Sounds wrong, tastes great!
Ah, lovely!
This is my tribute to the spread known as Marmite…
“You love it or hate it”. That’s been the crux of the advertising campaign for Marmite for a good while. In case you’re not familiar with this wonderful spread (clearly I’m in the “love it” camp), it’s basically yeast extract with added vitamins and minerals. And it’s brown. Doesn’t sounds very appetising, does it? Well, I find it delicious.
Marmite saw me through university, and is one of my staples even today (spot the bachelor). Years ago I discovered that cheese and Marmite sandwiches were really great, although the combination doesn’t immediately present itself as the best of ideas (although Marmite is marketed in combination with a number of foodstuffs). The solidness of the cheese plus the tang of the Marmite – lovely!
It’s not for everyone. The “love it or hate it” advertising campaign is bang on. Marmite has such a strong taste, there really isn’t a halfway position. Years ago, when I was living in Stuttgart, we managed to get hold of some. There was an “English shop” on the other side of the city – it was run by an English couple who imported such delicacies as Prawn Cocktail flavour crisps and, yes, Marmite. We gave some to a German friend, who, seeing its brown colour, leapt to the immediate conclusion that it must be chocolate and dove straight in. What a baby! Screaming, cursing, clawing at his mouth. He came down on the “hate it” side.
If you’re on the “love it” side of the fence, I’ve discovered a new variation for my sandwiches. Four words – egg mayonnaise sandwich filler. There’s something about the solidness of the cheese, the tang of the Marmite and the, well, the “egginess” of the egg which just – works. I suggested it to fellow Marmite and cheese lovers and they turned up their noses, but promised to try it. We’ll see, but to my palate – lovely!
Cheese, Marmite and egg mayonnaise – sounds gross, tastes great!
Diversions and Bad Choices
I was driving home around 10pm last night and got a bit caught out. I’d just done my shopping and decided to go home the long way, as I knew there was resurfacing work in town and didn’t want to get caught. Three miles out of town I encountered what I assume was an accident, judging by the police cars. In any case, the road was closed and I had to turn back, forcing me to drive all the way back into town (I say “all the way”, it was actually only a couple of miles, but with my shopping slowly defrosting in the boot of the car, it felt further). Once there, of course, I had to sit at the traffic lights while the road resurfacing crew did their thing.
That reminded me of an (after the fact) amusing incident from many years ago. I was driving home from Surrey to Hampshire (where I was living at the time) on the main road just after dark when I encountered a police diversion, sending a whole queue of us off down a road I’d never seen before. Figuring most of the traffic would be attempting to rejoin the main road, I picked the car ahead and followed it. Now I’m switching to “story mode”, properly overdone and with associated poetic licence…
“Storm clouds gathered ominously overhead as I drove deeper and deeper into the unknown. The queue of cars ahead and behind me began to thin out as the rain began to fall, a few drops at first, then harder and harder until the wipers, frantically sweeping across the windscreen, could no longer cope and visibility fell to almost nothing. Sweat trickled down my brow as I clung to the red rear lights ahead of me. Deeper and deeper into the wilderness we drove, as more and more cars left the queue. A sharp stab of fear shot through me as we passed a sign – “Welcome to West Sussex”. I knew this was all wrong – wrong road, wrong county, wrong night for this. The last of the cars disappeared, leaving only myself and the car ahead – my guide, my last hope. In a sudden flash of lightening my worst fears were realised as the car ahead pulled into a driveway. He was home, I was lost.”
I can’t remember how I got home from there. I guess I kept going until I saw a sign to a town I recognised and followed my nose from there. The moral of the story? Don’t follow a random car in the hopes they’re going the same way as you. Because they’re not.
The Right Thing to Do
Last month riots and looting erupted in London and spread to some other major cities in England. Recent stories have reported that 75% of those arrested were “known to the police”. So what about the rest? Some stories reported arrests of ordinary people with ordinary jobs who thought they’d pop into some of the shops and help themselves.
So why did these people do it? Maybe they were caught up in the “excitement”. Maybe they also did it because they thought there were so many people involved they wouldn’t get caught. So, was fear of getting into trouble the only thing which previously held these people back?
We see this behaviour on a small scale every day. How many times does a car scream past you, slam on the brakes as it approaches a speed camera, then roar away again. They’re not interested in obeying the law, just in not getting caught.
It may be a naive hope, but maybe one day everyone will do the Right Thing simply because it’s the Right Thing To Do.
