Shopping trip

Was in Lidl earlier for a couple of bottles of Crabbie's Ginger Beer and vanilla essence and ended up coming away with pretzel rolls, bananas, cashews and chocolate chips as well. The cashews at 95p per 100g were the most expensive item and it turns out that two large scoops is about 469g. Much cheaper than cocaine but not nearly as good a night in (so I'm told).

I've got a really bad habit in supermarkets of looking at what people are buying because it allows me to imagine the kind of lives they lead. I observed a guy recently who bought two 100g bars of chocolate, two bags of kettle chips, two bottles of pepsi max, two french sticks and a single punnet of cherry tomatoes so I imagine he was single, a virgin, probably an internet troll and if not diabetic now it was definitely in the post.

I got to the checkout and started loading up my essentials and impulse buys when I notice the woman ahead of me is midway through packing her shopping so I discreetly had a look at what was in her trolley; milk, bread, cleaning products, small boy of around 7 years old, carrots, pizza....what the fuck, a small boy of around 7 years old? She must have got the last one because I didn't see them anywhere.

Poppies

Opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one. Whereas in the past these arseholes didn't have a medium through which to express themselves nowadays they have cheap and easy access to the internet and social media in particular.

Maybe I'm becoming less inclined to entertain bullshit the older I get but it seems to me that whenever you log on to Facebook or Twitter for a bit of lighthearted relief you find that where there used to be videos of monkeys falling out of trees after smelling their own shite, someone has shared a Britain First post. It's all become a bit tiresome* so thank goodness for blog writers, am I right?

The big debate as we approach Armistice Day is poppies. Why we should wear them and those who choose not to wear them justifying their reasons. National treasure (I.E. Used to be on the telly but no-one gives a fuck about you anymore) Barbara Windsor thinks you can "sod off" if you don't wear one. And now that that's been cleared up we can carry on with our lives.

Except it hasn't been cleared up. All it does it create unnecessary division between people and forgive me for saying but, isn't that how wars start and lives are lost?

I don't wear one and I haven't worn one for some time but that was more to do with the fear of stabbing myself in the finger or chest than any ideological point of view I might have. I did have a small and simple poppy that I'd donated some money to the salvation army for and had left sitting in my car as an almost permanent reminder but it had started to curl at the edges quite significantly, so when the car went in for its M.O.T. I binned it (the poppy, not the car). Shame on me, eh?

I reckon my abandoned poppy is probably doing fine though because everywhere you look these days poppies are bigger, brighter and more elaborate than ever. That didn't happen by accident, so poppies have obviously become self aware and created a support network that'll show an abandoned poppy how to iron out its curls and find a new car to sit in. It might even have advice on how a poppy can become one of those enormous poppies that are so big that they dominate the fronts of cars and vans, so much so you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a Comic Relief Red Nose and that they feed on exhaust emissions. Curiously, they do seem to be bigger on Volkswagens.

It seems to me nowadays it's not enough to show your respect, you have to be seen to be showing your respect and what better way to do than with a poppy so large and deep and round that if you lay on your back in the mountains of Puerto Rico and pointed it at the sky, it could double up as a radio telescope and scour the universe in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Yes, lady in Costa coffee this afternoon, in the highly unlikely event you're reading this I'm talking about you.

Wear one or don't wear one. It needs no more discussion than that really.

*I say this fully aware that during the referendum campaign I saturated Facebook and Twitter with pro-independence articles and opinions and I was a tiresome bore also.

One liners

There's a guy at my work who was prescribed codeine for a cough that he'd developed along with his cold. The doctor said "One of the side affects of taking this medicine is constipation". The guy from my work replied "As long as I get a full nights sleep I couldn't give a shit".

I was talking to my fiancée the other morning and we were discussing the boiled eggs we'd been taking to work with us for our lunch. She said "Have you noticed they leave you quite full?" and I said "Well, when you think about it, you're eating a whole chicken".

