Milky beans are backWe all like coffee now that Kev has mended his ways, so this feels like a good time to introduce a new kind of coffee I discovered recently.
You know what an espresso is, of course. A tiny strong black coffee.
But what if I could offer you an espresso… with something extra?
Butter keksI like those biscuits that are actually just a big slab of chocolate with a bit of biscuit loitering on the back. That’s the correct ratio of chocolate to biscuit.
Anyway, in the midst of battering my way through a delicious packet of them, I paused briefly to turn one over and have a look at the biscuit side. It had a message for me.
I have decided to start using this as a slightly condescending pet name for people.
If you have other suggestions for slightly patronising ways to use this as a mild pejorative, please post them below.
Hitting the Corny B’sA while ago, Ian “Mac Mac Mac Mac” McIver took a voyage to foreign lands and returned with a gift beyond compare: a selection of five Czech cereal bars of various colours and flavours. What better introduction could there be to Central European cuisine?
We’ve been so excited to try them that we’ve actually spent quite some time waiting for the perfect opportunity to stage a Tasting Ceremony. You know the kind of thing: a full, formal occasion where the participants ritually dress in the colour of the food they are Ceremonially Tasting, bring similarly coloured gifts and offerings, and solemnly share in the sublime pleasure of sampling new foods. Between courses, a discussion is held about the food that has been enjoyed, and prayers are said.
Anyway, we finally managed to clear a day in our diary, and I’m pleased to present to you the full results of our first ever Corny Big feast.
Jolly Good: more free gingerbreadIf this is a new tradition I am all for it.
Last night I stopped off at the station on the way home for a sandwich. I get home late when I’m doing a day shift at work so a quick butty on the train is perfect.
Anyway, I selected my butty and went to the counter. The nice lady rang it up on the till, and then gestured to a stack of gingerbread men all piled up on the countertop. “Would you like one of these, free of charge?” she asked.
Why, yes I bloody would, thank you very much. I would love one of these free of charge.
I cannot help noticing that this gingerbread windfall comes almost three years to the day since my last free gingerbread incident. It cannot be a concidence. I am looking forward to my next free gingerbread man, which I expect to be offered in late March 2026. I’ll put a picture here when it happens.
Get in my mouthHave snacks, will travel.
Having recently been on an excursion to the Czech Republic, there were lots of opportunities to fill my face with various offerings. Almost on every corner was a vendor or some kind of business selling the local delicacy; the chimney cake (or ‘Kürt?skalács’ as Google reliably informs me). It’s a sweetened flaky pastry baked around these hot rods making a little cocoon of joy. You then get to choose what you stuff into the aforementioned cocoon and the most popular choices were cream and strawberries, ice cream and strawberries, strawberries, ice cream, cream, some kind of minty option and any other variation I haven’t mentioned yet. They were/are delicious.
I am here though to speak about another “taste sensation” that came across my way whilst lumbering around in shops. Tell me, have you ever heard of a Corny Big?
No, I hadn’t either up until recently. It is best described as a cereal bar with the minutest of nutritional value, acres of sugar, possibly a full bag per bar, and the kind of chemical taste that you would need three goes from a mouthwash to get rid of. They were/are “delicious”.
I filled up part of the suitcase with a small selection to take back. I didn’t even get all the different flavours too as there were more hiding in other establishments that we were dawdling about in when waiting for a reservation at a restaurant. What stopped me from getting more? I do have some self-restraint sometimes I’ll have you know (someone told me not to go overboard…).
I only hope that there is a relatively cost-effective way of getting them to the UK so I can indulge some more.
What’s on your mind?
Ever since I saw the place over the weekend it’s all I can think about.
Great British programme pitchesYears ago, someone had a brilliant idea. They’d get a big tent from somewhere, fill it with ovens and home cooks, and then run a low-stakes baking competition where people put in a lot of wholesome effort to see if they could make the nicest cake. Some family-friendly presenters would make gentle innuendo and hug contestants who dropped things on the floor. It’s still on TV and it’s still doing well.
