Tag Archive: Mushrooms


Happy Birthday, Doctor Who.

Dec 1 - Doctor Who 50th. The Day of the Doctor.

I’m actually four weeks older than the time lord. However, that doesn’t make me 1200 years old. I mean I was born a month before the programme began in 1963.

These days, I’m jealous. You get all sorts of lovely toys to play with. Look …

Dec 1 - Doctor Who Figures

During my childhood, I had no such luxury. Do you know what I had to use my imagination on? The free cardboard figures you got off the back of a Wheetabix packet.

Dec 1 - Doctor Who Wheetabix

Yes, those. And I collected the lot. Wish I still had them.

And the same feeling of being short-changed is applicable to DVDs. I didn’t have a VHS video recorder until I was 20 so as a kid, the only way I could relive the adventures was by reading the classic Target novelizations (Yes … I do still have those).

Dec 1 - Doctor Who Target Novels

Ahh, the memory of my childhood, trying to picture how the Tardis materialising looked on TV simply from Terrance Dick’s description of a blue box appearing to the sound of wheezing and groaning. He actually coined that phrase which has stuck down the years. These days, the only wheezing and groaning I come across is the old couple up the road having sex with the windows open.

And talking of Doctor Who merchandise …

You can’t half get ripped off. There are now limited edition replicas of props from the series you can buy. The latest is a cube from the Series 7 episode, The Power of Three. It retails at about £40.

Dec 1 - Doctor Who The Power of Three Cube

Come on, it’s a frigging lump of plastic. The words rip and off come to mind, as does the the term, sucker … and I don’t mean the things which the Daleks use as an arm, either.

Dec 1 - Doctor Who Dalek

You wouldn’t catch me wasting money on something like that. Well, apart from my genuine Tardis key, that is.

Dec 1 - Tardis Key

Okay, so if I had the money, I’d get a cube.

Not mush-room left on the plate today.

A couple of times recently I have moaned about mushrooms, or the lack of them, especially when requesting extra.

Dec 1 - Mushrooms at St Paul's The Crossing

Ahhh … The St Paul’s Crossing Restaurant, the only place in Walsall who know the true meaning of the words, more mushrooms.

The morbid sights you see about town …

Dec 1 - Head

Fascinating. Decapitated heads in a shop window. Enough to give you nightmares.

What a load of plebs.

Sept 22 Andrew Mitchell

The case of MP Andrew Mitchell (or pleb-gate) has been in the news again this week. Mitchell is the politician who was accused of having a run-in with police officers guarding Downing Street when he tried to cycle through a security entrance. He quite rightly, lost his job for his disrespect but has always maintained he never used the word, pleb.

There is no evidence either way what was spoken by Mitchell, or the plebs, but the MP does admit to arguing and swearing at them. Following investigations into whether officers lied about this, there have been calls for Mitchell to be reinstated in his job.

Now then, he denies calling them plebs, but he did swear at them. Hmmm … I call swearing at a police officer who is trying to guard your life, ten times worse an offence than referring to them as plebs. The enquiry team presiding over this seem to have conveniently forgotten that.

Poor old Andrew Mitchell, you have to feel sorry for him. I mean, he’s not done that much wrong in his career … apart from insulting hard working policemen … and lobbying to lift trade embargoes on foreign companies who gave donations to his parliamentary office … and investing funds into firms involved in tax avoidance. Yes, just the sort of person we want running this country, or rather one we should send on a holiday abroad and politely ask if they’d leave their passport at the door.

And here’s a man who should be called more than a pleb …

Dec 1 - Assem Allam

Hull City owner, Assem Allam is the latest in a long line of tosspot millionaires coming into the game and trying to rewrite history. He wants to change the name, Hull City to Hull Tigers. Now fans have complained to which the knobhead has responded by telling them to die. Hate to say this, Assem, these fans were there many years before you were, and they’ll be there long time after you have departed.

It’s like Cardiff City with a pillock of equal proportions in Vincent Tan. Using the football club as his personal plaything, the Malaysian businessman raised anger by changing the long traditional blue kit to his favourite colour. So, we now have a team nicknamed, The Bluebirds, playing in red.

Note to this and any other investor who believe in their own God Complex mentality. If you want to treat football clubs like toys, go and play with this.

Dec 1 - Undertones My Perfect Cousin Subbuteo

Right, enough ranting …

I start two weeks of very long shifts tomorrow so probably won’t be a Sunday Roast next week. I’m going to watch Doctor Who … and maybe play with my sonic screwdriver.

February 24 - Toy Sonic Screwdriver © Antony N Britt

Cheers.

Nick

Back with a Bang.

Nov 3 - Fireworks

This is a sample of the fireworks I’ve bought specifically to annoy the neighbours.

Nov 3 - Fireworks to Annoy the Neighbours © Antony N Britt (988x1024)

Okay, that may be a lie. The fireworks are for David’s 21st Birthday. However, they will still annoy the neighbours. And that’s a shame because most of my neighbours are nice. In fact, the only one I would want to annoy is deaf and wouldn’t hear the bangs anyway.

