Summet or other

Father Christmas after neglecting me for many years following my late teens (at my own request, I hasten to add - he was very reasonable about it) has come back into my life recently and has taken to leaving a present at the bottom of my bed on Xmas morning. The same thing happens with Woody! In fact it started happening when I started going out with Woody, I don't know if there's a link there.

Last year, the saucy monkey bought me the Girls Aloud 2009 calendar. I checked with my lady wife that it was okay to put up and she okayed it as long as it stayed in the study (or computer room) - Santa almost got me in trouble there!



This year Santa may have been thinking about buying me a Girls Aloud Calendar again but shockingly he has informed me that Girls Aloud haven't done one this year. Cheryl Cole has done one on her own but who'd want to see that for a year - not me! Santa confided in me this info and I suggested as a replacement for slightly saucy ladies who do quite good pop tunes in pictorial form some juvenalia in the Beano Retro Art Calendar 2010;



But what with all my obsessing about the deliciousness of the Thorntons raspberry chocolate block it has led me to ponder a more unhealthy chocolate based bottom of bed treat idea. Check this out!



Okay, it is £34 and it is the entire Thorntons range (not including limited editions) but surely Santa cares nothing about money. Mind you in these Credit Crunch times maybe even Father Christmas is feeling the pinch so I've realised there is a compromise Santa may be up for. The Thorntons shops offer 6 in a little box of your choice. So I've been pondering what over the years are my favourite Thorntons chocolates and I've decided on the following.

Firstly, assuming raspberry is sadly no longer available here's the closest one too it which I tried this week - the berry boost;



This is the only other Thorntons choc with a raspberry theme but instead of dark chocolate with raspberry pieces, this is dark chocolate with raspberry flavouring and blueberry pieces. My memory of this, as I believe I tried it once before was "'sallright" but yesterday, maybe because as each day passes I seem to like dark chocolate more and more I just thought it was delicious. A more subtle taste than the raspberry one but still definitely a comfortable placing in the top six is assured.



Now let's have a milk chocolate. This is, I think, the first one I had of these chocolate blocks. Probably 2 or 3 years ago, and to be honest, is one of the more bog standard ones. Thorntons have been adding toffee bits to their milk chocolate for years. I've had more than one easter egg with this arrangement in the past. But although it's sweet so I couldn't eat it in one sitting (not that you should, you understand) it is still a childhood type favourite so a place into the top six block is assured....



Continuing with the childhood theme, this is another one I would have picked up early, as it's milk chocolate again, and is basically a more sophisticated Terrys Chocolate Orange (an annual Xmas treat which I can no longer eat since my gluten allergy - all Thorntons chocolate blocks are gluten free on account of them being brilliant (if not for my waistline!))



One dark and two milks - time to add another dark chocolate to the mix, and the increasingly popular chilli chocolate gets a Thorntons spin. Possibly too hot for Woody but it's always a very pleasant sensation to get a zing of chilli after the chocolate taste goes down.



We picked this up because it was award winning (Woody can eat most of Thorntons dark chocolate herself as there is only minimal milk traces in them) and it wasn't my choice cos I usually don't like nuts in chocolate but I was intrigued by the addition of caramel and salt to the mix, and it sounds weird but it's really quite special. Woody, if anything, liked it more than me but it had a sparkle and a zing that clings to my memory. I want it again! And Woody can have some!



Our successful experiment with the award winning block led me to try a variety that I may not have picked up otherwise. It's just milk chocolate with no added stuff after all. But it's made with tonka beans and it does create one of the yummiest milk chocolate sensations I can remember. Vanillay, full of flavour yet subtle and sophisticated. Hark at me - the food critic!

So that completes my top six box but what if Santa is in Thorntons and don't have all the six that I've noted up there. Well, panic not Santa, here's three additional alternatives!



This is definitely 7th and is fighting for a place in the top six with Macadamia - who'd of thought balsamic vinegar and dark chocolate would be such a yummy combination. Hooray for Woodys dairy allergy for opening me up to the wonders of dark chocolate and expanding my pallet beyond the sweet delights of milk and ....



