My family are noted for their sobriety and abstemiousness
The recent office party was no exception, and I'm proud to have upheld the reputation of the family.
The plan was that we would take the afternoon of Friday the 22nd off and start our Christmas celebrations. We had chosen the Bull, mainly because they sell bottles of wine for a fiver
I arrived at the Bull early, so had a cider to start with, together with a rather interesting Steak and Ale pie. It wasn't so much the pie that was interesting, more the gravy, which was the consistency of custard and had a skin on it that a rhinocerous would be jealous of.
But I ate it.
Eventually the others arrived, and we ordered our wine. The wine turned out to worth every penny of the £5 that we'd spent, and Tammy was grateful when the Sales Director turned up and bought us another (better) bottle. In a chivalrous mood, I finished off the first bottle so that Tammy could have the good stuff.
1 bottle down
Tammy was going a bit slow on the second bottle, so I helped her out. It was a bit hot in the pub, so I was drinking faster than she was.
1 and a half bottles down.
By this time everyone had arrived, we put our money into the kitty and this then turned into a number of bottles of wine (amongst other things). We moved on to the pool table, played a few games, and every so often someone would replenish my glass.
By the time we left the pub I was probably 2 and a half bottles full
We made our way to the Merchants pub, where I had my usual pint of Stowford Press Cider (6% proof). At 8.00pm I realised I had to catch my train, downed the rest of the pint and made my way (staggered?) to the station.
2 and a half bottles plus a pint of cider full
Now. I remember catching the train. A bit of detective work proves that I caught the train. The 8.20 train. To Birmingham.
I woke up at 11.00 in Northampton.
There are some of you that don't know what this means. Central trains runs a shuttle service between Northampton and Birmingham, a journey of about 1 hour 15 minutes, calling at about 9 stations in between, including Rugby.
To arrive at Northampton I must have slept through the 6 station stops to Birmingham, slept through the turn around at Birmingham and slept through the 9 stops back to Northampton.
Wow. The thing is, when I woke up I didn't feel plastered. I was quite capable of planning the return journey (interesting in its own right, given that the last train from Rugby is 10:20). I had a mild headache but that was it.
I must drink wine more often.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Up the Pyg, down the Miners - Pt3 - the descent
Just to finish off the account of the stag weekend (although I've delayed this a bit, mainly because it touches on a subject that is not normally found in the annals of great literature - namely - 'What Do You Do When You're Caught Short On A Mountain?')
In my previous missive I had mentioned the fish and chips of the previous night. We had called in about 6.00pm to check what time he'd be open "Until 10:45" he said. "OK", we said, "We'll be back at 9.00". We said this clearly and in English (which may have been a mistake, seeing as we were in Wales). At 9.00 we duly turned up. "Fish and chips", I said. "You want it now?", the bloke said, obviously taken by surprise by this unusual request. On hearing the affirmative, he shrugged and poured the bucket of chips into the lukewarm fat. The fish was unusual (basically Southern Fried rubber) and the chips were - well - greasy. I ate the fish and 5 chips.
So; We have (rather slowly) ascended the heights of Snowdon, along with what appeared to be the rest of the UK. We have sat down for our lunch. We have admired the view
After a well earned lunch we set off for the bottom. At this point the kentucky fried fish woke my intestines up and said "I want to get out NOW!". Oh dear. It's very hard to clamber down a mountain realising that what you really want is a nice sit down toilet. Besides which, the soles of my boots started to come off (they are pretty old) so I was adopting the rather interesting walking gait of someone descending a steep slope, buttocks clenched and attempting not to trip over my boots.
The problem was that Snowdon seems a bit short on toilets. What's more, it's a bit short on privacy. And there were a lot of people on the mountain. In addition (given the nature of Snowdon), there weren't any rocks that I could hide behind without some small kid somewhere asking "Daddy, why's that man sitting down?".
So I slowly made my way down the Miner's track. I regard this descent as one of the major achievements of my life. The Miner's track is not so much a track as a series of small cliffs. Every so often you launch yourself off a small ledge onto the bit below. If you couple this with some rather attentive intestines and a pair of flapping boot soles a clown would be proud of you can imagine that every stage of the descent required concentration and willpower worthy of a seventh level Karma acolyte.
Eventually I reached the lake at the bottom of the descent. I won't go into great detail here; suffice to say that there were old mine workings here that provided some shelter, in spite of the curiosity of some of the walkers: "Daddy, why is that man running into that building in such a funny fashion?"
The next paragraph is not for the faint hearted, but is necessary to dispel vicious and unfounded rumours spread around. We had had cheese sandwiches for lunch. I still had some left over. I have to point out to those who doubt that cheese sandwiches are completely unnecessary when there is a lot of long, fine grass around. And grass is a lot more eco friendly. I even have the sandwiches, still in their plastic bag, to prove this.
Ok, glad to clear that up. In a manner of speaking
I enjoyed the rest of the walk. The soles on my boots still flapped, but I was as light as a feather, able to take in the sights around me and not worry if the next step would bring social disaster.
