All posts in category: Food & Drink

Why are magazine editors and chocolate manufacturers numerically challenged?

Why...

Can’t magazine editors read a calendar or chocolate manufacturers add up? By the time you read this we will be into December but at the time of writing we are still in mid-November and yet....... I have January issues of several magazines I subscribe to. Now I can understand being two weeks ahead and jumping the gun, but nearly two months is absurd. Most magazines are vaguely topical yet if you take into account the lead time for writing articles, these ‘up to the moment publications’ are staler that last elections political manifesto. As some of you know, I am a petrolhead yet there I am reading about Evo Car of the year in the December edition complete with Santas and elves... in shirtsleeves in sunny September! Which brings me onto another point. How can you match a Christmas advertising campaign you want people to actually read in December when the magazine is dated for February?

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If God was a woman, celery would have more calories than chocolate and white wine would replace water

Why...

Has the law of natural selection seemed to have passed by foodstuffs and things I enjoy? How come a yummy, light and fluffy chocolate eclair, something every sinew in my body urges me to eat, is bad for me at every level, as opposed to a vomit inducing kilo of brussels sprouts which my nutritionist says is bursting with goodness? In everything else our natural urges ensure our survival; be it wanting to have sex to procreate, nonstop chatter thereby ensuring protection by being tribal, a natural aversion to snakes or Politicians or any of a dozen natural instincts that Mother Nature instilled in our subconscious for our own good... except consuming calories, tobacco and alcohol. What happened? Depends who I ask. The Catholic’s and Jews have a thing about guilt. It’s a guilty pleasure to consume single malt whisky or puff on a Cohiba cigar so Yahweh or God, in his infinite wisdom made these things bad for me to test my faith. But that kind of logic is as cracked as the Grand Canyon. It also explains their puritanical views re sex (I like it but cannot have it unless under very strict conditions, passed down by the Almighty, often to people who are forbidden to have sex). If you ask Tom Cruise and his Scientology friends, they may say that liking things that are bad for us is an instinct passed on from the Thetans who visited Earth and had hanky panky with a lot of us humans. So, we inherited their love of all that’s bad as clearly on their planet they all indulged heavily in narcotics, sugar, ciggies and alcohol. All I can say to that is lead me to their planet and explain to me if they are such superior beings, they left their own nirvana?

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Old Mother Hubbard

September 13, 2018
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life
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Why...

Is my freezer always at bursting point with stuff I will never eat? When I go shopping I seem to buy not only for my wife and I but for the freezer... like it’s an actual person who needs feeding. “Ooooh, lark’s tongues. I’ll put those in the freezer. Yum, anchovy and chocolate mousse. Looks so interesting. I can freeze it.” The result of all this largesse is my fridge is crammed full with stuff that in the cold light of day I don’t want to eat. Conversely, I feel guilty about throwing out food, so this abundance just sits there.

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Oh, come on... what happens in Benidorm stays in Benidorm

Why...

When I went on my first solo summer holiday, was the hottest part of the day always after dark? I remember reading that in the 1980’s such was the lure of ‘a quickie in Magaluf’ that over 35% of single people had sex with a stranger within two days of starting a package holiday on the Costa Brava. I suppose if you ground out 50 weeks a year in a damp typing pool in Wigan, some rumpy pumpy in an exotic locale had a very strong appeal. I mean all those hormones, no parents and no prying phone camera from your friends to tell the world what you had been up to. My holiday snaps in the 1970s were taken on the last day to show my Aunt the sea view from my room and the plane I flew home on; taken with a camera loaded with one roll of film with 12 shots (ASA 100 - Remember those). Today’s racy photographs that cover snapchat like acne would never have been developed by my local Boots. Instead I would have found a note inside saying these pictures were unsuitable to print! I can assure you that what I was looking for on those first holidays was not a UNESCO World Heritage Site or a basket weaving co-operative. So I was somewhat staggered to learn that young people on their first solo holidays nowadays seek out exotic locations as opposed to locations where they indulge in something erotic. Cheap and cheerful holidays have been replaced with earnest young people wanting to load up on Instagram a photo of a three toed armadillo or four eared fruit bat. Students and the first time employed apparently now yearn to sample the delights of a warm oil colonic irrigation whilst eating mung beans in an Ashram. Fun seems to be a ten mile trek through some mosquito infested swamp with the reward of a tofu burger and cup of tepid fruit tea, rather than an all-night rave and enough E to fill a giant size bag of M&Ms. The kiss me quick traps of the Baby Boomers and X Generation have suddenly gone quiet. The locals in great swathes of Spain, Italy and Greece are actually nostalgic for the old days of sluicing away the vomit from the night before’s over indulgence or collecting abandoned flip flops, thongs and condoms that once littered the beach in dawn’s early glow. Wolfing down paella with chips followed by binge drinking Raki with Sharon from Skegness has faded from memory like the sepia pictures that hang in the mock rustic tavernas. Now, whilst I am the last person to deny some culture to our youth, where has fun gone? I worry today’s youth are not being misspent.

