Popeye the sailor man

Today I've remembered these 2 rhymes that I used to sing as a kid....

Popeye the sailor man
He lives in a caravan
There's a hole in the middle
Where the dog did a piddle
He's Popeye the sailor man

Popeye the sailor man
He lives in a caravan
He likes to go swimming
With bare naked women
He's Popeye the sailor man

Swishing: The new kind of jumble sale

I went to my first ever swishing party, not swiffing (the gadget you use to get the dust off a laminate floor) Swishing. And it's not one of those parties that involve throwing your car keys in a dish...

Swishing is a clothes swapping event, the one I went to was for charity, organised by www.bigwardrobe.com (a clothes-swapping website). Basically you take along your old clobber, hand it over, in return you get a receipt telling you how many 'high street' items you've handed in, and how many 'premium clothes' you've handed in. The idea is that you get back what you put in, sounds very organised doesn't it?

In reality, when they announce 'okay ladies, start swishing' it's one huge scrummage. Women racing to the rails (labelled by size) grabbing, pulling, elbowing, pinching from others 'stashes' and then retreating into a 'safe' corner to actually see what you've picked up.

I've never been to the first day of a NEXT sale, but I imagine that this is what it's like.

Not one to be frightened of having a good rummage, I got stuck in. There were still a few polite 'oops sorry...excuse me...please can you hand me that item' but essentially it was one big fight.

The downside to a swishing party, you can't guarantee the sizes, you're relying on others to donate their size 12 dresses and hope that they have the same great taste as you - I noticed this in the 'premium clothes' area - mostly skinny size 8s and 10s. Luckily I grabbed myself this Billy Bag so I was pleased with that.

I also won a prize in the raffle, I got the £100 of John Lewis gifts, which was a stroke of luck - as one of the other prizes was tickets to see Peter André at The Sage.

So, will I go swishing again? Yes
Any words of advice for new swishers?
1. Don't go with a shopping list, consider anything and everything
2. Take clothes that you're happy to donate
3. Don't expect to get back like for like
4. Be prepared for a scrum - survival of the fittest.

My theory on anti-ageing products

One of the main causes of premature ageing is stress.
Stress causes wrinkles.

Luckily there are some amazing products on the market that you can use to 'smooth away fine lines' and 'the tell-tale signs of ageing.' These 'wonder products' contain anti-oxidants, elastin + Vitafibrine, Pro-Xylane and all that nonsense.

The stress for me is choosing the one that is right for me and my skin.

Sometimes I wonder if there really is something different in each pot, especially when you see them lined up on the shelves, all claiming to do the same job, but the container looking slightly different. And when you've got one brand that offers you 101 anti-ageing moisturisers I really do get stressed out. What's the difference, and how the hell do I know what I'm missing out on if I pick this one, and not that one.

For me, the real cause of premature ageing and wrinkles are the products themselves.

Pixelpipe app on Android

I'm creating a test-post. The intention is that this blog entry will automatically add into my blogger blog. Which means I can blog on the go - keep your fingers crossed (I am).

The wise man and the foolish man

This one I remember from primary school, and I can even recall the actions too :)

The wise man built his house upon the rocks
The wise man built his house upon the rocks
the wise man built his house upon the rocks
And the rain came tumbling down.
Oh the rain came down and the floods came up.
The rain came down and the floods came up.
The rain came down and the floods came up
And the house on the rock stood FIRM.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
And the rain came tumbling down.
Oh the rain came down and the floods came up.
The rain came down and the floods came up.
The rain came down and the floods came up
And the house on the sand fell FLAT.

All quiet on the blogging front

I've been quiet these last few months, it's not that I've not wanted to blog, I've been what they call otherwise preoccupied.

Work, home the usual nonsense, and on top of all that I've been looking into moving my existing blog entries from blogs.ncl.ac.uk/lisa.cornforth into blogger. Why? Well, most importantly I want blog comments and feedback, and unfortunately the work-run blog doesn't allow it (unless you're staff or student).

