Blending Term Time Holidays

Don't you just wish all these politicians would simply go away and Mrs Queen formed a government herself?

Ref yesterday's post about the teacher who took her kids off school to visit that Andean place I have difficulty spelling - I had a good gander at the Facebook comments and the overwhelming majority of the ones in favour of the "educational value" of taking kids out of school for holidays had atrocious spelling or used text-speak. They obviously got their education while on holiday.

Hay is going a tad daft with the juice thing. Yesterday I tried to get her to use the lawn grass clippings in her juicer - I have so much grass to mow now that composting is no longer an option, unless I want to go commercial with it. She didn't seem impressed with the idea. 

She was in two minds about whether to invest a small fortune in a Nutribullet, so I was tasked with finding a few YouTube videos showing comparisons. This one just shows the dangers of juicing - obviously not good for the waist - however I'm mega impressed with the machine the woman uses. It looks like something from the US defence programme, but is over £400!

These Americans don't half go on  - they're fond of the sound of their own voices and witter on for ten minutes when they could say what needs to be said in two - it infuriates me!

Finally found a half decent video from an good, old fashioned Yorkshire housewife comparing a Nutribullet with other types of blenders. It also could have done with a bit of editing (she constantly disappeared to do the washing up).

The upshot is that the evidence speaks for itself and a £90 Nutribullet has been ordered. It uses the whole fruit (or veg) and doesn't waste the pulp, blending the lot into a smoothie better than a blender alone can manage. I guess it has to do with the shape, being wider at the bottom, creating a better vortex which increases the efficiency of the blending action. I suspect No. 1 Son's ideal juice would be a McDonald's and chips smoothie.

Going to video Hay's dad's girlfriend, Barbara, while cooking something indigenous to Yorkshire and monetise the result. People make fortunes from videoing themselves in their kitchens - I could do one on sourdough bread making, or tool collecting...

Talking of advertising, saw an advert for some concoction called PÜD and wondered if the umlaut was genuine, a play on Müller or an affected metal umlaut. And just who was Uncle Ben?

SNP Longevity in Term Time

Bad news for women - their menfolk are catching up in the longevity stakes. Wonder if this will increase the divorce rate among the elderly?

Was reading an item in the Economist yesterday where an analysis of the SNP manifesto pronounced it overwhelmingly identical to the Labour manifesto, with the exceptions of Trident (where they are not that different) and Scottish Independence. It would transpire that a Labour SNP alliance would not hold the country to ransom, as is commonly suggested in the media, as to do that Sturgeon would have to threaten to vote against her own manifesto on just about every issue - which would surely be suicide. So, if you're a socialist Scot but don't want independence, there's nothing to choose between Labour and SNP and so you may as well vote for a Labour majority.

Was reading a Facebook post by some teacher in Manchester who took her family to Macchu Picchu, Machu Pichu, Machu Piccu - oh dammit - that place in the Andes. She willingly paid her £240 fine and was crowing about the trip's educational value. The facts remain:

1. She's a teacher and should set an example - and what was she doing being off in term time?
2. The value of the trip being taken during school time undeniably had more to do with the cost of the trip than its educational value, else she could just as easily have gone during school holiday time (get out of that one, if you can).
3. The £240 fine was tiny compared to the saving made by travelling during term time.
4. Macchu Pichu, Machu.... is a theme park now and has the educational value of Alton Towers.

Juiced Puppets

This juicer thing of Hay's is getting out of hand. The fact the £30 Amazon jobbie doesn't squeeze enough juice and leaves a sloppy pulp is obviously a source of overburdening dissatisfaction, not to say utter waste. She is scouring the internet for one that peels, juices, presses and self-composts, spitting out nothing more noxious than solid pellets of fibre than can conveniently be used in a wood burner. Solar panels would be a bonus.

She's looking at one for over £100. When quizzed about this she told me it uses the pulp. I said; "So it's a smoothie maker?" She denied this, saying smoothie makers only use fruit and can't do vegetables. Amazon proved her wrong - £17.99 for a fruit and veggie smoothie maker, rather than a specialist zuzzer at over £100. She replied that they can't do tough root vegetables, I said smoothie makers do ice, which is a tad tougher than a carrot. So it's a fad, and where there's a fad there's a bunch of rip-off artists waiting to make a fortune.

I see that bloke who worked Orville, the obnoxious green duck, died the other day. At least he was a ventriloquist. Rod Hull made an entire career from a mute emu puppet and wasn't even a ventriloquist. How weird is that!

Talking of puppets - what about Miliband Minor cozying up to Russell Brand? You may consider Brand to be a publicity hungry, self-centred prat, but there's no denying that with millions of brain dead Twitter followers hanging off his every guru-like utterance, he certainly has influence. Just goes to show how dangerous a large swathe of the population is when they find a guru, no matter how mad - I'm sure he could tell them to vote UKIP and they would. Shades of Life of Brian.

