Results tagged “blogspot”

I got strange looks when I lived in Hastings for ordering sandwiches stuffed with tuna, bacon and lettuce.

But that’s nothing compared to the stomach-churning horrors on show at wildrecipes.com, which showcases “the weirdest food people actually eat”.

Delia-dodgers can scribble down cooking ideas such as Cheddar Coffee, Rootworm Beetle Dip and Pig’s Face and Cabbage, while the truly disturbed can sample the Spam Shake, a glutinous mix of spam, anchovies, mustard and tomato juice.

Blonde's Eye View - Gladiator Cherry Green battles public nudity

The recent return of Gladiators to our televisions has caused me to revise my ambitions and expectations. I now know what I want to be when I grow up.

As a result I have joined a gym. We will gloss over the joining the gym experience and the dead-eyed manatee who I had to get past first. It was like getting past the sphinx, in a version of the legend where the sphinx is on its mobile and doesn’t want to have to get up and get the direct debit form.

Giles Broadbent picks up the Concrete Pencil this week (Dan Bourke is away)

The advert was wrong in the way that only adverts can be.

The advert was using the kung fu theory of advertising – weakness becomes strength; flaw becomes multi-million-pound marketing initiative.

So the advert saw dozens of people, nose to nose, in an abandoned warehouse with a slogan like “Get Closer”.

The advert was promoting a brand of chewing gum. Yet none of the hundred or so regimented folk sharing their personal space were joggling their jaws by so much as a nanometre.

Betbrokers' Nigel Seeley - The Wizard of Odds - gives Wharfers the lowdown on where to place their bets this week.

He who dares wins? Famous words from Del-Boy, but unfortunately we ended up looking “right plonkers” with a total loss of £50 last weekend.

With two major football finals this week we can get our figure up again, but we start with cricket where England face New Zealand in the first test at Lord’s on Thursday.

The 21st century is the age of the computer.

Anyone caught doing anything that doesn’t involve a screen or a caps lock button will be taken out and beaten with an ergonomic keyboard.

So it’s inevitable that the ancient art of doodling has eloped to the web.

The Doodle Notebook allows you to create wonders using a simple paint program, and upload them for a chance to win £1,000 of books.

Kudos go to top timewaster Emily Hamilton, who’s already clocked 1095 minutes on the site when she’s meant to be working.

Blonde's Eye View - Cherry Green is on a mission to Mars (as long as they've got freeview)

The European Space Agency is recruiting for astronauts.

I’m so excited. I can’t wait to apply. I’d be great in space. I can’t wait to land on Mars; I shall ride the giant desert worms and scale Olympus Mons in plimsolls. Bring it on!

At least I was excited until I gave the subject a bit more thought. Apparently they won’t let you go into space without a thorough medical and I have a history of depression.

I can’t really see the ESA taking a risk on the fact that I might bring all the other astronauts down with my constant pessimism.

Concrete Pencil - This week, Dan Bourke is angering the machines...

When you sit idle at your workstation, it’s best to at least try to fill your time productively.

By this of course I do not mean that you should find some work that no one has asked you to do and show initiative, or anything so ludicrously self-defeating as that.

No, far better that you try to get free stuff or win things on the internet.

Now for one reason or another I don’t get to do nothing nearly enough in my work any more. But I have been commuting my suited body to these towers for nine years exactly now, so I’ve had my share of downtime.

A fellow waster and I have tried to win holidays in the Caribbean, several generations of PlayStation, free Lottery tickets, DVDs, BMWs, digital cameras. You name it.

I haven’t actually won anything, of course, but the process was not without value.

Betbrokers' Nigel Seeley - The "Wizard of Odds" - picks his selections for Wharf punters to back.

Oi Oi you punters! That was the cheer when all three of our selections went in at the weekend netting us a very healthy £107.76 profit.

This weekend’s conclusion to the Premier League offers some of the best punting opportunities of the year. Manchester United are going for the title while Wigan have lost every game to United in their history. But are they 16/1 pokes at home? No!

If this game was played five weeks ago Wigan would be no bigger than 7/1 to win. Just because United need to win to retain the title bookies have doubled their price. It’s the age long argument with gambling – putting reason before value. 16/1 on Wigan winning is too big for a team which defeated Aston Villa and held Chelsea 1-1 at Stamford Bridge.

Charlton Athletic 4 Coventry City 1

By Nick Martindale at The Valley

After a season that promised much but delivered little, Charlton fans at least had something to smile about last Saturday.

This long-overdue victory was of little practical value other than avoiding the ignominy of finishing in the bottom half, but it did represent the end of an era at The Valley.

Betbrokers' Nigel Seeley - "The Wizard of Odds" - gives his tips for the week:

ASTON Villa's Ashley Young wasn't the only person to hit the crossbar last weekend!

