In which I come clean about being a skinflint, but no more!

June 30th, 2009

On Sunday afternoon, halfway through ironing work shirts for Monday, the iron started playing up. The steam stopped coming and instead water started dribbling everywhere. “No problem”, I thought, we’re heading to the airport to pick up the brother and sister in law, we’ll set off early and pick up another at Asda. Doh! Paul reminded me it was Sunday and the 24 hour Asda didn’t live up to the name on the sabbath.

The comment about popping into Asda and buying another one appears quite flippant and really doesnt do justice to my shopping history. I suppose this is the bit where I come clean about how I’ve been such a skinflint with irons over the last few years. We bought a new iron when we moved into the new house and I have to admit I bought a cheap Asda model for less than a tenner. It broke down after two years and I thought to act daft about how old it was, pretend I’d lost the receipt and chance my arm and take it back for a replacement. They didnt sell the same model any longer, no surprise after that time, and even the barcode had been reassigned to a television. After some discussion the nice lady agreed to replace the iron and found what she thought was the discontinued iron product code. I happily agreed that it sounded like the fifteen pounds I paid (hehe) and I left the store with a new Morphy Richards worth twenty quid.

Score so far, two years ironing for £10 and an upgraded iron.

The story doesnt end there, two years later the new iron stopped working, the steam burst button wouldnt press down so I took it back. So in March 2006 they swapped it for a slightly updated version of the same model. At no cost!

Score so far, four years ironing, total cost £15 and in fact this brings us right up to date and the third iron giving up the ghost. So in fact that make the score seven years ironing for £15. How good is that!

Except, after all that I’ve never been that happy with any of those irons. I’m the chief ironer in the house, which is more about my control freakery than anything else, and I just never loved those irons.

I was thinking about this on Monday while looking for a new iron to “pop” out and buy and decided that no longer would I scrimp! I wanted to have an iron that can simply DO the job.

In my search I found this iron and knew I had fulfilled my quest!.

29/06/2009

Gaze upon this iron and tell me that it is not a thing of beauty. It is also, if there ever was such a thing, a Mans iron! Look at the colours, it’s like an 1980’s teenage boys duvet cover in black, silver and white. Actually my duvet also had a stripe of red but y’know its almost :-)

The next day I got to try out the new iron and OMG I ironed two shirts in half the normal time. I’m not kidding when I say it is amazing, upon unpacking I was slightly upset to find the steam burst button on the wrong side for my thumb. After ironing two shirts I noticed that I hadnt even had to press the steam button once and results were amazing. Compare this to old irons that needed steam button pressing constantly with poor results.

The morale of the story is here.

I spent quite a lot more than I normally would and was rewarded.

Go figure!

PS. Its an £80 iron but was on sale at Argos for £40 so yay! still saved some cash :-)

Guilty pleasures ;-)

June 17th, 2009

Look at that! I’m home alone for one night only and I revert to this sort of thing!

Chicken curry pie

750 calories of pure Sin. But so worth it!

In an effort to balance this, I also roasted Aubergine, Pepper and Onion and made a tasty, healthy soup to have for the next 2 days lunches :-)

Chico Time

June 12th, 2009

How did I neglect to mention that on our recent trip to Ibiza we saw Chico?

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Did you know he has his own version of D.I.S.C.O. ?

Sadly, I cant quite remember the whole thing but he rhymes the .C.O bit with Chico

Gender Specific

June 5th, 2009

This morning whilst getting ready for work, I was laughing at the latest version of the television advertisment for the Amazing JML Ped Egg. You can check it out here if you havent seen it

Look carefully at the page, if you havent already, 2 reviewers are positively identified as men. Indeed, during the advert itself we can clearly see a man enjoying his Ped Egg.

So, I get it and everything, smooth feet are nice for girls AND boys. What puzzles me is the new addition to the range, a Ped Egg for Men. Obviously, although happy to use the “ladies” white Ped Egg, having one in blue is going to make the whole grooming thing more manly. And, its 30% bigger, so suits our ham-fists.

Whats next JML?

A dark green, 40% larger than normal Nicer Dicer for men?

Wondering what else will break down this weekend?

May 24th, 2009

Jeepers, must update more often :-)

Anywho’s or something, an event in my life has made it into blog life.

