It’s been bloody cold in London lately – like colder than it has been for the past 15 years and cold enough for a Canadian to complain.  Temperature wise it has been hovering around zero degrees celsius which isn’t really that cold compared to the -30 of Canadian winters past but the problem here is that a) I don’t have a car so have to walk everywhere so  you are outside more and b) we have a horrible excuse for heating called radiators.

Dont’ get me wrong, radiators are great at heating up your towel for you when you get out of the shower and for drying clothes but for heating a room they are as useful as a screen door on a submarine.  It heats the 6 inch area around the radiator but doesn’t exactly project heat throughout the room like our fancy ‘forced heat’ system at home.

Obviously one entrepreneurial genius realised this and made one of the coziest gadget things I have seen in a long time.  The radiator cat bed.

I am not a fan of cats and if this had a dog in it I would be absolutely drooling over it but all I can think of is throwing out that cat and trying to fit on it myself  (because yes, I am that short), or using the cat as some sort of a warm cat neck pillow.  Which makes me think that someone needs to create a human sized one – kind of like a radiator hammock.   If I could just figure out how to make it strong enough to hold a real person I could make a mint. Until then I will continue to wear my hat and mitts indoors but enjoy my warm towel in the morning.

As expected the last few days have been full of best, worst, most influential, most annoying etc..countdowns from the last year and last decade.  The thing that confused me was that on all of the British versions of the shows they were calling these the countdowns of the naughties which made me think they were either saying ‘nineties’ and that these shows were from last decade or that they were counting down ‘naughty’ scandals from the past 10 years.  It wasn’t until I saw the word written down and realised they were talking about the ‘Noughties’ as in the word nought meaning zero (ie the car goes nought to sixty in 5 seconds).

Apparently the last decade – because they began with a zero – in the UK were named the noughties (unbeknownst to me or anyone else whom doesn’t’ count nought as a word in their vocabulary). I am presuming the next decade will be the teens in which case I hope the next ten years are as fun as your teens originally were with fewer growing pains and a later curfew – bring on 2010.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas – as usually I was spoiled and most of the things I got were wonderfully gadgetty and techy which means I will basically be hibernating until spring trying to figure them out.

After speaking to my friends about their Christmases it seems that one of the faves from last year made a re-appearance as I have had a few friends who have (happily and unhappily) received a Snuggie (aka Slanket) but this year it seems the product has evolved.  Now this fetching wearable blanket comes in themes…like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (seriously?  did someone just wake up from a 20 year coma and think these guys were still popular – it was probably a toss up between the turtles and He-Man) as well as come in your favourite college team print.  There was a Snuggie runway fashion show and various snuggie pub crawls have popped up (I would sooo go to one of those, mine has a custom pocket which could probably hold a bottle of wine or beer).

My favourite spinoff by far is the doggie snuggie - mainly cause I love anything to do with making animals or kids look ridiculous.  I don’t see how it is much different than a normal dog coat or warmer than, I don’t know, their FUR however I am so broody for a dog that the dog snuggie makes me want both a dog and a dog snuggie. 

Better still is the free talking dog tag you get free with your purchase  – cause everyone loves recording messages and pretending it is actually their dog talking.  ‘Hi my name is Tilly, my owner regularly humiliates me by dressing me in a snuggie, I have run away so please adopt me and do not return me to 123 main street’

On Christmas Day it seems traditional in a few countries to huddle around the TV at some point to watch some sort of Christmas special.  In Sweden I learnt that it is traditional to watch a  Bugs Bunny episode with the family on Christmas Day and in England it seems there is always some gripping Doctor Who episode where someone retires/leaves/dies or the Queen’s Royal Christmas address (which doesn’t include the aforementioned retiring/leaving/dying).

In my house it was the yule log…for those who may not have seen it before it is a video of a burning fire with the added feature of Christmas tunes playing in the background.  Generally on Christmas morning one of the local TV channels forgoes playing 1980’s sitcom reruns to play this video on loop  It is actually the is perfect atmosphere for present opening and if you sit close enough to the TV you can actually feel the heat from the flames.

Whether you are watching the Queen, Bugs Bunny or burning logs tomorrow morning like us, I hope you have a lovely Christmas Day.

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So despite the 1cm of snow in London my parents have arrived this side of the pond and are seemingly enjoying the trip so far.  They are also reminding me of all the Christmassy words that the English invented but didn’t export to Canada.  Regular readers (Mom and Auntie L) will recoignise these from last year - its my re-gift to you.