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Twinkle, twinkle, little star How I wonder... ...how the f*#k you got it!

July 20, 2018
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Work
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Why...

Are stars listed for goods and services that mean utter bullsh*t? Let’s start with the supernova of stars, the seven star hotels in the Gulf. According to the Hotel Star Registry, there is no such thing as a seven star hotel. Well guys, I hate to tell you, the Burg al-Arab boasts them. Hard to miss it. It’s the third highest building in the world. The fact no one challenges this self aggrandising nonsense is a clear example of how the rating system is abused globally. Technically I believe the star rating system was started by the Forbes Travel Guide, formerly Mobil Travel Guide, which launched its star rating system in 1958. The AAA and their affiliated bodies use diamonds instead of stars to express hotel and restaurant ratings levels. However, although many countries have legal requirements for star designation, others do not. This makes a mockery of the whole system. A four star hotel in say London or New York is in a different league to one in some islands in Southern Europe or Africa. To qualify to be five star you need to have shops on hand available to buy essentials. However there is nothing to say a vending machine would meet that requirement... and in some countries they do! In China saunas and spas are not a requirement to get five stars but a room to play cards and mahjong is! In Mongolia I assume you need somewhere to tether your Yak whereas in London it’s an underground car park.

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It’s all about service

July 13, 2018
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do hotels with four or even five stars find the basics of what is expected so hard to deliver? The Porter. When I pull up in a taxi or my car, why is carrying my bags into the hotel a spectator sport? A porter should be there. No excuses. Instead, nearly all hotels are perfectly happy for me to lug cases inside when some spotty teenager dressed like an organ grinder’s monkey then expects a hefty tip as he wheels my bag from reception to the lift. I always enjoy pulling out a note then tearing off a third and saying... “That part is my share of taking these out of the car to reception.” Internet. If I am paying a decent price for a room don’t piss me off asking to pay an additional $25 a day for Internet. It’s grossly expensive and just appalling customer relations. WiFi is now as basic a requirement as electricity, aircon and hot water. I was recently charged for internet and then given a download service of less that 1 MBPS. For those luddites reading this, it means even a simple presentation document takes so long I would need a shave and a haircut by the time it finished downloading. Unless I am actually in Africa, watching BBC News Focus on Africa is as pointless as last year’s football results. If I am in Stockholm I could not give a toss about basket weaving co-ops in Laos, but more likely a terrorist attack in London. BBC, CNN and other news agencies seem to be mostly advertising monologues for third world dictatorships. You just get endless reports from parts of the world that are as relevant to my life as Morris Pole Dancing. If you are a five star hotel with an International clientele shell out the few extra pennies to allow us to watch rolling news (Sky News for the English... and Russia Today for those who like fairy stories before bedtime). Perhaps if I should just thank Reception on check out for such interesting news channels and offer to pay in Matabele gumbo-beads when presented with the bill? Bathroom. As I wrote before (here) I don’t wear glasses in the shower so print shampoo, conditioner and shower gel in big letters and have enough lights around the mirror to let a woman do her make-up. Bedroom. One switch by the bed to turn all the lights out.

