Dom Davis (The Blog)

We have a spider in our living room. Normally I’d not mention such seemingly trivial things but this particular spider is a monster. I’ve named it Shelob which should help convey the sheer monstrosity of this beast.

I’m not great with spiders and anything over a few mm in diameter (including legs) needs to be dealt with using specialist equipment. Medium sized spiders are handled with a glass with a bit of card slid underneath. Larger and more dangerous specimens are handled at a remove with the Dyson. Monster spiders, such as the one we have are traditionally with by small, hairy footed hominids wielding magic swords. Lacking, as we do, a friendly hobbit I am turning to a more modern solution.

The Zozo, you see, is made of sterner stuff than I and will happily scoop up Shelob In Her Bare Hands. This manoeuvre is performed with me safely out of harms way so that should the spider attack, or run, or look at either of us funny I can then run screaming like a little girl out of the house.

Once captured Shelob is then dumped unceremoniously into the mouse house whereupon our cute little meeces proceed to rip Shelob to shreds and devour her.

This is all very well and good but Shelob escaped the attempt to capture her and is still running free. I’ve checked my bag and jumper many times today in case she’s decided to hitch a lift so she can eat me in the office. I’m hoping this is not the case and that I’ll get to watch the latest episode of meeces vs spider tonight.

This weekend is the first time in 3 weeks that The Zozo and I have shared a day off so we decided to go out and do something. Being a bank holiday weekend there was lots of choice but we opted for village fête at one of the villages just down the road from us. It rained. But then it was a bank holiday.

Undeterred we went further along the coast road and visited a military vehicle museum. This post isn’t about that. Nope, this post is about the pointless ‘Please drive carefully’ signs all over the place, especially on the coast road.

Now don’t get me wrong here, the coast road going west from Cromer is windy¹, narrow and not something to be traversed at speed. By all means drop the limit from 60 to 40 well before the villages, and it’s eminently sensible to have a 30 limit in the villages themselves, or even 20 in some parts where it’s very narrow and has 90 degree corners. But do I really need “Welcome to Coastal Village, please drive carefully” on the 30 sign? No. And here’s why:

Firstly you should always drive carefully. It’s why we have the offence “Driving without due care and attention”.

Secondly you’ve slowed me from 60 to 40 to 30 and in 50 yards you’re going to drop me to 20. I’ve kind of worked out that some care is needed.

Thirdly at the 40 sign on the other side of the village you’re effectively saying “thankyou for driving carefully through our village, you may now drive like a moron”.

No, if they need reminding to drive carefully they shouldn’t be driving at all. What next: “Welcome to Coastal Village, please don’t rape, pillage and murder”?

¹As in bendy, but sometimes, depending on the weather, as in blowy too.

It’s too wet, windy a grey to blog today and even though I have my big brolly it’s hard to walk, type, fight the wind and keep the phone dry. I am aware that by telling you this I have in fact blogged and, therefore, contradicted myself but that’s my parogative. There is a certain irony that I’m listening to Queen The Show Must Go On while I write this. So yes, the show has gone on, but it’s actually a show about how the show is cancelled. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

It’s no secret that I love gummy [sic] bears. The Zozo once even bought me a mug emblazoned with images of gummy bears and sporting the legend “Doms Gummy Bear Mug” [hence my choice of spelling for gummy]. The coup-de-grace was the fact the mug contained 1/2Lb (225g) of gummy bears. On other occasions gummy bears have been purchased for me on their own as simple presents, one that always goes down well with me. The other day, in celebration of our 19th monthaversary The Zozo bought me an orange gummy bear. Yes, you read that right. A gummy bear. Singular.

Now, before we start casting aspersions on The Zozos choice of gift I should point out something. While the picture above is a picture of a lone, orange gummy bear it’s not the one The Zozo bought me. It’s actually one I bought. The Zozos gummy bear isn’t in that picture. Bear with me here.

So by zooming out a little we start to see something next to the gummy bear I bought. If you bear in mind that my gummy bear is a bog standard orange Haribo Gummy Bear you might start to question what’s next to it.

