. But there aren't many opportunities to shoot the living shit out of fourteen year old American kids with high explosive, hollow point rounds spat out of your awesome mini-gun at 200 rounds per second in the average game of Snap. EAT HOT LEAD, YOU SPOTTY LITTLE MOTHERFUCKERRRRR!
And we can pretty much thank Science for video games!
Science
How cool is science? There's so much more of it now than in the good old days. They didn't have String Theory or the Hubble Telescope in the good old days! Where would you see amazing pictures of deep space? The internet, maybe? No, wait! It's the good old days! They don't even have robots. Even giant ones...
Transformers
This one doesn't even need an explanation, does it? Transformers are brilliant. None of them in the old days. You just had to play with rocks!
Rock Music
Put simply, rock music rocks, an the heavier the better! It's so much more awesome than all the other music. In the good old days, you'd never burst an eardrum listening to crackly old doo wop nonsense or crooning bollocks. Now you can experience the internal injury of your choice by turning up the volume! And it's all okay cos we can fix you...
Medicine
Medicine was really crappy in the good old days. If you went into hospital, chances are you weren't gonna come out alive. And people died from 'wasting illnesses' and bloody hankies. And now people live twice as long as their great granddads because we can cure or mend almost anything. Cos it's not the good old days any more!
Thank God, huh?
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