Burgers of Awesomeness

I've been quite loath to post about food here, because I know that one of the two people who reads this blog subsists entirely on a diet of crisps, chips and cider. Therefore, accounts of delicious food I have eaten are not going to inspire paroxysms of joy within her. But these burgers were just too awesome to resist.

 

One afternoon not so long ago, I decided to try Tui Talk's recipe for Best Soup Bread, which is a reasonably doughy bread with herbs through it (I used parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, partly because we have them growing just outside the door and partly because I'm a dork who loves Simon & Garfunkel). I haven't actually hand kneaded bread in a while, so it was a bit of an experiment. I left the bread to rise, then went out to do some shopping. When I came back, I had picked up some pork mine. Obviously, there was only one thing to do in that situation....

.... make burgers. So I did. Damn, they were amazing.

I don't have any quantities but the burger patties involved mixing the pork mince with chopped red onion, sesame oil, soy sauce, chives and fish sauce. Add in some bread soaked in milk and then squeezed to bind and it's time to make patties!

Served on rolls made from the bread dough, with some fried red onions (mine went a little too crispy.. but still delicious), sliced tomato, mesclun and sweet chili sauce - it was definitely awesome.

(I mainly posted this because I am currently very hungry... and dreaming of these burgers)

What did your lipstick say about you this Valentine's Day, lady?

I’m a bitter and cynical person, so it will come as no surprise to you that I have no love for Valentine’s day. In fact, I’ve waited almost a week to blog about this, just so that it wouldn’t look like I was somehow tacitly endorsing the most horrible display of sentiment that happens on a yearly basis (lies: I was just too lazy to write).

So, I hate Valentine’s Day. I do, however, love all the sexist, gendered bullshit that comes out of the woodwork at this time of year (let’s just forget about the stuff that happens all year round, won’t we?)

One sparkler is this amazing list of what your lipstick says for you, from that bastion of critical journalism, The Huffington Post. Because, of course, women are like Victorian-era children, better seen and not heard.

Shut up and let your lipstick talk for you, woman!

Though you might not like what your lipstick says. Here’s the list from the article:

PINK LIPS say "I am sweet and you can introduce me to your mother"
FROSTED PINK LIPS say "I am a bit behind the times and you can introduce me to the 21st Century"
MATTE NUDE LIPS - " I considered wearing Birkenstocks tonight"
SHIMMERY GLOSSY NUDE LIPS - "Do you watch the Jersey Shore?"
CORAL LIPS - "I intend to be home in my PJ's by 11pm"
MATTE RED LIPSTICK - " You need to work hard pal"
GLOSSY RED LIPS - " Myself and my lip color is going to be all over you"
WINE COLORED LIPS- " Do you read Tolstoy?"
ROSE COLORED LIPS - " Are you Mr. Darcy?
NOTHING LEFT ON THE LIPS - "What's for breakfast?"

Is there any lipstick that doesn’t paint a disturbing picture? If I slap on some nude shimmery gloss during an impassioned discussion about Battlestar Galactica, are people going to suddenly think that I’ve cribbed all my info from Wikipedia?

Apart from perpetuating that old Madonna/whore dichotomy that women have to deal with on a regular basis (red means slut, pink means sweet and romantic), it makes us believe that every woman does and should wear lipstick. Notice how there’s no option for ‘no lipstick’ apart from ‘nothing left on the lips’, which implies you had some but have rubbed it all off (oooh, wonder how you did that, wink wink nudge nudge *vomit*)? If you don’t fit into this list, you’re not doing your woman-ness well enough!

(Though it must be said that ‘nothing left on the lips’ could also imply that it has all disappeared because you have been eating food, which I would totally be okay with, because as a woman-beast I enjoy to eat food OM NOM NOM NOM)

Some of the other suggestions for less-common lipstick colours are actually more interesting than they are stereotypical. Coral means that you’ll be in bed by 11pm? Well since Valentine’s Day this year was on a Monday, I’m assuming that a lot of people would have wanted to be in bed by 11pm because they have to get up early for work the next day. (oh, right, to be a good woman you should be at home cooking and cleaning for your man and not having such a thing as your own job! Nasty sign of independence, that.) If ‘in bed by 11pm’ is meant to be an insult (which I’m sure it is, implying that coral lipstick is only worn by losers with no life), then count me a loser, because I love to fucking sleep. In fact, sometimes I even spend a whole eight hours a night doing it! I know, WHAT A WASTE, right?