Well sweet, sickly chocolate is still lovely. I haven't tasted the Thorntons white chocolate block since I've discovered dark chocolate but I'm sure I've not abandoned my old taste buds completely. It got a definite thumbs up first time.

And finally....



Oh no! Not another limited edition!!! So this might not be available in a dark chocolate with raspberry fashion. And it is a little sweet but the strawberry pieces zing out in a not unpleasant way.

Thinking about it these nine pretty much constitute the chocolate blocks I have tried so I clearly love them all. The only one I can think of that I didn't rate was fudge, but I do sometimes find fudge too sweet for me.

Most of the remaining are different bean varieties of milk and dark, and I've yet to try mint because I'm not a big mint person or ginger because I'm not a big ginger person (can you see a theme developing here!) or hazlenut & raisin - yum yum to raisin, yuk yuk to hazlenut (although maybe the macadamia experiment should be repeated (Woody doesn't like raisins though so we're in a potential lose-lose situation with that one!)(Edit : It's Milk Chocolate anyway so Woody couldn't try!)

We will hopefully be getting a Wii Fit on Christmas Day as well. A six block of chocolate and a Wii Fit seem like the perfect mix to me. What do you think?

PS. I am more than aware of the hidden Herring meaning of Nyum Nyum Nyum (!)

Last week on a bit of a whim we went online and decided to go see All Star Mr & Mrs for free at the ITV studios in London on Saturday 28th (forgetting it was my Dads birthday but he forgave us.) Got our e-ticket - sorted....

We decided to make a day of it and I would go to the comic shop I like ("Gosh!") and go to a free museum (Natural History.) However midnight .....

Blah! Blah! Blah! That's as far as I got when I wrote about this on Sunday I was going to tell you all about the day what with it's email tickets failure and car breaking down shennanigans but instead (on account of sheer bloody minded laziness and also that I need to write a CV and am prevaricating or rather more accurately using avoidance techniques) I shall fast forward to the main event (also eliminating chat of getting there too early, getting priority seats, going to comic shop but not museum owing to email problems mentioned in brief earlier, although I may mention hanging around at the Christmas Fayre that happened to be happening on the South Bank where we had seafood paella and something called Ger Gray (potatoes, onion and bacon) at a stall which were yummy and we felt all Christmassy. (I was hoping for tartiflette which I haven't had since our Christmas honeymoon at Eurodisney two years ago (it's our 2 year anniversary today by the way - yay us!) but it was not to be))

Anyway, as I said I'm not talking about any of that stuff right now (the car (touch wood) should be finally fixed now, by the way, in case you were wondering - oh, the email works as well now, just in case that was preying on your mind. Just in case you were wondering about the comic shop that was Gosh! and I went there to look at the Complete Peanuts and Popeye books along with anything else coooool they might have. They put quite a mark up on the American books I've discovered so I'm going to stick with Amazon. Anyway - that's BOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNGHHHGGGHHHGGHH!!! I'm glad I made the correct decision not to talk about it.)

Mr & Mrs!!!!!!!! Now those who remembered my far too detailed write up of the exciting GOLDENBALLLS!!!!!!!! recording we went to see may remember that I gave away the ending - I won't be doing that this time as there is an outside chance that somebody might actually watch the programme we saw. Coincidentally, our Goldenballs finally turned up on the telly last week on Wednesday. It were shit! But at least the evil warm up man wasn't on there.

Warm up Men are a strange breed and seem to be the last vestige left of end-of-pier my mother in law type entertainers. I understand their role - they've got to get the audience geed up and excitable and the Mr & Mrs guy was obviously a lot more "professional" than the Goldenballs guy, and also funnier in an unreconstructed way but still...f*** me! They're scary fuckers! (Okay censor one f*** but not the other - what's that about???)

Saturdays warm up man comes out to the strain of "Johnny Be Goode" and starts singing and getting everyone to sing and clap along. The priority seats at the Mr & Mrs show (which we got as we ridiculously early, did I mention that, oh yes, I did) are facing the stage, whereas the plebs who come later (Arf! Look at me and my air of superiority!) actually get to be on telly as they are behind the stage.

