The Picture Speak for Itself

Here is a picture of my most recent purchase. Rainbow welly boots. What more can I say, than fabulous!

Who knew B&Q could be so funky!

Christmas Has Escaped!

Oh dear; it’s happened. This morning I saw my first Christmas products in the shop to buy; chocolate santas and Christmas puddings. Why is it that as soon as there is a ‘ber’ at the end of the month and the first leave turns slightly brown, every shop seems to become festooned with gordy cardboard adverts with printed holly.

I am not being ‘bah humbug’ or anything, but don’t you get tired of the swimming costumes and t-shirts suddenly being replaced with crackers and tinsel. Come on people, it’s September. I don’t want to see anything until at least after Bonfire Night. No matter how much you try and suppress Christmas until you absolutely have to, it always seems to escape far too early. I support we have the joys of 3 months of Christmas adverts to drive me crazy. As we get closer to the season of giving, I almost crave normal adverts with no jingle bells or fake snow. Come back shake’n’vac, all is forgiven!

What I fail to understand is when there are edible Christmas products in the shops with the words ‘perfect for Xmas day’, such as mince pies, displaying a use by date is in ovember. Personally I like mince pies, and don’t see why they can’t be available all year round, but surely this is false advertising.

I am not anti-Christmas; I'm just anti-Christmas RIGHT NOW!

Okay rant over!

Is The Whole Nation Lazy Cooks? - RANT

Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not one for pouring over pots and pans for hours; in fact if I can do everything in the one pan in 20 minutes, I will. I was in Lidl this morning when the guy in front of me was buying some microwave rice in a foil packet. The man at the checkout was really interested, stating that he would have to get some. His reasons were:

1. I can’t be bothered to wait for the 15 minutes for the rice to boil.
2. The curry I make takes 20 minutes and I don’t want to wait an extra 15 for the rice.
3. Saves using a pan

Okay I have some issues. Firstly pasta and rice are one of the cheapest ingredients around and I think it’s just criminal to spend at least 10 times the price on a 2 minute product. Secondly why does this young man have to wait an ‘extra’ 15 minutes on top of the curry. Now here’s a bright idea. I know it will seem a bit radical, but how about cooking the rice and the curry at the SAME time. I know my ideas are just out there!

I will subscribe to the fact that he might not be able to cook two things at once if he only had a hot plate, but on the basis that he wants to buy microwave rice, I conclude that he does at least have a microwave. In this case he can make ‘jug rice’, which is a personal favourite of mine. Take a large pyrex jug, or even a large bowl, throw some rice in, cover with boiling water and pop in the microwave for high 12-15 minutes. Drain and then use the same bowl to eat out of. Less washing up and the bowl will already be hot keeping the food warm. The same can be done with pasta.

Now I know some may shout at me saying how quick it is if you are really hungry, but surely anyone can wait 12 minutes. My suggestion is that if you come in REALLY hungry, pop some rice or pasta in the microwave, then take off your shoes, hang up your coat, have a wee, go through the junk mail and pet the cat. By the time you have done all this you will hear ‘ping’ and dinner is served!

As a nation I think we are becoming lazier and lazier. We shall be breeding a generation of people who thinks the only way to have lasagne is to buy it ready made, don’t know that chips come from potatoes and that milk comes, not from cows, but Tesco! A few years ago I was at the checkout in Asda buying a huge 5kg bag of pasta, when the checkout lady (who was estimated to be about 25) said “oh I’ve heard of pasta is it nice?”. She then asked me how to cook it and what you have it with. How can you have got to 25 and not eaten pasta? I applaud the fact that she was interested in trying new things, but come on people put down the home fries!

Ooops - Clumsy Me!

I am without a shadow of a doubt a clums moo. This is a great skill built up over many years due to intense training. Today was another me classic, where I managed to break the ‘mrs’ phone charger by sucking it up the Dyson and ripping it in two. The strange electrical smell was rather interesting. I do feel sorry for the ‘mrs’ having the live with me. I have broken glasses, two dishes, two toilet seats (okay one, which I broke twice) and a radiator. Not bad going.

Not only am I clumsy but I am electrical. Seriously I am. I can blow light bulbs just by turning on the light. I don’t mean coincidence, I mean repeatedly. I was always frightened working in an office because I got electrical shocks from photocopiers, door handles, chair legs, filing cabinets and other people. I tried various experience with different kinds of shoes, floor surfaces and clothes but to no avail. I always close the car door with a sleeve over my hand, with my foot or by pushing the glass, in response to some bad electrically experiences. Don’t even get me started on shopping centres. I swear those escalators act as some of huge Van der Graff generator that discharges itself on me, when I reach the metal railings at the top. In addition people scare me. People should learn to stay away as it often results with being shocked when handed something. Maybe it’s just my magnetic personality – boom boom!