Sledge – not as in a hammer (sledge hammer) but it actually the snow toy used to glide effortlessly down hills and into rivers/trees aka a sled

Christmas Pud – ‘Pud’ being the short form for pudding which is dessert so this is your Christmas dessert which is usually a heavy cake like a fruitcake which they pour brandy over and light on fire…sounds like a party to me – just don’t let gran get to close.

Santa’s Grotto – sadly not some dirty area where Santa plays poker and smokes cigars like I pictured but the place in a store/mall where Santa spends most of December listening to spoiled children tell him what new game console and mp3 player they want.

Gritters – machines which dispense sand on slippery roads – currently they do not have enough gritters t deal with the ‘arctic freeze’ which is sweeping across the country so we are hearing this word a lot.

Baubles - the round ornaments you hang on a tree – aka Christmas balls in our household although that does sound a bit odd now that I repeat it.

Lapland - the area in the North Pole where Santa lives.  Apparently they were not comfortable giving Canadians Santa’s actual address as we were lead to believe he lived somewhere on this giant frozen mass, we weren’t aware that there was a more specific address – that could explain a lot.

Little Donkey - a popular (horrible) Christmas song that is just irritating enough to get stuck in your head even if you know no other words other than ‘little donkey’.

I leave you with a clip of a school choir singing it.  Pay particular attention to the terribly unrealistic soap bubble snow that is burning the eyes out of these poor kids – hilarious (in a festive sort of way)

Saw this ad on TV the other day and thought it was pretty clever.  Loving the free in-built games and pen touch technology.  They did  forget to mention that it does not come with parental controls as Page 3 is pretty accessible to anyone skilled enough to open a paper.  To clarify, (from Wikipedia)  – Page 3 is a feature found in British tabloid newspapers The Sun (and The Daily Star) consisting of a topless or even nude photograph of a female glamour model traditionally published on the newspaper’s third page.

They might want to look into password protecting that section in future or offer a PG-13 version like in Canadian papers.

This seems like ancient  news now but I  came across this report by a Chinese TV station showing of the ‘original’ Tiger Woods scandal of the car accident and domestic dispute but they dont just report on it, they reinact it using CGI!  Its like Grand Theft Auto meets Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009 for Xbox.

How much more fun would the news be if they re-inacted everything?  Makes our news reports with aerial views of his crumpled car seem pretty lame.  Wonder how they are reporting on his 14+ mistresses??

The best bit is at 50 seconds when they add in the domestic before the crash….

Some pictures from my recent outings around London this Christmas (while oot and aboot as we say).

Having trouble finding that special dress for your work Christmas Party….I think I found it.

"No of course you don't look too Christmassy in that dress, red and green is the new black'

Speaking of work Christmas parties, this year we went to Somerset house and went skating at their outdoor ice rink.  We hit on an absolutely fabulous day and thankfully my Canadian-ness kicked in enabling me to skate for almost a full hour without falling.  It was pretty surreal though as at home if you are at an outdoor rink it is usually much colder  (-15C (5F)or so) and you are in ski pants so if you did fall you’d have some padding.

See, it doesn't always rain in London, it was sunny enough that the ice was melting in places

Speaking of ice (wow how good am I at the ’segue’ today – I actually thought it was spelt ’segway’ like the ride on thing) I was passing through St Pancras station (big train station where the Eurostar leaves from) and they were doing this fancy ice sculpture of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben.  The first pictures is at 8:00am and the second is at 6:00pm.

8:00am...

6:00pm, Eiffel tower looking slightly less impressive....funny how Big Ben seemed to survive the afternoon

Finally no segue  here but I couldn’t resist taking a picture in the station of this ad….this might be a collectors item since accenture has since pulled this campaign.  I can’t help thinking that you need to add ‘in bed’ to these poster tag lines like you do for fortune cookies to make them more relevant.

....in bed

Love this…although am feeling a bit old as when the camera pans around the lecture hall, everyone has a laptop!  Seriously?   I can’t imagine having a computer in class, I would be too busy tweeting/blogging/msn’ing to pay any sort of attention.  Back in my day it was all about hand written lecture notes…and if you wanted to ‘message’ someone you ripped a page out of your book and it at them…if you wanted to be fancy, you folded it like an airplane.

PS I am aware it s Saturday but WTF? Saturday doesn’t have the same ring….

I love gadgetty gimmicks and I am particularly interested in anti wrinkle creams since my big 31st is next week and my ‘laugh lines’ seem to be getting more prominent every day.

Having said that it’s no surprise that I would love a product that combines the two however I am more drawn to the ridiculousness of this gimmick than any belief that it works.  Would anyone really believe that this ‘alien with outstretched arms delivering a 40 point massage’ will do anything more than make your wallet £15 lighter?

A new window will open when you watch the video as I couldn’t find it in a fancy embed-able format