Summet or other

Err...London!

(By the way, this chair is broken, and it's uncomfortable to type - wait there a minute - quick chair swap around - ooh - that's better - my back is protected!!!! I shall continue!)

We went to London on Wednesday primarily to go to the theatre to see "Wicked" for Woodys birthday but we decided to make a day of it and fitted quite a bit in. (All times (very) approximate)

10:30 - Set off in car to West Ruislip station

11:00 - Get on Central Line to Tottenham Court Road

11:45 - Turn left in hope of finding Starbucks for light coffee and cake based lunch. Ooh - Starbucks!!! Yum yum yum.

12:15 - Turn right for Great Russel Street and arrive at best comic shop in London (Gosh!)

12:45 - Leave comic shop slightly cash poorer and walk on to the British Museum

1:00 - Enter British Museum which is free and very big and interesting in places.

2:15 - Start feeling thirsty but can only get drinks at food counters with large queues so leave the museum and enter...

2:30 - Another Starbucks which is opposite the Museum. They forgot to add Black Tea to my Raspberry & Blackcurrant so it just tasted like a slushy, but was still nice.

2:45 - Walk up Museum Street, turn right and find the Cartoon Museum! They are celebrating 70 years of Beano and Dandy with lots of original artwork.

3:30 - Get on the tube and head up to...

3:45 - Harrods in Knightsbridge. Walk through most of Harrods but we only buy a cat toy (which the cat loves incidentally!)

4:45 - Back on tube to Victoria

5:00 - Walk towards Cathederal aiming to find the local La Tasca - we find it and have a very good quality tea!

6:00 - Walk towards Buckingham Palace like proper tourists. I haven't been here since I was about 8 and Woody never. She takes lots of photos.

6:45 - Head back to theatre (which is opposite Victoria Station) - Get a drink from bar. Seated at 7pm - Show starts 7:30pm. Woody loved the show and now wants the CD and book. I enjoyed more than most shows as it had some quite smart links to the Wizard of Oz - Aw! so he becomes the tin man etc - and was funny in places

10:30 - Show's over and we head back to the tube

11:30 - Back in the car

Midnight - We greet the cooped up cat and watch Big Brother before bed.

I really like London and we live a short train or tube journey away, but that was our first time in London since our trip with the Mosses back in December. I should go more often!

Going to go for a trip to London primarily for Woodys birthday present of "Wicked" tickets but I'm also going to squeeze in a trip to the Cartoon Museum which has an exhibit celebrating 70 years of The Beano and The Dandy, the last traditional childrens comics standing.

Well, actually that's just The Beano as The Dandy relaunched last year in a comic & magazine format called Dandy Xtreme and the circulation figures are now in and it's lost 16.4% of it's circulation during the last six months and out of the 24 Comics & Magazines included in the list it is 23rd at sales of 23,869.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XsVALQtGIZM/SKcer_CIbqI/AAAAAAAAGUQ/vVbg7JzAS4A/s1600-h/Circulation+Charts+2008-01.jpg

As can be seen this is part of a general downward shift in comics & magazines as a whole so the decline of Dandy Xtreme isn't an exception (The Beano is down 16.8% at 61,931.) but the fact that the relaunch has failed to attract any increase in readership amongst the whippersnappers of this country is a bit depressing.

I'm glad that the Beano and Dandy are celebrating their 70th anniversary so heartily because based on this I really can't see the Dandy lasting till its 75th anniversary.

Dandy always seemed like the slightly stuffy older brother to The Beano when I was a kid in the late 70s/early 80s, as it included more "old fashioned" strips to my eyes, like Winker Watson, Brassneck and Korky the Cat, but now Dandy is marketing itself as a cooler doodier type of comic than The Beano. I bought The Beano and Dandy Xtreme today and The Beano is still very much like it used to be in my day featuring a lot of the same characters etc. The only my-generation characters still featuring in Dandy Xtreme are Desperate Dan and Puss'n'Boots, both of whom look radically different in the new style, and I'm wondering whether this has been the wrong road to go down as it certainly hasn't increased the circulation.