We just missed out on a small fortune when Villa were held 2-2 by Everton, ending our hopes of a very nice treble. But our two other suggestions, Sunderland and Sheffield United, did the business to net us a tidy £28.43 profit.

This weekend sees the conclusion of the Championship. With so many teams fighting for their lives at both ends of the division it's hard to have a serious wager as the form book always goes out of the window on the final day.

With last Saturday’s excellent 3-0 home win over promotion chasing Carlisle United, the Lions have secured their position in League for next season with just one more game to go.

This was one of our best performances of the season, partly because we capitalised on our chances, something we have failed to do regularly enough this season.

The inspiration for the performance came from Millwall’s all-time leading league scorer, Neil Harris, who set up two goals and scored another in a man-of-the-match performance that reminded many fans of our former striker Teddy Sheringham.

Concrete Pencil - Dan Bourke bares his soul (anything else costs extra)

When did it become acceptable to go to a strip club?

Because I’m sure it used to be frowned upon. Like many of my generation, I grew up Indie. We were right-on. We read the NME. We sneered at straight society. We were rebels with a million causes.

The only strippers we came in contact with were the ones hired for stag parties. These, more often than not, came dressed as policewomen, allowing sitcom writers a wealth of hilarious mix-up scenarios.

Now, it seems, they are everywhere and could be anyone. Yes, even that mild-mannered secretary sitting opposite you.

And everyone seems to think it’s fine to get up close and personal with them.

Blonde's Eye View - This week, Cherry Green is a wolf in sheep's clothing

It hasn’t been a very good week.

Not only has my mortgage offer been withdrawn causing me to become a staunch anti-capitalist, but I am pulling out of the second marathon with in six months because of a nasty hamstring injury.

So in the face of disaster, and months of time and effort going down the pan, I headed for Oxford Street to drown my sorrow in the shallow waters of retail therapy.

This game shouldn’t really be fun. After all, it’s almost entirely based on typing, which is something you really only do when you’re trapped at your desk. But add the word “racer” and paste a little car at the top, and all the ingredients are there to make you love the keyboard again.

Typeracer is a touch-typing speed tester which allows to you to challenge yourself or random opponents to a screen-scorching race to the finish.

But if you’re more used to poking the keys with one finger, you may be reduced to crawling like that cautious motorist who held you up on the A13.

‘Knuckleheads’ could be about the people who dreamed up rail privatisation. Or Game 39 in the Premiership.

But a website called ‘knuckletattoos’ is probably not about cute cats. Or South American pottery.

Yes, it does exactly what it says – knuckles, or upper fingers at any rate, covered with a variety of fetching designs.

My favourite has to be the one with ‘knuckles’. Maybe he has ‘forehead’ as a tattoo on his, erm, forehead?

Blonde's Eye View - Cherry Green is available for weddings, funerals and weekly columns

I’m at that time of life when my friends have started to get married.

At university it all seemed so far away, so very grown up. And do you know the worst thing? All those late nights where we sat up drinking tequila and planning our hilarious comedy weddings seem to have come to naught. It seems that an engagement ring has become a substitute for a sense of humour.

In the unlikely event of my own nuptials, I’m sticking to the plan I came up with in 1998: arriving at the church in a monster truck to the theme from Top Gun.

Concrete Pencil - A weekly column by Dan Bourke, the sixth most powerful man in his circle of friends

I JUST met everyone’s favourite 19th century French travel writer Alexis de Tocqueville on Facebook.

I’d given up on Facebook – of course I had, I follow the herd, and the herd are calling it evil. I was one of the first of the herd to notice, of course, but I kept myself alive in the realm of the SuperWall and the bloody foodfight because I need to keep in touch with certain people ahead of a certain important social function (the Concrete Wedding).

But I have been sucked back in, because it has told me what my friends think of me.

The Lions' Roar by Ian Toal

Last weekend’s home defeat against Leeds United summed up our season well.

The Lions played well, putting the giants of the division under pressure in the second half and creating quite a few chances.

But you just knew that if we did not take one of those chances we would live to regret it. Predictably Leeds broke upfield and Prutton mis-hit a shot that squirmed into the bottom corner. One-nil then turned into 2-0 and it was game over for Millwall.

By Nick Martindale

Five years ago, the then Charlton manager Alan Curbishley heralded Southampton as a role model for clubs looking to consolidate themselves as Premier League outfits.

They were, he said, the team his own club had to emulate. Three changes of manager and two years later, Southampton were relegated and have never recovered, missing out on both promotion and the play-offs in their next two seasons.

Blonde's Eye View - columnist Cherry Green takes on The Thing From The Clothes Hamper

This week I am sharing my bedroom with a spider of gargantuan proportions and – as I am a neurotic arachnophobe – we have something of a tense relationship.

I encountered the monster for the first time last week. Having explained to it very sternly that it could only stay rent-free if it limited its activity to lurking under the bed, I thought I could go about my daily life without fear.

