Mid Christmas

A tad late, but nevertheless, a Christmas blog post!

I'm currently in that wonderful gap between Christmas and New Year when I'm not really sure what day it is (Thursday, apparently) and days are being taken up tinkering with presents, eating vast quantities of things that I normally wouldn't and certainly shouldn't eat (Four Chocolate Bar breakfast, anyone?), and imbibing more alcohol than usual. When else is it okay to have a Baileys Coffee late morning?

Speaking of eating at Christmas, Open Thought Vortex were kind enough to publish one of my pieces of writing about my parents famed Christmas breakfast - do feel free to check it out :)

Last night I discovered a fascinating feature on IMDB, which is called the Parents Guide.

For those unfamiliar, on each film on IMDB there is a section called Parents Guide, which outlines all of the bits of the film that might not be suitable for younger viewers. This is really good, and obviously very useful to any parents wondering if a certain film is suitable for their children or not, but I can't help compare the level of detail available in the Parents Guide to what you used to get in TV magazines.

For example, regarding the film Justice League, IMDB advises parents of the following:

Shirtless shots of various male characters, particularly Superman, Aquaman and Cyborg; a couple of scenes of a reunited couple kissing/embracing. Mentions of Wonder Woman's beauty/attractiveness.

Wonder woman wears a low cut blouse in one scene showing a fair amount of cleavage, though its not really a close up scene.

Scantily-clad Amazon women seen in Wonder Woman's island home, though no nudity.

This is a great deal more information than what you used to get in the TV Guide which generally amounted to "contains nudity" which, I'm led to understand, never really gave enough information as to whether it was worth staying up to watch the film or not.

Anyway - merry Christmas!

Cylindrical biscuits must be pretend-smoked. It's the law.

Christmas Greetings!

Merry Christmas to one and all this fine day (Christmas Eve actually, as I type this).  We're on the verge of another Christmas Day, and all that it entails.

For me it'll be a fairly busy morning of opening presents, seeing my parents for a massive breakfast (rather than the traditional Christmas dinner my parents have a huge breakfast, and then snack as needed throughout the day), presents, seeing my gran, and then back home for the rest of the day, and some dinner later.

Featuring this year will be my Christmas cakes, one iced and with marzipan, one just iced, and one totally naked (except for tin foil which will hopefully be removed before anyone eats it!).  Hopefully they'll be nice, or at least the amount of alcohol in them will distract people :)

I'm quite tempted to have a session watching the Food Network tomorrow, bearing in mind their plan for the day:

In summary, 21 hours of Adam Richman eating well over twenty five pounds of food. It sounds amazing.

It's been ages since I made a video, so I finally did one this morning - it's a bit random, but hopefully entertaining, with a bit of Christmas-relating wittering, singing, jokes, and at one point the camera phone even gets abducted, which wasn't planned!

Anyway, I do hope that whatever you're doing, you have a good time over this holiday period.  Do, as always, drop me a comment, and let me know what you're up to!

Twas the weekend before Christmas...

... and I've still got a fair few things to sort out before the big day.

Mainly wrapping presents, there's a few left to buy which my wife is doing today (in return I've been posting parcels for her latest sales from her Etsy shop - do take a look at www.denkaidesigns.com) but I'll need a good couple of nights of wrapping presents next week.  I quite like wrapping presents, if you've got some good Christmassy shows on the television it's quite nice.  I do need to buy a few cards also, we don't generally do cards for people, except for close family and friends, I'm feeling a little guilty as my son received loads of cards from his classmates which showed up in his book bag from his last day at school, it simply never occurred to us to do cards!  Perhaps we might get some "New Year" cards for everyone for when school starts again.

I'm writing this blog post whilst having some small amount of glitter on me - last night a few people from work went out (well, a lot of people from work went out actually last night, in various groups) and at one point I had glitter liberally sprinkled on me.  This morning I woke up, and my wife said "I think you need a shower."
 "I do?"
 "Or a wash at least."
 "Why, do I smell?" I asked - I didn't think I did, although I was feeling rather dehydrated from the night before.
 "No, you're covered in glitter."

I took quite a few photos last night, I have no idea why I took this one which appears to be of peoples feet.

For lunch me and my son went to the local cafe for a snack, I ordered him beans on toast and a bacon sandwich for me, when they arrived he declared that we should "split it" which, I discovered, doesn't mean share, it means he eats my sandwich and I can eat the beans on toast, unless he's still hungry after the bacon sandwich, in which case he eats both of them.

