PhD in recycling

Most people would consider me to be of reasonable, if not above average intelligence, but I CANNOT figure out this ridiculous recycling rubbish rubbish. My kitchen looks like the back of the Tesco Car park.

Picture of our front doorstep on bin collecting day. As you can see, we had an "at home" the previous evening

Does the banana skin go in the compost bin, the raw food bin, the weekly or fortnightly recycling waste bin?

What about the cooked/raw meat? How about that plastic bottle? Is it recyclable or unrecyclable plastic? Can I tell without a mass spectrometer?

I empty some mince into a saucepan and attempt to throw away the tray it was in, which is made of a synthetic yet undefinable material. "No not in there!" says the missus angrily, "that's the polyethylene terephthalate weekly recycling box! Put it in the Polyvinyl chloride every alternate thursday except if there's a full moon box. Honestly, how many times do I have to tell you?"

I bet Bruce Willis doesn't have to put up with this shit

I wonder if this should go in the scrap metal or household appliances recycling bin? I'd better just ring the council.

I am actually doing something useful!

No really.

I have started to give numeracy lessons at a charity that helps rehabilitate alcoholics and other drug users. It is a few hours a week, and most of the people I work with have little or no education to speak of. Some do not know odd from even. Many had no formal secondary school education. Things like fractions, decimals, percentages are completely unknown to them,

But most have pretty good mental arithmetic skills, and they also have knowledge and know how to use decimals (they can add up a bill for example) without even knowing it.

They only come to see me if they are interested, so they have all been enthusiastic, and by and large it has been a pleasure to teach them.

I was doing measurement with a chap last week. Temperature - not very good. Length - not very good. Liquid measurement - not very good. Weights - absolutely bloody brilliant. Kilograms, grams, and suddenly also fractions were making complete sense to him. Quarters, eighths, sixteenths etc no problem

"How come you're so good at weights?"

"Oh this is old stuff. Had to know all this for measuring out the heroin for my customers."



...and do you have a nectar card?

Oh what a giveaway

Went to the piccies at the weekend. The film certificate comes up and says on it "scenes of suicide".

Well thanks.  I spent the entire film waiting for someone to top themselves. Thanks for ruining the film for me.


That accent is so bad I am going to grab that broomstick and kill myself by shoving it up my arse

Surely a U or PG or 18 or whatever classification is enough, isn't it? If this ridiculous nannying had been around a few years ago this is what we would have got on the certificates:

CARRIE: bloody hands come out of the grave in the last scene

Ooooo that tickles

JAWS: watch out for the severed head in the bottom of the boat

You do know your popcorn's just landed in row F?

THE STING: It's all a con: they don't really kill each other at the end

Actually I'm in league with Paul Newman. We're trying to con you out of your money
Oh well in that case, let's just call it a day. CD's are available in the foyer.

THE MOUSETRAP: The inspector did it. No, really!

How come she's got short hair and is wearing trousers?
She's a dyke, and what's more, the stiff with the notebook's the killer

THE ENGLISH PATIENT: Caution: extreme boredom may set in after about 10 minutes. Danger of coma

Please God is it nearly over? I...I can't stay awake any longer

TITANIC: The ship sinks, but not before you've been subjected to two hours of the most godawful wooden characters and stilted, cliched dialogue. Trust me. You will be begging for that iceberg.

LOOK! There's an iceberg!!!
Thank God!! Steer straight for it number one, and put us all out of our misery.

What's wrong with everyone??

I was walking towards the station to get the 8.41 to Moorgate. There is a train at 8.38, and I could see it coming into the station

WAKE UP! This is really interesting

Anyway, suddenly a swarm of panicked commuters elbows past me in their hysterical and desparate headlong rush to catch this train, otherwise they are going to have to wait ANOTHER THREE MINUTES for the next one.

OUT OF MY WAY! I HAVE TO PRESENT THE BOUGHT LEDGER UPDATES TO SNETTERTON-LEWIS AT 9.30!!!

I cling to the wall, and continue to creep along towards the platform. I am aware of a rapid tap tap tappity tapping coming up behind me and turn just in time to be elbowed aside by some guy ON CRUTCHES, who just manages to hurl himself onto the 8.38 as the doors close.

Here's your return ticket to Orpington sir. Where would you like me to stick your umbrella?