If only I could get rid of that rumour about the use I put the cheese sandwiches to I would be really happy.
In my previous missive I had mentioned the fish and chips of the previous night. We had called in about 6.00pm to check what time he'd be open "Until 10:45" he said. "OK", we said, "We'll be back at 9.00". We said this clearly and in English (which may have been a mistake, seeing as we were in Wales). At 9.00 we duly turned up. "Fish and chips", I said. "You want it now?", the bloke said, obviously taken by surprise by this unusual request. On hearing the affirmative, he shrugged and poured the bucket of chips into the lukewarm fat. The fish was unusual (basically Southern Fried rubber) and the chips were - well - greasy. I ate the fish and 5 chips.
So; We have (rather slowly) ascended the heights of Snowdon, along with what appeared to be the rest of the UK. We have sat down for our lunch. We have admired the view
After a well earned lunch we set off for the bottom. At this point the kentucky fried fish woke my intestines up and said "I want to get out NOW!". Oh dear. It's very hard to clamber down a mountain realising that what you really want is a nice sit down toilet. Besides which, the soles of my boots started to come off (they are pretty old) so I was adopting the rather interesting walking gait of someone descending a steep slope, buttocks clenched and attempting not to trip over my boots.
The problem was that Snowdon seems a bit short on toilets. What's more, it's a bit short on privacy. And there were a lot of people on the mountain. In addition (given the nature of Snowdon), there weren't any rocks that I could hide behind without some small kid somewhere asking "Daddy, why's that man sitting down?".
So I slowly made my way down the Miner's track. I regard this descent as one of the major achievements of my life. The Miner's track is not so much a track as a series of small cliffs. Every so often you launch yourself off a small ledge onto the bit below. If you couple this with some rather attentive intestines and a pair of flapping boot soles a clown would be proud of you can imagine that every stage of the descent required concentration and willpower worthy of a seventh level Karma acolyte.
Eventually I reached the lake at the bottom of the descent. I won't go into great detail here; suffice to say that there were old mine workings here that provided some shelter, in spite of the curiosity of some of the walkers: "Daddy, why is that man running into that building in such a funny fashion?"
The next paragraph is not for the faint hearted, but is necessary to dispel vicious and unfounded rumours spread around. We had had cheese sandwiches for lunch. I still had some left over. I have to point out to those who doubt that cheese sandwiches are completely unnecessary when there is a lot of long, fine grass around. And grass is a lot more eco friendly. I even have the sandwiches, still in their plastic bag, to prove this.
Ok, glad to clear that up. In a manner of speaking
I enjoyed the rest of the walk. The soles on my boots still flapped, but I was as light as a feather, able to take in the sights around me and not worry if the next step would bring social disaster.
If only I could get rid of that rumour about the use I put the cheese sandwiches to I would be really happy.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Up the Pyg, down the Miners - Pt2 - the ascent
The stag weekend went well.
I will gloss over the Friday night, where we visited the local pub and met the locals. All I will say is that the local girls were terrifying, so much so that we let them beat us at darts just in case they got offended. "Let the Wookie win", as Dave said, quoting a scene from Star Wars, before realising that this itself wasn't the most complimentary thing he could have uttered.
I will only touch lightly on the local fish and chip shop, whose specialty was potatoes drenched in lukewarm fat (I would hesitate to use the word 'cooked'). This is worth an article in itself, so I'll leave this for another time. Suffice to say that I maintain that it was the Fish That Was To Blame for subsequent events.
And so Saturday dawned. We had a light breakfast (Sausages, bacon, black pudding, eggs, beans, tomatoes, toast - just the sort of thing after a Hard Night On The Town - Ok - village - OK, one pub and a chip shop). Preparing breakfast had the added advantage that the fire alarm went off, waking everyone (for some reason they had seen fit to put a smoke detector immediately above the stove, with obvious consequences). Finally there was the preparation for lunch (cheese, ham, bread, mars bars, no healthy fruit rubbish for us men)
And so we set off for Snowdon.
At this point I realised that something was wrong. I've walked up Snowdon many times in the past, and on every occasion there's been cloud. The rest of Britain might be baking in blazing hot sunshine and global warming but you can guarantee one thing; Snowdon will have a cloud hovering on the top. It's the sort of holiday destination for clouds. They go to Manchester for the shopping and Snowdon for the weekend (although those clouds not wanting to go foreen parts go to the Lake district and the clouds in Scotland never go on holiday - they just sit there and drizzle)
Not this day. It was bright, sunny and hot. We could have fried our breakfast on the rocks, and wouldn't have had to worry about the fire alarm.