Yes, The Zozo bought me the Mother Of All Gummy Bears. This beast is 24cm long, weighs 5lbs (2.3Kg), contains 12,500 calories, is 1,400 times larger than the normal gummy bear and is the largest gummy bear you can buy in the UK (if not the world). Eating it involves a chopping board; a large, sharp knife; and quite a few sittings. I’ve even carved a chunk into a bits and placed them in a container to take into work… and I’ve not even finished the legs off yet. I’m in gummy heaven

It’s not secret that I don’t like spiders. While I can cope with money spiders and daddy long legs [yes, I know they're not spiders, but they are spider like] anything too large (and by too large we’re talking about 1cm diameter including legs) makes my skin crawl. In the past the standard method for spider disposal has been glass over the top of spider, card slid under the glass, spider flushed down toilet since, according to a TV program I vaguely remember watching when I was younger, washing them down the plughole doesn’t work as they just escape up the overflow pipe. In recent times The Zozo, who is made of sterner stuff than I, has picked up the spider In Her Bare Hands! and disposed of the spider outside, although I remain unconvinced that it doesn’t just find its way back into the house minute later.Today we discovered a third way, and one I approve of.

While watching TV I spotted a spider of truly monster proportions (we’re talking maybe 1.5cm in diameter) trying to make its way, unnoticed, along the skirting board. The Zozo immediately sprung into action, but instead of releasing the spider into the great outdoors she deposited it into the mouse cage to see how the mice would react. The result: we appear to have a crack squad of highly trained ninja assassin mice who Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until The Spider Is Dead. The sight of Daisy holding the evil arachnid in her little front paws nibbling away at the treats she’s caught while Buttons fights for a share of the spoils is enough to warm the heart and bring a smile to the face. Woe betide any spiders that dare enter this house¹.

¹ I reserve the right to continue with the tried and tested trapping technique using a glass and cardboard before releasing them to be disposed of by our Spider Hunters.

I find it quite sad just how quickly I’ve adjusted from my nice life of playing working at home and it’s commute of… lets go wild here, lets call it a whole 2m, to my resumed life of commuting for over an hour to and from a real office where I do a full days work. Once again my weeks are a blur of get up, breakfast, shower, get on the train, walk to the office, work, walk to the station, get the train home, cook, eat, watch some TV, snuggle with the Zozo, sleep with the weekend providing blissful respite at the end. I’ve got so used to just keeping my head down and slogging it to the end of the week that this week I actually lost site of when that was. The combination of the 4 day Easter weekend and a day off tomorrow to do the last day of my photography course meant that somewhere I’ve lost a day.

I discovered I’d got out of whack when my boss asked me to give an update since I wasn’t in tomorrow. I told him that I was in tomorrow and it was Friday that I was out. His retort was to claim that tomorrow was indeed Friday which I was forced to poo-poo since that would make today Thursday. It was pointed out to me that, yes, it was Thursday which was met by incredulity by me. He once again assured me that it was Thursday which was finally confirmed by my consulting iCal for the current day… and then my iPhone just in case my laptop was wrong… and then Outlook on my work computer just in case it was an error with Macs and/or Mac programs.

The realisation that it wasn’t 16:50 on a Wednesday with a whole 9 and a half hours left to finish up what I was working on before the weekend and was in fact 16:50 on a Thursday with a scant 30 minutes to finish what I’d been working on caused a number of feelings to collide in my head.

Firstly there was panic that I’d gone from being ‘quite behind’ at work to ‘seriously behind’ and I’d have a job on just to leave everything in a state where I could pick it up again easily on Monday. Secondly there was feelings of embarrassment that I had vehemently argued it was yesterday without checking my facts, and indeed doubting the facts when they were thrust in my face. Thirdly there was feelings of relief and joy that it was now (or very soon to be) The Weekend™. Needless to say the latter feeling won out, I spent my remaining 30 minutes quickly trying [and failing] to finish off, hand off or otherwise park everything I was doing before grabbing my bag and legging it. I’m still waiting for it to sink in that the working week is over.

