Celebrations: An Analysis of Chocolate

Maltesers 'Teasers'
Clearly the best, and the only reason anyone buys Celebrations. Eat these before anyone sees, attempt to seal the tin again, and claim you got a duff batch. Anyone who calls them "Teasers" doesn't deserve them anyway.

Galaxy Caramel
Not bad, but you can't help thinking it's just the boring one tarted up.

Bounty
Surprisingly good. But not enough to convince you to buy a Bounty bar at any other time of year.

Mars
A trip back to the 80s. Feels healthy eating these thanks to the old rhyme.

Snickers
The sporty one.

Twix
Serve with a shot of tea.

Milky Way
The healthy one. Eat one while on a break from the others.

Galaxy
The last to go.

The Day that Pac-Man Cried

In the summer of 1984, a five-year old me and my sister were taken by our Mum and Dad on a trip to Studland Beach, a sandy beach notable for its beautiful sand dunes.

We placed our purple tartan rug (still in use today) on the beach to sit on and, as a hyperactive child, I soon became restless. My ever inventive Dad concocted a game to occupy me: 'Live Action Pac-Man'. I say 'game', but it was more a way to get me to run around a bit. Dad would shout things like "Forward, 3!" and "Left, 9!" and I would dutifully follow each instruction in turn and walk the required number of paces while pretending to be Pac-Man (arms clapped vertically in front of me as the mouth, and making "Om-om-om" noises as I devoured imaginary pac-dots). To make the game more fun, I was told not to turn around, instead trusting that Dad's instructions would eventually get me back to the purple tartan rug.

The game went on for a few minutes until, after clearly hearing the previous instruction ("Forward, 500!" perhaps) and marching on my merry way, I awaited the next one. But, after what felt like minutes, it never came.

Panicked, I broke perhaps the only real rule of the game and turned around in an attempt to see where my Mum, sister and Pac-Dad had got to. But, I looked in every direction as far as the eye could see and, thanks to having been marched all over the shop, couldn't for the life of me figure out where they had got to.

I started wandering along the beach in an attempt to find them, but I'm fairly sure I continued to walk in the direction of the last instruction I had heard, thus putting an even greater distance between me and my family. It wasn't long before I was straining to hold back lolloping tears from tumbling down my rosy cheeks. A man and a woman who were with two children who I hope were their own, spotted me and gestured me over. Through my tears, they managed to work out that I was lost and, in an attempt to comfort me, offered me a sweet. Something primal kicked in and I became alert, remembering one of the two main lessons that had been drilled into me at primary school: 'Don't take sweets from strangers'. I politely turned down their offer.

Despite turning down their hospitality, the couple continued to try and help me work out where my family might be. The only detail I could really remember was how the car park had looked just next to where they had been sat, so they offered to drive me around until I recognised it, leading me back to the purple tartan rug. This seemed a great idea to me, and it was only once we were all in the car and the engine had started that I remembered the other main lesson from school, about not getting into cars with strangers.

Fortunately, this is not a scary 1980s Public Information Film, and it wasn't long before I had spotted the car park and right by it, my family. But the purple tartan rug had long been removed from our idyllic spot on the sand, as it turned out my parents had called the coastguard and the police, assuming I had drowned. "Gulp", as Pac-Man might have said.

Interestingly, it did mean that I'd managed to walk so far along the beach in one direction that I'd reappeared at the other end of it, so I think Pac-Man would be proud.

Humourous

As you're probably all aware, films often feature scenes including human excrement, vomit and semen (well, the films I watch do anyway). These excretions are often produced to a high standard, which got me thinking: There must, somewhere in the world, be a company that produces these on-screen bodily fluids and solids. This in turn got me thinking that, as there's probably a lot of money involved in creating this stuff, there must be fairly rigorous procedures used in the creation of this mock-bile. But what might these procedures be? And what is used as source material for the cini-goo?

