A Festive Easter

It was confusing to wake up this morning on Easter Day (though possibly not as confusing as it was for Jesus when he woke up on Easter day...) as outside it looked more like Christmas Day. Night time had brought a fair smattering of snow and one could almost hear sleigh-bells.

I probably shouldn't be surprised at the weather. I've lived in England for over thirty years and it's always crap. That's why it's also so great. Snow at Easter!

I'm hoping that this will mark the end of the cold for 2008. I really need some warmer times so I can properly kick-start my exercise regime and practice for the GNR. Or maybe I just need a treadmill.

What happened to me in the Kiddies Dept of The Other M&S in York centre

I finished my Christmas shopping today. In M&S I found a shop assistant with a sense of humour. I was buying some clothes that were clearly aimed at small children - the size of them should have made this clear but if this had left some doubt the labels would have cleared it up. They indicated that both items were for children under four years old. Since I am 31 years old and six foot two there could have been no doubt that these items were not for me.

I went to pay for them and the shopping lady took me through the chip and pin motions. She then made as if to give me a bag for them. I said that I was fine for a bag - and I was fine since I'd done a lot of shopping already and had acquired several bags in addition to the rucksack I'd brought with me. I didn't need to add to the world's woes by putting an extra plastic bag in it.

And this is where the lady was funny, so pay attention.

She asked me (because I'd said I didn't need a bag) if I was going to put the items on now. Clearly I wasn't planning to do this as I am old and tall as I mentioned earlier. I can hence deduce that she was making a joke. She was pretending that me, a large man, was going to wear some children's clothing in the cold December cold. Funny! She didn't smile like you'd expect her to though. I wouldn't expect full on laughing (like I do when I make a joke), but a little smile to show she meant the remark in jest would have been all I needed. There was no smile.

I replied back, "yeah, I'm going to wear them now". Because there is no higher humour than sarcasm. And she still didn't really smile. I liked her since she was so deadpan.

Then I bent to put the items in my bag, left the clothes shop and went on my merry (because it's Christmas and everything is merry at Christmas) way.

Later it occurred to me that because she was behind a counter and I was in front of the counter, she might just have assumed I had a small child with me who was not tall enough to be seen over the counter. Therefore when she asked if I wanted to put the clothes on, she meant onto a small child now not onto me now. She would then have been puzzled by my sarcasm and the way I put the items into a bag rather than onto a child.

But if that had been her intended meaning then she could have offered to remove the tags for me. And she didn't.

So I am left a little confused. One of the following things happened.

1. I found a funny, deadpan shop assistant
2. I found a well-meaning but confused and ultimately wrong shop assistant
3. I completely misheard a shop assistant who asked me if I'd like to look at their range of futons.

I'm going to stick with the first option because it reinforces how nice everyone is at Christmas.

Late(ish) Night Pizza

I seem to have just about survived the Christmas party period and am now more than ready for two weeks off work. It's been quite hectic/alcoholic and I couldn't actually face staying out past about half seven last night.

Instead, I came home and cooked myself a pizza. K had got me some prawns out and defrosted and she'd intended for me to make them noodly. I, however, had a different plan and I wanted them on pizza. Unfortunately I didn't have baking powder like the recipe said I should have. I went out to the local shop but it was shut. Darn. So I made the thing anyway and it was absolutely fine (which proves that Delia Smith knows absolutely nothing).

I also didn't bother with any cheese.

Christmas Food

At work we've been having a thing where everyone in the team brings in a Christmas item of food and then we eat it. No repetitions allowed.

My turn was on Monday and I went for Cheese and Port:



Other than that we've had
1. A yule roll
2. Mince pies
3. Christmas Cake
4. (can't remember)
5. (can't remember)
6. Stollen Cake
7. Cheese and Port
8. Game Pie and Chutney
9. Mithais and toblerone

I reckon I win

We're All Going To Die

Like most right-minded individuals I'd quite like Malcolm Middleton's new single, We're All Going To Die to be Christmas number one this year. It's a jolly little number and just right for those post-turkey moments.

I bought it off iTunes this morning and quite enjoyed the receipt I got later:



"We're All Going To Die"
"Report a Problem"

Like people might think that everyone going to die could be a problem (If I haven't laboured the point enough...).

Anyway, buy the single.

Curry News

We went to the new (as in I've not been there even though it's been open for ages) York curry house, Ackbars, for tea last night. It's a bit of a chain, but it does have a fairly good rep. It was quite busy for a Tuesday night but I blame that on Christmas.