So we set off. There had been a bit of debate about when to bring the doll out and blow her up, and we felt that doing this in front of the party of schoolkids that had disgorged from the bus with us would not be entirely appropriate, so we walked a little way up the path before pulling her out and revealing Andy's companion for his climb up Snowdon. We had planned on filling her with helium but eventually decided that she was probably too heavy to float and would most likely leak, so Dave and Ben took turns blowing her up; Dave, clearly out of practice, managed a few puffs before Ben, obviously highly proficient in this, finished her off. Aware that we should preserve some decency we dressed her in an oversize T shirt judiciously fastened with a safety pin, then strapped her to Andy's back. It was important to make this secure. We had visions of losing her over a cliff and the mountain rescue being called out to rescue this poor girl trapped on a ledge.
And off we went. We had been a bit concerned about how the other walkers would react. We needn't have bothered. In fact, we realised that we were doing a service to mankind. The nice old ladies who passed us shouted with glee; we had several requests for photos; we must have improved the sex education of a number of kids. "Daddy, what's that?", they would say. "Ask your mother", would come the reply. It was quite fun walking a few hundred yards behind Andy since by the time the people got to us they felt they were out of earshot and could comment. Three guys dressed in viking costume clearly felt that they'd been upstaged. The Americans felt that they had been confirmed in their opinion of the eccentric Englishmen; a few wondered about what would happen at the top (speculation on the Mile High Club was voiced). One kid asked "Why's he got a dolly on his back?"; "it's a punishment" Dad replied. We explained that it was a stag weekend. "That's what I meant" he said. We only got two lukewarm reactions. One from the father of the 5 year old boy who had been inquisitive enough to ask to hold the dolly "Come on son, we've got to go" was dad's hasty response. The other was from the Asian father out with his mother, wife and daughter, clearly disapproving on behalf of his family (His wife and daughter were killing themselves laughing when he wasn't looking).
And so the climb continued. I've climbed Snowdon before, but at this point I realised that something had changed. Quite clearly the mountain had grown. It had become taller and steeper. This is the only explanation for the puffing and wheezing that I was experiencing. It obviously had nothing to do with age, lard, or the 50lbs of wet weather gear I was hiking in my rucksack to deal with the inevitable rain, wind and snow. Jon pretended he had bad knees and shadowed me, making sure that I didn't drop dead with a heart attack. I borrowed a baseball cap off John (my woolly hat was a bit too hot) and then ran out of water. At last the top loomed into sight and the cloud descended. "That's more like it", I thought and as if to be bloody minded, the cloud lifted again, leaving a glorious view out towards the north east.
I arrived too late to be part of the group photo. This was taken at the top together with the blow up doll and several hundred people doing a double take and saying "what the hell's that?" (or in the case of small children "Daddy, why has that doll got her mouth open?"). I said several hundred people. It appears that most of Britain had realised that this was a once in a lifetime event to be up on Snowdon and be able to see the bottom, with the result that the top was a wee bit crowded. If they'd all jumped up and down a bit they could have flattened the mountain down to its normal size and made my life a bit easier. But they hadn't and I'd reached the top anyway. All I had to do now was reach the bottom.
But that's another story
I will gloss over the Friday night, where we visited the local pub and met the locals. All I will say is that the local girls were terrifying, so much so that we let them beat us at darts just in case they got offended. "Let the Wookie win", as Dave said, quoting a scene from Star Wars, before realising that this itself wasn't the most complimentary thing he could have uttered.
I will only touch lightly on the local fish and chip shop, whose specialty was potatoes drenched in lukewarm fat (I would hesitate to use the word 'cooked'). This is worth an article in itself, so I'll leave this for another time. Suffice to say that I maintain that it was the Fish That Was To Blame for subsequent events.
And so Saturday dawned. We had a light breakfast (Sausages, bacon, black pudding, eggs, beans, tomatoes, toast - just the sort of thing after a Hard Night On The Town - Ok - village - OK, one pub and a chip shop). Preparing breakfast had the added advantage that the fire alarm went off, waking everyone (for some reason they had seen fit to put a smoke detector immediately above the stove, with obvious consequences). Finally there was the preparation for lunch (cheese, ham, bread, mars bars, no healthy fruit rubbish for us men)
And so we set off for Snowdon.
At this point I realised that something was wrong. I've walked up Snowdon many times in the past, and on every occasion there's been cloud. The rest of Britain might be baking in blazing hot sunshine and global warming but you can guarantee one thing; Snowdon will have a cloud hovering on the top. It's the sort of holiday destination for clouds. They go to Manchester for the shopping and Snowdon for the weekend (although those clouds not wanting to go foreen parts go to the Lake district and the clouds in Scotland never go on holiday - they just sit there and drizzle)
Not this day. It was bright, sunny and hot. We could have fried our breakfast on the rocks, and wouldn't have had to worry about the fire alarm.