What TV executives really like is more of the same. If you find a thing that works, and pulls in an audience, they want to produce more TV exactly like that. So after the Great British Bake Off, you got the Great British Sewing Bee (pitch: like the Bake Off, but people are sewing things), the Great British Pottery Throwdown (pitch: like the Bake Off, but people are making pottery), the Great British Menu (pitch: like the Bake Off, but for main courses), Interior Design Masters (pitch: like the Bake Off, but for making rooms look tasteless), and now Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas (pitch: like the Bake Off, but with Christmas decorations).
I reckon I could have a go at this crap as well. First thing tomorrow I’m marching into Channel 4’s headquarters, demanding a meeting with the boss and giving him my snappy pitches for these shows, now in development:
Like the Bake Off, but for growing vegetables. A really slow, relaxing watch, since a single challenge takes the contestants all year. Most of their time is spent sitting in their potting sheds waiting for the rain to ease off. In the showstopper challenge they have to present their most humorously-shaped root vegetable. Hosted by Scott Mills.
Like the Bake Off, but for racing noisy muscle cars over very short distances. Has nothing to do with drag queens. The grotty, macho world of drag racing will be made softer, cuddlier and more family friendly by having the drag races happen inside a big tent on a giant gingham tablecloth. Hosted by Matt Hancock.
Like the Bake Off, but for producing industrial grade steel from iron ore. Contestants race to turn out neatly shaped ingots of pure steel at white hot temperatures while trying not to set the tent alight. Before each challenge, lovingly-drawn colour sketches of the precise cubes of steel each contestant plans to make will be shown on screen. Hosted by Lorraine Kelly.
I’m pretty sure this is my path to fame and fortune. If you want in on it, pitch me your Great British rip off ideas in the comments and I’ll see if I want you in on the meeting.
Christmas BeansIt’s that time of year again, again? Of course it is. What you want is festive and huggable and bright and THRUST right into your face. Christmas is an epidemic but it’s the loveliest epidemic you’ll ever meet.
Times are hard though. If you thought 2020 was bad then meet the end of 2022, a harbinger of doom and fifth horseman of the apocalypse, handing out lessons by the fistful. Now, more than ever™, you need a helping hand to get through this marathon of monetary madness. Luckily we have our relative financial expert, Bartin Bewis, on hand to offer his guidance, support and “award-winning” money-saving tips to ease yourself out of December, through January and into the warm embrace of February.
Decorations
In order to reach its full potential, you need to decorate your house in everything that has the smallest bit of sparkle. If you run out of tinsel and glitter, get the spare bits of cutlery out and shine a torch on them from your window. Save money on tree decorations by getting the kids to make them out of whatever you can find in the recycling bin. If it looks like a donkey shat it out, merely tell your friends and loved ones that it means more than little Timmy and Julie made them rather than some corporate whore machine, spitting out baubles made of baby’s tears.
Food
What you want is a non-traditional Christmas dinner; leave the turkeys and the hams in the supermarket for the chumps, what you want is a rabbit stew. If you have wild rabbits living nearby to your house, set traps up in strategic places and you don’t even need to pay for the main ingredient. Some terminal wanker living on your street will have ‘foraging’ as one of their hobbies so beat some herbs out of them to avoid a trip to Asda and a few hours stuck in a bush trying to work out the one stalk or leaf that won’t give everyone diarrhoea. If you’re living in a less rural area, well, that neighbour’s cat keeps pooping in your garden so perhaps it’s time to even the score? Once you garnish it up and add a bunch of spices, nobody will be able to tell the difference anyway. Really struggling? Use your own pets and replace them in the new year. It will give the kids an understanding about death that their school could only hope of teaching them.
Presents
If you’ve been observant over the year, pick out the five toys, things, items of clothing or whatever else you have noticed that hasn’t been used too much. When the mark, sorry, loved one is out of the house, go and put it somewhere they’ll never find it. Wrap it up and present them with it on Christmas Day. Hopefully they’ll have forgotten they already own it. If they call your bluff, make a point of telling them that you spent good money on that train / aftershave / skirt the first time around and to have to bear witness to it being neglected over and over was too much to bear, so this lesson of being thankful for what you’ve already got IS the present this year. If it’s still not working, throw a bowl of nuts on the floor and spend the evening crying in your bedroom with the door locked. Make sure to secret a six pack of beer and some sandwiches in the wardrobe so you have something to do in-between sobs.
A lifetime’s worth of tips there, ladies and gentlemen. Be sure to use them wisely.