It’s approaching 9pm on Sunday.

How many of you are already groaning about the thought of going to work tomorrow?

Kitty opium den
I love catnip. I could spend hours watching the cats as they fight each other over a new catnip teabag. Max here only managed sloppy seconds after his sister had had first shot of the fresh bag of delights, but he enjoyed himself all the same.

The instructions say that you can make a tea out of these bags for your cats to enjoy. I tried this once: ended up with a very wet floor after Max rolled in the bowl of the stuff.

Scanning
After an afternoon of scanning old photos – the tip of the iceberg as far as my collection goes – all I can say is, thank fuck for digital cameras. I think I’d happily pay somebody to come in and scan all my old photos for me, it’s such a tedious task. Saying that though, it’s also very nice to be reminded of some good times. Like this for example:

This was taken at the 3rd Year’s Christmas Review and Party in December 1990. We had to write and perform comedy sketches so that the postgrads, postdocs and academics could take the piss out of us. David was making me laugh so much that I think I actually wet myself a little bit while I was doing this. Yes, those are my real specs. Bastards.

After writing about Mort and Jo during my tirade on cast iron French “cookware”, I reckon it’d be ok to continue my trip down memory lane and letting Blogworld into my past – the student days at least. It’s the weekend and not many are around to witness this little diversion into real blogging.

I attended Leeds University between 1988 and 1991 where I studied Biochemistry – I got a 1st class honours degree and graduated top of my class, don’t you know. I followed this up by doing my PhD in Biological Sciences at Warwick University between 1991 and 1994. I graduated with my PhD in 1996.

So that’s the academic bit out of the way, now for the interesting stuff.

I was a complete geek when I went away to Leeds, having only just turned 18. I had no dress sense, a terrible hair do and I’d just started wearing a brace on my upper teeth (great for confidence boosting when you’re shy). Still, at least I didn’t look like this:

Anna in the bedroom of my flat, the weekend I moved to Leeds

I’m an evil bitch.

To even things up, here’s me on my graduation day:

So what happened in between? Let’s think. My first year, I was a real swot and I hardly went out, although I did go to the Union occasionally. It was there that I discovered a taste for bitter and a love of pool and stationery shops. I didn’t smoke, but I always smoked loads when I was out drinking.

In my first week at university, I had my first encounter with Le Creuset pans, I met my first person from Northern Ireland (Mort), I realised that people from Sunderland were pretentious wankers and that Polish names are impossible to pronounce. I also met David.

David was the epitome of cool: he walked into the reception of the Biochemistry department where we’d all gathered; heads turned. He asked me if he was in the right place and I wondered why he was bothering to speak to me because I was a turd, but it turned out that he just picked out the gobbiest person there. He was the nicest bloke I ever met and he’s been my friend ever since. He looked after me during my time at university and we were inseperable.

My flatmates were:

• Carolyn from Kidderminster, studying English & philosphy. Her boyfriend (to this day) is the lovely Simon; they’re a lovely couple with lovely families and I wish I could get to see them more.
• Ela from Birmingham, studying Psychology. She was a strange one and she could be sarcastic and moody. But I liked Ela a lot, she made me laugh and we used to have a bit of smoking club going on. I shared accommodation with Ela and Carolyn right through my time in Leeds. I think I might have fancied Ela, only I’m not sure because I didn’t have hormones or feelings until I was about 29.
• Kath(man) from Sunderland, studying being a complete cunt. I disliked her from the moment I met her: blonde, Libra, stuck up. She was a self-proclaimed working class heroine, whose daddy’s accountant made sure she got a full maintenance grant. Lazy, useless cow.
• Jo from Ilkeston, studying surveying and baking.
• Mort from Limavady, Ireland (“IT’S BRITAIN!”), studying men and biochemistry. I thought we’d have some sort of common bond because we were doing the same subject, but I was so wrong.
• Caroline, who was mad. By our third year, me Ela and Carolyn had got rid of the cunts and needed a spare bod to pay the rent for the attic room in the house we were renting. We got Caroline. Caroline was deaf and listened to the TV with the volume turned right up. She ate with her mouth open – really noisily. She spoke to herself in different voices. The bathroom was next to the attic room and we could here her yabbering onto herself, it was fucking terrifying and I even had paranoid nightmares about her getting me through a secret passageway in the walk-in cupboard in my bedroom.
• The tramp in the outside toilet. Yes, our last house had an outside toilet and there was a tramp living in it. Our landlord did the stupid thing of chucking his stuff into the bin wagon when he discovered him. Of course, the poor bloke returned that night and we all petrified of the gaunt face that appeared at the kitchen window, demanding “Where’s my stuff?”.

