Tim asked: "But going back to first principles, why do you want your armpits to smell of vanilla?"
Cut to:
INT. SPAR ST CHINIAN - DAY
PATROCLUS is dithering in the cosmetics aisle.
Voice of Inner Petulance: I want the exact same deodorant as I have in London!
Voice of Inner Reason: They don't have it. And anyway, that makes you no better than the hordes of Daily Mail-reading Brits who move down here, refuse to speak any French, get Sky installed illegally*, only socialise with other Brits, and have cornflakes and marmite flown in from Stansted every day.
Voice of Inner Petulance: Right! Well, I'll have this one, look, it's vanilla flavour - you'd never get that in Britain. Plus it's called 'Ushuaia'. I think I've been there.
Voice of Inner Reason: No you haven't. You don't even know where it is.
Voice of Inner Misplaced Pub Quiz Confidence: I think it's in Hawaii.
Voice of Inner Reason: Then you haven't been there.
Voice of Inner Melodrama: You're in exile in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, incarcerated in a ramshackle, falling-down old house, and you're worried about what your armpits smell like?
Voice of Inner Python: I bet Ovid never had this trouble.
Arabella asked: "Did you eat the pie yet?"
I had some of it with some mascarpone (which may or may not be the same as BiB's Russian curds). It was very tasty. Hurrah!
* Ahem.
About Bach and Keats
1 day ago
38 comments:
And by an amazing coincidence, my word verification is... USHUAIA...
Actually, that's a fib.
And don't knock the Marmite thing. There does come a point where you get tired of saying "No, Vegemite is not the same, thank you...". I explain the difference to Thai people by suggesting they should replace their beloved fish sauce (nam pla) with Lea & Perrins.
(And as I type this, I'm listening to the Today programme on broadband. Oooh, they're interviewing Andy Murray's mum...)
"Voice of Inner Misplaced Pub Quiz Confidence"
Oh yes, I know it well.
You know, you can get Marmite in Ecomarché in St Chinian now.
But you can get that grated carrot stuff in a tub in France which never looks very promising but always gets finished.
Those inner voices seem very familiar to me too.
Ooh, I was listening to Andy Murray's Mum as I woke up this morning too...
Fascist bloody pushy parents, eh?
Anyhow..
Um, what was I going to say?
Oh yes - Little Miss Muffet ate 'curds and whey'. Our teachers explained that they were a by-product of cheese production, which still didn't really explain things. Sounds grim.
Billy beat to comment on the Voice of Inner Misplaced Pub Quiz Confidence, I know that all to well, it's the one that frequently makes me look an arse when moaning about CJ from BBC2's teatime quiz show - Eggheads.
As you were.
Is it not in Tierra del Fuego? Where one would catch a boat to the Antarctic if the idea took you?
At any rate, I don't imagine it (the town, and therefore the fragrance) smells particularly good: all penguin turd and fisherman's breath. Wouldn't inspire me to make a special visit to Sephora any more than would 'Calvin Klein's Hartlepool' or 'Holloway Road, by Givenchy'.
well, I know Quark,
and if curds = Quark
then curds ? Mascarpone
alright?
chuffy: you raise a good point. Why name a deodorant after one of the most notoriously inhospitable places on earth, whose name translates to 'Land of Fire'? Also, it claims efficacité 48h, which is just encouraging people not to wash.
Still, I bought it, for reasons provided.
Leonie: I can't fault your logic. Mascarpone is not curds. I accept defeat.
Oh god, I've gone all Seven of Nine again. I do not require sustenance at this time!
i recomend STINKBAT by SARER JESICER PARKERER
I think curd cheese might be the stuff my dad brought back from the former Yugoslavia, a gift donated by his family. Very nice it was too. Especially compared to most Yugoslavian food - it all seems to consist of kebabs, greasy salads or cabbage which is boiled for about six months.
I've been to Ushuaia. It's a very dirty place, full of clouds of mud particles. There are sealion colonies which are close to being the worst smelling things I've ever experienced.
Kind of cool nonetheless.
Comforting to find someone with more inner voices than wot I hav. That's quite a crowd to take shopping.
I don't like French tampons.
south american vanilla sea lion pits.
it is early here.
I think this is the most exotic comments thread ever. We've got Tim reporting on Marmite availability in Thailand, GSE reporting on the general environmental conditions in Tierra del Fuego, Nibus listing products available in rural French supermarkets, Leonie and Betty displaying expert connoisseurship of obscure foreign soft cheeses, and Arabella holding forth on the quality of French tampons (never had a problem with them, myself).