But, unfortunately it seems the thing was hell-bent on interacting with me, and we crossed paths again yesterday.

You think the Jubilee line is bad? Well, all right, it is. Bloody awful at times.

But when you see this clip you will thank your lucky stars Canary Wharf station only has those pointless yellow lines on the platform.

Somewhere in the Far East a loaded train doesn’t mean waiting for the next one. Oh no. You are pushed into the carriage by a team of officials until your face is pressed up against the glass.

Worse than sardines.

Concrete Pencil - Dan Bourke discovers The Land Before Starbucks (and meets a friendly French person)

I HAVE just been to France. It is like a foreign country.

What do they think they’re doing over there? Haven’t they heard of the 21st century?

Their towns look the same as they did 50 years ago – a hundred even! There are no huge Barratt property developments, they just rent those “cute” houses with the “pretty” shutters.

I didn’t see one Starbucks. There wasn’t a gastropub within 50 miles of where we were staying. No olives on the bar, people? Hello?

The away win at Hartlepool was hugely important.

The win on Saturday hasn’t yet guaranteed our safety in League One, but it was a pretty large step
towards it.

In fact, it even dragged a couple of other clubs back into the relegation dogfight.

The huge importance of the game was demonstrated by the supporters up there, who were all talking nervously in the pub before the game as to where we were going to get the points needed between now and the end of the season.

We came down to earth with a bang last weekend after a £30 loss on the US Masters and Premiership.

But we WILL get it back – starting with strugglers Fulham at a massive 10/3 to beat Liverpool at Craven Cottage on Saturday.

The Cottagers did us no favours last week, pulling off a shock by beating Reading to end a 38-game run without an away win.

Canvas? Been there, done that.

A wall like Banksy? Bit difficult maybe.

A skull? Similar to Damien Hirts, but a tad expensive with all those diamonds.

No. What you arty types really want, deep down, is to decorate an old bowling ball.

Amazingly for our Timewaster feature, this includes some extremely tasteful designs intended to decorate your garden.

Concrete Pencil - Olympic musings from the lofty desk of Dan Bourke

WE could see the orange flame of the torch from the 22nd floor.

The Olympic bus stopped up Churchill Place, and then the sinister blue tracksuits were turning left by Credit Suisse, where we once handed out papers with the latest on the Flaming Ferraris.

We’d watched it on Sky all morning – monks and coppers, green parka protesters waving their banners – and we’d all agreed we’d go down there.

Some of us wanted to boo or do something more – and who can blame them? Who isn’t for a free Tibet?

For me though, it was more a case of just wanting to witness something big happening.

It’s pretty much as you were a week ago, after the spoils were shared between Millwall and Gillingham last Saturday.

The atmosphere at The Den was one of the best this season as both sets of supporters realised just how close both teams are to relegation and possible administration.

The Lions fans really got behind the team early doors and when we did equalise in the second half for a deserved point the celebrations nearly took the roof off!

Blonde's Eye View - Cherry Green's love note to pencil-drawn pin-ups

There is no worse feeling than that of unrequited love. And this condition is particularly poignant when the object of your affections happens to be an animated spaniel.

My first love was Aramis from Dogtanian and the Muskahounds. I knew he was fictional, and a dog, but I was just a child and the species barrier meant nothing.

But he was seriously hot though. And I bet there is not a man out there who hasn’t had an impure thought about Daphne from Scooby Doo or the Teen Angels from Captain Caveman.

Months before the British International Motor Show opens at ExCeL in the Royal Docks (public days from July 23 to August 3), a sneak preview of the exhibition’s main attractions is already available online.

Visitors to www.britishmotorshow.co.uk can navigate around a fully interactive map which highlights the must-see features at the event.

For an update from the Docklands Sailing and Watersport Centre activities in April see the longer version of this entry...

Millwall View by Ian Toal

We are in desperate danger of getting relegated and the only thing that has probably given us hope of staying up is that Crewe and Gillingham have not taken full advantage of our poor form.

The same old problem reared its ugly head again at Bournemouth: a young midfield devoid of experience, muscle and guile unable to take hold of the game, meaning the strikers have to live off scraps.

Blonde's Eye View - Cherry Green tackles the tricky art of making music

I always wanted to play a musical instrument.

Something like the cello. I’d look great playing the cello. Blonde hair flying everywhere and an expression of fierce concentration on my face. I’d steer away from woodwind ’cause I’m not keen on the facial expressions involved there.

But, alas, I am the least musical person in the known universe.

Trucks ‘spill’ things from time to time. It’s a fact of life and something every one of us will encounter at some point on the motorway.

But timber shifting or scaffolding poles littering the road are one thing – alligators, M&Ms and whale guts take it to a whole different level.

This site brings you pics and descriptions from a wide range of truck spills.

Not quite sure I’d have wanted to be there when a Tomahawk missile was involved.