Laughter. Smiles. Happiness. Entertainment. Every weekend, one or two short blogs. Each one around a 2 minute read of thoughts, musings , comments on life in general. If it brings a smile to your face, informs, educates or does all three then I will be happy! Why this blog name? Well, I am very late to the world of blogging. Hope I was worth the wait! Please do like it (if you like it!) , comment, and share via social media. Thanks
Like many families, the restrictions of life at the moment, brought any opportunities for meeting to a sudden and unexpected halt. Although we are spread across the North and South East of the UK, we previously we would periodically be able to meet up…either for specific occasions such as birthdays, Christenings and so on…or just because we felt like it.
So in keeping with likewise many others, we periodically meet up on zoom and have a family quiz!
We are a family of mixed interests, education , professions and we have consequently had some interesting if not bizarre quiz rounds.
The range has been really eclectic…we had had rounds on The police (One of our family is a police officer), the bones of the human body (from our physiotherapist), Disney Themes, identifying names of chocolate bars from cross sectional pictures, World Airports Three Letter codes, Scotland and to the horror of most of us who have only scant memories of school chemistry, a whole round devoted to the periodic table!
One of the bonuses of the events that you are hosting (because it’s your birthday etc.) is that your household sets the questions. So when we were the hosts on occasion of my birthday, my wife kindly created the rounds and questions with one round dedicated to facts about me, yes ‘yours truly’ !
Somewhat embarrassingly I really didn’t excel and got many questions wrong including my shoe size!
I had always pondered what specialist subject I would offer if ever I became a contestant on BBC Tv’s Mastermind Quiz programme. I now know for definite I will not choose the subject as me.
I actually did better on questions about the periodic table!
I used to work for a well known European airline, and I was there in the boom times. It was good!
We were all busy people rushing from room to room, in meetings , conference calls and so on. Whenever we were asked by visiting suppliers, partners and so on about how life was , the phrase bounced back to them was, ‘yes, just great , just livin’ the dream”.
And in reality this was true – we were busy , well paid people in a burgeoning economy and things looked good. Having said that, I am never really sure what that phrase, ‘living the dream really means’.
Then fast forward some years, and aviation is a different place, but then so is the whole of transportation, leisure industry, car manufacturing and a whole host of others.
However lets not dwell on that…much is written already, by those far more eloquent and informed than me.
But back to ‘living the dream’. I must admit I am actually quite fascinated by dreams…and the many explanations of why we have them and what they mean. Mine are normally quite staid affairs and usually just involve me being late…I am actually a very punctual person by nature so its perhaps just a bit of daytime real life fears translated into night-time reality.
Until now that is……recently I have just had two very, very strange dreams . One of them in a way doesn’t make a good story to recount in detail as it featured only people that I know or knew…but actually a very strange and bizarre mixture of old friends, old locations , present day family and events none of which are in reality ever connected with each other geographically or chronologically or in any way but with the assistance of my brain had then been beautifully woven together into an elaborate story, a set of emotions, connections, strange timelines and distorted geographies that had this been featured in a film, would have had the critics complaining that the script writer had no sense of reality or worse still was making use of narcotics or had suffered a severe bump on the head.
Normally the dreams I have if remembered at all just evaporate a day or so later once I have shared (or bored!) my friends and family with…”you’ll never guess, I had the most weird dream last night”. But this one is still slightly haunting me some days later as I really puzzle over the most bizarre links of people and events. I am very tempted to share some of the detail but perhaps I’ll keep it in case I ever consider screenwriting of weird movies as an alternate career.
The other dream that followed just one night later was actually much simpler in content. In this dream, I decided to photograph a police vehice and was promptly arrested. I hasten to add that I live in a country where that does not happen, and in fact you would need to steal the police vehicle for such a reaction to follow! In the dream I had bizarrely decided to photograph it because it had some unusual decals on the side…a bit like you might see on a Plumbers van, it advertised the location on the side, and seeing British Transport Police, Kirkcaldy , and yet I seemed to be in London, not Fife , Scotland at the time. It then appeared I decided to photograph this for my friend who lived in Kirkcaldy and show him a visiting police vehicle of his locale, doing a visit to London. Yes, I know this is all so weird, but its a dream don’t forget!
The dream then took on a more bizarre twist, that once I was handcuffed, the very amiable policemen decided that I was just a pleasant but misguided photographer, deleted the photo from my phone, but took pity on me and decided it still would be nice for my friend to see this, so promptly ripped the decals off the van and presented to me as a parting gift after un locking me. None of this makes any sense..other than that I do have a friend who lives in Kirkcaldy!
If anybody can explain any or all of this…please do let me know.
Since then dreams have returned to non-memorable trivia…just a few more missed trains and meetings.
Maybe I eat too much cheese?
Enjoying this blog, or just confused by the content?
Don’t worry, normal content will return soon after a relaxed and good sleep.
Growing up as a teenager in Scotland and influenced by both TV, cinema and bill board advertising I strongly remember adverts for Irn Bru stating ‘it’s your other national drink’…that first drink in question being Scotch Whisky.
The two drinks actually have a similar (ish) colour but not much else in common other than being produced in Scotland. One of the other advertising straplines for Irn Bru was ‘made from girders’.
They actually went on from that to have some clever and sometimes risque advertising…a quick Google search will enlighten and amuse you.
For those of you from outside the UK as a whole (as Irn Bru can be purchased in England and Wales and many other places worldwide where there is Scottish ex pat demand for it), it’s a very sugary soft drink that does have some iron content (albeit a tiny percentage) hence it’s name.
It was a bit of a dentist’s nightmare although sugar free versions now exist and the original has now had sugar content reduced to comply with UK sugar tax regulations.
However the title of this blog is about food not drink but there is a similar conumdrum. I was asked last week by an overseas colleague…what is the traditional British food eaten most often? The natural reaction to this question is Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding.
Yorkshire pudding for those not in the know is not a dessert but a savoury dish served alongside beef.
Indeed for so long was this the stereotypical meal was that French people sometimes refer to English as ‘Le rosbifs’. But things have moved on…the traditional Sunday lunch of a roast has changed.
As a child I remember this almost religious event of sunday roast. Mother and Father cooking, Father carving..that had a rotating timetable..one week beef, then lamb, then pork, then chicken…and start again.
Interrupted really only by events such as Christmas when we had Turkey. Easter Sunday was always lamb…even if not a scheduled lamb Sunday! Things have changed…the cost of meat joints, the whole concept of family Sunday lunch and a host of other factors now mean these meals in many families are exceptional events, rather than normal certainly when at home. So what is traditional or commonplace food now…ignoring junk or fast food (that is probably top of league table for volume) in terms of popularity for a shared meal both at home and in restaurants one has to say curry..and probably even more specifically chicken tikka masala.
The widespread availability of ‘Indian’ food as take away from restaurants, ready meals in supermarkets and of course being actualy cooked from scratch at home combined with the huge number of ‘Indian’ restaurants means this is definitely our No. 1 food. I put ‘Indian’ in parenthesis as actually many of these restaurants and take aways are actually Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Nepalese or Sri Lanken. But the phrase shall we eat Indian food has stuck…rather than using the term Indian sub content style food!
Will Roast beef decline into oblivion…no, but certainly our choice of food get a ever wider and reflects the multi cultural world we live in. Ironically restaurants serving ‘roast dinner ‘ are probably now more prevalent on Spain’s Costa del Sol to feed the holidaying and ex pat Brits than on the average UK High Street!
Welcome to my blog - Sorry I'm late! 