October 07, 2006
Squeezy Marmite
The tube is covered with ads for Squeezy Marmite. You either love it or hate it, with artwork of things we love or hate, mostly hate.
A typical ad:
I fell to thinking. Squeezy is the nickname of famed melodeon player John Spiers. And melodeons are the sort of thing you either love or hate, right? And it was ages since I'd given my Intuos a proper workout.
Result:
One slightly altered Squeezy Marmite ad.
Spiers is of course the melodeon player in Bellowhead, and the much anticipated album launch at Bush Hall last night was Just Fab. Victorian costumes in profusion and great music.
Posted by Alison Scott at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2004
Buzz Buzz Buzz
We finally collapsed the dither function on a new coffee machine, though not without some added extra dither. The Bodum shop was selling the small version of the electric Santos, reasonably cheap. They also had a good price on the large one, but didn't have it in stock. So we bought the small one, and then spotted that the Starbucks right next door was selling the Barista Utopia for less than Bodum's reduced price on the identical large Santos. Some time later, we'd returned the small one, and bought the big one (and two grande skinny lattes with extra shots and two lollipops, which between them added 10% to the price of the machine).
This is an electric vacuum brewing machine. I've owned a Cona in the past; they make lovely coffee, but are far too troublesome first thing in the morning. Remember, we're the people who enumerate 'coffee disasters' for filter machines:
- forget to put water in
- forget to put coffee in
- forget to put filter in
- forget to put jug in
- forget to plug in
- forget to switch on
- put water in the place where the coffee goes
- put coffee in the place where the water goes
- put beans in the filter instead of ground
- leave the hopper out of the grinder so the coffee goes everywhere
- grind the coffee twice so the hopper overflows
- add the water twice so the machine overflows
- making coffee with half the water you intended to so it comes out too thick
- forgetting to empty old coffee out of the jug before you start
- leave machine turned on overnight
[EDIT: I forgot a whole pile the first time. And we've done each of these at least once, most several times.]
We have friends who use a Cona all the time, and who have an exciting history of coffee disasters far more spectacular than ours. After all, filter machines rarely implode, or fall off the stove spewing near-boiling coffee all over the kitchen.
The promise of the electric Santos is to deliver vacuum-brewed coffee with no more hassle than a filter coffee machine. The web offers mixed reviews, partly because of the original high price, and partly because this machine does not allow you to tinker the way that stovetop vacuum brewers do. But the biggest gripe is inconsistency of timing; and that's because this gadget is, at heart, an electric kettle -- and individual electric kettles vary considerably in the point at which they turn off. So you have to fiddle with your specific machine until you have the right combination of coffee quantity, grind, strength of vacuum seal and slope of kitchen counter. After which it's highly consistent.
Anyway, we've brewed two pots so far, and jolly nice they were too. It's superficially harder to clean than a filter machine -- but actually easier, because of all the bits in a filter machine that you can't get to and which eventually clog up your coffee. It does have that classic Cona taste, where you get all the flavour and no grit. And it is, unsurprisingly, great fun to watch.
Incidentally, the Rhyl SeaQuarium may be the single worst value tourist attraction we've ever visited. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest here; it has remarkably few fish, it majors in UK coastal fish, which tend towards the grey and dull, there's very little educational material on the walls, the roof leaks in wet weather, and it charges £5.50 for an adult and £4.50 for a child or pensioner (though Jonathan was free). Several of the exhibits were closed for winter, though there was no reduction in charges. It kept us entertained for 37 minutes, of which at least half I spent trying to take pictures of the dozen or so tropical saltwater fish while the kids moaned at me to hurry up. Don't go there. Next time we're in the area, we will try the Blue Planet Aquarium, one of the UK's largest, which is slightly more expensive but holds much more promise.
Posted by Alison at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2003
Major Domestic Tragedy
After several years of good and faithful service, our filter coffee machine turned up its little toes last night, going postal and blowing fuses all over the kitchen as it went. We could, of course, just buy another filter coffee machine. But when researching options for doing so, our heads were turned by the discovery of domestic beans-to-cup machines.
Wow. What better way to spend my latte-free-lifestyle money?
Of course, they're roughly the size and price of a solid office laser printer. And we're supposed to be back in Anti-Consumer mode, after the troubling discovery that the amount of money on the currently-interest-free-credit-card is somewhat greater than the amount of money in the savings account that's supposed to cover it when the interest free period runs out. (And it's a *lot* of money, too.)
In other news, I read a little about Buddhism; and in particular the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, full of people who don't enjoy the simple pleasures of life because they're always faunching after the next consumer good.
Posted by Alison at 10:19 PM | Comments (7)
February 24, 2003
Advertisers' Dream Girl
While I was ill, I watched television. So I saw some adverts. As it was mostly daytime telly, these were mostly for loans, credit cards, refinancing schemes, car credit, and accident compensation lawyers. Some ads, however, just act as public information bulletins, providing instructional material for how to live your life.
One of these is the current ad for HP Sauce, which shows a woman making and eating a bacon sandwich. Which reminded me that I'm very fond of bacon butties. So Jonathan and I had them for lunch today.
The ingredients that set brown sauce apart from other sauces are date and tamarind. For a while it was possible to buy a date and tamarind pickle from Sharwoods, which sort of tasted like upmarket brown sauce, but they discontinued it a few years ago. I'd never really had the habit of brown sauce until after I started eating the pickle; my mother disapproves of ketchups of all kinds and, although she eventually relented on the matter of tomato ketchup, we never had brown sauce at home.
At any rate. Really soft white bread; you can use thick sliced if you like, but I prefer to take slices off a loaf. Butter; it's critical, for all you're about to add your own weight in bacon fat. Bacon; and I like streaky because I like it fairly crisp but still soft in bits. Brown sauce, by which I mean HP Sauce, because I am an advertisers' dream girl. You don't cut up the sandwich unless you're feeding it to a toddler.
Interestingly, HP Sauce is now part of the Danone group, "committed to improving the lives of people around the world by providing them with ... more healthful pleasures." Mmm mmm.
Posted by Alison at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)