So what have I been doing during my month away from Sunday Roasts?

What do you mean, you hadn’t noticed I was gone?

Yes, I took October off. It has been a trying year and I (a) needed to regroup, and (b) didn’t have much to write about. However, I did take a holiday.

Nov 3 - Aberystwyth © Antony N Britt (1024x279)

That’s Aberystwyth, as seen from the castle, if you can still call it a castle. Another lovely weekend break with family. Good company, and good food. What could go wrong?

Now then, remember my mushroom moan from a while back on a previous holiday, and the fact many places seem to discriminate against them? This time it was Wetherspoons in Aberystwyth. What it is, I hate fried tomato and beans and don’t want them on my plate. My breakfast already came with one flat mushroom, so I asked if I could swap the tomato and beans for more mushrooms. And this is what I got …

Nov 3 - Cold Breakfast at Wetherspoons Aberystwyth © Antony N Britt (1024x768)

Note to Wetherspoons. One extra mushroom does not represent a fair swap.

And the breakfast was cold.

And I would have complained had they the courtesy to ask if everything was all right with my meal.

Picky … me?

Ahh … Aberystwyth.

Nov 3 - Rickety Ramshackle Aberystwyth © Antony N Britt (1024x768)

Got to love a shop with the name, Rickety Ramshackle.

On turning 50 …

Yes, you heard right. I have passed the dreaded number. Many people say I don’t look it and want to know the secret. All I’m saying is, there’s much truth to vampire stories and drinking the blood of virgins. Still, it can’t last. I live in Walsall. How many virgins do you think we have in the town?

Now I tried to keep the birthday low key. That was the motto. Mind you, it was a lovely surprise to receive a cake which somebody special got up at six in the morning to make for me.

Nov 3 - Birthday Cake © Antony N Britt (1024x531)

However, it wasn’t as much a surprise as she had when I extinguished the candles and the dusting of icing blew up in her face like a volcanic ash cloud.

Oops!

So … Low key! On my birthday, I thought going to a quiz with my family would manage to maintain that status. Unfortunately, the quiz was an event with the Aldridge Musical Comedy Society and I ended up having happy birthday sung to me by the entire company and sixty more of their friends.

I just don’t do discreet.

My birthday meal, proper was the next day, seeing as I was at the quiz. For an Indian, we usually go to the excellent Golden Moments in Walsall, but for a change, the family tried Five Rivers Restaurant in the town. Apparently, the chef cooked for the G8 conference years ago.

It was okay, but a touch overrated. Not only that, do you call these poppadoms?

Nov 3 - Smallest Popadoms Ever in an Indian Restaurant © Antony N Britt (1024x775)

Really? Well I don’t. They’re like giant Walkers Skips, and nothing more. And note … that’s a small plate.

The place is described as À la carte. Not too up on my French, but I now assume À la carte translates as meaning, small portions.

Nov 3 - Small Dessert in a Massive Dish at Five Rivers, Walsall © Antony N Britt (1024x639)

Yes, all very fancy, but why serve a dessert on a plate which was bigger than the one for my main course?

And would you like to see the main course?

Nov 3 - Plate with a hole in it. © Antony N Britt (1024x579)

What in the name of sanity? A stupid shaped dish with a hole in so when I poured the rice on, it fell through the gap and went all over the table.

But they cooked for President Clinton, I’m told. Yeah, and did he get served micro poppadoms and have to wait an hour between main course and dessert?

And a final note to Five Rivers. If you no longer serve a Bailey’s Bomb for dessert, take it off the bloody menu.

Golden Moments, I shall see you soon.

Football Crazy.

It is crazy, how the media go all gooey over certain footballers. Recently, every time I switch on Sky Sports, I hear pundits wetting themselves over how fantastic Luis Suarez is playing at the moment. Yes, Luis Suarez, the Liverpool striker. Or rather, Luis Suarez, the cheating racist thug who should have been kicked out of English football if Liverpool FC had any decency about them.

Nov 3 - Luis Suarez bites Branislav Ivanovic

Here we see Luis, having a mid-afternoon snack of Branislav Ivanovic’s arm, earlier in the year.

There is simply no dignity with some football clubs.

And finally, in the garden …

I have done my last lawn trim of the year, cut the hedge and buried a cat. But I never expected to find what I did, living in my shed.

Nov 3 - Frog in the Shed © Antony N Britt (1024x806)

Possibly can’t see it, but top left of the pool of water (yes, I have a pool in my shed) is a frog. The pool is there because despite paying some guy last year to re-felt the roof, he missed the corner as it was difficult to get to … and now it leaks, and foliage grows, and I get frogs in residence.

It could only happen to me. But I think I shall keep the frog. I’m calling it Nimon.

Cheers.

Nick

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