Glorious Food and Smug Cook of the Day

An expedition to a well known supermarket that naked chefs go to is usually a glance into how the other half live. I took the glance on the off chance it would be less crowded after England got turned over by Russia.

Some of the food is bog standard, and some is kinda better looking than it's counterparts in other local outlets. There were on this occasion lots of "knockdown eat within 24 hours" fresh organic bits and bobs. I gathered many into the basket, cantered over to the wine section, grabbed a bottle and zoomed home. Being a total penny pincher, I calculated I had just got about £20 worth of good food for about £4. Result! I started tucking into the Aussie red plonk, remarkably better than the price would suggest, by way of a celebration.

I've been preparing food for three days at work. I have to say that today was the first time I've actually felt largely in control of the utterly hectic process that is fast food to order. Just cos it's fast, don't mean it's bad. There's no "Mc" about it. So today was a good day. And the sun shone bright upon the city's usual urban glower.

Once home, knowing that tomorrow is the start of my 4 day weekend, I can expend energy on other stuff. I can enjoy a languid soak in the tub. I've done my parental duty writing a covering letter to the school admissions board assertively pointing out that they must put my son into a certain school in order to preserve the quite complex family dynamic. Fat chance of them actually listening, but hey, you gotta try.

And so on to the evening meal. My boy just got a large fresh salad of mange tout, baby sweetcorn, red pepper, shredded little gem, organic vine tomato, grated carrot and courgette and onion. There was a basil garnish and olive oil and balsamic English mustard dressing. This was served with fresh spinach and ricotta tortellini and for a bit of protein a boiled free-range egg, perfectly cooked for a change, sliced and scattered over the salad. There was also a banana and strawberry bio-yoghurt milkshake with crushed ice and a dash of fresh squeezed organic lime juice. AND one of those funky bendy roller-coaster shaped straws to try to suck it through.

Bloggers and readers of the world, if you went into your local cafe/deli and sat down to this, if I may say so myself, you would probably be impressed a tiny bit. Remember, this is a child I'm cooking for here, and the reward I get is to see the plate empty and a cheery face hung over it.
Apart from that, it would set you back a prettier penny than that which I lavished upon it.

Sometimes, being a smug bastard is not wrong, you know. I believe it could also be called getting something right, enjoying doing it, and ticking one of the myriad boxes in life with vim and aplomb for a change.

Phwish, peeyoo!

Just a quickie tonight. I've just been shopping and was forced into agreeing to take my 10 year old son to 'toys r us' to buy Ben 10 action figures. Being an affable and at times malleable little chap, we negotiated that I would, on this occasion, pay for one of the toys if he payed for the other one and also did the washing up, wiped down the kitchen tops, and swept the floor. 15 minutes easy work for £4 worth of toy. I don't get paid that much!! Though I have to say, if my bank balance read 1234.47 tiddlywinks I'd struggle at most retail outlets not to mention the boozer.

He did the work, we duly hit the road on the lookout for bits of shaped coloured plastic. It's his latest obsession, replacing the remarkably long lived Dr. Who bits of shaped coloured plastic. Before them it was Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean. The list is seemedly endless.

However, he gets great mileage out of these things and so keeps himself to himself playing all over the place. Whatever happened to conkers? And those hoops for rolling along the lane with a stick that would see road calamity in the modern era?

He keeps himself to himself in all aspects except one. He can't stop making all the dialogue for these guys. His Dalek impersonation is reaching folklore proportions at school I imagine. Fair enough, you can't build a plot with no dialogue terribly easily. And believe me, there is one hell of a plot going on in his multi-faceted mind of cartoonesque mayhem. And alongside the dialogue, he does all the onomatapoeic movement and action noises too. Phwish! is his all time favourite. Peeyoo! runs a reasonable second place. Pbbwwuurggh! for explosions and so on until my throat would hurt. His goes on from dawn 'til dusk on some days.

Tonight, I said he could get the thingies out of the packet in the car. As soon as the noise of crunching packaging stopped, the action began, opening with, of course, Phwish as the latest alien jettisons onto the arena of good verses evil to which it has been assigned. I fought back the tears of mirth as I drove down to a supermarket to shop for far less exciting things. I made him leave the toys in the car. He really is an absolute pest with them supermarkets. Intergalactic hostilities among the cornflakes threatening collateral damage across aisle 23, the jam section. A sticky conflict that could turn out to be, I can tell you.

Still, it's all in his head. He never displays any violence anywhere real, which is a blessing. Like him really, the greatest blessing I ever had bestowed upon me, my wacky, weird baby.

Now the wacky weird baby's oddball dad must go, off to make an important phone call. Wish me luck. Bye.