Anyway, out comes "Johnny Be Goode" and you instantly think "Oh fuck! I'd better look like I'm having the best time of my life ever, otherwise I'm going to get picked on." Sure enough, with some conspirational banter about the miserable fuckers in the "cheap" (although just as free as ours!) seats, he tells one "miserable fucker" (I'm not sure if he swore actually - fucker seems too harsh, maybe bastard, possibly bugger - it is Saturday night entertainment after all - my memory seems to say "fucker" even though I think my memory is playing tricks with me - I'll stick with f***er - I'll censor it again though, i've sworn far too much!) to (are you keeping up! ignore the brackets, they ruin the flow rather of this entertaining diatbre) leave, nicks his suit and this poor bloke stands on the sidelines throughout.

He also uses the opportunity to have a close dance with a young female. Aye! Aye! And then engages in more banter before Phil & Fearne come on. By then I know I'm safe - he has chosen his victims for the evening. He did however on more than one occassion conspirationally chat (put hand over microphone) to us in the expensive (but still free!) seats about some overweight bloke in the cheap (but free!) seats above us of the "gawd! look at the state of him!" manner. This offends me as although the guy was bigger than me, it makes me wonder whether I could have been the victim of his witty banter had I have been in the cheap (you know they're free by now don't you) seats. As I've said obviously the ramifications are less serious but sizeism has become the new socially acceptable ism for unreconstructed chaps to use in their banter.

When Phil & Fearne come on, they are a lot more friendly and involved with the audience than Jasper Carrot was. Phil instantly coming out and asking if anyone had mints. Realised afterwards that Phil asked for them on his twitter feed, isn't twitter fab. I don't follow the silver fox though on account that he's not a comedian, a glamorous pop star or a faded reality participant. There's always a slight adjustment when you see people "off the telly" as you have to work out how they walk and talk in 3D. This adjustment only takes about ten seconds but I always have to do it and Phil approaching us demanding mints meant I had to make the adjustment quickly. Woody, obviously being less star struck than me, merely thought it was nice and friendly, and it was a very good way of breaking down that wall of celebrity quickly. They know their stuff these two!

Anyway, as I said earlier, I won't give away spoilers this time (Besides anyone taking pictures of the set had their camera confiscated and they were told to delete the picture. I can exclusively reveal though the set is exactly the same as all previous years - come and get me! ITV Security!!! I'm not scared of you!!!! Actually I am - a bit! Hence the no spoilers decision ) but the guests were Robert Webb and his Mrs (you're intelligent people here aren't you - I don't need to explain who he is like I did on facebook do I? Here's a clue I follow him on twitter, so he's either a comedian, a glamorous pop star or a down-on-his-luck reality star) Andrew Sachs (no clues!) and Anthea Turner!

Anthea Turner turns out to be fairly mental if entertaining, Robert Webb seemed nervous but was still amusing in his tenseness (wonder if the warm up man for their sketch show comes out singing "Johnny Be Goode?") and Andrew Sachs was very laid back and laconic. And one of them wins!

Phew! I'm glad I made this report nice, brief and succinct without any diversions. I'm getting good at this blog posting malarkey now.

Sorry - I have nothing to add. This is the new Vampire Weekend single. It is rather good. The video is rather good too. I like Vampire Weekend. They are one of my favourites of the new popular music groups. Let's all give a polite cheer to the Vampire Weekend. Hooray!

Almost started losing it this week. Almost felt the depression encroaching. Almost felt like it's all becoming too much for me again.

It's getting tough, this looking for work stuff. Somehow when I had zero experience last year it was easier to get a job but the stakes are higher this year. The job market has got tougher and although I keep getting to the interview stage (three again last week) I'm still being pipped by people with more specific experience.

And cos you have to gee yourself up, to keep getting knocked back again, my reserves of optimism are beginning to run out.

But as my wife reminds me it's not all that bad, we are still surviving on her salary and my dole (although I need to phone them as apparently I am not entitled after March which is nonsence.)