Lew Stringers blog (see my links page) where I found this circulation info. makes a very valid point that it is very difficult for kids to discover Comics themselves these days as they are always bagged up with multiple gifts, so they can't be browsed at in the newsagents, so no wonder non-TV/film related comics & mags struggle to gain a foothold. Also the shops often have difficulty displaying them owing to the bulky gifts and I know myself when I'm browsing that I often can't see the fairly dark like-lots-of-other-magazines Dandy Xtreme covers hidden away in there. At least The Beano with its bright Dennis the Menace covers stands out.

Ah well! I think The Beano is such a distinctive brand now that it will survive to it's centenary (I hope so anyway) so my future kids can have The Beano foisted on them ("Read it! You'll like it! Goddamit! Get off that games system! In my day we didn't have a billion TV channels!" "Shut up Grandad! Comics are for olds!") but it will probably be all on it's ownsome.

That blog title will mean nothing to anyone except fans of Soft Cells "Non Stop Erotic Cabaret" but as you may have guessed from it anyway I did not get the job for interview no. 5.

As I mentioned the interview went very well but the end result turned out to be a carbon copy of my first library interview. They really liked me - they actually WANT me to work at the library and apply for more jobs, but someone with more experience pipped me to the post. It's just frustrating that if they like me so much that I can't quite make the final step to actually physically working for them.

My first library interview was for a library assistant role and I missed out cos I didn't have enough experience with kids. I now have that experience but the job I got the 2nd interview for was a library manager and someone with more library experience understandably got it. The rejection phone call said that they would like me to apply for any "library assistant" jobs that come up and they would be more than happy to interview me again. The funny thing is I applied to quite a lot of library assistant jobs but the application I happened to get an interview for was the library manager one.

Ah well! September is going to be a tough month financially but I'm going to change what were previously one off yearly payments that come out in September to monthly direct debits and hope for the best on the rest!

Erk!

Okay, this may be a fairly weak, self-indulgent subject for a blog, but, hey, I haven't done a list-type blog for a while now so you'll just have to put up with it. (Err... Nerrrr!!!)

I don't listen to the radio so much any more other than when I'm on the loo or commuting to work where I listen to Chris Moyles dependant on whether I'm finding him funny or irritating (it can be either depending on my mood!) and if it's around 10:30am Popmaster quiz on Radio 2 is a regular appointment to listen, so podcasts have taken over slightly.

I've recently been wiping stuff off my Ipod and now only subscribe to three podcasts and these are them three....

The three that remain

The Collings and Herrin Podcast



This is my only "appointment to listen" podcast at the moment and features comedian Richard Herring and writer Andrew Collins ostensibly chatting about some stories in the newspapers that Andrew brings over to Richards flat, but really it's just an excuse for two "colleagues" to have a very funny stream-of-conciousness chat, and it gets stronger and funnier every week. There isn't going to be one this week as Richard is in Edinburgh! I'm not sure I'll be able to handle the withdrawal symptoms.

The Adam and Joe Podcast



This is one of many podcasts that appeared to mysteriously disappear off my Ipod so I missed a few recently but it's just been re-instated again. Adam and Joe are two comedians who are also on the radio and this is an edited version of their radio show with the music removed. This is the third Adam and Joe podcast to appear as previously they had an X-fm podcast and a Coca-Cola "Unsigned Music" both of which were very funny. One of the highlights of this show is "Text the Nation" ("What if I don't want to? What about Email? It doesn't matter - text!") which seems to show up the Adam and Joe audience as the funniest most clued in radio audience around.

The Word podcast



This is quite similar to the Collings and Herrin podcast as it's an hour of intelligent people talking about something to which they have great enthusiasm. The Word music magazine is edited by Mark Ellen and he along with fellow ex-Whistle Test presenter David Hepworth and various other journalists talk about the latest music news and reminisce about stuff. I don't tend to have time to listen to every episode but wish I did and try to do at least one a month.

Podcasts I have known

The Chris Moyles Show



Another radio show edit which was enhanced with some interesting picture decisions. I used to listen to this regularly every week but it fell off my radar recently and I haven't missed it so I decided it could hit the dust.

Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier Smodcast



Again similar to Herrin and Collings as the American director and producer ramble for an hour about a number of subjects. I subscribed to this quite early on and watched the Podcasts fill up my Ipod but only listened to a few, finding it a bit juvenile in places, so even though I found the very long Kevin Smith lectures DVD and their DVD commentaries entertaining this one hit the dust.

