It’s been ten years since I first reported the discovery of the toilet phone. In that time, the popularity of this device has spread widely. After two weeks in South America I can report that no hotel is without one – every hotel bathroom we’ve visited has come complete with communications apparatus conveniently located beside the throne.
Author: Chris5156
Airport review: Bogotá
I may be away for a while, but I still have a commitment to do four posts a month here on the Beans, so I’ve decided to exploit something I’ll be doing a lot, which is visiting airports. Please enjoy this first in a thrilling series of airport reviews.
El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá, Colombia
We spent about four hours here in between flights, arriving at about 3.30am and leaving shortly before 8am.
Despite it being a stupid time of the morning, most shops were open, staffed by people who looked like they wished they didn’t have to man a souvenir shop at 3am. As a result we had the option to buy any amount of slightly tacky Colombia-branded tourist tat. We did not bother with this.
Airport seating was plentiful, with banks of seats everywhere and no shortage of places to sit even when the gate started filling up with passengers. However the seats were hard and upright and I did not enjoy sitting on them for nearly four hours. I give the seating 6/10.
Apart from buying some breakfast, which took 25 minutes to arrive even though there was nobody else waiting, my only interaction with the locals was to meet this charming Colombian lady who had a cargo of bananas and knew how to use them. Kate didn’t like her as much as I did.
Overall this was not a bad place to spend four hours in the middle of the night and my impression of Colombia, having only seen the inside of the airport, was broadly positive.
I award El Dorado International Airport 7 planes out of 10.
Cheese sponsorship
I think I’ve found the weirdest food marketing ploy since special edition Elton John Marmite.
The other week we decided to get some nice burgers from the butcher and have a home made burger night. (It was absolutely banging, thanks for asking.) We needed cheese for that, obviously, so we got ourselves a pack of sliced Jarlsberg.
The cheese was, as you would expect, perfectly aged for maximum flavour, a source of calcium, high in protein, and somehow lactose free. (I don’t understand the last bit, it’s cheese, but OK, that must be something to do with the secret recipe.) But this Jarlsberg has another, much more unexpected, property.
Yes, this is the official cheese sponsor of The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical. Not the film, you understand, no – presumably another cheese sponsors that. But Jarlsberg is the cheese providing the financial backing for the stage musical, and presumably reaping the benefits of the show’s fans when they come pouring out of the theatre, hungry for cheese, and all rush to the dairy aisle of the nearest supermarket to get themselves a pack of ten slices of medium strength Dutch cheese.
London says no
Usually, on my way home from a day at work, I call in to a well known retailer at Waterloo station who sell Simply Food to get myself something to eat on the way home – usually a sandwich and a bag of crisps or something like that. By the time I’m there, around 8.45 in the evening, there are reduced stickers all over everything so my aim is to get an all-discount meal.
A week or two ago I went to the sarnie department and was faced with an unusual sight. Normally most of the food is gone and there are stickers on some of the remaining items, but that day there was an absolute wall of unbought stock.
It appears that Mr Mark and Mr Spencer had decided not to stock up on the usual classics – there were no BLTs, cheese and pickles or chicken caesar wraps. Instead, on the flimsy pretext that some tennis was being played, they had filled the shelves with strawberry sandwiches with pistachio cream on chocolate bread. The commuters of London had then looked at these and, collectively, said no.
I don’t blame them. For one thing these are not a meal. I don’t want fruit on novelty bread for my lunch or my dinner, I want an actual filling sandwich with grown up things inside it. And while I might have been tempted to have some novelty fruit nonsense as a little pudding afterwards, there was not a chance in hell I was going to pay £4.20 for it. Neither, it seems, was anyone else. The yellow stickers were out and the weird butties were now reduced to £3.75 but still nobody was buying.
The next day the exact same sight greeted me – a wall of the finest strawberries the UK produces, hand selected by the pickiest supermarket to meet the highest standards, turned into something nobody wanted to eat. The day after that it was full of normal sandwiches again. Hopefully these abominations won’t be back.
Puffins?
This year’s Puffins? day coincides with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, so to mark the occasion, here are 250 puffins, some of whom are waving American flags, and some of whom are dressed as Abraham Lincoln.
(I’m aware that there are not 250 puffins in this picture. AI doesn’t understand precise numbers. It just drew a lot of them.)
Glasses everywhere
Guys, I’m thrilled – absolutely THRILLED – that everyone has been so enthusiastic about my new Public Glasses mission. We’ve only been going for a couple of months and already I know the whole nation is behind me. The money isn’t pouring in yet, but I’m sure that will follow.
Just the other day while I was out walking the dog, I noticed some Public Glasses that someone had kindly left there.
This is absolutely wonderful and it’s just the kind of thing I had hoped for.
However, shortly after I took this picture, the dog came over and had a wee up against the tree stump. (For your benefit I have not included a picture of that.) The glasses were unaffected, but this highlights for me the importance of Kev’s solemn pledge to supply a special weatherproof Hat-a-Glasses for every pair of Public Glasses out there. With a rainproof and pissproof Hat-a-Glasses these municipal specs would never have been at risk from my dog’s full bladder.
Anyway – the movement is just getting started. Perfection will come in time. For now, let’s just be glad that we’re on the way to a brighter future, and also, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it continues to be very important that you donate all your money to me. I mean to the charity. Thanks.
How do I get my parcel?
We came home the other day to find a parcel had turned up. The driver had left it on the doorstep right in front of the front door.
Inside the door, we found a little card that the driver had pushed through the letterbox.
It said they had left the parcel in the safe location “front step”. Then, further down, it asked how do I get my parcel?
In answer, it said they would return to deliver it tomorrow. So we left it on the step until the next day. But the next day the driver didn’t come back and they didn’t deliver our parcel.
The next suggestion was that we go to www.yodel.co.uk to choose a new delivery date or arrange to collect it from a depot. When we visited the website it asked for the parcel number, but the parcel number was not on the card.
In desperation, we called the Yodel hotline and explained that the card didn’t tell us the parcel number. The operator asked for our postcode instead. We gave them our postcode. They said the parcel had been delivered. We explained what had been written on the card and that we were following their instructions to get it.
At this point the penny dropped. We didn’t need to arrange a delivery, said the operator. We just needed to collect it. So we went back out to the doorstep to collect our parcel, bringing the Yodel card, one item of photographic ID and a utility bill to prove our name and address. Now we have our parcel.
We opened it. Everything inside was wet from the rain overnight. We’re sending it back.
Perfect for all the family
Do you like sport?
Do you like families?
Do you like ball-based sports?
Then you need sport balls!
This unbeatable set includes:
- A football, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play football
- A basketball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play basketball
- A tennis ball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so can be used to play tennis if you don’t mind the ball not bouncing or travelling far enough because it has the wrong weight and ballistic properties
- A baseball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play baseball
Perfect for all the family!