I'm also doing the NVQ2 in teaching assistant-ness, and exactly as I did when I attempted my quantity surveying diploma I have left it till the last minute and panicked about something that when I look at it with a clear head isn't all that difficult.

On top of that on Thursday I had to drive through torrential rain and flooding to pick up Woody from her parents evening and the car has died.

These are all minor things in the great scheme of life and typing em out in this here blog makes me realise that these are not insurmountable problems and I heard from the final school that I've been rejected from (and which I secretly didn't like anyway) and now feel ready to turn the page once more.

I don't want to go back to 2007 P*nut, the snappy, angry bastard and I apologise to Woody should she read this for the snap on Sunday, although that snap did give me a kick up the arse and make me realise what was encroaching.

Was pondering going back to the doctors as I had a few warning signs last week, but I'm going to hold-fire. I shouldn't have been reading Bill Oddies book last week (he suffers from depression and was talking about getting better and then it returning) - maybe that wasn't the best soundtrack to the oncoming despair.

Anyroadup thought I'd write this nonsence down and publish the f***er if only to warn myself and show myself how silly it all seems when it's written down.

One thing at a time, and all problems are surmountable. Hopefully the job pool will eventually wither and there will be a job for me. I got some tips from one of the schools which I think had the opposite effect of worrying me instead of encouraging me. Essentially, there's nowt wrong with my CV - I'm getting the interviews. And I thought I was doing alright at the interviews too as they always said how much they liked me, but I think I have to combine that likeability with a few more specific examples (a bit more prep maybe.)

Anyway, haven't applied to this weeks raft of applications. That's the fun I have in store for tomorrow morning, which may mean I'll be back on the interview rollercoaster next week. Wish me luck - let's hope I can handle the big dipper and the loop-de-loop with a bit more maturity and "Que Sera Sera"ness next week.

What a long rambling post. This is why some people prepare what they write rather than just splurge it all out like what I do. Splurrrrrge!!

Tara!

Hiya. Just had a browse at the amazon.com (the american one) to see if the next Complete Peanuts cover is on there and it is.

Oh good...I know what I'll do, I'll update the blog I did with the Complete Peanuts covers. Oh no... I can't because of the worst update myopera have ever done.

Okay...I tell a lie I could update it with the cover but then it would change the date of the blog to todays date and then put all my blogs out of sync because it's not my most recent blog.

This is terrible news for a serial blog fiddler like me who has sometimes released blogs from friends only to let it all hang out public or vice versa. If I did that now it would become the most recent blog and I may suddenly be a depressed quantity surveyer again rather than an out of work teaching assistant.

I discovered this a while ago when Mossman pointed out an error on my fascinating yoghurts blog which I then corrected and which then became my most recent blog rather than the big brother blog which was actually my most recent. So I ended up squishing some words together arbitrarily on the big brother blog to make that the most recent again.

It's possible that myopera have corrected this heinous act by now and if I update the Peanuts blog it will remain in it's position about four or five blog posts under this one but I can't risk it. What if it does become the most recent post. It will ruin everything!!!

Yes...you may think this is an over-reaction but I'm a bit worried about one thing I wrote on a recent(ish) blog (I won't tell you what) and wonder about deleting that bit or making it friends only but if I did that it would then become the most recent, taking it all out of context, and if I later decide "nah! it doesn't need to be friends only" it will then become the most recent again with a big Siren going off "WAh!Wah!Wah! pay attention to me!!!"

Aggghhh!!! WORST MYOPERA UPDATE EVER!!!!!!!!

Anyway, here's the latest Complete Peanuts book, out next year. It is Frieda as predicted in the blog four or five posts down. Probably the ropiest looking cover yet actually!



UPDATE : If my writing this places this blog above the Madness one then the bug has been fixed. If it's still below THIS ENTIRE BLOG POST HAS BEEN IRRELEVANT AND A WASTE OF YOUR PRECIOUS TIME!!!!

Let's find out together eh?

