Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique

Korea and a World Population of 7 Billion (Photo credit: United Nations Photo)

I didn’t take this photo, but it occurred to me that, though there are seven billion people in the world, we are all unique.  Which is directly opposite to the claim that we are all the same, which I also believe.  

We are unique in our alikeness and alike in our uniqueness.  Some of us are weird (according to my husband); some of us are allegedly normal.  Some of us have an over-developed sense of humour; others have an over-developed pituitary gland.  Some of us consider chocolate to be the missing food group; some of us will live longer than those of us who consider chocolate to be the missing food group; some of us will enjoy life more than those of us who don’t have a missing food group.

My point is: hello friend; you are different to me.  I love that.  

You love it, too?  We are so alike!    How weird is that?

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign 2

This is a long-overdue post.  Viveka, I apologise for my rudeness.

About six weeks ago, Viveka in Sweden, tired of my Malteser ravings, sent me a large bar of  Swedish chocolate to try.  I sent her some real chocolate in return. You can read what she thought of it here.

I was grateful for the chocolate (when am I not?) but also for the lovely compilation CD she included, which I have listened to and enjoyed.  Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Viveka.

I wanted to blog about the experience of eating Swedish chocolate so there was some delay in opening it.  My family has different tastes in sweets and I thought we should all try it, but I wanted us all together.  I wanted group photos and close-ups of our faces.  (Imagine me sharing chocolate – I must have been ill that day.)  

We waited for Tory Boy to come home for a visit but, by the time he did, it had been so long, I forgot about the chocolate until five minutes before he was leaving.  I shoved some in his mouth:

He thought it was…interesting, and a little peculiar.

Then life got in the way.  Spud was sick, I was sick, the Hub was sick.  The chocolate languished in the cupboard until the Hub spotted it on one of his brief visits downstairs.  I caught him shovelling it in.  He thought it was delicious but I don’t have the photos to prove it; he was too quick for me.  No mean feat in a man who takes ten minutes to get from the front door to the car.

This is a facsimile of his bliss:

Just over half of the large bar remained.  I grabbed Spud and threw some onto his tongue, and ate some myself.

Spud’s reaction was along these lines:

Sorry Viveka.

I tasted strawberry and did this:

Sorry again, Viveka.

What can I say?  Apart from the Hub, we are chocolate cowards, preferring our tried and trusted candy.  However, the Hub loves anything new and foreign and I would like to assure you that your generous gift did find one  welcome and loving home.

Thanks for trying!

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Chocolate? Meh!

English: An Australian Milky Bar that has been split in half. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reading Elaine’s post today about chocolate sprinkles on bread (sorry, Elaine, but bleurgghh), it occurred to me that I am not really a fan of chocolate.  I like milk and white and would probably trade one of my children for a Malteser (only one of my kids – the other will be needed to bring me food when I’m too fat to leave my bed), but after that, I’m not bothered.  I mean, I can gulp down a Kit Kat, a Crunchie, a Bounty and a bag of Buttons in one sitting, but I can take or leave them.  Mostly take.

However, I never eat chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate puddings or drink chocolate milk shake.  I do love a good chocolate swiss roll but only if it has white fondant in the centre.

I prefer a good jelly bean or chewy sweet, angel cake or fairy cakes.  My favourite cake is the little butterfly cake that is really a fairy cake with cream or butter icing.

English: Butterfly Cake, photographed by me on 1st August 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can’t be called a chocoholic – it’s not even a real word so if you do call me that, your slap in the face will be for the annoying neologism, not the insult – but I can be called a greedy pig.  

How about you?  Are you as annoying as my Mum, who would receive a box of chocolates at Christmas and still have half left in November?  

Or is chocolate like drugs and alcohol to you, and must be eaten immediately if you have it in the house?

 

Joke 147

This one is courtesy of Sarsm.

The Hormone Hostage

The Hormone Hostage knows that there are days in the month when all a man has to do is open his mouth to take his life into his hands. 

DANGEROUS: What’s for dinner?
SAFER: Can I help you with dinner?
SAFEST: Where would you like to go for dinner?
ULTRASAFE: Here, have some chocolate.

DANGEROUS: Are you wearing that?
SAFER: Gee, you look good in brown.
SAFEST: WOW! Look at you!
ULTRASAFE: Here, have some chocolate.