If wine-coloured lips really do ask ‘Do you read Tolstoy?’ I’m surprised my friend Kaylee hasn’t already run out to Boots and slapped some on. She has a penchant for well-read men, and if there were a quick way to pick out any literature loving guys without opening one’s mouth, I’m sure she’d be all for it. Sadly for Kaylee, and all us women who like our menfolk reasonably erudite, if wine coloured lipstick really asks people ‘Do you read Tolstoy?’ then anyone wearing is it likely to receive a chorus of  No’s as they walk down the street. How sad.

So next time you reach for the lipstick, ladies, think about what your lipstick is saying for you. Then fuck it and pick whatever you like, or don’t wear any at all. Let people judge you by what comes out of your mouth, not what’s on it.

Chives

Playing Starcraft makes you a mental

I’m not a psycho killer. In fact, I’m not any kind of killer. I work routine jobs, hang out with my friends, and go on the internet. But if you had access to my internet history, and analysed posts I have made on messageboards/twitter/fanfiction websites, you could probably paint a picture of me as some deranged psycho who is mentally unstable and liable to snap any minute.

At least that’s the impression I’m getting from the Wall Street Journal. In the aftermath of the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, along with an number of other people, in Arizona this week, the WSJ published the article ‘Postings of a Troubled Mind: Accused shooter wrote on gaming site of his job woes, rejection by women.’ The article then goes on to dissect the content of messageboard posts by the ‘accused’ shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. I bet any of you who have ever written on the internet about problems getting a job, or how you have no luck with women are wondering why the FBI haven’t hunted you down before now, aren’t you. What heinous material to be posting! And on the interwebs no less!

Now, before anyone starts to get angry about how I’m making light far too soon after this horrible tragedy, I will say that it is horrible. I know that. I mean no disrespect. I’m just trying to give some semblance of sanity to a world that has the media running rampant over every small scrap of material they can find around anything that the public considers ‘news’. And let me tell you, what counts as news is a very scary thing.

The article starts by summarising notes found scribbled around his house, saying things like ‘die bitch’ and ‘die cops’ on a letter from the congresswoman’s office, which I’m sure is somewhat relevant to the whole shooting thing. But then it moves into the messageboards. At first, a couple of lines the WSJ focuses on let you think that there is something of concern here. Apparently he was fixated on grammar, and yet he posted “I bet your hungry....Because i know how to cut a body open and eat you for more then a week. ;-)”. Unless he was fixated on bad grammar, that’s decisive evidence that he’s disturbed. Other lines published include him asking if anyone is angry all the time, or whether users would hit a “Handy Cap”, or some weird ranting ‘justification’ for rape. Okay, so it’s useful in painting the picture of him as a disturbed man who was not of sound mind when he committed the crime he is accused of.

But then they start using whatever posts they can find as evidence of his ‘insanity’. But these posts don’t add to the crazy. They’re just ordinary messageboard posts. Somehow, the WSJ is trying to use these as evidence that he is an insane motherfucker and somebody should have noticed earlier. I mean, of course, why wouldn’t you start to get worried when a guy is posting things such as these on the internet?

“How many stars are in the universe?”

“What do Chocolate cookies taste like?”

“This forum made me feel better J”

Under a topic he started called ‘Weight Lifting’ (Shock! Horror!) he “asked whether anyone else lifted. He described himself as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 155 pounds, and said he could do 65 push-ups, bench press 165 pounds, and do 25 pull-ups and 100 sit-ups, (thanks to the ab machine).”

Have you mused about the number of stars in the universe? Have you wondered about the taste of chocolate cookies? (Not me, I know what they taste like, but if I didn’t I’d definitely want to know) Have you ever posted information and advice about your current fitness obsession on a messageboard? Then the WSJ clearly thinks you are mentally disturbed, and you should probably go take a pill for that, or something.

I’d like it if the moral of this tale was as simple as ‘the media are morons and will print anything, even if it makes no sense’. But, sadly, there aren’t enough people in the world to temper the massive wave of idiocy that flows out from printing presses the world over. So the moral really is, be careful what you write on the internet. And I’ve broken that already.

* All material quoted in double marks (“”) is from the WSJ. Almost all the words in single are me being a dick. I do realise I use them a lot.