All these grandiose promises coming out of the political woodwork in the last few days, like Cameron's law about tax increases, are so much chaff in the wind. The legislative agenda is so tightly packed with amending hasty, badly drafted laws that there's precious little time for any additional legislation - to squeeze anything new in is nigh impossible. Even if something new were possible, I can guarantee it will be so full of holes that it wouldn't end up on the statute books in any meaningful way till the end of the next parliament, if then.

The Election Juicer

What with that story about some of us having backs like chimps (hence the back pain when trying to walk upright), are we going to see chimps clogging the doctors' surgeries. I'm sure UKIP will have something to say about that!

A humorous look at the election doing the rounds on Facebook (but no Labour):

The general consensus is Delemza being Labour; full of good intentions but always screwing it up.

However, it could be Miliband = Ross; Sturgeon = Demelza.

Hayley has gone all eating disorder on me, wanting to go on a two day juice diet to combat a bit of bloatiness and "detox" herself, despite her knowing full well that there is no such thing as a detox and the body does it naturally all the time - that's what it's designed for. A juice detox is a load of middle-class tosh, if you ask me.

Anyway, I got out all the utensils for the Kenwood - there are hundreds of them - and lo and behold, there was a juicer attachment. At the weekend she doubled our normal weekly fruit and veg budget in preparation, hauling a massive amount of produce from Ian, the greengrocer on the High Street (much cheaper than even Lidl).

On Monday she tried the Kenwood, but the stuff went everywhere - up the walls, over her, on the floor. That persuaded her to buy a dedicated juicer on Amazon. It arrived yesterday when she was out, and being a typical bloke confronted with a machine I had to try it out. To cut a long story short, I juiced 2 carrots. The juice was delicious, but the residue pulp looked rather tempting too, so I scooped that out of the machine and ate it. The pulp was still rather juicy and had I strained it through a bit of muslin it would have yielded at least another quarter cup of juice.

Then came the dismantling and washing up - took almost half an hour! I'd have been better just eating two carrots. Total waste of money, time and effort! Just eat some normal fruit and veg.

When Hay came home so made a concoction comprised of 2 apples, 2 cucumbers, parsley, mint and spinach. Tasted vaguely minty, but overwhelmingly foul. She had it for dinner, whereas No.1 Son and I had the traditional morning after detox afforded by a tasty Indonesian curry.

Chimps in Trees

Heard a woman on the radio yesterday morning saying there's less crime where there are trees as an argument for planting more trees. I wanted to shout out to the woman that correlation doesn't equate with causation. A tree or two planted in the neighbourhood will not deter criminals, but building houses in leafy suburbs will increase the prices of said houses, putting them out of the price range of most criminals.

What with my back, I suspect there's more than a bit of chimp in me. Hay agrees.

More Chipping Sodbury:

 Off the beaten track down Brook St.

Back on the High Street 

Not strictly Chipping Sodbury, but a close neighbour in Old Sodbury. 

Overheard Reading the Sunday Paper.

Hay: "Sunday Times Rich List - who gives a toss, except possibly those in it? I'm fed up with all these Sunday papers. If I could take the best bits of the Sunday Times and best bit's of the Gurniard, perhaps I'd have a half decent paper to read."

Chairman: "It's spelled Grauniad."

I really despair of some of the people who have a right to vote. There was an article in the Grauniad about the rich doubling their wealth in the last 10 years - it made it to Facebook. Almost all the comments decried this and maintained it was grossly unfair to the poor and that wealth should be taxed more, despite this doubling in wealth occurring almost exclusively from the growth in share prices, which is notional wealth (not hard cash) aligned to growth of the economy and thus jobs. Tax shares on their growth in value - and before they're sold - and soon we'd all have no companies to work for in the first place. The financial ignorance of the man on the Clapham omnibus knows no bounds and is truly astonishing.

Some more images of Chipping Sodbury High Street:

 Jack Russell's gallery (the cricketer and painter).

 Hobb's House Bakery (the Fabulous Baker Brothers' emporium of bread).

The Old Grammar School (Hay's dad went there).

The police station (Hay's dad probably went there too). 

 Some houses.

 ANother house.

 The Pottery.

 The Moda Hotel.

 Just a nice building.

 The Horseshoe pub.

 The hotel at the top of the street.

 Some 16th C cottages.

 The Grapes on the left, and a 16th C Indian restaurant.

 Flats.

 The workhouse.

 The house I lust after - but on a hideously busy road.

Same house, different aspect.

Chipping Sodbury is a working village and not a chocolate box one like Bourton-on-the-Water, although it could easily become so with the right tweaks, But we don't want that kind of innovation here.

Male Book Club Tour of Chipping Sodbury

Hay and her sister were talking about the latest book that they're reading for the book club. I suggested the members' husbands/partners should start one. Suggested reading would comprise:

1. Haynes Manuals,
2. Screwfix catalogue,
3. Tool instruction manuals,
4. Comics.

There would be absolutely nothing by that hideous pink woman - can't remember her name - she was always seen with a poodle.