PHWISSSHHH!

My Goddess Moon

My beautiful lover the moon
Is my Goddess
Framed by a pallid sky
She draws me into the cold of night
My gaze upon her argent allure is brief
I am shamed by her piercing stare.
It looks straight through my skin.
She leaves moon sized scars of moonlight
Patterns repeated in my moonmind's eye.

Raise The Nation's Children.

If you have a problem
You know that it shows
Don't tell me your problem
I don't really want to know
Carry your problem
'Til you break down to your knees
And beg the world you're living in
For pity and forgiveness
Mercy, mercy help you out
You have the shoulder the world cries on
You have raised the nation's children
And fought all of the wars
Now it's time to rest
Forget about the cause you believe in.

Your back is unbroken
Your heart beats fast and strong
There're voices crying inside your head
And they cry loud and woefully long
They cry from the cauldron
Of messages left unsaid
They fill the space between in and out
And bleed from the halo circling your head.

Sometimes

"I have of late- but wherefore I know not- lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this mighty o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire; why it appears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."

W.Shakespeare.
Hamlet
Act II Scene II

My Glittering Career.

I was going to write a piece about how moving to a new job today has made my work life not only more bearable, but downright exciting. I'm afraid that upon the evidence of my first day, that post will never be forthcoming. I've been disappointed many times in my life, but today I received a stark reminder of how easy it is to try something slightly different to further your life just a tad, and feel it really may have been a total waste of time.
So, without further ado, the positive aspects are as follows;

1 At least I tried, though not too hard.

2 My new working buddies are nice enough people, and one of them may even be able to teach me how swear in Russian since he hails from Latvia and that's his first language. This should come in handy when England lose to them (Russia)in the Euro cup qualifier on the plastic pitch.

3 The day seemed to go quite quickly because there wasn't a moment to rest.

4 All the food there is healthy, so should I choose to eat any of it, I may lose a few pounds or enjoy the flavour. This is an improvement on the last job which mainly sold chips to drongoes.

5 Having a shite working environment gives one the kick up the arse one may need to get a real job that pays enough to afford to eat in the type of establishment one currently works.

6 It made me realise that moaning about things just eventually leads full circle back to the fact that I live in the Western world with what's left of a welfare state so I only have to work part time in order to have a few of the basics in life that humans should globally have. There're one fuck of a lot of people out there on this planet who do not have those basics and never will, and they still have to work very hard indeed to afford what they do have.

Aaaaaaaand here are the downsides;

1 Thought of the day "If I have to wash one more fucking plate whilst stood on my aching feet in the forgotten corner of some sweaty striplit rabbithole up to my elbows in greasy lukewarm water whilst being forced to endure the aural soul destruction that is radio fucking one with it's smarmy fucking D.J.s playing music, 75% of which is aimed at emotionally retarded 14 year olds, arresting the extension of my personal growth boundaries with all the resilience usually associated of 16 foot thick reinforced concrete wall when under attack from a tooth pick, then I will seize power forthwith using violence and a lack of fairness to my fellow man that would make Robert Mugabe wince, crushing the system which has put me in a situation I find depressing enough to actually want an innocent passer by to toot their car horn at me whilst I'm on my bike so I can forcibly decapitate them and feed their grey matter to the nearest fat bastard fucking disease-ridden pigeon walking wobbly headed past the scene."

2 There's no number 2 because number 1 was so all encompassing in it's headfuckyness, it took me all day til I was home, washed, fed, and had tucked my son into his bed before I could really think past it.

So there!

I don't feel any better for that rant. Neither has it secured me an interview for a new position as an overpaid under worked member of society. It really is nobody's fault but mine that I'm in this predicament. Nobody else will remove me from it, it's all down to me. That's a bit depressing, because I have a tremendous aptitude for apathy an even utter laziness.

Where is my metaphoric knight in shining armour.

Perhaps their jobs were cut as part of a necessary downsizing of metaphorical heroes due to unforeseen financial instability. Maybe they all have jobs like mine now and are currently decrying them in front of a computer.

Oh well, maybe if I play my cards right, I could move on and one of them could have my job.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kitchen Pig Has Left The Building!

A job is a job, it's been said. There is a singular straight philosophy to that which is hard to argue against. However, like all aspects of human life, once past the simplistic, the complex begins. Today, I have stopped working at the place I have worked for almost three years. It was not a first choice to begin working there to start with. My last job ended with wages owed. There was anger and disappointment. I needed another one fast, and as is often the case, haste produces a certain lack of choice, a removal of the type of logic we would all use if given the time to use it.

I wonder what next week holds in store for me.