Marmite

Marmite is a spread that we have over here - similar to Vegemite in Australia. I don't know if it is available it the USA or Canada. If you don't know it, it is a thick, black tar-like substance that clings to the sides of the jar, which is dark brown glass, making it very hard to see.

As I sat at the breakfast table, spreading Marmite on my toast, the jar was getting very empty. But, if I persevered and scraped away at the insides of the jar I could still get some of the residue that clung to the glass.

After a couple of minutes scraping I had got enough for my toast. Then, THUNK! I new jar appeared on the table,while MRS RC told me to stop scraping as the sound was going through her head.

Suddenly I was 6 years old, sitting in the house that I grew up in, holding a not-quite-totally-empty jar of Marmite, scratching for a little bit more of the precious substance. Now I know the mind plays tricks on us, but I don't remember us ever having a new jar of Marmite when I was a kid! Looking back I almost suspect that we had the same jar for around 15 years, that I spent 15 years scraping out the elusive contents for my toast. I am sure that this is not really the case, but it is odd, don't you think? Surely I would have memories of digging into a fresh, new jar of my beloved Marmite?

Grab a Banana...

Had a great weekend!

Friday I made fried chicken, rice and salad for dinner, which went down a storm. Gotta love fried chicken!

Saturday we had our evening with friends - pizza, cannelloni, dough balls with garlic butter, salad, plus fudgecake and chocolate and banana cake for pud, if you had any room! All washed down with a few bottles of wine (or soft drinks for the kids,of course!)

After eating we played Grab a Banana, among other things. For those who are interested I will describe it.


Take a pack of Snap cards that has 4 of each card in it. The aim of the game is to collect a set of 4 cards the same.

Sit around a table.

Put objects that must be grabbed in the middle of the table - the set provides plastic bananas, but you can use just about anything. The number of objects should be one less than the number of players.

Dealer gives each player 4 cards.

Dealer then picks up the first card, looks at it, decides whether to keep it or discard it. If he keeps it he discards another card from his hand. Discarded cards are placed in front of the person to the left, who then picks it up and decides whether to keep it or discard it. The cards gradually work their way around the table until they get back to the dealer who will have to use these cards again once the main deck runs out.

Got it so far?

OK, now the fun begins. This checking and discarding of cards should be done as fast as possible - no waiting for one card to move around before you pick the next, just goo for it.

Finally, when one player gets a set of 4 he grabs a banana (or whatever) from the middle of the table. This is the queue for everyone else to also grab a banana, whether they have a set or not. One person will not get a banana and gets a point against them.

Play until you run out of time or until someone reaches a set point limit, say 3 or 5. Alternatively you could play knockout games, where the person without a banana leaves the game and the next round has one less player and one less banana. The final game would have 2 players and 1 banana!

Give it a go - it is great fun, especially with kids and/or after a few drinks!

Sunday, WAS a lazy day - I spent a few hours painting some Saxon peasants for my Hastings game:

They are still waiting for spears and shields, after which they will be based up properly with grass, ricks and stuff on the bases - I will post pics of the finished items soon! Next in line are richer Saxons, followed by the elite Huscarls (big guys with big axes).

Friday????

Friday?

How did we get to Friday this quickly?

Time just seems to be rolling along at the moment - not too busy, not too quiet, just rolling along - FAST!

The weekend?

Should be fun. I am not doing pizza tonight (shock, horror) so I am doing home made fried chicken instead - yum!

Saturday we are entertaining (not something that we do very often), food having a general Italian theme - pizza, cannelloni, dough balls with garlic butter, salad, etc. Can't wait. Other than eating and drinking the evening will feature board games - Chinese Checkers, Backgammon, maybe even something called "Grab a Banana" which our friends might bring along. I also expect we will have a Wii session, as this went down really well last time - 4 people playing Wii tennis in our (not very big) living room was mayhem!

Sunday? Well that is supposed to be a Day of Rest, isn't it? I will try to persuade everyone that this is what this Sunday will be, restful and quiet...

Jeez, who am I kidding?

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

GEEK ALERT!

I think that my brain is about to ooze out of my ears!

I have spent the last couple of hours working on an excel sheet that I will use as part of my dissertation - the one that I don't have to give in for another two and a half years! The formula that it is based on is horrible, but I was able to sort it out so all I have to do is paste in my data and voila! There are my results. How nerdy is that!

This evening I intend to continue the nerdy theme and paint some toy soldiers for a Battle of Hastings game that I am going to play with a Canadian friend of mine on the site of the battle.

A thought - It is said that if you to the the extremes of Communism you become a Fascist. Can you be so uncool that you actually become cool? Or are you just super uncool? I suspect the latter is the truth.

Or does "super uncool" actually make you HOT! Yeah, that sounds good - so un-cool I am hot - SMOKIN'!

Hm I guess not.

So, what is the most uncool thing you have done recently?

What planet are these people from?

I woke up to the radio, as usual. One of the news stories was about child poverty. The government has promised to end child poverty in the UK, but is having mixed success.

OK, I understand this - I see the effect of child poverty every day! I see kids walking to school in worn out shoes and dirty clothes with that sad "hungry" look about them, while somehow the parents manage to run 2 cars, drink and smoke...

But then this guy comes on and starts talking about how things are now getting much worse because of the recession. His evidence? Well it seems that this year some children won't be getting to fly away for their summer holiday this year, while others are even having their pocket money reduced!

Golly jeepers, this is terrible! Let's beg the UN for help shall we? Not having 2 weeks in Spain is a real sign of child poverty! My kids have never been there, so they must be the most deprived kids in the world!

I sometimes wonder just how much people actually know about the real world!

Brrrrrrraiiiinnnnnssssssssss!!!!!!!!

I entered the laboratory with a touch of nervous excitement. The huge stone hall echoed with the sound of the equipment - a constant buzzing from the electrical equipment, the occasional small explosion as electricity arched from one point to another. Outside there was a crash of thunder, immediately followed by a flash of lightning.

She sat me in a chair, strapping my arms and legs in place, before lowering the huge metal contraption onto my head. I winced as the metal spikes of the electrodes embedded themselves into my scalp.

The experiments were too terrible to relive again - they will haunt my dreams for the rest of my days - red hot irons, needles pushed into my eyes, toe nails torn out, photos of Madonna, Paris Hilton singing - terrible, terrible things...

After what seemed like an eternity I was dragged, bleeding and broken, and tossed into a snowdrift out side to live or die as God wished. Somehow I lived. Perhaps I still have a purpose in life, to save those who might otherwise volunteer to take part in research...



Actually the brain scan thing was quite uneventful - too uneventful to make an interesting post...

The Mom Song