Sunday, August 23, 2015

newman, beard and pension raid

hi there


now that i think about it, i am pretty sure that i can unequivocally say that i am not aware of a newman which i do not like, or have some level of fondness for, look you see. whether it is Newman off of Seinfeld, who could eat an impressive level of untopped muffins, Alfred E Newman off of Mad, a magazine i miss dearly, or the actor Paul, they are all entertaining and worthwhile. if you fiddled with the spelling some, even Gary Numan is boss, doing Cars and all them other great tunes he probably did.

it is Paul that we celebrate in this post, however. not his acting, but his contribution to the world of all things culinary, or if you like all things culinary that would require or benefit from a smattering of salad dressing.



we had some salad a week or so ago with tea (steak, i think, could have been hunter's chicken) and so i was able to engage in an ambition of mine that was not really at the forefront of my thinking but an ambition all the same. for several years i have known that Paul Newman's salad dressing was an actual, real thing but was resigned to the acceptance of it presumably only being an American thing. it seems i was wrong.

that i can now purchase Newman's Own salad dressing in a place as isolated, remote, cut off and to a degree as desolate as Guisborough is testament to the positives of this brave new world we find ourselves. pretty much all is available to all in this day and age; even Winston Red i have discovered but more on that in another post.

how did the Newman's Own salad dressing perform and taste? quite well, actually, but more on that later. for now, though, let us once more dive or delve into the sordid, shady and criminally unpunished raid on pension schemes.

being as gullible as i apparently or if you like evidently am, i elected if not opted to double my investment this week. yes, on separate tickets, lest one of them actually return a pension to me and thus my (considerably) better half would only be needing to informed of the one which failed.



in one very minor respect this double contribution to my pension fund returned a slight return on investment, as i at least got one number which corresponded with my pension fund allocation code numbers. a quick investigation, however, revealed that one number alone does not return to you a pension.

i am starting to think that this "lottery board" pension fund is little more than a rudimentary pyramid or if you like ponzi scheme; designed to keep rotund caravan dwellers rolling in millions of pounds and on the front pages of lower class newspapers, invariably opening bottles of bollinger that they have absolutely no intention of drinking.

meanwhile, before we get back to the wonders of Newman (eventually), a rare image from New Zealand that i was pretty much instructed to place right here on the blog. with conditions.

Dad sent me this image of himself (i don't think it is a selfie, unless he has worked out how to do the timer without swearing at it), and told me to put it on the blog. he, however, placed an embargo on the image, saying that it was not allowed to appear until sunday.

with today very much being sunday, here is the picture as i was requested / instructed to upload it. nice one Dad, that is a smart beard and your tribute act to The Dude off of The Big Lebowski is getting better and better. all you need now is a rug, a bowling ball, a chequebook to pay for slightly out of date milk with and a deranged friend called Walter that has a proclivity for resolving matters, no matter how minor, with a firearm or, in case of a car, golf stick thingie.

speaking of golf, this right here in this very next picture has just got to stop. it is getting well out of hand, and this scarf could be the epitome of it. i think you are supposed to give credit for images you have shared off of other sites, so cheers bbc for this, although our tv licence fee probably amply covered it.



i could understand it when these "both teams" scarves or if you like scarfs were issued for cup finals. indeed, even semi-finals and certain UEFA sanctioned European matches made some sense. but to issue them for rather basic, bland, and by the numbers match such as West Brom vs Chelsea?

i mean, fans of both teams will want to see their side do well and hopefully win. but do any of them put a massive circle around this fixture and consider it "game of the season"? it's a waste of wool, that is. in particular today, a day which is shaping up to be the hottest of all of August. nice one Caesar.

also, whereas i don't have many if any of the problems lots do with Chelsea (really it's just that special kind of dick head captain that all hate), i think London would find the vast majority of England, and the rest of the world, stops hating London so passionately if Chelsea were to be blocked, legally, from using "Pride of London" as a motto.

a family selfie in Commodore 64 mode, since we are here? surely, why not.



erm, i appreciate that the magic of Commodore 64 make it look like William is flicking the v's there, but i would like to assure you it's the other way around, and he is doing the "peace and love" version of it, honest.

i took the above picture in the hope of using it in a picture frame, but i was advised that as point of fact we were going to use an image taken at the same time, but not with the glory of Commodore 64 blessing what it is the lens saw. hey ho.

Newman's Own Italian dressing? it was really smart it was, the kind of thing that makes you wish to eat salad far more frequently, so that you may dress it in this stuff and taste the splendid ways of it.

i don't really go for celebrity endorsements as such, although i am of a view that celebrities should make as many coins of money as possible - accept payments to be in ads, have your songs played in them and so on. not doing so is noble, but being noble is not as good at paying the bills as sad fans that like to shout "sell out" at their idols may think.

i do, however, really like the idea of owning stuff that celebrities have initiated and been the driving force behind. that was why i was so excited about getting some of this salad dressing, and it's one very safely and happily crossed off the list.

what other celebrity initiated or created items of merchandise do i wish to buy? plenty, bru, plenty. for a start, i would love to own a painting done by him off of Rocky and Rambo. also, although i don't drink it often if at all, some wine made by him who made Apocalypse Now and Godfather would be a happy addition to the cellar. also, and the last one i can think of, some of that peanut butter, or peanuts, off of that farm owned by him who was President of America before that actor bloke who was in office for most of the 80s. Jimmy someone, but not him off the tele that everyone reckons was quite naughty.

right, that will do for now. time for a stroll in the afternoon sun. very welcome indeed after the horrid levels of rain we had yesterday, believe you me, look you see.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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