Choc Full Of Choc

/ masher / 6 Comments

Like most people, I like chocolate.

Dark chocolate is my preference, but milk chocolate or white chocolate won’t get turned away.

Fruit & Nut? Well, now we’re talking!

But, whilst I like a bit of chocolate every now and then, I’m definitely not a chocoholic… unlike The Current Mrs Masher, who can easily devour a whole bar of Galaxy in a single sitting.

But that’s a girl thing anyway, isn’t it?

Bournville is probably my favourite and I’ll usually have a bar sitting here in the shack with me, which I will nibble away at, maybe one square a day, or so.  On average, a single 100g bar will last me about a month.

But, I’m also partial to a bit of Toblerone (who isn’t?), which is why, fed up with buying me socks for Christmas, Son decided to get me a big Toblerone.  That’s it in the picture up above.

The damn thing weighs 4.5kg.  If I eat that at the same rate I usually eat a bar of chocolate, it’s going to take me about 4 years to finish it!

And I think, by then, I’ll probably never want to see another Toblerone again.

The Future’s Bright, The Future’s…

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I do like a glass of orange juice with my breakfast each morning.
Just a small one.
150ml is the recommended daily intake according to the NHS and I have just under that amount. Why? Because the 1 litre carton that I get from Sainsbury’s when I do my weekly grocery shop on a Saturday morning, will only give 6.66 portions (1L divided by 150ml). So I have just slightly less, so that I can get 7 equal glasses of juice out of the carton, thereby getting a full week’s worth.

Normally, I will purchase Sainsbury’s own juice, because I find it’s pretty good. Tropicana definitely tastes that little bit better, but is much more expensive. So, last week, when I saw it on offer for almost the same price as the cheaper supermarket brand, I snatched up a carton.

They are pretty similar in size and appearance, as can be seen in the above photo.

Except that they’re not.

On Friday morning I poured myself a glass of juice as usual and was surprised to find the carton was then empty – I would have none for the following morning.  At first I suspected that someone else in the family had been at my juice, however, I knew that wasn’t the case as no-one else in the family drinks it. Looking at the carton, I noticed that despite looking like a regular 1 litre size, it was actually 10% smaller!

So, what’s going on here, Tropicana? Not only more expensive than the supermarket juices, but you actually get less, too?

Another example of shrinkflation in action?

And putting 900ml in a carton that looks like a 1L one, is just being sneaky and devious, I reckon.

Tyred

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A couple of months back, a warning appeared on the dashboard in my car.

“Unable to read Tyre Pressure Monitor Sensors”, it said.  Oh great, something else to pay out for!

But then it disappeared. Then it came back. And then it disappeared again.  Eventually, it came back and it stayed there.  I thought I’d better look into it.

It turns out that what I thought was probably something only featuring on higher end cars, has actually been fitted to all new cars in the UK since 2012.  In fact, not just in the UK: Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) have been mandatory in all new cars sold in Europe since 2014 and in the United States since 2008.

Well, I never knew that.

Further research showed that the most likely reason I was getting the warning was that the battery had probably failed on one or more units. There is one fitted into the valve on each wheel and the battery should last between 8 to 10 years, apparently.

My car is 9 years old.

A couple of weeks back, I phoned my local tyre fitter and he quoted me 110 quid to replace the sensor in each wheel. That’s 440 quid!  I decided that I could live without TPMS… you know, just like we did in the old days. We managed to get by without such technology for decades, didn’t we?

But, apparently, it’s now an MOT fail.

In the end, I decided just to replace the one that had died so as to get rid of the warning on the dash.  I shall likely have to go again in a few months when another one dies. Maybe it’s time for me to look at buying a new car. Hmmm…

So, be warned, if your car is coming up to nine or ten years old, you may well have some unexpected expense coming your way.

Whilst we are on the subject of the local council…

/ masher / 6 Comments

Today is “Bin Day”.

I don’t mean Bin Day in the form of a national holiday or anything, it’s just that today is the scheduled day that the bin men (and/or women) come round and empty our large black general waste bin.

If they can be arsed.

They might come round tomorrow, instead. That sometimes happens.

In the ‘old’ days, they used to empty it weekly, but for years now – in line with pretty much everywhere else, I believe – they empty it fortnightly.  Not always easy: there have been plenty of times where I have had to physically climb into the bin and jump up and down on the rubbish to compact it so that I can get some more in.

