A thing you should watch

Lately I’ve been having a lot of fun watching Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, which is on iPlayer and I think BBC3. It’s an Australian panel show and it’s really silly. (Guy Montgomery is a New Zealander, and I think it’s run in NZ for several series already, but only the Aussie version is on iPlayer.) It’s genuinely great.

Guy Montgomery clearly knows how dumb the show is and can’t hide how much his stupid jokes and tasks make him laugh, which I find very funny. His assistant is Aaron Chen (I’ve seen him before in Fisk, which you should check out too, it’s a very dry Australian sitcom that we blasted through in no time), who brings an enormous amount of awkwardness to everything he does.

If you need an explanation to get you started, it’s nominally a spelling competition where the guests have to spell words to earn points. But the rounds are all different every time, they’re all enjoyably stupid (spell your hat, spell the name of the random audience member, spell the celebrity name while doing an impression of the celebrity) and some are explicitly designed to give the guests a really hard time (spell the ethnicity of the mystery guest). I don’t know who the guests are, with the exception of Tim Minchin, but that doesn’t seem to matter. They’re just comedians falling into elaborately built spelling traps.

Please enjoy this thing I have also enjoyed. Thank you.

Fancy pub checklist

Pubs all used to be more or less the same, back in the day. Dark brown furniture, brass rail along the bar, limited range of warm beers that were predominantly bitter and included something called “mild”, and the only food offering was pork scratchings.

Nowadays pubs come in a wide spectrum, from the old man boozer to the soft play family carvery. Most pubs serve food of some description. But every now and then you find a pub that is genuinely fancy.

How fancy? Well, now you can find out by scoring your pub against this helpful checklist.

Guest ale on tap: 1 point
Guest gin with home-made marketing display on the bar: 2 points
Man at bar is wearing a gilet and has an extremely large dog asleep at his feet: 1 point
Dog snacks on the bar are in a stylish glass jar: 1 point
Separate “restaurant area” for dining, though you can also eat in the bar if you want: 1 point
“Please wait to be seated” sign in dining area: 2 points
Separate menu for Sunday lunch: 1 point
Separate menu for dogs: 2 points
Exposed wooden beams: 1 point
Exposed wooden beams that are actually structural and may be grade II listed: 2 points
Table service for diners: 1 point
Table service where the waitress is an actual waitress and not one of the bar staff: 2 points
Made-to-order bar snacks available: 1 point
Made-to-order bar snacks feature miniature fish and chips served in one of those fake mesh buckets as though it’s just been lifted out of a deep fat fryer: 2 points
Made-to-order bar snack menu features n’duja, olive tapenade and padrón peppers: 3 points
Men’s toilets do not smell of urinal cakes: 1 point
Men’s toilets look clean: 2 points
Men’s toilets actually are clean: 3 points
Men’s toilets have hand lotion in little squirty bottles by the sink: 5 points

Specs offender

A few weeks ago I set a little quiz, with pictures of my trying on a range of spectacles, in an attempt to make light of my ongoing ocular deterioration.

Nobody had a go at guessing which ones I would choose, but the answer is these ones, and to thrill and delight you further I am pleased to now present a fashion shoot in which I demonstrate everything my new glasses can do.

It’s official. Now I’m on the bandwagon, spectacles are the new rock and roll.

Never mind Ian, am I losing MY mind?

Most days, when I’m not at work, I take the dog for a walk, and most of the time we go to the same place, which is some woods near us. I’ve written about them before – I like walking in woods, the dog likes having lots of space to run around and bark at squirrels, and they are full of intriguing military wreckage.

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Following a path through the trees that I follow every single time I go there – let’s say every other day of my life, on average – I saw something I had never noticed before. Can you see it?

About fifteen feet to the left of me, fifteen feet away from a place I walk over a hundred times a year with my eyes wide open, was something I had literally never seen before. A whacking great big concrete pylon.

You literally can’t miss it. It’s huge. I suppose it’s the same colour as a tree and about the same size as the tree trunks around here, but even so, I might miss it once but I don’t see how I’ve missed it every day since 2023.

It looks like it’s been there for decades. It looks like something from the 1940s that’s been disused since before I was born, slowly being forgotten in the depths of the woods.