Hay is going on one of these new-fangled juice diets that's meant to be a 2 day detox. More like a 2 day eating disorder. Spent double what we normally spend in fruit and veg yesterday. I think she'll regret it after the first day.

Thought I'd give you a short tour of Chipping Sodbury High St. We probably have more pubs than the average village - The Portcullis, The Beaufort Hunt, The Squire, The George, The Grapes, The Royal Oak and The Horseshoe - all within a space of less than a quarter of a mile (not all of these below are pubs):

RC Church vicarage.

The George - it has oak beams allegedly recovered from the wreck of an Armada vessel.

Town Hall.

Old merchant's house.

A cafe that's changed hands many times.

This building has a history, but it eludes me.

The Beaufort Hunt.

The bank and Bank Chambers.

The Squire.

The Portcullis.

This one is where Edward Jenner lived for a while when an apprentice surgeon. 

Immigrant Biscuit Bowel Banks

Had cause to nip down to Screwfix yesterday and came away with one of their catalogues. While leafing through I alighted on a tool called a biscuit jointer. I haven't the vaguest idea what it does, but I'm curiously attracted to buying one.

Bowel cancer screening test came back negative, so that's a relief. I say a relief, but before I got the letter about the test I'd never worried about bowel cancer anyway. It was the test that got me scared!

Right - here's my immigration policy:

1. If you're in any way religious, you must convert to a religion acceptable to the British. Some wishy-washy form of Protestantism is preferred - the ones where they're not really sure if God even exists and have more than a few doubts about Jesus. Certainly one that's not a threat to society. Buddhism is fine, atheism is preferred.
2. You can't live in ethnic ghettos where you'll be cooking all manner of filthy, foreign muck and doing strange things which make Brits uncomfortable, like working hard - you have to assimilate ASAP. Resistance is futile.
3. You have to dress like the average Brit. Depending on age and social class, that can be jogging pants, Hipster or comedy toff like Nigel Farage. The fact Brits never conformed to the dress code of your country when it was forcibly taken over by them is immaterial.
4. Absolutely no Scots or Welsh if they decide to go independent. Actually, no Scots or Welsh, period.

HSBC is threatening to move its head office out of the UK. Perhaps they should set up in Afghanistan, or Uganda - their economies are virtually immune to further destruction. If we allow banks to use the threats of an exit to dictate government policy on bank regulation and taxation, perhaps we should just kick the buggers out anyway. They were the cause of the global crash, after all (except if you're a Conservative, in which case it was solely down to Labour).

Supermarket Politics

Having already watched Miliband Minor, we watched 3, back-to-back Leader Interviews on iPlayer last night; Farage, Cameron and Clegg. 

Farage: 

• Talks a good talk - an adept political operator and manipulator.
• Knows exactly what he has said previously, as he can guarantee that whatever he utters will be scrutinised and taken out of context. Constantly had to correct Davis.
• Attacked Evan Davis as being part of the liberal metropolitan elite - i.e. the BBC - which he is. Davis' trousers were far too short, by the way.
• Unfortunately, he is UKIP and personifies them - it's a one man party. Without him the party is dead in the water, as the rest seem to be loose canons or fringe nutters.

Cameron:

• We were waiting for and counting the number of; "Mess we inherited," statements. There were two, and one; "Inherited an out of control welfare system."
• Came across as statesmanlike, reasonable and wanting to build on success.
• Davis didn't really seem to be able to rattle him about anything.

Clegg:

• Explained why his party reneged on tuition fees, which I have always thought was a reasonable excuse - they were in a coalition as the minor party, not as the major party. They were destined to be forced to dump some of their policies. The fact that with only 9% of the seats they managed to sustain 3/4 of their major policies was a minor miracle.
• Reasonable and seeking the centre ground.
• The minute I saw him speaking fluent Dutch in a clip, that did it for me - coming over here and taking all our political jobs....

It seems UK politics has gone from the classic Tesco / Sainsbury battle to now having to include Aldi and Lidl as forces to be reckoned with.

React-o-nothing Smells

Another moan! Don't know why I never noticed this before, but the new react-o-lite specs, that I paid an arm and a leg for, are totally useless in the car, unless I'm driving with the top down. Seems glass filters out the UV rays which initiate the colour change.

It's funny how we react to smells. Yesterday I was driving into Chipping Sodbury with the roof of the car off and caught the faintest whiff of suntan lotion. Immediately I was mentally transported to the Southport outdoor pool in the late 60s on a hot summer's day with "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap playing on the transistor radio.

As a friend of mine said yesterday about the Mediterranean migrant problem and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism: "If we'd left all these tin-pot dictators in place, we wouldn't be in this mess; they at least kept some order." He has a very valid point.