And I have seen talk in the news that some councils are looking to make it a monthly collection! To be honest, I don’t know if our council is one of those, but even if it isn’t, it’ll probably follow suit if it sees that savings can be made.

I really don’t think that we could cope with our rubbish only being taken away every four weeks.

Today is also Bin Cleaning Day.   Again, not a national holiday.

I pay a man to once a month stalk the bin lorry and once our bin has been emptied, he jet washes the inside and then deodourises it.  It sounds an extravagance, but it’s only a few quid and you wouldn’t believe the pong that comes from that bin in the Summer months!

And… I have just sent 48 pounds to the council to get a permit to have my brown bin collected.  Forty eight sovs, for a bin that is only used during Summer and Autumn to take my grass cuttings away!

Ridiculous.

We should be getting a letter from the council soon, to tell us how much our Council Tax has gone up.

I look forward to that.

Draining

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In the road outside our house, is a drain.  Nothing exciting there, I know.

About ten years ago, some pikeys nicked it. Well, they nicked the grate. It was a good solid grate and probably worth a fair bit of money down at the dodgy scrap metal merchants.

I returned from work, that evening, to find a hole in front of the drive.

I reported it to the council and they said that there had been a spate of them in the area, but that they would fix it as soon as they were able.  Sure enough, within a couple of days, I returned home to find a nice new drain grate had been fitted.

I was a little disappointed though. This grate wasn’t as hefty as the previous one and it hadn’t been fitted flush to the road surface. It was about an inch below. And they hadn’t made a particularly good job of concreting it in. All in all, it was a bit shoddy.

Due to the drain’s location, when driving on and off my drive it’s pretty impossible not to drive the wheels over the drain and, now that there was a bit of a drop, it meant that the weight of the car dropping on top of it just pushed the drain down further and further through the shoddy concrete, until it was a good few inches down.

Consequently, the drain has never been cleaned out by that big tanker thing that comes up the road with a giant hoover attachment, because they have never been able to get it open, jammed into the concrete as it is.

I’m sure they must have reported it back to the council and I myself have reported it several times, but nothing ever happens. Sometimes, someone comes out and looks at it, sprays some orange paint around it and then buggers off.  The paint eventually fades away and the following year someone comes out and paints around it again.

Well, it was a lovely bright day, yesterday, and so I cleaned the car. When I went to pour the dirty bucket of water down the drain, I noticed that there was barely any drain visible, as the grate was completely clogged up with leaves and detritus. I got a mahoosive screwdriver and a hefty brush and I spent ten minutes cleaning everything away. I was quite pleased with my handiwork, as it looked so much better with all the crud removed and it also meant that if it rained, water could actually flow into the drain, as it was supposed to. It was now functional again.

And then, this morning, two flat-bed trucks sporting orange flashing lights pulled up outside the house and four blokes got out, dug up the road and replaced the drain.

If I’d known that to get it replaced all I had to do was clean the bloody thing, I’d have done so years ago!

Radio Ga Ga

/ masher / 8 Comments

I spent several hours last night, camped out in my car atop Dunstable Downs… the highest point in Bedfordshire.

An Amateur Radio contest happens at the beginning of each month and I am taking part.  As we are operating at VHF frequencies, the higher we can get the aerial, the better.

So, armed with my radio and homemade aerial (constructed from some plastic piping and an old clothes horse that I cut up) and a flask of coffee, I made my way to what I hoped would be my regular parking spot, just outside the car park barriers.

There are several car parks up there and at night they drop the barriers across the entrances. However, there is generally room to squeeze a few vehicles in.

To my dismay, every spot was taken: there were loads of cars up there.  It seemed to be some sort of gathering.  It was too late for me to search for another spot, so I parked up on the grass verge and set my aerial up behind the car.  It was a bit dodgy, because it was very close to the unlit road and it was quite scary with these idiot drivers haring round the corner towards me.  Throughout the entire event, I kept my lights on so I could be seen.

I could also be seen by the occupants of all the cars squeezed in front of the barriers.  They watched me, as I sat in the car speaking into a microphone and as I got out several times to repoint the aerial.  They looked at me curiously and chatted amongst themselves through their open car windows.  I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was probably along the lines of “Look at this fucking idiot. What’s he up to?”

Despite being in my car – with the doors locked – I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t feel safe.

I’m going to have to find a backup location for next month.

Or take a bodyguard with me.

I Can See Clearly Now…

/ masher / 6 Comments

… Lorraine has gone.