I've got the content, I just need to work out how to upload into this blog.

I've also got myself a new phone and want to try and work out how to blog from my phone and post it automatically.

I'll get over it, suss it out etc, I'm not panicking just yet :)

My skirt

It happened years ago, I was wearing one of my hand-me-down skirts from my sister and we all went (all being: me, sister, mum, aunty and 2 cousins) to Aysgarth Falls for the day, we used to go there a lot, it was great. We took a picnic, our cozzies and jelly shoes and the plan was to spend the day by the falls - mums talking and us kids playing in the water, larking about.

I remember getting ready to go in, and being the youngest at the time, needed a bit of help puttin' me cozzie on. I droppped my skirt around my ankles and stepped out of it, kicking it away in order to step into cozzie foot-hole. But this time I kicked too hard, I kicked it into the water and off it went down one of the falls. My cousin scrambled down the waterway a bit to see if he could catch it, but he missed it, and it was gone, forever. Never seen it since. I loved that skirt, even though it was a second hand one.

It was white with little miniscule people dotted around the hemline, probably aged 6-7 years, but wouldn't have had my name embroided in it.

My new theory on drinking (and hangovers)

Last night me & Mr Lisa drank Pimms with all the trimmings: lemonade, fruit & veg...This was followed by Port (at my request).

When bedtime was announced I drank a pint of water, a glug of milk (that's a big-swallow from the bottle) and 2 paracetamol.

It might also be worth noting at this point, that for dinner we had: salmon, new potatoes and french beans, dessert was banana split (just in case this may have affected the results).

Woke up at 8am - a stupid time for a Sunday morning, but hey, it's a small price to pay when you're hangover free. So much so, I drank more water, a cup of tea ate a bowl of porridge and walked to the local car boot sale (10minute walk) all before 9am!! Bought myself some items and carried them home.

Mr Lisa meanwhile wasn't fairing so well, he didn't have the 1pint of water (before bed), or the glug of milk, or the 2 paracetamol. His tummy is feeling yucky and he's got a headache.

So, what's my theory on drinking & hangovers.
Well, I'm still not entirely sure but it could be one of two things:
1. If you drink drinks spelt with the same initial: Pimms, Port you're unlikely to get a hangover. Another example would be: Beer, Baileys, Bacardi, BucksFizz = no hangover.
2. If you eat a banana split, before you start drinking, then make sure you that before bed you: drink 1 pint water, 2 paracetamol and a glug of milk = no hangover.

Pimp my strawberry

Picked a 66g strawberry yesterday, that's a whopper, compared to my 'regular' strawberries which only weigh about 13g each.

And the secret of my strawberry success?? Bugger all. I've done nothing special to them, just kept them watered and weeded. I've not even put any extra fertilizer on. It must be magic.

The Duck Umberella

It's an umberella with a handle shaped like a duck's head, looks shifty doesn't it? I'll tell you why it looks like that...

See the black eyes - they are cameras, recording everything to the left, and to the right. The beak contains a microphone, and records everything. When it rains, the 'putting up the umberella' action transmits all of the recorded information to HQ, that's not me by the way, no I'm just a small cog in a big wheel.

I don't know who takes these recordings, but all I do know is that the duck umberella is a powerful device.

My norwegian spruce trees

For Christmas last year I was given a Grow your own Christmas Tree kit which contained: an egg-cup sized terracotta pot, some compost & 6 seeds.

On New Years Day (or there abouts) I decided to plant my seeds - just 3. Now 5 months later and I have 2 little stalks - they've got a bristly end (like a Christmas tree) and they're about 3 inches tall.

I've named them too, they're known as Bruce & Luce the norwegian spruce

Image from: http://www.scottishchristmastrees.co.uk/prod_img/Norway%20Spruce%20bctga%202009.JPG

 

Is this just a coincidence?