More on Morticia
Mort was obsessed with David to the point that it was very scary. She used to lock herself in her bedroom and cry when he went straight home after dropping us off at the flat instead of coming in for a coffee, pathetic twat. On one occasion in our second year, we were out clubbing and David came rushing up to me:

“Mort’s just collared me! She backed me into a corner, got really close and asked me if I found her attractive. She wouldn’t leave it, what can I do?”

“I dunno. I’m going to get a drink, do you want one? Have you got any fags?”

David
You see, me and David have always supported each other emotionally, generally by taking the piss out of each other or fuelling each other’s dependencies on nicotine, booze or prescription drugs. Despite being such close friends, we don’t really speak about “feelings” – mainly because he’d laugh at me and he’s from Barnsley and blokes from Barnsley aren’t like that. We don’t really talk about feelings, but we do compare relative levels of misery these days. Sometimes we can make each other laugh so much that we’re sick.

Me and David used to get cash from our mates to buy pressies when somebody had a birthday coming up. We’d spot something in a department store, ask for the cash, but buy it from Barnsley market for half the price.

The others
The main other players were Peter “Whippy” Wright, who was vile. He had quite curly hair that he let grow so it was all wavy, we called him Mr Whippy. He had flap-shots from porn mags on his bedroom wall. He was a slob, but he was very competitive, especially when playing badminton.

Melanie was a lovely, lovely girl from Newtownards in Northern Ireland. She had beautiful auburn hair, which she kept cropped. She was tall and thin and could’ve been a catwalk model. Such a lovely natured lass, I once floored her while dancing in a nightclub. It was an accident; I didn’t realise she was behind me and I had this ridiculous way of dancing that meant that I needed a 4 foot exclusion zone around me. She breached the exclusion zone and I headbutted her. Luckily, she’d already dished out her quota of punishment beatings for that week, so she let me off.

Growing up
During my three years as an undergraduate, I started to mature a little bit. I wasn’t such a geek and I learned that I could go out and enjoy myself and still study. I got some sort of dress sense and gave in to the fact that my hair is curly and that I’d be better making the most of it rather than fighting it.

I discovered and came to love The B52’s.

After living in denial and calling myself a “social smoker” for many years, I succumbed and bought my first packet of fags while sober one afternoon in January 1991. They were Silk Cut and by June, when I was sitting my finals, I found myself smoking up to 50 Marlboro (red) each day.

I studied very hard, a bit too hard I think, and I was a bit burned out by the time I graduated.

I still don’t know what I want to be to this day.

I enjoyed it though, it was a wonderful experience and I’m glad that I’m still in contact with most of the people who mattered most during that time.

Photo edit
Ok, here are a couple more photos. Firstly, this is my class on the day of our graduation. Hardly St Elmo’s Fire, but there you go:

To my right is Sue, to my left is somebody who everybody thought would graduate as top student that year (simply because she was never out of the library), then there’s Mort and Mel (the Armalite Sisters), to their left is Alison (who really gave me daggers and ignored me when my brilliance was confirmed when the results were announced).

And this photo shows me, David (to my right with the oddest expression on his face EVER – he’ll KILL me if he ever finds out I’ve even got this photo in my possession, let alone put it on the internet), Whippy (who’d had a wash and a hair cut) and Mort (who’d obviously caught up on some sleep):

Yes, dresses/skirts were compulsory for the graduation, although I’m not sure how I got away with that hair don’t.

Mature student Sniffy
You know, if I was a mature student and went back to live in that sort of environment as I am now, I’d fucking kill Kath by the end of day one. How is it that you’re so tolerant at that age? Is it because you’re naive, because you haven’t yet been let down by people, haven’t learned the hard way that most people are cocks? Still, I wonder if I’d have got anywhere with Ela… she had quite greasy hair for what I can remember, I probably wouldn’t think much to that these days.