Looking far too happy as he eats my bacon sandwich

How are your Christmas preparations going?  Let me know if you're all sorted and just waiting for the big day, or if you're yet to start!

Finally, some excellent news, this is probably the last post where I say "Time is running out to vote for me in the UK Blog Awards 2017!"

Votes for the awards do have to be in by the 19th of December so if you haven't already voted, please head over to http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/ukba2017/entries/blog-thog and pop a vote in.  I'm shortlisted for 2 categories, Lifestyle and Digital & Technology, you can vote for both categories in one go from the link above.  It's only by your votes that I have a chance of getting shortlisted, so please do vote if you haven't already :) Apparently you can vote regardless of where you live, although it's the UK Blog Awards all that means is that the blogs have to be in the UK, not the votes.

Christmas Baking

This weekend we've decided to get cracking on the Christmas decorations.  The tree took a great deal longer than expected, as I couldn't find the lights from last year - reasoning that we'd had them a number of years and was due some new ones, I headed down to our local supermarket, and bought two packs of white lights for a reasonable amount of money (£6), returned home, and set them up.

Ready to decorate.

They weren't particularly impressive.  True, with the aid of a microscope, you could indeed identify a faint luminescence from within them, but otherwise they were pretty rubbish.  Fortunately my wife was out shopping, so I sent her a text message requesting that if she happened to be in the vicinity of a shop selling lights that she get some.

She returned later with the lights, we put them on the tree, decorated it, and it looks very impressive.

Then I found the old lights.

Anyway, to my main experience of the day - every year, I state that I am going to bake a Christmas cake.  And every year, I don't.  I don't do a great deal of cooking, and I do even less baking, generally restricting myself to turning out a few cupcakes once or twice a year.

This year, I decided, would be different.

After soaking a kilo of fruit in alcohol last night, I made the cake mix.  All went reasonably well, until I put in the flour.  Using scales, I measured the right amount of flour, sieved it in, and mixed it up, but it seemed like a bit too much.

Then I weighed the remaining flour, and discovered that I had somehow managed to put twice the required amount in.

I endeavoured to resolve this by putting in more of the other ingredients (butter, sugar, and eggs) to balance out the flour.  This resulted in an increased amount of cake mix (batter?) for cooking.

At this point I discovered from my wife that I actually needed proper cake tins to cook in, I couldn't just use any old metal tin I found lying around, so went to the supermarket to get some (this was the same visit as for the underpowered lights)

After baking for about an hour and a quarter, the cakes came out like this:

So, they appear edible, and, possibly with the exception of the one on the right, aren't overly burned.  They've had another douse of alcohol, and they're now wrapped in foil and resting in tins, awaiting further dousing over the forthcoming weeks, until they get iced a week or so before Christmas.  Whilst I'm clearly going to endeavour to eat all three of them myself, I should warn anyone who might be considering visiting our house over the festive period to think twice before accepting my offer of a slice of Christmas cake :)

Do let me know how your seasonal preparations are going, if you are indeed preparing for anything seasonal! And I should say that my wife has added some new lines to her selection of needleminders, do stop by www.denkaidesigns.com and check her things out :)

And if you want more Christmas stuff, my last post was all about Christmas cakes and puddings :)

The REAL Christmas question - cheese or no cheese?

EDIT: Brief explanation of what Christmas cake and Christmas pudding is: Christmas cake is basically a fruit cake, generally iced or covered with marzipan. It's often (although not always) quite heavily laden with fruit. Christmas pudding meanwhile is made up of various dried fruits (often soaked in alcohol) and mixed with suet and with various spices. Both Christmas cakes and puddings may well be made months in advance of Christmas, provided that the alcohol content is sufficiently high to prevent spoiling.

It's rapidly heading towards Christmas - less than one month to go - and in Castle Raven we are rapidly taking stock of what Christmas presents we have bought, and what is still to be purchased.

And the wonderful thing about the internet, and indeed blogging, is that you discover things that aren't the same in different countries. In the US nappies are called diapers, kettles aren't seemingly the essential piece of kitchen equipment that they are in the UK, and across most of the world people drive on the wrong side of the road, due to a French chap named after a brandy. Or something like that, history has never been my strong point.

However sometimes, you discover things close to home that you don't expect.