This morning I was posting to 12 seconds as you can see below. I mentioned that the boiler fix cost 250 quids, the car servicing another 180 quids and the light bulb in the fire turned out to be 9 quids. I was asking if anything could cost me any more this weekend. I supposed not, watch the video.


Wondering what else will break down this weekend on 12seconds.tv

Shortly after making this video I went to the spare room to find that the wardrobe clothes rail thingy had snapped. So loads of creased clothes to sort out. Hmmmmmm…..

So thats the (hopefully) the final thing to go wrong this weekend.

Fingers crossed :-)

Whoah! We’re Going To Ibiza

May 13th, 2009

See ya next week :-)

*credit to the Vengaboys :-)

Great line

May 2nd, 2009

Just heard someone on TV use the line “I’m not going to tell you again to pick up your clothes!”

It reminds me that when I was a boy and my mum used that line, I would always reply, “Good, because I’m tired of hearing you say it!”

God, I was a wilful and insubordinate child ;-)

Olive you to to work it out.

April 19th, 2009

I promise, I have some ideas for real posts soon, until then humour me, ok?

I was recently irked by these otherwise wonderful olives.

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Lets take a closer look, can you spot the irksome item?

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Yes indeed, thats right, the complete absence of the promised pimento paste is quite a dissapointment!

Given that fact, I still have to say that the olives themselves were still fabulous :-)

Box Clever

April 14th, 2009

I ventured into the loft the other day, thinking to quickly stow the new LCD TV box in case of needing to return it, should it fail. I’m practical like that, something learned from my Mother the notorious hoarder. Unfortunately this turned into an hours job when I realised that I couldnt find space because of all the other boxes already up there.

Some thing had to be done and since some of these boxes are for things that are well passed their guarantee period, they had to go.

Boxes 002

You might think that after this impressive clearout, there would be room up there to dance a dainty tango! Sadly no, there are probably just as many, if not more boxes still up there :-( So, can you guess what I’ll be doing next weekend?

Paul Hula Hoops on our new Wii Fit

April 12th, 2009

I dont really have anything to say, so like, enjoy :-)


Paul Hula Hoops on our new Wii Fit :-) on 12seconds.tv

PS, Paul will kill me when he’s seen this is online!

Easter Mission

April 10th, 2009

Today, we went to Mexborough, my old home town. Which, although I wasnt stepping down from a train, did look just the same.

We were on a mission from the Easter bunny, delivering eggs in advance of the upcoming Sunday “thing”

I presented Nephew Joe with a beautiful Creme Egg and bless him, he smiled sweetly for a moment, then informed me he doesnt like Creme Eggs. Ever the resourceful Uncle, quick as a flash I delved into my bag and produced a Smarties egg originally destined for Nephew Owen.

Sadly, this egg cut no ice. Nephew Joe is 5 years old and a proper little man with a developed personality, he didnt hesitate to explain that he doesnt like Smarties.

“What do you like?”, I asked.

He replied, “chocolate, just chocolate”

“So what’s wrong with Smarties?”

“They’re to crispy”

“and Creme eggs?”

“Too sweet!”

“So what chocolate do you like?”

“Just chocolate.”

Luckily, my Mum had some mini dairy milk bars that I could substitute for the Creme Eggs.

So there you have it, a 5 year old that wont eat or drink anything sweeter than water or solid chocolate, who heard of such a thing?

But do you know, he is my Nephew and I love him!

:-)

Look at them bangers!

March 21st, 2009

We are off on holiday for a few days, until we get back help yourself to bangers with bubble & squeak mash ;-)

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ps. how do you like my gravy volcano type presentation?

Can’t blog for blogging

March 18th, 2009

I’ve been rather neglectful of my blog lately, I’m sorry about that and I’ll try to do better. I think that micro-blogging on Twitter and Facebook is getting in the way of “proper” blogging. I may have to resort to turning this blog into a log of all my other online activity!

However, before that happens, I’m posting this here meme that I invented 2 minutes ago :-) What, you ask, is the unique angle that this meme exploits and explores? Quite simply, I list 10 thing that are irking me or delighting me this week and you have to work which is which.

The “you work out which of these 10 things are irking or delighting me this week” meme.