Vintage Tooncast



At first this video podcast was a great way of getting public domain animation films on your Ipod, but soon the podcast owner starting advertising himself and self-aggrandizing himself and I got peed off. Have since found animation blogs that are much more informed and do a much better job than this rubbish.

Strong Bad Email



Writing this blog has just reminded me about this video podcast where I first saw these cool, quirky characters from the US. All the stuff is available on their website (see my links page) but I really ought to investigate this again.

Jonathan Ross Show



Another excellent radio show distilled into a podcast. Somehow this unsubscribed itself from my Ipod (like most of my podcasts at one point or another!) but I think I may re-subscribe to it actually.

Flight of the Conchords (& Hot Fuzz)



A couple of TV and film Podcast tie-ins (I've probably subscribed to some more in the past but I've forgotten them.) The Flight of the Conchords is one of the best TV shows of the noughties and the podcasts had quite a bit of exclusive stuff, but I decided to be ruthless as video takes up quite a lot of space on the old Ipod and wiped them all. All the Hot Fuzz stuff ended up on their DVD (I think all of it did) so I got rid of that as well.

There are a few other bits and bobs but that's the most regular ones. Podcasts are great - I only wish there were more free hours in the day so I could listen to more of them.

Hello - another week has gone by (almost) and here is another off-the-top-of-my-head random blog to update you on a bit of this and a bit of that.

Just come back from interview no.5 - (another library one) - it went horribly well, so even if I don't get the job I think I'll be close and they might offer me another position - wish me luck.

I have been trying to persuade George to do a "George Speaks" blog but he refuses so I'll have to talk about him instead. He's now going outside all the time and has hit on a routine and is much happier, and hardly ever attacks us now. He stayed out till a bit late the other day as he got quite excitable with another cat and refused to come home, so eventually around 10pm I picked him up off next door but threes patio and bought him inside. He then proceeded to vomit up a bit and pant like a dog. However shortly afterwards he was fine and was top notch in the morning so we think he just got a bit over-excited and we now make sure he's in by 8pm. The dirty wee stop out!

Those of you who venture into the realms of W*stocks blog or the "Worlds Longest Blog" may have noticed a countdown to Greece. This was because a while ago my parents very generously offered the family a free holiday to Greece. However because of Woodys operation she wasn't allowed to fly for six weeks afterwards and Woody said I could go without her we weren't sure how well she would be this week and whether I still needed to look after her, and besides I wouldn't have had as much fun without her there and would be pining. Also I ended up having an interview (See above) during the week so it turned out for the best.

The other thing I've been thinking about blogging about I will save till later as it's Youtube based so I'll leave it at that for now...

(I've thought of a 2nd subject as well now - wow! In't this exciting? )

Tatty-bye!

Well since Woody had her gall bladder out last Monday I have become de facto cook in the P*nut household. This would be a lot harder but as Woody has been poorly ick she always wants jam on toast for breakfast and the following for lunch. Now this is quite a tricky recipe involving calculated timings in order to work to perfection so I'm going to take you through it bit by bit.

Throw away your chicken soup for this is .....

The Perfect "Poorly Ick" Mushroom Burger toasted sandwich

Ingredients required;

2 x Tesco Mushroom Burger
4 x Tesco White Sliced Bread
6 x Tesco Wafer Thin Ham Slices
Lettuce, Tomato Sauce and Margarine to taste.



First turn your grill pan up to "5"



Place Mushroom Burgers under the grill



Fiddle with yourself for approximately five minutes




Turn Mushroom Burgers over



Place 4 Slices of White Bread in toaster




When toast pops up turn over Mushroom Burger for one final cook while you ....


Generously butter two slices of white toast with margarine (dairy free for Woody)



Add three slices of wafer thin ham to each slice of toast



Add the cooked burgers, one per slice.



Add a dollop of tomato sauce to each burger and then spread across the surface of the burger with your knife.




Add lettuce to the surface of your burger.



Butter last two slices of toast with margarine and then place on top of other two slices




Woody likes her toasted sandwiches to be cut in half but this is entirely optional and I shall leave this for you to decide;



Arrange attractively on your best china plate



And there you are! Bon Appetit! My compliments to the chef!