We were talking in the office today, and one of my colleagues was having difficulty understanding the difference between Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake - for reference, below are pictures of both:

By James Petts from London, England (Christmas pudding) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By James Petts from London, England (Christmas cake) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

But more shockingly, they were seemingly aghast at a common practice of ours, and many other people (I thought).

I always thought that it was quite usual for people to have cheese with their Christmas cake.  A decent wedge of Christmas cake, with a healthy slice of cheese - probably Cheddar, or Red Leicester, I would suggest - goes down very well on Christmas Day, accompanied with a nice glass of something.

My colleague couldn't understand the idea of cake, especially with icing, and cheese.  I wholeheartedly acknowledge that it does sound odd, but in practice it is delicious.  Several people in the office found the cake & cheese combo perfectly normal, while others rejected it.

So, I'd like to throw it out to you - do you have Christmas cake, and if so do you accompany it with cheese?  Or is this a horrible idea?  And does your family have any traditions that apparently are at odds with society?  Let me know in the comments!

Christmas Tag

I saw this tag blog on Styleaked (great blog Charlotte) and thought it was a great idea so while it's still the Christmas period I decided to have a go.

1. What is your favourite Christmas film?

I'd have to say Scrooge with Alastair Sim - it's something of a tradition that sometime at Christmas I watch this film (I think this year is the first I can remember when I haven't seen it), Alastair Sim does a great job at being Scrooge.  The one with Patrick Stewart is very good too but I have to say that I've not seen this one bettered.

2. Have you ever had a white Christmas?

Not as far as I can remember although it's probably happened, I do remember one winter in the 1980s (1986/7 maybe) when we had loads of snow and it hung around for ages but I've no idea if it was Christmas or not.  Snow seems to come more in January/February nowadays (climate change I guess...)

3. Where do you usually spend your holiday?

Christmas morning is spent seeing family, and then back home for the afternoon for dinner (and a beer!)

4. What is your favourite Christmas song?

The one that comes to mind is "Driving Home for Christmas" by Chris Rea.  I remember in particular listening to that one Christmas Eve, driving along Clive Sullivan Way back home after work.

5. Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve?

No!  I'm quite a stickler for presents being opened on Christmas Day, not before.

6. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?

Um - Rudolph, Blitzen, Flitzen, Lightning, Bing, Zipper, Dancer, Prancer?

No, I can't.

7. What holiday traditions are you looking forward to most this year?

Just having some time to watch TV, read books, play games and stuff.  It's always nice to have some downtime.

8. Is your tree real or fake?

Fake!

9. Be honest. Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts?

I don't think that I could enjoy receiving gifts at Christmas if I hadn't been generous giving them also, so I can't really choose.  Sorry!

10. What would be your dream place to visit in the festive season?

That's tough - I always want to be close to home with my family, but there are places that I'd like to visit.  The German Christmas Markets have always sounded appealing, and I'd be really interested once to see what Christmas is like in Australia, when it's really hot and sunny instead of freezing cold!

11. Do you make New Years Resolutions and do you stick to them?

Not as a rule (although I have this year - see my video!) and the reason that I don't normally is because I don't stick to them.  I seem to recall reading somewhere that you're less likely to actually do something if you write it down, or tell people that you're going to do it, because in your mind these actions kind of feel like you've started doing the thing, and so can put it off.  I'd rather secretly achieve the thing that I want to do, and then announce it as a fait accompli.

That was good fun!  Anyone reading this is free to have a go at the Christmas tag, if you do let me know in the comments that you've done it and where!

Before I go - as I say, I have a new video about my new years resolution (spoiler - it's not to learn how to swim.  Or cycle.), feel free to check it out!  If I don't blog tomorrow happy new year!

Happy holidays!

Hello!

Well wherever you are in the world, I hope you had a good Christmas / holiday period.  It's been fairly quiet at mine with lots of unhealthy food, movies, and the odd nap.  I am working my way through Bill Bryson's latest book (The Road to Little Dribbling) and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it, I'm going to be sad when I finish it and I won't have any more of his travel books to read for the first time.  I think Bryson's appeal is in that he is so easy to relate to - I can quite imagine having similar challenges and misadventures if I had the opportunity to travel to new places under my own steam without my wife's steer or the enforced sensibilities of travelling with a family.  (That gives me an idea for a future blog, actually)

I'm very pleased to have done a little bit of DIY to my Sennheiser PC 350 headset that I won several years ago (for the story - and video - click here) - the ear cushions, over the years, have become flatter and flatter until they don't really resemble padding any more and rather just appear to be two plastic ovals with a bit of black fabric hanging off them.