The food was very nice. I had a Lamb and Ginger Balti, and K had a Lamb and Spinach Balti. Both were tasty and I actually finished mine off which is rare for me with a curry. Personally I put this down to a lack of prior fizzy lager rather than anything inherent in the food. The Naans are those super-large ones that hang from a hook, but unlike a certain other York place, they don't drip with grease.

However, I do slightly regret not going to the Akash because they'd probably have given us a calendar.

Relatedly the now legendary annual Christmas black-tie curry at the Ujala is now in my diary (and may enter other people's once an email gets sent out). Hopefully I'll get a calendar when we go there.

Too Many Dinners...

Second Christmas dinner of the year tonight. After this Four more work ones to go, plus one at home with me and K and one at my parents on Christmas day. Plus possibly the annual Christmas curry at some point...

David Ford Music News

Janice Long played a new David Ford song on the radio last night. This was quite exciting - Easyworld were one of the best bands ever and so anything new from David is going to be a good thing. His debut solo album was good but mostly quite downbeat. The new song was a lot poppier and so I was looking forward to getting my hands on it and the rest of the new album.

So I got the new album off iTunes. But whilst looking for it I found something even better - another Christmas album! This one's called "It's Not Like Christmas" and it's got tracks by various people on it including The Electric Soft Parade and Minuteman. And David Ford! And The Duke Special (featuring David Ford)! So I'm obviously looking forward to listening to all that even though it's not Christmas for a while yet and even though half the songs are likely rubbish as they inevitably are with this kind of collection. At least they're Christmassy rubbish.

And finally on this tack, The Duke Special are clearly in the mood for collaborations at the moment as they have a new single out which features Neil Hannon and Romeo from The Magic Numbers (it's called "Our Love Goes Deeper Than This). It's great, immensely catchy and feels like the start of the summer. Which is just what I need now that winter's encroaching.

And that ends the music news.

Top Labels

Here are the top 10 labels I have used on blog posts since Blogger introduced them.

1 Wii (7)
2= Food (6)
2= Music (6)
2= Pubs (6)
5= Christmas (5)
5= Metroid Prime (5)
5= Prague (5)
8= Toilets (4)
8= Trains (4)
8= York (4)

I find that quite a depressing list.

Christmas Colds

I'm back from my travels now and can relax a little bit before I go back to work on the 4th. Or at least I would be able to relax if I hadn't picked up a stinking cold. I couldn't sleep at all last night - I had a headache, sometimes I was too hot, sometimes too cold and a nasty cough to boot. Grrrr...

Bad Guys Who Care

There used to be a time, not so many years ago, when the most exciting thing about Christmas TV was the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special. It was always funny and if you disagree, you're wrong. Those days are sadly now seemingly behind us. OF&H has run its course and left the arena clear for new challengers to the Christmas TV throne.

Nowadays, the most exciting thing about Christmas TV (and possibly Christmas full stop) is the Doctor Who Christmas special. Whilst being in pretty much every way, daft, it is nevertheless damn good fun and the perfect thing to watch whilst very slightly sozzled after a hard day building a ridiculous jigsaw.

We were discussing Doctor Who (old and new) in the pub on Christmas Eve. For a slightly longer time than would considered healthy by most people. Talk turned to The Doctor's old enemy, The Rani (as played (twice?) by Kate O'Mara (off Dynasty?)). I got topically thinking then about whether she was the only baddy in Doctor Who that could be considered carbon neutral. Or the closest thing to it.

Why would I have that thought, I can hear you cry? Why, because in The Mark of the Rani she had these cool mines that turned you into a tree if you stepped on them. She may be an evil Timelord but at least she's planting trees.

I had a quick think through some of the other main baddies to check whether they had similar credentials, but came up blanks. The Cybermen build big Cyberman producing factories (and probably don't pay pollution taxes cos they are evil). The Daleks are only interested in taking over worlds not saving them (and I seem to remember they f***ed up their own planet with nuclear weapons). The Master was interested only in conserving his facial hair. The Sontarans, the Yeti, the Autons, the whatever other obscure baddies I could think of, none had any green credentials (apart from the ones that were coloured green but that doesn't count). It was only The Rani who was close.