I saw a black rabbit last sunday.
On saturday morning I had the words from Muse's Words from a dying athiest:
the verse ends with are you afraid to die?
chorus it scare's the hell outta me, and the end is all I can see, yeh it scares the hell outta me, and the end is all I can see
A few minutes later my mum called to say uncle John had died.

Uncle John, 12th February 1934-25th April 2009

**This entry has been edited (1st May 2009) - I was asked to say something about Uncle John at his funeral...**
This is what I read at the graveside:

Uncle John, 12th February 1934-25th April 2009
John.
I never knew him as John, always Uncle John.
Everyone has an Uncle John.
He'd been suffering from illness for a while, bits and pieces which seemed to have developed into something much bigger. He wasn't really one to be ill, he just got on with it, made me wonder how long he'd put up with it. He's not suffering now. I was going to send him a card, but it didn't feel right sending a get well soon especially as he wasn't getting any better.
For me, he was Uncle John, of Uncle John and Auntie Hazel, always Uncle John and Auntie Hazel, said together, never in isolation.
He loved Auntie Hazel, known each other for 50 years, been married for 42, their 40th Wedding Anniversary Party at the pub in Brompton seems like only last year.
He was actually my mum's uncle, so he was really my great Uncle John. I never knew my mum's mum, or dad, so Uncle John and Auntie Hazel were like grandparents to us: me, my sister, brother & cousins.
His claim to fame was that some of his cars had been used on ITV's Heartbeat, that gorgeous light blue Morris Minor, and his Wolsley. He always had old cars, the current runaround being a Triumph Dolomite.
When I saw him in October last year, he proudly showed me his cars, tucked away in the garage, and his trophy, won by the little blue moggy, Best in show at Malton last year.
Thinking back to when I was young, I associate Uncle John with traction engines, I think it's because when we were kids we often went to see Uncle John and Auntie Hazel at car rallies, and at some of these rallies there were these huge traction engines.
Or maybe it's because Uncle John was always tinkering with his endless supply of lawn mowers: the old ones with the roller on the back, the bucket on the front, and the handle you had to pull back to start. When they came to visit, Uncle John would often bring a lawn mower that he'd fixed for my dad. Come to think of it, he fixed up everyone's Hoovers too, was there anything Uncle John couldn't fix?
I can vividly remember Uncle John & Auntie Hazel's visits on a Saturday afternoon, Uncle John would watch the wrestling on the telly, I'd stand on his shoes & he'd bounce them up & down, he also used to say to me 'now then slim?' cheeky bugger - I was a right chubby little porker back then!
He always wore a flat cap, bib & braces, a tweed jacket with a Morris minor badge and a pair of Doctor Marten shoes in that oxblood colour. And he liked to eat little black mints called 'Imps' - they were too strong for me.
We named a family pet after Uncle John. 'John-John' the cockatiel.
For Christmas we'd buy him Maltesers, one year I bought him a bottle of Mr Matey bubble bath, Auntie Hazel called me a rum un I think he liked it! Last year I got him a chicken calendar - he was a softie at heart, especially with those chickens. He knew each and every one of them - he'd keep them for ages, even when they'd stopped laying!
And as kids, remember when we sang
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Uncle John has lost a wheel on the motor way
It was our Uncle John that we sang about.
Our Uncle John.
Great Uncle John. Great Great Uncle John.
A great man, who will always have a special place in our hearts, however we remember him.

Toilets

I don't really understand how a toilet works.

When you flush, something happens and the bowl is emptied.
How does the 'flush' generate all that water?

I understand the bit with the u-bend (to a degree), but what's the crack with the 'one that comes back?'

I just don't get it

Barack Obama - in my opinion (needs pic)

So far nobody's mentioned this, so I've decided to say it.

Watch these 2 videos, number 1 is Barrack Obama's victory speech, compare this with number 2 is Samuel L Jackson, from Pulp Fiction giving his 'Ezekiel 25:17' speech

 

Obama's victory speech

 Samuel L Jackson, from Pulp Fiction giving his 'Ezekiel 25:17' speech

I'd say that they were pretty much the same, but BO has a big cheer instead of a gun...

