Adventures in self knowledge

1) Overhearing someone on the bus expressing my exact views on Edinburgh's Hogmanay and thinking what a miserable bastard they sounded.

2) Discovering that the face I pull when I am lost in a reverie of existential misery and self loathing and also rather cold looks exactly like a cheery grin unless you are really close up and this is why people smile at me in the street while I am thinking about ripping their heads off.

3) Being unable to answer the question 'if you met someone exactly like you, would you like them?' About 80% of people have no difficulty in immediately saying yes.

Also wrong

Seen in my local sweet store - a notice reading, "Sale of vintage items."

Sweetie, if you are selling edible items, they are not vintage, they are out of date, off, stale or even rancid.

HTH.

Unhelpful

Am I the only one to have noticed the sudden slew of articles about how we shouldn't be throwing out leftover food, not for financial reasons but for green reasons? Suddenly we've gone from 'don't throw it out because it isn't biodegradable' to 'don't throw it out because it is biodegradable'. I don't really understand what's wrong with stuff composting in landfill as opposed to sitting there till the next Mayan apocalypse in its nasty plasticy glory.

Anyhow, this reflection is brought to you by the last slice of the utterly WRONG M&S Stollen. How this metric fuck-tonne of wrongness got recommended by Observer Food I don't know*. It was too soft, too wet, too sweet and it shouldn't have been covered in soggy nuts because the sugar crust on Stollen is the best bit. It should have gone in the bin and instead it went into my stomach where it has contributed to me regaining all the weight I lost during nearly a month of miserable dieting in December.

*Or maybe I do. I'm getting to the point where if I read another hagiographic article of a winsome male food celebrity posing with a fish on their head I'm going to commit to a life of never eating anything other than KFC.

I think it's possible the world did end

Because I find myself feeling sorry for Andrew Mitchell and there is something so unutterably wrong and backwards about that, that I can only conclude that we are living in some kind of new reality.

It's a shame the new reality kept the same old weather though.

Meanwhile somewhere on the internets

One of the things I like best about the internet is that however bad you might feel about yourself, it only takes a few clicks to find someone very much less fortunate.

Click to embiggen.

The Mail and the truth

This blog post, while several years old, is very pertinent to current post Leveson discussions. While long, it's an easy read and the comments (featuring our own Tim Footman) are also worthwhile. It makes me very glad I've only ever written for trade publications.

Since you asked

Here's the pig's ear. It looks even worse in real life. I'm not good at straight lines.

It cost about £30 in materials and more in tuition fees. Lurking behind it is a much nicer Banana Republic bag I got on ebay for £11. Nuff said.

All you need to know about me in one sentence

I just cut my tongue licking the food processor blade.