And I was talking to a girl at work today about films and games and comic books, how I'm going to the Fallout 4 midnight launch and I'm really excited to have learned that Deadpool will be shown on IMAX. She told me she loved The Big Bang Theory and recently visited Forbidden Planet where she discovered comic book stores were much like what she'd seend on TV. I agreed with her and said "Yeah, you'd be surprised at the number of sterotypically socially awkward nerds that go there...and that's just me".

Only one of these got a laugh; can you guess which one?

Medium coffees

I worked in an office years ago that had so few people in it we could boil one kettle and make a cup of tea or coffee for everyone without having to refill it. The only problem was that the inconsiderate bastards I worked with drank tea and I preferred coffee hated the stuff.

I really couldn't stand tea but for reasons I've never quite been able to put my finger on. The best way I could describe the taste of a cup of tea to me then was lukewarm and bitter which was the complete opposite of a cup of coffee that was piping hot and full of flavour.

In contrast with my colleagues I was not an inconsiderate bastard so it made sense (to me at least) that if they were going to make four cups of tea they might as well make five instead of four cups of tea and one coffee. That's another thing about making tea, it's a bloody cumbersome process of letting the hot water soak into the teabag, giving it a squeeze with a teaspoon and then fishing it out so you can chuck it in the bin. Contrast that with giving your cup of Carte Noire instant coffee a quick but vigorous stir and you can see why I wouldn't want to go to all that extra hassle of making something bitter and lukewarm.

Since then however I've grown quite fond of tea and it's probably got a lot to do with the time I spent in that office. It's better for dunking biscuits in for a start (not that I don't dunk biscuits in coffee but tea is better suited)  and you don't have to worry that it'll keep you awake all night if you drink a cup an hour or two before bed.

I still enjoy a good cup of coffee though and one of my favourite things to do to is just go out and drink a cup while I let my thoughts and the world drift by. It was while I was out having a cup recently that I got to thinking about the size of coffees. Costa do three sizes; Primo, Medio and Massimo while Starbucks call theirs Tall, Grande and Venti. All fancy schmancy names for small, medium and large.

Small is probably what you get at home, medium is probably more than you need and large is probably going to give you an irregular and irreparable heart rhythm if you keep chucking it down your neck in those kinds of doses.

Imagine for a second though you went into a coffee shop and asked for a medium cappuccino / latte / americano then found yourself a seat and sat down ready to let your thoughts drift when you hear a small voice that says:

"Sir, can I have your name please? There's a woman sitting right next to you"

There's no-one else in the coffee shop except the staff so you say "I'm sorry, did you say something" to the barista behind the counter. He says no so you carry presume you imagined it and go to take a drink when a little more impatiently this time you hear the voice again and it says "Sir, I'm talking to you, yes you with the puzzled look on your face, what's your name? There's a woman sitting right next to you who wants to talk to you". The cappuccino you ordered is unmistakably and inexplicably TALKING TO YOU AND ASKING YOU FOR YOUR NAME.

"Uhh, my name's John" you say a little hesitantly as you realise you're talking to a cup of coffee.

"Great, now, you've lost someone recently who wants to talk to you and let you know they're OK and that the dog you lost when you were four years old is in one piece now even though the bus that hit it left it splattered all over the road".

"Hold on" you say "You're a cup of coffee, why are you talking to me about dead people, much less talking to me at all?"

"Well" it says knowingly "you DID order a medium coffee".

What women say...

"Do we have any more kitchen roll?"

And what women actually mean...

"Go and get the kitchen roll that I know is in the cupboard".

Just get to the point already, it's not hard.

X Marks the Spot

You know that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where X marks the spot and Indy starts somewhat concidentally striking the floor in time with the librarian (who bears a passing resemblance to Albert Einstein) stamping books? It doesn't matter if you don't, I've attached it to this blog. Incidentally, I wonder what he'd have done if he'd been caught bashing a hole in the floor of a library "Yes, I'm sorry about the criminal damage officer but I simply must find The Holy Grail. You understand, don't you? Oh, you don't speak English. Do you understand an All-American punch in the face? Of course you do".