So we set off. There had been a bit of debate about when to bring the doll out and blow her up, and we felt that doing this in front of the party of schoolkids that had disgorged from the bus with us would not be entirely appropriate, so we walked a little way up the path before pulling her out and revealing Andy's companion for his climb up Snowdon. We had planned on filling her with helium but eventually decided that she was probably too heavy to float and would most likely leak, so Dave and Ben took turns blowing her up; Dave, clearly out of practice, managed a few puffs before Ben, obviously highly proficient in this, finished her off. Aware that we should preserve some decency we dressed her in an oversize T shirt judiciously fastened with a safety pin, then strapped her to Andy's back. It was important to make this secure. We had visions of losing her over a cliff and the mountain rescue being called out to rescue this poor girl trapped on a ledge.
And off we went. We had been a bit concerned about how the other walkers would react. We needn't have bothered. In fact, we realised that we were doing a service to mankind. The nice old ladies who passed us shouted with glee; we had several requests for photos; we must have improved the sex education of a number of kids. "Daddy, what's that?", they would say. "Ask your mother", would come the reply. It was quite fun walking a few hundred yards behind Andy since by the time the people got to us they felt they were out of earshot and could comment. Three guys dressed in viking costume clearly felt that they'd been upstaged. The Americans felt that they had been confirmed in their opinion of the eccentric Englishmen; a few wondered about what would happen at the top (speculation on the Mile High Club was voiced). One kid asked "Why's he got a dolly on his back?"; "it's a punishment" Dad replied. We explained that it was a stag weekend. "That's what I meant" he said. We only got two lukewarm reactions. One from the father of the 5 year old boy who had been inquisitive enough to ask to hold the dolly "Come on son, we've got to go" was dad's hasty response. The other was from the Asian father out with his mother, wife and daughter, clearly disapproving on behalf of his family (His wife and daughter were killing themselves laughing when he wasn't looking).
And so the climb continued. I've climbed Snowdon before, but at this point I realised that something had changed. Quite clearly the mountain had grown. It had become taller and steeper. This is the only explanation for the puffing and wheezing that I was experiencing. It obviously had nothing to do with age, lard, or the 50lbs of wet weather gear I was hiking in my rucksack to deal with the inevitable rain, wind and snow. Jon pretended he had bad knees and shadowed me, making sure that I didn't drop dead with a heart attack. I borrowed a baseball cap off John (my woolly hat was a bit too hot) and then ran out of water. At last the top loomed into sight and the cloud descended. "That's more like it", I thought and as if to be bloody minded, the cloud lifted again, leaving a glorious view out towards the north east.
I arrived too late to be part of the group photo. This was taken at the top together with the blow up doll and several hundred people doing a double take and saying "what the hell's that?" (or in the case of small children "Daddy, why has that doll got her mouth open?"). I said several hundred people. It appears that most of Britain had realised that this was a once in a lifetime event to be up on Snowdon and be able to see the bottom, with the result that the top was a wee bit crowded. If they'd all jumped up and down a bit they could have flattened the mountain down to its normal size and made my life a bit easier. But they hadn't and I'd reached the top anyway. All I had to do now was reach the bottom.
But that's another story
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Up the Pyg, down the Miners. Pt1 - the accessory
For those of you who are completely puzzled as to what I'm talking about, these are tracks on Mt Snowdon in Wales. We walked up Snowdon as part of a stag weekend. Apparently we had two choices:
We could either go to Newcastle and spend our nights clubbing, drinking, having a good time and suspending Andy naked from the Tyne bridge, or we could climb Snowdon.
We of course chose the latter.
Now there's some method in our madness. It can be summed up in one word - Age - or as Dave put it - "when I go clubbing I'm old enough to be their father". (Or in my case, their grandfather).
So we spent the weekend in Wales instead. Andy is a member of a mountain club, so we rented out their cottage in a nice Welsh village. We bought the necessary supplies - food, plenty of beer and cider, cards, blow up doll from the sex shop.
At this point I can see you rereading the last sentence. Now I must admit, sex dolls are not on your average list of things to take when walking the mountains. However, it was a stag weekend and we thought it would be funny (we are men) if Andy trailed a sex doll up Snowdon. Given that Rugby seems to be a bit short on sex shops I volunteered to do the duty in Birmingham.
So there I am, blithely walking into this shop as if it's my local grocers. Now, I do realise that I'd got it all wrong. I was inappropriately dressed (just came from work and I don't own a greasy macintosh anyway) and I should have walked up and down the road a bit before sidling into the shop. So I walked in, cheerfully nodded at the other people in the shop (who desperately tried to avoid eye contact) and searched the shelves for sex dolls.
It turned out there were a whole two rows of shelves with the things. They ranged from £25 to £135 and apparently I could have also bought an Antonio as well (See, the Sex Equality Act has reached the sex industry as well). I have to say that the pictures on the front were quite stunning; the products looked very real and the more expensive ones were ranged in quite provocative poses.
