Just wanted a light-hearted post this week…the hubby bought a silly gadget from a super cut-price supermarket (or the supermarket any German loves to shop at, it’s not cut-price over there, it’s just a decent supermarket). He left the packaging sitting on top of the other recycling and I spotted it yesterday evening 🙂
Just hope it made you smile. Have a lovely weekend!
I spent most of this week not knowing what day of the week it was. I actually went through yesterday, thinking it was Wednesday, until hubby came home and commented that it would be Friday today. I managed somehow to completely lose a day in my week, but it is a relief that it is actually Friday 😉
I just wanted to share something fun that happened today. I accidentally splashed a bit of water onto the desk when setting a glass of water down a little unsteadily (been a bit clumsy lately). The result was intriguing. Nothing special I suppose – any scientists among us might teach me something about what happened – but I’m content right now just to let it make me smile.
Hope it makes you smile too (and I’m loving the new WP smileys too – how about you?)… happy weekend!
Am I the only one who blinked and missed summer?
Well, we’re on the downward slippery slide to winter now. We’re just peeking over the edge of the longest day in the year today… soon we’ll be getting out of bed in the dark and crawling back home in the dark, wondering what daylight is. What happened to those balmy summer days that became the norm following the scorching 90’s?
So far this year, I’ve missed the bursts of sunshine that brought everyone rushing out to Tesco to buy a tray of coal and incinerate a few sausages. I think my neighbour is hilarious (I’m obviously easily amused). He keeps a big half deconstructed barbecue stand thing in the garden all summer. If there is sun of an evening, he’ll be out there with a handful of coal and a couple of burgers. Five, maybe ten minutes later, he’ll have zipped back in the house with his culinary masterpiece. I’m still waiting for a window of opportunity to do my bit to help burn up the earth’s coal reserves – incidentally, that made me wonder, are there any truly environmentally friendly ways to have a BBQ?
With the sky some 100 shades of grey this week, I stumbled on a link via Facebook to the video below. I don’t know why I found it so addictive – normally I’d find this kind of video irritating, and I actually kind of do. But I think I was also in disbelief at how good they are, especially the younger sister. And those tubs, they are just hypnotising. I’m going to call up my sister and see if she’ll have a go at this with me sometime this “summer“. A spot of sunshine and some fun music to cheer up this weekend from Lennon and Maisy:
Oh, apparently Wills was born 31 years ago today. Does anyone know if he has an official birthday too, like the Queen? Apparently, according to official sources, the monarch often celebrates her or his birthday when there is a higher chance of there being sunshine, hence the official birthday. So, I’m guessing that maybe he won’t have the need to move his birthday – even consulting the Met Office won’t help.
Have a sunny weekend everyone (literally and metaphorically, if not literally, then metaphorically!) 😉
Apparently today is called Super Thursday in the publishing world. The highest number of books are published on this day each year, in time to be purchased for stuffing into our Christmas stockings. I just loved the idea of a super day. It’s not been that super at all today. We’ve had grey skies and drizzle all day, bit of a damp, dreary, limp and wimpish Thursday if you ask me. However, well.. the BBC news says it’s super…so, how about we take a breather, make a cuppa and make the rest of it super eh?
I thought it would be fun to share the best piece of spam I’ve received in my comments to date. Actually, I wasn’t too sure it wasn’t genuine, except for the fact that it was linked to some random website full of nonsense. I mean I am wonderful, tremendous and frankly super, although I have been finding myself to be kinda boring recently. So…technically… this could be applicable to me:
Hello, you used to write wonderful, but the last several posts have been kinda boring! I miss your tremendous writings. Past few posts are just a little bit out of track! come on!
LOL. Oh, and when one has a day off…one tends to over compensate by taking too much time over melting cheese and such like. Today, I ate chunky peanut butter, ham and cheese toasties with a fried egg and a side salad of tomato and sweet yellow pepper.
I’m curious to know – will you be gifting an e-reader this Christmas or are you a traditionalist when it comes to books? Do you still read newspapers or are you more likely to frequent news sites or perhaps you read everything on an app? Have a super Thursday!