So anyway I've come out to have a coffee and a croissant this morning and I've just heard the exact same sound of steel striking stone; half boom, half crack, one third ping and a hint of bong. I know that doesn't really add up mathematically but you try attaching numbers to sound, it's not easy. 

I'm quite a curious guy anyway but now that I'm all jacked up on caffeine and all butter croissants (for which I was offered even MORE butter and jam for the additional price of fifty pence - "I'll take it plain, hen, I've got a wedding to save for") I'm like an adrenaline junkie trying to find another way to put my life in danger. "Fucking naked bungee jumping chainsaw juggling, yeeeeeeah, let's do that!".

I'm not sure where this journey will take me (or where the blog is going to be honest, it started off so much differently) so if you don't see me for a while I've sent my journal charting my quest to one of you in the post. Use it to come find me but be wary of any hot, blonde, friendly German women who try and seduce you for your secrets; you should definitely give in to her temptations though because hot, blonde, friendly German chicks might be Nazis in die straßen but they're freaks in die blätter and I wouldn't want to deny you that experience; besides, I want to see the look on your face when you discover she had sex with your dad too!

https://youtu.be/dvywOjh_hdY

I'm fornever blowing bubbles

Because I'm in the 'wearing rubber bands on my braces' stage of getting my teeth all straightened out, I occasionally find when I put them on that my saliva has formed a bit of a seal - the kind you need when you've got a little plastic (I've just realised I don't know what they're called?) dipstick for dunking into soapy water to blow bubbles from.

And it got me thinking how cool it would be if I had Fairy Liquid (other washing up liquids are available) for saliva; I could just spit into the sink when there was dishes needing doing and for laughs I could blow teeth shaped bubbles. 

The knock at the door

So I'm standing in the kitchen after getting home from work and I've just dunked a chocolate digestive in a cup of tea when there's a knock at the door.

My door never goes. Well, not never, but rare enough that it's the next best thing.

I open the door with the nearly finished biscuit still in my hand and discover a woman standing there with a clipboard and automatically I'm thinking "charity" while preparing my excuses for not signing up to a regular direct debit.

"Mrs Thompson?" she asks in a strangely quiet voice and I'm thrown for a second while I try to remember if that's the same person that Scottish Power have been sending bills to at my address.

It takes me a second but I realise I'm in the clear at least as much as Scottish Power are concerned so I say "Yes, I'm Mrs Thompson..." and look at her quizically for just long enough to be awkward for her before saying "Nah, I'm just fucking with you, there's no-one here by that name!".

Gregg's Macaroni Pies - No sympathy

I have zero sympathy for people who are unhappy at Gregg's doing away with their macaroni pies because Gregg's have been doing this to me for years and not one of you thought to start a petition to save the maple and pecan swirl, the caramel and pecan shortcake (there's a pecan pattern developing here) or the third thing whose removal upset me - not enough to remember what it was but enough to remain bitter about.

With all that being said, allow me to paraphrase Martin Niemöller here...

First they came for the caramel and pecan shortcake, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not like caramel and pecan shortcake.

Then they came for the maple and pecan swirls, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not like maple and pecan swirls.

Then they came for something else, and I did not speak out—
Because I didn't know what it was.

Then they came for the macaroni pies —and there was no one left to speak for me.

Spelling sympathies

I totally sympathise with people who struggle with dyslexia. There are certain words in the English language that absolutely should be spelt the way they sound.

Take "yacht" for example. What sort of narcissistic self loathing society do we live in where we could spell something exactly as it sounds but decide to fuck with people by making 'ach' an 'o' sound?

The Boaby

I was having a laugh with a boy from work yesterday about my rapidly approaching stag party after he sent me an email with a picture of a man stuck to a lamppost with little more to keep him warm than a bobble hat and some cling film.

He said "Idea for your stag do?"
I replied "Just give me something to keep my extremities warm!"
He said "I'll find you a thimble"
And I said "From your collection at home?"
He replied "My old man used to tell me "You can only pish with the cock you've got!"
I said "And my old man used to tell me "Son, with great power comes great responsibility!"