1 My weight loss plan making a u-turn, see here

2 That I’ve been catching up on missed Desperate Housewives and have started to enjoy it again.

3 The stupid TUPE that didn’t happen on the 1st of Feb, was again delayed on 1st March and still hasn’t happened. WHO do I work for today?

4 Not being able to see “private” blog updates in my RSS feeds, you know who you are and you’re causing me extra mouse clicks ;-)

5 My forthcoming 5 days all-inclusive in Torremolinos.

6 That there was no episode of Heroes this week and I’m going away so will have to catch up after everyone else.

7 That the weather is finally picking up, I went for a nice walk by the river at lunchtime today.

8 My Paul getting with it, joining Twitter and putting it on his iGoogle.

9 The idiots kids that are roaming the estate EVERY evening knocking the coping stones off of everyone’s walls.

10 That I didn’t really think this through and cant think of a 10th thing to list. Oh, scratch that and add something about how annoyingly addictive I’m finding FB Bejewelled Blitz.

:-)

Back to the future

March 1st, 2009

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m still fuming about something that happened more than 36 hours ago. Allow me to vent, if you will. On Friday night we had a “farewell” celebration, it’s complicated because around a third of the office are being made redundant. The remaining two thirds are being TUPE’d to another employer but doing the same job. I’m one of the “lucky” ones being TUPE’d.

The evening was great, we had a 70’s/80’s theme and everyone made the effort to dress up. Paul and myself were in matching outfits as we were meant to be members of a moderately successful 80’s boyband “Summer of Sunshine”. Will I post a picture here? Our silver jeans deserve a mention I suppose, ok here you go.

80sBoyband 003

We had the whole back-story going, how we’d shortened our name to Sunshine when the other 2 members split in ‘86. How we’d been most recently going down a storm playing the clubs in Benidorm. How we’re hoping to appear on the next series of “Re-born in the USA” but can’t say too much about that. It was a lot of fun, during random songs I’d be like “OMG I love this one, do you remember, we covered this one on our third album!”

So anywho, back to this story. We had the “150 people allowed” room in the Pub to ourselves and you needed a ticket to get in. However, towards the end of the night a few colleagues turned up with friends in tow and they were allowed entry. One of said colleagues, a black guy of African descent, had brought along a blonde haired, blue eyed type that struck up conversation with me. Although a little worse for the numerous sex-on-the-beach cocktails, (what else would an ageing boyband member drink?), I started to feel uneasy about the conversation.

He is talking and seems a nice enough guy, I agree with him on several points about music and other random nonsense. Perhaps sensing my approval on these minor points he presses on to more important issues, immigrants, blacks and other things I cant even repeat here. First off, I’m asking myself if I’m hearing him right, next I’m convinced that I’m in a scene from This is England! I’ feel like I’m in the middle of a B N P training video :-(

Now, bearing in mind I’m stood with this guy on one side and on the other side of me is Paul and 2 very good friends and colleagues who happen to be Indian nationals, I’m getting annoyed. Really very annoyed. Not wanting any trouble I made some vague noises and go to chat to someone else that “I just have to talk to!”

Shortly afterwards I pay a visit to the toilets and find the the same white guy pacing up and down talking animatedly into his mobile phone, “get down here it’s gonna kick off” and other scarey words. He’s accompanied by a couple of mates, including the colleague I mentioned, strange that a black guy is hanging with them but who knows whats going on there.

I left the gents as quick as I could and went straight to my Indian mates, drunkenly trying to explain that we should leave now. One of said friends decided to nip to the loo to check it out and when he re-appeared, also agreed that we should leave now. Outside, we grabbed a passing black cab and dropped them off on the way to our house, so all ended well.

It annoys me that this happened. Perhaps, all the more because we were enjoying a 70s/80s night, a time when Race was a major issue. The harsh reality is that in 2009 it is still a major issue for some people.

I probably should have some sort of profound point to make here at the end but really I’m just ranting about an unfair situation.

I’m left with these questions.

My priority was to safeguard my friends, without causing confrontation, was that wrong?

I worry that I should have done more, confronted them about their attitudes but what would that have achieved and what would have happened?

Return of the Spelling Police

February 15th, 2009

Just a quickie, I couldn’t resist sharing this one with you all :-)

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The Tiempo concession stall in the Meadowhall shopping mall where, despite the urgency of the signs, the sale is still running one week later :-)