Interesting FACT

BASIL
Basil is 'Lisa' spelt backwards, with a B on it.

Eating squirrel

A couple of months ago I bought a grey squirrel from the farmers market in Tynemouth (dead and skinned) and I took it out of the freezer on Saturday to cook for dinner. We had tapas for dinner on Saturday, and this was a delicious accompaniment. This is what i did (sorry no photos):

• Poach the squirrel until cooked, keep the 'stock'
• Remove all meat from cooked, cooled squirrel
• In a pan put: 4 sliced shallots, 1 clove garlic (squished), bay leaf, salt & pepper, 1 tin tomatoes (roughly chopped), orgeano (1 tsp), smidge of paprika, 1 ladle of the reserved 'stock', squirrel meat.
• Bring to the boil
• Put into ovenproof dish, and cook on 125 heat (fan-assisted) a good couple of hours before you need it

Tastes beautiful.

Saturday evening ate tapas

Image from: http://animal.discovery.com/tv/a-list/creature-countdowns/myths/images/earwig.jpg

And I dreamt about earwigs, lots of annoying earwigs.
My mum calls them forky-tails

Dream Report: last night ate duck, noodles, stir fried veg & sauce

Had 2 dreams.

In the first one I was going on a submarine which was operating a ferry service, so it was full of cars, lorries & people.

In the next dream I was putting the milk attachments onto a herd of cows udders. The attachment things weren't sucking the milk out, they were just attached & someone else would switch them on later.

The end.

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Cow_milking_machine_in_action_DSC04132.jpg

Add a little 'something else' to your mashed potato...

Thought I'd do myself a little recipe post here, following this week's St Patrick's Day Colcannon, and I've thought of at least 3 other ways to do something else with your mash without ruining the taste.

Colcannon

• Okay, you cook your potatoes
• Then when they're done tip away the water, leave in the pan to dry a bit, add some milk, warm gently and mash. 
• With your other hand, shred your cabbage, and cook it for 3-4 minutes. 
• When it's cooked, tip the water away slap a knob of butter in and stir fry for a couple of minutes.
• Then, pop your cabbage in with your potato, stir well and season with salt & pepper. 

Champ

• Okay, do your mash with one hand, do everything apart from add milk....
• Now with your other hand chop some scallions (spring onions) and gently simmer in a pan of milk, slap the milk & onions in your potatoes, mix, add a knob of butter and serve. 

Bubble & Squeak 

This is basically leftover vegetables (the cooked carrots, sprouts, peas, parsnips broccoli etc etc from yesterdays roast dinner) mashed up and mixed with the leftover mashed potato.

If you didn't have any mashed potato left, then you'd better cook yourself some, cos you're going to need it...

Here's some I made earlier, with a tomato sauce accompaniment

Once you've got your mix of mash & veg, put it in a buttery frying pan, squash it down into the pan (so it covers the bottom) leave it a good 5-10 minutes, and then turn it over, don't flip it like a pancake - that won't work, just use your utensil to turn it over, leave to brown and turn again. You'll know when it's done, because your mouth will be watering so much you'll have to stop.

A nice poached egg works well with this.

My history with bubble gum

I was always, always told that if you swallowed bubble gum or chewing gum it would stick around in your body for seven years.

When I was young, I loved Hubba Bubba bubble gum - great for chewing & bubble blowing. And made with a special formula that would make it easily to peel off your face when you blew a big bubble. The flavour didn't last very long, and sometimes you could get jaw-ache from chewing (I know I did).

Flavours included:

• strawberry (in a pink packet)
• original (in a red packet)
• cola (in a brown packet)
• pineapple (in a yellow-ish packet)

Did they do lime? I can't describe the flavour of the original one, but it's the one I swallowed most often because it tasted really nice.