I imagine a meeting at this office to go something like this:

Boss: Jones, we have a 3pm deadline for this one. It's a film called 'There's Something About Mary', a lot of money involved. They've asked for state of the art semen, as it plays a major part in the movie. We're working to a strict time limit here, so we'll need you to order some flour, tapioca and egg whites from catering. Oh, and we need a fresh batch of source material to work from. Order some magazines and get David on the case with that one. I want you to then head up the team of bileuticians and create as close a match as possible. There could be a Christmas bonus in this if you do a good job, Jones.

Do you think that's what happens? And is it a similar process for the other bodily products I mentioned? I bet you're all thinking about how they do it now. We must be told!

Sea Dea Change

It appears that Red Ken read this post of mine, judging by today's news. I've gone uncredited, but I think we all know why this decision was made.

Different strokes for different folks

As I'm fortunate enough to work in the centre of London, I went to the Cézanne exhibition at lunchtime today. This was mainly because my girlfriend told me that a section of the introductory video was hilarious (and she was right).

I had about 2 minutes to rush around the actual exhibition afterwards and noticed an old man sitting on one of the comfortable seats in the centre of the room, looking at one of the paintings. Rather than examining the painting close up, to study the brush strokes, he had elected to look at it through a pair of binoculars.

Why?

Perhaps his eyesight was so bad that he believed the painted bathers to be real, and he was perving on them. Or maybe the binoculars were actually the wrong way round, and (this would explain why he was on the other side of the room) he was in fact trying to envisage what the painting would look like at the size of a postage stamp. For his job, commissioning art for new postage stamps.

It never ceases to amaze me how odd people can be.

Two-minutes violence

It had to happen. You hear about bouts of violence supposedly caused by listening to heavy metal/playing computer games. Well, I think that’s mainly nonsense, but I do think that ‘Curb your enthusiasm’ and Richard Herring’s brilliant blog Warming up should come with some kind of warning that too much exposure to them may turn you into one of their protagonists.

I was on the bus on Sunday, which, at the next stop, stayed still for an abnormally long period. After a while, the driver switched the engine off and announced to us that there was a 2 minute silence. Everyone seemed to notice this, except for the scary looking man in a hoodie next to me, who was chatting loudly on his phone. After what felt like ages, but was probably just seconds, he announced down his phone “Oh, gotta go bruv, there’s some kind of silence on the bus”. He ended the call and then decided to blast everyone with the tinny speaker on his phone with a beautiful song, carefully selected for Remembrance Sunday, all about ‘niggers’ and ‘things being done to mothers’ that I won’t specifically go into.

After a few more seconds of this, he announced to the bus “Oh sorry, my bad” and switched it off.

For the remainder of the 2 minute silence, I felt proud of this man. Although he had taken a lot longer than the rest of us to join in, he did (after about a quarter of the 2 minute silence) realise what was going on, and turned his Crappo Blaster off.

Imagine my surprise when, as the driver thanked everyone for their patience and switched the engine on again, the ‘niggers’ / ‘things being done to mothers’ music started blasting out again.

Now, I’m no prude (although you’d probably not believe me based on this blog) but I can’t stand it when people blast their music out on public transport. I actually listen to a lot of hip hop (which is generally what is being played), and my problem isn’t normally with what is being played. It’s more that fact that I think that it’s antisocial, as well as being incredibly distracting, to have to listen to someone else’s music. I think I was also particularly surprised by the fact that this man obviously had SOME decency to switch his music off to respect some dead people, but then showed absolutely no respect for the living people on the bus (although in fairness, it’s difficult to tell exactly who this applies to on the number 73 bus).

Anyway, I don’t know what came over me (although I think it was mainly to do with the fact that I have never seen anyone challenge anyone for this, and I have always been curious to see the reaction of the mobile-disco-offender), but I decided to confront him. Here is a transcript of what followed (as best I can remember):

Me: Excuse me, would you mind turning your music off. I don’t think anyone wants to listen to it.