I was expecting them to require superglue or at the very least a screwdriver with an unusual head (to make it more difficult) so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they snap out of place and then the replacements snap into place, and voila, the headset now has lovely thick cushions to envelop my ears during those long gaming sessions.

Today I think it's going to be a slightly busier day as I really need to get some washing done (with the aid of my evil tumble dryer - do anticipate a future blog post on this subject) and perhaps even think about vacuuming.

How has your Christmas been?  Are you still off or back at work?  Let me know in the comments!

Christmas Adverts

Christmas is upon us, for the Christmas adverts are out.

Yes, John Lewis has released a new advert (this time featuring an older gentleman on the moon, who receives a telescope so he can see everyone else having a great time without him), which Aldi has very funnily spoofed, Sainbury's has made a lovely one with a cat that destroys the kitchen, and the Cadbury's one is strangely awesome too.

But there's one advert that holds a special place in my mind.

And that's the Coca Cola truck.

Coca Cola happily ignore the rest of the market, who run around recording a bigger and better advert every year.  All I can think is that the Christmas advert is the last item on the marketing teams agenda and they never get round to it.  The meeting must go something like this...

Meeting Chairperson: Okay, onto Item 8...
Marketing Head: Can we rush this along?  I've got a teleconference in ten minutes.
Senior Marketer: Yes, I really need to go and work up some projections for our next campaign.
Meeting Chairperson: Um, okay, well Item 8 is the Christmas advert...
Marketing Head: Is that the time? Look I'm sorry guys, I've got to go.  Just run the Christmas truck advert again, it's fine.
[Everyone files out murmuring agreement, leaving the chairperson with their head in their hands]

Whatever the reason, we all know the Coca Cola one, the one where Santa (on the back of a Coca Cola lorry) raises a coke bottle to a small boy - a friend of mine was complaining about seeing it the other day because it wasn't December yet, and I knew immediately which advert he was referring to.  Maybe Coca Cola has got it right, reuse (with the odd refresh) the advert year after year and we'll remember it.

Anyone for a Pepsi?

Christmas

You know how you end up eating so much chocolate at Christmas that it makes you feel sick?

Well, this year has been no exception.

A bit of my video stuff was kindly included in TeaMakerJason's brilliant "A Game of Subs" video that's just gone up - do check it out:

And if you want to see my stuff (a bit of it is in Jason's video at 10 minutes, 20 seconds in) then you can watch my full entry here - the sound quality is a bit shocking though.  Wonder if I should have asked Santa for a new microphone.

While I remember, time is running out for you to get a question answered in my fortune telling video that I'm doing at the end of the year - if you have a burning question about your future that you'd like answering, then let me know (drop me a comment or something of the sort) as I'll be recording the video in the few days.  It's only a bit of light relief - and depends on me actually leaving the house to buy some fortune cookies - but should be fun.)

Christmas is around the corner

Christmas is just around the corner, as I write this there is less than four hours before Christmas Day begins here in the UK. We've bought, wrapped, and decorated, and pretty much failed to write any cards whatsoever (very sorry if you've sent us one - thank you for it - we've just had various unplanned things happen this year that have just really slowed us down).

I'm really very tired, and I have been for the last few days.  I guess that I'm ready for some downtime.  And for me that's what the Christmas break is all about, it's about spending time with the ones that you love, taking time out, relaxing and recovering for a few days.  How about you?

I'd also like to flag up that find.com have kindly published another of my blogs, this one is about accepting geekness.  Feel free to read if you're a geek - perhaps struggling with being a geek even.

Wherever you are in the world, and whatever your beliefs, I hope you have some time to yourself, to do what you want, and to be happy.  All the best.

Happy holidays!

Anti hacking jeans and more brilliant writing

Well, time is counting down to Christmas, in one weeks time it will be Christmas Day, we still have quite a few presents to wrap (and a couple of buy) but we're not too far away from being ready.

If you're yet to finish your shopping, how about some anti-hack clothing?

Betabrand have worked with computer security firm Norton to create RFID blocking jeans (and a blazer, if that wasn't enough) to protect your credit cards from being attacked.  With the establishment of contactless payments, cards are becoming increasingly easy to access remotely, and I wouldn't be surprised if features like this become commonplace in clothing.

Today I have been listening to the classic Llama Song.  Yes, it's annoying.

And awesome.