Last night The Zozo and I were subjected to the new 2010 advert for webuyanycar.com, a low budget affair that relies on the musical equivalent of malaria¹ to lodge itself in the brain. The lyrics of the tune as follows:

webuyanycar.com, webuyanycar.com, webuyanycar.com – any, any, any any.
webuyanycar.com – any make, any model, any age, any price, from fifty quid to a hundred grand.
webuyanycar.com, webuyanycar.com, webuyanycar.com – any, any, any any.
webuyanycar.com – buy a newer car and don’t part ex, you may get a better deal when you buy next.
webuyanycar.com – enter your reg number now at webuyanycar.com.

Most important to note is the ‘dot com’ part of ‘we buy any car dot com’ is said in a slightly different voice and it is this that makes the tune so hard to remove from the brain once it’s got lodged there.

This morning The Zozo and I have both been suffering from having this tune stuck in our brains and it’s not got to the stage where she will go ‘we buy any car’ and I will go ‘dot com’. Worse still, I’m not putting ‘dot com’ on the end of bloody everything [dot com]… see!!

I’m hoping the meme will burn itself out but in the mean time I’m trying not to go crazy with the little voice in my head going ‘dot com’ to everything [dot com]. Gaaaaahhhhh!!!! Make it stop!².

¹Highly infectious and not pleasant if you have it

²dot com

In my previous blog I documented the procedure for creating perfect pancakes. Since it is Jif Lemon day I decided to once again share my pancake making knowledge with the world¹.

You will need (per person):

• 1 Large Egg (I’m not going to go all ecomentalist on you but free range do taste better)
• 4oz plain flour (sieved if you can be bothered, can cut down on lumps or extra whisking)
• 0.5-1.5oz sugar (use less if you’re making savoury pancakes, more for sweet)
• A quarter of a pint of milk (roughly, depends how thick you want your mixture)

You will also need:

• A mixing bowl (the more people you’re making for the bigger it will need to be)
• A mixing implement (wooden spoon, metal spoon, whatever floats your boat really)
• A whisk² (at a push you can get away with just stirring with a spoon)
• A pancake griddle³ (no, not a pan, see the footnote)
• Optionally: a measuring jug to poor the mixture into (makes it easier to poor into the griffle)

The method:

Sieve (if you’re into that kind of thing) the flour into the mixing bowl. Add the sugar and made a depression for each egg (you can use the egg itself for this). Crack the egg(s) into the mixture and add a small amount of milk. Mix the mixture with the wooden spoon slowly adding more milk. Once all the milk is mixed in take the whisk and go to town. Whisk forward. Whisk backwards. Whisk holding the whisk still, whisk while moving it about⁴. When the mixture is smooth and the constituency of thick soup you’re done. If you have the measuring jug poor the mixture into that, otherwise you’ll need to arrange some way to ladle, poor or otherwise decant the mixture from the bowl to the griddle.

Heat the griddle over a medium flame⁵, poor enough mixture to cover the griddle to a depth of about 2mm. Cook until you see the bubbles that form on the surface of the mixture burst and the surface become solid. Flip the pancake⁶ and cook the other side. Once done put on a plate and consume.

These pancakes can be served with sugar and Jif Lemon (the traditional way), with butter and topping (jam, honey, golden syrup) or with savoury fillings. My favourite is tuna mayonnaise with sweetcorn. Go to town, have fun, knock yourself out. The possibilities are endless and the world is, quite literally, the bivalve of your choice.

One tip is to make up the mixture with less sugar, make savoury pancakes for main, scoff those, add sugar to the remaining mix, make more pancakes, consume for pudding.

Enjoy.

¹Do bear in mind we’re British here, so none of this ridiculously thin French crepe rubbish, nor the stupidly thick, heart attack inducing thick pancakes. These are just right.

²Manually whisking is a pain in the behind, I recommend one of the whizzy whisks when you turn the handle and the two beaters spin. Great for getting rid of lumps in the mixture and huge fun to boot

³Using anything but a pancake griddle here is tantamount to drinking champagne out of a pint glass. We’re not heathens here people, we’re British, we do things properly or not at all. A griddle will be properly seasoned. To maintain the seasoning you don’t want to wash it. To avoid having to wash it you want to just cook pancakes and drop scones on it so it can be wiped clean. You go using something that you also cook bacon and eggs on and it’s going to get washed up and the seasoning will go, you could get flavours leaking in, it might not heat evenly, it might cause the pancakes to stick. No, right tool for the job so if you don’t have a griddle I suggest you go toddle off and get one now, I’ll be waiting when you get back… off you go… quickly!