I used to like Jaw breakers too - you'd get 3 in a packet, half the fun was taking them out of your mouth to see what colour they'd gone, and then you got down to the end and it was soft enough to crack in your teeth - it had bubble gum in the end.

Which leads me to think about Screwball ice creams - i wasn't a huge fan, my sister was, the screwball was the ice cream in a plastic cone and a bubble gum ball in the bottom.

Just thinking aloud now of bubble gum/chewing gum I remember: Wrigleys Spearmint, Double Mint & Juicy Fruit, PK Chewing gum - the blue packet was kind of liquoricey flavour, and then there was the little green paket with yellow label - the chewing gum itself looked like the PK stuff, but it had a different name, like 'pelican' or 'zebra' or 'safari' or something...

Nowadays I call chewing gum 'chewy',
'giz a bit of chewy'
'want some chewy'

I tend only to eat 'chewy' when I've got a mouth like a badgers arse and I was drinking the night before.

The end.

Dream report: last night ate supermarket bought indian takeaway

Dreamt that Barry 'Copacabana' Manilow was married to Chakka 'I'm every woman' Khan.

This was probably the most notable thing that happened in my dream.

Image from: http://d.yimg.com/ec/image/v1/release/139398;encoding=jpg;size=300;fallback=defaultImage

Image from: http://caulkischeap.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/copacabana.jpg?w=480

Last night I ate: mussels with shallots, wine & brussel sprouts

I took part in a ballroom dancing competition, organised by Fenwick (department store). I was standing in for Helen, who couldn't dance because of her pregnancy. So I stood in & danced with Danny (from netskills), as he was an accomplished ballroom dancer - I guess Danny & Helen were regular dancing partners.

No wonder Mr Lisa said I had a look of shock on my face when I woke up this morning.

Last night I dreamt I had a tattoo & ate maltesers

More liquorice = more dreams.

The alarm clock woke me this morning before I had a chance to eat a bag of maltesers!!

Another interesting part of my dream involved me getting a tattoo on my *whistle-whistle* it was a swirly Maori pattern than an animal. 

I don't have any tattoos and haven't ever really wanted one, so i don't know why i'm dreaming of getting one

(Last night ate lamb chops with garlic & anchovies (HFW recipe) and more liquorice allsorts) 

Last night I dreamt about playing the drums

I had a dream last night that I was playing on various drumkits, but they weren't set up in the way I was expecting and the skins were slack on them. Also, every time I went to have a go my uncle (the annoying drunk one) kept jumping the queue and playing them before me. He (my uncle) kept getting my age wrong too, he kept saying I was 13, in the end I chucked a cup of hot chocolate at him and told him not to speak to me until he remembered how old I was.

Then, to top it all off, I found the drumkit...the set up looked perfect...it sounded excellent, I waited patiently for Stevie Wonder to finish playing them, and was about to sit on the stool and go for it when...BEEEP BEEP BEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEP

Fucking alarm clock! 

(Food eaten: Last night ate: warmed up bolognaise (no pasta) and 10 liquorice allsorts)

Leekspin on the telly???

I've just seen the Ready Brek advert - it freaked me out...THEY'VE STOLEN LEEKSPIN!!
 
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ugB4-ZVH3Y

And enjoy the original from www.leekspin.com

Bob Marley knew about hairdryer technology years before it was invented

http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1056018/Bob-Marley-Ion-Lion-Zion-Lyrics

ion Lion Zion sang Mr Bob Marley many years ago...

I've only recently dabbled in ion hairdryer technology, and was extremely impressed with how frizz-free my hair was, when I dried my hair after my shower last night.

I took advantage of the sales and bought some 'Carmen Hairdryer' with 'Ionic Technology' and endorsed by some hair-guru...I'm not used to all of the buttons: one for turbo, one for quick cool blast, one for the temperature and one for the speed. But I'm pleased with it. I was a bit unsure about what ionic hairdryers could do for me, and now I know.

I've managed to fuse every lightbulb in the house though - but at least my hair's not frizzy!!!