The View from the Spaghetti Factory

Life in a major First World nation, part 237

Posted on 14 February, 2008 by adrian

Marry Our Daughter is an introduction service assisting those following the Biblical tradition of arranging marriages for their daughters.

Q: IS YOUR SERVICE LEGAL?
A: Absolutely. Within the United States girls can marry as young as 13 years old with parental permission, and the Bride Price is a custom of long standing, mentioned many times in the Bible, and as such is a protected religious practice.

Q: WHY IS YOUR SERVICE LIMITED TO MEN FROM AMERICA?
A: We need to be able to follow up on the satisfaction of our customers, which is too difficult to do in foreign countries.

I’m laughing. No, wait… I’m crying. Actually, I just can’t tell any more. Please let this site be real and not a parody!

Posted in Drivel | 2 Comments

Fed up with the music business? Build your own!

Posted on 13 February, 2008 by adrian

This meme has been doing the rounds this week, and I’ve been having lots of fun with it. Here’s what you do…

1. Go to the Wikipedia random article generator and note the title of the randomly selected article. This is your band name.

2. Similarly, go to this random quotation page and note the last four words of the last quotation. This is your album title.

3. Now to Flickr’s interesting photos feature. Download (or screengrab if necessary) the third picture. This is your album cover picture.

4. Now put the whole lot together in the photo/graphics application of your choice. Populate your imaginary music business with exciting acts!

Here’s one I made earlier. You might be interested to read what the band’s publicity people have to say…

“Sandhu blend the lyrical yearning and wistfulness of the Smiths with sharp, classic pop songwriting in the vein of Prefab Sprout, but with a modern electropop sensibility and skinny jeans. They recently returned from a hugely successful tour of youth clubs in the northern suburbs of Rotterdam.”

Go and buy it now!

Posted in Drivel | 8 Comments

GAS

Posted on 5 February, 2008 by adrian

a gaggia classic, in my kitchen, yesterday … being, of course, Gaggia Acquisition Syndrome! And thereby hangs a quick public service announcement. The Croydon branch of House of Fraser are doing a special offer on the appropriately named Gaggia Classic, bundling it with an accessory pack for £199, which is an amazing deal. It’s very rare that you see a Classic in the UK for less than £250.

To be honest, I wouldn’t normally have gone for the accessory pack. We really don’t need another six espresso cups and saucers, we could have picked up a milk jug and chocolate shaker anywhere, and I’m sure the info on the Barista Training CD-ROM is pretty standard stuff. However, House of Fraser’s price for the Classic without the accessory pack? £299!

No idea if this offer applies to other branches or John Lewis, but if you’re after a decent coffee machine, I advise you to hurry…

Posted in Consumer, Food/Drink | Leave a comment

Our clever Home Secretary, in plain English

Posted on 24 January, 2008 by adrian

Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, about the possibility of increasing the detention time for terror suspects to 42 days…

Presenter: So if that’s not a hypothetical case, then what is?

Jacqui Smith: Well, it won’t be hypothetical if and when it occurs. That’s precisely the point. We are not legislating now on the basis that we’re bringing it in now for something that might happen in the future. We’re putting in a provision for if it becomes unhypothetical…

If respected listener not enjoy to performance of government, please to be referring back to user manual.

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

Housekeeping – Lisbon photos

Posted on 13 January, 2008 by adrian

The backlog of unsorted photos has been building up for a few months now, so I decided it was about time I did something with them. A selection from our September trip to Lisbon is now on Flickr…

Lisbon 2007 – Flickr photoset

Aah… sunshine!

Posted in Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Work? But I did some last year, didn’t I?

Posted on 9 January, 2008 by adrian

The return to work after Christmas and New Year is never particularly easy (although I remember a time when the majority of people worked *between* the two rapidly-expanding winterfests).

When you started your belated summer holiday on Boxing Day, spending almost two weeks on a beautiful archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, where winter daytime temperatures generally stay above 16 degrees, where life is laid-back and everyone is friendly (apart from the miserable cow in the airport tourist tat shop)… well, work becomes a tricky prospect.

And I deserve no sympathy. Here goes…

Posted in Drivel | 1 Comment

Three steps to Sven

Posted on 25 December, 2007 by adrian

I’m not sure how much you can credit genetics for your choice of leisure interest, but my obsession with football doesn’t strike me as being particularly unexpected. My grandad, Bill Burnikell, played professionally before WWII (for Lincoln City, Bradford and Aldershot) and later coached teams in Sweden, Chile and Sudan.

Enough general family history, though; this is one of those “isn’t it a small world?” musings. Up at my parents’ place, we’ve got a whole load of grandad-related artefacts, mostly relating to football and/or Sweden. One of them is an issue of “Match”, a Swedish football magazine, dating from 1961.

This particular issue is largely devoted to Degerfors IF, my grandad’s last club in Sweden, who were flying high (especially for a small-town team from Värmland) in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s top division. It’s great to see his picture in the squad list centrefold feature, but I was surprised to see a promising young player called Tord Grip… now best known as Sven-Göran Eriksson’s deputy at Lazio, England and Manchester City. A browse through the club’s chronology shows that Sven was also briefly a coach at Degerfors.

I’ve scanned a couple of pages so far; more to come soon…

Swedish “Match” magazine, 1961 on Flickr

Posted in Football, Local | Leave a comment

Want that one

Posted on 10 December, 2007 by adrian

Dear Father Christmas, please bring me bouncy rabbit mice. I have been very good all year. My regards to your wife and elves. Best wishes, Adrian.

Mysterious mammal caught on film (BBC)

I’ve seen *some* sort of jerboa in a zoo, and it seemed such a fantastic idea… mouse with rabbit ears that hops like a kangaroo! I’ve been through the Gobi desert, too, but I’m guessing jerboas aren’t particularly easy to spot from a train window.

Posted in Drivel | 1 Comment