Hairy muffin

Good ol Starbucks, hate it as much as you want, you can't escape it's round green disc glaring at you from every street corner. Especially when there's nothing else open and you havent had dinner, so you escape during the interval of a rather long theatre play to find some source of food and all you see is *$ (*star $bucks - gettit - yeah great) and all they have are some muffins and coffee. Which you grab and rush back to the theatre and start stuffing inside your mouth, only to find - a hair. OK, being used to venturing into many rather un-posh eateries, i'm used to finding the odd hair in my food. So taking it as a one off, I spit the mouthful out, and still being hungry, take another mouthful to find - yup more hair. Now, even me, with my rather lack of germaphobe tendencies, has to draw the line at two mouthfuls of hair. My friend and I dissect the muffin and find more evidence of hair. Now this was ridiculous, perhaps even sabotage on the part of some miffed *$ employee on his/her last shift on the muffin making production line, but I wasn't going to be the butt of his/her prank. I kept my muffin and the next day posted it with a letter about how disgusted I was with the hairy muffin. Starbucks's response £10 worth of vouchers. Woohoo! How very gracious of you you big multinational coffee spouting beast. I mentioned this to someone who lived in the states, and they said if I was in the US I'd have been better taking the hairy muffin to a lawyer who'd probably sue *$ for millions - making me very rich. Alas, I live in the UK which so far isn't a very litigious society. But one day, one day we can all aspire to live in an advanced, forward thinking, intelligent society like the United States... till then the £10 vouchers will have to suffice, I guess.

Outdoorsey

I've never been the outdoorsey type, probably because I've spent my life growing up in various cities. So it was with a bit of trepadation I tried camping for the first time - it was a beautiful setting and everything - pity it was in Scotland in April! Freeeeezing. The borrowed supposed 4 season sleeping bag, turned out to be a crappy, cheap sleeping bag you could pick up for £5 at Tescos. Plus the rain - which hello, I know, its Scotland, what do I expect. But lying there, with my thermals, jumper, jacket, beanie on, and shivering, waiting for the night to be over, then falling into brief fitfuls of sleep, waking up with the feeling that someone was definitely walking over to the tent, possibly to jump on it and bring it down - tiny pathetic tent that it was - and so so cold, curled up in a ball - uh yeah aside from that it was all very nice. At least the next time I'm going to sleep in a tent - in Tanzania, the Serengeti to be precise - I won't have to worry so much about the cold, as the lions and hyenas, I suspect.

Next Blog

Have you randomly clicked Next Blog from the top right handside of this page. I've done that a few times and have discovered the following:
Sometimes the pages you'll bring up will start downloading some weird software on your machine making it quite a risky venture,.
Sometimes the pages have X-rated photos, but most don't.
I would say around 50% of the pages are in Spanish.
The last few random clicks brought up the following blogs: Some marketing people writing their thoughts on their jobs; a dog-owner writing assumably under the guise of their dog and posting daily photos of the dog growing up; a student worrying about her classes and assignments; some religious types talking about God; as well as a whole lot of Spanish pages I couldn't understand.
Fascinating isn't it?

Cure for bird flu

So we are selling our microwave on the gumtree (the only url you need to know as an antipodean in London) and the most bizarre man comes to buy it. As soon as he opened his mouth, I knew, here's trouble. Because he sounded exactly like my uncle. And knowing my uncle, I knew this guy would fight tooth and nail for a couple of quid. So he comes up with this elaborate story (OK I say story, it could possibly be the truth, but somehow I wasn't buying it) of how he was buying this microwave for a charity in Edinburgh (possibly because M is scottish? who knows?) who needed a microwave. First question, uh why buy a £15 microwave from london and take it to edinburgh. Second question, wouldn't it make sense to buy it over there? Third question, (mind I didnt ask any of these questions) what exactly is the name of this so-called charity? Anyway we agreed on the price, cos he was so insistent and just so we could get rid of him, and he seemed really pleased.

Then for the next round of bizarrenes. He brought our attention to a weird electronic contraption he was wearing around his neck. He said it was an ion diffuser. Basically it emitted ions around your face so you wouldnt pick up any germs while on the tube and in public. Hm, right. He was keen to show that since the diffuser was blowing air it proved that indeed it was producing uh 'ions'. Yes, right, couldn't possibly just be hot air? In fact, and let me quote him here "it is one of the only devices approved by a 'top scientist' that will prevent bird flu". He tried to convince us to buy one, but we politely refused, so he left us a card, in case you know, we realised our dire mistake, and while in the later stages of bird flu, while on our last breaths, we realise what fools we had been to not accept the life saving ion diffuser he'd so kindly offered to sell us and thank our lucky stars we still had his number... hm, yeah. Let me quote from his card: "Breathing Air is a necessity. Breathing "FreshAir" is a choice". Wise words, indeed.