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I say, anyone for tennis?

July 7, 2018
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Politics Sport Technology
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Why...

Have some events managed to stay essentially the same in character whilst others have changed beyond recognition? Wimbledon is in many ways gloriously anachronistic and has stayed resolutely the same since 1877. My late father was on the board and I was immensely lucky to have watched every men’s final from 1969 until his death in 2004. Yes the event is old fashioned but still managed to sneak in the odd dollop of progress. It took till mid 60s before the All English Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, to give it its official name, allowed professionals to compete. In the 1970s skirts went high and in the 1980s rackets just went high tech. In the 1990s Wimbledon led the way in taking a little pressure out of the balls to stop short serve and volley rallies that threatened to ruin the game... but those two weeks in July are still rooted in Agatha Christie’s England. Pimms Number 1 cup to drink, smoked salmon sandwiches, strawberries & cream to eat, and a fearsome dress code. All men must wear jackets and ties in the members enclosure, trousers are frowned on for women and no one raises their voice (John Mcenroe in his prime, the exception that proved the rule). Even now the men’s and ladies champion pair up at the opening dance at the Gala finale ball. You almost expect to see Maggie Smith as Dowager Lady Grantham complete with lorgnette inspecting the crowds to make sure no riff-raff have gained entry. And yet Wimbledon has survived, even thrived. Unique in the tennis world as a Grand Slam on grass yet with the atmosphere of a smart village fete. It’s not the quaint atmosphere that puzzles me, but why no one else has tried to copy it.

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Whatever happened to the three martini lunch?

June 28, 2018
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Have we let naked ambition put cordial working relationships on a strict diet? Of course I blame purple braces, red Porsches and Gordon Gekko. The first casualty from Big Bang in the 1980’s was the three martini lunch. If lunch was for wimps, then count me in (if that’s no too much trouble)! I remember my early days in the City working in Lloyd’s Insurance market on Kidnap and Ransom insurance. Twice a year I would have lunch in the Directors boardroom at Fenchurch Street Brokers with an underwriter who got deeply offended if after cocktails then wine, we did not finish off a bottle of port. Of course we were fried as owls and no work was done that afternoon, but we never had a row, always got our man back if someone was kidnapped and the world shone brightly through the gimlet of the bi-annual assault on our livers. Could this Underwriter have been a touch richer, more ruthless and generate more moohlah for his company? Possibly? But then I probably would not have wanted to spend time with him or give him my business. In 1980 everything suddenly got serious. Fun was out as the new slave drivers assured us no one could possibly get rich being a bit silly. I suppose that’s one reason why shortly after Big Bang I left the City and ended up working for a man who had made millions sticking his hand up a Frog’s bottom. Jim Henson and The Muppets were back then an Entertainment behemoth... and not that we ever overindulged in anything to the detriment of that wonderful company, but indulge we all did. And it all (like Kermit) went along swimmingly. Chalk one up to the silly people.

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Do you wanna be in my gang?

June 22, 2018
Finance/Law Food & Drink Life Politics Sex Technology
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Why...

