Meet your chickens...

As Magda said...




..."it's bad enough having to read most of the crap that's written, without 'avin to look at a photo of the bastard that wrote it..."

Well, now it's poultry with egos too...



All I can say to Tesco is that I feel it's ethical enough to buy the locally sourced, Shiny Happy Farmers Free Range eggs, without 'avin to look at a photo of the chickens that laid 'em...

Don't try this at home...

...try it at someone else's home!

Happy Pancake Day!

And don't forget the Cornflakes...

I think it's about time there was some widespread defiance of the Sunday Trading laws. Again.

Years ago, when it was still illegal to open your shop on Sunday, the shops opened anyway. So many of them opened, that it was not practical for the local authorities to prosecute them and so, despite the self-righteous bleatings of collected "family" and religious groups, the laws were changed to mirror practice. Well, almost.

Only six hours of shopping allowed, though, so that I still have time to go to church and watch the Antiques Roadshow. Otherwise the fabric of society might crumble. In enlightened Scotland, I could be in John Lewis for ten hours and B&Q for twelve.

Anyway, back to Tesco earlier today, and I would like to say a special Christmas thank you to the woman who let her five year-old son do the scanning at the self-service checkout, even though there was a queue ten deep, and then looked surprised when she had to pay, dithered for five minutes more, reached into her jeans pocket for money, carefully unfolded the notes one by one and tried to feed them into the slot, which steadfastly rejected them because they were too mangled.

I would have gladly sacrificed Clubcard points for security to ship her off somewhere like Aber-bloody-deen, where she and her son would a) be a long way from me and b) have between 6am and 10pm on a Sunday to do their shopping.

That said, Tesco in Mansfield is good if you need breakfast cereal...

Nosh'n'Go...

Didn't see much evidence of corporate health and safety when I was in Amsterdam, but clearly the Dutch giant Unilever thinks we are all capable of stupid mistakes...

(By the way, the conditioner is not mine...)

So here it is...

...Merry Christmas! Everybody's having fun!



Yup, it's officially Yuletide and it gets earlier every year. The Holiday Inn in Southampton is going for the festive crowd, even though it's only June. It must be time to book!

This pleases me, as I think I probably have Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. I like the winter and find summer a bit depressing. But now the longest day is over and the nights are drawing in, it must be time to get your big jumpers out, light the fire, eat hearty soup and cheer up!

So, what do you want for Christmas...?

The Emperor's New Clothes...

OK.

In reference to a recent post, sometimes, it takes Marcus Brigstocke from The Now Show to make you see the light...





...and, although it pains me to admit it, he's actually right.*

*About the Marmite, not about America

Posh McDonalds and Custard...

Not Nashville in Tennessee, which is about 300 miles to the west, but Asheville, still in North Carolina, and in the Blue Ridge Mountains (which I thought were in Virginia, as in the song).

Seems my geographical knowledge of the eastern US states is about as good as the average American's knowledge of where Basingstoke is. (And who can blame them.)

Asheville has history...



This is at Biltmore village on the outskirts of Asheville. It's a preserved area and all the houses and shops are in some manner of ye olde style which I know nothing about. Here's a picture and you can tell me...



The Olde World Christmas Shoppe sells Christmassy things the whole year round. 365 days a year. (Except when we were there and it was shut.)

Even the McDonalds has to be in keeping...



Yes, we did go in, and it had a grand piano on a little stage too. Albeit one of those you put a memory card in and it plays itself. Also my first experience of an Egg and Bacon McGriddle, which is egg and bacon in two small maple syrup pancakes. And my last experience of one too.

The actual town of Asheville has some really impressive buildings...



...and some interesting public art...



...but all of this pales into insignificance besides Asheville's top feature, which is...



...Kamm's Frozen Custard Shop, which is well worth a visit. In fact, it's well worth the two round-trip flights and the three hour each-way drive. Best food experience of the holiday so far. Here's the order form if you want some... (I'm not sure they deliver, though...)

Welcome to the US! Have some food!

Half way there...



...and the Rolls Royce engines did their job admirally. And thankfully.



At JFK, it was time to start as we will be obliged to go on...

...with fattening food...



...and then to the drive-thru donut shop...



...three down, nine to go!!

Will be the size of a house by the time I get back!

Off to the Mall today!

Start spreading the news...

Now...

This shouldn't really work, should it?

Two things that people either love or hate bunged together in one jar.

Maybe if you hate one and love the other they cancel each other out and leave you thrashing around in ambivalence?

Anyway, it's a limited edition, so let me know if you want any and I'll send some.

By email, or something.

Telling the truth about the world...

I'm pleased the Snakes on a Plane school of naming has extended its reach.

They have started putting the stupid little biscuits you get with a cup of coffee in this.

Which I applaud.

Mardi (très) Gras...

If it's Pancake Day, it must be Paul and Nikki's house! Home to the best Pancake Day Pancakes in the world!

