Weird food week

Been in Korea this week and it was a litany of weird food.

I had the chance to eat:
Shark Fin Soup (which I know my friend PoohBear will be upset about and, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the shark was)
Sea slug.
Weevils (or they might have been silkworms, I'm not sure)

I was also suckered into eating the hottest green pepper by my Korean Friend who ate one first and showed no outward sign of discomfort. Holy Crap! That was hot.

On the other hand I had a very nice pot of fresh ginseng tea. That was really, really nice.

Kamsahamnida

Back to Honkers to continue my "Weight Gain 2000" Christmas eating program. You have to eat large to be large.

It's a mad world

It's a mad world

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZRib_aAQFQ

No, but seriously.......

What's in a word?

Well, quite a lot if it's the password you have forgotten.
I won't pretend that I haven't been blogging solely as a result of my inability to log on for the last few months. But it has been a contributing factor.

In order to maintain cosmic harmony, my success at getting into my blog has been counterbalanced by my abject failure to get into my online tax account.

There, in the ether, is a tax demand that will, most likely, chill my blood. So I can probably wait a few days for the bad news.

In the meantime, the balance of the universe is maintained.

Oh Solo Mio

Unthinkingly I agreed to go to Karaoke in Causeway Bay on Saturday. The evening was convivial, there were buckets of beer (literally) and lots of fun people to sing with.

The only things missing were the good songs. We would search through the meager English song selection, see an interesting artist and go to the song selection to be greeted with songs like

Horrible B side from 1993 you've never heard of

or

Sorry this well known song is being sung by the band "Bumfluff"

Very dispiriting.

The best part of the evening for me was singing arias in the corridor with my friend and it came to me in a flash of clarity that I don't actually need to go to a Karaoke bar to do that.

Get fresh for the weekend....

So having braved the existential hurdle of having a public holiday on a Tuesday (it's Monday today, right? DOH! ), Planet Magic is in high excitement due to the party invite for the weekend.

Only snag is it's fancy dress and the theme is rock legends. Most rock legends are not as challenged in the follicle department as I am so my choices are basically:

Sting
Michael Stipe
Peter Garrett

Otherwise it's wig time, & we all know how sweaty those get.......

Pen trivia

I have on my desk a stubby holder. Stubby holders, for those of you who don't know, are little neoprene vests to put beer cans in so that the warmth of your hand doesn't heat up the delicious chilled beverage you are holding.

Stubby holders are also good for putting pens in. Mine has about 30 billion biros in it. My problem is that approximately 0.3 pens actually work.

"How can 0.3 of a pen work?" I hear you ask. Well, most pens don't work at all. The one special pen, doesn't work then seems to respond to the desperate scribbling on the back of an old envelope, raises your hopes up high, and then refuses to write when you actually try to use it for anything.

Thus, technically, the pen works. For all practical purposes it is useless however.

The only way I cope with the futile search for a working biro is to try and view it as a Zen exercise in patience. I also get further opportunity to practice my self control when arguing with bank tellers about why I have had to write a cheque out in orange crayon.

One day I will have a Stalinesque purge of my stubby holders and all the bad pens will be cast out, never to return. One day...........

Maslow

When I was eight years old, I got shipped off to boarding school, where I remained, with time off for good behaviour and holidays, until I was nearly 18.

One of the byproducts of this is that, when asked what material goods make me happy, I answer with the following.

A fridge full of food
Fluffy towels and clean bed linen
Being warm enough
Nice carpet on the floor (UK only, not for hot countries).

All of the above were conspicuous by their absence at my school. For instance we had a drying room, a room full of hot pipes going back and forth across the walls with slatted shelves. Its purpose, to dry things out. Usually it was full of unwashed and muddy rugby kit (smelly bag of washing only taken away once a week, don'tchaknow). The smell was appalling but we loved it in there as it was a break from the unrelenting cold.

When questioned about non-material things, I always come up with "absence of physical persecution". There is nothing like being woken from a deep sleep by being dragged out of your bed to make you yearn for a room you don't have to share with 10 other boys.

So, as we can see, we are beginning to lurch slowly up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

There were, of course, many positives about my boarding schools. I gained a reasonable education, met some fine people (some of whom are still my friends), had access to some very interesting and educational magazines not available in shops in the UK (thanks to all the boys who took school holidays with their families in Germany) and had the use of excellent sports facilities.

Oh, and I also feel that people who have been to boarding school should hold up much better if, for whatever reason, they get sent to prison.