At this point the Sales assistant sidled up to me and asked if I wanted any help. "Oh no", I said loudly, (realising immediately that speaking in anything above a whisper is this sort of shop is Not The Done Thing) - "all I want is a doll to take up Snowdon". You could tell that I had the attention of everyone in the shop; you could almost see them thinking "What's this? - A new and exciting fetish to waken up a jaded (or perhaps lonely) sex life?'. I went on to explain about the stag weekend and the sales assistant deflated a bit. You could tell that he was all prepared to talk about realism, strength, durability and whatever other qualities differentiate the 25 quid model from the 135 quid one (I never did find out). He didn't even ask if I wanted an Antonio. No, all I wanted a sex doll to trail up Snowdon and the cheaper the better.
So the deal was done.
Back to the Sales counter where I asked if they took plastic (credit cards for the foreigners reading this). "Er, I think so", said the shop assistant, frantically hunting for the machine. Again, I assume that this is not a usual thing, although I would have thought that at 135 quid you'd need to pay by plastic for the top of the range model. The deal was done. "I'll tell you what", said the shop assistant. "I'll throw in a pack of cards for free". You could tell he was completely flustered as the cards cost 5 quid and you would not get these ones down at your local branch of Toys R Us. "I'll wrap it up well" he said and tripled bagged the thing in the sort of bag that looks so anonymous that it yells "This bloke's just been to a sex shop!".
The purchase went down well with the lads. "Have you road tested it yet?", they asked. "Nope , she's still in her plastic bag - I was leaving it to when we were in a group", I replied.
So she went into a drawer to await the big weekend.
To be continued...
We could either go to Newcastle and spend our nights clubbing, drinking, having a good time and suspending Andy naked from the Tyne bridge, or we could climb Snowdon.
We of course chose the latter.
Now there's some method in our madness. It can be summed up in one word - Age - or as Dave put it - "when I go clubbing I'm old enough to be their father". (Or in my case, their grandfather).
So we spent the weekend in Wales instead. Andy is a member of a mountain club, so we rented out their cottage in a nice Welsh village. We bought the necessary supplies - food, plenty of beer and cider, cards, blow up doll from the sex shop.
At this point I can see you rereading the last sentence. Now I must admit, sex dolls are not on your average list of things to take when walking the mountains. However, it was a stag weekend and we thought it would be funny (we are men) if Andy trailed a sex doll up Snowdon. Given that Rugby seems to be a bit short on sex shops I volunteered to do the duty in Birmingham.
So there I am, blithely walking into this shop as if it's my local grocers. Now, I do realise that I'd got it all wrong. I was inappropriately dressed (just came from work and I don't own a greasy macintosh anyway) and I should have walked up and down the road a bit before sidling into the shop. So I walked in, cheerfully nodded at the other people in the shop (who desperately tried to avoid eye contact) and searched the shelves for sex dolls.
It turned out there were a whole two rows of shelves with the things. They ranged from £25 to £135 and apparently I could have also bought an Antonio as well (See, the Sex Equality Act has reached the sex industry as well). I have to say that the pictures on the front were quite stunning; the products looked very real and the more expensive ones were ranged in quite provocative poses.
At this point the Sales assistant sidled up to me and asked if I wanted any help. "Oh no", I said loudly, (realising immediately that speaking in anything above a whisper is this sort of shop is Not The Done Thing) - "all I want is a doll to take up Snowdon". You could tell that I had the attention of everyone in the shop; you could almost see them thinking "What's this? - A new and exciting fetish to waken up a jaded (or perhaps lonely) sex life?'. I went on to explain about the stag weekend and the sales assistant deflated a bit. You could tell that he was all prepared to talk about realism, strength, durability and whatever other qualities differentiate the 25 quid model from the 135 quid one (I never did find out). He didn't even ask if I wanted an Antonio. No, all I wanted a sex doll to trail up Snowdon and the cheaper the better.
So the deal was done.
Back to the Sales counter where I asked if they took plastic (credit cards for the foreigners reading this). "Er, I think so", said the shop assistant, frantically hunting for the machine. Again, I assume that this is not a usual thing, although I would have thought that at 135 quid you'd need to pay by plastic for the top of the range model. The deal was done. "I'll tell you what", said the shop assistant. "I'll throw in a pack of cards for free". You could tell he was completely flustered as the cards cost 5 quid and you would not get these ones down at your local branch of Toys R Us. "I'll wrap it up well" he said and tripled bagged the thing in the sort of bag that looks so anonymous that it yells "This bloke's just been to a sex shop!".
The purchase went down well with the lads. "Have you road tested it yet?", they asked. "Nope , she's still in her plastic bag - I was leaving it to when we were in a group", I replied.
So she went into a drawer to await the big weekend.
To be continued...
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Machine Madness
We've just acquired a Tom Tom Go.
No, this isn't a new set of drums - it's a car navigation kit.
I'm a bit ambivalent about it. I mean, it makes me sort of redundant. I regard myself as a reasonably good navigator - give me a map and I'll generally be able to find myself around the place (unless it's in Germany, where we ended going to Liege from Düsseldorf via Cologne). Of course, navigating around without a map gets interesting - when we were touring central Europe we would head for the centre of the city, stop off at any likely hotel and nick a tourist map of the place. Luckily, 'Center' appears to be much the same in French, German and Dutch. It does have its down side - try heading for London City Center.