These days, you still look back and remember things as they were and can’t contemplate tragedy striking any of those fit and healthy people you had such good times with. I made contact with Melanie again a few years back; she had been going out with a lovely bloke and I knew they were engaged and had planned to move to Scotland for James to do his PhD. It turned out that they did get married and had started a family before James died from malignant melanoma a couple of years ago.

I’m off to see if I can find Mel’s e-mail address and see if I can track down Whippy on the Sex Offenders Register.

I really hate it when people don’t pick their feet up when they walk. Instead, they slop and shuffle about, dragging their stupid feet along the floor.

Lazy twats.

Of course, there may be a cultural aspect to this as I’ve noticed that a fairly high proportion of oriental-looking students walk in this way, arms folded across their chests or linked through those of their companions. These are the ones that have those really miserable expressions on their faces (as opposed to the oriental folk who always have really smiley expressions). They always dress very fashionably though, well, I wouldn’t call it fashion, but I guess it’s very “in” if you’re of that age.

There’s a thing that (usually straight) couples do when they walk along, holding each other. This is quite entertaining when there’s a considerable size mismatch as the woman’s height (lack of it) means that she drags the man down to her. They stumble along looking as if one is holding the other up, or perhaps rugby tackling them. A very odd way of showing one’s affection I think; giving your loved one chronic back and hip problems. Just hold their hand, they won’t think any less of you. Unless of course, the bloke is actually holding the woman up because he’s slipped her a rohypnol and she can’t stand up on her own… blimey.

Luckily I never find myself in the position where anybody wants to be seen anywhere near me as I plod and list along the pavement and my weird Jemima Puddleduck way of one-sided waddling. I’m sure there’s a difference in the length of my legs that means that I have to concentrate really hard or I end up walking in a circle. I therefore never have to suffer the uncomfortable situation of somebody leaning on me. It’d end up looking like a gay three-legged race.

Somebody once slipped their hand into my coat pocket and took my hand in theirs. It was lovely and I don’t think they noticed the collection of used paper tissues in there. That sounds like I’ve only ever held hands with somebody on one occasion, but you know what I mean. I still do that non-gender-specific way of talking about people, errrm WOMEN. Weird that.

Ho hum.

IT Nazi bastards in spying scandal
Word has it that all our managers are receiving lists of all the websites we visit while at work, and the time spent at each site. If that’s the case, I’d like to give a big warm welcome to Sarah and assure her that I only check my Yahoo account every 15 minutes to pick up the NHSnet e-mails that get forwarded home and that I only check into my fave blogs first thing in the morning while Outlook wakes up and while I’m on my dinner break.

Oh and this is my blog yes, please don’t laugh at me too much. Thanks.

A pressie from Connie
The NHS is BRILLIANT! All that free at the point of use healthcare and they give you controlled drugs even when you don’t need them. Mum was given a load of codeine phosphate after her op. She told the nurse she couldn’t have them because they upset her tummy, so instead of taking them back, the nurse gave her some paras as well!

You see, it’s not only that April who’s handy with a scanner!

So, it seems that my weekend is sorted (yeh!), so I’ll be back here, chirpy as ever, once I’ve had my stomach pumped.

An edit. To the person on aol who came to Cakesniffers after doing an MSN search for “dogging in Swinton”: You dirty little bastard! But I suggest you try Clifton or Worsley woods…

After mentioning only last night the odd occasion when I’ve rubbed bloggers up the wrong way, I’ve got another one today!

(Did that rhyme?)

It’s great when you mention other people’s blogs in your own; all sorts of things can happen when people do Technorati searches for their blogs and they stumble upon something that I wrote about them back in July.

Back in July, while bored (as I often am), I conducted an experiment in pushing the “Next blog” button on all those blogs that were listed in my blogroll at the time. Most of the resulting blogs (and anybody who tries this will find the same) were foreign language or advertising shit, some were real, one was Fat Dan’s.

At 26 January, 2006 14:05, Fat Dan said…

I have a blog on your list that you say is crap. So what. i will post my opinions and ideas freely as will you, and from what I can tell, you use big words and are basically a non-talented piece of crap. Just like the rest of us.

Excellent!

I didn’t bother to read Dan’s blog, so I don’t know whether it’s crap or not, it’s probably a very nice blog. I didn’t bother to read any of the blogs because it was just a quick look-see to find out what was out there and where clicking “Next blog” will take you.