Some fun facts about New Zealand for the British*

*also applicable to those of any other nationality who do not know nearly enough about this darling Antipodean nation.



New Zealanders are not nicknamed Kiwis after a small brown fruit

Though we do nickname ourselves after something small and brown. The kiwi is a native flightless nocturnal bird, and serves a national symbol for our small island country. Nobody in New Zealand would ever think of eating a kiwi, being as they’re so endangered, but handily enough, nobody thinks you’re asking for a small bird to chop up and put on your breakfast cereal.

That’s because we call the fruit referred to in the UK simply as ‘kiwi’ – wait for it – kiwifruit. Simple (not simples though). Anyone who calls it ‘kiwi’ and drops the fruit is purely lazy, and probably ignorant enough to make the stupid jokes we always hear about being nicknamed after a fruit. Below are some pictures to show you the difference between a kiwi and a kiwifruit. I really hope for humanity’s sake you can figure out which is which.

We are not part of Australia.

Not even close. Australia is, on average, a three hour flight from New Zealand. How would you like it if people continuously thought that your hometown of Chipping Sodbury was located somewhere in Slovakia? If that doesn’t appeal, just pick any country that is longer than a three hour flight from the United Kingdom.

No, we don’t know your cousin Dave who moved to Auckland.

New Zealand is a country of 5 million people. While it’s small compared to practically every other nation that features in the World Cup (being the main reason Brits know there are other countries in the world), it’s large enough that the arrival of an Englishman (and maybe even his extended family) is not a cause for national excitement and news coverage.

That said, we probably do know your cousin Dave who moved to Auckland.

Everyone in New Zealand does actually seem to know one another. I moved literally half way around the world to London and found a roommate on the internet, who turned up to have grown up next door to my ex-boyfriend. Spooky stuff. While this is great for networking and getting your mates to hook you up across international borders, it does tend to result in instances like a bad one-night stand turning out to be flatmates with a guy you went on a date with the night before. Trust me.

We don’t really like our flag, so don’t be so smug about it

While most countries will happily deck themselves out in the colours of their flag for sporting events and other instances of national pride (for New Zealanders, only sporting events are important enough to be considered for national pride), we prefer black with a tasteful silver fern to jazz it up a little. The colours of our flag are red, white and blue, since we have pint-sized Union Jack in the corner of ours, but funnily enough we like to stand out from the multitudes of countries that have those exact same colours on their flag. This hangover from the days of Empire (suck it up, it’s over) gets on many a Kiwi’s nerves. So don’t start with your imperialist crap about how our flag pretty much is your flag. We know. And we’re trying as hard as we can to change it.

New Zealand is probably best described as Britain in the 1970s

Minus the striking miners and riots, of course (our miners just get killed. Awesome). You know how everyone likes to remember the ‘good old days’? When kids didn’t run around in hoodies saying words like ‘innit’, there was no such thing as ‘knife crime’ and the greatest threat to society’s moral fabric was a key-swapping party at a bungalow down the road? New Zealand is kinda like that (probably less swingers, though you never know). Violent crime isn’t that high. We don’t constantly have PSAs telling us to nark on our neighbours in case they decide they are going to blow something up or shove a cat in a dustbin. Sadly, n twenty years or so New Zealand will probably be as shit as Britain is now, but then Britain will be even shitter (heaven forfend!), so we still win.

You probably know more New Zealanders than you think

That girl from Two And A Half Men who stalks Charlie? New Zealander (check her out in Heavenly Creatures, a film about two young girls who have a strange, psychotic lesbian relationship and then brutally murder one of their mothers. Based on a true story and everything). Excited about the upcoming Green Lantern movie? Guess where his sidekick’s from? Yep, New Zealand. How about the guy who wrote the Rocky Horror Show? Grew up in New Zealand! (They erected a statue of Riff Raff in full space garb in the town where he grew up here. Too cool.) Or, if you’re a bit of a geek, you may be gratified to know that under their glossy white armour, every stormtrooper from Star Wars looks like a New Zealander. More specifically, Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett in one of the abominable prequels.

We’re to blame for Hear’Say

The tv show Popstars was the first in the world to do that ‘audition people to make a band and film it for reality tv’ thing. The result was True Bliss, a band of such craptastic proportions that it fizzled out faster than all of their later imitation. The only trace left of this truly heinous creation has been the presence of former members in the public eye, acting as z-list celebrities doing everything from volunteering for more reality tv to shilling on infomercials to keep themselves in the spotlight.

