LancashireWatch

A LancashireWatch rather than a YorkshireWatch, but other than that this article is the absolute archetypal example of exactly the kind of thing that pisses me off.

‘A Lancastrian myself, I have spent over ten years living in London, working in media-luvvie-land. My accent may be warped as a result, but the beliefs remain the same. And events like Duffygate bring back all those Northern axioms on which I was raised: “Be straight with people. Be honest. Don’t say anything that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.” ‘

Seriously can you imagine anyone writing:

I was born and raised in London, but I’ve moved to ‘t land of hot pots, whippets and flat caps.  I’m even starting to talk funny, by ‘eck!  But I haven’t forgotten the decent Southern values with which I was brought up.  “Be kind.  Don’t be rude to people.  If you can’t think of something nice to say then keep your mouth shut.”

Minor Celebrity Spotting 14

Today’s spot is Curtis Stigers.  He’s a jazz singer.  No?  Nobody?  Well it is minor celebrity spotting you know.

Minor Celebrity Spotting 13

Today’s spot is one of the dancers from So You Think You Can Dance.  Although, since it was actually at a dance studio I feel this is not a true spot.  It’s like going to a gig and claiming to have “spotted” the band.

Eric the Imposter

Percy Pigs – a national institution, a national treasure, confectionery of the Gods.  An ex-pat friend of mine recently got married and I took her some as a wedding present (I got her some other stuff as well – I’m not that cheap).

Imagine my horror when I was browsing round Sainsburys the other day and saw “Eric the Elephant” sweets.  On seeing the packaging, I immediately thought – this is Sainsbury’s answer to Percy Pigs, fair enough.  But then I saw the actual sweets.

Eric the Elephant

Good old Percy

For shame, Sainsburys, for shame!

We have done a blind taste test and can confirm that Eric is rather tougher than Percy, but still pretty tasty to be fair.

“Lifestyle Event” ??

I got an email from “Boutique runs” which is “a new lifestyle event aimed exclusively at women and would like to invite you to join us for a girls’ night out with a difference…a scenic run in the park followed by entertainment and pampering*! We’re talking free champagne, hot showers, massage, fabulous after party and our special ‘Bouti’ bag full of goodies!”

I’m surprised that this kind of “girl’s night out” thing attached to a running event has a wide enough target market.  It puts me off completely.  But clearly they’re are plenty of women who are not put off, because there is also “Fit for a Princess” who are always at the London Santa Run and offer (probably very good) outdoor fitness sessions to women (many of whom would no doubt have me eating their dust in a 10k), but have opted for the type of branding that is usually reserved for 3 to 7 year old girls.

Maybe I’ll adopt the same approach – “Legal Advice fit for a Princess”, all our correspondence would be on pink paper, and we’d answer the phone “How can I help your majesty?”

* I like this word “pampering”.  I guess it’s meant to mean facials or manicures or similar, but it just makes me picture women in adult sized nappies.**

**Apologies in advance for disappointing anyone led to this blog after googling “women in adult sized nappies”.

Run to Work – the Illustrated Edition

Another sunny morning, perfect for a run to work – we’ve been absolutely spoilt over the past couple of weeks.  As a way of getting a cheeky breather every kilometre, here are some photos taken at 1 kilometre intervals along the route:

1k – Greenwich Park

2k – St Alphege’s Church

3k – Onto the Thames Path – Canary Wharf in the distance

4k – A little park, plus Mr Beet’s nipples for some added interest

5k – Back to the riverside – some art (“the Circumsphere”) and Canary Wharf a little bit closer

6k – Greenland Dock and Canary Wharf yet again

7k – Canada Water…and collapse….

Now, I don’t tend to appreciate it at the time I’m running, because I’m too busy huffing and puffing like Ivor the Engine, but I think that’s as commutes go, this one is beautiful.  I’m sure my natural laziness will reassert itself in due course, but it will be a shame when the route and the weather are this good.

Rude Boy

I recently blogged about a colleague whose masculinity was threatened by a yellow mug.

I came home today to find Mr Beet drinking his tea from this…

…and singing along to Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”.

Baking Power

There’s a farmer’s market in Blackheath every Sunday, and Mr Beet and I usually go and pick up a few things for a very greedy late breakfast.  Mr Beet is a big fan of fruit-loaf-and-vegetable-fritter man, but he’s only there occasionally and we haven’t seen him for so long that Mr Beet was starting to get withdrawal symptoms.  Desperate times call for desperate measures so I had a bash myself – adapting a recipe for blackberry and cinnamon loaf (don’t have any blackberries and don’t like cinnamon) into raspberry and ginger.

My verdict – Om nom nom…..

Mr Beet’s verdict – it’s all right….

Frankie Boyle – Defatigable Spirit

I recently found out that back in the day, Frankie Boyle used to do taekwondo at the Glasgow club and came to summer course one year.  So his new tour might be called “I would happily punch each one of you in the face”, but he wouldn’t need to bother with me, because chances are we’ve already kicked the crap out of each other.  I’ve checked out his autobiography to see what he says tkd.

“Fresh off the booze, I decided to take up taekwondo, which I loved but was pretty terrible at.  There was a really great school in Glasgow run by a proper Korean grandmaster [err... Master Loh's Malaysian...] and I’d do that two or three days a week.  I even went on a week’s training camp at one point.  The whole thing is built on “Indomitable Spirit”, an ability to never give in.  During camp I found that I had “Defatigible Spirit” and gave in.  I really miss it, actually.  My next tour is going to be the last one and hopefully I can get into a martial art after it’s all over.  There’s no way that being able to do a rowdy gig in Hull makes you cooler than somebody who can punch their way through a wall. “

I hope he does come back to it.  I had two years off while I was working all hours, but when you come back to it it’s amazing how much your legs remember, even if your brain doesn’t.  And he shouldn’t be hard on himself about summer course, last time I did it I was 21 and training 5 times a week and it was still a complete ordeal.  In fact, my friend Liz has just had a baby and described her 24+ hour labour as “about as bad as summer course”.

London Marathon

Another weekend without lie-ins for me (damn you parkrun, damn you miscellaneous stuff I have to do on Sunday mornings) as I got up at 6.30 (6.30!!! on a Sunday!!!) to volunteer for a few hours at the start of the London Marathon.  Thought it would be good to at least be a part of it, even though I didn’t get a place in the ballot - boo!!!!*

Our job was to take people’s bags and put them on a lorry, trying to keep them in some kind of numerical order so that people have a fighting chance of finding them at the other end.

For getting up early we got a running top and a medal.

The medal doesn’t say “volunteer” or anything, so I feel a bit of a fraud!  Although I think I earned it, if only for keeping my temper when some tosser who’d left it too late to put his bag on the correct lorry wanted to put his bag on ours.  That’s fine we said, but he kept on bitching at us about the poor organisation and his lorry leaving too soon.  Bellend.

I’m now watching the run on TV and looking out for runners 40601 to 41100, who are “our” runners!

* But, secretly – phew!