Fucking hell, some people are so sensitive! Perhaps if they read what I wrote, they’d see that I didn’t actually slag them or their blogs off. Titwank.

Off
I’ve not been in work today. It’s quite naughty of me, but I told folk that, since Dad doesn’t drive, I was picking Mother (awww) up from the hospital and getting her car MOTd so as I can get her road tax before it runs out. I did pick Connie up, but that was last night and I have had to get her car MOTd and shit today. I’m knackered, having walked from and to the garage and stuff, but I shouldn’t be. And it’s freezing out.

Bllrrrueueuhsh.

Thinking about Base 2a, it dawned on me today that there’s a woman there that hasn’t actually spoken to me, or acknowledged me, since I got back after Christmas. Then again, it’s the one I bought BuckaRudolph for when she really wanted something from Tiffany’s, so it’s hardly surprising. Some people are such ignorant fucking mongs. But do I care? Not at all. What would she say to me if she spoke to me? Sod all of any interest.

In the town where I was born
That’s a rather unfortunate reference to one of the worst songs ever recorded. The Beatles were actually quite shit when you come to think of it.

But anyway, I wandered around my town this morning on my way back from the garage. It was quite comforting in some ways, the familiarity of the shopping precinct, knowing that things never really change there that much (and the meat ‘n’ tater pies from Greenhalgh’s bakery are fuckin’ delsih!). In other respects it was quite sad when I realised that, given a lot of opportunity and promise, I never managed to move away from here.

I was in the Morrison’s buying Corn Flakes for Mother, a lady picked up a box and asked me whether they were Corn Flakes and I confirmed this to her. She mentioned something about them changing the packaging so she couldn’t tell. I realised that she mustn’t have been able to read. It’s amazing what you take for granted.

Tina’s kitchen
Tonight’s delight is lemon couscous with chick peas, potatoes and olives.

Stuff

• Cous cous (did you know that cous cous was made of pasta?)
• Half a medium sized onion (finely chopped)
• Bit of olive oil
• A lemon, washed and cut into quarters
• Some stuffed green olives (as many as you can tolerate)
• A large potato, peeled (if you like) and cut into quarters along its length
• A can of chick peas
• 1 litre veg or chicken stock (add some lemon juice to this if you have any knocking about)
• Knob of butter (if you must)

Making it

1. Fry (sautee) the onion (or shallots if you have them) in the olive oil until they are soft
2. Fry three bits of the lemon for a bit, then squish to release the juice
3. Add the potato and the stock and boil until the potato is nearly cooked
4. Add the cous cous – I add as much as is necessary to have it all a but liquidy still – turn off the heat and put the lid on the pan for a couple of minutes until the cous cous is cooked
5. Give it a stir and add the chick peas and olives and a bit more stock if it takes your fancy, butter too if you’re a lard-arse like me
6. Eat like a pig until you have cous cous, chick peas and olives coming back up through your nose

Phew! What have I started? A heated debate, that’s what!

Well, not really, but it’d be good to have a bit of controversy here once in a while. I mean, getting worked up about cast iron cookware that happens to be French and orange is one thing, but it’s hardly going to bring the UN peacekeepers in. And we’re not going to be worried about somebody starting a war on terror against me just because I start to use “Shit off, you shitting shitter” as my sign-off.

What we need here is somebody like good old Ryan J, or the Fanny Flyers to come by and inject some excitement, some exchanges of foul-fucking-mouthed insults, something to get me bashing my emotiboard REALLY FUCKING CUNTING HARD!!!! And I now have to go back through my tossing blog archive to find the links to all that shite. Buggering cocking bollocks….

Thank fuck for my good memory; makes it so much easier to find those old posts.

Anyway, I’m going to live dangerously and ask Blogworld to give me its opinion (valued or not) on the very emotive and controversial subject of:

Now, I know that this could cause me a lot of trouble, but I think that people who read Cakesniffers feel comfortable enough not to feel intimidated and folk should feel at ease sharing their opinions with others. Don’t worry, we’re not going to get you!

I’ll kick off, perhaps that’s not that the best terminology, but anyway. Personally, I think people who have carpets in their bathrooms are off their fucking heads.