I've also been reading through my stories of the spaceship Explorer and its crew in their struggle to save the United Systems of Earth from the Belan Empire (see my previous post for more details and examples of exceptionally bad writing).  I've come across the following gem, written by myself (aged 16ish)...

"Follow me!" Hardy ordered, and the escapees began to run. Gold led the way with Hardy, as several sets of legs came around a corner.  - I hope that the legs were attached to bodies, otherwise it's a bit gruesome.

The other day I did a shout out video the other day about my favourite five YouTubers.  Do check them out if you haven't already, and if there's a YouTuber that you love, let me know!

Finally, time is counting down if you'd like a question about your future answered by the pyramid of mystery - if you've got a question pop it in the comments!

Are you ready for Christmas?

Time is ticking away, for in five weeks it shall be Christmas Eve.  Have you got your presents bought yet?  The shops are full of seasonal wares, the television is filling up with Christmas adverts, and a niggling ache is growing in the back of peoples heads as they begin to wonder if they ought to start thinking about getting presents.

I have been putting odd presents away haphazardly over the last couple of months, but now it's time for me to get organised, get a detailed list of presents for friends and family together, lose the list, and then buy what I can think of for people.  What typically happens is one of two things:
1) I end up with too many presents, and end up having to keep three Toblerones for myself, or...
2) I miss out someone's present and end up having to send them something slightly odd like a bag of Haribo.

Last year I had a little problem in that I sent some packs of shower gels and deodorants through the post as presents, and they were intercepted as possible bombs.  They did in the end make it to their destination, but was about a month late, which was a shame.

How are you preparing for Christmas?  Have you started yet?  Or do you leave till the last minute?

Those lovely folk at find.com have published an app review of mine, a review of Relax Melodies: Sleep & Yoga.  Do go take a look.

How did you change over Christmas?

Myself - I became a fan of Doctor Who.

For someone who considers himself a geek, one thing I've never really been into was Doctor Who.  I've watched the odd episode, certainly, but it's never been a show that I would plan to sit down and watch, just something that, if there was nothing else on, could kill an hour for me.

And over Christmas, when I had some spare time to kill, there was a full afternoon of Doctor Who episodes on.

I have come to the conclusion that Matt Smith is awesome.

Apart from Doctor Who, I've been playing two games on my phone a lot - Clash of Clans from Supercell, and Hill Climb Racing from Fingersoft.

Clash of Clans is a strategy game where you build a town up, building gold mines, walls, resource stores, cannons and the like to defend yourself, whilst also recruiting fighters to go and loot other towns.  As you get better at looting towns, and at defending your own town, you gain trophies, which make it more likely that you'll be attacked by better players - and that you'll get the chance to fight them back!  It's a very engaging free to play game and well worth a try.

One of the nice features of Clash of Clans is the "Revenge" button - after someone attacks your town, you can hit this button, and rather than the game automatically matching you with a town to attack, it gives you the chance to get your revenge upon them.

I was attracted to Clash of Clans firstly by the advert which is very funny - watch it below!

Hill Climb Racing, meanwhile, is a game where you drive a variety of vehicles over a number of landscapes, trying to cover as much distance as possible, whilst picking up coins on the way that you can use to upgrade your vehicles, as well as unlocking new landscapes and new vehicles.  Vehicles go from the mundane (jeep) to the cool (monster truck / racing car) to the bizarre (tank / tourist bus), as do the landscapes (fancy driving on the Moon?)

For a very simplistic game - you have two controls, an accelerator and a brake - it is very engaging and challenging.  The landscapes are quite tough and you'll soon realise that putting your foot down is an unwise approach if you don't want to attempt balancing a car on your head (not recommended if you want to keep your neck in one piece).  However, the temptation of additional coins by carrying out tricks, like jumping into the air and flipping your car over is often too enticing to resist.  Again, I'd strongly recommend giving this one a try.  Be warned though - you never get used to the noise of your neck breaking as a car crushes it - and this happens a lot!

At this time of year...

...why do we do such strange things?

Eat pate - not paste out of a jar, but pate out of a pack.  Because pate is posher.  And what is the difference between pate and paste?

Lumps.

Pate has lumps in - sorry, texture, I mean to say "it's textured".

Textured with little chunks of fat that gross you out despite the many other things you've already engorged on over the Christmas period.

But you still eat it.