Mobile Disco Offender: Sorry mate, it’s my music, I can do what I want.

Me: I really don’t think anyone wants to listen to it, and it’s antisocial. Let me ask around…[shouting to nearby passengers on the bus] Does anyone want to listen to his music?

[Passengers saying nothing and looking sheepish]

MDO: See, they don’t care. They all want to listen to my music. Look, [pushing it somewhat, in my opinion] who wants to listen to my music?

[Passengers saying nothing and looking sheepish]

Me: They’re all just too scared. That’s the only reason no one else is saying anything. [Announcing myself to my increasingly attentive audience] Come on…is there anyone else here who doesn’t want to listen to this guy’s music?

Sheepish looking man 1: [slowly raising his hand in the air, and smirking] Err..actually, I don’t particularly want to listen to it.

Sheepish looking man 2: [slightly muffled, whilst speaking from behind his coat] Neither do I!

[about 4 more people slowly raised their hands and lett MDO know exactly what they thought of his music, whilst the increasing audience started laughing]

Me [now aware of my audience and rather getting into it, as if I was a stand-up comedian]: Ha ha! See, I beat you! None of these people want to listen to your music!

MDO: Look mate, I’m not turning it off. I was listening to it before the 2 minute silence, I switched it off for that, so now I can listen to it again.

Me: That makes no sense. What you’re doing is antisocial, so why does that make it ok? [Now definitely pushing my luck] So, for example, if you were half way through murdering someone on the bus, and you stopped for the 2 minute silence, you’re saying that it’s ok to carry on with it afterwards?

[Much laughter from the rest of the bus]

MDO [Looking like he is tempted to try my suggestion]: Are you having a go at me?

Me: Yes, I suppose I am.

MDO: Well, you’ll probably be glad to know that I’m getting off at the next stop.

Me: Yes, I am, although I’m reeeeeally going to miss that great song you’ve been playing.


He did get off at the next stop, and as I wallowed in my glory, a woman told me she thought I was brave, while 2 attractive young women pointed at me and commented on how cool I was.

I’d like to think that one day, some sort of silence will be held in honour of my own bravery.

Things that have appeared in the toilet - Part 2

This bottle of 'Sainsbury's Red Wine Vinegar' has recently appeared in the bathroom in my flat.

Had my flatmate taken up a cheap and eccentric drinking-habit? At 92p a pop, it seems far more affordable than 'real' red wine.

It later turned out he'd used it to clean the bath and sink with (and done a very good job indeed). I'd heard of malt vinegar being used for this purpose. Perhaps red wine vinegar is the middle-class solution, and balsamic is what the royal household uses on limescale?

Things that have appeared in the toilet - Part 1

As this blog seems to be becoming more and more toilet-based (which is not intentional, but I'll go with it anyway), and I no longer live at the flat at which my previous 'Things that have appeared on my doorstep' posts were based, I have decided on its successor: 'Things that have appeared in the toilet'.

This is not as disgusting as it sounds, as it just means things that have appeared next to the toilet, or in the bathroom, that look out of place. Although if I do spot anything unusual in the toilet itself, I'll be sure to bring you that breaking news as soon as it happens.

Anyway, I thought I'd kick it off with something I found in the toilet at work today: A mug of water.

There are many questions that this object raises:

-Who could have brought it there?
-Why use a mug to drink water, when a glass is more satisfying?
-Is drinking water banned in the office of the person who put it there? If so, is this legal?
-If you drank the water whilst peeing, would that water come straight out as pee?
-If you drink the water whilst going for a 'number 2', do some of the particles from that get into the water and get swallowed?
-Did someone ultra-eco-friendly bring it in there to pour down the toilet after they'd used it to minimise on flushing water?
-Did someone very small bring it into one the cubicles, to actually use as a toilet?

Has anyone else found anything odd in a toilet lately?