Previously I had thought that this was because Nikki was using a batter recipe handed down her family through the generations in a warm and comforting country-cottage styley. But now I discover it's because she gets the recipe out of an old Be-Ro book with food stains and no cover, just like everyone else does.



That aside, there are always some additional special ingredients which the book does not mention. This year, they were...



...Celebrations, Brandy and Flumps!

With the traditional orange/lemon juice and sugar varieties always available, this year's menu was as follows...



The brandy provided the fireworks...



..and the compulsory annual joke about who was the biggest tosser can this year be answered pictorially:

Sunday is Derby

Well, to be fair, Saturday evening was Derby too - a blaze (or possibly a blur) of food and alcohol! (Happy Birthday, Jo!) - so let's concentrate on Sunday, which was really Posh Derby. Darley Abbey - a little enclave of sophistication and refinement not 3000 steps (by pedometer) away from the hustle and bustle of the City.

Had lunch here:



OK, to be more accurate, as it is not the 1930s any more, had lunch here:



OK, OK, to be even more accurate, as it was raining and the people outside were pensioners in anoraks, not posed postcard-fodder, had lunch here:



This is The Abbey at Darley Abbey, barely big enough to fit 40 people in at a push*, it nonetheless serves brilliant Sunday lunchtime food. Roasts and hotpots and burgers and vegetarian sausage and mash, which is what I had. Highly recommended!

It does, however, serve very questionable-looking soft drinks...



...which are probably made in someone's front room with a Sodastream.


*Quite how you managed if you were a monk, I don't know, because you would have been very fat and your habit would have swished the candles over (or is that just in films?)

Remember, Remember...

...the fifth of November.

But this year make sure you call it Guy Fawkes' Night. That title has been reclaimed, because it's the 400th Anniversary of the attempt he and a bunch of Catholics made to murder the king and blow up parliament. What we have been celebrating all these years with a bit of bonfire toffee and some sparklers has suddenly become a shed load of serious, with people on News 24 talking of "regime change" and "terrorist assassination plots" as if it were Iraq.

There's actually a "stop the terrorist atrocity" game on the BBC Website.

Anyway that doesn't dwell in your mind if you go to Mayflower Park in Southampton for Bonfire Night. The first issue being that there is no Bonfire, so scrub that and let's call it Firework Night instead.

Pre-display there's a fair you can have a go on. I failed to win a cuddly bulldog from one of those grabber machines. Surprisingly, the dog seemed slightly too heavy or the grabber jaws were just not tight enough. I wonder if that always happens?

I also failed to have a go on Froggit, probably the least thrill-seeking of all the rides. Paul and Dominic had a go though..



(Well, you try getting a decent photo. I deleted twelve others of people I didn't know because I had counted wrongly...)

Nikki and I decided to be officially "soft"...



It's not that I mind fast moving boisterous rides, but I tend to avoid seeking the additional thrill of the ride having being bolted together off the back of a lorry that morning by whatever the politically correct term for gypsies is this month.

(There is a spelling mistake above, as is, of course, mandatory on fairground notices and on pub menus.)

Still more excitement before we get to the fireworks. Annoying local radio Wave 105 was there too with annoying local radio DJ, whose name escapes me. He was broadcasting from a very small trailer in which there was hardly room to swing a cat, never mind room for the very awful ABBA tribute band he had brought with him to do symmetrical dance routines. But they tried, bless them...

At least it wasn't The Cheeky Girls, like it was last year.

Finally to the fireworks. Regular readers of this blog - yes there are some - will be aware that my camera is really bad at taking photos at night time where I have to use settings other than the completely automatic ones. But here goes...



Oooooooh!!! (A bit blurry...)



Aaaaaahhhh! (A bit colourless...)



Hmmmmmm... (Not really all on the picture...)



Ouch! (A bit overexposed...)

And then they were all over. It was universally agreed that it wasn't as good as last year, not because of the absence of The Cheeky Girls, but mainly because the fireworks were a bit rubbish. Even the tea was weak and not very hot. But the Russell's overpriced bacon butty was good! I include the photo below to celebrate that one piece of good news, and also to mention the man who stood in front of us for the whole display, talking into his mobile phone telling his friends he was standing near Russell's Burger Grill. He missed most of the fireworks looking for them.



They never did turn up...

Call me Diarmuid Gavin...

It's now 5pm on Sunday and, contrary to the forecast, it's chucking down. However, Jerry and Nicky came over this morning and we managed to get a lot done in the good weather.

Garden started off very overgrown...



...as did nothing to it during the summer while in New Zealand. Actually, that is a just an excuse, because I wouldn't have done anything to it during the summer anyway.

We worked very hard...



...and found interesting wildlife...



...took loads of stuff to the tip (where there was a big queue and lots of slightly chavvy people picking over the crap other people had left...)



...and wore trendy waterproof kagoules (is that how you spell that?) when it rained...



Have no gate at the moment (Thanks B&Q Stock Control), but I actually bought things to grow in the garden today - see firs above, rather than ripping everything out, so my fingers are ever so slightly greener than ever before...

Roll on the Chelsea Flower Show.