Bathrooms, and I’m talking the 3, 4 or 5 piece suite that includes the toilet here, are wet places. They can get wet because of water from baths, showers, hand basins: even in the bathroom of the most careful person, a carpet will become damp through steam alone, let alone drips from the sink, wet foot prints and drips from the shower and bath. And what happens when carpet gets wet? It starts to smell, badly and it also looks bloody rough after a short while.

However, much, MUCH worse than getting a bit of water onto a bathroom carpet is getting wee or other bodily exudates onto it. Now, I’m not going to embarrass myself by revealing what happened the other week when I found that I’d peed so hard that it had squirted under the toilet seat, down the outside of the bowl and onto the floor – that’d be too much, even for me – but I’ve heard tell of blokes who aren’t particularly good at aiming for the toilet bowl from the standing position. Hence, it’s inevitable that wee will get onto a bathroom floor at some stage in its life. How the fuck are you supposed to clean it up if you’ve got carpet down? You can’t, over the years, your bathroom ends up stinking of piss. Dirty fuckers.

You know what people do? You know what have been invented for people with carpeted bathrooms who are a bit scared of wee dribble? Yes, the good old pedestal mat:

Lovely

The pedestal mat (they ALWAYS look like that) affords a means of protecting bathroom carpets from wee. Once they’ve had a good soaking, they can simply be shoved into the washing machine on a boil wash and hey presto! you can start again. Better to have two, just so you can have one down while the other is in the wash.

Fucking disgusting.

Come on then, how many people out there have carpets in their bathrooms? Are these the same people who extol the virtues of Le Creuset cookware? I wouldn’t put it past them.

Scrubbers!

Connie update
She’s home! Yay, yay, yay, yay, fucking yay ALMIGHTY! She had a pacemaker fitted yesterday and all is working well. She obviously has to take it easy for a couple of weeks and there’ll be no more contact sports for her (!), but she should be fine. Yay! Again. We’ve just got to keep our eye on things and watch out for signs of infections around the wound site. This may come as a shock to non-UK people, but over here, our hospitals are having a terrible time with hospital acquired infections, many of which are resistent to antibiotics, so people who’ve had invasive procedures have to be very careful.

But apart from that, she seems OK. So fingers crossed, etc, etc, etc. Fingers crossed, because if anything happened to my mum I’d have to throttle my bloody dad, who has been driving me mental these past ten days. I was on the verge of stabbing him this evening. He just acts deliberately obtuse, never listens, and I end up repeating everything I say three and four times to the point when I’m screaming at him. He is also addicted to “Deal, no deal” (teatime TV show)and it’s difficult to get him to do anything if it means interrupting his daily dose of this shite.

But now I’m calm.

Carry on till my day comes and then you’ll be wishing for good health and happiness, cocks!

You keep doing it, don’t you?

Blogging is weird. You want everybody in the world to be reading your blog; everybody except people who know you in real life (with the odd exception). But when your blog spills over into real life, when the prospect of meeting people from blogworld becomes real (i.e. you arrange a holiday to Canada or plan to stuff your face with pizza in the company of a pair nasty little homos), you start to mention to the “real world” people and then you’re trapped.

“So who is this person?”

“Some woman off the internet.”

“What, from an online dating thing?”

“Oh good Lord no, it’s not like that! She has this personal website, and I have one too, and we sort of leave comments on each others blogs and then we got each others e-mail address and messenger log ons and we can chat using the webcams.”

“You each have a webcam???? Jesus, do you… ya know… ‘cyber’????”

“WHAT??? NO! We do fucking not!”

But then people become intrigued about this blogging business and they want to find out how to see your blog.

“I’m going to find your blog.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to see what you write about us.”

“I don’t write about you.”

“Well, I want to see what you write about.”

“I write about pretty much the same sort of shit that I go on about while I’m here at work. Why would you want to read about it too?”

“To see what you write about us.”

“Oh fuck off.”

“You’re offending my muslim sensitivities.”

“Fuck right off then!”*

I reckon they’re nosy fuckers who want to see if you’re slagging them off on the internet – as if I would! Are they French and made of cast iron? Non! They seem to think that I write about them in my blog, which I don’t, not really – apart from mad Cynthia, but she’s too brilliant not to.

*I just need to point out that this is part of every day office banter and that I’m not a member of the British National Party or Combat 18.

