Airport review: Bogotá

I may be away for a while, but I still have a commitment to do four posts a month here on the Beans, so I’ve decided to exploit something I’ll be doing a lot, which is visiting airports. Please enjoy this first in a thrilling series of airport reviews.

El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá, Colombia

We spent about four hours here in between flights, arriving at about 3.30am and leaving shortly before 8am.

Despite it being a stupid time of the morning, most shops were open, staffed by people who looked like they wished they didn’t have to man a souvenir shop at 3am. As a result we had the option to buy any number of slightly tacky Colombia-branded tourist tat. We did not bother with this.

Airport seating was plentiful, with banks of seats everywhere and no shortage of places to sit even when the gate started filling up with passengers. However the seats were hard and upright and I did not enjoy sitting on them for nearly four hours. I give the seating 6/10.

Apart from buying some breakfast, which took 25 minutes to arrive even though there was nobody else waiting, my only interaction with the locals was to meet this charming Colombian lady who had a cargo of bananas and knew how to use it. Kate didn’t like her as much as I did.

Overall this was not a bad place to spend four hours in the middle of the night and my impression of Colombia, having only seen the inside of the airport, was broadly positive.

I award El Dorado International Airport 7 planes out of 10.

Giddy Strider’s Fields

I am a huge fan of the band The Long Blondes.

They only managed to release two albums in their lifetime before breaking up (if you don’t count the early singles collection of course), which is a damn fine shame. They’re on regular rotation at home and in the car.

You know when you think you know the lyrics to a song but then when you’re singing along you’re missing words out? Such was the case recently when playing one of the singles from their first album, ‘Giddy Stratospheres’. It’s a catchy song about breaking up with someone because they’re boring and dragging you down; lovely stuff.

Not wanting to appear foolish, I decided to look up the lyrics to see if I was singing the right words. Heaven forbid that someone should hear me and think I was some kind of fake fan! The horror!

Unfortunately the first effort that came up appeared to be AI giving it a go and, well, see for yourself:

If you sing it this way, it sounds as though the guy’s girlfriend won’t take him to somewhere called Giddy Striders Fields. Perhaps it’s his favourite place for a kick about with the lads? Maybe he likes riding the horses at the weekend? Who knows.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sing the right words now given the sheer lunacy of AI and their attempt.

Cheese sponsorship

I think I’ve found the weirdest food marketing ploy since special edition Elton John Marmite.

The other week we decided to get some nice burgers from the butcher and have a home made burger night. (It was absolutely banging, thanks for asking.) We needed cheese for that, obviously, so we got ourselves a pack of sliced Jarlsberg.

The cheese was, as you would expect, perfectly aged for maximum flavour, a source of calcium, high in protein, and somehow lactose free. (I don’t understand the last bit, it’s cheese, but OK, that must be something to do with the secret recipe.) But this Jarlsberg has another, much more unexpected, property.

Yes, this is the official cheese sponsor of The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical. Not the film, you understand, no – presumably another cheese sponsors that. But Jarlsberg is the cheese providing the financial backing for the stage musical, and presumably reaping the benefits of the show’s fans when they come pouring out of the theatre, hungry for cheese, and all rush to the dairy aisle of the nearest supermarket to get themselves a pack of ten slices of medium strength Dutch cheese.

London says no

Usually, on my way home from a day at work, I call in to a well known retailer at Waterloo station who sell Simply Food to get myself something to eat on the way home – usually a sandwich and a bag of crisps or something like that. By the time I’m there, around 8.45 in the evening, there are reduced stickers all over everything so my aim is to get an all-discount meal.

A week or two ago I went to the sarnie department and was faced with an unusual sight. Normally most of the food is gone and there are stickers on some of the remaining items, but that day there was an absolute wall of unbought stock.

It appears that Mr Mark and Mr Spencer had decided not to stock up on the usual classics – there were no BLTs, cheese and pickles or chicken caesar wraps. Instead, on the flimsy pretext that some tennis was being played, they had filled the shelves with strawberry sandwiches with pistachio cream on chocolate bread. The commuters of London had then looked at these and, collectively, said no.

I don’t blame them. For one thing these are not a meal. I don’t want fruit on novelty bread for my lunch or my dinner, I want an actual filling sandwich with grown up things inside it. And while I might have been tempted to have some novelty fruit nonsense as a little pudding afterwards, there was not a chance in hell I was going to pay £4.20 for it. Neither, it seems, was anyone else. The yellow stickers were out and the weird butties were now reduced to £3.75 but still nobody was buying.

The next day the exact same sight greeted me – a wall of the finest strawberries the UK produces, hand selected by the pickiest supermarket to meet the highest standards, turned into something nobody wanted to eat. The day after that it was full of normal sandwiches again. Hopefully these abominations won’t be back.

Newsboost – new town incoming!

Shock news today as Preston City Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council announce joint plans for a brand spanking new development to be built between two well-established towns.

We have it on good authority that something new is happening between Preston and Blackburn.

“This country is full of old,” said local Preston councillor Tolika Doolittle. “It’s swimming in old. We are surrounded by history which is great for tourism, however it doesn’t leave much room for anything else. We’re seeking to build something special that will get people’s tongues wagging.”

The new establishment is set to be built in the space between the two aforementioned towns.

“We’ve taken a bit of Blackburn and taken a bit of Preston, carved them off like slices of cheese. Nobody was really using this land anyway. Once you’ve seen the initial artist’s impressions you will be blown away.”

‘Presburn’, as it is currently known, is still at the initial early stages, with development due to start in six months time and completion expected by 2030.

Locals have been resisting though with several online petitions raising awareness of the small villages already built in the proposed area of development.

Hoghton, Feniscowles and Witton Country Park all sound made up but they are real places with real people living there. We pushed Tolika Doolittle for further comments about this.

“Where? Who? Do they have a Starbucks? Probably not. It’s best to bulldoze now and ask questions later. You’ll all thank me in the end!”

Will we though? Stay tuned for more details.

Can you see… ?

Poooo?

Death of Quirky

It had to happen sooner or later.

Here I am, sleep- deprived, lumbering around like a zombie. The heat isn’t making it any better, neither is having to be up most hours trying to make a baby go back to sleep. I have bruises up and down my legs and arms from accidentally bashing into things. My spacial awareness is at an all time low.

I remember opening up the cupboard door and watching in slow motion as the glass that hadn’t been put back properly left the safety of the shelf and collided with the kitchen floor.

I had been using it almost every day since we got them back for Old Man Kevvers 40th birthday. It’s the perfect size for refreshing juice on a hot day.

No more pint glass for me.

At least I have the memories. Does anyone want to watch me walk into the pub?

Puffins?

This year’s Puffins? day coincides with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, so to mark the occasion, here are 250 puffins, some of whom are waving American flags, and some of whom are dressed as Abraham Lincoln.

(I’m aware that there are not 250 puffins in this picture. AI doesn’t understand precise numbers. It just drew a lot of them.)