Good work, everyone!
"the hordes of Daily Mail-reading Brits who move down here, refuse to speak any French, get Sky installed illegally*, only socialise with other Brits, and have cornflakes and marmite flown in from Stansted every day"
yikes - you know my inlaws?
just yikes
I think it would take a lot to live without Marmite. But if I was given mascarpone instead, it might be okay.
what's the difference between French tampons and British ones?
(no punchline, genuine query)
UC: If they live anywhere near Béziers, then it's not inconceivable.
Smat: No difference other than French tampons have some strange brand name. I won't say what it is, in case James feels inspired to name one of his World of Warcraft characters after it.
Frangelita: Yes, but have you ever tried putting mascarpone into baked beans? Yuk.
POE: Strangely I think I would prefer a lifetime without Dairy Milk to a lifetime without Marmite.
In other news, Ushuaia was the answer to a question on Mastermind last night. Spooky!
I've never tried putting marmite on baked beans either, is it recommended?
A friend of mine puts a dash of soy souce in her baked beans. Quite nice actually.
I'm off now to eat a big piece of rhubarb pie (bought from Asda) with some double cream (stolen from the fridge).
Like a pleb version of P's home-made pie.
...Adorns leather gauntlet...
I want to box Pavolv's ears when he picks on me. But I find I'm usually laughing too much.
It's the polyester content of French tampons I don't like. I try not to eat them but...
How do you see Mastermind over there then? Just wondering.
Marmite on the toast under the baked beans is highly recommended.
Of course as I only ever eat sophisticated food that I have lovingly cooked myself (hahahaaa), I wouldn't know about that myself.
Arabella: please feel free to box the Interpreter's ears if he steps out of line again.
Realdoc: erm, via the Sky dish and box that I had installed illegally...
Got to go - thunder, lightning, power cuts...
Noooooo.
Molasses in baked beans. Good iron supplement for veggies too.
I like a teaspoon or so of chilli powder stirred into my baked beans.
Yum.
I really hope there aren't brands of tampons called 'Ingra' or 'Moosey', or I'll have to retire both characters, and Ingra's just got to level 40.
James Henry - I think you're safe.
Well, that was my laugh for the day! Who bespeak is Alan Turing? Would you have expected a flawed rebirth?
Nice blog.
Peace
Goatman: Welcome! And thank you. And Alan Turing - you know, mathematician, invented the programmable computer, cracked the Enigma code, came up with a test for AI entities, tended to scuttle sideways like a crab. I have this thing about geeks.
And died eating a cyanide-laced apple, so when Apple computers had to differentiate their logo from the Beatles' Apple records, they took a bite out of their apple and said it was in tribute to AT.
Supposedly.
...turns up in Neuromancer *and* Cryptonomicon...
...features on a 'magic' mug that I own...
I'm actually rolling my eyes at myself now.
I'm still held up about the marmite/baked beans thing. Wow. Such a combination has never even occurred to me but it sounds like it has some pretty damn fantastic potential. I knew there was a reason for reading long meandering comment threads...
Alan Turing - the man who made man-boobs cool.
(If you don't know the story, he had hormone treatment after he was busted for being a confirmed bachelor.)
Nothing wrong with man-boobs. God wouldn't have made them possible if they weren't all good. Like lady-beards. They serve to remind us that gender is a slender and meaningless divide most of the time.
Anyway, yes, back to those 'magic' mugs from Bletchley Park, of which I have 2. They look very dull indeed when they are not filled with hot liquid and I do prefer my cupboards to be filled with attractive and intriguing ceramics, not things that look like they cost 99p down the market.
Does anyone have any brill ideas to make the pattern keep appearing and disappearing, like a Cheshire Cat, while they are sitting on a shelf? I am thinking something involving fans, solar panels and thermostats might do it... Alan Turing would have known.
I wonder what Alan Turing used to season his baked beans.
Cyanide, probably.
I thought (and I admit to being swayed by wikipedia here) that the apple in the computer logo was to do with Newton rather than Turing.
(wv: kusrifii - Peruvian funk music)
My grandmother worked at Bletchley Park in WW2, and never met Alan Turing. She did, however, eat a lot of apples from the orchard there. Do I win £5?
I did, however, go to Ushuaia less than a year ago and saw an awful lots of streets with the name "Malvinas" in them. At no point did I come across the Chuckle Brothers.
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