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.

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.)

Glasses everywhere

Guys, I’m thrilled – absolutely THRILLED – that everyone has been so enthusiastic about my new Public Glasses mission. We’ve only been going for a couple of months and already I know the whole nation is behind me. The money isn’t pouring in yet, but I’m sure that will follow.

Just the other day while I was out walking the dog, I noticed some Public Glasses that someone had kindly left there.

This is absolutely wonderful and it’s just the kind of thing I had hoped for.

However, shortly after I took this picture, the dog came over and had a wee up against the tree stump. (For your benefit I have not included a picture of that.) The glasses were unaffected, but this highlights for me the importance of Kev’s solemn pledge to supply a special weatherproof Hat-a-Glasses for every pair of Public Glasses out there. With a rainproof and pissproof Hat-a-Glasses these municipal specs would never have been at risk from my dog’s full bladder.

Anyway – the movement is just getting started. Perfection will come in time. For now, let’s just be glad that we’re on the way to a brighter future, and also, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it continues to be very important that you donate all your money to me. I mean to the charity. Thanks.

How do I get my parcel?

We came home the other day to find a parcel had turned up. The driver had left it on the doorstep right in front of the front door.

Inside the door, we found a little card that the driver had pushed through the letterbox.

It said they had left the parcel in the safe location “front step”. Then, further down, it asked how do I get my parcel?

In answer, it said they would return to deliver it tomorrow. So we left it on the step until the next day. But the next day the driver didn’t come back and they didn’t deliver our parcel.

The next suggestion was that we go to www.yodel.co.uk to choose a new delivery date or arrange to collect it from a depot. When we visited the website it asked for the parcel number, but the parcel number was not on the card.

In desperation, we called the Yodel hotline and explained that the card didn’t tell us the parcel number. The operator asked for our postcode instead. We gave them our postcode. They said the parcel had been delivered. We explained what had been written on the card and that we were following their instructions to get it.

At this point the penny dropped. We didn’t need to arrange a delivery, said the operator. We just needed to collect it. So we went back out to the doorstep to collect our parcel, bringing the Yodel card, one item of photographic ID and a utility bill to prove our name and address. Now we have our parcel.

We opened it. Everything inside was wet from the rain overnight. We’re sending it back.

Perfect for all the family

Do you like sport?

Do you like families?

Do you like ball-based sports?

Then you need sport balls!

This unbeatable set includes:

A football, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play football
A basketball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play basketball
A tennis ball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so can be used to play tennis if you don’t mind the ball not bouncing or travelling far enough because it has the wrong weight and ballistic properties
A baseball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play baseball

Perfect for all the family!

An ominous warning

Recently we got a new treadmill thing, which allows you to go for a walk inside your house. This is useful for exercise and also for avoiding scenery if the natural world is disgusting to you.

I took a look at the instructions to see if there was any important information there that wasn’t immediately obvious when looking at the four-button control panel (on, off, faster, slower). It told me some vital information about the dimensions and operating parameters of the machine.

And then, at the bottom, it told me something else.

I don’t know what it’s going to do to me. I don’t know what its plan is.

I only know that, in the end, it will win.

How to speak British

You might think you know how to speak the language of Great Blighty, but just because you picked it up as a child doesn’t mean you’ve fully grasped its intricacies. Thankfully the internet is full of helpful advice for those trying to master British English, and in this post I’m going to round up some of the key findings for you.

Food

Every guide seems to begin with food words. In Britain, eggplants are called aubergines and zucchini are called courgettes. Then we have some more useful translations from YMT Vacations:

Word	Translation into British
Chips	Crisps
Beer	Jar
Cheetos	Puff snacks
Doritos	Doritos
Slices of cured ham	Rashers

Vogue add that flapjacks are “not pancakes”, though they have no information about what flapjacks actually are.

Nouns

What do you call that thing? If you want to avoid just pointing at something, you need to know its name. Thankfully Vogue knows a lot more about what things are called.

Word	Translation into British
Toilet	Loo
Elevator	Lift
Uniform	Kit
Pregnancy	Up the Duff

Quintain Living helpfully throw in some more common nouns that you might require. Don’t make the mistake of using the words on the left if you want to avoid being laughed at.

Word	Translation into British
Kiss	Snog
Man	Bloke
Toilet paper	Bog roll
Police officer	Rozzer

On that final point, YMT Vacations also helpfully share their understanding that the common British term for a police car is “jam sandwich”.

Idioms and phrases

If you really want to speak like a native Britisher, you should sprinkle some common Brit-sayings into your conversation to convince the locals that you too are from Fair Albion’s green and pleasant shores. Vogue have soaked up the culture and offer the following extensive list.

Word	Translation into British
Weird	Dodgy
Cray	Bonkers
Gross	Gammy
Ugly	Butters
Dating	Courting

YMT Vacations don’t know many common phrases, but they do know that if the weather is bad you should say it’s “blowing a hooley”.

We will give the last word to Quintain Living, though, who recommend avoiding the heavily Americanised phrase “go away”. Instead you should tell British people to “sod off”.

With all this advice you should have no trouble fitting in to British society and you’ll be the King of Downton Abbey in no time. Pip pip!

Pouring
Beans

Author: Chris5156