About twenty years or so ago, I started wearing spectacles… for reading.

Over the years, though, my eyes got worse and about ten years ago I became a full-time Speccy-Four-Eyes .

I bought my first pair of glasses from a well known high street opticians – who I won’t name here, but it ryhmes with Pec Shavers – and I have been going there ever since.

The last couple of times though, I didn’t feel I got the level of service that I should be getting.  And I always felt like I was on a conveyor, being passed from assistant to assistant to optician to assistant with lots of waiting on hard plastic chairs in between, but always, ultimately, with a rush to get me sorted and out of the store as quickly as possible..

I mentioned this to a mate of mine and he said he’d had the same experience and so had changed to a small independent optician. He highly recommended them, so I thought I would give them a go.

A couple of weeks ago, I phoned and made an appointment. The lady at the other end was super polite and helpful and she gave me instructions on where best to park.

On the day, I parked up in the supermarket car park as instructed, with plenty of time before my appointment and started the six-minute walk that Google Maps was displaying on my phone. After a couple of minutes, I realised the map on the phone wasn’t changing – it did this once before, I think the GPS has gone faulty – so I gave up with it and put it away. I wandered up and down the high street but – try as I might – I couldn’t find the opticians.

The irony of that wasn’t lost on me.

I asked several people for directions, but no-one could help.  My appointment was now overdue and so I phoned the opticians and the super nice lady gave me directions.  A few minutes later, I arrived to find them smiling and waving to me out of the window. A very friendly bunch.

Once inside, a few  details were taken then the optician took me through to a room at the back.

She checked my eyes with the usual “Is it better with this… or this?  This… or this?”. She photographed my retina and checked my peripheral vision and all the time we chatted about this and that. All very pleasant and relaxed.

Afterwards, I sat down with the owner and we discussed several different options for my glasses. Again, we chatted and laughed as we tried different frames and at no point was there any sense of a rush  – they seemed to have all the time in the world for me.

Yes, it was more expensive – but only slightly – and it was such a different (better) experience to what I’d had before, that I think it was well worth paying that little extra.

In fact, I’m actually looking forward to my next visit.

Chilly Willy

/ masher / 3 Comments

The motorcycle club that I belong to have some real die-hard bikers: guys that will ride any distance in any weather.

I’m not one of them.

I used to be, back in the day. I used to ride in all weathers: dry, warm and sunny to windy, cold and wet. I even used to ride in the snow – mainly because back then, my motorcycle was my only form of transportation… apart from my pushbike.

But, once I’d got a car, the bike very quickly became a warm weather vehicle. Notice I said ‘warm’, not ‘hot’.  When the degrees are up in the high twenties, I’d much rather be in an air-conditioned car than sweltering in leathers at a set of traffic lights.  In fact, I’ve become a very temperate rider: I don’t like it too hot and I don’t like it too cold.  Baby Bear’s porridge is just the right temperature for me.  Call me Goldilocks if you wish.

Guys at the club rib me and say I am a wuss for not riding all year round, as they do.

Each January, they do a ride called the Chilly Willy, which raises money for a local hospice or something.  I determined that this would be the year I would brave the weather and join them.

I didn’t.

The fact is, that nowadays I ride for fun. I ride for the sheer joy that motorcycling gives me.  And I get absolutely no joy whatsoever, riding when it’s freezing bloody cold and/or wet!

So, the die-hards can make fun and call me whatever – me and my steed won’t be joining them until the roads are nice and dry and the mercury in my thermometer gets within decent reach of 18° C.

Prisoner

/ masher / 3 Comments

Whilst doing some research on my family tree, just before Christmas, I came across some information that showed that my maternal grandfather had been captured during the war (WWII) and was held in Stalag VIII-B in Poland.

To be fair, this was information that I had already uncovered, so it wasn’t new to me.

What was new, however, was the discovery that documents regarding his captivity were now held in the National Archives. When the Germans surrendered, all the records held in the camp, detailing English POWs, were boxed up and taken to the UK.

So, a couple of weeks ago – having made arrangments to visit – I took a drive down to Richmond.  Having never been to the NA before, I found it a fascinating place to visit.

There were lots of people there, sitting at computers and sifting through documents, but I was told that due to the sensitivity of wartime documents, I had to view mine in the Invigilators Room – a room where I could be monitored and with no egress for me until I pressed the bell and then someone would come and let me out.  I was also not allowed to wear my coat, as that would make it easy should I wish to surrepticiously steal the documents.