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I have inserted the photo as a thumbnail so that you will click through to the site.
Follow this link to see a serious tribute to one of our great Olympians from London 2012…it is evidence that some of us are self-medicating in a bid to overcome Olympics withdrawal syndrome.
I present to you the loony Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. I bet Mitt Romney is wondering how Boris got away with saying all that (in fact, made everyone chuckle – even those that don’t like him very much).
I just had to post this for some comic relief. The tension is mounting as the opening ceremony is approaching and it’s all getting very exciting. I’m almost ready. Need to put the food in the oven 😛
“Hallo, this is to the Olympic Village here yes?”
Olympic Village, what? Here? Uh how did you end up here for the Olympic Village?
“At Stratford?”
Duh, poor tourists encountered a sleepy commuter brain, plenty of those of a morning in London, “Yes, that’s right”, I smile, no longer baffled that there was the prospect the confines of the Olympic Village had been extended overnight. They were on the right platform to get the train to Stratford.
My first direct encounter with a visitor to London who’s here because of the Olympics. I guess it really is going to be happening after all!
It’s a lovely sunny day here at least. The major transport disruptions have already started and you get a free sauna on our poorly ventilated trains. All this for free with your Olympic Games ticket! Welcome to London 🙂
Sunshine? Temperatures higher than the mid-twenties…really? Maybe BBQ weather is truly upon us in the UK…dare we hope for such a thing in 2012?
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Welcome to London! The first athletes taking part in the London 2012 Olympics arrived at the beginning of this week, and huge lorries ferrying the press packs and their paraphernalia are blocking up all the roads, all amid the security row taking place in Westminster. Who’s to blame? How did it all come to this, just a couple of weeks before the games, when there were seven years during which preparations could have been made?
But, dear friends, fret not. London is well prepared. What with regular helicopter flights under cover of darkness, missile sites dotted around the main stadia and plenty of signage designed to empower you when your coach driver doesn’t know where s/he’s driving you on the controversial Olympic superhighway, you’ll be fine. And believe me, nothing has been left to chance. We are prepared to the point of having rehearsed the one skill Londoners are all born with: the art of queuing.
As Londoners, we live well in chaos, so I decided I would do my bit to help you see beyond it and reassure you about attending the Olympic Games if you are visiting our beautiful capital for the first time. Perhaps you have been reading recent press reports about four-hour queues at Heathrow and are considering whether or not to request a refund of your Games ticket or to exchange your flight for one to warmer climes. Allow me to give you a preview of our wonderful Olympic city. As you can see from the photograph above, we are a generous nation. Someone with insider knowledge of the whereabouts of a secret queue-free passage to the opening ceremony decided to give us a wink and a nod. As I am a typical, sharing Londoner, I am posting the tip in case you missed it.
Now without further ado, it is with great pride that I present to you the safest doors on the London Underground system – otherwise know as the “Tube”. In some cities, the presence of graffiti may insinuate an element of danger – the threat of unrestrained self-expression, perhaps even over-enthusiastic boredom. But never fear.
Just above the aforementioned door, is a plethora of information. At your first meeting with this noticeboard, you may find yourself in a minor state of breathlessness. But you need not panic if you made a mad dash for it and only just managed to squeeze into the Tube carriage as the doors were closing. You are in the prime position to access everything you need to know about travelling on the Tube. And you will quickly learn never to jump hastily onto a train again. Please pay attention to the following scenario, with careful reference to the above photo.
It is possible that your spontaneous and successful dive onto an overcrowded train triggered a dangerous passenger emergency during the brief instance of which, you most certainly should not be found smoking. The likelihood is that you trapped your rucksack in the doorway thereby causing the train driver to reopen the doors and make an announcement to all passengers, warning them against doing what you just did. This inevitably results in a delay, thus unleashing the combined fury of the native London commuter monster onto yourself. But fear not.