The New Zealand creators of the show sold the format overseas, first to Australia and then countries in Europe, creating bands that the world didn’t need in the first place the world over. In the UK, that was Hear’Say. Oops.

Tales from the wax museum

Some of our 'guests' are possible frontrunners for future Darwin Awards. Here are just a few stories to illustrate the kind of crap we have to put up with every day (the same is probably true for most people who work in the tourism industry, or even anyone who has to deal with people. You poor, poor souls).

• A man buys a cup of slush (a frozen drink that is apparently as addictive as crack cocaine, judging by the reactions of most people) but puts the straw in upside down. The girl who served him notices this and tells him, 'Oh, no, sir, that's the wrong way up.' At this point, the man breaks from just regular moment-of-mindlessness into full-blown mental deficient with the IQ of a vaccuum cleaner. Instead of removing the straw and re-inserting it correctly (heh, inserting, I'm filthy), hep tips the entire CUP of slush upside down. As a consequence of that pesky thing called gravity, the slush ends up all over the floor. I wonder why? The man then of course blames the girl who served him, but logically finds no sympathy there. How did this person manage to live to adulthood?

• A staff member is called down to fix a faulty vending machine. He turns up to see a woman standing in front of the machine, which is £3.50 in credit. He asks her what's wrong - she tells him "I put money in, nothing happen." (or some other form of broken English. Spend enough time around tourists and you'll start talking like this, too). He explains to her the usual process for vending machines: put money in, select item, thing comes out (or vice versa, but possibly the concept of more than one way to do things is a bit hard for some people). At the second step (that's 'select item') the woman exclaims in discovery. Is that how these magical machines work? They don't read your mind? I don't just cross my fingers and hope it gives me the drink I want? Revelation! Again, how did this person manage to feed and clothe themselves every day, quite apart from making it out of their hotel and to the wax museum?

Confidence in the human race: lost.

Things I saw at work today*

Two German teenagers lovingly caressing Boris Johnson's hair.

To be honest, that's pretty much standard for my line of work. The entire point of this wax museum is to let people get "up close and personal with all their favourite stars and heroes" (I'm not being a dork quoting it word for word. It's written in my contract that I have to know that). And up close and personal they get!

It's amazing the liberties the guests take (again, company policy dictates that we call them 'guests'. I suppose if we called them customers, they might actually cotton on to the fact that we're robbing them blind while they snap happily away at waxworks) with the figures. I've been known to take some silly pictures myself at work parties, and I can only hope that most of them never make it onto the internet.... but these people will take their stupid (and often politically incorrect) photos in full view of everyone.

The worst is probably a toss up between Stephen Hawking and Hitler. Every day, a steady stream of tourists crowd up (I can't say line up, it's a foreign concept to anyone who visits this place) and take photos behind the author of A Brief History of Time looking like a cross between a rabid monkey and someone who has been involved in a serious car accident. There's taking the piss, and then there's posing behind Stephen Hawking with a spastic face. Bad taste to the extreme.

Speaking of bad taste, the Hitler figure certainly wins in this regard. (Did I just lose my argument? While Godwin's Law is certainly valid, you have to agree that there are certain situations in which it is unavoidable) While the presence of Adolf is enough to get some people quite literally frothing at the mouth with anger, a far larger number of people think it's perfectly natural to pose with him doing a Nazi salute. It isn't. It is so far from ok that I actually get a bit scared for the future of the world when I see that happening.

If that scares you, maybe don't read any further. The latest story from one of the other departments is about the man who asked one of the photographers (who have 'sets' in front of designated figures to take photos in front of and then sell you magnets and keyrings etc.) to take one of their cameras off the tripod and come take a photo of him with Hitler AND Saddam Hussein. After assuring the photographer that he'll definitely buy a copy of the photo, he proceeds to pose between the two (they're next to each other in some sort of progression of evil lineup I suppose) with his arms around their shoulders. Hey, I'm buddies with some dictators, bro! He then proceeds to tell the photographer 'I buy six keyrings, for my family.' I hope his family members pelted him with the keyrings instead of enjoying his horribly bad taste gift.

While there are plenty more stories about how bad our 'guests' can be, I'm depressed enough for one day.

*I wrote this while working at the wax museum, and forgot to post it before now. I've actually left there now.