It was suggested once that I could have some dyspraxic tendencies especially as it ties in with the need for social justice. I looked up the symptoms, one of which was difficulty in communicating verbally, so I thought this was definitely not me. If there was a metal for talking I was be a gold medal winner. Nothing deep and meaningful you understand!

I just have to reside to the fact that I am a person that must always have household insurance and a good broom to hand!

Ready, Steady, 'Chinglish'?

The ‘mrs’ and I have been doing a bit of a ‘ready steady cook’ thing recently. We have to buy an ingredient we have never cooked with and make something, ideally edible. I went first with stuffed aubergines. Yes I know it seems odd that after 31 years on the planet I have never cooked one, well I hadn’t. The recipe (well I wasn’t going free style quite yet) said to boil the vegetables for 10 minutes. How can you boil them? It’s like trying to boil 2 buoys! In the end the underside which got boiled stayed a lovely purple and was tender, while the top went brown and tough. I triedkeeping them under the boiling water with a less than successful scaffolding made out of spatulas, chop sticks and bowls (best not ask). Despite this the meal was a triumphant success and appreciated by all!

Next was the ‘mrs’ turn. She had to do battle with a butternut squash. Un-chartered territory indeed. The meal of choice was a vegetable curry. I wasn’t involved in the preparation so I can not report on the most appropriate cooking method. Anyway the curry was really nice and the big chucks of orange squash were uber nice; much nice than suede which it reminded me of.

Last night was my turn. A few weeks ago I had gone into the local tiny Chinese supermarket and had picked up some packets of bean curd. I love the bean curd I get at the Chinese takeaways and have always wanted to know how they did it. One of hard things about being a vegetarian is finding something for dinner you can have a good chew on. What also attracted me to the products was the ingredients; bean curd – that’s it! Unlike quorn and other veggie alternative there is a list of ingredients as long as your arm. This has one ingredient.


So my challenge last night was to do a 5 spice stir fry. I prepared all the ingredients such as onions, mushrooms, fine green beans, 3 colours of peppers and pok choi, all in separate bowl in a Blue Peter stylee. Following the strange instructions written in Chinglish (the word used for Chinese badly translated into English), I boiled the bean curd (packet in the middle) for only 3 minutes. After draining I added it to my stir fry that was coming along nicely (I’m sure the burnt bits on the bottom of the wok just add to the flavour). It was another success although I think I should have added them earlier to absorb some of the flavour or maybe marinated the bits first. Oh well I look forward to more trial and error.

As a side note, why not google images of Chinglish, they are very funny. This is a good one.

It’s the ‘mrs’ turn next to cook something different. Any suggested unusual vegetarian ingredients would be welcome!

It's called art, lovey!

The greatest invention ever to grace the face of this planet – SOAP CRAYONS! I can tell by your sudden intake of breath you are as excited as I was. What a fantastic invention. Living on the cutting edge of technology as I do, this flat has had the crayons for some time, but I feel I can be selfish no more, and spread the joy to the world!

So what are soap crayons? Unless your IQ is below 10 you have probably worked out that they are crayons made of soap! So what are they for? Oh just so many things.

1. You can draw on yourself making pretend tattoos
2. Write profound and thought provoking messages on the bathroom wall
3. Wash with them
4. Create works of art as great as the Sistine chapel
5. Improvise home made tiles
6. Play noughts and crosses or handman with other toilet users
7. Let your child go mad with self expression
8. …or just draw silly pictures!

Please bear in mind that who ever visit this flat has to by LAW contribute to this ever growing piece of conceptual and organic art!


I insist that in order to fulfil your own artistic destiny you must all rush out and buy your own Crayola soap crayons. Go NOW. Don’t even both to stop and have a wash. GOOOOO!

The Freedom to Whiz

At Brighton Pride last week the ‘mrs’ and I bought a device called the ‘Whiz Freedom’. What is this I hear you cry? Have you ever been to festivals and have to queue forever to use the ladies loos while the men just pop in and out of the urinals? Have you ever been caught out desperate for a wee in a car and have had nowhere to stop? Have you ever been camping and wished you could just pee in the bushes than trudging your way to the toilet block? Well I have! Hence the purchase of the Whiz Freedom.

As you can see it’s a rubber device which goes over the lady bits and enables one to direct ones pee. If you want to pee in a bush you can (although toilets are always preferable). At pride they had women’s urinals which were virtually empty and used such technology. We have had a bit of a practise with pretty good results. Now you men have had a lifetime to perfect the art of a good pee, fine tuning the direct, angle and force so more practise will be needed. Generally we have been very successful during our practises, except the time I forgot to actually pull my pyjamas bottoms down and actually widdled inside my trousers. Oh well, we live and learn.

So no more crouching exposing ones bottom to the air, and no more splash back on your shoes! I know it seems rather odd, but is a really good idea. The website is: http://www.whizproducts.co.uk/en/product_shop.aspx

Check out the ‘gift sets’! I assume people would actually give this as a gift!!!