The emergency alarm is right next to the door, just above the average eye level, in case you should miss it as you become mesmerised by the beautifully worded signs around it. If you are unlucky, you may look where I just advised you to look, and find a sign taunting you and telling you that the alarm is located next to the door opposite. You may look in vain, as it will possibly be obscured behind the head of an unfortunately tall and uncomfortably contorted fellow passenger. But shall we trouble ourselves unnecessarily? Best not. In such an unlikely situation, should you become overwhelmed and thus less able to stand, you would not be able to reach up to pull an alarm anyway and there are dedicated seats available for those who find themselves in such a condition.
Do bear in mind, not to settle too comfortably in your seat however. Should it transpire that another traveller was hapless enough as to have activated the emergency alarm, s/he may need your seat more than you. Regulate your breathing as the train driver announces that “the train is being held on the platform due to a passenger alarm being activated”. A silent Londoner does not indicate a happy Londoner. Prepare yourself to witness the glares, the rolling eyes, even an involuntary hiss or a fuming grunt.
Do your utmost to avoid causing a delay during the Olympics. The likelihood is, before you considered making your small contribution, the commuters around you were already running late due to signal failures, leaves on the track, adverse weather conditions or somebody deciding that strolling along the track instead of getting onto a train might be more likely to get them to work on time. That is before throwing into the mix, the extra zillion people expected to turn up for a few weeks to watch athletes competing for speed.
Remember, nobody actually hates you.
On a side note, using the emergency alarm as a support for standing upright invokes a penalty in much the same way as travelling without a valid ticket. It is polite to avoid committing both of these offences, even if you feel safely smothered under someone’s armpit.
Of course. Should you invoke a penalty fare, you may become once again overwhelmed, and need to lower a window for ventilation. Please however, be aware that this does not constitute an emergency of the kind that requires the opening of the door, ever.
I hope that this post will reassure you that London is an extremely safe and welcoming city. If in any doubt, remember the great British maxim:
In all earnestness, if you are indeed a visitor, please be as warmly welcomed in my city as on my blog. London is full of people from all over the world, and I suspect that is part of the reason why nothing runs immaculately. But then I wouldn’t change anything if it meant forfeiting the city’s mixing pot of ideas and dreams that is always brimming over… If you hear someone speaking a language other than English, they are just as likely to be a Londoner as they are to be a tourist. I love living in London, for all its foibles. And hey, we paid (and will be paying indefinitely) for the Olympics so we might as well try to enjoy them (I’m saying this ahead of the ranting I will no doubt be doing in a week or so). I’ll probably catch some of it on the telly if I don’t spend most of it trying to get to and from work.
Do you have any Olympic plans? Will you watch the opening ceremony? Will you be following any of the sports or rooting for any of the athletes?
I didn’t know that there was an official song for the Diamond Jubilee. It tickled me to imagine the Queen sitting in her car with her iPhone, blaring out the music from the back seat and singing along with Prince Philip on their way to the Epsom Derby this morning. It’s a catchy and uplifting (cheesy) song. I can just picture Her Majesty emptying her lungs and belting out the chorus…and swaying in time, maybe waving the royal handbag above her head, both white-gloved hands in the air. Must be a nice change from hearing “God Save the Queen” for the last 60 years.
I was wondering if the song was a gift from the Queen to her subjects, but turns out it will be on sale and some of the proceeds will go to the Official Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust.
What isn’t there a song for? What’s the official Olympic anthem going to be? I haven’t been keeping an ear out for it. I hope that it’s good. But I had better step away from the computer now and watch that those scones don’t burn otherwise when HM turns up later, there’ll only be the cucumber sandwiches on which to dollop the clotted cream and that won’t do (even though I can definitely eat clotted cream like some do peanut butter – straight out of the tub with a spoon!)
Well, I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. Even if you, like me, are not planning on hovering around street parties to see if there is any free food going… Apparently Scotland is due to get most of the Jubilee party sunshine amazingly! Bet the Queen was wishing she could have stayed at Balmoral and had a good knees up there, without all this traipsing around 😉
this is lemonade 