So where was I? Oh yeah, carrying on about carrying on with blogs.

I’m sure that these things much reach a natural conclusion at some point. Surely my life can’t be so dull forever that I’ll continue doing this forever. I used to be addicted to MSN chat rooms, well one in particular, and I never thought that the day would come when I wouldn’t be bothered about it all. But you grow out of things, you get bored of the way people behave in that environment. Tiresome wankers, some of them.

I’ve stuck to this longer than I did chatrooms. I like having the freedom to do what I like, rather than having a theme or a formula that I’d feel duty bound to stick to. Reading other people’s blogs, which I do, I often see little concluding comments that folk use, for example, Wyndham’s “My day is near”, Indiaynke’s “Good health and wisdom to you this day”, or Surly Girl’s “Carry on”. I often wonder how pissed off they are that they started doing that and whether they wish that they could leave it off without anybody noticing. Of course, you’d be mistaken for thinking that Tazzy and Piggy conclude each of their posts with “cunt”, but they don’t, it’s just that they’re disgusting little homos.

So we say “NO” to formulas, but that’s basically because I wasn’t bright enough to think of one when I started out.

You don’t need an airing cupboard when you’ve got Jesus

You see, I can’t get away with it. Let’s try another one…

Keep out of the black and in the red, you get nothing in this game for two in a bed

Nah

Get out, stay out!

Too much like FT’s “Better out than in” ;). Tits.

Got it!

Titbumshitwank

Hello and welcome to my new show: Tina’s kitchen

Each week, I’ll be impressing you all with my culinary skills and offering you some top tips to make life easier in your kitchen.

People who know me will vouch that I’m exceedingly easy to please when it comes to being served up a sumptuous feast – so long as I’m served up a sumptuous feast and not some shitting pigswill that other mongs might find acceptable. There’s nothing like well-prepared food that’s made from decent ingredients and I find that, armed with good basic equipment, a bit of common sense and lashings of good taste, anybody can cook.

The basics
To start off with, you need to get the right basic equipment:

• Chef’s knife (6″ blade), paring knife
• Knife sharpener (no point having knives unless you keep them sharp and scary)
• Chopping boards
• Stirring implements (spatulas, spoons and the like)
• Colander
• Sieve
• Set of kitchen scales (perhaps)
• Set of pans (medium & large sauce pans, frying pan, that kind of affair)

Obviously, it’s not rocket science – it’s not fucking rocket science, it’s cooking for fuck’s sake – but you’re supposed to be equipping your kitchen with things that are supposed to make your life easier. That’s right, you’re trying to make your life easier, so why then do complete and utter fuckwits buy this shit:

That’s right, this is France’s finest “Le Creuset” cast iron, enamelled cookware. What a pile of crap.

When I first started university, I was packed off to Leeds with some cheapo crap pans. They were ace, they lasted me all my time there and that was all that was required. Imagine my horror when some posh bird from Northern Ireland rolled up with a full set of Le Creuset pans and casseroles (in orange, of course).

“What the fuck are they?” I asked her as the cupboards started to sag under the collective weight of a casserole, milk pan and a couple of saucepans.

“Oh they’re the best you can get you know.”

“Oh right, they look a little bit heavy… and doesn’t stuff stick to them?”

“Oh I don’t know, I can’t really cook that well, but I’ll get used to them.”

“Oh, and the name’s Tina, by the way.”

Fuck me. This was the lass who always prepared parsley sauce with fish fingers and proceeded to eat them using a fish knife. A fish knife.

This was the lass who did biochemistry with me, who used to sneak into my room to take my finished lab reports so she could copy them because she wouldn’t have written hers up in time because she’d have been out clubbing or shagging. “Audrey, I’m not seeing [enter current shag’s name] this evening, shall we get some ALCOHOL?” Bitch. We called her “Mort” (for Morticia) because of the black rings around her eyes from all the late nights. She only got a 2ii. HA!

Anyway, I never used them, but watched in awe as she managed to carry a fully-laden saucepan of cooked pasta (and cooking water) to the collander in the sink. “Heeeeeeeave!!”

And it was always pasta in mushroom and creamy sauce, which is like “pasta ‘n’ snot” as far as I’m concerned, but I’d watch on as they perfected their roux and then mix it in with bogeyfied mushrooms to produce something that looked like a slug mating fest.

