Ready made pancakes

A colleague of mine bought these today and I couldn’t help but laugh….

Ready made pancakes!! It’s the perfect solution for people like me that thought having to add an egg, milk, preheating a pan, pouring in batter, waiting for them to get bubbly then flipping them was way too tricky. Basically you open the pack…stick them in the toaster, wait, take them out then eat.

Although I have a hard time believing they taste as good as a fresh, fluffy pancake straight out of the pan smothered in maple syrup with bacon… it’s sort of like having a pre-cooked fried egg that you microwave…just not the same.  However it seems pancakes in general are more of a dessert thing vs breakfast as they are at home.  On the back of the pack of these pancakes they recommends eating them with jam (although to be fair when I get pancakes at my in laws house for breakfast I get mine with chocolate chips which may not sound very breakfast-ie either but they are sure yummy) and on pancake day here they had displays set up with crepe looking things covered in a lemon sauce.

This pancake as a dessert idea does explain why when we went out for breakfast when we first got here and I ordered pancakes that the woman looked at me funny and served me a stack of pancakes smothered in whipped cream, fruit and ice cream….basically the best breakfast I have ever had!

On that note I leave you with a quote from one of my favourite comedians, Mitch Hedberg…I think his pancaking theory can work for more than just comedians as I have sat through many a presentation where the presenter pancaked or movies that totally pancaked.

“Pancakes are great when you start eating them, but by the time you get to the end your totally sick of them. That’s why pancaking is a going to be a new comedy term, because some comics start off great. By the time their ending their act, though, you’re sick of them. ‘Hey, look at Mitch up there! He’s totally pancaking!’”

Sunny September Weekend

This weekend we had absolutely beautiful weather with a cloudless blue sky both Saturday and Sunday. Since our endless DIY project still isn’t finished, we had to venture out on Saturday to do some errands but were able to enjoy the sun in the afternoon while painting 9 miles of trim.

Sunday we decided to forget about the flat for a bit and headed to Hampstead Heath in North London. Hamptstead Heath is a massive park that measures 3.2 sq.km (1.24 sq. miles) of rolling hills, forest, playgrounds and 25 ponds. It also has one of London’s highest points on top of Parliament Hill (the highest point called Kite hill due to its ideal terrain for kite flying) which on a clear day you can see St Paul’s Cathedral and Canary Wharf to the East of the city.

It was a bit hazy but you could see Canary Wharf in the distance

This was our first proper visit to ‘the Heath’ as the first time we went we couldn’t find it and had to head back home after spending an hour walking up and down the High Street looking for a giant grassy area. This trip we were equipped with our AtoZ as well as my blackberry GPS so there was no way the Heath could hide from us.

This doesn’t look like the way to the tube

Once we found it and started hiking through, I was totally taken aback the size of the trees and density of the forest…you really had to stop and remind yourself that you were still in London as it felt like you had wandered into some massive national park and were trying to make your way back to your campsite. As I am the Queen of inappropriate shoes (did the entire Cotswolds trip in high heel shoes last weekend – even the bit when we went to visit cows through the mucky grassy field), my flip flops certainly got a work out and reminded me often while stumbling down rocky hills that next time I should wear something with more grip…..or just with grip for that matter.

Tree on the Heath

All in all it was another lovely weekend in the city and I found myself amazed yet again, that after almost 3 years in the city that we are still finding areas like this to explore. Next time I am going back to that kite area (in high heels), I always lived too close to trees or telephone poles to get a nice proper kite fly.

P.S. Right now as I type, the hubby is sitting at the computer with his earphones on listening to news reports about the market.  He just told me we are in market meltdown…its fun living with such an optimist. (Adrienne hits publish on her blog, puts her fingers in her ears and hums loudly successfully ignoring the financial state of the world for yet another day)

Mystery advertisement update

 

It seems the mystery has been solved with various marking publications announcing that the ad campaign I mentioned the other day is for The Times (London newspaper).  See quote below

The purpose of the campaign has been to encourage readers to question and challenge, to think again about our times and to think again about The Times. The same rationale was behind the decision to drop the end line, Join The Debate. The paper wants its readers to make up their own minds about what the paper means to them.”  …more

It is marginally anti climatic as I was hoping it was some clever word puzzle or that they all had something in common that poor ol’ me couldn’t figure out.  I guess the campaign makes sense however I am not sure it makes me want to buy The Times…you have to throw in some free DVD’s or a gossip mag for me to buy

ShortList Day!

