Total TV Guide Letters
One of my little joys in life is to pick up a copy of Total TV Guide during the weekly shopping and – whilst waiting in the unmoving queue at Asda behind whichever person has decided that today (now that they’re over 50) would be the best day to try out one of those new fangled supermarket things and see what all the fuss is about and it’s nice to chat to new people and yes, they would like help with their bags and I can’t believe postal orders and stamps aren’t gladly accepted as payment any longer – flip open the television guide magazine straight to the inside back page. What’s inside the back page of Total TV Guide? Letters from readers! Oh! I do like reading readers’ letters. My joy, my weekly jolt of ecstacy comes from shouting at the letters page. The people of Asda have grown to ignore me. But this week there was an empty checkout and we sailed through (we did pay; we go to Asda for the savings but we’re Waitrose people at heart) and this means I didn’t get to vent. If only I had a website. Dear Mrs M Delicata-Bennett of London, Firstly: congratulations on that name! You must wake up every morning and smile. If I had that name I would spend all day phoning places and leaving messages with my full name. “Is Sir Jimmy Saville there? No? Well, could you tell him I called? He doesn’t know me. The name, though; it’s Mrs M Delicata-Bennett. There’s a hyphen but you don’t pronounce it.” Now, onto your gripe: I feel your pain. Not with Primeval, because that’s tripe, but it is irritating when a show suddenly shifts from one channel to another and you don’t have that other channel. It’s almost as if the channel that buys that show knows it’s popular and wants to encourage people to swap their viewing platform to continue watching it with them so that they can get a boost in viewing figures and then charge higher prices to advertisers. I say “it’s almost” like that but actually “it’s exactly” like that. This is because television is a business and this isn’t the Glorious Socialist Republic Of Englandia. I know you want free TV shows (I do too) and you want only the sort of TV shows you like (I like sci-fi) and you want them never to cancel your favourite shows (there’s a void in my innards where Firefly, Stargate Universe, Caprica, Blake’s 7, and U.F.O. once lived) and you hate it when TV channels poach the programmes you love (Sky TV:...
Shopping Together
Hypothetical Shopping Scenario #1: Marie is shopping on her own. Marie passes the Hotel Chocolat shop and gazes in momentarily. “No,” she thinks, “I won’t go in. I have other things to shop for today and that would just be greedy.” Hypothetical Shopping Scenario #2: I am shopping on my own. I pass the Hotel Chocolat shop and gaze in momentarily. “Is anyone’s birthday coming up?” I wonder, and, after five minutes of concentration I give up trying to remember and hope that it isn’t. Actual Shopping Scenario: Marie and I are shopping together. We pass the Hotel Chocolat shop and gaze in momentarily, then glance at one another. “Did you want to pop in?” I ask. “We don’t have to pop in,” she says. “Yeah, but do you want to?” “We can if you want.” “Let’s go in and have a quick nose then.” “They have those things we like.” “Yes, they do.” “These are those things.” “We may as well pick them up then.” “Okay. There’s lots of nice stuff here.” “Let’s get these and these too since we’re here because you save money when you buy three of them.” “And then we should go.” “Yes, definitely. Look, there’s that big box of chocolates we bought that time.” “They were nice.” “We could always get them too.” “Don’t! I’m having trouble just sticking to the three we’ve got here.” “Why not? It’s not that expensive.” “Yes it is.” “Okay, it is, but they last a long time.” “We’re awful, aren’t we?” “It’s only money.” “Let’s get these three and the box and then go.” “The nearly-expired things are by the till. They’re cheap. Cheapish.” “I think I’m okay with this.” “You’re probably right. Let’s call it a day with sixty quid’s worth of chocolates.” Shopping Moral We should never go shopping...
Discovered
I’ve added a new category to this site called “Discovered” which I intend to be a sort of Posterous/Tumblr-style dump of things found on the internet (or “discovered” if you prefer), typically with a pithy caption of my own attached. Content from this new category will not be included on the home page of the site since the intention is to update it quite frequently. I may, however, whip up a little widget to display the latest discovery in the sidebar. I may not. I’m unpredictable like that. It seems the internet likes it if you spread your love around thinly in this way so some things I find will end up on my Posterous site and some things will end up in the Discovered category and some things will be shared via FriendFeed and so my reign of annoying more and more people with things they couldn’t care less about will step up a whole extra level of aggravation. Update (05-06-2011): I’ve had one of my classic “changes of mind” (they’re classic!) and decided I will include the Discovered category on the home page now. That’s how crazy I...
A Guide To Cough Mixture
You’ve got a cold. It entails the sniffles. There’s stuff at the pharmacy for sniffles. It entails stuffiness. There’s stuff at the pharmacy that decongests that stuffiness. It entails a cough. There’s stuff at the pharmacy that addresses coughs… … but which sort of cough? It’s a tougher question than it ought to be because no single cough ever fits neatly into one particular category. Take me, for instance: right now I’ve got a tickly cough in my chest that sounds dry. This sounds like the perfect opportunity to take a quick look at the various types of cough mixtures available to buy at the pharmacy to see just exactly what they do. Cough Mixture For Chesty Coughs This cough mixture contains a midly abrasive fluid that is designed to scrape away at whatever is attached to your airways pulling the chesty cough particulates down into your stomach where they will slowly be alchemically transformed into kidney stones. The side effect to curing the chesty cough is to leave rough areas in your oesophagus which can be irritating when you breathe, leading to the formation of a tickly cough. Cough Mixture For Tickly Coughs Tickly cough mixture is a thicker mixture than that for chesty or dry coughs as it is designed to coat dry areas in your oesophagus that would otherwise cause irritation when breathing which leads to coughing. The thick coating soothes the tickly sensation but does restrict the passage of water vapour passing to and from the lungs and this can lead to the formation of a dry cough. Cough Mixture For Dry Coughs The final type of cough mixture tackles dry coughs by super-hydrating your airways, adding much needed water into your breathing. The hydrating power of dry cough mixture washes away anything stuck in your oesophagus but the combination of water and heat (as this happens inside you) can form a breeding ground for certain types of cold germs which grow and attach themselves in a way that becomes a chesty cough. In summary: don’t bother with cough mixtures unless your wife gives you that look that says “stop coughing or I will take the bread knife to your neck”. I like the nice-tasting...
My Posterous
It’s linked elsewhere but I thought I’d take this opportunity to spam/promote my other website which is hosted by Posterous and can be found here; it’s more of a lifestream-style site that doesn’t really fit in with what’s going on here. In essence, it can be described as “things I’ve found on the web that other people have found first and which I’ve liked and which I’ve possibly renamed and which I’ve possibly added a bit of a description or which I’ve possibly added a sarcastic/mildly amusing comment” but that’s a bit wordy for a website tagline so I haven’t bothered. I haven’t been following any other people on Posterous so far because up until recently I wasn’t really using the site very much. That’s changed, thanks to Empire Avenue (which encourages social activities such as posting (which explains why I might be posting more frequently (including posts like this one))), so if you’ve got a Posterous site that you think I might want to follow (I might; anything is possible) then let me know via comments or email or just through Posterous...
Recent From Retro
-
The Women Of Kilobaud Computing Sep 26, 2016 -
-
-
-
-
Recent From Entertainment
-
Dance Music Triple Nov 19, 2016 -
-
-
-
-
Recent Comments