DANGEROUS: What are you so worked up about?
SAFER: Could we be overreacting?
SAFEST: Here’s fifty dollars.
ULTRASAFE: Here, have some chocolate.

DANGEROUS: Should you be eating that?
SAFER: You know, there are a lot of apples left.
SAFEST: Can I get you a glass of wine with that?
ULTRASAFE: Here, have some chocolate.

DANGEROUS: What did you do all day?
SAFER: I hope you didn’t overdo it today.
SAFEST: I’ve always loved you in that robe!
ULTRASAFE: Here, have some more chocolate.

And remember: Money talks…but chocolate sings.

Women Are From Mars

While we’re on the subject of space, a kind lady from Mars came out of the blue, offering to fill a Malteser-sized hole in my tummy with the next best thing: new Galaxy Bites.  

I am under no obligation to tell you they are gorgeous.  But they are.  A chewy caramel centre covered in Galaxy chocolate.  Heavenly. 

We had three packets between four of us – Tory Boy was home for the weekend, to watch City’s triumph after a morning in Knutsford bungee jumping. 

I think he acquired a taste for bouncing on his head, as a baby: I was a little over-zealous with the baby oil on more than one occasion…picture him as an infant in Julia Robert’s escargot spoons, flying into the arms of a convenient waiter…’Slippery little suckers’ said the Pretty Woman, just like the nervous mother squooshing her baby out of the bath and onto the carpet, like a seal pup flopping onto the ice but with less padding and no moustache.

Just as with the biltong and the Niknaks, the Galaxy Bites were measured out into bowls so that no one, especially no one who happened to be doing the dividing in the kitchen by herself, could pop an extra one into her mouth when no one else was looking.

The unanimous verdict was Yum, with the corollary that they would be an acceptable substitute on Malteser-free days.

I’m having a few of those Malteser-free days at the moment:

• no blog-reading visitors of late
• Hub not needed to apologise for anything
• not been in a bad-enough mood to need cheering up
• and the pressing need to go on a bit of a diet

When ‘slapping thighs’ doesn’t mean Christmas pantomime, but can’t get into your pants any more, you know it’s time to give up the…well…erm…um…wine!  I’ll give up wine!  I’ve got half a bottle left over from Christmas in the fridge which needs chucking out; that should do it.

Now, how about some chocolate to celebrate my weight loss?

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To celebrate the launch, Galaxy Bites is holding a Twitter hashtag campaign asking chocolate lovers to reveal their favourite moments of bite-size indulgence.  Pop on over and check it out.

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to write this review.  Opinions are my own.  As always.

We Haven’t Had A Poll Recently

Cindy’s research about Maltesers (see comments in the previous post) reminds me that I haven’t mentioned Maltesers in a while, or done a poll; so here’s a combination post of two of my favourite things.

I think the best Maltesers slogan was

Girl One (horrified at such excess): Chocolates?

Girl Two (reassuring smile ): Maltesers.

As both girls appeared in swimming costumes to show off their svelte figures (massively overweight by today’s advertising standards), I knew I would never get fat eating Maltesers.  Um….time for the poll, I think.

Life In A Quiet Town

Armed Police. Riot Police. Police Dog. Police Tape. Police Vehicles. My neighbourhood at four this afternoon.

The Hub happened to look out of our bedroom window and suspected something was going on when he saw half the street was cordoned off, ten Police vehicles taking up the parking spaces and all the neighbours out. I have always wondered what made numpties stand around looking at nothing for hours at a time and now I know: nosiness. I was out there like a shot, numptying away like the rest of them.

I spotted one of the few neighbours I actually know:

Me: What’s going on?

Neighbour I Know: Jed’s barricaded himself into the house.

Me: Who’s Jed?

Neighbour I Know: Dunno.

The Riot Police had on helmets and shields and were preparing to break in when they were told to stand down because Jed (presumably) was coming out.

This one's blurred to protect identities (not that I'd recognise him if I fell over him; maybe he really looks that way)

So it was exciting but not particularly dangerous (less bullets than I’ve experienced on a normal Saturday afternoon’s shopping in post-Apartheid South Africa). Everyone went back to preparing dinner and swearing at their kids (not me; Spud doesn’t get in until five). Some of the local boys chatted to the officers once the tape was down and the suspect on his way to the slammer; one lad asked to try on handcuffs, preparing for his future career, no doubt (not as a Policeman, sadly).