In the room, I was handed a plastic box with a single white envelope in it, with my grandfathers name written in pencil.

I’ll admit to being somewhat nervous as I opened it, indeed, I noticed my hands shaking slightly as I did so.

I tipped the contents out onto the desk and emotion immediately got the better of me as an A5 sized, buff-coloured card plopped onto the desk, alongside several smaller pink cards.  There, in the bottom left-hand corner of the large card was a small black & white photo of a young man (only 25 at the time), standing against a wall like a convict, holding a small piece of blackboard in front of him, on which was chalked his POW number and the name of the camp, his inky thumbprint beside him only adding to the palpability of his incarceration.

It was undoubtably my grandfather. I felt a small tear well up as I looked at him – a photo that I – nor anyone else in the family – had ever seen before.  His face looked relaxed, but his eyes conveyed concern: I daresay, having only just been recently captured, he and his comrades had little idea of what fate had in store for them.

I took photos of everything, put the cards back in the envelope and then back in to the plastic box and I rang the bell for my release… something my grandfather couldn’t do.

He saw out the rest of the war as a prisoner and, in later life, it was something he rarely talked about… unless we managed to get enough Long Life Pale Ale into him.

I’d always known it was a difficult time for him, and now, after seeing that photo. I feel that I have a better understanding as to why.

Feb The Wunth

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I was awoken at 4am this morning, by the current Mrs M climbing back into the marital bed.

I asked where she had been and she explained that she couldn’t sleep and so had been downstairs catching up on the last several episodes of Silent Witness.

“Sorry that I woke you”, she said.

“Wo’evverrr”, I muttered, sleepily.

“But, as you’re awake… Pinch Punch, First Of The Month!” she said, gleefully jabbing me in the arm.

“Not fair! I exclaimed. “I’m not properly awake yet.”

Pinchy Punchy is something we have done for years and it has become quite competitive between the two of us and has reached the point we we even employ dirty tricks like pretending to be asleep – you can’t be pinchy punched when you’re comatose… it’s one of the rules.

We haven’t kept count, but there’s no doubt that Mrs Masher is well ahead.

Sneaky cow.

Anyway, as I have been reminded twice now, it is indeed the first day of February, which can mean only one thing: the entire internet goes into meltdown, as two of us  – I am assuming (nay, hoping) the other one will be joining in – tackle this year’s Masher’s Blog-A-Thon.

Drivel, nonsense, twaddle, gibberish and tripe will be spoon-fed to you both on a daily basis, all washed down with a big glass of poppycock (yes, I’ve been at the thesaurus again).

Brace yourselves.

Jimmy

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Last night, the current Mrs Masher and I went to see Jimmy Carr.

Unfortunately, he didn’t see us, as we were just two faces amongst a couple of thousand, seated there in the theatre.

He was, of course, very funny and, as usual, many of his near-the-knuckle quips elicited wincing groans as well as laughs from the audience.

It was also interspersed with a couple of serious comments on societal norms, which garnered rounds of uncertain applause, because, when you are being hit with rapid joke after joke punchlines – all of which pretty much hit the mark – when you then hear a punchline that isn’t funny, it takes a moment to register that it was a serious comment and not just a gag that didn’t quite work.

Towards the end of his set, he told some risque jokes that “… could get me cancelled”, and sure enough, they were the sort of jokes that would likely send the woke, snowflake community into a frenzy, but we – the audience – lapped it up.

I think, if you go to a Jimmy Carr show, you know what to expect. We expected a barrage of witty, risque, smutty and sarcastic jokes.  We expected him to touch on taboo subjects and make us squirm with embarrassed laughter.

He didn’t let us down.

Ah ah ahhhhh.

… It Is Now

/ masher / 4 Comments

Well, it got to 11:30 and I was ready for bed, but Mrs M had other ideas and wanted to watch the fireworks on telly, so I poured myself a scotch and we sat down and watched hundreds of thousands of pounds go up in smoke.
Literally.

It was pretty spectacular though.

We then wished each other a Happy New Year, shook hands and hit the sack.  Despite the cacophony of whizzes and bangs that were going on outside, I think I was fast asleep within 2 minutes.

Reading the news this morning, I was somewhat miffed to see that once again I have been overlooked in the New Year Honours List.   Oh well, maybe next year.

OK, 2025, let’s see what you’ve got.