But then I started thinking further about what it means to be carbon neutral. Here on Earth, we broadly mean that if you do things that absorb/use at least as much CO2 as you produce by driving, consuming and watching Doctor Who on telly then you are carbon neutral. ie you have not increased the amount of free CO2 in the planet. That's how I understand it anyway.

But for a larger, non-closed system like say The Universe, is the question relevant? Is it ok for The Rani to create trees on one planet but then also conduct nefarious carbon dioxide producing activities on other planets? What happens if on some planets, carbon dioxide is good and (say) cheese is the equivalent bad substance?

And how does the time travel element affect things? If an evil Timelord travels back into the past and evilly creates a lot of CO2, and then plants a whole forest 2000 years later, is that ok? What if it was the other way round?

And is it ethically ok to kill someone if you make them into a nice green tree rather than just a corpse?

There are clearly a lot of questions that I don't have answers for, but I'm hoping that these will be maybe tackled by the writers of the next series. In the meantime, I'd be interested to hear any of your views on which Doctor Who baddy is the most environmentally friendly.

Christmas Card-bargains

I had to buy a few more Christmas cards today, after posting all the ones that needed posting. I popped down to WH Smiths at lunchtime and found that all boxed Christmas cards were in a 3 for 2 offer. This is fairly common there, I've found. I needed about 15 to 20 cards, but most of them were in boxes of 10 so I figured I might as well buy three boxes and to get the most of the 3 for 2 I got three boxes that were all the same price: £2.99.

I chose the cards, mostly sparkly ones. I took the cards to the counter and readied my monies (a Visa card as I only had four pounds in cash). When the man started to scan the goods, he spotted something that I hadn't - one of the boxes had a "half-price" sticker on it. Apparently this was a leftover from the weekend when cards had been half-price, and it should have been removed. He asked whether there were any other boxes with the same sticker on them, but I hadn't noticed any - I hadn't even noticed the one I'd picked up!

Now, I was a bit annoyed here as it meant that although I'd still be paying the same price (as the free item is always the cheapest) my free item wasn't as much of a bargain as it should have been - I would only be saving £1.49 not £2.99. But on the other hand I'd still be getting what I'd originally thought I'd be getting for the price I thought I'd be paying.

But then the man did an odd thing.

He decided that since the sticker was on one of the packs, they would have to stand by that price and then he bizarrely assumed the same sticker would apply to the other two, properly labelled, packs as well. So rather than paying the expected total of £5.98, I'd only be paying £4.47 - I was now saving £4.50 rather than my expected £2.99 - bargain!

But then the man did another odd thing.

Not content with giving me the cards for half price he decided to also apply the three for two to the half price boxes. This removed a further £1.49 meaning I only had to pay £2.98 for the three boxes - actually slightly less than the price of a single box in isolation.

How bloody brilliant is that?

I quickly paid (using cash, as I had enough now) and ran out of the shop before he changed his mind. I don't think I can recall a shopkeeper ever being so keen to reduce the price I had to pay. I hadn't even complained about the half price sticker and the fact that it meant I wasn't saving as much as I'd expected. Or that they were forcing me to buy more cards than I actually needed.

Oh well, shouldn't complain!

Deep and Crisp and Stevens

I went to HMV at lunchtime to try and find the new Sufjan Stevens Christmas album. I like Christmas albums.

I made my way to the S section, specifically the Stevens section. I found the Sufjan section of the Stevens section within the wider S section, and they had one of those little plastic dividers saying "Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas". Excellent, I thought. And even better, the CDs in front of the divider were priced at just five pounds.

A veritable bargain.

But then... disaster! When I picked the CD up and looked more closely, it was not Songs for Christmas by Sufjan Stevens. No, the CD I was holding and the others of its ilk had been put in the wrong section! The CD I was holding was Merry Christmas Everyone by... Shakin Stevens! So near yet really so very, very far.

And they didn't have the other one, the one I wanted.

I put the CD back in the rack and left the shop, feeling disappointed and a little dirty.

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Running: 10 miles to go.

First Xmas Dinner 2006

Today is, if not technically the first day of Christmas, the first day of the Christmas Season. This is because I will be having my first Christmas dinner of the year in just a few short hours time.

I know it's only the first of December.

After this it's one a week (every Thursday, I think) until the proper day itself. This possibly means my Fridays won't be very productive during December. I do, however, have next Friday booked off work so I can play with my Wii. Assuming it has arrived by then.

So in the meantime, Merry Christmas everyone!