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Wine or a fruit-based drink for the lady?
The Guardian has taken to writing rather 'sensationalist' headlines lately. Not the punnilicious red-top tabloid style ones (see below), but the Daily Mail type shockers where you are outraged at the very suggestion only to discover, after reading the actual article, that the story is not really about that at all. The most recent, "Hit the young with alcopop tax", is actually about Patricia Hewitt writing to the chancellor and asking him to up the cost of alcohol in his next budget. This sounds like a great idea to me, not just because I hope there will be fewer drunken idiots to annoy me on the later trains home... I actually look forward to another reason to refuse drinks at pubs.
When I fist learned to drive, I used to borrow Mum's car to collect all my friends for our Friday night at the pub and then drop them all home again after 11pm. I'd get petrol money, plus as much blackcurrant and soda as I could drink. Life was sweet, and I always had a good evening (yes, without any alcohol). After university, I returned to the role of designated driver and, as a result, my alcohol tolerance went down once more. These days I usually have much more fun without booze than I would with (e.g. sleeping through most of my housewarming party due to a few too many 'medicinal' G&Ts), so why is it that many people seem horrified at the mere suggestion that I might want to consume soft drinks in a pub? A pub? Where they serve booze?! Yes, I know.
Only if I'm driving does the nagging cease, otherwise I'm subjected to hours of "why?" or "go on!" from people who obviously have no idea that it is possible to have fun without being intoxicated. I know people who don't drink at all and their decision seems to be accepted, whereas my decisions to only have a couple, abstain until the food arrives, or go without completely for one evening seem to be a mystery to all. Perhaps they just like seeing me make an arse of myself, or have more fun when I'm asleep in the corner? Or maybe Britain really has just become far too obsessed with alcohol.
Posted on October 27, 2006 | Comments (3)
Headline-tastic
You know, sometimes you have to bow down to the tabloid headline writers and their amazing skill with words. Today's front page of the Sun asks, "How do you solve a problem like Korea?" - Genius.
Posted on October 10, 2006
Food, glorious food
After recommendations from various people (including a comment from Pigwotflies, here on this very blog), we finally got ourselves down to Borough Market for a bit of a browse on Saturday. I'd heard it was good and not exactly small, but that didn't prepare me for 4.5 acres of 'foodie heaven'. Meat, fish, veg, cheese, tea, cakes, coffee... and plenty of cooked delights to keep your energy levels up while you wander round. After purchasing some outrageously wonderful coffee, we went for a stroll along the Thames Path and found a shopping area that reminded me a lot of the Albert Dock in Liverpool.
The north west is feeling less and less like home now though, as I'm actually settling in to life in London. Figure I'd better do the tourist thing while everything's still new, so I think an open topped bus tour may be in order to 'tick off' a few sights I haven't seen since I was at school, take some photos, and to get my bearings a little bit. I've already finished one film in my Lomo LC-A, but have yet to take the SLR out anywhere yet - I think I need a theme or a specific destination in mind first. Still, I've found another college to do the second year of my A-level so it should be photography overload soon.
Any ideas of interesting places to go to take photos?
Posted on October 09, 2006 | Comments (4)
Connecting to the outside world
Still no phone or internet at home, frustratingly. The list of annoying companies so far includes NTL, Bulldog and (possibly, if there's still no dialling tone when we get home) BT, and that's only with regard to this one problem. It amazes me that some people like moving house so much that they do it voluntarily every couple of years - we were moving with no buying or selling of property and it has still managed to be one gigantic headache. However, the gogglebox has now broken its hold on me, despite a momentary relapse last night when I switched on a heavily ghosted channel 5 for ten minutes before Topper got home. An entire month without TV has to be an all time record for me and really has proved that we didn't need all those channels we were paying NTL for... and which should give me more time for taking photos.
Posted on October 03, 2006 | Comments (1)