So on top of the three free papers I read each day (Metro, Lite and London paper) there are a few days a week where you get additional free magazines…Thursday’s is called Short List and Friday is Sport.  I love the ShortList and there is a point every Thursday morning when I cross the street on my walk to the tube and see the Short List distributor and am lifted from my morning walk-to-work-funk remembering that its almost the end of the week and I get to read ShortList on my way to work.

 

 

The ShortList is definitely a publication for men…it says so on the front – For men with more than one thing on their minds… doesn’t really sound like it is written for a married broad approaching 30 like me but it does remind me of a marketing theory I learned in university (yes, amazing I know, I learned something in uni…hold on though I only remember bits of it).  The gist of this theory is that generally women are more responsive to/interested in stuff that is typically deemed ‘male’ (gadgets, cars) than men are of women stuff (makeup, shoes – although if this guyliner and man-scara takes off you never know) so in order to reach the widest audience, marketers (in certain situations) should take a more male slant to their communications.  Basically if Short List magazine was pink featuring a hot guy on the front with makeup tips and the sexiest new shoes this season ,they would probably have a far smaller circulation than the current one full of swish cars, neat gadgets, luxury holidays and sporting figures which has a wider appeal. 

 

Regardless I love it…even more than the hubby who is a real live actual man to whom it is targeted at.  Their gadget section is great as are their random articles about what other countries eat when they go to the cinema (Japan opts for octopus balls or fried squid pancakes) or how many animals it actual took to depict one in a movie (Babe was played by 47 piglets) to their resident funny man Danny Wallace whom on a weekly basis writes funny stories about something humiliating that had happened to him – schadenfreude at its best (I learned that word from the Avenue Q musical it is defined as enjoyment taken from the misfortune of others…hmm seemed funnier in the play). 

 

Anyhoo one final thing on the topic of papers…this ad below has been driving me nuts the past few days as it has been appearing in the tube and today in my morning metro. Each ad appears on a different page…I was thinking it was some kind of word puzzle kid-Obama-superconductor  but I am not sure what that would mean…then I thought it might be numbers the kid is 1 then Obama is standing outside of number 10 then that CERN generator thing looks like a 0 but 1100 doesn’t mean much either.  Any suggestions?

 

 

Cruising through the Cotswolds

Well we made it back from our first driving trip in the UK alive. The car thing went pretty smooth despite leaving our traffic sign book at home which meant I could only assume signs below were pointing out places for me to take out my antique camera and take pictures.

Photo opportunity?

 

When we went to pick up the car they unfortunately only had a manual car (it seems automatic drivers are few and far between here) which meant that I couldn’t experience the adventure of driving on the other side of the road – which was probably a good thing seeing that the roads were too small, oncoming traffic was too close and we encountered multiple walkers and horseback riders on these very small roads that wouldn’t have had a chance with me at the wheel. I was amazed though about two things…one that the windshield washers went the opposite direction of ours (aaah the small things that amaze me) but the second was that gear shift was the same as on North American cars?!?

I prefer an automatic

 

 

 

One of the few things I do remember about driving a manual car is that if you pull the gear shift toward your leg and push up to be in first…hmm using this theory I would be in 5th pretty quickly…the pedals however are also the same so I guess it makes sense to have the gears this way (again, good thing I wasn’t driving).

Anyway car dealings aside we couldn’t have picked a better weekend as it was sunny and hot all weekend which was lovely. We started off at Cheltenham and toured around a route that took us through adorable little villages each with their own local pub covered in leafy vines with a crooked little roof.  There were also tons of walking trails through the area that I think next time would be good to do as we passed these amazingly huge homes and castles in the car but you didn’t get a good look through the window – turning around to double back was virtually impossible due to the fact most roads were just one lane wide. 

Anyway all in all it was lovely and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.  I am also happy to say that I think I am over my paralysing fear of driving in the UK…I still don’t want to do it in London but am excited about the prospect of more road trips to places I have only heard of like Devon, Cornwall, the Lake District and Wales J

Overused, annoying and pointless

I hate it when marketing-speak takes over the news headlines.  Phrases like ‘war on terror’ and  ’carbon footprint’ are created to essentially dumb down the news and make it more palatable for the average Joe…which is all fine until they hit the point (which all of them do) that they are repeated so much that they become meaningless and annoying…the most recent victim (at least in the UK)…credit crunch.

I can’t turn on the TV or read a newspaper without hearing how the credit crunch has affected poor Mary living on income support, how bad the credit crunch is/will be and what we can do to safeguard ourselves against the credit crunch.  The latter tends to include an interview with an overenthusiastic chap telling you to pay off your credit card, turn down your heat and buy store brand beer and shampoo to save money.