Eat too much chocolate - for eleven months of the year, there isn't such a thing as too much chocolate.  I could happily devour one of those large bars of Cadburys in a single sitting without batting an eyelid.  But at Christmas?  Suddenly some kind of "chocolate limit" kicks in, and despite the piles of tasty-looking Roses and Quality Street sitting there, all I really want is a cracker.

Weird Digestive Crackers - speaking of crackers, what is the deal with those strange digestive-type crackers that you get in boxes of crackers?  They're like a digestive biscuit, and kind of sweet which really messes up the taste explosion of the cheese piled upon it.

Weird digestive cracker AND lumpy pate?!?

Ring people at midnight - this doesn't happen so much now that I'm getting older, but we ring people at midnight on New Years Eve, to wish them "Happy New Year".  This is often made more difficult by the fact that one, or both, parties may be at some kind of social event (be it a party at home, a night club, or a bowling alley) so hearing someone on the phone isn't easy at the best of times.  And because so many people are ringing or texting "Happy New Year" all at the same time, the phone networks crash.

Ringing people at midnight is odd, isn't it?  If anyone rang me at any other time of year at midnight, I'd assume someone had died or was in hospital, or at the very least had got the wrong number and really wanted a pizza delivering asap.

Eat Danish Butter Cookies - I don't actually mind eating them that much, but I wouldn't buy a tin myself.  Except at Christmas, when one (if not two) tins of butter cookies appear in the house as if by magic.

Gold Chocolate Coins - At any other time in the year I could see myself struggling to remove a minute piece of chocolate from a foil casing, because I eat stuff that's bad for me.  But when do we get them?  At Christmas.  When the house is already full of chocolate and other sweeties.

Mmm. Sweeties.

You can always tell that you're out of all other chocolate when you start on the gold coins, and when you do resort to the chocolate coins you'll start with the biggest ones, the ones that look like a big two euro coin, because you get more chocolate for the effort spent penetrating the foil.  But all too soon you end up with just a stack of small, old five pence sized chocolate coins left, and the misery that settles around you as you work your way through these builds up to replace the depression thrown off at the beginning of the holidays.

While I'm blogging, I have a new video uploaded to my YouTube channel - my son loves counting and spelling songs, so I made a counting video, and used a xylophone to provide the tunes.

And Rocked. Out.

WHY IS THIS

I've got Christmas cake. Right in my kitchen. It is now Boxing Day and I still haven't eaten any of it.

Why?!?

Merry Christmas!

THE TROLLEY WAS FULL!

Celebrate all, for below is the latest (festive no less) guest post from my dad. Enjoy!

---

Steel yourselves readers for a fearsome tale of dire trepidation, foreboding and unease.

Be afraid, be very afraid, for this could be YOU!

O.M.G!

Key: O. – ‘Oh’ an expression of surprise!

         M. – me, this is a personal statement or expression which I am making.

         G. – either ‘God’ or ‘goodness’ as you choose.

         In this case it was “GOOD GOD - HOW MUCH?”

Tis the season to eat Holly apparently.. or some such thing. Halls are gaily decked, the milk of human kindness flows unceasingly and all work with frantic diligence to make the ‘winter Solstice celebration’ a success. (or whatever you wish to call it)

One small part of this fabulous time of year is the relatively unglamorous yet essential food shopping so necessary for family, fiends and other associated consumers. After all, the shops may be closed for two whole days! And what if a long lost family member just happens to drop in on you whilst passing and expect to be fed and watered?

A safe guide is approx 18kg of turkey per person, a dozen mince pies, a gallon of exotic beer, whiskey, rum, brandy, vodka and a case of white wine or fruit based drinks for ladies. (you have of course sent cards to everyone on the planet? .. of course you have)

So it was that we set out to ride the storm tossed seas of the supermarket for our yuletide fare. 16 litres of milk was deemed adequate – I will have beer to drink so that will help to save on tea drinking (I like to do my bit to ease the stress of the Yuletide holidays).

Six loaves of bread, fish, cooked meat, uncooked meat, potted meat, meaty meat, vegetables, cuddly toy etc ..  dog biscuits, mummies biscuits, daddies biscuits, chocolates, three bags of flour just in case we have to make our own bread, two kg of mixed exotic ‘seed’ to mix with bread dough to make it erm exotic and healthy, washing powder, pork pies, a small roast, a big roast, a roast roast, a roast which was chicken, a roast which was pork, a roast that was turkey …. a roast which wasn’t any of the previous … erm did I mention sweets?