He then asked to use our phone to make a local call, because he didnt have a mobile. Only later did we remember that he'd been calling us from his mobile to get directions to our house from the bus stop. Maybe he uh, accidentally-purposely-forgot he had a phone - making me further question the legitimacy of his charity story. Secondly, he was trying to get someone to help him pick up the microwave from our place, because he didnt want to take it on the tube, yet the next week he was taking it to edinburgh on the train?

Ah well, at least he bought the microwave, and now we know there is some sort of salvation for bird flu, just who knew it would come in the form of a whole lot of hot air?

B&B Bile

So making our bi/tri-annual trip off to Scotland for the Easter break, and as usual have left the accommodation to the last minute - it's not something we usually have to worry about in Scotland but this time we don't fancy staying cooped up in a small cottage with M's relatives. So now all we have left for accommodation options are B&Bs. As mentioned before, I hate B&Bs. The worst B&B experience by far would have to be the one when we stayed in Skye. Run by an interfering old biddie who made our life miserable, she ran up the stairs and shushed and glared at us when we made the mistake of using the bathroom in the middle of the night. So the next night when we had to go, we creeped to the toilet and didnt flush - hey she told us off she had to deal with it! And then she had the gall, the gall I tell you, to charge £70 per night. *Shudder* It was such a mortifying, horrifying experience, that even though it was a few years ago it has completely tainted the image of B&Bs in my mind forever. The one we stayed in Torquay was OK, run by a couple of gay guys, they generally minded their own business, but the banter, ah the banter you had to make, how was your night? Did you have a good night? Where did you go for dinner? What did you eat for dinner? Shee... Hello, we're from london, we're not used to speaking to strangers, leave us be. Then they insisted, absolutely insisted we go to this restaurant which was run by one of their friends, and which turned out to be an awful, awful experience. B&Bs? You can shove your sorries in a sack mister - George.

To Nude or not to Nude

So went for a swim at the gym last night, felt very good and healthy then decided to pop in to the (female only) sauna. OK now here's where things got a bit weird. I've just joined this gym, at my last gym there was a mixed sauna, hence swimsuits were compulsory - still in that habit I went to this female-only sauna with my swimmers on. Now all the ladies coming in were fully naked, which is good for them but they kept giving me weird looks. It's like hello, just cos I have my swim-suit on doesn't give you the right to chastisise me with your vibes. Anyway, so what if I choose to wear a swimsuit in the sauna, it could be against my religion to be completely naked, or I could simply not want to have all my bits out on display, especially since one side of the sauna wall is made of glass. And anyway, what's it to you if I'm naked or not? So anyway, I'm sitting there sweating it out, minding my own business, ignoring the vibes, when this woman, obviously unable to hold back asks me: Uh, excuse me, are you wearing a swimsut? Am I? Oh dear! I thought I was wearing a sack. Let me look, oh my yes, you're right it does appear I have a swimsuit on. Like, duh! So I say, why yes, you highly intelligent observant woman (well I dont say that) I have a swimsuit on. And then she goes, Oh, right OK. In this way that you know she's trying to hint at something. Then she says, I thought that swimsuits melted in this heat. Honestly, that's what she said. Like what the... Well I dont know about you, but I personally don't like to wear plastic/vinyl swimsuits - hey each to their own, if you have a fetish about such things its all well and good, but me, I've never had a problem with swimsuits melting in the sauna. Btw, I only actually said that last bit. She's like, right. And then she laughs in this tralala way that only Sloansey Notting hill-types do. We sit there for a few seconds more, but it was so awkward, not to mention, it felt like someone actually increased the heat in the sauna, and pretty soon she left. I only lasted a few more seconds after her and escaped as well, and can you believe I actually heard her talking about me, presumably to the staff, that there was someone wearing a swimsuit in the sauna. Now what is with that? I looked at the sauna rules and there's nothing about wearing swimsuits. Later I caught up with M and he mentioned how quite a few of the men in the mens-only sauna keep their swimmers on - so what's the deal? What's the deal ladies? Well of course I'm going to have to bow to pressure next time and go commando. Damn you unwritten rules.