So, we now have a navigator and I'm reduced to the state of passive observer, looking at the scenery, watching the cars go by, trying to apply the passenger's footbrake when we get within one foot of the car in front travelling at 70mph. It's not that I'm a nervous passenger. It's just that when people drive with the same care and attention that I use when I'm in the driving seat I get nervous.
But I digress.
On the whole, this navigator thingy is quite good. It really proved itself when we had to go from a small village to Leamington Spa (it's a town, for all you non Brits) via the country roads at night in deep fog after a party. We were giving some friends a lift back to their place and it didn't help that he was a half pint short of oblivion. So, all we had was our trusty electronic navigator. Very useful because you couldn't see more than 4 feet in front of you but the navigator calmly showed us where the bends were, where there was a crossroads coming up and basically acted as extended eyes.
That's the upside.
There are a couple of downsides.
As you would expect, the navigator has the occasional off day (or more literally off route). We were visiting one of the houses the National Trust owns. These are usually in the country. The direction to the house was clearly signposted, but we decided to follow the navigator, which gaily took us the short cut - along farming county lanes. Now for those of you who don't know what these look like, farming roads are characterized by an enormous ridge of mud that builds up along the center of the road. This would have been OK if we'd owned a normal car, but we don't - it's a low slung Alfa Romeo. I hate to think what our sump shield looked like by the time we got to the house.
Finally, there's the entertainment factor. The normal voice of the Tom Tom is that of a well cultured female. 'Turn left after 200 yards', you are quietly instructed. 'At the next roundabout take the second exit', you are informed. When you get bored you can get alternative voices. We tried the 'Yoda' voice. 'At the next roundabout the second exit you must take'. It lasted about 10 minutes before we switched back to the nice lady.
This is all well and good as long as you are following directions. However, woe betide you if you stray from the beaten track. The nice lady is, of course, far too nice to throw insults at you, but she does get a bit emphatic. Initially she just thinks you've made a slight mistake. 'Turn around and retrace your route', she instructs. You ignore her. ' At the next opportunity turn around', she goes on to say. We continue towards the Supermarket we know is just off our route. You can imagine the nice lady getting slightly flustered. 'Please turn round', she quietly asks. Eventually she gives up and recalculates an alternative route. 'At the next junction turn left'; we ignore her and turn right. In all of this she retains a calm and dignified air.
In fact, I think the makers have missed a marketing opportunity here. Although you can get a John Cleese voice for the thing, it is still perfectly reasonable if you stray from your route, which is quite unlike John Cleese. What is needed is selectable voice modes - for example, 'reasonable', 'firm', 'rude', 'hysterical' and 'explosive'. In 'hysterical' mode John Cleese could get more and more - well - hysterical - as you drove further from the route before finally going into a sulk and switching off. The 'rude' mode would, of course, have to have a certificate rating. The 'Explosive' rating would only be for those who had enough money to buy a new one (come to think of it, you would just sell the 'explosive' mode for the same price as a new navigator).
The temptation in this would be, of course, to purposely take the wrong route just to learn some new swear words.
The only problem is that you have to question the ethics of this. I mean, there's clearly some form of rudimentary Artificial Intelligence in the electronics to enable it to calculate the routes. At what point does that AI break down? Could the occasional twitches of the screen be a sign that our nice lady is beginning to lose some of her iron self-control? Will she eventually break down and instead of nicely asking us to turn round tell us 'Listen, you stupid b****rs, turn round or I'll explode in your face'? Is there the navigator equivalent of the Psychiatrist's settee, where distraught navigators, reduced to a state of twitching electronics, can be slowly brought back to sanity? Is there some nice house in the country where severe cases wander the corridors murmuring quietly to themselves 'at the next corridor, take the second door on the left'?
Perhaps I should just switch the thing off if we digress from the route. It's only kindness.
No, this isn't a new set of drums - it's a car navigation kit.
I'm a bit ambivalent about it. I mean, it makes me sort of redundant. I regard myself as a reasonably good navigator - give me a map and I'll generally be able to find myself around the place (unless it's in Germany, where we ended going to Liege from Düsseldorf via Cologne). Of course, navigating around without a map gets interesting - when we were touring central Europe we would head for the centre of the city, stop off at any likely hotel and nick a tourist map of the place. Luckily, 'Center' appears to be much the same in French, German and Dutch. It does have its down side - try heading for London City Center.
So, we now have a navigator and I'm reduced to the state of passive observer, looking at the scenery, watching the cars go by, trying to apply the passenger's footbrake when we get within one foot of the car in front travelling at 70mph. It's not that I'm a nervous passenger. It's just that when people drive with the same care and attention that I use when I'm in the driving seat I get nervous.
But I digress.