Another quiet day in Stockport; but what is it about Wednesdays that brings out the Police? Last Wednesday our local high school was evacuated because someone planted home-made bombs. That was the rumour, anyway: the evacuation was real; not sure if the bombs existed.

What have I learned today? I have learned that a strip of plastic emblazoned with the words ‘Police Line. Do Not Cross’ has magical properties, because even our local don’t-give-a-stuff-for-authority youths dared not disobey it. Oh, wait a minute: that might have had something to do with the firearms and number of officers.

I have learned that I am human and I can now stop sneering superiorly at news reports on tv in which hundreds of people hang around looking at nothing for hours in the hope of seeing something for a few minutes. I am a numpty.

And I have learned that the Hub keeps a camera secreted about his person at all times, enabling me to share today’s non-event with you mere minutes after my dinner. Or it would have been, if I hadn’t been distracted by a passing Malteser and only just remembered that I had something to tell you. Chocolate: numbs the brain, expands the bum.

Quite Interesting

I was watching QI recently and I learned two interesting facts:

1. The Netherlands now has its own version.  I first typed ‘Holland’ but luckily I remembered that an episode of QI explained why that is incorrect.  I’m not going to bother telling you why it is, because I’ve forgotten. 

I checked out the QI website and I don’t think it’s that helpful for the kind of information I was looking for – which other countries have their own version?  But it did steer me towards the QI entry in Wikipedia , the first time I have known that to happen, and this in spite of QI’s regular mockery of the veracity of Wikipedia’s entries.  The answer was The Netherlands only.  (Wikipedia cleverly avoided the Holland trap by saying ‘The Dutch’.)  The only reason it hasn’t been picked up by other countries, apparently, is the issue of copyright of the images broadcast.

It took me so long to type that, I’ve forgotten what number 2 is.  How annoying.

Took a chocolate break and it came flooding back; chocolate is clearly brain food – how else do you explain the number of degrees given out each year to 21 year-olds who believe that three years of eating crisps, chocolate, pizza and Coke constitutes a balanced diet? 

There is – allegedly – a website in America called seeitrot.com, where you can buy a webcam for a coffin and watched your loved one moulder to dust away.  I say ‘allegedly’ because of course I had to check it out, and nothing came up except lots of laments about rotten food, and advice on protecting your boat because salt water will otherwise kill it off.  Didn’t know that either.  This self-educating business is fun.

I found the seeitrot.com thing interesting because of my Mum.  I hasten to assure you I had no desire to watch her rot away – it would have been kind of dull, anyway, because she’s a pile of ash – but she had a phobia of being buried or burned alive in her coffin and  I’m sure she’d have insisted I sign up if she’d known about it.  She made everyone she knew swear to stick a pin in her when the time came, to confirm she was truly dead.  Everyone agreed to do it – well, you have to placate crazies, don’t you? – but only the Hub and I followed through.  Just as well, really as, with that many holes in her, the pall bearers would have had embalming fluid stains on their suit shoulders at the funeral.  Now that would have been interesting.

Hate Moss? I Don’t

What a furore over Kate Moss‘s comment, apparently taken out of context – as if the media would do such a thing! – that ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.’  I’d better state right up front that I have never liked Ms Moss.  It is not jealousy, in spite of my short, fat frame – I think Twiggy is and was gorgeous – no, I think she is an irresponsible and selfish parent and drug users never do it for me.  In this case, however, she has my sympathy: who among us women hasn’t foregone roast potatoes and homemade gravy or a 200g bar of chocolate for a pair of skin-tight jeans and a flat but empty stomach?  Well, not me actually, but that was my choice.  I get that many women do forego nutrition and deliciousness in the quest to be thin, or at least thinner.  I have been thin, and liked it.  I also took it for granted and ate what I liked.  I liked a lot.  I have no-one to blame but myself, and nothing to lose but my desire for tasty grub.  I have dieted, reached my goal weight, and put it all back on again.  I have reached the point in my life where I have decided that nothing feels as good as chocolate tastes, and I have stopped fighting the inevitable flab.  I am sensible and I try not to overeat, but I won’t give up my daily packet of cheese & onion crisps.  Again, that’s my choice; but many women don’t feel that way, for whatever reason.  Let them be thin if they want to, and diet if they need to; but don’t denounce Ms Moss for her honesty: her job depends on her size; presumably, work offers would dry up if she fattens out.  Who made that rule?  The media.  It’s really quite bad-mannered and hypocritical of them to round on a victim of their success in this way.