What the...?!

Sent my way by B.

I'm getting off the train at Piccadilly station in the evening. Wednesday is one of my commuting days. I see football fans in blue gear and think, please don't let me get stuck in traffic on my way home. I'm leaving the train station to walk the 500 metres down to the bus stop at Piccadilly Gardens. A cloud of beer fumes hangs over the city centre and a roar of chants, shouts and cheers fills the air. I'm maneuvering my way through clusters of staggering fans. The whole city looks like a rubbish dump. Thousands of people are huddled in front of a big screen, chanting, shouting, cheering. The game is about to begin. Later I hear about the riots. I'm safely home by then.

And while we're talking about food...

...did you know that Canadians (or even all North Americans?! or the whole English-speaking world?!?!) call a baguette a French stick? I mean I'm aware that it's more or less just a literal translation of the original French word, but hey, French stick? Are you serious? The only appropriate reaction to this, for me, is calling maple syrup Canadian goo from now on...

Faded postcard from the past.

More ice cream-related curiosities: what I had taken for our neighbour's obnoxiously loud mobile ringtone turned out to be the bell of an ice cream van touring the neighbourhood. I might be nostalgic here for something I have never known, but I'd always associated such a thing with sunny Mediterranean beaches, with holidays, laughter and light-heartedness. From now on it'll be potholed streets and red brick houses.

And note how the puddles are still wet from the last heavy shower, while the overcast sky and the clouds reflecting in the cars' windscreens and bonnets already announce the next one.

Would you like marshmallows or cream with that?

For three days every week, I join the big horde of commuters whose life involves waiting for smelly buses and late trains, coffees to take away and breakfast in the shape of a bar rather than a bowl of cereals. A compulsory part of it is picking up a copy of Metro, the daily commuters' tabloid, which is provided on buses and trains for free.

Last Wednesday, the following piece of information caught my attention: since ice cream sales dropped dramatically during last year's rainy, cold summer, food company Aunt Bessie's have launched the banger and mash in a cone, an all-weather alternative to the 99p Flake.

It was way after April Fool's day. I...don't...know...what...to...say.

Read the whole story here and here.

Happy Easter!

Christmasmarketed out.

What I miss in German is a straightforward way to express an excess or overload of something. The first time I heard someone transform a noun into a verb, use it in its past participle form and add "out", my friend R. said, after going to five gigs in three weeks, "I think I'm a bit gigged out."

It's been one of my favourite English constructions ever since. In Greece a couple of weeks ago, I was quickly museumed out, after a while also a bit templeruined out, though never gyros in a pita'ed out, souvlaki'ed out, moussaka'ed out or calamari'ed out. At the moment, after no less than five visits to four Southern German Christmas Markets in five days with E., T. and S., I'm completely christmasmarketed out.

I'm sausaged out, steaksandwiched out, glühweined out and kinderpunched out.

I'm christmaspyramided out, incensesmokered out and musicboxed out.

I'm schupfnudeled out and reiberdatschi'ed out.

I'm waffled out and gingerbreaded out.

I'm also rudolphed out, quite frankly.

So... happy Christmas everyone.

Picture: Zum lustigen Rudolph at Manchester Christmas Market, December 2006.

Turning Thirty

link to Matt's blog post
(oh I'm lazy...)