On the whole, this navigator thingy is quite good. It really proved itself when we had to go from a small village to Leamington Spa (it's a town, for all you non Brits) via the country roads at night in deep fog after a party. We were giving some friends a lift back to their place and it didn't help that he was a half pint short of oblivion. So, all we had was our trusty electronic navigator. Very useful because you couldn't see more than 4 feet in front of you but the navigator calmly showed us where the bends were, where there was a crossroads coming up and basically acted as extended eyes.
That's the upside.
There are a couple of downsides.
As you would expect, the navigator has the occasional off day (or more literally off route). We were visiting one of the houses the National Trust owns. These are usually in the country. The direction to the house was clearly signposted, but we decided to follow the navigator, which gaily took us the short cut - along farming county lanes. Now for those of you who don't know what these look like, farming roads are characterized by an enormous ridge of mud that builds up along the center of the road. This would have been OK if we'd owned a normal car, but we don't - it's a low slung Alfa Romeo. I hate to think what our sump shield looked like by the time we got to the house.
Finally, there's the entertainment factor. The normal voice of the Tom Tom is that of a well cultured female. 'Turn left after 200 yards', you are quietly instructed. 'At the next roundabout take the second exit', you are informed. When you get bored you can get alternative voices. We tried the 'Yoda' voice. 'At the next roundabout the second exit you must take'. It lasted about 10 minutes before we switched back to the nice lady.
This is all well and good as long as you are following directions. However, woe betide you if you stray from the beaten track. The nice lady is, of course, far too nice to throw insults at you, but she does get a bit emphatic. Initially she just thinks you've made a slight mistake. 'Turn around and retrace your route', she instructs. You ignore her. ' At the next opportunity turn around', she goes on to say. We continue towards the Supermarket we know is just off our route. You can imagine the nice lady getting slightly flustered. 'Please turn round', she quietly asks. Eventually she gives up and recalculates an alternative route. 'At the next junction turn left'; we ignore her and turn right. In all of this she retains a calm and dignified air.
In fact, I think the makers have missed a marketing opportunity here. Although you can get a John Cleese voice for the thing, it is still perfectly reasonable if you stray from your route, which is quite unlike John Cleese. What is needed is selectable voice modes - for example, 'reasonable', 'firm', 'rude', 'hysterical' and 'explosive'. In 'hysterical' mode John Cleese could get more and more - well - hysterical - as you drove further from the route before finally going into a sulk and switching off. The 'rude' mode would, of course, have to have a certificate rating. The 'Explosive' rating would only be for those who had enough money to buy a new one (come to think of it, you would just sell the 'explosive' mode for the same price as a new navigator).
The temptation in this would be, of course, to purposely take the wrong route just to learn some new swear words.
The only problem is that you have to question the ethics of this. I mean, there's clearly some form of rudimentary Artificial Intelligence in the electronics to enable it to calculate the routes. At what point does that AI break down? Could the occasional twitches of the screen be a sign that our nice lady is beginning to lose some of her iron self-control? Will she eventually break down and instead of nicely asking us to turn round tell us 'Listen, you stupid b****rs, turn round or I'll explode in your face'? Is there the navigator equivalent of the Psychiatrist's settee, where distraught navigators, reduced to a state of twitching electronics, can be slowly brought back to sanity? Is there some nice house in the country where severe cases wander the corridors murmuring quietly to themselves 'at the next corridor, take the second door on the left'?
Perhaps I should just switch the thing off if we digress from the route. It's only kindness.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Talking Turkey
At least I made the bread sauce
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't cooked a Christmas dinner
On the surface, a turkey is just a great big chicken. Because of its size it may take longer to cook, and may take more stuffing, but when it boils down to it, (or should it be 'roasts'), stripped of feathers, head, feet and other basic means of identification, a turkey is just a chicken with delusions of grandeur
So, it should be simple to cook. Turn the oven on, stick tin foil over it, you might get fancy and sprinkle it with herbs and cover it with bacon to keep it moist, slam it in the oven sit back and bob's your uncle (he was as well)
Hah!
First find an oven big enough, then get up at 1 am to start the oven up, trip over the cat, fall down the stairs, swear at the cat and promise her that the next time she does that she's going to replace the turkey, slam the turkey in the oven and stagger back to bed, tripping over the cat again in the process, remember that you didn't salt the turkey, cover it with foil or any one of the one hundred seasonings you'd got planned, stagger out of bed, trip over the cat, do the business with the turkey, stagger back to bed kicking the cat in the process.
As an aside, we think that our cat is either going senile or has a death wish. She's taken to throwing herself down on the carpet in front of us. This is fine if it's broad daylight and you're not carrying anything - you just step over her. It's more of a problem if you're carrying a trayful of food or its pitch black - cats may be able to see in the dark but I can't. So far she's been lucky, but if she keeps it up it's going to be squashed cat time.
Anyway, back to the turkey. Once it's started cooking it's all downhill from there. This is the theory.
