The Sturdy Soapbox

Big Wendy !

This was my face when I heard Charlie Chalk wasn't coming for a pint.  Then, when he told "Japanese Jan ", she called him a Big Wendy for putting groceries over beer.

Somehow, I think Molly Goatwax would agree.

Killing two dogs with one bone

Got an unexpected call from OBC yesterday asking if I wanted to borrow the posh Volvo to go do a long promised maintenance job on a computer.

I agreed, because it gave me the opportunity to firstly drop something off in town as a favour to McBark, then go to see Bob the Butcher saving me irksome bus travel either today or tomorrow and, to top it all, I was able to pop into Asda after doing the PC job and get a load of things which I wouldn't get, if I was on foot.  Stuff to clean the toilet, potatoes, some of my favourite frozen rice and vegetables, chopped frozen onions (superb for curry making).  And, I managed to do all that in a morning, the domestic stuff of which I wouldn't have polished off in that time on the bus.

I was hoping Charlie Chalk would drop by for a pint today, as he finds himself over here in town, but he too, has a bare pantry and must do an Asda run.  As usual, he's gone all guilty about not being able to come for a pint the daft bugger.

There'll be other days and other pints.  He's planning Kedgeree again.  I told him to make his rice at lunchtime and chill it, but he worried that if he did that, Asda wouldn't have any Haddock and it would be a waste of time and rice.  Well, an excellent substitute would be kippers and you can get those boil in the bag ones.

Using chilled rice in things lke that, is best, because you won't break open the grains and leak the starch into the dish making a sticky mess.  If you are making fried rice, always use chilled cooked rice for the same reason, it doesn't half make a difference.

A good laugh for Thursday

I always enjoy watching Graham Norton's chat show on Thursday nights.  He's a gay little imp who takes no prisoners.

Tonight, he had Dame Edna on his show and she was at her best.  I've always been a fan, but have to say, that we in the UK have had a bit to much exposure to La Dame aux les Gladioli in recent years and several of her Saturday night ITV shows just haven't been funny.

Of course, she was a riot tonight, especially with Graham as her "straight man".

I've seen Dame Edna live twice, once at Drury Lane in London and once in Birmingham and both shows were solid, hilarious entertainment and highly original.

Ooh so rude

A very amusing article from the Belfast Telegraph about rude sounding places.  Read it here: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/daily-features/article3723596.ece

How do they do it at the price - Let's ask the welder

I get a weekly e mail alert from Lidl and Aldi.  Look what Aldi have coming up on offer !

When you're stuck for a welding mask, who would think of their local supermarket to be the ideal place to get one ?  They're only £ 5.99 too, Wally will be overjoyed.  At that price, he could have one for everyday and one for best, such as going to a dance.

Some people just don't listen

I told Charlie Chalk that 25 minutes at 190c was too long even for a frozen deep pan pizza, but would he listen ?

I think it was Freudian, because he doesn't like melted cheese you know and all I have to say on the matter is you don't find many pizzas that don't have cheese on them.

Bye bye Dick

So sad, we're losing our 60's icons.  This time it's Dick Martin of Rowan and Martin's  Laugh In.

We got this show in the UK not long after BBC2 appeared bringing us the Danny Kaye show, The Munsters and loads more of highly entertaining TV.

I was nuts about Laugh In and funnily enough the other day said to someone in a Germanic accent "very interesting, but stupid" and the person I said it to looked at me as if my lights had gone out.

Well it was FORTY years ago.

Dick was 86.

Continuing on the maudlin theme, I failed to report earlier in the week, of the demise of the actor John Phillip Law, best known as the angel Pygar in the iconic Barbarella.  He also put in a notable performance as an American army private who becomes the object of the desire of his superior officer (played by Rod Steiger) in The Sergeant, from 1968, which was pretty racy stuff considering the subject matter (ditto the excellent menage a trois of Sunday Bloody Sunday a couple of years later from Mr.Schlesinger).

Headlines to make you cringe

This was big page 3 news in the local free newspaper.  As I said to Charlie Chalk, it's stories like this which deterred me from becoming a junior reporter on the Express and Star in the early  70's.  Ditto "local widow in chip pan blaze drama".

So, what do you think daddy will do when he comes home from Iraq to find "Whiskers" gone ?

Remember this ?

For years after this ad was made, Rowntrees tried to shake off the "truckers need satisfying with this choc bar" suggestion and truckers avidly denied ever eating chocolate.

Things were made worse with a billboard ad of a cartoon "Lichtenstein" type drawing of a trucker, his big manly paw doing some gear jamming and the legend read:  "The 10 chunk Yorkie, enough to satisfy the trucker and his mate", and you thought Kenneth WIlliams was suggestive.

At last some art you can like

Looking like something from Jules Verne, the Telectroscope has one end (shown) by the Brooklyn bridge (looks like the Brooklyn side by the ice cream factory) and the other end is located up by Tower bridge in London.

It's sculpted to look like it's buried into the ground and the fascinating part is that Londoners and New Yorkers can see each other in real time.

To test that theory, people have been using white boards to write messages, to elicit a real time response from the other end, setting a trend.

This is a clever marriage of art and technology, making artistic expression that few people are going to dislike, unlike the "unmade bed" or the pile of rocks (the latter of which I went to the Tate and witnessed for myself in the 70's).