Of course, that wasn’t all by a long way. Gradually the shopping trolley filled and filled to over flowing .. my mind drifted to an imaginary checkout where the bill grew and grew and grew. Electronic numbers clicked and flashed and with dream-like ease, effortlessly multiplying … £5. ..£20 ….£ 157.34 … £1976.51 …… £1,000,000 … number too big .. possibly infinity!

A whole imaginary nation was slowly tipping sideways and sliding into a violent storming sea …. The long drowned dead cried out “The bill is IMPOSSIBLE!”

I shook myself. Shivers of icy fear ran down my back as we waded our weary way through crowds of shoppers, some frantic to buy everything that could be bought, some dazed and incapable of choosing which brand of tea to buy. The checkouts were full. Queues of people stretched down the aisles awaiting service and supermarket assistants wandered back and forth checking to see if anyone needed water or a toffee to keep them going.

Eventually … it seemed without ever moving really …. We found ourselves at the checkout. A humanoid ‘smiled’ at us without looking – she was smiling, possibly grimacing, and clearly as stressed as we were. Items were hurled through the scanner and prices danced before my eyes .. £5 … £20 ….. I daren’t look!

The trolley was refilled and a simple, small piece of plastic flashed briefly, electronic numbers vanished and we were dismissed with thankyouhaveanicedaymerrychristashellohowareyoutoday?

The next customer was being instantly processed. I staggered out of the shop weighed down with purchases.

Thank goodness we decided not to splash out this year and to budget our food buying J

Pancake with face

And a belated Merry Christmas to you all!  Hope you had a good Christmas Day, myself and my other half came down with something on Christmas Eve (not sure if food poisoning or a bug, myself I suspect the former) so we were pretty much out of that all that day and although we had a good time on the big day itself we did both go for a nap mid-afternoon!

Spoiler alert - after the picture below I'm going to talk about the Downton Abbey Christmas Special.

It's a pancake! And the raisins make a face!!! O. M. G.

My other half likes these pancakes you can get with raisins in that can be eaten cold or toasted.  Anyway this one the raisins made a face.

Yay :)

Anyhow, Downton Abbey.  I saw the Christmas special last night, very much enjoyed it as always.

But the end - and I'm delaying saying about it in case someone who hasn't seen the episode but is planning to is reading this - was a shock.

Almost as an afterthought, Matthew gets killed (presumably) in a car crash. Certainly the blood gliding down his blank face can't be beneficial for his health.

Downton Abbey is no stranger to death - the show kicked off with the sinking of the Titanic taking out the obvious male heirs, and over the years we've seen regular crew Lady Sybil and William die, along with the attache to the Ottoman Empire.

My first reaction was to criticise the show for killing Matthew so randomly and swiftly and as one of the nicest characters in the show he'll be sadly missed.

However, thinking about it does this only go to show how good the series is, to make me care about the characters in this way?  And I can't argue that Matthew's death isn't historically likely - although national road accident statistics weren't collected in 1921 (when the episode was set), in 1926 they did begin to, and in that year 4,886 deaths were recorded.  To give this figure some detail, in 2011 the number of deaths was 1,901, despite the fact that the daily flow of motor vehicles has increased by some 150% over the forty years from 1965 to 2008 (can't find statistics going back beyond that but I can't imagine traffic has lessened pre-1965).  Of course 1,901 is still far too many deaths - 1 is too many - but it does show that we are more careful on the roads today (as well as roads being better controlled, better emergency response systems etc).

I suppose my only concern is that the show has so many ups and downs and surprises and twists that it almost feels more like an episode of Eastenders (which I was a fan of for many years until the Sunday omnibus vanished from afternoons) than a period drama. But does that matter?

At any rate I will be watching the fourth season when it arrives to give me more to blog about!

Tis the season to eat holly etc

Hello all and see below one of the very popular guest posts from the one and only Mr Graham Raven aka dad!

‘Tis the season to eat holly etc and we all look forward to some time with our families and loved ones, and hopefully some quality time together.

However, I am reminded by a fiend of the family, that the world is due to end, once again, in late December. (sigh!)

Despite my having been on the planet a very short time indeed, by geological standards, I have experienced quite a number of ‘end of the world’ events – none of which have come to anything of significance.

However, on hearing of the current ‘end of the world’ scenario my furtive imagination burst forth with an imagined conversation between the gods …

Set amongst clouds of heavenly erm, Godliness, sounds of thunder and stuff like that …

Head God - "Well, have you released the Kraken, risen a vast tidal wave and wiped humanity from the face of the Earth?"