The practice is different
Now, to set the scene, we don't get a full turkey for Christmas. There's only two of us, so we cheat and get a turkey crown. This has several advantages
1) It's quicker to cook
2) You don't have to have an oven more appropriate to those people who go 'Fee Fi Fo Fum' and fall off beanstalks
3) You aren't left with a year's supply of turkey sandwiches afterwards
So, Christmas dinner should be really simple, shouldn't it.
Wrong
The problem isn't so much the turkey.
It's the sausages-wrapped-in-bacon, two kinds of stuffing, roast parsnips, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, peas, sprouts (that need shelling), carrots, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and gravy.
All these have to be cooked and brought to an exact state of perfection at the same time.
And the cat if she's been unlucky
And I haven't mentioned the starters
I tell you, it would be simpler to perform the spinning plate trick
Part of the problem is that we start running out of oven space and you have to get creative with the layout of the turkey pan, the roast potatoes, the stuffing balls and the sausages-wrapped-in-bacon
Then you run out of hobs to do the boiled potatoes, bread sauce, gravy, sprouts and peas and carrots
How you warm the plates is beyond me. Actually, it isn't - I wash them in hot water and put them in the microwave.
and in the panic of trying to boil three veg, take the foil off the turkey, baste it, turn the potatoes and feed the cat I usually forget something.
Like the bread sauce.
This year we got everything.
Including the bread sauce
Mind you, it was slightly overcooked (but I like my bacon crunchy), since I decided to ring my brother and sister about 15 minutes before E day. . But it was all there (and by the end of the meal most of it wasn't). For some reason I felt somewhat bloated afterwards (it wasn't of course, anything to do with the melon-and-Parma ham starter, or the Christmas pud and brandy sauce or the bottle or 5 of Cava)
The only problem is..
.. for some inexplicable reason my belt has slipped a notch.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't cooked a Christmas dinner
On the surface, a turkey is just a great big chicken. Because of its size it may take longer to cook, and may take more stuffing, but when it boils down to it, (or should it be 'roasts'), stripped of feathers, head, feet and other basic means of identification, a turkey is just a chicken with delusions of grandeur
So, it should be simple to cook. Turn the oven on, stick tin foil over it, you might get fancy and sprinkle it with herbs and cover it with bacon to keep it moist, slam it in the oven sit back and bob's your uncle (he was as well)
Hah!
First find an oven big enough, then get up at 1 am to start the oven up, trip over the cat, fall down the stairs, swear at the cat and promise her that the next time she does that she's going to replace the turkey, slam the turkey in the oven and stagger back to bed, tripping over the cat again in the process, remember that you didn't salt the turkey, cover it with foil or any one of the one hundred seasonings you'd got planned, stagger out of bed, trip over the cat, do the business with the turkey, stagger back to bed kicking the cat in the process.
As an aside, we think that our cat is either going senile or has a death wish. She's taken to throwing herself down on the carpet in front of us. This is fine if it's broad daylight and you're not carrying anything - you just step over her. It's more of a problem if you're carrying a trayful of food or its pitch black - cats may be able to see in the dark but I can't. So far she's been lucky, but if she keeps it up it's going to be squashed cat time.
Anyway, back to the turkey. Once it's started cooking it's all downhill from there. This is the theory.
The practice is different
Now, to set the scene, we don't get a full turkey for Christmas. There's only two of us, so we cheat and get a turkey crown. This has several advantages
1) It's quicker to cook
2) You don't have to have an oven more appropriate to those people who go 'Fee Fi Fo Fum' and fall off beanstalks
3) You aren't left with a year's supply of turkey sandwiches afterwards
So, Christmas dinner should be really simple, shouldn't it.
Wrong
The problem isn't so much the turkey.
It's the sausages-wrapped-in-bacon, two kinds of stuffing, roast parsnips, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, peas, sprouts (that need shelling), carrots, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and gravy.
All these have to be cooked and brought to an exact state of perfection at the same time.
And the cat if she's been unlucky
And I haven't mentioned the starters
I tell you, it would be simpler to perform the spinning plate trick
Part of the problem is that we start running out of oven space and you have to get creative with the layout of the turkey pan, the roast potatoes, the stuffing balls and the sausages-wrapped-in-bacon
Then you run out of hobs to do the boiled potatoes, bread sauce, gravy, sprouts and peas and carrots
How you warm the plates is beyond me. Actually, it isn't - I wash them in hot water and put them in the microwave.
and in the panic of trying to boil three veg, take the foil off the turkey, baste it, turn the potatoes and feed the cat I usually forget something.
Like the bread sauce.
This year we got everything.
Including the bread sauce
Mind you, it was slightly overcooked (but I like my bacon crunchy), since I decided to ring my brother and sister about 15 minutes before E day. . But it was all there (and by the end of the meal most of it wasn't). For some reason I felt somewhat bloated afterwards (it wasn't of course, anything to do with the melon-and-Parma ham starter, or the Christmas pud and brandy sauce or the bottle or 5 of Cava)
The only problem is..
.. for some inexplicable reason my belt has slipped a notch.
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