I was at the 99p store this weekend and saw these….gives a new meaning to ‘grow a pair’
FYI …Monkey Nuts in Canadian translates to shelled peanuts…you know the ones you get by the bucket at sports bars to much on during the hockey game then throw the shells on the floor of the bar? yeah, those ones. Not sure why you would ever want to grow them though, surely its easier to just go to the bar and eat them there.
The headline of the day over here is…
Um okay….urged? not illegal?
But, the best line in the article was this…
Five years old? Seriously? Mom , doesn’t this make it seem like less of a big deal that you found vodka in my room when I was 16?
Source: BBC News
Yesterday was the hubby’s birthday and since he isn’t turning anything with a zero at the end of it he doesn’t’ get any surprise trips to Malta this year. The opposite in fact, due to the credit crunch this fiscally responsible man has asked for no presents or fuss. Obviously he really means still make a fuss just don’t spend as much this year….well, that is what I heard anyway. So I bought him a few odds and ends and took him out for his favourite restaurant, Nandos.
If you aren’t familiar, Nandos is like the (smaller) spicy Portuguese cousin to Swiss Chalet. Essentially they have a similar menu (quarter, half and whole chickens) with your choice of sides (fries, corn, coleslaw etc) then you choose the chicken marinade depending on how spicy you like your food. The options range from lemon and herb (remember, in England pronounce that ‘H’ in ‘Herb’) up to extra hot. One thing to note however is that their chickens are quite a bit smaller than Swiss Chalet which makes it perfectly acceptable for one person to eat a whole chicken (or at least that is what the hubby tells himself)
Being the adventurous eater I am…I opted for plain cause I even find that the least spicy option, lemon and herb, has a kick (yes, I find pepper spicy, thanks for asking). Although the hubby went for extra spicy then drowned it in more spicy sauce…thankfully they have free drink refills which he took full advantage of.
As the wise Paula Abdul once sang…Opposites Attract
Yeah so the other week the boss was going through the stationary order with our office manager and just before he left the room he yelled, ‘and don’t forget a box of rubbers’. At which point I spat out my tea and almost died laughing – um, in Canada rubbers are definitely not what you use to correct mistakes….actually, they are something you use to prevent mistakes.
Would have been funny though if I was doing the order and the boss found ‘Canadian rubbers’ next to the toner and post it notes…talk about an interesting water cooler conversation!
For the record a colleague of mine had the same tea spitting experience when I was telling her a story about this loud tourist I saw wearing a fanny pack….apparently here the word fanny is used to describe girl parts that reside below one’s belt. Anyway from here on in I am to use the term bum bag, although thankfully I don’t tend to find myself telling too many stories including the 80’s clip on waist accessory.
One of the worst television adverts I have seen….mainly because my stiff North American upbringing makes me cringe at the word poo, which is used way too much in this ad.
I thought I misheard it the first time round but luckily saw it again and got the video to prove it…see what I do for you blog readers? Enjoy…or don’t…just make the kid stop saying POO in his posh little accent
If you liked that one, I had the same cringeworthy reaction to the word pee in this advert
You know those memories you have as a kid and you aren’t sure if they were real or if you made them up? Well I was talking at work about a TV show I used to watch as a kid that had talking hamsters, rats and turtles. After the strange looks I got from colleagues, I wondered if I had made this up and that I really hadn’t seen such a show.
Thanks to the internet and some savvy Googling I was able to find it…it was called Tales of the Riverbank and was a fine example of Canadian television (which was eventually sold to the BBC)….ages before Babe the talking pig, Canadians made rodents and other strange small animals tell stories, write notes and ride cars. See below for a steller example….although I am a wee bit disappointed as I remembered their mouths moved with the words. No wonder I always wanted a hamster
Here’s a nice one for you optimists…today is Blue Monday which the UK papers have claimed might possibly be the most depressing day in history (that is a bit harsh don’t you think?). Apparently the weather, lack of daylight, fading Christmas memories, broken new years resolutions, the fact that it is a Monday and the current economic condition have all contributed to why today is so gloomy.