I don’t think my jaw clenchingly annoying phrase has crossed international borders yet but for those who haven’t heard it, credit crunch is defined as the sudden increase in the cost of obtaining a loan.  In the UK it that loan refers to a mortgage as lenders are not willing to give you 100% mortgages (or in some cases 125% mortgages) anymore (um,…nor should they EVER, it’s ridiculous to think that you could buy a house with NO money down…I digress). This means to buy a house you need substantially higher down payments and those re-mortgaging need to come up with some cash as they may  not be able to borrow as much as they have in the past.  This has an overall impact as people are paying more for their home leaving them less money for thinks like food and heat (which is also increased in price)….or whatever…that’s the gist of the credit crunch.

Anyway the term is driving me nuts and I can’t wait till it gets replaced by some other annoying phrase…my truly optimistic financially minded hubby keeps telling me we are approaching a Financial Armageddon which is a pretty crappy phrase but I did like the movie and keep picturing Ben Affleck (as he was hotter back then) so that phrase is marginally better.

Finally since its Friday I leave you with a funny picture I got via email yesterday depicting how the credit crunch will affect Britain…it is not only priceless but something to look forward to…I would totally order a Big Mac from her…bring on Financial Armageddon!

 

Philip, I said hold the pickles and they want fries with that. Tell Charles his break is over!

Pelicans, Puffins, Pegusus’ and Zebra’s, oh my

So we are heading out of London this weekend (gasp) to see the lovely UK countryside as in all of our travels, we haven’t seen much of the UK.  We are heading to a city called Cheltenham and are considering hiring a car and driving around to some neighbouring (and highly recommended) little towns.  In anticipation of our suicide missionroad trip on the other side of the road, I bought a little book that should help us dechiper the various road signs/warnings as on our last road trip through France we didn’t have such a book and quickly realised that our Canadian drivers training isn’t necessarily globally recognised.

Anyhoo I was flipping through the pages and most stuff seemed pretty intuitive (except I loved that they have one sign telling you to look out for frail pedestrians) except when I came to the pedestrian crossing which must have been named by some bird aficionado.  The crossings are called a Toucan, Pelican and Puffin….(three birds which I believe aren’t even found in the UK..)

The Pelican is the oldest type of pedestrian crossing and has a button for pedestrians to push then indicates by a green walking man figure when you can walk and a red standing man figure when you shouldn’t.

Then there is the Toucan which is a pedestrian AND cyclist crossing…each with their own symbol.

 

Then we have the newest one which is the Puffin…the puffin is extra schwanky as it detects movement by pedestrians through a little sensor above the button and manages the lights accordingly so ti wont change if no one is there and will give extra time for those frail pedestrians. Apparently the Pelicans will be replaced by the much fancier Puffin thus making the Pelican extinct (in the UK anyway) 

Then the Pegasus…aka the Equestrian crossing.  Yes, there are enough people riding horseback through city streets in the UK to warrant them getting their own crossing lights (for real! check em out there are some down by Buckingham Palace).  

And last but not least, the Zebra crossing….surprisingly this is not for Zebras (since horses have their own) but for pedestrians, crossing without the aid of lights…they paint black and white Zebra (click here for the English pronunciation of it…it’s apparnetly not zeeeee bra as I say it)

Hmm I am not sure if its intentional or not but now I know everything there is to know about pedestrian travel in the UK…maybe its my subconscious telling me to not get behind the wheel.

Your safety is important to us (said with fingers crossed behind their back)

I don’t (really) mean to obsess over Air Canada but I couldn’t help comment on this story.

I have flown a lot in my life and have (on occasion) looked through that little safety card in the seat back pocket and noticed the lovely image of a plane floating on water.  My hubbie has a license to fly small planes and so one day we were chatting about said image and he remarked (quite matter of factly) that commercial planes basically can’t land on water…that at event the slowest speed if they hit water it is essentially like flying into a brick wall and the plane will shatter to bits.  What?  but the safety card shows it all floatie like with all of us bobbing around in our life jackets and floating on that neat slide thing that turns into a raft…he looked at me and basically shook his head…no…basically not possible. As a side note this knowledge has NOT helped me get over my newly acquired fear of flying. 

 
So in an era of low cost airlines charging for everything other than your seat belt to cover their high fuel costs I couldn’t help but laugh a bit at this move by Air Canada’s short haul flight service called Jazz…  

Air Canada Jazz ditches life vests to cut costs

Toronto – Air Canada’s regional carrier Jazz is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel.

Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said last week that government regulations set by Transport Canada allow airlines to use flotation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 50 nautical miles of shore. Safety cards in the seat pockets of Jazz aircraft now direct passengers to use the seat cushions as flotation devices.

“The nature of our operations doesn’t require that we carry both,” Stuart said, adding that Jazz is a transcontinental carrier that doesn’t fly over the ocean.Jazz planes do fly over the Great Lakes and along the Eastern seaboard from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Boston and New York.  article continues…

 

Guess this proves hubbie’s can’t-land-on-water theory…the article goes on to say that the seat cushions are buoyant so you can use those and that they will be updating their safety cards to reflect this. Why don’t they just print the truth.  If this plane lands on water…don’t worry, we will see you at the pearly gates, follow the light at the end of the tunnel.

Car boot sale…same cr*p, different country

While wandering around a random part of London on Saturday we happened upon a Car Boot sale (translation, sell crap from the trunk of your car in a large parking lot).  Now, I had heard of car boot sales and was always curious to see one as it seemed like a great substitute to the ever popular North American garage sale. I am figuring the car boot sale is more popular than a garage sale as most houses that I have seen don’t have garages or driveways (to be fair I really haven’t left central London)r, making a garage sale pretty impossible. However, people do have cars and  most cars have boots (not winter boots or rain boots…trunks) and most people have sh*t they want to get rid of.

The thing I liked about the car boot sale concept is the multiple ‘boots’ you can visit. Instead of following the hand made signs posted around your neighbourhood to find that one house having a Garage sale…you just rock up to a massive parking lot and shop til your heart’s content in multiple car boots…observe (you may have to click to enlarge for the full effect)

I think we got there a little late as all that was left was crap..or maybe we arrived just in time and all there ever was there was crap but some of this crap had some nice old world charm….a pretty Victorian fireplace hearth, fancy old radiators and maps from before Canada was even a country. There was also the other standard crap like well worn clothes and a vacuum with the dirt still in it!!  

Anyway I can tick that off the list of things I wanted to do/see while in the UK….other such things include meeting the Queen, hanging with Prince Harry (or William I am not picky) at Mahiki, driving UK style (other side of the road and car), sort out the belt with a dress look and speak with an English accent…we may have to be here for a while.

Quiet Aunt Zelda…

I am a fairly fast typer which has proven to be pretty useful over my life as I can whiz out emails at lightning speed and blab on endlessly on my blog as it only takes me a few minutes to crack out pages of randomness.

The reason for my speedy typing is that my Mom insisted I take a typing class in high school…luckily, even back then I was a computer nerd so as much as I might have protested (cause I usually protested about anything my Mom said to me when I was a teenager), I actually enjoyed it.

The method we learned to type was to envisage the keyboard as sets of acronyms with each key actually represnting a word in a sentence…we would repeat these (really stupid) sentences over and over until they, and the key locations were ingrained in our brain. The sentences went like this starting at Q, going down then back up to the top at W:

Quiet Aunt Zelda
Willie Sits Exams
Every Dad Cares
Run From Vicky
To Get Betty
Young Harry Never
Uses Joe’s Money
Oh Lloyd Stop (stop being the .)
Please

Now, I am not sure why you were running from Vicky to get Betty but I am figuring Betty was quite a catch.  It is nice to know that every Dad cares however after watching Jeremy Kyle (the UK equivalent to Jerry Springer), I might disagree.  Finally i am not sure what the hell Loyd was up to but at least we were taught to ask him nicely to stop.

I figured that loads of people learned to type this way but I have googled it and it seems like no typing method like this exists in the entire world…or at least that google knows about. 

I feel a bit dumb now as I spent a semester chanting about Aunt Zelda, Vicky and Lloyd…its’ like when Joey on Friends found out that not all tailors measure trouser inseams the way his does…

CHANDLER: Yo,  Can I talk to you for a sec? Your tailor is a very bad man.

JOEY: Frankie? What’re you talking about?

ROSS: Hey, what’s goin’ on?

CHANDLER: Joey’s tailor…took advantage of me.

ROSS: What?

JOEY: No way. I’ve been going to the guy for 12 years.

CHANDLER: He said he was going to do my inseam, and he ran his hand up my leg, and then, there was definite-

ROSS: What?

CHANDLER: Cupping.

JOEY: That’s how they do pants. First they go up one side, they move it over, they go up the other side, they move it back, and then they do the rear. What? Ross, Ross, would you tell him? Isn’t that how they measure pants?

ROSS: Yes, yes it is. In prison! Whats the matter with you?

JOEY: What? That’s not? Oh my god.