Idea For Jenn Ashworth Book Launch

You know those lovely cinnamon-y biscuits you get with coffee at high class coffee shops? Those really nice ones that you could eat about a million and a half of. Yeah, them. It's them turned into butter.

Check it y'all.

On the side of the jar there's a logo that says 'de bedenkers' which I think means 'The Inventors'. Apparently it's this program that invented it. Then the company, 'Lotus', made it real. Now that's cool.

What I didn't know, but which is as cool if not cooler than all things mentioned previously in this post,is that Belgian people don't just dunk and scoff with these cinnamon-y biscuits that you get at high class coffee chops here, but are probably available free in hanging baskets hanging from every lampost in Belgium. No, they don't stop there. They wrap the dunked cinnamon-y biscuit in bread. Then they eat that. I'd probably add a swill of coffee for good measure.

I can't wait for breakfast.

Spreadable biscuits!!!

SPREADABLE BISCUITS!

I'm thinking about setting up my own TV show to popularise the concept of spreadable Bourbons, and see if UK biscuit manufacturer UK Biscuits is as on the ball as their Belgian counterpart, The Lotus.

Fin.

I Was Not Making It Up, It Is Real, I Am Not Weird.

I decided, this morning, having woken up really really early and getting most things I'd expect to do before lunch done by nine, I found this. It is a thing that I have been talking about for ages. Nine years actually. It is a thing that no-one else has seen and very few people believe I actually saw.

It is called 'Either/Or' and, as Wikipedia will tell you, "a surreal 1999 television comedy game show, which was broadcast on the digital channel UK Play. The show takes its name from the book Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard. It starred Simon Munnery as his League Against Tedium character and was a precursor to his BBC series Attention Scum!. The show was largely a launchpad for Munnery's unusual comic monologues."

I couldn't find a clip from it. However, while looking for it, I found this by Munnery:

Des

It Is Not Yet Ten O'Clock...

...and I've already written one story and started another. The one I've finished is called The Russian (A Nightmare) and it's horrible. I won't post it here because it's horrible. The second one is nicer, though not yet finished. I think it's going to be called 'Fe'.

I now have a cup of tea and a fresh pack of Digestives to bring the morning in with true style. I've just cleaned out the fridge as well.

Actually, being in the shop looking at the biscuits reminded me of an incident. There was one particular biscuit in fact. That biscuit was a 'bourbon.' I have been meaning to get this off my chest for quite some time.

Paul came to our house to do a write up on Time Travel Opportunists for a new zine that's coming out in Derby. He e-mailed ahead, like a true millennium gent, with the promise of a nice packet of bourbons as a gift.

I heard the knock and opened the door. I was the first to look upon the travesty that was Paul Hammond holding Londis own-brand Bourbons. The latter part was where the travesty began, but it leaked all over Paul. I had a mixture of feelings. Pity, hurt, distress, disappointment.

He knows about it now. We were honest. You could see it on people's faces after the first bite. The disappointment, the hurt, the despair. Emma didn't have one because Londis own-brand poor-bons aren't vegan. I didn't have one because I've had them before. I knew what was coming. A dry and tasteless, custard cream shaped Bour-wrong.

Paul, if you're reading this, I like you. I honestly do.
I like doing number puzzles with you. I like the way you talk, and what you talk about.
I think you are funny as well.
If I was a lady, I might go so far as to say I might 'date' you.
But next time, and I think by now you know this, next time you're in Londis, walk past the own-brand bourbons, walk past the 'Best-In' bottom shelf four for a pound brown-custard-cream (that even has the adornments of that acceptable blond square of cream filled biscuit) 'long' pack. Walk past them, and walk to the door. Walk out of Londis and walk past our house. Walk past our house all the way to the Spar shop, where they have Bourbon sense. Buy their bourbons.
Vote with your feet Paul.
Vote Crawford's. Vote anything.
Then come back and I will make us all something to dunk them in.

