Googlism: I'm 76 don't you know...

Hilarious and unnerving.

Weight

Those of you have known and met me might wonder why the topic of weight would be on my mind. Lovely Jo Salmon is busy celebrating (and quite rightly) her hard work and acheivement at losing over 2 stone since she joined WeightWatchers. It's hardly likely I would need to lose two stone since that would take me to catwalk model twig slenderness, but nevertheless I am aware that I'm not as lithe as I used to be.

The thing is, I luuurrve food. I eat loads - in fact my appetite is legendary. I would be rich if I had a quid for everytime someone has said "where does she put it all?" and me replying "there's a photo in the attic that looks enormous" (here for the reference if you don't get it). But something is clearly a-wry with our eating habits as neither me or Cloud are getting slimmer as the years pass.

We eat breakfast - at least a toasted teacake with extra sultanas or some cereal (I don't like museli though folks). We've had only skimmed milk for around 2-3 years now.

I always have lunch (or at least as often as I can) and have at least a sandwich or a baguette - often on wholegrain bread. The smaller the sarnie, the more likely I will be rumbling before 7pm and getting increasingly needy of food cooking as soon as we get in. I will often try to have fruit, although this can result in a case of carrying an item around in a bag until it has gone off. Cloud at least always has some fruit (though I think he sometimes falls back on the staple carb rush of crisps). UPDATE: I hereby publicly apologise for this defamation of character. Cloud's legal opinion is that he has never done this and only eats crisps on very rare occasions with me at home... I defer to his judgement (though I think 'never' may be overstating somewhat...)

By early evening, I at least am getting hungry again. We usually eat somewhere between 7 and 9pm. Yes, I know that lateness probably doesn't help but we don't always get in till just before then. I hate cooking and freezing stuff (I don't really understand how it works to be truthful and once I have cooked, I want to eat. Several recipes we follow say 'suitable for 4 persons'. Ahem. Or two greedy pigs.) We don't have a microwave (no space and I don't really like them). Besides, when do I get time to cook multiple worth of meals? I'd need to buy humungous Italien family sized pans to satisfy us and make it workable for freezing even IF I understood it better.

Additionally, we probably only have take-away once every 3-5 weeks. We rarely have pizza more often than once every couple of weeks and often longer apart than that (though it is a handy freezer staple to have with our own garlic mushroom recipe). Fizzy drinks probably cross our lips no more than a handful of times over a year. We scarcely have puddings (usually too full) and if we do, we have usually had less to eat in the main course (say, just some steamed veg on its own) or we have guests and the amount gets shared more. I do like a cooked breakfast - or more realistically 'brunch' - at the weekend. But when we do, we rarely eat again before evening.

What I will admit is that we eat A LOT of pasta. We usually make our own 'sauce' for this since I don't like the processed food issues and preservatives in pre-done ones (herbs plus a tin of toms - or often just a half tin - plus a selection of a couple of ingrediants from a a list such as onions/shallots/mushrooms/leeks/beans).

So where are we going wrong? Is it just volume - 'cos the problem with cutting down is I just get cranky and hungry (and that is never good). We eat pretty healthily and hardly ever eat processed food. So what should we do? If we try and eat smaller portions, all that happens is that I will end up making my remarks of "Neil, you're not going to believe this but I'm hungry again" even more often. By comparison to a few years ago, we DO eat less and more healthy items as well. And the fact that I know that I'm not 'fat' almost doesn't help: there's just no way we could do with cooking separate meals each night.

So, with those difficulties noted, any advice gratefully received!

My birthdate: a little bit wrong and a little bit right

Your Birthdate: October 10

Independent and dominant, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations. You're very confident, and hardly anything ever shakes you. Mundane tasks tend to drain you - you prefer to be making great plans. You are quite original. When people don't "get" you, it bothers you a lot. Your strength: Your ability to gain respect Your weakness: Caring too much what others think Your power color: Orange-red Your power symbol: Letter X Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Okay, points one and two in the top bit seem all wrong somehow, especially two as it seems to directly contradict the 'weakness' in the lower section (which I admit is scarily true).

And you?

Hat tip to Gert.

Hypnotism of the email header

Try reading this. It's funny, provocative and not a little hypnotic.

Russell T Davies' faith and optimism: a defence and discussion

Not mine, if you thought I could do such a thing, but a finely articulate argument and analysis from Phil over at Actually Existing. Phil admits that Torchwood is tosh (and by Medium Rob's scarcely spoilering review, episode three travels further down this line) but Phil provides a wonderful discussion of the core features of RTD's work that make it both appealing and dictate its focus. I'll let you read it for yourself, but it is one of the clearest pieces I've read on why some find RTD's work difficult to appreciate.