Do we seek solace mixing with people who on joining a group or club revert to stereotype? “I never want to be a member of a club which would let me in,” may be a classic Groucho Marx line and a cliché but for good reason... It’s true. I have been very lucky to have been invited as a guest to several clubs and they break down into the following seven categories. Back to school There are a handful of Gentlemen’s Clubs in London holding a male only policy. They are all in Pall Mall and St. James and distinctly different to other Gentleman's clubs that can only operate by having scantily club members of the opposite sex. The London Gentleman’s club is really just public school (private school in the US) for boys who never grew up and miss nanny. The place runs on old fashioned rules. The Nanny organises the social desk and membership fees but that’s the only woman you will see. You better turn up in a tie, shoes polished, nails clipped and hair brushed. Yes, you can drink, but do not get rowdy. Most of the food is what I call nursery menu. A perfect lunch would be: Windsor soup, Steak and Kidney Pudding, Jam Roly-Poly, & Welsh Rarebit. Conversation through the meal with other members sharing your refectory style table equally as stodgy and bland. This is followed with a port and a snooze reading yesterday’s The Times. These throw-back establishments work on handed down privilege, who you know and how you behave. I am sorry to delude new members who have fought their way up in society through hard work and brains to join but… Old Biffo and Squiffy in the corner still look down on you as nouveau riche; the same way they dismissed Johnny Foreigner as a new boy at Rugby or that boy with the flash watch as parents “working in trade”. Back to Basics Health clubs. No frills. Over sophisticated gym equipment and eye wateringly expensive juices, drinks and rabbit food. Staff preachy and superior with bodies buffed to within an inch of their lives. Off peak these caverns of sweat are filled with the bored and rich. These poor souls have nothing else to do except cheat on their partner and sneak off for plastic surgery to show the results of all the dieting and training they pretend to follow. Peak time it’s just an overcrowded dating agency. Back to the Future The Lovie playroom. Media based haunts are filled with overloud voices recalling their last meeting with Brad and Angelina, how genuine the Spielberg’s are and what a shame about Amy’s drug abuse. Always in slightly seedy parts of town set up by failed media wannabes who see this as their entree into the glitterati. The propeller head equivalent of techy clubs are full of earnest members trying to convince you to invest in some crypto crapto currency or hint they might get you into an angel start up fund with guaranteed returns. “So, you’ve invested yourself,” is a sure-fire way of getting rid of them... and leaving you with absolutely no one to talk to. Pointless. Back to the Wall The exclusive nightclub. Exclusive because there are only so many people willing to spend £10k a year for membership to an overcrowded noisy hell-hole that charges prices that are an insult and a door policy that admits only good-looking people with an IQ quota the same as their shoe size. To make it worse should you be insecure enough to have to order a five litre bottle of vodka or a jeroboam of champagne for £1,000, the staff bring attention to your vulgarity by having sparklers light up the bottles as they bring them to you and alert everyone else in the place who is tonight’s soft touch. If you have to go to one for a night of drug fueled fun, you never want them to have your real name anyway. Always make sure someone else is the member. Back in the saddle The Horsey Club. Filled with overweight florid faced men and woman who bray when they laugh. If you ask for the bridal suite it’s a large room full of saddles, riding crops and Gucci buckles and the last place you’d want to spend your honeymoon. If you can separate the bullshit from real horse manure you might get a good tip on a horse. The Back Nine What can I say about a golf club except I don’t want to join one. Ever. It’s a chance for you to dress up like an extra from a Blaxploitation movie, though ethnic minority representation still remains low. Members may slice their tee shots to the left or right, but politics is invariably to the right. I speak with some experience here when in Myrtle Beach a club member made the mistake of asking me my opinion on abortion. “The obvious answer is it is not really a man’s decision; though if it were men who got pregnant, I suspect termination would be so easy it would come from an ATM machine. “No religion recognises a miscarriage or the trauma that causes. So, until they do they cannot go on about the rights of a foetus.” He pulled a gun on me and called security to eject the “limey liberal pinko”! Back Inside There is a great line in the TV series set in a woman’s prison Orange is the New Black with a character greeting a new inmate saying… “Welcome to the 1950s”. The speaker is not referring to the building or facilities. But to the clubs. The Narco Mexicans stick to one group, The Neo-Nazis another, right down to the Nepalese Horse thieves or Belgian child molesters. Everyone has a group. It’s basic. It’s for protection. So, on that note console yourself that Bernie Madoff is not the wife of some 6’6” ex Cripps member but closely closeted with some other fraudster both cheating at monopoly but a least paying protection money to keep their balls.

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In the old days we cooked real food and made our own entertainment

June 8, 2018
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Sex
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Why...

Do some people in their sixties plus go all starry-eyed when harking back to the days before the microwave and streamed entertainment?

“When we were young, we played cards,” they moan.

So giving your kid a regular gambling fix is better than subliminal history via Vikings and The Tudors or world class fantasy literature of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings?

“The family stuck together and entertained each other,” they pontificate, sniffing at Netflix, Amazon, Sky, etc...