But I can’t help wondering if that’s true. Has it really been there all along? Or has someone just put it there in the last month or so? Are they trying to mess with my head? Is it me they’re targeting? Is this something I have genuinely never noticed in all this time? Can it be true? Am I losing my mind?

Creamy cookies

You want a little treat in the afternoon. Something to give you a bit of a sugar rush to propel you through the rest of the working day. Something to dunk in your tea.

A biscuit would be nice. But a biscuit is missing that special something. What would be better?

I know. What if it was creamy. A creamy cookie. Well, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

Help yourself and dive in to the creamiest cookies you’ve ever known. How can a liquid be so crunchy? We don’t know. We just know that they’re so, so creamy.

From the archives: Ian’s essay

A billion years ago, Ian and I had the use of a teacher’s office at school. When we left school we missed this tightly controlled social space, and a wave of nostalgia washed over us in the aimless days between finishing sixth form and starting to live in the real world.

While still feeling the aftershocks, Ian put pen to paper and wrote this essay about his time there, which for some reason I have on an old hard drive.

A small SSSSSS-SSSSSS-Essay by Dave

Why did I love the office? Well, being four score 90 years and a bit, I feel it is my duty as an ex-member of the office to explain to the people who never experienced the office (clumsy heathens!) because it is inexplainable. Don’t think you can stop me. I have credentials now, and a bank account. Do you know where most of the money go… anyway

The office, a stalwart if ever there was a stalwart. I remember the first time walking in there; I didn’t have a fucking clue what to think. There was this guy who I remember playing P.E. with, mainly cos we both sucked at it (George). There was this guy who sat at the back of my Biology class in year 9 and everyone knew his name, I just kinda didn’t know who the hell he was, well my back was turned to him so it’s not my fault (Chuckie). And another guy called Marshall, who looked like Kelly Jones (although he claims he isn’t). Alex was there too, twas a brisk and subtle morning sometime in a year. I started off as a cleaner and rose to the ranks of an equal amongst the others. We had a government and all. There were many times my head hurt and we ate biscuits. Thankyou goodnight!

…… …….. …….

Was that clear enough or is it just me? Ok, so we were a bit nerdish but that wasn’t the point! We had a place to go that was warm, safe, full of food, nearby, had a computer to play music and doss about with, and a private table to do work on if we could be arsed. I couldn’t. Chuckie did when it was 5 minutes before his Geography lesson. George did most of his at home and Marshall hardly ever turned up to Art. Yet we all still passed EVERYTHING so it just goes to show, you can get away with it. Thankyou goodnight!

….. ………………….. blip

In all honesty school was fucking fuckshit. The only reason to bother going was the office. It will always remain in our hearts, and remind us not to take life seriously as a wise young Greecian once told me, “Life is for living” and ain’t that the truth baby!

By Dave – 30 minutes before work

Speccy four eyes

As you will be aware, the relentless march of time has taken its toll on my previously top notch eyeballs, and I am now officially a man in need of glasses. Only just – it’s a very slight prescription for reading small text – but this is the start of a slippery slope and, if my optician is to be believed, I’ll be squinting at the world through lenses like the bottom of a jam jar in no time.

Anyway, all of this means that I now have to choose a new facial accessory, so today I spent some time choosing what my face will now look like, or at least what it will look like in the moments where I’m trying to read small writing at close range.

I’m not going to tell you which ones I chose – that will be a cliffhanger that helps me wring out another post – but I can show you some of the options.

Please enjoy this gallery of my face wearing what we can refer to as Candidate Spectacles, and let me know if you think you can spot the ones I went for in the end.

A touching tribute

Walking through London recently, I came across what would otherwise be just another shop selling tacky shite to tourists.

I nearly ignored it completely until I noticed the act of public service they were performing. The whole of the shop window was not being used to sell their tasteless wares. Instead, it had been given over entirely to display a deeply moving tribute, providing a focus for the grief and gratitude of all those passing by.

In the window was this.

Yes. It’s Queen Elizabeth II, with Marilyn Monroe’s hair.

Just how we all remember her.

Pouring
Beans

Author: Chris5156