Full credit goes to Pia Guerra and Ian Boothby for this cartoon (lifted from The New Yorker Magazine’s Instagram account) that I know many writers will relate to.
In my case, my “editor” tends to be my boyfriend, and he is a rubbish one. He lets me ramble, resulting in me digging a massive hole for myself and revealing myself to be the utter muppet I am (probably why he lets me do it!)
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I appreciate it’s a bit belated, considering the article was penned on 29th January, but honestly this article is quite possibly the best thing you’ll read all year.
Brought to you by local newspaper the Swindon Advertiser, “Swindon bin bag travels 15 minutes from home” follows the story of a lost recycling bag which, you guessed it, was blown away in recent storms, ending up a location that is 15 minutes away by foot.
“I expected to see an address on it for my street…but was shocked to see the Church’s name on it as that is a fair distance for it to be blown in the wind…I placed it on the railings where I found it and decided the decent thing to do was post its location so someone could inform the church where to find it.” Emma Viggers, Swindon resident
The best bit comes at the end. After an article detailing the recycling bag’s journey, we get this as a journalistic afterthought:
Meanwhile, a structure at the Abbey Stadium was also damaged.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Link to original article (and credit to Edward Burnett for originally reporting): Storm Isha: Swindon bin bag travels 15 minutes from home | Swindon Advertiser
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You know, it struck me the other day that I have this uncanny ability for calamity, like the time I tripped on a paving slab and did my noggin’ in.
Putting that to one side, an update to say things are going going better with my foot (you know, the one I tipped a mug of boiling water over). This was how it was looking before, after the skin had been taken off at a minor injuries unit and a couple of days into a course of antibiotics:
I’m intentionally leaving out photos of my swollen foot at the point boyfriend Ben dragged me into an urgent care unit.A week later after the first bandage, my foot was looking more like this:
Battling infection was a low point, alongside the accompanied pain, and balancing antibiotics with my primal need to constantly eat. (‘Take one tablet four times a day, at least one hour before food and two hours after food.” Hmm…this is going to be a truly rubbish week!’)
Comedy point was when I tried to keep my foot dry in the shower by sticking a plastic bag over my foot, held in place by a hair band. Not only did it fail within seconds, giving me a soaking bandage, I also nearly slipped in the shower.
I also realised afterwards the bag was from a Chinese takeaway I’d had the week before. I’m nothing if not true to brand.
In all the ups and downs, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had a supportive family network around me, one which have both taken care and refused to let me out of their sight where herbal tea is concerned. It is thanks to them that I’m well on my way to feeling more myself, even if it has been a slower process than I had initially expected.
It won’t stop me drinking my beloved cups of tea (and coffee), though.
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2024 has gone swimmingly so far.
Towards the end of December 2023 I went to a pantomime (just don’t ask how many people in attendance fitted the category of aged 30 – 40…with parents). If you don’t know what pantomime is, check out this article, it does a much better job of explaining than I ever could.
Given the size of cast, it was a really production with each and everyone of the actors giving it their absolute all. The heckling from children in the audience had to be the ultimate highlight of the whole experience, with one calling out “it’s all common sense really!” as one cast member asked for help locating their ‘missing’ friends. (I don’t think they’d got the “it’s behind you!” part of the audience participation script.)
You know what isn’t fun though? Copyright claims. So you’ll have to take a photo of me stood at the base of the theatre stairs as proof we had fun.
And then boyfriend Ben and I travelled up a wedding in Darlington, a location so far north that at one stage I wasn’t sure if I was going to get altitude sickness. (Turns out there is a world beyond Birmingham, who knew!)
It was a really lovely wedding which served as a fitting end to 2023 and an area to which boyfriend Ben and I have decided we will most certainly be visiting again. Although I’m still not entirely sold by Ben’s new hat (as lovely a wedding favour as it was…)
He’s still trying to convince me.
All the above in mind, shout out to the following places:
And then…
And then, Alice decided to pull a Calamity Jane and spectacularly slip-up on a stone doorstep, bruising one side of her body.
And then, less than 24 hours later, I dropped a cup of herbal tea all over my right foot. No milk, just pure boiling water straight onto my foot. (I’ll spare you the photos of immediately after, the bandages, creams, ice packs and numerous blisters.)
Safe to say any hopes of entering into the foot modelling market are now very much scuppered. And, if anyone else says to me “just put your best foot forwards!” I swear I’m going to start charging a penalty fee.
Oh well, you know what they say, start 2024 as you mean to go on.
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I’ve been going through old video material. Some it used for assorted MHAM posts, others filmed in the moment, yet never used. (Believe it or not, even I have a version of a cutting room floor!)
After conducting an even deeper dig into the Alice archives, I’ve pulled together a compilation video of clips, both seen and unseen. Where possible, I’ve tried to piece together when content was originally filmed and overlay it into each clip. I had more than this, but at 11 minutes long I felt the video was already pushing it beyond the five minutes I’d originally planned (maybe in the future there could be a sequel).
It’s a little bit of a vanity project, but one which I hope some of you may get a chuckle out of.
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Just back having spent a lovely couple of days in the New Forest town of Lymington (England). Boyfriend Ben was busy attending to work matters and, with me having copious amounts of annual leave left to take, I thought I’d have another go at exploring.
Unlike last year, when I visited neighbouring Lyndhurst, this time I didn’t get ill from Norovirus (actual yay!!)
I didn’t take many snaps for a few key reasons:
Other reasons:
But hey! Here are a couple of snaps I did manage to take. (All of which from around the quay at the moment I thought “I should probably take a photo for the website”)
There’s a nature reserve (located next to a busy stretch of road – you wouldn’t know it!)
