To be 29 on the 29th

"Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to meeeee...."

Ahem. And very nice weather for it, if I do say so myself. Jolly well organised on somebody's part.

Shark Infested Custard

Woman on mobile overheard at train station this evening - "well can I just bring some custard then?"

The mind boggles...

Hideous Ironies of Our Time

Cat brings in mouse.

Lift cat off mouse.

Turn to put cat down.

Mouse runs.

Step on mouse.

Ohhhhh.




PS: Fret not, he wasn't squished. Although I suspect he's now sitting on the compost heap going ohfuckohfuckohfuck

More TV wittering...

...because apparently I have no life.

So, firstly, full marks must go to Foyle's War for having Grumpy Farmer With Shotgun (TM) actually shout "gerrof moi land" at someone.

Sadly disappointed with Balderdash and Piffle, predominantly because Victoria Coren proves to be intensely irritating, but also because vast amounts of time are devoted to not actually discovering anything. Occasionally they throw in a snippet of very interesting information, but appear to be doing their best to hide it under pointless waffling and posturing. (Ooh, ooh, and why, on the 'P' programme, did they not cover Piffle? Gah.)

Found Help Yourself with Angus Deaton surprisingly funny - was fully expecting it to be too dreadful to watch, and to turn off after a few minutes, but the combination of Angus, the video captions and the sheer appallingness of the self-improvement videos (strangely, all American...) was bizarrely compelling.

Lastly, hurrah for the re-run of Due South just started on ITV3 (for anyone that reads Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, I have long imagined her cousin Vinny as Ray from Due South).

Government gives green light to brothels

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=374329&in_page_id=1770

Shouldn't that logically be a red light? Won't people get confused? Oh well.

A Token Protest

Is there a particular etiquette for the giving of particular 'types' of book tokens as change? Was mildly narked in the local (independent) bookshop today, when making a purchase with a national token, I was given one of their own as my pound change, rather than one I could spend anywhere in the universe. Obviously, being British, I wasn't going to object, and it wasn't exactly a terrible injustice, but I did suffer a vague "hey!" feeling.

This being the same shop that a couple of weeks ago managed to come up with the appropriate token in change, but took the additional penny from the till and left it sitting tantalisingly on the edge instead of handing it over with the token and receipt. Would have looked rather stingy to demand my rightful penny, but still. It's the little things that niggle.

However, in a spot of pleasing karmic over-balance on the part of the gods, today a lady promptly tapped me on the shoulder and said "I think you dropped this" and handed me a pound coin. Now I hadn't, I hadn't had my wallet change bit open, but there wasn't anyone else around that might have, so I said 'oh, thank you!'. And scarpered.

Wanna buy a haddock? One careful owner...

Were thwarted in our quest for walking-distance fisn 'n' chips the other night by the distressing discovery that they'd had a break in and someone had burgled their entire stock. Happily, tonight the aroma of hot fat and potato product once more fills the surrounding air, but beware of anyone offering you a bulk lot of batter bits on the cheap - there'll be something a bit fishy about it...

Hyperdrive

Well what a disappointing pile of tripe that was. Another 30 minutes of my life I'm not getting back - and I speak as someone for whom 'pile of tripe' is often a pre-requisite for watching something in the first place (yes, it was me who bought the Crime Traveller dvd...). Seems to have become the done thing lately to slag off Red Dwarf, but that used to make me laugh all the way through, as opposed to this, where I think I laughed exactly once in the whole show ("It's eating my crew!" - "Only the slow ones"). Verdict then - a criminal waste of a good cast.


On the flip side, am quite enjoying Invasion (although it's a bit slow), which I only started watching because it had Kari Matchett in it. And what's the sheriff been in? Or is it just that he looks like Tom Petty?

Rhubarbacardi

Next time you find yourself making a rhubarb crumble, should there chance to be an excess of rhubarb sugar syrup available, may I humbly suggest mixing it over ice with equal parts bacardi? It's really rather good....*hic*

Gah.

What does it? What makes someone go to all the trouble of getting the rights to dramatise a bestselling book only to change the story beyond all recognition? At what point do they think "I know this book sold ga-jillions, but what the plot should actually do is this instead, that's much better"? Was quite looking forward to the new Rebus the other night, despite being a John Hannah fan; was even willing to overlook the fact that Siobhan looked disconcertingly like Cully Barnaby from Midsomer Murders. Within a few seconds it was a case of "eh? don't remember that. why's she called that instead? and where's half the plot gone and why's what's left wrong?". Plus, taking out what they did, it being called 'The Falls' now made no sense at all. I shall, of course, watch the other one. But I reserve the right to whinge about it afterwards.

Have also just read Sahara by Clive Cussler, which the film, er, Sahara was based on. And I get the impression that if I'd read the book first, I'd have been similarly narked with the film, given that a good half of the plot is completely taken out and what's left is fannied about with. I still like the film though. I even think bits of it are better than the book. But if I'd read it first, I bet I wouldn't think that.