Lesser god with overall responsibility for Doom, mass extinction and general nastiness – "More or less oh Omnipotent one."

Head God – "Good that will show the buggers – eh, what do you mean ‘more or less’?"

Lesser etc – "most of mankind have been utterly decimated and wiped from …"

Head God – "most? MOST?!"

Lesser etc – "well, erm, it seems that there were prophets of doom predicting the end of the world, and er, well, Mr A. K. Atkinson and his wife Edna were somewhat troubled by the thought of annihilation, they have just redecorated the kitchen and, and well they sort of, tried to avoid it."

Head God – "Am I not omnipotent? Creator, and as I see fit, Destroyer of all? How did these miserable beings possibly thwart my Will?"

Lesser etc – "um, it seems they kept their fingers crossed oh great one …."

Head God then throws an absolute wobbler, I mean, he is seriously peed off. Humans will not respect him if all you have to do is cross your fingers…

Head God looking very angry. Well - Head God after standing in a pile of dog poo.

And a very merry Christmas to one and all!

Happy Boxing Day!

I've just come back from my friends place in Norfolk where we've been celebrating Christmas - yes, I am aware it's slightly early, but I was there, he was there, so we decided to have an early Christmas Day on Saturday.

We had a gift limit of five pounds, so we had to make the most of our money to get the best present we could.

Or, if it's me, go on as many websites as possible to order free samples.

Some of the 'gifts' I wrapped up included:

• A piece of tile
• Some damp proofing gel
• Some block paving crack sealant
• A nappy
• A Knorr Gravy pot (not ordered from the internet but from Leeds Railway Station, where people were handing them out on Thursday)
• Carpet, curtain and fabric samples
• Aftershave
• Various customised bits from Vistaprint (okay I had to pay for post & packing, but £3 for a mouse mat, pen, mug and bag wasn't too bad!)

I did buy a few bits, prime one being a USB Air Freshener.  I nearly came a cropper when I realised that the air freshener needed essential oil to work, fortunately those good folk at Raven (who I may be slightly related to) sorted me out with some free Nag Champa oil, which does smell lovely.  If you are interested in any kind of weird and wonderful stuff, from josssticks to tarot cards, books to oils, get in touch with Raven at:

Raven
17 Melton Fields
Brickyard Lane
North Ferriby
East Riding of Yorkshire
HU14 3HE

Send them your address and a couple of first class stamps for a mail order catalogue.  I know, in this time of the internet we all automatically search the websites for stuff, but their catalogue is excellent (yes I am biased but even so).

All in all we had an excellent time, played some Cards Against Humanity (first time I've actually played it, I can recommend it as long as you are of a mature age and have an immature sense of humour!)

I can't blog today without a word about Sir Patrick Moore, who died this afternoon.  Sir Patrick was for anyone remotely interested in astronomy and the night sky, a legend which brought the science of the final frontier to life.  Despite only describing himself as an "amateur astronomer", he presented the Sky at Night television show for over fifty years, wrote tens of books on the topic of astronomy, and carried out functions such as working on the mapping of the Moons surface in the 1950s.  There are many tens of fascinating and fantastic facts about this amazing man, which I am not worthy of reproducing.  Being an 80s child I recall him as the GamesMaster on the Channel 4 TV show of the same name!  I would recommend to anyone interested in knowing more about him to get a copy of his autobiography, Eighty Not Out.  Indeed, any of the many books Sir Patrick was involved in writing would be a worthy read.

A memorial website has been set up for people to offer their tribunes, which is located at http://www.banguniverse.com/sirpatrickmoore/.

Dancing scientifically

I discovered this article about what, scientifically, is the most attractive dance a man can make.  Watch the video below to learn the secret...

Fascinating eh?

At least the video is better than this

If you like cool science stories, do check out the Vsauce channels on YouTube.  If you want to know why we have two nostrils, or want to find more out about the shirt with the same technology used by NASA in space, or even just understand how Sonic runs so fast, go check out the Vsauce channels.  I have to say that the original channel, with the master that is Michael is my favourite, but all three have some pretty cool stuff.

The Vsauce channels are:
Vsauce
Vsauce2
Vsauce3

Me and my best mate are having an early Christmas Day in a few weeks, and we've agreed to spend no more than £5 on each other.  Not to give away any clues but I'm been going all out to try to make the most of my five hundred pence.  That said, if anyone has any ideas, do get in touch!