“Which is why in some remote regions your husband, your brother, your cousin and your uncle were all the same people,” I reply. This is even an argument to allow easy access of porn to occupy Uncle Ernie rather than him insisting on a game of doctors and nurses with his niece and nephew.

However, I do accept that building a tree house, riding a bike without a helmet, a game of conkers or walking unaccompanied to school did generate a dollop of risk. No one I grew up with got away without a broken limb... if not two.

“And we had such innovative games. So much more involving than just a video screen.” True but...

I remember being given an Atomic Energy Lab from a toy company called Gilbert that had a small sample of polonium and uranium! At seven I had fuel driven planes whose propellers regularly tried to sever my fingertips, steam engine trains with boilers heated by methylated spirits (so you were stoned before your fingers got third degree burns) all jumbled up with catapults and a wicked gun called a Johnny 7. This little darling had seven different missile firing guns each capable or poking out an eye or pissing off the next door neighbour’s cat.

I never wore a seatbelt and quite often steered the car sitting on my father’s lap. (Please note we never had an accident... we saw dozens).

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♫ I hear somethin' sayin'♪ Yumm, Yumm ♫That's the sound of the men eating in the chain ga-a-ang♪

May 17, 2018
Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Travel/Nature
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Why...

Does anyone bother to be a chef in some parts of the USA? Last month my wife and I went to visit my son in Florida where he teaches people to become Commercial Airline Pilots. Yup, I know the tallest mountain is Thunder Mountain in Disneyworld and in Daytona Beach where my son is working, there is more culture in a yoghurt but… one night we decided to go out for dinner and tried to find a local restaurant. On one three mile stretch of road we counted 51 different food franchise restaurants and spotted only one real bistro where somebody actually cooked a meal rather than follow the franchise instruction manual. This leads to the ludicrous situation where you ask for the teensiest change in a meal and you are met with a blank look from the waitress; “We cannot possibly hold the tomatoes/not use garlic/add extra turmeric… It would take away from the taste experience we have so carefully crafted.” Translation: “We can’t change anything because none of the people in the kitchen can actually cook anything. We just assemble pre-packed gloop and wouldn’t know turmeric if it came up and bit us in the ass.” The exception of course is anything that can get an allergic reaction (and then a law suit) so nuts are kept in separate radioactive bags only to be added to a dish at the last minute using two-foot-long tongs and industrial grade gloves.

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Give up something nearly impossible for Lent

Why...

For a bunch of people who are normally about as religious as Loony Tune characters, do my friends go all peculiar at this time of the year? Some wish they could still cavort and writhe about on a float in Rio, whilst others long to don mysterious masks and wander about in Venice like the kid in the red coat from the movie Don’t Look Now. However putting aside the differences in choice of Carnival they want to romp about in, most go all ‘holier than thou’ by announcing they are giving something up for Lent’s long forty days and forty nights.

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It seemed like a good idea at the time...

January 6, 2018
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Friends Uncategorised
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Why...

Do I sometimes try so hard to make myself look stupid when so many other people would do it for free? I have recently had one of those bumps in the road when what seemed like a brilliant investment opportunity may just have become a life lesson. “Would you like some cheese to go with that whine,” my wife asked me as I moaned about possible loss of face, time and money. The fact is, if you are an entrepreneur you only have to bat 51%. I suppose I can at least smile when I remember some of the howlers Dragons Den have made... turning down TangleTease which is now worth £200m! Still the next project is looking very good.....

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Another New Year. If you want to stay alive don’t tell anyone how old you are...

December 29, 2017
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Sex
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Why...