Something Else That Happened Already Today

Some Things That Have Happened Already Today

1. My brother got the job he's been after at Derby Evening Telegraph. My brother is a fine writer. That makes it sound like he writes 'fines' but it was meant as a gentlemanly complement. (I'm feeling quite gentlemanly today).

My brother's name is Jonny and he got the job the good old way...getting in there under the premise of 'work experience' and then letting rip with his natural journalistic abilities and wowing them all into taking him in and paying him proper.

I am feeling very proud. There is an inflation in my chest. It is nothing medical.

Another thing that has happened already today:

2. Fine Before You Came are an Italian band. They are one of my favourite bands, and have been since I first laid eyes and ears on them years ago at The Victoria Inn. After that day they stayed at my house and their Manchester show was cancelled. So we put on another Derby gig the night after, and we (The Little Explorer) played with them. They really liked us as well, and when they came back we did a tour with them.

Then we went to Italy and played with them there.
I have shared some of my favourite experiences with these guys.
We are the definition of kindred spirits I think.

Anyway, we (The Little Explorer) are calling it a day, and they (Fine Before You Came) are going to travel to England all the way from Milan to play with us.

I am feeling very honoured. There is a smile on my face. It is not being held up by anything.

3. I got my redundancy papers through today. It basically confirmed my earliest suspicions that I'm quite...well not even quite...I'm proper fucked. I have lots of working things out to do for my application for remuneration, and I have a holiday booked for four days after the liquidation of the company starts.

Still, numbers one through two of this post make that pesky number three seem pretty insignificant.

The sky was grey.
Then when I typed that last bit the sun came out.

Some things that haven't happened yet today:

1. Job Centre interview.
2. Meeting with new landlord's agents. They sound nicer than the old ones on the phone at least. Let's hope they understand our seemingly 'different' way of life in our lovely house better than the last ones.
3. Jacket Potato and salad with Jenny.
4. Practicing shuffling cards.
5. Maybe watching 'The Counterfeiters'

Quantum Leap: Al At The Game

Beal's at work. I'm guessing he's bopping around Wikipedia on his lunch. Whatever he's doing, he sent me this just before I'm going for mine:

Strange Fact About Quantum Leap:

"In the second season episode "All Americans", Al notes that he is watching Super Bowl XXX and that the Steelers are three points behind. The game did in fact feature the Steelers, who trailed the Dallas Cowboys by exactly three points at two different points in the game. This is notable because the episode was filmed over six years before the game actually took place."

This doesn't surprise me since Quantum Leap could only have been real. I've never woken up in a white room, leading me to believe I've never been 'inhabited' by Dr. Sam Beckett. Since the year when Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap Accelerator (and vanished, I might add) is now past, I no longer will be (he can't travel forward in time, only backwards and forwards within his own lifetime from the point of being born until the point of stepping into the Quantum Leap Accelerator (and vanishing.))

This 'rule' was broken a couple of times in the televised representation of Quantum Leap, but they were really important times. I don't think that would apply to anything that could happen in Derby, to me, now. However, it is important to note that although the 'episodes' in the series were only ever (in my recollection (swiss cheese memory? it could be...)) set in America or Vietnam, this is only down to the bias of American Television Stations and/or American Television Executive Producers. This doesn't mean that a person in Derby could not have been affected in some life-affirming/heart-warming way by the real Dr. Sam Beckett, at some point between the fifties and 1995-ish.

Do you remember waking up in a white room?
Were you ever approached by a man with a rainbow calculator and a cigar?
Have you ever suspected someone close to you to be acting 'strange' and making pets and small children act equally 'strange'?
At any point in your life, have you, or someone you know, ever walked into a room wide-eyed and muttered "Oh Boy!"



Please write to:

Time Travel Opportunists
The Statue Of the Boy on the Ram
Main Centre in Derby
Wednesday 12/3/1992
Anytime between 12:01PM and 12:02PM.