a blog post born out of absolutely nothing else better to write, really. my apologies then, if this turns out to be all tedious and dull, although in fairness i think there are some spectacularly colourful pictures included.
despite having no proper income as such, and finding myself in the situation where no one even wants to speak to me about giving me some sort of employment or even saying why they have no interest in doing so, my family and to a lesser extent i need to eat. this requires me, then, to do some rather modest shopping. this is, as you may have guessed, what i did today.
previously i have indicated that they seem to not like people randomly taking pictures here, but for some reason i had vast swathes of the shops to myself today. this allowed me to snap away without feeling like i was being looked at with tut-tutting and that which means i can bring you pictures like this, even though it was taken mostly with my chum Sinbad in mind.
yes, that is Scouse in a tin. or rather it is signature collection Scouse in a tin. what is Scouse? for those of you not aware of the ways of Liverpool the bestest broadest definition i can give you is stew. a stew, like all things which are connected to their place of origin via name, which tastes much better when made in the fine city by the Mersey. i imagine the tinned version is OK, but i was not prepared to try it. a picture will suffice, really, for me.
i am sure many of you clock why Sinbad is called Sinbad; if not there are enough clues in the above to work out why. as for Spiros, well, i suspect he has not had tinned or genuine Scouse, not as he minces around Tooting, Grantham, Watford and other places that are to do of London (innit) in either real or theoretical terms. he has, i believe, attempted to try Bubble & Squeak, but i suspect this was not out of a tin.
i would like nothing more to post a tin of Scouse to my chum Sinbad, or indeed our mutual friend Jason Van Der Something, the renowned hard drive enthusiast. alas, the excessive weight cost and probable prohibitions of tinned food mostly precludes me doing so, as indeed does the most recent of post office strikes in South Africa, or if you like the Africa of the South.
this is a massive bloody shame, really, as i would also like to post some of the below in the same direction, although not to Sinbad or Jason. such items as these would scare, confuse and to a degree bewilder them.
yes shelf after shelf, row after row, book after book of the kind of classy titled tales that i so loved giving to my most beloved mother-in-law. how i would wish to be able to hand over, or at least post, some of these gems to her.
why can i not? well, actually i could probably get a reasonable "printed matter" rate for sending them, but alas they just would not get to her. the South African Post Office, you see, are on one of their regular lengthy strikes. no, not the one i mentioned earlier in the year, another one. although they are related. i am reliably informed that as soon as the last strike was resolved they decided to go on strike again due to the "unfair" requirement that they sort and deliver the backlog of mail from the strike.
yes, that's right, they are currently on strike protesting about doing the job for which they have been employed and paid for. and here i sit unemployed. what's that, you say? you say that it sounds like the SA Post Office is, in some areas, populated by greedy, selfish, lazy, ignorant b@stards? well, that's a little strong, dear reader, but seeing none of my post delivered means i cannot be critical of you. heaven forbid that any misfortune should befall the ringleader of the strikes; i in particular hope, of course, none of them ever require a bathroom facility in the vicinity of a disabled athlete.
on athletes, if you respect that i did not purchase any or either of the above, onwards to things that i did. i tend to find myself intrinsically (or whatever) drawn to foods which are endorsed by professional sports people. well, who isn't? it is a logical step, it is - a degree of success in a chosen sporting code leads to excellence in consumable goods.
which is why i ended up buying not one, not four, close to three but actually two different types of pasta sauce (if it is in fact pasta sauce) endorsed by a Rugby Union player that the exact specifics of name escape me for the moment but it is something like Larrybaby.
what is Larrybaby's pasta sauce like? at this stage i have no idea, but i am assuming to presume that it is excellent from a Rugby pasta sauce perspective. they for some reason sell mince here in rather hefty, large and somewhat close to bulk quantities, whereas this sauce is of a small scope and ambition in regards of bottle size and content thereof. the ratio of pasta sauce to mince would barely glaze the mince in a conventional packet here.
so i will wait until we do a "pasta surprise' and use it then, or at the least my (considerably) better half will; for she is a more gifted and talented one in this and indeed thousands of other regards. we may have it with some pasta and a dish that is not mince; be it cow, horse or dangerously "unspecified".
i am not sure that celebrated sports people should limit their ambition to endorsing food, really. a number of footballers, for instance, would do well in the world of medical endorsements. Wayne Rooney, for instance, doing that big, Shrek-like grin on packets of penicillin would be something some would be inclined to suggest is a worthwhile endorsement. that would be true, in particular, if he wrote a little note to go in each box, explaining what he had just done and for how much. in regards of apt, few would say anything other than "none more apt" if Mr Ambassador, John Terry, were employed to endorse a particular type of sanitary product. few who it was intended for would chose to use it, i suppose, but you get the general idea here.
Larrybaby's pasta sauce was, of course, immensely cheap, hence the purchase. as was, as point of fact, this next item. the wording on the bottle drew me in. like a tractor beam. yes, like that tractor beam. the one that sucked in the carpenter, the nancy boy, that massive dog, the tin man, the bin and the respected actor.
the phrase, the concept and the idea of 'natural instant coffee' is one that i have existed without experiencing before, truth be told. i was unaware that a brand of coffee that is instant grew as one with nature in this world of ours. my understanding was it was all beans and plants and that which got crushed, knacked and otherwise "processed" into the instant coffee we all know and love. yes, indeed, dear reader, i also have had one or two friends, let us call them of a quite p!ssy nature, that have argued instant coffee should not be called "coffee" as it has not been plucked by virgins, crushed in accordance with some sort of tradition and ritual then shoved in a filter. well, f*** them. it's coffee.
this natural instant coffee is indeed very much a thing that i have tried since purchase. and it is one that i would not wish to taste again. instant coffee, in its natural state, appears to taste of chicory and all sorts of other such rubbish. horrid stuff it is. a bit like a low class version of "Ace" coffee that one could at one stage get on the shelves in stores in South Africa.
the jar has been moved more or less out of harm's way, then. it is not getting thrown out, however. not a chance. i paid 99p for it in good faith and i thus intend to make use of it. i suspect people that visit who i wish to leave may be offered a cup of it. or i might work out a way to send it to Spiros in London (innit). if it does not get to him it means some sort of constabulary or authority has seized it to examine it for dodgy things and then maybe they can tell me what it actually is. if it makes it to him, well, so much the better, the chaps in Grantham or wherever might think it tastes really, really nice. fhaaaakkin laverly, innit, or something like that.
oh yeah, i bought other things too, but of a practical, non-directly sports endorsed nature. things that are, i have been so bold as to presume, unlikely to been of any immediate or remote interest to you, dear reader. bread is, after all, bread.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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