Tell anyone your age? Brrrrrruce, a Greenland shark was unceremoniously hoicked out of his icy home recently and duly dissected by some scientists because they thought he might be quite old. All bad news for the aquatic carnivore but good news for those who care about other people’s ages as it appears Brrrruce could have been up to 512 years old; making him by far and away the world’s oldest shark. (Sorry you lost your crown, Rupert Murdoch). However, on further investigation it appears Brrruce might only have been 272 years old. The research scientists needed some comparative analysis before they could nail down the exact number of birthday candles Brrrruce would have been entitled to, had they not caught him. “Oh no,” I hear you exclaim. “How could this be? What can we do? We must know his age. I insist we know the truth!” Simple. With a gobsmacking lack of irony, some propeller head in a wet suit said: “We really need to capture another Greenland shark (i.e.kill it) and then using comparative analysis of the eyeballs we can be sure about the age of this first one. Trouble is these sharks are very rare and difficult to find........” If I was a Greenland shark and read this during my morning coffee and herring, I’d be bloody impossible to find cos I’d be diving under that melting ice cap and heading somewhere safe, like Japanese waters where at least I won’t be harpooned as I have zero attraction to Japanese diners.

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Christmas is coming... Oy vey!

December 21, 2017
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex
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Why...

Is Christmas so confusing? The weird thing about Christmas is we all think we have a shared vision but in fact each of us has a very specific ideal that has very little in common with anyone else... apart from over indulgence and a fat man with a beard (or thin if you are Dutch - see what I mean?). Is it a real or fake tree? If it’s fake, you need to use it for twenty years before it is ‘greener’ than a real one. In Catalan they have a guy called the Caganer in the nativity scene. This is a guy having a poop! Yup apparently it denotes fertility and good luck. In Austria Santa is accompanied by a demon called Krampus who punishes the ‘naughty’ kids in ‘naughty or nice’ and in Holland the locals black up like Al Jolson as a character called Black Pete. First thing Christmas morning is it stockings or boots? (no, not those kind of stockings and boots... though they may indeed make a very Happy Christmas for someone). Is a cracker a paper present you pull, a good looking member of the opposite sex you pull or something you put cheese on? Is the Christmas meal dinner on Christmas Eve, lunch on Christmas Day or dinner... or all three? Do you overeat Roast Turkey, Roast Goose, Roast Beef or nut cutlets? In Japan the whole country eats Kentucky Fried Chicken. So popular is it, that you must order two months in advance. I sort of get it as turkey sushi would bring salmonella as it’s Christmas present. In Greenland it’s Kiviac which is fermented sea birds wrapped in seal blubber. Yum! Outside, is it snowballs or sunscreen, football or soccer, ski-ing on snow or water? Inside it is splodging in front of the TV to watch a Christmas Story, The Great Escape, Elf or The Queen’s Speech? In Sweden everyone watches Donald Duck!

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Food fad for Fido?

December 14, 2017
Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink
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Why...

Is my dog expected to be made to eat like he’s sharing a meal with Leonardo Di Caprio and Paul McCartney? Recently I was shopping for Kangaroo chunks or whatever I thought was dog food but the PC brigade have snaffled it. Instead on the doggie food shelf I counted not one, not two, but three different vegetarian options from our favourite dog food manufacturer. Needless to say my dogs took one sniff and gave me the look. “I am a dog. A carnivore. Not some open-toed sandal wearing tree hugger. I pee on a tree, I bite men’s toes in sandals and if you think I fart a lot normally wait till I start eating these mung beans.”

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Your Honour, Jingle Bells made me do it...

Why...

Does Christmas in any shop mean I have to listen to the same songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over? We have come a long way since the workhouses and child chimney sweeps of Dickensian England, but subjecting people in the retail workplace to a loop tape of the same music is worse than lemon on a herpes blister. Take the late Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega. When he locked himself in his Palace, the forces outside simply got out of their tanks and bought a job lot of ear muffs and speakers taller than the Jolly Green Giant. The rebels sat down, no doubt cracked open a few Cervezas and then blasted David Bowie’s Let’s Dance at Old Pineapple face... continually for five days. Without a shot being fired, Panamanian strongman surrendered. It’s bad enough for shop assistants to have to wear sparkly antlers and a red nose but to have to listen to White Christmas from November 1st to December 24th is worse than Chinese Water Torture... and I would snap. Menopausal matrons would be wearing the Welcome Egg Nog, uptight mothers would be wound up in tinsel and that irritating kid who tried to pull off Santa’s beard would be given a mince pie generously coated in Paprika.