I actually haven’t found it to be that bad, it is a little chilly and I have always hated Mondays but I think my porridge hit on me this morning…
Tuck in & enjoy hot stuff!
So I was playing around on ticketmaster to find some theatre tickets because sadly in the (nearly) three years we have been here we haven’t seen nearly enough of the brilliant theatre London has to offer.
Anyhoo all that aside, I had to fill out one of those verification screens and it made me laugh….
Is not a saucepan, or a dustpan its an assapan.
By this point I had completely abandoned my ticket research and was trying to figure out if assapan was a real word because I had always thought that these verification things were just random letters - not words…in which case I thought they would remove ’swear’ word combinations.
Anyhoo I was wrong and after googling assapan I found out that an assapan is in fact, an American flying squirrel. Take THAT to your pub quiz (and all you 7 year olds who aren’t allowed to swear can use this word when you see a flying squirrel without getting in trouble…..although if you did see a real life flying squirrel you may actually be able to swear cause that’s freaky).
Since I was a kid I always walked with my head down…not sure why, i guess maybe i walk better when I actually witness my feet doing the left, right, left right thing. Anyhoo my lack of confidence careful foot observation (CFO) has actually proven to be a benefit in this city that has giant gaping holes in their sidewalks (or pavement they call it).
Because most of the houses and shops in London are built in a row with few ‘alleys’ between them allowing you to get round back, it is hard for delivery drivers to make deliveries to the back door as they do at home. As a result, many pubs and stores (mainly pubs) have trap doors out front on the sidewalk that open up and allow you to deliver goods (kegs) directly into the basement. This is all fine and well except for the fact that besides the big doors up in the air there really is a 6ft by 6ft gap in the sidewalk.
Although those kegs look like they were set up as a safety mechanic they weren't the dude just dropped them like that
I have come across these open trap doors a few other times and every time there is just a big gaping hole with no pylons, caution tape or person in a reflective jumper telling me to watch out for the hole. At home, if there was a hole in the sidewalk about to eat you, there would be blinking lights, sirens, detour signs and a police escort hired to walk you around the hole ensuring no one falls in and sues the pub.
The safety hazard outside of my office
I think here they know that any bodily harm can be easily paid off by giving the injured patron a lifetime supply of beer…works for me. Unfortunately since i keep such good tabs on my feet while walking, I haven’t had such a traumatic event and don’t have any pubs intoxicating me to prevent me from suing them…there is always time though.
This weekend we didn’t get up to much except for our own Great New York bagel hunt. For some reason the hubby woke up on Saturday craving a bagel…but not just any bagel, the New York style bagel (yes, I too think he is pregnant). He remembered hearing from one of our friends that there was a place that made these in London so he did some serious internet searching and found Beigel Bake on Brick Lane (Brick Lane is normally where you go for curry). The added bonus was that not only does this place specialise in Bagels but it also serves salt beef which is another one of the hubby’s faves (aka Montreal smoked meat).
So we headed out for Biegel Bake (evidently Biegel is the East London way to spell bagel) on what seemed like the coldest day of the year…even for two Canadians we were dressed in layers with a hat and scarf and still froze. While waiting for the tube we saw this poster….guess it is a pretty popular place if tube adverts are talking about it.
Anyhoo we walked for a while down Brick Lane as in all the excitement, hubby neglected to take note of the address. We eventually found it and couldn’t help but love it. First of all literally all they had were bagels, it is open 7 days a week 24 hours a day AND, it was packed. Who would have thought that bagels were so popular, people were buying them by the dozen. We joined the crowd and got some bagles and each wolfed down a salt beef sandwich in the process.
Overall the bagel aficionado said they were good but not as good as Montreal bagels or Montreal smoked meat sandwiches but it filled his craving which is a good thing and now we have enough bagels to last us through the rest of the month. Like Relais de Venise, I think its a great example of a restaurant choosing a few things they are good at and sticking to them rather than trying to be all things for all stomachs….worked for us!