For me, I guess that I have a certain sympathy with the three core concerns, albeit that I can equally be enthralled by darkness, wickedness and internal character believability. Sometimes that's IS what I want, but lightness too has its place and it is nice to see it so well explained by Phil in his post.

Five years of Troubled Diva

Hip Hip HOORAY!!! Well done Mike for entertaining us so well over the years. A relative latecfomer though I am, its nice to read a Nottingham-based blogger and there is so much on your site that I always find something new to read, even if its something from the archives!

Will I still be doing this when my 5 years comes around (it will be Sept 2009... that seems a long way off...)?

Shuffle a life: aka the iTunes "Lost in Music #2" post

Courtesy of Darren, I couldn't resist this (despite my blogger probs).

If you reached the top of Mount Everest, you would shout:
'Love will tear us apart' (Susanna and the Magical Orchestra)

The next time you stand up in front of a group of people, you'll say:
'Not a Second Time' (The Beatles)

Your favorite thing to say when drunk is:
'Punk Love' (The Magnetic Fields)

Your message to the world:
'How Was it for You?' (James)

When you think of your best friend you think:
'One Love' (Massive Attack)

Your deepest secret:
'Birdies' (Pere Ubu)

Your innermost desire:
'Reality' (Adriana Evans)

Your oldest memory makes you think:
'Solitude' (Saloon)

Somewhere in your wedding vows, you should have included:
'Japanese Meets Chinese in the USA' (Electric Eel Shock)

On your deathbed, you'll whisper:
'Sahar Dagi' (Replikas)

Your friends say behind your back:
'You Got that Uh Uh' (The Banana Erectors)

You say behind your friends' back:
'Take the Fifth' (Spoon)

Your opinion of Blogging:
'The Great Beyond' (REM)

When you wake up in the morning, you mutter:
'The King of Rock 'n' Roll' (Prefab Sprout)

If you found yourself lost on a desert island, you'd yell:
'Turpentine' (David Thomas and the Foreigners)

Right now, your feelings are:
'Razzmatazz' (Pulp)

What's your excuse for reposting this music survey?:
'Roadrunner' (Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers)

Your life's soundtrack:
'Ubique Media Deamon' (Einsturzende Neubauten)

The day you fell in love was the day that:
'What's the Word' (We Are Scientists)

You Scream During Sex:
'In my Dreams' (Thomas Truax)

Your farewell message to the readers of this music survey:
'Just in Time' (Nina Simone)

Well, some of the answers could have been much worse...

Blogger and passing stories

JJ tells a good tale of incoming (or departing?) rats.

If Blogger ever decides to play ball this will actually appear on this site as a post. But I've been blogging for an hour now and NOTHING has yet accurately uploaded.

ARSE.

All things considered that's pretty un-nerdy

Pah.

Mind, then again I haven't studied science or maths since school (aged 16).

Maxing out on Bob's wisdom

This is just a taster from a latest Maximum Bob post.

We’re all familiar with the idea that there are only 8 plots (or is it 11?) in literature. Again, these are ways of loosely fitting any narrative into a particular mould. But the real interest in films (and books) is not in that they can be made to fit a mould, but in the way they’re made or written: the language used (including types of camera shot, lighting, movement etc), the characters (or the actors playing the roles), the dialogue, and the ways in which it all fits together (the editing, the sound, the music). If you concentrate solely on the mould (perhaps because you don’t feel very confident with the technical stuff), you just end up with something that’s more descriptive than analytical. You’re just re-telling the plot in another form of words. And the plot of a film is only a very minor part of it - and certainly not the part that makes it good or bad.

Just brilliant...

Holbein as reviewed by Stu_n

Excellent review by Stu_n over at his livejournal site about the Holbein exhibition at Tate Britain. I'm hoping to be in London before Xmas but whether I will get chance to see this particular show is debateable, but this review certainly encourages me to consider it!

Going back to my roots

Oh blimey. There is something about having a scanner that brings out the nostalgic in me.

Blimey. Cop them clothes! And I'm pretty pleased to see that even then I had purple legs!

For typographic fiends everywhere

A truly awesome demonstration of why certain fonts work better than others from our new teacher maximumBob.

Great stuff.

Six words

Rather apt really, given how this person connects to a narrative from six words, but I have had much amusement from Marie's contribution to the six word story concept as passed on by MediumRob from the ever wonderful Neil Gaiman.

My only remark is that surely the name 'Marie' could interchange... (though I suspect not if she has anything to do with controlling the story!)

My name...

Via Jo.

HowManyOfMe.com

There is: 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

And I know exactly who she is! She used to play football for her university team. As there are no longer any net refs to her, I'm assuming she's left now and has a super job earning more money than me.

Well, it's pretty likely!