Christ. Why do they do it? I pondered, as I tucked into whichever pasta dish I’d be having that evening (always a tomato-based sauce for me – ALWAYS!).

And then there was Jo “I’ve only had a Twix all day”. She was the thinnest person on the planet, but she used to work as a surveyor to fund her studies. She’d come in from work, having only had a Twix all day, and start preparing a casserole (in Le Creuset) and drop scones (on a Le Creuset hot plate thing). Baking! Baking is not compatible with being starving hungry. Eating something cold out of the tin is compatible with being starving hungry. Or those 2 minute noodles – they’re ace when you’re hungry. Casseroles. Jesus.

Jo didn’t like the smell of garlic: “It smells of body odour”. This was a student house. Garlic is the prevailing smell of a student house. All student houses smell of garlic because students have to cook with overpowering amounts of the stuff because they don’t know about other flavours. Added to this is the pan of four day old chilli con carne on the stove and an overflowing kitchen bin. Student house = GARLIC.

Jo was lovely though: very polite and very hard working. But she didn’t like garlic. She did however progress to onions in the time that I knew her, which is just as well for the number of casseroles she made.

Back to Tina’s kitchen. After years of watching in wonder at people using Le Creuset pans, I found myself having to use them myself when I was house-sitting in Grimsby in the summer of 1991. Fuck me, they’re hard work. I was on the verge of knocking up a block and tackle to lift the fuckers before I got a man to pick them up for me.

This particular type, the one-handled saucepan, is an absolute no-no with my weak and pathetic wrists. There is no way I can even contemplate picking one of those fuckers up without breaking into a sweat and getting a panic attack at the prospect of the impending full thickness burns from when my arms give way and I get covered in scalding liquid.

Word has it that Le Creuset have signed up to be sponsor of next year’s World’s Strongest Man competition. The final event involves contestants holding an 18″ single-handled saucepan filled with boiling water at arms length for as long as possible. Should be a short finale then.

Fucking useless French crap.

Completely unrelated, but perhaps a bit of good news.

Tufty gets his revenge

You can run, but you can’t hide. We’re coming to get you and your friends, and your family!

“Comin’ atcha!”

“Quick, quick, they’re after me wi’ knives!”

Costco, followed by fucking horrible Asda on a Saturday afternoon: discuss.

Already have done, at length. Jesus, what a nightmare.

Perhaps it’s just me and should give Asda the benefit of the doubt. Actually, no I shouldn’t. Asda is horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE! Today’s gripe is that, in addition to the continual “Approaching landing level, please take care”, there was a child (I assume it was a child) somewhere in the store who had a toot toot whistle type thing.

Please take care
It’d be ever such fun if the “Approaching landing level, please take care” announcement actually warned of real danger, like a pouncing tiger or a sniper or something. That’d be fuckin’ ace. Toot, toot, toot…

“Approaching landing level, please take care”…

Toot, toot, toot.. “What’s that red light, Mummy?”

BLAM!

Use your loaf
We needed bread and their in store bakery had produced some bizarre loaves that I’d never encountered before, I’m going to call them “crustynot”. These loaves looked like they were nice and crusty, but they were in fact soft. Weird. Stupid fuckers must’ve bagged them while they were still warm.

Dicks.

The happy wanderer
It was wall too stressful. And I was accompanied by my Dad who kept wandering off. This meant that at least ten minutes were added to this trial as I wandered around, looking for him. Or I’d retrace my steps to where I’d last been with him in the hope that he’d return. So I’d wait with the trolley, but there wouldn’t be quite enough room because of the crap store layout and people would be pushing past me and I’d be getting even more agitated. My head pounded, my heart raced. “I’m going to fucking kill him!”

Why does he do it?

Valderee indeed.

The brighter way to start your day
I love Nescafe – the original stuff. I know that Nestle are unethical bastards and there are much “nicer” brands of coffee that I could buy, but I love Nescafe I’m afraid and that is the end of the story. I shall give extra money to charities that work for the developing world as my penance.

We get everything in bulk from Costco. There’s no room for any of this, but we get it anyway. We bought a big tin of Nescafe today and Dad’s just opened it to decant into a jar. The smell as it wafts in from the kitchen is fuckin’ delish.