Instead of doing any preparation for Fridays interview or tidying the house or sorting out my tax that's owed or basically doing anything of use, on Thursday I spent the day on the computer, and Peter Serafanovic very early on put up a tweet of this disgusting footage which I'm sure everyone on the entire planet has seen by now, but just in case you haven't here it is once more, as illustration...



I live in Britain so have never seen "Hey, Hey It's Saturday" before but it appears to be a kind of Noels House Party type of affair which has been on Australian TV for ever and came back for two shows. It seems to be a very long show full of segments such as the "Red Faces" one above. A bit like grown up Saturday morning TV.

I don't think I need to go into how shocking and appalling blackface routines are do I? In short, I agree with everything Harry Connick Jr said.

At first one of the most shocking things is how the people involved in the show are totally clueless as to how this could be deemed offensive. Even the preface to Harry Connicks opportunity to have his say, once a slight penny has dropped, is (paraphrasing) "I understand that blackface routines can be seen as offensive in America."

Only in America mind! Everywhere else it's fine, apparently! Oh, every weekend we dress up as minstrels round our way - it's a right giggle.

Now you would be forgiven for thinking this is a one-off very stupid programme in Australia, but unfortunately a lot of the great and good citizens of Australia have got onto the news blogs comments and the Youtube comments and the vast majority appear to believe it's the rest of the planet that have got this wrong and we should all lighten up and have a laugh. A number of people even using the phrase "political correctness gone mad" with absolutely no irony! And a trawl through the TV archives in Australia shows this kind of casual racism to not be a one off event. Ignorance in the purest term of the word, really.

The show also shows a brief clip of when the troupe appeared on the show in 1989 and won! This brief clip looks even more hideous and is the stuff of nightmares and if this is a fair representation of telly in the late 80s then as Charlie Brooker put it on Twitter "I was aware that Australia was in a different time zone to us. I didn't know it was still 1972."

Also on the clip there is a brief illustration shown of a black stereotype with the words "Where's Kamahl" which gets a big laugh from the audience. To a British audience this "gag" is "whoosh! over our heads."

However on the next day Kamahl came to the media to say that he was offended. And it turns out that Kamahl is a kind of Malaysian Des O'Connor in Australia. Okay - Malaysian. So not only are all people of brown skin categorised by the thick black of "blackface" but this triggers a pavlovian response that a Malaysian easy listening star should be included with the troupe (??)

Kamahl was "a great friend of the show" whose catchphrase was apparently "why are is everyone so mean to me" (sic - I'll check the quote!) which doesn't seem to indicate the most fun of banter and the only two clips I've found which link Kamahl and Hey Hey are someone on "Red Faces" doing a "hilarious" impression where he replaces certain words with "curry" etc. (This gets a rave review on Red Faces by the way) and this clip from 1984, where they speed up the backing tape, throw powder in his face and then the voiceover guy says "Kamahl in negative" - Ho!Ho!Ho! Excuse me while my sides split.



The Jackson Jive troupe are defending their actions by saying they are multi-cultural. But multi-cultural people can be racist too. This next clip is from Fox News which is right wing propoganda pumped into the mainstream mind;



Possibly the most disturbing clip I found is this chap who doesn't appear to agree with the recent American election;



Now I'm sure that represents the extreme of Australian radio and most people in Australia would be as shocked as me but IT'S STILL ON THE BLOODY RADIO. Another thing on Australian radio that I didn't blog about was the host "Kyle something" who also appeared on Australian Idol wiring up a 13 year old to a polygraph machine so that her mum could ask her whether she had had sex recently when out. The distressed and angry girl then spits at her mum that she has already been raped as she well knew.

The world is getting smaller and things like this now get noticed on the World Wide Web and twitter almost as soon as they happen, and things don't slip under the radar like the original 1989 Jackson Jive did. And all it goes to show is that the Australian media seriously needs to get it's house in order.

I'll end this rant with the fascinating and moving ending to Spike Lees Bamboozled film showing the blackfaces and black stereotypes of old - I would have liked to have thought that we'd moved on a little from this in 2009!