There are ferries to the Isle of Wight (which I didn’t utilise, but I did walk up to with no intention of boarding. I went right to the edge and thought “huh, so that’s what the ferries look like up close. Okay,” then retraced my steps back to the quay. Valid use of an hour’s walking with a laptop strapped to my back, if ever there was one.
There was also the mini event of the train cutting over the quay, which felt strange and yet very watchable.
And then there’s me, hello!
In conclusion
Lymington is a wonderful place to visit for a short break, particularly around this time of year (November), when things are less crowded vs the high/school holiday season.
I stayed within the town throughout my stay but there are plenty of other local attractions within the New Forest for those wanting to explore, alongside the car/foot passenger ferry to the Isle of Wight. Lymington is accessible by car and serviced by two train stations, one of which being only a couple of minute’s walk from the town centre.
For what it’s worth, these were the coffee/catering I visited* (*I visited other establishments which formed part of nationally recognised chains, so I’ll celebrate the independents instead!)
The King’s Head Inn, Lymington
Coffeelogy, Southampton (this place isn’t in Lymington, but I stopped here on my way home!)
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After battling a mouthful of disappointment, I just wanted to highlight how much of a travesty Jus-Rol‘s cinnamon swirls rebrand is.
In the simplest of terms, it’s awful.
For those less aware of its previous incarnations, Jus-Rol’s cinnamon swirls is a ready-to-bake product. What it offers to the market is something straightforward and quick, providing the same results of freshy made pastry, without the time and stress needed to make a batch from scratch.
To quote Jus-Rol’s website:
“Jus-Rol’s ready to bake Cinnamon Swirls are a perfectly easy way to bake your family a tasty morning treat at home. Just shape, bake and enjoy warm from the oven. The aroma will fill your kitchen with joy as they bake up.”
https://www.jusrol.co.uk/products/cinnamon-swirls
Making Jus-Rol cinnamon swirls was easy. You took it out of the tube, split the cylinder of pre-filled pastry into six and then whacked it into the oven, cooking for a defined period of time and icing once cooled.
Now the process is several steps longer and ten times worse. Instead of one pot for icing sugar, now you get two, one for the icing sugar and one for the “cinnamon filling” which looks more like chocolate spread and smells of nothing.
Even if we park the creation of needless plastic packaging, it is hard to overlook the messy complexity created by the introduction this modest little pot. Once the filling is smeared across a flat rectangle of raw pastry, the consumer then has to roll the pastry and only then cutting it into six.
Thanks to this step, the cinnamon goes absolutely everywhere. Some pieces were left drowning in brown paste, others with barely a scrap inside. Some swirls were trying to uncurl and others kept oozing.
Turns out whacking them into the oven doesn’t help much either. Cast your mind back to the picture on the Jus-Rol box and compare it to what we got.
While we can all laugh at mis-shaped pastries, it doesn’t compare to how they used to look with the old recipe.
Turns out I’m not the only one disappointed by Jus-Rol’s change in manufacturing. With an average rating of 1.1 at the time of writing, Tesco’s customers are less than impressed.
And the feedback on Jul-Rol’s Facebook page is comical.
Here’s hoping Jus-Rol listen to this feedback on and tossing aside whichever team of dingbats thought it was a good idea to implement cost-cutting, planet harming, changes to a classic.
Have you also experienced this frustration? Drop a comment below and/or contact Jus-Rol’s customer service team via their website, Jus-Rol (jusrol.co.uk)
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Something I came across on the internet that makes absolutely no sense other than afterwards finding out it’s a thing and the cat is apparently called Maxwell.
And, in fairness, it is the most truest of reflections when it comes to what is usually floating around in my head.
Oh, God, what have I gotten myself into? Make it stop!!
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This is a smidge of a belated one, given boyfriend Ben and I were holidaying in the last week of August. What can I say? I’ve been rather busy since getting back, and by busy, I mean swamped in work emails.
Back in South Devon, we had a rather splendid time in and around the English Riviera (even if Ben’s reaction to that description was laughter, followed by “no, really? The English Riviera?“)
We did wine tasting, we did a cider tour, we visited National Trust properties, I even did a walk along the River Dart in hopelessly inadequate footwear. We did all the classy things. We had a simply wonderful time thanks to all the wonderful human beings that made it so.
Oh, and Ben’s car almost got flooded, due to the super blue Moon (he’ll insist it looked worse than it was, but he was the one moaning about his wet socks for the rest of the night!)
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Attractions visited (in no particular order):
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I don’t know if it’s the warped soundtrack, the computer-generated vocals or the mesmerizingly basic Adobe Flash animation but whichever way, I saw “Is That All There Is?” at the Tate Modern (London) and now it’s all I can think about.
I swear to goodness I wish it would just leave me alone. After all, it’s hardly something you can sing along to, not when the earworm in question sounds like a deflated emergency siren.
And, a much as I value the importance of art, I wish this wasn’t the one thing to have stuck with me since my visit to the Tate Modern in November 2022 (that’s right, it’s still haunting me!)
…I’m off to get myself a strong cup of tea.
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(For what it’s worth) Display caption lifted from the Tate Modern website:
IS THAT ALL THERE IS? considers the environmental impact of global warming. YHCHI often use dark humour to highlight difficult issues. The text and melody of the work are based on the song Is That All There Is?, made popular by singer Peggy Lee in 1969. The fire in the song’s lyrics here becomes a reference to wildfires in California. The question ‘Is That All There Is?’ is repeated again and again, highlighting the lack of personal and political accountability in relation to climate change.
Gallery label, April 2022
Artist credit: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Title: “Is That All There Is?”
Featured post image (also used below): “What The Hell’s Going On” by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (https://www.artpapers.org/young-hae-chang-heavy-industries/)
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My Housemate's a Mermaid 