Saturday
Saturday is lie-in day. During the week, I get up at either 5.30 or 6.15am (depending on which base I’m working at), so when Saturday comes, I like to get up around 9.30-10am and ease myself into the day. It’s a lovely feeling when I first wake up at around 6.30, knowing that I can tell Otto to fuck off and turn over and go back to sleep.

Fantastic.

Connie update
Connie fans will be pleased to know that she’s still out of my hair and incarcerated in Hope Hospital, where she’s being treated very well. It’s a good hospital and I’m glad she’s there rather than some other hospitals round here.

It seems that things aren’t going to settle themselves on their own and that she’ll be needing a pacemaker, which will be fitted on Tuesday. Hopefully she’ll be out on Wednesday. She’s really fed up and she doesn’t want a pacemaker. And I’m anticipating lots of fun and drama every time it kicks in once it’s been fitted.

Patientline are introducing a new novelty feature whereby patients can record a video clip of themselves blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit, while nursing staff dress up and hold a knife to their throat. The patient’s family gets sent an e-mail with a hyperlink to the Al-Jazeera website, where they can watch the video clip. For authenticity, by watching the video clip, family members pay a ransom (£3 a minute off-peak, £5 a minute at all other times from BT Yahoo, other operator charges may vary) that prevents the patient undergoing an “accidental” amputation.

Another good idea for hospitals would be for the nurses to write the day of the week on white board that’s positioned in each ward – usually where all the patients can see it clearly. Why? Because then Mother would know it was fucking Saturday and she wouldn’t phone me up for a chat at 8am!

An edit They do write the day and date on the white board. Quite clearly. It was there on the board in big writing: Saturday 21st January 2006. “Oh, I didn’t bother looking at that”, said Mother when I pointed it out to her. Hrrm. I can’t wait to get my mum back home.

Here is a little quiz that will hopefully make people have a look around at some of my most favourite blogs in the whole world – call it a lesson in culture.

The idea is that I describe something that’s been mentioned in somebody else’s blog and you have to do a bit of research to find out what I’m on about. I tell you whose blog I’m referring to and the month, all you have to do is try to find the pertinent post and leave the link in the comments. Be warned though, I might throw in a red herring.

All the hyperlinks will take you to the correct archive page, but you have to have a look through to see which post the clue refers to. I hope that this will give people the opportunity to have a look back at some of the older stuff that people have done on their blogs.

1. From the most wonderful blog creation EVER, lovely Herge’s Angry Chimp: “I am small but perfectly formed, but I gave Herge cause for concern in May. Who am I?”
   
2. Our very own airplane-fixing, lady-loving, first generation eurotrash-Canadian grrrly-grrrl Connie has always provided lots of fun and grinder action while maintaining a healthy lesbian interest. “I came out to play with lots of my other friends. Who am I?”
3. Ah, I surely hope the months fly by so that I’ll soon find myself in British Columbia, Canada, where’ll I’ll meet the lovely April Pissoff. “I’m purple with a red stripe. Who am I?”
4. It took a fair bit of persuading to get Garfer to share his teacakes with us, but I’m sure glad he did. “I’m an annoying twat. Who am I?”
   
5. This pair of cunts are legends in South Yorkshire and we’ve grown to love them here in Blogland. “I only made one appearance here, but I had to take a Court Order out on somebody to stop them stalking me because of it. Who am I?”
6. He claims to be Irish, but I’ve heard him speak and that’s a put on accent if ever I’ve heard one. Top o’ da mornin’ te ya, S.I.D! “There I was, running free in the forest, then BLAM! I end up dehydrated, abused and ridiculed for the sake of cheap laughs. Who am I?”
7. Funny Thing is a Welsh, of all things (in this day and age too). She is quite funny and is a thing, since we never get to see her, or find out her name – boring git. “I’ve enhanced FT’s life no end and without me, she’d be a right skanky mare. Who am I?”
8. Whinger is another one of those annoying bloggers who preserves her anonymity. I bet she’s dead fit too. “Things were getting very serious between Whinger and me and then, Poof! I changed into a different type of energy. Who the devil am I?”

I think that will do for now, but I’ll come up with some more from other bloggers when I’m a little less tired. It will be interesting to see whether the bloggers in question know what I’m referring to without having to check back over their stuff.