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Slow, slow, quick quick, slow

November 3, 2017
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Travel/Nature
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Why...

Walk to the loo when you can run?

I have eaten some spectacular botulism burgers and salmonella salmon sandwiches at airports. This kind of food is fast because it goes through your digestive system in a flash.

However ‘fast food or service’ that isn’t, is a far greater sin. Today I had to run to the bathroom not because of an upset tummy but because if I walked I would have missed my flight! All because it took nearly an hour to shop and eat.

Pay attention Duty Free Shop operators!

The key reason for being at an airport is to catch a plane.

Despite every indication to the contrary, Duty Free is not solely a shopping mall but part of a conveyor belt process to shift travellers onto a waiting aircraft... with an imminent departure time. (Unless you are flying Ryan Air in which case I would spend the days waiting to take off, doing the Christmas shopping. Even get a manny-peddy).

Once on the departure side of Passport control (and post a probable full cavity search) my time is limited. If Duty Free want to charge like The Light Brigade for a cup of Java and a salad that wilts like a Guardsman in a bearskin busbee in July, have enough people around so I can both a) order and b) pay

In the shops they need less people stacking magazine racks with The Morris Dancer Gazette or Podiatrist Today and more people available to open security locks on display items and on the tills.

I can understand having locks if a computer, expensive phone, camera etc. are on a rack... but a plug adaptor? It took me longer to buy that than get through the hand baggage check. In addition the sole till operator had a ten minute banter with her colleague as to why the bar code on a bottle of Chanel No.5 never works.

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Can’t think of anything funny...

Why...

Smile? This week's blog has been tricky. It has not been a funny week. Massacre in Vegas, after effects of storms in the Caribbean, political hair-kari by the Tory Party in the UK, three major European airlines go bust and Spain hell bent on tearing itself apart. This on top of Trump rumbling about North Korea, Iran nuclear deal and the price of paper towels in Puerto Rico. And yet it's finding tidbits that make you smile amongst this smorgasbord of misery and woe that makes life worth living. I watched a video about Extreme Ironing. Yup we may be filling the sea with plastic but there are a group of people whose raisond’etre is taking their iron and ironing board out to the middle of nowhere and performing acrobatics that would make Kevin Bacon in Footloose look like a slug. I am full of admiration that someone can perform a handstand, backflip then cartwheel at the same time as steam iron a shirt….but what was the thought process? Was there a bunch of frustrated dry cleaners who danced around the back of a shop and hey presto a new sport was born……or was there a group of dancers who were unhappy at the quality of the creases in their tutus and tights and decided to take on the challenge with a little bit of help from Balanchine?

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Upselling to the downtrodden

Why...

Buy a Coke at the cinema that is so big an Olympic diver could use it for high board practice… and you will need a pee half way through the movie if you drink it all? Sucker! You were upsold something useless… and probably with a box of popcorn deep enough to hide Jimmy Hoffa. As I trundle about my everyday life it's becoming nearly impossible not to have some snake oil salesmen try and upsell me on everything I buy. Let’s start with useless upsell number 1- High Octane Performance fuel. The Octane is a flammable hydrocarbon added to petrol and is basically the optimum compression point in the piston cycle when the fuel explodes. If my car can do that with 95 Octane it is an utter waste of money to buy 98 Octane ‘High Performance’ fuel. It will do nothing, zip, nada, blobski-bloojah, f*ck all in terms of performance and just cost me a few more cents per litre. Now that I have been conned out of a few bucks filling up, it’s time for a trip to my supermarket where I am inundated with upsell offers…the result of this is the interior of the car is filled with enough loo paper and fish fingers to supply a battalion of men in Helmand Province. Unless I have amoebic dysentery and only eat fish morning noon and night for thirty years I ain’t ever using it all. Time to go home and watch something on TV? Most digital services make you stack package on top of package before you can get to pay per view movies or entire series box sets. Why? It is irrelevant now with on line services offering pay per view circumventing the need to even have packaged TV… and to add insult to injury the pay TV services then want to charge me more on pay per view than iTunes!!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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