⁴All this does rather assume the manual whisky thing. If you’ve got a boring hand held whisk (or no whisk at all) then you’re going to miss out. If you’ve got an electric whisk then you’ll probably be done before you have a chance to have fun.

⁵Not using gas? Hah! Good luck

⁶This doesn’t need implements but then you’re probably ignoring my insistence you use a griddle so you’ve only got yourself to blame if you can’t just flip the pancake using the pan and a deft wrist motion.

Due to the fact my friends are spread over rather a large geographic area we find the best way to stay in contact is via email. To facilitate this one group of friends has a mailing list including 12 or so people where we discuss… well, crap really. Yesterday one of the group proffered this rather lame joke to the group:

This prompted another member of the group to enquire:

I hate to be frightfully unhip once more, but I’ve been struggling with working out what the flip Mr Dogg is saying here:

So don’t change the dizzle, turn it up a little
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G’s to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo

Can anyone translate into English please?

He does rather have a point. A few obligatory one liner responses then ensued before this absolute gem was offered. Sadly I cannot claim it as my own work but I thought I should share it:

Roughly:

1. The suggestion is to not change the dizzle (in this case either the “dial” or “disc” in the case of CDs), and instead to turn it up (i.e. louder) which will probably mask the actions in line three.

2. I got a living room full of fine (attractive) ten-dollar call girls (brizzle’s etymology is unclear, although it could be a reduction of a woman to an individual body part, i.e. breast, as is used in the term “broad”).  The proclamation of the company of attractive women is used in a braggart style both to indicate the rapper’s ability to lure the opposite sex, as well as the implication in this case that they work for him in the standard hooker/pimp relationship.

3. He’s waiting on the Pizzle (pipe – to be used for crack or marijuana, most likely the latter), the Dizzle (in this case he means the dealer, or, the buy of aforementioned narcotics), and the Shizzle (this is “the shit” or the actual drugs referenced).  The capitalization of the letters in the lyric indicate that these are important things, as opposed to the jovial nature of other lines.

4. G’s are either the term “gangstas” (sometimes spelled with a trailing “Z” instead), and the reference here is that the drugs would be dealt and taken in the back room (contrary to belief that it would be done out in the open, since the money and weapons indicate that most deals happen in privacy), and the “gizzo” here is in “ladies here we go,” an indicator that now the drugs have been taken, the social outing will take on different characteristics.

Genius

Steve¹ will, in the next hour, get up on stage and finally release whatever it is that Apple are releasing today. Being a rabid Mac fanboi I’m interested to know what’s being released and no doubt I will absolutely have to have one as soon as I know whatever it is (it happened with the iPhone, the cube, the 30″ monitors to name but a few). The problem is I can’t afford one. This is new to me² and no doubt the fact that I can’t have one will mean I want it even more.

Tempted as I am to delve into my savings to get one I need that money for other things (food for one thing :S) so instead there is a plan, not a great plan mind, but a plan none the less. A small (depressingly small) sum of money will put placed on what can only be described as a punt on the markets tomorrow. Should that punt pay off then all the winnings will be placed on another punt and so on and so forth until either one of the punts fail (highly likely) and I’m left with nothing or I have the money to get the new shiny toy. In theory I could turn £10 into over £700 in 4 trades. In practice £10 will probably turn into £0 in one or two, but hey well, nothing ventured nothing gained, and perhaps the gods of technology will smile on me and grant me the money for the iMustHave before it’s released.

¹Because those of us indoctrinated into the cult of Jobs are on first name terms with him

²OK, I had to wait for my big current computer but that’s because it was stupidly expensive and just going out and buying it when I first decided I wanted one would have left me paying off my credit cards for 5 years at a stupid rate of interest. That’s not to say I was doing without as I had less silly macs to play with in the interim.