Christ on a bike what's WRONG with these people?

Is the fact that I have retired mean I do everything incredibly slowly, or is everyone else stark raving bonkers?

Beware the Russians

Last night, I had a Russian evening. I'd got the Bison Grass Vodka in the freezer.

Picture of the missus getting me a topup

Downloaded the music from Fiddler on the Roof

OK what bastard stole me skipping rope?

Dr Zhivago

Picture of me after my fifth vodka

Kalinka

Picture of my guests (the vicar is the second from the left) after their ninth vodka

and many many hours worth of Balalaika music.

Picture of the band I hired, playing their balalaikas. Note the dude at the front, who is playing a balalaika fashioned out of a Vulcan Bomber

We started with Russian Salad, on the basis that this could only be attempted on an empty stomach apart, that is, from a few shots of below-freezing vodka and the odd fistful of sour cream flavoured pretzels.

Here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients:
Potatoes diced and boiled
More Potatoes
Carrots diced and boiled
Diced Gherkins
Cooked Peas
Hard boiled eggs
More gherkins
Chopped onion
Yet more Potatoes
The meat off some boiled chicken
Chopped Parsley
More fecking gherkins
A generous amount of salt & pepper
An indecent amount of mayonnaise


Method
Mix it all up together in a cement mixer and upend it into a bowl of some robust construction (an Egyptian sarcophagus comes to mind)

I'm just about to fill the bowl with my Russian Salad

With the aid of a forklift truck, place bowl on a raised concrete plinth in the middle of your dining room.
HANDY TIP: Do make sure your House Insurance includes Russian Salad Subsidence Cover

We served it with thin slices of hot toasted rye bread, and I have to say, it was pretty damn good, although part of that might have been the vodka talking.

Next course: A soup made with spicy sausage, paprika, fried gherkins, roast peppers, sour cream, and fresh lemon slices. This was also pretty good.

Main course: BIG MISTAKE. A hefty beef, barley & gherkin soup that I made even heftier and turned into a stew, served with red cabbage, sour cream, and fresh dill.

Picture of me serving the stew. I haven't yet garnished the finished dish with dill, so it stills looks a little peasant-like

I think the Russian salad was catching up with us all by now, but we tried to stay ahead of it by upping our vodka intake. In my defence, can I just say that at the time, this made complete sense.

One of my more sober guests asking for another drop of vodka to wash down the stew

Dessert.
At about 11.30, I staggered over to the cooker and tried to make Syrniki: little pancakes made out of Russian curd cheese, flour, eggs, nutmeg and sugar. And also gherkins.

I made that last bit up.


This is what they are supposed to look like

"Use cottage cheese if you can't get Russian curd cheese" the recipe said cheerfully. It also said to roll the resultant dough into golf balls, flatten them, flour them and fry. However, as the dough I managed to make in my vodka, gherkin and Balalaika-induced haze was the consistency of lumpy sick, the rolling was a tad messy, and the frying set off the smoke alarm.

Result: some oddly shaped lumpy, greasy, burnt pancakey looking things, which I served with gherkins and vodka. No, sorry, that should read red fruit compote and cream.

This is what they actually looked like, although I have photoshopped the image a bit to make it look tastier

I now have a new respect for Russians, and realise why they always seem so tragic.

And if I ever hear another fucking balalaika I'll invade Ukraine

New Year Resolutions

Usually, I only have one New Year Resolution, and that is to have no New Year Resolutions.

But I am now a relatively free man with potential time on my hands


Do you think anyone would notice if I slipped off to the New Year sale at Primark?

So I have given it some thought and come up with a few ideas that others would do well to emulate

1) NEVER GO TO IKEA AGAIN

Where did you get all this tat from?
Ikea's kitchen department. 

2) GIVE UP PROCESSED FOODS
I never eat processed foods anyway, so this will not be too bad a chore. The only processed foods I eat are tinned tomatoes. The very occasional sausage. And black pudding of course, I LOVE black pudding. I have also been known to nibble on a tesco value shepherds pie. OK I need to take this seriously.

Picture of me after that third cornish pasty

3) TAKE UP A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

Maybe something smaller


It's the last one in the sale sir.
I'll take it!!

4) WORK ON MY NOVEL
I am hoping to have it finished by late spring. I am an incredibly slow reader