Hoodies, parkas and a change in perception
Every time I see a group of kids hanging around wearing hoodies, I feel a bit anxious. Why? I don’t know. Mostly, they’re just hanging around, talking and having harmless fun. But it’s not the way we looked when we were kids, I’m sure. And something about that makes me think something sinister’s going on – there’s going to be trouble.
Then I thought back to my childhood days. Yes, we dressed differently to the kids today, but we also dressed differently to the previous generation. And what did that previous generation think of us? The way I remember, we were just mucking about, having fun. Some of us had parkas, some of us those snorkel jackets, those ones where if you zipped up the hood it stuck miles out the front making you look like a reject from Jabba the Hutt’s Tatooine palace. We wore our jackets just by the hoods; they streamed out behind us like capes as we tore around the neighbourhood on our bicycles.
We must have looked like right tearaways, maybe even instilling a little unease. How different were we from the kids of today?
So what’s changed? Me and my perceptions. Before you know it I’ll be prefixing all my complaints with “When I was young…”.
Rain
Promise of morning glory
Stolen
By precious drops of crystal rain.
Bleak Future
A teacher talking to the class
Explaining all that’s come to pass
Smoke and oil across the land
Poisoning the sea and sand.
The teacher says we’re just not trying
To save the animals from dying.
A girl of 8, she raised her hand
Her big brown eyes looked kinda sad
“But surely we should change our habits
Or what about the bunny rabbits?
I’ve one at home
He’s really sweet
With floppy ears and fluffy feet.”
The teacher struggles – what to say?
He tells them it will be okay.
But when the kids look in his eyes
There’s something there
They see he lies.
False memories?
Memories. They’re funny things.
Generally rock solid just after the fact, but they tend to change over time. Eventually they can become less a memory, more a fantasy. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve re-read a book after several years, only to find that I’ve vastly exaggerated the ending in my own head. The same goes for films.
Then there’s old TV series. When I watch them now, they’re not nearly as good as I remember. But then, I’m basing them on a child’s memories.
So now I have to wonder about the weather. I’m firmly convinced that “summers were better when I was a kid”. Of course, being able to constantly moan that the past was better is one of the cool things about getting older. But is it true about the weather? Sure, 1976 was an amazing summer. It was a drought, with associated hosepipe bans and whatnot, but all I remember is fun summer days. Was it always great in August or was is usually like it is now? 20 degrees, raining, occasionally we see the sun. People are wearing coats. Last week it got warm and my flat and I opened a window, wondering what was going on. Then I realised that it’s mid-August – isn’t it supposed to be like this?
I think it did used to be better. But that’s only what I remember.
Planet Earth
We had a planet, called it home,
We killed the trees to make our throne.
We let our poisons touch the water,
Killing father, mother, daughter.
Our putrid smoke made stale the air,
Our planet’s beauty now laid bare.
Animals, plants, their day has past,
The human race? I am the last.
Death of a Butler
“Call that toast, it’s burnt right through!
I think you know what you must do.”
“Yes, I know,” the butler said,
And shot himself clean through the head.
His brains exploded, quite a mess,
Splattered over Madame’s dress.
Sir looked at butler, “Oh my God!
Clean this up, you lazy sod.”
Butler smiling weakly said,
“Sorry, Sir, I’ll soon be dead.”
He grabbed a cloth, and though he tried,
His eyes glazed over, then he died.
Where did all the money go?
Where is all of this? (Image by epSos.de via Flickr.)
I’m writing this because I have no clue. We frequently hear how various countries owe billions of pounds. So who has it all?
Sometimes I imagine a person in a villa at the top of a mountain somewhere, surrounded by piles of cash. Or maybe inside an extinct volcano covered by a big sliding door with a lake on top.
I don’t know if all the countries have met together and worked out if they can cut some of the debt off, lower the total amount of debt out there. For example, all get together and see who owes what to whom and maybe shuffle things around so that if one country owes money to a second country and that second country owes money to a third country, the first country could give money straight to the third country. Of course, the second country probably wouldn’t go for that – they need the money now!
Of course, if a country looks like it’s going bankrupt, all the other countries band together and bail them out. But all those other countries are also heavily in debt, so where do they get the money to lend? I assume they borrow it. From the IMF? But all these countries are already contributing to the IMF. Do they send money to the IMF so they can borrow it back to lend to someone else? I’m confused. It’s a good job I’m not in charge of all this.
I addition, I guess all sorts of private concerns can buy up debt. So maybe there’s a lot of debt owed by countries held by private companies.
So at the end of all that, I still don’t know who has all the money. All I know for sure is it’s not me.
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